Page 22 of Monsters in the Museum (Defenders of the Light #1)
Chapter twenty-two
“ H eads up!” Xander shouted, even as he raised his arms to shield his face from the impact of another fireball. It bounced off the ward he had created before rolling a few yards, making another black scar in the already charred earth. He winced as it hit, the bombardment of his ward jarring his bones. It was only a matter of time before the magical barrier collapsed under the strain. With no other Defenders around to help him, Xander wasn’t sure he would be able to cast another one.
He glanced behind him at the rest of what was, for the moment, protected by his ward, pinned up against a large pile of rubble that protected their rear. The seven Warriors in the bunch were all huddled together, trying to aid the two injured. Xander spotted Aediene tearing a strip off the bottom of her battle tunic and using it to tie a tourniquet around the arm of a wounded comrade. Demetrius and two of the others were taking turns reaching their spears outside the ward to shoot out shimmering beams of Light, keeping the Shadows at bay. While it kept the mass of darkness from assaulting the barrier directly, the fireballs they were launching were doing enough damage to force Xander to grit his teeth to keep the ward in place.
When Aediene finished her makeshift tourniquet, she stepped up beside Xander. For the moment, she held her helmet under one arm so she could wipe the sweat away from her furrowed brow.
“How much longer can we hold out here?” she asked, taking in Xander’s pale face and unsteady stance. She reached up to dab a trickle of blood on his cheek from where a stray piece of shrapnel had given him a shallow cut across his brow.
“A few more minutes,” he admitted grimly, brushing her hand away. He needed to keep his focus on the situation and not get distracted by his injuries. Xander could practically see Aediene’s brain whirring behind her eyes as she took in the reality of their situation.
“We need to get back to the main force then. It’s the only way. We’re much less effective when we’re divided into small groups like this. The Healers there should be able to patch up our injured.”
Xander nodded once, not wanting to waste energy on unnecessary words. Her reasoning was sound, but as he looked in the direction of the rest of the Eteria, all he could see was a solid mass of wriggling darkness, the creatures of the Shadow packed together so densely that he could not tell where one ended and the next began.
“You take the injured, offer them as much protection as you can. Demetrius and the others will cut you a path, and I’ll protect you from the back.” Aediene jammed her helmet back onto her head as she spoke, the bronze cheek and nose guards settling across her face, leaving only her determined eyes exposed. Despite the soot turning the usually crimson plume on the crest of her helmet a dirty charcoal and the blood and grime ground into the whirls of her bronze chest plate, she looked every inch the legendary Warrior as she stood before him.
Aediene turned to the rest of the group and relayed the plan, her sharp voice carrying clearly and evenly over the cacophony of battle surrounding them. The expressions of the Warriors mirrored her own grim features.
She turned back to Xander, hefting her spear.
“On your call, dissolve the ward, and we’ll make our break for it.”
He nodded tightly once more and twisted his sword in his hands a few times, readying himself to use it to cut down the Shadows. Before he moved to release the wards, though, he met his wife’s eyes and said quietly enough that only she could hear, “Aediene, I-”
“Whatever it is,” she cut him off. “Tell me when we make it out the other side.” The way she said it made it sound like a promise, and his courage bolstered as he turned back to the ward.
Holding his sword at the ready, he took a deep breath to steady himself before shouting, “Now!”
The instant the ward dropped, the Warriors started running, charging into the wall of Shadows, the creatures falling like stalks of wheat before their arcing weapons. Xander didn’t have time to watch for more than a second before he and the injured Warriors plunged into the fray after them, and his world narrowed.
Xander’s muscles took over, and his arm swung without him telling it to. He slashed through tentacle-like arms and stabbed into creatures that attempted to block their path. The only thing keeping him from being reduced to an arm with a sword was the part of his brain listening for his wife’s battle cries at his back. He barely heard the inhuman shrieks of each dissolving creature before he had dispatched the next one. The hot air stung his eyes and burned his skin. A metallic stink filled his nose, making him choke when he tried to gasp for breath. None of that mattered, though. All that mattered was the narrowing distance between their small band and the rest of the Eteria. Just fifty more yards, and they would be free. Forty yards. Thirty.
Xander was torn from his battle haze by a very human scream. He wrenched his sword from the misshapen torso of a shadow creature and whirled around. Demetrius was frozen in place ahead of him, his eyes glazed, and it took Xander a moment to register the tentacle of blackness protruding from the center of his bronze breastplate. He watched in horror as the Shadow that had impaled Demetrius swept its arm out to the side, throwing the Warrior’s limp body carelessly away to be swallowed up by the writhing ocean of darkness.
