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When I reach the other side, I look in both directions frantically looking for an escape and see the torches lining the massive stone fence on both sides of me. But more than that… I see a hoard of shadow beasts moving toward me from each direction. My instinct is to run, but there’s nowhere to go. Just the moat, the fence I couldn’t climb if I had all day, the castle behind me, and the shadow beasts to both sides.
No wonder Phantom didn’t try to stop me.
My heart pounds in my ears and my feet are rooted to the ground.This was pointless.Even if I use my light, one of them will make it to me, and then it’s over.
Growls rise up from all around me, and I know it, I know I’m about to be torn to shreds. Heart hammering, I move back toward the door. I’m half-crouching, ready to fight, even though I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Maybe, just maybe, I can go back the way I came and find a less well-guarded exit.
Unlikely, but possible.
When I turn, Phantom is standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulder leaned against the doorframe.Was he going to just stand there and watch them feast on me?That’s how it looks anyway. Although, I was brought here for a purpose, so maybe he would’ve called off his creatures.
But I’ll never know because when I get close enough, he yanks me inside and shuts the door behind us, trapping me in the shadowy castle once more.
TWELVE
Onyx
We’d barely had time to sleep and heal, at least to the point where every moment wasn’t pure agony, when they came. The rot monkeys. They’d poured out of the Void in a miles’ long stream, suggesting that whatever final play the Shadow King planned, it was coming for us. I cut down as many as I could from one side. Dusk did the same beside me. But there were so many. Too many of them. And as the hours passed, we tired.
The night is long and full of death and darkness. Endless. Overwhelming.The thoughts haunted me as I fought until at last the monkeys slowed.
But if I thought that was the end of this night of fighting, I was wrong.
I’m engaged in battle with an aggressive grave troll right now. He’s slower than the rot monkeys, which is usually my main advantage against their larger size, but tonight I’m slow too. I’m standing on a leg that moved past the aching stage and into sharp pain a few hours ago.
Trying to adjust my weight from my leg, I look away from the troll for the briefest moment. He attacks faster than I thought possible, slicing my arm from shoulder to elbow. Blood pours out, running down my arm and painting the ground.
The pain is unbearable, but when the troll tries to severe my head from my shoulders with his sword, I manage to slip to the side and slice off his head before stumbling back, nearly crumbing to the ground.
My gaze catches Dusk’s and his eyes widen. He finishes off the troll in front of him with a reckless move that was either going to kill the troll or get him killed, but he’s making his way toward me. There’s concern in his expression as he moves away from the Void. It’s obvious that he knows what I’ve already come to accept.
We’re losing. We can’t keep going.
The smell of my blood attracts more of the damn rot monkeys, for some fucking reason. Probably hunger, the disgusting creatures, and I have to steady myself, to ignore the way the world tilts around me if I don’t want them feeding on me. I fight off as many as I can, with my sword swinging wildly around me with my good arm, before I have to retreat because for every one I beat back, two come from the Void at me.
Dusk is suddenly there, stomping on the last few rot monkeys near me. Then, he takes something, lights it on fire, a fire that grows rapidly, and throws it toward the Void. It explodes into a sea of light, embers, and ash, and the rot monkeys race toward it.
“It’s over,” Dusk signs to me, then grabs my good arm and starts to run away with me. I think he’s guiding me at first, but then I’m leaning harder and harder on him until he’s almost carrying me. My sword drops. He stops and picks it up, then keeps going. The world around me is dark, darker than the night.
We make it into a cave, but my head is spinning so hard I don’t recognize it. Dusk helps me around the corner, into the darkness, and then we’re going down, clumsily. He stops and pushes me against the wall, before he leaves me. Unexpectedly, I fall and then just lie on the dirt, feeling lost and confused.
Then, light blazes to life and Dusk is standing over me. I watch him as he rolls a stone over the entrance, and then he puts down the torch beside me and signs, “You’re going to be okay.”
I want to say that I’m not sure, but my arms aren’t working. He manages to get me back on his shoulder and grabs the torch with his free hand. From there, he drags me further and further down a tunnel until we come to a small cave underground. We’ve stayed here before. When, I can’t remember, but he sets me down and builds a fire in the center of the cave, using the wood we always try to leave for emergencies.
Normally, I’d be helping him right now. But I try not to move, try to save my strength for what will be needed next. My mind goes to my sweet Ann, and I try to pull my thoughts away but fail. I miss my mate. I miss us being a team. Without her, I don’t have anyone to heal me, and pain burns up and down my arm. Without her, it feels like I have nothing.
Nothing but the hope of getting her and Phantom back.
The light from the fire grows until Dusk moves away from it and looks back at me. His expression as his gaze runs over me is grim, but when he catches me staring, his face goes blank. He moves closer, kneels down, and studies my wound for a moment before pulling out his water and pouring it over my arm.
I’m pretty sure I hiss. I can’t hear the sound, but my mouth forms it. Dots form in front of my vision, and I realize I’m taking rapid breaths, breaths that could lead me into a panic, so I force myself to breathe slower. It’s a trick all soldiers learn and one I know I’ll need to use if I’m going to get through what’s going to happen next.
The water stops. Dusk stares down, then signs, “I can sew that up.” He reaches for his bag and pulls out a medical pack.
He’s not as gentle as Ann’s light would be stitching up my wound, but it’s better than bleeding out, so I don’t complain. And he’s talking like I can hear him, rambling like he does, at least according to the movement of his lips. But I’m not really focusing on the words his mouth is forming while I put all my effort into not punching him while he stitches me up.
At last, he finishes, and I collapse back.Okay, alright. We’re safe, for now. The shadow creatures are running wild on earth, but at least we’re safe.So, I turn back and focus on Dusk’s rapidly moving mouth as he washes his hands.
