The fairies have a glowing tunnel made for us through the creatures who have horns, tails and silver teeth.
It hurts something within to know they were once human, but at this point, death is a mercy.
The blades leave my hands, sinking into the shoulder of a creature about to release that bright pulsating light again, but I threw all the fairies into maintaining a hole in the center. I slide, ducking a farted fireball. It sets my cloak on fire and I roll, patting it out, bemoaning the loss of most of the pockets in my cloak. I officially hate fireballs. Especially ones that somehow smell of a bonfire mixed with Jack’s passed gas.
“Get through to Fox!” someone yells, speaking of the other team of mages and knights gathered to help us push the creatures into the trap.
That’s when someone behind us screams, “Incoming!”
I spin, keeping Silver at my back, and see the back is being bombarded by lightning, fire, and acid. Along with strangely built creatures with whips as tails. One man screams as a creature bites down on his arm, severing it.
“Move! Silver, get them through, I’m going to send these guys packing,” I say, already gathering a ball of fear.
I jump when someone sets a hand on my shoulder. “Let me,” the woman says, her blue eyes piercing beneath her hood. She’s the one who is a classic Empath… and knows her stuff. She must’ve came through the tunnel. I try not to be jealous of how easy and gentle her emotions branch out, so I nod.
She must have come through the passageway the fairies created.
I turn back to the front. “Protect her with your life,” Silver growls at Master Black.
Black gives him a straight look, one that reminds me of the look Momma gives when I say something remarkably dumb.
Silver and I jump in the fray, aiming to clear out the creatures in front of the tunnel and get our people through. He kills two, but more come. I growl, throwing out my hand and throwing a messy ball of fear at the few in front of us. They falter, and that gives Silver and I along with Nika enough time to drive through them.
Hans is at the other side of the tunnel, standing at the head of an arrow formation with his knights, his broadsword making the enemy pay dearly for coming near him and clearing out the creatures on the other side of the tunnel, helping team Fox out of a tough spot.
The fairies have the tunnel up and a force-field on the other side, preventing anymore creatures from attacking from behind us. If we can just get through the tunnel—it's about twelve feet long—we'll meet up with Fox and get into a branch of the Y where there are no creatures. At least then we'll only have them attacking from one direction.
I shove my blade into an eye will a scream, slide between another's legs as his teeth gnash where my head was a moment before, stab the back of his knee and slash his hamstring with the blade in my other hand. He goes down to his knees with a shrill scream of fury, dropping the mage in his hands. I stab the back of his neck where his spine meets his brain and his scream cuts off. I lean over, checking the mage... and swallow back a burning at the back of my throat.
His unseeing eyes stare through me, his mouth open in a voiceless scream. I yell, throwing a blade and hitting a hand that was about to stab Nika. She glances behind her, dispatches the one with a blade protruding from his hand, and then turns and slits the throat of another in front of her. She gives me a tight nod, her lips in a thin line.
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I nod back, going after my own prey.
“Go go go!” Silver yells, getting our knights and mages through the tunnel and to the other side. I guard one side while they slip through, most having to duck as the pulsating tunnel of white light is only about as tall as me. Xonier, the idiot, hoots and hollers, giving a running leap and slides along the top, lopping off heads and arms of creatures on either side of the tunnel and neatly rolling on the other side.
My heart gradually eases itself back into my chest from my throat as he laughs, and then I duck, the fireball farter singeing the top of my short hair. I throw three blades—and the other Empath guards the last few mages who break through to the other side. When I glance to the other side, I see Hans has cleared out that side, so the only thing we need do is get over there and we'll be clear.
Sir Robin shoves me down. His pained grunt makes my world stop. Three shiny red things protrude from his shoulder—and it takes me a moment to understand its claws. I roll under a claw. Arin decapitates a creature behind me while I throw a blade that imbeds into the eye of the creature holding Sir Robin.
The creature’s good eye rolls into the back of his head and he falls. Robin falls back, and I barely catch him before he bashes his brains out. The claws were in his right shoulder... he winces as I put pressure on his wounds.
I glance around... Arin is fighting tooth and nail to prevent the creatures from reaching us. The Empath is wincing as she works to keep the wave of creatures behind us back without sending them running into the depths of the earth, and--there!
“Ash! Get your arse over here and help us!” I scream.
He sits in the corner, his hands shaking, his face pale and water leaking into a puddle at his feet. He blinks, staring at me as if my words mean nothing. “PLEASE!” I yell. I know I can’t carry Robin, Silver is too busy. Ash may can use his water. It’s Robin’s only hope.
Ash slowly stands, blinking quickly as if in shock. “What... do you... need?” he asks.
“Get him to the other side!”
Ash blinks again, and I have to throw a knife to keep him from getting impaled. He nods, throwing out his arms. Water comes from his feet and he nearly glides over the surface of the cave, reaching out and easily taking Sir Robin. They are the last mages through.
The other Empath backs to the edge of the tunnel as Silver, the Black, and I guard the flanks where creatures push past the Empath’s bounds. The other Empath feels so… familiar. Her blue eyes meet mine, and they communicate something I can’t quite put into words.
It’s a mixture of pride and fear and joy and sorrow mixed with something only a beloved person could invoke.
And then she ducks into the tunnel, Master Black seamlessly blocking and dodging and stabbing behind her like a fey of old. Never have I seen someone move so very fast. He threw a knife to block a blade coming at the Empath while doing a flip to avoid a set of claws. He drew a shield from nowhere that blocked acid as the woman walked like a queen with no fear, even in the depths of such a despicable and stinky place.
Once they are through, Silver motions me to go ahead.
I set my teeth and growl, but his eyes are unyielding and his jaw tight. And I know.
He will never leave me again. And he sure as heck isn’t taking his eyes off me.
I duck through the tunnel, sprinting with Arin on my heels as the fairies work to close off the other end and raise a simultaneous bubble around those already through. The sputtering beginnings of a shield rise from the floor just as Arin and I dive through, one arm severed by the growing shield still grasping Arin’s leg.
A few creatures dive over the shield that has grown to about twice my height, but they are easily dispatched as we cluster in a half-circle with an empty tunnel at our backs and the fairies’s prism-esque shield before us. We are at the Y and need them to go down the other side. But now we’re stuck here.
But back-up is coming.
I let my head fall against the grimy stone floor at my back, letting my heart come back to normal. Laughter erupts from my lips.
A hand appears above me, and I use it to lever myself upright.
“You’re crazy,” General Verand says, levering me to my feet.
Silver, still on the ground, shakes his head, his eyes burning brightly as a half-smile forms around his lips.
“You don’t know the half of it, sir,” he says, deadpan.
To which I drop a knife on his stomach. Hilt-first, of course.
The lout grabs it before it can hit him, sending me a wink.
I roll my eyes, but can’t help the smile fluttering on my lips.