Xander was jerked back to reality by a sharp jab in between his shoulder blades.
“Run!” Ordered Aediene from behind him. When he turned to look in the direction they had been headed, he saw an opening. A break in the darkness leading straight to the glittering ranks of the Eteria. Without wasting another moment, he started sprinting towards the gap. The Warriors ahead of him had reached the edge of the Shadow now. His feet pounded the blood-soaked earth, and the burnt air ripped through his aching lungs. With a final surge, he hurtled out of the twisting mass of the enemy and through the gap in the ward the other Defenders had opened for them. The wall of Light fell back into place behind them as they tumbled through.
Bracing the hand not holding his sword on his knee, he struggled to catch his breath. After a moment, he twisted to find his wife, wanting to tell her what she had not let him say before they left their cover on the other side of the battlefield.
What breath he had managed to catch rushed out of him when he looked behind him to find she was not there. Frantic, his eyes roved over their small party, all heaving and panting behind the safety of the larger ward. A few Defenders and Healers were already rushing over to help them up. She wasn’t there.
Xander looked back the way they had come, and a scream ripped its way from his throat. She was still entrenched in the Shadows, about twenty yards from the edge, but the Shadows were driving her farther back every second.
“Aediene!” He barely recognized the voice as his own as he hurled his body against the inside of the ward that now separated him from his wife. She tried to put a large chunk of rubble to her back to give her some protection, but the effort was futile. The Shadows were closing in on her, no longer allowing her to use the full slashing arcs of her spear. He could only make out the singed plumes on the top of her helmet as the Shadows began to engulf her.
Unthinking, he used his sword to slash at the ward. He put his full body weight behind the stroke, releasing an inarticulate scream of desperation. A rift formed in the transparent barrier, and he plunged through it. As he charged forward, Aediene was completely overwhelmed. Even as he hacked his way into the swirling dark, Shadows pressed in tight to her body, making it so he could barely make out her form in her armor. He looked on in horror as a Shadow latched onto her face, and a sickening darkness forced its way down her throat, her eyes rolling back in her head. The sound was sucked out of the world as Xander watched Aediene slowly fold in on herself. She doubled over and swayed precariously. Xander was barely aware of the fact that he was still throwing himself against the Shadows, trying to reach her before she hit the ground.
Before he could get there, Xander’s world went violently white. He threw a hand up to protect his eyes from the sudden, blinding light. He struggled to locate Aediene where she had fallen on the ground, only to grind to a halt as he located the source of the light. His wife was no longer crumpling to the ground, but upright again. Her feet were hovering several inches off the ground, and Light was pouring off her. Blinding beams poured forth from her mouth and eyes. Even her skin burned with a brilliance that hurt to look at. The Shadows that surrounded her, skittered back, clawing over one another to retreat from Aediene’s luminescent form, shrieking so loudly that Xander felt as if his skull was about to split open. He tried to take advantage of the open space, advancing toward her once again.
Before he could take two steps, Xander found himself forced to his knees as a wave of Light burst forth from Aediene. The surge ripped the air from his lungs, and his ears filled with a roar that sounded as if the Gods themselves were screaming. Light rippled forth from Aediene, and everywhere it touched, the Shadows evaporated, leaving nothing but a slight haze in their absence. Xander struggled to stay on his knees as the wave passed over him, desperately keeping his eyes fixed on the dazzling epicenter of the Light, where he could just make out his wife’s figure. He could have been there on his knees for seconds or minutes; he did not know.
The roaring dissipated as suddenly as it started, the last of the waves bursting forth from Aediene. The force of it blew her backward, as if a massive hand had reached out of the sky and thrown her across the field like a ragdoll. Her back collided with the chunk of rubble she had been trying to use as cover earlier. Even with his ears still ringing from the roaring, Xander heard the sickening crunch from the impact.
Before Aediene hit the ground, Xander surged to his feet and dashed toward her. He skidded to his knees beside her form, his sword dropping forgotten from his grip. His heart stuttered in his chest as he saw that Aediene’s eyes were closed, and there was a sizeable dent in the side of her helmet where her head had connected with the rock. Xander couldn’t stop his hand from shaking as his fingers searched her throat, desperately seeking a pulse. He leaned in close, repeating his wife’s name, again and again. Xander prayed to any God who might be listening to let him feel her breath brush across his cheek as he listened for signs of life, but it never came.
Aediene was dead.