Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
From these strikes formed four men and two women.
On their chests, they had metal shields that sparkled in the sun. Layered leather armor cupping their shoulders and going down their upper arms. Aprons flowing out from under their heavy weapons belts. These were red with yellow and orange markings on them: a face with hair that was flame around which curved a dragon. Plated forearm shields. Extremely long-bladed, bloodied swords in hands and double quivers filled with arrows at their backs. Thick scarves were bunched and coiled about their necks. Their black hair swept back from widows’ peaks and fell long past their shoulders.
And their red trimmed in orange mantles were drifting lazily in the breeze.
As one, they planted the points of their swords in the dirt of the road, hands one folded atop the other at the crest of ornate silver hilts.
And each fell to a knee with bowed heads.
After but a moment, one of the women lifted her head, her eyes pinned to Chu.
“My king,” she said.
Oh dear, I thought.
“What the hell?” Brix demanded.
“Shite,” Chu whispered.
King Aramus
MAR-EL
They had received Magnus’s bird.
The raven had come direct to him with the dire message.
And if Aramus lived beyond that day, he vowed never to tell a soul, except (perhaps) her, that when he sighted his queen galloping toward him, his relief was so great, he nearly fell off his horse.
“What the fuck is happening?” Cassius demanded, reining in Caelus so tightly, his mount’s head arced to the side, his front hooves came up from the earth, and his hind end shunted around to accommodate his body’s movements.
“They have an army,” Mars reported.
“How do they have a gods-damned bloody army?” Cassius asked. “And who the fuck are they?” he went on, jerking his head toward a cadre of the party they’d greeted.
“They’re Mystics,” Serena answered, explaining the four men and two women on steeds adorned with scalloped red bunting along their reins and long blankets over their rumps, the flesh of the horses so elegant, Aramus would be sending ships to that continent to procure some.
If, again, he lived beyond that day.
“I can see they’re Mystics,” Cass bit out.
“They’re Mystics?” Elena asked, her emphasis drawing Aramus and Cass’s attention.
“You know about this?” Cass asked her.
“It doesn’t matter about this, they’re Chu’s,” Serena stated. “What matters is, the priests were wrong. The Beasts have venom. And it does freeze a being. But only their conscious inside them. Their bodies become instruments of the Beasts.”
Well…
Fuck.
“Nautilus has been besieged by their army,” Ha-Lah said, shuffling her horse closer to his. “It is very bad, Aramus,” she finished on a horrified whisper.
He looked down at her, wasted precious time doing what he considered a priority, thus taking her by the neck, pulling her to him, and pressing his lips to hers.
He let her go, and she whispered, “I am all right.”
None of them were all right.
Thus, he simply grunted.
“Our women,” Lahn barked, regaining Aramus’s attention to their populace huddle.
“Your men, all of them,” Nav began, “remain behind guarding them. And the women have erected a magical barrier, rendering their hiding place invisible.”
This apparently sufficed for Lahn for he said no more, his large body visibly relaxing.
“Do we know anything else?” Elena asked.
True was gazing up as he said, “We hunt.”
“We hunt?” Cassius asked.
“It’s time to institute the plan,” True stated.
And then they heard them and all either looked up or twisted in order to do the same.
There, in the sky, they saw the dragons.
“Yah!” he heard, turned back around and saw Mars charging, followed by Apollo, Basil and Kyril.
“Heeya!” True shouted, and off went True with Farah, Lahn, Wallace, Luther, Bram and Florian.
Chu wheeled around, set off, and Serena, the gnomes, and the Mystics rode after him.
“Fortune shine on you, my brother,” Cassius stated gutturally, and then he set his heels into Caelus and burst forth, Elena at his side, Tor, Mac, Hera, Nero, Rus and Ian going with them.
“Let’s go, darling,” Hal-Lah urged softly.
He looked down to his wife, who had weapons at her belt, his men, all of them bloodied, but fortunately, none of them wounded.
“Where is Silence?” he asked.
He felt instant hatred of the look that came over her face.
“I do not know,” she whispered.
And he drew in breath.
“Jah!” he yelled, digging his heels in his horse.
And they rode.
King True
MAR-EL
He winced as the stream of fire raged down from the sky, the heat wafting from it feeling like it singed his flesh.
But when the dragon’s flame receded, the horse and rider racing before them could still be seen, and he and all the riders behind had to avoid the crater.
Frey had warned that the elves in his realm had shared the Beast would be immune to the blaze of a dragon.
But his horse?
Another stream of fire shot down and True rode carefully in order not to cross it.