The group traveled for a mile of the vast bone fields. The same iron-grey clouds covered the whole sky. No sun shone through except a faint light for the travelers to see where they were going.

  Yann felt himself slipping into a trance when a howl like strong wind snapped everyone to high alert.

  The group turned to stare across the countryside at a funnel of fast-moving air spiraling down from the clouds.

  It dipped out of the solid grey cloud cover, revolved into a cone, and then extended a long, curved finger toward the ground.

  The tornado spiked into the bone fields a dozen miles away. For some reason, the wind didn’t change around the party.

  The wind definitely changed around the spiral. It kicked up bones from the ground and sent them spinning and wheeling in wild circles around the main funnel.

  The spiral caught all those bones, whirled them together in the center, and they started to take shape.

  More bones lifted off the ground—either from the wind or from something else. The bones came together in bizarre configurations. They formed into giant bodies towering over the landscape and then disintegrated.

  All the bones fell apart and crashed down to lie where they were before.

  The twister traveled across country heading away toward the first river.

  More shapes of Darklings erupted in the twister’s path. The funnel caught bones and put them together in the air before the shapes split apart and collapsed into piles where they’d been lying before.

  The small hairs stood up on the back of Yann’s neck when he saw Darklings in the storm.

  “I told you they were here,” Eliska murmured. “They just need the right combination of Dark power and a shifting landscape before they come out of the Layers to take this Island, too.”

  “How can we fight them without magic?” Marine asked.

  “We’ll just have to fight them hand to hand.” Anríq stepped forward for the first time, unhooked his club and axe, and moved behind the party. He jerked his chin at Yvan. “Keep going on to the river. Take everyone with you.”

  Yann moved out of line. “I’m staying with you.”

  “I’ll stay, too,” Barsali offered.

  “We can’t all stay,” Yvan pointed out. “Eliska, you and Marine move up to the front with Neils and Niyazi.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Marine replied.

  “The rest of you fall in line and keep moving,” Yvan ordered. “Son, you and Barsali stay behind us with Anríq, but don’t stop unless the Darklings attack. Understand? As long as they hold off, you keep moving and don’t fall behind.”

  “I understand,” Yann replied.

  Anríq bowed and shut his eyes. “I will serve.”

  Yvan scowled at him once and then waved for the others to keep going.

  Neils and Niyazi went in front with Niyazi leading the way. Yann didn’t see any sign of the river ahead.

  Did the landscape shift overnight? The river with all that vegetation and animal life might not be there anymore.

  The Watch could wind up wandering around out here forever. They could be walking farther away from the one reliable source of water they knew already about.

  Yann had his orders and so did everyone else. Eliska and Marine took their places behind Neils and Niyazi. Yvan, Rien, Omer, and Vidal filed after them.

  Yann, Anríq, and Barsali stayed in the rear. Yann didn’t want to turn his back on that twister in case it changed direction and rushed the party unawares.

  He kept swiveling back to face the twister. He kept his glaive between it and himself—as if he could fight that twister with his glaive.

  Anríq and Barsali reacted the same way. The three of them continually took turns walking backward. One of them would warn the others if the twister rushed them.

  The twister migrated farther away toward the other river. The funnel kept shooting bones into the air and forming Darklings, but they never stayed Darklings for long.

  The funnel made it as far as the river before it shrank back into the clouds. All the bones fell out of the vortex, hit the ground, and bounced back into place.

  The twister left the landscape quiet and the bone fields as flat and empty as ever.

  The minute the twister vanished into the clouds, another rumble shook the ground from the group’s other side.

  Yann and his two comrades spun around. Everyone ground to a halt again starting at more Darklings coming out of the ground a mile to the Watch’s left.

  These Darklings didn’t need a twister to assemble their bones for them. Bones shifted on their stacks, snapped their ends together, and started to grow out of nothing.

  They got taller….and taller….and built on top of each other to make bodies, heads, teeth, and every other body part they needed.

  Their deep, booming roars echoed across the landscape. All the Watchmen closed in formation to meet the things, but they didn’t come this way.

  Anríq took a few steps out of line toward the Darklings. He still held his axe in one hand and his club in the other.

