by E. G. Foley
With a great heave, she plunged her scimitar into its brain, then dissolved into thin air as the huge sandworm crashed to the desert floor with a dying groan.
“Nicely done, ladies,” Janos congratulated them afterward as they all stood panting. Red landed nearby. “Shall we?”
They all nodded and left, running again after Sir Peter’s team. The Gryphon galloped after them.
In the meantime, unfortunately, team two had been hit by another surprise attack. The smaller sandworm—which the minotaur had bashed—struck again, this time going after Ebrahim.
The massive warrior was not the easy prey the creature had apparently expected. It grabbed him by the leg, but he fought. As it struggled to pull him under, he scrabbled waist-deep in the sand, punching the beast repeatedly, since the upper half of his body was still free.
“Don’t let it take me!” he bellowed, and Ranjit shouldered his rifle.
“I don’t have a clear shot!” the Sikh yelled.
“Just shoot it!” Ebrahim roared, stabbing the thing with his knife.
Ranjit pulled the trigger and hit the beast. When it squealed in pain, it lost a firm grip on Ebrahim. Urso in his bear form leaped on the sandworm and began tearing into it with his claws and teeth. Even so, it still managed to pull Ebrahim under, though the big Guardian went down fighting.
Ramona wanted to help but could not bring herself to leave the twins in this moment of danger, not when they meant so much to the children.
In the distance she could see Ranjit and the wizard, Fletcher, on their knees, frantically digging in the sand with their bare hands, shouting Ebrahim’s name.
“I’ve got him!” Fletcher suddenly shouted.
“Pull!” Ranjit must have grabbed Ebrahim’s other arm somewhere under the sand.
“Help me! He’s heavy!”
Even if he had struggled free of the sandworm’s jaws, Ebrahim could still drown in that sea of sand and suffocate if they didn’t get him out of there fast.
“Come on, Eb,” Janos murmured, watching tensely from the distance as team one continued speeding toward the crater’s rim.
“I’ll go see if there’s anything that I can do.” Aleeyah whooshed away to go to team two’s aid.
Finally, the combined efforts of Ranjit’s team succeeded in pulling Ebrahim up out of the sand like a drowning man.
He came up covered in sand, coughing in between gasps for air. “Something’s down there!” he shouted, his deep, booming voice carrying easily across the sand. “Do those freaks lay eggs? I felt something under my foot!”
“What’s he on about?” Sir Peter asked, panting as he jogged after Finnderool.
“I think it buried its eggs down there or something,” Ebrahim told his team in the distance, sounding shaken. “Is that why it attacked us? I’m tellin’ you, there’s something down there—”
His team quieted him and helped him hurry on toward the crater, since he was limping.
Ramona floated closer and saw that his leg was bleeding and badly lacerated where the sandworm had grabbed it.
He was lucky he hadn’t lost it, she thought.
“Too bad it ate the healer. Looks like Eb’s hurt,” said Janos as the Guardians, the djinni, and the Gryphon caught up to the rest of the team at the edge of the crater.
Finnderool gestured to the Gryphon. “We’ve still got Crafanc’s healing feathers.”
“Caw!” His fierce eyes gleaming gold in the night, Red flew off at once to give Ranjit one of his scarlet feathers with which to heal Ebrahim.
Ramona was fairly sure the Lightrider knew how to use them. At least, she hoped so. Ebrahim was one of their best fighters, and they would need him at full strength for what they faced ahead. For, in truth, the real fight hadn’t even started yet.
“Steady, people,” Sir Peter ordered as they came barreling up to the edge of the crater at last.
The sandworm that had failed to eat Ebrahim was still out there. They were eager to get off the sand before it returned.
The way ahead, however, was anything but safe.
“Peter: flames!” Finnderool said while Janos and Ravyn wiped worm blood off their blades.
“Allow me.” The wizard stepped to the fore and raised his wand, using a spell to clear a path for them through the waist-high bonfires burning all about the crater.
