“Uh, guys?” I said, feeling my voice tremble, as shivers ran down my spine. It was becoming difficult to even look at the snowflake now, which meant the daemons were dangerously close.
Heron looked over his shoulder through his red lens. “Ah, crap,” he growled.
I could hear the rumbling of boots on the ground. We all looked back. My blood curdled, dread trickling through my veins like liquid fire. “Oh, crap,” I agreed, equally unsettled.
For those of us without red lenses, specifically Arrah and her Imen, a rippling mass of air could be seen coming after us at impressive speed. Not as fast as our indigo horses, but they’d definitely spotted us. I counted about three hundred daemons through my red lens, roughly. Cason, the overachieving son of Shaytan, was leading them with a satisfied sneer.
Their red eyes glistened with delight as they chased after us.
My stomach curled up in a painful twist. Oh, we were so screwed. Our worst-case scenario was coming true, it seemed. “How come we didn’t spot them sooner?” I muttered, then cursed under my breath. I blushed, instantly thinking what my mother would’ve thought if she’d heard me swearing like an ogre. Pray you get to see Maman after this!
“Your snowflake only now started to burn,” Scarlett said. “They must’ve kept their distance. We did slow down a bit, probably enough for them to catch up. They probably took our red lenses into account and didn’t want to get too close and spook us. Dammit, that Cason is a serious pain in my ass.”
“Our collective ass, darling,” Patrik replied, gritting his teeth.
“We need to make it into the fortress, and fast!” I said, then looked at Patrik. “You should go ahead, Druid, and start setting up whatever you can on your way up to the gates. Scarlett, Arrah, Dion, and Alles, you guys should go with him. You’ve got your proprietary explosives and whatnot. Heron, Hundurr, the rest of the Imen, and I can slow down a little and try to hold them back.”
“Nonsense!” Patrik shot back. “We’re all going! Once we reach higher ground, it’ll change the game in our favor, trust me!”
“I’m with the Druid on this one,” Arrah chimed in, then nudged her horse to go faster.
I took a few deep breaths, then stole a glance at Heron. He gave me a brief but reassuring smile, followed by a confident nod, making my heart skip a beat. “We’ve got this, Avril.”
“We most certainly do,” Scarlett replied, then went faster.
We dashed across the hard, grassless ground, with five hundred yards left between us and Ragnar Peak, and less than two hundred yards between us and the daemons. The one thought that stopped me from experiencing sheer dread in that moment was the fact that we were riding indigo horses. These creatures were fast and resilient. They’d had their little breather across the flatlands, but now it was time to speed up again.
Our mission was nowhere near over. We had to make it up to the fortress. This time, there was no room for failure. I exhaled sharply and leaned forward to get into a more aerodynamic pose, then clicked my teeth and pushed my heels into my stallion’s sides. The creature knew what I wanted. And it obliged.
With one last glimpse of Cason, hot on our trail, I shifted my focus onto what lay ahead, specifically on the four-hundred-yard race we had till we reached the stone steps leading up to the fortress.
I could hear the daemons roaring, their rapiers jingling in their scabbards and their boots thudding as they ran. But I chose to concentrate on the thundering hooves beneath us and the strategic advantage of fighting those horned bastards from a higher point. There was no way I was going to let this end here. Not now, not ever.
We’ve got this.
Heron
Our horses almost flew over the ground, going faster than I’d ever seen them go before. They, too, could feel the threat rising behind us. They, too, could hear the daemon boots on the ground. The grunts and yells. The mass of hostiles coming for our outnumbered asses.
These animals were truly impressive, and their prowess didn’t consist of speed, only. Oh, no, as soon as we reached the base of Ragnar Peak, our indigo horses climbed each set of stone stairs with mind-blowing agility and ease. Their hooves clicked on the limestone steps, taking two to three of them at a time. My stallion panted but didn’t give up. He knew what he had to do in order for the both of us to survive.
The Imen went ahead, using their swords to cut down all the extended branches of trees and shrubs making our climb more difficult. We had to reach the fortress at the top before the daemons got to the base. One quick glance over my shoulder made my stomach churn. Cason and his fiends were less than two hundred yards away.
