“What is that?” Pia yelled as they ran back to the supposed safety of Azra.
“I don’t know,” Sloan shouted back.
As they ran, two things became obvious: first, the main group of Azra guards who were not shifters nor equipped with the speed of Sloan’s vampire unit wouldn’t make it to the gates before the mechanical monster.
Second, if Azra was breached, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Containing the horde of New Hope vampires had to be part of their strategy. Sloan and the Azra guards were strongest if they attacked the larger unit together. A battle that spread to every part of Azra’s interior would be a battle they would not be able to win.
The ground shuddered with every step of the mechanical mage monster. Its long strides meant within seconds it would reach the Azra walls. Already those guards in the walls tasked with covering the escape of the main group were firing arrows and lead rounds at the approaching behemoth. Every projectile that struck the iron beast’s hide fell off like water droplets from a steel breastplate.
Sloan and her group skidded to a halt at the open Azra gates. Cherub stood ready with the gargoyle unit.
“We need to close the gates!” a scream from an Azra guard reached their ears. “We need to close the gates!”
“Not until everyone’s inside!” Cherub roared over the sounds of battle.
Sloan had seconds to make a decision. The metal monster that stood just as tall as the Azra wall would arrive in seconds, followed by the fleeing Azra guards that included Croft, Slade, and Sasha, and finally the bulk of the New Hope army would come seconds after that.
“We have to—” But Sloan didn’t get her thought out before she was interrupted.
“Look!” Babs shouted, pointing to a blue blur that raced toward the iron machine. “Who is that?”
Sloan squinted, trying to figure out what she was seeing. A solitary rider came from the south as if she had risen from the ocean itself. A great blue sword stretched out to one side. She rode a black unicorn.
“Kimberly,” Sloan said, more to herself than to anyone at the gates. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. Kimberly raced with abandon straight at the iron giant. “We need to help her! Let’s go!”
Sloan didn’t wait for an answer or a consensus from Cherub. She was about to take her first step forward, when the gargoyle commander reached out and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders.
“Wait. She knows what she’s doing.” Cherub struggled to hold Sloan. “She’s already bought us the time we need.”
Cherub was right. The monster only a few hundred yards away now hesitated as Kimberly made first contact. She dragged her blue made sword across the beast’s right metal leg as she passed. It reached down to swat her, but missed. Seemed speed was one of the monster’s weaknesses.
Kimberly’s act had already bought Azra the time it needed. Croft and the remaining fleeing Azra unit were reaching the gates, with the New Hope vampire army now only seconds behind.
“Inside! Inside!” Croft screamed to the soldiers around her. She bled from a wound on her right eyebrow. Dark crimson red pooled from yet another wound on her left leg. “Close the gates!”
BOOM!
Lightning split the sky. A dozen Azra soldiers’ just feet from the safety of the walls light up in a ball of fire.
“Let’s leave the gates open a moment longer, shall we?” Leah descended from the sky, levitating overhead. The few Azra soldiers fast enough to shoot at her with arrows or bullets were skewered with purple lightning coming from Leah’s wand before they could fire. “Croft, sister, it’s so good to see you.”
“Sloan, Cherub, the mage engine must be stopped.” Croft lifted into the air, ignoring her wounds. “I’ll deal with Leah. She’s beyond any of you now.”
“Deal with me?” Leah gave everyone in the area a wicked look. “How are you going to deal with me, when you can’t even protect your own shifters?”
Sloan’s heart broke into a million pieces as the witch took aim at Kade. Time stopped then sped up so fast Sloan didn’t have time to react. Luckily for her, Saber didn’t have the same problem.
The one-eyed shifter understood what was about to happen. With no regard for his own life, he tackled his little brother, shielding him with his own body. Leah’s lightning strike caught Saber in his back, frying skin and hair alike.
Kade let out a scream that sounded half human from his sabertooth throat. The two brothers fell to the ground in a heap.
