Dorian said our auras should be invisible to the creatures. Was he wrong? A bead of sweat trailed down my neck as the creature grew closer, snorting. Dorian growled beneath his breath as the wildling also inched closer with the moving herd. It was filled with dark energy. Could Dorian control himself?
The approaching velek stopped a few feet away and gave a pealing bay similar to a bloodhound. It made no move to attack us, just stood, its creepy eyestalks twitching back and forth as it tried to get some visual evidence of us.
More of the herd pulled away from the moving current and headed our way. None of them made noise, but our original betrayer continued his baying, getting more and more frantic.
Please be quiet.
It was a lost cause. The dark wildling turned its head toward us, revealing a golem-like face that looked like it had been poorly carved from rock, all jagged edges and odd angles. My body froze with foreboding. Could it see us? Dorian hissed something like a command, but the velek with the gem continued baying, and its comrades continued to accumulate around our hiding place. The wildling reached for something that hung around its neck on a thin cord.
Dorian growled and exploded into movement, rushing toward the wildling.
It was too late. The wildling produced a horn, and the sound resonated clearly in the heavy air, seeming to grow and fill the entire valley. It was a sound I hadn’t heard since the first time I came to the Immortal Plane.
Dorian’s angry snarl sent a wave of dread washing over me.
Despite not knowing what this sound would unleash, I knew one thing for certain.
It meant trouble.
Chapter Nineteen
The blast from the wildling’s horn faded slowly, the echoes slipping out of the air like oil off water.
Dorian’s eyes flashed with hunger. His fangs descended fully as the last ounces of his self-control disappeared. I lunged for him, but he was faster. He vaulted around the velek toward the dark wildling with another rabid snarl.
I rushed after him, but the velek were stubborn. Instead of scattering like I expected from herd animals, the velek lowered their antlers and began a chorus of bays and bellows. The ones closest to Dorian charged him. A velek in front of me knocked me back with a toss of its large, impressive antlers, the distressed faces in the bone mocking me as they slammed into my side and shoulder. I darted out of the way of another oncoming velek. I needed distance or altitude, since they would likely overwhelm me if I tried to run. I scrambled up the rocks we had been hiding between, clinging to the thick vines and thankful they didn’t cut or poison me. So much for not touching anything.
Another velek rammed the rock, breaking off a plate-sized slice. I clung to the vines, jamming the toes of my boots into cracks in the otherwise smooth rocks. From this vantage point, I watched as Dorian dodged the oncoming velek. The herd slowed his pace, but he expertly avoided their intimidating antlers. He bounded like a skipping rock between the charging creatures, each move taking him closer to the squat wildling. It turned to run, releasing a panicked cry before trying to blow its horn once more, but it was too late.
Dorian tackled the wildling, cutting the blast off suddenly. A grating scream, like rocks grinding together, filled the air as Dorian’s fangs sank into the wildling. Apparently, the rock-like flesh was only a shell of some kind and was easily punctured by vampire fangs. The velek herd immediately stilled, milling around aimlessly, except for the one with the gem in its forehead. It reared abruptly and tore off over the hill, baying all the way.
The vampires had mentioned that the wildlings controlled the creatures. It had been making it harder for us by pinning the herd against us, but now the wildling was helpless. I had to look away toward the shivered edge of the aspen circle as Dorian drank from its rocky form.
Pushing through the wandering velek, Kane and Arlonne ran up. Arlonne immediately joined in the feed, while Kane hung back with an amused smirk.
“Oh, good. I didn’t need to help you take care of one wildling,” he said. “As soon as we heard the horn, we thought you’d lost your edge. Imagine struggling with a little stone goblin.”
“Where are the others?” I asked, scrambling down from my perch up in the rocks, my throat tightening with concern. Had the horn called more wildlings or something worse?
Kane pointed up. “Sent the humans up on redbills with Sike guiding them. We have to keep our humans and non-warrior vampires away from the action. It’s better that they’re ready to fly at a moment’s notice.”
I tried to ignore Dorian and Arlonne’s nearby feast, instead focusing on Kane’s words and face. As the other two vampires fed and the source of darkness was drained away, I noticed that Kane’s brow relaxed.
