Battle Born by Amie Kaufman

Author:Amie Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

ANDERS WAS STILL THINKING ABOUT HIS PLAN that evening, but as night drew around them, he had to admit he was also thinking a lot about dinner.

Jai and their assistants were cooking up a big meal to welcome the newest arrivals—there were now nearly fifty children at Cloudhaven, with beds set up all over the entrance hall. It was a little crowded, but it was still a hundred times better than the cold, wet, and muddy camp, where they had nothing to shelter under except thin blankets—and some didn’t even have those, the orphans of Holbard pushed to the very outskirts of the camp.

Here, the fire was big and warm, and they had draped a large piece of canvas across the archway that led to the landing pad, which kept most of the wind out. They’d dragged mattresses from the bedrooms, so they had somewhere to sleep, and there was enough to eat. (“And if that scary artifact warrior tries to chase me while I’m having a hot shower,” Sam had said, when they got the bathing chambers working, “then it’s just going to have to wait until I’m done.”)

It had been a long day at the camp, and Anders was glad to be home. He was still stretching out his muscles from the flight, and was on his way over to see whether he could help Jai and the other cooks when the door to Cloudhaven proper flew open with a bang.

Bryn came running out, followed by Isabina, Viktoria, Jerro, Det, and, finally, Sakarias—following the rules, they had gone in as a group so that Bryn could check a couple of the letters in the message on Drifa’s wall that she was still trying to decode.

Now, her eyes were wide, hair streaming out behind her as she ran. “Warrior!” she screamed.

And then it was through the door behind them.

The hall exploded into chaos as the children scattered to make way for the creature, and despite its huge, lumbering form, it was surprisingly quick as it pounded after Sakarias, the nearest of its quarry.

The others peeled off to the edges, but Sakarias couldn’t shake it. Anders caught a glimpse of his pale face as he bolted past, heading for the door that led out to the landing pad. When he burst through it, the artifact warrior rumbled straight through after him.

Most of the children ran to hide in the shadows, but the elementals, Sam, and Jerro hurtled out onto the landing pad after them, desperate to somehow help Sakarias.

He had backed up nearly to the edge now, and the warrior was advancing on him with a slow, purposeful step.

Jai hurled an empty cooking pot at it, and caught the warrior square between the shoulder blades, but the pot simply bounced off it and clanged away into the misty night.

Without thinking, Anders and the other former Ulfar students slipped into their wolf forms, growling low in their throats as they crept forward toward the warrior. There was a rush of

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