THE RECKONING
Schlimazel (noun): a consistently unlucky person.
DAY 34, HOUR 22
We RJE’d into a blizzard.
This was it.
The forest outside the last infected settlement.
The battle that would end the war.
Even with layers of protection, the freezing temperatures hurt as the snow pummeled us. My eyes stung as my lashes crusted with ice.
Forty-four of us trudged forward through the storm.
Hunched low.
I shivered and blinked rapidly as I tried to see. An arm wrapped around my shoulder, and a glowing scarlet ball of warmth flickered over a bronze hand in front of my chest.
“We’re supposed to be concealed,” I said, and my voice was swallowed by the wind.
A gruff male voice spoke close to my ear. “Your Protectors are blocking us from sight. Don’t worry, my Revered.”
Scorpius and Orion shielded us with their bodies.
Malum’s ball of fire glowed maroon. I raised my mittens up to it.
The sting of the chill abated.
Malum pulled me tight against his side and shielded me from the worst of the snow.
He held me like we were on good terms.
We weren’t.
I shivered again, and the intensity of the flame increased.
“Why won’t you tell me where you went?” I asked.
Malum went rigid and Scorpius glanced back over his shoulder.
The two kings had returned yesterday covered in blood and once again they’d refused to talk about where they’d gone.
“Not now.” Malum shook his head. “Later, Arabella. I promise. It will all become clear.”
“Fine, we’ll talk later.” I pulled away from his embrace.
He made a harsh noise, but he let me go. Moving more stealthily than a man of his size should have been capable of, he positioned himself beside his mates.
Without his flames, the cold intensified.
My bones hurt.
Teeth-chattered.
I trembled with shivers.
Out of nowhere, a glowing ball of fire floated in front of me, and the heat cut through the cold.
Malum was walking ahead, and seemed to be ignoring me, but his fire trailed beside me.
“Thank you,” I called out so he could hear me.
“Shush,” Rina snapped.
Malum looked back over his shoulder and winked.
Heat warmed inside my chest that had nothing to do with the ball of fire.
We marched through the wintry forest. The kings were in front of me, and the twins were behind.
I was surrounded by a wall of flesh.
A personal army of monsters.
As we stomped through the ankle-deep snow towards the infected settlement, my sense of foreboding grew.
I wanted to turn and run. I forced myself to keep moving forward with everyone else.
We only had forty-four soldiers left.
With the current casualty rate, the twenty-two men left to secure the perimeter had a ninety percent chance of death.
Fumbling with my mittens, I pulled out my pipe, shoved it between chattering teeth, and inhaled greedily.
Immediate calm descended as warm smoke filled my lungs.
The ball of fire burned hotter.
A hand patted my back gently. “Keep moving,” John said as he hunched behind me. His voice was unmistakably hoarse, even in the howling wind.
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped moving.
I was bent over, smoking.
Instead of walking forward, I turned to John. “Are you okay?” I asked as I looked back and forth between him and Luka pointedly.
The twins were shrouded in glittering darkness, a tangible force that wrapped around them.
“We’re fine, stop worrying about us.” Luka’s voice was unfamiliar and rougher than John’s. “Please.” He huddled closer so he could be heard over the wind.
It was obvious the twins were in physical pain.
They held themselves differently. They hunched forward slightly, like they were protecting an injury.
They’d left the camp, and something bad had happened to them.
When they’d returned from whatever secretive place they’d gone, their lips were pinched tight and eyes glossy from pain. They’d walked differently.
A small part of me was still angry at them for disappearing again. A larger part of me was just plain worried.
They were putting on a brave face, but something was horribly wrong. I was terrified it was my fault.
“Focus on the battle, Aran.” John punched me gently in the arm. “Nothing’s going on.”
I exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I don’t believe you.” My words were swallowed by the blizzard.
“We don’t have time for this, we have a war to win,” Scorpius snapped, and his tone left no room for argument. “We need to move.”
I inhaled smoke and trudged forward as the kings and twins resumed their protective positions.
Horse cawed as he settled onto my shoulder.
He nuzzled my face, his wispy form barely holding shape under the storm’s onslaught.
We moved as a unit in silence.
Soldiers off to war.
Time folded in on itself.
I blinked.
We entered the courtyard and Malum’s flame dissipated.
