“We’ve been spotted.” Zandu’s terse warning brought me back to the danger around me. Everyone was through the portal now, so we a formed a line of defense. I heard screeches in the sky, and glancing up I almost cried when I saw how many creatures were circling above us.
Zandu followed my line of sight. “I can shield us from above, for a short time, to give us a chance to make it farther into the center.” He pointed across the frozen lake, the one from my dreams. “That’s where the Dark Fae Lord will be.”
It was a castle of sorts, thick and squat, like ice blocks dumped on top of each other. There was nothing aesthetically pleasing about it, but I could see it was solid, almost impossible to penetrate. The lake itself was mostly frozen over, with just a few patches of open water where the creatures must have broken through to the surface.
“Hopefully the Dark Fae Lord and winter queen come out to fight when they realize we are here,” Kade said. “Save us some time getting through this mass to them.”
“Something has definitely realized we are here,” Shelley muttered.
She wasn’t kidding. A horde of creatures were charging for us, the killians — I assumed — judging from the steel-like consistency to their outer layer. They looked like huge ants, with multiple round bodies, thick armor like shields on their dark brown skin, and gigantic metallic pincers on the front of their bodies. One near the front threw back its head and roared, giving me a direct visual of pink flesh. This must be the soft vulnerable part we needed to aim for.
The closer they got, the more details I was picking up. They were almost the same size as me in height, but much thicker. Their bodies were segmented, moving in ways I’d never seen before, almost like each part was disconnected from the other.
There were also a lot of them.
“Remember, hit the soft flesh in their necks,” Zandu shouted, as the first line of them was almost upon us.
I braced myself, blade in attack position, zeroing in on the targets. A screech above almost knocked me off my focus, but when the harpy bounced off whatever invisible shield Zandu had erected, I was able to focus on the ant-like creatures again.
The first one slammed into me with solid strength, its weight pushing me back as I fought to stop its pinchers from carving my heart out of my chest. My wolf rose up, adding her strength to mine, and we managed to grab on to each side of the pincher, wrenching it apart. It cracked in two, and then my blade was swinging before I could think about it, slicing straight through its throat.
With a garbled grumble of a noise, the killian collapsed, melting into a pile of dark goo. Okay, then … apparently when you killed a dark creature, it became sludge. As I stepped forward to take on the next creature, I saw Shelley slip away from our group and head for a bank of trees off to the left. At first I thought she’d gotten scared and was running away — I wouldn’t blame her one bit — but then an army of white-cloaked fae stepped out. Members of the winter queen’s army, complete with white fur uniform.
Shelley was doing the opposite of running in fear, she was heading right for danger, giving us time, holding off those winter soldiers. I lost sight of her as I sliced into another killian. They were strong brutes, but quite dumb and clumsy. As long as I stayed alert, I would be okay.
The killians were pushing us back towards the edge of the frozen lake. With each step, I had to look behind me to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going to find myself on thin ice. Finally, Kade took down the last killian, but I saw more in the distance, hobbling our way with their wonky gait.
“I think we should cross the lake. Easiest way,” I told the group.
Shelley wasn’t with us, yet, but she looked safe — standing in front of the winter queen’s guards. It looked like she was using her powers to influence the front line of the white-clad soldiers to start fighting with those behind. It was clever; I doubted she had enough power to influence all the soldiers in one go. This way, she just kept them fighting each other.
I glanced back at the ice again, seeing the zipping creatures below waiting for us.
“The killians are too heavy. They won’t step on the ice,” Zandu said, before he whipped out a weapon from under his cloak. It was a torch, which immediately burst to life, flaming with an iridescent pink fire. He handed it to me and I took it without question, assuming this was the fire we needed to kill anything that jumped out of the lake.
Then Zandu pulled a bow from his cloak — seriously, where did I get one of these magical cloaks? — and in two swift moves loosed an arrow, taking a harpy down. It fell to the ground with a thud, arrow between the eyes.
“Go!” he shouted. “I will hold off the sky creatures with your other bowman.”
Kian moved in next to Zandu, both of them focused on the sky. I didn’t even want to look up, didn’t want to see what creatures were waiting above to pluck off our heads. Dante pulled a second sword out, so he now held a lethal blade in both hands. “I will keep the killians off you, just in case they do decide to risk the lake.” He then ran straight at the approaching creatures.
I looked at Kade, who nodded. All of our friends and allies were fighting for their lives. It was up to us to finish this once and for all. Kade stepped out onto the ice first; it made a slight groan of protest but otherwise held. I followed about three feet to his right, to disperse our weight. We walked with brisk care, avoiding all ice that looked particularly thin, and the few open black pools of icy water.
We were about halfway across when I saw something dark slithering on my right.
“Kade…” I murmured.
“I saw it,” he said, slowing, sword raised.
We walked a few more steps when the ice right before me cracked wide open and an oily black ercho broke the surface. It reached out with one of its claws, gashing my leg.
I cried out, swinging my torch by instinct.
Like it was doused in accelerant, the pink flames ignited its skin with ease, rushing across its back, and down the length of its bat-like wings. High-pitched screeches filled the air, and the scent of burning rubber — thick and tar-like — clogged my nostrils. The ercho flopped about as the fire burned it alive and slowly melted the ice it lay on. I peered at the hole it had broken through and saw that the lake was black and oily.
It wasn’t water.
Half a dozen shadowy figures sped under the ice to answer the ercho’s dying call, and I was reminded of how quickly it had caught alight.
It gave me an idea.
“Kade, how fast can you run?” I gave him a wink. He was more than fast enough. I just hoped I could keep up. I held the torch to the open oil spot.
Kade’s eyes gleamed. “Do it,” he said.
Needing no more encouragement, I dropped the torch into the oily water, and we both took off running.
Burn baby burn.
Today I was taking out the Dark Fae Lord and all of his evil babies.
Chapter Twelve
What hides in the darkness?