by Eric Vall
Halcyan blades began to flash everywhere I looked, and the clanging of swords and axes was almost drowned out by another ear splitting clap of thunder.
Two more rockets arched across the canopy and flew toward the west, and even without a range of vision, I knew the Master’s soldiers must still be marching in.
I pulled the revolver out just as two bone-laden soldiers loosed their arrows in my direction, and as I ducked into the cover of some ferns, I slipped in the bloodied mud to crash onto a pile of fallen soldiers.
Their faces were melted off from the bazooka attack that had taken them, but I recognized their metal armor as House Syru’s. Above their heads, water poured in along the embankment, and I looked up to see a mudslide beginning to course along ridge just above the ferns where Aurora and Cayla crouched with their loaders.
The mudslide was nearly five feet across with a torrent so strong it uprooted the plants it overtook, and I swiftly raised my palm to divert the river of mud and debris before it could wash over my women.
Then I redirected it to pour in on the horde of soldiers from House Ceres to my left, and as they stumbled and slipped with the mud flooding in up to their knees, I quickly whipped my bow around to empty the magazine into each of them in quick succession. Then I reloaded the bow with my Metal magic as I emptied the revolver into the surrounding fray.
Another handful of elves began to suffocate to my right, and as Aurora’s flames flew over my head, I finally caught sight of Rhys again.
Half his face was covered with blood despite the rain pelting down, and I could tell his skull had been split open on the right side. Still, he pulled his dagger out of his attacker’s eye socket with a ruthless laugh, and behind him, a hulking guard raised an axe.
I didn’t have any decent opening, but the bullet I fired met its mark in the elf’s stout bicep, and as he lurched and roared in pain, his hollow gaze narrowed directly on me.
The axe flew straight over Rhys’ head in my direction, and I deflected it to kill off another soldier on my left as Rhys flipped around to drive his sword into the elf’s heart.
The soldier caught him by the throat, though, and Rhys fought to free himself with one arm as he twisted his sword deeper with the other.
My next shot split the elf’s jaw wide open, and when the third bullet buried itself in his brain, Rhys was finally dropped to the ground.
Then a low rumble came from the embankment at my back, and I looked up in time to see another mudslide spilling over the upper ridge and tearing toward me.
Before I dealt with that, I swiftly disarmed every elf in my immediate line of sight, and as I drove their own blades into their throats, I pulled a wall from the ground at my back.
The deluge of rain made it impossible to maintain any kind of structure with the soil, though, so I wrenched a deep pit open instead and let the mudslide fill it in as I lunged to shove all of my weight against a line of hulking soldiers.
They growled and gasped as the mud poured around them and filled their lungs, and the next three soldiers to attack me met the same fate.
As I watched them all sinking lower into the sludge, I remembered the strange makeup of the quicksand we’d been trapped in on the cliff, and I grinned.
Then I sifted through my mind for the memory of the sinkhole as I sent my Terra Magic into the ground to the west.
My blood pulsed heavily as I struggled to ignore the chaos around me and focus instead on the makeup of the soil, and slowly, I felt the ground at the mouth of the ravine ease into my will.
I expanded the sinkhole nearly thirty feet across before a body slammed into me, and I crashed into the slop of mud with a feral woman pinning me beneath her. She had what looked like old chicken feet dangling from a band around her head, and I cringed as she snapped her yellowing teeth at me.
Then she planted her hand on my face to shove me under the surface.
The last thing I saw as I gasped for breath was the rusted blade she pulled from her belt, but before she could make her mark, I grabbed blindly for her arms to pin them back as I fought to throw her off me.
My revolver was drawn before she’d recovered from her landing, and I swiftly fired a bullet straight through the back of her head.
The feral woman flailed and whipped around to gnash her teeth once more, but as the blood oozed from the hole in her forehead and blotted out the crazed glint in her eyes, she began to slump into the sludge of blood and mud, and eventually collapsed face first.
