by Ross Turner
He pulled Kaylm from the floor with one enormous hand, ignoring the blood that soaked and matted his thick fur, and forced Marcii back with his other hand. He turned his back to Malcolm and scooped the others into his arms as well, shielding them all with his own body as a maelstrom of arrows rained down, all following the first.
Chaos ensued.
Reaper squared his back and shoulders against the onslaught and used his huge body as a barrier to shield Marcii and Kaylm and Malorie. Arrows pounded into his back, glancing off his tough hide and pinging to the ground with terrible force.
The sound of the heavy metal arrowheads striking the floor could quite easily have been mistaken for the pattering of raindrops, had their situation not been quite so dire.
Vixen and Raven were the only ones who did not take shelter beneath Reaper.
Raven looked on in dismay as the arrows flooded through what had once been her home. They hammered down all around her and even passed straight through her.
Marcii’s eyes however, as she crouched beneath Reaper’s enormous body, were not on Raven. She watched all the while with a mixture of terror and awe as the young girl Vixen strode across towards where Malcolm lay.
Hundreds of arrows pelted down all around her, burying into the ground at her feet and skimming past her face and body, barely inches from touching her. Yet she moved with assured confidence, not faltering even once.
The same could not have been said for Malcolm or the wolves however.
Yelps of fear and pain echoed suddenly all through the night as the wolves began to take casualties. Alistair’s pack quickly retreated to a safe distance, but not before a goodly number of them had been injured, if not felled.
Ravenhead had become a battlefield, and already that forsaken ground was littered with the wounded and the dead.
Kaylm’s expression was mixed as he looked on after Vixen. She stood directly over his older brother, looking down upon Malcom and holding his gaze fiercely.
He didn’t know exactly why but there was a defiance in the young orphan’s eyes that spoke a thousand words.
Malcolm didn’t hold her gaze for long though.
He couldn’t.
Not soon enough a second arrow found its mark and hammered through his chest with enough force to pin him to the ground. The shaft buried itself between Malcolm’s ribs and sent blood spewing out of his mouth.
More followed.
A third arrow struck his shoulder. Then his stomach. His leg again. His heart.
The onslaught continued.
He was dead long before the attack ceased.
Kaylm’s expression was mixed as he looked on, unable to tear his gaze away. His eyes were hard and tinged with grim satisfaction, whilst his mouth contorted despairingly. The sight was almost too much for him to bear, but at the same time, it was exactly what he needed to see.
Vixen remained untouched even as the arrows rained down all around her. She did not move until the final arrow had fallen.
They seemed even to part to avoid her tiny frame.
At long last, when the attack finally yielded, the young orphan merely nodded once and turned back to face her friends.
Beyond Reaper and Marcii and all the others, about a hundred feet or so from the furthest arrow, stood Alistair and his pack, waiting.
But Vixen ignored them for now and walked slowly back over towards her friends. She picked her way through the arrows that lined the floor.
Some stood upright where they’d managed to bury themselves into the soil between the cracks in the cobblestones beneath the snowdrifts. Others lay about randomly with misshapen tips from where they had skittered off the stone beneath the blanket of white.
Eventually Vixen reached them and, whilst she looked at them all, her expression completely unreadable, she spoke only to Kaylm.
“It is done.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
A sudden roar echoed through the night deafeningly.
But it was not the terrified or fearful bellow of a creature under threat.
It was the cry of war: the dreadful sound of man.
The noise reminded Marcii of the fast flowing river in the canyon, where she’d met Ekra and learned so much. It sounded all around her in the night, reverberating off rock and stone in the darkness, filling her mind with its noise.
Yet, at the same time, the sound was entirely different. It filled her with a familiar sense of dread that she was, unfortunately, far too accustomed to.
They’d all been so caught up in the affair with Alistair and Midnight, and Kaylm and Malcolm, that none of them had noticed the advance of Tyran’s army.
She saw the mass of men materialise slowly and chillingly from the night.
At the thought of the old man Midnight, Marcii’s heart skipped a beat and she threw her gaze over to where his body had fallen.
In dismay, the young Dougherty saw that it had not moved, and indeed that it was not going to any time soon. Through every limb arrows pinned what remained of the old man to the ground. Purely through force alone the arrows had buried themselves so deeply into his back that it arched upwards awfully, making him look as though he was in constant pain.
The sight tore at Marcii’s heartstrings.
Both younger brothers had prevailed it seemed.
But there was no time for that now.
Tyran led the way, flanked on either side by his enforcers. His men held huge banners up above their heads on long, wooden poles, all bearing the emblem of the stake and the figure and the flames that had been etched into every man’s armour and sword and shield.
It was a sight that struck dread into Marcii’s soul.
Her heart sunk yet even further when she saw that Tyran led not just men, but women and children too.
The very, very old and the much, much too young.
Perhaps it had been the struggles between the brothers that had given away their location so easily.
Or maybe Marcii’s desperate cries.
Either way, it didn’t matter now.
Tyran was leading the final Dreadhunt.
