Chapter 27
Bellanca’s heart hammered a punishing beat against her ribs as the full volley found its marks. Pav’s second-in-command dropped dead, a bolt in the head. Arrows thunked down, hitting hard, and men in both units crumpled.
Whipping around, she saw her nightmare. The herd of centaurs sprang out of the woods, a good fifty of them, all armed with bows and arrows. They lined up along the edge of the forest, preparing to fire again.
Shock and horror blasting through her, she turned to Carver and urgently whispered, “They’ll kill everyone here.” These centaurs had no mercy, their hatred of men so legendary it had kept humans out of these woods for centuries.
“Son of a Cyclops,” he ground out. She couldn’t agree more.
She glanced at the rapidly panicking soldiers, and a lone arrow flew past her, so close the fletching stung her neck. She flinched as it killed the soldier across from her. The twang of dozens of bowstrings vibrated in her ears, and her heart spasmed in dread as she spun toward the sound. Arrows blackened the sky, fast-moving death hurtling down on them. Throwing her hands up and out, she released a wild pulse of sun-flare magic. The shard made it shockingly powerful, and the entire volley burned in the air and scattered to ashes.
She exhaled sharply, stunned by the sheer amount of magic she’d produced—and thankful she’d only aimed upward. The shard still grasped at the threads of power inside her, trying to drag more out as she shoved Arete toward Carver. “Get everyone across the river! Fast as you can! I’ll hold them off.”
Carver hesitated. “There are too many.”
“I’ll be their queen, but you’ll be their general. These are your men, Carver. Lead them! ” The centaurs fired again. The first sunset colors streaked the sky along with dozens of arrows. She let the shard wrap its icy power around her magic, aimed her hands, and incinerated the volley.
As the burned-up arrows showered them in falling embers, Carver gathered both horses’ reins in one hand and gave her the hardest look he’d ever leveled on her. “Don’t be so heroic it kills you,” he growled.
“You either,” she growled back at him. “Now go! Get everyone as far away from me as possible so I can sun flare these murderous bastards off the face of Atlantis.”
With one last fraught look at her, his face twisting, Carver turned and started downhill, leading the horses behind him. “Cross the river!” he shouted, waving the soldiers forward. “Help the injured! Move, men! Now!”
With half an eye still on Carver and the fleeing soldiers, Bellanca reduced another volley of deadly bolts to nothing. With the shard bolstering her strength, she barely felt the drain on her magic, despite the power and scope she needed to cover the whole sky across the clearing. Seeing that their arrows weren’t killing anymore, the centaurs changed tactic and started a rumbling march down the slope. More of the deadly creatures came out of the trees behind them, and her eyes widened.
“Run!” she screamed over her shoulder. “There are more!”
Carver’s eyes flared in alarm. He shoved the horses ahead of him, slapping their backsides to encourage them forward, and then veered off, racing toward his friends.
Bellanca saw Carver start to help drag a lolling Silas toward the river, but then hooves thundered down the meadow, faster. Whirling, she slashed her hand from left to right, drawing a thick line of magic in front of her. The long grass went up in flames, cutting off the centaurs’ most direct route to her and the soldiers. The grass would burn out quickly, but the heat forced the creatures to slow down, buying precious seconds for the people behind her.
She half turned, her pulse pounding. Arete and Zeph were already skidding down the rocky bank, faster than the soldiers. Some men raced straight for the river. Others helped the wounded, trying to get them up and moving. They left the dead. Still well into the clearing, Carver and Dex struggled under Silas’s weight. The three of them staggered downhill too slowly, checking for injured men as they went.
Her heart in her throat, she swung back around just as her blaze burned out and the creatures trampled the embers. Her nostrils flared, the deep inhalation feeding aggression into her blood and body. Her magic throbbed in her veins as an army of centaurs stared her down. Hooves scraped the ground. Arrows pointed at her. Lifting her chin, she squared her shoulders and let her eyes burn with a promise of fire.
One centaur stepped forward from the rest of the herd. Sleek, dappled gray, huge, he blended into the thickening twilight except for the whites of his eyes, which looked all too human. “Fire!” he snarled.
She pushed out an instant explosion of magic. The Shard of Olympus surged to life, helping her, but the creatures had fired from such close range that a few arrows pricked her skin before they burned away. Arrowheads dropped around her, not fully destroyed this time.
Hiding her jolt of fear behind a smirk, she gave her enemies an unimpressed look. “I can do this all day.”
The lead centaur cocked his head, long dark hair sweeping his muscled shoulders. “Interesting trick, Firebringer. But magic like that doesn’t last.”
“I’ve got more than enough in me. Back off or burn,” Bellanca threatened, visibly stoking her fire.
