A swarm of …creaturespours out around the side of the stable, and the moonlight itself shrinks away from lighting their faces. Descriptions I’ve read have chilled me to my bones, yet none of them were even close to the truth.
None of them were nearly horrific enough.
They look almost like men, but just different enough to cause my stomach to wrench with nausea. Men, but only if the goddess Corvynne combined animal parts with human ones. And not just any animal parts—only those of predators. Blood-drenched, lupine muzzles. Heavy, ursine shoulders and snouts. Even raptors are present in the monsters shrieking from beaks while their talons curl in preparation to tear and rend.
There must be twenty of them—no, thirty. And three of the gray-clad Zhagarn are with them, shouting orders.
Or rather, only one order, repeated over and over: “Kill them all and find the amulet!”
Kaelen whirls around, ripping his jacket off as he turns. He throws it on the ground next to me. “Soli. Stay here. Bern! Guard her with your life!”
Bern snaps to attention, raising his sword. Neville herds the sorcerer over to stand next to me, and the three men surround us in a loose semicircle, putting themselves between us and the approaching monsters.
Chitai, Andras, and Trick race to us, weapons at the ready. The Sylvan yells a high, wild war cry and fires his last arrows at the attackers before scooping up a quiver from one of the dead Zhagarn to continue his assault.
“Protect Soli,” Kaelen orders Bern, just before he …moves.
I, who for years and years and years read every book, tome, and scroll I could find, and can claim a vast vocabulary, can’t think of a single word to adequately describe the prince in motion. He prowls forward through the hail of the Sylvan’s arrows with a deadly gracethat combines liquid movement with perfect balance. The image of a Khyrran lion flashes into my mind.
The monsters jeer at this pretty prince coming alone to face them. When they lunge for him, though, he’s suddenly not there. At their every attack, he’s always just out of reach of teeth and claws and knives, although he barely seems to move.
Kaelen’s laughter is rich and deep and wild, a countermelody to the poetry of his movement as he slides through the Fell like a deadly Kraken whipping its powerful body through the Sea of Ice. He flicks his sword in tiny, precise motions that strike down every creature in his path. His body moves as fluidly as water, but there are so many attackers that I can’t understand how he avoids every blow aimed at him.
“Stay with Soli and Elianna,” Neville growls, then rushes forward to help Kaelen. And by “help,” I mean follow in his wake to double-check that everyone the prince encounters is dead.
He needn’t bother, but I’m sure it’s important to feel useful in these situations.
Andras drops his bow and scoops up a sword from the fallen soldier. He lays into the few Zhagarn and Fell who skirt past Kaelen and Neville, while Chitai hurls knives at the horde. Elianna comes back to herself and flings sizzling energy spheres at the attackers, leaving burning cloth and flesh everywhere they land. I move out of her way to give her room to work, wishing I had some way to help defend us.
Wishing, again, not to be useless.
Trick stands beside Elianna, dagger clutched in his hand and teeth bared in a grimace. I want to say something to him, but I don’t know why or what. Some idea of last words to my only friend, maybe? But when he glances over at me, his eyes widen, and he shouts my name, lunging toward me, staring at something over my shoulder.
Or someone.
I suddenly realize I moved too far away from my defenders when I stepped away from Elianna and her fire balls. At Trick’s shout, I instinctively fall into a crouch, glancing back to see an attacking Fell who must have been hiding in the tunnel. The breeze from his claws swiping at my head is strong enough to ruffle my hair.
My first instinct is to scream.
My second is to run.
I do neither.
I hurl myself toward Chitai, who’s engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of the Zhagarn. I snatch one of her daggers out of an ankle sheath. Then I throw myself to the side and stab upward with all my strength in the split second before the monster tackles me to the ground. My head slams into a rock, and I cry out, my vision going hazy. The amulet pulses with blazing heat that I feel even through the warded locket against my skin.
Hot drool from a wolflike muzzle drips onto my forehead. I just have time to think I don’t want to die with Fell spit in my hair when the heavy body flies up and away from me, and I look up to see the prince holding the creature in the air by the back of the neck.
Thedeadcreature.
Because the dagger I took from Chitai is sticking out of the monster’s chest, and its eyes are already glazing with death.
I scramble back and away, and Kaelen hurls the body to the ground next to him before holding out a hand to help me up. I take the help, not sure if I’m steady enough to stand on my own after that blow to my head.
After I justkilled someone.
Some … thing?
A sentient being, at the very least. I killed a sentient being.
