Page 46

Forty-Five

Rhoswyn

T he path Bree picks out for us branches over and over again, sloping steeply down into the darkness. The iron seams come and go, and I keep watching for them, shifting sides to make sure I’m as far away as physically possible. It’s as if the tunnel wyrms have been following the metal on purpose.

The only good thing about this new route is the lack of dead bodies , I think to myself, as I stumble away from a newly emerged red vein in the rock.

“Wait,” I whisper, stopping.

“What’s wrong?” Bree asks, as Jaro’s wolf lets out a small huff of concern.

There’s something…

“The portal,” I realise, lowering to a crouch and pressing my hand to the damp, slimy floor. “I think… it’s below us.”

It’s the strangest feeling, like a kind of repulsion that sinks into my bones. Everything about it is plain wrong, and the sensation crawls along my shoulders.

“The tunnel slopes down,” Caed says, striding back to us. “That’s a good sign, right?”

“Then let’s get going.” Lore blinks to my side, tugging me back to my feet.

“Any idea how far it is?” Bree asks, stopping me with another hand on my arm.

“No, it’s just a sense,” I say, shaking my head. “Maybe if we get closer, I’ll know more?”

This time, when we continue walking, they stick to my sides, surrounding me in a protective bubble without even discussing it. Unfortunately, the barrier they provide becomes suffocating when the ceiling starts to lower and breathing becomes hard.

When the passage opens up again, I’m so grateful that it takes me a second to realise we’ve walked into a cave of bones.

They’re everywhere; piled up against the walls, forming macabre dunes across the expanse of the floor. Threaded between the yellowing piles are the giant, papery remnants of a serpent’s skin, the scales catching the firelight like the ghost of a tunnel wyrm.

It’s so massive that it surrounds the room. In fact, I think there might be more than one.

I stop dead in my tracks, as does most of the Guard. Drystan alone keeps walking, blissfully unaware of what he’s stumbled into until his boot lands on a skeletal hand, crushing it.

The crunch is painfully loud, making Jaro’s wolf huff in annoyance.

“We need to leave,” Caed whispers. “Now. Turn around.”

A huge rumble—closer than any others—makes the very floor shake, and I stumble into Jaro’s side.

“No,” Bree argues, pointing towards the back of the cave, which is shrouded in darkness. “We’re getting closer to the scent. It’s that way.”

My Fomorian mate turns, his skin paling as he grates out, “It smells like Fomorians, because this is a tunnel wyrm nest. You’re scenting their leftovers. They’re fiercely territorial. Even fire won’t save us if they find us down here.”

Another rumble strikes, and I lose my nerve, taking a step backwards.

The move is a mistake. It leaves me off balance as the wall to my left collapses, putting me on my ass amongst the bones just as massive claws rend through the stone. A huge boulder is knocked free and thrown in my direction.

I’m frozen in place, unable to do anything except trace the path of that deadly stone as it barrels towards me. Jaro’s shield barely appears in time. The rock collides with the golden dome and is thrown off course by the impact. Now it’s heading straight for Drystan, who has no clue that he’s about to get crushed. My heart squeezes, breath gathering for a scream?—

Lore blinks them both out of the way.

My scream escapes as a weedy noise of relief as the very angry tunnel wyrm finishes clawing its way into its nest, its huge serpentine tail coiling through behind it like an afterthought.

“Finally!” the redcap crows, drawing a wickedly serrated blade from the scabbard by his side. “Oooh, I’m so glad I brought the big one. Hey, pet, would you rather I skinned it so you can have a rug, or just take its head so we can mount it over the bed?”

“Redcap, watch your—” Caed’s warning cuts off as Lore blinks onto the feline head of the creature, evading the lime green cloud of its breath without a care.

“Hey, this thing has fur and scales.” He stabs viciously down into one tiny green eye. “You can have a coat and boots!”

The wyrm lets out one of those whistling shriek-hisses, shaking its head from side to side as Lore clings on for dear life. Another wall comes collapsing down on our right.

Goddess. Now there are two of them?

“Rose, get to Drystan.” Bree draws his own weapon.

I slide back, intent on following his orders. The movement breaks my own fear’s hold on me, and I reach for my powers as I struggle to my feet.

Mab is right there, offering me a hand, as Titania draws her bow, and Maeve hefts a wicked-looking sword.

“To the dullahan,” my grandmother orders, releasing me as soon as I’m upright. “We’ll take care of this.”

The first tunnel wyrm rears back, slamming its head into the rock above. I expect Lore to blink away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps his blade in place, swinging from it in time to avoid the blow. He drives a second one up through the underside of the serpent’s maw.

His next attack doesn’t manage to penetrate the scales

He might as well be a mosquito, inflicting pinpricks of damage.

A strong arm surrounds me, dragging me against a familiar chest as a whip of flame snakes out, extending and wrapping around a tail that was seconds away from crushing me. Drystan snaps the whip, his whole body straining to keep the wyrm in place as the fire flares, drawing an anguished whistle screech from it.

Green mist surrounds us like a creeping fog. Each breath that the creatures take spreads more of the stuff. The charms are working, for now, but how long can they hold out?

Caed’s swords are busy trying to pry open the beast’s jaws. Jaro’s wolf leaps this way and that, evading the talons as he tries to tear a chunk from its furred hide. A blur of black feathers is thrown back, landing in an explosion of bones.

Bree.

For a heart-stopping second, he’s still, and I desperately funnel Danu’s energy to him down the bond. When he erupts back into the fight, he’s not Bree like I’ve ever seen him before. His legs are gone, replaced with a huge black serpentine tail that’s almost as large as the tunnel wyrms’, with a mouth that’s now feline, full of rows of needle-sharp teeth.

