The female sahanu snarled. The hyena pack tore across the bridge toward me.
Curran and the male werehyena collided. The werehyena struck at his neck. Curran avoided the blow and clawed at the male werehyena’s chest. The female raked her claws across his gray back. He snarled. They had no idea what Curran was capable of when he was seriously pissed off. They were about to find out.
An arrow clattered by my feet. The archers had woken up and realized they had a shot at me.
The first hyena lunged at me. I dodged the massive jaws and opened the side of its neck with my blade. The beast charged me and I kicked it. The hyena stumbled.
In half a second the whole pack would be on me.
I thrust my hand into the ward and detonated it. It shattered, like a pane of translucent red glass, the pieces falling down and melting into nothing.
Julie’s eyes snapped open. She cried out as the magic backlash hit her.
The leading hyena bit my thigh, sinking her teeth into me. Like being clamped by a bear trap. I stabbed straight down, severing the beast’s spine.
The second hyena leapt at me. A werewolf collided with her in midair, knocking her to the side. The hyena crashed down, its neck broken.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman lunging at me from the left, swinging an axe. She fell, cut down by a lightning-fast katana strike.
“Sharrim!” Adora smiled at me.
Derek howled. The two remaining hyenas turned toward him.
Eleven targets between me and Curran. I dipped my hand into the blood running down my thigh and forced it into shape. A blood dagger formed in my left hand. I started forward.
Across the bridge the two monstrosities tore into Curran. Bones crunched. The female werehyena’s left arm hung limp. A chunk of the male werehyena’s right side was missing, the wound red and raw. Blood drenched Curran’s fur. I couldn’t tell who was winning, but I knew who would be left standing. He would kill them both. If I got there in time, he would leave some for me.
Two women flanked me, each with a sword. Saber on my left, Katana on my right. To the left a man with a large mace rushed Adora.
Saber and Katana split, circling me. If I turned toward one, my back would be to the other.
Saber brandished her sword. It was an older-style blade, larger and heavier than modern variants.
Katana watched me like a hawk, her body in seigan kamae: right foot forward with most of the weight on the leading leg; sword directly in front, held with a slight bend to the elbows; the kissaki, the point of the katana, aimed at my eyes. A harmonious balance of both attack and defense.
Saber would fence. Katana would rely on a single strike at the right moment. One accurate cut. Such was the way of the samurai. Their best strategy would be for Saber to engage, with Katana waiting for an opening.
I didn’t have time for them to decide when to attack me. I turned ever so slightly toward Katana, shifting my weight to my right leg.
The saber fighter thrust with dizzying speed. Katana struck, a beautiful diagonal blow. A moment stretched into eternity. I shied back, blocking the katana and letting the saber slide a hair from my stomach, drove my blood dagger into Saber’s throat, jerked it out, pushed Katana back, and thrust the blood blade into her stomach.
Time snapped back to its normal speed, an elastic band let loose. The two women fell. I knelt, driving the two blades into their bodies, and kept walking. Nine.
The crows vanished. At the other end of the bridge a female mage slumped over, exhausted. I glanced back. Roman leaned on his staff, breathing like he’d run a marathon.
A man lunged at me. I sidestepped his strike and turned, ramming my elbow into his chest. He stumbled back and I sliced his neck open. Eight.
A woman, two swords, fast. I blocked one slash, let the other graze me, and kicked her in the head. She fell and I sank Sarrat between her ribs, ripping up her lungs and heart. Seven.
Curran roared. The male werehyena clamped his side. The female tore at his arm, locked around her throat. The sound of bones crunching—his ribs broke under the pressure of hyena teeth.
A man, a mace, a head rolling on the bridge. Adora. Six.
A woman, lance, too slow. I opened her stomach from side to side and stabbed her when she wouldn’t stay down. Five.
An arrow sliced into my left shoulder. Pain. Nothing major. The bowman notched another and fell as Derek shattered his skull. Four.
Curran roared. Blood ran down his face—one of them had gotten him right over the muzzle. The two hyenas circled him, slow. Fighting him tired you out.
Curran limped, favoring his left leg. I knew that move. It was called “come and get it.” He’d caught me with it three times, twice with a limp and once with a supposedly injured shoulder. He was inviting a direct attack.
The hyenas closed in, sensing a sure kill.
“For you, Sharrim!” Adora dropped her sword and sprinted forward.
“No!”
I ran after her.
She swiped the tangle of chains that had been used to hold the hyenas, looped one chain around her wrists, and leapt, swinging it out. The chain caught the female werehyena’s neck. The female twin stumbled back. Adora landed on the short wall of the bridge, her back to the eighty-foot drop.
A power word punched the werehyena. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Adora smiled at me and jumped over the edge, taking the female werehyena with her.
Oh God.
The chain tangle slid. I dropped Sarrat and grabbed it. The chain jerked, nearly ripping my arms out of the sockets. Below me Adora dangled over an eighty-foot drop, her right wrist still caught in the chain’s loop. The werehyena’s body lay broken below.
“Traitor!” an inhuman voice howled behind me
“Let me die!” Adora tried to rip the chain off her wrist. “Sharrim, let me serve in death. Please!”
Fire sliced my back. Someone had tried to slash through my spine. I molded the blood gushing from the cut, forming it into a narrow strip of blood armor, shielding my vertebrae.
If I dropped the chain, there would be no questions. I could tell Curran whatever I wanted. Derek wouldn’t talk about Adora, and neither would Julie. Curran wouldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t have to hide Adora, I wouldn’t have to be responsible for her, and I wouldn’t have to break her world and tell her I didn’t have the keys to heaven.
Drop her, the magic insisted. Drop her. It’s the smart thing to do. The right thing to do.
The pressure ground against me, as if my soul had split in two. One part wanted power, the other knew what was right, both of them wanted Curran, and I was torn in the middle.
Drop her and everything will be okay. It’s what she wants.
Drop her.
DROP HER.
. . .
No.
Something snapped inside me, like pieces sliding into place. I gripped that voice inside of me and choked it into silence. “Do not let go!” I barked. “That’s an order.”
“Let me go.” She was weeping. “I’ll go to heaven. I’ll serve you forever in the afterlife.”