Free The Spell Realm by Dima Zales, Anna Zaires Page A

explained quietly. “If I did it right, they should see us as a rival pack of bearwolves. Essentially, they see what we see, a mirror image of their own selves. And they hear us growling instead of talking.”
    “So what now?” Ara whispered, her entire body trembling.
    “Now we need to threaten them into leaving us alone,” Blaise replied, hoping that his idea would work. It might’ve been effective with wolves, but he didn’t know if it would be with these creatures.
    “All right,” Kostya said, immediately understanding the task in front of them. “Let’s all spread out and walk toward them. Show no fear.”
    They all slowly started forward, two of the men in the back supporting Shram.
    The bearwolves snarled threateningly as the humans began to approach. The alpha of the pack—the one who had attacked Shram before—took a step toward them, letting out a loud growl. As the hunters continued moving forward, however, the creature slowly began to retreat, apparently intimidated by the approaching ‘pack.’ Blaise had purposefully used the alpha’s own image for the illusion, making all of the human ‘bearwolves’ as large as the pack’s leader. There were also nine humans, including Blaise, versus eight bearwolves.
    Still, the animals seemed hesitant to leave. The one thing Blaise hadn’t been able to do with the spell was mask the people’s real scent. While the animals saw and heard others of their own kind, they undoubtedly still smelled humans in the vicinity and were loath to give up their prey.
    Blaise and the hunters needed to do something more aggressive before the illusion spell began wearing off.
    “Start screaming,” Blaise told the others. “Scream as loudly as you can—as if your life depends on it. Because it does.” And he let out a war-like yell, which he hoped would sound like a powerful roar to the animals’ ears. The hunters joined in, their voices mingling in a furious cacophony of sound.
    The bearwolves took a step back . . . one, then another. Blaise could see their ears twitching and their tails swinging in displeasure from side to side. He continued screaming, even though his throat was sore and his ears were ringing.
    And just when he was sure the plan would fail, the bearwolf leader let out a loud growl and turned around, disappearing into the bushes. The rest of the pack followed, and Blaise could hear them running through the forest to the east—back toward the Dark Woods.
    The hunters and Blaise stopped screaming. Shaking in the aftermath, they looked at the now-empty meadow with stunned expressions on their faces.
    The hunters could hardly believe they survived—and Blaise knew exactly how they felt.
     
    * * *
     
    After everyone had a chance to calm down a bit, Blaise walked over to Shram—the only one who had been wounded during this encounter. The scarred man was sitting on the ground, clutching his torn arm. Blaise could see blood seeping out of the wound despite a makeshift bandage of someone’s shirt pressed against it.
    Crouching next to the man, Blaise pulled out his Interpreter Stone and a few spell cards, and began preparing a healing spell.
    “What are you doing, sorcerer?” the man asked harshly, watching Blaise’s efforts.
    “Planning to heal your wound, of course,” Blaise replied, continuing to write. “We need to get back to the camp, and your injuries will slow us down.”
    Shram frowned, but didn’t voice any objections as Blaise finished writing and loaded the appropriate cards into his stone. As soon as the spell began working, Shram gasped, his eyes opening wide. Blaise knew what he was feeling—immediate relief from the pain. Pain that must’ve been quite bad, judging by the size of the wound. The bearwolf had literally torn out a chunk of Shram’s flesh—flesh that was now healing.
    A few minutes later, the bleeding had stopped, and the injury was gone.
    Slowly rising to his feet, Shram touched his arm, the expression on his face