Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
WOLFE
The battlefield dissolved into chaos.
Steel crashed against claws, dragon fire tore across the sky, while more and more demons hurled themselves into our lines with relentless fury.
Warriors fell. Others stepped over them without hesitation, closing the gaps before the enemy could exploit them.
The line was holding.
Barely.
Everyone was giving their best shot. Gods, Elariya had even shocked me. She flew through the sky attacking with Laureth as if she’d fought in as many wars as any of us.
All sorts of magic and attacks were being thrown at the demons. But…
Eventually our numbers would dwindle. And more demons would come. For all that we’d done, it almost counted for nothing.
The demons flowed in, a never-ending supply. We were dealing with the necromancer and his fucked-up mind. There was no telling if there was truly ever an end.
Pyrion banked low over the battlefield. My goal was to reach the fortress. Theirs was to stop me.
I wasn’t going to allow that.
The army didn’t need to destroy every demon, they just needed to keep them occupied long enough for me to reach the Deathless.
Another wave of demons burst from the shadows ahead.
Fuck there were too many.
More than before.
Fuck we needed to change tactics. We needed to do something different. I imagined the necromancer somewhere beyond the walls of the fortress concocting more damnation.
We either needed to get him or slow the mass production of demons.
I thought for a moment—that was all I had.
The shadows they emerged from hadn't ceased. It seemed to be some sort of conduit.
A plan formed and I reached out to Alaric and Garrick through the Veythral bond.
"The shadow. We need to disrupt it. Can you and Garrick get ahead of me if I give you an opening?"
"Yes," they answered together.
"We need Galdrlore. Counter magic. If those shadows are being sustained by corruptive magic, a pure Galdrlore weave might unravel them."
"On it," Garrick replied.
Galdrlore was structured spellcraft. The necromancer's magic was corruption. If there was even a chance one could unravel the other, we had to take it.
I reached out to Bastian next but he was already answering before I could speak, knowing I needed him to cover me.
My Bloodsworn moved into position. While Elariya blasted the next wave of demons, I followed with another strike. This time I unleashed the Deathwalker without restraint, carving a far wider path through the horde.
Alaric swept overhead while Garrick surged through the opening on Lureen.
I held my breath as I watched him charging across the battlefield atop the great elk. I'd spent years giving him grief over refusing a dragon. He was the only one of us stubborn enough to choose antlers over wings.
Today, that stubbornness might just save us. But fuck it was dangerous.
As he surged ahead, the demons were ready for him.
But he was ready too.
Lureen crashed into the line of demons, her massive rack of antlers sweeping demons from her path. Before they could recover, Garrick twin blades flashed through the air, taking heads clean from shoulders.
Then he began to chant. Galdrlore spilled from his lips as a wall of brilliant white light erupted from his outstretched hands and raced across the shadows.
The darkness buckled and for the first time since the battle had begun, the conduit faltered. The endless stream of demons slowed.
"It's working!" Bastian shouted through the bond.
I didn't allow myself hope.
Not yet.
"Keep the spell going!" I roared.
Garrick wove the spell again. The supply of demons slowed even more.
On seeing that, I focused on the fortress again. I’d just gotten the opening I needed to get there.
A loud rumble groaned from the earth where Garrick cast his spell and an explosion shook the ground beneath as something bigger burst through the ground.
My breath caught and Pyrion and I stalled in the air.
Instead of demons, an enormous creature far larger than any wyvern burst from the earth. Its body was little more than stretched bone wrapped in paper-thin grey flesh. Vast wings of translucent membrane spread from long talons.
Its neck was unnaturally long, ending in a skull-like head with empty eye sockets that burned with sickly green fire.
In silence it lifted into the air. I didn’t know what was more unnerving. The fact that it didn’t make a sound or that glided through the air without so much as a flap of its wings.
The worst thing was three more of those creatures crawled out of the same hole. And more were coming.
Suddenly the demons—which were still attacking—looked like nothing.
A whisper drifted across the battlefield. Like the final breaths of the dead carried upon the wind.
Then every dragon around me shifted uneasily.
"What in the gods' names..."
My words died on my tongue when one of the beasts surged towards one of my dragon riders and swallowed him whole, then it bit into the dragon’s neck and ripped it apart.
The creatures aimed skyward. Toward the dragon riders and I realized they were hunting our dragons. My dragons. No matter who they belonged to, or who rode them, they came from me. I’d grown and trained every single one of them.
These creatures were ready to annihilate them.
The first one I’d seen was heading straight for me.
It came open-mouthed ready to attack.
Pyrion breathed a mixture of blue flames and death magic. But it barely did any damage.
The creature came crashing into us, almost knocking me off Pyrion’s back. Even in my Deathwalker form the impact shook me to my core.
Pyrion shrieked and lunged forward, claws gripping at the creature’s throat. Had that been any other creature it would be dead.