Rina told me to put my pipe away and put my black hood on.
I ignored her.
Smoke filled my lungs.
I blinked.
Twenty of us crept through familiar flame-lit corridors. Ice melted off uniforms and dripping sounds echoed down the quiet corridor.
I looked down.
Unlike everyone else, I was still covered in a sheen of cobalt.
The ice wasn’t melting off me, it spread beneath my feet with every step I took.
Someone shouted.
Glowing blue swords were drawn.
I blinked.
Wings clattered above, and swords stabbed down from the ceiling, expertly hitting targets. Down the corridor, a gruesome roar echoed—the warning sound of a bear shifter—and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Infected screamed as we eliminated them.
Ungodly chittered as they ripped from their corpses. I sliced off their heads before they could react.
“Good work,” Malum shouted. He was nothing but a blur of darkness. I squinted as I tried to discern where the rest of the soldiers were in the smoky corridor.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back.
An ax flew out of nowhere and missed my pipe by inches.
“Pay attention,” Luka shouted.
Two figures closed ranks on either side of me, and I sucked on my pipe greedily, grateful it hadn’t been hit.
“I am,” I said as I swung my enchanted swords forward and sliced the neck off an infected.
“We’ve got your back,” John shouted. There was a grunt and a thump as a body hit the ground behind me. The twins fought behind me.
“I’ve got your front.” I dodged ungodly pincers and protected them.
That was the last thing I said for hours.
The battle raged in the halls.
I blinked.
We’d been fighting for what felt like an eternity.
Sweat froze as it dripped down the sides of my face, making my skin feel uncomfortable.
We sprinted down the hall as a group. The twins and kings ran in front of me with their swords drawn.
There was a fork ahead in the corridor, and everyone turned left.
A hidden door opened at the exact moment I passed, and an infected flung herself at me. As our swords clashed, I skidded backward down the right path, away from the group.
There was a loud crack as the side of my head slammed against the stone.
Disoriented, I stumbled and touched my ear gingerly. Instead of bone and blood, a broken earpiece fell out.
I had no time to feel relief.
A blur of blue arched toward me. I barely spun and got my weapon up in time. The infected was a bulky male who towered over me in strength and height.
He was strong, but I was faster. My blade sliced clean through his neck, and his head rolled.
An ungodly ripped into existence.
I stumbled backward because it was larger than any ungodly I’d ever seen. Its head scraped across the towering ceiling.
Twirling my sword, I sliced off one of its arms.
A pincer slammed into my chest and flung me backward.
It lunged again, and I barely dodged the blow.
I needed a plan of attack. It was too tall for me to swing my sword and slice its head off. I would have to jump if I was going to pierce through its chest.
“Run!” Jinx’s voice shrieked in my head.
I turned and sprinted down the dark corridor as fast as I could. A horrible chittering clack echoed loudly behind as the ungodly sprinted after.
In a split second, I processed everything that had happened and all my options.
“HELP!” I shouted as I ran, my heart sinking in my chest. I couldn’t hear anything but the ungodly chasing me, which meant no one could hear me. I needed that earpiece. Of all the times for the bond sickness to be gone.
“HELP!” I screamed again with all my might, because while it was a long shot, it was my only option.
I just needed one person to hear me.
Just one.
I squinted as I tried to discern what glowed up ahead. Maybe the corridors looped together in a circle? Maybe the other soldiers were up ahead?
Jinx screamed in my head, “Wait, don’t ru—”
A sword swung forward, and instinctive reflexes were the only thing that stopped me from getting my head removed. Sparks flew as our swords slammed together. Multiple swords glowed, and I backed up, blocking blow after blow with everything I had.
“Behind you!” Jinx screamed, and I threw myself to the side as I remembered what was chasing me.
The ungodly was unable to change its trajectory and slammed into the infected, pincers slashing.
Not good.
My stomach tightened with horror.
Ungodly exploded out of the downed bodies, and I was surrounded by slashing pincers and screeches.
For a second, the world slowed.
The analytical side of my brain took over.
I could hear my heart pounding through my veins; I could feel every ridge of the metal hilt in my fingers.
There were two possibilities: (1) I could let them tear me apart (chances were high that they wouldn’t know to eat my heart and I would wake up after the battle was over), or (2) I could fight with the goal of creating an opening and running away from the group.