The events unfolding in front of Sloan had torn her attention from the advancing New Hope army. They were yards away and sprinting quickly. They were so close now Sloan could see their black eyes thirsting with blood lust.
Leah and Croft battled overhead in the sky with a shower of purple-and-yellow magic.
Sloan allowed herself the space of a heartbeat to be overwhelmed. That was all she got; that was all she could be given. Leaders didn’t have the option to be weak.
“Get them inside!” Sloan screamed to Sasha who hovered over her brothers protectively. Kade shifted back to his human form, his large sabertooth armor falling around him in pieces. “Get them inside!”
“Guards of Azra!” Cherub’s voice somehow boomed above the cracking magic taking place over head. “Shield wall! Defend your home! For your families, for your lives, for your future!”
ARRROO!
Immediately, a line of white-cloaked Azra guards lined up in front of Sloan. It was too late to close the slow moving gates. The New Hope vampire soldiers were upon them.
The sick sound of bodies slamming into bodies, shields striking flesh, and weapons cutting into one another permeated the battle. The vampires with their superior speed were only matched by the gargoyles’ strength. Like the ebb and flow of the ocean, the two forces fought in the space of the open gates. The Azra gates themselves afforded a dozen soldiers to stand shoulder to shoulder.
Sloan stood just behind the line, looking to Kade and Sasha who cried over Saber’s smoking body.
She had lost another friend. Although she had just met Saber, he’d already meant something to her being Kade’s brother. A brother he had only just been reunited with.
Somewhere past the confrontation at the gates, past the sizzling magical fight taking place in the sky overhead, the thumb of the steel mage engine hummed.
“With me!” Sloan yelled to Pia, Babs, and Doyle. “To the wall!”
Sloan sprinted up the steps. When she reached the top of the battlements and looked out to the scene in front of her, her heart dropped in her chest.
Chapter 34
Sloan
The New Hope vampire army swirled at the gates like a ocean of ebony. The Azra guards on the wall were doing their best to repel them, firing everything they had, even hurling rocks and black pitch followed by fire.
For all of the vampires they struck, in seconds, they were back on their feet, their healing factor mending them in minutes. It seemed the only way they stayed down was with the fire or extreme trauma to their heads.
Past the army, still confronting the mage engine by herself, Kimberly weaved in and out from between its steel legs. Her blue sword cut through the metal beast like butter, but had no apparent effect on the monster.
“We’re not going to do anyone any good from here!” Sloan yelled to her vampire squad. “Kimberly needs the most help now. If that monster makes it to the Azra walls, it’s all over for us!”
“Yeah, but how are we going to get through the army between us and them?” Doyle shouted back.
“Hold on!”
Sloan recognized the voice, but didn’t believe who she was hearing. She turned to see Elizabeth and Abigail standing at the gates. Abigail reached over and tore a metal bracelet off her sister.
“Elizabeth! Abigail!” Sloan looked to each, grateful to have them enter the fight. “Are you two sure about this?”
Before they could answer, there was a boom in the sky and a massive wave of purple magic tore over Croft’s body. The witch
was hurled to the ground under the torrent of Leah’s attack.
“I’ve got to stop them.” Elizabeth rose into the air. “The rest of you, hold on.”
“Hold on?” Pia looked to the other members of the squad on the wall. “What does she mean ‘ho—’”
Sloan, her vampire squad, and Abigail were lifted into the air one moment, and hurled off the wall and toward the mage engine the next.
The sensation of flying enveloped Sloan once more. Unlike being lifted into the air by Cherub, this time it felt oddly horrifying. One moment, a sense of elation enveloped her, only to be replaced by the thought of having to land. In seconds, the group traveled over the New Hope army. To Sloan and everyone else’s relief, instead of plummeting to the ground, they were lowered.
“Aareth?” Ashley reigned in the unicorn she rode. The beast foamed at the mouth. “Is he all right?”
“It’s good to see you, too.” Sloan drew her sword and flicked on her heated blade. “As far as I know, he’s fine. He left with Jack to go look for his father a few days ago.”
