Page 64 of Fly to Fury
Fieran reached deep within his chest. His grip on his magic felt tenuous. Or perhaps that was his life slipping away. Somehow he called up a few tendrils of magic, and they twined around his fingers, sizzling against the mud.
The Mongavarian soldiers shouted, and several of them stumbled back.
One yanked out his service pistol and racked the slide. “Perhaps we should put him out of his misery before he takes out any more of us.”
“A quick death is too good for him.” AnotherMongavarian spat. If his spittle landed on Fieran, he was in too much pain to register it.
The soldier pointed his pistol at Fieran, his finger on the trigger.
Fieran peered at the round, black hole of the pistol’s barrel. This was it. He had survived the fall from the sky only to lose his life to a bullet to the head.
He struggled to gasp in another painful, gurgling breath. Not that it mattered. If he didn’t die by a bullet, he’d die from his injuries.
More gunfire, closer now, erupted in staccato bursts.
“Run!” The shout came from somewhere in the fog, followed by the sounds of many boots tromping through the mud at a sprint. Someone in the distance screamed. Another yell. “Elf monster!”
The Mongavarian soldiers whirled to face in that direction, pulling their own sidearms.
A set of running footsteps squashed closer.
The soldier with the gun leveled at Fieran looked away, his pistol’s barrel swinging to point into the fog. “What’s going on?”
“It’s the elf warrior!” another soldier shouted as he raced by without so much as slowing.
More soldiers dashed past. Seeming a horde, though Fieran only caught glimpses. More shouting filled the air, punctuated by ever closer gunfire.
“Took out half the battalion!”
“Run if you want to live!”
A blue glow lit the fog moments before bolts of sizzling magic carved through the air.
Several of the Mongavarian soldiers surrounding Fieran turned and ran. The one who’d pointed his gun at Fieran emptied his clip into the fog in a wild burst. A bolt of bluemagic blasted into the soldier, tossing him backward. Fieran didn’t see where his body landed.
With a slash of his twin blades, Dacha stepped from the fog and smoke. Magic crackled down the lengths of his swords and pooled around his feet with every step. His silver-blond hair drifted on a nonexistent breeze while his armor glinted in the rays of the sun breaking through the fog.
Dacha’s gaze dropped to Fieran, and the hard warrior of a moment before shattered, replaced with a twisting pain. He ran the last few paces and crashed to his knees beside Fieran, dropping his swords into the mud at his side. “Fieran.”
Fieran somehow got his mouth open, though he wasn’t sure if the croak that came out was discernible. “Dacha.”
Dacha reached for Fieran, but he stopped short, his hand hovering inches above him. His gaze swept over him as if cataloging his injuries, and Dacha’s shoulders slumped. His expression twisted still further, even as the magic arching above them crackled with an increased intensity that Fieran could taste even past the blood coating his tongue.
Dacha was here. He’d come for Fieran. Like he had for every nightmare, every broken bone, every hurt and scrape and terror Fieran had experienced as a child. Whenever Fieran had called, Dacha had always been there.
Pip had done what he’d asked. Despite her fear, she’d fetched his dacha for him.
Everything would be all right now. Fieran felt himself letting go, his eyes slipping shut, words slurring out. “Didn’t want…die alone.”
“You are not going to die, sason.” Dacha rested a hand on Fieran’s shoulder, squeezing with a comforting grip.
His dacha was here. Perhaps he could let go. Embrace that darkness—that rest—lingering at the edges of his mind.
“You willnotdie.” Dacha gripped Fieran’s shoulder as if he could physically hold Fieran’s soul within his body, his tone a flinty command.
And yet Fieran was drifting, slipping, the pain dragging him away.
Something sparked against Fieran’s shoulder. Not pain, exactly, but his magic rose within him to meet the threat, and he gasped at the rush of something almost like strength that filled him.
