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“We’re not looking for a fight.” For once. It wasn’t like us. But it didn’t matter anyway, because they moved toward us swiftly with drawn swords. A fight had found us.
One of the guards locked eyes with me and headed toward me.
Damyn’s broad shoulders blocked me, cutting off my view of his face. I turned, determined to watch Damyn’s back since he insisted on protecting me. But my men had formed a circle around me. Their protectiveness exasperated me. I slid between two of them, looking for a target.
Two guards ran toward us from the village. Damyn cursed beside me, seeing that I’d found my own fight, but I was already darting forward.
He cut down his opponent and moved to my side. The first enormous, lumbering guard moved slowly; one of his blows would throw me off balance, but I was too quick. The two of us fenced briefly as I danced around him, then jabbed into his kidneys. He stumbled and went down with a roar, whirling to get in one last strike. His sword glanced off mine, then slashed across my sword hand. I let out a gasp of pain, but my body was already moving. I kicked him in the chin, his head jolting back, and the sword flew out of his hand.
Damyn whirled to finish him. His powerful sword cleaved through the man’s head, but Damyn didn’t even watch the body fall. He already had moved on to the next attacker.
I stared at Damyn’s back as I shook out my aching hand, since I had nothing else to do now. These men wouldn’t let me fight. “I had that, you know.”
“I know, little dragon.”
His opponent’s eyes widened at the nickname, as if he’d just realized the prize within his grasp.
But the next second, there was a gaping hole in his chest, so it didn’t work out for him.
More guards ran out of the woods. Damyn gripped his bloody sword in one hand and put his other hand on the small of my back, forcefully escorting me toward the center of their band. Kallus had so many men.
Then Scourge boiled out of the buildings nearby. There were more of them than there were of us, a swarm that crashed into the ongoing battle with hissing and clawing.
“Wonderful,” Damyn muttered. “The battle wasn’t interesting enough already.”
“Looks like you’ll need me after all,” I said, stepping up beside him, my sword held at the ready.
But the Scourge streamed to either side of us, avoiding us. Damyn and I traded confused looks before they crashed into the guards. The guards screamed as they fell beneath the onslaught of terrible fangs.
When one of the Scourge raced toward me, Branok leapt in front of me, sword at the ready.
The Scourge stopped just short of him… and dropped to his knees.
Branok looked perplexed as he regarded the kneeling Scourge, as if he weren’t sure if he should swing or not when the Scourge wasn’t fighting.
The Scourge looked up at me with empty eyes. “Our queen.”
I stared down at him, confused. The Scourge had seemed impossible to command even after I took the crown, but then of course my powers had been under Kallus’s control.
But now… All around us were the fallen bodies of Kallus’s soldiers. And in front of me, all the Scourge were joining the first. With their fangs and fur blooded, they knelt before me.
“Honor,” Branok said out of the corner of his mouth. “Do you think you could get them to do that at Rylow?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to do anything to them… I’m not trying to control them.”
I looked past them, imagining that the village beyond was filled with corpses and destruction like every other time the Scourge had swept through.
Then a door of one of the houses opened. I tensed, expecting another fight.
But a woman emerged. She reached back, holding out her hand, and a small girl took her hand. The two of them walked toward us, uncertainty written across their faces.
Talisyn cursed and moved toward them, ready to protect them from the Scourge. They might have managed to shelter as the Scourge attacked.
But they didn’t seem afraid of the Scourge at all they moved past them without a second glance. One of the women moved toward me swiftly, and I had to stop my men from threatening her. I wasn’t sure if she was going to hug me or kneel, and she faltered herself before throwing her arms around me and hugging me. “My son and my husband! They came back to me,” she sobbed, her voice filled with emotion. I didn’t understand at first, but she pointed to two of the Scourge.
They were still tattered and threadbare versions of human beings, but they had their minds to themselves. They weren’t hurting anyone.
They were healed.
