My lips trembled with the adrenaline, but my arms, spent and aching, remembered their training and clung to it.
If I didn’t stop more of them from entering the crater, we’d be doomed.
The snow underneath my feet turned red as a body fell behind me.
We were already doomed.
Too many.
There were too many soldiers.
I cocked another arrow.
The ropes twisted with the soldiers’ movements.
I missed.
The arrow once again burrowed itself into the ice. This time, it ripped a shard so big, the soldiers stopped moving.
It shook the ground as it crashed down, creating a deadly wave that surged forward, bowing the closest trees.
My entire body froze as the icy gust swept through my hair. An idea danced in the current.
A deranged one.
The crater’s betrayal could either save or kill us all.
But desperation demanded risk.
I turned, only to see one of the warriors who’d defended my back now lying on the ground, a hook sticking out from his chest, the light gone from his young eyes.
Bile rose, blazing up my throat.
I swallowed it back down.
“Retreat!” I yelled with all the air I still had in my lungs, the silencing spell vibrating with my voice. “Slowly, don’t make it obvious. Block their path any way you can. When I give the signal, you run the way we came.”
Vylkor’s gaze slashed toward me like a dagger.
For the first time, he looked truly terrified.
“Now!” I roared.
My insides trembled as indecision fought in Vylkor’s eye–and I wrestled my own doubts.
If I failed, we’d be slaughtered.
Finally, he nodded.
“You heard The Huntress!” he boomed. “Triangle formation, on the right.”
Through the fray, I caught Dax’s bewildered gaze.
“Cover me,” I mouthed.
I didn’t have to tell him twice.
Within two jumps and a swerve, he had his back pressed against mine.
