They areahead.
I skid to a stop, throwing my arm out to stop Aurora from running past me. The alley ends. It is a sheer, twenty-foot wall of black, weeping stone, slick with slime. A dead end.
I turn, my heart a cold stone in my gut. My back is to the wall. I shove Aurora behind me, drawing the human sword. It feels light and useless in my hand.
From the mouth of the alley we just entered, the Dark Elf guard appears. He is not smiling now. His own elegant bladeis drawn. The Minotaur fills the alley behind him, blocking all light, his horns scraping the walls, his eyes burning red in the gloom.
From the rooftops above, a sound of slithering stone. Two more naga—the one from the corner and another I do not recognize—drop down, landing silently, blocking the other exit.
We are surrounded.
Trapped. I am in a stone box with my mate, facing five armed enemies.
The Dark Elf guard takes a slow step forward, the tip of his blade tracing a line in the mud.
"Nowhere to run, beast," he hisses, the oily confidence back in his voice. "The bounty is mine."
I look at the small, pathetic human sword in my hand. I look at the terror in Aurora's eyes, hidden in the shadow I cast. I have failed her. I failed my clan. And now, I will die in a filthy alley, reeking of piss.
28
AURORA
Iam crushed against the slimy, cold stone wall, my hands flat against the weeping brick. Othic is a mountain in front of me, his back to me, the hated slaver's sword held in a low, ready grip.
The Dark Elf guard is at the alley's mouth, his own blade gleaming. He is flanked by the massive, snorting Minotaur, whose horns are so wide they scrape the walls on either side. The two naga drop from the rooftops, landing like spiders, their scaled bodies uncoiling in the filth behind us.
Five of them. We are in a stone box.
Thesmellis overwhelming. The alley’s stench of piss and old garbage is now choked by the Dark Elf's cloying perfume and the hot, musky, animal-sweat smell of the Minotaur. I can hear the Minotaur's heavy, angry breathing, a low rumble in its chest. The naga are utterly silent.
This is it. This is where we die. He is one orc with a bad sword. He cannot fight five. He is going to die for me. He should have left me at the Scildborg.
"Nowhere to run, beast," the Dark Elf hisses, his voice slick with oily confidence. "The bounty is mine."
"Bounty ismine!" the Minotaur roars, a sound of pure, stupid greed. He lowers his head and charges.
The alley is too narrow for him. He is all momentum and no thought. Othic does not meet him head-on. He does not even seem to tense. He is not a wall; he is a shadow. He simplymoves, sidestepping at the last possible second.
I hear the sickeningscreechof horn scraping against the stone wall where Othic was just standing. The Minotaur bellows in pain and frustration, its head wedged for a split second in the narrow space.
Othic does not use his sword.
He pivots. His entire body coiling. He grabs the Minotaur's cracked horn with both hands androars. He uses his full, healed strength toramthe Minotaur's head into the opposite wall.
There is a wet, sickeningcrunch.
He does it again.CRUNCH.
The Minotaur slumps, groaning, and collapses to its knees, its massive body blocking the alley.
Oh gods. He... he is not just fighting them. He is dismantling them.
The two naga see their chance. They are not stupid. They movearoundOthic, their movements liquid and fast, their slit-pupiled eyes on the "property." They are trying to get tome.
They lunge at the same time, one high, one low.
Othic moves with a speed that I did not think was possible. He spins, parrying the high lunge with the slaver's sword. Theclangof steel on steel echoes in the alley. In the same motion, his other hand—his left, hishealedhand—shoots out and catches the second naga by the throat.
