Page 69 of A Tempest of Intrigue (Tempest of Shadows #4)

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Ryker

Everyone in the clearing stopped what they were doing and turned toward the noise. “Armor up!” Tucker bellowed.

Those words caused a flurry of motion as the amsirah tossed aside their plates, jumped fences, and clambered from their treehouses. They rushed to gather weapons for whatever was coming.

I freed my sword and braced my legs apart as the wail continued. Whatever was making that sound didn’t stop to take a breath as it approached.

I had no idea what the Revenant Woods was unleashing on us now, but knowing this place, it would try to kill us. And if it wasn’t planning to kill us, it would attract something that would.

As the endless, unbroken shout neared, in the distance, something flipped through the trees. It twisted round and round as it screeched like a wounded banshee while zipping straight through the trunks.

“What the fuck?” Ianto murmured.

“Is that… Farley?” I asked.

“I think so,” Tucker replied.

The poltergeist never stopped his incessant wailing as he sped toward us. I had no idea what followed him, but if it could make a poltergeist act like this, and they were already dead, then it really couldn’t be good.

Farley zoomed into the clearing and stopped his onward flight as he pulled up. He stopped wailing and twisted in a circle like he was searching for something.

Gibberish spewed from his mouth as his spinning eyes flitted from one amsirah to another. “They ate them! They ate them!”

“What’s wrong with him?” Tucker asked.

“What isn’t wrong with him?” Ianto retorted.

Not much.

When Farley’s eyes landed on me, he stopped spinning and zipped across the clearing toward us. “They ate them! They ate them!”

I stepped away from the frantic poltergeist as he skidded to a halt before me.

“THEY ATE THEM!”

His screeched words caused me to wince. “Okay, Farley, calm down. You’re not making any sense. Who ate who?”

“The trees ate them!”

The hair on my nape stood on end as I recalled the trees Ellery and I had encountered in the forest. Monstrous creatures had risen from those trees’ roots, but Ellery would recognize them and stay away.

Farley had to be panicked about someone else, but I’d unfortunately gotten to know the poltergeist a little more, and there were few amsirah he’d care about getting eaten. Ellery was one, and Mouse was the other.

We’d encountered Mouse several times during our travels to the other encampment. Mouse didn’t talk to Farley either, but the annoying blob had a soft spot for the boy.

“Black dogs chased them into the trees, and the trees ATE THEM!” Farley yelled.

An icy chill crept through my cheeks and into my skull when his tiny hands clasped my cheeks. I tried to pull him away, but all that did was turn my hands to ice too.

“Dogs chased,” Farley panted, though I had no idea why since he didn’t require air, “and the trees ATE!”

The chill creeping down my spine had nothing to do with Farley’s icy touch spreading through me and everything to do with the fact Ellery was late and Farley was losing his mind. I didn’t think it would upset him this much if anyone else got eaten… and he kept saying they.

Did something happen to Ellery and Mouse?

“Farley,” I said, “have you seen Ellery?”

Farley’s eyes grew bigger as he pulled himself so close our faces nearly touched. “The trees ate her and Mouse. They ate them!”

Everything inside me went as still as a broken clock. I forgot about Farley’s icy touch as silence descended before all sound rushed back into my deafened ears.

“Take me to them,” I commanded.

Farley flew into the woods again. I contemplated opening a portal to where the trees attacked me and Ellery, but this was the Revenant Woods, and thousands of those trees could be hidden within these mysterious depths.

A portal would be faster but could also take me to the wrong place. I bolted into the woods after Farley.

“Stay with the children!” Tucker yelled at someone in the encampment.

I didn’t look back to see who remained as I sprinted through the trees. Farley had at least finally stopped screaming, but inside me, a loud, echoing wail rose. It came straight from my soul and reverberated around my head, but I didn’t release it.