I moved toward him, entranced by the sight despite the burning in my chest. I drank greedily from him as he sank his teeth into my shoulder to draw blood. I gasped from the pain, but it quickly disappeared as his blood entered me.
“How do you feel?” Dorian asked as he pulled away from me. His mouth was smeared with my blood.
I sucked in a quick breath, jittery with excited relief. I just needed a few minutes for the blood to kick in before I could protect my friends and fight like I was meant to. With this blood, I could do anything.
The door ripped open. The broadest, tallest, most muscled hunter I’d ever seen walked through the doorway. His face contorted with rage at the sight of the body on the floor. I tensed, feeling Dorian do the same. The huge hunter seemed to be of higher rank, judging from the look of his impressive armor. He snarled at us. We were trapped, with him blocking the exit of the tiny tower room.
My vision sharpened, like a film had been peeled back from my eyes. The headache disappeared as the familiar pulse of Dorian’s blood filled me. I gripped the knives tightly in my hands. My face broke into a grin that I could hardly control as I eyed the hunter. This would be fun.
Dorian caught my expression and took a startled step back.
“It’s a little cramped in here,” I drawled to the hunter. “Why don’t we step outside?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I charged forward with a snarl.
The hunter’s eyes widened—from surprise at the deranged smile on my mortal face? He gave a startled grunt as I managed to push him through the doorway, tapping the stone against his chest piece. These idiots never thought about how their weighty armor would work against them.
I shoved him off the compound’s wall and leapt after him. Air rushed past me as we plummeted toward the ground. I landed on top of him, using him like a landing mat. He groaned from the impact, but I was unscathed, largely thanks to him breaking my fall. The pain from my rib was a dull ache right now, pushed to the back of my mind as I focused on my opponent.
“Commander Lianthe needs help!” a trainee hunter shouted.
“So,” I said, pressing my knee to his throat, “I’m to have the honor of killing a commander?”
Blood pumped fast through my veins. My heartrate spiked. A collective shocked gasp surrounded me. In the corners of my eyes, I saw both hunters and my own team members watching, but I didn’t care. Lianthe bucked beneath me and threw me off. I used the last few moments of our close proximity to press Lanzon’s stone against his leg armor and his right arm bracer. I rolled, my body smashing into dirt and rocks with little effect on me.
Lianthe glared at me, his dark eyes brewing with outrage. I grinned, unable to help it. My facial muscles returned to that position whenever I stopped thinking.
“What the hell is—”
I didn’t let Lianthe finish his sentence. I lifted the arm of a fallen vampire and fired a shot from his gauntlet that took Lianthe square in the chest. He grunted as the force pushed him across the ground, slamming him into the legs of a trainee hunter. Before he recovered, I removed the gauntlet from the deceased vampire and buckled it onto my arm. Lanzon’s stone was nice and all, but I needed something with a little more kick to it.
By the time Commander Lianthe scrambled to his feet and charged at me, I was ready. My brain told my arms what to do before I truly realized what was happening. He tried to strike out with his blade, but his huge stature worked against him. I dashed around his body, slamming my stone against pieces of his armor.
“You little insect,” he cried angrily, trying to swipe at me.
He wasn’t as fast as the other elite hunters, thanks to his sheer size. He attempted to compensate for the added weight, but Lianthe’s armor was clearly much heavier than the other hunters’. It was likely specially crafted to accommodate his incredible strength, but his strategy hadn’t accounted for someone small and fast with the ability to strip magic from him. He gnashed his teeth and swung his sword at me. I stepped aside with glorious ease and watched his sword slam into the dirt, anchoring him by accident. He growled and tried to yank his sword back out.
I launched myself at his back and scrambled upward, climbing him like a deranged animal until I found the vulnerable spot on his neck between skull and spinal cord. I sank my blade into it with a feral snarl, and he gave a startled cry before staggering forward. I jumped off as his blood spurted high into the air, and his body went down with a magnificent thud.