This beast slipped right out of Pyrion’s grasp unscathed. Then it fucking came back for us, mouth open wider.
Pyrion and I attacked with a combination of magic and strikes, but all we were doing was expelling energy.
I felt Elariya’s panic through the bond and looked for her. She was trying to escape one of the creatures. Hedion was attacking it but to no avail.
On the ground a host of demons chased Garrick and were slaughtering the armies.
Alaric was doing his best to take down whatever he could from his place on Shadowfane. Across from me Bastian was being attacked too.
I chanced looking at Elariya again. The beast chasing her was clashing with Laureth.
She may be able to fly him with no problems but she wasn’t used to fighting in the sky. I needed to get to her. Get away from this beast and help her.
Garrick shrieked. We all felt his agony through the Veythral.
I snapped around to find he’d been knocked off Lureen and thrown to the ground. Several demons had swarmed him.
He was seriously injured.
One of the beasts was also heading for him. Before it could reach, Arielle flew in, leapt off her dragon and blasted the creature and the demons with an energy ball that sent them flying backwards. Then she threw up a shield around herself, Garrick, and Lureen—who was also injured.
Arielle’s attack only stunned the fiends. They righted themselves and hurled themselves at the shield, trying to smash through her shield. It wouldn’t hold for long.
Around her more Fae warriors were being taken down. Amongst the battle I spotted Kaem, fighting back-to-back with King Paeulyn. The two gave as good as they got but there were still too many demons. And now we had these foul creatures to content with.
Another crash into Pyrion sent us tumbling through the air. Then I lost track of everyone else.
Pyrion regained control and charged forward, fire hurling from her maw. But the fucking beast came for us harder. I just about managed to glimpse the skin on his neck healing from the wound it got earlier before it opened its mouth and grabbed Pyrion around her neck.
I grabbed my sword, stood on Pyrion’s back and slashed at the creature, throwing everything I had at it, but it wouldn’t let go.
One clawed talon swiped at me, hooking around my waist. Then it threw me down hard against my dragon’s back. It pinned me there.
I gazed into those hollow eyes and saw the same menace I’d experienced every time I’d run into Zyrra.
I wanted to strike back, but Pyrion was in pain. If I made the wrong move she could die.
The beast was just about to deliver its finishing blow when a spear sailed through the air and wedged right into its neck.
The creature shrieked—finally some sound. The spear turned a sickly shade of red then veins of fire rushed across the beast’s body. It released me and Pyrion and moments later it exploded into darkness, disappearing from my sight.
Pyrion just about managed to compose herself again. Once I steadied myself on her back, I looked to the direction where the sphere had come from.
In the distance, in the sky was a man on a horse, dressed in red and black armor.
No not a man.
A vampire.
Viktor.
Behind him a host of riders swept into view. His army. From House Thagar.
At his command, they bared their teeth and rode through the sky with raised spears. Then they launched them at the creatures.
Vampires darted between the creatures, crimson spears flashing through the air like bolts of lightning. Every strike sent another creature spiraling toward the earth in a shower of black mist while our dragons regrouped around them, answering with torrents of flame.
Whatever magic the vampires had brought with them was working. I had no idea what it was, but it was working.
The enemy was faltering and the dying had ceased as Vampires, Fae, mages, and dragons united, to fight as one. Just like the war that had sealed the Deathless away.
A cheer rolled across the battlefield.
Not for the win.
It was because we were finally fighting back and taking down the enemy.
Pyrion banked hard beside Viktor as another creature swept toward us. Together they struck at the same instant—dragon fire colliding with crimson vampire magic. The creature twisted violently before breaking apart into a storm of ash.
I allowed myself the smallest breath of relief.
Just one second.
Then the fortress shook.
In the distance something trembled beyond the walls.
A pulse of dark magic rolled across the land.
And all the demons and beasts froze, stopping mid-strike as though someone had told them to cease moving.
A rumble shook our surroundings before darkness covered us, thick and unnatural darkness.
It blotted out the sun.
For a few moments nothing happened. We were all just there, hovering in the air.
Until a spark of light appeared and widened. It moved through the air brightening with every passing second.
What the fuck was going on?
What twisted stunt were the Deathless playing now?
The darkness cleared and while the demons and creatures remained, something had changed. I wasn’t sure what though I could feel it.
Everyone ceased fighting and waited.
Silence spread across the battlefield.
Then, just ahead of me, the air distorted. One figure stepped from the shadows.
The Necromancer. That same hideous smile stretched across his face, as though this entire battle had amused him from the very beginning.
Another figure appeared beside him. Then another.
The three members of the Deathless stood waiting. The Fae-faced brother. The one who looked like a nightmare given flesh. And Zyrra... smiling exactly menacingly as she always had.
Only then did I see what she held.
Arielle.
A knife rested against her throat.