The Devil of the Forest

The Nirumbi emerged from the woods, their bows out and arrows nocked and ready. Mike walked backward toward the cabin, then jumped when the door banged open and Velvet emerged. She scowled at the Nirumbi, counting their numbers.

“There are way more than last time,” she muttered.

“I see that.” He raised the rifle and took a shot at Leeds. The moment he pulled the trigger, Leeds vanished as if he melted into the shadows. “You know this guy?”

“Nope. But I do know that those arrows are bad news, and we’re almost in range. If they can take down Uncle Foot, then we don’t have a chance.”

“Mike.” Dana was nearby, and she raised her hands off the ground. “I’m willing to help, but I need to be let loose.”

He looked at her, then at the others. Yuki’s snowballs were forming up on top of each other, and she was able to slow down the Nirumbi by casting defensive volleys of ice. Bigfoot crossed over to the barn and ripped the door off its hinges, using it as a shield against the few arrows that were landing nearby. Quetzalli had an intense look on her face, and her horn was glowing with energy. Dark clouds were forming overhead.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked the dead girl.

Dana bared her teeth. “I promise I won’t bite. Well, anyone I know.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Velvet decreed, then unfolded her sword and severed Dana’s chains. Dana moved with astonishing speed, dragging her broken chains behind her in the snow. When she disappeared into the trees, there were cries of alarm from the Nirumbi.

I hope that wasn’t a terrible idea, Mike thought, aiming his rifle at a Nirumbi that had broken free of the trees, sprinting toward Yuki. When he pulled the trigger, the Nirumbi spun around before collapsing into the snow. It reached a single arm to the heavens and let out a wail of agony.

Something about that anguished cry struck a chord deep inside of him. When they had been ambushed, he had mostly run interference, scaring them away with his screams. While his friends did the heavy lifting, it had been easy to disconnect from the idea that they were living creatures, but now?

He shivered. It wasn’t from the cold.

“Yuki! Bigfoot!” Mike raised the rifle again, watching for more movement. Pondering the ethics of the situation would have to wait for later. He pressed his back to the cabin and kept both eyes open. They couldn’t get to him from behind, but knew for damned sure he was vulnerable on his sides. “Tell me who we’re dealing with!”

Bigfoot ignored him. He used his shield to make a dash into the nearest group of trees and then disappeared. Mike heard him roar a few seconds later, but now he was on the other side of the clearing. The Nirumbi cried out in alarm, and he saw a few go flying through the air.

“I don’t know,” Yuki responded. She was holding her tarot cards as the snowballs finished assembling themselves into snowmen. As the featureless bodies hopped past her, she was jamming cards into their torsos and tossing others into the ground. Large stick arms emerged from the snowmen, and they paused only long enough to pick up the swords that Yuki had summoned. “Ran across him once. Claimed to be the Devil, but Emily told him he was full of shit. Did some sort of mumbo-jumbo on us that got us locked in the Everglades for a week.”

“How did you beat him?”

“We didn’t.” Yuki paused, looking away from her makeshift army. “He got bored and let us go.”

“You’ll find me far more entertaining today.” Leeds’ voice came from everywhere at once. “You have something that I want, and I shall not rest until it is mine.”

Velvet cocked her head, then pointed to the West. “He’s over there,” she said, then spun around just as a trio of Nirumbi appeared at the corner of the cabin. They raised their bows to fire, but their shots went wide when Dana tackled them from behind.

She hit them hard enough that they scattered like bowling pins. Dana let out a growl and sank her teeth into the throat of the one closest to her and ripped. It was like watching a speed eater at a chicken-eating contest, except with far more blood and shrieking.

“Jesus Christ,” Mike muttered. He could almost hear Lily chastising him for his language.

“Sword!” Dana whipped her head toward Velvet, her hand outstretched.

“What do you need it for?” asked Velvet as she tossed Dana the blade.

Dana snatched the sword out of the air and beheaded the Nirumbi she had just bitten.

“Zombie birth control.” She tore into the other two before they could regain their footing and stabbed them in the head to prevent them from turning. Dana bolted into the woods, leaving a trail of blood behind her footprints.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Mike muttered, then placed a hand to his stomach. He was feeling woozy.

“It’s us or them,” Velvet told him, then ran back into the cabin. When she emerged, she was carrying her father’s pistol. “We didn’t start this. Remember that.”

