The Dreg Trilogy Omnibus

by Bethany Hoeflich

  They hugged the woods, staying in the shadows until they were out of sight of the wall.

  She could only hope they’d catch up in time.

  ***

  Three days later and they’d seen no sign of the guards. They’d pushed their horses as fast as they’d dared, but somehow, they hadn’t intercepted them. Each mile they traveled without a sign of Ethan increased her anxiety. Had they missed something? She glanced behind her toward Merrowhaven. The flat plains of Esterwyn stared back, empty of man and animal alike. The plants hardy enough to grow in the rocky soil had long since turned brown, their dying leaves curling and flaking apart. Hoping it wasn’t a bad omen, she pressed forward.

  Tamil shivered, and Mara wrapped her cloak around him, ignoring her own discomfort as the wind dug its icy claws in her skin. She gritted her teeth.

  What if they were too late?

  No. She couldn’t think like that. They would find him. They would rescue him.

  Only a few more miles to go. They forded a shallow river after watering the horses. The sun climbed higher in the sky when they reached the base of the Drocan Mountains. Mara lifted a hand over her eyes and squinted.

  The entrance to the pass rose before her, silent as a tomb.

  “Ethan!” Mara screamed as she urged her horse faster across the rocky ground, desperate to reach him in time.

  He was fine. He was fine. He was fine.

  She chanted it over in her head like a mantra, as if thinking it would somehow make it true.

  Wynn, lagging behind on her own mount, called, “Ye’re not gonna reach him if ya kill yer horse first!”

  A flash of guilt cut through her panic. The poor animal trembled beneath her, its flanks white with frothy sweat. It was a miracle it hadn’t broken a leg yet. “But what if he’s already—” the words strangled in her throat.

  Tamil wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tighter. For comfort, or simply so he didn’t fall off, Mara didn’t know. In a voice that made him sound like a grandfather trapped in a child’s body, he said, “He will be fine, Impriga.”

  Wanting more than anything to believe him, Mara eased back on the reins, slowing the pace to something marginally slower than suicidal. Each agonizing second that passed was a knife in her flesh.

  She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the shade. At most, the pass was thirty feet wide. It had taken a veritable army of Saxums to carve the jagged pass through the gray, limestone walls of the Drocan Mountains. Up ahead, a group of people disappeared around the corner. A flash of a light-blue uniform caught her eye. Exchanging a significant look with Wynn, Mara kicked her horse forward. It had to be them.

  She rounded the corner and gasped.

  Ethan, wearing his black robes, stood in the center of the group of guards and their horses.

  He was alive!

  She slid off the saddle, almost collapsing from the relief of seeing him whole and unharmed. It had only been a few days since he’d left the capital, but it felt like a lifetime. She launched herself forward and threw her arms around him in a crushing embrace that almost sent them hurtling to the ground. “Ethan!”

  Until she had him in her arms, she couldn’t allow herself to believe that he was all right. But here he was. She felt the firm, lean muscle beneath his robes. She felt as he took a sharp breath. He was alive. And he was whole.

  “Mara?” he asked, voice wavering. He stepped out of her embrace and held her at arm’s length, his eyebrows squished together. Mara didn’t know if she should laugh or cry at his adorably confused expression. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you, but what are you doing here?”

  The question snapped her awareness back into focus and she grew aware of the hostile eyes aimed at her back. The guards edged to surround them. In her rush to reach him in time, she’d failed to make a plan for what she’d do next. She counted them in her head. A dozen, not including Alex who stood slightly to the side. No problem.

  She recognized most from training, and it was clear that they hadn’t forgotten her. If their stares could kill, she’d be nothing more than a pile of mush right now. Honestly, she was surprised they hadn’t attempted to kill Ethan by now, orders or no. Either they were too terrified of Alex to try it before now, or they were too loyal to their emperor, it didn’t matter. They’d been saving up their aggression, and now they would unleash it on them both.

