Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (80 page)

They were going to lose.

* * *

Faye stalked towards the line of dark Reavers. They were the backbone of their army, the men and women who issued the nightmarish mist, creating this chaos. Eight huge thieves moved at her side. They wore leather vests that exposed the knotted scars of the bloodshot eye on their upper arm. She knew how fearsome they looked, stalking forward like death. Just then, a ratty looking thief with Darkeye’s badge, who’d been overlooking the carnage and obviously in charge of protecting the summoning Reavers, caught her advance. Nervously, he elbowed the others and a fan of bows rippled through the ranks of Darkeye thugs. They looked relieved to see her.

Two dozen,
she counted distantly.

“Officer Faye Silverus,” the ratty-man sniveled, “thank the blasted heavens you are here! The battle is turning and you are a sight for sore eyes in this fetid hell-hole. But with you at our side…” And he grinned as if already victorious as she broached the last few paces. Without flinching, Faye stabbed the man in the stomach with a long hidden dagger that had been pressed to the inside of her forearm. She didn’t break stride, moving towards the Reavers.

Confused, he fell to the ground.

The rest weren’t so easily confused and chaos erupted.

Her men leapt to defend her, and the fighting became a blur. Faye’s only thought, only vision, was of those dark Reavers casting that perpetual mist. She cut down the first one-stripe Reaver and ducked a fireball, slitting the next man’s throat. “Enough!” A tall, dark thief bellowed, blocking her killing spree. She sliced but he was surprisingly nimble and parried her blade, throwing her back. “Stop this madness! You’re a part of the clan—what do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know Darkeye will have your head on a pike for this?”

She cocked her head, as if confused. “Precisely.”

Her crossbow had been drawn, and she fired three thick darts into the man’s neck. The tall thief choked, gripping the arrow’s shafts, then garbled something and fell over lifeless, his handsome face and bright brown eyes now vacant.

“Let him come…” she seethed, knowing the price of her betrayal.

Shouts sounded as more Darkeye brutes leapt at her. Many cried out words and questions of anger and protest, but Faye didn’t care or answer as she cut ruthlessly into their ranks. Their blades sliced at her, but she was fluid and one with the mist and shadows. Where they struck, blades clanged off her impregnable armor. She scored cuts along her arm, and two skimmed past her face cutting shallow grooves, but it only fueled her thirst for blood.

At last, and finally, it was done. The mist from the dark Reavers dissipated. With it, the cries still continued, and the vapor still clung, but at least they would have a chance now. A slim chance, but a chance. Besides, her only real concern was whether she would be able to find Darkeye in all this madness. Three huge men moved out of the mist, wandering over the dead thieves, their
brothers
only moments ago. With faces like hewn stone, each sporting scars from a thousand fights, they were far from pretty, but they were hers and loyal to the bone. She smiled at them. They were the ones she’d encountered in the dark pit of The Lair of the Beast. They knuckled their foreheads in respect then smiled back. She counted them. Five out of the eight officers sworn to her had died, but three was better than none.

Finally, it was done.

Finally, she would see Darkeye dead.

* * *

Just like that, the regenerating mist ended, but still it lay over everything. The cries continued. Gray felt Ayva and Zane huddle closer to his side as the sounds and flashes of Darkwalkers narrowed in closer and closer.

They were surrounded.

He looked at them, exhausted to his bones and beyond. They exchanged a knowing final glance, having given it everything they had when…

A burst of fire so bright that it seared his eyes shot over Gray’s shoulder and burned a clean path through the mist. A dozen, then two dozen, then a hundred more streams of fire burst behind it, scorching the thickening mist like a burning sun. Gray looked over his left shoulder and saw his grandfather.

“We’re here, my boy,” he said. Gray felt a wave of relief quickly overtaken by awe as, behind Ezrah, a hundred Reavers in scarlet robes stood—Dagon and Ethelwin with hands extended, rivers of red fire flowing forth from each to match their rank.

