Page 158 of The Last One
One soldier shouts, “She’s the one who killed my brother back in Maford.”
I don’t know which man made this accusation because my attention rests on Sinth.
The woods glow with the amber of more soldiers riding our way on horses glowing blue. The spines of the men standing around me straighten even more, and their thoughts bang around my head like swords hitting shields.
Sinth, the one with the pike, the one who killed my friend—I will save him for last.
An arrow speeds past my ear, so close that its feathered fletching brushes my cheek. The archer is already pulling a second arrow from his quiver as the soldiers with the swords rush toward me, their faces contorted with excited anger. The newcomers don’t dismount from their horses. They all race to surround me, their thoughts not all that different from their comrades’.
“Who killed the Renrian?”
“I’ll take his purple eyes.”
A scream rips from my depths and surges through my veins.
The horses, knowing something’s wrong, that I’m not to be harmed, buck and rear back and wag their heads. Some men fall off their mounts. Some men are bitten by their horses. Riderless horses bolt past me, their hooves thundering against the earth, racing in the same direction that Jadon and Philia took. The horses are smart to run.
The soldiers before me, though, are too ignorant to understand. They race to join their fellow soldiers on foot, swords ready, their yells and threats as loud as the hoofbeats of their retreating horses.
But their noise is muted by my crackling fury.
I lift my hands, and fire flickers across the fingertips of my gloves. I don’t pause long enough to appreciate this new ability—flames. I will later. For now, I’m ready to fight.
Another arrow speeds my way but misses, still managing, though, to brush my arm. I scream again, and instead of throwing wind, I throw fiery balls, one after another after another, balls of flame that evaporate soldiers running toward me, that evaporate every soldier circling me, that soldier, that soldier, some soldiers catch fire, and then all of them catch fire and they scream but fuck their screams. I hurl more fire at that soldier and that soldier, all of them now a wall of flames…except for the Dashmala called Sinth, the commander of dead men who cannot call him anything.
I march toward the Dashmala, pulling the long-handled pike from Veril’s back without stopping in my step.
Sinth lifts his massive sword and runs at me.
I stand still.
He is huge.
So what? I’m huge, too. And I’m not moving from this spot. Let him come to me.
He scowls and shouts as he swings at me. And misses.
I kick him backward, but he doesn’t go far. I still don’t leave my spot.
The giant rushes at me again and swings a second time.
I duck and grab his fighting arm, knocking the sword from his hand. I try to turn his palm in its opposite direction, but his wrist, protected by a gauntlet, is too thick to clench.
He swipes his free hand and strikes the right side of my face.
My feet leave the ground as I fly back and hit a petrified tree. I shake my head, seeing only pinpoints of light. I scramble to stand, and my knees wobble. Something wet and warm and too thick to be sweat drips from my earlobe and slides down the side of my neck.
The Dashmala grabs his sword from the dirt and stalks in my direction. He growls, “Burn me, bitch—”
I whip my hand.
Wind, not fire, knocks him onto his back.
I grab the pike and rush over to him.
Sinth lifts his head and shoulders up from the dirt, using his elbows to support his bulk. He glares at me from the bloody, ash-choked dirt and spits.
The globule of phlegm hits the center of the armor that belonged to Veril.
