Eaganath, the banshee commander of the Unseelie forces, clicked and clacked across the forest floor with her hyper-extended limbs popping in and out of socket with each step. Unseelie corpses littered the ground with only a few wolves, adding to the meadow of death and suffering. A towering inferno blazed from a pit of hell to her right, its flames feasting on the dead bodies of unsuspecting victims. She could barely make out the iron spikes peppering the bottom of the hole through the haze of the fire.

Despite glowing red and warping under the extreme temperatures, the spikes remained pointed and upright, seeking their next victim with gleeful anticipation. As more of her forces fell into the countless pits, the spraying blood from the first wave of victims combusted, burning the unfortunate souls who believed themselves safe after falling on top of their dead brethren.

Continuing through the woods, she clambered over a massive trunk filled with iron spikes. The crushed and flattened bodies of Unseelie surrounded the trunk, leaving a trail of death of those who had been caught unaware by the tumbling trunk. Relying on pure numbers, the Unseelie had forced the wolves to retreat, barraging them with unrelenting attacks. Excited by the retreating wolves and lost in bloodlust, the soldiers of her army never saw the giant trunk drop from the canopy of the trees. A silent killer, the weapon swung from the limbs of the trees with massive force, annihilating hundreds of her frontline soldiers.

Of course, the Prince’s partner warned them of the traps, but knowing about them and avoiding them proved to be two vastly different things. The red caps and goblins did not have the intelligence to distinguish between a wolf dodging an attack and a wolf dodging a particular spot on the ground. They fell to the cruel traps in droves, allowing the wolves to funnel her spread-out forces into a half dozen choke points.

She crested a small hill and inspected the horrors of war that their invasion had unleashed upon the world. Perhaps out of traps, almost a hundred wolves ceased their hit-and-run tactics and launched an impressive counterattack. Red caps and goblins swung their recently acquired silver weapons at the wolves, and upon each successful strike, the blades gashed open gaping wounds. Steam hissed from the wounds as the silver came in contact with the wolves’ blood, drawing howls of suffering from even the veteran warriors amongst them.

Although the enemy had superior strength, speed, and durability, the Unseelie held the inevitable advantage of numbers. Eaganath’s soldiers swarmed the wolves like ants, crawling over the shifters and stabbing into their blood-soaked fur. Dozens died before they could cut down a single wolf, but the Unseelie could afford such sacrifices.

Hags shivered on the back lines of the battle, stumbling around like drunks and filling the air with moans of pleasure as they released the magic in their veins. Eaganath watched as a massive wolf bit the head off of a goblin before swirling around to swipe its claws at a red cap, bisecting the Unseelie gnome at the waist in a torrent of blood. Steam hissed from the wolf’s dozens of wounds, hiding it within a haze of poisonous fog.

A hag turned toward the gladiator, muttering a spell and moaning as she released the magic. Fog clouded the wolf’s yellow eyes, and it stumbled about like its balance had been stolen from it. With a shout of glee, the red caps and goblins swarmed the disoriented wolf, burying its howls of despair beneath a mound of Unseelie.

Wails rang out in the forest, and Eaganath cocked her head to decipher her sisters’ messages. These choke points had stalled the entire Unseelie army, and they were struggling to break through the enemy’s defensive lines. Clicks and hisses, along with howls of pain from the wolves, continuously sounded out in the distance and created a symphony of pain, suffering, and death. Eaganath had no Sluagh or Fachan under her command for this invasion, but she held a secret weapon she hesitated to deploy.

The Prince had given her forty-five days to bring the main army to the wolves’ territory, but overeager to please her master and impatient to begin the attack, she had pushed the army to the point of exhaustion. Thankfully, she had because the vampire coven had already confronted the wolves, forcing the Unseelie to commence the attack ahead of schedule. If the Prince’s partner wanted to assume command of the pack, they had to remove the current alpha before the vampires reduced the territory to ruins.

And there lay Eaganath’s hesitation. Her goal was not to conquer or destroy the Baleful Fiend Pack but to distract and stall the warrior wolves. Every shifter’s death reduced the fighting strength of their new ally, but she also refused to allow members of her own race to be slaughtered before her eyes. In a flurry of fangs and claws, the wolves tore apart the Unseelie, creating a lake of blood beneath the corpses of her fallen brethren.

Deep in contemplation, her fangs bit into her chin and released trickles of blood. The trickles merged with the bloody streams from her eyes and created a torrent of blood flowing down to her chest. If the Unseelie forces were routed, there could be no alliance, which left her no choice but to call upon an ancient terror. Shrieking a wail that caused the battlefield to freeze, she hailed the Prince’s most prized subordinate.

