House of Wrath: The Vampire Project Book 5
Page 13
The roars of approval were deafening. They were ready now. No more needed to be said.
Kade winked at her and motioned with his head for her to jump on his back.
“You’re ridiculous.” Sloan clipped on her helmet. There was a space for her eyes to see, and her mouth was covered by dark mesh that masked the area but allowed her to breath easily. She mounted Kade, accepting a lance and a shield brought to her.
If she was being completely honest with herself, Kade’s muscular frame felt good between her legs. Although she was lower to the ground than she would have been on the back of a unicorn, her feet didn’t touch the ground. But there was something different, some sense of safety she felt on Kade’s back.
His frame was solid with muscle as he inched forward, and he practically vibrated with anticipation as the gates opened.
“Hey, how come we didn’t get armor?” Saber and Sasha joined the line of shifters and unicorns behind Kade.
“Open the gates!” Croft ordered.
Immediately, soldiers ran to obey, lifting first the giant crossbeam off the inside of the gate. Others then used a pulley system in the gatehouse to slowly open the massive wooden-and-steel doors to Azra.
The doors slowly swung outward. The distant thrum of the mage engine, the grunts of the army could be heard, now that the cheers from the Azra army were silenced.
“Follow me,” Sloan gave the command as Kade began to slowly trot forward.
The mile that separated the New Hope army from the walls of Azra seemed like the shortest Sloan had ever traveled. Her senses were on overdrive as she sought to pick up every single detail before the forces clashed.
It was dark, but her eyes still saw enough in the light the night sky provided. Slaves maneuvered heavy mage-powered machines to even the ground, while another slave force-pulled along yet another machine that laid wooden pieces and metal bars across them, forming the track.
Next to them, the New Hope vampire army dressed in their black-and-greys prepared for the assault. What worried Sloan the most was that the enemy army didn’t look terrified as they bore down on them.
Sloan leaned down and shouted in Kade’s ear, “Let’s get there quickly!”
Kade’s golden-haired pointed ears twitched as he heard her words, and the shifter doubled his speed, increasing his trot to a run and a moment later, to a full-out sprint.
Sloan braced the lance under the armpit of her right shoulder. She gripped the large square shield in her left hand tightly around the leather straps. Holding on to both weapons while balancing on Kade’s back was a skillset all its own. With no reins to hold, Sloan hunched low and used her legs to hold Kade’s sides.
Yards from their target and closing fast, Sloan realized why the army wasn’t panicking. The New Hope vampire soldiers had formed three lines of rifles: the first line of soldiers had lain down onto their stomachs, the second line knelt just behind them, and the last line stood. All in all, over a hundred rifles were pointed at Sloan and the charging Azra guards.
It was too late to stop now. All Sloan could do was to protect the man she loved with her shield and body. She would be able to heal quickly, whereas he could possibly die in the oncoming volley.
Sloan maneuvered the shield in front of Kade. She did her best to lie on his back as flat as possible to also take advantage of the cover.
BLAM!
Chapter 31
Jack
“Free your mind,” Amber coached Jack as he placed his hands on his father’s shoulders. “Nothing else matters now besides you channeling your power over magic. Feel the force flow from you, to your hands, and into your father.”
Jack visualized the wound on his father’s leg, the bite the brown wolf had inflicted when they were engaged in their struggle.
A sudden wave of heat coursed over Jack’s body as he concentrated harder than he ever had before. The strain was nothing like he had ever felt, like the very life force itself was being taken from him and sent through his hands to his father.
The feeling was terrifying. When Jack didn’t think he could take it any longer, he opened his eyes. His father was looking down at his own leg with a smile on his face. The area where the wound had shown through his skin a moment before was closed now and covered by a thin layer of scabbing.
“How do you feel?” Marcus looked up from his wound and searched his son’s eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I feel…” Jack licked his lips looking for the right word to use. “I feel … empty, tired.”
“Now you understand why it’s useful to do as much as we can to heal them outside of magic before we employ that tactic?” Amber looked over to Jack with a knowing smile. “It’s heavy price to pay, but one that, if you master it, it will become easier over time. Rest now. I’ll do what I can for the rest of the pack.”
Amber spent the remaining day and into the night tending the wounds inflicted on Marcus’s pack. True to her word, she employed traditional medicine first and only used her magic ability to heal wounds that were the most vicious.
Marcus and his wolves who were feeling up to the task scavenged for food, and in this way the day passed into night once more.
“What did I miss?” Aareth stepped out of Amber’s house as the sun dipped past the horizon. He stretched and yawned, showing all of his teeth. “I had the craziest dream that we were being healed by some sorceress in Term and—”
Aareth looked over from Jack to Amber with wide eyes. His pause was short-lived as more memories came back. “And I was torn up from our fight with the same pack that’s just hanging around us now, and Marcus showed up at the door naked and now there’s another chick lying in the house, and I’m pretty sure she’s naked but she had a blanket over her. Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“AHHH!” Kimberly shook herself free from the stone sleep that had covered her skin, healing her wounds.
Everyone, including Marcus, jumped as the large gargoyle shook free from the stone layer that had encompassed her during the day.