  He wouldn’t be able to do as much damage without setting off those magical explosions, but he would still be able to do a lot. He still had all his strength and fighting ability even without his magic.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The Darklings assembled themselves at a distance—and more kept locking together around the same area.

  Five of them put themselves together within a few dozen yards of each other. They didn’t seem to notice either each other or the travelers—not at first.

  The Darklings lumbered around, smashed bones under their enormous feet, and kicked bones out of the way. The Darklings roared at the inconvenience….and then the inevitable happened when one of them noticed another.

  The first Darkling rounded on its neighbor in a rage even though the second Darkling had just been standing there minding its own business.

  The first one charged it and they clashed in another tempest of flying bones.

  The Darklings didn’t fall to pieces this time. The collision knocked their bones out of position, but they magically sailed back into place, stuck to all the other bones making up each Darkling, and they battled on as before.

  They bellowed at each other, grappled with each other, and tried to throw each other to the ground. More bones whipped from the Darklings’ sides, jointed together at their ends, and formed tentacles to slash and strike.

  Long, curved, pointed bones jutted from the Darklings’ mouths to gnash and chomp.

  The noise and commotion attracted more Darklings. They assembled themselves out of the bone fields and charged inward from all sides to join the fight.

  They clashed, exploded each other apart, reassembled, and did it all over again.

  Yvan pulled everyone away. “Keep moving,” he ordered. “We have to keep away from them.”

  The Watchmen backed off. Anríq backed away last. He stayed where he was with his weapons ready until the two girls and all the other Watchmen headed off across the countryside. Then Anríq took the very last place in line.

  Yann fell back to join him. Yann didn’t want any of these Darklings getting the jump on the group.

  The Watch barely got moving before more Darklings started to assemble a few miles to the right. They grew out of the bone fields, fitted their joints together, and went through the same process of trundling around oblivious to each other.

  Then the moment came when two of them tripped over each other and it was all on.

  Two Darklings fighting seemed to magnetize more of them out of the ground—or maybe their Dark power acted on the surrounding bones.

  The fights escalated in brutality. The noise boomed across the landscape. The tension built to the breaking point.

  All that gathering power brought more bones together. The pressure crackled in the air and pulled the Darklings out of the ground.

  They attacked each other on both sides. “Pick up the pace!” Anríq called from behind. “They’re moving in!”

  Yann glanced behind him to see what Anríq meant.

  The two groups of Darklings kept getting bigger. They flanked the party’s track. The Darklings of each battle didn’t notice the other at first.

  The two groups of Darklings kept swelling as more Darklings gathered by the minute. The outer edges of both battles crawled across the landscape closing on the travelers from either side.

  Everyone set off walking faster, but not fast enough. The Darklings left only a few dozen yards between the two battles.

  Neils and Niyazi burst into a run. The rest of the party followed, and at that moment, almost as if the Dark sensed the travelers running from it, the two Darkling battles rotated inward and rushed each other.

  Anríq sprang backward and raised his club as Darklings closed on both sides. Yann tried to stand his ground, but he wouldn’t be able to fight Darklings made out of bones—not with a single glaive.

  Anríq swung his club and shattered a Darkling to smithereens. All the bones that made up its body flew apart—and then all those bones zoomed together into exactly the same shape. Anríq’s blow accomplished absolutely nothing.

  He turned from one direction to another striking thunderous blows with his club. He hacked his huge axe and snapped bones, but he couldn’t make a dent in the Darklings.

  Yann lunged for him and grabbed the back of his vest. “Come on! We gotta get out of here!”

  Anríq stumbled away and finally turned and ran after the others. The Darklings were too busy fighting each other to come after the group.

  That moment delayed Yann and Anríq and the two boys got caught in the confusion. Yann didn’t see the rest of the Watch until he and Anríq staggered between a few more battling Darklings and broke through into the bone fields.

  The Watchmen ran for fifteen minutes before Yann spotted trees ahead, but more Darklings erupted out of the ground and closed on the party from both sides.

  The Darklings put themselves together almost instantaneously now. They shot out of the bone fields and charged inward to attack each other with the fleeing travelers trapped in the middle.