A trainee hunter ran at me, screaming with rage. I brought up my knife and bracer. He lunged for me, but his movements were untrained. I sidestepped him, blood pumping, and smashed the bracer against his thigh, removing the spells. He stumbled forward, unused to the true weight of the armor. I sliced the knife across his throat before he had the chance to get back up. My muscles sang as I finally stopped.
“Lyra,” Dorian breathed. “Are you okay?”
I hadn’t even noticed him. The guard tower was no longer firing. The uninjured members of Team Grayson surrounded me, fighting other hunters. I snapped out of my dreamy battle mode, realizing that my chest was rising and falling so fast that I was hyperventilating. I pulled a deep breath and gave him a smile, a real smile.
“I think I’ve figured out how to control it all.”
A familiar grunt came from my left. Zach and Kono fought back-to-back in a crowd of trainee hunters. Each fired blasts from their gem gauntlets, rotating like a merry-go-round of supernatural fire. They were outnumbered, but the blasts were powerful enough to knock the hunters back temporarily.
I dragged my gaze to the right as someone let out a cry, a distinctly human sound. Lily cradled her burning arm as a tendril of smoke wreathed her scorched flesh. Another soul-scourger, one who’d blended into the normal fog until it was too late. God, I hoped this was the last one. I stepped forward to help, but Bravi chucked two lit torches into the beast.
“Keep them coming,” Bravi snapped to another vampire, who lit scraps of wood in a brazier and then passed them over. She snarled and launched two more torches inside.
The soul-scourger gave a terrible quake, and the vampires ran for cover. The mist exploded with a ground-shaking blast that sent a reverberation through the air and dirt, prompting one of the ash wraiths to let out another piercing scream.
I clapped my hands over my ears, but the sound still made me stumble. It was far more piercing now than it had been before, and part of me wondered whether the vampire blood coursing through my body made me more vulnerable to the sound.
I fell to one knee as bright red and violet splotches danced in my vision. Need to block this out. In my hazy vision, I saw the body of a nearby hunter just a few feet from me. I crawled over to it and cut a piece of tunic from the body. I quickly ripped the cloth into small strips and stuffed them into my ears, tearing a longer strip to wrap around my head to keep them in place. It took the edge off, but the sound still rattled around inside my skull. At least the explosion had taken care of most of the trainees around Zach and Kono, who had taken advantage of the scream to turn the tables on the remaining hunters.
Reshi circled above, her angry eyes on the woman with the wraith.
The hunter commander calmly surveyed the scene. She wore an Immortal Council crown of warped and twisted metal, and a ruby gem rested just below it in the skin of her forehead. Her lips curled with disgust. The wraith took off from the ground.
“No,” a wildling snapped. “Not today, Izelde.” He raised his hand, and plant roots sprang up from the walking vegetation. The roots lashed out and curled around the legs of her wraith, jerking it back to the ground. These plants seemed weaker than the ones in the sanitarium, but they were strong enough to hold the wraith.
Izelde growled. “Insolence.” She swung a massive sword encrusted with shimmering precious stones of red and violet, which easily sliced through the roots.
A gem blast fired from the pommel of the sword, hitting the wildling. He gasped and then went limp, dead in an
instant. That magic blast was stronger than anything I’d seen before. Lanzon’s stone suddenly weighed heavy on my arm. I needed to remove the spells on that sword if we expected to make any progress with this Lady Izelde.
Zach fired upward at a moving figure, having finished his skirmish with the hunters. The other wraith rider had already taken to the air.
“Lord Orrin,” a trainee called in warning, but there was no need.
Zach’s gem blast deflected off Orrin’s armor with the sickening green light I’d come to associate with warding. It was difficult to see through the thick fog, but Orrin’s wraith tangled with the small flock of Team Tahn redbills. The hunter himself swung a long chain tipped with a sharp blade at the end. I spotted a gem gauntlet on his arm, too.
Reshi had picked up Arlonne with the jaspeth, and together they soared to meet Orrin. The wraith cried out, but Arlonne merely grinned. Reshi had somehow fashioned two pairs of crude earmuffs for them.