In the sky, two redbills carrying the rest of our team circled, close enough to land if they needed to. As I considered the distance, a shriek caught my attention. Drigar let out another war cry as he flew toward our group, a second redbill in his wake. He whipped past us, and Dorian jerked his head back with a sudden grimace. The wildling’s bronze blood dripped from his mouth and chin. The shadows beneath his skin darkened with his new strength.
“They’re here,” he breathed hoarsely. “We need to move. Now!”
A hazy, sinuous shape rose and fell through the swirl of clouds and soul-lights. There was the far-off sound of beating wings. Kane let out a sharp whistle to call down the redbills carrying our team.
I spotted the shrieking decay first, its terrible body contorting as it flew—not as fast as our two unmanned redbills but still very fast—through the sky toward us. This one was smaller than the one we’d fought in the Mortal Plane at the ski resort, but it was still double the size of a very large crocodile and covered in black scales. It twisted toward the redbills, and Drigar screeched angrily.
Sitting atop the shrieking decay were three figures. The wildling was obvious, with its onyx rocky form, but the other two were more difficult to make sense of. Their silhouettes shimmered in a similar way to the glamor around the tree circle. I couldn’t see features or weapons, but just their presence was enough to send a pulse of raw fear through me.
I couldn’t feel darkness in a soul, but with these creatures, I didn’t need a vampire’s senses. The menace and ill intentions were easy to pick up on. I knew without a doubt that these were the Immortal enemies the vampires had been so reluctant to talk about.
My eyes registered long bluish hair whipping in the wind before our redbills attacked. Suddenly, a flash of teal light blazed through the air from the back of the shrieking decay. The smell of burnt leaves rose up before it struck Sike and Bryce’s redbill clean in the side. The redbill cried out—a terrible, shrill sound of pain—and tumbled from the air. I heard Bryce and Sike scream as they plummeted toward the ground, still clinging to the wounded redbill’s back.
“Hunters.” Arlonne jumped up, snarling, her face marred with bronze blood. The wildling beneath her and Dorian lay lifeless on the ground.
My fear of the shrieking decay’s riders was a flickering shiver of dread, as fast moving as the trees in the grove, but now it turned to cold anger. I was not letting anyone on my team die here by this stinking lake in the middle of nowhere, a world away from my home. It was not happening—not on my watch. My head cleared, and I felt my analytical mind kick in. Maybe I wasn’t a soldier of this plane, but I was still a soldier. It was time to do my job.
From my last tangle with a shrieking decay creature, I knew their spine was vulnerable if we could get to it. The teal light obviously consisted of some kind of magic. The laser-like consistency of the beam reminded me of the X-75s. The hunters riding the shrieking decay were the source of the magic, so I needed to find a way to take them out somehow. Maybe they needed a weapon to fire it that we could try to destroy.
Bryce and Sike were still on the redbill, sprays of black blood scattering into the sky around them from their wounded mount as it fluttered erratically toward the ground. I saw a brief flash, and the shrieking decay gave a g
urgling wail, tossing its head as something struck its thick neck. It seemed Bryce had gotten lucky with a silenced shot from one of his guns, before their redbill fell into the gleaming black boulder field. It looked like it would be a messy landing, though I didn’t see where they came down. My fists clenched. I hoped they were all right.
“The redbills can’t handle a shrieking decay, especially one with two magic-wielding riders,” Kane warned with a growl. “I’m sending the ones with no riders away. We’ll need them down here.” He waved his hand, and one of the redbills heading for the monster peeled away, but Drigar craned his head back and kept moving toward the fight.
Blood dripped from Dorian’s mouth as he scowled, sucking in a sharp breath. “Drigar knows better than to keep fighting,” he growled. The glacial color of his eyes darkened. “Ranged attacks are their specialty, and he’s heading straight for them.”
