Chapter 12 Antony
Chapter Twelve
Antony
Fear shoots down my spine as the swarm of vampyrs writhes in the darkness.
Wrenching my blade upward, I roar out my terror, expelling every shred of that weak emotion.
The power I was gathering explodes across the air, lighting up the creatures swarming toward us and revealing every terrifying feature of their undead forms.
Discolored fangs descend from peeling lips. Fleshy white faces are framed with yellowed wisps of hair wafting at scaly scalps. Pointed ears mangled. Bodies clad in tattered black robes billow and make them appear bigger than their withered figures actually are.
A fucking sea of them. A nightmare thrashing in the darkness.
The second my light collides with their oncoming forms, they shriek and jolt backward, trying to escape it.
It burns patches of their exposed skin, the stench of undead flesh turning my stomach.
But for all its brightness, the light I’ve gathered around us won’t kill them, and it won’t keep them at bay for long.
I inherited this power from my mother, as did Cassia and our two brothers, but I can’t create it to the powerful levels Mother can, and I certainly can’t sustain it like she can.
The vampyrs’ harsh screams reveal their determination to get past me.
They’re starving. Craving blood. They’ll do anything to get it, even risk burning themselves. As long as they can grab the Oracle and drag her off my eagle, any superficial burn will be worth it.
Then they can feast.
I shouldn’t have underestimated how enticing her blood would smell to them, how intensely her presence could stir their beastly needs.
I thought I’d have to fight a few, maybe ten, even twenty of them.
Not hundreds.
Not all at once.
Fear pushes at my mind again, and this time it grows.
It takes hold of me as I keep my right arm raised while the light burns through my arm, a searing pain that will only get worse the longer I try to sustain it.
My lips draw back from my teeth as I remind myself…
Pain keeps me alive.
With another roar, I thump my free fist against my heart, a hard enough hit that my steel-covered hand clangs against my chest plate. The punch gives me the shot of agony I need, the pain I know and welcome.
This pain is survival.
I give the Oracle a cold grin, certain she sees the tension in my jaw, the suddenness of my indrawn breath, the visible signs of the severe discomfort I dealt myself.
Her eyes are wide as she cranes her neck to see our surroundings, first the vampyrs, the blood draining from her face at the sight of them, then my thumping fist, and finally my face, where her focus stays.
I did what I needed to do.
My mind is clear again.
Now, there’s only one way the Oracle will survive the vampyrs.
She’s going to fucking hate it.
I don’t have time to go slow or have a conversation about it. I’ll only have seconds after I return my weapon to its scabbard before my light will vanish completely, and we’ll be dropped into darkness again.
Already, my light has nearly faded.
As my eagle continues to fly desperately forward, the vampyrs close in again on either side and above us. So far, they haven’t managed to block our path, but they’ll try.
The Oracle followed my instructions and continues to lean low, her chest pressed to my bird’s back, her hands buried in his feathers, and her legs tucked, gripping tightly on either side of his body.
Swiftly depositing my axe into its scabbard and balancing as my eagle continues his evasive maneuvers, I slide down to his back, positioning myself right behind the Oracle—my steel-clad pelvis pressed up against her ass.
In the same swift movement, I lean forward to cover her body with mine, pressing my chest to her back, my legs against her legs, and my arms over her arms, covering her as much as I can.
She stiffens beneath me, her voice snatched away by the wind. “What are you—?”
My head descends to the space beside hers and—fuck—I should have leaned down on the other side of her because now my exposed cheek is pressed to hers and her skin smells like salt and roses and warm, shadowy alcoves…
“Stay,” I snarl at her, fighting to maintain my sanity while I carefully control my body weight.
The black steel covering my body isn’t light. I need to protect her, not fucking crush her.
In the next breath, I roar at my eagle, “Fly as fast as you can!”
I don’t have to tell him twice. Now that we’re both lying low on his back, he won’t fear knocking us off.
His beak snaps at the air as he shoots forward.
He’s faster than any other eagle, more agile despite his size, and his instincts are impeccable. He will want to survive as badly as I do.
The vampyrs’ shrieks crescendo around us. They’re fast, too, and their desperation gives them speed.
The closest vampyrs strike through the fading light, the scent of their burning flesh overwhelms even the perfume of the Oracle’s skin as they shriek with hunger.
“Do not deprive us!”
“Let us drink!”
They collide with my back, thumping hard, trying to grab me with their clawed hands, but I was expecting their attack, and I’m braced for the impact.
The vampyrs don’t have the weight to do any real damage, and my armor is deliberately smooth. They can’t get hold of me.
One of them manages to grasp my forearm, but I shake it off. Its shrieking form knocks into the vampyrs flying behind it.
My armor is now the Oracle’s armor.
She is as protected as I am.
What’s more, my eagle’s speed now defies the dark creatures.
Their dismayed screeches echo around the pitch-black sky as my bird darts right and left, picking up even more speed.
There’s finally clear air ahead of us and then—
A new swarm of vampyrs shoots up from the mountain peak, which sits directly ahead of us. My heart sinks. Their dark cloaks must have concealed them against the inky rock.
