Shakraa flapped above her Beastcaller, anxiously cawing. “Strong mana! Strong mana!”

The ground quaked and this time both Kellen and Shani stumbled. It was enough the Elders felt it too. In a chorus of concerned murmurs and frowns, most of them rose to their feet.

“What is going on?” Watanee demanded, striding toward them, two spears of lightning growing from her hands.

A rumbling filled their ears and the earth trembled, shouts of alarm rang throughout the great tent. Kiypu raised his hands and looked up, chanting in a garbled language from where he knelt. Kellen felt no mana coming from the mummy, but the ground shook even harder. Shakraa cawed, flying overhead in panicked circles.

A half dozen steps from them, Watanee raised a lightning bolt then fell to the ground as a greater quake hit. All around them, the Elders and Mana Beasts were shouting and herding people out of the tent. Kellen remembered they were beneath the equivalent of a mega-skyscraper and dread filled him. What if the totem was collapsing?

“We need to get out of here!” he shouted, grabbing Kiypu by the arm. The mummy wouldn’t budge, almost as if he were rooted to the spot.

“What have you done?” Watanee shouted over the screams and sound of rumbling earth. She raised a lightning bolt at Kiypu.

“No!” Kellen threw up a shield in front of them, knowing the Elder’s attack would slice through it like butter. The ground heaved and Kellen crashed onto his side. Underneath Kiypu, the earth glowed a gray-white color. A wind picked up around him, like he sat in the eye of a tornado.

“Run!” Shakraa croaked. “Run!”

“Time to go!” Vex shouted

Kellen crawled toward Kiypu on all fours. Was he doing this? Whatever was going on, they had to stop him. Before he could reach the mummy, Shani intercepted him, grabbing him under the arm and yanking him to his feet.

“We must go!” she shouted.

“Flee!” Shakraa’s warning sent a chill down Kellen’s spine.

Raising her hand, Watanee cast both lightning bolts at Kiypu. Even before Kellen’s scream came out, they hit the dervish whirling around the mummy and exploded in a shower of spider-webbing electricity and static discharge.

Inside the tornado, Kiypu suddenly bolted to his feet as if he’d just awoken from a deep sleep. Seeing the tornado around him, he tried to push through it and was thrown back to the ground. He raised a glowing fist and punched it into the ground. Kellen saw the earth ripple inside the tornado but felt nothing on the outside. Croaking in distress, Shakraa shot blast after blast of white mana at the exterior of the tornado. But just like Watanee’s lightning, the spinning winds absorbed it all.

“Get out!” she shouted, waving them away.

Several other Storm Horse Elders began throwing a variety of workings at the growing sphere of wind surrounding Kiypu. Kellen was worried one would pass through and hit the mummy, but each either fizzled to nothing or rebounded when it struck the surface of the vortex. Worried for his friend, Kellen ignored Watanee’s advice to run, watching and hoping something would change.

“Duck!”

Kellen threw himself flat on the ground at Vex’s warning as a lightning bolt crackled by overhead, filling the air with a smell of thick ozone and standing Kellen’s hair on end. Shani grabbed his arm.

“We need to go!”

“I’m not leaving him!” Kellen jerked his arm back, a growing helplessness building. It was like sitting inside the blast radius of a bomb, just waiting for the explosion.

“You can’t do anything for him.” Shani grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, her strength matching any resistance he put up. She hauled him backward until Kellen got his feet under him and resisted.

“I’m not going to leave you here to die,” she hissed as she shoved himself away.

“And I’m not leaving him.” Kiypu might never have been in this situation if his brain wasn’t so scrambled. And that was all on Kellen and Vex. Snarling, Vex faced off against Inferi, who looked ready to drag him out if need be as well.

Shani screamed in frustration and dropped Kellen’s arm. “What do you think we should do?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air. Wind whipped at their clothes and hair and even with her shouting, Kellen could barely hear her just a few steps away.

Kellen didn’t answer. He didn’t know. What good could they do? The Elders had stopped throwing attacks at the wind sphere, but it had grown in size, stretching out in every direction. Kiypu could no longer be seen within the dirt and debris inside. Was it already too late? The only sign they had the mummy wasn’t dead was Shakraa, still diving and pecking at the storm mana walling her off from her Beastcaller.

