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

with tremendous force, knocking the creature’s skull around 180 degrees. Unable to see where it was going, the tiger ran straight for a boulder. Banshee leaped off just as the blinded beast made contact with the giant rock and shattered into a thousand pieces.
    Aldwyn’s eyes scanned for someplace to hide, someplace to escape to, but there was nowhere to go.
    “What do we do?” asked Gilbert, glancing over his shoulder in a panic.
    The situation seemed hopeless when Aldwyn heard a sweep of thunderous noise behind him. He looked up to see three white horses running downhill like an avalanche. More followed, leaving a trail of sparks behind them. In unison, the three horses leaped over the familiars, battering through the pack of skeletal cats and trampling a dozen of them underfoot.
    A deep, husky voice called out: “Jump on my back!” Aldwyn turned to see that the voice belonged to a tall steed with a silver mane and sparkling black eyes. The lightmare lowered its head, allowing Aldwyn, Gilbert, and Simeon to dash onto its back. Banshee jumped up as well. Skylar soared just above them.
    The stallion carrying the animals turned for the mountain and began galloping uphill as effortlessly as if it were crossing flat land. Half a dozen lightmares—for this surely was what these majestic and heroic horses had to be—were holding back the giant cats.
    Then a horn blared and one of the skeletal lions called out, “To Jabal Tur.”
    Upon his command, the zombie soldiers turned to the west and began marching toward the Enaj.
    “It was only a matter of time before Paksahara spread her obsidian across the Chordata Plains,” said the silver-maned steed. There was no sign of strain in the stallion’s voice, even though he was carrying five animals on his back up the rocky slope. Behind them, the other lightmares were galloping in step.
    “Who were those cats … before they became zombies?” asked Aldwyn. “And why were they all dressed in armor?”
    “Prior to their death, they were resistance fighters, great cats who stood up against the oppressive rule of man.” He paused. “It’s another part of Vastia’s forgotten history, one that those on the flatlands know nothing of.”
    As the lightmare raced along in a flat-out gallop, Aldwyn recalled the pieces of Vastia’s forgotten history that he, Skylar, and Gilbert had discovered earlier on their journey. First, there had been the amazing drawings that had been painted on the walls of the Kailasa caves. They showed that before man, animals alone had ruled Vastia. And then there had been the story told to them of how the First Phylum was tricked into allowing a man to join the original council of seven animals. The leader of these conniving humans had been a man named Sivio, who eventually anointed himself king.
    “The great cats were massacred on these plains, leaving none to roam the land,” continued the steed. “Man tried to cover up the incident by saying that they migrated from Vastia to the Beyond, but in the dead of night their bodies were buried here in the soil of the Chordata Plains.”
    “More of man’s lies,” said Skylar, her eyes narrowing coldly. Aldwyn couldn’t remember a time she had sounded as angry as this.
    “History is filled with them,” said the steed. “Which is why the lightmares of Yennep have taken it upon themselves to be the recorders of truth. When Sivio began to cause discord among the original council, our herd was the first to resign. We isolated ourselves up here in the mountains, where we’ve collected relics of the past and chosen to remain at a distance from the politics of humankind.”
    As they continued higher and higher up the trail, Aldwyn noticed that the dusty ground had been hardened into brown stone—no doubt the result of hundreds of years of superheated hooves galloping across it.
    Aldwyn turned to Skylar, who still looked visibly upset.
    “What is it, Skylar?” asked Aldwyn.
    “If we stop Paksahara,