Page 75 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
Hoping to catch the Shadow off guard, she stayed low and stepped out into a lunge, swinging her spear in a sweeping arc to knock the creature’s legs out from under it. The blow connected but the Shadow managed to keep its footing, its unnaturally shaped legs bending in a way that looked wrong to absorb the impact.
Now it was the Shadow’s turn to catch Nora off guard, locking its arm against her blade and pulling in so close that Nora’s breastplate heated rapidly against her body. Its face loomed over her, and the mouth split in the parody of a grin, opening wide enough to swallow her whole. Just as the Shadow began to lower its head as if it were about to do exactly that, a shuffle behind Nora made it pause for a moment.
A split second was all Nora needed to free her blade from the lock and execute a quick spin, catching the Shadow in the chest with the spike on the butt of her spear. As the Shadow stumbled back with a shriek, there was a whoosh and a metallic thud.
Nora looked towards the far side of the elevated train track just in time to see Ezra drop from above and land on one knee in a dramatic pose that Nora would have to tease him for if she managed to make it out of this encounter. Still, she sent a silent thanks to Seraphina for successfully delivering her message.
The Shadow spun towards the fully armed Warrior in surprise, and Nora took the moment of distraction to glance at the commotion behind her. Pounding down the street towards her were Adam, Thad, and Drew.
“Odelle!” was all she could yell to them before turning her attention back to the fight. Thankfully, Adam understood her meaning and tugged the group over to where Odelle was still huddled a few meters away.
The Shadow and Ezra circled each other, the Shadow sporting a gash in the blackness of its chest, showing the same white fire that filled its mouth.
“How?” it hissed in a voice that had lost all its unnatural polish. “I could feel your guilt in abandoning them.”
“I needed you to feel that, but my friends were with me all along,” was the only gloating that Nora allowed herself before she and Ezra lunged at the Shadow together.
Now that there were two of them, the pace of the battle was nearly blinding. Bronze spears and black arms swung so fast that they blurred into colored arcs against the stark white backdrop of the snow. The Shadow fought more viciously now, growing so hot that Nora dripped sweat from the proximity, despite the cold of the surrounding air.
Still, the Shadow began blocking more than it was swinging under their coordinated attacks. Ezra and Nora both swung their spears in sharp downward cuts at the same moment, and the Shadow caught both blows on one long arm. The pair of Warriors bore down together, and the Shadow folded under the weight. Just as Nora thought she could taste victory, the Shadow’s mouth spread into a smile once more.
Nora watched in horror as the Shadow’s free arm snaked out towards where Odelle was huddled, surrounded by Adam, Thad, and Drew. A scream tore from her throat but was powerless to stop anything as the whip-like limb tore a huge icicle from the train tracks above Odelle’s head.
Everything happened slowly as the icicle hurtled towards where Odelle was on the ground. Just before it made impact, a dark figure ploughed into her and knocked her out of the way. Instead of Odelle lying on the churned snow, impaled by a spear of ice as long as Nora’s arm, it was Adam. The icicle had pierced the right side of his chest, pinning him to the ground like a butterfly in a glass case.
Time stood still for a moment, and even the snow seemed to stop its flurrying in midair. If the wind was still howling, Nora didn’t hear it as she stared at Adam, lying injured on the ground.
All at once, the sound rushed back in and time picked up again at double speed. Nora whirled back towards the Shadow and swung her spear in a savage arc at its face. It managed to block in time, but just barely. Undeterred, Nora hacked doggedly at it without form or finesse. She let out a broken cry as the Shadow was forced to stumble back. She pursued it relentlessly. This creature had made this happen, and she would swing at it until it was reduced to nothing. She felt hot all over now, as if she herself may burst into flames. Wisps of smoke drifted off her shirt and her hair as her blows grew in strength.
As she raised her spear in both hands for one final stroke through the Shadow’s chest, a hoarse shout sounded behind her. The voice was thin, but it stopped her in her tracks.
“Nora.”
When Nora turned her head back towards where Adam lay, his head was lifted. Drew knelt next to him, holding a bloody icicle in his hand, but all Nora saw was Adam’s face, looking pale but alive. The emotion in his eyes made Nora think of the message she had left for him with Seraphina to let him know that she was not really abandoning him.
Through the darkest night.
Adam knew her well enough to know what she intended from just those four words, following her and setting up a trap for the Shadow that Nora wouldn’t give away in her feelings. He loved her enough that he was willing to die to save her family. He loved her through the darkest night.
That’s when Nora felt it. The rage that had fueled her rampage against the Shadow had dissipated, and instead a small golden kernel of something calm sprouted in her chest. She reached for that something inside her, and her consciousness brushed against it, a pleasant warmth like the sun caressing her face.
The warmth felt like the love she carried for Odelle and Drew and Adam, and the golden kernel grew until she was full to brimming. Her vision was white, and she sensed she was going to dissolve into Light. Nora threw out her hands in front of her wildly and recognized the Light tearing through her, filling up and ravaging her insides as it went.
It was over as quickly as it had started, and Nora opened her eyes to find herself on her knees in the snow. Where the Agent had once been lingered the last wisps of smoke, and when Nora looked down at her hands, the faintest glimmers of gold danced between her fingers.
Whatever she had just done, she had destroyed the Agent.
Drew’s gruff string of expletives behind her shocked her from her amazed stupor. Remembering Adam’s injury, she scrabbled to her feet and rushed to his side. Drew had already peeled back Adam’s shirt to reveal the wound. The icicle had pierced him a few fingerbreadths below his collarbone, just to the right of his breastbone, leaving a hole as big as a quarter
“It missed his major blood vessels,” Drew said, digging a pair of blue nitrile gloves from his bag and tossing a pair to Thad. Thad put them on, looking as if he would roll his eyes at the gesture had the situation not been so dire.
“He shouldn’t bleed out, but it managed to puncture a lung,” Drew continued, pulling more supplies out of his pouch. “We need to cover the wound and get him to a hospital, stat.”
From the amount of red on the surrounding snow, it still seemed like Adam had lost a lot of blood, but she trusted Drew’s judgement. Nora looked up at Adam’s face to find that he was taking quick, shallow breathes. The edges of his lips had turned a dusty shade of blue, but it was hard to say if it was from the cold or a lack of oxygen.
“I wouldn’t recommend this,” Adam said through gritted teeth. “It’s making me very dizzy.”
“Dizzy?” Drew paused in his work, hands hovering over where he had been taping a square of gauze over the hole in Adam’s chest.
