Page 180 of Keldori By Daybreak

Two new shadows appeared to run alongside the train.

“Nope. Go crazy.”

Ciarán pulled two more bottles from the backpack and launched them into the dark. The new rotsbane leapt for them and then burst.

A memory flashed in my head of a dark-haired woman standing between me and a towering rotsbane. I sat in the snow, small and helpless, as the woman—Ciarán’s mother—fired a metal arrow into the beast’s open mouth.

It was Ciarán’s first encounter with a rotsbane.

The memory dissipated as his thoughts turned away from his mother and to the rotsbane running along the other side of the steamcart.

A bright blast near the engine drew my attention, and I snapped my head to look.

“Eyes on the rotsbane, Blue! I told you to sit back!” Ciarán twisted us back around to face the rotsbane nearest us and held a glowing bottle up.

A second, larger explosion near the engine echoed across the carriages. Ciarán stumbled backwards, and the bottle slipped from our hand.

“Watch out!” Instinct procured a flaming blue Skal-shield into my hands as the bottle shattered on the roof.

Golden light burst outwards, and metal bits peppered the carriage. The blow forced me back, and a sheet of metal ripped from the carriage in the explosion. It bounced off my shield, and then spun into the dark of the night.

A rotsbane gave a ghastly wail and leapt for the hole left in the metal. The entire carriage shuddered as the monster rampaged inside, tearing through barrels and sucking down Skal.

“Dammit!” Ciarán regained control to bring me back to my feet. He launched a new bottle over the edge.

The remaining rotsbane caught the bottle in its mouth and then collapsed to the dirt in a burst of gold.

“Hey!” Ciarán yelled at the rotsbane in the carriage through the gaping hole in the metal, waving our glowing shield. “Up here!”

The monster continued ripping through barrels, uninterested in us.

“You’re going to need more than a Skal-shield to get its attention,” I said. “We can drop one of the bottles—”

“And set the entire carriage on fire? It’s full of Skal!”

“Do not interrupt me with my own mouth!” I snapped, and Ciarán took off running across the carriages towards the engine. “What are you doing? If we let that rotsbane destroy Tamora’s Skal supply, she’ll never give us that boat!”

“I’m working on it!” He solidified my shield into a spear, and the glow dulled into a metallic shine. The pressure from the volcanos pressed just a little more against whatever tether connected me to the earth, but they remained dormant.

“Careful,” I warned. “My magick—”

“If we get ripped apart by rotsbane, the volcanos will blow anyway.”

“Did I not just say not to interrupt me?”

Tiernan destroyed a rotsbane as we arrived at the engine, but a second one reared behind him. Ciarán launched us from the lip of the carriage roof and let the spear fly. It lodged itself down the rotsbane’s throat, and my body dropped into a forward roll as we hit the platform.

Ciarán stood to my feet and stalked over to the twitching rotsbane to pull the spear out of its mouth as it disintegrated into shadowy steam.

“The Grimguard has been teaching you tricks,” Tiernan grunted behind me.

I felt my face pull into a smirk.

“He is a very good teacher,” Ciarán said, and I replied, “Oh, shut up. He’s okay at best.”

Tiernan frowned, but Ciarán was on the move again, this time charging at Stanley where he stood between Tiernan and the door to the carriage.

Ciarán brandished the spear at his neck. “Inside. Now.”