by Eric Vall
“Yes,” she said with a smug smirk, “and Dragir will love me anyways.”
I sighed. “Troublemaker.”
We floored it right past the armistice city of Rhoemir and didn’t spare it another look, and Deya made sure to keep herself invisible until we’d crossed the bridge over the River East.
The jungle was entirely different to me now that I could see and hear so much, and I quickly realized sensory overload was going to be a challenge for a while. After a bit of practice, I slowly became more familiar with the subtle adjustments I could make to influence how much registered, but I already had a headache by then.
I kept working on training my eyes and ears, though, and the women busied themselves with telling Haragh everything I’d left out about the last few weeks.
Aurora was elaborating about the grove of Putra we’d come across with the dead sphinxes mounted in various stages of decay, but Deya just sat quietly and stroked Ruela’s head beside me.
I knew it was hard for her to leave Nalnora, so I dropped my arm around her shoulders and sent her a reassuring smile.
The beautiful elf returned it sweetly, and then she rested her head on my shoulder as she let out another low sigh.
“Are there many elves in Serin?” Deya asked.
“Not really,” I admitted. “Aurora had a hard time fitting in there for a bit, but she’s a well-respected Defender of the Order now.”
“Maybe no one will notice me,” Deya muttered quietly.
I couldn’t help but send her a stern shake of the head.
“Not possible, sorry,” I informed her. “You’re too beautiful.”
“But I’m not a member of the Order,” Deya pointed out. “No one has a reason to be kind to me, I’m an elf. Dragir said the relations between Illaria and Nalnora have been terrible for longer than I have been alive. He said I would be treated as poorly as Aurora is here.”
“You’ll be just fine,” I assured her. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Deya nodded nervously, but before she could respond, something caught my attention, and I tilted my head to train my ears more closely.
I felt the rune stretching further through the jungle as every sound imaginable came back to me, but the sound that had stuck out was one I knew too well to glaze over.
Finally, I narrowed my focus in on the light clanging of metal hilts in sheaths, and I could tell by the way the sound echoed in my ears that it was still far off. There was the rustling of ferns and several hurried footsteps along with it, and by my estimate, at least fifty elves were headed this way.
When I began to hear orders being given in Elvish, I recognized the voice immediately and brought the Mustang to a quick stop.
All of the women sat up and began anxiously scanning the jungle around us.
“What’s wrong?” Cayla demanded.
“We’re gonna have some company,” I told her, and I unsealed the trunk. “They’re south of us by about … a third of a league. I’d say we have fifteen minutes.”
“Then drive,” Aurora said incredulously. “What are we doing sitting here?”
I turned around to look at the half-elf, and she furrowed her brow suspiciously the moment she noticed the smirk on my face.
“We’re sitting here because only House Natyr is to the south of us,” I told her. “What do you think? One last ambush before we leave Nalnora? It’s what Onym would have wanted.”
A devilish grin curled at the corner of Aurora’s lips.
“Let’s kill some fucking elves,” she said with dark glee.
Chapter 4
“You’re sure it’s Onym’s allies?” Cayla asked as she pulled a bazooka from the arsenal in the trunk of the Mustang.
“I heard Oryk giving orders to them,” I told her. “That’s proof enough for me.”
“I still don’t hear anything,” Aurora grumbled, and I nudged her playfully as I finished loading the magazine on my bow.
“Luckily, you’ve got me.”
Aurora shot me a lethal glance and shouldered her own bow, but as the half-elf stubbornly turned her back on me, I caught her elbow and flipped her back around to hold her against me.
“Come on,” I chuckled. “You’ve been saving my ass since we met. At least let me enjoy returning the favor.”
“I know,” Aurora sighed, “but it’s a point of pride with me. My senses are more acute than anyone else’s at the Order. Or they used to be, anyway.”
“Yeah, but if anyone’s allowed to outdo you, it might as well be me.”
“This does not count as outdoing me,” the half-elf clarified curtly.