The steely glint in her eyes steadied his resolve, and he continued to watch the trees. The snowmen charged into the forest, filling the air with cries of alarm. With her army finished, Yuki returned to Mike’s side and summoned tall walls of ice around them while leaving windows for him to shoot through.

Nirumbi charged at them, and he fired. Once they fell to the ground, he tried to ignore their cries while reloading, doing his best to focus on the task of protecting the others. Quetzalli summoned lightning blasts that struck her horn, allowing her to redirect them into small clusters of attackers that died on impact. The metallic smell of ozone filled the air.

“Something feels off about this,” Yuki said, after almost ten minutes of killing Nirumbi. “It’s clear that the Nirumbi are outmatched, just like before.”

“There are way more of them now,” Velvet replied, then raised her gun to take down a Nirumbi that had scaled the wall. “Maybe it’s a numbers game?”

“No, Yuki is right.” Mike scanned the tree line. “What would be the point in sending them in just to die? Why would they do it?”

“Because they are less afraid of you than they are of me.” The voice came from behind him, and when he spun in place, he saw Leeds standing on the roof of the cabin.

Both he and Velvet opened fire, but Leeds flickered as the bullets went through him.

“It’s a projection,” Yuki explained.

“What do you want?” Mike asked.

Leeds chuckled. “That’s simple, dear Caretaker. I want this land.”

“Why not just ask? Why not find a different way to reach out?” Mike felt his anger growing as his magic roared inside of him. Tiny sparks formed on his fingertips, but he clenched his hands, willing them away. “I feel like you had options.”

“Mike, don’t.” Yuki grabbed him by the shoulder. “Really, don’t even talk to him. He’s manipulative.”

“Oh, I will only be honest with you, Mike Radley.” Those crimson eyes glowed, as if burrowing into Mike’s soul. “You see, I wanted to do this long before you took notice of this place. It would have been so easy to take this land, to become part of the Great Game before you even knew what was happening.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Leeds shook his head. Mike still couldn’t see his features. “Because the spell I used to get everyone in required too much time. I couldn’t accomplish it while that human was about, the father of the Arachne. On more than one occasion, he disrupted my runes without even knowing it. When he died, I only had to wait for the spiders of the forest to slumber to complete my plans.”

“My dad?” Velvet lowered his gun. “You were afraid of him?”

“Afraid is the wrong word, little spider. I respected him. He demonstrated true dedication to defending this place and an attention to detail that his progeny lack.”

Yuki started to ask something, but Mike didn’t hear what she said. Instead, he heard the distant hoots of the Nirumbi. They were excited again, which meant that something had changed, but what?

When he turned to look back toward the forest, he saw an immense figure moving just behind the trees. A pine was toppled as the being pushed its way into the light. Standing taller than even Bigfoot was a creature with stretched-out limbs and the head of a deer. It snatched up a Nirumbi that tried to run past and shoved the whole thing in its mouth. It chewed on its snack and let out a howl before charging at them.

Mike opened fire, but the thing kept coming. Velvet fired off a couple of rounds before Quetzalli summoned a lightning blast that knocked the creature off its feet. After only a couple of seconds, it leapt into a standing position, its whole body smoldering. Yuki summoned a wall of ice to protect them, but Mike knew it wouldn’t last long when the creature dragged long fingernails against the other side and let out a howl of anger.

“Many men have met my Wendigo, Mike Radley. None have lived to tell the tale.” Leeds laughed, then vanished. The Wendigo raised massive fists and slammed them into the ice, causing it to crack.

“Bastard distracted us.” Mike chambered another round and raised the rifle. Did it have a weak spot? “What do we know about Wendigo?”

“Eaters of flesh.” Quetzalli snorted in disgust. “Not like Dana, not at all! They are once-men, driven by greed and power! Dark spirits walk these lands, and I will have none of it!”

Her eyes flashed a bright purple and lightning from above blasted her horn. Instead of discharging, her whole body glowed as she stored it inside her body and repeated the process. Mike covered his ears and closed his eyes. He could feel the thunder rushing through his body and the hair on his body stood on end as the dragon’s electrical charge grew.

The Wendigo shattered the ice and tried to force its way through when Quetzalli let loose a lightning blast that caught the Wendigo in the chest and hurled it away from them. There was an explosion, and the air filled with the scent of blood and burnt flesh.

