The Trail of Flame by A.R. Knight

Author:A.R. Knight [Knight, A.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Key Books

Chapter 20

Remnants

Ami with Flamebreak, cutting a burning edge through the air while Catya threw her knives, the braces running over both shoulders. Their distractions letting Svarde get into a killer’s position, diving down on the fiend, the bandit, the creature with murderous glory. A team, that’s what they’d been.

One Svarde sorely lacked now, trapped in a gale alone. Well, not alone, but Kivi still lay on her side, evidently stunned or wounded. Maena, trapped against the wall, cowering now as the fiend devoured her will, wouldn’t be helping either.

And Svarde, with nothing more than his axes and a scraggly shirt, dirty undershorts, had to once again go for the rescue.

The wind tested that idea, pressing against Svarde as he tried to push towards the fiend. Lifting his foot strained Svarde’s thighs, while keeping his axes pointed at the enemy cramped his hands. Svarde’s eyes watered as grit blew in. Ahead, those howling faces, those awful hands sang.

One step, two, and Svarde remained well outside swinging range. Maena crumpled further, the fiend now spreading over her, looming. The faces whirled faster, the wind growing stronger, the hurricane reaching its apex.

The plan wouldn’t work. Svarde couldn’t force his way through. He needed another plan, and that plan began and ended with his favorite rock lizard.

Kivi, her back against the quartz and claws scrabbling, losing to the gale, remained on her side. Dropping his axes, Svarde cut hard left, the gale battering him on the gemstone. His shoulder took the strike, his legs earned small cuts on crystal spears, but Svarde could move, could walk when he didn’t have to charge at the wind.

Nearing Kivi, Svarde pushed out from the quartz just enough to put himself between the wind and the ferrite, blocking the gust. Kivi, her sapphire eyes lighting up as Svarde came into view, used the reprieve and threw herself onto her stomach, all four claws digging into the stone.

“Go get her,” Svarde shouted over the noise.

Kivi obliged.

The ferrite stayed low, pressing her belly to the stone floor,herits claws biting in with every scuttle. Svarde twisted, the wind blowing his back against the same pink wall Kivi had been stuck on. He watched as the ferrite, doing her best to shrink her profile, snuck up on the siphoning fiend.

Watched as Kivi made her way beneath the monster, jerked up her head and took a bite.

The wind snapped, died as the fiend flew up and away from Kivi’s rock jaws, flattening itself against the ceiling. Those pallid, formless faces pressed against the stone, blending in enough to make Svarde wonder if the monster had been watching them the whole time.

A question better to ponder after he’d cut the thing apart with his axes.

Svarde darted back to his arms as Kivi jumped on the wall, scurried towards the fiend. The ferrite’s slats split, burst steam. Kivi was angry, then, and ready to enact some brutal vengeance on the creature.

Good.

Svarde scooped up his axes, saw a flash as the fiend slid away from Kivi,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.