They race toward us, a writhing wave, blocking our path.
My eagle soars sharply left, taking the new swarm with us. Then sharply to the right, flying directly at the next cliff face.
If he and I hadn’t performed this maneuver before, I’d think he was panicking and about to smash us into the rock. But his purpose is to lure both vampyr groups into a single mass following close behind.
So close they won’t focus on the rock fast enough.
The moment he veers wide of the oncoming mountain, they’ll crash into it.
As the wall of mountainside rushes toward us, the urge to close my eyes is instinctive.
Instead, I find myself once again drawn to the Oracle, her face so close to mine, because she whispers, without explanation, “Fluttering bird, fly free.”
Her eyes are wide open but glazed, staring sightlessly outward.
Is she…having a vision?
Back at the village, the blade’s power had flashed multiple times, and the alluring changes to her appearance were closely connected with that surging energy, but there’s no hint of that now. No change in her appearance.
She seems calm. Quiet.
“Blue feathers doused in blood,” she murmurs, so softly I’m forced to read her lips, or rather what I can see of them, which only makes me less certain of what she said.
She blinks. Her now-clear gaze darts up to mine. “It won’t work.” She struggles beneath me. “We have to dive. We need to dive now!”
For a heartbeat, I don’t believe her.
Flying close to the ground will only make things worse. Vampyrs sleep where the land is darkest, and that is within the black valleys and on the banks of the onyx rivers. What’s more, if we continue on our current path, we should rid ourselves of the majority of the swarm.
Diving lower seems both more dangerous and less effective.
But my hesitation is gone in a flash.
She’s the Oracle.
I either use her power to my advantage, or I don’t.
I tap my bird’s neck twice, the signal to dive, but he, too, hesitates.
“Dive!” I roar, startling him into submission.
With a savage beat of his wings, he angles downward and to the left, and, in the next moment, we plummet.
I fight to stay on his back and to keep the Oracle safe as we narrowly miss the cliff face.
Shrieks of rage scream through the air as the united swarm smashes against the side of the rock, although a few stragglers were far enough behind us to veer wide of it.
My mouth falls open as we pass the jagged outcrop, much lower than we were flying before.
A new swarm was waiting for us, hiding behind the rock. If we’d continued on our previous path, they would have taken us down.
That’s all I see before I’m forced to focus on the sheer strength it’s taking to remain on my eagle’s back as he dives into this never-ending darkness…
Amid the rush of air and the scream of my strained muscles, the Oracle gasps.
Her lips move against my cheek, causing a maddening rush of sensation to pass through my jaw.
I’m certain she gasped because the steep dive is dragging her stomach in unwanted directions, but that quick inhalation…
Her gasp and moan…
I’d give anything to hear her make that sound at the touch of my ungloved hand on her—
I don’t have to shake off my thoughts because my eagle’s dive does it for me.
My jaw clenches as we spiral at a near-vertical angle.
Just when the bile enters my mouth, my eagle levels out, soaring across the surface of a river whose liquid flows thick and slow.
It isn’t water. I know that much. And it’s eerily quiet. A hush that spells disaster.
His speed doesn’t slow, his panicked wing beats growing more frantic even though the vampyrs in the sky appear to have fallen back.
He will sense the creatures sleeping along the riverbank directly below us. All the uneven mounds upon mounds that are slumbering vampyrs curled up, so many of them that they’re piled on top of each other.
“Straight ahead,” the Oracle whispers, her eyes open again, her face still pressed to mine, or rather, mine is pressed to hers.
Her voice is so quiet that, once again, I strain to hear her.
“Don’t rise,” she says. “Don’t stop.”
Don’t rise?
A glance at the landscape ahead of us makes me freeze.
It’s a fucking dead end.
This valley is completely closed in.
And now, all around us, the vampyrs are waking up. The terrain is shifting, all those mounds undulating as a new swarm begins to stir.
The Oracle struggles beneath me, as if she can predict the command on my lips for my eagle to take us back up into the sky.
There isn’t much she can do. She’s trapped beneath me, her stomach pressed to my eagle, but it seems she’s trying to take my hand, her arm turning and her fingers grasping the underside of my wrist.
Her touch is barely perceptible through my armor. It isn’t as if she’s strong enough to put a dent in it.
“Don’t stop,” she gasps.
My eagle’s wings beat hard again, lifting us higher. I have no doubt he’s following his instincts, preparing to carry us upward, even if he stays at this low altitude for as long as he can.
The Oracle inhales a sharp breath, and I sense the rise of her chest beneath me, the build-up of pressure that warns me she’s about to scream.
Before she can, I thump my eagle’s neck twice, telling him to dive once again. But in this case, he’s so panicked that I know the best it will do is keep him level.
Despite my command, he tugs upward again.
Again, I thump his neck, even though the dark wall of rock now rushing toward us is clearly impenetrable, and smashing into it will surely break his neck and ours.
The Oracle’s pale eyes consume my vision as she cranes her neck to see me.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers as we crash toward the mountainside.