“I can run,” Emmett responded, looking between Amala and Keiran.
She held an arm out for him. He accepted and tried to stand, Keiran placing a leg behind him and catching him when he stumbled back. His head was still light and stomach mildly queasy, but he gave a nod of confidence after several steadying moments.
Amala whispered to Keiran. “Rhiannon has already engaged some south of us.”
A preternatural scream penetrated the night, followed by the sounds of charging through the forest undergrowth. A dark figure appeared in the trees, leaping through the air toward Amala. She backflipped twice, bringing one leg up in a swift kick to the figure’s head, the sound of bone crunching just as she danced back and brought her other leg around low in a swift undercut to its legs.
Another figure rushed from the trees with blades in both hands, a hood barely covering his pockmarked face. He raised a tapered blade in his hand and brought it down in a wide arch. Amala allowed the momentum of her low kick to fully twist her body around to avoid his swing. The Revenant turned as he missed her and brought his forearm around in a backward slash with his other blade, a serrated knife nearly as long as his forearm. Amala spun her arms with dizzying speed, her serpents whistling through the air and tearing deep gashes across his face and chest. Their fangs slashed across from one ear to the other with a brilliant spray of red on the snowy ground. He dropped his blades and crumbled in writhing agony, clutching futilely at his bleeding eye sockets.
Feeling the nausea welling up again, Emmett stumbled to sit upright. Amala stood rigidly over the two Revenants, now both dying or otherwise incapacitated. The hawk returned, crying into the night as it swept up higher overhead as if circling Amala, Keiran, and Emmett protectively. Through teary eyes, Emmett saw Amala taking a step toward him, chancing eye contact only for a moment to confirm he was unharmed.
“Focus through the discomfort,” she whispered. Emmett nodded, clutching his stomach as he attempted again to stand.
Keiran came up behind them and put a hand behind Emmett’s shoulders. He made a deep, purring sound at the base of his neck, the vibration from his lips brushing against his skin and traveling down Emmett’s spine. Once again, Emmett felt the nausea wash away. He shook his light head, willing himself to concentrate.
“Thanks again.”
Amala and Keiran had only a moment to look up as four more Revenants crashed loudly through the underbrush. Three of them raced for Amala, with the fourth swinging a large blade at Keiran’s head just before Keiran pushed Emmett aside and rolled away from the blade’s swing.
Amala was pirouetting in and out of her three attackers’ swings as she wove her serpents through the air. Amala’s spinning kicks would open holes in the Revenants’ attacks, causing them to aim high or wide to parry her blows. Each time, a swing of one of her serpents would respond with bared fangs, tearing or gashing at exposed skin.
Keiran was back on his feet just as his attacker swung the serrated blade again at his head. The female Revenant was spitting words at him, incoherent, nonsensical words that seemed to scratch at the very air. From her incantation an undulating, inky darkness coalesced before Emmett. As she did so, Emmett saw her face stretch as her human features seemingly melted away.
With his hands held aloft toward Emmett, Keiran bellowed a low note that caused the air before him to shimmer like a thick pane of glass, swelling into a sphere that seemed to contain the darkness before shrinking and collapsing the darkness into nothingness.
The female Revenant growled and swung her blade at Keiran’s head. He easily dodged it, bringing his foot up in a high roundhouse kick toward her head. She turned in time and took a glancing blow to her shoulder before retreating two steps and returning with a direct thrust. As it whistled past his face just feet away, Emmett saw that the blade was covered in dripping runes and sigils along its length, and the very air surrounding it seemed to reek with decay.
Keiran ducked again, rolling on the ground once more away from Emmett and drawing the Revenant’s attention toward him. He stood up quickly and raised an outstretched hand toward her, taking a breath and screaming out with a discordant, angry note whose concussive force clipped the side of her face, causing her to drop her blade and fall to the ground, grabbing both of her bleeding ears.
The two other Revenants continued to swing at Amala, their bloody, sigil-covered blades whistling in the cold air. Her movements were like water falling in sheets on rounded stones, flowing effortlessly with barely visible ripples. One of the Revenants seemed to stumble on an awkward swing, and Amala followed with a downward kick, her foot crunching the back of his neck. He fell under his own momentum, causing the other Revenant to stumble.
