The horn sounded again, low enough that I felt it in my teeth. It came from somewhere beyond the black spires, a hollow call that rolled across the Deadlands and vanished beneath the poisoned earth. Around me, Shadow warriors stood motionless among the gray ash. The creatures were gone, but their absence felt worse than their attack. The silence they left behind seemed to listen.
Caleb was still kneeling beside me, one hand locked around the bandage on my arm. Blood had soaked through the strip of his shirt, darkening the white cloth. His face was frighteningly calm. Only the tremor in his fingers betrayed him.
“I’m fine,” I said, though my arm burned from wrist to shoulder.
Caleb looked at me as if I had announced that the sky was green. “You are bleeding.”
“So are you.”
“That is dif