Ashley’s tired, sweaty face somehow seemed to brighten with the knowledge. Despite their dire situation, the thought of her loved one safe and far away from the events unfolding around them now gave her a sense of peace.
BOOM! BOOM!
The mage engine with the glowing wolf head looked down at them. If its metal face was capable of expression, Sloan imagined it would be angry right about now.
“Its legs are too thick!” Kimberly prepared herself for another assault. “We need to bring it down and sever its limbs somehow.”
The ground shuddered under its heavy footfalls as it got closer to Sloan and her group.
“One leg at a time, then.” Sloan looked over to Abigail, who had taken her pair of mage katanas from their sheaths on her back. Her blades shown with bright white light. “We have four mage swords instead of one.”
Sloan looked over to her vampire squad. She hated having to ask them, but she knew they wouldn’t hesitate to follow her orders if she marched them into Hell itself.
“We’re going to relieve that beast of its legs.” Sloan nodded to Ashley on her right and Abigail on her left. Then she turned her attention to the three members of her squad in front of her. “Buy us some time.”
Hard stares of pure determination looked back at her. With head nods and grunts, her three vampires were off, already racing to put themselves in the way of danger.
“Go for its right leg.” Kimberly reached down to offer Abigail a hand onto her unicorn. “That’s where I’ve done the most damage already.”
“Don’t stop until it’s down.” Sloan began her run. “If it reaches Azra’s walls, we’ve lost the war.”
This is insane, a voice inside Sloan’s head told her. You’re racing toward a metal mage monster a hundred times your size, with a dead woman and a kid.
The idea was so insane, it even brought a brief smile to Sloan’s lips. But the smile was short-lived. Babs, Pia, and Doyle had already reached the beast. With weapons they knew couldn’t injure it, they put their bodies on the line so Sloan and her group could have a chance. That took guts. No, more than guts. It took a courage Sloan admired.
The metal beast leaned down, swiping with powerful steel claws the size of swords. It lifted its feet, trying to stomp them down. Just as Sloan reached the steel beast’s right leg, Doyle got too close, and with a sound of cracking bones, he was caught by a backhand from the mage engine’s right paw.
Doyle lifted off the ground, flying so far out of view, Sloan wondered if he would land in the ocean itself. The cover of night hid his exact landing spot, but the morning sun would not be far off.
As Sloan began hacking away at the monster’s leg, a horrible thought emerged: What if the gates weren’t closed by the time the sun rose? Morning was less than an hour away. Without Cherub’s gargoyles able to defend the open gate, the battle would be over.
This thought gave power to Sloan as she hacked away at the steel appendage in front of her. Ashley was right. Each leg was like a massive steel tree trunk. Abigail joined her, jumping off Ashley’s unicorn. Together, the women sunk their mage blades deep into the steel mass over and over again.
Kimberly joined them a moment later, allowing her unicorn to flee the deadly scene. Red, white, and blue mage swords sunk deep into the metal, turning the material to molten gashes.
“Don’t give up!” Sloan screamed as the monster took a wobbling step forward. “We’ve almost got it!”
Sloan was right. With the three impromptu lumberjacks hacking away at the section of the mage engine’s leg just above his foot, they had already cleaved halfway through its leg.
As soon as hope emerged, though, it was taken back. The mage engine ignored Pia and Babs, deciding to focus on the women at its legs. Sloan didn’t even see the blow that sent her sailing through the air toward the New Hope army. One moment, she was rearing back to send her mage sword at the mage engine’s leg again; the next, her entire body felt numb.
She flew through the air, head over heels, her sword lost some time during her flight, and she fell in a heap in the middle of the vampire army. All the soldiers looked stunned for a moment.
Sloan was still trying to figure out what was going on when a voice she recognized yelled through the black uniforms about to descend on her, “Get back! She’s mine!”
Sloan struggled to her feet past the pain. She was sure she had broken bones upon landing, but she had to trust that her vampire DNA would heal her.