Amala drew back just as the hawk overhead rounded in the air and dove past her, its twin claws extending as they bit deeply into the soft, fleshy place underneath the Revenant’s right ear. The eldritch words all but sizzling as they died on his quivering lips, the Revenant’s face returned to normal as he limply fell to the ground.
“Come on,” Amala called. They ran together, collecting Keiran up the road and closing the distance to the Grove. Crossing the long shelf, another figure came running from a hidden place behind a thicket of trees and underbrush. Amala sprinted ahead, easily dodging the clumsy swing of his blade and snapping his neck sideways with a backhand swing.
Several figures crashed through the underbrush and out onto the path, a mess of flailing limbs. A large bald man swung a meaty fist at a little girl he had pinned to the ground. She took a pair of punches directly to her small face before she raised an arm in Emmett’s direction, as if pleading for help. Emmett began to run to her aid, but Keiran tackled him from his left side, sending him to the ground.
A feral snarl split the night as a massive mountain lion, composed of tense muscles sheathed in a majestic, tawny frame, charged from the shadows behind them. The great beast leapt over them and soared toward the Revenant. A wide claw took his head as the lion’s massive body sailed overhead and landed just in front of the girl. Pushing the now-headless corpse off of her, the girl stood beside the lion.
“There are at least forty, sister, maybe more,” her high-pitched voice recounted with great alarm to Amala, her small body still heaving for breath as she stroked the beast’s heavily breathing flank. Emmett saw that her long, curly hair was matted with blood from cuts along her face, her clothes torn in places where her small body had been assaulted. At her full height, she barely stood taller than the mountain lion that was pacing next to her, the cat’s golden eyes—preternaturally glowing as they were—watching behind her for attack.
“Lily, have you seen Rhiannon?”
Before the young girl could respond, glass shattered somewhere overhead. Emmett jumped back instinctively, and at once they all looked up at the high stone walls of the structure to see someone flung awkwardly through an exploded window out into the air. Their eyes followed it in an arc as it landed on the ground near them with a sickening crunch.
A shadowed figure in the window’s high frame leapt out with an overhead dive before landing effortlessly with a graceful roll on the ground next to the unmoving corpse. Dusting aside the gossamer threads of her dress, the woman Emmett recognized from earlier pulled herself up to full height as her naked feet padded soundlessly across the snowy ground.
“Defile my garden,” she said bitterly as she spat at the headless corpse. “There are a dozen more inside the house. I was nearly overwhelmed.”
“Sophie, did you see anyone else alive inside?” Amala asked.
As if in answer, a terrified woman screamed in the distance. From across the grounds they saw a pair running toward them. A young woman and man were both yelling for help as a dozen robed figures charged from the woods after them.
With reflexes of lightning alacrity, Lily sprinted toward the couple, hurling herself into the air while drawing her limbs to her chest. She sailed over the fleeing couple and released her legs into the neck of one of the pursui
ng Revenants with a sharp snap. The small child was deftly spinning through the combined attacks of ten or more armed Revenants as her mountain lion released a bellowing roar and leapt to defend her.
Sophie reacted almost as fast, her body convulsing as she flailed her arms out above her head. She pumped her arms in the air with a rhythmic drumming that Emmett heard soften under the din of an approaching roar. The forest nearly split apart as a torrential storm of wasps and hornets swarmed around the corner of the compound. The entire swarm sparkled iridescent in the night, its great mass hurtling together in a single, undulating cloud. The swarm raced around Sophie as she threw her arms to meet the oncoming rush of Revenants. The sickening impact sounds of millions of stinging and biting insects blunted the cries of the young couple as Keiran waved them to him.
“This way,” Keiran called. Emmett did not recognize the young woman whose hair was matted to her face with rivulets of blood tearing down her skull. She clutched to the man, terror-stricken and consumed with panic.
“Help us!” he was screaming at Keiran.
