Chapter 50
Brand roared as he unleashed his rage. He had no room for horror. No time for thought. The Horned City—his city—was being ravaged.
Those are dreadbeasts.
He scooped Luna up in one arm. “You never leave my side. You never leave my sight. Do you understand?”
She blinked up at him, brow furrowed.
“Do you understand, Luna? No running off to save one person. I’m sorry, but it’s the warriors who will need you this time. You have to understand.”
Her nod was sharp, sure. Good.
Brand leapt from the tower to a rampart below. Demons were already racing along it, streaming from every which way. He joined the hurtling flow, shoulder to shoulder with his brethren, shouting orders as they hit the stairs that would take them to the courtyard.
His twin shadows were there, flanking Lyriat along with the rest of his guard. Hundreds of warriors had already gathered before the gates to the high road in neat lines, countless others still coming to fill out their ranks.
“Do we know how many?” he asked as they joined them.
Lyriat’s jaw ticked, burning fury on his angular face. “Too many. Perhaps a dozen, maybe more.”
Brand’s world narrowed to a pin prick of hazy light. A dozen dreadbeasts.
It had taken two and a half Imperial Sons and Nachthelliae’s most powerful Sorcerit to bring one down.
Magnus and Vann arrived, Thad on their heels. Brand scanned the way they’d come, searching for hope in the formidable forms of his uncle and remaining brothers.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
Mag began untying his robes. “Araxis never showed, Caius went to report to the Chieftains, and Amun left with Amal a couple of hours ago.”
“Fuck. Fuck!”
Luna’s hand landed on his cheek. “We were surprised by the first,” she murmured. “We know better now. Put me down.”
Brand obeyed, curious to see where the determination he felt in her would lead them.
She reached out, power flaring, and the four talons they’d taken from the first dreadbeast appeared on the ground.
“Fucking genius, witchling. Who will take them?”
Another shudder in the earth, gasps and growls sounding.
A nervous hitch in his chest belied Luna’s air of confidence. “I have an idea, born from my own inabilities, I’ll admit.”
A stream of power poured from her palm as she reached it to the sky, the moons’ beams craning down to meet it.
She gave a yank, and the whips of light stretched out to grasp onto two of the jagged talons, melding with the ends.
Coiling the lengths, she pulled them towards herself, fangs flashing as she gritted her teeth.
A pulse, her clawed hands gripping both the rope of her magic and some other invisible thing she seemed to be crushing together.
Pulse, and the talons—nearly eight feet long—shrunk to half their size. Another, Luna grunting with effort, and they shrank again, and again, until they’d compacted to the size of her forearm.
Breathing heavily, wavering, she said, “I’ll take two. I can use them from a distance. Probably poorly, but better than relying only on close combat and a dagger I’m shite with.”
“Aye, like I said—fucking genius.”
Brand knelt, offering his hand. “Drink.”
She waved him away, drawing a hand across her forehead. “I’m not hurting. That was my power, and I am already replenishing. Save it for when I actually need it.”
He nodded, standing. “Vann, use your vines to take another. I’ll take the last. If you see a glowing patch of fiery light, that’s where you stab it.”
“I will command and fight from above,” Lyriat said, his wings flaring. “Brethren! Our forebears waged this battle once before and won! Use your wits, funnel the beasts to our Imperial Sons. You know what to do!”
He took to the sky, war cries following him up.
Brand had no idea what they were walking into, but still said, “One at a time, as best you can manage. We’ll split into groups, lead by myself, Magnus, and Vann. Overwhelm them. Confuse them. Use your power. Do not try to take one on alone. First Legion, to me!”
Scooping Luna up once more, he sprinted through the gates and down the high road, scores of raging Demons in his wake. Closer and closer to the sounds of fighting. Buildings had been toppled, falling partway into the streets. Screams and shouts reverberated, the ground rumbling beneath his feet.
At last, they hit the square and its chaos.
The smell of rotting fish assaulted him. Brand counted eleven sea serpents, writhing from the beach and twisting between the surrounding areas. Their gigantic heads rose up, pointed teeth like daggers as they destroyed everything in sight with abandon.
They weren’t like the ones from the old books and renderings. From the tales he’d been told.
Instead, they were decomposing. Their dull scales sloughed away with every movement, falling to the ground liked hurled supper plates and scattering in wisps of black shadow. The same deathly grey as the dreadbeast from the chasm.
