Chapter 22 – Chainfire
They both shot to their feet with their swords, cold dread cracking on their flesh like a whip as Leisa and Coop sprung out of their bedrolls.
"You've got to be kidding me," Coop grumbled, all traces of sleep evaporating as he grabbed his bow and swung his quiver on his shoulder.
Within seconds, screams of terror filled the night with the distant blend of steel and hideous croaks while another bell rang, and then another, and another, a chaotic uproar spreading through the convoy like oil catching fire.
"This doesn't sound good," Leisa murmured, Sleyans crackling in her hands as she stared at the unfolding disorder in the campsite as soldiers scurried to their feet with weapons to parry the approaching attacks from the skeletal beasts, the vicious croaks echoing louder and louder as they spread through the campsite.
Amidst the rising confusion, Simon, Mark and Leo rushed towards them, swords drawn at the ready, and they had almost reached them when a shrieking Skinwalker bounded from the darkness and crashed into Simon violently, sending him to the ground with a painful grunt.
Robin lunged to tackle the beast off him but before he could even reach the man, an arrow whistled through the air and hit the creature's back.
Maeve's head whipped around to see that once again Coop had made a perfect shot, another arrow already notched in place for the next monster's assault.
Robin quickly helped his companion to his feet as Mark and Leo reached their little group.
"They're everywhere!" Leo warned agitatedly. "They're surrounding us from all sides!"
"Oh I hate Skinwalkers," Mark growled under his breath, his battle-axe clutched with both hands as he glared at the foul woods.
They stood together, forming a circle to cover every opening and protect each other's back, holding their breath as they braced themselves for the impending waves of rotten corpses that would surely swarm them like ants.
Maeve held her sword in a death grip, staring wide eyed at the saturated darkness of the twisted trees and with her heart pumping in her chest like a dangerous thunderstorm. She felt dizzy from her severe lack of sleep but her blood was stirring, flooding with the instincts of survival. It was the only thing that was keeping her standing on her legs, that and the white-hot fear of being ripped apart by Skinwalkers.
"Incoming!" Mark shouted before he smashed his battle axe into a Skinwalker's chest as it charged him from the dark trees with a sickening shriek.
Within seconds, dozens upon dozens of skeletal blind creatures spilled from the rotten woods like an army of crawling carcasses with crooked limbs and glistening fangs.
It was the beginning of another massacre.
In the outbreak of general panic in the convoy, exploding with wild shouts as soldiers and civilians ran everywhere, swords cut and hacked, daggers were thrown, arrows were notched and bowstrings were pulled and released repeatedly.
Everyone stabbed and slashed and kicked and punched, blocking the onslaught of Skinwalkers as best as they could, but in the blink of an eye, the vicious creatures were everywhere, crawling on the ground, climbing up trees, leaping from branches and rocks, clawing at people's clothes to bring them down, biting and scratching and hissing as blood stained the forest all around.
The blind monsters were everywhere, too fast and too strong, and ripping through their ranks with formidable bloodlust.
If Maeve had thought last night had been horrifying, this was nothing compared to it. This was death pouring down on the living like poisonous rain, plunging everything into an horrific carnage.
People were screaming all around her. Claws were ripping through flesh and tearing skin, bones were cracking and breaking, blades were slashing into white bodies that kept spilling from the darkness like waves and bells were ringing in every direction like some ominous damnation from the gods who had deserted these doomed mountains.
Everywhere she looked her eyes found blood and terror, amidst a sea of skeletal monsters crawling all around with empty white eyes.
Soldiers were falling like flies, and as she kicked a Skinwalker in the head and slashed its bony chest, a sickening feeling abruptly flared in her gut, twisting into knots like coiling snakes.
They wouldn't make it.
This was is.
This was the end.
Like an answer to her ominous thought, a Skinwalker brutally threw itself at her and snapped its jaw around her wrist, fangs sinking into her flesh with such force that she screamed and dropped her sword, pain surging through her hand as Robin drove his blade into the creature's back and hurriedly yanked her behind him as Leisa took the blow of the next skeletal beast, pressing her buzzing Sleyan onto its head.
"Protect her!" Robin shouted in the night like a madman, commanding the others to close in around her like a shield.
It made no sense to her as she clutched her bleeding wrist, groaning through gritted teeth as the stabbing pain from the deep puncture wounds radiated to her fingers and her elbow like liquid ice.
Her sword hand was useless now, but still she pulled a dagger from her boot with her left hand, determined to stand and fight until her least breath.
She pushed through Coop and Mark on the other side but Mark pulled her back by the waist with an iron arm, just in time to swing his axe and behead a screeching Skinwalker that bounded for them with a gaping mouth of fangs.
Maeve fought against the massive man's grip like a wild cat, and Mark had no choice but to release her just as another beast latched onto his thigh and brough him to his knees, but she quickly thrust her dagger between the skeletal ribs and kicked the creature away.