Even he himself was clad in armour. He bore a great broadsword that looked almost too heavy to carry, yet he shifted its weight easily with a single hand.
The young Dougherty half expected to see some of the faces amidst the masses filled with fear, driven to fight for the cause by force like Kaylm had been.
But the harder she searched, looking for the harrowed eyes she so expected to find, the more she realised that they weren’t there.
Suddenly, without warning, flooding through the streets like a vast tsunami, Tyran’s troops swarmed and multiplied. They charged forward with great battle cries, bellowing at the tops of their lungs, wielding swords and spears above their heads.
Yet more arrows rained down and Reaper was forced to cover up over his friends once more to save them being impaled like Malcolm had been. The barrage kept them from escaping as the hordes descended upon them, pouring through and over the snowdrifts like blood escaping from a wound.
Ravenhead’s abandoned, snow covered buildings were suddenly alive with movement. Everywhere Marcii looked, stealing glances between the onslaughts of raining arrows, she saw highly polished and oiled metal flashing in the starlight, seething with unrequited fury.
The barrage of falling arrows ceased just as abruptly as it had started, and then almost immediately the next onslaught began.
Reaper didn’t even have chance to turn and face his attackers, for the last arrow had only just glanced off his thick hide when they ploughed into him.
Thick spears careered off his massive shoulders and chest as he desperately tried to turn into the wave of troops throwing themselves at him. They hacked viciously at his exposed legs and arms with heavy swords and axes.
The only thing missing from the dreadful sight was the foam that surely should have been frothing from their mouths.
“Move!” Marcii barked, assuming sudden, uncharacteristic command.
She frantically ushered Kaylm and Malorie into the building closest to them, heading for the first one she could see that still at least had a door. She slammed it shut behind them as they piled inside.
Vixen, Raven and Reaper remained outside.
Spinning to the window, searching desperately for the orphan, Marcii eventually laid eyes upon Vixen. The young girl was picking her way swiftly between the charging troops that were even still throwing themselves endlessly at Reaper.
The enormous demon twisted and turned, sweeping his arms in enormous arcs, knocking dozens of Tyran’s men away at a time.
But still more came.
Raven stood by helplessly even still, unable to intervene.
Marcii swallowed hard and glanced behind her. Malorie was tending to the wound on Kaylm’s neck, for it was deep and still oozing blood relentlessly. He had grown very pale with a silver sheen of sweat masking his face as he sat slumped against the cold wall of the house.
Not knowing what to do, Marcii spun her eyes back to the battlefield. Laying sight immediately upon Vixen again, her eyes widened as she saw that the girl had found herself a short sword, barely longer than her tiny arm.
Amazingly, Tyran’s forces were still ignoring her completely, and she took full advantage.
In a sudden flurry of movement, Vixen set about her dreadful work.
She wove her way in and out of a dozen and more men in the space of a few meagre heartbeats, and with every pair of legs she dodged, her tiny sword wreaked havoc.
Finding always the most vulnerable points in her foe’s defences, the young girl slipped her blade delicately beneath a set of armour, under an armpit, up through a pelvis. She left a devastating, bloody trail of gore in her wake, as she dispatched man after man, woman after woman, child after child.
It was as if she was weaving scripture and the cold steel between her fingers was nothing more than a quill, dipped endlessly in thick, red ink.
Within minutes she’d reached Reaper’s side.
Tyran’s troops were gradually growing more cautious about throwing themselves at the monstrous demon now. At first he hadn’t wanted to hurt them too badly, but their constant attacks had managed to do worse than simply draw blood and he was growing more and more desperate by the moment.
A large, burly man hauled a spear through the air at Reaper with incredible force. Though the wooden shaft shattered when it smashed into his chest, splintering off in a thousand directions, that was not before the iron tip buried itself deeply into his ribs.
The enormous demon bellowed an almighty roar that deafened every living soul for a hundred leagues in every direction.
Malorie looked up and caught Marcii’s eye for a moment, her expression distraught and warning.
They’d pushed him too far.
Marcii looked back only to find utter devastation.
Reaper plucked the man who had hurled the spear at him from the ground and squeezed him in his fierce grasp. Seemingly without a care, which was not like Reaper at all, he battered the man’s head against the stone wall of the nearest building.
Again and again and again he hammered the man’s face into the solid rock, turning it red and covering the wall in bloody mulch.
The faces of his attackers turned white as they witnessed his brutality, but then, they only had themselves to blame.
Unsatisfied, the demonic monstrosity discarded what was left of the burly man and turned his gaze upon the rest of them.
Actually, in reality, they had the great Lord Tyran to blame.
But they hadn’t the sense to see that just yet, and they were too filled with fear in that moment to even think on it.
One by one Reaper mutilated them. He ripped some in half with his bare hands whilst others he tore at with his teeth as they desperately struggled to escape his monstrous vengeance.
Vixen in turn continued to work her own effigy of carnage, leaving blood red entrails in puddles of melting snow everywhere she went.
The tables were certainly turning, though it was difficult to tell if it was for the better.
