4. Mare
Mare
Adragon emerged from the darkness and dwarfed Galasvar in its shadow.
Its black scales shimmered under the fading moonlight as it landed upon the western tower. The stone shattered and broke beneath the crushing might of its claws.
Rubble and men crashed to the ground. Screams and shouts rose above the wailing song.
I stared in horror. Frozen. My elk reared in terror, reins ripping from my grip.
Sharp, featherlike scales blanketed the dragon's wings, and jutting spikes protruded from its spine. Its jaw ripped open, revealing teeth twice as tall as a man.
And it was not alone. An enormous bird flew over the eastern tower, its feathers black like a vulture's. Its long, pale neck rose to an unnervingly round, human face—its eyes orbs of milky white.
Ignoring the walls, the bird landed in the streets, its head easily rising above a two-story building, wings spreading like a funeral shroud.
"Inside." Liam grabbed me. "Now."
I broke from my frozen horror. Holding tight to his hand, I ran for my life, heart pounding against my ribs.
Chaos erupted in the streets. Somebody slammed into me as we fled to the nearest door, throwing me against the exterior wall.
My back struck slats of wood, and my head clipped the shutters.
I saw the dragon for a moment, black fire roiling in its maw, before Liam dragged me through the door. My shoulder throbbed from the impact.
Cracking, tearing, shrieks followed us inside.
Liam backed away and stumbled into a table. We'd ducked inside a tavern that must have been closed for the day—it was empty. A young woman wrapped in a pale blue cloak flew in the door after us and slammed it behind her, back pressed to the wood.
"Shit," Liam breathed. "What do we do?"
A second door on the tavern's far side caught my eye. "We . . . we deliver the message," I said.
"How? Our mounts bolted."
My chest heaved; my fingernails bit into my palms. Liam and I were not warriors. Lingering here amongst the monsters assured our deaths.
"Then we'll go on foot." I ran to the back door and grabbed the handle.
Liam caught my elbow and yanked me back. "I'm not letting you go out there."
Glass shattered behind us, and a deathly scream followed.
A horrid beast burst through the window. A writhing mass of tree-like vines, it walked on two legs and stood tall as the ceiling. A vertical maw tore up its eyeless head, and its vines lashed out like a storm.
The poor woman by the door stood no chance. Vines ripped through her body, punching holes in her torso and soaking her cloak with blood. Crimson mist sprayed across the glass shards.
Her body slumped to the floor. The monster turned toward us, vines lurching toward Liam.
Saints, it moved quickly. It bounded across the tavern in less than a second, maw cracking open to reveal two rows of teeth.
Liam threw me to the side. I struck the floorboard and heard my brother hiss in pain—heard tearing cloth and splintering bone.
Reaching under my skirt, I yanked my dagger loose from its hidden sheath and lunged to my feet, driving the knife into the creature's back.
It was like trying to drive a blade through a tree. I barely managed to scrape its strange, bark-like hide.
The entanglement of vines whirling around the beast flew toward me, wrapping around my neck and limbs. They pinned me against the wall with a painful thud.
The beast leaned in, as though inspecting my face. My gaze drowned in the black void behind its teeth.
I'd thought little of death. Only now, staring into my demise, did I realize how much I feared it.
The vines around me loosened, dropping me to the ground. I grabbed my throbbing neck, watching in confusion as the beast lumbered away. Its vines returned to rest against its body as it climbed through the window.
"Liam," I gasped, crawling toward my brother.
The wound was nasty. He must have lifted an arm to shield himself and caught the blow on his forearm. A gash ripped from wrist to elbow, cut nearly to the bone. Tearing a length of my skirt off, I fell to his side and tied a tourniquet around his arm.
"Why did it leave?" Liam asked, shocked.
"Help me stop the bleeding," I snapped. Ripping another chunk of my skirt, I pressed it onto the wound. "Hold this down."
Liam's hand trembled, but he did as I said.
My legs quivered as I crept forward and peered out the broken window.
Something flew overhead—a mere phantom against the night sky. The road before the tavern was empty, filled only with corpses and blood.
Breathing heavily, I began to back away, but a bright light drew my attention toward the sky. Violet lightning surged from the heavens to strike the ground near the walls.
Paragon Killian. He was still alive.
Would it be safest with him?
Or should we run?
I hurried back to Liam. Blood soaked through the fabric onto his fingers, but the tourniquet had slowed the bleeding. Heart thrumming with worry, I tore off another section of my skirt to bind around the wound.
"We have to deliver that message," I gasped, fingers stiff and clumsy.
Wincing, Liam nodded. "No wonder you didn't want this job."
"Don't joke," I ordered, checking his makeshift bandages with trembling fingers. "Save your energy for bleeding."
Liam snorted—a short sound choked with fear.
Helping my brother to his feet, I pushed open the back door and beheld a bloodbath.
Monsters infested every street; the giant black bird soared overhead, talons strung with gore. The dragon roared, though I could not see it anymore.
Such an attack had never happened before. Never. The occasional wyvern or pack of shardwolves had tread too close to the walls, but never anything like this.
Holding fast to Liam's uninjured wrist, I raced toward the northern gates. Dismembered bodies littered the streets, but screams echoed from all directions—most of the city was still alive.
The heavy thud of paws on stone sounded nearby. Skidding to a halt, I grabbed Liam and threw us behind a well. We crouched low to the ground, backs pressed to cold stone.
A pack of shardwolves burst from the west. I'd seen these monsters before, in the paintings of a book.
