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“No,” Sylvan said, shaking his head and getting to his feet when we wouldn’t look away, only to be pushed back down again by Slade and Aaron. “No, we have to get out of here. We need to run.”

“That didn’t help anyone in my vision,” I said.

“Stop with the theatrics,” Brandon said. “Explain, now.”

“Where’s this coming from? How do you know what that is?” Sylvan asked though narrowed eyes, but his fingers still clawed at the fabric of his pants.

“A vision. Now, how about you tell us what it is,” Brandon said.

Sylvan settled back against the wall with effort, his eyes still darting around the room. He seemed to be paying undue attention to the architecture, and I couldn’t work out why.

“I told you Volken society was initially nomadic. We didn’t settle, grow, or make anything.

We just rode from place to place and took what we wanted.

It was only when Lonan drew us here, after he’d retreated from Eomis by the look of things, that we started to put down roots.

We built Leifgart, created the city. Well, we’ve created it several times over. ”

“What? The Volken do makeovers?” Jack said. “Who’d have thought it?”

Sylvan shook his head at that, fingers trailing over the stone step he sat on.

“Not…that. The Great Rite happens at the end of the Longest Night festival on a timetable that only the elite are privy to. Usually just before a major battle or large campaign.” He looked up at us, but his eyes were soft and unfocussed.

“Lonan is powered by death, destruction, and degradation. We destroy everything. Every building, possession, man, woman, and child that is not Volken, and even some of the weaker ones go under the knife. Then we rampage. The surrounding land has been largely depopulated because of this. Too many waves of destruction. We have to collect and build more in the down time.”

“To allow you to go further to create more destruction,” I said in little more than a whisper, remembering the lumbering White Wolf and her inability to rally against the much nimbler Black Wolf.

“Dear boy, you lack faith. We have never really attempted to broach the thing in any major way. I find it highly unlikely that whatever puny magics the bitches have mustered would withstand the full force of the Volken host and our lord. No, we’ve let them be for some time—a mistake if you ask me—and they have spread like any other vermin.

Sourcing the nest of a pest always takes work, but I do not believe it beyond our capabilities. ”

Brandon’s eyes whipped around to meet mine, as if he heard the Volken lord’s words himself.

“Fuck…” I said, my mouth falling open.

“They’re going to use the Great Rite to punch their way through our portal,” Brandon finished when I couldn’t get the words out.

“We’re bugging out, now,” Aaron said. I watched the shake in those big, strong hands with alarm. There was something rock like and implacable about Aaron, that to see him so affected only added fuel to my already merrily raging anxiety fire. “I don’t want to leave the guys here but?—”

“The matriarchs need to know. The CO’s needs to know. We have to get this information back to them,” Slade said, starting to pace.

“OK, everyone needs to calm down and take a breath,” Finn said, holding out his hands.

“Because deep breathing will help things?” Jack shot back. “This isn’t a mindful meditation session.”

“And getting hysterical is an improvement?” Finn replied.

I felt the warm weight of Brandon’s hand in mine, the Great Wolf’s words reverberating through the both of us. From death comes regrowth. Whose death, and for what to regrow?

“What about the people here?”

Hawk’s words created a calm over the room that had been sorely missed. His arms were firmly crossed over his chest, and he surveyed the room with a dark eye.

“Pretty sure the kids here would be hurt just as bad as ours. They’d rape the women and the men here, just like they would at home.

You think you can sacrifice these kids and these women to keep ours safe, but you can’t.

You let that mongrel fucking thing take the people here?

” His eyes switched from one to the other of us.

“You give him fuel to come and take ours.”

“So what do we do? Make a last stand?” Aaron said with a snort.

Hawk shook his head. “Right now, we’re in the belly of the beast, and they don’t know we’re here. I say we gather information, find out the lay of the land, and then we work out a way to strip the prick of everything he has.”

The earth rumbled underneath us, as if in answer to Hawk’s suggestion, but he remained resolute, not moving an inch as the ground vibrated.

As if summoned, Adam appeared at the doorway with several buckets in hand. “You still want to feed the prisoners?”