Being almost impervious to fire, Janos, fully masked again, was the first to jump down onto the still-hot boulders strewn about the slopes of the crater. He turned to keep an eye on Sir Peter, who followed and then stepped ahead of the vampire to deal with any more fires, magically extinguishing them.
The nimble wood elf bounded down lightly, with his Guardian a step behind. Helena and Henry padded down into the crater with ease in their animal forms, though both shapeshifters seemed a little pained by the heat of the rocks beneath their paws. Still, it was better than being swallowed by a Cyclopean sandworm up there on the crater’s edge.
The minotaur brought up the rear, ready to club the beast if it tried to lunge at them again.
In the distance, Red remained with Ranjit’s team after Ebrahim was healed to help round out their number, since they had suffered two casualties. Aleeyah stayed with them for now, as well.
As team one picked their way carefully down the rugged, rocky slope, the bonfires still burning around them filled the air with sulfurous smoke.
Amid those swirling clouds of smoke, the Black Fortress waited, ominous and inscrutable, black as funeral jewelry.
Its outer walls stood a hundred feet high, its four spiky towers even higher.
Just looking at the castle filled Ramona with doom. Its overall shape was a hulking square. Crenellated battlements topped the curtain walls, and on each corner, its four sharp spires rose up to claw at the sky.
The fortress was made of polished black granite, so the wicked orange flames around the crater danced, mirrored, off its shiny walls. The flickering reflections of the fires made the castle seem to move, to breathe like some ghastly living thing—a menacing presence eager to devour whatever came too near its horrid yawning mouth.
Thankfully, the front entrance was sealed at the moment. Beneath the massive arched gatehouse, the drawbridge was up, but not for long.
They would have to get in there somehow to rescue their friends, Ramona thought grimly. The Council would hardly hand their captives over without a bitter fight.
Unfortunately, their approach brought them into range of the next line of the castle’s defenses. Finnderool squinted at the battlements, then shouted a warning to Sir Peter: “Archers!”
The word had no sooner left his lips than a wave of arrows arced across from the sky. The wizard reacted at once, lifting his wand to cast up an energetic shield over his whole team, much like the one Ramona had created around Jake.
“Everybody, gather together as much as you can,” Finnderool ordered. “The force field will be stronger the less space it has to cover.”
Across the crater, Hanley Fletcher was doing the same thing to protect his team from the arrows raining down on them. Their tips bounced harmlessly off the two wizards’ force fields, their wooden shafts breaking with the impact, but the attack had stopped both teams’ progress toward their goal.
Janos stared at the battlements from which the waves of arrows continued flying. “Blast it, are these villains still using Noxu tribesmen as their castle guard?”
“But of course,” Finnderool drawled, quickly nocking an arrow and lifting his bow to return fire. “Best barbarians-for-hire gold can buy.”
The Noxu had long served as the Dark Druids’ foot soldiers and henchmen. They were a barbarian tribe of armored mercenaries from the Outer Myrmidon Hills.
A smaller, somewhat more intelligent offshoot of the ogre species, the beastly brutes were said to have just enough elven blood flowing in their veins to make them more cunning and agile than true ogres, and closer to human size.
But they were just as nasty as their full ogre cou
sins, if not more so. Unlike their feral, solitary kin, the true ogres, the Noxu had developed a crude society and the ability to cooperate with others of their kind.
In time, they had become known as fearsome mercenaries who sold their services to the highest bidder. They usually fought with battleaxes, but were also skilled bowmen.
Though their arrows kept coming, the Order’s two teams managed to resume their advance, protected by the wizards’ shields.
Still, Ramona knew that these types of barriers could only last so long, and then her friends would be sitting ducks out here. She had to do something–buy them just a few minutes so they could mount a counterattack. Her moment had come.
She knew it was dangerous, especially in spirit form, to go directly over the Black Fortress; she did not want to get caught up in the mysterious vortex of dark energies that appeared over the center of the castle whenever the Council gave the order to jump locations.
