Mask of Betrayal (Mask of Illumination Book 4) by JMD Reid

Author:JMD Reid [Reid, JMD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fallbrandt Press
Published: 2021-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

18

Foonauri’s stomach fell. They had no escape. Not with ten knights drawing heavy morning stars, metal rods with round balls adorned in spikes capping them. A weapon that inflicted gruesome wounds against armored men.

Against the unarmored . . .

The knights trotted forward, the lieutenant sitting astride his horse. Foonauri glanced at the brush to the side. She pushed Pharaj for it. “Go, climb!”

“Loyalist scum,” the lieutenant snorted as if that proved it.

Pharaj hit the snowy slope as the knights thundered closer. The lieutenant didn’t move a muscle. Foonauri was right behind her promised, her stomach sinking like lead. This is where we die. In the snow. No one even knowing who we are. What we have in our possession.

An ignoble end. Nothing like Foonauri had ever imagined, not that she had given much thought to the end of her life. The future had never seemed too important as more than a vague concept of having luxury and ease.

Now it was different. She had Pharaj and Roidan. A future that she craved to see and feared she never would thanks to Xiona’s ambition. She scrambled up the snowy slope, grabbing a birch tree to pull herself up faster. Snow churned about her feet. Pharaj’s cloak flapped in her face.

Ruby light flashed.

“Grenado!” screamed the lieutenant.

Foonauri threw a look over her shoulder to see the small jewelchine landing before the lead knights. It burst with a sharp thunderclap a moment later. A flash of scarlet then a cloud of dirty white slammed into the enemy. Horses screamed in pain. Men roared. The smoke cleared to show two destriers on the ground, kicking, their riders twitching in smoking armor. Another horse whinnied, blood fountaining down the fur adorning its wither. A third knight slumped in his saddle; tears ripped through his surcoat.

“Kill them!” the lieutenant roared, struggling to hold his shying horse.

“Go, go, go!” Foonauri hissed. “They can’t climb the hill with those mounts.”

Hope surged through her. They would be chased into the snowy hills, but they could escape from the knights. For a time. Already, she heard them dismounting and clattering forward. She threw another glance. Citrine and Spinel climbed up the hill, Baroidan struggling before them. The knights reached the base.

“You will hang, dogs!” the lieutenant roared, fury in his voice. “Each and every—”

His word cut off with a wet thud.

Foonauri stared in confusion at the blood fountaining from his throat. Something dark thrust out from above his gorget, the collar of his breastplate. Metal gauntlets pressed to his throat. He leaned over while his horse whinnied and danced nervously.

Twangs echoed from above her. Dark streaks hissed over Foonauri’s head. She threw herself to the ground as crossbow bolts slammed into the knights. Armor rang as heavy breastplates deflected the missiles. Points tore through surcoats. Splinters burst around the enemy. A fragment stuck one in the eye, protruding out of his visor.

Other bolts found weaker parts of the armor. They buried in gaps at the hips. Punched through pauldrons or the thinner sides of breastplates.

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