Common wisdom said silver was a shifter’s greatest weakness, but after extensive scouting, Eaganath had identified an even greater weakness for the Shifters. Believing other forms of fighting were reserved for the weak, the wolves relied on their physical prowess at the expense of strategy. After the battle, perhaps she could enlighten her new allies to their foolish errors.

After nodding in satisfaction at her logical decision, Eaganath fell to her hyper-extended knees as the ground shifted and rumbled beneath her. Converging with the radiating embers from the pits of hell, a dull orange glow brightened the horizon. As fast as their stumpy legs could carry them, the red caps and goblins retreated while the hags stumbled and crawled further away from the battlefield.

The dull orange glow brightened with each passing second until it transformed into a blinding orange light, forcing the combatants on the battlefield to shield their eyes or risk blindness. The shifting landscape buckled and rolled violently, throwing the Unseelie and wolves to the ground.

Eaganath took no pleasure in the countless deaths and destruction she was about to unleash, but an image of her daughters living in a hopeless world flashed through her mind, causing her lingering doubts to vanish. The Unseelie had spent three hundred years in this prison of a world, and she refused to spend another day without striding toward freedom.

With one last wail, she retreated from the battlefield as a towering mass of molten rock crested the small hill. The Elemental left a trail of smoldering char and powdery ash in its wake as it lumbered toward the battlefield in a plodding charge. Eaganath shook her head as brave but naïve warrior wolves charged the embodiment of fire, seeking to destroy its core, hidden away deep within its body of molten rock.

“Foolish,” she whispered as she watched the wolves catch fire without ever coming within striking distance. The smell of singed fur burned her nostrils, and agonizing howls shook the forest as the wolves attempted to roll across the ground and extinguish the flames.

Silver might slice through shifter hides like butter. Silver might poison their magic, inhibiting their ability to heal and regenerate. But the Shifter’s greatest weakness was that they could not fight from a distance. They were so proud of their physical prowess, and with one Unseelie, all of that arrogance had melted beneath molten rock. Who needed silver when you had an invincible champion on your side?

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

The Elemental grabbed at its body, plucking off and molding the molten rock into a concentrated ball of magic-infused lava. With a roar, the Elemental hurled the devastating projectile toward a group of wolves, who jumped dozens of feet in an attempt to dodge. Upon impact, the blazing ball detonated with an explosion that shook the earth, spraying soil high into the air. The impact flung shrapnel of lava across the forest floor and blanketed the towering trees, instantly engulfing the enchanted woods in a hellish inferno. Great billows of smoke plumed into the sky as the wolves retreated with impotent whines, unable to stop the destruction of their home.

With a gentle wail, Eaganath commanded the Elemental and the rest of her master’s forces to press the attack, and with each step, they came closer and closer to the heart of the Baleful Fiend Pack. Acrid smoke burned her eyes and stung her nostrils as the once majestic trees smoldered around her. At this rate, the enchanted forest the wolves called home would be reduced to a wasteland of ash.

The Elemental lumbered through the forest uncontested, disregarding all attackers and setting the forest ablaze with thundering bombs of lava. Far from the ancient titan of fire, the wolves and Unseelie re-engaged in a pointless skirmish of physical warfare.

Just as Eaganath was about to order the retreat of the Elemental, a whooshing sound cut through the air and struck the fire god, ripping off a chunk of its body. Fortunately, the Elemental’s core remained unharmed, and flames quickly formed around the hole and restored its body to its original condition. Another whooshing sound sliced through the air, blasting another chunk of the behemoth’s body and forcing the roaring titan to its knees.

Eaganath nervously wiped the tears of blood from her eyes and searched the forest floor for the hidden assassin. Another whoosh sounded, but this time, she spotted a blur flying through the air at incredible speed. As the blur struck the Elemental, Eaganath followed its trajectory. Instead of finding the attacker hiding behind a tree, she followed the blur’s path to the canopy high above their heads.

Unbeknownst to Eaganath, the wolves had built an airborne city hidden from the prying eyes of her scouts on the ground. Treehouses, platforms, and bridges entangled within the limbs of the massive trees, and in the distance, she located a silhouette standing on a platform. Just as the movement of the shadow caught Eaganath’s eye, another blur sliced through the air toward the Elemental, blowing off another chunk of its body.

With a wail, she pointed out the attacker to the Elemental, who plucked off another bomb from its body and hurled the projectile toward the platform. As the blazing ball of lava closed in on the platform, Eaganath spotted a woman with a short, blonde ponytail. The radiating glow of the molten rock illuminated the platform just as the woman loaded another bolt into the ballista. A beaming smile brightened her face, and tears of joy wetted her cheeks.

“A wolf?” Eaganath shouted as instead of the bomb disintegrating the woman, she shifted into a wolf, smaller than a normal fox, and darted across the bridge to another platform. Her previous location exploded in a tornado of flame, but the shifter was already loading a second ballista far out of reach from the blazing inferno.

