Page 122 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
William looked stricken before he shook his head, steely determination filling his flushed face. ‘Serves the bastards right.’
‘Ready?’ I asked as Alma roared overhead again and I heard a boom. Either from Gideon or Emrys’s summoning. The cries of hunters in the distance grew louder.
William nodded, sweat beading his brow as we lurched forwards at the same moment, crossing the space.
‘Oi!’ a hunter cried, coming from around the wagon. Hand on his sword. I let my father’s blade twist in my palm, small and swift. I threw it. It sailed through the air with a streak of fire. Burying itself home in the bastard’s chest. He fell backwards with the force just as Alma roared overhead. Dropping two screaming hunters she’d picked up from somewhere – who weren’t screaming any more as they hit the cobbles with a horrid wet crunch.
‘Use the storehouse doorway.’ I grabbed William’s shoulder where he’d paused with worry. Turning him towards the large carriage house doors hanging open from the raid. ‘I’ll open the wagons and the hall.’
William’s boots skidded as he turned direction, jumping over the hunters’ bodies and sprinting to the carriage house. Pulling the rune marker and portal stone from his pocket.
I pulled my blade from the hunter’s chest, his wide red-rimmed eyes filled with nothing but death before I moved to the wagon.
I let my blade lengthen again, slashing through the chain threaded through the kelsh men’s bindings. They recoiled in an instant, stumbling to their feet. Pulling those short, strange darts from their flesh. Their vibrant green eyes sizing me up for a threat.
‘Get them out,’ I commanded in Mican, not wasting a moment as I climbed the wagon step to find the lock.
‘Rebels,’ one of the women hissed inside as she clutched a crying swaddled child to her chest. A duok with pale markings up the side of her face – an earth healer.
‘No.We’re here to help,’I answered in Mican, startling her before I grabbed the lock, heating it until it warped easily against my palm. I leapt back, the door swinging free.
‘Get to the portal,’ I commanded, pointing them in William’s direction, where he waved frantically, the Portium light glowing behind him.
Then I moved to the next lock, getting that one open too as one of the villagers took an axe to the lock on the main hall doors and fey came rushing out. The crowd pushed and moved towards William. Children crying as the elderly hobbled with the help of the young. Some hesitated at the dark shadow of Alma roaring from above.
‘Move!’ I barked.
A scream came from behind me, turning me to find a girl clutching a straw doll as her mother pulled her away.
There was a horrid crack of bone as the corpses Alma had dropped started to undulate in their own puddles of blood on the road.
‘Bollocks,’ I hissed. The hunters had sworn themselves. They were becoming fiends.
‘Fuck,’ William exclaimed, eyes wide with panic through the crowd as he realised at the same time.
‘Keep going, William!’ I ordered, stepping into the street. I let my flame sing in my veins, let it race across the cobbles and form a barrier. Keeping the fey and William on the other side, as the dead rose before me, if pulled on strings by a master.
The corpses undulated. Eyes full black. Teeth snapping. It should have reminded me of the thing Master Hale had become. Should have consumed me with that childish fear.
Murderer.A dark voice hissed in my ear. Only it didn’t strike as it once had before.
No. Because I was a murderer and I’d do it again. The fiends screeched and charged. I’d fought a fiend before. Two couldn’t be much harder. I just hoped no more turned up.
A roar pealed from my lips as I let flame race from my palm. Forced it forwards, engulfing them in its deadly jaws, becoming nothing but ash.
I should have remembered how many Alma had dropped. A force hit my side. Sending me slamming into a wooden hut. Hay and dust exploded around me, filling my mouth with grime as I tumbled across the wreckage, my blade sliding from my grip. I kicked debris off myself, seeing the shadowed shape of the fiends moving through the dusty air.
‘Bastard,’ I hissed, surging to my feet and rolling flame between my palms before thrusting it towards the creatures. They screamed and thrashed as my summoning devoured them.
I lunged for my sword that had fallen next to me beneath the debris, getting my hand around the hilt before a clawed hand seized my jacket, wrenching me backwards.
I threw my elbow back, catching the creature’s jaw enough to get free. Turning and letting my flame consume its skull. It screeched, clawing at its own eyes. Scrambling backwards. Only for something else to catch my jacket, throwing me into the brick chimney.
I bared my teeth, about to turn on the fiend, only to feel the sting of a blade at my throat.
‘What do we have here?’ a strange voice asked. The cool metal at my throat biting deep. Stealing my breath, my heart hammering into my ribs. The wishing stone flickering wildly just as my magic flared in my veins.
Then the stone guttered out. Darkness filled my vision. A chaotic, vicious air, a pained cry and then a sickening crash of bone against stone. The blade against my flesh.
