“You’re kidding, right?” he replied.
“You either get on my back or I hoist you up. I’m strong enough to carry you without sacrificing my speed,” she shot back.
“Do as she says, Wyrran. Trust me,” I chimed in, speeding up.
The dust was coming in fast after us. In less than a minute, it would swallow us all, and it would severely slow us down. No one ran well with lungs clotted by dust, smoke, and ash.
“Okay, okay!” Wyrran groaned, then jumped on Fiona’s back. “How much faster can you people go, anyw—”
Fiona shot forward, dashing through the tunnel like an arrow. Wyrran’s yelp trailed behind him as he held on for dear life. We all followed, darting like gusts of wind and leaving the billowing dust behind.
Within minutes, we could see the literal light at the end of the tunnel, as it curved upward to the surface. That was the two-mile point away from Ragnar Peak. We’d made it.
“Almost there!” Hansa breathed.
Fiona and Wyrran were the first to vanish into the light above. Those of us who were sensitive to daylight instantly pulled our masks, hoods, and goggles back on. Harper, Caspian, Hansa, and Jax got out next. Heron followed, with me, then Zane, right behind him.
I was just about to breathe the air of freedom, when—I came to a sudden halt as soon as my feet touched the surface. Caia bumped into me from behind. My blood froze. My heart stopped.
We had a welcoming committee waiting for us, and it wasn’t the nice kind that offered drinks and well-wishes. This was a mixed group of thirty Maras and thirty daemons, led by a uniformed Correction Officer. Their swords were drawn. The daemons growled with anticipation, and the rest of my crew came to a standstill.
“Crap,” Heron muttered.
Harper
The Correction Officer cocked his head to the side, leaning on his sword like a cane. He chuckled. “It’s so nice of you to finally join us… I would’ve hated having to come all the way up to that fortress to drag your asses out.”
“And who are you supposed to be?” I asked, genuinely annoyed. My initial shock had given way to irritation. These guys had no idea what we’d been dealing with since last night. We didn’t have any time or energy left to waste on them.
“I’m the smart one, playing the long game,” the Correction Officer grinned. “Tarsis is my name,” he added, then shifted his focus to Caspian. “Oh, hey, boss.”
Caspian grunted, raising his blade, ready to strike.
“What are you doing here?” Caspian asked, his voice cold and low. It sent shivers down my spine.
“Milord, you taught me to think ahead of the platoon, remember?” Tarsis replied, annoyingly calm and amused. He was pleased with himself and unable to hide it. “I know everything you’ve been up to since your dragon left Azure Heights. I know about your master plan—which, by the way, is good, I have to admit. I was impressed. I mean, splitting up in two groups, chasing down allies in Lagerith, Athelathan, and the Akrep Gorge? Brilliant. Plus, the stunt you pulled in Draconis? Epic. There’s a reason you’re all such a problem.”
That hit us hard. They knew everything? How?
“Did you track us?” Caspian shot back, his eyes darting across Tarsis’s entire group, assessing their traits and weapons.
They broke rank and surrounded us in a wide circle, their weapons out.
“Whenever possible, yes,” Tarsis replied. “But I kept my distance. I told you. I played the long game. The longest, in fact. I didn’t need to follow you all around. That would’ve been a waste of my energy. I needed to see what you people were up to, first. I made sure I appended my spy to your merry little gang.”
He snapped his fingers, and I heard Alles cry out. I turned my head and saw him drop to his knees, holding his head in pain.
“What the hell?” Dion gasped, horrified as he watched his friend writhe and squirm on the ground.
“I’ve got mind-bent spies infiltrated all over the place,” Tarsis replied, chuckling. “Every faction, every village, and every gang of miscreants. I have eyes and ears everywhere, and they’re extremely efficient since they don’t even know they’re doing it. I’ve embedded suggestions so deep in their subconscious minds, they don’t even remember sending their messenger birds out.”
“What did you do to him?” Dion shouted, trembling with rage but unable to do anything to help Alles.
We were all stunned at that point. No one could have seen this coming.
