Page 51 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure (The Children Of The Gods #98)

I still had a job to do, and I couldn't succumb to panic.

When he released me, I followed what I'd been taught and crawled to the other side of the tower, peering through a gap in the wooden slats.

Three Shedun were attempting to flank the Marson family's home. I lined up my shot and fired. The nearest one went down hard, clutching his leg. His companions hesitated, and in that moment of indecision, they made perfect targets for the defenders in the eastern tower.

"Good shot," Ednis grunted, picking off another attacker with a careful aim. "Keep watching that side. Don't let them get behind the houses."

Time seemed to lose all meaning. I fired, reloaded, fired again. My shoulder ached from the rifle's recoil, and my ears rang with the constant gunfire. But I didn't stop.

I couldn't stop.

A scream cut through the noise—one of ours.

I risked a glance and saw Weber clutching his arm, blood seeping between his fingers. But he kept firing one-handed, his face twisted with determination and pain.

"They're retreating!" someone shouted. "They're running!"

Sure enough, the Shedun were melting back into the shadows as quickly as they'd appeared, dragging or carrying their wounded with them, but leaving the dead behind.

"Keep firing!" Ednis bellowed.

I tracked a fleeing figure through my sight, squeezing off two shots in quick succession. The second one found its mark, and the Shedun crashed to the ground.

He didn't get up again.

Within minutes, the surviving demons had disappeared into the darkness, and I could imagine them jumping into the mouth of their tunnel—a dark hole torn into the mountainside, carved out by one of their giant worms.

The sudden silence was deafening.

"Is it over?" I asked.

Instead of answering, Ednis turned and lifted his eyes to the sky. As I followed his gaze, there was nothing to see, but I heard the distant beat of powerful wings approaching.

A thunderous roar shattered the night, so powerful that it made the wooden tower tremble. My head snapped up just as five massive shapes burst through the auroras, their wings creating gusts of wind that whipped my hair around my face.

Their scales gleamed like polished steel in the ethereal light as they dove after the fleeing Shedun.

The lead dragon opened its maw, and the stream of blue-white flame that erupted turned night into blinding day.

The raiders were consumed in an instant, their bodies reduced to ash before they could draw a breath to scream.

I should have felt satisfaction watching our enemies burn, but the raw display of power made my insides twist, and the acrid stench of burning flesh brought about a wave of nausea.

This was different from rifle fire.

This was devastation on another level—nature's fury harnessed as a weapon. And yet, death by dragfire was swift and far kinder than what the Shedun offered their victims.

These vile creatures did not deserve such mercy.

Fueled by an irrational hatred of dragons and those who bonded with them, the Shedun dedicated their collective miserable existence to hunting both. Every life they extinguished was an offering to their abhorrent god of death, a deity as cruel and as insatiable as its worshippers.

Elusitor, the dark face of Elu, the deceiver, the destroyer, the tormentor.

It was this relentless onslaught that forced all Elucians to dedicate long years of their lives to military service, standing with our winged, fire-breathing allies against the tide of darkness.

The ground shook as the massive lead dragon landed in front of our tower, and I instinctively gripped my rifle tighter, even though I knew it didn't mean us harm.

Frankly, I was as awed as I was terrified or perhaps the other way around.

No, fear was definitely the stronger emotion. This was an apex predator, and I was a puny human it could snuff out with a hiccup.

Dragons were just as intelligent as humans, but to assume that they were anything like us was a mistake. As my dragon lore teacher had said on multiple occasions, they didn't think like us, they didn't feel like us, and they didn't make the same judgment calls.

It was never wise to lower one's guard or underestimate their destructive power.

It or rather he, because it was definitely a male, bent his long neck so his eyes were level with mine, holding me transfixed. Glowing like molten gold, those eyes conveyed intelligence and curiosity, and as he regarded me, I felt as if he was looking straight into my soul and measuring my worth.

Mesmerized and terrified, I didn't dare breathe, but then something stirred inside of me, and I felt compelled to shift my gaze from those golden eyes to those of the rider, which were no less captivating and unnerving.

It almost felt as if the dragon wanted me to look at his rider and had somehow communicated his wish to me, but that was absurd.

Even if I had the gift, it wouldn't manifest until I was twenty-one and the shaman coaxed it to the surface on top of Mount Hope, which would take place five years from now.

Still, here I was, gazing into the impossibly dark eyes of the imposing rider and feeling dazed and lightheaded. Was that why I was seeing gold flakes swirling around his irises, even though he was too far away for me to see such minute details?

Could it be another thought that the dragon had planted in my mind?

When the rider finally released his hold on my gaze, I sucked in my first breath since the start of this strange encounter.

He shifted his eyes to my rifle, then the bodies of the Shedun strewn on the ground, and a small smile lifted his lips.

A two-fingered salute followed, but instead of offering it to Ednis, it seemed as if he was offering it to me.

Did he think that I, a sixteen-year-old girl, had killed all those Shedun by myself?

I wanted to correct his misconception, but the words refused to form on my lips. Then his dragon dipped its head as if to second the rider's opinion, and my head started spinning.

