by Eric Vall
I had just emptied the barrel for the third time when another pack of dogs tore past me out of nowhere, and one of them caught my knee as it went.
My leg buckled, and I was thrown off balance, but I managed to soften the rock under me before my back could snap across it. The impact still knocked the wind out of me, though, and I rolled out of the way of a pair of grappling elves to find myself surrounded by four soldiers.
Their ferocious grins and hollow eyes made my pulse skip, and without a thought, I pulled a wall up over me before the first axe could fall. Then I busted the wall open to hurl the rubble into the soldiers, and as they fell back, I clenched my fist to bury them in the ground.
Aurora’s flames flashed over my head and enveloped a hoard of soldiers on the other side of the brush, but when I threw my arm out to bring another axe to me, I noticed a glow of flames against the canopy to the south that couldn’t have come from the Ignis Mage.
The rifle cracked again, and I called out to the half-elf to warn her about the blaze even though I couldn’t tell where she was in all the chaos. I scaled another log to get a better view, and my gut dropped when I saw one of the massive trees that formed the canopy ignite.
“Shit,” I breathed.
House Kylen had started a fire south of the main house, and as I watched the flames peel across the stout trunks of five trees, one of them slowly began to keel over.
Calls of alarm echoed from the ferns, and when the fifty-foot trunk came crashing down, flames swelled out in a massive ripple. The ground trembled all the way to where I stood and beyond, and the blaze began to eat through the undergrowth in every direction.
I searched for even a glimpse of blue hair in the few shafts of moonlight, but I couldn’t find the Ignis Mage anywhere now. The distant fire had begun to distort my night vision, and the shadows I’d grown used to became impossible to decipher once again.
Then a familiar voice hitched in shock close by, and I turned to see a blood red soldier rip his axe out of Dragir’s stomach.
Chapter 21
I lunged from the log and drove my fist into the ground when I landed, and the elf who’d impaled Dragir was thrown thirty feet into the air as a pillar shot up beneath his feet. I watched him thrash wildly as he began his descent, and I unsheathed my blade to slit the ankles of the two elves in my path as I tried to make it to Dragir.
He hadn’t moved from where he’d dropped under the force of the axe, and my adrenaline surged when a burly elf trampled his gut as he barreled past.
The next elf to swing an axe got a bullet through the head just before his own tungsten blade shattered his skull for good measure, and I emptied the revolver into the face of another blood red soldier to clear the way.
Then I shoved the gun into my holster and dropped beside Dragir to rip his tunic aside. The elf’s stomach yawned open where the tungsten blade had impaled him, and there was a mess of sinewy entrails fully exposed along his center, but not a drop of blood.
“Bastard,” Dragir muttered. He strained to sit up, but he couldn’t remain upright with the muscles in his torso severed.
“Who, me?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Dragir shot back through gritted teeth, and he dropped the hilt of his sword. The wound remained exactly as it was, and he narrowed his serpentine eyes at me. “I told you to keep the coin.”
I grinned. “You’re welcome.”
Dragir shook his head. “If you die, Deya’s going to kill me.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’ve got the coin,” I chuckled.
Dragir cringed and blocked his face as two large dogs nearly trampled his head, and I realized he’d be stuck until the wound fully resealed itself.
“Can you move your legs?” I asked as I hastily reloaded the revolver.
Dragir furrowed his brow, and his boots shifted only slightly.
“Shit,” I cursed. “How long do you need to heal a wound like this?”
I hitched my arms under his to pull him toward the cover of some ferns, and Dragir actually smirked.
“No idea,” he said. “For all I know, it won’t. I should be dead.”
“Rune magic’s kind of irritating,” I muttered, but then I dropped my hold on Dragir only halfway to the ferns.
Two soldiers broke through the leaves on either side of us with their swords drawn, and as I stood to take my aim, the revolver was knocked from my hand by a solid kick from an elf I thought I recognized.
