We heard their screams and wails. Many managed to hide under their shields, but Blaze’s fire didn’t just go in one direction. It splashed and spilled around like a scorching liquid, slipping beneath the meranium covers and swallowing the daemons on the edges of the compact formation. Cason’s grunts tried to stick to their square grouping, but Blaze was making it difficult.
I couldn’t see their emotions, but their faces told me everything I needed to know—including Cason’s. They were white as sheets of paper. Dread froze their blood and stiffened their joints. They were terrified, too busy taking cover from the dragon to come after us.
Perfect.
“Coast is clear!” Jax shouted. “This way!”
We climbed the broken stairs on horseback, in pairs. For entire segments of up to thirty feet, the ascension was quite smooth, interrupted by wide jumps and a little bit of an airy push from Vesta, to help our stallions conquer the larger gaps. One wrong move and we could end up back at the bottom with mangled horses.
I heard growling behind us and felt a chill gripping my spine as I looked back. Two dozen daemons had slipped from the main formation and were working their way up, hot on our trail.
“Move to the sides!” I shouted at the team. They immediately parted, leaving enough room in the middle for me to send out a strong barrier.
The pulse hit the grunts hard in their chests. They wheezed and fell backward. Ryker muttered a spell, then put his hand out, releasing a flurry of small blue fireballs. They buzzed around like frantic flies but burst into devastating flames once they touched the daemons.
With our followers down, screaming and flailing as the Druid flames consumed them, we continued our climb.
Just a little bit more.
Avril
We reached the fortress gates, with Arrah and Patrik holding the line several steps below and constantly firing at the incoming daemons. There were less than fifty yards left between us and a group of scattered daemons that had made it past our and Blaze’s attacks.
The dragon growled beneath. Whenever he hissed, a curtain of fire followed as dozens more daemons perished in the flames. I’d spotted Harper and the others making their way up on the west side of the peak. My heart was racing, my stomach tightly wound as I pushed the gates open with my shoulder.
It took all the Imen, plus Heron and me, to get the massive iron doors to even budge. We needed more than that, but couldn’t spare Arrah and Patrik, who were holding the hostiles back.
“Dammit,” I muttered as we pushed again. Grunting and covered in sweat, we tried a third time, then stilled at the sound of hinges creaking.
“That’s it! That’s it! Keep pushing!” Heron cried out.
Something was preventing the gates from opening. A quick glance at the hinges shed light on the problem, as they were covered in thick crusts of rust. “Heron, the hinges are rusty. We’ll never open these gates like this!”
Cason bellowed something from the bottom, but I really couldn’t be bothered to pay attention or even ask Arrah or Patrik if they’d heard what he’d said. I drew my sword and climbed up the edge of the gate, taking on the top hinge with short, swift blows.
Heron quickly figured out what the plan was and climbed up the side of the other gate, smashing his sword against the top hinge, while Dion and Alles tackled the bottom ones. The Imen kept pushing the gates, gradually feeling them give in with loud creaks and metallic shrills.
A bloodcurdling scream made it all the way up to us. I froze for a second, my sword hand high in the air and ready for another blow, then looked back down.
“Good grief,” I breathed, watching Blaze as he dove into the daemon crowd at the bottom. Not only did he blow out another scorching fire that spread outward, deadly and unstoppable, but he also rammed his jaws into the layer of meranium shields at the top.
His fangs screeched against the metal, the sheer force of his jaws crushing the daemons caught beneath. I could almost hear the bones breaking as he pummeled them into the ground, then grabbed a couple, chewed them, and spat them out.
“By the Daughters,” Heron gasped, watching the same scene. I didn’t need to see his eyes through his goggles to know they were wide and close to popping out of their orbits. Neither of us had ever seen Blaze this vicious.
Cason scrambled backward, accompanied by fifty of his closest guards, while Blaze gradually finished off the rest of his crew, leaving piles of dead bodies on the charred ground. The smell of burning daemon flesh quickly made its way up to my nose, as smoke billowed from their carbonized remains. It made my stomach churn, but I managed to hold it together.
Heron, Dion, Alles, and I kept hitting the hinges with our swords, gradually chipping away at the rust. It splintered outward as I increased the strength of my blows. The deeper I got, the harder I had to hit. Meanwhile, the Imen didn’t give up on the gates, either, pushing with all their might between short breathing sessions.
Once Arrah and Patrik were done with the last daemons climbing up after us, they joined the Imen in their efforts to get the gates to budge. I heard Patrik mutter another spell and secretly prayed that he’d speed this along.
I knew that it was only a matter of time before we’d be under siege again. Now, more than ever, we needed the fortress to hold out for us. All hell was going to break loose.
Harper
Woohoo! Look at the dragon go!” Zane cheered, genuinely impressed.
He resembled a kid watching an epically awesome fireworks show—only it involved over a hundred of his brethren dying in agonizing pain. Nevertheless, I couldn’t fault him for it. We didn’t take any pleasure in killing creatures, but the daemons had been consistently asking for it since day one.
We managed to climb all the way to the top, with Vesta manipulating some of the winds to aid us in conquering the large gaps between the broken stone steps. Down below, Blaze was laying waste to the last standing daemons, directed by Laughlan and Caia, who were looking through their red lenses.
