84. COAX OUT THE GODS
We made our way north, to where Roirdan and Aremis were holding together the last of what remained of the front lines.
Nearby, there was a small group of Vahrish warriors fending off a slew of keres.
Benmoor’s Immortals were there as well, led by Morah.
They cut through Lyceius’s creatures with ease, but Niall was right, they were close to being overrun.
Several witches fought alongside Morah and the Immortals, throwing small projectiles that stunned and poisoned our enemies with a deadly green smoke. Yet still, there were too many creatures descending on what was left of the ranks.
Roirdan whirled, slinging bolts of lightning from his hands in every direction.
Not far from him, Nivelle ducked and dodged creature after creature, using her power to mimic Roirdan’s.
She was fierce. Her eyes and markings glowed blue, and her long, pale braid whipped like a serpent as she spun and shouted her rage.
The small blades she carried still remained holstered at her waist—a last-resort.
Another voice echoed not far from where we stood. A female voice that I would recognize anywhere. Maeson. She let out a war cry of her own as she conjured waves of fire against a rush of Lyceius’s monstrous ilk.
“Fall back!” Niall shouted.
The fae around us hesitated, finishing their killing blows before turning to verify whose command they’d heard.
“Fall back and re-form the lines!”
Those close enough to hear him began retreating toward Calledan, but those that were further ahead continued onward.
Roirdan and Aremis backed toward us, keeping their eyes on the enemies that were bounding in our direction. The commander called out for Nivelle, and she quickly fell into step with him. When they made it to us, all of them were out of breath.
“The fuck is happening?” Roirdan panted.
“We’re re-forming the lines closer to The Veil,” Niall said. “Let’s go!”
“Um . . . Niall?” I lifted my finger and pointed. His eyes followed and landed on what was coming our way . . .
Huge beasts, the size of horses, with rounded ribcages and multiple spider-like legs charged toward us.
Their long tails—like a scorpions, armed with a pointed barb and dripping with venom—snapped at the air behind them.
Blazing yellow eyes locked onto us, and flesh-shredding fangs gnashed at the air as the creatures hissed.
“On me! Now!” Niall shouted.
We flung our arms onto his, clutching his armor, and vanished.
When we reappeared, the beasts were a quarter of a mile away and closing in fast, trampling fallen bodies like they were nothing but dirt and stones. And with them . . . more keres, more shadows, more everything.
I spun and found Remic bounding toward us in earnest. Behind him, the lines were re-forming. When he reached us, he was breathing hard, but his eyes were wild with adrenaline and what seemed like a never-ending source of energy.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now, we coax out the gods,” Niall answered.
I watched as he lifted his hands to the heavens and fisted the air, rolling his wrists like he was grabbing invisible ropes and tugging them downward with all his might.
In an instant, a veil was lifted—no, a glamour—and hundreds of hovering Dreki were revealed in the skies above.
Powerful roars and violent screeches sounded so abruptly that they rattled the air.
It was as if when removing the glamour, Niall had also removed the bubble that had kept all sound contained and unheard.
The Dreki hovered just beyond the re-formed lines, chomping at the bit, waiting to charge forward and lay waste to the opposing forces.
Niall had kept them all glamoured. An entire legion of forces, held under his concealment. My jaw fell open in awe. I knew he was gifted with glamours, just as his mother was, but I had no idea he could use them to this extent.
To truly conceal . . . that’s another thing entirely, he had once told me.
I looked up at him, and he winked at me from beneath his helm, his eyes igniting into golden orbs as he readied his power. “High Legion!” he shouted, his voice echoing down the line.
Along with glamouring the Dreki and their riders, Niall had also concealed an entire sector of Calledan’s elite forces—The High Legion. Reinforcements that were to be called in if and when the others needed them.
If and when things went bad.
I turned and watched as warriors stalked forward, two by two, forming a new line in front of the others. They wore helms like Niall’s, and their leathers conformed to their bodies like a second skin. They unsheathed their swords as one, and took a fighting stance, awaiting their command.
“Any more surprises?” I asked my mate as I gawked at him.
“Oh, darling, I’m just getting started.”
I couldn’t help the incredulous laugh that escaped me.
Niall turned to face the enemy, shaking his arms at his sides like he was about to pull down another ridiculously oversized glamour, when a familiar voice spoke from somewhere next to me.
“Now that was quite impressive,” said Eathril.
I jumped, startled by the entity’s voice.
Niall’s eyes flicked to my side. “What are you doing here, Eathril,” he growled, nervously. “Shouldn’t you be watching over The Keep?”
“We talked about this, My Lord. I’m here to do what is necessary. And, with all due respect, I think my services are of far better use here.”
Niall ground his jaw, as if this wasn’t a plan he had fully agreed to, but he didn’t argue. “You want a piece of this fight? Be my guest. There’s plenty for you to sink your teeth into.”
“I quite prefer a blade, as opposed to sinking my teeth into my opponents, thank you very much.”
“So the last thing your enemies will see is a sword coming at them with no one wielding it? How maddening that must be for them.”
“Who says I cannot glamour my weapons just as well as you, My Lord?” If Eathril had a face, I knew it would have held the biggest smirk imaginable.
Niall shook his head, but finally grinned back. “I learn more about you each time we speak, old friend.”
“I could say the same thing to you.” He paused. “I will stay close to your side, should you need me.”
With a nod, Niall set into his stance and took a deep breath. The enemy was closing in. “Keep your eyes out for Lyceius,” he said to me. “The moment you see him, you find me.”
“All right,” I agreed, gripping Death’s Whisper firmly in my hand.
Behind me, Silas and Remic were pacing, ready for more combat. Ready to protect me.
All around us, our armies grew louder, backed by the sound of the winged beasts and their riders who hollered ferocious battle cries.
