Eyes of the Woods (23 page)

“Eris!” Daniel called out.

Evander lay on the ground next to me, gutted from chest to pelvis. The nightwalkers surrounding him looked down at his lifeless body in shock.

In the next moment, they were on top of me. I heard Father command some to stay behind and then the sound of dozens of feet hitting the ground and stomping in my direction.

I lashed out, stabbing and thrusting my daggers and sword at anything that made a move toward me. Those who met the sharp ends of my sword and dagger fell immediately, the Eitr spreading quickly through their bodies.

“Eitr!” an immortal cried. “Their weapons are laced with Eitr!”

Father, the new immortals, and those loyal to Kyah clashed with the front lines of those who stood with Heinrich. I slashed and thrust my weapons, but no matter how many I downed, more seemed to appear. Regardless, we had the Eitr on our side, so even the eldest of Heinrich’s coven struggled to keep up.

Father powered through the masses, eliminating any nightwalker in his path with his enormous, Eitr-laden ax. The handle had been long modified to produce a steady drip of Eitr, and every time he swung, more rose to the metal’s edge.

We had nearly made it to the tree line when another wave of nightwalkers jumped from the treetops into the fight.

Daniel was crouched on the back of an enemy, but another was running at him. I lunged and swung my sword, easily slicing through the nightwalker’s neck, separating his head from his body.

Daniel popped the head from the body of the nightwalker he was fighting and then set his feet on the ground as he fell, looking at the headless beast I had just dismembered. He looked up to me, both eyebrows pushed up.

“I accept,” I said.

“Accept what?” he asked, punching a nightwalker to the ground and then shoving his hatchet into its chest. It began to writhe. Daniel looked up at me, waiting.

“Your betrothal.”

Daniel flashed a wide smile and then lunged toward me, taking out the nightwalker who meant to attack me from behind.

He kissed me once, and then he was gone.

“The wall!” Father called.

The few nightwalkers who had broken free were rushing the compound. The newly claimed were targeting them with their arrows, but there were too many.

“The wall!” I cried. “Protect the wall!”

HEINRICH’S NIGHTWALKERS WERE CLAMBERING UP
THE WALL
by the time I reached it. Daniel was a step behind me.

I grabbed the first pair of feet I touched and yanked them away, throwing them back to the mob we left behind. They were gaining on us too.

I jumped over, seeing Daniel and Father doing the same. I stood just in front of Lukas, whose bright red eyes were nearly glowing against the black night. The torches were burning, but only for the humans huddled in the barn. Those who had been claimed could see perfectly.

A crossbow gripped firmly in both hands, my brother hopped to the top of the gate, barely taking a second to aim before pulling the trigger and loading again. Father’s ax made a low
whoosh
each time he swung it from one side to the other.

From my peripheral I saw a female nightwalker clamber up the gate and reach for my brother’s ankle.

“Lukas!” I yelled.

He looked to me, and then he was gone.

“Lukas!” I screamed, scrambling to reach him.

Daniel grabbed on to me with both arms, struggling to keep me on the safe side of the wall.

“Clemens!” Emelen yelled.

My eldest brother burst through the small group of newly claimed and dove over the wall. I looked to Emelen, whose eyes were still a brilliant blue. She pressed her trembling lips together, and sparkling tears streamed down her face.

“The pumpers!” I yelled.

Emelen climbed the scaffold, and when she finally reached the top, she turned the knob with her long, elegant fingers. She grunted against the resistance, but finally the liquid fertilizer began to shoot out several feet over the wall.

With her other hand, Emelen grabbed a torch and hurled it over. It spun, and then disappeared amid the nightwalkers. With a roar, a blaze ignited, taller than the stone wall itself. Nightwalkers trying to breach the wall cried out, but they didn’t stop. Burning nightwalkers fell over the stone barrier, moving more slowly, but still trudging forward toward the barn.

Emelen stepped carefully across the scaffold, finally reaching the other pumper. She struggled with the knob, crying out as it finally turned.

A milky white Eitr sprayed across the burning nightwalkers, extinguishing the fire. At first they were amused, thinking Emelen had made a mistake, but then they fell off the wall and onto the ground, writhing in agony.

They called for Heinrich, who stood back, watching his army’s demise with equal frustration and horror.

A nightwalker targeted Emelen and lunged at her, knocking her from the scaffold and pinning her on the ground, some five meters below.

I watched in horror as it took a mouthful from her neck and spit out her flesh. My instinct took over, and before I could blink, I tackled the nightwalker to the ground. She writhed in my hands, swiping at me, scratching at my eyes and throat with her nails. I held her to a torch, and then threw her directly into the stream of Eitr. She cried out but was silent before she hit the ground on the other side.

I crawled over to Emelen, who was choking on her own blood. She spat out, and crimson covered her chin, just the way mine had. Her eyes, full of terror, looked up at me, but she couldn’t speak.

I leaned down and sank my teeth into the other side of her neck, into the tender muscle between her shoulder and throat.