I gave an inward cheer as Arlonne successfully struck every piece of Orrin’s armor, and even parts of his wraith. Reshi and Arlonne pulled back, allowing two vampires to leap on him from their redbill. Orrin shoved one off immediately. She screamed as she plummeted through the air and crashed through the roof of a compound building. The remaining vampire struggled with Orrin. A wildling leapt from his redbill to assist. He slammed a knife into one of the gaps in Orrin’s armor. The vampire wrestled the chain from Orrin’s hand.
A hunter raced toward me, his gauntlet raised and glowing. A rush of adrenaline passed through me. I whipped out the stone knife as he fired, slicing through the blast. Lanzon’s stone made quick work of his armor. He threw a good left hook. It connected with my cheek, but my body felt virtually nothing. I brought the knife up and slammed it hard into the side of his neck. He sputtered as I yanked it back out, blood gushing. He tumbled to the ground.
A scream rang out beside me. I turned to see Kono facing off with a trainee hunter, much larger than most. Behind me, Bravi grappled with two hunters on her own. In the front, Lady Izelde scanned our crowd. Her chilling white eyes landed on me. Although her hunters were thinning out, the battle had just begun.
Izelde fired at me. I lunged to the side to avoid the blast, taking refuge behind the body of a redbill. Izelde snarled, her dark red face scrunching up with agitation. I ran, taking cover behind a pile of rubble.
Izelde fired at another wildling, earning an excruciating scream from her as she died beneath the clawed feet of the wraith. A Coalition vampire ran toward her. She fired a gem blast at him, but the vampire sliced through it with a stone knife.
Kono grunted as he finished throwing off the dead body of his foe. He raced to join me. We found Gina and Dorian just a few feet away. Dorian’s eyes scanned madly for any sign of his team. Our squads were getting separated as the battle grew more and more chaotic.
“Over here,” Reshi called, drawing Izelde’s attention. She took the jaspeth down for a divebomb, but Izelde smirked and lifted her sword. I stiffened as a red blast of energy left the sword and slammed into the jaspeth. Reshi cried out as the creature suddenly tumbled backward through the air, flipping over and over again. She held fast to the machine, but the energy was too powerful. Isn’t the jaspeth supposed to absorb energy? My heart slammed against my chest as Reshi disappeared into the fog. There was a high chance for her survival, but the jaspeth was definitely out of commission.
“Kono,” Lily called from the wall. We turned to see Lily, MacGregor, and the rest of Team Gavril triumphantly waving long spears. They had snatched them from the guards, who’d vanished from the stone walls. Kono grinned and called them over. His squad’s gauntlets glowed with powerful energy. They’d collected enough magical items to get their gauntlets to full capacity. Kono pointed to Izelde, who’d just turned back to face us.
Team Gavril, humans and wildlings alike, fired upon Izelde with a barrage of blasts. The wraith gave a startled cry, but the energy blasts were too powerful for the beast to release a proper shriek. Izelde snarled. She sent a blast of energy from her sword, which narrowly missed Lily and slammed into the wall behind her. The stones crumbled, a small hole forming. She’s trained and powerful. I steeled myself, scanning for an opening.
The wraith tried again to rise, but the wildlings in our groups lifted their hands and pushed an invisible force through the air. More plants sprang up, holding the wraith to the ground, snapping powerful vines around the bucking creature’s leg. The wraith snarled and spread its massive cinder wings, sending sparks in every direction. The wildlings sank back but kept up their hand motions. The roots smoked and burned, but new ones rose up to replace them.
The ash wraith, enraged, let out a cry that caused anyone without ear protection to hiss with pain and drop to their knees. Several people reeled back. Lily grabbed at her head.
“Cover your ears with fabric,” I shouted at the ones who hadn’t been in the first wave of close-range shrieks. They’d never experienced the wraith’s scream before. “We need to wear Izelde down.” This was our last desperate push to end this battle. We needed to secure the camp.
Red caught my eye—not the cold glint of Izelde’s gem, but something in the sky. A lone redbill flew low and fast toward the battle, its feathers an unusual burnt-red color. It slammed into Lord Orrin’s side, knocking the ruler off balance and giving a wildling the opportunity to sink a final blow into his neck. The vampire shoved Orrin off the wraith, leaving him and the wildling victorious on its back. Everyone watched Orrin’s body plummet toward the ground until he landed with a disgusting crunch on the hard earth.
