Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(86)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

“There must be some kind of gap in the walls around the moat,” Emrys said, running a hand through his hair and clenching it. “We have to tell the others. Now.”

 

But as the platform finished its ascent and leveled out with the armory’s floor, the Children’s screaming didn’t stop. It only amplified into a roar, engulfing us like a thunderstorm.

 

I pushed to my feet and ran to the nearby window. Betrys was visible through the rippled glass, a sword clutched between her hands, her back to the building. She ran into the courtyard with a ferocious battle cry.

 

“Holy gods of night.” Cabell ran to the doorway, throwing it open before I could stop him.

 

My mind finally grasped what I was seeing.

 

The racks around us had been emptied, and the courtyard was on fire.

 

Lines of flame blazed on the fortress’s walls and between the buildings, dividing the open space and trapping Children within flaming cages. Some threw themselves forward, undaunted, trying to get to where Caitriona, Arianwen, and Rhona were defending the main entrance to the tower, hacking and slicing through any of the Children who tried to enter.

 

Emrys helped a stumbling Neve forward. I looked to her, desperate.

 

“I need . . .” She held up a hand, visibly anguished. “I need a few minutes before I can cast the spell again . . .”

 

“Stay in the armory,” I told her, tossing a glance toward Emrys. He nodded, his expression fierce with resolve. “We’ll buy you some time.”

 

We ran forward into the raging chaos of the fight, searching for a torch or weapon to defend ourselves.

 

“Flea!” Caitriona’s shout drew my attention to them again. The girl bolted from the tower. Dragging a sword nearly as tall as her, she ran to join the fray on the ramparts.

 

Horror punched me in the chest as Caitriona broke from the others, chasing her. The other Avalonians were spread out between the infirmary, the kitchen, and the stables, fighting desperately with fiery arrows and staffs.

 

A single word rang through my mind as I searched the smoke, the fire, the darkness. Cabell.

 

I spotted him again near Bedivere, who blocked the entrance to the stables, defending the horses and goats from the ravenous creatures dropping like spiders from the roof.

 

The dead, Children and human, were everywhere. The sheer carnage brought me up short. A flaming arrow singed the air to my right, piercing the skull of a creature I hadn’t seen coming.

 

Seren’s sunshine-gold hair was splattered with dark blood as she nocked another arrow and shouted down to us. “Get to the tower!”

 

“Tamsin!” I turned just as Emrys tossed me his axe. He knelt to pick up a dead man’s sword.

 

“Can you buy me a few minutes?” Neve gasped out, her breathing hitching again. “I can try to figure out what I did before, but I need time!”

 

Without a word, Emrys and I moved into position around her. My eyes stung from the smoke and the wall of heat radiating from the fires, but the stench of blood and roasting flesh was worse. With a cry, I swung the axe into the darkness around me, striking stone, striking monstrous flesh, striking, striking, striking until it felt like my body was burning too.

 

A terrifying growl rose at my right. I whirled around, the blade of my axe cutting into the darkness, but I wasn’t met with the gray face of the undead.

 

It was the snarling mouth of an enormous black dog.

 

I released my grip on the weapon just in time, narrowly avoiding its head. The hound’s teeth were white knives as it dove for my ankle, locking its jaws around my boot. The breath blew out of me as my back hit the ground. I tried to twist, to claw at the stones, but it dragged me forward—away from the other predators that threatened its prey.

 

“Tamsin!”

 

Emrys ran forward, but I threw my other hand out to stop him. The hound yanked me toward a break in the fire line around the newly planted crops. The Children were there tearing up the soil, polluting it with their foul blood.

 

“No, Cabell, please!” I shouted. “Please!”

 

Emrys leapt forward, trying to grip the hound’s jaws and pry them off me. When that didn’t work, he picked up a loose stone and threw it at one of the dog’s red eyes.

 

The hound whimpered, releasing me as it retreated. Emrys hooked his arms around my chest and lifted me. I gasped as I tried to put weight on my ankle, my vision blacking out with pain.

 

The hound howled as it sighted new vulnerable prey. Neve, her eyes closed. Concentrating. Undefended.

 

Cabell’s quiet voice flooded my mind, drowning out the desperate voices around me. Don’t let me hurt anyone.

 

“No!” I screamed. I dove forward, but the hound was too fast, too strong—it leapt over fire, over bodies, its gaze never wavering from the sorceress.

 

Someone else got to her first.

 

Caitriona jumped down from the wall, landing in a crouch before Neve. Her armor glowed gold in the fire of battle. She raised her sword, her face rigid with determination.

 

I couldn’t live with it.

 

“Cait!” Flea screamed from the wall.

 

“Hold her, Seren!” Caitriona called back.

 

Do whatever it takes to stop me.

 

Seren shouted something down to us, but I couldn’t hear a word over the blood roaring in my ears.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

“Don’t kill him,” I begged. “Don’t kill him!”

 

Caitriona showed no signs of having heard me. Her gaze was sharp and assessing. When the hound sprang, she drew in a hard breath.

 

And let the sword fall from her hand.

 

The full weight of the beast slammed into her, tackling her to the stones beside Neve. Her armor clattered as it rolled, but it wasn’t half as terrible as the hound’s victorious howl, and Caitriona’s agonized cry.

 

The hound had clamped its teeth around her steel gauntlet. Emrys and I tried to lock our arms around its shuddering frame, to pull the hound away from her, but it was thrashing, baying, impossible to hold. Heat radiated from its fur as its pulse rose with killing intent.

 

Caitriona slammed a fist into the side of the creature’s neck and it howled in rage. Claws extended from the paw that was pinning her chest to the ground, piercing the metal.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

Reaching down toward her boot with her free hand, Caitriona tried to pull free the dagger there. Emrys cut at the paw pinning her, but the hound was lost to its bloodlust. It released her chest and I watched in horror as it bit down at the place where her neck met her shoulder, puncturing the armor to rip into the skin and muscle below.