Page 13 of The Fury She Holds
“We’re waiting for you, you flaming dewberry! Get off your ass and get out here!”
Tal steeled herself and rejoined the chaos. To her dismay, the death of one mage did little to tip the scales in their favor.
“I can’t carry her and fight them off!” Sybil held the girl over her shoulder and struggled to keep her safe.
“I can.” Carrick reached for the girl, but Sybil stopped him.
“No, we need you at the front. It’s too dangerous for her there.” Sybil ducked under a swinging arm. She kicked the figure in the knee and shoved her knife into its neck.
“Go! I’ll hold them off,” the stranger yelled, stabbing a figure where its face should have been.
“Suit yourself!” Sybil adjusted her hold on the girl, hiding behind Carrick’s wall of a body, the stranger protecting her back.
Talwyn hurried to Rainier’s side, his movements slowing. His knife-work grew sloppy, and his breath labored. She made to put an arm around to steady him, but he pushed her off.
“I’m fine,” he growled and kneed an assailant between the legs, causing him to double over onto the knife Rain held upright, slicing the creature’s throat.
Carrick swore ahead of them. More apparitions blocked their exit.
Sybil hefted the crying girl higher on her shoulder and searched for another. “This way!” She rushed down the opposite corridor, away from their escape route.
“There’s too many, we’ll never make it.” Carrick backed toward the direction Sybil pointed.
“Go,” the stranger said, clearing a path for them.
“Don’t be a fool. You’re no match for all of them,” Talwyn said as she headbutted an especially annoying apparition who didn’t react to any of her slices across his chest.
“I held them off just fine before you four showed up,” he grunted, using his second blade to kill two apparitions at once.
“Even if we heed his advice,” Rainier blocked a downward strike and shoved his knife into the assailant’s ear, “he wouldn’t be enough to let us get away.” He relied strictly on physicalattack now—the wound to his side rendered his manipulation useless.
Conversation halted while they continued to fight. Sybil said nothing, an answer itself.
“Take the girl,” Talwyn commanded. “Go. Now.”
“Tal, no!” Carrick reached for her.
“Get them out of here, Carrick.” She spared her friend a glance while waiting for Sybil, who searched through Talwyn’s possible futures from this one decision. Tension and worry filled Carrick’s features. Tal hoped Sybil saw a future that lasted more than a few minutes.
Sybil nodded, indicating the right decision had been made, one that didn’t necessarily guarantee their survival, but the right one, nonetheless.
“The roof,” she said. A clue for where Talwyn and her strange companion would find an escape. “Don’t unleash it,” she said as a farewell before putting forth her full effort into their new path, Rainier behind her.
“Dammit Tal. You come back to us. You hear me?” Carrick shoved his shoulder into Talwyn’s nearest attacker and gripped her arm. His chest heaved, and adrenaline shook her arm in his grip. The intensity of his gaze held her for a breath until he broke eye contact and released her to punch an apparition in the head.
“Go, you big oaf. They need you!” She pushed him, too pumped with adrenaline to wonder what type of good-bye this was. She didn’t watch them go. They would be safe with Sybil guiding them. Instead, she threw herself into the fight, screaming, stabbing, punching, anything to gain an inch.
“Are there stairs?” she called to her new companion.
“How the blazing hells should I know?”
Of course he has no clue, she thought.What kind of a fool runs into a fight with two mages without a plan?She ran through what she knew of the incinerator.The chimney, she thought. If the incineration rooms were like her Kiln, then every room had a large chimney for smoke to escape. She could climb up there and find a way off the top of the building, but first they’d need to lock themselves into a room without any apparitions.Fantastic.
A blow to her head knocked her to the ground, and four apparitions descended upon her. She punched, stabbed, and kicked, but they persisted. She screamed out of sheer frustration, wondering how Sybil saw her out of this mess.
Three of her attackers were knocked to the side with the fourth being sliced across the middle. A hand reached down, and the red swordsman pulled her to her feet.
“What’s the plan, princess?”