I grinned. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”
“Of course she’s not,” Shoshanne muttered as she finished loading her bow as well.
Aurora clamped her jaw shut and leveled me with a stern glance.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s settle this. If I kill more elves than you, you’re not allowed to mention those runes to me ever again, and you can’t tell anyone at the Order that you have more acute senses than me.”
The other women laughed at this, but Aurora was clearly holding firm, so I nodded.
“Deal,” I agreed, “but if I kill more elves than you, you have to get over your pride, and … I can’t tell anyone at the Order that I have more acute senses than you.”
Aurora smirked at this last part before she wove her arms around me and left a kiss on my cheek.
“Deal,” she purred. Then the half-elf sent me a glittering smile and turned to take her position behind a felled tree.
Haragh chuckled to himself while he picked through our arsenal to select a weapon or two, and as I pulled an axe out to stow it in the backseat of the Mustang, he furrowed his brows and grabbed one as well.
“What the hell are these axes about?” the half-ogre asked as he studied the stout axe.
“Those are from House Syru’s soldiers,” I explained. “They’re made of tungsten. I definitely recommend dropping one through somebody’s skull if you get a chance.”
“You know … Nalnora’s changed ye’ a bit,” he muttered as he eyed the axe, “but I’m not complaining. I’ve always wanted to hurl an axe at someone if I’m bein’ honest.”
“Go for it,” I chuckled. “There’s about twenty in that trunk.”
Deya was already on top of a small embankment some forty feet away from the Mustang, and Ruela was laid out in the brush beside her. I’d instructed the beautiful elf to stay fully out of sight and out of the line of fire until I told her it was okay to come down, and for now, she was keeping her ears trained to the south for me.
As soon as her own hearing picked up a sign of Onym’s allies, everyone would have to remain completely silent from there on so the oncoming elves couldn’t track their locations.
I already knew House Natyr had brutal fighting tactics and a tendency for ambushes because Onym had set his sights on killing us all pretty quickly. Since then, we’d dealt with several attacks from the man until the Baroness finally killed him off outside of House Syru. The last time we’d come up against Onym, I’d managed to take both him and his brother hostage, but this time, I had no intentions of leaving the last heir of House Natyr alive.
After Onym’s allies assumed I murdered him, I’d been expecting a retaliation at every turn, and I was kind of looking forward to handling the issue once and for all.
Onym had been an absolute pain in my ass, and if his brother wanted to get his revenge on someone, I’d gladly give him an opening.
Because I knew exactly what he’d do.
Oryk was a decent fighter, but his brother had been the leader for all of their ambushes, and I didn’t doubt the elf would follow in Onym’s footsteps to a tee. Which meant a flying dagger would be the first signal, and if everything went as planned, it would hit its mark dead on.
I posted my women in well concealed areas around the clearing I’d parked the Mustang in, and I let the engine idle for a while to be sure our position was easily f
ound.
Haragh stood amongst a thick crop of ferns at the base of Deya’s embankment, and once the beautiful elf cleared her throat lightly from her hiding place, I sent a nod to Cayla.
The three women dropped out of sight without a sound, and after another few minutes, I cut the engine.
It wouldn’t be long now, so I leaned back against the side of the Mustang and waited for the attack.
Onym’s allies did an admirable job of stalking us out, and I shuffled my boots a few times just to help them out a bit. I could hear every one of their footfalls, and Oryk’s hushed instructions came to me as clear as day. I couldn’t understand his language, but following his orders, the band of elves fanned out around the clearing.
Now that they were closer, I guessed there were about seventy elves in the fleet, but only Oryk moved forward through the trees.
I tried not to smirk as I heard a dagger slide from his sheath, and I let out a sigh while I casually glanced up at the treetops.
Oryk was clearly confused to find me all alone, and he stopped behind a tree straight ahead of me. The moments ticked by silently as he probably scanned the area for a sign of the others, but I knew he wouldn’t find them.