“It’s coming, Emelen,” I said, my voice breaking. “Hold on.”

Her fingers dug into my arms.

“Hold on,” I said again, willing her to live until the venom took hold and reversed her death.

Her fingers relaxed, and her arms fell limp at her sides.

“Emelen? Emelen!” I cried. I threw my body over hers as the fighting continued around me. By his scent I knew Daniel was near, tearing into any nightwalker who came close.

My sobs could be heard throughout the compound, mixed with the screams, cries, and screeches of battle. The pumpers were reduced to tiny streams that made a puddle on the ground. Minutes passed by, and it seemed the war would never end.

The dogs that helped guard the compound cried out as they were slaughtered by our enemy. I thought of all the times hearing their barking had made me feel comfort, but they were easily overtaken by the nightwalkers. Our defenses had meant nothing.

Daniel knelt beside me and held my cheeks in his hand. Shadows from the fires that had broken out flickered across his beautiful face, and humans and nightwalkers running behind him seemed to be in slow motion. More were climbing over the wall. We were losing the compound.

The nightwalkers poured through the gates, crashing and stomping over Mother’s garden, the flowers that had symbolized the peaceful part of my childhood. Now the stems were laid over, the petals scattered across the dirt.

“It’s over,” I said. During moments like this, I wished I could cry.

“Don’t give up,” he said. “Don’t give up yet.”

But then the sounds around us changed.

Cheering. I could hear cheering and cries of excitement. Daniel left me for the wall, and he began cranking the gate open.

Before I could ask him what he was doing, a river of immortals streamed through, charging the courtyard. Not us. Not the humans, not the ragged, scalded nightwalkers who fought for Heinrich.

“They made it!” Daniel said, his eyes bright. “Ilana came back!”

Within minutes a pile of dead nightwalkers began to form.

“Ganon!” Daniel said, pointing to a giant of a man with long, dark hair and shoulders broader than my father’s.

Daniel continued to protect me as I hovered over Emelen’s body, adding to the pile even from where he stood.

The night grew quiet, and Ilana stepped inside the compound, with Heinrich’s neck in her grasp. She threw him to the ground, and he sat up on his knees. He peered over at the pile of dead, the only nightwalkers still loyal to him.

Ilana stood tall. “You’ve dishonored our kind, Heinrich. You dishonored our laws, and for that, the price is death.”

“I fought for immortals,” he spat. “It shall forever be known that Heinrich was a martyr for our freedom.”

“It shall forever be known that Heinrich caused the death of thousands of immortals,” Ilana said. “It will be known that you caused the second Fall. You were greedy and corrupt. And you will forever be a lesson to the claimed.”

Father stepped forward, and with a grunt, he swung his ax, severing Heinrich’s head from his body.

Kyah’s loyalists and the newly claimed cheered as Ganon added Heinrich’s body to the pile. Daniel doused it with the last of the fertilizer, and I threw a lantern to the top. It burst into flames, and the survivors danced and raised their hands in victory.

A hand reached out and squeezed mine. I turned to see Clemens standing there with Lukas, both with smiling faces. I hugged them, sobbing happy tears to see they were alive.

“Emelen!” Clemens called. “Emelen!” He looked to me, and then to Father. “Where is she?”

“I tried to claim her. I tried…”

“What do you mean?” Clemens said, taking a step toward me.

“Clemens.”

My brother turned to see his wife standing before him. Her collar was soaked in her own blood, but her neck was pristine. She had healed. I had claimed her.

Clemens hugged her. I hugged her. Father hugged her.

“We did it,” Daniel said. “It’s a new era. We’ve stepped into a time of peace.”

“Of a truce,” Ilana said with a smile.

Daniel pulled me against him and planted a firm kiss on my lips. I intertwined my fingers behind his neck and pulled him even closer.

The humans slowly filed out of the barn and the house, searching the snow and ash with wide eyes. Our faces were covered in soot so that no human or immortal could be told apart but for our eyes. We were one people. United in the face of annihilation.

Johanna Wayland ambled behind her mother, her face streaked with soot, her eyes still human. She glanced up at Lukas, hoping to catch his eye, but he couldn’t seem to take either of his off Ilana.

She shot an unforgiving glare in my direction, but Johanna Wayland had been rendered insignificant against everything that had happened in my life since I had died.

Ilana stole a telling glimpse at Lukas, and even though it was no longer beating, my heart felt like it exploded. There was something there. They had bonded in the woods, and we were free to love who we wanted. Now that eyes of every color had been opened, everything would be different.

When the sun rose and the fire had been reduced to embers, the humans returned to their homes, and the immortals back to the trees.

“They no longer need to hide in the woods,” Father said.

Ilana smiled. “That’s home for some of us. It will take a while, especially for those who didn’t witness what happened here. We’ll need humans to spread the word. Some of us will need to show them they have nothing to fear.”

Father nodded. “And so it will be done.” He looked to me with hope in his eyes. “Eris? Where is your home?”

I looked to Daniel. “Wherever he is.”