Page 79 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

He shoved the comparison away. No. He wasn’t like Ehrun. He’d never do what that dhemon had done.

A blade flew at his face, tip over handle, from the redhead. He turned his head fast, and he shuddered as his horn deflected the projectile. The small dagger skittered across the rocky ground, away from the fray.

He didn’t have time to consider going after it before another arrow whizzed past him, aimed at Sasja. Azriel cursed and lunged to help her but was met by the fae woman, her long black hair swinging in a braid. Ignoring how much it looked like Ariadne’s, he danced back as she slashed at his stomach with one of the knives she held in her hands.

She advanced, and a familiar, searing hot pain lanced across Azriel’s back. He snarled over his shoulder at a brunette reeling back the whip for a second strike. Memories threatened to crash through the bond’s haze, and he pushed them back down as the next lash hit its mark.

Azriel grit his teeth, making a mental tally of where each fae was and the level of danger they posed. The woman was right before him with a knife. A man behind him with the whip. Another with a bow and arrows. A third with the throwing knives. And the last was fighting with Sasja.

The crowd roared overhead, and Azriel’s heart dropped into his stomach. If she was dead—

No. The fae man rolled limp into the sand as Sasja unlocked her legs from around his body and scooped up his short sword. She wiped blood from her mouth as she advanced on her next prey.

A third strike with the whip brought Azriel’s attention back to his own fight. He needed to focus. He’d thought having a partner would make his job easier in the Pits, just as it had when he’d fought alongside Madan, Whelan, and Kall. Unfortunately, having Sasja only worried him. And why he worried for someone who clearly hated him as much as she did, he had no idea.

When the fae woman lunged, Azriel dodged to the side and caught her forward momentum with his arm. Sticking out his uninjured leg behind her, he shoved her backward. She pinwheeled her arms before slamming into the ground, and he stabbed with his knife.

The woman rolled to the side, avoiding the attack, and shifted to her knees. Azriel hurried forward to catch her before she could stand and was met with a face full of sand.

Roaring, he reeled back, blinded by the sand in his eyes.

CRACK.

The whip seared his back a fourth time.

He scrubbed at his face, unable to catch his breath as the fifth strike landed along his spine. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks from burning eyes, his body desperately trying to rid itself of the minuscule grains.

And then the woman’s blade slipped across the back of his knee, severing the tendons holding him up before sinking into his side. Vision still impaired, he lurched away, the air punched from his lungs at the sudden burst of agony. The blade twisted, still held by the woman, only making matters worse.

Azriel swung his elbow blindly, his balance compromised, and connected with the woman’s face. Her grip on the knife eased, and he pried her fingers from the handle to yank the blade free. Two knives for him. None for her.

Hot liquid poured down his side, making his head spin from the sudden loss. As though he needed more problems.

Another man’s scream from across the pit told him someone else had fallen to Sasja’s blades. Good. At least one of them was succeeding.

As another lash broke across his back, Azriel’s vision swam back into view bit by bit. The lights burned as much as the sand, and the cheers were deafening.

Through the bleary haze, he watched as the woman scrambled to her feet. Before she could get herself upright, he balanced himself on his good leg and threw the knife in his hand. Though he’d aimed for her chest, it missed the mark and stuck into her shoulder instead. A hit was a hit, and it stunned her enough to give him time to unsteadily close the distance between them.

Another crack of the whip, followed by no additional pain, told Azriel that either the fae man behind him missed…or he’d gone after Sasja.

Azriel ignored the desire to check to see if she was okay and focused instead on his own target. Fear widened the woman’s eyes, but he didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t. Not in the Pits.

He dug the second knife into her throat and pivoted on his uninjured leg to search for Sasja before the fae even hit the ground.

More deafening screams above him. Azriel rubbed his still-burning eyes again and found the two fae males facing off with his partner.

Blood drenched Sasja’s side, much like his own, but she still gripped the two short swords as she stared down the men before her. While he’d only killed the one opponent, she’d barreled her way through two. She truly didn’t need him as much as he’d thought.

Then an arrow lodged into her shoulder on the same side as whatever gut wound she already sported. Her grip loosened on the sword in that hand, and she bared her pointed teeth at the silver-haired archer.

Azriel stumbled forward, scooping up a discarded throwing dagger as he did so. The one with the whip pulled back his weapon, ready to strike, as he shifted the dagger’s tip between his fingers and let it fly the distance between them. It dug into the whip-wielder’s arm, drawing his attention back to Azriel.

Several things happened at once, then, which Azriel hadn’t been ready for. Sasja’s grip gave out on one of her swords, and the blade fell to the ground at the same moment an arrow buried into Azriel’s gut. The whip cracked across his chest a beat later, snapping the end of the arrow and driving it deeper into him.

The world spun around him, and he watched almost in slow motion as Sasja swung at the archer with her remaining blade while the whip-wielder dropped his weapon in favor of the second sword.

Azriel couldn’t keep up. He’d walked into the Pits without the proper nourishment as a dhemon and vampire, and the loss of blood only made matters worse. As he took a shaking step forward, his injured leg finally gave out and slammed into the rocky ground.

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