Eden's Creatures (25 page)

The result was worse than she could have imagined. The weary Fallen peeled off and fresh forces stepped up to attack the Faedin with a devil-compelled fury she had never seen before. Arms were ripped from sockets. Heads lopped from shoulders. Throats torn out.

Time stopped for Stassi as every terrifying detail came into sharp focus. Every bloodthirsty scream. Every violent death.

She found Julius, his mouth opening impossibly wide as he took a sword thrust through the back. Caliphy’s vengeful scream and lunge looked mired in molasses. Her resulting death even slower yet.

Everywhere Stassi looked, people were dying. Her people. In hideous and unspeakable ways.

Even the children.

She covered her mouth to stifle the grief-filled moan that clawed its way out of her throat.
Dear Maker, why is this happening?

“I’m sorry, Stassi.”

Stassi whipped her head to the side and snarled. She might not have the otherworldly answer at her disposal, but she knew the worldly one.

Bannon.

He, too, seemed transfixed by the scene happening below them as he hovered in the air next to her. His eyes turned her way. “It’s over, Stassi. You have lost. I am truly sorry that it had to come to this.”

“And what have you gained, Bannon? What was worth all of this?” she cried, spreading her arms wide.

“My freedom.”

He dove down toward an elevated section of ground behind the pit, and that’s when Stassi saw the human.

“Move!” Cal pushed and shoved in a desperate attempt to find Stassi, but it was no use. There were simply too many combatants. Fallen in the hundreds and outnumbering the Faedin three to one.

Where had they come from?

A snarling pair of fighters crashed into him, almost taking him to the ground. Cal whipped his bow around and shot the Fallen through the eye.

The Faedin — who Cal was shocked to see was Eduard the clothier — mumbled his thanks and ran off to find another battle.

Cal pressed on, never feeling so helpless in his life. What could he do? One body floundering adrift in the midst of a warrior race?

He nocked another arrow and scanned the endless wall before him. There had to be a way.

And then he saw Stassi. Her face a mantle of rage as she sped downward through the air in pursuit of someone.

Bannon, no doubt.

Cal ducked as a Faedin flyer dipped down from the sky directly overhead. He squinted against the sunlight and recognized Gilad. His arms shot into the air, waving frantically. “Gilad! Over here! Gilad!”

The warrior heard his call and dropped down next to him, his clothes and body drenched in blood.

“Take me to the pit, Gilad! Stassi is there!”

To the Faedin’s credit, he needed no more motivation. But, too late, Cal realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead of lifting Cal under his arms, Gilad snatched him by the shoulders, talons biting deep, and swung him off the ground.

Cal bit back the scream that tried to struggle free and bore the agonizing ride over the battlefield. Despite the pain, he couldn’t help but look down, and then he wished he hadn’t. A river of red ran over the countryside, carrying the lifeblood of the Faedin along with it.

Gilad suddenly cursed, and Cal pulled his eyes away to find the source of the warrior’s anger.

He found it easily.

Behind the pit, Stassi and Bannon were in a physical fight, struggling for the same thing — the man from the track who now sat helplessly tied to a tree.

Stassi fought valiantly for her people and her right to exist, but Bannon was much stronger. He backhanded her in a blow so forceful, she slammed against the trunk of a tree and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

With no emotion, Bannon walked away from her and went to the human. He quickly untied the struggling man and dragged him toward the pit.

“Put me down!” Cal bellowed.

Gilad swooped down low and dropped Cal before continuing on to fly directly at Bannon.

Cal rolled across the ground, stumbled to his feet and went after Stassi. She lay motionless, blood staining the edges of her silver hair red. “Stassi! Can you hear me?”

She stirred. “What’s… happening?”

Cal looked up. What could he tell her? That the Faedin were dying? That both Julius and Caliphy were dead? That he was at this very moment watching Gilad make a final, heroic run at Bannon? He winced as the Faedin warrior miscalculated and ended up on the receiving end of Bannon’s sword. The sharp metal punched a hole through the middle of Gilad’s chest and out through his back.

Gilad’s head slowly turned as he started to topple to the ground, looking for Stassi. His hand reached for her in his last, desperate moment, proving what the warrior would never have admitted in life. He loved her. Then again, perhaps even he had not known.

Cal told Stassi none of this, and could only watch in horror as Gilad slammed to the ground, and Bannon hauled the human over his shoulder.

“No!”

“Tell me!” Stassi demanded urgently, trying to get up. “Cal! My leg! I can’t move! I think my wings are broken, too.”

Cal barely heard her. He took off at a dead run toward Bannon, praying he could get there in time. Fear-induced adrenaline pushed him onward, his gaze focused on his target.

The traitor Faedin glanced back and saw Cal coming, causing him to race faster toward the pit.

Cal ran and dove through the air, but before his arms could wrap around Bannon, the warrior heaved his human captive into the middle of the blackened circle.

The man sat stunned for a moment, and it was a moment too long. The ground beneath him began to seethe in a turbulent churning. Ghostly fingers emerged from the pit and clutched at him — his clothes, his limbs, his hair. The man shrieked in horror as he tried desperately to get away, but the hands held firm, dragging him down, lower and lower. It seemed to take a lifetime, but finally, the man disappeared completely and his screams were silenced forever as the pit hardened over once again.

