Which can only mean that the Myrkr is not all-powerful.
‘Rose, behind you!’ Caz yells out.
Levelling my sword I swing around with reckless abandon, and a sickening crunch meets my ears as the metal separates the vertebrae of a Rotting. But there’s no time for elation. A low hiss whistles through the air, and beneath my feet the ground withers. The Myrkr’s magic takes life as surely as my green magic gifts it.
Fen’s fear rumbles through me, but that’s a good thing, I tell myself.
We can feel each other,I say to him.Focus on that. There’s magic here. He’s not taking it all. He’s not unbeatable.
Maybe there’s also other magic he hasn’t taken. Something else I can call upon. With a flurry of hope, I will the ice to my fingertip, yet nothing but the biting cold meets my skin.
‘Come on!’ I scream in frustration at the Gods. ‘You want me angry to use my ice? I’m angry!’
It’s true. I’m fucking furious.
I getonelousy day with my bonded wolf? And just a couple of days with my brother? And now my life is to end with me bitten and clawed at by Rottings all because of some mythical nightmare that decided it’s going to stalk us through the woods?
Fuck that.
There’s a way out of this, a way we all survive. I know there is.
And yet the answer still evades me, as does my bloody ice magic.
Stoked by my fury, I scan around me, continuing to swing my sword through encroaching Rottings. As my blade cuts through the hinge of a jaw, my eyes fall on the Sannings. They are fighting with all their might, lunging at the Rottings and tearing their limbs from them with hand and spear.
Buttheyare the ones lunging, I realise. Not the other way around. Whether it is the lack of magic, or their fox garbs, or something else … the Rottings are not attacking the Sannings at all.
And maybe if I can find the reason for that, I can stop them coming for us, too.
The thought has barely formed when a high-pitched howl screeches into the air.
Fen.
My whole body seethes with pain as I turn to see the dire wolf hurling backward. The Myrkr’s steed’s back legs fall to the ground as if it has just finished a buck.
‘Hey! Not my fucking dire wolf!’ I yell as the horse’s glowing red eyes land on me.
I charge towards it, fury whipping me at the feeling of Fen’s pain, the action happening on instinct, long before conscious thought can catch up.
My eyes lock on the flaring nostrils of the hell beast, and I hold my sword with both hands as I thrust it towards the animal’s chest.
The weapon slides in, and smoke bubbles out. Any doubt I had that it was not a normal horse evaporates as a freakish wail rips through the air. Low and piercing, it blows the hair from my face as the horse-like thing’s knees buckle, but my mind has already moved past the injured steed and is now focused solely on the rider.
The sight of the Myrkr is enough to make my entire body want to recoil. Half shadow, its edges blur as if reality can’t quite agree on its shape, while beneath his hood is nothing but darkness. An abyss. An abomination. Death made corporeal.
Yet where Fen’s fear should threaten to overwhelm me, it does the opposite. It steadies. Reminds me of what I already know: it cannot control all magic.
It can be defeated. And I’m happy to volunteer.
‘Don’t let them scratch you!’ Kyor urgently reminds us as the Rottings continue their gnashing and clawing. As he sends another head flying, I’m barely listening. Even as a Rotting snatches at the air a hair’s breadth from my cheek, I slice through its arm with detachment.
‘They don’t care how many limbs we chop off,’ I say. ‘They’re not stopping. They won’t stop.’
‘Then we keep going until they are all dead,’ Stide replies as she lunges towards me, spear pointed towards a Rotting that has its eyes locked on me. Only as her blade pierces its skin does it swivel round and claw at her. My breath hitches, but there’s no need. Before I even lift my blade, its head rolls to the ground.
‘Thanks,’ I mutter to Stide.
‘You’re welcome, The Rose. I like you better breathing.’