“Gah!” Mike’s ears were ringing, and he couldn’t hear what Yuki was shouting. But he did see the Wendigo stand up, its body smoldering. It picked up the nearby corpse of a Nirumbi and devoured it, walking toward them with purpose as it feasted with every step. A large hole had been blasted in its chest, revealing the Wendigo’s rib cage.

Someone yanked on Mike’s arm. It was Velvet. She pointed at Quetzalli, who was lying down on the ground.

“Understood!” he said, his voice sounding muffled to his ringing ears. When he knelt down to grab her, a jolt of energy ran through his body, numbing his legs. Cursing, he stumbled for a moment before scooping Quetzalli up in his arms.

The Wendigo growled, then snatched up a Nirumbi that ran up and prostrated itself. Upon consuming the little person, the Wendigo’s wound closed even further.

They’re feeding themselves to it?!? Mike stumbled into the cabin and laid Quetzalli on the ground. She was still breathing, but her horn was hot to the touch and she was out cold.

He made a quick detour to his room and dug through the potions that Zel had sent with him. The healing ones had cute little handwritten labels that described their application, but he didn’t want those. Instead, he dug for the ones that Zel had put warning labels on. He scooped up a bright red one.

Dragon’s Breath, the label declared. Use with caution.

Mike and Zel had become coated in Dragon’s Breath shortly after they first met. He could still remember her stern warning to wash it off immediately and definitely to never scratch it or the burning would get worse.

He ran out of his room and then straight out the front door. The Wendigo’s legs had been frozen to the ground and the Nirumbi were rushing within arm’s reach.

“I can’t stop them all,” Yuki said as Velvet fired her gun at the Wendigo, shattering part of an antler. “There are too many of them!”

“Where are your snowmen?” he asked.

“Fighting off the rest of the Nirumbi!” She chanced a look over her shoulder. “Mike, there are hundreds of them!”

His jaw dropped. Hundreds?!? “Wh ... why aren’t they all attacking?”

She turned her attention back to the Wendigo. The ice had encased its waist, but cracks had already formed. Was the Wendigo getting bigger?

“They’re luring the snowmen away from here. Leeds is out there too, taunting Bigfoot further into the woods. This is intentional, he’s spreading us too thin! I think he knows the Nirumbi don’t pose a threat, but this...” she paused to hurl an icicle at the Wendigo. It shattered on hard, white flesh. “This thing is something else.”

“Let’s see if we can buy ourselves some breathing room.” He held up the potion. “I don’t think I can throw it from here without missing.”

Velvet looked over at him and snatched the potion from his hand. “Seriously, a Dragon’s Breath?”

“Yep. Will do some damage, chase it off maybe.”

“Roll to hit, add in that Dex modifier.” Velvet smirked, then launched the potion. It soared through the air and shattered on the Wendigo’s chest, coating the creature in a thin film of red.

The Wendigo immediately tried to remove the clinging slime, but only succeeded in smearing it across its chest and stomach. Frustrated, it tried to wipe its hands in the snow, but whatever Zel had added to turn the fine powder into a liquid wasn’t coming off.

Mike watched in satisfaction as it started scratching.

“That’s right, itches, doesn’t it?” He grinned when the Wendigo let out a growl, followed by a whimper. It had stopped grabbing Nirumbi and was now just scratching itself. A few Nirumbi had been exposed to the substance and were already rolling the snow in an attempt to get it off.

“Magic itching powder?” Velvet cocked an eyebrow. “Seems a little—”

The Wendigo roared, then broke free of its prison, scratching furiously at its chest. The red liquid had turned crimson, staining the Wendigo’s paper-white skin. It tumbled about in the snow, trying to rid itself of the Dragon’s Breath.

Mike expected the Wendigo to bolt. Instead, he was horrified when it crouched down and dug large nails into its own flesh and started peeling. Yuki gagged when the Wendigo yanked a large strip of its own skin off and tossed it to the side where it slapped loudly against a tree.

Yuki tried to encase it in ice once again while it proceeded to skin itself, but it was enraged now and easily broke free.

How the hell were they going to stop this thing? If they couldn’t hurt it, then maybe they could trap it? But how? Yuki’s ice wasn’t slowing it down much, and the guns couldn’t kill it. As long as the Nirumbi kept lining up to be snacks, there was no way they could continue to keep it away.

