The Hykah stood about twenty yards from us. How it crept into the courtyard so silently was beyond me. But there it was, its decaying, mangled body pointed directly at us.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Sebastian whisper-yelled, throwing his muscular figure in front of me.
Cautiously and silently, he backed up slowly, guiding us behind a stone column, not that it would be much protection from the monster awaiting us.
“What should we do?” I breathed into the back of his shirt.
His body completely blocked my view of the situation, but the tension in his stance told me enough.
“Move aside,” I whispered when he didn’t respond, tapping his shoulder blade. “I can kill it.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Oh I’m sure you can, love. But can you kill ten of them?”
Ten?
Rising on my toes, my lungs dried up as I peered around his figure.
A small army of Hykahs stood behind the first in a uniformed manner. The most terrifying aspect however, was not the number of monsters in the courtyard, but the magnitude of the one in the back of the group.
The final Hykah stood at least a foot taller than the others, and by the looks of its mangled, scarred flesh, it had been around for a while.
“Is that like…an alpha or something?” My voice shuddered.
“I’d say so.”
Sebastian turned, putting his back against the column and his face towards me. “I want you to go. Go get Kohen and the others.”
“What? No! I am not leaving you here alone,” I fought back, grappling at the front of his shirt.
“We need back up. We can’t take all of these on our own.”
A heinous screech spilled into the space around us, forcing my fingers to plug my ears.
“We have to,” I answered when the quiet of the courtyard returned. “So what do we do? Take them one by one?”
Without a response, Sebastian turned back around, hugging the column as he peeked around it.
I matched his motions, hiding my body behind his while I studied our opponents, their mouths drooling while they waited for our return.
Dark eyes locked on Sebastian and I, and the group of monsters screamed, the sound so torturous and high pitched that I hoped it woke everyone in the palace up.
“What. Do. We. Do?” I repeated under my breath, my lips barely moving.
As if it heard my question, the alpha growled, then charged at us, its deformed, gray legs cracking as it ran.
“We fucking run!” Sebastian hollered, turning and practically shoving me forward. “Get through the archway and behind another column!”
We threw ourselves through the opening and under a covered terrace. Behind the ivory stone, I took the briefest moment to prepare my mind to wield. Sebastian drew the dagger that he always had on him, but aside from the singular blade, we were unarmed.
“We can’t outrun them,” I stated the obvious.
“I know,” Sebastian said flatly.
“And we can’t fight hands on with only one blade.”
“I know.”
“Magic is the only option, but there's so many of them. If I can't control it?—”
