And I’d said yes.

I was either leading Piaras to what had to be one of the worst deaths imaginable, or he was going to be our best hope of stopping those Magh’Sceadu. Piaras was scared, but he was determined. And since chances weren’t all that great that we were going to make it out of these tunnels alive, I owed it to him to let him choose for himself how he was going out.

I didn’t like his choice, but I respected it.

Tam and his dark-mage hit squad followed me, a gagged and manacled Rudra Muralin in tow. We didn’t want to bring him, but we could hardly leave him at our backs, even wearing magic-sucking manacles. Tam said he might be valuable as an incentive to get those shamans to release the spellsingers with a minimum of fuss. When we got closer to the cell block, one of Tam’s men would put Muralin’s lights out. An unconscious Rudra Muralin wouldn’t ruin a perfectly good plan by telling his shamans to attack. It’s been my experience that a bound and unconscious hostage inspired more enemy cooperation than a conscious and defiant one.

A girl screamed in pure terror. She was about to die and knew it.

“Katelyn!” Piaras bolted into the dark.

I swore and took off after him. Tam’s rough hands yanked me back. I twisted and elbowed him hard in the ribs, and the Saghred’s power seethed between us. I told the Saghred to shut the hell up, and glared at Tam the same way.

He turned without releasing me. “Kontar, Tau. Stop him!”

Two dark mages pushed past me and ran after Piaras.

Piaras couldn’t see where he was going. Any Khrynsani shamans would see him coming. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have eyes and they didn’t need them.

“Raine, stay here.” Tam tightened his grip—and the Saghred flared in response.

My response was to jerk away from him.

Tam and his goblins didn’t need light. I did. I muttered a pale lightglobe into existence.

“Keep him here,” Tam ordered the two mages guarding Rudra Muralin.

I ran after Piaras, Tam and his mages right on my heels. Any efforts at stealth had just gone down the crapper along with Plan B.

The bottom dropped out of the temperature; I could see Tam, my breath, and little else. The air thickened with Khrynsani magic of the blackest kind, the kind that created and controlled Magh’Sceadu. The air was hazy with it, disorienting my sense of direction even more.

From somewhere ahead of us came shouts in Goblin, curses, and spells.

Above it all was Piaras’s voice. Sharp, staccato, piercing. Paralyzing. I didn’t know if he was aiming at shamans or Magh’Sceadu, or both.

We ran into the cell block and straight into a nightmare.

Magh’Sceadu, Khrynsani shamans—and every last one of them focused on Piaras and Katelyn.

Piaras had his back to the bars of one of four cells, one arm around the girl. His voice had caught four Khrynsani shamans off guard, paralyzing them where they stood. Piaras repeated the song, reinforcing the spell, taking no chances that one of them could escape. He knew we were there, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from the immobile shamans. His eyes were wide with fear, but he controlled his voice and held the spellsong.

For now.

Ten shamans either already had their shields up or got them there before Piaras nailed his first note. Good news was they were ignoring Piaras; bad news was we now had their undivided attention.

But those ten Khrynsani shamans were the least of our problems.

A Magh’Sceadu glided patiently not five feet in front of Piaras. His voice might be holding it off; maybe the thing was savoring the anticipation. It was tall and hulking, almost hobgoblin in shape, if hobgoblins were made of black ink. The cell next to Piaras had been thickly warded. Now those wards were open in a thin line from top to bottom.

Magh’Sceadu were oozing out of the cell one at a time, re-forming once they were out in all their soul-sucking horror. Two were already loose in the cell block; more shapes flowed restlessly in the shadows inside the cell, waiting their turn to escape.

A shaman in fancy robes chanted in a low, sibilant whisper, forcing a single Magh’Sceadu slowly back toward the cell. As he did, a third Magh’Sceadu oozed out of the slit in the ward, a fourth right behind him. Fancy Robes was doing his work way too slowly and far too late.

One of the paralyzed Khrynsani shamans couldn’t scream past frozen vocal cords as a Magh’Sceadu flowed into, through, and over him, leaving nothing behind. The other three paralyzed shamans were about to meet the same fate. The Magh’Sceadu would take the easy prey first, feeding and strengthening.

Then they’d be ready for a challenge. They’d come after us.

That ward had to close.

“We’ve got a minute, maybe less,” I told Tam, reaching behind his back and relieving him of a pair of daggers. They probably wouldn’t do me a damned bit of good, but being a Benares, I wanted steel in my hands.

Tam pulled a short, curved sword and tossed it to Talon. The kid expertly caught it and grinned.

“Protect yourself,” Tam told him.

Talon’s eyes narrowed and fixed on a Khrynsani shaman. “Yeah, that, too.”

One shaman on the far side of the cell block opted for self-preservation rather than staying to fight both us and starving Magh’Sceadu. He had a clear shot at a tunnel mouth on the other side of the cell block and he ran for it.

The shaman closest to Tam drew breath to spit a death curse, and Tam’s armored fist took out most of his teeth.

Tam’s hired help had fully engaged the Khrynsani, and I flung myself to the side to avoid a noxious green spray that sizzled when it hit the wall behind me, leaving it blackened and pitted with holes. What kind of crazed bastard summons acid?

A shaman launched a ball of blue light from the palm of his gloved hand, slamming it full force into the wards on the spellsingers’ cell. The wards blazed incandescent, sending white-hot needles of fiery light at the spellsingers.

Megan Jacobs screamed. I couldn’t hear it, but I could see it. Ronan pushed two of the kids down, shielding them with his body. One of Ronan’s silk sleeves caught fire and he fought his way free of the outer robe before it could spread. The kids whom Ronan couldn’t shield were bleeding in thin trails from where the fire needles had struck.

Tam swore. “Attack the ward, the ward attacks the prisoners.” He flung a particularly nasty orange blast that glanced off of the shaman’s shields.

The shaman smiled and tossed another blue fireball in his hand; this one was bigger and darker, cobalt flames writhing inside. “That was a warning. This one goes in the cell. Tell your men to surrender, or I’ll roast those songbirds alive.”

I could have said, “Behind you,” but I didn’t.

A Magh’Sceadu reared up and engulfed the shaman, wrapping itself around the goblin’s body like living black quicksand. The shaman managed a scream just before his head was absorbed. I thought I heard muffled screams coming from inside the Magh’Sceadu. Then they stopped. Maybe it was my exhausted imagination. If I survived, I was sure my imagination would replay it for me in my next nightmare.

The Magh’Sceadu came for us. Tam tried to get in front of me; I didn’t let him.

The creature stopped, floating there, not more than five feet away. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have minds, but this one was hesitating for a reason, and I think that reason was me—but mostly the Saghred. Last week in a Mermeian forest, the rock had used me as a conduit to destroy six Magh’Sceadu. I was just as scared now, but I didn’t think my shortness of breath was fear’s fault. I also didn’t know if that shaman had been the Magh’Sceadu’s first meal today—the Saghred didn’t care. It just hungered. I also didn’t know if some Magh’Sceadu were smarter than others, but it looked like this one might be.

Only one way to find out. I took a step toward it.