And the sleek bodies of the terrible and magnificent creatures depicted on nearly every surface of the Horned City certainly hadn’t possessed fucking legs.
They’d been crudely patched on, jutting out and sharply angling back in like centipedes, the same talons supporting them.
“That’s fucking great,” Faldir growled. “Foul bloody dreadwyrms.”
Hedda pointed above them with her axe in hand, her voice choked. “The Solyr Stone.”
Sure enough, there was the twelfth. It was camouflaged against the night sky and the obelisk’s endless obsidian, wrapped and wrapped around it, trying to break it apart.
“Lyriat!” Brand bellowed, pointing himself. “Bring it down!”
Their king swooped down and shot upwards, his dual greatswords glinting. Vann went up too, in the dark side of his power, nearly disappearing himself as his blackened body followed on a wingless flight.
And so it began.
The dreadwyrm tumbled down into the square in front of them, flopping as it shrieked, and Brand commanded the ground to wrap up around it. Others followed suit, replenishing the stone entrapments as it broke them apart.
“Find the weak spot!”
Those with him searched the colossal body, shadows lashing out from between scales and teeth.
“There!” Luna scrambled forward in his hold.
He followed her finger—straight into the dreadwyrm’s gaping maw.
“Roof of the mouth!” His voice carried across the square, to where his brethren and brothers were locked in their own battles.
Putting Luna down, he pinched her stunning face between two of his fingers. “Remember, you never leave my side.”
“Never leave your sight.” She nodded. “I understand.”
Brand flipped the talon in his hand and called to the stone. Rocky claws rose up around the dreadwyrm’s head, funneling into its mouth and wrenching it apart. With a lunging heave, he buried the the talon in its hard upper pallet.
The dreadwyrm’s death throes were almost more destructive than any of the intentional attacks. Leftover stands and canopies were destroyed, a quarter of the surrounding storefronts and homes obliterated. He tried to limit its movements, to keep it trapped, but the damage was done.
Warriors rushed in to pull victims from the wreckage, stone melting to sand beneath their power.
“The talons!” Luna shouted. “Take them!”
The ones who weren’t helping obeyed without hesitation, hacking away at the bony appendages. Victorious cries sounded from another part of the city, a pair of howls rising above them. Again from his other side, Vann’s echoing laugh floating by on the breeze.
The next dreadwyrm went down in much the same way—in a fit of earth and shadow and screams, the talon of its hideous cousin embedded in its house-sized head.
And the next.
Brand rested his hands on his knees mere feet from his third kill, catching his breath and gathering strength as hope flared within him.
They could do it. They could win.
“Brand!”
Face twisted in terror, Luna shot one of her taloned whips past his head, a wave of his hair caught in its current.
He spun around as she hauled back, her body bowing with effort.
A dreadwyrm had snuck up behind them from a tight alley and was rearing back, arched and towering a dozen stories above him with her magical weapon embedded in its eye socket.
He reached out to take the whip from her, but his fingers passed right through the glowing rope as if nothing was there.
Fuck.
“To me!”
Demons swarmed, stone blasting out from the alleyway structures to grab the serpent. At the same time, Brand went to his knees behind Luna, wrapping his arms around her and engulfing her tiny hands with his. He couldn’t touch her power, but he could touch her.
“Pull!”
She did, all her weight pressing into his chest as he pulled with her, trying to bring its head to the ground where he could reach it. Lips peeled back, a ripple of light surged from her hands and folded the rope in on itself, threads spinning out and back in around themselves.
The dreadwyrm shrieked, thrashing, trying to dislodge the talon. More stone and earth rose up like reaching hands, grasping and towing.
“Almost there, little moon. Again!”
Another heave, another ripple, another fold.
“Hedda!” His Second whirled around, grimacing as she manipulated the stone. “Take her!”
She was there in a blink, switching places with him and enveloping his mate’s body.
“With your life, Second.”
She gave a sharp nod, knowing what he meant—protect his mate at all costs.
Brand brandished his jagged talon and leapt into the air, closing the remaining distance between himself and the clamoring beast. With a roar, he brought that one down, too.
The damage was less that time, having learned their lesson thrice over.
Luna was slumped back in Hedda’s arms, gulping down hiccuping breaths. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Hedda chuckled. “I take partial credit.”
Brand gathered Luna to himself, giving Hedda a pointed look of thanks before he turned away and hugged his mate close. “You were incredible. Thank you. You might have saved my bloody life.”