“We’re going to,” Keiran was saying as he continued looking over his shoulder for signs of pursuit. “Who brought you to the Grove? Do you remember their names? Who were you with before the attack?” Emmett knew that the confusion was too great for them to make sense of Keiran’s questions.
The young woman was sobbing, burying her face in the man’s shoulder. He shook his head, panting with desperation. “You’ve got to help us! Please!”
Emmett felt it at that moment: that undeniable sense of panic. Battle sounds died away, and in their place, a small voice was distantly pleading with him to run. His muscles tensed even more than they already had, his pulse increased, and his brain sharpened on the pinpricks of ice creeping along the back of his neck. He could feel the approach of something that did not belong in his world … something unnatural.
Emmett saw more figures emerge from underneath the ridge along the outer shelf of the mountain across the grounds opposite them. They stalked the forest’s edge, their long arms ending in slowly flexing claws. Even at a distance, Emmett recognized their jerky, forced movements as a voice within his mind cried out in alarm.
“Underdwellers. At least ten with more in the distance,” Keiran gasped.
“Keiran,” Amala urgently whispered. Emmett saw Keiran turn toward her, and with an expression born of both tension and calm, he nodded at something Emmett could not see on Amala’s face. Keiran raised his right hand with his palm facing her. Amala did the same, touching her open palm to his, and then lowering her left hand and crossing just underneath their joined arms, Keiran soon doing the same with his own. Emmett had little time to process the image’s familiarity before they separated.
“No matter what happens,” she whispered as they released their hands.
“I will,” Keiran promised.
Amala turned to Emmett and drew her lips to his ears. “I will come back for you, Emmett … like the bottomless sea and the endless rivers that lead to it.”
Before Emmett could respond, Amala leapt away and rushed to meet their attackers.
CHAPTER 10
Amala called out loudly for all to hear. “Sisters! To me!”
The Revenants sprinted toward the three Druids like starving predators. Amala’s sideways charge broke their dash as she dove directly into their path, spinning herself wildly in an attack that seemed intended to distract more than harm. The Underdwellers responded with equal speed, slashing their long claws at and just missing her midsection as she leapt over them with a swinging kick.
The sound of running footsteps caused Emmett to turn with a start even as Keiran was already reaching his arms out to meet whatever force was approaching. A feeling of relief spread over Emmett as he saw the twins Paulo and Sebastian emerging from the eastern side of the compound. As Sebastian ran toward Keiran, Paulo sprinted toward the Druids and crashed headlong into the melee, bringing his iron stave down into an Underdweller’s chest as it twisted to avoid a high, powerful kick from Sophie.
“Keiran,” Sebastian coughed as he collapsed into him.
“Did you see anyone else alive?”
Sebastian quickly shook his head, holding one hand to his stomach to control the bleeding from a vicious tear to his midsection that had torn away most of his shirt. “No, brother, we just returned to Silvan Dea when they attacked.”
Keiran gingerly pulled Sebastian’s hand away and, seeing a dangerous gash from which blood continued to pour, shook his head with a curse. Sebastian hissed at the pain of the cold winter air against his deep wound, his face clenched tightly as he held his hand against the unstaunched bleeding.
“Do you have anything left?”
“I was saving it in case Paulo needed it,” Sebastian shuddered. “There are more Revenants. A lot more,” he said through gritted teeth.
Keiran’s expression grew dim, and he was obviously considering this news carefully as he looked from Emmett to the two strangers who huddled in fear near them.
Amala’s movements were a blur in the darkness, and Sophie and Paulo’s both seemed equally timed with Amala’s, as if they all fought together as an extension of each other; one swinging high as the other swung low, one pushing forward as the other guarded their rear. Sophie’s legs and Paulo’s arms both pumped through the air as Amala’s serpents and the hawk overhead wove through the fray, claws and fangs in an aerial ballet of blurred motion as they maneuvered the narrow spaces between bodies and creatures.
A vicious attack by one of the Underdwellers caught Sophie along the midsection, and she seemed to freeze mid-swing, hands clutching feebly to her stomach to hold her insides from spilling out. As she fell lifeless to the ground, the glow of the remaining swarm all but winked out in the darkness, and somehow lessened lacking precision or coordination, the cloud of insects quickly dispersed with a swipe of one of the Underdweller’s claws at the air.