The third elf had come up out of my line of sight, but his strange orange hair couldn’t be mistaken. It was one of the sons from House Kylen who’d been at the celebration the night they stole Deya, but aside from his hair, he was hardly recognizable. He looked like a lazy and ill kept brute when I last saw him, but now his face was sallow, and his stare was blank. His muscles seemed to have doubled in their size, though, and his lips peeled back into a deadly snarl just before he lunged.
I pulled the Halcyan sword from its sheath in time to block the first blow, but none of the three soldiers had metal armor on for me to work with. I stumbled a bit in my attempt to shield Deya’s brother while saving my own ass from the three burly elves, and they drove their blades out relentlessly from all sides. My arm burned as I blocked their heavy blows, but I finally managed to slice one of them from his neck to his navel.
The soldier flailed and crashed back as he tripped on Dragir’s body, and I took my opening to wrench two of their swords from their grips and send them into the ferns. I continued to spar with the last armed elf, but the soldier I’d sliced open was dragging himself toward Dragir, and as I wove aside to finish him, a dagger was unsheathed faster than I could blink.
It flew past and spliced across the top of my shoulder only inches from my neck, and the Halcyan sword fell from my grip as I lost half the feeling in my arm. I immediately felt a heavy rush of blood, and my limbs began to tingle as warmth gushed down my chest and back. I lunged to retrieve the blade, but when my footing slipped on a pool of blood, the unarmed elf got a hold of me by my vest before I could reach the sword.
I planted the heel of my boot into his gut as I tried to get my glaive with my good arm, but the elf still didn’t loosen his hold. His dead eyes burned through me, and he pummeled his giant bloodied fist into my ribs with a crack. I lurched and stopped trying to fight him as I reached out to summon my revolver from wherever it had landed instead, but then something suddenly changed.
I was abruptly released from his iron grip, and as my captor stood above me, he began to shake violently, and I stared.
His face twisted hideously, and screams of utter anguish tore from his throat and rose above the mayhem around us. He shook uncontrollably as he stumbled around, and when his form crossed a shaft of moonlight, I saw blood begin to ooze from the sockets of his eyes.
The heir to House Kylen was frozen in his place as he gaped at his comrade, and we both watched in shock while the elf began to tear through the flesh on his arms. Only after he’d bitten his tongue into pieces did he finally collapse in a twitching heap on the ground in front of me, and his bulging veins seemed to ripple beneath his flesh.
The orange-haired elf remained staring at the corpse, but only moments after the body ceased its shaking, the heir’s own face began to twitch.
I scrambled backward in horror as he began to claw at his own face, and a rogue elf in blood red garb barreled onto the scene.
He halted on the spot as the screams became nauseating, and around the time the blood began to ooze out of the heir’s eyes, the rogue soldier quickly dove back through the ferns to escape a similar fate.
I cringed and looked away while it all came to a gory end, and with the heir finally dead in a twitching heap, I let myself breathe again.
Glaives still clanged all over the jungle, and smoke had begun to settle in a thick blanket above the ferns, but it took me a solid minute to snap out of my horror and crawl the last few feet toward Dragir.
I didn’t even register the dogs sprinting
around us as I struggled to make sense of what the hell I’d just witnessed, but the axe wound was healed through the deepest layers in Dragir’s gut by now.
I let the relief of this ease my nerves a bit. “You’re healing,” I told him.
Then I looked at Dragir, and the elf shrugged.
“You’re welcome,” he said flatly.
My knees went numb.
“Did you just fucking do that?” I demanded and pointed to the dead elves.
Before he could answer, Dragir’s gaze flicked over my shoulder, and his arm shot out.
I whipped around in time to see a blood red soldier lurch and drop his axe only a couple feet away, but I quickly turned my back when he began to rip at his eyelids.
“Whaaat the fuck … ” I groaned and rifled my hair.
Nothing could distract me from the crazed screams of the soldier dying behind me, and I finally threw up when I heard him begin to gnash at his tongue.
