Erra elbowed me. I flew back and rolled into a crouch, just in time to swipe her legs from under her. She fell. I struck her twice on the way down and withdrew.
Dark slashes scored her armor, like the strikes of a whip—places where Slayer connected. None looked deep enough to do any damage. Voron had promised me that the saber would slice through blood armor, given enough time, but so far Slayer wasn’t cutting it. If she’d been wearing regular armor, she would have been bleeding like a stuck pig. If wishes were money, the world would have no beggars.
Still something looked different about her. Something . . .
The spikes on her armor were gone.
I backed away. Where the hell did the spikes go?
Erra hefted her axe, her face demonic in its fury. Her chest heaved. My arms ached like they were about to fall off. A slow pain gnawed on my back, and when I turned the wrong way, something stabbed my left side with a hot spike. Probably a broken rib. That was okay. I was still on my feet.
The werefoxes launched themselves at Gale from the roof. They clung to him, biting and clawing. The fox on the left ripped out an arm.
Erra snarled. Gale dropped Darkness, shuddered, and plummeted to the ground, banging into the buildings as he fell, the foxes still clinging to him. Gale bounced once off the pavement and the rest of shapeshifters swarmed him.
Erra looked no worse for wear.
When out of options, mouth off. I nodded at Darkness, lying only twenty feet away. “Whoopsie. Did that hurt? Now there is only one.”
“One will be enough.” Erra grinned.
A small chunk of her armor broke from her shoulder and fell to the asphalt, turning liquid. I watched it sink into the snow. A tiny streak of vapor escaped and then it vanished into the white.
A crumb of her armor. Her blood. A drop of her blood.
Behind us, the snow churned by our feet marked our trail—we’d drawn a circle in the street and all the while we beat on each other, she’d been dripping blood from her armor.
A dark shadow loomed on the roof behind Erra. Curran.
“No!” I lunged at her, but it was too late.
He dived off the roof. Erra dodged at the last moment, but Curran’s paw connected to her skull. The blow took her off her feet. She flew, nearly plowing into me.
“Run!” I lunged at her prone body and stabbed with all my strength, again and again. “Run, Curran!”
Erra roared. Slayer’s blade kept glancing off.
A wall of red flames surged up from the snow, sealing the four of us from the shapeshifters. She’d locked us in a blood ward.
Erra rolled, knocking my legs from under me. I stumbled back and she jumped to her feet. Blood dripped from her cheekbone and poured from her mouth. The left side of her head was caved in, dented by Curran’s blow.
I lunged at her and ran right into the spike topping her axe. It took me in the stomach, just below my ribs. Pain exploded. I jerked free and she kicked me, driving me back into the snow. The axe jabbed through my left side. I screamed. She’d pinned me to the ground.
Erra spat blood and teeth and swung, as if throwing a baseball. Spikes shot from her armor, falling in a ragged line between Curran and me. The blood ward snapped up just as he charged and he crashed into it at full speed.
She’d halved the circle: her and me on one side, Darkness and Curran on the other.
“You want to rut with a half-breed,” she snarled. “Watch. I’ll show you exactly what he is.”
Curran spun toward the undead.
A torrent of magic burst from Darkness, tearing at Curran. The blood ward cut us off and I felt nothing—Curran got the full dose. He stumbled, shook once, as if flinging water from himself. His body shifted, growing leaner, slicker. Fur sprouted along his back.
This was it, the Darkness’s power. It would make Curran go wild.
I writhed under the axe, trying to break free. The Beast Lord took a step forward.