Page 6 of The Iron Vow

A raspy voice caught my attention. I turned and saw one of the rat creatures, crouched on a crate, peering up at me with beady red eyes.

“The heart,” it squeaked, pointing back to the writhing Nightmare. “In the center. Destroy the heart, and the Nightmare will fall.”

The rat leaped off the crate and scampered away, and I spun back toward the battle. The heads still swirled and lashed out frantically, striking rat and friend alike. But in the very center, where the hair and fur converged, I could see a cluster, a tangled knot throbbing with a faint light. With the storm of skulls around it, it would be nearly impossible to hit.

“Ash!” I called, smacking away a serpent head as it lunged at me, fangs gleaming. “We need to clear out the heads! Or at least give me a clear shot at the center!”

He nodded but didn’t turn, busy dealing with four skulls at once. After striking down the last head, he darted to one side, circling the Nightmare. A swarm of heads followed him, and on the other side, Keirran and Puck baited a cloud of skulls into attacking them, leaving the center exposed.

The sky overhead flickered. Energy surged in the air, and I brought a spear of lightning straight down into the center of the monster. Bones and hair ignited, and planks burst into flame as strands of lightning pulsed outward. The Nightmare let out a horrific, ear-piercing scream, which cut off as its remaining skulls burst and rained bone fragments everywhere. The pulsing, hair-covered knot in the center flared, then exploded in a burst of shadow.

Glamour filled the air, a ripple of power and rage fluttering over me as the Nightmare died. The rats surrounding us rushed forward in a furry mob, swarming over the Nightmare’s remains, snatching bone bits, clumps of fur, even strands of hair. For a split second, I wondered if they would take them as trophies, but then I saw they wereeatingthem, stuffing them into their jaws one after another.

“Ew, I think I’m going to be sick,” Puck muttered, appearing beside me. Keirran and Nyx joined us, watching the rat creatures gorge themselves on the Nightmare’s remains. “This is...yup, definitely going to be sick. Excuse me while I hurl.”

I shuddered, forcing myself not to turn away, as the grisly feast continued. In seconds, every part of the Nightmare was consumed, down to the tiniest bone chip. Slowly, the swarm turned, beady eyes glowing red in the darkness. Ears and noses twitching, they stared at us, curious and wary.

Remembering the one that had spoken to me, I stepped forward, causing several to skitter back and bare long yellow incisors. Ignoring the flashing teeth, I stood tall and met the beady gazes of two hundred rats. “We mean you no harm,” I told the army before me. “My name is Meghan Chase, queen of the Iron territories in the Nevernever. Are you... Evenfey?”

Several of them blinked. Glances were exchanged, naked tails swishing over the planks as they chittered at each other. Finally, one edged forward. I couldn’t tell if it was the same rat from before; they all looked pretty much the same. I did notice this one carried a spear and wore a necklace of teeth, but in the craziness of battle, I hadn’t been concerned about what the rat who’d spoken to me was wearing.

“We are Skitterfolk,” it told me in a creaky voice. “This is our town. What is the Nevernever?”

I blinked. “You’ve not heard of the Nevernever?”

“No,” the rat, or Skitterfolk, confirmed. “You are strangers. You are new to us. You...” It raised its head, whiskers trembling as it sniffed the air in my direction. “You are not like us,” it stated. “You have the magic. Like the king’s offerings. But you are not like them, either.”

“The king’s offerings,” I repeated. “Do you mean the Nightmares?”

“The king’s offerings,” the Skitterfolk insisted. It made a chittering sound, seeming frustrated that I didn’t understand. “Strangers speak oddly. Skitterfolk do not know their words.” It took a step back, raising one scaly claw. “Come. Come, and speak to our Palefur. She has the words to make you understand.”

I glanced at the others. Puck shrugged. “Sounds like their version of an oracle or priestess,” he said. “Either way, perhaps she can tell us what the heck is going on in Evenfall.”

I nodded and turned back to the Skitterfolk. “Lead on, then.”

The rats surrounded us, but I felt it was more out of curiosity than aggression. We followed them through the dilapidated, waterlogged city, crossing multiple bridges and swaying platforms, until we came to an old shack on the edge of town. It jutted over the water on stilts, looking like anything stronger than a sneeze would cause it to tumble into the swamp. Bones hung from the roof like wind chimes, and a tattered gray cloth had been drawn over the door.

The Skitterfolk leading us held up a claw. “Wait here,” it told me. “Strangers are too big. Might cause the Palefur’s house to fall into the swamp again. I will tell the Palefur you have come. If she is not sleeping, she will be out to meet you.”

It turned and vanished through the door of the ancient hut. A few minutes later, the cloth parted, and a thin old rat stepped through. True to her name, her fur had turned pure white, though most of it had fallen out, showing scabby, wrinkled skin beneath. Her eyes were milky, and her withered claws were curled around a staff topped with a bird skull. She raised her head, nose twitching as she sniffed the air, and her lips curled back from her curved yellow teeth.

“Strangers,” she said in a high-pitched, raspy voice. “They do not smell like us. They do not feel like us. I smell...” Her whiskers worked frantically as the rest of the horde watched in silence. “Glamour,” she said at last. “That is not from the king. Strange magics.” She sneezed, making several rats jump, then shook her head and peered sightlessly up at us. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where do you hail from?”

“We are not from Evenfall,” I told her. “We come from the other realm. The Nevernever.”

“The Nevernever,” the Palefur stated. “I know not of this place. But there are legends. Stories of another time, about a world like and not like ours. Where the glamour did not need to be harvested—it was free to all. It flowed from the very ground, saturated the air, and the fey took it in with every breath they breathed.”

A murmur went through the crowd behind us, but the Palefur snorted. “Fantasies,” she said with a wave of one twisted claw. “Stories and legends do not keep us alive. Maybe they did once, a long, long time ago. But now, there are no more stories. There is no more magic. And it does no good to dwell on what cannot be. This is the world we exist in now.”

Nyx stepped forward, her gaze intense. “Your people said the Elder Nightmares were the king’s offerings,” she said. “What did they mean by that?”

“The king sleeps,” the Palefur said. “Somewhere far away. Somewhere unknown and unreachable. But while he sleeps, he dreams. And his dreams manifest and roam this land. The strongest of these dreams are his offerings—what your kind call Elder Nightmares. They are for our survival, a bit of his own glamour to keep us alive. We hunt them, but the offerings, the Nightmares, hunt us as well.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Keirran asked. “What happens if you can’t kill them?”

“We lose many Skitterfolk to the king’s offerings,” the Palefur said. “Each fight, each battle, more of us fall. But the Nightmares do not kill, no. They corrupt. They madden. They turn us into creatures like them. For each Skitterfolk that falls to an Elder Nightmare, a new creature is born, twisted and mad with hate. They turn on their former kin, and we are forced to destroy them for good. They are not the king’s offerings. They do not have the power of the Elder Nightmares, but they are no longer fey.”

“So, you have to hunt these Elder Nightmares for the glamour you need to live,” I said, trying to follow along. “But the Elder Nightmares will turn normal fey into smaller, less powerful Nightmares if they kill them.”

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