I stumbled back.

"Easy, girl," Ednis said quietly as he put a hand on my back. "Never show a dragon that you fear it. It might mistake you for prey."

"I'm not afraid," I murmured. "Not anymore."

I was mesmerized, enthralled, and some other emotion I couldn't decipher. A yearning for something.

No, yearning wasn't the right word to describe the intensity of what I was feeling either.

Need .

I needed… what?

To climb on the back of that dragon and look into the eyes of its rider from up close?

What an absurd thought that was!

I was surrounded by carnage, the smell of burned flesh still permeating the air, and yet I was thinking about a guy and the strange connection I felt to him?

It must be the shock or the adrenaline or whatever other hormones were released during battle. Survivor's high. Perhaps a post-combat elation. I'd read about that, but never really understood the phenomenon before.

Now I did.

The thrall was only broken when the dragon launched back into the sky with a powerful beat of those massive wings, the downdraft nearly knocking me over. Ednis steadied me with a firm grip on my arm, and together, we watched as the dragons pursued the last of the fleeing Shedun.

The night was lit up with multiple streams of flame, turning the mountainside into a canvas of fire and shadow.

It was an awe-inspiring display, and in my post-battle euphoria, I cheered our dragons on.

I wanted them to turn every fleeing Shedun into ash so none of the monsters could return to slaughter the people of another Elucian village.

"They're making sure none escape back into the mountains," Ednis said, his voice filled with vengeful satisfaction. "Burning them as they try to crawl back into their tunnel and then sealing the hole."

Once their grim task was completed, the dragons wheeled overhead in formation, with the huge obsidian dragon that had landed before us taking point and leading the others in a final pass over our village before disappearing into the ribbon of lights above.

The sudden absence of their presence left me feeling strangely hollow.

Despite the auroras still dancing overhead, the night suddenly seemed darker, smaller somehow.

"Those eyes," I whispered, more to myself than to Ednis. "I've never seen anything like that."

"Aye," he said. "That's why we call them the Wise Ones."

I hadn't meant the dragon's eyes, although they too were magnificent. It was the rider's gaze that had seared itself into my soul, and I knew that I would dream about it for many nights to come.

I shook my head and took a long, steadying breath.

As the haze lifted, reality crashed back with the acrid smell of gunpowder mixed with the sharp scent of dragfire, the nauseating smell of burned flesh, the copper stench of blood, the dead bodies strewn about, and the moans of the wounded.

Then, the throbbing pain in my palms suddenly registered—the splinters buried in my skin from the tower's rough wood making themselves known.

"We have to make sure all the Shedun left behind are actually dead." Ednis was already moving toward the ladder. "We also need to check for survivors, take care of our wounded and prepare our dead for their rites."

I started to follow, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. Now that the immediate danger had passed, my body was remembering how to be afraid. My hands began to shake violently, and I clung to my rifle by sheer determination.

"Hey now," Ednis's voice softened as he turned back to me. "It's alright, Kailin. It's over. You did good."

A sob caught in my throat. "I killed people."

"No," Ednis said firmly, walking back to me and placing his hands on my shoulders. "You killed monsters. Those weren't people out there, Kailin. People don't slaughter innocent villagers in their beds or torture captives to death for the sake of their twisted god's pleasure."

The tears came then, hot and unstoppable.

Ednis pulled me into a rough embrace, letting me sob against his shoulder. "It's okay. Let it all out."

He smelled of gunpowder and pine smoke, so much like my father that it was enough to center me and help me regain my composure.

When my tears finally slowed, he held me at arm's length, studying my face. "You've got steel in you, girl. Now, go on home and get some sleep if you can. We'll take care of the rest."

"But I can help?—"

"You've helped plenty," he cut me off. "This next part is not for you. Go home, check on your animals, and try to get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll honor our dead, but tonight, there's more ugly work to be done."

I wanted to argue, but exhaustion was already settling into my bones. Looking down from the tower, I could see shapes moving in the predawn light—villagers emerging from their homes, checking on neighbors, gathering the fallen.

As I climbed down the ladder behind Ednis, my muscles protested every movement, and as I made my way home, every shadow made me flinch, every sound had me clutching my rifle, but finally I made it through the door.

I needed to check on the sheep, but it would have to wait.

Chicha launched herself into my arms the moment I crouched down, her tiny body vibrating with relieved whimpers.

"We are okay," I whispered, holding her close. "Thanks to you. You saved us, you little alarm fiend." I kissed her shaggy head. "Wait until Mom and Dad hear that. Mom will make you your favorite snack."

At the word snack, Chicha perked up and lifted her snout.

"Tomorrow, sweetie." I kissed her head again.

Tomorrow, there would be funerals to attend and damage to repair.

Tomorrow, we would mourn our losses and strengthen our defenses.

Tomorrow, I would face my parents when they returned from Skywatcher's Point and tell them that their sixteen-year-old daughter had killed for the first time.

Tonight, though, I would cuddle my little dog and dream about a pair of dark eyes with molten gold swimming in their depths.