Page 218 of The Black Witch

“What was that?” Tierney asks in a small, worried voice.

“It sounded like cages shattering,” Trystan guardedly replies. “But...it couldn’t be...”

“How many dragons are on this base?” Cael inquires, dead-serious urgency in his eyes.

Trystan swallows hard before answering. “A hundred and twenty-three.”

Rafe turns to Cael. “Any thoughts on what they might do?”

“They’re trained to kill intruders,” Cael answers grimly. “And to go to their Dragon Master.”

Yvan rushes at the tallest tree in the vicinity, a great, towering pine. He scrambles up it with breathtaking speed, deft as a river monkey. I blink up at his form as he hangs one-armed from the treetop, not quite believing my eyes. I rack my brain and try to remember what type of Fae can climb like that.

Something snarls in the distance. One man shouts then more. A series of vicious growls rise that set the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. And then a base alarm sounds—a high-pitched, spiraling whistle as dragons begin to shriek.

“They’re everywhere,” Yvan calls down. “They’reall loose...”

Yvan leaps from the top of the tree and lands in front of me with a heavythwump. He’s crouched low, a look of fierce resolve burning in his emerald eyes.

I’ve no time to marvel over his effortless leap from such a great height. He grabs my arm and practically throws me out of the clearing into the shelter of the trees.

I scrape my arm, and a branch slashes at my face as I hit the ground.

Three dragons shoot into view, soaring over, just above the treetops, beating foul wind down onto us with powerful wings, their undersides covered in hard, ebony scales. One of them lets out a rasping shriek. I become acutely aware of the softness of my skin—how easily it would yield to teeth and claws.

Easy prey.

Cael and Rhys have taken to the trees, arrows nocked in ivory bows as Tierney shrinks down by a large oak. The base below us has become a cacophony of shrieking and growling. Men shouting. Women screaming. Horses panicking.

“Wyn’terlyn,”Cael calls out to his sister in Elvish, his eyes seared on to her. He points to Naga and barks out an order in their tongue. Wynter quickly slides under Naga’s broken wing, disappearing from sight.

“I can hear dragons,” Diana says, cocking her head. “A number of them. Coming this way.”

“How many?” Andras asks, his jaw going rigid as he brandishes his ax and flexes muscular arms.

Diana levels her eyes at him. “Too many to count.”

Rafe readies his bow as Diana and Jarod crouch low. Yvan’s hand finds my arm, every part of me on high alert, heart racing. I remember the broken dragons’ horrible teeth, their soulless eyes...

“Stand ready!” Diana commands as she morphs her hands into clawed weapons, one arm arced above her head, a low growl emanating from her throat.

A dragon bursts into our clearing, wings beating. I gasp and reflexively shrink back behind Yvan as arrows shoot down and bounce off the beast’s neck. The creature immediately zeroes in on Diana, tilts its horrible head and hisses, showing off murderous, spiked teeth.

Diana darts forward and smacks the side of the dragon’s head. Her blow sends the creature slamming to the ground with a loud shriek. In a blur of speed, Diana is astride the dragon, its neck in her hands as she jerks it around with a cracking twist. The creature slumps limp and lifeless into the dirt, black foam bubbling up from its mouth.

Jarod’s and Diana’s heads jerk upward. Two more dragons fly into the patch of sky above. They crash down, bending back trees with beating wings, branches cracking off and raining down into the clearing.

Yvan falls on me and pushes me flat onto the ground. Huge tree parts rain down on us. Arrows whistle by from multiple directions, one piercing the bark of the tree behind me with a dullthwunk.

“Stay down!” Yvan cries as he pushes himself off me and into a crouch.

A flash of steel glints amidst the thrashing confusion of dragon limbs as Andras curses and swings his labrys. There’s a metallic thud, a terrible, ground-shaking roar, thewhooshof more arrows, Diana’s low growl as she kills another dragon. Complete chaos ensues as the dragons fall, writhing on the ground, a new one bursting forth from the trees, its face twisted in ravenous fury.

Trystan raises his wand at the beast as it stalks toward him. Fire bursts forth from the wand’s tip in a powerful surge. The wave of fire engulfs the dragon and flames toward Yvan and me. A great burst of water drenches us both from the side, dousing the fire and chilling me to the bone. I sit up and rub at my eyes as I choke on rancid smoke.

I look over to see Tierney putting out Andras’s flaming cloak hem with another burst of water from her palms as Andras pulls his labrys from the dragon’s neck.

“What are youdoing?” Diana yells at Trystan. “Stop setting people on fire!”

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