He signaled to his herd, and they fired again. The volley arced over her head this time, ready to fall on the retreating soldiers. She turned with the arrows, trying to snare the bolts in her sun flare before they started down. She got what she could, but the centaurs were close, and the arrows too fast, forcing her to cut off her magic before she hit any of her people.
At least a dozen deadly bolts thudded to the ground. Two stragglers toppled, and anger roared inside her as she whipped back around.
The creatures had spread out, surrounding her. She would sun flare the life out of them right now if she wasn’t convinced it would require a blast of magic so strong it would catch and kill Carver and the soldiers, too. Immortal creatures were tough, feared little, and healed quickly. She’d have to destroy them so thoroughly they couldn’t come back from it, and that would require all her magic plus the Shard of Olympus.
“This is fair warning.” She lifted her hard-burning hands to keep the centaurs away from her. “I will kill you— every single one of you —unless you turn around now and disappear into the woods. We’ll cross the river. We won’t come back. This is my only offer.”
The centaur Alpha laughed, a dark sound full of malice. “Trespassers are fair game. There’s no ignoring so many tainted feet on our gods-given land. You started this. We’ll finish it.”
Her mouth pinched. It was killing, then. Their choice.
An odd feeling swept through her. Fatigue—though not physical. For the first time in her life, she was sick of fighting.
She dared a quick glance over her shoulder to see how the soldiers were progressing. Many were crossing the river, with several scrambling up the opposite bank now. Those who’d stopped to help their comrades were far behind the others. Some still bent over the fallen, searching for survivors. Pav was trying to get an injured man off the ground. Carver and Dex were doing the same, all while struggling with Silas.
Taking in the scene took mere seconds, but she’d see it in her mind forever. Moaning men. Reaching hands. Blood in the grass. Heroes trying to help. Cowards fleeing. Lives snuffed out for no reason at all except for plain violence and cruelty.
Rage beyond anything she’d felt since the day she burned her gods-awful brother to a crisp erupted inside her. Her fire was hot, but her fury was stone-cold and determined. She wasn’t like other people. Remorse rarely filled her when she killed. Remorse filled her when she didn’t kill, and then other people suffered or died because of her inaction. That would never be her again, and she would not lose another soldier.
“Then start with me, boys,” she taunted, spreading her burning hands. She knew enough about centaurs to know they couldn’t resist a direct challenge. “If you can get past me, then you can have at whoever’s left on this side of the river.”
Interest gleamed in the leader’s eyes. “I accept your challenge, fire worm.” His smile turned vicious. “You die first, but I don’t guarantee not crossing the river this time to finish my sport with your soldiers. Atlantapol is still a long way from the border.”
His threat only made her magic blaze hotter. “Do that, and the gods will punish you.”
He scoffed. “The only god who roams here isn’t interested in what happens to humans anymore.”
She huffed, disgusted. That was a ringing endorsement for Hera. “Then come and get me,” she dared.
Despite her challenge, she struck first, throwing a sizzling fireball at the centaur Alpha as she charged up the incline. Taken off guard, he only half avoided her attack and bellowed in pain and fury, his shoulder smoldering and sparks cascading down his torso and withers. Still running, she whipped fire at the two creatures closest to him, adding a hint of sun flare to see how much damage it caused. Melted skin. Hints of bone. The creatures recoiled, and satisfaction burned through her.
Their hesitation didn’t last. They swiftly penned her in, and she ended up fighting the centaurs and the amulet. The Shard of Olympus wanted to turn her magic into a colossal wave of power, but she couldn’t let that happen until she was sure Carver and the soldiers were at least across the river and sheltered by the trees beyond it.
Glowing sun-flare hot and throwing constant fire, she resisted the shard’s heavy pull as the herd leader darted in and kicked out. She leaped away, and his back hooves thumped the air in front of her. Another centaur charged. She twisted sideways and slipped between two others, burning brighter to force them away from her. She spun again, on the defensive now, the double fight distracting her when she didn’t have concentration to spare. Her magic didn’t understand holding back. Neither did the Shard of Olympus. They both railed at her to destroy, to end this, and she wished to the gods she could.
“Is that all you’ve got, fire worm?” The Alpha circled her, his tail twitching and his burn already healed. “We’re going to trample you to a pulp and then chase down your little soldiers.”
Bellanca stared back at him, keeping part of her awareness on the centaurs around her. She worked hard to control the shard. It was supposed to help her, but right now, all it was doing was forcing her to hold back—something she never did in battle. “We’re not done yet. You haven’t even touched me.”
His smile chilled her. “I’m toying with you. It amuses me.”
She smiled back, just as chilling. “ I’m toying with you.” She darted a look over her shoulder, but she was too deep in centaurs to see through them. “You’re dead the second I want you to be.”
Hate rolled off the Alpha like thunder. “Kill her. I want her bones ground to dust so that I can roll in them.”