The Wendigo tossed the rest of its ruined flesh to the ground and then regenerated by stuffing its face with more Nirumbi. It moved toward them, growling ominously.

“Retreat!” Yuki summoned another series of ice walls. “Into the cabin!”

Velvet went in first, followed by Mike and then Yuki. Once inside, they bolted the door shut and ran around to the nearest window. The Wendigo had reached the porch, and it rammed its foot into the front door.

Mike expected it to explode, showering the room with shrapnel. Instead, the kick was little more than a muffled thud. The Wendigo repeated the attack, then shifted over to a window and punched it. Instead of the glass breaking, the Wendigo’s knuckles split apart, revealing bone.

“That’s not what I expected.” Velvet put her hands against the glass. “You can’t even feel the vibrations from the hit.”

Mike shook his head in disbelief. “So you’re telling me the exterior of the home is unbreakable?”

“Guess so.” Velvet shrugged. “It’s not like this has happened much. Even during the goblin attacks, their arrows would stick in the exterior. They never wielded anything bigger than a club, and dad would shoot them before they got close.”

“Well okay, then.” He would have to bring Ratu out here and figure out how to do something similar to the house defenses.

“We may be safe for now,” Yuki said, her arms crossed. She was in the kitchen, her attention directed outward. “But we’re trapped. Bigfoot and Dana are out in the forest, Abella is missing, and help isn’t coming. I’m trying to bring the snowmen back, but they’re outnumbered and I don’t think they’ll do any good against the Wendigo.”

Mike groaned, then looked back outside. The Nirumbi had formed an outer perimeter and the Wendigo, whose flesh had regrown, was busy trying to rip the siding off the house. Every time those sharp claws dug into the side of the cabin, they seemed to slip right off. Would the magic that protected this place be enough? And if so, how long could they hole up here?

Up on the roof of the barn, Leeds reappeared. His laugh became a screeching sound, filling the air like thousands of angry cicadas. The Nirumbi were lighting torches, their angry little faces highlighted by the flames.

“Uh...” Velvet backed away from the windows. “I really hope this place is fireproof.” She was wringing her hands together, her unblinking eyes stuck on the torches that had surrounded her home.

The Wendigo roared, then punched the front door again. This time, the wood groaned and a split appeared in the wood.

“Yuki?” Mike’s throat had gone dry. “Have any tricks up your sleeve?”

“Always.” Dark lines had appeared on her face and she was shuffling her tarot cards. “Is there a back door to this place? I’ll hold them off while you run.”

“You can’t hold them on your own,” he whispered.

“Probably not.” When she looked over at him, there was a wild look in her eyes. “This is a bad situation, Mike. Very bad. That thing out there is possessed by some type of spirit that possesses an affinity for the ice. I can’t hurt it.”

His heart raced when he realized that she was planning to buy them time with the cost of her own life.

“We need a plan,” he replied. “A trap, maybe? What cards do you have?”

The door creaked again. The Nirumbi were chirping in delight, and Leeds was now speaking to them in a stilted language Mike didn’t recognize.

“Velvet.” Yuki looked at the Arachne. “Drag him out of here if you have to.”

“I ... I...” Velvet’s hands went to her throat and squeezed the dog tags that she wore. She opened her mouth to say something, then paused, her eyes on the window.

Curious, Mike peered outside through the glass. The Nirumbi were still cheering, but the Wendigo had gone still, its gaze toward the heavens.

With a sound like a car crash, Abella smashed into the Wendigo from up above. When she rose, the firelight from the torches revealed that her face was covered in purple blood. She grinned at the Nirumbi, revealing all of her teeth, then looked up at Leeds. The Wendigo had gone still beneath her feet.

“Rock beats slithers,” she yelled. “Definitely not my first snake.” With a grunt, she grabbed the Wendigo by the antlers and ripped its head off.

Abella had been trapped beneath the ice with that giant snake for over an hour as it tried to crush her in its coils. They ended up on the murky bottom of the lake, the serpent incapable of crushing her, and Abella unable to swim away. Her lucky break had come when it had tried to swallow her whole.

