On the other side of the road, soldiers sprinted down the hills toward us as more of them closed in from the roadway. With the horses gone, we were missing the barricade they’d provided.
As they rushed forward with their swords drawn, Ellery knelt and slammed her hand against the ground. A rolling thunder shook the earth and heaved it upward as a crack splintered the ground, tearing it in two.
The opening chasm zigzagged toward the soldiers pushing toward us on both sides of the roadway. As it tore apart the road, it swallowed everything in its way; weapons and bodies tumbled into the pit.
Seeing the crack racing toward them, the guards further on the hill yelled and tried to scramble away from the hungry earth, but their brethren blocked their retreat, so most didn’t succeed. Their screams echoed off the walls as they fell.
Bending, I slapped my hand off the ground, and another thunderous boom reverberated through the air. It rattled the windows on the carriage until they exploded outward in a cascade of shards.
Callan ducked away from it and almost lost the chest before righting himself. As he did so, guards emerged from around the back of the vehicle and charged toward Callan before realizing their deadly mistake as the fissure tearing apart the earth raced toward them. They tried to run away from it, but most lost the battle and toppled into the crater.
Callan, a few feet away from the opening, danced away from the fissure. His mouth gaped, and his feet moved so fast they barely touched the ground.
Unfortunately, his movements brought him closer to the next wave of guards coming around the side of the carriage. Callan released the chest and reached for his sword as Tucker pulled his blade free and, dropping down, swung low to take out the legs of the guard closest to Callan.
Flashes of lightning shot down from the sky as the whistle of more arrows filled the air. The guards, still covered by fog, had no idea where they were shooting or that some of their own were now in the target zone, and they didn’t care.
“Take cover!” I bellowed.
Unfortunately, Tucker and Callan couldn’t escape the wave of arrows descending from the sky. They’d become entangled with the guards who continued to come.
Pulling my sword free, I ran toward them while shouting at Ellery. “Get under the carriage!”
Fletcher grabbed his daughter, Scarlet, and scrambled toward the vehicle as Ellery knelt and slapped her hands off the ground. The earth heaved upward as, like waves rushing toward the shore, thunder rolled across the grass, up the hill, and vanished beneath the fog while more arrows pummeled the earth.
Circling a hand over her head, Ellery created a funnel of wind that didn’t quite form a tornado, but it swirled through the air over our surrounding area. The twisting funnel caught the arrows and spun them around.
Ellery threw her hand forward and whipped the projectiles at the guards trying to find their way around the fissures we’d created. The guards didn’t have enough time to evade the weapons.
Their screams had barely begun before the projectiles embedded in their bodies. The ones who weren’t injured developed a whole new fear of Ellery as their eyes flicked from her to their screaming comrades.
Fletcher and Scarlet poked their hooded heads out from under the carriage. I still had no idea where Luna was, but she was good at taking care of herself.
Lifting my sword, I brought it down across the back of one of the guards engaged in battle with Tucker. The man screamed ashe tried to recoil from the blow, but my sword remained inside him.
Fletcher and Scarlet emerged from under the carriage as Ellery unleashed lightning across the fields, driving back any guards still brave enough to come closer.
“Get the chest!” I shouted at Scarlet and Fletcher.
They sprinted for it as, from the dense bank of fog, the archers shouted, and some of them emerged from the silvery mist and ran toward us. Behind them, riders on horseback materialized like they were emerging from an entirely different world. Their hoofbeats, pounding the ground, shook it until pebbles bounced up and down.
For now, we were holding them back, but that would end soon. The riders would overwhelm us.
CHAPTER SIX
Ryker
“We have to go!”Tucker shouted as his sword clashed against a guard’s.
He grimaced as the guard leaned into him, using his heavier weight to bend Tucker back. Callan spun and, with a ferocious shout I never would have expected from the musician, he slashed his sword across the guard’s back.
I tore my sword free of the guard in front of me and brought it down across his nape, severing his head. Many of the others had fallen back, but the emergence of the riders emboldened them as they tried to navigate a way around the fissure.
“Not without the money!” Ellery yelled back.
A cold blast of wind whipped past me as it blew up the hill toward the guards racing down it. Lightning arced across the sky as snow fell so rapidly it caused the first wave of guards to vanish within its white wrath.
Ellery twisted her hands, spinning them around until a tornado of lightning and hail formed. She moved it across the field toward the riders as the blizzard she’d unleashed blanketedthe hills, turning them from green to white as it coated the riders and their mounts.
