I lay in a heap next to Silas. He’d gone rigid, just staring up as I did. That black shape leaned over us. Gone still.

  The lights rushed in.

  Time seemed to slow. One light outpaced like a scout as the others slowed to a halt. The creature of stone-dark hide turned its head toward the advancing light with a low rumble.

  The first Charmer came into view. Lanternlight spilled across its pale thickness. My heart thumped hard and fast. I felt small.

  The Charmer paused just at the edge of the lanternlight. It loomed taller than the dark beast before me. Maybe longer is more apt. Charmers slithered snake-like and reared their fronts to grasp. It moved slowly in a half circle, some twenty paces out. Was it reluctant? Could a Charmer know fear even as a man does?

  My mind raced. I sensed the two creatures’ awareness of each other. A line stretched taut. Was there some fellowship between them? Or were they competitors? Predators snarling at each other over a meal?

  I heard the scrape of a boot followed by a whisper in the Monacan tongue. John’s voice. He paused next to me, hands clasped before him. Though I couldn’t grasp the language, I discerned sad reverence in his speech. My heart slowed, and I was able to breathe deeply for the first time in minutes. I saw the sharp regard of those bottomless white eyes soften.

  “Mo-” He began, but stopped himself. He gazed down at me, then over at Silas. Something seemed to shift behind his eyes.

  “Great Bear.” John named with a quiver shaping his voice.

  The name landed squarely. I felt myself nodding stupidly without taking my eyes from the Great Bear.

  With speed that belied its bulk, the Bear turned from us and its forelimbs touched dirt all in one smooth, earth-shaking motion. The instant the deadly paws hit dirt, the Charmer slithered in.

  The Charmer wrapped, as I’d seen it do in the past. The Great Bear held fast, showing no reaction, as the coils tightened, its pale muscle bulging. More and more of its length inched into view. I saw that its body tapered larger the further back it went.

  Many coils covered the Great Bear's bulk. Still it showed no response as coils wrapped and wrapped.

  The Bear bit down with blinding speed. Black teeth sank deep into pale flesh. The Charmer bulged. The great jaws shook back and forth as a hound might worry its catch.

  A flutter ran through me. I knew the irresistible strength in the coils of a Charmer. I couldn’t imagine what thing could be born from the darkness of the earth to resist it.

  The jaws of the Great Bear bulged as it shook. Unmistakably a tear began to form. The Charmer tried pulling away, but the vice-like jaws were inescapable. The Charmer’s length slammed into the rib of the tunnel beyond sight, spasming and crashing. A wet ripping sound began slowly and picked up speed as flesh separated in chunks.

  Charmer bile fountained. I wretched as sulfur and rot overpowered all sense. The stench filled the tunnel like a haze.

  A heavy, wet slap echoed as each jagged half of the torn Charmer hit the earth and rapidly retracted into darkness.

  Nine lights slowly advanced. So did the Great Bear. I was thunderstruck. It moved the conflict away from us.

  John squared his shoulders. He continued on in his tongue. He rapidly chanted with a complexity I could not hope to render. I was struck by the sadness it evoked in me. His chant was part dirge, part incantation. The water of it ran with fear and grief to my ears.

  I glanced away momentarily. My breaths came in shallow and fast. I believe my mind was slipping as I struggled to reckon with it all. Several people stood within the open doorway of the stable some fifty paces behind and across from us. Light streamed forth into the dark tunnel, but no smoke.

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  I felt my body fully relax. Only then did I realize how immense was my weariness. Much had happened in minutes, but my ordeal was not long past. I had held the Charmers at bay with that dam of ice. Had I done battle with them spiritually? Mentally? Either way, I was spent.

  Seamus stood half the distance between us and the stable. His fiddle and bow were gathered in one hand limp at his side, while his other arm was around Esther. She clasped the wire handle of a lit lantern with both hands, our only source of light at present. They both stared at the clash before me. I followed their gaze.

  Two Charmers advanced slowly down opposite ribs of the tunnel. A flank. The others, visible only as distant lights, hung back as if in witness.

