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I slip off the back of Luri, letting her launch onto a tall twig-like creature barreling toward us. Her claws dig in as she wraps around his head and bites long teeth into his skull, swishing her head side to side until it separates from his body. The giant collapses, rumbling the ground as she tosses his head aside and locks onto her next target.
A boom rattles the air as magic explodes through the clearing, pushing the wall of monsters back. It’s a familiar magic. One I’m used to feeling in the air as we spar. Only they’re usually in the form of puppet ghosts. Lucifer stands, now dismounted from his horse. Crooked horns jut from his head as reddened hands push forward, drawing the force out. Finally, the Devil has come out to play.
Finn spins, lining his back up with mine as he cuts down enemies with a mix of magic and blade. I unravel my hands, pressing my palms downward and drawing magic from the dead. Blood lifts from the ground, swirling up and around my arms until a wave of it rolls across the ground. Once it’s far enough into the line of waiting enemies, I ignite. Flames ripple from my fingers, cascading over the river of blood and burning the monsters standing in their ranks alive. Screams and shrieks fill the air as bodies drop, clearing a massive hole within the High King’s army until his wretched face appears and he gets a front-row seat to the massacre.
A smile tilts his lips, but he doesn’t lift a finger. He doesn’t move a muscle. He just watches and waits. I hold steady, letting my magic curl out and take my victims, feeding my wave of power with their dying breaths. The High King leans to one of the men, whispering something in his ear. The man nods, lifting a crooked finger as a blue light shoots up like a firework and zips into the crowded battlefield.
A cry cuts through the sounds of battle and faint blue flames shine through the dark clouds looming above us. Moments later, the fury slices through the sky above us. Finn pauses behind me, and I know he sees the same thing I do. It’s kind of hard to miss a beast that large, especially when it’s a screamer.
“Shield!” He yells, as I drop my magic and start to do just that, then pause, watching the fury head straight for us—for me.The king is making a show of it, just as I did him. I showed him his army wouldn’t keep me at bay by desecrating all the dozens of creatures standing in front of him. Now, he’s showing me that his eye in the sky could take me out before I’d ever cross the gap.
“Let’s show him a lesson, shall we?”
Finn spins around behind me, and I can feel his eyes on my back. “Teach what?” he says breathlessly and slowly lifts his gaze to the hole I created in the High King’s army. “By the gods… I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I,” I admit, locking onto the fury, pulsing my magic out until it teases against its scales. “But let’s try it again.”
Finn starts to throw up a shield as the fury’s chest swells, ready to douse us in flames. The blood I pulled from the ground gushes up my body and over the magical tether, creating a rope. It slithers around the winged creature’s throat, cutting off the flames as I anchor my body to the ground. Earth swallows my feet as power pulses around me, sizzling in the air and dancing against my skin. Tugging hard on the tether, I force the fury’s nose to the ground. It slams into the dirt, sliding ruthlessly through the clearing, and crashing into the line of trees. Trunks rip from the soil, and other snap in half until the creatures stops, laying in a deathly still heap of bones. The blue-hued flames are gone, along with whatever magic controlled it.
Finn’s mouth hangs open as he turns to me, but before either of us can say something the spider-webbed man closes in behind him. I push him aside, yanking my sword from the sheath, and slash it through the creep’s body as his hand lifts. The power he pulls sizzles out as the man slips to the ground in two pieces.
A section of the collared creatures pause, retreating backward and wobbling on their feet. It’s as if the magic used to control them forms a haze in their mind. The moment they realize they’re free, they flee.
“How much you want to bet that if we take out the eight robbed fuckers, the High King won’t have much of an army to stand on.”
“I don’t know about that, Princess, but it might level the odds. We’re not looking so good here, even with the fact you just ripped a fury out of the sky.”
Scanning over the field, there’s not much gold left, beyond the last row of men ready to charge forward and a handful still fighting. Easily half our army is gone. The High King’s army severely outnumbers us, even without the monstrosity looming above and the collared creatures.
“Okay. For now, we split up,” I say, grabbing onto the necklace he always wears around his neck. I mutter the spell to enchant it, to render him invisible to those who would do him harm. “It won’t cloak you from everyone, but it will most.”
“You’re sending me to go murder a handful of sorcerers with some half-baked spell?”
“Not half-baked,” I smile at him and push him away. “Just enough to get the job done. Now, which side do you want? Left or right?”
His mouth forms a thin line as he blankly says, “Right. But I shouldn’t leave you to your own devices. I promised—”
I wave a hand, silencing him. “I just ripped a dragon out of the sky—” I pause to run my sword through a creature that’s running by. “I’ll be fine.”
Finn lets out a husky breath before finally agreeing with the plan. “But you’re taking this.” he reaches for my arm, holding my hand tight as he slides a band from around his wrist onto mine.
“What’s that?” Running my finger beneath the elastic.
“It’s an emergency getaway if you need it. Just break the band.” Finn says, gripping the back of my head to plant a kiss on my forehead. “Please don’t die on me.” Before I can process what the fuck just happened, he’s already running off toward the right side of the battlefield.
I work through the left side, ending lives as I go, and searching for the casters in cloaks. The spell I used won’t last forever, but it should give us enough time to level the playing field. I slice my sword, stabbing through a tree-looking man and ripping it out his side. Then another, and another. Which is surprisingly easy, seeing as most of them can’t see me.
Or it was until some globulous snail fucker nearly bumps into me. His body is like the Jell-O someone dropped off a spoon and he whips around to figure out what he hit. A large circular mouth full of crooked pencil-like teeth aims at me. A single eye floating within his body rolls, as two slit nostrils flare open wind, sniffing the air.
Goddamn… Someone really fucked up when they made you, huh?It’s like God decided to throw everything in the kitchen sink and called it soup. Choosing not to stick around, I tip-toe away just in time for some secondary creature to lurch out of its mouth and snap sharp teeth at the air where I once stood.Jesus Christ… Okay. Stay away from that one. Got it!
Reaching one of the robed figures, or rather a group of them, I charge through, split my sword in two and slash through them, dragging a blade through one’s middle. The other slices downward into the second’s shoulder and carves into its chest. Without skipping a beat, I yank the first sword free, flipping my grip and jabbing the tip behind me into the third’s eye. Creatures fall, either dropping to the ground altogether or regaining control and fleeing back to the woods.
Four down. Four to go.
24
Alice