  Keeping an eye on the guards, she waited patiently to see what they’d do. One of the downsides of daily training sessions was that they knew her moves. One of the benefits of daily training sessions was that now she knew theirs. While she once would have charged in headlong and tried to blast them all, she now conserved her energy, waiting patiently for them to make the first move.

  She catalogued their Gifts in the back of her mind: Ignis, Irrigo, Saxum, Caeli, Armis, and more.

  The Ignis sent a wall of flames toward them, pinning them to the wall. Mara threw up a shield to deflect the attack. The Irrigo unstopped a canteen tied to her belt and pulled the water through the air where it hovered for a heartbeat before she moved her hands rapid-fire, condensing it into ice shard that propelled toward Mara. She solidified her shield, and the water melted, ineffective, to the ground. Alex drew his duel swords from the halberd on his back and twisted them twice through the air, as if feeling their weight. Mara kept the attacks from reaching him as he ducked and darted between opponents.

  Tamil waited on horseback, though the guards seemed to have forgotten that he was there. Their mistake. He closed his eyes, and Mara watched as green droplets formed on his skin. Mara cried for Wynn and Alex to duck behind her shield before Tamil sent them flying through the air. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the guards slapped at their skin as the venom bored holes through their flesh.

  She capitalized on the distraction, latching onto their threads of energy and yanking until they gasped for breath. One by one, they fell to the ground on their knees. Wynn took the opportunity to impersonate a tornado as she whirled through, finishing them off. She wiped her blades on her trousers before she realized they were gaping at her. She blinked. “What?”

  Alex chuckled under his breath and shook his head.

  Mara turned to Ethan. “It was a trap.”

  “Clearly,” Ethan said, a smile tugging at his lips. “For what it’s worth, I knew.”

  She took a step back. What did he mean he knew? “You knew they planned on executing you, and you still went with the guards? What is wrong with you?”

  “Remember when Lucas had a vision of you back at Order Headquarters? This is what he’d seen.” He gestured at the carnage around him. “I wasn’t quite certain why you’d attack the emperor’s guards at the time, but your motivation has become clear.”

  Mara threw her hands up in the air. “Why didn’t you say anything? Didn’t you think I’d be worried? I’ve spent the last week agonizing over killing a horse—”

  Ethan reared back. “What?”

  “And then I find out that Darby was spying on us kiss—”

  “Who in the gods’ name is Darby?”

  “The emperor implied that you would be executed, and I had to beg my fiancé to help me escape so I could rush off and save you from certain death. Do you understand how messed up that is?”

  “Deep breaths.” Ethan’s eyes were as wide as soup bowls. “Why do you think I asked Alex to demand he come with me? He’s been threatening to take the Gift of anyone who comes near me. It’s been quite effective.”

  Mara shook her head. “It was pointless to risk your life!”

  “I knew you would come for me.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and she melted.

  “I hate to break up yer touching reunion, but we got company,” Wynn said, tilting her head toward the entrance of the pass.

  That’s when the sound of hoofbeats, echoing across the plain, reached Mara’s ears. She gasped and ran to get a better look. At least one hundred horses and riders thundered into view. Mara shook her head slo
wly, unwilling to believe what she was seeing. “I don’t understand . . . Isaac said he’d buy us a day at least. How did they catch up so fast?”

  Ethan walked up behind her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “The same Isaac who is currently leading the emperor’s horde?”

  “Well, he’s not coming to invite ya for tea.” Wynn wrapped her hands around the hilts of her dirks as if she was eager to vanish and slaughter the emperor’s men.

  Her heart sank. “The emperor must have ordered him to come. He couldn’t refuse.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Wynn said, her form blurring.

  “Wait!” Mara grabbed Wynn’s wrist to prevent her from vanishing. “I have a better idea. But I’ll need your help.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Alex asked, standing beside her.

  “I’m going to collapse the pass.” She cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. “Can you share your energy?”

  “Whatever you need,” Ethan said. The others nodded, granting her permission without question.

