“Knowing Fiona, she’s probably pulling daemons inside out like shirts hung out to dry,” I replied with a smirk.
“Knowing Fiona, she’s most likely having daemons for a very early breakfast.” Heron kept going, pressing his lips together to stifle a grin.
“Knowing Fiona, I think we’ll have to change the daemons’ species name to ‘rented mules’,” I chuckled, feeling my spirits brighten. Jax had been right, earlier. We needed a soaring morale to get our uber-strong vampire girl out of this place, and Heron had the right formula.
“Knowing Fiona, she’s probably doing a little bit of spring cleaning now, mopping the floor with those horned bastards,” Heron continued.
“Knowing Fiona, and based on what I’ve seen on that dead daemon’s head, I bet she’s giving her captors some pretty nifty three-dollar haircuts.” I giggled. His indigo horse huffed and moved closer, enough for Heron’s knee to brush against mine.
“Knowing Fiona, she’s probably smacking the taste of souls out of their mouths for good.”
That last one made us both roar with laughter, but we were immediately shushed by Hansa and Jax, while Scarlett, Patrik, Caia, Blaze, Harper, and even the Exiled Maras swallowed their chuckles.
“Keep it down! We’re still in hostile territory,” Hansa berated us with a hiss.
“Yeah, and so are the daemons around Fiona right now,” Heron muttered, unable to help himself. I covered my mouth to stop myself from chortling, while Hansa gave him a reluctant grin and shifted her focus back to the road ahead. Even Jax noticed her expression, the corner of his mouth twitching in response.
We needed that laugh. It was a tiny slice of therapy in the middle of a madness that got more complicated and more dangerous with each hour that went by. Heron reached out, covering my hand with his. He gave me a gentle squeeze, his gaze softening as our eyes met. He energized me in ways I’d never thought possible, and that made everything about our friendship even more confusing, but in that specific moment, I welcomed it all. I needed it. I knew I’d worry about it later, since Heron hadn’t changed. I’d still get my heart broken if I allowed myself to get too close.
“We’re going to get her back, Avril,” he said quietly, and I nodded. “And once this whole mess is over and we get back to Calliope, you and I are going to have a good, long talk.”
His jade eyes took on a darker shade, his pupils dilating as he noticed my lips slowly parting—something that happened instinctively whenever he came too close.
“A talk? About what?” I managed, following up with a dry swallow.
He blinked several times, then pulled himself back and frowned, as if he’d said too much.
“Um, stuff. Don’t worry about it. It’s… Let’s just get out of here first.” He gave me a nervous smile, before his head suddenly turned in the opposite direction. “Did you hear that?”
We all went silent and listened for a few seconds.
The water flowing by our side, murmuring over the rounded pebbles. The wind blowing through the trees, their leaves whispering throughout the gorge. A few small animals squeaking behind jagged slabs of limestone.
And a peculiar rumble that got louder and closer, expanding into a stomach-churning echo that prompted us to look up and witness the top sides of the gorge explode.
One loud bang was followed by three more, and the stone walls started collapsing. Massive rocks tumbled toward us.
Our horses jerked into action and darted forward. I heard shouting and muffled yelps behind us as the gorge broke down. Once the thunderous crashing noises stopped, we brought our horses to a halt and turned to look at what we’d escaped.
The way back was completely sealed. A thick, irregular wall of broken chunks of limestone made it impossible for us to return that way.
Gray dust billowed out in heavy rolls, and the crash’s echoes reverberated through nearby crevices. It quickly spread out above, obscuring the sky before it dissipated.
“What the hell was that?” I croaked, taking in a lungful of air. I’d been holding my breath from the moment the stones had hurtled down toward us.
“I don’t know! The gorge simply… collapsed,” Hansa gasped, nudging her horse with her heels. She got closer to the new wall, looking up and taking it all in, as Jax moved to her side.
It dawned on us then that our GASP team had been completely separated from Vincent and the Correction Officers.
“Crap. What about Vincent and the others?” I gasped.