“You fight like a cowardly human! Has your pride abandoned you?” Eaganath wailed out, furious that a supernatural race had adopted human weapons.

Laughter echoed through the trees as iron-tipped bolts repeatedly struck the Elemental, tearing the monster down chunk by chunk. “Cowardly? This is the first time in my life that a coward’s shame has not stained my soul.”

From its knees, the Elemental hurled another ball of lava toward the shifter, but the fox-sized wolf abandoned its ballista, darting across the swaying bridges to another platform. With no wasted movements, the woman shifted and began to arm another ballista. How many of the heinous contraptions littered the trees, and why hadn’t the Prince’s partner warned them of such artillery?

A game of cat and mouse began as the Unseelie chased the retreating wolves, and the Elemental hurled bomb after bomb at the would-be warrior in the trees. Ballista bolts rained down on her master’s army, cutting down the soldiers in droves and halting their advance. Emboldened by the long-rage support, the wolves on the ground attacked the Unseelie with renewed fury. As the ground forces fought to a stalemate, the decisive battle thundered above their heads.

Although small enough for a human teenager to kill, the assassin in the trees dodged each blazing projectile with a speed and quickness that defied logic. Haunting laughter boomed from the canopy as the deranged woman derived pure joy from the thrills of battle.

“You cannot run forever, coward! Your precious forest burns around you, and eventually, the inescapable inferno will trap you in a fiery prison,” Eaganath shrieked, raising her voice to be heard above the booming cacophony of the battle.

Her threats only produced cackling laughter from deep within the canopy. “You think I would disgrace my dream by allowing fear to stop me? I prepared myself to risk everything when I stepped onto this battlefield, and the threat of death will not cause me to falter.”

“Searing flames will lick at your skin, and your agonizing screams will haunt the forest. What good is a dream if it transforms into a nightmare?” Eaganath asked with a wail.

“Perhaps I will fall today, but others will take my place. After all, dreams are invulnerable, and even in this oppressive world, those who hope for more are never-ending,” the woman shouted between cackles of joyous laughter.

The Elemental, reduced to a small, misshapen mass, hurled one last fireball toward the shifter at the same time the woman released an iron bolt. In a near miss, the bolt and fireball avoided colliding in mid-air by inches, and both proceeded unhindered on their respective trajectories.

The bolt reached the Elemental first, and a shattering crack reverberated over the behemoth’s roar of despair. With its core shattered, a suction force pulled the surrounding air and smoke into a concentrated ball before exploding out in a massive explosion. The blast instantly disintegrated the unlucky Unseelie within the blast zone, while the percussive force of the explosion threw the rest of the fae and wolves dozens of feet through the air.

Eaganath carved a trail through the soil as her bones shattered upon impact. As she came to a skidding halt, she lifted her head just in time to see the assassin shift to her pathetic wolf form, preparing to once again dodge across a bridge and avoid the fireball.

With blood clogging her throat, a wet cackle sounded from Eaganath as a hag’s spell hit the shifter, disorientating her and impeding her escape. The concentrated ball of molten rock struck near the runt, and the force of the blast threw the wolf into the air with a yelp of pain. Relief flooded through Eaganath as she watched the tiny silhouette fall hundreds of feet and slam into the earth in a cloud of dust.

From her prone position on the ground, she wailed the command to charge, eager to push through the pitiful defenses of the remaining wolves and merge with her sisters’ armies. As the remaining red caps and goblins charged the wolves with their silver weapons flashing, a deep growl vibrated the air, causing both sides to disengage. One side shivered in fear while the other howled in joy.

Eaganath peered into the dark forest while the dancing lights from the flickering inferno behind her illuminated the shadows. She squinted her eyes as something deep within the forest caught her attention. Two silver lights appeared in the darkness, seeming to float in mid-air. The mesmerizing silver came closer and closer until Eaganath could see that they were eyes attached to a massive black wolf. Blood matted the wolf’s fur, and gore hung from its snarling maw. With a wail of despair, Eaganath acknowledged what type of monster had joined the battlefield. The Alpha had come.

An involuntary shiver shook her body as she spotted the other massive wolves flanked at the Alpha’s side. Those demonic silver eyes passed over the corpses of her pack mates before gazing at the ashen wasteland of her territory, still engulfed in uncontrollable flames. The silver eyes snapped toward Eaganath, who attempted to crawl with her broken body and retreat from the Alpha’s fury. With a howl that put her wails to shame, the Alpha charged with her razor-sharp fangs and claw, glinting in the flickering lights of the flames. As her head sailed through the air, Eaganath’s last conscious thought before death claimed her was that of a mother who had failed to secure a hopeful future for her young daughters.