“I am reborn more powerful than ever and twice as deadly! Come, you savages of the Outland, and feast your eyes on greatness!” Kimberly rolled her shoulders. The muscles on her back and arms rippled. Her wing was in working order, and no sign of the wounds she had received before were part of her skin. “I’m ready! To battle, beast people, and Jack and Amber! To battle!”
Everyone looked around at one another, trying to figure out if Kimberly was trying to be funny or if she was serious. Aareth who knew her best decided to speak up.
“Oh, she’s serious, people.” Aareth nodded toward everyone with a look that said he meant every word. “This is probably the morning mantra she goes through every day.”
“It’s good to see you, as well.” Kimberly strutted around the group, testing her limbs. “I’m glad your death day has not come.”
“Thanks.” Aareth looked to Jack, then Amber. “But I think I owe my life to something more than traditional healing.”
“You have to say thank you to Amber for that.” Jack pointed to the sorceress. “She’s mastered the art of healing in a way I didn’t know was possible.”
“Thank you.” Aareth looked over to Amber with a wide grin on his lips. “It seems I’d be in the ground without you.”
“You’re welcome.” Amber stood up from a position next to a werewolf who she had finished healing. “Now try to keep yourself alive. I know I make healing look easy, but I could sleep for a month right now.”
“So what’s the plan?” Kimberly looked around to Jack and the others gathered in the clearing. “I think we have a war to get to.”
Jack let out a big breath. It pushed past his lips and into the cool night air. This was only the first obstacle that needed to be resolved. Yes, he had found his father, but now the woman he loved was in danger’s path.
Abigail was as much, maybe even more, of a warrior than he was. She would be in the middle of the fight as soon as it started. The problem now was, it was at lea
st two days back to joining the fight at Azra’s gates.
“We’d better get going soon, then.” Aareth stretched and began taking off his clothing in front of everyone. “We have a long run back to Azra.”
“Maybe not as long as you think.” Marcus looked over to Amber with a raised eyebrow. “Traveling through portals is not a skill that I was able to master while I was still a wizard, but something tells me that you may be able to open a portal near Azra.”
All eyes turned to Amber as they waited for her answer.
“You’re lucky I’m the giving type.” Amber shook her head, trying to summon the strength for a task as large as the one Marcus had requested. “I can open a portal back for you, but I think you forget what I’m all about. Healing, not killing, remember?”
“You’ve seen what the vampire soldiers can do,” Jack pleaded with her. “There’s an army descending on Azra now, full of these monsters. The last reports were they’re ten thousand strong. We’re going to fight, but you have to understand that we’re fighting so this all comes to an end. We’re fighting now so that others won’t have to fight this same fight in the future.”
“There will always be these fights in the future,” Amber said quietly. “As long as greed and power exist, so will death at their hands.”
The way Amber spoke, the sadness in her eyes, the expression on her face told Jack all he needed to know. Amber had lost someone long ago. Someone who had meant more to her than he could imagine.
“There’s a woman I love who’s waiting for me.” Jack took a step forward, catching Amber’s eye. “I’m going to get back to her, no matter if you help us or not, but I can do it so much faster with your help. You can save us days of traveling. Please help us.”
“We’ve all lost loved ones,” Aareth said more to the sky than to anyone in the gathered circle, “but maybe Jack doesn’t have to lose someone, again.”
Amber slowly lifted her head. Her sadness was only overpowered by the determination in her eyes.
“All right.” Amber cleared her thoughts and rolled her tired shoulders. “Stand back, this is going to take some doing. I haven’t opened a portal in years, much less one that will be large enough and stay open long enough to accommodate an entire pack of wolves.”
Amber reached into her right pocket and produced a curved wand that looked more like a knife. Etched in the wood were runes Jack could only guess at. She lifted the wand in a large circle. A dark purple light grew at the wand’s tip and penetrated the night’s darkness.
With long movements, she drew a circle in the air in front of her, and the doorway she created began to take form—a circular space of air as tall as Kimberly and as wide as a werewolf. A shimmer began, then turned into a different scene all together.
One moment, Jack was standing across from Amber, watching her create the doorway; the next moment, she had disappeared behind the portal she had opened. In front of Jack was a doorway to a long patch of waving grass and a dark sky beyond.
“Let’s get this done,” Kimberly growled as she strode through the doorway and to the death that waited on the other side.
Chapter 32
Sloan
The bullets hit Sloan’s shield like a peppering of rocks. Her strength as a vampire kept the shield in place over Kade. Two bullets ricocheted off Sloan’s helmet. It felt like someone punching her in the head, but the steel helmet stood solid.
Sloan looked up at the last second before impact. She aimed her lance at a pair of soldiers, one kneeling and the other standing behind him. At the moment of impact, she took the kneeling vampire through his right eye. Kade’s forward moment pushed the lance completely through his skull, and into and out of the back end of the stomach of the vampire who knelt behind him.
After that, there was no time to plan, no time to process what was happening, only time to react. Kade plowed through the first line of vampire soldiers, finally launching himself into the air and coming to a stop atop a mound of soldiers.
