Page 164 of Ulune's Daughter

A few of the goblin dogs turn tail. But many more run at me, seeking to overpower me with their sheer numbers. Luca pushes his shoulder against mine before leaping onto the back of a barghest and snapping its spine with his weight. He crushes another’s head in his jaws, black blood jetting out of the sides of his mouth to spatter hot and rank against my muzzle. I shake it off my whiskers and claw out another barghest’s throat.

For every barghest I kill, there are five more, ten more, a dozen more. They come in an unending wave. I’ve never seen such numbers. I kill every one within reach, but others slip past me, evading my fangs and claws.

I hear screams behind me as they reach the mass of women. Another hiss and fire sears my flank. I twist, shaking a goblin dog until its spine snaps between my jaws, even as I look over my shoulder at the rearing cobra. She spits another stream of venom, felling half of the barghests snapping in a ring around her. One flops bonelessly from her thrashing tail, its jaws locked even in death.

A horse’s whinny, high and somehowwrong, pulls my attention away from the cobra.

Through the mass of barghests ride two cloaked figures: one green, one black. Their horses are white bone, their manes dripping blood onto the grass torn by the barghests’ claws. Cowls hide their faces but the green cloak drapes over breasts, while the black cloak, tattered and smudged to the waist with oil from greasy fur, shows the sharp bones of the creature it conceals.

I don’t need to see the black cloak’s face to know what he is: aseithen, a Mirk Rider.

Too much of Faery is on this battlefield.

Mirk beasts will follow the Rider, strengthening the barghests’ already overwhelming numbers.

I can’t let that happen.

I charge the black rider and his bone horse.

Law, no! Law, wait!My twin cries into my mind.

But there is no time to wait. My mate is on this battlefield.

The horse rears, striking at me with its sharp, blood-smeared hooves. I leap up, wrapping my paws around its neck, crunching its spine between my fangs. It’s naked, broken bones drive into my gums and I shake my head in a bloody spray. The horse’s head snaps off and trips a running barghest. The skeleton stumbles to its knees, bones popping and splintering.

The Mirk Rider falls off the disintegrating horse. For a moment I see legs as skeletal as the horse’s. Then it climbs to its feet, letting its cloak flow around it again, lifting a pair of jagged blades.

Mirk blades, made from the teeth of those who have lost their way in Faery’s darkest dark, have left their signature in my skin. Conquering my fear of them every time I face a Mirk Rider is an effort of supreme will. But my mate is here. My twin is here. I will not fail them.

Snarling, I leap over the pile of horse bones and pounce on the Mirk Rider. It goes down under my paws. Searing bites along my flanks tell me the Mirk blades have found their mark. It stabs me frantically, the blades scraping against my ribs. One finds its way between my bones and bites deep, leaving me breathless.

Then the Mirk Rider’s pulled so sharply to the right I almost lose my grasp. Luca shakes his head violently, his jaws sunk into the Rider’s arm. The Rider screams as Luca rips its arm away.

I bellow again, clearing a circle around us as the barghests shudder and turn tail. Opening my mouth as wide as I can, I crunch down on the Mirk Rider’s cowl. Bones snap. The foul taste of the Mirk fills my mouth.

Then there’s nothing but bloody grass beneath my paws, nothing but mist between my teeth. I turn in a circle, making sure no more Mirk have followed the Rider.

Behind me, my mate is on her knees next to Luca’s fucking human. The green-cloaked woman looms over them, her arms spread wide. Rhodes’ back arches and he screams as a burning symbol tears free from his chest. The green-cloaked woman snatches it out of the air.

Luca screams and bounds toward the woman. Panting, I follow him, only to hit the wall of a ward. My fur sizzles. I keep my cheek against the ward as I slink along its edge, trying to find a hole.

Luca goes around the other side, ripping and clawing through barghests, the fur of his shoulder flaming where it touches the ward. Luca screams every time Rhodes does, every time another burning glyph’s torn out of his skin.

Caileán wraps her cloak around Rhodes, smothering the red-hot flare of his chest. Her feathers begin to smoke. She turns her head, leveling her burning blue gaze on the green-cloaked woman.

A silent boom rocks the ground underfoot. The dome of the ward fills with gray mist. It collapses, the mist flooding out on all sides, along with the echoes of my mate’s scream. It ruffles across my skin like a hurricane’s wind. All around me, barghests fall, blood exploding from their eyes and mouths. My mate’s banshee scream hisses across the battlefield and leaves only silence behind.

The crack of a whip breaks the silence. A bare-chested man, his rack of horns blazing with blue fire, his tail lashing behind him, brushes by me. “Retreat to Faery,” he tosses over his shoulder at me, cracking his flaming whip and turning a dozen barghests at the other end of it to ash and embers. “Take your wounded. We’ll finish this.”

Horned women bearing wavy blades, and in one case something that looks like a flamethrower, follow him, clearing the battlefield of goblin dogs. They don’t leave a single one alive in their wake.

I sag to the ground.

Luca kneels beside me in his skin. He pulls the Mirk blade I stopped feeling out of my side and presses his hands to my ribs.

I shift to my skin. “No. I’m fine. Don’t use your?—”

“Shut up,” he snarls at me. “I’m just going to seal it so you don’t bleed to fucking death. We have to get Rhodes into Faery and heal him. He’s dying. So just shut up.”

---