It’s relentless. It comes at me again and again, and I can’t overpower it. It has no muscles. No bones. No eyes or jugular. There are no weak spots because it’s not a body. It’s like fighting a moving boulder.
The edges of my blade are getting blunted, my armor damaged. All around me, I hear the struggles of more fights. Hear the unmistakable sounds of death.
The statue soldier sends a fist against my armor and sends me flying again. I’m stunned from the pain that flares through my chest, my armor dented from the impact of his hit.
I get up, breath still knocked out of me, but look around and see dozens of them surrounding us, and more coming. In the distance, I can make out a castle, and the bridge, and between us, hundreds more fae soldiers.
My stomach doesn’t just drop. It plunges down into a void.
We can’t win this.
The realization hits me harder than the stone statue ever could.
My gaze swings around in a daze. There are bodies of people and timberwings lying dead in the snow. More fighting, everyone being overpowered by these hellish statues that we can’t defeat.
I can’t see Judd, can’t see Lu. Have no idea where Osrik or Digby are. We’re outnumbered, caught unawares. All our strategy and luck and heart just battered right the hell out of us in an instant.
Queen Kaila is in the air, her timberwing narrowly missing another one of those nets of electrocuting light. Her magic screams through the air, threatening to burst my eardrums, but it doesn’t affect the statue I’m fighting since it has no fucking ears.
King Thold is on the ground with his soldiers, and I see Second Kingdom too. But we’re falling left and right like felled trees.
Even the serpent king’s magic isn’t doing any good. Fangs and venom and constriction are useless against moving rock. The snow serpents that rush out of the snow do nothing to slow our opponents.
But…this is the Stone King’s magic.
My mind claws with desperate nails, trying to latch onto a plan.
If we can take the fae king down, we can take down these statues too.
When the statue comes for me again, this time, I race toward it. As soon as it raises its arm to swing its weapon, I shift my body and use the slick snow to my advantage, sliding right beneath its arm.
Then I sprint. Focused only on the need to outrun my opponent and find the king.
There’s so much fighting going on that I can’t track it all. My pulse is erratic, my breathing labored, and behind me, I hear the sound of grinding rock from the statue as it chases after me.
But then I hear someone cry out hoarsely, and my head whips around as I see Digby fall into the snow. His head knocks back into a snowbank, and his helmet flies off. He struggles to grab the sword that fell just out of his grip, but one of the statues is bearing down on him, moving its weapon to strike.
To kill.
I pump my arms, legs racing as fast as I can to get to him, but I’m too far away.
Too fucking far.
Panic bursts through my stomach and burns up my throat. First Judd, and now I’m about to watch Digby get struck down too.
I try to push my body, to eat up the distance, but the statue raises its sword and starts swinging it down, and my heart stops as Digby raises an arm in front of him, fear flashing over his face where he lies on the snow.
But suddenly, a timberwing swoops down from nowhere. The big beast slams its outstretched talons against the statue, gripping it by the arm. With a roar, the bird flings it at another statue, causing them both to crack and fall.
“Digby!” I reach him in five more steps and then wrench him up from the snow.
He swings his head to look at me, but then his eyes shift over my shoulder and go wide. “Duck!” he bellows.
I drop to the ground without pause, and I feel the air shift above me, hear the whistle from a sword swinging where my head just was.
That was close.
Spinning around on the ground, I sweep my leg and knock the statue’s foot out from under it. The walking rock goes tipping back, falling hard, its weight making it sink deep into the snow.
