CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE ISI #2
The first creature lunged at Trew, its body compressing and then exploding forward. He met it with his sword, the blade catching it across its open maw. Blood sprayed, but the creature barely slowed.
My blade found the joint where its nearest leg met its body, Thorne’s training guiding my strike. The creature shrieked, the sound scraping across my nerves like broken glass. It whirled on me, its six eyes focusing with horrifying intelligence.
Trew was there before it could strike, his sword driving through the space where its skull plates met. The stalker collapsed to the ground, convulsed and went still.
Levar had shifted into dragon form with scales that shimmered. He swept over the battlefield, his jaws closing around a creature and lifting it into the air before flinging it to crash against the boulders.
“Left,” Lexie shouted.
I spun. Another creature flowed around a cluster of boulders, heading straight for Kerralyn. She threw both knives with deadly accuracy, the blades embedding in two of its eyes.
The creature screamed but kept coming.
Lakast, Kyreth, and Wairen joined the fray, flying in to sear the creatures with flames.
Derren leaped forward, his sword coming down on a neck with enough force to sever bone. The head rolled free, its remaining eyes still blinking as it died.
The other two had learned from the others’ mistakes. One started feinting while the other tried to flank.
Trew pressed his back against mine. We moved together without speaking, a dance we’d perfected through training and trust and something deeper than either.
He parried a strike meant for my head, creating an opening. I drove my blade through the creature’s belly, savoring the feel of the resistance of flesh and the wet give of organs. Its shriek cut off abruptly when I lopped off the head.
More, Pherin cried, and I whirled to see two lumbering out of the wasteland.
Dare had shifted into a white-hot beast, his horns shining with a heat that could liquefy the steel of a blade.
He charged an attacker head-on, his horns punching through its segmented armor like it was parchment.
Impaling it again, he flung it into the air.
When it hit the ground, he stomped over it, crushing it with his heavy hooves.
Keek’s sleek serpentine avian body spiraled through the air.
Rows of black eyes tracked his prey before he struck, his fangs delivering venom that made the stalker’s movements slow.
It came to a halt, peering around as if stunned, before it toppled over, hitting the ground hard enough to make it tremble.
Watch out, Pherin shouted in my mind. More!
One lunged from my side, and I nearly missed seeing it before it was too late. I ducked, feeling the displacement of air as its claws swept across where my head had been. Trew’s sword came down on its exposed neck, nearly severing it from its body.
The remaining beast reared back, its body coiling, preparing to strike.
“Isi, move!” Trew shoved me aside as the creature’s maw opened impossibly wide, revealing a second set of jaws that shot forward on a muscled appendage.
It would’ve taken my head off. Instead, it caught Trew’s shoulder, its inner teeth sinking deep. He roared, a sound of primal fury, the sound raising every hair on my body.
The creature tried to retract its inner jaws, but Trew had grabbed the appendage with his bare hand. Blood ran down his arm as he held it, refusing to let go even as its teeth tore at his flesh.
My blade found the beast’s underbelly, a soft place between its bone plates. I drove it in to the hilt and twisted.
Its shriek died in a wet gurgle, and its body went rigid and collapsed.
Trew released the appendage and staggered, his hand going to his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark in the fading light.
“I’m fine,” he said before I could speak. “It’s not—”
The ground trembled.
Pherin’s voice exploded in my mind. More coming. Many more.
Eight or ten shapes emerged from the wasteland. A hunting pack.
“Fates,” Lexie breathed.
They were surrounding us, their segmented bodies forming a tightening circle.
We shift now. I felt the moment Pherin made the decision, the surge of power that came before her transformation. Gavelle was already changing, his small form exploding into a massive, lethal firecat.
Pherin dove down between me and the creatures.
Before she hit the ground, she’d become a devastating fighting machine.
The transformation stole my breath every time.
One moment, a tiny bird. The next, a great cat half the size of a small dragon.
Her soot-gray fur rippled over heavy muscles.
Her mane of lighter gray and black fell across powerful shoulders.
And her long, muscular tail lashed behind her.
But it was her eyes that held me. Ember-orange, glowing like banked coals ready to burst into flame.
Beside her, Gavelle landed with an impact that shook the ground. His coat was darker than Pherin’s, charcoal with threads of ash-gray through his mane. Larger, his frame was heavier and built for devastating power, where Pherin was built for lethal speed.
Our companions moved as one, flanking the nearest creature from opposite sides. Gavelle’s roar shook my bones as he opened his maw and released a torrent of flame. The fire caught the creature’s hide, bubbling flesh into blisters that popped and wept.
Pherin lunged while it was distracted, her jaws closing around its throat. Bone cracked like dry wood. The attacker convulsed and went still.
The two firecats’ roars harmonized into a single, terrifying sound that spoke of ancient power and absolute confidence. And through our bond, I felt the surge of energy flowing from Trew to me and back again. Our magic mingling, strengthening, becoming something greater.
The weave strengthens.