I swiped the mud from my eyes as I stood and tried to find any sign of Rali in the crowd, but Rhys was gone once more, and I’d lost track of Dragir ages ago.
So, I settled for emptying my magazine and barrel in turn as I cut my way across the ravine, and Shoshanne must have been trailing me from above, because any elf I didn’t manage to get at fell to their knees as their oxygen was taken away.
House Quyn’s army remained light on their feet as they flipped and dodged the blows of the soldiers around them, and just as another clap of thunder shook the canopy, House Fehryn’s soldiers arrived from the far east.
The first line of magazine bows were emptied within seconds, and before I could blink, the elves swapped with those at their backs to reload as the next line sent a stream of serrated arrows into the skulls of the Master’s army.
Despite the endless wash of rain streaming down, Aurora’s flames stubbornly flashed throughout the ravine, and with every bit of plant life trampled or drenched through, she set her aim on the soldiers themselves.
While the swift maneuvering of Dragir’s men confused their single-minded attackers, one by one their skulls would ignite with Aurora’s vibrant amber flames.
I couldn’t help but smirk as the warriors on our side clutched their Halcyan blades closer and stepped back a ways, but as they got the hang of working with her, they eventually raised their brows and quickly continued on their way.
It was the sudden strangling by some invisible force that they couldn’t seem to make sense of.
Cayla’s bazooka had been relentlessly decimating the oncoming troops since I’d followed Dragir and Rhys into the ravine, but after I’d formed the giant sinkhole, she switched to her rifle.
I had just finished disarming another row of elves and spearing them with their weapons as the crack of her rifle ripped across the ravine once more, and shortly after, the familiar sound of a revolver echoed from somewhere near my back.
I jumped and grabbed at my holster in confusion, but there was no taste of metal or sulfur on my tongue, and the revolver was still loaded at the ready on my hip.
For a second, I figured I must have mistaken the sound in all of the chaos, but then another retort tore from Cayla’s rifle, and I was positive I hadn’t misheard.
I knew the sound too well.
The mud in my eyes blurred my vision, and I squinted against the pelting rain as I swiped my face again and turned to scan the ferns around me.
When I found Rali’s ruddy orange eyes burning into my own, my gut practically dropped through my ass.
The young elf was less than ten feet away with a revolver clutched in his slender hands, and the barrel was aimed steadily at my heart.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter 17
It had been a while since I’d stared down the barrel of a loaded gun.
Finding a kid on the other side of that barrel was probably the more terrifying part, though.
Rali’s serpentine eyes blazed with the kind of reckless determination only an eleven-year-old boy could muster, and the rune overpowering him seemed to add a glint of savagery to his expression.
So, I didn’t doubt for a second the kid would pull the trigger from the moment I locked eyes with him, and the second he did, my hand shot out as my vision faded into a tunnel.
The bullet stopped within an inch of my outstretched palm, but before I’d fully processed this, Rali bared his teeth and cocked the hammer of his revolver again without pause.
This time, I managed to dive behind a fern as the bullet whizzed past, and I grappled at the gun on my belt out of instinct to make absolutely sure it was still there.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t dreaming.
There was another revolver in the ravine, and whoever created it had seen fit to hand it to Rali specifically.
I heard the hammer cock only a few feet away, and I closed my eyes as I searched for the spark of the revolver in the kid’s hand.
Then my power surged, and I swiftly wrenched it from his clutches just as he pulled the trigger once more. The bullet flew within a few centimeters of my face, but the kid’s gun soared directly into my hand right after.
Rali let out a furious growl, and I lunged from the cover of the ferns as I shoved the second revolver into my belt.
The young elf landed on my back as I went, and he clawed at my face and eyes while I struggled to get rid of him. Rali was unbelievably strong for his age, though, and my arms were pinned to my side as he locked his knees, ripped my head back by my hair, and drew a dagger from his belt.
So, I flipped and slammed myself back against the nearest trunk, and when Rali’s sheared head slammed into the tree with full force, he abruptly released his hold and dropped into the sludge at our feet.
