For one dizzying second, the entire battle looked almost beautiful.
Terrifying.
But beautiful.
Then something slammed against the gate hard enough to shake the hillside.
The magic rippled visibly through the air.
Ardetia lifted both hands from her broomstick, and silver light burst from her fingertips toward the fractured seam before the damage could spread farther.
Bella flew near her, fox eyes glowing amber in the dark.
“They’re pushing from underground,” Bella shouted.
Nova turned sharply toward the lower cliffs. “Goblins!”
A chorus of delighted goblin screeches answered from somewhere below.
Honestly, that probably should have concerned me more than it did.
The ground near the eastern wall exploded upward in a shower of dirt and stone as three goblins burst from beneath the compound carrying glowing lanterns and what looked suspiciously like dynamite wrapped in roots.
Twobble gasped proudly. “Tunnel goblins.”
“That feels wrong.”
“Very.” He nodded.
“I guess not all goblins are on the right side of magic.”
“Who ever said they were?” He squinted as he looked ahead.
The explosion that followed shook the entire east wall hard enough to crack part of the stonework.
Shadow creatures poured from the opening instantly, and wolves met them head-on.
The sound that followed was chaos, filled with growls, magic, and stones shattering.
Orc battle horns echoed through the hills, and somewhere beneath all of it, the low groaning pulse of the compound itself.
The place was alive.
I pulled the broom higher as one of the shadow creatures lunged upward toward us. The thing had no real face, only shifting darkness stretched over something vaguely humanoid, but when it opened its mouth, dozens of pale eyes blinked inside the opening instead of teeth.
Twobble screamed directly into my ear.
I reacted before thinking and flung a burst of hedge magic toward it.
Vines exploded outward from the broomstick handle itself, wrapping around the creature midair and hurling it backward into one of the towers. I hadn’t intended to fight. My goal was to find Celeste. But the creature scared me beyond words.
The stone cracked on impact.
Twobble stared at me. “Well, that was horrifyingly impressive.”
“What is that thing?”
“That’s a nightmare shadow,” Twobble muttered. “It’s dark magic, usually peers into someone’s mind and transforms into our deepest nightmares.”