When the serpent had opened its cavernous maw to devour her, she had spread her wings and tail wide. During the struggle to swallow her, she had grabbed its fangs and held on for dear life. The snake had attempted to dislodge her, but once her grip was solid, she started pushing the snake’s fangs apart.

The serpent tried to spit her out, but she refused to let go. After a short eternity in darkness, light appeared overhead as the snake moved into the shallows and tried bashing her into some rocks.

Undeterred, Abella continued to press, and one of the fangs shifted suddenly as it snapped at the root. She wiggled it back and forth, trying to pull it free.

Once they broke through the surface ice, the serpent let out a hiss like escaping steam, then smashed her into the shore. Abella sank her talons into the rocky ground, finding purchase on a huge boulder. The serpent cried out and coiled around her, trying to push her away from its head.

With a ripping sound, the fang came away in her hand. She flipped it over and jammed the giant tooth into the roof of the serpent’s mouth. It let out a hiss of pain and then released her in a bid to get away.

Though she had an opportunity to escape, Abella wasn’t about to let it get away after trying to eat her. What if it came after the others? She dragged it further onto the shore, her talons ripping holes in its iridescent scales. It tried to put up a fight, but now that she was on solid ground, it was easy enough to bludgeon it to death with her fists. Once it was dead, she noticed a beautiful gemstone embedded in its forehead. Curious, she plucked it out, spraying blood all over herself.

Racing back, her whole body hurt. The cracks in her left wing were getting worse, and her legs felt stiff. She could hear the distant cries of the Nirumbi in the direction of the cabin and hoped she would make it in time.

The creature beating on the cabin was incapable of withstanding over a thousand pounds of angry stone coming at velocity. Its head came off with a satisfying rip that stunned the Nirumbi into silence.

However, the head she now held was hollow on the inside. It hadn’t been obvious from the outside that it was simply the mummified head of a rather large deer. Stunned, she found herself staring down at the creature beneath her.

It growled and then tossed her away like a piece of trash.

She pulled her wings in and rolled, then smirked when several tiny arrows shattered on her hide. When the beast stood, she realized it was nothing more than a human that looked like it had been stretched out from the inside to fit on something over ten feet tall. It was emaciated and had milky white eyes that matched bloodless lips.

When it howled, she could see all of its blood-stained teeth. It came at her so fast that she almost didn’t react. Her instincts kicked in and she slammed her fist into the creature’s jaw so hard that there was an audible pop as the bone shattered. Dark blood spilled across her knuckles, but it kept moving.

“Wha—” Abella gasped as she was lifted into the air and tossed toward the barn. She smashed into the wall and fell down into the snow, her wings hanging limply around her. Up above, Leeds’ burning-coal eyes regarded her with hatred.

“You never should have returned,” he growled, then disappeared into the shadows. “Wendigo! Kill her!” Leeds reappeared in front of her and waved his hand.

Abella was yanked into the air by shadow hands and thrown toward the Wendigo. The Wendigo clamped powerful claws onto her legs and spun her in a circle before throwing her into a nearby tree.

“Putain!” she exclaimed upon impact. The trunk had snapped, and the pain in her wing was getting worse. How in the hell was this thing so strong?

The snow crunched under the Wendigo’s feet as it charged her. She looked up in time to get kicked through the trees. Branches snapped beneath her weight and she crashed into a Nirumbi, killing it on impact.

“Ow.” She picked herself up and dodged out of the way when the Wendigo threw the tree she had felled at her.

A pair of shots rang out, and the Wendigo turned its attention toward the sound in time to see Velvet to leap onto its chest and shove a gun against its forehead.

Each bang was like a hammer on steel, and the Wendigo went down in a heap. Velvet leapt free and rolled across the snow, landing in front of Abella.

Dumbfounded, Abella could only stare until the twang of a bowstring being plucked made her extend her wings forward to protect Velvet. A pair of arrows shattered against her wing, sending pain up into her shoulder.

“It’s going to get back up,” Velvet said, then turned back toward the Wendigo. It was crawling toward them, both flesh and bone mending on top of its neck.

“How is it still alive?”

Before Velvet could answer, bands of darkness grabbed her around the body and hurled her away from the Wendigo. Abella tried to follow, but the Wendigo stood up in front of her, its skull reformed now. Glowing blue light resided where its eyes should be as skin grew over muscle, and then its eyes reappeared.

