Spectral Reconnaissance Squads: An Action Packed Urban Fantasy Thriller (Faerie Protective Services Inc Book 14) by McKinney Robert

Author:McKinney, Robert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McKinney Can't Press
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“This isn’t us, Aden.” whispered Treg as we crept through the city a few minutes later. Though he stood a head taller than my own six feet, he moved well through the rubble of the abandoned streets of the Cleft.

I followed in his wake, rifle held high and eyes searching for a hostile elf around every corner or a floating wave of leafless trees to creep up from behind the roof of some house or another. Instead of threats, I found bodies. More than I could count, even if I’d been inclined to do so.

The nearest of them was missing both arms and legs. I wasn’t going to let either Treg or Smith end up like that.

Not if I could help it.

“We’ll be whatever we have to be to get through this day.” I replied.

“Will both of you shut up?” hissed Smith before pointing towards the fourth figure moving along with us. “I don’t want those things paying any more attention to us than they already are.”

The things in question weren’t the floating trees, or even denizens of the city. They were the pair of decapitated heads that I’d insisted on bringing along with us.

I’d barely had time enough to give the Colonel and Captain a heads up before I’d started using the axe I’d borrowed to dismember the corpses of the two elves I’d tried to save. It had been grisly work, but not nearly as much as the spell I’d cast once the pair of skulls were separated from their torsos.

With a bit of iron magic, I’d given both of the decapitated heads enough of their old minds and voices to answer my questions from beyond the veil. My first questions had been simple. Where were you going when the tree had found you? Where is the nearest fae stronghold within the Cleft?

The answers to both questions had been one and the same. The elves had been en route to the last fortress to have borne up against the chained forest's assault. It was a cliffside bastion, built of living rock and reinforced with fae magics. If there was anything in the city that would give us an advantage, it would be something like that fortress. Once informed of the destination, we started pushing towards the stronghold as fast as we could move.

The pair of decapitated heads gave us directions as we moved through the city. Left here, right here, straight ahead - and so on. To call their running commentary disturbing was an extreme understatement, but I tried to push back the inherent horror of turning the bodies of elves into a macabre GPS in order to focus on the far more terrifying prospect of the Chained Forest itself.

There was plenty to fear there, because the forest was chasing us. As had been the case with the tree we’d just destroyed, the oncoming ocean of lifeless wood wasn’t very fast. It was persistent, though, and I knew that any ground we lost on the scantest of rests wouldn’t be regained easily.

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