At Niall’s command, we rushed forward once more, meeting our foes head on.
This time felt different, though. Everything was more intense, like my focus had shifted and was picking apart certain aspects of the scene as it unfolded around me.
Instead of hearing the multitude of cries and bellows, a single, intense scream would ring in my head, followed by the sound of a weapon crashing against armor.
Behind it, silence—a hollow backdrop to the most gut-wrenching efforts and heart-breaking last moments of those who were giving their all.
I heaved Niall’s sword, slashing it in front of me and out to my left, severing a body in half as I plowed forward at a sprint. As I swung the weapon again, the voices of many whispers seemed to hiss through the atmosphere, nearly stopping me in my tracks.
Death’s Whisper, indeed.
I tried to decipher each word between the sound of my own breaths, but I could not make sense of what was being said. The words sounded as if they were in some other language.
Did Niall know that his sword seemed to . . . speak?
Remic broke out in front of me, taking my attention with him. He stabbed his dagger through the chin and up into the skull of a keres. The crunch of bone echoed in my ears.
An arrow whizzed past my head. I followed it back to its point of origin and found an enemy archer firing in every direction. With a thought, I ripped his bow from his grasp, and sent a jolt of light into him.
A snarl drew near as something closed in on my right.
I spun, and barely missed the tip of a blade to my neck.
I teetered back, but had no time to regain my footing.
The lanky creature slammed its foot into the center of my chest, sending me to the ground.
The breath whooshed out of my lungs, and the next thing I knew, an axe was soaring through the air, right toward me.
The heavy blade cleaved the ground a few inches from my face.
I turned my head, blinking at it, my eyes crossing as I realized how close it had come to my cheek.
Growling, I threw my shield up. I hadn’t mastered balancing my shield and light against my opponents yet, so it was one or the other, and at this close range, the shield mattered more. My body and blade could do the rest.
I rolled onto my knees and kicked my leg out, sweeping the creature off his feet.
It hit the ground, hissing, but I plunged Death’s Whisper deep into its chest before it could muster its retaliation.
I twisted the sword, hearing bone splinter.
The whispers from the dark weapon seemed to dance around the blade as if with glee.
The creature went limp beneath me, but there was no time to rest. A poisonous cat pounced, its maw spread wide for the kill. I dodged it, spinning and slamming my boot into the side of its skull just as it turned to find me. It yowled and shook out its head, its eyes flaring with fury.
“Come on, then!” I yelled.
The cat launched, and I twisted the sword, catching the feline with the underside of the blade, and slitting it open from chest to jaw. Its heavy body collapsed on top of me, pinning me to the ground. I grunted as I shoved the weight off and rolled away, coming to rest on bended knee.
Two more felines scrambled in my direction.
I dropped my shield and flung my hand out, picturing it around one of the cat’s necks.
When I squeezed my fist closed, the cat crumpled to the ground, choking as I siphoned off its air, then snapped its neck with the turn of my wrist. The second cat broke through the dust from where the other had fallen, and as it leapt, I swiped my hand through the air, thrusting the animal away on a phantom wind.
It slammed into the backside of a nearby Dreki, whose clubbed tail was quick to pummel the cat to its death.
I slung both my braid and the hair that had come free of it out of my face, and looked up.
Niall was thirty feet away, in the midst of catching a demon-like creature by the throat as it raced toward him.
The creature clawed at his forearm as he lifted it off its feet, but his shadowfire was like a second skin, protecting him.
Darkness encased the creature, and Niall lit it aflame.
The burnt husk fell from his grip as he turned and surveyed the grounds for his next opponent.
As if he felt my stare through all the anarchy, he swerved, finding me almost instantly. His gaze captured mine from across the field of bloodied bodies.
Both of us were breathing hard.
My heart was pounding, my muscles burning.
The right side of his helm was covered with black ichor. Beneath, his cheeks were flushed, his forehead slick with sweat.
A sword clanged loudly to my left. It was Roirdan, whose lightning skittered and crackled along his blade as he blocked an attack.
He raised his sword and called down bolts from the sky, then thrust them into a spider-legged beast that was three times his size.
At that moment, he looked like a god. His eyes were lit with the reflection of his power, and his roar ground against my ears like a raging storm.
All around us, Niall’s High Legion swept through the enemy.
They were in league with the Dionachs in the way that they cut down creatures with lethal force and precision.
One pulse of their power, and their opponents cowered.
One move, and bodies fell in their wake, bathing the ground with black blood.
Their maneuvers were as sleek as a Cheshm Zadan’s.
They worked in twos, each watching the other’s back while tearing through entire sections of beasts.
But no matter how efficiently any of us fought, the opposing force didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.
Dreki soared above, breathing fire, while their riders shot arrow after arrow, every assault aimed at the larger barb-tailed beasts that ravaged our ranks.
But more kept coming, like there was an endless spawn of evil lurking deeper in Salterra, replacing every fallen monstrosity with a fresh one.
The fighting continued on. And on, and on, and on.
Where one foe went down, three more emerged from the fray.
And there was no sign of Lyceius.
How many hours had it been now?
What was it that Roirdan had said? In battle, and in war, the fighting will last until either your enemy’s breath gives out, or yours does. And you will have an entire battlefield of enemies.
The true weight of his wisdom pressed heavily on my shoulders right then.
I found Niall again, and the moment I did, the ground shuddered. The battle seemed to momentarily halt as everyone, creature and fae, searched for the source.
A low-lying mist slowly spread along the ground, curling around everything, and when it pressed against me and climbed up my body from where I knelt, a chill shot up my spine.
There was only one being I knew of that evoked mist in her wake.
Niall’s voice sounded in my head, confirming my very thought . . .
Torin.