The redbill swooped down. A trainee hunter gave a desperate cry as the bird’s large talons sank into him. The redbill crushed the hunter in its feet, and then flew forward to land in front of Dorian and me. It cut us off from the group by extending one of its massive wings to create a divider. The trainee hunter in its talons gasped his last breath and fell limp.
The redbill gazed at me with flat violet eyes.
“You need to come with me,” Gate Maker announced. “It’s time to fulfill your side of our bargain and help me return to my home, like you promised.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Now?” I shouted at Gate Maker. “You can’t be serious.”
Hunters surrounded us. We were in enemy territory. We had two commanders confirmed dead. This was our chance to pounce on the training camp. Thudding footsteps caught my attention. A group of trainee hunters charged toward us. They surrounded us on all sides, glaring at Gate Maker. For his part, Gate Maker threw the dead body of the hunter he’d killed to the side as if it were garbage.
“Yes, now,” he said.
A hunter lunged for Gate Maker. I slammed my bracer against her chest piece and slashed my knife across her face. She fell back with a cry. Dorian grappled with a barrel-chested hunter of his own. One of the hunters fired a gem gauntlet at the Gate Maker. He easily stepped aside and whipped his beak around to snap at the hunter.
“What the hell is that?” Bravi yelled as she sliced through a gem blast with her knife, Reshi’s spells soaking up the power. “Do you need help?”
Gina and Kono stared.
“Did that redbill just talk?” Gina asked.
I shot Dorian a desperate look. This wasn’t good. We’d kept Gate Maker’s presence secret from our friends and allies because of our pact. Why did he have to come here now?
“We have to finish this battle,” I snapped at Gate Maker. He narrowed his violet eyes at me, then dodged a sword from a hunter.
“I’ve found a way back home,” he said sharply. “This was part of our deal. We need to leave now.”
Dorian snarled as his knee connected with an oncoming hunter’s stomach. “Why not just go yourself? We’re a little busy.”
He was clearly still pissed about Gate Maker’s departure. I couldn’t blame him. I was, too… but right now I had more important things to focus on, like the fact that he was interrupting our fight.
“
The pact we’ve made is stopping me,” Gate Maker replied smoothly. “If I try to go home without your assistance and blessing, the pact will harm me. This is our only chance.” His eyes flashed as a gem blast flew past his beak, momentarily lighting up the flat purple orbs. He added, “If you don’t come with me now, after I’ve offered, then it will be you who is breaking the pact, and the magical fallout will tear your bodies apart. At that point, you’ll be of little use to your friends.”
I wrestled to not let my fury and frustration overwhelm me. I’d just taken vampire blood, and I could really make a difference in the fight. I slashed my knife across an oncoming hunter. Leaving now would be a criminal waste of this power. I looked around and saw a dozen places where I could help—not to mention, a successful battle meant taking prisoners and learning what we could from Lady Izelde. She clearly knew something about gem energy and control. We needed to learn more about that.
“Emergency mission,” Dorian shouted to Zach after I failed to reply. Zach’s face tightened with concern, but Dorian was in charge for this battle. “I’m sorry, but we have to go.”
“Lyra?” Gina asked softly behind me. She had moved forward after dispatching a hunter. I sucked in a quick breath, my adrenaline spiking.
“You’re in charge of Team Grayson. We have to leave. I’ll explain later,” I promised, my words bubbling over with urgency.
Questions swarmed in Gina’s wide eyes, but a trainee hunter charged toward her on a huge velek. Gina was forced back, knife extended to fight the hunter. I darted forward to help, but Gate Maker stepped in front of me.
“On my back,” he said in a growl that refused to be argued with.
I ground my teeth, angry curses spilling from me, and climbed onto his back with Dorian. Gate Maker took a powerful running start and then soared into the air with a magnificent leap, knocking the hunter off his velek on the downstroke. Gina’s shocked gaze found me, but I turned away as other shouts caught my attention.
Darklight 5: Darktide Page 24