Page 218 of The Shadow Wand

And then another heart-wrenching scream sounds out. A woman crying out in distress in Uriskal.

Their cries break through my fear like a hammer shattering glass. I pull my rune blades from their sheaths and set out at a run toward the sounds, dodging trees, leaping over thick roots, crushing ferns beneath my boots.

The trees thin ahead, the dense forest giving way to a shallow, bowl-shaped valley, pale lilac grass swaying in the prestorm wind, lightning flashing from the angry clouds massing overhead.

I pause as I take in the nightmare scene before me in one sweeping glance.

A purple-hued Urisk woman and little girl are huddled against a large boulder at the edge of the field, backed against it and cowering. A skinny, fierce-looking Gardnerian girl who looks to be about thirteen stands before them, a knife raised in her trembling hand as she faces off against the three huge scorpios that are closing in on them all. One of the scorpios is taller than the others and chillingly elongated in shape, Shadow runes marked on its chitinous thorax and back, including a deflection rune.

For a moment, I remain frozen as the young child screams and the horrible things repeatedly make a play for the older girl with the knife, clicking and screeching, rearing up to make threatening jabs toward her with lethal forelimbs and poison-tipped tails.

Rage rises, freeing me as my military training takes hold. I grip my rune blades tighter and carefully move forward.

My foot skids on a loose root, my heel thumping down onto the forest floor.

The scorpios’ heads twitch toward me in one unified motion.

Alarm leaps in my chest as a sting ripples through the demon-detecting rune on my abdomen. Two of the scorpios are looking at me with depthless insect eyes. But the third, the elongated one, is not only looking at me with its bulging insect eyes, but the countless eyes scattered around these eyes. And in the center of the swarm is an eye that’s not insectile at all. It’s a pale green knowing eye.

A Vogel eye.

All hesitation breaks apart like a storm coming untethered. Rampant fury washes over me in a blinding flash as white-hot Magefire rushes through my lines.

Lukas. Chi Nam. The Lupines. Yvan. Everyone Vogel’s killed. It all strikes through me as my fire blasts into a violent conflagration.

A snarl erupts from deep inside me, quickly building to a roar. “Get away from them, youbastard!”

I charge into the valley, my training overtaking me as my fingers slide over the runes on the hilts of both blades and I power up the fire runes.

The smaller scorpios fall back into a protective crouch as the green Wand buzzes against my side and I raise the blades, shimmering green lines forming in my vision and tracking straight to the beasts as I slide my fingers over the runes and sound the Noi spells.

With a guttural cry I hurl both blades forward, aiming for the scorpios’ necks.

The knives find their marks, and both creatures’ heads explode into churning golden fire, the bodies flailing and gurgling as they fall to the ground twitching and the larger scorpio starts for me on huge, scuttling legs.

Fury snapping through my blood, I press the runes on my palms, and the knives fly back across the field and into my hands with hard thwacks.

“You see me?” I growl out at the Shadow-marked scorpio, fisting the blades as I stalk toward it. “Good!Go ahead, Vogel! Come at me, you bastard!”

The thing makes a sudden leap for me, flying high into the air, verdant lines forming in my vision as I throw both blades straight at the thing’s vulnerable neck.

The scorpio screeches as my blades sink right into its throat and I hurl myself to the side just as it crashes down, the taloned edge of its massive forearm barely missing my shoulder.

Black ichor explodes from its neck as it thrashes, and I roll away as its forearm crashes down toward me again and again and again. I keep rolling and rolling through the grass as the little girl screams. Then I scramble upright as the thing bucks and writhes.

Fury still ripping through me, I unsheathe another blade and approach the vile thing to find its one pale green Vogel eye open and alert as the creature gobbles and chitters, then grows completely still.

Nothing can slake my thirst for vengeance in that moment as a berserker rage overtakes me.

I stride right up to the monster and look straight into its pale green eye.

“I’m going to come for you,” I seethe at Vogel, scoured out by my fury, nothing but rage inside me now, “and I’m going to be your worst nightmare.”

There’s no way for the thing to have an expression, but I can feel the cold, vicious spite that flickers in that one eye.

“Go straight to hell, Vogel,”I hiss, then bring my blade down to impale his eye.

I dig into the creature, gouging out the Vogel eye and all the other eyes. Driving my knife into its head again and again and again. Then I straighten and pull in a quavering breath, bloodlust still strafing through my lines as I blink at what’s before me, reality warping as I survey the wreckage I’ve wrought.

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