But the Noxu had the Order fighters pinned down under their unceasing hail of arrows. The mission was already stalled unless somebody did something.
She would just have to be careful not to let herself be detected.
Unseen by either foes or allies, she flew up over the battlements, unharmed by the arrows whizzing through her spectral body.
A moment later, she found herself looking down on the burly castle guards.
At this range, she could smell their sweaty ogre stink, hear their brutish growls and grunts and the creak and clank of their leather-and-metal armor. She could see their mottled grayish-purple skin and the small, boar-like tusks protruding from their lower jaws.
For a moment, she considered how best to rid them of their arrows. Then she thought of the children, and a mischievous smile skimmed her lips.
She waved her spectral hand over them all and whispered the spell.
The arrows stopped abruptly.
Instead, the Noxu grunted in confusion. A few squealed with surprise to find all their arrows turned to licorice sticks.
“Wh-what’s happened?” one said, trying to nock it anyway.
Another shook his, as though doing so might turn it back. “Our arrows have changed into little ropes.”
A third took a bite. “It’s delicious!”
“Get that out of your mouth!” the captain of the guard huffed as he came stomping along. He glared over the wall at the Order teams, who were now hurrying forward again. “We’ve got to stop them,” the captain growled in a garbled voice.
“How, sir?” his underling asked while a few more of the Noxu sneaked bites of the licorice candy when their chief wasn’t looking.
His piggish little eyes narrowed. “Very well. If it’s magic they want…” He turned and bellowed, “Release the Fire Swarm!”
CHAPTER 26
Battle Royale
All was quiet at the Villa di Palma. So far, it was a peaceful night.
Maddox stood on a boulder at the surf’s edge, his rifle at patrol carry in his hands, the sling across his shoulder comfortably distributing its weight for the long night ahead.
The wind ruffled his hair and blew his black jacket against his side as he continually scanned the sea before him.
The waves were high, reaching for the bright full moon so far above them. He fought the lulling effects of their serene rhythm, rolling up to the beach and washing out again. Every now and then he saw Liliana’s seahorse peek up from the waves and the dolphins slowly swimming past, arcing up out of the water with the moonlight gleaming on their curved dorsal fins before they dove under again.
Everyone was in position, as agreed. Lady Bradford was working some spell in her room, trying to help the rescue effort. Archie sat up high in the villa’s quaint center tower, with its cupola roof like a scoop of ice cream above the window where his head was visible. He was watching the horizon through the telescope.
Nixie, meanwhile, ambled back and forth along the terrace, surveilling the midrange from her vantage point. Dani was minding Liliana inside, and the four eldest were out on the beach, each in charge of one quarter of the cove.
They had about a hundred yards to cover. Jake and Maddox stood guard on the ends, while Sapphira and Isabelle split the middle section.
It was very quiet. There was nothing to do but think—and stay sharp. Maddox kept watching, listening, feeling out into the dark with his Guardian instincts for any sign of trouble. He knew it waited for them. The question was, when?
He intended to be ready for it, but it was hard not to be distracted when his heightened senses made him acutely aware of Miss Bradford about twenty yards to his right.
Beyond her, Sapphira paced with a spear in her hands and the Triton Trumpet hanging at her hip to use as a signal in case she saw anything. The mermaid princess really seemed to be itching for a fight, Maddox thought, as if she just wanted to get this whole thing over with and go home to Coral City.
He couldn’t blame her. He just hoped she still had a city and a palace to go home to. They’d had no news from Tyndaris or King Nereus, and that worried him.
Beyond Sapphira, Jake stood guarding the far end of the beach, but in the darkness, all Maddox could make out was his blond hair.
Bored, Maddox tried counting the seconds between the waves rushing up onto the sand, but, inevitably, his attention wandered farther down the beach to Isabelle again.
His sharp Guardian eyes could see her clearly in the moon-silvered darkness, her long, bright tresses blowing prettily about her shoulders, the pale skirts of her shin-length walking dress rippling around her in the breeze.