Ayva and Zane pulled Gray to his feet and watched as the mist broke. And in their place, Gray saw
real
clouds.
No…
he shook his head, realizing the clouds were moving too fast.
White creatures.
Gray found his feet. The white beasts soared through the air, growing closer, their shapes resolving. He recognized their forms.
More phoxes
. At their head, Darius rode upon his gryphon with the Matriarch right behind. The rogue hooted and hollered, whipping his leaf-blade above his head in triumph.

As the mist parted, the Darkwalkers were revealed.

The phoxes shrieked in unity. A thousand cries of ravenous hunger filled the air as they descended like hail upon the Darkwalkers, ravishing the evil beasts in a flurry of white feathers and translucent talons. Suddenly, a huge Darkwalker leapt from the mist. Fire rained upon the beast from nearby Reavers. But the flames bounced off its gleaming obsidian skin, useless. The huge nightmarish creature tore through their ranks, killing with its dozens of taloned limbs. Devari bounded towards the beast boldly, but their blades pinged off its skin. They leapt back, but the creature was too quick. It sliced two across the waist, dropping them to the ground, and another two it impaled upon its black, spear-like arms, holding them high in the air. Abruptly, the creature’s dozen eyes looked down, having cleared a bloodied swath around it.

Hannah stood beneath the writhing evil, rooted in horror.

“No!”
Zane bellowed.

Gray reached inside, summoning the flow.

Listen,
Morrowil beckoned again.

He released that strange breath again, giving into the sword. The steel vanished and Gray cut. Three slashes in the air—just like he had upon the Gates, but this time he
knew
what he was doing. Three golden arcs of wind flew from his blade. The Darkwalker’s featureless face parted to reveal a maw with dripping black fangs. It reached for Hannah. But the wind raced as well. It cut, slicing limbs from the creature’s body. The two dead and suspended Devari fell to the ground and the reaching arm was severed.

The creature roared in fury, turning and lunging at Gray.

Too fast,
he thought in sheer panic.

Ezrah cried out. A flood of water filled the air, crashing against the beast then freezing into a pillar of ice. The beast was only slowed as it shattered the ice and lunged the last pace. Before Gray could raise Morrowil, a white blur plummeted from the sky crashing into the beast and smashing it into the ground with an ear-piercing cry. When sand and fog cleared, Gray saw the massive Darkwalker was pinned beneath the Matriarch’s huge weight. The equally colossal Darkwalker flailed its dozens of sharp limbs and shrieked—but its talons were useless. They ripped at the Matriarch, but the giant phox didn’t seem to care. Gray saw the Matriarch’s form blur where the Darkwalker’s claws struck, as if turning to wind and then flesh once more. The Matriarch’s pure white eyes widened with primal hatred as she gave a single loud screech and plowed her razor-sharp horns into the Darkwalker’s gut, thrashing it to pieces. Dark blood splayed onto the desert sand, and the beast let out a dying groan—then vanished altogether, as if never there.

Through the disappearing mist, and the shrieks of Darkwalkers, Gray saw a figure.

Faye.

Her armor was even more bloodied than before. In one hand, she gripped her long, curved sword, and in her other fist she held a severed head. Casually, she threw it to the ground and looked up, finding his gaze. Pulling back her cowl, she eyed him. A lingering smile traced her pretty face, her dark-rimmed eyes amused and a bit remorseful. Abruptly, a horde of phoxes descended, colliding with a swarm of screeching Darkwalkers and obscuring his view. When they tumbled away, Faye was gone. He felt a strange absence, sensing that she was truly gone.

Another loud thud rattled the earth.

Zane held a ball of fire in his fist, red and angry, Ayva a sphere of brilliant gold, and Gray forced his heavy arms to lift Morrowil—even Hannah summoned a shred of her power. But each power fizzled as Gray turned to see the rogue, riding upon the back of a huge gryphon, its white feathered wings flapping as its lion body clawed at the sand beneath it.