At a glance, they were mere dogs, but they stood tall like a horse. Coarse veins of pulsing ice snaked through their thick, black fur, rising to the jagged horns on their heads.
The pack descended on a soldier. One leaped on his chest, throwing him to the ground while the rest surrounded him.
Gods, it took so long for his screams to stop. They mingled with the sound of gnashing teeth and tearing flesh. Pressing my hands to my ears, I held my breath, expecting one to leap at us from the other direction.
The shardwolves left their desiccated victim behind and continued down the eastern road. A bloody corpse, hands torn from his arms, was all that remained.
"Let's go," Liam urged, pushing me forward.
Another violet flash lit the sky, sundering the heavens. Closer, this time. Killian was moving toward us.
I glanced behind and regretted it.
A child tripped, slipping from his mother's hand. She reached back to grab him as the father screamed.
Terror manifested from the darkness—a being of shadow and smoke. Red eyes gleamed from within the phantom, and a set of jagged claws emerged from the shadowy curtain.
They tore through the woman's back. Her body slumped forward onto her son, trapping him beneath her corpse. The shadowy wraith reached down, wrapping its claws around the boy's head.
And crushed it. A red, pulpy mass oozed between the claws, all that remained of the frightened, round eyes I'd glimpsed.
A shaky gasp escaped my lips, and I tripped. The father whirled on his heel and sprinted away—toward us.
He only made it a few paces before a great shadow blotted out the moons and descended upon him. Powerful talons wrapped around his waist, ripping him in half. The terrifying bird with the long, pale neck ascended back to the sky, the man's torso clutched in its talons.
We were going to die here.
The fight left my body, and I fell to my knees as the bird's glassy gaze settled on us.
The force of a hurricane lashed through the street. My head snapped back from the force.
Blood and guts erupted above my head as the bird was sliced in twain. The two halves fell onto the streets, one crushing a building, the other cracking the cobblestone.
Paragon Killian strode toward us, black blade held aloft. A storm of wind and lightning surged around the enchanted blade.
"Get to your feet," he snapped. "We need to warn the king."
"But the city—" I stuttered.
"Is lost," Killian said. He removed one hand from his massive blade to grab my arm and haul me to my feet. "Go. You will not fall while I live."
I looked to the south one last time. The black dragon remained perched on the destroyed walls, watching us.
All my life, I'd known the Paragons to be legends among men. Heroes. Only now did I understand why we revered them.
Summoning what remained of my courage, I heeded his order. Pushing Liam ahead of me, I ran.
A pack of shardwolves rushed toward us and were quickly reduced to cinders—a sweeping arc of lightning swept from the black blade and ripped through them. A vined horror rushed us from a dark alley and had its head removed from its gnarled shoulders before I saw Killian move.
From every twist and bend, the darkness poured—but nothing reached us alive.
My lungs burned from running when we finally arrived at the town square. But only bleak destruction greeted us.
Corpses were strewn everywhere. A morbid pile of bodies was stacked against the door of the chapel, as if survivors had taken refuge inside and shut these people out.
A glassy-eyed vulture cleaved down from the sky and slammed into the chapel roof, breaking shingles that rained across the square. The horrible wailing sounded overhead, as though the song of a siren, summoning the horde.
The monsters bore down on us from every direction, from every street. Killian backed us toward the north, eyeing the horrors that had us surrounded.
"The others must be warned," Killian said. "Run. Don't look back. I'll cover you."
"But—" I said.
Killian spun around, raising his sword above his head. The tip shone a brilliant purple, and an ear-shattering boom shook the world. Thunder and lightning surged from the heavens and slammed into the northern street, incinerating the monsters that had been standing there.
The Paragon shoved me, ordering me to go, promising me he would protect me. I didn’t know why I hesitated, why my legs turned leaden.
I had no formal training, no skill with magic. My presence would only hinder Killian, and yet . . .
Liam decided for me. He grabbed my wrist and yanked, pulling me away from the Paragon. Adrenaline kept him going, but I could see how he paled, how his eyes dimmed and limbs slowed. He'd lost too much blood.
A pair of wyverns gave chase, but they didn't make it far. Lightning lashed out at their wings, severing them apart. I heard their bodies crash to the ground behind us, but I forced myself not to look back.
Death sounded all around us. Screams of the dying. The monsters had spread throughout the entire city—dismembered bodies covered every street.
Every step we took toward the northern gates brought us away from the remaining life in Galasvar. My stomach sank when I realized there were more dead here than there had been in the south.
The monsters of the Shadowlands had surrounded us. They had not merely attacked the southern walls. Like intelligent men, they had surrounded the city and struck from all sides.
And they were waiting for us. Dozens of those humanoid vine horrors prowled the blood-soaked square before the gates. A snarl tore through the air to my left as a shardwolf emerged from an alley, teeth bared and coated in bits of meat.
I stepped back, pushing Liam behind me. It would not save him, but I would not let my little brother die first.
A shadow broke from the sky, flickering as though concealed by a spell that was losing power. When it drew close to the city's torches, its shield fell away—revealing a dragon.
It was smaller than the one at the gates, but still as tall as two men. Twin pairs of wings beat upon its back, and its jaw unhinged as it descended, displaying two rows of teeth.
I had time only to shove Liam out of its path before the dragon struck me. Pain pulsed through my entire body. I was thrown back and pinned to the ground beneath its powerful claws.
Its head had no eyes, but I felt the weight of its sightless stare.
And the death it promised.