War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) by Joseph Robert Lewis Page B

alive. Look!”
    Samira couldn’t see what was happening. All she could see was the dead man trying to shove her away, trying to claw its way toward the healer. She smashed her fist into its dry, thin chest, but it only went on reaching and shoving. Its bony fingers lashed out at her face, two of them catching the edge of her lip and wrenching her face to one side.
    She spat the fingers out. “Iyasu!”
    “Veneka!” Iyasu shouted into the woman’s face and suddenly her eyes focused on him.
    “Iyasu?”
    Samira crashed forward as the dead body went limp, and as they fell against the stones the corpse disintegrated in a cloud of gray dust. The cleric grimaced and coughed, and twisted around to sit on the grass and squint at the others. “It’s gone. We’re safe, for the moment.”
    “Iyasu? Where are we? The city?” Veneka turned to look behind her.
    “There’s no time for that.” The young seer pulled her across the gravesite toward Samira. “I need you to heal her, now.”
    “Of course. What’s wrong with her?” Veneka knelt down beside her.
    “Nothing.” Samira frowned. “I—”
    “She’s been poisoned, or drugged,” Iyasu interrupted. “Quickly!”
    The healer laid her hands on the djinn woman and Samira felt the world grow dim and vague and warm…
    She blinked. The droning of locusts and bullfrogs filled her ears, and the soft churning of the river played just behind her. Samira sat up among the tall reeds, squinting through the darkness at the shapes of her companions lying on the bank of the river.
    I’m awake. He did it. He figured it out. But that means…
    The leaves above her rustled loudly as the branches shuddered against each other. Samira grabbed the nearest root in one hand and thrust her other hand skyward, and the forest answered her. Three hundred wooden spears flew up from the earth so quickly that they blew the scarves from the cleric’s head and sent her long black hair dancing through the warm air. The spears raced up into the canopy, some of them splitting and crooking to pierce the leaves at wild angles.
    A moment later, a small black body thumped down on the tall grass nearby. Samira stood up and saw the misshapen bat lying very still with the broken tip of one of her spears through its chest.
    It’s done.
    With a sigh, she carefully smoothed back her hair and tucked it down into her robes where it belonged, and restored the layers of silken wraps over her head. She had just finished when she heard her companions begin to move and mutter behind her.
    “You got it?” Iyasu asked softly.
    “Yes. It’s here, whatever it is.” She pointed to the bat.
    The seer limped over, rubbed his eyes, and glanced at the dead thing. “A blood drinker, but changed by the ancient clerics to paralyze its victims in dreams.”
    “My people have a name for dream-walkers,” Samira said. “Vandellas.”
    Iyasu nodded wearily and went back to help Veneka and Zerai wake up, and to explain in as few words as possible what had happened.
    “So when I showed Veneka that she didn’t let me die, it shattered the illusion. Then she healed the toxin in Samira’s blood that made her fall unconscious, and Samira killed the… vandella.” Iyasu leaned against a tree and closed his eyes.
    Zerai stared up at the dense forest of spears all around them reaching high up into the leaves. “I can see that.”
    “Yes.” Veneka touched his cheek and gave him a stern look. “And there isn’t a scratch on us. Not on any of us.”
    The falconer tightened his mouth, but nodded.
    “So you saw our fears?” Petra pulled her sister aside. “My fears?”
    “I did. But don’t worry,” Samira said. “No one cares.”
    “And them? What are their fears?”
    Samira shrugged. “The falconer was holding a doll. Something about a child, I suppose. Bashir was holding a skull.”
    “No surprises there.” Petra glanced at the alchemist standing alone at the water’s edge. “How many of them did he kill,