“He thinks he’s got a crippling headache. It happens whenever I snap my fingers,” Tarsis sneered through his mask. “I’ve got sleepers and saboteurs in that group of Imen you left with your friends back there, too,” he added, nodding at the crumbling mountain behind us. “They’ll get a nasty surprise when they get out of the area. I mean, I assume they didn’t all die in the explosions. Nice touch, by the way. Luring daemons to the peak, freezing them, then bringing the entire mountain down. Ambitious!”
Dion snapped and lunged at Tarsis, waving his sword around.
“Dion, don’t!” Hansa called out and slipped between them, blocking Tarsis’s sword hit with her blade. Jax pulled Dion back, though the Iman struggled against his hold.
“Let me go! He’s dead!” he shouted, pointing his sword at Tarsis. “You’re dead, you hear me? Dead!”
“No, no, little one. You’re dead. I’ve had enough of you for the day,” Tarsis shot back, then nodded at his fighters.
They all closed their circle around us. Pheng-Pheng’s scorpion tail rattled. Blaze growled behind me. I briefly glanced at Avril. “Make sure they don’t mind-bend Blaze or Caia,” I murmured. Avril replied with a nod, then nudged Heron. They both shifted closer to the dragon and fae. The last thing we needed was a mind-bent dragon.
The daemons came first, bringing their swords down with great strength. We blocked their hits, dodging and swerving before launching our own attacks. They were the grunts, the muscle. They required brute force and single, fatal blows.
I pushed a barrier out and followed up with my twin blades. Caspian darted forward and went straight for Tarsis’s head. Pheng-Pheng took a daemon down with her scorpion sting. The Druids and fae were quick to dispense their fireballs, careful not to stand still for more than two seconds at a time and avoiding direct eye contact with the Maras.
All it would take was one look for everything to go sideways.
Caspian fought Tarsis, hard and relentless in his hits, while I dealt with another daemon. I heard Caspian hiss. I turned my head and saw Tarsis’s blade piercing his stomach.
“No!” I cried out, then swiftly dodged a daemon rapier and crossed my swords out against my attacker’s neck. I pulled them out in a slash and slit his throat, then rushed over to Caspian’s side, just as Tarsis withdrew his sword.
I kept him busy, hitting him over and over in consecutive blows. He didn’t have time to do anything other than block my attacks.
We were in a tight spot. The Maras circled in and got dangerously close to mind-bending our people. The vampires and Maras, along with Arrah, were not at risk. But everybody else was, and good grief, that was a lot of magic and firepower that could be turned and used against us.
I dodged a sword hit from Tarsis, then brought my swords up, missing his torso by inches. Cursing under my breath, I slid to the side and cut his left hip. He yelped from the pain and tried to cut me, but I blocked his hit with my right sword, then drove my left blade forward. He was quick to lean backward to avoid getting himself impaled through the chin.
“You’re good,” he hissed, then brought down his sword.
I caught it with my twin blades crossed. He was strong, pressing hard against my swords.
The fight viciously raged on around us. Fireballs swishing. Daemons growling. A couple of hostile Maras collapsing. Druids muttering defensive spells. Swords clashing. It felt as though everything was happening in slow motion. My stomach churned with worry over Caspian, whom I didn’t have time to check up on—not even with a glanc
e.
The pit wolves had fallen prey to mind-bending. I could hear them whimpering somewhere to the side, and Scarlett trying to get them to snap out of it.
“Hundurr, please! Listen to me! It’s me! Don’t let them do this to you. You’re stronger than that!”
Crap.
Hundurr replied with a growl.
A loud roar ripped through the battle. Tarsis hesitated for a split second, looking up in shock. Whatever was happening, it didn’t suit him. That was my window of opportunity. I took it and pushed out a barrier.
It bumped him back a few steps. I jolted forward with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin and cut his head off. His blood sprayed out, his body slumping to the ground as his head rolled away from me.
“How’s that for a long game?” I muttered, then quickly turned around.
Caspian got up, grunting and holding his side. He’d been well guarded by Fiona and Jax during the fight. He opened one of his belt satchels and scooped out some healing paste, spreading it over his wound through the shirt cut. Another goosebump-inducing roar made me look to my left.
