“Got anything for me?” Night’s deep voice held a hopeful note.
Hartt looked him over, a frown pinching his black eyebrows, reluctance shining in his eyes. When another cry sounded outside, an elegant katana appeared in his hand and he was quick to spin it around and hold the hilt out to Night.
“I want it back.” He didn’t release the blade when Night took hold of the grip near his hand.
“I’d never dream of keeping it.” Night’s tone told Mackenzie that he had considered holding on to the black blade, a weapon forged from the same metal as Hartt’s armour and the only thing that could cut through it.
Hartt released it as another similar katana appeared in his left hand. He rolled his shoulders and then his neck, glanced at her one last time and then his hand was on hers and darkness embraced her. For once, it was warmer than the place she had just left, offered a brief reprieve from the bitter cold.
When they landed, she had to bite back a yelp as she sank calf-deep into snow. That wasn’t good. She looked at the battle raging ahead of her, at what had to be almost a hundred of the milky-eyed clones fighting Grave, Isla and Frey, and Syn. That really wasn’t good. Hartt hadn’t been lying about the number they would be up against.
Mackenzie waded forwards, gave up trying to reach the place where the snow had already been trampled and teleported instead, reappearing close to Syn as she whirled and her large silver sword sliced clean through the head of one of the clones.
Hartt appeared on a low growl beside her. “Stay close to me, godsdammit.”
She wanted to glare at him and tell him she could handle herself, but as two black-haired clones launched at her and she recognised their matching faces, she decided not to turn down Hartt’s help.
Because Rosalind had been right.
Their blood mage was here.
The clones were perfect replicas of him, right down to the form-fitting ankle-length black coats they wore that hugged their torsos but flared from their waists, allowing them to move freely. The only difference between them and the one who had created them were their strange blue eyes.
Silver blades flashed in their hands, catching the moonlight as they leaped at her as one. She was swift to bring her twin blades up, crossed them in front of her and blocked the blade of the first clone. The second one grunted as he went flying and she glanced at Hartt as she shoved forwards, knocking the first copy back.
Hartt stood with his left hand outstretched, pointed at where the second clone had been, one he had sent flying using telekinesis. His gaze whipped to his right, towards the stronghold they had been watching. She looked there too and frowned when she spotted what he had. More clones. They were rushing across the snowfield, coming at them inhumanly fast.
A cold wind cut across her, chilling her to her bones, making her fingers numb and her actions sluggish as she attacked the clone nearest her. He didn’t seem to share her problem. While the cold was slowing her, it was having no effect on him.
Because he wasn’t a real boy?
She drove the clone back and cut across his thigh. Her thick protective clothing hindered her movement, but she was damned if she was going to strip off a layer or two, exposing herself to the icy cold.
He grunted as if he had felt the pain but instantly came at her again, as if she hadn’t just dealt a fatal blow to his femoral artery. Blood gushed down his leg as he attacked her, staining the snow crimson, leaving a trail behind him as he twisted and parried, blocked her next strike and drove her backwards.
“They’re like bloody zombies!” Syn yelled and Mackenzie couldn’t agree more.
She had seen clones like these in the past, back when she had been held by the blood mages, but she had never seen them in battle. They were relentless, kept on coming at her side, unaffected by the icy cold while her team were having to battle both the weather and the enemy.
Heat washed across her back, a blast of it that knocked her forwards as a shimmering shockwave of pale orange light swept past her. It struck the clones too, knocking several on their backsides. The effect of the spell Rosalind had cast was instantaneous, erasing the chill from Mackenzie’s hands and loosening her stiff muscles.
Hartt growled as he teleported deeper into the thick of the clones. He wasn’t alone. Frey appeared beside him, sweeping his massive broadsword outwards as he rose out of a black patch on the ground, decapitating several of the clones and injuring others. The remaining clones turned towards him as one, launched at him on vicious hisses and snarls that sent a shudder down Mackenzie’s spine as she teamed up with Syn against another group. Zombies. They were definitely zombies. Straight out of the most terrifying movie she could imagine.
Above the battlefield, the dome of the spell Rosalind had cast caused the aurora and stars to wobble.
Or maybe it wasn’t the heat Rosalind had created that was responsible for it.
Mackenzie heard the witch grunt, heard Vail snarl something in the elf tongue.
“Fighting me,” Rosalind muttered. “Didn’t think the buggers would have this kind of magic at their disposal.”
Everything went eerily silent.
And then Rosalind screamed.
“Brace!”
Mackenzie grabbed Syn and dragged her friend down into a huddle on the compacted snow, held on tight to her as a blast of bitterly cold wind slammed into her, battering her with chunks of ice and small rocks. The heat that had been stopping her from freezing into a solid block was gone in an instant, the cold that bit into her fingers worse than before, stiffening them and making them hurt despite her gloves.
Hartt roared something she couldn’t make out over the rush of wind against her.
A bright burst of light nearly blinded her when she lifted her head to look for him and she screamed as the shockwave from the detonation hit her and sent her flying with Syn. She twisted and turned with her friend, slammed into her and tried to keep hold of her as she fought to muster a teleport before they hit anything.
Because she feared the impact would kill them.
Syn beat her to the teleport, and Mackenzie grunted as she popped out of a black hole in the ground and then dropped and slammed into the compacted snow. Pain blazed across her back, had her crying out as she arched upwards.
Not her pain.
Hartt.
She fought to suppress the pain as she scrambled onto her feet. She scoured the battlefield for him and cursed when snow swept across the land, reducing how far she could see.
Heavy footfalls beat the earth and she whipped towards the direction of the vibrations, hoping it was Hartt and not an army of clones about to descend on her and Syn.
A huge shape loomed in the blizzard.
Her heart jammed into her throat and then dropped again as a male muttered.
“Put me down.”
Hartt.
Frey emerged from the snow and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground. “As you wish.”
Mackenzie didn’t miss the way Frey’s glowing blue eyes leaped to Syn and then away again, his glance just long enough to check on her but not long enough to incite her friend. In fact, Syn seemed terribly preoccupied with checking a hole in her black leathers and grumbling about it.
“I should probably pop my armour on,” she muttered, and then cleared her throat, straightened her spine and shot Frey a wicked look as she fluffed her black pixie cut. “You’d totally instantly climax at the sight of me in it though. Don’t think team Vampton would be impressed if you lost your load in the middle of a battle.”