  This part was tricky. Taking energy was easy. Usually, she had an endless supply at her disposal through plants and other lifeforms. But rock? Rocks didn’t have as much energy, and what it had was dormant. She’d found that it took twice as much effort to draw energy from rock than other forms. Her friends were willing to share their stores, but she didn’t want to risk disabling them if this went wrong. Taking a deep breath, she pulled slowly until it formed in her core like a miniature sun, glowing bright and hot. When she had taken as much as she could handle, she funneled it through her arms and into the walls of the pass.

  With one hand, she formed cracks in the foundation of the pass, and with the other, she blasted the weak points, hoping to trigger an explosion.

  Not for the first time, she cursed Cadmus for taking away her Augeo. Tearing down the Guardian building had been as easy as knocking over a snow castle with the pendant around her neck. She gritted her teeth and forced more energy into the mountain, willing it to collapse.

  The cracks widened and the ground beneath her feet began to groan. Head-sized chunks of rock fell from the ceiling and crashed around them. Mara threw up a haphazard shield around her friends. The horses screamed as they fled the destruction, taking their supplies with them. Mara’s horse reared, sending Tamil falling from the saddle. He rolled as he hit the ground, and Alex scooped him up in his arms.

  “Run!” Mara shouted over her shoulder.

  The ground shook violently beneath her feet. Without hesitation, her friends propelled themselves toward the exit. Would they make it in time?

  Chunks of stone peeled from the wall and tumbled into the entrance of the pass, blocking the emperor’s forces. Her lungs burned, and her head pounded as she released her hold on the tunnel. As the dust settled, Mara could just barely see Isaac’s face through the rubble. He was a Saxum, and there had to be more amongst the guards. Would it hold him for long?

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod through the wreckage. She wrapped her arms around her middle and stumbled toward the exit. Her friends waited just inside the lip of the tunnel. Wynn and Alex scavenged for whatever supplies had fallen free from the saddles. Tamil sat on the ground, his legs stretched before him. All were unscathed.

  Ethan embraced her, and all her tension faded away. She scanned him from head to toe, checking for injuries. Other than a scrape on his temple, he appeared unharmed.

  Together, they headed out of the tunnel. She stepped out into the sunlight and her blood chilled.

  A wall of disciples waited outside the pass.

  And she’d just destroyed their one means of escape.

  16

  Five lines of disciples stood rigid in formation three hundred feet away as if they’d been waiting for her. The hairs on her arms raised at their blank stares. It was one thing to expect a trap, but this was more than that. It was an ambush. She should have known that Cadmus would see them coming and prepared for it.

  She’d saved them from the wrath of the emperor, only to run into the jaws of another predator.

  Mara stood on shaking legs. Collapsing the tunnel had depleted her energy reserves. There were too many of them. Even at full-power, they were outnumbered.

  For one wild moment, Mara wished Isaac would come barreling through the tunnel, then she realized how foolish the thought was. Even if the emperor’s guards cleared the tunnel in time, they wouldn’t help them against the disciples. If anything, they would join forces. The only argument would be which side got to kill them.

  As one, the front row of disciples stretched their hands out to the side and manifested glowing swords. They advanced, and Mara backpedaled.

  “Wynn! Get Tamil out of here—somewhere safe.” She knelt by Tamil and grabbed him by the shoulders, lowering her head to stare him in the eyes. “If anything happens to us, I want you to go directly to Orgate. Stay hidden. Stay safe. Your father is on his way.”

  His lip trembled as Wynn scooped him into her arms and they vanished. No matter what happened to her, at least Tamil would be safe.

  Alex drew his swords. “I don’t suppose you have a plan?”

  “Sure. Stay alive.” Mara pulled a dagger from the sheath on her thigh and handed it over to Ethan hilt-first.