Arrah, Patrik, and Scarlett stayed behind by several feet. Arrah dropped small satchels of explosives on her way up, at a distance of five to eight feet on both sides of the stairs. The Druid muttered spells under his breath and tossed some of his own herb and crystal mixtures back at the peak’s base. They split open as soon as they hit the ground, making me doubt his magic skills for a second.
“Are they supposed to do that?” I asked, unable to hide my skepticism as I continued my climb, with Avril right in front of me.
“What do you think?” Patrik shot back, oscillating between amusement and offense.
“Well, okay, I don’t know what to—”
I didn’t get to finish that sentence. A loud bang tore through the air. I let out a short cackle, watching as the first three daemons of Cason’s crowd stepped in the herb and crystal mixture. It instantly exploded, throwing them back and tearing limbs off in the process.
“Holy crap!” Avril gasped, stunned by the effect that Patrik’s explosives had. “Holy freaking crap!”
Patrik chuckled and continued tossing his highly explosive linen satchels from the bag he’d mounted behind him, on the saddle. “I found some much-needed ingredients in that cabin’s pantry this morning, so I decided to get creative.”
“You’re an artist, Patrik!” I replied, continuing our race up the stairs. “I take back every single doubt I had about you!”
“What, there was more than this one just now?” Patrik retorted.
I stifled a grin and kept going, constantly shifting my focus between what was ahead and what came after us from behind. We were halfway up already. Another explosion prompted me to look back. Ten more daemons had been obliterated in an explosion at the bottom. Some of Arrah’s little “gifts” had gone off. The first set of stairs below crumbled, making the surviving daemons fall flat on their faces and slip back down with the dirt and rubble slide.
“My satchels are timed,” Arrah briefly explained. “Well, the first round, anyway. I added the final ingredient before I tossed each projectile. A couple of minutes later, boom!”
“Chemical reactions, one ingredient reacts with another and it causes both to ignite,” Scarlett muttered, then motioned for Hundurr to keep going. The pit wolf was reluctant and was tempted to go back down there and tear the daemons a new one. “Come on, Hundurr! Keep going! Forget them!”
“Yeah, I’m out of those, though,” Arrah replied, then flipped open another bag on the left side of her saddle and started tossing out different, slightly smaller satchels. She made sure to throw them at least twenty to fifty yards back.
Each satchel hit the ground or the stone stairs a couple of times before exploding. Each detonation left behind a large, smoking hole and caused a chain reaction on the bottom side of Ragnar Peak. Landslide after landslide came down, sweeping the climbing daemons off their feet and forcing them back to where they’d come from.
“Obviously, you’re not running out of tricks yet,” I muttered.
Arrah grinned, then threw back five more of those satchels. They only needed a jostle or two before exploding upon impact. “Plenty more where those came from!” she said.
“You’re outnumbered!” Cason’s voice thundered from below. “You won’t make it through the night! I will get up there and I will tear that fortress down, little mice!”
I looked down and saw
him sneering at us, though he did stay back, leaving his daemon grunts to do all the hard work of trying to climb the peak and either dying, getting maimed in explosions, or being thrown back by the landslides. But as much as I hated to admit it, there was some truth to his words.
Our explosive resources were finite. We were going to run out at some point. Then, all that remained between us and the two hundred and fifty or so daemons left were the walls of the fortress, now just a hundred yards away. I could almost taste the temporary safety of its solid, thick stone walls and heavy iron gates.
“I don’t know, Cason,” Scarlett shouted, without bothering to look over her shoulder. “From where I am, it’s not looking good for you. We’ve taken down bigger and badder monsters than you before. Come morning, it’ll be your bones that will be scattered on Ragnar Peak!”
I heard Cason laugh. He was going for mockery, but there was a higher pitch in there that didn’t quite fit. There was a tinge of doubt and fear that maybe, just maybe what Scarlett had just said would come true. He didn’t like it. He barked orders at his daemons, who continued in their attempt to climb the peak.
