The daemons snarled and cursed below. The pit wolves were doing a good job of thinning their ranks, but not enough to keep them all away.
“Switch to burning and poisoned tips!” Hansa called out. “Keep the explosive ones for the grunts. We’ll need them!”
We had our arrow ammo stacked in three piles. We reloaded as instructed, alternating between burning and poisoned tips. We had about a dozen Death Claws left to deal with. They circled above, hissing and looking for the right attack angle.
Unfortunately for them, Ryker and Laughlan were two Druids who had a serious bone to pick with anything daemon-related.
“I’m tired of hearing your obnoxious screeching!” Laughlan muttered, then chanted a spell and launched a bright green fireball.
It hit a Death Claw right in the chest and swallowed it whole, then exploded into a flurry of fireworks, scaring the daylights out of the other beasts.
“Nice,” Ryker remarked, then tossed a flurry of blue fireballs at the remaining Claws.
Scarlett, Avril, and Heron handled the others with burning arrows, while the rest of our crew shifted focus to the ground. The daemons were making progress, despite the pit wolves, whose fangs couldn’t breach the thicker meranium plates of the second line of attack. The mercenaries’ broadswords came down hard, and several pit wolves fell. I counted five who didn’t get back up.
It broke my heart to see them die, but their help so far had already given us a minor advantage. I caught a glimpse of a ballista spinning on its base. I followed its aim. Blaze was turning back toward the core mass of mercenaries on the south side. I found myself holding my breath.
A third chain of explosions rocked the western slope. The stone wall trembled beneath us. They managed to launch a giant arrow, but it missed Blaze by inches. In the following second, his jaws split open and out came a jet of raging fire. It caught the ballista’s handlers unprepared—its shields just halfway up. They burned, and I felt a sliver of relief, counting one ballista disabled, as the flames consumed its wooden structure.
“Avril, Heron, Scarlett! Keep your eyes out for incoming Death Claws,” Hansa shouted, constantly looking around and checking every side of the fortress. “There will be more coming. Make sure they don’t reach the fortress. They’re heavy and damage the walls whenever they land, the clumsy bastards!”
“Druids! Fae! Cover the slopes,” Jax added, raising his voice. “It’s only a matter of time before the daemons start noticing the wires. Keep them back. Use your fires and detonate the explosives if they pass without setting them off!”
It was impressive to watch Jax and Hansa in action, literally managing the fight. The synergy between them reminded me of Caspian and me. Our minds were perfectly tuned to one another, our reflexes sharp. Their warfare experience, however, was far superior to mine. I only had a handful of battles on Neraka to my credit. Hansa and Jax had won entire wars before they got stuck here. They’d led armies to victory and vanquished their foes.
So, if either Jax or Hansa told us to aim here or shoot there, we did it. No questions asked.
We were so wrapped up in keeping the fifteen hundred or so daemons left at bay, we didn’t even notice the Adlets coming in until screams erupted from the northeastern ridge. I turned my True Sight on and immediately saw what was happening, seconds before Ryker announced it:
“Adlets are here!”
There were dozens of them, with rich and beautiful reddish fur coats, giant frames, and lethal jaws. They plowed through the daemon squadrons on that side, their fangs tearing into every limb in their path. They growled as they engaged in a spine-chilling bloodbath. I couldn’t help but chuckle when I noticed the freed pit wolves’ reaction—sheer delight, as they yelped at the Adlets, then proceeded with their rampage.
“I think it’s safe to say the northeast and the east are, for the time being, fully covered,” I said.
“About damn time!” Hansa smirked, then pointed her arrow south.
A fourth round of explosions burst through that side. Daemons pushed through, jumping over the fresh corpses of the second line of attack. “This is the third line,” I muttered. “Extra armor on them.”
“Go for the necks, the sides, the joints. That armor doesn’t cover everything,” Jax replied.
