CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“No plan. I’ve got no fucking plan,” I breathed. The safety of the walkway ran out, and I darted into the fray.
Errant wings and flailing limbs carved bloody tracks down my arms as I hurtled toward the gatehouse. I blinked away the starbursts that blossomed behind my lids in the wake of every channeled attack and shut out the whistling of swords and wet thuds as they buried into flesh.
A wing unfurled a beat in front of me. Its midnight leather swallowed my field of view for a horrifying breath before I ducked.
The moment it soared over my head, a flash of color streaked past and smacked the ground inches from my boots.
I backpedaled into the wing and froze, my eyes pinned on the white-blond hair splayed across the bloody ground.
The female’s body disappeared beneath a da’kai that plummeted off the battlement.
I jolted from my trance at the pop of her skull. My gaze tore upwards.
The da’kai lunged for my head. I darted under its swinging arm and slammed Griffon’s dagger into its ribs.
I screamed as its hand clamped over my broken shoulder, the spurs burying into my flesh before it flung me to the ground.
I lost my grip on the dagger and any sense of direction as I rolled in a jumble of limbs and fabric.
It descended on me in a wave of darkness, its fangs snapping toward my face.
I half rolled and drove my fingers into the bleeding hole in its abdomen.
My fire illuminated the base of my fingers like a lantern as it flooded the wound.
The da’kai’s bellow flung black ichor and bits of charred flesh into my face.
It collapsed on top of me. My ribs bowed under the weight and I couldn’t breathe. I dug my fingers into its shoulders and thrashed as I tried to drag myself out from under it. Something ripped in my already shredded shoulder, and my sharp huff of pain expelled the last scrap of air in my lungs.
Stone! I screamed in my mind, scrambling to seize the other. My wings burst out and crumpled into the nonexistent space between my body and the ground. A wave of agony blackened the edges of my vision.
The gate—!
I plant my palms on the weight crushing me and shove. My lungs drag in a ragged breath and I roll to the side, freeing my wings from their prison beneath my body. Unrelenting noise pounds against my ears as a thousand foul scents claw up my nose.
I clamp my palms over my ears and fold in on myself, but the pungent tang of blood and ichor intensifies and scorches my airway. I jerk upright. My vision is blurry as I hunt for a way to escape the madness.
My searching halts. I blink. Again. A smashed-in door beside a wooden gate comes into focus.
Gate.
I shake my head as the word spikes through my skull.
The gate!
A metal clinking from just beyond the gate and a smooth, deep voice clang through my head. If they get the portcullis up and the gate open? Falcos will fall.
I surge to my feet, but the weight of my slumped, unruly wings drags me back down. My palms and knees strike stone. I try to heft the useless things up my back, but shooting pain is their only response.
Get to the gate.
My gaze falls on the flattened body a few feet in front of me and the leather weapons belt slung across her back. I grit my teeth and crawl to her, the tips of my wings dragging through gore. Her body deforms under her shattered ribcage as I roll her over and fumble with the buckle.
To the gate.
It falls open and I yank the belt free, then lay it out beside the female’s body. I reach back and crunch my wings toward my spine. My fangs ravage my lip as I clamp down on the scream that tears out of my chest.
The…gate.
I dip my shoulder and ease down to the belt. My vision goes black as my weight fully mashes my wings into my back. Panting, I wrap the belt just under my arms and wrench it tight.
Gate.
I lurch to my feet and snatch up an abandoned dagger. My wings are still dead weight, but they don’t drag me down anymore. I sprint for the room beside the gate.
I draw up short, just inside the doorway.
One of those beasts draws a thick chain around an iron reel, its hands clutched around the crankshaft.
I bathe it in fire and its shriek explodes into the small room.
It is still echoing through my skull as the beast tears off the shaft and wedges it between spokes on the reel.
I lunge for its back, but it whips around and bats down the blade I jab at its ribs.
Its spurred hand lashes out and pain erupts across my collarbone.
I duck under the next blow and lob a ball of fire at the base of the chain. My steps are clunky as I dart forward and bring the dagger down across the red-hot link. It snaps. Metallic clanking and a heavy thud reverberate from outside.
Eight points of agony lance my back, and I’m flung across the room. I rebound off a wall and strike the ground on my knees and elbows. Bright red blood patters to the ground beneath me. Footsteps vibrate through my palms.
I tilt my head back. Obsidian stone blots out my vision. I try to push myself up. To fight. But I can’t.
A dozen smoky whips envelop the beast and suck it out of the door. My cheek strikes the ground, my vision blurring on a male driving a sword through the beast’s chest. A name—my name?—tears off his lips, muffled by the pounding that spikes through my skull.
Darkness.