Rali was up again like a shot, and I drew my own sword as he jabbed his dagger at my thigh. I couldn’t believe I was struggling to keep up with the blows he delivered, and my nerves heightened as I locked eyes with the young and ruthless elf.
I stumbled and backed into two big soldiers while I attempted to keep Rali at bay, and the soldiers nearly caught me by the arms from behind. I managed to dodge all three elves when a few of House Quyn’s warriors leapt between us, and by the time I looked back, the two large soldiers had fresh slashes oozing from their necks.
Rali tore one of the axes from their hands and hurled it at me while I ducked the blind swing of one of the almost dead elves, and I instinctively sent the axe right back at the kid before I remembered who I was fighting.
The tungsten blade shifted direction at the last second to impale one of the soldiers, and just as the second one finally bled out, Rali lunged and caught my leg.
He tripped me with a swift maneuver I’d honestly only seen in movies, and I cursed as I dropped into the blood and mud with Rali and his dagger.
Elves flew past on either side as I caught the kid’s slender wrist in a vice grip and tried to wrestle the dagger from him, and his free hand planted a fist so firmly in my eye that my vision cut out completely on my left side.
“What the fuck?” I growled, and I quickly blunted the edge of the dagger since it was clear there was no way Rali was giving it up.
It still hurt like hell as he jabbed it into my gut, but it didn’t pierce the skin at least, and Rali’s frustration sent him over the edge.
I didn’t know if it was a growl or some sort of elven insult, but whatever the kid said sounded like a death sentence as he lunged to lock his hands around my throat.
My head was forced down into the swell of mud, and I lost my grip on my Halcyan sword as some sprinting elf trampled us both.
Someone must have pulled Rali off me, though, because I suddenly resurfaced to draw a desperate breath into my lungs. The stench of death and blood permeated from the mud all over me, and I could still hear Rali’s vicious snarling close by.
The sound sent a chill straight down my spine while I smeared my face on the first fern my hand found, and as the pelting rain rinsed the last of the mud away, I squinted to find the elf who’d been my loader grappling with Rali.
The golden-haired elf had a hold on the boy from behind, but Rali managed to pull the guard’s dagger from his sheath. Before I could summon it, Rali drove the blade into the elf’s side, and when he was finally freed, he wasted no time in coming straight for me again.
“Godsdamnit,” I muttered and dodged his grasp while I tried to find my sword in all the sludge.
Rali already had his other dagger drawn, though, and I pulled my revolver instead.
Then Rhys’ voice boomed from behind my back, and Rali let out a venomous hiss.
He hurled the dagger past me to impale his own father in the gut, and when I whipped around, Rhys’ face was twisted in a mixture of rage and shock.
Rali laughed indignantly and grabbed another dagger from the sheath of a nearby elf, and while Rhys ripped the blade from his bleeding gut, I ducked and dove for the kid’s legs.
His dagger sliced the back of my shirt open, but I managed to tackle him hard and knock the wind from his lungs long enough for Rhys to reach us.
The braided elf and I proceeded to try and wrestle the bloodthirsty kid into submission, but he screamed and thrashed with the fury of a dozen men, and his dagger caught Rhy’s arms repeatedly.
“What the fuck do you expect me to do with this?” I growled at Rhys.
The man glared back as Rali’s boot tried to kick my teeth in before I dodged.
“Don’t shoot him,” Rhys snarled through a clenched jaw.
Rali impaled his father’s gut once more while the man was arguing to spare his life, and when his breath hitched, I locked the kid in a choke hold as best as I could.
“Either he’s dying, or you are,” I told the braided elf as I eyed the deep red blood drenching his tunic, but Rhys only shook his head and tried to lock his son’s wrists in the shackle of his large hands.
Rali’s kicks were unyielding, though, and when he planted his heel in his father’s face to send him crashing backward into a line of brawny soldiers, I caught a glimpse of the rune on his calf.
