Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(88)

“Which way?” Atrius barked. The air itself shivered with the beat of countless wings. We stumbled as the earth shook with the weight of their bodies against the rocks, growing frenzied.

The moment they saw us, the shrieks pierced the air. I could’ve sworn they were of delight.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

“That way,” I ground out, and dragged Atrius left, to a smaller path between the cliffs. Now only my fingertips brushed the walls, maintaining just enough of a connection to the stone to sense the path back

I’d tried to memorize the route before we started. I prayed I remembered right.

Another shriek curdled my blood. Atrius broke into a sprint, dragging me with him.

Weaver help me. Gods, I’d better remember that path.

“There!” I choked out, just in time, and the two of us rounded a corner sharply, nearly slamming into a wall.

The slyviks were great hunters. They didn’t lose their prey. Seconds later, we heard them behind us. They were gaining.

Soon they would be on us.

Neither of us could speak—no time for that—but I could feel the pressure building in Atrius’s presence, like a thread growing taut. Could feel his hand creeping toward his belt, just in case.

We were close.

We had to be.

I reached into the threads, checking our path—

Pain shot through my shin as it struck a sharp rock.

I stumbled, my knees nearly hitting the ground. Warm blood spurted down my leg. Atrius grabbed me roughly and yanked me upright again, dragging me along, and not seconds too soon because that time, I felt the slyvik’s breath on my back.

We were going too slow.

I could feel the same realization settle over Atrius.

A little farther.

The turn was up ahead, just a little more—

I grabbed Atrius and we took the next corner, gravel sliding beneath our feet, and I could feel movement in the threads above even if I didn’t have the time to focus on it, and we were going to make it—

SNAP.

I was yanked backwards with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs.

The slyvik’s roar surrounded me, shaking my bones. A burst of damp, hot air engulfed me.

My shirt. It had grabbed my shirt—

Before I could move, Atrius sprang into action. It was beautiful, the way he moved, with such sudden viciousness—like nothing ever caught him by surprise. His sword was out, and by the time I realized what was happening, his strike had already landed—right into the slyvik’s eye.

A screech of pain rattled the earth. The ground hit me hard, my legs collapsing under me. Atrius fell back, too, rolling and falling back into a clumsy crouch behind me. Before us, the slyvik reared back, blood dripping from its face, wings spreading wall-to-wall. Behind it, other snakelike bodies slithered through the mists as its nest-mates caught up to us, heads of teeth and starving eyes curling through the gaps in the stone to corner us.

This time, I couldn’t keep the fear down.

Atrius froze too, his hands gripping my shoulders, like he was ready to go down fighting for both of us if he had to.

My fingers curled around my weapon.

We’d both go down fighting.

The slyvik before us prepared to strike—

And then a cacophony of animalistic shrieks pierced the air.

Not from in front of us. From behind us.

The flood of relief left my body momentarily limp.

Because we had made it. We had made it.

The slyviks’ heads snapped up, peering into the mists, far beyond us. Their bodies coiled, readying for a fight. The roars lowered to glottal hisses and clicks. Stone screeched with the bite of claws.

Behind us, the same sounds echoed back, as the other nest of slyviks prepared for a fight.

Territorial men—human or vampire or slyvik. The one thing you could always count on.

We were never going to get past the slyviks with our strength or our stealth. The only chance we had was to distract them with something far more interesting than some prey.

And a rival nest? Well. That was interesting.

I’d never felt anything quite like the sensation of those short, endless seconds—like the electricity hanging in the air before a lightning strike, or the quiet in the sea before a tidal wave crests. We were in between two deadly forces of nature about to destroy each other.

It was, in a strange way, beautiful.

Then Atrius’s fingers tightened around my arm, and he whispered in my ear, “Run.”

We dove out of the way just as the slyviks lunged at each other.

The wave crashed. The lightning struck. This fight, of creatures utterly oblivious to any goal other than ripping each other to pieces, was just as powerful.

They collided in an explosion of teeth and wings and scales, and we bolted.

The air was thick with the screams of slyviks, sounds of such range and pitch that I never imagined an animal could make them. We couldn’t speak to each other even if we’d tried. I couldn’t stop to navigate our way through the stone—surely the vampires couldn’t see much of anything either, through the mist and the writhing bodies of the slyviks. But they knew the plan. They knew the signal. When they heard the commotion break out, they knew there was only one thing to do: run for their damned lives.

It was a straight run out, I’d told them. I’d been careful to sound very confident about it, even though, in reality, I wasn’t completely sure—it was so hard to sense the specifics of the rock formations this far away, and through the disruptive presences of the slyviks.