Shea held fast as Dane and Peyton reached them. The two streaked pass as Dane shouted, “Give us ten seconds and then begin your retreat.”
Shea voiced a wordless assent. It was all she had time for as the first grindle reached her. The beast’s fur was thin, and it resembled a hairless rat in places, its muzzle wrinkled in a snarl. Faster than its larger brethren, it leapt at Shea’s throat. She slashed, angling her blade so it came down at a slant. The creature hit the ground, only a thin piece of tendon and skin keeping it from being in two pieces.
Shea fell back a step as Braden and Trenton moved to either side of her, taking care of their own opponents.
They continued to fall back, meeting each beast with fierce aggression as they swung and hacked any time one got close.
A boomer barked from behind her, nailing the grindle in the side. It did little more than irritate it, the grindle treating the wound as no more than a bee sting as it stalked Shea and the other two across the bridge.
“It’s about to charge,” Braden said as the grindle lowered its head and scratched the stone of the bridge with one foot.
Shea held her left arm bent parallel to the ground in front of her, setting the sword on it as she firmed up her stance, Braden and Trenton doing the same on either side. She didn’t have a lot of confidence about being able to stop a charge. The grindle outweighed her by several hundred pounds. It would flatten her if she tried to stand her ground.
It leapt forward, its claws outstretched. Shea slid to the left, Braden moving seamlessly to give her room, and sliced with the sword, aiming at the tendons in the back of its leg. Trenton did the same on its other side.
It let out a cry as it passed, stumbling as it did so. It snarled as it regained its feet, shaking its head as it turned.
Before it could do more than stamp its foot, a barrage of arrows hit it, bringing it down.
Shea looked up, noting with a glance Trateri archers standing on the Keep’s curtain wall, Gawain a fierce presence among to them. She recognized him from his ice blue eyes and angry voice as he shouted orders, his men arranged in a long line, their faces masks of determination.
“Let’s go,” Braden shouted. He led the way, sprinting across the bridge toward the gate, Shea and Trenton right behind him.
A sixer climbed up and over the side of the bridge to stand in front of them, its lips pealed back as it gave them a macabre smile.
Shea and Trenton whirled to face the bridge behind them as it thumped, letting them know where the second sixer could be found.
The things had used the grindles’ distraction to climb down the underside and find a better place of attack. Now, Shea and the others were surrounded. Even with Gawain’s archers, Shea didn’t see an easy way out of this. He couldn’t fire on the sixers without risking hitting the three of them.
“I’m really beginning to hate this place,” Trenton snarled as he faced the sixer. He waved his arms trying to use noise and movement to intimidate it, but the sixer was no ordinary animal to be fooled by such things. However, Trenton’s antics were enough that it paced in front of them, studying them with dark eyes.
“Help Braden. We need to get to the exit,” Trenton ordered.
Shea nodded, joining the general as he feinted at his adversary in much the same way as Trenton had.
Before she could do much more than that, Fallon burst from the gates, a blood-chilling roar ripping from him, the warriors at his back a fearsome sight as he pounded down the bridge.
The sixer nearest the Keep, sensing danger, turned to face this new foe. Braden and Shea took advantage of its distraction, plunging their swords into its side and back. Its tail swept up hitting Shea across the chest, sending her sprawling.
Fallon reached the beast in the next moment, a fearsome expression on his face—a mask of snarling rage that rivaled anything she had seen on a beast. In that moment he was every inch the horrifying figure, the man the Lowlands called the scourge. The sight sent a thread of fear down her back.
His sword bit through the sixer’s neck as the men on either side of him buried blades and spears in its side, holding it at bay as it thrashed. Fallon jerked his sword free and swung it again, the steel descending in a killing arc that separated the beast’s head from its body.
Black blood arced up, coating his face and body. He rose, like something out of a nightmare, his burning eyes coming straight to Shea’s. He held one hand out to her, uncaring of the blood, fully expecting her to take it.
She did, slipping her palm into his as he tugged her close before pushing her to the gate and safety. He walked beside her as his men guarded their backs, keeping the rest of the beasts from them as they began their retreat.
Not until they were inside the safety of the gates with the rest of their people did Shea relax.
Fallon’s arms closed around her in a tight embrace as he lowered his head to press his forehead to hers. Now that the furor of battle had abated, she could feel the fine trembling in his arms.
“I’m fine. You saved me,” Shea said, keeping her voice to a soothing rhythm.
He lifted his head, an emotion running through his whiskey colored eyes that set Shea’s stomach to trembling.
“I suspect you saved yourself before I ever got involved,” he said, his voice soft as he took note of the bruises under her eyes and the disarray of her clothes.
She fingered a tear in his clothes and the dried blood under the fresh black of the sixer’s blood. That hadn’t come from the short battle he’d just fought. She raised worried eyes to his.