As soon as she stood, Commander Steel hammered her with a blow across her temple, and the pommel of his mage sword sent a wave of blood over her eyes. Sloan tried wiping the sticky red substance from her vision, when a boot caught her in the stomach a moment later. Sloan doubled over.
Searing pain like she had never experienced in her life cut through her shoulder. A scream so loud, so unlike her, burst from her lungs, it took her a moment to realize she was the one doing the screaming.
Commander Steel had pinned her to the ground with his white mage sword. The weapon stuck out of the front of her left shoulder. With a smile, the scarred commander looked down at his pinned prey.
“Hope is lost to you and the city you fight for.” Commander Steel sneered, twisting his mage sword deeper into Sloan’s shoulder. “The sun’s almost up, the mage engine is nearly to your walls, and you are about to die.”
Sloan was doing everything she could to not lose concentration. She focused on controlling her breathing and coming up with a plan, any plan.
A howl—no, an army of howls—found their way to her and Commander Steel’s ears. A moment later, a massive rumble that could only be the mage engine crashing to the ground shook the earth beneath them.
“You’re wrong!” Sloan screamed at the commander who looked around in confusion even as the werewolf howls gained velocity. “That’s the sound of hope!”
Sloan reached up, grabbing Commander Steel’s hands that rested on the hilt of his sword and, with a scream of rage, drove the blade deeper through her own body. The act took Commander Steel off guard and off balance and he stumbled forward on top of her.
Sloan grabbed his neck with her right hand. In one motion, she tore out his throat, leaving him gagging, blood pouring from the wound, eyes wide as he died.
Complete and utter chaos took over the next moment as a dozen giant werewolves hammered into the ranks of the vampire army.
Chapter 35
Croft
Leah was more powerful than Croft could ever have imagined. Again and again, the witches clashed in the sky, but from the beginning, Croft understood she didn’t have a chance. Leah was too strong.
Croft picked herself up from the ground once more and lifted into the night air. She spat blood from her mouth, the metallic taste an afterthought as she looked over the battlefield. Cherub held the gates of Azra, where men and women from both sides died by the second. It was only a matter of time before the superior numbers of the v
ampire army won out.
A lone figure with a giant blue mage sword had captured the mage engine’s interest, but for how long?
“You have to realize by now that this will all be over very soon,” Leah taunted from her position in the night sky only a few dozen yards in front of Croft. “You can’t compete with me, and neither can your forces stop my own. It’s over, dear sister. If you bend the knee now, I might be persuaded to take mercy on you.”
“So you can stab me in the back like you did to Eleanor?” Croft gathered herself for another attack. She channeled the yellow power of her magic into her hands. Soon, they both glowed with an impressive yellow fire. “No thanks. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“Then die you shall!” Leah screamed. She pulled back her lips and her eyes glowed with the purple color of her magic.
Once more, the witches clashed. Croft sent bolts of yellow magic at Leah, to no avail. Leah allowed the bolts of magic to reach her, striking them with her own hands that pulsed with purple light. Every time both witches’ magic met one another, a loud cracking sound shocked the night sky.
Leah deflected the attacks, striking out with an assault of her own. A mass of bright purple tentacles exploded from her right hand.
Croft braced herself, crossing her forearms in front of her and summoning a shield. When the attack hit her, her shield held, but she was slammed down to the ground by its sheer force.
Croft grunted as the air escaped her lungs. She hit the ground inside the Azra walls so hard, her teeth chattered. Leah’s attack never stopped, the force of the writhing magical tentacles pressing down on her.
Summoning all of her reserve strength, Croft forced herself to her knees and then to her feet, trying to combat the magic with a burst of yellow magic of her own. It was a short-lived victory. Croft rose, meeting Leah’s channeled energy with a beam of her own. Her magic pushed Leah’s from her body, but only succeeded temporarily.
House of Wrath: The Vampire Project Book 5 Page 14