Chapter 16 #2
They explode from the fog in every direction, enormous bodies crashing through brush and undergrowth, their snarls and growls echoing across the mountainside.
Some are merely terrifying. Others are monstrous, towering over the competitors around them.
Gray fur bristles along their backs, their massive paws churning the earth as they charge.
Everywhere I look, yellow eyes gleam through the mist, locked onto prey.
A scream tears through the chaos.
My gaze catches on a vampire just as one of the beasts lunges.
The dire wolf's jaws clamp around the man's leg and, with a violent jerk of its head, tears the limb free.
Blood sprays across the rocks. The wet ripping sound is somehow worse than the scream itself, wrong in a way that makes my stomach lurch violently. I look away before I can see more.
Then a roar shatters the mountainside. The sound is so deep it seems to vibrate through my bones. I whip my head toward it and freeze.
A massive shape emerges from the fog.
At first, all I see is golden fur and movement.
Then the creature steps fully into view, dwarfing the wolves around it.
Its body resembles that of a lion, every muscle rippling beneath its tawny coat.
A mane the color of burnished bronze frames its massive head, and when it opens its mouth, fangs longer than daggers gleam in the sunlight.
But it's the wings that steal my breath.
They unfurl from its shoulders in a vast sweep of feathers and razor-sharp bone, each one easily twice the height of a man. The edges look more like blades than feathers, glinting as they spread wide enough to cast a shadow over the battlefield.
The creature throws back its head and roars again.
Around it, even the dire wolves hesitate.
Talon kneels beside the vampire missing a leg, pressing his hands to the wound in an attempt to slow the bleeding, then leans back just in time to avoid having his head taken off by the creature's wings.
His friend, Eamon, I think, is not so lucky.
Manticore. My brain tells me the name of the beast with the lion face, recalling it from the books. A creation of Terranis.
The vampire’s head thuds to the ground, and is, a second later, stung through by the manticore’s scorpion tail like a toothpick through a martini’s olive. Talon races away, surviving, for now. But I can’t focus on that now.
The monsters are on one side of us, the pile of materials and competitors on the other.
“Get behind me!” Thorian backs us into a small alcove, the hill rising up behind me sharply enough to mimic a sheltering wall, and positions himself between me and the din of creatures and competitors, blood and metal, teeth and bone.
I feel the urge to argue with him, to tell Thorian I should be fighting alongside him instead of hiding behind his back, but my hands are shaking hard enough that it takes me a full minute to free my dagger from its sheath despite all the practice we've done.
Even at his side, I'd be more hindrance than help.
A sharp clicking sound cuts through the chaos. At first, I think it's stones tumbling down the mountainside. Then the sound comes again. Louder. Closer.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
The fog ahead of us stirs.
Something enormous moves within it…
A long, pale shape slides from the mist, and my stomach immediately drops.
It's a serpent, easily the size of a horse and perhaps twice as long, but there isn't a scrap of flesh on its body.
Vertebrae grind against vertebrae as it moves.
Ribs flex and contract. Its skull sways back and forth as though scenting the air despite having no nose to speak of.
The thing shouldn't be alive. It shouldn't be moving. Yet it glides toward us with terrifying speed. Its empty eye sockets lock onto us.
Onto Thorian.
Onto me.
The creature's jaws spread wide, revealing rows of needle-like fangs made entirely of yellowed bone. The teeth chatter together eagerly as it advances, each clack sending another spike of fear through my chest.
And then it lunges.
Thorian moves before I can even scream. With a roar that seems to shake the fog itself, he throws himself forward to meet the creature head-on.
I grip my dagger so tightly that pain shoots through my hand, fresh blood welling from my already abused fingers as steel and bone collide with a deafening crack.
He’s mesmerizing to watch, his movements fluid and sure, as though he knows what path the serpent will take before it does.
As though Thorian is not a participant in the fight, but a choreographer of the dance, sliding out of the way just in time, levying his sword up into what would be the throat of the thing, bringing it down in a pile of bones and dust dramatic enough to sweep the breath from my lungs.
Because I'm so focused on Thorian's graceful fighting, I don't see the dire wolf until it's already on me.
A massive weight slams into my side. My feet leave the ground. My dagger nearly flies from my hand. Then the rocky earth crashes into my back hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs.
Pain explodes through me.
The wolf is there. Its enormous body pins me to the ground. Claws dig into my shoulder and upper arm, punching through leather and sending white-hot pain shooting down my side. Hot breath washes over my face, carrying the coppery scent of blood and rotting meat.
The beast snarls. Strings of saliva drip from its jaws. Its yellow eyes lock onto mine. Then it opens its mouth, revealing teeth longer than my fingers.
“Thor—” I start to call, but his name dies on my tongue when a spear flies in from the left, piercing through the dire wolf’s eye and making its body go limp. It slides off of me with a ragged thump.
I breathe hard, trying to get to my feet. Where did Thorian get a spear?
But it’s not Thorian who arrives, planting his boot on the dire wolf’s face and yanking the spear from its eyeball with a wet sucking sound.
It’s Fenric, who stares at me with eyes that I realize, suddenly, are a deep emerald green.
His red curls are sweaty and plastered to his forehead, his shirt loose and tattered around his chest, which is splattered with dirt and blood.
I open my mouth to say something, maybe to thank him, but a howling roar of agony makes his head snap around and his legs carrying him back into the chaos.
My dagger still clutched desperately in my hand, I watch as Fenric’s only teammate, Osric, I think, falls to the ground, two dire wolves fighting for the privilege of ripping his heart from his chest.
One of them wins, and spits it out on the ground.
“Let’s go!”
Thorian is at my side again, grabbing me again, hauling me away, again, and I go willingly, not wanting to see another second of this gruesome scene. Not wanting to see Fenric’s clothes even more blood-spattered, or his partner’s open, gaping chest, the ribs pried open like the shell of an oyster.
I was unaware wolves were even capable of such a thing. It must be due to the magic, making the monsters in this place more gruesome and violent than anywhere else.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears like the galloping of horses, and without Thorian pulling me along through the mess, I think I might have fallen down a long time ago. He leaps over fallen beasts and people with ease, thrusting us toward the tree line.
At first, the line of trees on the far edge of the clearing feels like a safe haven, but after diving into it and making it a few steps in, we hear growling and snarling, the beat of paws and hooves and bones on the forest floor.