“Vincent!” Hansa shouted. “Cadmus!”
A second passed before their voices, albeit low and muffled, could be heard from the other side. We all brought our horses next to Hansa and Jax, while Harper used her True Sight to look beyond the wall. The voices got clearer. I managed to identify Cadmus and Vincent—they were both alive.
“Vincent and Cadmus are okay,” Harper said. “Some of the Correction Officers are wounded, but I think they’ll recover.”
“Vincent, Cadmus! Can you hear us?” Hansa called out.
“We can hear you,” we heard Cadmus growl from the other side. “Keep moving forward—we’ll go back and take one of the side paths into the next gorge, then find our way back to you farther ahead, okay?”
“Do you know where you’re going?” Hansa replied.
“More or less, yes. We have a map, and we’ll figure a way back to you. Keep moving, though! Don’t be sitting targets for the daemons!”
“Did you see what happened up there?” Jax asked.
“No… No, we only heard the rumbling, then the whole thing came down!” Vincent answered.
“Yeah, they’ll definitely be okay,” Harper concluded as she continued looking through the wall. “They’re getting back on their horses now.”
“Don’t fall back. Meet us farther up ahead!” Jax shouted.
“Relax, Dorchadas! We’ll be right next door, so to speak!” Vincent shot back. Jax rose an eyebrow. He looked as though he were holding back a fine choice of curse words for the noble Mara.
“Look at him. Less than an hour out in the field and he’s a freakin’ warrior.” Heron scoffed.
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
I watched as Vincent, Cadmus, and the Correction Officers turned back, their horses rushing and nervously neighing as the group looked for a path into the neighboring gorge. I couldn’t neglect the knots in my stomach as I returned to my normal vision and gave Hansa a concerned look.
“I can’t help but wonder if this was not accidental,” I said.
She turned her indigo horse and proceeded to catch up with the tracking spell, now twenty yards away from us, and we followed.
“Have you seen anything in this world, so far, that went wrong and was just a coincidence?” Hansa replied, visibly annoyed by this unexpected turn of events. We were, after all, fifty-one men short.
“Nope, it’s just one machination after another.” I sighed, my instincts kicking in.
“We need to stay hyper-alert now,” she said. “Whoever did this, they wanted us separated.”
We were in enemy territory. We all knew what she meant by “whoever”, and we were bound to see the air rippling around us soon enough. I couldn’t see them, but my spine was tingling with anticipation. Daemons couldn’t be far away.
“They blew up the gorge, though,” Patrik said. “This means they’re far better organized than we’d initially thought.”
“Yes, and it also means they may be just as dangerous and skilled in battle without their invisibility gimmick as they are with it,” Jax replied.
After following the tracking spell for another two hundred yards, my prediction came true.
The air rippled ominously before us as daemons emerged from nearby crevices. I heard their claws scratching against the stone, their feet shuffling around us.
“Get ready,” Hansa growled, drawing her broadsword.
Our blades swished out of their scabbards, eager to take on the beasts closing in on us. Our horses s
topped, shaking their heads and kicking their front hooves against the hard ground, as if warning the daemons to stay away. My mare in particular was a feisty one, her muscles jerking as I tightened my thighs against her ribs.
There were at least thirty of them, based on the flickers of red eyes that I could see, and they moved in a wide circle around us, looking for the perfect attack angle.
“Patrik, be a doll and do the honors, please,” Hansa said, her glare fixed on a couple of fiends to her right.
The Druid nodded, then muttered a spell under his breath and put his left arm out, index and middle fingers pointing at the stream. The water burst upward, then spread out like rain, pouring all over us on a fifty-foot radius.
One by one, the daemons were revealed, shocked by this development. Their red eyes were wide, their mouths open—the only indicators of any emotion. Other than that, they were all designed to kill, just like the one back in the infirmary: they were extremely tall and robust, with razor-sharp claws and fangs, curved horns, and a plethora of tattoos covering various parts of their arms and chests.
They looked at one another for a moment, then scowled at us and began moving forward.