We stretched our bows once more and released a flurry of poisoned arrows. We’d gone through half of our arsenal at this point. We hit the right spots. The projectiles didn’t kill the daemons right away. They grunted from the pain and broke the stems off, but they continued to make their way up. However, in less than a minute, they started collapsing, their veins blackened and their mouths foaming.
“Reload!” Hansa barked. “Burning tips this time.”
“Harper, hit the fifth string of mines. Let’s go preemptive on these bastards,” Jax said.
I nodded and aimed my arrow at the fifth string of explosive devices we’d set up on the southern ridge. The grunts had already passed through the first four and were steadily approaching the fifth. One flaming arrow was enough to cause a chain reaction. The mines exploded in steady, fast succession.
One… two… three… four… all the way to the western ridge. Ragnar Peak shuddered from the deflagration. Dozens of daemons perished. But the third line of attack wasn’t dead yet. They were persistent fiends—I had to give credit where it was due.
“Ready!” Hansa shouted, and we stretched our bows again and aimed at the incoming daemons, now less than a hundred yards away from the fortress. “Fire!”
We released a round of poisoned arrows this time, then quickly reloaded and followed up with flaming ones. I used my True Sight and aimed for the biggest of the mercenaries—the generals.
I’d learned something from Hansa’s account of the wars against Azazel. You cut off the head, and the body will flounder.
So, I pulled on the tail of a poisoned arrow and searched through the third line of attack for the biggest and baddest of their generals. I pressed my lips into a thin line and ignored the little droplet of sweat trickling down my temple.
Deep breath through the nose and—shoot!
The arrow whistled through the air, between daemon heads and thick trees, in a perfect line. It caught one of the generals right in his throat, his head turned to the side as he yelled orders at his grunts, eighty yards away from me.
He gripped his punctured throat, blood gurgling from his gaping mouth. Within thirty seconds, he was down, flat on his face and convulsing. Another twenty seconds later, he was dead, and I’d already reloaded another poisoned arrow and pointed at the next big boy on the ground.
Deep breath. Shoot!
Avril
The Adlets coming in to assist us were not enough to stop the daemons’ advance up the mountain. Despite their size and ferocity, they could only do so much against armored mercenaries. The worst part was that the third line of attack was making progress, having spotted what was left of our explosive devices and avoiding them as they made their way toward the fortress.
Patrik, Ryker, and Laughlan did a fine job of taking down incoming Death Claws on the northern wall. Given their thinning numbers, it was a safe bet to conclude that we’d delivered significant damage to the daemons’ airborne hostiles. Patrik’s blue fires swished across the sky, hitting the Claws before they even got close to the fortress walls.
The last thing he wanted was another instance of a flying beast hurling toward us in its deadly plunge, and Scarlett jumping out again to divert its trajectory, risking her life in the process. So he drew deep breaths, muttered his Druid spells, and shot the Claws with all his blue-fiery might.
On the other sides, our teams were hard at work keeping the incoming daemons at bay. However, it was only a matter of time before the fiends finally broke through our last lines of defense and reached the fortress walls. We needed to cause more damage in their third line, and the remaining mines were a good bet.
I lit up an arrow and stretched my bow, aiming it at one of the mines—specifi
cally, one of the few that was within close range of the incoming daemons. I released the arrow and watched it shoot through the air, flicking past several grunts before it lodged itself into the mine. The fire was quick to spread and react with the chemicals.
The mine exploded, tearing the ground beneath it and several daemons around it apart. I reloaded and prepared to shoot the next mine on the same ridge. That one was closer to the others in its chain. Chances were that it was going to ignite the entire set if I set it alight.
I shot the second burning arrow, then stilled for a split second, hearing a familiar whistle. I saw the steel-tipped arrow headed toward me and ducked. It missed my head by inches, but it cut off a lock of my hair in its flight. I cursed under my breath, then looked behind me to see where the arrow had gone.
It was stuck between two blocks of stone in the western wall, less than a foot away from Vesta’s leg. She froze, gawking at it, then looked at me, visibly confused.