The fighting came to an abrupt stop and a sinister hush descended over the clearing.

For long moments, no one spoke. No one moved.

And then it started.

A low hum that vibrated beneath the earth. Cracks in the surface of the pit fractured and began to spread with loud snapping sounds. Steam hissed through the gaps, releasing black, smoky bubbles into the air. A larger hole opened up and an intense sulfur smell blasted forth, followed by a concussion so loud and powerful it pitched Cal to the ground.

And then, the inconceivable.

The head of an enormous serpent crashed through the crusty shell and issued a screech so devastating that Cal thought his mind would break.

T
he serpent swung its head from left to right, its sinewy body undulating as though in great distress. The screaming continued, louder and louder. Every cry felt like a thick needle jabbing straight into Cal’s brain. He rolled on the ground in agony, praying for it to stop.

But he knew he had to get to Stassi.

He could see her, lying on the ground, her head buried in her arms. Fighting through the pain, he crawled toward her. As he moved, he noticed dozens of Faedin warriors flying fast over the heads of the Fallen army on a direct path for the serpent.

How they could manage it with that noise, Cal had no idea, but the sight of them caused his heart to beat furiously with hope.

They swarmed in, and the great beast disappeared under a covering of white wings and screeched beneath their onslaught.

Yes! The Faedin were put here for this reason. To fight Gai’tan! They could not fail.

A violent shudder by the serpent flung several of the attacking Faedin back. Others were still latched onto the rubbery skin, stabbing, clawing and ripping the reptilian scales from its body in order to get to the vulnerable flesh underneath.

The serpent threw its head back, roared in pain and did the unthinkable. It slammed its gigantic body down to the ground to try and dislodge the warriors. Hundreds died in a single instant, crushed beneath the massive weight.

People screamed and fled as the serpent slithered through the mob. The fractured warriors followed in hot pursuit, flying in close to inflict as much damage as they could.

In an effort to escape, the serpent burrowed into the earth, heaving dirt and bodies into the air before disappearing from sight. Like a giant worm, it tunneled underground at tremendous speed back toward the pit.

Cal stood in shock at the sounds of a powerful underground collision beneath the Tree That Will Not Die. And then another.

What is the serpent doing?

The vast tree shook violently and groaned as it swayed from the harsh impacts down below. Dead branches broke off and crashed to the ground. Wood creaked and groaned. After a third hit, the tree started to tip forward.

“Run!” Cal shouted at the top of his lungs even though he knew no one could hear him from his place behind the pit.

Great roots were ripped from the black earth as the tree hit the ground with a thunderous boom.

To Cal’s horror, what looked like a sea of steaming lava boiled up out through the hole created by the fallen tree. The red river of death flooded rapidly out across the land in a swath of destruction that showed no mercy. Fiery fingers carved a relentless path, reaching for and killing everything in its wake.

Men, women and children — Fallen and Faedin alike — screamed as their skin blistered and burned. Cal looked on in helpless anguish, unsure what he could do to stop what was happening.

He glanced back at Stassi and she was sitting up now, tears running down her face, sobbing in agony.

They’re dying! They’re all dying! I’ve got to do something!

Despair turned to conviction. A white-hot wrath seared through him, scalding his mind, his heart and his soul. Fury consumed his body, coursing through his blood until he felt like he would combust into flames. He bellowed at the top of his lungs and a sharp pain exploded down his back. Dropping to his knees, he vomited, his stomach muscles clenching in uncontrollable spasms. All around him, people suffered and died while Cal emptied his stomach over and over.

And then, just as abruptly, it was over.

In the middle of hell, he felt the presence of heaven. A feeling of pure joy that flowed through him from the top of his head to his toes. He sat back on his feet, unable to grasp what was happening.

“Cal! Get up! The lava! It’s coming!”

Stassi’s scream sent him scrambling to stand, but he yelped in surprise when his feet lifted off the ground. An instinctual urge to shrug his shoulders came over him and an enormous pair of wings unfurled behind his back.

Stassi looked frozen in shock.

Cal had no time to be. The lava had reached their elevated shelf. He ran to Stassi, picked her up from the ground and lifted both of them into the sky, amazed that he knew how to work his new wings. Like an arm or a leg, they felt like a natural extension of him.

He hovered in the air and looked down.

“Oh, Cal,” Stassi moaned.

Groups of Faedin tried to run, but the runnels of fire took them down. Mated couples clung to each other, embracing as the burning liquid rolled over them. Warriors sacrificed their lives to give others a few more moments, some lifting children out of the red until they could hold no more.

The Elder need not have worried about the compassion of the Faedin, thought Cal. Their heroism in the face of such devastation could not be denied.

The lava continued to spread, moving past the clearing into the woods.

Farther and farther it went, extending its reach.

And then, a shock of cold air blasted across the land, harsh and brutal, cooling and hardening the molten river in its tracks and turning the serpent’s fiery landscape into a smoldering wasteland. Fat snowflakes swirled in the wind, hissing as they landed on the hot earth.

Winter had come to Faedin and Cal knew instantly what that meant.

The veil was gone.

And not just the veil, but the entire race of Faedin.

“Put me down,” Stassi ordered, her voice empty and cold.