Page 66 of Elven Crown

A low whistle rang from the rear of that third vehicle’s trailer before Rowan’s voice seeped out again. “Man, what does one of these babies normally run you? Cost-wise, I mean. I’m sure it takes up a shit-ton of energy too.”

The two griybreki gawking at him on the vehicle’s loading ramp hissed again. One of them snarled and babbled something else in his guttural language.

A second later, the low-pitched whine of magitek weapon system coming online filled the docks. In seconds, several other armed griybreki had appeared around the rear of the vehicle, which Rebecca still couldn’t see.

But she could hear their feet slapping against the concrete right before the telltale clicks and whirs of several firearms beinglifted and aimed while several other griybreki voices added to the cacophony of shouting.

“Oh…” Rowan’s low chuckle rose into the air with a slow clap of his hands. “Is this a demonstration?”

That was as good a signal as they were ever going to get.

She conjured a crackling orb of crimson battle magic in one hand, thrust that hand into the air, and launched the orb like a discharged flare straight up into the night sky.

All the griybreki froze where they were, and even their incomprehensible jabbering stopped so each frog-like creature could crane its neck to stare at the crackling orb of crimson light streaking high above them.

“Now!” Rebecca shouted. “Move, move, move!”

Everything after that was complete chaos, but this Shade team was already expecting it.

The griybreki weren’t.

Rebecca knew her team would move in from their various positions just as she did, even though she only saw Maxwell darting out from behind the same shipping container.

Then the weapons fire started.

It came from one of the startled griybreki who’d found a smirking Blackmoon Elf in the back of his transport vehicle. The creature fired off a single round into the back of the trailer with shaking webbed hands.

Rebecca didn’t think after that. She just reacted.

While the other griybreki who’d drawn weapons on Rowan now abandoned the rear of the third vehicle to engage the rest of her team, Rebecca headed straight for the miserable creature who’d fired on the elf man.

The griybreki didn’t even know she was coming before she put an augmented bullet through the back of its squashed bald head.

The round carried far more power than necessary to take one of these things down. So much power that it didn’t simply dropthe griybreki. The back of the creature’s head exploded, spraying brain matter and slick, glowing griybreki blood all over the rear of the semi-trailer, as well as its contents.

But Rebecca didn’t stop moving.

She leapt onto the loading ramp and launched herself into the back of the trailer, swinging her weapon to prepare for an attack.

The first thing she saw was all the open crates toward the entrance, resting in front of the stacks of even more similar crates filling the trailer all the way to the front.

Someone had opened these crates, but there was no sign of anyone in here now.

She glanced at her hands wrapped around her automatic magitek rifle to be sure they weren’t shaking with the fear of what she might find.

If Rowan had been such a fucking idiot, if he’d gotten himself shot and killed because the cursed elf just couldn’t take anything seriously…

Something stirred among the shadows toward the front of the trailer. Rebecca heightened her focus, swinging the barrel of her weapon in that direction.

Something toppled off the top of a stack of crates, then the movement returned slowly and cautiously.

Rowan’s face fully emerged from the other side of another crate pile behind which he’d thrown himself for protection.

The second he popped up above those crates, Rebecca knew he was unhurt.

He was also covered in the glowing, bluish-gray blood of the griybreki she’d shot through the head, his hair and clothing sticky with blood spatter and bits of brain and bone still clinging to him.

His hazel eyes glinted at her in the low light as he blinked through the gore sliding down his face and hair. Then his grin returned.

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