Page 81 of Blood Bearon
Too many were going to die this day to sing battle songs of ancient heroes and busty maidens. No quarter was going to be asked, and none given.
It was time to end it.
***
“My Queen,” Khove said, pulling up smartly in front of the rest of the Queen’s Own as he arrived at his command.
The other seven guards came to attention at their commander’s presence, and he returned their clenched fists with one of his own. It felt good to be back among his men, among those he trained with, drank with and stood guard with on a daily basis. Moving around the city had been a nice change, but this was where he belonged.
Be safe, Rach.
“Let’s go see what we’re dealing with, shall we?” the Queen said, gesturing up the Grand Hallway toward the exit.
Khove snapped out orders and the eight men of the Queen’s owned assumed an eight-pointed shield around their liege. Weapons were still sheathed, but their fingers twitched, ready to draw uranium-lined steel from lead sheath and drive it home into their enemies at a second’s notice.
Without speaking, Khove motioned two guards toward him as they approached the doors, and the two men dashed forward, opening the doors cautiously and slipping outside to ensure it was safe. A moment later, three bangs sounded the all-clear. Khove moved forward, pushed open the door and walked outside.
He stepped into a hellish nightmare.
The skies were black. Not dark, butblack, devoid of light. Below them, a golden dome covered the property, a massive ward that touched the farthest reaches of their lands. Here and there in the sky, the shield dome flashed red as something struck it from the outside.
Wind whipped through the property, stirring up snow and making it difficult to see. The shield could repel magic spells or creatures designed to attack the property, but a simple gust of wind would move right through. Khove had no doubt Korred was encouraging the winds outside of the dome as well, making it worse.
A big explosion in the sky shook the ground, but the shield held. For now. Khove wondered for how much longer. Looking around, he saw most of the shifters had dispersed to their assigned positions by now, but not all. Nearby, two figures stood conversing.
Khove recognized the Magi and his mate.
“Kasperi!” the Queen barked from inside her ring of protectors. “Report.”
“Just probing attacks so far, my Queen,” Kasperi replied. “The ward is holding. We’ll see for how much longer, I suppose.”
“You believe it will fall?” the Queen asked quietly, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the wailing of the wind.
Khove’s chest tightened as the Magi shook his head. “No, my Queen. Iknowit will fall. Korred wouldn’t return if he didn’t believe he could take it down.”
“How is that possible?” she asked. “The ward is the work of dozens of Magi over centuries of rule.”
“And Korred had nearly thirty uninterrupted years to study it, Your Highness. If he’s been planning this for that long, he knows what it will take to bring it down. The only question,” Kasperi said quietly. “Is what’s taking him so long?”
Khove stiffened. “Look.” He pointed skyward.
A lone figure had appeared in the sky over the dome, surrounded by an ugly purple haze.
“Purple magic?” Khove asked. “Has anyone ever heard of that?”
There were no’s all around. Where had Korred found such power? What did it mean?
A lance of purple energy stabbed outward and impacted upon the golden dome.
“No,” the Queen gasped as tendrils of darkness spread out from the impact point.
The purple lines branched out crazily in all directions, but where they surrounded gold on four sides, the energy of the dome tumbled from the sky, as if it were a pane of glass and the energy was cracks. It started slowly, but then spread faster, until the entire shield came down, its golden protected energy fading out as it fell into nothingness.
“Well I guess that settled that,” the Queen said, the first to snap out of her shock at what they had just witnessed. “The ground attack will come soon.”
There was barely time to breathe between the Queen finishing her statement and an explosion of red to the west as the forces there unleashed a flare high into the darkened sky, to indicate they were under attack.
The Queen nodded and pointed. “Let’s go!”
