Chapter 63
Almost is a Peasant's Word
"You can't just walk toward it," I said.
"And yet I did."
"It almost killed you."
"Almost is a peasant's word. One either dies, or one does not." She brushed a flake of char from her sleeve. "I did not."
The ground shook as the alpha moved. I pressed myself up against the carcass and peered over it.
The beast was forty feet away, standing in the wreckage of the Golden Rose wagon.
Burning silk and shattered wood lay in a circle around its feet.
Its white fur was streaked with blood and gore as it stomped on the bodies around it.
The alpha's foot came down again and again, crushing the bodies into the road with wet crunches. Then it reached down, grabbed a corpse in each hand, holding them by their legs. The alpha lifted both bodies above its heads—all three of them—and started smashing them together.
Blood rained down over its white fur. Bone fragments scattered. Meat and metal hit the ground around it, spraying blood across the road.
I pulled my head back behind the carcass.
"It's—"
"I heard." Her face hadn't changed. Those tarnished-gold eyes stayed flat. "They are dead. The beast desecrates their remains. This changes nothing about their failure to survive."
"I'm Fish," I said again, because she'd barely acknowledged it the first time. "And I'm going to keep you alive until we reach Valdris. In return—"
"In return, you shall receive whatever boon you desire. Yes, yes. The transaction is understood." She waved a hand like she was dismissing a servant. "I am Wyona of the Goldrose. What is your plan, my rabble boy?"
My rabble boy? Who the hell… ugh, whatever.
"Stay behind cover until the Dragoon deals with the alpha.
Zo's handling the cliffs." I pointed up, where a green-furred monkey was falling past us, its skull caved in.
Her axe was a blur of motion against the rock face above; she'd climbed it quickly and was working through the howlers with the kind of glee that would've concerned a therapist. "Once the big one's gone, we can move. "
"And if your Dragoon fails?"
Good damn question.
The alpha roared—all three heads at once, each voice different, unique, and terrifying. The battle cry was a challenge, and the Dragoon answered it.
He was moving fast on his scaled mount, its clawed feet digging into the broken road and launching him forward. The Dragoon's sword was out, a heavy single-edged blade that caught the firelight and reflected it orange. He hit the alpha at full gallop.
The sword carved into the alpha's side; its wind head screamed and twisted, but the Dragoon was already gone, his mount skidding sideways.
The alpha turned, its stone head tracking the rider, and the ground beneath the mount's feet erupted spikes of rock that punched upward.
The mount shrieked and threw its rider as a spike pierced its leg.
The Dragoon hit the ground rolling, came up on his feet, sword still in hand. Good reflexes. But the alpha's fire head was already inhaling, that horrible sucking sound that meant it was about to blast him with liquid flame.
He dodged. Barely. The fire hit the road where he'd been standing, turning the stone black.
The Dragoon charged on foot. His blade caught the alpha's forearm as it swung down, cutting a gash that sprayed blood. The alpha's wind head opened its mouth, and a blast caught the Dragoon in the chest, sending him sliding back.
"A competent fighter," Wyona observed from behind the carcass, as if she were watching from a balcony. "Lacking the decisive power to end this quickly."
The Dragoon came in again—three quick slashes that opened the alpha's thigh, its belly, its outstretched hand.
But the alpha absorbed the damage and retaliated.
Stone head summoned a wall of rock that slammed into the Dragoon's.
Something cracked—I heard it from here—and the Dragoon stumbled.
The fire head spat a narrow stream that caught his shoulder. His pauldron melted, and he screamed.
But he didn't stop. He drove his sword up under the alpha's chin—the fire head's chin—and buried it to the crossguard. The fire head went silent, its mouth hung open, dripping molten spit, and the light in its eyes went out.
Only two heads left!
The alpha went berserk. Both remaining heads were howling at once, its massive arms sweeping in wide arcs that tore chunks from the cliff face.
The Dragoon yanked his sword free and retreated, but the alpha's stone head called up a pillar beneath his feet and launched him into the air.
He flew ten feet before slamming into a wagon.
Above us, I heard Zo's war cry again, and another monkey's body tumbled down.
She was keeping the smaller ones off us, doing exactly what I'd asked.
Good. The worms reported movement on the cliff face—three more rock-throwers repositioning, two howlers building up for a combination blast. Zo was moving to intercept them.
The alpha and the Dragoon met in the center of the road for the third time.
The Dragoon stabbed the alpha in its open wound.
The alpha caught his blade in its fist and squeezed.
Metal groaned. The Dragoon's feet left the ground as it lifted him by his own weapon.
And the alpha's wind head fired point-blank into the Dragoon's chest.
The blast blew a hole in his chest and sent him backward through a wall of flame. The alpha moved on him, bleeding from its injuries; the stump where its fire head used to be was now dripping molten black blood that burned its chest fur. It was hurt, badly hurt. But the Dragoon was worse.
"He'll die if this continues," I said.
"Then let it continue." Wyona didn't move. "He is not mine."
He wasn't my responsibility either. And getting involved with the alpha would blow my cover completely, and show everyone in this caravan what—
The Dragoon staggered upright, breaking my train of thought.
Blood ran from his nose and ears, and the hole in his chest was slowly regenerating.
He raised his sword in one hand and charged again.
Whatever Origin he had, it was burning now.
I could see it—a faint corona of pale energy along the blade's edge.
He put everything into one overhead strike that caught the alpha's stone head at the base of the neck.
The head cracked, splitting from its throat to the crown of its head. The alpha staggered sideways, both remaining heads screaming—one in pain, one in that broken gurgle of a throat full of blood.
And then the alpha howled into the air.