The winds rose in pitch, now a deafening howl. Kellen raised a hand and a gold shield grew, blocking the worst of the dirt and gravel whipping through the air. It took all his strength to stand. If he turned and ran, he knew he’d be thrown to the ground.

“We cannot stay!” Shani screamed.

Kellen’s heart sank. He knew she was right. An instant later a sonic blast smashed them into the earth.

When Kellen came to, his ears were ringing. It seemed only seconds had passed but the wind was gone. After so much sound and force, the quiet surrounded them like a void. A ring of silent wind surrounded the four of them and perhaps a dozen other Storm Horse Elders and their Mana Beasts.

Next to him. Vex, Shani and Inferi all struggled to sit up.

“Too late,” Vex said, coughing.

Kellen looked to the spot where Kiypu had been. The sphere was gone, as well as the mummy and his Mana Beast. In their place was a magnificent dappled blue roan horse.

It stood as tall as a clydesdale, but with the grace of racehorse, long, fine-boned features. and flowing mane that floated on an invisible wind. The storm mana flowing from the creature felt to Kellen like a never ending sky filled with rolling clouds, calm yet full of terrible potential. Everyone within the silenced area immediately bowed low, Shani, Vex and Inferi included. After once last glance at the magnificent horse, Kellen averted his eyes. Only one being could fit the description of the entity before him: the Storm Horse goddess herself.

Or maybe the ghost of a goddess?

Looking up from his bowed position, Kellen saw the horse figure take a step forward. The legs flickered and Kellen saw the murky outline of a Beastcaller through the middle of the Storm Horse. If it was the goddess she was in a most definitely ethereal state.

“It has been too long.” The Storm Horse’s mouth didn’t move when she spoke but the sounds floated out like a gentle breeze. “My power is fading, like plains grass in autumn.”

The goddess flickered now, like she was buffering and had lost definition.

“Follow my heart. Save my people.”

And then she was gone.

Thunder cracked the silence, breaking the brief tranquility into a thousand slivers. Kellen fell flat on the ground as the very air shook and rumbled. A second later, Shani was hauling him to his feet as the earth beneath them bucked and split. A bright light shone from the spot where Kiypu and then the Storm Horse had once been. As it faded, Kellen saw a gaping, dark cavern mouth form. A hundreds of shrieks, roars, and other animal cries echoed within.

Moments later, wild Mana Beasts poured out of the darkness.

Kellen ran. Sprinting for his life, he was surprised to see Shani, Inferi and Vex already a few paces ahead of him. Hearing the menagerie of angry Mana Beasts bearing down on him and feeling the pressure of their mana, he found another gear.

The ring of storm mana was gone now and they bolted out of the tent’s ruins. He’d been concerned they’d run into a wall of onlookers. Instead, most of the people were already hundreds of yards away, running. Between the force of the winds and the shockwaves of storm mana so strong a baby in the womb could have felt them, everyone had gotten the idea.

Behind them, he felt a flash of heat, heard the sizzling of electricity and smelled burning hair and hot ozone. The Storm Horse Elders were on the offensive. Now they were clear of the tent and the immediate underbelly of the totem, Shani slowed. As Kellen caught up to her and their two Mana Beasts she looked backward, chest heaving for air.

While he surveyed the scene, Kellen’s legs trembled. It had been too much of a repeat of the fire bison stampede for his comfort. And they weren’t out of it yet. He could tell what Shani was thinking: they should stand and fight.

“I’m the bravest and also the smartest of the four of us and I say we let the Elders take care of things,” Vex said. “I mean, isn’t that what they get paid the big bucks for?”

“Are you afraid?” Inferi jeered. “Do you wish to run with your tail tucked between your legs?”

“As the only one who’s almost gotten us killed in the last month, you don’t get a vote,” Vex said.

Inferi surprisingly ignored him. “Come on, Shani. You heard what they called us: freaks. Why don’t we show them what we’re capable of?”