As if time slowed down for a few seconds, my mind processed what was about to happen next. That was just one arrow coming from the daemons. More would follow shortly. My breath was cut short, and I quickly took my shield off my back and slipped it onto my right arm, leaving my left arm to pull on the bow.
“They’ve got archers!” I shouted. “Keep your shields up!”
Not two seconds after I announced that, a flurry of whistles erupted from below. Hundreds of arrows came at us in a slightly arched trajectory. We brought our shields up just in time. Tap! Tap! Tap! The arrows poked and scratched at the stainless steel and meranium discs.
“Reload now! Fire!” Hansa ordered.
We had to move fast, before the daemons reloaded. Suddenly, the stakes were even higher, and I feared they’d yet to reach the metaphorical ceiling. I remembered Harper’s barriers as I got up and aimed at the row of daemon archers, who were partially shielded by the third line of attack.
“Harper! Your barrier might come in handy here!” I called out to her, then released and killed one of the archers at the back, approximately fifty yards away from us.
“Ugh, I can try,” she replied, then shot an arrow. “Move quick, they’re reloading. The third line is covering them!”
“Let’s get rid of the third line, then!” Jax said. “Ryker, Laughlan, Caia! Detonate the mines! We’ll handle the archers!”
Another round of arrows came swishing in from the daemons. We ducked and put our shields up. Someone cried out in the courtyard. I looked down and saw one of the Imen collapsing, riddled with arrows. One had gone straight through his neck. We couldn’t save him, and the thought made my blood simmer.
I reloaded and sprang back up, while the Druids cast blue fires near the mines we’d set up at the forty-yard mark down the mountain. I aimed for another archer and got him right in the eye. Heron released a poisoned arrow, then slipped down to take a short breather. He’d been firing those things like crazy. He’d chosen his brief moment of respite well. A third wave of arrows came in.
Our shields went up. The steel tips never reached us but got two of the Imen below in the legs. Velnias rushed to give them first aid, slapping handfuls of healing paste onto their wounds. The Imen boys cried out from the pain but were soon back in front of their hatches.
When the fourth round of arrows came down on us, Harper summoned all the sentry strength she had and stood up. She grunted as she pushed out a barrier pulse. It radiated outward, and it was, by far, the most potent of all the energy pulses she’d ever released. It broke most of the arrows in half, midair. The others lost their trajectory and just hit the ground.
Harper breathed out, then quickly resumed her archery. “I’ll need a little bit more energy to put out another one of those,” she said, “and not one of you can spare any, given what we’re dealing with.”
I aimed a poisoned arrow at one of the daemons in the third line, now thirty yards away. I got him in the neck, just as one of the Druids managed to ignite one of the mines. It caused a devastating chain reaction, aided by the fires already burning from previous attempts. Ragnar Peak was rocked by the explosions, the ground shaking beneath us as we all prepared to reload.
“Use the explosive heads this time,” Hansa shouted.
We did as we were instructed, then aimed at the incoming line of hostiles. Many were left behind in tatters, including several dozen archers. Plenty were left standing, reaching into their quivers for another round of arrows.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Heron hissed and shot his first.
It hit an archer in the chest and detonated, spreading him over twenty yards. The blowback got others killed or severely injured. I chuckled, then followed up in the same area with another explosive arrow. More bloody gunk was left where archers had stood until a few seconds earlier.
The Adlets continued to work their way through the north and eastern ridges, but we were still woefully outnumbered. Their surviving archers mounted their bows and released another wave of steel-tipped arrows.
“Incoming!” I shouted, then ducked, putting my shield up.
Heron and I bumped shoulders. We could see each other smiling through our masks. We both nodded, then checked on Rush and Amina, who were several feet farther down the wall. They had a millennia-old bone to pick with the daemons, and despite their still-weakened states, both Maras were energized and determined, their state of mind visible in the speed with which they reloaded and the accuracy of their aim. That was a cool couple to marvel at, in my book.