“Yeah, we broke their cover. They’re not happy,” I said, then patted my mare’s neck. “Sorry, my friend, you need to step aside for this one. These guys are big and mean, and I don’t want them to hurt you.”
I got off and pointed to the side, where a dark and quiet corner could be used for cover. The rest of our team jumped off their horses as well. I used my mind control to push them aside.
“Go on, go wait for us there. We won’t be long,” I told my mare.
The creature neighed and trotted off to that corner, followed by the other horses. We then turned around and moved closer to the middle, gathering in a tight circle with our backs to each other. The daemons growled and prepared to pounce.
“These dudes are huge,” Heron said, his sword out and thirsty for blood.
“It’s a good thing we don’t need any of them alive to lead us to Fiona.” Scarlett glanced around, then shrugged. “I’ve been looking to intensify my practice, anyway.”
“Let’s just get this over with fast,” Hansa replied, just as the first daemon smirked, then charged her. “The tracking spell keeps moving! Blaze, light ’em up!”
The rest of the fiends came at us at once.
But Blaze burst into full dragon form as soon as we made room for him, and the daemons were forced to scatter. The dragon was gorgeous, his black scales and dark orange underbelly rivaled only by his big, beautiful blue eyes, his clawed wings stretching out, and his spiked tail smashing left and right, into the fiends.
Some of the daemons evaded Blaze’s claws and tail hits, but my twin swords didn’t forgive. The horned creatures were ridiculously fast, though. Now that they were visible, they seemed even lighter on their feet, dodging my strikes left and right. I had two of my own to deal with, while Hansa, Jax, Scarlett, Avril, Heron, and Caia took on the others.
More daemons poured out of narrow slits in the stone walls, but Patrik’s water shower kept coming down, and the Druid launched spheres of blue fire with his spare hand. They didn’t kill the fiends, but they dazed them into standing still for long enough to get crushed between Blaze’s jaws.
I avoided a direct hit from one of my two opponents, while Blaze turned and tried to get as many daemons as he could in one blow. We were too close and the gorge too narrow for him to use his fire, but he was big and angry enough to not give them a chance to bring any of us down.
A claw slashed my shoulder, and I hissed from the pain, then slid on my back with both swords up. I cut through a daemon’s inner thighs, slipping between his strong, muscular legs. He roared from the pain, blood gushing on the ground in large crimson spurts, and I quickly jumped back to my feet and crossed my swords against the back of his neck. I cut his head off with one swift move, then took on another daemon.
I dodged its claws in a series of sidesteps, then brought my swords swishing through the air between us, the tips of my blades cutting deep into his forearms, then his chest and face. I kept hitting until the daemon was overwhelmed by the speed of my attacks. I caught a glimpse of our horses, and my blood froze, anger and bile rising into my stomach as I saw daemons tearing into them.
“No, no, no!” I growled, and drove my sword right through my opponent’s throat.
He fell to his knees, and I kicked him back with my boot. I swerved through the clashes of swords and claws between Scarlett, Heron, and Avril, and ran toward the horses. Three were down, including my mare, blood pooling beneath them. My heart ached as I sidestepped one of the two daemons attacking the horses, and decapitated the one whose fangs had just pierced a fourth horse’s throat.
The animal shuddered and managed to scamper off, while the other six moved farther back, unharmed and still under my control. I had a feeling the one that had just run off had snapped out after its injury.
I stumbled as a heavy kick landed in the small of my back. I managed to throw my arm back with one sword, but I missed the attacking monster by inches, and I left my side open for another attack. I saw his grin and his claws coming in for just that, when a wide blade pierced his neck from behind. He stilled, blood gurgling out of his open mouth, then fell flat on his face as the sword was withdrawn.
“What the—” I gasped, stunned to see Caspian standing before me, his mask and hood on, his jade eyes glimmering with fury, and his blade coated in daemon blood. I quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw a few more daemons coming, while the rest of my team killed their fair share, with Blaze still leading on the scoreboard.
