Page 79 of Vanquished Gods
With the vampires’ shadows, we pushed the darkness out further. My legs shook, and my head started to grow dizzy. My breath rasped. I’d never unleashed my magic for so long, and nausea roiled in my stomach. My mouth felt dry, and I licked my lips.
I was already running out of power.
CHAPTER 37
“Are you okay?” Sion whispered.
My body trembled, my hand shaking as I gripped the wand. “I’m running out of magical energy,” I rasped. “Witches! Fall back. Get to the castle!”
As the witches retreated, I called more magic back into myself. Mentally, I channeled the power of the Serpent. I saw him as a little boy sprinkling bruised rose petals on the ground, mashing them into the dirt with his small hands. Another pulse of magic filled me, but it was growing weaker. I was using it much more quickly than I could refill myself, and dizziness whirled in my mind.
“I’m going to let the shadows recede,” said Sion. “We’ll lure the remaining soldiers into the forest.”
I heard him stumble off in the direction of the castle, and then the shadows started to thin. As they did, I saw the carnage laid out before us. The rows of bodies slumped on the rocks. The waves lapping at armored corpses. My chest clenched.
From behind them, a fresh wave of soldiers was rowing to shore in small boats. Already, more archers were arriving, nocking their arrows. Teams of soldiers unloaded battering rams, loading them onto logs and rolling them up the hill.
As they approached, their fear hung in the air so thickly, I could taste it. The Pater was nowhere to be seen.
“Retreat!” Sion shouted.
We turned, heading for the forest. We needed to move quickly enough to avoid their arrows but slowly enough that they saw exactly where we were heading.
As we ran toward the forest, arrows thudded into the ground around us.
From behind us, I heard chaotic shouts commanding the Luminari to follow us into the line of oaks. They wanted us—Sion, Maelor, and me.
And just before I slipped beyond the line of trees, a hawthorn arrow slammed into my shoulder. I winced. Pain slid through my veins at the feel of hawthorn in my blood. As I stumbled, I ripped the arrow out of my shoulder, grunting.
As my strength drained, wild hunger ripped through me, an uncontrollable craving for blood. I inhaled the scent of damp leaves and earth, then the smell of human life running closer. Their fear, their sweat…I craved their blood in my body.
The poisonous tinge of hawthorn corroded my veins, spreading agony through my muscles. I stumbled, my vision blurring as I struggled to stay upright. Feral hunger raked at my insides, and I fell to my knees. But as I looked behind me, I saw exactly what I needed racing for me. So many mortals with blood pumping hot in their veins.
Ravenous, I took a step back, lying in wait behind an oak tree.
The prey, running straight into a trap set by the hunters.
They had no idea what waited for them here.
The moment the first soldier came into view, I lunged for him. I slammed his hand hard against the oak trunk until he dropped his sword. The sound of his frantic heartbeat was a beautiful drum in my ears, the most beautiful music of life. Hunger raged in my gut, and I licked my fangs.
Time seemed to slow as his green eyes slid to me, and sweat trickled down his forehead. I lunged for his throat, puncturing his skin. My hand curled around the back of his neck as his pulse fed his life into me.
My blood-thirst raged like a storm, wild and unstoppable. Words went dim in my thoughts until there was only the hunger and the sensation of his blood flowing into my mouth. The nectar of the gods exploding across my senses like nothing I’d ever felt before. Thick and rich, it carried the essence of his life. It rushed into my body, drowning the pain of the hawthorn, dissolving the weakness.
I sucked down his blood until rationality returned. The thought crossed my mind that I should be wonderingwhynone of his Luminari brothers-in-arms were coming to his aid.
My eyes flicked open, and my gaze slid around the forest. For the first time since I’d been hit by the arrow, I was actually paying attention to the world again. Shadow magic coiled between the trees, though as I vampire, I could see right through it. The Luminari, however, could not. They stumbled blindly, feeling around in the dark as vampires took them down, one by one. The soldiers’ shouts echoed in the air, panicked, confused.
There was a time when I would have felt terrible guilt for so many deaths at once. But maybe as a vampire, my survival instincts had grown stronger.
As I drained the soldier of the last of his blood, his body convulsed in my grip. His pulse slowed, his body going still, as I finally sated my hunger. I dropped his limp corpse to the earth, and the warmth of his lifeblood spread through me. All around me, vampire soldiers were slaughtering the Luminari from under the cover of shadows.
I felt more alive than I ever had.
I turned to look at the castle, where phalanxes of Luminari soldiers advanced in tight formation toward the castle walls.Their sun-emblazoned banners fluttered in the wind. They carried ladders, ready to scale the walls.
On the battlements above the castle, the six fire witches stood with their hands out, flickering with flames. As the lines of soldiers reached the castle, the witches sent fire erupting from their fingertips, burning arcs that ignited the lines of soldiers below. They crumbled beneath the searing heat, and others tried to run. Some raised their shields in desperation, but they still screamed, burning as the flames heated their metal shields.