Page 173 of Dare
“Patience,” Jeryn murmured, having recognized the same thing. His gaze was also fixated on the spot I’d indicated, where a barbed tail slithered along the branch, its source getting nearer to the voices.
The boa from my fauna pack. After bonding with the creature, I’d learned about her powers. With a strike to the nape, the serpent’s quarry would die in agony, with blood spurting from every nook and cranny of their skin. Despite my kinship with the animal, she had the ability to condemn her targets to a hellish death. Or if not, this legion would harm her.
Terror clenched my throat. Frantic, I scrambled for a way to distract her, to keep the female out of harm’s way without alerting the troops to our presence. But the snake hissed, already noticing me hiding like prey and sensing why.
No sooner did the burned soldier go silent than another knight screamed. And then many knights screamed.
“Get it!” a voice raked. “Slaughter the fucker!”
No! Not her!
I vaulted past Aire and Jeryn, only for the prince to snatch me back. His palm clamped over my mouth while I thrashed, but his cool voice stroked my ear. “Look.”
And I looked. And I saw the boa shooting past the soldiers, her movements too rapid to follow, fluidly dodging the army’s attack. As she sank her fangs into a warrior, a feline roared through the wild. From the undergrowth, a jaguar leaped on the springs of her paws, her saberteeth and claws bared while other predators stampeded into the scene, including anacondas and leopards and reptiles with tusks. Among them, my fauna pack laid siege, defended their home, and protected me as one of their own.
Voices howled. Flesh and ligaments tore. Blood ran like a river.
Man-made weapons struggled against the onslaught. To say nothing of the flora, brambles spearing legs, creepers snaring waists so tightly they threatened to sever each armored body, stinging tree sap tacking men and women to the trunks, and bottomless streams that only appeared shallow before they sucked victims into an abyss. Against the predators’ speed and strength, the knights toiled in a battle with nature.
“Seasons almighty,” Aire breathed.
“I can’t!” I wailed, flailing as Jeryn dragged me out of the shrubs, away from my pack. “I can’t! I won’t leave them!”
“Trust what you see, Flare,” he growled. “Give this wild credit.”
Aire nodded his agreement before launching ahead. I stalled, because the rainforest was eternal, and it had lasted for centuries without me, through eons of elemental disasters. A few soldiers wouldn’t overpower this realm.
Jeryn was right, and Aire sensed this truth, so I had to keep faith. My pack would be safe. If I didn’t believe that, my heart would crumble to dust.
We quit the gruesome spectacle, our feet flying, gaining distance. Or so we thought until Aire swerved to avoid a leopard with glowing spots, the creature bounding inches from him, forcing the knight through a beam of canopy light.
“The shadow,” a man yelled. “There!”
“It’s another creature!” another bellowed.
It wasn’t. But if they mistook us for the fauna, so much the better. Still, one of them hollered, “Seize the monster!”
Damnation. I veered toward Aire while ripping the machete from my rope belt, then skidded in place when a small object whizzed past us and blasted the first assailant off his feet. I squinted, making out the shape of a dart as another one fired through the foliage.
Or not a dart. The object was quill shaped like a thorn.
My eyes widened. Briar.
Relief flooded my being as a flash of red hair dashed into the scene. Clad in a dark jumpsuit and with a braid crowning her hair, the princess catapulted into view. With pinched features, she narrowed her gaze, fighting to see through the murk. Then she flung another thorn quill across the divide, using the forest’s glow to guide her aim, as I’d once instructed during her visit. The weapon hit its mark, knocking down a female warrior.
The thorn quills disintegrated seconds after impact, some newfound form of design that I hadn’t seen from her before. This would prevent the troops from identifying Briar’s signature weapon.
Awe stretched across my face. Stumbling to a halt, Briar exchanged nods with Aire, then sought my gaze.
“Flare,” she gasped.
“Briar,” I called.
In the dark, we lunged for each other, clasping in a quick hug. The cacophony of bloodshed consumed the wild. Human shadows collided with fauna outlines, and knights jabbed their swords, combatting the predators and each other. Confusion ensued, with the soldiers unable to tell comrades from animals, trees from giants, plants from weapons.
This lush, dark rainforest disoriented them. The fray spread like a rushing tide.
Jeryn’s silhouette rammed into someone. He lashed his knife, and the attacker hunched, fluid spraying from their throat.