His sensitive ears could hear her whispering the numbers of the quarterstaff positions as she moved about on the sand, brushing up on her skills, to his amusement. He’d thought the white staff that went with her role as a Keeper of the Unicorns was only a ceremonial weapon, but apparently, the young lady knew how to use it.
So she claimed.
We’ll see, Maddox thought. She shouldn’t even be out here, as far as he was concerned. The viscount’s daughter was no fighter. He wanted her back inside, but he didn’t dare offer his opinion at this point.
No, he believed he had already said quite enough today.
He tried again to ignore her, but ultimately, it was her flowery smell that made it impossible for him to concentrate. Downwind of her, the springtime scent of her hair filled his every breath with painful awareness.
He swore under his breath, shook his head, and kept scanning the waves, starting to curse the day he’d ever met Isabelle Bradford.
This whole thing was maddening. He could fight brawls and fix problems, but when it came to this, he was completely out of his element. More of a blasted fish out of water than the two visiting mermaids.
Oh yes, he was well aware that he had messed up today with her. Worse than ever. He let out a sigh and shifted restlessly on his perch atop the boulder.
He had been so proud of himself ever since he’d met her for how honorable he’d been, how well he’d resisted the temptation she presented. Guardians had no time for girls.
But the things he’d said to her this afternoon, the way he’d acted…he wasn’t proud of that at all. What was honorable about hurting a young girl’s feelings?
He wasn’t even sure why he’d been so mean, but it had something to do with that stupid vampire. And it wasn’t just the jealous anger he felt when Janos taunted him by flirting with Isabelle.
It was anger at himself. For his failure. Blast it, if he couldn’t even be a good Guardian, then what was the point of anything?
He should’ve been there when Jake had come under attack from those Nightstalkers. Instead, he had been late. Jake could’ve died, and that irritating bloodsucker was the one who’d saved the day.
So, Janos had ended up playing the hero, while he had looked a failure in front of everyone—including Isabelle.
Maddox hated embarrassing himself. No doubt the touch of haughty royal pride came from having a real prince as his father–not a fake one lik
e Janos. The vampire had been given his crown, his title, and his lands by the same fanged harpies who had given him his immortal life: his pack of bloodthirsty brides.
Well, at least the bloodsucker knew how to talk to women. Maddox shook his head, disgusted with himself.
If botching his duty to protect Jake weren’t bad enough, he couldn’t believe he had lashed out at Isabelle today when, in truth, the only one he was angry at was himself. This whole awful thing about Derek had him on edge, he supposed, and he didn’t like knowing Ravyn was heading into battle.
He should’ve been there too.
With a low growl of frustration, Maddox drummed his fingers on his weapon and continued scanning the sea for any sign of trouble. Get your head in the game.
A quarter-hour later, Dani traipsed out onto the beach with Liliana in tow, balancing a tray with snacks and cups and pitchers of beverages for everyone, as promised.
Maddox wasn’t hungry, but he welcomed a break from the monotony of standing guard.
The Irish lass started on Jake’s end of the beach—of course. Thick as thieves, those two. Pondering it, it seemed a little ridiculous to Maddox that a rogue like Jake and even an oddball like Archie could find a true connection with a girl, but for him, it was not to be.
When Dani moved on to Sapphira, Lil stayed by her sister, hopping around and babbling about little-girl things. From there, she visited Isabelle. The two chatted for a few minutes. He strained his ears to listen furtively, wondering what they were talking about. Maybe him?
Didn’t seem so. He jumped down off the boulder onto the sand when Dani eventually reached his lookout.
“Refreshments for you, sir?” she asked in a cheery tone.
“What’ve you got?” he asked, glancing at the tray.
“Coffee, biscuits. Tea, if you prefer. Glass of water? Some fruit?”
“Thanks.” Maddox took the water and a round, crunchy biscuit.
“Any signs of trouble down your way?” Dani asked.
He shook his head as he ate the biscuit in one bite and washed it down with a swallow of water. “All clear,” he said.