It said something in a language she didn’t recognize, and then came at her. She jumped into the air and raked its face with her talons. The Wendigo took the hit and grabbed her by the head with both hands and squeezed.

The pressure was incredible. She grabbed at its hands, then its wrists. Her talons scraped off the skin on its chest as her heart thudded rapidly. Her core temperature was rising dramatically now, and her vision was going black.

“You should have stayed at the bottom of that lake.” Leeds spoke to her from somewhere nearby. “I only hope that you spared the offspring of the Estakwvnayv. A warrior like you would have been welcome in my new world, but not if you are already harming the natives.”

Abella groaned, then bit into the Wendigo’s palm. The flesh tasted like oversalted fish that had gone bad.

“I’ve worked hard to come this far,” he continued. “And not only will I get what I want, but you will have lost your life for nothing! Nothing! You stupid gargoyle!”

Somewhere in the woods, Mike screamed in pain.

Abella took a deep breath through her nose, pulling in as much oxygen as she could. Her kind didn’t need to breathe, not for survival. No, they had big lungs for something else entirely. All the while, she kept chewing, causing the Wendigo to adjust its grip. Its blood was black, but it was also slippery.

The Wendigo lost its grip and fell backward. Abella fell to the ground and saw the Wendigo was now missing a hand.

Dana stood in the snow, her blade gleaming. The Wendigo reached for her, but she slashed away, lacerating its other arm. Dark shadows wrapped around her waist and pulled her into the darkness.

“Your friends are fighting for you,” Leeds told her as she rose. “And they will die for you as well.”

“Do you ever wonder why humans cut off our heads and make us gargle rainwater?” Abella rose to her full height and took another deep breath. She didn’t bother looking for Leeds, the Nirumbi, or anyone else. Her entire attention was on the Wendigo as it came for her again, a skeletal hand emerging from its amputated limb.

Time distorted and slowed as she took one more breath. On the day she had hatched, she had been the smallest of her clutch. It had been suggested to her mother that she would be too weak to survive, too small to contribute meaningfully. But in those first moments of existing, she had let out a cry louder than any of her siblings, a cry that had commanded attention.

The name Abella meant breath. Although she wasn’t the strongest or the biggest of her clutch, it was neither of these things that mankind feared the most from her people.

Mike was hurt. Whether physically or emotionally, it didn’t matter. Her friends had fought for her, even though she was stronger and immune to the arrows of the Nirumbi. Her rage ignited within, flooding her whole body with an immense heat that caused her stone skin to glow an eerie red.

When her own kind had turned their backs on her, she had lost her direction, there was no longer any purpose. Protecting the house had been her primary function, but she had come to know those who lived inside. Ever since Mike had moved in, she had also come to know them all better than ever. Her roof, once a lonely place, was shared with Kisa and occasionally Lily. The faeries would tease her until she gave chase, and there had even been a couple of nights where she had sat with Cecilia, the two of them watching romance shows on her tablet.

No, they weren’t just her family. They were her clan. She would fight for them, and they for her. And there was no doubt in her mind that they would die for her if needed.

She couldn’t let that happen. Her heart pounded, each beat like thunder in her ears. Opening her mouth as wide as possible, Abella used the pressurized air in her lungs to expel the flames that had formed inside, releasing her Heartfire in a high-pressure stream.

The icy-blue flame turned the Wendigo’s hand into ash on impact, and she quickly lost control of her Heartfire as she always did. She had to kneel and sink her hands and talons into the ground beneath the snow to keep from blowing herself head over heels as she filled the air with a fire so hot that nearby trees ignited. The Wendigo didn’t even have time to turn and flee as its skin then muscle flaked away into nothingness.

Leeds had been so determined to isolate her that she knew everyone was far enough away that they could run if necessary. The woods around her were filled with smoke and steam, and she could no longer see the cabin. Large swaths of snow contained Nirumbi that had been killed so quickly that they looked like smoldering statues.

Once ignited, her Heartfire was difficult to stop. The air in her lungs was superheated, unable to simply cool on its own. The Wendigo was a melted lump of flesh and stone now, so she turned her head toward the sky and bellowed fire into the night, chasing away the shadows. Several minutes passed before she could swallow it away, and her body cooled. She stood now in a patch of scorched earth, surrounded by slushy banks of snow. Her head pounded from the internal pressure of her breath attack, and she slumped down.