One of them was Layna.
My heart stopped, and I sucked in a sharp breath as she fell forwards and over the wall. A Phoenixian zoomed toward her at top speed, his arms outstretched.
He didn’t make it to her in time.
She landed on the clump of broken bodies below and … yeah, no, she wasn’t going to survive that. I knew she hadn’t when the Phoenixian yelled out his rage, lifting her limp form before the beasts could take her.
My belly did a nauseating roll. Fighting to swallow the lump in my throat, I zeroed in on the offending wyvern … just as Talon’s crackling whips pelted one of its wings. Said wing crumpled, and the creature screeched as it then hurtled to the ground.
Grim satisfaction lanced through me. I couldn’t believe it had killed—
No, I couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not here. The backs of my eyes burning, I trained my attention on the other wyverns as they came at us.
Again and again, I swung out with the scythe—slicing through wyvern scale, slashing wings, lopping off tails, hacking through claws, cutting into snouts and legs.
Again and again, they lashed out with their stinger-tipped tails like whips—and yeah, fuckingow. A few also managed to snatch someone with their talons only to promptly fling them on the ground. Other wyverns battled Phoenixians in the sky, snapping their jaws at their limbs and wings.
One stabbed out at my neck with its stinger. I hissed at the cold flash of pain and brought the scythe down hard, hacking right through its tail. It reared back with a screech, yanking back what was left of its tail so abruptly that it sprayed blue blood everywhere.
Nice.
The same wyvern swooped down, snatched an ork from the ground with its claws, picked it up … and dropped it right on the battlement in front of me.Fuck.
The ork snarled, a berserker rage gleaming in his eyes—and little else. He had to be in some serious pain—a mix of oil and wax stuck to his gray skin, melting it from his scalp and cheekbones. Yet, he didn’t hesitate to bring up his sword.
A shimmering energy blast smacked into his side, sending him sailing back to the ground below. I would have sighed in relief, but then I noticed other wyverns were dropping orks along the battlement.
Ah, shit.
Forced to divide our attention, we went at both orks and wyverns hard. Swords were swung. Cold orbs were thrown.Energy was blasted out. Delphiae called on their wooden armor and lunged at the orks. Lykaons and Nemeanites shifted and pounced, knocking down orks and savagely tearing chunks out of their flesh.
One ork almost shoved me off the battlement. Gritting my teeth, I went at him—carving, hacking, slashing, and stabbing. Finally, his dead body hit the stone floor … and my gaze clashed with that of Talon, who’d seemingly just decapitated another ork with his two-handed sword.
Relieved to see he was relatively uninjured, I went—
My eyes shot wide as a wyvern sailed toward him. “Behind you!”
He whirled, shifted his grip on the sword, and lunged forward like it was a spear. The wyvern couldn’t halt its descent in time—it pretty much impaled itself on the blade.
Another of the winged serpentines launched itself right at Justus, snapping its jaws down hard.
And bit off his fucking arm.
I gasped, but the sound got lost among his pained cry. A female Lykaon rushed to his rescue, clawing at the wyvern—which then snatched her up with its claws and dropped her to the ground below.
Fuck these creatures.
Satisfaction curved my mouth as the offending wyvern was swiftly and brutally taken down by a lash of Talon’s power.
I whipped my head to the side as I saw something rush my way.Another ork.It raised its sword, and I slammed up my scythe to parry the blow. We fought fast and hard, clashing blades over and over.
I swerved as he stabbed out. The sword blazed across my side, wrenching a hiss from me. I went to strike back, but my foot got snagged on something.The string of my bow.I kickedout, sending it whipping off my leg … but fell to my butt in the process.
The ork brought his sword up high but then stumbled to a quick halt, the life draining from its eyes. It slumped to its knees just as Ajax pulled back his spiked, blood-spattered mace and turned away.
I silently thanked him, shoving the corpse aside.
Right then, a wyvern landed on the battlement ledge right in front of me, perching itself there like a gargoyle. Its vivid green gaze bore into mine as a grating growl crawled up its throat.