  He pinched it between his fingertips. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “It’s a dagger. What do you think you should do with it? I swear, if we get out of this alive, I’m going to throw Wynn at you until you toughen up. Useless Magi.” His lips quirked up at the corners. He pulled a bottle from the pocket of his robes and held it up. Mara eyed the sickly yellow color dubiously—it looked anything but appealing. “Please tell me that’s not something to drink.”

  “It’s an elixir that should restore your energy until your refill arrives.” He tilted his head toward the approaching horde of disciples. They had a minute, maybe two, and she could use whatever edge she could get. She reached for the elixir, but Ethan held it out of reach. “On second thought, you did just threaten to let Wynn murder me.”

  “Not murder,” she stressed, unable to believe he was teasing her moments before they were going to be attacked. “She’ll just beat you until you learn to defend yourself.”

  “When you take into account my abysmal lack of skills, I’d say it’s the same thing.”

  “Fine. You’re perfect the way you are. Don’t change.” She snatched the bottle from his hand, ripped the cork out with her teeth and spat it on the ground before downing the contents in a single gulp. Then the flavor hit her, and she gagged. “Ugh. If you wanted to poison me, you could have just asked Tamil. This tastes like a dead rat that was left in the sun for three days.”

  “I’m still working on the flavor, but now I’m curious. How do you know what a decomposing rat tastes like?”

  Alex cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re about to experience a torrential downpour of arrows.”

  She peered around him. The Armises had closed the distance by half. In the back row, five Tellums drew back their bowstrings and glowing arrows appeared.

  Alex nudged her with his elbow. “Ready?”

  The effects of the potion burned through her body, ripping away her fatigue and pure adrenaline flooded through her veins. She grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She threw up a shield over their heads, blocking the first wave of arrows.

  Then the first line of disciples hit them like an avalanche. Mara lost her footing as she ducked under a sword. She spun, throwing her hands out to the sides as Alex covered her left side. With one hand, she pushed Ethan behind her. With the other, she latched onto the Armis and drained his energy until he was nothing but a lump on the ground. Energy swirled in her core. Another Armis feinted to the left and jabbed the spear at her side. She dodged, then blasted him back with a ball of energy. She let it trickle down her right arm until it flowed to the ground, forming a whip. She snapped it at the disciple sneaking around Alex, hooking it arou
nd his ankle and yanking. The disciple flew off his feet, landing on his back with an audible thud.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted an Armis rushing at Ethan, the razor-sharp edge of his axe glowed in the afternoon light. The Armis pulled his arm back, preparing to swing while Ethan stood still, the dagger hanging limply in his grasp.

  Mara roared. She let the whip fizzle away to nothing as she stretched out her hand toward Ethan, channeling her remaining energy. A shield formed in front of him just before the axe connected. The impact sent the axe ricocheting backward, taking the Armis with it. Mara latched onto his energy thread and stole his energy.

  She shot a withering look at Ethan. This was why he needed to learn to defend himself!

  Alex whirled, his blades an extension of his arms.

  Wynn reappeared, dirks in hand, and Mara shouted in alarm. “Don’t do that!”

  “What’d I miss?” She lunged to the left, blocking a sword that would have gone through Mara’s ribs.

  “Looks like they’re sending their second wave,” Ethan warned.

  The second row of disciples advanced. Why were they holding back? If they sent everyone at once, they’d overpower Mara in seconds. Unless the disciples were wearing them down, toying with them like a cat with a chipmunk before the kill?

  Wynn planted herself in front of Ethan. Mara and Alex stood side-by-side. She slung balls of energy rapid-fire. The disciples ducked and weaved, avoiding her throws with expert precision. The disciples pulled chunks of rock from the ground as they ran, lobbing them at her. Mara cursed. She couldn’t focus on the fight if she was too busy avoiding being crushed.

  Twenty feet away, the disciples planted their boots on the ground and crouched, hands-outstretched. As one, they stood slowly as if lifting a heavy weight. The ground beneath her feet rumbled—her only warning that something was very wrong—before dirt and rock shifted. Rock walls grew from the ground like trees, boxing them in on three sides.