“I think we’re ready now,” said Nikita, stepping out of a portal a dozen feet away.
Aru was glad to see her, but she frowned. Where was Sheela?
Sheela has her own plan, said Nikita through the mind link, as if she’d read Aru’s thoughts.
Behind her, Hanuman emerged at his full height of three hundred feet. Aru couldn’t see his face in the clouds, but she heard his snarl and it shook the ground. Urvashi flew out beside him, all beauty and menace, shedding an enchantment of drowsy allure as she moved. She blew a kiss at Aru before disappearing into the sky.
The only one missing was Aiden, Aru thought with a pang. But they would have to do this without him. For him.
The Sleeper watched all of this with dispassionate calm. The only movement he made was the sudden arch of his left eyebrow.
And then there was silence.
There’s an etiquette to war, and somewhere deep in Aru rose those ancient instincts. With that silence came a gravity, a weight to the air, a shift in her pulse that said this might be a beginning or it might be an end. Either way, there would be no going back.
“So be it,” said the Sleeper.
He raised his arm, let it fall, and the world around Aru Shah broke into chaos.
Aru’s first thought was to get to the nectar of immortality, but the moment she lunged forward, she was lassoed around the waist by a rope of shadow and yanked backward. Aru skidded, her heels kicking up dust and rocks. Just as quickly the lasso disappeared, and she fell on her face. She splayed her fingers on the ground as she gathered her wits and energy.
Overhead, a group of Maruts clashed with fiery snakelike creatures. Flaming droplets slammed into the ground. Smoke roiled in front of Aru, and she lost track of where she was on the battlefield.
Aru gritted her teeth and stood, looking up as a dozen of the Sleeper’s troops flew toward her, closing the space with javelins in their hands. The Sleeper and Kara stood in the chaos. Kara was nearly obscured by his shadow. She looked like a lonely candle in the dark.
Aru braced herself for attack when the soldiers started shrieking. Huge vines ripped out of the ground, rearing up like cobras and coiling around their bodies.
“Don’t worry, I gotcha,” said Nikita, lightly dismounting from a twenty-foot wave of earth. She looked like a small but fearsome war goddess.
Aru blinked up at her. “Are you…Are you wearing a ball gown?”
Nikita tossed her braids over one shoulder and straightened the gold lamé sleeves of her long dress, which was embroidered all over in a pattern of mango blossoms.
“Duh,” she said. “What else does one wear to a battle?”
No visual on the amrita! shouted Brynne through the mind link.
“We’ll discuss this later,” said Aru to Nikita. “Gotta go.”
A knot of soldiers rushed at the twin. The power in Aru’s veins felt dangerously easy to tap into. With a flick of her wrist, Vajra flattened into a massive discus. “Go on,” said Aru calmly.
Her lightning bolt shot into the air, whirling in a large circle before slicing through a swath of enemies in a crackle of light. Aru didn’t even bother looking as she jumped. Moments later, her feet thudded down on Vajra, who had flattened into a hoverboard. Aru zoomed over the churning battlefield, hunting for any sign of the nectar of immortality, but it was impossible to see.
Instead, Aru honed in on the flashes of blue and purple light some hundred feet away, which could only be coming from Mini and Brynne. Mini shot into the air, her eyes glowing purple behind her glasses. Shadows snapped out from the top of her Death Danda, grabbing soldiers by their throats and flinging them across the battlefield. She hovered, twirling the scepter above her head, casting shields as she saw fit.
A protective sphere surrounded a group of vanaras as a horde of rakshasas appeared above them with sharp scythes gripped in their claws.
“I know everyone is super preoccupied and all,” Rudy shouted over the din of battle, “but I think I should take this moment to remind you that I WAS PROMISED A BOW AND ARROW ON A PREVIOUS QUEST!”
He lobbed enchanted jewels left and right. Wherever his anti-music grenades landed, the gems emitted shrieks that forced soldiers to drop their weapons and curl up on the ground, holding their ears. Rudy huffed, adjusting the sling he’d brought to hold Baby Boo. BB continued to nap, oblivious to the fact that Rudy had picked him up. He glared around before looking beseechingly at Mini, who hovered above him with her arms raised. “I would look amazing with a bow and arrow!”
“Rudy, I’m sure it can wait!” said Mini, aiming her shadow magic at a knot of bird-winged asuras. “Hey, Aru! Evil serpents on your right!”
Aru hopped down from her hoverboard and twisted her lightning bolt into a sparking net. She cast it out and the serpents shrieked as electricity clambered over their scales. The smell of smoke and singed flesh hit the air and Aru wrinkled her nose.
“I want a bow and arrow—” Rudy started to say when dirt and rocks exploded around them.
Aru was thrown backward, her head painfully smacking into a boulder. “Mini!” she called.
A feeble shield flickered around Mini and Rudy. He lay on his side, staring up at Mini in plain awe.
“I’m okay,” said Mini raggedly. “But I’ve lost the visual.”
Smoke and darkness were trapped inside the shield with them. Aru could taste the enchantments woven into the air, cutting off all sound. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Tiny dots of light glimmered in the sky. Aru blinked. Were those stars coming out? But wasn’t it too early for stars?
FIRE ARROWS! shouted Mini through the mind link. She fumbled with her shield, but the arrows were too fast.
Aru wove Vajra into a net, fear making her hands shake. What if the net exploded? Who would she hurt? The arrows whistled, gathering speed….
And then a curtain of fire encircled them.
Cheep! Cheep!
Baby Boo flew above, squawking angrily. No doubt the firebird had not been pleased to be woken up so unceremoniously. BB exhaled a long flame, and the volley of arrows was incinerated.
Cheep! the firebird added.
Which Aru interpreted as TAKE THAT!
Baby Boo flapped his wings and the smoke pulled back. The ground was scorched, giving them a clearing of a hundred-foot radius. The firebird flew gracefully to the ground, alighting a foot away from Rudy and his outstretched sling. The bird tilted his head inquisitively and burped.
“Good job!” said Rudy, gathering up Baby Boo once more. BB promptly returned to his nap. Rudy clasped his hands. “Now can I have a bow and arrow?”
“Okay, fine!” said Mini.
She performed a complicated gesture with her hands. A shadow ribbon knotted around one of the asuras in midair just as he was trying to fly away. The demon’s bow and arrow fell, dropping straight into Rudy’s hands.
“Yay!” said Rudy, hopping in delight. He frowned. “What do I do with it?”
“Any visuals on the amrita?” asked Aru, ignoring Rudy and whirling in time to avoid an onslaught of rocks from above.
“No,” said Mini, her eyes still glowing as she surveyed the battlefield.
“What about Brynne?” asked Aru. “Where’d she go?”
Aru got her answer from the calamitous shrieking nearby. A jet of blue light snapped across the battlefield. Silence reigned for a moment before a hundred of the Sleeper’s first line of soldiers rose in the air and were thrown backward by a great gust of wind.