Chapter 24
Graysen
Chaos obliterated the dark.
An ominous sound razored through the air, swift and menacing.
“INCOMING!” I roared, pivoting, ducking low.
Cursed bolts fizzing with dark energy screamed overhead.
And slammed into the back wall.
A BOOM of thunder.
Of ear-splintering explosions.
One.
Two.
A third.
Rock shattered in a raucous hail, spewing serrated shrapnel like a wrathful volcano.
My armor took the hits, blunting the pain that burst across my back. A brilliant haze of light erupted from the blast zones, bleaching the world and carving morbid expressions into those locked in battle. A violent quake ricocheted outward, rattling the cavern, nearly pitching me off my feet.
I tightened my grip on my swords and surged forward.
The cavern was a fucking warzone.
Steel rang against adamere, mixed with gut-deep grunts and boots scuffing on the stony ground.
The horrendous slam of rock on rock almost drowned out panicked orders and piercing cries of pain.
My swords carved frenzied arcs as I hacked aside deadly bolts, running for Mela in grim determination.
Everything else fell away. No thought existed but this moment right here.
This battle with the Children of the Harbinger.
They looked exactly as they had the first time we’d met.
No eye slits in their eerie masks. They moved perfectly in sync with one another, even though no voice commanded them.
Ivory robes snapped and whirled around their gigantic frames as they lunged, striking and slashing, felling V?duva after V?duva.
The V?duvas were great hunters, but they weren’t battle-seasoned like the enforcer families sworn to Upper House Novak.
The Children of the Harbinger drove us inward. With the cavern wall at our backs, any tunnels we could escape through were far out of reach. At my earlier bellowed order, the Crowthers had banded together in teams, racing to defend the vulnerable V?duvas.
Rockfall still rained from the fissured ceiling, and the cavern floor was littered with fresh stones and broken boulders, making it difficult to navigate.
My right side ached from throwing myself at Mela earlier, slamming us across the craggy ground.
My mother’s blood gift had knitted my wounds, but Mela hadn’t fared as well.
A nasty bruise blossomed on her cheek, a deep gash gouged her temple, and she was favoring her left leg.
She had her arm slung around a wounded colleague, helping him retreat to relative safety. She didn’t see the swifting winds kicking loose stones across the cavern floor as one of the masked warriors materialized behind her.
The giant warrior loomed behind her, brutal sword raised to cut her down.
Fucking hells no, not my best friend!
Adrenaline exploded through my heart, blazing through my veins. I leaped, tossing my twin bastard sword away, letting it soar into the cavern’s dark ceiling, spinning hilt over point so I could grip my wyrmblade with both hands.
A battle cry ripped from my throat as I drove my sword downward, plunging toward the fucker’s skull.
The blade struck true.
The impact rattled up my arms, but I held steady through the strange sensation of carving through paper and iron.
Not flesh or bone. Gravity yanked me back down, and I used the momentum to shove against the vibrating blade, leaning into the serrated edges near the crossguard to cleave the asshole right down the middle.
My boots thudded as I landed heavily, breathing hard.
His savage weapon slipped from his lax grip and clattered upon stone.
Then his split body peeled apart and collapsed, revealing Mela and the injured hunter behind him. They whirled around, eyes so wide that the bloodshot whites gleamed bright.
I snatched my twin bastard from the air as it plummeted, twirling it once to adjust my hold.
Careful of the fucking undead-spasms still jerking through the cleaved limbs, I flicked the warrior’s frayed robes aside with the tip of my dusty boot, exposing black-congealed blood and very human-looking organs.
Just what, or whom, had these fucking things been?
Mela’s brows drew together in bewilderment as she watched the twitching body fade with gathering swifting winds before vanishing along with his sword. “But the Children of the Harbinger are dead. Our ancestors wiped them out.”
“Clearly not.” Shifting into a defensive stance, I herded them backward, angling us toward the wall as I raised my swords as the chaos raged on.
I pitched my voice loudly so everyone could hear what I’d learned from my last fight with these warriors. They hadn’t used any Gestelt bolts yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. “Watch out for their crossbows. They have bolts carved from the Gestelt tree!”
Mela’s smoke-bloodshot eyes went even rounder. “Are you serious?!”
“Deadly.”
“Fuck,” she hissed, hefting her arm higher around the wounded hunter’s waist as they stumbled ahead. Ashen-faced, he grimaced, his bloodied features creased in agony.