A horn was blown at the base, away from the burning bodies scattered across the battered land. It brought us all to a halt. I used my True Sight and spotted Cason, shielded by his soldiers as they moved back. The horn was his, and it was incredibly loud for its size. It echoed all around Ragnar Peak, then spread all over, riding on the winds. He sounded it three times, making my throat close up with anxiety.
“Reinforcements will be here soon,” Velnias grumbled, then muttered a curse, mostly to himself.
“Come on,” I said, shaking the worry off for the time being. “Let’s get inside the fortress first!”
We followed a narrow stone path at the top, snaking through thick bushes toward the south side, where Avril and the others were—where the fortress gates were. One by one, we made it out of the dense foliage and breathed a collective sigh of relief when we found Avril and Heron sliding off the sides of the gates.
The hinges glowed gold, the rust crackling and falling off, with Patrik standing in the middle and whispering a spell, his arms stretched out. The Imen managed to push open the gates, the iron howling under the pressure.
I clicked my teeth and beckoned my horse to go first through the open gates. Everybody else followed, until all of us were inside. I got off my horse and rushed straight into Avril’s arms, chuckling and doing my best not to cry. It felt so good to see them all well, my eyes were stinging with tears.
Arrah and the Imen managed to close the gates, while Heron and Jax quickly climbed up, followed by Zane and Velnias, and brought down the massive iron and wood beams meant to keep the entrance into the fortress shut.
Scarlett came in for a group hug, and then Hansa and Fiona also pitched in. We laughed and exhaled with relief as we measured each other from head to toe, thrilled to discover that we were all in one piece, alive and kicking. Scarlett then noticed Velnias and Zane as they came back down.
“I see you’ve made some new friends,” she chuckled.
“They most certainly did,” Avril gasped,
quick to figure out who the others were. “I see Maras, fae, and Druids. Delegation members?”
“Yup!” I replied, my chest filled with pride.
Patrik shook Ryker’s hand, then pointed at the gates. “Let’s do proper introductions later. Help me seal these gates up better. This place will be crawling with daemons again, and soon.”
Ryker gave him a brief nod, and then they both turned to face the gates, raising their hands in the air. Their palms lit up in an incandescent shade of amber, while Arrah and her Imen gawked at them and us, trying to figure out who the new additions to our team were.
I heard another round of screams erupting from below. Using my True Sight, I saw Blaze deliver one last blow to Cason’s daemons. Cason himself managed to escape with a handful of his guards, running as fast as their legs could go. Blaze growled, then gave up on the pursuit and flew back up to the fortress.
I followed him with my gaze as he glided overhead, past the front walls of the fortress, and landed in the main courtyard behind us with a resounding thud. As Caia and Laughlan slid off his back, giving Blaze the space he needed to shift and slip into a pair of pants, I felt my heartrate decrease slowly.
We weren’t out of the woods yet, not by a thousand miles. There was trouble brewing in the distance. I could almost feel it prickling my skin. But we were all together again, and we had control over the fortress of Ragnar Peak. Strategically speaking, it worked in our favor to be at a high vantage point. Most importantly, it worked extremely well for Blaze in his full dragon form.
“Man, do we have a lot to catch up on, or what?” Avril grinned, sheathing her sword.
“I’m so thrilled to see you all back,” Hansa replied, her lower lip trembling and her skin giving off a subtle silvery shimmer. She was working very hard to contain herself. Hansa loved us all like we were her own kids. She felt responsible for us, and she was immensely proud when we achieved something. Most importantly, she could only fully breathe when she could see us all together, healthy and ready to kick some more daemon ass. “And yes, we have a lot of catching up to do. But first, we need to set up our defensive perimeter. It’s only a matter of time before more daemons come. We’ll need to be ready.”
We all gave her a collective nod and straightened our backs, waiting for her directives. She exchanged a few words with Patrik, then kicked us into first gear, handing orders out left and right with military might and precision.
Each of us had a crucial part to play, from scoping out the fortress to selecting the highest vantage points, securing the weak spots and preparing our defense positions. Not one of us faltered as we spread throughout the fortress, energized by our reunion.
We were stronger together. I dared, for a second, to even think that we were invincible, as long as we had each other.
Harper
An hour later, we were locked in the fortress, with both the front gate and the emergency hatch at the back sealed with Druid magic. We didn’t have the ingredients needed for a cloaking spell, after we’d used them all up during our stay in Kerentrith and at the farm. According to Jax and Hansa, it didn’t make much sense to use it, anyway. Everyone knew the fortress was at the top, and the enemy still had the swamp witch. Surely, they would’ve produced a spell breaker for it. It wouldn’t have bought us much time, if any.
The Imen took their guard positions on the fortress walls, evenly distributed to cover all four sides. Arrah, Dion, and Alles stood at the front. Arrah and Patrik had rigged the surrounding swath of hard ground surrounding the fortress with more explosives.