I stilled, watching as our fight for survival took an unexpected turn. The daemons were all down, soaked in puddles of their own blood. There were six Maras left from Tarsis’s team, but that wasn’t the shocker that had made the Correction Officer falter.
Tobiah and Sienna had joined the fight. Tobiah ripped through the remaining Maras, joining his daemon fellows, Zane and Velnias—who were both amused and thrilled to see him there. Sienna, Vincent’s younger sister, wore a hood and a mask, but I could see her face with my True Sight. She quickly moved to break the mind-bending that had been inflicted on both Hundurr and Rover.
Her eyes glimmered gold as she extended her arms and ordered them to sit. The pit wolves froze, then obeyed, whimpering from the distress.
“Stay there, for now!” she commanded them. She briefly scanned our group and lit up when she saw me. “Harper!” she exclaimed, then frowned when she saw that Caspian was wounded. “Lord Kifo!”
She rushed over to us, leaving Scarlett befuddled, with two mind-bent but docile pit wolves.
The last two hostile Maras were taken down, courtesy of Hansa and Patrik. They shook the blood off their swords before sheathing them. The group then gathered around us, and Tobiah joined Sienna in front of Caspian and me.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked, startled and confused.
Sienna sighed, then showed me her blood oath. I noticed that Tobiah had the same marking on his neck, just under his ear. “We can’t tell you, but we can fight now,” Sienna replied with a weak smile.
Zane chuckled, patting Tobiah’s back. “I’m just glad to see you’re still alive, you little rascal!”
“Little?” Fiona scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “He’s the size of a mountain.”
“But fifty years my junior,” Zane grinned, then put his arms around Sienna and Tobiah’s shoulders. He nodded at Caspian before settling his gaze on me. “These two pledged silence, just like Lord Kifo over there. Those in charge didn’t think to get specific and force them to pledge their loyalty.”
“And given how swamp witch magic operates on the power of the word, semantics got in the way, huh?” Hansa muttered.
“Exactly,” Zane replied. “I know about them and their deal with Azure Heights. These two lovebirds were allowed to live on their own, in the Valley of Screams, because Sienna managed to soften up Lady Roho’s heart. My father wanted them both jailed, but they settled on the blood oath instead. They were still planning their little theatrics with you outsiders at the time.”
I remembered the first time we’d met Sienna and Tobiah, back in the gorges. I’d wondered what they had to do with this whole farce after we learned about the Maras’ nefarious alliance with the daemons. I had my answers now, and it broke my heart a little, because I knew how hard it was to not be able to tell the truth. I’d seen it in Caspian’s struggle with his blood oath, after all.
“How did you know to find us here, though?” I asked Sienna.
Sienna opened her mouth, then paused, sighed, and pointed at Tarsis’s decapitated body on the ground. Zane was quick to deduce what she couldn’t say.
“They followed Tarsis,” he said, and Sienna nodded briefly. “I’ll go ahead and guess that she and Tobiah saw Tarsis roaming around these parts, close to the gorges. They probably found it interesting that a group of daemons and Maras were operating in the middle of the day and decided to follow.”
Zane paused, then questioningly looked at Sienna, who replied with another nod to confirm his theory.
“How do you know Tobiah and Sienna?” I asked Zane.
He smirked. “I make it my business to know everyone who has ever crossed my father in any way. A daemon consorting with a Mara is definitely on his no-no list.”
“So you two were here by chance?” Caspian murmured, still holding his side. The bleeding had already stopped, but it would take a little while longer for the wound to heal completely.
“We didn’t know you’d be here,” Tobiah replied with a shrug. “Lucky you, huh?”
“Pretty much,” Jax scoffed. “It’s a little tricky fighting Maras when they can mind-bend our most powerful agents.”
“By the Daughters, our allies! Tarsis’s spies!” Hansa gasped.
We instantly looked down at Dion, who was cradling an unconscious Alles in his arms. The young Iman was sobbing, broken-hearted. We couldn’t place any blame on Alles but, judging by Dion’s fiery red aura, he was in a lot of emotional pain, probably for not having seen this coming.
“Dion, it’s not your fault,” I said. “You know that, right?”
“I… I know. It’s just… I wish I could’ve prevented this. I didn’t know,” he replied, sniffing.
