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“Get the prisoners out!” another soldier yelled as he slashed a Rivodian crow clean in half.
I grabbed my mother by the wrist, dodging sprinting soldiers and the beasts that chased them, careening around hounds that ripped the innards from bellies. I swallowed back vomit as I made my way to the front of the chain where there was a small break in the commotion.
One soldier was trying to corral the prisoners together as some kind of animal the size of a bull with horns and spines on its back charged toward him. I heard bones snap as the creature made contact.
“I’m getting us out of here, Ma,” I shouted more to myself than her.
I slipped between the chaos to the edge of the forest where it seemed to be clear and I ran, my mother in tow. Weaving through the trees, trying to keep her on her feet, I hiked my dress up as high as I could.
A noise straight from the deepest pits of my nightmares sounded — a low, menacing snarl that sounded like death.
It stood at least two feet taller than me, its large, blocky head cut in half by a massive jaw. It looked like it had no skin, only gleaming, rippling muscle, and its legs bent the wrong way. Thick fingernails — no, talons — jutted from hands that were far more human than animal.
It stepped toward us and I backed up, one step, two steps, until my back was against my mother and my mother was against a tree. The dagger at my thigh was useless against this monster.
Ingra had been right after all.
It lurched, tackling me away from the tree and ripping my mother’s hand from mine. Pinned to the ground, a talon grazed along my cheek as the animal cocked its head at me.
Oh Saints. Oh Saints. Oh Saints.
The past day had been one near death experience after another. But at this moment, with glistening teeth inches from my neck, talons the size of my forearm resting against my face and chest,I knew this was it.
Its neck was so broad, so inviting that I wished more than anything to slit its damn throat. If only I had unsheathed my dagger, held a sword,anything.
Blood showered me as the muscular creature’s neck opened in an explosion. It gagged, choking on blood as it poured from its mouth, splattering on my face. It began to waver and I pushed its massive body away, letting it fall to the ground in a lump that continued to choke and sputter.
I whirled around, looking for someone who could have thrown a dagger, shot an arrow… I saw no one but my vacant mother. And when I whipped back around to the dead monster, I met the glowing green eyes of a massive wolfhound, stalking toward me.
It jumped, easily catching my arm in its mouth. I was too stunned to fight, so in shock that the hound shook me like a doll, its teeth sinking into my skin. But then I heard a crack and a yelp and the hound released my bloody arm and fell to the ground, its mouth pried so wide that the bones of its jaw tore through the skin. Again I saw no one and no weapons around.
What the fuck?
Winged monsters dove only to explode into a flurry of feathers and gore that rained over me. One after another, beasts pounced on me only to have their skin ripped from their faces, their paws and legs and spines snapped, their throats slit. Some of them managed to catch one of my arms in their mouths, their teeth ripping at my flesh for only a split second before they fell, the wounds small but burning. I was finally able to get the dagger into my hand, attempting to strike, carving out any measly wounds I could as someforcemade animals implode around me.
The final animal came at me, paws as wide as my hands and claws almost as long swiping for my face. The beast let out a demonic roar as it lunged at me, but it was cut short as its spine was wrenched through its back, falling to one side as the rest of its body fell to the other.
At least three dozen animals lay dead around me, not including the ones so thoroughly dismembered that I couldn’t tell paws from snouts.
My arms and shoulders were covered in blood, only some of it my own. Puncture wounds and gouges covered my body, my hands and arms mangled by teeth, fangs, tusks, and talons.
I leaned over and vomited, my body heaving so hard that my vision went scarlet. What the fuck just happened? No one was around me. There were no weapons around, nothing to suggest someone had been throwing daggers. No spears or arrows or blades.Nothing.
I sank to the ground, resting my elbows on my knees, telling myself tobreathe.My mother was still leaning against the tree, her gaze as empty as before, completely unaffected by the sight of monsters exploding into nothing but blood and bones. My body felt like I’d been thrown off the Cliffs of Malarrey, smacked around by the sea, and left to bake in the sun. Every part of me stung and burned, my energy so depleted that the world began to go dark, a looming figure appearing in my vision as the color seeped out.
Ingra’s words echoed in my head.The beasts of the Onyx Pass…your blood on their jowls.
As the fingers of darkness began to close around me, I was lifted from the earth, and I remembered something else that Ingra had told me.
My Saints are showing me fearsome beasts laying slain in your wake.
