Chapter 14 #2
Tonomoch was there an instant later, swinging mace deflecting the blow as if he didn’t trust her defensive skills.
“The fuck are you doing?” he yelled, but Kalypso was running once more, leaving Tonomoch to defend her back as the sarthisci jabbed at her with its many spare legs.
Around the thick, undulating tail, Garion was keeping his own share of the monster’s attention, waiting to attack when all legs were firmly on the ground. But his weapons only glanced off the thick armor of the beast.
The creature’s focus remained on Ozirax who protected Rand and Brioni from the worst of the attack, probably drawn to the human’s blood.
This had better work.
“Come on, fucker!” Kalypso screamed, swinging her blade against the sarthisci’s tail. It only clanged against the armored plates and spikes, but the noise disturbed it. As she sprinted the length of the creature, she watched the muscles tense, the tail whipping toward her.
She slid underneath, barely a breath away from the thing lopping her head off, and lifted her blade.
The moment that resistance hit, her shoulders screamed with the effort, but it was worth it as she held onto her blade. The sarthisci screeched, but Kaly didn’t celebrate the victory as she popped to her feet, yanking her blade the rest of the way through the tail and staining her blade black.
Only a shallow wound, but it was enough to fully capture the beast’s attention. Its head swung toward her, scaled and jagged and with eyes that would have frozen her to the spot if she wasn’t building momentum again.
Body twisting away from the bleeding human, the sarthisci speared three legs toward Kalypso as she picked up speed again.
Gods, she hoped this worked.
She didn’t lift her blade, only pushed into the ground harder.
Blue flashed in her periphery just in time, Garion deflecting one leg into the other two to knock it off balance.
But Kaly didn’t stop. Didn’t listen to the male shout at her foolishness.
Only kept her eyes forward, her blade up.
Toward Ozirax.
The purple demon had kept his position defending Rand as the yellow demon worked his glowing magic over Brioni, but Ozirax’s shoulders and sickle had lowered a fraction. Confusion twisted across his face as he watched her continue to run, eyes wide and mouth parted.
Lungs burning, legs exhausted, she only had it in her to shout one word.
“Boost!”
Thank the gods he was smart. Ozirax dropped to a knee just in time, hands folding over one another as she took the last steps. Her boot pressed into his palms, and then she was flying.
Well, it was flailing, but damnit, it got her where she needed to go whether it was pretty or not.
Just as quickly as she rose, she was falling, but not far.
Her feet hit the sarthisci’s back first, slipping on the smooth plates of armor it had to protect itself until she slammed to her knees.
It was a feat in and of itself to maintain grip of her sword while also grabbing hold of the plates so the screeching monster didn’t fling her off and waste all that effort.
Kalypso scrambled to her hands and knees, studying the overlapping plates of armor. “Fuck, why couldn’t you be easy?”
Below her, she could hear the squad’s weapons clanging off the legs, curses ringing out as the monster flailed underneath her. She was running out of time. The plates were tightly pressed together, and maybe for a demon this would have been easy, but for a human it was not so much.
“Oh well,” she muttered to her sword. “I didn’t like you anyway.”
With as much strength as she could muster while keeping hold, Kalypso shoved her blade into the crack between plates, only a small bubble of black blood blooming as she pierced the soft underside.
“Come on, come on,” she grunted, shoving deeper. More blood spilled, but the blade wasn’t disappearing fast enough.
“Spicy!”
Fuck, she was out of time.
Kalypso planted her feet on the back of the sarthisci and yanked the sword up, a scream tearing from her throat as she pried the plates apart. It was working, it was working—
Resistance disappeared as her sword snapped, and then she was falling back, back—
Her body flattened against its spine, but she was still somehow upright as she watched the flailing tail, her head nearly bursting from its deafening screech of fury.
The sarthisci. It was rearing back, its reaction of pain saving Kalypso from falling. But there, at her feet, the armor plate was pried open to reveal the soft bits close to its heart.
And she had no sword.
The handle was useless in her hand, only a small chunk of the blade left and not long enough to puncture anything.
But the shard still wedged into the beast was long enough.
Kaly would have one shot.
The beast landed once more, body thrashing, but she calculated her strike.
With a furious cry, Kalypso pulled back and slammed her foot back down on the broken blade. She pushed, pushed, and then her foot was pressing on soft flesh and bubbling black blood, and there was silence, blissful silence. The world stopped moving, and then it tipped completely.
Her body collided with another, but it was a cushioning impact, and then she was on her knees, panting and trembling with her vision spinning.
Two warm hands gripped her cheeks, and she blinked to find Ozirax’s blurry but panicked face. He was saying something, lips moving across words but only a few making sense.
Shock. Dead. Fucking idiot.
Kalypso blinked, the purple bastard finally coming into focus as her trembling turned into a full body shake. “Bri. She can’t be dead—she needs—”
“Rand’s got her,” he said, swiping hair off her forehead. “He’s patched her up, but we need to get her to Balran in the city for the rest.”
She nodded, pressing her hands to the ground to attempt to stand. But the moment she wobbled, Ozirax was there, scooping her up into his arms.
“Stop. I can walk,” Kalypso muttered, even if she was fairly sure that was a lie.
“You’re in shock.” His jaw was set hard, and distantly, she knew she should be fighting him, but her body refused to cooperate. “You, a human, outsmarted and killed a sarthisci. You’re allowed to be carried.”
Glancing over his shoulder, she could see the felled monster, and… okay, fuck, that thing was a lot bigger than she’d first thought. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Then I will make the others swear on their tails that we will never speak of it again. But they are your squad, and the only thing they will be speaking of today was your recklessness when facing certain death,” Ozirax growled, and when she looked up at him, she noticed the fangs poking over his lower lip.
“Oz—”
“But also of your incredible bravery and intelligence. You saved Brioni’s life and those of your fellow warriors.”
His gaze dropped to hers. That was awe swirling in the depths.
Heady.
Tempting.
Terrifying.
It was cowardly to turn away from him, to simply bury her forehead against his shoulder instead of acknowledging the heavy air between them.
Ozirax’s arms only tightened around her, holding more firmly as he leaned down and whispered four of the most devastating words in her ear.
“I’m proud of you.”