  The Bear stood to its full height again as they approached. It lowered one shoulder as if to lunge. When the right-most Charmer struck, the Bear pivoted with a roar that shook stone. The powerful forelimb swept. After a delay, I felt the air from that mighty arm blow over me even at this distance. The blow landed with a deep thud. The Charmer flew into stone and a crush of rocks spilled over it.

  My eyes widened. That lowered shoulder. Then the back leg pivot forehand hook. I recognized the wrestling trick. Henry taught it to me once when I visited the Monacan homestead. I remembered his grin as he pulled the punch at the last second when he demonstrated it on me. I turned to John. My head felt heavy.

  I stumbled as a mighty crash shook the ground. With a pounce that was more a rock slide, the Bear bore down upon its enemy. Claws pinned the Charmer beneath the weight of a mountain. A roar shook the tunnel, shaking dust from the ceiling and rib.

  The Charmer ruptured into unrecognizable gore.

  The Great Bear turned and charged the other Charmer as it attempted to slither away, no leap this time, just sudden frightening speed. Jaws closed on the end. The Charmer tore free in pieces and fled into the dark, dragging its ruined length and leaving behind a trail of gore.

  The remaining Charmers retreated to distant points of light. Waiting. Studying.

  Silence descended, broken only by the heavy pant of the Bear like the crunch of gravel. It took a heavy step toward the distant lights.

  John ran forward, hand extended.

  “Great Bear!” His voice cracked.

  The Bear took another step. It turned that stark, white gaze upon us. My heart ached. In that depth I saw weight. Not that of the mountain, but something held within. The great eyes closed slowly as it turned back toward the distant Charmers.

  John planted his feet, skidding to a stop. “No! You’ve done enough. Come back!”

  Silas reacted on instinct. He rushed forward and grabbed John about the shoulders.

  John struggled vainly against Silas’s great strength. “Mother Deborah!”

  Deborah. The name rained down like falling stone.

  The Great Bear halted. It slowly turned. Those white eyes gazed at us again. Where before I’d seen predator, now I could see something far older. I also saw grief, the echo of my own.

  The Bear’s head lifted toward the ceiling. The tunnel echoed with the grinding sound of stone shifting under frost. Cracks traced across that black glass hide. Pieces fell, sloughing.

  The vast bulk diminished as the mountain withdrew its claim.

  Then I saw her face.

  Deborah.

  Black fragments tangled in her hair. Eyes closed. Her expression was emptied of the terrible weight I had seen in them moments before. Peace had settled on her.

  Naked, she hovered only a breath above the ground before settling unsteadily to her feet.

  She shed the hide of stone and put on flesh. Within me, the flood roiled against my dam as if in offense.

  John lunged forward and caught her before she struck the stone.

  I was painfully aware that none of us had clothing to offer her. I was wrong. Silas stepped forward. He grasped the clasp of his grey cloak and pulled. The garment resisted a moment as if it was not ready to release him, then yielded. He wrapped it gently around her. John lifted the slight woman easily. Deborah’s breath came slow and steady as if in deep slumber, but she remained unaware.

  I looked up and knew an acrid taste as realization dawned. Thrust into this madness, I had merely reacted. We had freed Deborah from the stone, but perhaps damned us all to the Charmers by removing the Great Bear from the battle.

  The distant lights already moved closer, not yet at speed, but testing. I had seen how swift they could cover ground and knew that they could be upon us in moments.

  “We have to get in the stable and bar those doors.” I looked at Silas, who returned my gaze. I saw doubt in his face as he looked at the destruction before us.

  Could wood banded with iron hope to counter this strength?

  John was already moving. Silas quickly snatched up his iron axle a few paces away. He caught up to me momentarily as I walked as swiftly as pain would allow. Seamus handed bow and fiddle to Esther and helped me along as we reached them.

  I chanced to look back. The lights were looming larger.

  Ahead, Jack was incensed. I saw Ike give way and allow him to shut one door. Ike and another man hefted a beam in front of the other, preventing its closure. They stood ready.

  We were closing in on the doors. Twenty paces. Ten.

  Sulfur and fish rot stung my nostrils. My stomach rolled.

  When we were no more than a hair’s breadth over the threshold, the bar slammed across the doors.

  I eased to my knees, eyes tight shut against my rib pain.

  The doors shuddered under a heavy blow. The strength of oak held.