“We found all the weak spots in the limestone,” Patrik said as we gathered around a fire we’d set in the middle of the square. “I applied some of the explosives knowledge we gathered from the Lords’ mansions back in Azure Heights and set up some detonators. Some of them might not see the strings extended across every patch of climbable ground. We’ll be instantly alerted if any of them pass the threshold. I reckon the daemons will fall for it, the pit wolves are much more observant on the ground. I reckon the Adlets will be too when they make their way up here to help us…”
We raised four pillars on one side of the campfire, where we nightwalkers could sit without keeping our heads and faces covered, as Caia had connected a large piece of fabric to the pillars as a makeshift awning.
Scarlett lit up one of the Adlets’ flares and tossed it into the air. It burned a bright red and hovered high above the fortress. It could be seen by anyone, but, most importantly, it could be seen by our new allies, the Adlets of Lagerith Plains.
Avril took out her snowflake pendant, quietly sniffing the wind as we brought each other up to speed. We learned about their adventures in Adlet and Dhaxanian territory, concluding that Cason was, indeed, one of the most persistent daemons we’d ever come across. We told Scarlett and her group about our incursion into Draconis, our success in liberating the Druid delegation members, the information we’d gathered on the daemon pacifists and the shaky relationship between Shaytan and the Exiled Maras, and our knowledge of Lumi’s location.
“Called it!” Arrah muttered from above, on top of the southern wall. She kept her eyes on the ground beyond the fortress but listened in on our conversation.
Heron chuckled and proceeded to sharpen his sword. “Yeah, she did. She definitely did. So, we know for a fact that Lumi is in Azure Heights now,” he then said.
“Yes. We don’t know where, exactly, but with Arrah’s help, we’ll get into the city and find out. I think we need to get out of here first,” I replied, then looked at Avril. “Are you going to launch that snowflake or not?”
“I’m waiting for the northern wind,” she sighed. “Nevis was quite specific.”
Hansa pulled her hair up in a loose bun, tying a string around it to keep it in place, then borrowed Heron’s diamond stone and started working on her broadsword. The Exiled Mara couple and Vesta’s parents took care of the indigo horses, finding supplies around the fortress and bringing them out into the main square—dried food, haybales, and buckets for the fountain in the middle, which, to our relief, still pulled water from below.
Laughlan and Ryker toured the fortress, checking every chamber, every storage room, every nook and cranny, and returning with armfuls of herbs and powders they’d found along the way. Patrik and Scarlett helped them sort their findings into separate piles, taking note of all the spells they could create with what they had.
Vesta paced around the fire, nervously biting her nails, while the rest of us settled down for a few minutes, preparing our weapons and shields for the next round. Pheng-Pheng watched us, quietly, her scorpion tail twitching behind her.
“They’re not done with us, for sure,” Hansa muttered. “That horn sounded a load of trouble, and Cason is still out there.”
Blaze stood up, his brow furrowed. “I’ll start circling the area,” he said. “He’s likely to come back.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him,” Zane scoffed, staring at the fire. “He’s a persistent idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. I spent my entire adolescence warning him not to get in over his head, and yet here he is.”
“I can keep you company. You’ll need someone with a red lens to point out any invisible daemons, anyway,” Caia said, joining Blaze’s side and holding up her red lens. He gave her a soft smile, then nodded.
“Be careful up there,” Jax said, watching them walk over to the opposite corner of the square, where Blaze slipped out of his pants and shifted back to his full dragon form. “They might have arrows, other projectiles, and spells they might try to use.”
“We’ll keep a reasonable distance from the ground,” Caia replied, then packed Blaze’s pants in her backpack and climbed on his back. They took off, and I found myself breathing a little better, now knowing we had our dragon out there.
“There it is,” Avril murmured, looking up, then whispered something to the pendant and tossed it in the air.
A sudden, cool gust of wind blew over us. It carried the snowflake pen
dant away. I followed it with my True Sight for a few seconds, before it disappeared into the sky. “It’s going unbelievably fast,” I breathed.
“Some weird kind of Dhaxanian magic, I guess,” Avril replied, shrugging. “I still don’t understand how it functions, but I think the Dhaxanians will hear from us very soon.”
“Okay, so what is the plan, exactly?” Scarlett asked, taking the diamond stone from Hansa and working on her own sword from the hilt to the tip of the blade, in a repetitive, yet graceful motion.
“We hold out in here, until the allies get here,” Jax said. “We know there will be daemons coming our way. We don’t know when or how many. They might be here before our new friends reach us, or after. Either way, we need to be ready.”
“Okay, then what?” Scarlett replied.
Jax and Hansa briefly looked at each other. Then he pulled a map from his backpack and laid it out on the stone pavement at our feet. It was a rough rendition of Azure Heights, the surrounding Valley of Screams, and the outlying territories. He pointed at the north edge of the gorges, then trailed his finger farther back, where a village had been marked.
“This is Meredrin,” he said. “It’s an abandoned town on one of the three rivers flowing from the north and into the gorges. And this,” he added, pointing a little farther to the northwest, “is the abandoned red garnet mine that Arrah mentioned. It’s two miles from Meredrin. I don’t know much about the town, but I think we can use it as a small base of operations, to extract the swamp witch. The key is getting out of here without a daemon tail.”