Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“I’m no son of yours,” Zev spat as he readied his stance.
“No, you are not,” Decimus agreed, and his voice was icy. “You have the queen’s stench all over you, boy.”
I wouldn’t have thought the katana would hold against the broadsword but it did as the two powerful men fought. There was pushing around me and Isabella and I lost sight of them for moments before Brenna was at my side, then Eris, and finally Kamari and Sibel. Of course they had followed Zev, they always did.
The soldiers of Ophir attacked, and my guards defended us as I looked for somewhere to go but found nowhere to run. Returning my attention to Zev, I saw the wide swing of Decimus’s sword and knew he meant to sever his head from his shoulders, but instead, he was hit from behind by Sibel. Her weight threw off Decimus’s balance, so the blow that was intended to be deadly, removed my champion’s arm instead.
Decimus howled in anger, turned fast, like the strike of a coiled snake, an instinctive move he must have used on the battlefield a thousand times, and sliced off Sibel’s head as cleanly as he had Zev’s limb.
My vision tunneled down to my dead friend and I screamed. I’d lost people dear to me before, the same as now, in front of me where I was powerless to do anything, and it gripped me just as it had then like a punch in the gut that took every drop of air I had.
“Jason, we have to get to Zev,” Isabella shouted, and going toward Decimus seemed wrong but there was no other choice.
Snapped from my horror, I made a hole in the crowd that Isabella followed me through, sliding in his blood when we reached him. I pulled off my belt and used it quickly as a tourniquet, pulling it tight as Isabella began quickly chanting over him, placing her hands on him, which instantly stopped his convulsing.
Decimus came for us, but Kamari was there, ready to defend, a dagger in each hand, stabbing his legs and stomach, making him bleed just as Eris, similarly equipped, leaped over us and pierced him in the chest hard, causing him to stagger back.
My attention turned to Zev, making sure the tourniquet was tight enough to control the bleeding, when suddenly there was a cry like an animal dying before I looked up and found Brenna standing over me a moment before Eris dropped to the floor in front of us cleaved in half.
I hadn’t seen Decimus slash at her, too focused on Zev, but I saw the end he’d made for her. My friend, my companion, was dead and bleeding. Brenna lowered into a crouch to charge but I grabbed her arm. When she turned to me, her eyes were wild with pain and fear.
“Help me move Zev,” I pleaded. “Don’t die. You can’t die.”
She blinked several times and then it was like her mind cleared and she understood her purpose. Moving quickly, hands on Zev, she helped me and Isabella as I yelled for Kamari, looking around for them. When I spied my guard, they were crumpled at the base of a large column, seemingly unconscious. I suspected that Decimus had hurled them there after killing Eris, unable to deal a second death blow so quickly.
I saw Kaan then, driving toward us with his men around him, a phalanx that belonged to the king. There were less of Decimus’s men and I realized the end was close for his forces. They would soon be overrun.
“We are coming, my queen, my consort,” he called out and I felt that to my core, that he was there to save us.
“Kamari!” Brenna shrieked and my guard lifted their head in response to her, then getting their legs under them, moved quickly before being flattened by the oncoming horde.
I heard a yell then, and looking up, saw that Decimus appeared enraged. He glanced around, realizing, I suspected, that he was about to be outnumbered. I watched in horror as he dropped his sword and shifted to the wolf.
It was fast and clean, like Varic’s shift, one moment man, the next animal, and he went from being vulnerable to slaughtering everyone near him in seconds. He tore men to pieces, and as people surged around us, I ordered Brenna to guard Zev.
“I must stay with––”
“I order you to guard him,” I told her, and she nodded quickly as I turned and saw Decimus using his arms like a scythe, mowing down soldiers, his own and Varic’s, butchering anyone in his path to Isabella.
I checked Zev’s face, saw how pale he was, glad he was unconscious as I dragged Isabella to her feet to pull her after me.
“Jason,” she gasped, pointing, and I saw Kamari fighting through soldiers to try and reach us only to be attacked by more of Balon’s men.