It’s amazing, and I can’t stop staring.

Drystan’s fireballs are the only things that the wyrms actually seem to fear, but even those can’t drive them back. My Fomorian was right. Whatever territorial urge the creatures have to defend their nest is stronger than their dislike of the flames.

Then the room shakes again.

“More of them?” Caed asks, exasperated. “Ancestors’ hairy fucking balls.”

“This is the best party ever!” Lore agrees, somehow having regained his spot on top of the first serpent’s head.

Titania’s arrows fly past, embedding themselves into the eye sockets of the beasts, drawing more angry hissing from the lot of them. Mab and Maeve are hacking away with their swords. Every blow is crushingly ineffectual, making my fingers itch as I resist the urge to rush forward and help.

I’m not well trained enough. I’d just put them all in more danger. Only a delusional idiot would believe I could do more with my few months of training.

A tail sneaks out, and Drystan throws me into the air to avoid the blow. My wings catch me, but the dullahan isn’t so lucky. The serpent slams into him, and I stifle a cry at the loud crash that follows as he smacks into a wall, then down into another bone pile. He’s back on his feet within seconds, and a burst of urgency hits me along the bond.

With dread in my gut, I turn and come face to face with another hissing, shrieking menace. Worse. There are shadows building in the tunnel we came from.

We can’t fight all of them. My eyes flicker to Caed as one of his swords dives into the throat of the wyrm he and Lore are fighting.

These creatures will defend their nest to the death. Theirs or ours. Even if we miraculously manage to kill them all, we’re wasting time.

Our priority is Elatha and the portal.

“We need to go!” I call, fluttering backwards and trying to keep my breaths shallow as I focus on channelling all the magic my Guard needs and shutting out my racing heart and pounding head.

“But this is the fun part,” Lore protests, and I dart a look in his direction to find he’s managed to sink a second dagger into the beast’s other eye.

The wyrm finally falls. Collapsing to the ground under a wave of Mab’s lightning as Caed’s swords take its head from the inside. Blood weeps from the gaping wound in its neck, coating the floor in reflective red darkness. Twin tongues dart out in front of me, tasting the air and responding with outraged hiss-whistles that have me covering my ears.

The direction we came from is hidden behind more wyrms, with others still erupting into the increasingly confined space. Every time one of them crashes into the walls of the cave, or slams their tail into the floor, a tremor ratchets through the rock. The floor vibrates with movement until it seems like we’re suffering one prolonged quake.

Soon we’ll be crushed to death.

“No. We really, really need to go.”

I funnel my own urgency down the bond, and immediately a flame wall springs up between me and the snakes.

“She’s right,” Bree calls. “They just keep coming.”

My wolf howls in agreement, a sound that cuts off abruptly as he shields Caed from having his head bitten off and takes a claw to his leg for his troubles. The attack staggers him, leaving him open. A second wyrm takes advantage, sinking those deadly fangs into his side before Lore tackles it, backed up by three ghostly swords.

Jaro’s sandy fur, glowing in the light of Drystan’s flames, starts to darken. He takes a stumbling step forward before his back leg gives out. His paws scrabble, bloodshot eyes darting frantically. Then he hits the ground, going still.

No!

I dive, narrowly escaping the snap of the beasts’ jaws as I make for him. A scaled tail rises, and I flit underneath before landing on my knees in the blood. Shouts and hisses fill the air as I desperately search out my mark on his paw, not wanting to distract Titania from shooting the creatures.

Pressing one palm flush against the skull and rose design, I keep a firm hold on my bond to Danu, then sigh in relief as the magic passes between us, sealing the foaming cut on his leg. With the other hand, I fish for one of Kitarni’s potions, unstoppering the bottle with my teeth. It’s difficult to angle his head so I can tip the sparkling red liquid between his lupine lips, but most of it makes it into his mouth.

For a heartbeat, nothing happens. I scramble for a second vial, wondering if it will even work on him while he’s shifted.

Then his paw twitches.

One ear moves, his head finally swivelling. It takes moments, at most, for him to regain use of his limbs. Once he does, he gives a massive shake, the fur of his ruff puffing up as he presses a wet lick to my face, then a golden bubble surrounds us just in time to rebuff another pair of fangs.

“We need to find Elatha and get out of here,” I repeat, scrambling to my feet.

“Back the way we came,” Bree yells, though I can’t see him past the coiling scaled bodies taking up every single inch of space. “Someone try to get Drystan to understand we need a wall of fire behind us to keep them from following.”

“I hate to break it to you.” Caed grunts as if he’s taken a blow, and I flinch. “But they dig through rock, they have our scent, and they’re fucking pissed.”

The floor quakes violently, and this time it throws me off my feet and onto my ass.

“More of them?” Mab groans just as a second serpent finally falls.

“I don’t think that was the tunnel wyrms.” Caed dives through a gap in the golden bubble just in time to avoid the snapping jaws behind him. “Under the shield, now! Redcap, grab Drystan.”

Another rumble shakes the room, a chunk of rock falling from the ceiling above and striking one of the wyrms.

The hisses turn to shrieks, and then… they retreat. My chest tightens in terror. The floor shakes so hard that my arms fly out for balance.

“A little busy here, blue!” Lore blinks atop one of their heads, stabbing into the flat top of its skull rather than following Caed’s order. “Come back, beastie. I’m not done with you!”

Jaro’s wolf lets out an angry bark, but fortunately, Bree tackles Drystan into the safety of the shield in the next breath, the two of them landing in a pile of feathers and flame beside me.

Before any of us can convince Lore to abandon his quest, the world collapses in a deafening tumble of rock. My redcap’s excited whoops are drowned out as stone strikes stone, and the floor falls away.