Page 44 of The Serpent’s Shadow

An ominous sensation joined my grief and pain. I didn’t like what this looked like, not one bit. All I could do was put my nose down, chase after Corym, and hope I didn’t misstep and fall into the peat bog.

We were hours from his camp if walking. Now, the energy was frenetic. We would make it in a quarter the time.

I just prayed we’d make it in time to stop whatever was happening there.

Black smoke spiraled up in inky tendrils through the canopies as we approached the camp. Corym started calling out names desperately, his voice rising through the trees that whirred by as we ran.

I was panting and heaving, running the entire length of the trek back to keep pace with Corym, who never seemed to tire.

My eyes swiveled left to right, looking for any signs of danger, while my heart slammed against my ribs.

I had no weapon. The elves hadn’t allowed me even a hairbrush while I remained their prisoner. They didn’t trust me.

Now I felt helpless.

I’m not helpless though, am I? Magic is coursing through my veins, finally.

I dug deep to find the reservoir that had evaded me for so many years. A thrum of intensity rolled up my spine, lighting my blood afire.

We saw the first body as we got closer to the camp.

It was an elf, dressed in the robed garb of a commoner—not one of the fighters who had been sent as a vanguard scouting troop. He was carrying a bucket, water spilled out of it, soiling the ground dark.

“No!” Corym wailed, and my heart squeezed tight at the visceral pain in his voice.

A few steps further, past the river where the man had died with arrows in his body like a pincushion, we found the next one—this corpse a woman.

Corym drew his curved blade from his back and spun it in a circle.

The woman carried a small handaxe on her waist, used for chopping wood. I bent down and scooped it up before calling out for Corym.

He spun, nodded when he saw the axe in my hand and the deadly look on my face, and said, “Stay close,lunis’ai. I don’t know what treachery awaits us.”

Past the bending river, we crossed over a hill. On the other side of the hill, the smoke was worse—thick, black plumes of it, wrenching up into the sky, sucking out all the oxygen.

The camp was on fire. At least half the structures were ablaze, their leathery hide tarps making fine kindling.

Elves ran wild through camp. Some fought, some fled. I noted at least four soldiers with their golden armor, fighting back their enemy as they weaved through camp like sentinels of death in the night.

The first thing I noticed from the enemy was the black shield and white dragonhead emblem embedded on the shoulders of their armor, the dark cloaks whipping in the wind as they wielded their spears, swords, and axes.

Vikingrune Academy Huscarls.

I gnashed my teeth together and sprinted toward the closest ones. Corym ran off, around the crowd, heading for the back of the camp. I veered, wondering where he was going.

The fight was moving away from us, toward the back end of camp.

I passed two more corpses.

Logaithn, Corym’s right-hand man, fended off three Huscarls. He moved like a blur, amazing in combat.

Yet the Huscarls were trained well. They had learned from the mistakes of getting flat-footed by these beautiful warriors near the creek. They fought with mad abandon.

They kept Logaithn on his toes, moving to surround him, putting his back against a flaming tent.

Runes were cast. Magic flew through the air, the sharp tang of the stench of fire and ice stinging my nostrils.

I Shaped and called ice from the depths of Niflheim. Tossing the icicles at the backs of one of the Huscarls, I drew his attention away from Logaithn, toward me.

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