"It is done," he said.

Uhrwerk returned to where the storm troopers had a.s.sembled. The men had leashed the nachtmenn.

"Haupsturmfuhrer, detail your men to-"

It came crashing out of the brush, a giant creature shaped like a man. Only its body was malformed, one arm freakishly too large and the other too short. It was formed of clay and hatred, its head only half sculpted. Its mouth moved, silently screaming the rage of its creator.

Before any of the soldiers could react, it grabbed one of the storm troopers and lifted him above its head. The man's screams did not mask the sickening sound of wet canvas being ripped as he was pulled apart by the arms and legs, nor did the screams stop even as his insides spilled all over the clay creature. The creature took the dead man's legs in its strong arm and grabbed the next soldier with its small hand. Using the legs as a club, he bashed the man's helmet and skull in.

By the time it turned to its third victim, the storm troopers had recovered from their shock and opened fire on the thing. It absorbed their shots into its body, but the sheer force of hundreds of submachine-gun rounds began to tell, rending apart its midsection. It struggled against the tide of bullets but could barely stand its ground. The nachtmenn were released, and by force of numbers dragged the creature down. Their razor-sharp claws tore the thing to shreds of now motionless river clay. They didn't stop until no piece of clay remaining was larger than a fist.

Uhrwerk surveyed the scene. The remaining troopers were recovering as much as any soldier could, shocked and flushed but holding it together. Even the nachtmenn seemed shaken, like spooked horses. Only Der Schadel seemed unaffected. Two of the storm troopers lay dead-one with barely enough remains to be considered a proper corpse.

"It seems these Gypsies had a protector, for all the good it did them," Der Schadel said grimly.

Uhrwerk nodded.

"d.a.m.ned Gypsy magic," Jager said. "I thought he was here to protect us from that," he added, motioning to Der Schadel.

"Haupsturmfuhrer," Colonel Uhrwerk said to Jager. "Have the nachtmenn dig a pit. Have your men handle the remains. Every last shred of this entire encampment is to be buried before sunrise, including our own dead. We have a schedule to keep. The next camp is twenty-five kilometers east."

The rising sun broke the darkness only after the German field car and troop truck rolled out from where the encampment once stood. But another half hour pa.s.sed before Jaelle Lunc crawled out from the riverside brush where she'd been hiding since the raid commenced, interrupting her moonlight swim.

She'd seen everything.

Her first reaction-despite her instincts-was ingrained in her since birth. She'd cast a spell of cloaking that hid her body, mind, and soul from the invaders. The creatures would not smell her, the men would not see her, and the devil-sp.a.w.n skeleton man would not sense her. Nor would they sense the Sacred Tshurri she kept with her at all times. The Tshurri enhanced her spell and strengthened her magicks.

Safely hidden-as that was her first responsibility-she then called upon the magic that had been her birthright and her inheritance as one of the Protectors of the Sacred Tshurri. She'd tried to summon a clay guardian from the riverbed itself, but the shock of what transpired-those creatures tearing into her people, the screams of the children being stabbed-threw off her incantations. She could not concentrate, and the golem she'd summoned had been weak and imperfect. It was too weak, too little, and too late.

Now everything she knew-her families, her home, her people, her husband-lay buried in a fresh ma.s.s grave. Except for the freshly turned earth, it was as if they'd never existed.

Jaelle knelt at the edge of the grave. With steady hands she ripped a lock of her hair from its roots. The blood trickled down her forehead, mingling with her tears. She had promises to make to the spirits of the dead here, who would not rest until they were avenged.

She stayed where she knelt all through the day and into the night, when the moon rose again. This would be the whole of her pomana-her period of mourning. A day in place of a year.

At midnight Jaelle went back down by the edge of the lake to a cypress tree. The first daughter of the tribe's drabarni-the spiritual elder-it fell on her to protect the Sacred Tshurri. She'd learned its history, its powers, and the spells the Rom dabnari had written to change its effects on the living and the dead and the inanimate.

This blade-once possessed by her people in the fifteenth century, until it was taken by the Wallachian impaler of the House of Drculesti, then regained from his clutches in 1888-would now serve as her instrument of vengeance.

When the moon alighted the dew on the white oleander, Jaelle made her pledge of fealty to Martya, the angel of death.

She renounced her three Romani names, cutting deeply with a steel dagger into the flesh of her arm once for each name. She chose a new name as she bathed in the moonlight and blood. She hid this name from G.o.d and the tormented mulo of her family, so none would see the evil she would do in exacting her vengeance, restoring the balance of kintala.

Then she focused and pictured in her mind's eye the soldiers, the creatures, and the masked men who extinguished the light of her people.

She spoke her pledge in the tongue of the ancient a.s.sa.s.sins of her clan.

"Beshel lesko kam."

Your sun is setting.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

If you enjoyed.

Black Sun Reich.

Part 1 of Trey Garrison's The Spear of Destiny series, then don't miss Part 2 Death's Head Legion.

and Part 3.

Shadows Will Fall.

COMING SOON!.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

TREY GARRISON has been a newspaperman, a magazine writer, and a soldier of misfortune. He's a master in the kitchen, great at the gun range, and decent at Kung Fu. He lives in Texas. This is his first novel.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

By Trey Garrison.

The Spear of Destiny.

PART 1.

Black Sun Reich.

And coming soon . . .

PART 2.

Death's Head Legion.

PART 3.

Shadows Will Fall.

end.