She whirled around then, aiming to fight beside Simon and Leo but Robin stubbornly gripped her arm with a bleeding hand, forcing her to remain within their shielding circle while they were being swarmed by killing machines ripping at their flesh.
"Stop!" he shouted in wild despair. "We're trying to protect you! Stay down!"
"I don't need protecting!" Maeve spat back above the screams and the bells. "Let me fight!"
"I can't let you die!" he growled back at her, his eyes alight with such visceral fear it froze her on the spot.
But then a Skinwalker threw itself at him, knocking him down at her feet to rip into the leather plastron that covered his chest.
Maeve raised her sword to hack the crazed beast into pieces but Leisa was quicker and rammed a Sleyan between its protruding shoulder blades, the Skinwalker uttering a deafening screech before dropping dead on the bloody ground.
Maeve helped Robin back up, but the Radakeel suddenly fisted a hand in her shirt and roughly yanked her forward, hissing a stern warning inches from her face. "Stay down or I will knock you out myself."
Maeve stared at the other woman in complete bewilderment, fury flaring in her blood. "Wha-"
But before she could protest, Leisa shoved her back into their protective circle, locking her up once more between their shielding stances as they fought against waves of horrific monsters.
Maeve stumbled to her knees in exhaustion, powerless and clutching her throbbing wrist as her vision blurred at the edges and her dagger clanked to the ground. She was losing too much blood and the last of what little strength she had left was already fading away.
But she could still make out the terrible outcome of the fight that was roaring all around her. Through her companions' protective statures, she could catch glimpses of the massacre beyond, the entire convoy falling apart in the foul woods.
Skinwalkers were dragging bodies in the mud, ripping through flesh and bones. People were screaming and wailing, shouting for loved ones and crying for help.
This was it.
This was the end.
They were submerged by an army of blood-thirsty monsters who were killing them one by one.
As she blinked against the fragmented pieces of the carnage, the screams and the bells ringing in her ears like the rumbling of a storm, Maeve saw Leisa losing her last Sleyan, Robin struggling with one dagger, Mark using his bare hands, Coop with no more arrows and Simon wielding a dying torch.
"We can't hold them off!" Leo called out in rising panic as he kicked a Skinwalker in the jaw. "Robin! What do we do?"
But no answer came from Robin as a croaking creature leaped on him and brutally crushed him to the ground once more, while Leisa was unable to aid him as she struggled to fend off three other beasts. Robin succeeded to kick the Skinwalker off him but failed to get back up as the skeletal weight was immediately replaced by another white monster, its sharp teeth glistening with the blood from a previous victim as it furiously clawed at its new prey. Robin wrestled with it like a snarling wolf, but the Skinwalker tore the dagger from his grip and ripped through the leather plastron at his shoulder like paper, next aiming for his throat.
Maeve watched the scene in terror, paralysed by dizzying fatigue, but then something sparked in her blood like liquid flames, a clap of thunder rattling her bones.
Her fingers abruptly itched with magic, like a storm gathering on the high seas to tear the world asunder with fire and blood.
The sliver of strength she had left within her core suddenly surged forward like a wave.
This was not the end.
She rose to her feet and with a roar falling from her lips a fireball erupted from her bleeding hand and slammed into the creature with a blast. The Skinwalker disintegrated into ashes with a piercing screech and Robin and the others all stared at her in complete shock.
But she barely registered their reactions. Fire was igniting in her veins and magic was singing in her flesh, a terrifying outburst of energy exploding inside her out of sheer survival instincts.
Another fireball shot from her hand again, colliding with the beast that dove for Simon and blowing it up to ashes. By the third fireball, the Skinwalkers were all twisting their heads up with their beady white eyes blindly searching for the source of the attack as the soldiers and the volunteers that were still alive glanced around in terrified confusion, wondering what was happening.
But the brief interlude was short-lived as the vicious creatures quickly resumed their butchery and Maeve knew she had to act fast.
With fiery resolve thrumming inside her like a spell, she strolled past Robin who was still too rattled by the turn of events to stop her, but Leisa was still vividly alert and stubbornly blocked her way, hellbent on protecting her tooth and nail.
But Maeve was done with this little game.
"You have three seconds to get out of my way," she glowered at the other woman, dead serious, and whatever the Radakeel saw in the fire of her eyes then, she obeyed her command at once and stepped aside, choosing instead to follow her and shield her from behind.
Without losing any more time as magic pumped in her limbs like a wild raging storm, Maeve kicked a Skinwalker in the head and climbed a set of small boulders so she would have a better view of the chaotic battle in the encampment.
Her head was spinning with dizziness and her legs were threatening to give out from under her, but she clenched her jaw tightly, willing her energy to last as long as it could.
Another series of fireballs ignited in her hands and she flung them at every Skinwalker she could see, hitting home every time and grinding the creatures to dust with each blast. Weakened soldiers and volunteers gasped in bewilderment, staring wide-eyed at her, the red-headed madwoman perched on a rock and raining fire upon the ocean of monsters.
