Page 80 of Wicked Prince of Shadows
Chitter hounds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My blood iced. “Chitter hounds!”
"Pull!" Vetle roared beside me, his voice raw with desperation. “Fight!”
The vines jerked violently as the column beneath us shuddered. I stumbled forward, nearly pitching off the bridge as the vines dragged at me. Vetle's arm locked around my waist. He hauled me back against him, then dragged us both forward.
Behind us, the remaining fae on the column scattered into the air, wings beating frantically. The ropes went taut in their hands as they flew, adding their strength from above. The vines fought their flight.
On the portal side, chaos erupted.
The chitter hounds burst from the mist in a tide of clicking legs and snapping skeletal jaws. Their elongated bodies skittered across the barren ground, heading straight for the cluster of survivors. The children screamed. Guards rushed forward, weapons drawn, forming a protective line between the creatures and the vulnerable.
Baza launched himself at the nearest hound, his blade flashing as he drove it into the creature's skeletal head. Black ichor sprayed across the ground. Another hound leaped overher, jaws spread wide, and Candice was there, her own sword catching it mid-air.
Osric shouted something and leaped into the pit with the portal. The other children surged toward the pit.
The marble chunk? It was gone?
My brain struggled to process as my foot slipped. The chasm below swam and spun as lightning cracked again.
My legs burned. Every muscle in my body screamed for me to stop, to collapse, to let the darkness take me. The draining sensation pulsed again, stronger this time, and I cried out as something vital inside me tore free. My vision vanished completely for a heartbeat.
Vetle's arm tightened around me, his shadows surging weakly around us both. "Stay with me, Sabine. Just a little farther." His voice cracked in my ear. He tilted his head back. “Pull! Fly! Go!”
"Keep pulling! No one stop! " Gehn bellowed from behind us. The others took up the cry as well, grunting and bellowing.
"Fly. Fly!"
Shaking, I forced my foot forward. Just another fifteen feet to go. One step at a time. Then another. It felt as impossible as three hundred feet. Each step was like wading through deep water, the weight of the vines and the draining magic pulling us back toward the column.
More chitter hounds poured from the fog. One lunged at Maltric, its jaws clamping down on his arm. He roared, driving his blade through its skull even as blood streamed down his sleeve. Another warrior grabbed a fallen guard's spear and thrust it through another creature's exposed spine, splitting bone.
"Faster!" someone screamed. “They keep coming!”
The column groaned behind us, the fissure widening with a sound like the world splitting open. Chunks of stone broke away,tumbling into the chasm's depths. The bridge shook beneath our feet. A fissure spread in front of me.
No! My stomach lurched. I didn’t even know where to look anymore.
A chitter hound cut in front of the bridge, jaws snapping. It put one of its eight legs on the bridge. The added pressure made the stone spiderweb, but the horrid creature lowered its head and growled.
Vetle snarled back in response. He straightened, standing between it and me.
A sharp crack split the air. I twisted my head in time to see a massive fissure racing up the column's length, splitting it like an axe through dry, rotted wood.
The chitter hound's jaws opened wide, a guttural clicking growl rising from its throat as it advanced toward us. My legs strained to hold up against the pressure of the vines, terror choking me as Vetle's arm tightened protectively around my waist.
Then a bright yellow and blue arrow punched through the creature's skull.
The chitter hound's legs crumpled beneath it, and its massive body tipped sideways, sliding forward. It tumbled into the chasm without a sound, swallowed by the hungry darkness below.
I whipped my head in the arrow’s direction toward the portal, my heart hammering.
Enola.
Clad in her etched golden armor with a great purple crest on her head, she stood balanced on a wooden ladder that jutted up from the portal pit, her bow already nocked with another arrow. Another chitter hound spotted her, shook its head and charged. A grim expression on her face, she loosed another arrow, and itsang through the air to bury itself in the second chitter hound's skull.