The familiar branding looked fresh and about as large as the handle of my revolver, and while Rali bucked to knee me in my temple, I swiftly wrenched his last dagger from his iron grip.
Then I caught him by the scruff of his tunic from behind, and as soon as Rhys finished killing two guards, I shoved his vicious son at him and ordered him to hold his arms.
The braided elf actually managed it after a violent wrestling match, during which he slammed his son against another tree to try and subdue him a bit.
I raised my brows and drove the dagger into the skull of a passing soldier while I waited, and when Rhys dropped to the mud with as strong a hold as he could muster, I quickly joined him and attempted to grab the runed leg.
“Don’t kill him,” Rhys ordered as he lost his hold and grappled to get it back.
“I won’t,” I growled back, “just hold him still, damn it.”
A line of soldiers lost their air supply behind Rhys’ back as I spoke, and the golden-haired loader suddenly reappeared clutching his side.
He joined Rhys in the effort of wrangling Rali, and I finally caught the kid’s boot just before it could hit my jaw.
I flipped around and locked Rali’s leg under my arm, and even though the other clocked my skull hard from behind, and my left eye was still useless, I focused on the branded rune in front of me.
It was the exact same as all of the one’s we’d been tracking from one region to the next, and I took a steadying breath before I placed the tip of the dagger at the base of it.
I didn’t even pierce the skin, but Rali was already raging as if I had, and his bellows became deranged in his fury. He sounded nearly as ravenous as the Wendigo, and out of nowhere, Dragir crashed into me and ripped the dagger from my hand.
“What do you think you are doing?” he demanded. “The rune will turn on him, it’ll fight you.”
I snatched the dagger back. “What the fuck do you suggest, then?” I countered, and Rali’s other boot slammed my neck forward with blinding force.
I cursed and attempted to regain my vision as pain seared through my spine, but I kept the kid’s leg locked in my grip while I placed the tip of the dagger down once more.
Rali’s screams heightened immediately, and Rhys swore as he and the loader struggled to contain his raging son.
Dragir’s eyes flared while he watched, but then he dropped beside me and worked to
steady Rali’s leg as well.
“This could destroy him,” the elf warned in a low voice. “We don’t know what that rune will do if you attack it.”
“We don’t have much of a choice,” I muttered back as I gritted my teeth against another kick.
Then I sent my magic into the dagger to sharpen the blade to a glinting, razor’s edge, and as I began cutting through Rali’s skin, he let out a torrent of terrifying Elvish.
Dragir snapped his attention to the young elf as his eyes practically popped out of his head, and I was glad I couldn’t understand a word of the angry tirade.
I did hear my name a few times, though, but I focused on splicing around the rune in a shaky rectangular shape.
Several soldiers stumbled to a stop as they heard the wails of the young elf become more crazed, and just as Dragir grabbed my hand to stop me, Shoshanne dropped into the mud beside us.
She raised her palms toward Rali, and he immediately spluttered and began to gasp for air.
“Don’t kill him!” Rhys ordered furiously.
“I’m not,” Shoshanne assured him, but the kid stopped wailing and fell limp in my hold as she said this, and the healer looked at me urgently. “Hurry, you don’t have much time.”
I nodded and finished splicing the last line, and then I slid the tip of the dagger under a corner of flesh. With the bloodied skin pinned between my thumb and the blade, I firmly wrenched the flesh from his leg.
Dragir and I both cringed as it went flying, and while blood spilled from the sinewy patch now exposed on Rali’s calf, Shoshanne hurried forward to place her palms on the pale child’s ribs.
I flipped around to find Rhys’ face ashen as he looked down at the blue lips of his son, but Shoshanne slowly filled his lungs for him, and the boy gradually seemed to be regaining his color.
Then his eyes shot open, and he lurched as he screamed wildly.
All of us jumped back, and for a second I thought the rune was still infecting his mind.
Rali stumbled and clutched at his torn leg, but when Dragir caught him by the arm to hold him steady, the young elf suddenly blinked up like he hardly recognized the elf.