Even I couldn’t hear the breathing of my women with Onym’s allies settling in amongst the trees, and it was hard to imagine this working out even when I had my regular hearing. The stealthy elves sounded practically clumsy to me now, and as someone’s foot snapped on a twig, I fought the urge to smirk again.
Then there was a light rush of wind as Oryk raised his arm to take his aim, and the same distinct splicing followed while the blade of his dagger spiraled through the air.
I shifted just slightly to the side, and the blade impaled me in the arm rather than in the chest.
The pain was less shocking since I’d been expecting it, but leaving it buried in my arm while the runes furiously tried to heal me took a hell of a lot of effort. I could hear Oryk stalking forward, though, and just before he emerged from the ferns, I pulled the dagger out of my arm.
The silver-haired elf sneered at the blood on the blade as he drew another one from his belt, but I lifted my injured arm to rotate it around a bit, and within seconds, it was entirely healed.
Oryk’s murky blue eyes flared as he eyed my uninjured arm, and I could see a glint of fear in his confused expression.
Then I flipped his blade in my hand and grinned.
“So, did you wanna do this one on one,” I asked him, “or should we wait for your friends? It’d be kind of fun to take this to the next level, but you decide what you’re up for.”
Oryk’s lips peeled back into a deadly grin, and with a single growling word from the silver-haired elf, the others broke through the ferns.
Every elf wore differing garb, and some were even from House Orrel, while others wore raggish clothes like the merchants I’d seen in Lyralus. Onym’s allies obviously stretched far across Nalnora, and from the looks of it, every one of them was here for the occasion.
They closed in around me from all sides by the dozens, and I immediately hurled Oryk’s dagger into his gut. While he doubled over, I whipped my bow around and began sending arrows into the hearts of the oncoming elves, and by the time my magazine was emptied, Shoshanne and Aurora took over with their own bows.
The stunned elves scattered in the onslaught of arrows, but they fought back savagely with swords and daggers drawn.
I pulled my revolver out next while Aurora sparked her flames, and then Haragh gave a vicious snarl and lunged from the ferns.
He snatched four elves at once and cracked their skulls together before he quickly ripped the ground open to crush five more into a jagged pit.
Nearly every elf near the half-ogre turned on him at once, but a searing jet of flames engulfed a swarm of them before they could make it to him.
Another five elves collapsed to the ground as Shoshanne depleted their oxygen, and I emptied the last of my revolver’s cylinder into the three elves who had managed to impale Haragh with their daggers.
The half-ogre roared and tore the blades from his arms to bury them into his attacker’s eye sockets, and as I dodged an oncoming blade, I slipped my arm into the backseat of the Mustang to pull out the stowed axe.
Then I spun around, and the tungsten blade split an elf’s chest cavity right in half. When I wrenched it loose, I sent it spiraling toward Oryk, who I caught creeping up behind Aurora.
The silver-haired elf managed to dodge the hefty blade, but I swiftly redirected the dagger he threw at me, and the moment I caught it, I hurled it back at him.
The blade impaled Oryk’s thigh this time, and as he staggered out of the way of Aurora’s flames, I felt a rogue dagger splice across the muscle on my shoulder. It was the same spot I’d injured at the battle at House Quyn, and my arm tingled as the muscles splayed open.
I gritted my teeth against the pain as the voices in my head rose angrily, and then my focus was completely overpowered by the rune.
The same leaden weight pressed down around me, and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. Even after the wound was healed, the rune seemed to remain agitated and poised for the next attack, and I shook my head to try and steady the chaos taking place in my mind.
“Fuck,” I cursed when another dagger impaled my side, and the voices rose in a fresh wave of disorienting muttering. For a second, I thought the incapacitating effect would cost me my life right here, and I furiously fought against the overpowering presence of the rune.
Then a throaty growl ripped through the air, and Ruela tore across the clearing to lock her massive jaws around the head of an elf only a few feet in front of me. I hadn’t even seen him coming while I was struggling to get my bearings, but as Ruela tore the elf’s face to pieces, her bloody snarls came through the voices in my head and grounded me all of a sudden.
