Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
I was not quick enough for his recovery, and made to duck to escape his next attempt, when the point of a sword came through his chest from the back.
It was swiftly pulled out, the man fell, exposing Wallace behind him.
He did not even meet my eyes.
He whirled to become my defense, and I was heartened to see Ore and Luther had joined the fight in the room.
But there were so many of them.
Why were the Airenzian, Dellish and Mar-el fighting kings’ men in a king’s castle?
With no way to find an answer to that in the now, I squatted to pull the weapon out of the hand of the man that Wallace had wounded, chilled when I saw from his face that he had not died, but even so, in a manner, he looked like he had.
Alive.
But gone.
I could also not think on that.
I took his weapon from his hand and stood just as Farah shrieked, “Ry!”
My eyes went to our friend to see him reeling from a blow.
This, right before he took a mortal strike to the side of his neck.
He collapsed to his hip and a hand.
I screamed in fury and charged the man who had taken him, swinging well right with the hefty weapon (we should have asked Serena to teach us swordplay, too late now).
Before he could recover from the blow he dealt Ry, I swiped him across his gut.
His innards spilled forth as he fell to his back.
I then found my arm in a clench, and I was being dragged.
I began to fight but saw Bram had hold on me.
“We make the stables!” he shouted, not to me.
He did this just as True’s green filled the room and he stormed in behind it.
Only for red to wash through it in waves and Mars roared in.
Bram shoved me against the wall, Ore tossing Farah to it beside me, they stood in front of us as True and Mars turned a gruesome scene grisly.
I sensed it was done at the same time as Farah, and thus we both dashed around our protectors.
Straight to Ry.
“We must go,” Mars grunted.
We both hunkered down beside him.
He was on his side, blinking, his neck covered in blood where it wasn’t opened flesh.
“Ry,” Farah whispered.
“I…” he pushed out.
“Darling,” True said to his wife between gritted teeth.
“Believe,” Ry whispered.
We did not stay with him in order to be with him as he met his end.
For we were taken hold of and hauled from the room.
Nick Walsh
Outside Nautilus
MAR-EL
They reined in as one.
“Bloody hell,” Rory whispered.
Nick clenched his teeth.
Before them, over the rock of Mar-el, the army of the Beasts was obliterating the fighting charmed folk.
Gods, he had seen many ugly things in his life.
But he’d never seen anything as ugly as a dead pixie.
“We must stop this. They’re going to decimate them,” Rory bit out.
They couldn’t stop this.
But they could try to ride through it and assist what was left of them in beating their retreat.
Both men drew their blades and hunched over their steeds in preparation to launch forth when both men sensed it and wheeled their horses to face a new threat.
Immediately, Nick had to drop his reins to catch the thing flying at him.
He also had to snap his head back so the edge of it didn’t hit him and render him unconscious.
When he’d adjusted the long, curved, rectangular, wooden shield and held it by the leather strap attached at the back, he looked at the sea of Zees on horseback before him.
“You’ll need that,” a man he did not know was named Silvanus advised. And then that man shouted, “Heeyah.”
And Nick, nor Rory, had any choice but to join them as a sea of Zees charged a battlefield.
Princess Serena
On the Road to Keel Castle
MAR-EL
They were going to be overcome.
She hacked at one, screeching, “Goddess damn it!”
He fell away only for another to take his place.
The enemy was so thick, their horses couldn’t get through.
They’d never make the castle.
Goddess, she was going to die on a road in bloody Mar-el with the man she loved at her side and the two best friends she’d ever had riding point.
She hacked at another one.
“Gal!” Brix yelled from his place astride his horse in front of them.
She hastened a glance forward just in time to see Gal pulled from his mount.
“No!” she shrieked, rage boiling through her, using her blade at random, slashing and hacking and…
A fierce wind blew her hair back at the same time she felt the impossible.
A wisp of invisible fabric slid across her face, and in astonishment, she froze and watched as necks were broken, throats were slit, intestines oozed forth, and bodies dropped all about them.
Suddenly, there was nothing but stillness and the only living creature standing on the ground was Gal.
And then, six flashes of lightning struck the road before them, these happening on a blustery, but clear and sunny day.