“You’re right,” Shani said. Inferi didn’t wait for further response. She sprinted back toward the fight, ignoring Vex’s shouts of protest. Shani had left her sword behind when they’d been summoned by Watanee but that didn’t stop her from rushing off after her Mana Beast, storm mana gathering in her clenched fist. Kellen ran after them.

“Are you serious?” Vex shouted, bounding at Kellen’s side. “They’re going to get us killed!”

“Not… losing them… too.” Kellen grimaced, leaving the words unsaid that Kiypu might be gone forever.

They made it less than halfway back when the largest rhinoceros Kellen had ever seen charged through a section of collapsed tent, barreling straight for them.

It looked like a cross between a rhinoceros and a yak, with long, matted gray wool hanging from its body. Kellen placed it roughly in the same class as the bear he’d encountered on his first day in Oras: as big as a truck, now that he knew how to read such things, probably a Guardian-strength beast. Its y-shaped nose horn was as tall as Kellen and gleamed with a yellow light.

Inferi stopped in her tracks. Kellen, Shani, and Vex stopped in their tracks. The hairy rhino tossed aside a wooden beam as big as a telephone pole with a casual flip of its head and started at them.

“We’re dead,” Vex whispered. “We’re dead, we’re dead, we’re dead.”

“Nobody move,” Kellen said in the quietest, calmest voice he could muster. He could barely hear himself over his pounding heart. “Maybe if we don’t provoke it—”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Inferi burst into purple, smoking shadows and went straight for the rhino. It snorted and flicked its ears, completely unconcerned with the approaching hyena. As she neared, it lowered its head in perfecting timing to sweep her off the ground and launch her through the air. She flew head over tail yelping until she crashed into the ground a short distance away.

Kellen and Vex winced in unison.

“Maybe we should just let it be?” Kellen suggested to Shani. “I mean, it doesn’t look mad and isn’t hurting anyone. Why don’t—”

Once more he was cut off, this time by Shani, who clapped her hands together and thrust them forward, sending a miniature tornado whirling toward the rhino.

Kellen sighed. “Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”

The rhino still had its eyes on Inferi when the whirlwind struck it in the side of the head. It snorted and shook its head, focusing on Shani. The next thing Kellen knew, it was rumbling straight toward them.

Frantically shaping a working, Kellen threw up a series of golden shields, one after another in the rhino’s path. It lowered its glowing yellow horn and burst through each as if they were no more than paper. After crashing through the final sun mana barrier, it lowered its head and shoved its nose its the ground. Two of Shani’s whirlwinds burst harmlessly on its horn. Head half buried in the earth, it charged forward at the same speed, plowing a furrow of dirt on either side. The fracture expanded ahead of it, like a charging knight lowering a lance.

They threw themselves aside in the nick of time to avoid a direct hit. The attack still sent Shani, Vex and Kellen flying through the air. Kellen hit the ground hard and rolled. By the time he gathered his senses, he saw the rhino still charging in the same line, Inferi chasing after it.

“Oh crap, it’s heading straight for all those people!”

Vex was right. The rhino was plowing toward a crowd of onlookers, horn churning up the ground in its wake. The trench it left was so deep Kellen could have stood in it up to his head.

The three of them ran after the rhino, which not only had a head start but was also faster. Ahead, Inferi closed the gap and Vex worked to catch up. But what could they do? Their attacks had glanced off it without a mark.

Desperate, Kellen attempted to shape another sun mana shield on the run. He cast his hands forward, the result a brief flash of light a few steps behind the rhino.

A lance of electric mana burst from the sky. It struck the rhino in the horn, which acted like a conduit, sending a pulse of electricity throughout its body. The Mana Beast jerked to a halt as Raiqo and Skystrike descended on it from the sky.

Raiqo cast a second spear followed by a third before Skystrike banked upward at the last second. Both strikes buried themselves in the side of the rhino, who disappeared in a flash of yellow mana.

Kellen slowed to a jog and finally stopped altogether, chest heaving, hands on his knees. The others did the same, Inferi slinking back to them, a sour snarl carved into her face. “I wish he would mind his own business.”