Enchanted smoke filled my lungs, and I rolled my pipe with my tongue.
Even if I survived, the oversized ungodly would still pose a threat to the men.
A pincer swung toward me. I sliced it off.
I made my choice.
My thoughts went blank, and I fought desperately, blue swinging in an unfollowable blur as pieces of ungodly rained down. I tried to create a path for myself.
For each one I downed, another seemed to appear.
The shadow of the oversized ungodly loomed behind the fray like he was waiting for me to tire.
He was smarter than the rest.
But I also wasn’t stupid.
Mind blank with concentration, I barely processed the vibration that shook the stone beneath my feet.
There was a bone-chilling roar.
Something immense slammed against me. My head cracked against the wall, and I fell, slumping against the stone.
I braced myself for the attack.
A furry body moved, and I squinted in the dark.
Ungodly shrieked as they were slaughtered, and razor-sharp claws glinted as they sliced mercilessly.
Groggily, I rubbed at my eyes as I tried to push the confusion from my brain.
“Stand up!” Jinx’s voice was fuzzy and barely audible. “S—protect—you. Find—sword. Do—now!”
Head aching, vision spinning, I crawled through the debris toward the blue glow.
I reached toward a sword.
My fingers…just…barely…wrapped around metal. A wall of muscle and fur slammed against me.
Everything went silent.
In slow motion, as if I was merely spectating, I sailed through a brick wall, and my teeth chattered against my pipe.
A white-and-black, striped creature flew through the air with me. Razor-sharp claws were bright pink and decorated with rhinestones. It had twin fangs longer than my arm.
Moisture blurred my vision.
Sadie had heard me.
Against all odds, she’d heard my call for help.
The ceiling where we’d stood fell down on the ungodly, and the corridor disappeared in a pile of rubble.
My body turning midair like a rag doll, my eyes widened as I saw what we were flying toward:
A vacuum of swirling energy.
A portal.
This can’t be good.
We slipped through time and space and kept falling.
Sadie turned midair and cushioned me.
We slammed into concrete.
Time lost all meaning as we lay in a pile of bruises and broken bones. Everything was silent. It was almost peaceful—until it wasn’t. The saber-toothed tiger cushioning me shifted back into a scrawny woman.
The world snapped, and sounds rushed back into my ears.
Fear mixed with adrenaline, and I stumbled to my feet. I stood in front of Sadie’s naked body.
The room spun, my vision blurred, and my hips ached with throbbing pain as I pointed my sword forward protectively.
Blue glowed all around.
I blinked furiously to clear my vision.
A rock pinched the side of my mouth, so I pulled out my pipe and spit it into my palm. It was my tooth.
I shoved my pipe back between my lips and inhaled smoke desperately as my eyes slowly focused.
We were in a sprawling brick room.
The temperature was unbearably warm, and my clothes were suffocatingly heavy. I broke out in a sweat.
The walls were covered in pictures. Flame sconces provided the only source of light. The ceiling towered high above and was at least thirty feet tall. There were no windows or doors.
On the far wall, an expansive tartan hung off the ceiling and showed the locations of the mountains, valleys, and infested settlements within the realm.
It was a map.
In the far north, next to the third battle location, large red Xs were once again laid out across the mountain range near the valley. I squinted. At the bottom corner of the map, there was a key that said “X – villages.”
My stomach pitted with unease, because even if we were successful in clearing the last compound, there was likely still more infected.
The war wasn’t done.
I exhaled with shock, a puff of smoke curling from my lips as I took in the rest of the room.
I stared forward numbly.
A hundred or so people stood before me, most of whom had enchanted swords hanging off their hips.
My brain processed anomalies: there didn’t seem to be any bathrooms, and there weren’t signs of food, but the room didn’t stink of waste, and the people weren’t starving.
The portal swirled in the center of the towering ceiling.
A rushing sound filled my ears.
I backed up slowly. We were lucky we’d fallen near the corner of the room so we had protection at our backs.
That was where our luck ended.
In the dim lighting, the crowd of people’s eyes glowed with a familiar, vibrant green sheen.
The nearest infected were about ten feet away.
They stared at us.
I crouched low, stance wide and protective. No one was going to hurt Sadie. Not on my watch.
