After catching Robin’s eye for the briefest second across the far room, he dropped his head and went limp in the man’s grip. This exposed a good portion of the man’s upper body. But, as Ian expected, the beast had also anticipated this and quickly retaliated by lifting Ian clear off the ground to physically fill the space he had just vacated.
Fortunately, Robin had not released her arrow, as it would have hit Ian instead.
So Ian deployed the backup plan. He struggled for a moment, kicking his feet in the air to regain as much balance as he could from the unyielding grip that held him floating in place.
The man’s strength was impressive. He held Ian’s swinging weight with ease.
With another quick glance at Robin, Ian summoned all his strength. He swung his hips and legs backward to gain momentum, then used his stomach muscles to pull them forward, bringing his knees to his chest. Rolled up like a child, he had made himself as small as possible, leaving the beast-man’s lower body now exposed.
Robin took her shot.
The beast-man staggered.
Ian released his legs, looking down to see that Robin’s arrow had hit the beast’s knee.
The man attempted to retain his hold on Ian, but Ian now had an advantage. He kicked the beast’s injured knee and the man went down, dropping Ian to stop his own fall.
Ian tumbled to the ground, rolling away to both stop his fall and get as much distance as possible.
Then he stood to assess this new battle.
The combined castle forces had surrounded several of Gareth’s guards. The large beast-men appeared to be easily sweeping through their attackers, sending men careening to the floor. The Majis were attempting to support them from above, sending down shimmers of harmony magic that seemed to irritate the chaos beasts. Aden and Erich circled them, dashing in for short, hurried skirmishes looking for a weakness in their opponents.
Trusting his brothers, the castle guard, and the Majis to find a way to defeat the beasts, Ian turned his attention back to the dais. Back to his father.
But Gareth stood over Frederich once again.
Ian bounded up the steps, shocked to see that Gareth was still alive after taking an arrow to the throat. The arrow layon the ground, discarded. Blood seeped from Gareth’s neck, dripping both over and under his armor.
He was holding the glass beads over Frederich once again, soaking up the older man’s pain as chaos magic.
Drawing the sword at his waist, Ian ran the final few steps across the dais and kicked Gareth away from his father.
Gareth fell back, surprised by the attack. He landed on his side.
Before he could recover, Ian held his sword over the man’s neck. “You will die for your crimes.” He adjusted his weight, preparing to drive the sword in and hoping that it would be able to finish what the arrow had somehow failed to do.
Gareth had no fear in his sickly yellow eyes as he looked back up at Ian. “You cannot kill me.” He opened his mouth wide, baring his teeth as he practically snarled at Ian. This close to Gareth’s face, Ian could see small, pointed tips on the man’s front teeth, almost like fangs. He also saw the black centers of Gareth’s eyes grow suddenly large.
Horrified but determined, Ian drove his sword forward. Then, several things happened at once.
He was instantly shrouded in a darkness so dense that he thought he might have been blinded, but his eyes were still open.
And his sword, pushing forward to drive into Gareth’s neck, was met with nothing. Instead, Ian toppled forward, carried by the force he had put into the blow.
The tip of his sword did hit the floor of the dais, and Ian felt it scrape against the wood as he himself fell on top of the pommel he was holding. He staggered to the side as it dug into his stomach.
He released his grip on the sword and crawled on his hands and knees toward the side of the dais, feeling carefully with his hands.
He could still hear the battle happening on the other side of the room. No noises or shouts alerted him that anyone was aware something was wrong.
So Ian surmised that he was inside a cloud of darkness, like what Rigelt had created that day in the forest when they’d been running from Gareth’s assassins. He just needed to find his way out of the darkness without tumbling off the dais.
Using his hands, he felt along the floor of the dais until he found the edge of it. He swung his feet down. With his feet on the floor of the familiar room, he felt comfortable walking forward for several steps until his vision began to clear.
It was as he expected—a cloud of darkness surrounded the dais.
Gareth was nowhere to be seen.
