More vampires poured from the other side of the woods. Roland’s troops still pressed their attack on the Keep, not realizing what was happening.
Above the Keep Christopher dived from between the clouds, his wings opened wide, like a fallen angel. He opened his mouth and screamed.
The mass of troops churned, as hundreds of men and creatures tried to flee in unison, away from the Keep and toward the smoke. Christopher screamed again and again, his shriek gripping my spine with an icy hand even from this distance. The offensive broke apart. People fled. Christopher swooped down, grasped a writhing body, and flew up, burying his fangs in the man’s neck.
We tore into the retreating troops. I swung Sarrat, slicing, severing necks and backs. Around me vampires swarmed without a sound, silent, merciless, slaughtering everything in their path.
The field was chaos. Men, beasts, shapeshifters, and animals clashed, screaming, snarling, and ripping at each other. The air smelled like blood. Harpies dived through the sky. One aimed for me and a winged form shot out from the clouds and sliced it in half with a flaming sword. Teddy Jo. I didn’t think he’d come.
A vampire headed for me. Not one of ours. I rode it down. The stallion stomped on the undead, and I finished it, crushing its skull with my magic. Across the field, green and bare undead crashed against each other, fighting silent duels.
A massive beast shaped like a leopard but twice that size leapt at me. The impact of its weight took me off the horse. Claws scraped my blood armor. I thrust Sarrat between its ribs, twisted, heaved it off me, and rolled to my feet.
A ring of fighters waited for me.
They charged me and I danced. It was a beautiful dance, of blood and steel and severed life. My breathing evened out. The world was crystal clear, the sounds crisp, the colors vivid. Everything I tried worked. Every strike found its target. Every thrust pierced a body. They cut and slashed, but I didn’t wait for them. I kept cutting, losing myself in the simple rhythm.
They’d come here to kill me. They died instead. Corpses piled up at my feet. My aunt was laughing. And then they broke and ran.
I looked up. The wall of black flames was thinning. I could almost see through it.
“Retreat!” I screamed. “Retreat now!”
The green-striped vampires fled from the field toward the Keep. Once the wall went down, my father would be able to reach them. The bloodsuckers would die by the dozens and so would the navigators piloting them.
I turned. The black smoke had dissipated. The entire front of my father’s army was gone. Mammoths lay like burial mounds of fur. Bodies, vampire and human, sprawled on the grass.
Most of the remaining army gathered around my father, forming a mass of bodies. I saw Curran roaring, enormous, demonic, tearing into monsters left and right. The mercs followed in his wake.
My father froze in his chariot, his face bloodless. One moment he had a vanguard and now it was all gone. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking to the left. I turned my head and saw the sea of green-and-blue banners the bloodsuckers had left thrust into the dirt as they retreated.
“Glory to In-Shinar!”
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
I spun around.
Julie sat on her horse, holding my banner. Her voice rolled, charged with power. “Glory to In-Shinar!”
The air screamed as the first blast from Andrea’s sorcerous ballistae tore through it. The green missiles shrieked over my head and pounded the front of my father’s remaining force. Bodies flew, burning with magic fire. Andrea’s ace in the hole.
My father raised his hands. A sphere of light appeared in front of him, shielding the troops. The missiles crashed into it, their magic splashing over the light and falling down, powerless.
My father brought his hands together. The corpse of the mammoth about two hundred yards to the left of me shuddered. Magic built within it, spilling out as thin green smoke. I reached for the magic around me and froze it, but the green smoke thickened. Whatever he was doing couldn’t be blocked by the land’s defenses. I started toward it, climbing over bodies.
The carcass burst. Three creatures emerged, clad in tattered rags. A foul magic wrapped around them. I had felt many fucked-up things over the years, but this . . . this felt like death. Every instinct I had screamed at me to turn and run the other way.
“Plaguewalkers,” my aunt snarled in my ear.
“Shapeshifters are resistant to disease.”
“Not this disease.”
I ran, scrambling over the bodies.
The plaguewalkers started toward the Keep.
A ballista missile smashed into the middle of the three and exploded. They kept walking. Shit. Magic didn’t do anything. They had to be physically cut down.
Shapeshifters burst from the hole in the Keep wall. The first shapeshifter, a lean wolf in warrior form, reached the leading plaguewalker. Ten feet from it, the wolf collapsed, clawing at his face. Another shapeshifter, another fall.
Where the hell was my stupid horse?
The plaguewalkers moved forward. Arrows flew from the Keep and sank into the plaguewalkers, but they kept going. They would keep walking, just like that, until they walked straight into the Keep.
A huge Kodiak bear charged through the shapeshifter ranks. The leading plaguewalker raised his hand.
I heard Curran roar.
Lesions split Mahon’s hide. He kept running, too fast, too massive to stop. Pus slid from the wounds, falling to the ground.
I was running as fast as I could.
The bear tore into the plaguewalkers. The massive paw crushed the first one’s skull.