Free The Familiars #3: Circle of Heroes by Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson

deserve a lot worse than my spittle on your fur!”
    Aldwyn noticed that Banshee wasn’t the only one who let the man’s words get under her skin. Skylar appeared upset as well. She lifted her wing, and Aldwyn watched as a giant shark-toothed eel leaped out from the river, snapping at the fisherman. He stumbled back, falling into the water and soaking himself from head to toe. A satisfied grin crossed Skylar’s beak. Her illusions were becoming ever more effortless and never failed to catch their intended targets off guard.
    “I forgot what happens when somebody gets on your bad side,” said Banshee, coming up beside Skylar.
    The animals continued along, the Yennep Mountains firmly in their sights. They crossed a field ravaged by floods, the earth so damp that it was like walking through quickmud. There were small farmhouses sunk into the ground with boarded-up windows; whether residents were holed up inside or had simply abandoned them was impossible to tell.
    They hurried on. Near the foothills of the Yennep Mountains the plains became rockier and less fertile. This was a region known as the Chordata Plains, a dry and arid landscape, which made it all the more strange that a flock of swamp storks were huddled nearby.
    “You’re a little far from the marshlands, aren’t you?” asked Skylar.
    One of the long-beaked birds lifted its head.
    “Paksahara’s army has made it unsafe for any animal who refuses to join her. I would rather suffer than stand by her side.”
    Another stork looked to the animals hopefully.
    “We know who you are. We know what you’re doing. And we’re rooting for you.”
    Aldwyn and his companions nodded their thanks before continuing on. They headed farther east, fueled not only by the neveryawn nuts but by all those like the displaced storks that were counting on them.
    “Guys, would you mind giving me a minute?” said Gilbert. “All that water …”
    He hopped over to a private spot behind a large rock.
    Aldwyn and the others held up for a moment. The wind was blowing in strongly from the north, which, Aldwyn thought, made it quite strange that a solitary black cloud was somehow approaching swiftly from the south.
    “It looks like smoke from a fire,” said Simeon, who had also noticed the cloud. Particles fell as it passed overhead. Some of the black residue from the cloud stained Skylar’s feathers. She lifted her wing to inspect it. “Obsidian,” she said. “Paksahara must be sending it forth from the Shifting Fortress to raise more of her Dead Army.”
    She had barely gotten the words out when Aldwyn felt a rumble nearby, where black specks of the obsidian had burrowed into the ground as if they were worms fleeing the sunlight.
    “Gilbert, you might want to wrap things up over there,” he called out.
    Aldwyn saw the earth open all around them as bones broke through to the surface, coming together like pieces of a puzzle to form the skeletal remains of the great cats—lions, leopards, jaguars, and tigers. Clad in leather and metal armor that was rattling over their bones, they were a terrifying sight. Within seconds, dozens of zombie soldiers were lining up in formation.
    “It is Paksahara who raised us,” they chanted in unison. “It is Paksahara we follow.”
    “Now, Gilbert!” shouted Aldwyn.
    “Don’t rush me,” said Gilbert, who was still hidden behind the rock and completely oblivious to a skeletal jaguar rising up mere feet behind him.

    “GILBERT!” screamed Aldwyn. “Run!”
    Gilbert finally saw the beast. He let out a croak and sprinted alongside the others just as the jaguar’s jaws were about to close around him. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we were being attacked by zombies?” he cried.
    There was no time to answer. Aldwyn was telekinetically lifting and hurling rocks at the skeletal cats, which were all too quick to attack. Banshee made herself invisible and moments later reappeared on the back of a zombie tiger. The howler monkey swung her drum