I focused on the snapping of the wildish beast’s fangs and the sound of clanging blades, and something in my veins seemed to be pushing me into overdrive.
Then I realized it was the power of the rune pulsing through me, and instead of fighting against the leaden weight, I let it take over.
With Ruela going after another elf at my side and gnawing through his calf, I raised my revolver and let the heavy pulsing in my veins drown out everything else. The voices circled hypnotically in my mind, and I emptied the revolver into the fray in less than ten seconds.
Elf after elf dropped before me, and the few whose daggers slipped through were dead by the time I was healed. My hand moved mechanically to refill the cylinder as I dropped a few elves into a pit across the clearing, and with the presence of the rune at the forefront of my mind, I buried five more elves while I shot down another crop of them in quick succession. Then I tore my sword from its sheath and sliced the neck of another open, and the four elves surrounding Aurora were swiftly shot down a moment after.
The half-elf sent me a warning look for snagging her kills from her, but I was already on to the next batch.
Haragh was fending off seven elves at once, and their fury toward the half-ogre was brutal to witness.
Three elves jumped off from the top of boulders to stab him in the back, and just as another dove to slice his trunkish leg open, I slit four of his attacker’s throats open in only two swipes.
Then I sparked my metal magic to pull the many daggers from Haragh’s back and arms, and five elves were buried in the dirt with my back still turned on them.
Haragh sent me a vicious grin right before he hurled an axe into the skull of his next victim, and I had just sliced the hand of a passing elf off when chaos suddenly rose in my mind once more.
A sword had spliced the muscles in my back open, but to my surprise, the presence of the rune almost distracted from the pain of the blow. I let it take over once more as I whipped around, and Oryk’s murky blue eyes were narrowed on me with his serrated sword raised at the ready. Then he flicked his gaze to where Ruela was tearing into an elf’s arm close by, and my gut sank.
Oryk grinned ruthlessly, and there was no denying that he recognized the wolfish beast.
The notion drove me forward with a vengeance, and Oryk stumbled and almost dropped to the ground as I countered his attacks with heavy blows from my own sword.
Sweat dripped down his temples as I kept my lethal gaze locked on him, and I could hear his pulse quicken into a panic when I cornered him against a pile of boulders.
Then I cut his gut open with one unforgiving slice, but the elf managed to block my next blow as he clutched his bleeding torso. I had just raised my arm to strike at his exposed left side when a dagger flew from the ferns and impaled my forearm.
I cursed as my sword abruptly dropped to the ground, and Oryk lunged at the opening.
I was already healed and pulling my last dagger from my belt, though, and when I dodged his serrated blade, I swiftly flipped around to lock him by the neck. Then I drove my dagger right between his shoulder blades, and Oryk’s breath caught in a gurgle as I twisted the blade deeper into his back.
His legs gave out as he lost the ability to fight back at all, and with his body twitching in pain, I finally wrenched the blade out and let him drop.
Oryk’s back bloomed with deep red blood while he collapsed across the dirt, and as nearly twenty elves turned to see their leader crumpled on the ground, I gave a sharp whistle.
Aurora and Shoshanne dove into the ferns as I ducked down, and Cayla rose from behind the boulders at my back with her bazooka loaded and at the ready.
A grin curled at the corner of the princess’ lips as she pulled the trigger, and she sent the rocket soaring straight into the group of elves poised to come at me.
The enchanted purple flames burst with a deafening explosion, and a spray of sparks cascaded down as they coursed through the air to engulf the shrieking elves entirely.
Several shouts of panic rose up around the clearing, and the last of Onym’s allies began to flee into the jungle with another rocket hot on their heels.
The massive explosion of the first had nearly blinded me, though, and the crackling of the flames sounded like hot oil bubbling against my eardrums. I braced myself and redirected my focus to keep my senses from incapacitating me, but by the time the light of the flames died down, I still had to blink hard for a minute to get my focus back on track.