“Who’s got some water to spare?” Patrik asked. Arrah tossed him her reserve. Patrik removed its cork, muttered a spell under his breath, then shoved some powders into it and tossed it high in the air behind us.
The water bladder exploded in a bright blue cloud that stretched over the crowd of daemons and released a brief shower of instant rain. It was enough to make Cason and his daemons visible again. They were taken by surprise, but didn’t relent.
Arrah and Patrik kept tossing their explosives at them, not only causing more mudslides and sudden deaths on impact, but also destroying the only set of stairs leading up to the fortress.
“The others will have to find other routes,” Patrik said, as if reading my mind. “Besides, they have the dragon.”
“Speaking of which…” Avril’s voice trailed off as she looked up and to her left. I followed her gaze and felt a sudden surge of energy fill me to the brim.
Coming in fast and furious was Blaze in full dragon form. His black wings were stretched out as he glided on the western winds. I spotted the others down on the ground, about three hundred yards away, hot on the dragon’s trail.
The Imen cheered, while I glanced over my shoulder and had the pleasure of seeing Cason freeze. He was a little too far for me to see his expression, but I was willing to bet that the color had drained from his face.
Blaze let out a single spine-tingling roar that echoed across the flat ground around the peak. The daemons scrambled both up and down the base. Some wanted to flee, while others looked for cover from the rain of fire that the dragon was about to unleash on them. Only then did I notice the sun’s glimmering reflection on the daemons’ shields.
They’d brought meranium shields with them. However, that wasn’t going to be enough to save them.
Arrah pulled out her bow and a quiver of arrows, then slowed down on the last set of steps before the fortress. “You all go ahead. I’ve got one last round for these monsters,” she said.
“Listen, for an Azure Heights maid, you sure know your warfare!” I croaked, then watched her shoot a flurry of projectiles from her bow. Each arrow whistled through the air and hit both shields and daemons, six hundred yards down.
The arrowheads exploded upon impact, just like the satchels, taking down about thirty more daemons. A second roar from Blaze let Cason know that he was getting dangerously close, while Cason’s daemon army was dwindling before his very eyes.
“So, who’s more screwed now? Us or them?” I chuckled, shaking my head as we reached the fortress’s black iron gates.
Patrik sighed. “Both, really. We’re—”
“It was a rhetorical question!” I berated him. “Of course we’re all screwed!”
I knew Cason wasn’t going to be the only one coming for us. Soon enough, the whole of Ragnar Peak would be swarming with daemons from all neighboring areas, hunters and soldiers alike, answering the call of one of Shaytan’s sons.
But we were no longer alone, either. For now, I chose to focus on getting us all inside the fortress and securing our position there. Everything else could wait until we shut the gates behind us and reunited with the rest of our team.
“You were right, Heron,” Avril breathed. I looked up at her and noticed the half smile stretching her lips. “We’ve got this.”
Just then, a third roar from Blaze rippled through the air, loud enough to make me shudder.
This is it.
Harper
At first, we’d seen Ragnar Peak rising in the distance. Tall, majestic, and boldly reaching toward the sky, the fortress at the top almost beckoning us to hurry up and get there. But then I saw something I’d both hoped for and dreaded, at the same time, since we’d first left the Imen village in the south. I saw Avril and the rest of our team, joined by Arrah and ten other Imen, along with Scarlett’s eerily friendly pit wolf—that was the part I’d hoped for—followed by a throng of daemons as our friends made their way up to the fortress.
My True Sight did not deceive me. The daemons were being led by a prince, one of Shaytan’s sons, judging by his royal attire and gold-threaded horns, though I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t on the king’s Council. I’d shouted at Blaze, who flew overhead with Caia and Laughlan on his back, telling him to go ahead. Our friends needed us.
When the first explosions tore through the base of the stone mountain, I held my breath.
The rest of us were on horses. A good night’s sleep and some food had certainly helped our delegation members in their recovery. They were nowhere near full capacity yet, but they seemed a lot more focused. Caspian and I led the group, flanked by Pheng-Pheng, Jax, and Hansa. Fiona, Zane, and Velnias were in the middle, followed by the remaining members of the Druid delegation.