“You’ll get yourself killed. I told you!” Caspian spat, then turned around and took on a daemon.
A second fiend tried to get his side, while a third came at me. Even in such circumstances, Lord Kifo still found the time and energy to berate me.
The nerve of this guy!
My anger served me well, though, as I evaded a couple of attacks, then ran one daemon through with both my swords. I followed it up with a 360-degree turn to gather some speed and slashed the second daemon’s side before it got a chance to hurt Caspian, who brought the other one down with a vertical gash, splitting his chest open.
“So, what, you’ve come along to die with us, Lord Kifo?” I said, gritting my teeth.
A couple more daemons scurried over their comrades’ dead bodies to exact their revenge, but Caspian still found yet another second to further annoy me.
“No, I’m here to save you, because I’ve been raised to be merciful and helpful toward lesser creatures!” he shot back, then engaged the incoming daemons.
My blood boiled. But it was good fuel for what came next.
Caia
(Daughter of Grace & Lawrence)
My lighters were in full swing, setting incoming daemons on fire, enough to not only cause serious damage but also to give Scarlett, Heron, Avril, Hansa, and Jax the wiggle room they needed to cut them down.
Blaze was quite big for this part of the gorge, which didn’t exactly work to our advantage, but he made the best of it, using the spike on his long tail and the sharp fangs in his strong jaws to wipe out daemons in clusters of two or three at a time. Yet more daemons were pouring through from the crevices, and it was beginning to feel like a never-ending stream of enemies by this point.
We stayed out of Blaze’s way, while Harper and the newly arrived Caspian handled a string of daemons on their own.
It made me nervous whenever one got close to Blaze’s head; they were offputtingly fast. Their clawed blows left large holes in the ground whenever I dodged them, and some threw knives at us between hits. It was slightly easier now that we could see them, but the daemons were twice as ferocious.
I put one lighter away and drew my sword, using one hand for a fire whip and the other to slash at the daemons trying to reach Blaze. I could see their red eyes fixed on his as they tried to move around and get better angles. Blaze’s ski
n was tough, nearly impenetrable, but his eyes weren’t. I lashed at the fiends while executing 360-degree turns to increase the speed of each hit, the incandescent tip of my fire whip taking hefty bites out of the daemons’ flesh.
I blocked an attack with my sword, then slid down on one knee and directed a lash at a daemon dashing toward Blaze, who was busy stabbing several fiends before they reached one of the crevices. The fire whip burned through the daemon’s thigh, enough to make him scream and for Blaze to turn his head to the right to see the beast, then impale him with his tail spike.
We didn’t spot the other daemon, coming in hot from the left, until it was too late. He moved in a zigzag pattern, tapped his foot against a slab of limestone, and launched himself upward. He stabbed the corner of Blaze’s left eye with his claw, and I screamed.
Blaze roared from the pain, making the entire gorge shudder with echoes of his agony. He shook his massive head, enough to make the daemon fall to the ground with a thump. Jax rushed over and pierced the fiend’s neck with both swords, cursing under his breath.
“Everybody back off!” I managed to shout. I saw Blaze’s neck stiffen and swell as blood poured from his injured eye. It was about to get really hot for the twenty daemons left.
The team immediately reacted, dashing off to the sides. I pulled myself back several feet. Blaze growled and spat out a column of devastating fire over the remaining daemons. It happened fast. The creatures didn’t stand a chance; Blaze’s dragon flames rained down as liquid fire and obliterated every hostile in that part of the gorge.
Black smoke billowed from the daemons’ charred remains as they disintegrated and scattered across the hard ground. Blaze then grumbled, his scales twitching as he shifted back to his normal form. He fell to his knees, one hand covering his left eye.
I ran to him, putting my sword and lighter away, while Harper and Caspian brought the remaining horses out. Jax, Hansa, Patrik, Heron, and Avril gathered around us, their swords out. They scanned the area for more hostiles, but it seemed as though we’d managed to survive our large-scale daemon attack.