I wiped my lips on my bloodied sleeve and pulled my Halcyan blade over to blindly stow it in my sheath, and by the time I got up the nerve to look at Dragir again, the elf was slowly working to stand.
There was only a fading scar on his stomach now.
“What is this smoke?” Dragir demanded as he grabbed his own sword from the ground and twisted a bit to be sure his muscles were in working order.
I was having trouble forming my words for a second, but it didn’t matter. Two soldiers broke through the haze of smoke, and to my relief, Dragir pulled his sword from his sheath rather than raise his arm.
He went for just slicing the neck this time while I summoned the dead elf’s axe and buried it in my attacker’s chest, and as another dog leapt onto the back of a soldier from House Syru, the jungle began to glow around us.
“They lit the forest in the south,” I grunted as I wrenched the axe free.
Dragir swiftly took off into the ferns, and I glanced at the corpses of the elves who had lost their damn minds before I hurled the axe into a passing elf and followed after.
The flames flickered not far ahead, which meant the fire was spreading more rapidly now, and bloodied dogs began to barrel past in the opposite direction as we drew closer.
I picked up my pace and jumped through a cropping of ferns, and on the other side, four soldiers from House Kylen had just finished ripping the arms off one of House Quyn’s warriors.
I skidded and stopped as his wail shot through me, and when he dropped in a pool of blood, the four soldiers turned to me and cast the arms of the dying elf aside.
Two of them towered at least a foot above me, and their broad shoulders were chiseled with angry muscles that gleamed in the growing light of the flames. They all grinned demonically as they headed for me, and I heard one of them give a low and mirthless laugh as he pulled his bloodied sword from its sheath.
I quickly sent my arm out to wrench their swords away, and the soldiers only continued to laugh unnervingly.
I stumbled back and was about to pull the ground apart, but dozens of dogs coursed by all around as they fled from the growing flames, and I couldn’t find an opening without killing off a sizeable portion of House Quyn’s pack as well.
As I clutched the hilt of the Halcyan sword and looked into the deadened eyes of the soldiers, my heart suddenly seized, and I realized I never reclaimed my revolver.
I’d been in shock after the torturous scene with the heir to House Kylen, and with the brawny soldiers nearly on top of me now, I could only raise my sword.
Then I heard a deep growl, but it wasn’t Ruela that crashed through the ferns.
The Mustang slammed into the four soldiers with a bone crushing clap, and two of the giant elves were shredded beneath the studded tires. I saw the spines of the other two snap on impact, and their bones jutted out of their burly backs as they splayed across Bobbie’s hood.
“Damn, girl,” I sighed and stowed my Halcyan blade as my pulse steadied only slightly. “You’re a hell of a wingman, you know that?”
The engine let out a low growl, and I had to chuckle, but before I could yank the bodies off the hood, Bobbie suddenly revved and reversed.
I heard the sickly smack of a skulls against her rear window, and a few more elves were slicked across the tires as the Mustang disappeared between the ferns.
The moment I turned away, I raised my arm and summoned my magic.
I searched the mess of the jungle behind me, but only the weapons of the elves sparked in my veins, and panic bloomed in my chest as I feverishly scanned twice more.
Then cries rang out from my right, and sparks began to drift through the air all around, so I finally abandoned my search to bolt toward the fire, and I prayed to the gods that my revolver had only been thrown in a different direction.
When I arrived, I could see Rhys’ men were attempting to flee the inferno, but the blood red soldiers kept them barricaded against the flames. They were locked between the raging fire and the tungsten axes of House Syru, and they dodged the blades that were hurled their way as best they could, only to leap when the flames bit at their flesh.
A few fumbled and attempted to reload their bows, but I could tell their hands were immediately scalded by the heated metal.
Dragir flung two daggers to take down a couple elves, and as I reached out with my good arm, I clamped the armor of five soldiers into a vice as quickly as I could.