Wyrran came forward and sighed. He was just as annoyed. “I wouldn’t worry much about the Dhaxanians, the Manticores, or the Adlets dealing with Imen spies. Even if one or more of my men have been mind-bent by Tarsis at some point during our incursions in the area, I doubt they’ll have anything on them. The daemons and the Maras are looking for you. They’re stretched thin, and they’ve just lost, what, almost three thousand soldiers back there?” he added, pointing at the cloud of dust covering the ruins of Ragnar Peak.
“Yeah, they’ll have to prioritize,” Zane agreed. “They’ll come for us first. In the meantime, we could send a messenger or a bird to find them and warn them.”
Avril lifted her snowflake pendant. “Or I could try summoning Nevis with this.”
Heron rolled his eyes, then got his attention drawn by Hundurr and Rover, who were still sitting, mind-bent by Sienna and watching us. He walked over to them and took a close look at each of them.
“Ice prince extraordinaire aside,” he muttered, “we need to fix our pit wolves.”
“Sorry about that.” Sienna sighed. “I had to stop them from attacking you. They were getting restless and aggressive.”
“Hundurr did his best to resist the mind-bending, I’ll give him credit,” Scarlett replied. “But the Mara who compelled them got super persistent with his orders. I mean, I don’t know if Tarsis was willing to kill some or all of us, or not, but I wasn’t ready to experience a pit wolf bite, for sure.”
“How do we fix them, though?” Patrik asked, visibly affected by Hundurr’s tormented state.
“Their pupils are not overly dilated,” Heron replied. “I can try something. It worked before with animals.” He took a deep breath, then channeled his mind-bending ability to Hundurr first. He muttered something in the pit wolf’s ear.
The creature whimpered, then growled and shook his head. He shuddered, got up, and calmly padded over to Scarlett and nuzzled her face—his beastly way of apologizing for snarling at her, probably. Satisfied with the results, Heron proceeded to do the same to Rover, who reacted in a similar fashion and nearly rammed into Patrik. Both Scarlett and the Druid hugged the pit wolves, laughing from relief.
“You two are cle
arly our beast-masters.” Heron chuckled.
“And you’re the pit wolf whisperer.” Scarlett giggled.
I felt my lips stretch into a smile. I took a deep breath, then looked around. There were more horns and drums tearing through the distant horizon to the west, but they couldn’t see us. They couldn’t even track us at this point. Ragnar Peak was demolished, and we’d taken a now-sealed underground route. There was no trace of us for a two-mile radius.
“They’ll probably send Death Claws out to look for us,” Zane said, as if reading my mind. “With the damage we just caused them, they’ll be conservative with their ground troops. But they will get vicious, fast. What you’re hearing are top brass troops coming. Once they catch a scent or once a Death Claw confirms our location, they will come, and we won’t stand much of a chance, not even with allies.”
“The whole kingdom of daemons is rising against us,” Velnias added, frowning as he looked out into the distance. “We still have our advantages for now, but they won’t last long. We need to seize this moment.”
“Then let’s go,” Hansa replied. “Meredrin awaits.”
Wyrran raised his hand. “It’ll take some hours. We don’t have horses anymore.”
“Oh, damn. The horses,” I breathed, instantly wanting to smack myself for not having thought about them. We’d left them in the fortress’s stables, and we hadn’t even thought about them where our escape from Ragnar Peak was concerned.
“Relax, I set them loose through the back gate while you people were still pushing back on that fourth line of mercenaries.” Velnias chuckled.
A wave of relief washed over me. At least they had a chance to escape and roam freely. I would’ve hated myself if they’d died in the collapse. I sighed, then looked to the northeast, as Caspian gently leaned into me.
“We’ll keep a low profile,” Wyrran said and took the lead on our group. “Follow me.”
I looked at Tobiah and Sienna. “I know you two are bound by silence, but you can come with us, if you want. We could use the extra hands on deck.”
“We can’t go back to the gorges right now, anyway,” Sienna said, wearing a faint half-smile. She looked sad. “The scouts are out, and they’re rounding up all the Maras who left or ran from Azure Heights.”