Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Damn it, I thought, knowing I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain in this battle. I needed to achieve balance so I could be more effective. My people were counting on me to lead, to protect them and the forest, to make up the difference in our forces with my inherited well of robust magic.
I swelled my power for another spell as I tried again. Darkness crowded through my mind. My gargoyle pulled at me, dragging me down. Fear swirled, breaking my concentration. I couldn’t quite get the balance. I needed time to work myself down into this fervor.
It was time my team didn’t have.
The blue-gray blast of a magical gun zipped through the air right beside Niamh. She hadn’t seen those types of weapons before. She wondered what they did, though she didn’t plan to get hit to find out.
Austin roared as he charged onto the battlefield. His shifters followed. Niamh, in her alicorn form, ran around to the right, wanting to pick off the enemy lingering on the edges and shooting into the melee.
Jessie slammed magic down onto the ground crew even as she dove, claws out. She sliced at them, flying by. On her way up, she jammed her hands downward with another spell.
A portion of the ground crew quailed, sinking, but only a couple stayed there.
Her spell didn’t have the potency Niamh had seen at Elliot Graves’s meetup. Not even the potency of handling the enemy mage in the interrogation room. It certainly didn’t have the strength she’d used when she was challenging Sebastian. It was as though she hadn’t completely loosed her gargoyle.
Her roar was pure frustration. That couldn’t be good.
Austin Steele was obviously thinking the same thing. He put on a burst of speed, with his shifters behind him in a tight formation. Dave ran along the side, snarling like the wild thing he was.
Niamh pumped her wings to get some altitude and then clattered ahead with her hooves. The muppet fell, and she touched down in time to ram another through the back with her horn. She yanked the body over her head and nearly cracked her neck doing it. These fighters were big and wearing some sort of magical armor. Their clothes looked like normal uniforms but were harder and much heavier. Too heavy for this. She needed to switch gears. How tedious.
She landed a distance away as Austin Steele and his shifters barreled into the ground crew. He swiped with his big paw and clamped down with his mouth. Broken Sue picked someone up by the neck and laboriously swung him at someone else.
Yeah, throwing these fools around would take too much energy. Pity.
Niamh shifted into her other form and scurried forward as the gargoyles made a dash for the mages. Ulric dove, but the dome bounced him off, something she hadn’t remembered Sebastian mentioning. Ulric clearly hadn’t, either. He shook his head before pausing, looking down at the cowering mages beneath him.
Light from a magical gun blasted his way. Almost there, and Jessie swung out her hand. A sheen covered Ulric just in time, and the ray hit and deflected. Nathanial grunted something Niamh couldn’t hear over the noise, and then the gargoyles were switching gears as well, diving at the ground crew and ripping through them with claws and teeth. Some of the enemy were flown up a ways, killed, and then tossed.
Cyra followed them, spraying down fire before dodging, letting Hollace blast them with lightning. They could only hit in small doses of power, though, or this whole place would go up like a tinderbox. Setting these woods on fire wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Niamh’s heart sped up, which was unusual in battle. They’d given themselves a handicap in these woods that she, stupidly, hadn’t contemplated. Another handicap was the absence of the basajaunak. She’d known there’d be a possibility that the greater force wouldn’t join in, but Dave had been so confident. She’d hoped at least a few would lend a hand.
They were now operating within the worst-case scenario, and these mages had come prepared with a large force.
She scurried up an enemy’s leg and bit him in the face. It wouldn’t kill him, but he’d lose his sight. Good enough. There could be no frills here; they had a lot of people to get through, and there weren’t nearly enough of them to do so easily.
Jumping to the next, she saw an easy opening for the jugular and took it. Fast and efficient. His scream turned into a gurgle, and down he went, crumpling to the ground.
She dodged from under his falling body before seeing a boot stomping down at the last moment. The tread hit her back and pushed her to the ground. The enemy trooper had been ready for her. Damn.
The pop in her back was unwelcome, the pain even more so. She shifted into her alicorn form, using way too much energy but keeping herself from a broken back.