The scout held the detection crystal on one hand and lowered the enchanted spyglass from his eye with the other, looking into the darkness toward the enemy camp. He was still distant, but even so he moved cautiously as he circumnavigated their perimeter. He was less than a mile past the camp when the detection stone began to vibrate in his hand. His voice was barely a breath as he said, “Mark.”

He was ranging away from the enemy camp, paralleling the edge of the wild weave, getting intel, when his detection stone began to shudder more intensely. He went prone, moving the stone in an arc, trying to find the direction of the surge. Even as he breathed, “Mark, surge.”

Toward the enemy camp, the vibration in his stone became strong enough to make his hand numb. With a breathed command he disengaged the stone and tucked it in his pocket. “Mark, surge.” He murmured again as he lifted his spyglass to his eye again.

Beyond the camp, deeper in the wild weave, he could see a large cluster of bodies, light, and likely the source of the surge. He crawled forward, checking his spyglass every few feet, until he could make out details of the cluster of people.

“Mark, location. Report to follow.” His voice was barely breath, almost inaudible even to himself. The scout propped himself on his elbows and watched through his glass.

A circle of magic sand had been laid out on the grasses, smashing them flat. Within the circle stood what must be every Archmage, Mage, and Apprentice that the enemy had brought with them. They made the first ring of the circle. It was hard to see between them into the middle, for they were standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Inside their outer ring, there was another ring, this ring was made up of naked youths, none had reached their majority, but none were younger than teens. Each one had runes and symbols drawn upon them in brilliant iridescent ink. As he watched, the scout kept up a murmuring report.

The magi began to chant. A shudder ran down the scout’s back. There was something about the ritual that disturbed the scout on a level far below consciousness. Each of the magi reached for one of the children and the scout watched in growing horror as there was the brilliant flash of metal in the light. His voice, what little of it there had been before, choked off into silence.

Hundreds died in that moment as the ritual really began. Instead of falling, their red blood swirled toward the center of the circle, countless threads weaving over each other in a twisted mimicry of cloth. Though the scout was distant, he could imagine that he heard the enemy magi chanting as they performed their ritual, the words crawled over his skin like a thousand tiny spiders and he shuddered.

He watched in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The liquid cloth soon filled the center of the ritual circle and the blood had stopped flowing from the youngsters. For a moment the whole circle stilled and then something new began to flow into the middle from each of the youngsters. A thin strand of something so brilliant it seared the scouts eyes and left after images no matter how many times he blinked. Whatever the magi were pulling out of the youths, it began to sink into the liquid fabric that filled the circle. As the last of it flowed into the fabric, there was a blinding flash of light and an enormous sound of damp paper being ripped.

The scout screamed.