“Darius…” Ayva breathed.

Laughing, the rogue dismounted smoothly and rushed forward. Gray found himself smiling as he embraced Darius. Pulling back, he shook his head.
“How?”

“With luck, pure terror, and a bit of charm,” the rogue answered.

The tide has been turned,
Gray realized. The last of the army of Darkwalkers cried out, clashing with the white phoxes, their translucent claws and horns brutally killing the black beasts. As they fought, the phoxes
blurred
with each strike. It was too fast to make out, but Gray’s gaze crinkled, embracing his power, and he saw the truth just as a dozen paces away a big Darkwalker leapt upon a smaller, white phox. Just like the Matriarch, the phox
blurred
disappearing into a gust of wind. Sifting through the black nightmare’s claws, it reappeared on the Darkwalker’s back as flesh and bone once more, slashing. A dozen more phoxes rained down, biting and tearing into the Darkwalkers in a frenzied blur of white wind, shrieks cascading through the air.

“The way they move…” Ayva said in awe. “As if made of wind.”

Gray remembered the creature on the top of the book—a creature of wind.
Phoxes,
they were of his element,
his
creatures. It explained why he felt a strange affinity towards them, even now. And he realized, as they evaded the creature’s blows, they were
shifting
.
Of course,
he thought,
how else would an army of wind creatures fight?

Gray saw the Matriarch, the leader of the phoxes. Like children, the other phoxes all fell in behind her, landing silently. As the last of the phoxes alighted upon the desert sands, silence settled over all. Reavers, Devari, and guards eyed the hordes of white creatures with respect and trepidation for there were thousands of them. They watched the humans with curious, uncertain, silver gazes that reflected the morning light. Their deer-shaped heads bore small thorns where ears should be, and twisted side to side, like inquisitive birds. Most were on four legs, but some rose up on to their heavier hind legs, which made them appear more human-like. He saw Hannah scuffle closer to him and Zane, unnerved. Ayva held her ground, as did Darius.

The Matriarch’s footsteps rattled the ground, stepping forward.

She was almost a different creature entirely—though still white, her huge wings were black, like huge furry feelers, and her eyes were swirling white orbs the size of Gray’s head. Horns the girth of a man extended from her forehead. Though translucent, they glowed, filled with magic of the spark.
No,
he remembered,
not the spark, but the flow.
That was the reason they could not be killed by a Darkwalker’s touch alone.

Without warning, the Matriarch roared, a cry that was reedy yet deep, making even the hardened Devari flinch. Abruptly, Darius broke from them, moving forward.

Ayva snagged his arm. “What are you doing?!”

“We’re old friends,” he replied with a smile.

Gray watched dumbfounded as the rogue ambled forward to stand like a child beneath the Matriarch, and he reached out a hand. The beast eyed him with her swirling white eyes, blinking. She looked ready to take off his head in one simple snap from her elongated snout with its rows of glistening sharp teeth. Then, astonishingly, she leaned forward and nuzzled Darius’ outstretched hand. A throaty gurgle emanated from deep within her throat.

“It’s purring…” Zane remarked in disbelief.

Darius stroked her huge deer-like head, rubbing the long snout.

Just as abruptly, the Matriarch cawed, and its giant black wings beat gusts of wind, kicking up flurries of sand as it rose into the sky, towards the burning sun. Its brood of phoxes flapped their small wings, trailing after. Moments later, they were specks on the horizon. Darius returned back at their side, wiping his hands upon his jacket cavalierly. “Well then, that was fun.”

Ayva strode forward. Darius lifted his chin as if expecting a compliment when she punched his arm.

“What was that for?”

“Why else do you think?” she huffed. “You could have gotten yourself killed! What in the seven hells of remwar were you thinking?”

Darius’ grimace became a smile. “You were worried about me, weren’t you?”