Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The sound of battle grew louder outside the gates, as if I’d just removed earplugs from my ears.
Donovan let out a grunt and fell to one knee.
The assassin Agarthon lifted his sword, ready to strike him, but Donovan sprang back effortlessly, rolling away.
Agarthon moved with him, swinging with vicious force.
I had to stop him. Heat pooled in my belly.
I stoked it, fanning the flames, and the fire grew.
With enormous effort, I focused, and released it, letting it spill out to my limbs, my hands, down my legs, up and up into my chest. I took two steps forward, fixed the armored man in my sights and focused the power in my throat. “Stop.”
The sword stopped an inch before Donovan’s neck. Agarthon’s hands shook. Donovan whirled away. “Chosen! No! Get back!” On the backswing, he struck at the assassin’s armor with the pommel, throwing him back.
He hit the pavement with a clang. Donovan wasted no time, ripping his sword out of his grasp. Holding a sword in each hand now, Donovan kicked off Agarthon’s helmet roughly. “Get back behind the ward, now!”
I caught a glimpse of the assassin’s face and saw only scarred, pitted, shining white skin. His eyes were hooded pits, his mouth a lipless slash. Oh shit.
A pack of banwyn broke away from the circles around Eryk and Nate, and scampered towards me, eyes wide open, sharp teeth bared, their little feet making that awful cockroach noise.
A little banwyn, her hair in pigtails, ran the fastest, leading the pack.
She darted towards me, gnashing her sharp teeth.
Panic overwhelmed me. Without thinking, I shoved my arms out in front of me as if I was trying to stop the swarm with my bare hands. The heat surged.
Eeeeeeeeee.
The banwyn launched into the air, flipping backwards head over heels as if she’d been tossed carelessly by a giant, letting out a high-pitched shriek as she sailed into the distance, past the massive cedars, over the row of houses opposite me, disappearing into the next street over.
Whoa.
Three more banwyn scuttled towards me. I pushed again, letting the warmth surge out my palms. Two of them suddenly jerked high into the air, spinning wildly like rogue tennis balls, disappearing into the darkness of the houses beyond the street.
The other one exploded. A dark-oily sludge popped where the banwyn had been, splashing on the pavement.
Oops.
The assassin—unfrozen now, swordless, helmetless, and back on his feet—bellowed an order in a thick oily foreign tongue.
The banwyn kept coming. A half-dozen broke away from Cress and charged me.
I kicked off my stilettos and moved into my tennis stance, bouncing lightly on my feet, and smacked at them frantically as if they were balls, sending them all flying back over the houses on the right.
One, two, three, one dozen, two dozen… They all sailed into the air, until the swarm thinned, and I could see the others again.
They had rallied. Eryk’s fireballs gathered pace, and Nate threw more magic spells, popping the banwyn into oily sludge where they stood.
“Don’t toss them, you fool,” Cress growled at me, slamming her black dagger into another banwyn’s chest, then ducking to slash at a little one, crawling like a cockroach near her feet. “Kill them! You have to destroy them, or they will come back!”
I couldn’t. Blowing up that banwyn made me feel sick.
They were like water balloons filled with tar; I couldn’t bring myself to pop them.
Even smacking them into the air like this felt…
wrong. They were monsters, yes, vicious little beasts, cockroaches, but instead of eating cupcake crumbs under your sofa at night, they fed on panic and fear.
Their diet wasn’t their fault. And we were winning. There was no panic or fear to be had here. The scarred giant had commanded them to attack, but now, flung several streets back, his influence had dimmed.
Cress was wrong; they weren’t coming back. The swarm thinned. One darted away, down the street. Another followed, little feet pattering, followed by a third, a forth.
The scarred man bellowed a command. The swarm rallied, falling back together, coming straight for me, but fell apart quickly as I stepped forward and threw another half-dozen into the next street over. Several surrounding Eryk and Nate scuttled away, disappearing into the darkness.
Donovan, now with two swords in his hands, came at the scarred giant, dancing forward, muscles bulging, blades flashing. The giant blocked a hammering blow with his armored wrist, then used his gauntlet to catch the next strike.
He pulled Donovan close. “This isn’t over,” he snarled in his face. “You will never stop the rightful king.” He shoved Donovan back and turned in a circle. A huge black shadow morphed around him, swallowing him completely, spinning around and around like a black tornado.
Then, it disappeared.
The street fell quiet. The assassin was gone.