Chapter 25 Hedley #2
The pile of dead no longer separated them—only a wall of umber flesh and hard muscle. Their witchsworn. Hedley narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t handle them all. Killing one two weeks ago had nearly done him in, too.
The Drakmori captain lunged for Dane and grabbed him by the hair, hauling him to his feet. “Make another move, ‘phantom,’ and I will slit your doppelganger’s throat.”
Finally. An opportunity they could use.
Hedley’s gaze ticked toward his brother.
Without a word, Dane slammed the back of his head into the Drakmori’s face, breaking the other man’s nose.
Chaos erupted.
Hedley ducked between two witchsworn and sprinted for another alleyway. He could play decoy while his brother got away. He could lead the witches on a wild chase through the streets of Mysai.
But the witch Talia, with her longer legs, got to his chosen alley first. In a swirl of crimson silk, she turned to face him. “I can’t let you leave,” she whispered.
Hedley grimaced. Witches always fought him with their puppets. Why was this one facing him herself? She might be a witch, but she was still a woman.
He couldn’t fight a woman.
“Please move,” he growled, trying to dart around her.
She sidestepped and blocked his path again. “Did you just say…‘please?’” Surprise flickered across her sharp features.
“Talia!” Skatia shouted. “Seize him!”
The witch drew in a deep breath and reached for the dagger at her hip—not to draw it, merely to grasp it. “Malik. Hazim.” The iridescent jewel embedded in her witchblade’s hilt pulsed once. “Seize the phantom.”
Movement shifted off to his left. He retreated a full step, preparing to face the incoming threat, and slammed into something solid already behind him. Dane. Back to back with his brother, he cautiously turned in a circle to face the incoming witchsworn.
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. Dane was actually alive.
But they would have to celebrate later.
Assuming they both survived this.
“So you’re the Lord Commander now?” he asked over his shoulder.
Dane grunted. In a shush of steel, he carefully pulled free that sword strapped to his back. “Yes? But truthfully, no. It’s a long story.” Softer, his twin asked with an air of uncertainty, “And you’re…?”
Hedley’s lips thinned. “A monster, I suppose,” he whispered just as the two behemoths who must have been Malik and Hazim reached him. He shifted his grip on the haft of his halberd and swept the polearm downward, hooking the nearest witchsworn’s legs.
Before the glassy-eyed puppets could retaliate, the ground beneath Hedley’s feet trembled. Wood crashed and snapped in the near distance. The trumpet of a startled elephant sounded.
Someone screamed, “Stampede!”
Incoming firelight danced off the buildings as a handful of war elephants thundered into the square, caught in the very throes of panic. Four still bore riders frantically trying to calm the beasts. The fifth, riderless, trumpeted again as its harness further caught ablaze.
The Drakmori scattered.
“Run!” Hedley shouted, shoving Dane away from the unfolding madness. But they didn’t make it far before they found themselves stumbling into the path of an encroaching horseman riding hard straight toward them, the reins of a second horse firmly in his grip.
“Lord Commander!” the stranger shouted, drawing his mount up short and tossing the spare reins to Dane. “Come on! The boys are making a path.”
The man was nearly as tall as any Arathian and yet twice as broad, pale as the belly of a fish, and sporting a beard an Arathian could never hope to grow. Clearly, a northman.
The northman spared him a passing glance. “There are two of you now, sir.”
“I’ll explain later, Elias,” Dane promised, sheathing his sword and launching himself into the saddle of the spare horse Elias had brought as if he had been born to it. “Come on, Hedley!”
There was no time to hesitate. Nor to question. Tossing aside his borrowed halberd and letting it clatter to the ground, Hedley grasped his brother’s outstretched hand and launched himself into the saddle behind Dane.
“Stop him!” Skatia shrieked, her panic rising over the sound of the thrashing elephants. Her voice echoed in his mind, pounding against his skull—desperate, frantic.
Stop! You must stop! You must obey me. I demand it!
A mad laugh burst from his throat as Dane nudged their poor horse into a hard canter and peeled off into the night, fleeing from the Arathians, the Drakmori, the haunted streets of Mysai, the smoldering ruins of the fort.
“I have you now, Hedley,” Dane called out over his shoulder as they fled, relief flooding his voice, as if Hedley hadn’t just rescued him rather than the other way around. “You’re safe now. Don’t worry.”
Safe? Hedley bit back a fresh peal of laughter. He knew deep down in his bones that he was far from safe. A witch still had a piece of his soul. Every time she called for him, he had to stop himself from crawling to her on all fours like a dog.
And for some reason, the witches were looking for something beneath Mysai—something their false goddess wanted. Something important.
No, he was far from safe. Because he knew that whatever that something was, he was going to have to find it first. To use as a bargaining chip. Stealing Skatia’s witchblade had been a fool’s hope. Destroying it, even worse.
But this…whatever the witches wanted…if he found it first—
A grim smile cut across his face.
This is how he would secure his freedom.
This is how he would reclaim his soul.