Page 137 of Soul Forge

The princess stood over Abraxos, pointing her dagger down at him to keep him still. Nox hovered menacingly over him, her blank white eye boring into his, one hoof still placed on his chest. He surprised them by chopping a hand against Nox’s knee, rolling away when she reared up.

Abraxos was beaten from his fight with Sypher, but he was still fast. He darted for his dropped weapon, swinging it wide and catching both Elda and her mount with an arc of lightning. It burned through her with such intensity that she fell from the saddle, a scream stuck in her throat, her body convulsing and jerking for what felt like an age.

When the shock faded, her muscles were trembling. Getting her feet beneath her was difficult – her limbs didn’t seem to want to communicate with her, moving woodenly. Nox shook her head and hissed at Abraxos, making him laugh.

Elda reluctantly reached out to Irileth, finding her power ready and waiting. Ice filled her veins, misting her breath in front of her. All she needed to do was touch the dagger against Abraxos, and she could beat him. He cocked his head and smiled, beckoning her closer.

She obliged, darting forwards and ducking low, trying to catch him off guard so she could rake her blade across his ribs, but he saw it coming and slammed an elbow down betweenher shoulder blades. She stumbled, barely staying upright, and turned to face him again.

She forced herself to concentrate on him, knowing that even a second of distraction would cause him to fry her again. She kept her eyes away from Sypher and Cynthia, circling Abraxos slowly.

When she attacked again, he turned into her kick and gripped her legs, slamming the shaft of his mace into her knee hard enough to strain the joint. If she hadn’t jerked her leg at the last second, she’d be suffering from worse than a strain. The spikes would have torn through her flesh.

A boot came rushing towards her head, forcing her to twist out of the way and cover up. Her arms took the brunt of another kick, pain zipping right up to her shoulders under the blow. She slashed with her dagger and missed, and the manoeuvre cost her. Abraxos’ hand clamped around her braid and yanked, throwing her to the dirt hard enough to wind her.

His knee dropped onto her chest, and she reached out to grip his wrist before the spikes of his mace could take her eye, her arms trembling with the effort. When Nox tried to get closer, lightning arced from the weapon without him even having to swing it.

The mace was centimetres from her face, its gleaming spikes close to piercing her flesh. Her heart pounded, blood beating in her ears in time with her pulse. Panic tightened her lungs, but she kept all her strength in her arms. Even so, Abraxos was stronger than her, gaining ground a millimetre at a time.

Her arms were going to fail. She could feel them getting weaker, the muscles in her shoulders and forearms screaming at her. She gritted her teeth, a grunt escaping her when she tried to force him back and failed. She couldn’t kick her legs – the slightest shift would skewer her. He was going to blind her.

“I hope you can fight without your eye,” he snarled.

A flash of purple light struck him, coursing through him with violent abandon. His body thrashed and writhed, the mace discarded on the ground. Reiner descended on Atlas, his wings flaring to rain purple magic over the fighting below.

Elda took the chance to look over at Sypher, just in time to see Cynthia grunt when she was backhanded across her already bruised face. She staggered, skipping back several steps to avoid the sizzling fire he threw at her. Elda watched her rush forwards and violently yank the blade from Sypher’s shoulder. He roared in pain and sent a wall of air rushing at her, slamming her into the dirt and sending her tumbling over several times before she came to a painful stop.

Reiner slid off the saddle, arching an eyebrow when Nox clopped forwards and planted both of her front hooves on Abraxos’ back. Elda accepted the hand up the ex-captain offered, her heart still throbbing hard in her ears.

“Never rush into a battle unprepared,” Reiner chastised, “especially if it’s for a man. Love makes you stupid in a fight.”

“I didn’t come out here for love,” Elda argued.

The ex-captain nodded slowly. “Sure you didn’t.”

“Tell us where Arden is,” Sypher demanded once more, his growl grabbing their attention. He stood over her with his sword balanced right over her heart.

The necromancer started to laugh, and then she put two fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle.

“Have fun fighting off my friends,” she grinned. Elda looked back at the trees just in time to see the shadows come to life.

A swarm of twisted, ugly demons crawled between the trunks – hounds with open, gaping sores and leathery skin belching fire from their fanged mouths and empty eye sockets. Tall, gangly creatures with long, taloned fingers, curving horns, and eyeless faces. Things with multiple arms and sinewy, muscled legs, their faces resembling the skull of a deer. Arachna skittered amongthem as well, their fleshy limbs still managing to make an unsettling ticking noise even against the soft dirt.

Cynthia unleashed a burst of poisonous green flame from her vestige, scorching Sypher’s wings just in time for a wraith to swoop down and snatch her and Abraxos in its claws, carrying them to safety. The Soul Forge hissed out a pained curse, his feathers ruined enough that he couldn’t fly.

There wasn’t even time for him to climb onto Nox’s back and escape. The demons had already surrounded them. Reiner was separated from Atlas, though she didn’t appear worried about her mount.

Sypher shot Elda a warning look – a silent instruction to get in the saddle and stay there – and drew his sword, his free hand igniting. She put the dagger back into her bow and pulled the string, letting several arrows loose into the crowd of beasts, sending scores of them hurtling into the air with every blast.

Snarling, howling, growling, chittering – a cacophony of noise all around them drowned out the sounds of the arrows flinging flesh and limbs high into the air. Sypher set to work hacking and slashing, trying to create enough room for Nox to get off the ground. The tulpar demon stayed calm, lashing out with her hooves whenever one of the creatures came too close.

Reiner’s mace caused devastation, its spikes tearing open limbs and torsos, her power cooking flesh. Atlas was beating demon skulls in with his hooves, charging them with that crackling magic to make each blow count. Elda barely had time to marvel at his intelligence.

Her ranged weapon quickly became useless, the swell of beasts too near to avoid the aftershock of the magic her arrows unleashed. She switched back to the dagger, slashing wildly at any creatures that came within touching distance. Reiner hollered, her veins alight, and with her escalating magic, Atlas’ feathers also burned brighter. It was incredible to watch, but thetide of demons crawling from the small forest outside of Saeryn wasendless.

Sypher growled, and Elda saw his eyes darken, black veins spreading beneath his left eye as he drew on Vel’s power reluctantly. The demon soul burst forth with zeal, black shadows rising in a wave over the beasts closest and suffocating them to death. Fire followed, igniting the shadows until swathes of the creatures were writhing and blistered. Elda watched him tear into them while she continued slicing off fingers, slashing open faces, and blinding the ones with eyes.

It took time to fight through the herd Cynthia had pulled from nowhere, but eventually, Elda slid off of Nox’s back and started picking off the stragglers, thrusting her dagger into the sides of their skulls until no more demons moved. Reiner brought her mace down on the skulls of any still twitching, Atlas keeping his nose close to her back.

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