Page 60 of The Cursed and the Broken
“We’re not alone,” András whispered beside me, removing his palm from my lips. His hand hovered over his sword hilt, the other stretched out protectively before me.
Dante’s brown eyes narrowed as he surveyed the forest. “The cultists are here,” he informed his second. “Take Kitarni, get her behind the safety of the walls. Don’t—”
A strange whistling sound sped through the air as an arrow embedded itself in the chest of one of the guards. His lips formed a surprised ‘o’ before he toppled off his horse with a thud.
Dead before he hit the ground.
TWENTY-FIVE
Shrieks sounded all at oncefrom the woods as cultists in black hoods and robes came charging from the treeline. Arló pranced beneath me, and I squeezed my legs to grip Arlo’s flanks.
András whipped his blond head towards me, green eyes blazing. “We need to go. Now.”
He lunged for my reins right as a stone whacked into the back of his head, rendering him unconscious ... or dead. He slumped over his horse which, thankfully, had the sense to canter away from the brawl and towards the town gates.
“Shit.” I looked between András and the soldiers, panic rising at the flood of cultists. I could have fled like Dante wanted, but as I looked at the bodies on the backs of those horses—at the man who’d fallen to the earth—I set my jaw, welcoming the promise of a fight. I felt, saw,smeltred. And I would not cower like some meek maiden.
Rounding Arló, I turned towards the commotion, arching a leg over his back before jumping off the stirrup. Dante caught my eye, a murderous gleam in his own. The killer was back and he wasnothappy.
His lips twitched, his jaw like glass as he clenched his teeth. I thought he’d yell at me to leave, but instead I saw a flash of surprise, followed by approval. I would fight for him and his people as he would for me. Because they were my people now.Ourflock to protect.
Embers sparked to life as I focused on my first victim. A man with stitches holding his lips together, the same frenzied eyes of someone dosed with bloodmorphia. He would burn first.
I lobbed the fireball at his cloak, lighting up the night as the flames engulfed him entirely. The muffled screams of a voiceless man filled the air as he flailed, skin melting off his frame until he fell in a scorched heap on the ground.
The sickening smell of charred flesh climbed my nose, but I had no time to delay. Drawing a knife, I hurled it through the air, the blade embedding in the chest of a girl slightly younger than me. My stomach curdled as I looked at her face. Flat, dead eyes, a waif of a creature whose only taste of the world had been darkness and death.
She choked on her own fluids, hacking up blood. I’d pierced a lung. It was an ugly, painful way to die. Regret washed over me for the briefest of moments, but I turned my back, pawing curly strands from my cheeks to face my next foe.
Dante hovered nearby, his swords glinting in the moonlight, the wolves on his sword pommels snarling as he brought the blades arcing down upon necks and chests. His vest and shirt were already soaked, a testament to a violent, wicked creature.
The cultists surged in waves. Streaking from the trees like rats from a nest. My heart stopped when the last figure stepped into the moonlight. He towered over the others; a muscled, hulking beast of a man with oiled skin and sickles in his hands. And, draped over his neck, the skin from a bull’s head, worn as a mask. Dried blood still crusted over the man’s skin. It must have been a fresh kill when he’d donned it.
Bile rose in my throat. A sickening tribute to what the Christians called the devil. To dark magic. He lifted a sickle, pointing it at me menacingly and my bowels turned watery. Either he’d singled me out because he believed me the easiest target or they knew now who they hunted.
A screech to my left had me whirling under a serrated blade and kicking my leg out to topple my attacker. My boot connected with a shin, smashing into bone and forcing them to their other knee.
Striking hard and fast, I plunged my dagger into their stomach again and again, surprised by my own savagery. Red soaked my hand as I pulled away, pooling down my sleeve in sticky waves.
A whistle pierced shrilly through the commotion and I turned towards the source. A woman with long black hair and blue eyes smiled cruelly at me before glancing over her shoulder. I followed her line of sight, squinting into the woods to see wolves yipping and snarling.
They were black like the ones I’d first encountered with Dante, their eyes feverish with the same silver-blue shimmer. They sprinted towards us, hackles raised and maws dripping with saliva.
Dante snarled as he gazed upon those corrupted beasts, his nostrils flaring as he readied himself for the assault. He stepped before me, his towering frame shielding me from their wrath.
I looked around helplessly at the blades plunging and arcing, the spatters of blood laying waste to all around us. Most of the horses had fled towards the gates, but Laszlo remained, snapping at the heels of cultists, snarling and lunging at legs and hands and throats, as loyal and fierce as the oncoming wolves.
All around us, soldiers grappled with beasts and cultists alike, but the bull-headed man stalked towards us menacingly, his sickle carving a path through bodies. “My mistress wishes to send a message,” he shouted in a deep voice, eyes flickering beneath the animal he wore. “She knows who you are, what lurks within your blood. And like this bull, she will shed your skin and bleed you dry. We are coming for you, Kitarni Bárány. She will rise.”
My breath came in rasps, chest heaving as I watched him slowly lift those sickles. They glittered in the moonlight, as cold and cruel as his message. I glanced at Dante, his face stricken, an emotion I couldn’t place flashing through his eyes. I couldn’t lose him.
Shouts and gargles rang out around me as men fell like flies. So much death. But it would end now.
Fire sparked through my veins like molten lava and the power surged to my fingertips, sparking out in volleys of crackling embers as they exploded on the backs of wolves, igniting fur like tinder. Cultists’ cloaks went up in flames, skin sizzling and spitting like fat dripping from roast meat.
Beads of sweat dripped down my brow at the heat and exhaustion beginning to weigh down my bones. A heavy fog clouded my senses, making me sluggish. Several wolves baled up Dante as he fought to keep the bull-headed man at bay, doing his best to ward them off with his swords. Black tendrils curled like smoke from his fingers and his eyes flashed in a brilliance of gold as he conjured his magic.
The black smoke wafted into the mouths, eyes and noses of the fallen, and their bodies twitched to life one by one, limbs snapping back together, muscles jolting with renewed vigour. The dead cultists now fought under his command—under all the guards now. We were blanketed with the powdery mist.