Sloan felt a shudder through her shoulder as her lance snapped in two. She leapt off Kade, hurling her broken lance at a vampire solider like a spear. It punctured the vampire’s light armor in the area over his chest.
Sloan drew her mage sword with her right hand and flipped the switch. Her left hand still holding the large square shield, Sloan went to work. She was a maelstrom of wrath as she cut down her enemies left and right, and adrenaline pumped through Sloan’s veins so quickly, it threatened to overwhelm her senses.
As if her vampire part understood what was going on, her vision reddened and her canines elongated. Out of the corner of her eye, she tried as much as she could to be aware of what was happening around her. The white colors the Azra guards used, compared to the black the New Hope soldiers wore helped in cutting down on the confusion of who was fighting whom.
Sloan severed the head of a vampire soldier in front of her, while taking a bullet to the front of her right shoulder from another vampire soldier to her right. The bullet lodged in her scale armor, making the skin underneath sizzle with the heat of the round.
Hurling her shield at the vampire who had fired on her, Sloan severed his body in two with the force of her throw.
All around her, shifters grappled with vampires, and vampires bit into Azra guards in return. Sloan’s vampire unit was fighting as bravely as she could ask for. To her right, Pia and Babs were back to back. Doyle had made his way near Kade and the two were fighting a large group of vampire soldiers who were trying to reload their weapons.
For the moment it seemed like their plan was working, but for how long their much smaller force would manage to keep the New Hope soldiers at bay was anyone’s guess.
A blow struck Sloan from her left, so hard, it made her head ring. Her helmet flew through the air as she struggled to see past the bright stars that exploded across her vision.
Without warning, a white mage sword came down toward her neck, hoping to relieve her from her head. Sloan managed to get her own sword up just in time to block the blow, and sparks erupted with an angry sizzling as the weapons met.
Sloan went down on one knee under the immense pressure applied to her blade. Her eyes searched past the bright light of the two weapons to find Commander Steel on the other side. His black eyes were alive with bloodlust. Not only his canines, but also his entire mouth had filled with jagged teeth.
Sloan rolled out from under his blade, coming up to find her feet. For the moment, those fighting around the two military leaders decided to mind their own business and find others to engage with in battle. A small circle opened up for the two warriors.
“You’ve already lost and you don’t even know it,” mocked Commander Steel, who Sloan also knew as the mercenary The Scar. “It’s over.”
“Nothing’s over!” Sloan yelled back over the raging war.
Horns sounded from the Azra walls, signaling that the gargoyle had swooped in and rescued the slaves working on laying the track.
“You hear that sound?” Sloan bared her teeth at her enemy. “That’s your slaves making it to the safety of the Azra walls.”
Commander Steel lifted his head high and barked laughter into the sky. “You think we didn’t anticipate your sense of morality leading you to this point? We wanted you to open your gates, you idiot.”
A pit of doubt filled Sloan’s stomach. Fear raced down her spine in a way the promise of battle never could. For some reason, Sloan understood Commander Steel wasn’t bluffing; he meant every word he said.
Shouts of panic began to fill the battlefield. Before Sloan could look around to gauge what was happening, Commander Steel came at her again.
He was just as fast and as strong as Sloan. With previous opponents, Sloan would rely on her years of fighting experience to best them. This wasn’t the case with her enemy now. He matched her, stroke for stroke. The combatants circled each other, weaving in and out of one another’s strikes. When their blades did hit, they sent showers of sparks over the battlefield.
>
Deep groaning so loud Sloan thought the earth itself was tearing open interrupted the battle and the ground shook with tremors akin to an earthquake. Sloan wiped the sweat from her face, and her hand came back red with her own blood, blood she hadn’t even felt in the heat of battle from a wound that had opened on the side of her head and had already healed.
The groan came again, like a hundred metal rods being twisted against their will.
The retreat horn sounded somewhere from the Azra gates. Yells from Azra guards warned their brothers and sisters to make it back to the gates with all haste.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sloan witnessed the impossible. The giant mage engine was alive.
Chapter 33
Sloan
Sloan couldn’t believe her eyes. She understood the information her brain was relating to her, but somehow she was refusing to believe it. The mage engine that had only been a steel cart infused with mage power to pull the rest of the cars behind it along the track, was somehow now alive.
The groaning came from the weapon standing on two metal legs that opened from its underbelly and two arms unhinging from its sides. The snarling wolf head once in front of the mage engine had transitioned to the top of its body. A massive metal monster with a purple wolf eyes now stood, marching its way to the Azra walls.
“Hahaha!” Commander Steel motioned with an open hand for Sloan to travel with the rest of her fleeing soldiers. “Go, run, back to the safety of your walls. They won’t be standing much longer.”
More than anything, Sloan wanted to end the commander there and then, but if she stayed to fight, she knew her vampire unit and Kade would do the same. Against an entire army, they had no hope.
Sloan buried her anger deep and began to run back to the open gates of Azra. Kade fell in line beside her. His silver armor was bloody, but he moved as though he wasn’t injured. To her right, Pia, Babs, and Doyle had joined her run for the gates. Just like Kade, they were bloody but able to run as fast as Sloan.