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Yes.I flex my hands, and fire bursts to life on my fingertips.I want nothing between us during this battle.
Darius’s laugh rings in my ears.Let’s burn it all to the ground.
the ancient
- Flint -
My heart racesas I stand on the edge of the forest road, the scent of damp earth and sap filling the air from the Bone Man’s rise.
The monster towers over us, its leaves rustling with hundreds of eyes. No wonder we felt watched while within these woods. We’d been standing right on top of the creature.
Roots writhe from its leg like tentacles. But unlike the younger monster we faced in the Bone Yard, this one seems held together better, its limbs more solid, and no stray roots thrust out of the ground to bat at us.
The ground shakes as it takes a lumbering step toward Clearhelm, crushing the trees before it.
Troy touches the hook on his belt. “I’m not sure we can haul away the pieces as they fall off this one.”
“I have an idea.” Amalia gestures for him to come with her, and they race to one of the SUVs.
“We need to split into two teams and hit it from both sides!” Sharpe shouts. “Aim for the nearest leg first! We can’t have this thing reaching Clearhelm!”
His people split into two groups, racing in opposite directions before they turn back toward the Bone Man and open fire.
Wood and bone splinter from the monster’s leg, but the magically explosive bullets don’t have the same impact on this creature as they did on its smaller brethren.
Trent raises a rocket launcher to his shoulder. “This should help!”
“No!” Sharpe waves him down. “Save that for when we spot the face! It will be somewhere within the forest itself!”
“Put down your toy, old man, and see how it’s done!” Amalia darts across the street, her arm flicking back and forth from the bandolier across her chest.
Tiny steel daggers glint in the sun as they fly and strike high on the monster’s leg.
Just as quickly, Amalia rushes back across the street.
“I told you that wouldn’t work!” Johannsson yells as he continues to fire.
Amalia holds up a hand. “Wait for it!”
A second later, a series of explosions race across the monster’s limb, sending large chunks of shrapnel flying.
The Bone Man shakes violently, the creak of a hundred trees sounding like unnatural screams.
Marc steps forward, sending a white-hot stream of fire into the crack created by Amalia’s blades, burning through thick trunks of trees and turning bones to ash. As the bones disintegrate, bright flashes of energy rise from them, the souls the Bone Man held captive escaping their unholy prison.
“Everyone, focus on making that hole bigger!” Sharpe yells.
With a target in place, his people focus their fire on widening the crack.
Trent’s team joins them, using slingshots to lob grenades into the fissure. Explosions join the crack of gunfire, the sound deafening.
The Bone Man shifts toward us, moving the bad leg backward, and I catch the flash of a face in one of the trunks to the right.
“There!” I point toward the whirls in the trunk. “Trent! There’s the face!”
“Hell, yeah!” Trent tucks his slingshot away and races back to grab the rocket launcher, bringing it to his shoulder. “Fire in the hole!”
Smoke shoots out the back, and the rocket soars through the air. It hits its mark, and the tree, along with those around it, explodes in a shower of leaves and bark.
