The Familiars: Circle of Heroes. Adam Epstein

      Aldwyn cringed from the foul stench gusting in over the eastern wall of Bridgetower. The full moon cast a glow on the macabre parade of approaching zombies, bathing every skull, ribcage, hoof, and paw in a harsh yellow light. Dead animals of all sizes, from great elephants down to swarms of vermin, were ready to attack.

      Such a fearsome sight would have caused a lesser familiar to tremble, but Aldwyn’s paws remained steady. He stood firm on the Tower Pub rooftop, exchanging glances with his equally stalwart animal companion, Skylar the blue jay. The third member of their heroic trio, Gilbert the tree frog, appeared far less bold.

      “Go to your happy place, go to your happy place,” Gilbert chanted to keep from panicking. “I’m picturing a bug-infested lily pad.”

      “An undead army never tires, never grows hungry, and never knows fear,” said Skylar, a bit ominously.

      “How do you kill something when it’s already dead?” asked Aldwyn. His question hung in the air.

      “If I still had my magic, I’d blast them back to the Tomorrowlife,” said Aldwyn’s loyal, Jack.

      “Well, thanks to Paksahara’s dispeller curse, we don’t,” said Marianne to her younger brother. “No human does. Not even Queen Loranella.”

      Aldwyn looked back out at the dead animal army to see a line of skeletal rams bashing their horns against the outer city wall. Decomposing corpses of bears slammed their claws into the battlements, trying to rip open holes large enough to force their way through.

      “It won’t be long before they reach the glyphstone,” said Dalton, the eldest of the three apprentice wizards.

      Aldwyn turned his attention from the outer wall. At the centre of the city, a large stone pillar covered in runic symbols stood outside Bridgetower’s House of Trials, guarded by the queen’s soldiers. This pillar was one of Vastia’s three glyphstones. These ancient monoliths had the magical power to summon the Shifting Fortress, but a glyphstone alone could not bring the Fortress forth. It needed to be surrounded by seven animals. And not just any animals. Magical animals. Descendants of the seven species that formed the First Phylum.

      These were the animals that Aldwyn and his companions were going to search for, and the reason why they had enlisted the help of Grimslade, Vastia’s most notorious animal tracker.

      Despite the rams’ continued charge, the strong stone barrier resisted crumbling, but it did not escape damage entirely: a few small gaps began to form in the wall.

      “So long as Paksahara remains hidden away in the Shifting Fortress, she’ll continue to command her Dead Army without fear of retaliation,” said Dalton. “Skylar, the map.”

      The blue jay reached a talon into her leather satchel and removed a rolled-up piece of parchment. She set the map down on the rooftop and smoothed it out with her wing.

      “We need you to find some animals,” Jack told Grimslade.

      “A mongoose, golden toad, wolverine, howler monkey, king cobra, bloodhound, and lightmare,” said Skylar.

      “We know where a few of them are, but most are a mystery to us,” said Jack.

      Dalton continued, “We already know a howler monkey who lives in Split River and a bloodhound who lingers in the Gloom Hills. But we’ll need your help with the other five.”

      “What’s a howler monkey doing in Split River?” asked Grimslade. “Last time I checked, most of them spent their days banging their drums high up in the Forest Under the Trees.”

      “She’s a familiar to one of our mentor’s former wizard apprentices,” answered Marianne. “They’ve been protecting Split River for years now.”

      Aldwyn had heard many stories about Banshee and Galleon from Skylar and Gilbert. He even remembered seeing some of the letters that Galleon had sent to Stone Runlet, bragging about his adventures.

      “If we pick up the howler monkey and bloodhound first, I suggest we then head north to the Abyssmal Canyon,” said Grimslade. “That’s where the mongooses and king cobras reside, deep within the broken crevices of the Kailasa mountains. I’ve tracked them once before with my Olfax snout. Give me that pen of yours.”

      The bounty