I spotted Avril and her team just yards away from the fortress’s main gates, with daemons still struggling to get past the bottom half of the peak. I could see Arrah and Patrik throwing all kinds of explosives at the fiends, disrupting their climb, tearing into the only complete staircase to the top and causing landslides that pushed the rest of the daemons back to the base.
“We need to keep heading for the fortress,” I said, our horses galloping across the hard, dry ground. The Ekar bird flew close to me, until I reached a hand out and its claws gripped my wrist. “Bring us Neha and the Manticores,” I whispered. It blinked several times, then took flight and flew to the north, where the red sand dunes undulated in the simmering distance.
“Who’s that leading the daemons?” Jax asked, squinting. He, too, had noticed the royal garb. “He’s wearing gold threads.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Zane narrowing his eyes through red lenses. We were now about two hundred yards away and getting closer with each second that slipped by.
“Ugh, dammit,” Zane muttered. “That’s Cason, tenth in line. Overachieving idiot.”
“Is he that bad?” Hansa replied, pursing her lips as she nudged her indigo stallion to go faster.
“He never quits; that’s the most annoying problem with him. He just never, ever quits. He’s persistent to the point where I think even my father wouldn’t mind seeing him get killed, just so he wouldn’t have to put up with his badgering,” Zane replied. Fiona stifled a chuckle.
“Let me guess, he used to chase you and the older brothers around when you were kids?” I asked, somewhat amused and trying to picture those horned fiends as children—and miserably failing. All I could come up with were miniaturized versions of Cason, Cayn, and the others, just as bulky and vicious.
“Not only is he big, he’s relentless,” Zane said, shaking his head. “We tried losing him in the Valley of Screams a couple of times. He never forgave us.”
“Well, for now he’s still stuck at the bottom, and our only clear way up is currently being blown to smithereens,” Jax replied, looking ahead.
Just then, another explosion tore
through the middle of the stairs, spewing dirt and rocks outward. It rained fire and ashes on the daemons trying to get ahead, and then the angled ground slipped from under them and they found themselves sliding back down. Had it not been such a dire situation, it would’ve been downright comical to watch.
“Our only chance is the fortress,” I said. “I sent the Ekar out. We’ll need to hold out for a couple of days, at most, before reinforcements arrive.”
“Ramin is fast,” Pheng-Pheng breathed. “My mother will be on her way by nightfall, for sure.”
“With our team reunited and the extra hands on deck, we should be fine,” Hansa replied with a nod, then grinned as she looked up and saw Blaze swooping in. “Uh-oh, it’s about to get hot down there!”
“Look, Harper!” Caspian said, narrowing his eyes at the peak’s base. I followed his gaze and found myself smirking.
“It’s not complete, but I think the horses can pull it off,” I replied, then glanced over my shoulder at Vesta. “Hey, warrior fae! Think you can coax some winds into helping us jump over the bigger gaps on that western ridge?” I asked, pointing at the fractured set of narrow stairs leading up to the fortress.
She nodded. “I think so, yes! But we need the dragon to keep the daemons at bay.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about that anymore,” Hansa interjected with a dry chuckle.
“Whoa…” Vesta’s voice trailed off, her eyes widening as she saw Blaze in action once more. Last time she’d seen him in full force had been during our first encounter in the Valley of Screams. That seemed so long ago.
Amber and blue fireballs were launched from the dragon’s back. Caia and Laughlan were targeting the stronger daemons, specifically the ones who had made it three hundred yards up Ragnar Peak. One by one, the fiends were engulfed by flames and forced to drop and roll back down, screaming in agony.
The left flank of Cason’s daemons noticed us then. They drew their rapiers and darted toward our group but came to a sudden halt as Blaze’s enormous shadow covered them, followed by a curtain of fire. The dragon didn’t forgive anyone, as he circled around and returned for another session of “char the daemon”. His jaws opened wide, his giant fangs glistening in the sunlight as he spat a blazing inferno over the daemons.