Even as Sophie fell, Amala and Paulo lost none of their focus, their movements so fast that their figures were blurred by the night’s shadows. One of the Underdwellers was retreating as Amala rained down repeated slashes, her arms pumping in the air at such dizzying speed that the eyes could not even follow them. The other Underdwellers continued to attack Paulo with rending slashes, which Paulo narrowly avoided, tumbling sideways and rolling away just as he raised an arm toward the forest as if silently calling out. A pack of snarling wolves charged from the trees after the Underdwellers.
Another group of Underdwellers emerged from the forest. The tallest creature, its skull of unnatural white visible even in the darkness, raised its clawed hands aloft as the other Underdwellers fanned out behind it in an equal physical display. The wind carried whispers of something terrible like the low roar of an approaching storm sounding in the distance. Emmett saw darkness blacker than the night’s shadows billow and swarm around the Underdwellers and suddenly wash forward across the mountainside like a tsunami crashing down from the sky overhead.
“Dark Fire!” Keiran yelled, and Emmett saw that Amala turned for a split second before having to lunge away from an Underdweller’s downward slash that, without her lightning reflexes, would have easily torn her arm from her shoulder.
The inky blackness roared along the ground at startling speed in an undulating wave, and in its wake it left scarred and pitted earth that smoldered and trees whose limbs and trunks were burned down to cindering stumps. The wave swept out over the edge of the cliff and careened over boulders that cracked in the night. Lily and her mountain lion were too slow in jumping away. The Dark Fire rolled over them, melting their skin and exposing their now-lifeless insides.
Amala and Paulo leapt away from the Dark Fire. It left a great tear in the ground that still burned, separating Keiran and Emmett from them at a distance. Keiran looked back at the Underdweller as it was already repositioning itself in a straight line toward the compound.
“We have to go. Now!” Keiran exclaimed.
Emmett saw a
cross and through the burning ground that Amala and Paulo were suddenly flanked by an emerging group of Revenants whose facial features were already melting away, spitting overwhelming and inexpressible words of dark power at them. Distracted by their new attackers, Paulo stumbled backward and did not see the Underdweller behind him. His back arched as the Underdweller’s claw ripped out the front of his chest, his wolves falling to the ground with yelps of pain. Paulo was rigidly fused with the creature’s claw penetrating the front of his broad barrel chest. With a gurgling sound that could be heard even over the great noise of battle, his head finally slumped forward never to move again.
“You bastards!” Sebastian wailed with grief as he fought uselessly to stand. “I’ll kill you all!”
Paulo’s death distracted the Underdwellers, and Amala, who had not stopped in her deft weaving through their attacks, seized the moment and somersaulted through the air, landing several yards away. Through the Dark Fire, she turned toward Keiran and nodded wordlessly before sprinting away, drawing her attackers with her.
“Come on!” Keiran commanded Sebastian through gritted teeth as he slipped his neck around Sebastian’s arm and hoisted him upright with a yell of pain. Sebastian’s massive frame still fought with what little strength he had, but Keiran took hold firmly of Sebastian’s weight as he pointed at a place up ahead along the side of the compound.
“I’ll hunt you all down!” Sebastian screamed, hurling curses at them.
“That way!” Keiran said to Emmett, pointing to a spot up the embankment.
Emmett tugged at the couple to follow. Keiran strained under the weight of Sebastian’s muscular frame, continually turning his neck to look behind them. Even through the smoldering Dark Fire, the second group in the distance could be seen preparing to conjure another wave.
They followed the building’s edge and turned at its eastern corner. Keiran finally stopped at a particularly large boulder cut for the compound’s foundation and lifted Sebastian’s arm to lean him against the structure’s exterior. Out of view, Keiran placed his hand against the boulder’s center and pushed. With some effort, the boulder fell into the wall, and within moments a dark tunnel appeared into which Keiran immediately crawled. After a moment’s silence, he returned to the opening with a match strike, a lantern held aloft with his other hand.
The Waking Dreamer Page 10