“They’ll swift to their advantage!” I hollered.
My senses flared a warning, and I lunged sideways, fending off a slew of slender knives hurled at us.
They struck the flat of my blade and ricocheted harmlessly away.
“Use your senses—feel the bursts of swifting winds so you know where they’re coming from!
Don’t bother trying to kill them—they don’t stay dead. Go for their limbs instead!”
V?duvas were strewn across the cavern—buried under fallen rock or lying where they’d been slain.
Petra and several others were frantically digging survivors out of the rubble.
At my command, a team of Crowthers had split off to form a defensive perimeter with air-hardened shields, while others struck back as masked warriors swifted around the cavern, appearing out of nowhere to cut down anyone in reach.
The light guttered in Mela’s brown eyes. Bewildered horror, devastation, and rage scored across her sweat-streaked features as she took in the carnage. The slaughtered V?duvas. Her people. Her family. “They’re here to do what they did last time—annihilate us all.”
Guilt scorched the back of my throat. No, they were after me, everyone else was simply collateral. Even if I ran, they’d kill every single person here.
But unlike the last time I’d faced the Children of the Harbinger with Nelle and only a pair of daggers, tonight I was armed to the teeth, and I had the Crowthers with me. A lethal warband of seasoned death-dealers.
Two Crowther soldiers appeared at my side, panting for breath, their swords slimed with tacky black blood.
They’d been assigned to guard me by Jiao—who’d been missing since the first blast. I hadn’t seen him in the chaos, and dread twisted low in my gut.
But I’d left these two in my dust as I’d fought my way through the masked warriors to keep Mela safe.
“Protect her,” I ordered one soldier, then barked Mela’s name, snapping her attention from the carnage back to me. “Get everyone to the wall—behind our line.”
Mela nodded, stumbling off with the wounded hunter toward the cluster of injured where a medic worked frantically.
The heavy thud of crossbows firing punched through the smoke. I swiveled to my other guard. We kept moving—shuffling, ducking, slashing at bolts streaking toward us. “We need more chaos out there,” I said, swinging my sword wide. “To give the V?duvas time to dig the wounded out.”
His mouth pulled into a grim grin, teeth flashing white in the fire-lit gloom.
Dirty fingers flew to the incendiary devices belted into his bandoleer.
My own were a blur of speed as I sheathed my swords and yanked out a cursed grenade, unpinned it, and tossed the metal pin aside.
“You take the western side. I’ll take the east.”
His dark brows slashed down, a deep line forming at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think so. Jiao ordered you to stay behind us.”
I huffed a vicious laugh. “Try stopping me.”
Spinning around, I exploded into a swift sprint. In my wake, he bellowed, “Graysen! Godsdammit!”
Bitter smoke stung my eyes and fouled my lungs as I swung back into the melee.
A feral part of me was eager for payback when ivory robes swept through the churning smoke, warriors swifting in on soldiers and hunters.
Fumbled footing and the falter of clashing blades sawed at my nerves, made worse by bolts arrowing through the air and striking with godsawful thumps.
Viciousness roared through my veins, setting my blood on fire.
Too many of us had died already. I wasn’t going to let any more fall.
I became a cyclone of fury, hurling grenades. The world whipped by in streaks of shadow and firelight as I unloaded my cache. The cavern erupted in clamorous explosions. Fire and ice and thunderous energy razed rock and incinerated warriors.
BOOM.
BOOM-BOOM.
BOOM.
Amidst it all, I dug through my bandoleer, uncorking vials. Swirling clouds of scarabs burst free, blowing out in an iridescent sheen and swarming the not-quite-living, hungering for decaying flesh.
Pandemonium was a gleeful warmth in my chest as the tiny critters consumed the enemy with eager bites. Warriors vanished beneath a roiling sea of black scarabs and tried to swift away, but the critters clung tight as they devoured them, leaving whorling clouds of bone dust behind.
I reached for another vial, this one holding dragonflies, when a prickling awareness swept down my spine. I was being hunted. Swifting winds teased behind me.
I spun, kicking a cluster of rocks into the attacker trying to get the jump on me. The stones pinged harmlessly off his massive figure.
He lunged, the wavering light from burning bodies burnishing his nightmarish proportions. I braced and unsheathed my swords, crossing them just in time as his brutal swing crashed against my blades and shoved me stumbling back.
I slid sideways, snarling, slashing at his arm, but he twisted out of reach.