Bogwaithe. Neither ghost nor vayash moru, a bogwaithe was old, tainted power.
"Show yourself!" The image that formed in his mind was of a washer woman hunched over her tub. She turned and straightened. A cadaverous face was pale beneath her ragged cowl, eyeless and evil. Without warning, the hag stretched to twice the height of a tall man, a dark, cold presence with arms much longer than any living being. The bog lights began to coalesce, gathering around them until the crossroads was bathed in an eerie green glow. Tris felt the shadow lengthen toward him as the long arms stretched out.
On the front line, archers sent a wave of flaming arrows toward the fast-moving shadow. The arrows flew toward their target, then winked out suddenly, swallowed whole by blackness. A line of men bearing torches advanced shoulder to shoulder. The darkness consumed them. Their screams filled the cold night.
"Fall back!" Tris heard General Tarq order. "Leave this to the mages!"
Around them, men broke ranks and ran from the darkness. Mages sent balls of flame lobbing into the shadows. The darkness drew back, but did not yield.
Tris stretched out on the Plains of Spirit, gathering his power. He extended his senses, feeling for the bogwaithe's soul. The bogwait-he was a creature of the Plains of Spirits, a sentient being neither dead nor alive, but soulless. Some of the things on the Plains of Spirit had never been mortal. They were dark beings that envied the warmth of human life and the spark of human souls. Tris felt the brush of its long, shadowed arms seeking his life force. On
the Plains of Spirit, he saw the being behind the shadows; a pallid thing, partially decomposed, surrounded by the green glow of the bog lights.
Tris raised his hands and magic streamed from his fingers, sending a force toward the bogwaithe that hurled boulders through the air. The bogwaitbe was undeterred. It was near enough now that Tris could feel its hunger and sense the danger in the shadows that searched for the spark of his soul.
"Cover me!" Tris shouted to Fallon.
Tris willed himself fully into the Plains of Spirit, feeling the ties to his mortal form sunder as his body fell to the ground. Pure spirit, Tris moved fluidly on the nether plain. Tris glided toward the darkness that was the bogwaitbe. And in the bogwaithe's realm, Tris knew its weakness.
Before the bogwaithe could withdraw from the mortal world, Tris summoned his magic. Drawing on his own life force, Tris called both flame and power, drowning the bogwaitbe in a brilliant, fiery flare. The bogwaitbe screamed. The ear-splitting wail seared through Tris as he concentrated all of his power to keep the bogwaitbe pinned in light and fire. His life force was flickering. If he did not return quickly to his body, he would die. The damaged Flow made it difficult for him to focus his power, as if the magic itself were splintering.