Suddenly, as if there hadn’t already been enough bloodshed, something else threw itself at the already enraged demon Reaper.
The creature was the size of a bear, though the shape of a wolf. Sometimes it ran on four feet and other times it reared up impossibly on two, like it was somehow, impossibly, part human.
Another soon followed, then another, and another, launching themselves upon the enormous creature until they all but overwhelmed him.
Tears streaked openly down Marcii’s face.
Malorie and Kaylm were at her side now too and the murdered witch’s face was stricken beyond imagining.
Her dear demon fought and roared and struggled with all his tremendous might.
But the pack’s numbers were just too great.
The overspill attacked Tyran troops and the massacres multiplied tenfold.
It was a barbaric, inhuman sight to behold.
Marcii couldn’t bear it.
She had to do something.
But what?
All of a sudden, her eyes weaving through the carnage, she saw Tyran approaching from one side of the battlefield, and Alistair encroaching from the other.
Her blood ran cold as she suddenly realised what was about to ensue.
So far the pair of them hadn’t even been involved.
But Marcii saw quite clearly that was all about to change.
Vixen hadn’t yet suffered even a scratch, but then she was a different animal altogether.
With her heart in her mouth, Marcii couldn’t stand by any longer and wait for Reaper fight to the death.
Straightening, she opened the door to the shell of a house and stepped out onto the battleground, saying not a word as she went.
Both Alistair and Tyran grinned the same cruel, menacing smile as they saw her, welcoming her, beckoning her to join the bloodshed.
In a brief, fleeting moment of reprieve Reaper spied her too.
He desperately wanted to beg her to leave, but he didn’t even have chance to do that.
Alistair’s wolves piled in on him once again, ripping and tearing at his fur and flesh with their vicious, snapping jaws.
Marcii knew this wasn’t over yet, as Alistair’s pack and Tyran’s troops turned their eyes upon her hungrily.
Somehow, unbelievably, the worst was yet to come.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The hordes of men and beasts continued to pour endlessly from every crevice, swarming over Reaper and Vixen without a thought. The enormous demon found every moment harder than the last and his thick blood stained the ground for a dozen feet in every direction.
In comparison the tiny orphan girl looked feeble and weak, yet she still hadn’t even suffered a single scrape. She did her best to fight alongside Reaper, doing her utmost to protect him from the dreadful hordes.
The sight of such a thing was unnatural.
Straight away Marcii came under siege, as two men and a woman swung wildly for her with broadswords and an axe.
Her defence was instant and completely innate, coming to her aid without even a thought. A harsh, slicing maelstrom swept down from high above, sharp and focused directly at the three brutes threatening her.
They weren’t expecting such an unusual defence and were taken completely by surprise.
The fierce wind knocked them sideways like a great hammer blow and their own momentum threw them to the floor.
But then almost immediately in their place an enormous wolf the size of a bear appeared.
It snarled at Marcii with teeth stained red and dripping with gore.
The wind intensified and barraged the wolf head on. The animal dug its claws into the dirt between the cobblestones and even into the very rock itself, anchoring itself to the ground and driving forwards against the storm with its powerful legs.
Escalating, the wind picked up and up and up until the creature could advance no further, yet at
the same time refused outright to yield.
Marcii’s brow creased slightly in thought and exertion, wondering how to adapt what she’d already done, when it had occurred so unconsciously in the first place.
As if on command, sweeping down from above upon the squall she had created, frozen blocks of ice came cascading down in thick hailstone flurries. The concentrated blizzard grew and strengthened and assaulted the wolf’s face, blinding the creature and biting harshly at its nose and eyes.
Eventually, though the beast had fought and withstood all it could, the fierce, hail filled wind ripped and lashed so severely at its face that it had no choice but to turn tail. Yelping in defeat and scampering away, the enormous wolf disappeared amidst the crowd, deciding to take its chances against the metallic, manmade ring of steel, rather than the sometimes gentle and sometimes rough hand of Mother Nature.
But even though she had prevailed, Marcii’s concentrated blizzard did not subside, and in fact only grew larger.
Soon enough, growing steadily further and further out of control, it wasn’t long before the storm whipped and screamed all around, encompassing the entire battlefield in an enormous whiteout.
The storm grew so fierce that even the most bloodthirsty of contests were forced to succumb and subside, simply to allow man and beast alike to shield themselves from the ferocity of Mother Nature.
Somehow, as far as she could tell, the witch Marcii and her friends were the only ones unaffected by the raging winds and barraging hail.
The young Dougherty became vaguely aware of a figure stood beside her amidst the storm and stole a glance across to see who it was.
Malorie.
It was obvious then, once she saw her fellow witch stood beside her, that the two of their efforts had been combined. Merged together, working as one with Mother Nature, they were stronger than ever before.
But, unfortunately, they were not the only ones who had been touched by Her endless hand in their short lives.
Just as She’d helped them to create the storm, in order to defend their own, She’d had no choice but to grant Her other kin the ability to withstand it.