Page 61 of Jailer to the Death God
The god of death disappears around the carriage to help my remaining guards.
Two hounds whom he poisoned with green light are nearly dead, while three more are still struggling, bound by his shadows. Undale is well on his way to killing the one with the scorpion tail.
We might make it through this.
And then, from the front of the carriage, Farley screams.
I dodge around the corner of the coach to see what’s happening.
A great, spiny, hunched bulk, black as night with a maw of fire, has pounced on Farley, pinning him to the driver’s seat. The hound is slavering hot mist into my driver’s face, while he turns desperately aside, straining away. The skin of his cheek is reddening, bubbling.
A cry of terror and fury rips from my throat, and the hound jerks its head toward me. “Come on!” I yell. “It’s me you want, not him. Come and get me.”
The hound’s baleful eyes narrow, and with a bunching of its thick body, it launches itself off Farley, landing on the road.
I glance from my small knife to that towering creature of flame and shadow.
Bravery is one thing. Stupidity is another.
“Nope,” I say, and I flee for the carriage.
I yank open the door and fling myself in, slamming the door just as the hound smashes into it. The wood buckles and groans. With a howl of thwarted rage, the hound recoils, then charges again. Its bulk impacts the little carriage like a battering ram hitting a picket fence. I scramble back against the opposite side of the coach as with a crashing crunch, the hound claws partway through the broken shards of the door.
Yelling, I slash wildly at its muzzle. Inky blood threaded with molten scarlet splatters the carriage interior. The beast is snorting fire, trying to get at me, taloned front paws slashing through my clothes, raking into my skin and flesh. I’m barely conscious of the pain because I’m stabbing, stabbing, driving my little blade home wherever I can. Finally I manage to punch through the burning orb of its eye. My knife sizzles, heating so fast it sears my palm, and I let go of the hilt with a cry. The entire weapon dissolves, and the fire in the hound’s eye goes out.
A keening, vengeful wail soars from the beast’s throat, and it struggles farther through the wrecked door, snapping its jaws—nearly chomping right into my stomach. I suck myself against the carriage wall, weaponless, a cold, sick fear waking in my heart. What if this creature kills me? Then Arawn will die, and no one will be left to help my people.
The hound lurches, getting its shoulders farther in. I swear it pauses to leer at me, because it knows it can reach me now. One more lunge, one wrenching bite from those massive jaws, and I will be both gutted and burned.
The great beast tenses for the kill.
But shadows lash around its body, wrap it tight, and drag it backward while it struggles and yowls. Through the gap in the broken door I see Arawn hauling his shadows hand over hand until the hound is within his reach. He’s still wearing his dreadful deer-skull mask; in the guttering light of the carriage lamps, it makes him look positively horrifying. He takes the hound in a chokehold and roars as his shadows rush into its every orifice, choking it, quenching its fire.
I don’t see its final reduction to ash, because I’m suddenly conscious that I’m bleeding in far too many places, and my body is beginning to shake uncontrollably. Pressing my hand to my waist briefly, I lift it and stare at the glistening blood on my fingers.
Then I look down at myself.
The entire front of my coat and gown have been ripped apart, the shreds soaked with my blood. There’s a puncture wound from a talon that looks especially deep and nasty. A raw, sucking agony begins to spiral from that spot throughout my whole body. I can feel one of my lungs shuddering horribly with each inhale, as the most piercing pain I’ve ever felt shears through my chest.
“Shit,” I whisper. “No, no, no, no...”
Arawn’s deer-skull mask fills the gap in the carriage door. He wrenches the rest of the door out of his way, but his mask’s antlers are too wide—he can’t get in.
“Fuck,” he says, vanishing the mask. His green eyes are bright with alarm as he takes in the extent of my wounds.
“No,” I say piteously. “I don’t want you to die.”
Shock flares in his gaze, then a wretched softness. “You little fool,” he breathes, and as my legs give way, he catches me, drawing me out of the carriage and scooping me into his huge arms.
“Where’s the inn?” he shouts to my men.
“That way.” Undale points. Thank the gods he’s still alive.
“I will fly there with the Queen,” says Arawn. “You and the others gather what you can and bring the horses that survived. Meet us there.”
“Yes, my god,” replies Undale, and his words are echoed by Farley, who has hopped off the carriage seat and is holding a cloth to his burned, bleeding face.
“My guards,” I wheeze. “The other three—”