As if to prove his point, more lights flew from the back of the shrieking decay, toward Drigar. Terrible flashes of teal and black streaked through the sky. The shrieking decay dodged the rising bubbles expertly as it crossed the lake, hunting its downed prey with an otherworldly shriek. Drigar answered with a battle cry of his own, avoiding the rays and continuing to advance. Alongside Lake Siron’s bubbling, misty surface ran the velek with the gem on its forehead, faster than even Dorian could run. It had led the hunters here.
At least it’s not spewing acid yet. I pulled the rifle sight from my belt and squinted through it, trying to make out as many details as possible. The beast wore a more complex and sturdier version of the saddle and muzzle that had failed during our fight with the shrieking decay on the Mortal Plane. The Immortals had perfected their design. It actually did as the riders intended, meaning that they didn’t want it to spew rot yet. Right now, the beast was skimming lower on the other side of the lake, toward where Sike and Bryce had landed. Looking through my scope, I caught a blur of movement as one of the hunters leapt off the back of the shrieking decay, landing in the grass behind a shard of rock thrusting up out of the plain.
“One of them is on the ground,” I said, putting my scope away. “I think it’s going to hit Sike and Bryce.” We had to help them, even if it meant facing down Immortal warriors feared even by vampires, on the back of a shrieking decay. Oh, is that all? I felt a hysterical laugh swell in my throat, but I swallowed it. I’d long ago come to terms with the fact that I could die on the job; I hadn’t yet. I could panic when it was over.
“We need to move,” Dorian said, roughly scrubbing the blood off his face with his sleeve. He stared at me, brow furrowed, something feral back in his face that I hadn’t noticed had been missing. “Use your gun if they get close enough, but otherwise you need to hang back. These hunters carry magical weapons.”
In other words, I currently lacked the skill set to deal with them. Fine. I trusted Dorian’s judgment. I had no experience with magical weapons and no training in how to avoid them or what would happen if they hit me. That wouldn’t stop me from helping any way I could.
“What can I do?” I asked urgently.
He glanced out over the lake, seeing Laini and Roxy retreating from the shrieking decay on their redbill while Drigar harried the beast’s underbelly with his talons. “You can sneak around to the other side to help Bryce and Sike get clear of danger, but stay out of this battle,” he instructed evenly. “Laini will call one of the other redbills back and get you all out of range until this is over. We’ll try to get close to the hunters so they can’t use their long-range weapons, and we’ll wear them down enough that we can get away.”
Arlonne grunted in agreement, black swirling into her eyes, her skin teeming with fresh shadows from her feeding.
“Leave the magic to us,” Kane said firmly.
I nodded shortly, ready to run as soon as they gave me the word. I had my orders.
Dorian, leading the way, took off with Kane and Arlonne around the lower half of Lake Siron and toward where the hunter had leapt to the ground.
I followed more slowly, slipping from one patch of cover to the next in the boulder field. According to what Dorian had said about how Immortals picked up auras or frequencies, they wouldn’t be able to distinguish my aura from the surrounding stones. No frequency scanners existed in this plane, thankfully. A part of me hated to be left out of the action, leaving the fight in the hands of others. I knew I was outmatched, but I hated the feeling of being helpless on the sidelines. I wanted to understand the magic so I could rise against it. But I knew I had to be practical, and running recklessly into a fight when I didn’t understand its mechanics wouldn’t benefit the mission or the team.
Bryce and Sike falling from the sky flashed through my mind, and I scanned the air for the wounded redbill. Seeing nothing, I picked up the pace, desperate to make it to them before the hunters did.
The grass on the plains was longer here—almost up to my shoulder—so I was able to move more freely, running in a crouch with my hand hovering over my holster. My lungs burned as I took an erratic path to throw off anyone I couldn’t see who might be trying to shoot at me. My back felt bare and vulnerable as I imagined one of the magical blasts hitting me between the shoulders.
A large boulder up ahead looked like a promising place to pause and take stock of the situation before I jumped in. I should be close to the fallen redbill and my friends by now. I peered out from behind the boulder as someone let out a cruel, melodious laugh. My muscles tightened. A flash of blue hair caught my eye just before the scene lit up.
I dodged back behind the boulder as teal light blasted past my hiding place. A sensation of strong static electricity lingered in its wake. I pressed against the stone. Had they spotted me?