“Avril, do you know what keeps me going right now?” Heron breathed, loading another explosive arrow.
“The thought of having another bedroom all to ourselves for an entire night?” I replied, then got up and released my bow.
The projectile went through two daemons, one after the other. It exploded as soon as it pierced the first one, but, given its speed, it continued well into the second. They both disintegrated, swallowed by the bright orange flames.
I gave Heron a sideways glance and found him grinning beneath his mask as he stretched his bow and fired another shot. Boom!
“Like I said before, you know me so well,” he muttered.
I would’ve laughed, but the urgency of our situation was heightened by the speed with which the daemons were getting significantly closer to the fortress. We were going to run out of arrows soon, and the daemons kept coming. No matter how many of them we blew to pieces or shot down, more came from behind—snarling, growling, and determined to capture us.
I heard Hansa shout. “Reload!”
But something caught my eye—movement below in the woods, just twenty yards from our location. Arrows whistled through the air. We raised our shields and blocked the incoming projectiles, but I kept my gaze focused on a shrub. It rustled and trembled, then moved upward. I gasped, realizing that it had been covering a hidden hatch.
Daemon mercenaries were just feet away from it. Short arrows were shot from inside. Several daemons came down. I couldn’t see from that angle, but whoever was coming out through the hatch was an ally.
“Heron, look!” I breathed, pointing at them.
Heron paused in the middle of reloading to follow my gaze. He then nodded to another spot, farther to the left. “There’s more than one!” he said.
Indeed, upon second visual inspection, there were tens of those hatches built into the ground, expertly camouflaged by the foliage. There were most likely more of them on the other sides of the mountain.
“Can anyone else see the hatches opening?” I asked, raising my voice for the others in our team to hear.
“Yup, confirming eight on our side!” Harper replied a few seconds later.
“Twelve on the western slope!” Vesta added.
“Six on the north!” Scarlett confirmed.
“Nine on this side!” Heron chimed in. “I think they’re friendly.”
“No kidding!” Zane shot back, visibly amused. “They just took down six third-liners in one round!”
We released another round of ex
plosive arrows, this time aiming farther down the mountain so as not to hurt our unexpected helpers. A couple of Death Claws screamed above, engulfed in blue flames, before they plummeted into the courtyard, where Dion and Alles killed them off.
“Who are they, though?” Heron muttered, frowning as he reached down to his side for an arrow.
“I don’t know, but—”
The clang of a metal hatch opening somewhere in the courtyard behind us made me still for a second. Both Heron and I turned around, then found ourselves equally stunned. There were hatches hidden beneath the stone slabs in the courtyard. Four of them, to be precise, one of which was just a couple of feet away from the fountain.
“What in the…” Heron’s voice trailed off, as we finally saw our surprise helpers.
Imen. Dozens of them, pouring into the courtyard. One of them, in particular, stood out—tall and slender, with bushy blond hair, ginger freckles, and piercing green eyes. He looked young, in his late teens, wearing the smile of a permanently mischievous boy.
All of them were armed to the teeth, carrying extra crossbows and quivers loaded with hundreds of short arrows.
“Good morning to ya!” the young Iman greeted us. “You’re all probably wondering what we’re doin’ here!”
“We would, if we had the time to do that!” Hansa shot back, then stretched her bow and released another arrow.
Heron and I did the same, launching a pair of explosive arrowheads at two daemon archers. The Imen from the hatches nearby followed up with a flurry of short arrows, taking down a dozen more of the third-liners covering the archers behind them.
“Okay, well, long story short, I’m Wyrran. I lead the rebels of Harbir, to be precise,” the young Iman replied, then motioned to his teammates to distribute the extra crossbows and arrows, while four of them kept taking out more quivers from the open hatches in the courtyard. “We’ve heard about you, about Draconis. The southerners told us where to find you, so we thought we’d come by to help.”