At least his threats were original. She didn’t waste time or breath on responding. She ignited. The hottest flames of her life snapped and snarled around her arms and hands, their color closer to the glacial glow of the Shard of Olympus than to her usual fire. She accepted a portion of power from the amulet and launched her magic at the centaur next to the herd leader. He fell to the ground, squealing in agony.
The herd leader’s face darkened in fury, and he looked at her with such malice it probably should’ve scraped her skin like knives and sent her running. Instead, she let out a simple sound of disappointment. “Hmm.” She hadn’t punched a hole straight through the centaur, but the big burn went so deep that his melting insides oozed out of him. “I’ll have to add a little more oomph next time.” Learning to combine the shard with her innate magic on her terms would be a literal trial by fire. At least she had plenty of practice targets.
Gathering blazing-hot fire in her hand, she shaped it into a spear. Seeing the centaurs pause made her smile, and she lengthened her weapon toward the Alpha, growing it flame by flame and watching her fire glint in his eyes like fear.
Carver’s voice reached her from down the big meadow, faint but clear. “Get wet as you cross! Soak yourselves in the river!”
“Attack!” the leader shouted.
Centaurs swarmed, striking from all sides. She threw her spear, scorching a deep hole into the one charging straight at her. After, she simply burned, throwing out fire in all directions. But there were too many. Too many to see, too many to fight, too many to drive back before they got to her. A kick glanced off her thigh. Another hit her more squarely on the shoulder, and she gasped, stumbling forward. Numbness shot down her arm, making her fire splutter. The shard rattled in the cage she fought to maintain for it. Just a little longer. A back hoof kicked out and she dodged, but the tail whipped her face, the long hairs sharp and stinging. Hissing in pain, she lashed out with both arms, twisting in place and lighting up like a beacon. Fire rolled off her from head to foot, drying the wet, stinging pain misting her eyes from the blows she’d taken.
Blinded by chaos and churning bodies, she got shoved from side to side, almost falling. Centaurs darted in and out, fighting through burns and taking turns with each other to attack without pausing. She aimed torrents of sun-flare-enhanced fire at the beasts, driving them back over and over. One of them still got in a ringing punch to her head, and she staggered, her vision blurring.
“Trample!” the creatures snarled.
She let out an avalanche of magic she barely controlled as she got her balance. The shard almost grabbed it and turned it into the massacre she needed but couldn’t afford until Carver and the soldiers were fully across the river.
Roars of rage and howls of pain filled her ears. Her own cuts and bruises took a toll, slowing her reactions. A deafening stamp of hooves whirled around her, and she burned without cease, her magic tiring. She had a deep well of power, but it wasn’t infinite, with or without the Shard of Olympus. She dug deeper, knowing a critical moment approached. If she didn’t end this soon, it would end her, so the people she wanted to save had better be as far away from her as possible.
A rump suddenly swung into her from behind, throwing her into another centaur. She bounced off his flank and hit the ground on her back, the air punched out of her. The closest creature reared above her. Huge hooves barreled toward her head. She rolled away, scrambled to her feet, and frantically shot off fire.
With barely room to move, she fought fiercely, centaurs churning around her. She ducked a brutal kick and struck out with a burning fist. She spun back around, and her heartbeat exploded in panic. The gigantic Alpha bore down on her. He swerved to avoid her magic, flipped an arrow in his hand, and rammed the point at her chest as he thundered past her at a gallop.
Bellanca flew backward from the battering impact and landed on the hot ground, jarred limp, the air knocked out of her again. Terror gripped her. Dragging in a thin, shallow breath, she touched her aching chest. No blood. She exhaled shakily. No arrow, either. The tip must’ve hit her amulet.
Far away, Carver yelled her name, frantically shouting, “Now! Now!” across the distance.
She staggered upright, wheezing in another bruised and labored breath just as the herd leader circled back, his fury-filled eyes hammering into her. She backed up, her feet scraping through blackened grass, smoldering dirt, and dusty ashes. Centaurs surrounded her. Acrid smoke seared her nostrils. She swallowed.
At the Alpha’s command, every single centaur nocked an arrow and aimed at her. He smirked, the smug, victorious look on his face enough to pull hot, vicious magic straight from the heart of her. He slowly, deliberately readied his own arrow and drew back, his bowstring so tight the bolt would punch right through her.
She stopped trying to tame the amplifying force of the Shard of Olympus and welcomed its energy, letting its ancient power flood her body and infuse her magic. They both waited a heartbeat, their eyes locking. The head centaur abruptly let fly his arrow, and she sun flared with all her might, her own fire, and the added intensity of the amulet.
Blinding power erupted from her. White-hot. Burning cold. Scorching and glacial at the same time, her sharp blast of magic with no holds barred did its job and obliterated the herd of centaurs.