Faces danced before her eyes as she spotted Ally and David, clutching their terrified children. She saw Peter and Lucas in the mud, surrounded by wounded soldiers trying to protect them. She saw Robert Thomet from Denwood, his heavy beard reddened by blood as he battled the gruesome creatures crawling all around him.
She felt her knees buckle at the sight of the carnage before her eyes.
There were too many of them.
It was like throwing a glass of water in a volcano.
She'd never be able to conjure enough fireballs to kill all the Skinwalkers, not unless she could set the entire bloody forest on fire.
She had to try something.
Anything.
But first, she needed to reach the heart of the massacre, where she'd be able to blast as many Skinwalkers as she could.
Gritting her teeth with resolve as her head spun with vertigo, she jumped down from the rocks and grabbed the hilt of a sword stuck in a root. Her mind went blank as the only thing fueling her onward was the primal energy of survival and the raw impulse to protect the people around her at all costs.
With no second thought, she charged through the ongoing savagery of the battle, through the blood and the screams and with Leisa at her back like a guardian panther.
She felt like she was moving in a dream somehow, ablaze with a fiery determination to put an end to this brutal madness. With every step she took in the barbaric display, she slashed at the Skinwalkers who blocked her progress as if she was cutting vines in a jungle, hacking at bony arms and legs, kicking and punching, yanking creatures off people and blasting them with fireballs, navigating further and further into the fight so she could reach the middle of the encampment while Leisa glided behind her like a human shield, killing anything that tried to charge at her.
When she finally made it to what she estimated was the center of the battle, bruised all over with her wrist bleeding and throbbing, Maeve didn't lose a second.
She slammed the blade of her sword in the blood-stained ground before her and shut her eyes momentarily to suppress the dizziness that roared in her head like a beast.
This was it.
With one silent prayer to whatever gods or spirits had abandoned this forsaken wasteland, she let the magic within her core unleash.
Like a dam crashing open.
Thunder quaking beneath her boots.
An explosion of fire.
Without really knowing what she was doing, she extended her arms out to the sides and with a sudden deafening blast, bloodied fingers spread wide, massive bolts of liquid fire shot from her palms on either side of her like a storm of flames. A primal roar fell from her lips as the powerful discharges of coiling red magic blasted into the nearest Skinwalkers and blew them up to cinders.
An inferno was blazing in her chest, her vision completely red as the formidable storm of power was ripping her apart from the inside.
She had never attempted anything of this magnitude before, not even when she had brought down a rock Colossus with red lightening many months ago.
But this was no red lightening.
This was a monstrous tempest of roaring flames, flowing from her outstretched hands like rumbling rivers of fire pouring out of her core and slowly sucking her dry.
Her legs began to shake, the magic tearing through her lungs and her limbs, but she bit her lips and held on with a groan.
She had to burn the Skinwalkers down. All of them.
She roared again with both pain and feral rage, allowing the liquid flames to lick at her bones and feed on whatever energy they needed to continue blazing outward in the bleeding night.
Her palms burned as the rivers of fire surged with renewed intensity, and what happened next nearly brought her to her knees.
The flowing bolts of fiery magic began to ricochet off their initial targets, hitting Skinwalkers one after the other as the liquid flames ignited into a network of blasts that spread from one creature to the next, forking and dividing again and again and again until there was fire everywhere, a roaring inferno blending into an eardrum-splitting symphony of croaks and inhuman screeches as the monsters burst into dust where they stood.
She was tearing through their skeletal ranks with all the destructive force of a mighty storm, with people all around hunching their shoulders and covering their faces against the blistering heat while also shouting over the rumbling tempest, raising fists and swords in the air with cheers and exclamations as their gruesome attackers were defeated one by one before their eyes.
But she could barely hear them.
The storm in her blood was slowly destroying her as well, the inferno pouring from her core sucking her dry of what little strength she had left.
She was at the end of her wits. There was no fire left inside her to burn.
Her legs shook and a stabbing pain clapped in her head like thunder.
She tried to scream but she choked on the air that locked in her lungs.
Without warning the magic inside her died down, the flames abruptly vanishing from her palms as the darkness of the night crashed down on her like the strike of a hammer.
Her arms fell at her side in exhaustion and her vision blurred. Her knees buckled but she caught her balance on the sword she had planted in the ground minutes ago.
Everything spun around her, her head splitting open with a blinding pain.
She heard the bright cheers and exclamations of the soldiers and volunteers who gathered around her, but they all blended into bodiless buzzes and distorted images.
She was going to faint.
She tried to stand desperately but the edges of her vision tunneled into a dull grey and the colors slowly faded from her sight.
The last thing she saw was Robin racing through the crowd, his blue eyes alight with fear and his arms catching her as she fell, her entire world going black.
And as the sky's falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out
Now I see fire, inside the mountain
I see fire, burning the trees
And I see fire, hollowing souls
And I see fire, blood in the breeze
And I hope that you remember me
-I See Fire, Ed Sheeran