  The travelers’ route set off a domino effect in the landscape. The Darklings appeared on either side of the traveler’s path. Yann didn’t see Darklings shooting out of the ground anywhere else but right on either side of the Watch.

  The emerging Darklings appeared faster and faster. The chain reaction swooped ahead of the travelers until Darklings ejected out of the mounds in front of the group.

  Darklings crashing together and fighting each other blocked the party’s way. Bone fragments and splintered shrapnel bombarded the fleeing Watchmen.

  Eliska and Marine both screamed, threw their arms up to protect themselves, and would have stopped running.

  Yvan rushed them from behind, grabbed Eliska, and pushed her forward. “Don’t stop!” he yelled over the noise. “Keep going! Follow Niyazi—whatever you do!”

  Omer caught up with Marine and got her moving with the rest. Yann and Anríq dropped back more than once to break apart Darklings that got too close from behind.

  Vidal and Rien wound up defending the girls from the middle of the pack. Neils and Niyazi had to fight their way through battling Darklings just to keep the party going.

  So many bones and broken shards pinwheeled through the air that Yann couldn’t even see any Darklings anymore. A hurricane of bone fragments and random trash revolved in front of his eyes.

  He and Anríq moved together, held onto each other to stay oriented, and pushed closer to the group from behind. Neils and Niyazi slowed trying to see where they were going. No trace remained of the trees ahead.

  The Watch packed together into a tight cluster for protection. The men ringed the girls with every weapon pointed outward, but no more Darklings came after the party. They didn’t have to. They submerged the Watch in a whirling mass of Darkness.

  Niyazi bent his head, squinted at the terrain in front of him, and held his hand in front of his face, but he couldn’t have seen anything over there, either.

  Yann didn’t understand when Niyazi yelled over his shoulder, “I see it! This way! We’re almost there!”

  Yann strained to see anything in the chaos. He and Anríq had to lean into the wind just to keep their balance. Yann didn’t bother to raise his glaive now. There was nothing here to fight.

  Without warning, Niyazi walked through some invisible barrier and vanished. Neils disappeared a second later and then the rest of the Watch evaporated one after another.

  Yann and Anríq were holding onto each other and the other Watchmen too tightly to stop themselves before they fell through, too.

  The wind died instantly. No more bone shards whistled through the air. In fact, Yann didn’t feel any breeze at all.

  He straightened up and blinked trying to get his brain to accept where he was. He and the other Watchmen looked all around them at a peaceful river valley winding through scrubby woods on either side.

  No dark clouds blocked out the sun. It shone out of a clear blue sky. Not a single bone lay on the ground.

  Yann and Anríq both looked behind them. They couldn’t see the bone fields anymore. Rolling countryside and low bushes stretched out behind them.

  Niyazi caught his breath. “This is it. This is the river I saw yesterday.”

  “You didn’t say it was like this!” Vidal pointed out.

  “No, it wasn’t like this,” Niyazi replied. “That barrier wasn’t there. The bones came all the way down to the river….and there was less vegetation….and the dark clouds were still there. It wasn’t sunny like this….or as beautiful.”

  Yvan frowned. “I don’t like it. Something must have changed it.”

  “Does it matter?” Rien asked. “We’re here now. This is where we wanted to go. You said we would stay here, so let’s stay here.”

  “Spread out and see if we can find a good place to camp.” Yvan pointed at everyone. “Niyazi, you take Omer, Vidal, and Barsali upriver going that way. The rest of you come with me. We’ll go downstream.”

  Niyazi, Omer, Vidal, and Barsali walked away. The two girls joined Yann, Anríq, Rien, Neils, and Yvan heading in the opposite direction.

  End of Chapter 5

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

  Don't want to wait to read the rest of the book? You can purchase the completed book, the whole The Corrupted Coil Series, and the rest of Theo ’Manns work at Theo Mann’s Amazon Author Page.

  Read Tales From the Coil: The Calling for free!

  Get these episodes delivered to your inbox before anyone else sees them. Find out how on Patreon at .

  Thank you for reading and thank you for your support!