Chapter One Hundred and Thirty: Dead Women Don’t Speak

Christina's Arc: Bend or Break

"Madam Justicia, they're charging!" one of my Ashguards screamed.

Our Ashguards had formed a ring around the ranged fighters, shields out, archers behind the Moonbinders.

The moss beast charged. Three times the size of a Thornkin male and twice as wide, it tore up grass and dirt on all six limbs.

"Hold the bloody line!" I shouted.

The shields rose. Arcane heat crawled through my left hand and into the focus built along my sword. More beasts gathered on our left, snarling as if waiting for first blood. Something grunted from our right.

Huh. They flanked us.

Energy pooled in my right hand, leaving me dizzy. I stepped forward and touched an Ashguard's shoulder.

"Make way!"

Five knights parted. I stepped into the gap, shoulder to shoulder with the front line, close enough to count the lead beast's teeth. The focus glowed red as I pointed my sword skyward, drew every scrap of heat into my palm, and thrust my hand forward.

"Flames of Devastation!"

Fire roared from my fingers. The blast tore across the field, scorched the earth flat, incinerated the charging beast, and swallowed several behind it.

Not enough.

The heat left me all at once. My knees buckled. Two Ashguards hooked me under the arms and dragged me back toward the Moonbinders, my heels carving lines through the dirt.

"Damn it," I whispered. "I thought I'd get more than a few."

The ground trembled again. The surviving moss beasts hit the shield wall before my guards could reset. The ring bent inward. Arrows sank into moss and muscle, but the beasts kept pounding.

"The line!" I shouted.

A Moonbinder pulled me upright. Sunlight warmed my skin, but too slowly. To my right, a beast had an Ashguard pinned. Two of its arms gripped her shield while the smaller pair beat her armor into her body.

"Don't let her fall!" someone screamed.

Two Ashguards rushed in. One wedged her shield between the beast and the fallen knight. The other stabbed into its side. Then another moss beast came up behind her and brought all four fists down.

The sound of breaking bone twisted my stomach.

I shoved through the archers, sparks catching between my fingers.

"Blinding Radiance!"

White light burst from my palm. The beast reeled, clawing at its eyes. I grabbed the downed knight and pulled, but her shattered armor might as well have been nailed to the ground. Another Ashguard caught her under the arms and dragged with me.

Violent arcane torrents whipped past us, cutting through beasts and Ashguards alike.

I looked back.

"Unstable Current!" a Moonbinder screamed, her hands shaking as magic streamed from her fingers.

I tackled her to the ground.

"Have you lost yourself?" I shouted.

Trepidation answered before she could. A shadow blocked out the sun. I grabbed her shoulders and rolled left as a moss beast smashed the ground where we had been.

"Protect the casters!" someone cried.

We kept rolling.

"Transposition!" the Moonbinder shouted.

The ground vanished. Dirt and sky became all sky. We fell through open air until she grabbed my coat and shouted the spell again.

My boots hit earth, but the world kept spinning. An Ashguard and archer rushed past. I turned, and the field turned with me.

The Moonbinder stood with her back to me, already casting. She looked over her shoulder, shoved me out of the way, and raised a shield.

"Teleport!" I screamed.

The moss beast came down on her before she could answer. Blood hit my face.

"No!"

I drove fire into its eyes. It stumbled back, clawing at its face. An archer nearby fired at another beast closing on her, but its four hands caught the arrows like rain.

The sun warmed me. Rage did the rest.

I charged, drove my blade into the fatty part of the beast's leg, and snapped a quick ignition through the wound. It staggered. I pulled the sword free, poured energy into the focus, and threw it. The blade buried itself in the beast's neck.

"Combustion Blade!"

The explosion tore through its throat. The beast fell ugly-face-first into the dirt, and my sword spun eastward out of sight.

A horn sounded.

Clouds slid over the sun. Ritual circles opened across the sky, and precise bolts of lightning struck the field, dropping moss beasts one after another.

"Push them back!" I shouted.

The world wobbled. I reached for a sword I no longer had and threw both hands forward instead.

"Arcane Barrage!"

Brilliant bolts burst from my fingertips. The beast that had crushed my Moonbinder staggered but refused to die. Ashguards brought another down. Lightning struck again.

"We're routing them, Madam!" someone shouted.

***

"The battle ended soon after that, and then I counted the dead, thanked the reinforcements from the other Iron Cinders outpost, and began investigating why so many Moss beasts had strayed from their migration routes," I said from the infirmary door.

"Seems mighty dismissive of you to write off your dead like that," Shadow Song said.

I rubbed the side of my face, then ran my fingers through my hair.

"What do you want me to say? That I spoke to the corpse of the Moonbinder who nearly killed me, then saved my life? That higher-tiered casters could have pulled stones from the heavens and ended the horde in minutes? That I argued with the Ritualist about how long she spent preparing those beautiful, late strikes?"

Shadow crossed her arms.

"That didn't sound organized."

"It wasn't. We were caught off guard, lost too many people, and came home with our tails between our legs."

"Did you find what made the Moss beasts act out?"

"Raiders."

…

"Come again."

"We found raider corpses in the Moss beasts' burrows. I don't know what they were doing there, but I believe the two incidents are related."

"Why didn't you ask them?"

"They were dead, Shadow Song. Dead women don't speak."

"You sure about that? You spoke to your dead Moonbinder, didn't you?"

My face warmed.

I stepped aside to let her pass.

"Well now, I'll stop holding you up. Before you go, is there anything else you can tell me about Knox or the incident?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Shadow Song walked toward me.

"Yup. He's just an inexperienced Bloomwarden lucky enough to survive. If you're gonna send him to the Wardens, don't wait for a response. Just send him."

She stopped at the door.

"You should part ways with him. He ain't a Cinder, and he's got no Oath."

"Actually, if he can manipulate plants, then he's probably taken the Wardens' Oath."

Shadow Song eyeballed me, then walked out of the infirmary.

I listened to her footsteps fade.

What a rotten woman. Oh well, let's see what the Wardens will say.