A needle of crimson lightning pricked the twilight fog as Blood-Hound Vael thumbed the core rune.
The blackened jade talisman hummed with lethal pressure. Sound-amplifying runes flared along its triangular edges, drinking his blood like thirsty leeches.
Beside him, Chief Alchemist Doran covered his ears, bracing for the deafening explosion that would shatter the valley.
“Do it,” Doran hissed, his teeth clicking together. “Wake the entire mountain. Blow their eardrums out.”
The blast never came.
A heavy shadow dropped from the dripping canopy of an ancient pine forty feet above the trail.
Elder Sterling landed in the wet ferns with the grace of an owl. Not a single dry twig snapped beneath the soles of his cloth slippers.
Tucked snugly inside the left lapel of his gray wool robe was the dog-eared fifth installment of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