“One day you’ll learn accuracy that matches your vanity,” Kane shouted. Arlonne grunted.
“I’ll cut out your tongue, vampire,” a cold voice snapped.
There was a note of the same musical taunting I’d heard before. It was a woman’s voice. I stole closer, confident the hunter hadn’t seen me. Behind a boulder with a scraggly tree growing beside it, I looked through the leaves to get a better look. Any knowledge of an enemy was a good thing.
The first hunter I saw was the one who had jumped off the back of the shrieking decay. I could tell from the way the hunter stood that she was in command of her team on this mission. She stood easily over seven feet tall. Pale blue skin pulled tight over the defined angles of her face. She had oceanic blue-green hair piled atop her head in a complex series of braids all woven into a bun, secured in place by two glittering hair sticks with shining skulls carved into the ends. Bright silver chain mail covered her from her neck down to her feet. Her boots appeared to be made of a worked metal that should have been too heavy to lift and featured gem-studded soles. When she stepped forward, they slammed into the ground. Her right arm was heavily protected by sharp overlapping scales of a lacquered turquoise material. She wore gauntlets of the same material, with silver and gemstones worked into the design. A teal gemstone, matching the one in the velek’s forehead, sat in the middle of her wide brow. Unlike the velek, the skin around her gemstone shimmered.
I was partially in awe of her stature, partially envious of her armor, and fully worried as she took on Kane and Arlonne. Kane leapt toward her and attempted to strike her head, while Arlonne went for her legs.
The woman rolled her eyes. “When will you bloodsuckers learn?” she roared.
In a swift movement, she countered Kane’s attack easily by bringing up her armored forearm to slam into his chest. He flew backward with a gasp as the air was knocked from his lungs. In the next second, she smashed her hand into the ground, aiming to crush Arlonne under her fist. Arlonne threw herself out of the way just in time. The hunter grunted and yanked her hand back, bringing up chunks of the ground with it. Crumbling rocks and dirt fell from her hand, and as she shook off the debris, I saw another teal gemstone embedded into the palm of her glove.
A knife made of jagged black glass glinted in
her other hand, but she didn’t use it yet, instead lifting the hand containing the stone toward Kane. He yelled something incomprehensibly foul as a blast of teal exploded from her palm. I gasped as Kane dove out of the way, pushing Arlonne out of the blast’s path as he went.
The woman grinned, showing off an unsettling number of small, sharp teeth. Her glee rolled from her in waves. She leapt and dodged easily as Arlonne and Kane attempted a counterattack. She laughed in delight when Arlonne tried to strike her head, swatting the vampire away with a savage blow from her armored elbow. The fight was an elegant dance, and I hated that she was winning. Sweat collected on Arlonne’s brow, and she breathed heavily. Kane gnashed his teeth, fangs flashing. No more trash talk meant this was serious. The woman tilted her head back and laughed again, a cruel smirk on her face.
I tore my gaze from the intimidating woman. There was more than one fight in this battle. The shrieking decay floated near Sike and Bryce’s fallen redbill but was kept at bay for now by Drigar and Laini’s redbill harassing it from front and back. Dorian skidded to a stop on the shore of the lake, chips of black glassy rock flying up from beneath his feet. He called Drigar, and the bird instantly dove toward him. In moments, Dorian was mounted, and they flew back toward the shrieking decay. There was a new aspect to the fight now—the beast’s riders would have to rethink their plan of attack.
While the towering woman who was attacking Kane and Arlonne emanated a cruel power, this immortal’s face was rounder and more youthful. Silvery braids fluttered in the wind as he pulled the shrieking decay out of the way of Drigar’s claws with a powerful movement of the reins. His metallic golden skin sharply contrasted with his black eyes as he glared murderously at Dorian. Apparently, color coordination was a big thing for Immortals. His armor was black metal, crisscrossed by seams of golden inlay, with white gems patterned down the arms and across the backs of his gauntlets. It was hard to tell from my position, but I guessed he might be shorter than the woman.
Darklight 3: Darkworld Page 20