The gap this left in the line was immediately filled in, though, and I changed my tactic to pull a trench open at their feet. Several of the hulking elves managed to jump aside before being swallowed up, but the number that fell into the gaping pit left enough space for half of Rhys’ men to make it away.
The heat of the flames singed the hair right off my arms as we fought to free the last dozen of Rhys’ men, and Dragir had his glaive drawn to face off against two blood red elves at once.
I disarmed three soldiers to bury their axes in their snarling faces, and just as a stream of soldiers from House Kylen poured in from the side, a serrated arrow soared over my head.
Rhys’ men who’d managed to break free of the flames had doubled back, and as I dove out of the way of their arrows, I couldn’t help grinning.
The elves from House Fehryn were twice as fast as me or the women with their draw, and their aim was unparalleled. They’d developed a tactic of firing in pairs of two so one could reload while the other emptied their magazine, and within a minute, the last of the line of soldiers were strewn all across the ground.
The wall of flames coursed hungrily over their remains and billowed into the sky as we all turned to flee, but as I leapt over a log, a flash of blue crossed my line of sight, and I finally caught a glimpse of Aurora through the ferns. I veered off and tried to follow, but the smoke was too thick, so I climbed a boulder to try and see where she’d headed.
When I turned, it looked like the perimeter of the fire might finally have started to slow its pace, and I anxiously scanned the smoke and ferns for another glimpse of the Ignis Mage.
It was impossible to discern anything, and the heat of the blaze burned my skin straight through my clothes as I waited for any sign of her. Then another tree crashed to the ground, and the impact sent a fresh wave of flames shooting across the jungle. As I dove for shelter behind the boulder, I realized I’d never seen Aurora face off with a fire as large as this before.
I knew she could withstand the temperature, but there were no other Ignis Mages to help her contain the blaze, and if a tree or a rogue soldier caught her off guard, that would be the end.
My chest clenched against the thrumming of my pulse as I dropped back to another boulder to scan once more, and after a long moment, the smoke suddenly began to thicken in a dense blue along the perimeter, and I could tell she’d somehow managed to get an upper hand over the flames.
The smoldering brush sent pillars of smoke up as it was extinguished, and slowly, the blaze was driven back one foot at a time.
I worked to steady my breath and finally looked aroun
d the rest of the jungle to see the last of House Syru’s army tearing their way through the trees to flee to the north.
I locked my jaw and raised my arm as my veins pulsed with fury.
The burly elves fell in waves as four trenches split across the jungle floor, and even though I didn’t catch all of them, more than half of the fleeing soldiers were smothered under the weight of the earth in a matter of seconds.
Then a series of sharp whistles rose up from the smoke, and as the wolfish dogs trotted past me with their bloody jaws gaping, I knew it was finally over.
I kept an eye on Aurora while she tamed the fire until the heat was less extreme, and then I followed behind while she finished dousing the southernmost rim of the fire. Within an hour, the jungle was only a wash of smoke and embers, and the sky had paled to the blue of early dawn.
Aurora’s piney sent radiated around her as she swiped some soot from her eyes, and she sighed with exhaustion as she came to curl into my arms.
I locked the half-elf against me. “You’re amazing,” I told her, “but you damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled against my chest, and I kept her in my arms while I eyed the decimated jungle around us.
The bark of the trees was charred and covered in ash, and with all of the ferns burnt away to ashes, the forest looked like a wasteland of cinder with smoke blackened boulders dotting the terrain in every direction.
What remained of the canopy’s leaves swayed gently against the lightening sky, and the once dense jungle was brighter than it had probably ever been in this part of the region.
“Water,” the half-elf groaned, and I nodded my agreement as I finally loosened my hold on her, but I looped my hand firmly in hers to lead us back to the main house.
“So, what’s the damage?” I asked after she’d had some time to regain her strength. She walked slowly with the loss of energy, but she was looking better by the minute. “Any lost fingers or gouges I should know about? Singed toes?”