Firedragon Rising (7 page)

And black meant dark magic. The kind that
drew its force from the Underworld, dominion of all that was evil.
The same kind used by monsters.

Such magic was too evil
even for the Triumvirate. She’d almost forgotten that there were
people out there more dangerous than the government, but the
presence of Tydeus Storm reminded her why the Triumvirate could
make people believe it was good. They were evil, yes, but there
were those who were
more
evil. Those who wouldn’t even pretend to be good.
Those who, like monsters, used the kind of power that could destroy
the entire world.

New fear raced through her, and she
struggled uselessly against the freezer spell’s bonds.

“
I know what you’re
thinking, and I am
not
an agent of the Triumvirate.” Storm’s brows remained furrowed
as he spoke. “The Sentinels are my enemies too.”

Because you’re a Class A
crazy person, and even the Triumvirate can’t stand you!
Aurelia longed to shout the words, but her jaw,
tongue, and throat were all frozen by the spell. All her strength
and combat prowess were useless.

She hated him with ever fiber of her being
for being too chicken to actually battle her. Any fighter with an
ounce of pride would have let his opponent use her best weapons
against his. If he’d defeated her that way, she might have
grudgingly respected his skill. But he was just a coward, and he
disgusted her. If she could just find a way to escape his dark
magic, she’d rid the world of the slime ball once and for all.

“
But the Rising is also my
enemy,” Storm continued. “Destroying the Triumvirate will not bring
about the world you so desire. While the Triumvirate is far from
perfect, they are the lesser evil.”

She wished her hands were free so she could
sock his jaw for spewing the same crap that had allowed the
government to treat her people like garbage for so long. How many
people, like her mother, had died because no one had taken down the
“lesser evil” out of fear of a greater one? Despite what Storm
claimed about the Triumvirate being his enemy, he sounded an awful
lot like them.

He opened his mouth to continue, but before
he could, a sudden roar—an earthshaking blast of sound edged with
vibrating, high-pitched overtones—slashed through the air. It was
the unmistakable cry of a hungry monster, and Storm seemed to
realize it too, because he widened his eyes and spun, holding his
wand out before him.

The spell around Aurelia vanished as he did,
and she dropped to the ground, startled, but still managing to land
on her feet. She exhaled, glad to be free of the spell.

Her relief was short-lived. Something
dangerous—dangerous enough to frighten a dark Enchanter—was
approaching.

The ground shook beneath her as the creature
came into view, lumbering down the road before both her and Storm.
Two powerful front legs, tipped with claws as long as Aurelia was
tall, dragged a thick, muscular body that tapered into the scaly
tail of an enormous rattlesnake—except with flames in place of a
rattle. The fire was so intense in the blackness that Aurelia could
make out the lime green edges that indicated the dark magic of the
Underworld. It was hard to see, most of the time. But in the dead
of night with almost no other illumination, she could see it
clearly. The blaze threw light over the rest of the monster, which
stood as tall as the trees. Black spikes covered its brownish-green
body. Six tentacles—also covered in spikes—stuck out of its sides
between the tail and the front legs, and supernatural fire ignited
the ends of each as it took another step forward.

Its glowing red eyes, which topped a scaly
head with a long snout and sharp, protruding fangs, fixed on
Aurelia. It opened its mouth to let out another roar, and she
stared down its throat—a ridged, brown cavern lit by a green fire
and lined with teeth big enough to crush her skull in a single
bite.

She recognized the beast at once: a
thorndevil. She’d learned about them for Williams’ class, but had
hoped never to face one. Not only was the thing gigantic, but its
thorns were poisonous, and it wielded the flames of the Underworld.
One spike through her skin would paralyze her, leaving her as
helpless as Storm’s spell had. And supernatural fire burned hotter
and faster than anything earthly; a single flame licking the hem of
her jeans would turn her to ashes in seconds.

But she refused to be scared. Though she’d
never faced a thorndevil before, she’d learned about its kind and
knew its vulnerability, while it took her to be just another
human.

That gave her the advantage.

Any monster could be killed by beheading, of
course, but the thorndevil’s neck was too thick to be severed by a
swing of the sword—not that she could reach it anyway. Even with
Connor’s claim that her enchanted swords could slice through
anything living, the blades simply weren’t long enough to sever the
creature’s head in a single cut. And she’d only get a single shot
if she wanted to attempt it; one of those tentacles would grab her
before she could try again.

She remembered suddenly that it had another
weakness: its underbelly. No spikes covered its throat or stomach,
and spilling a thorndevil’s insides would kill it. That was her
best shot.

But the creature wasn’t the only enemy
before her. Tydeus Storm stood just within range of a sturdy round
kick, his eyes fixed on the thorndevil. He seemed to have forgotten
that she was there. Suddenly, a shouted incantation and a burst of
flames shot through the air: Storm throwing a spell at the beast.
Green light edged the flames bursting from his black wand, and
Aurelia suppressed a gasp of surprise.

If she’d had any doubt that he used the same
kind of magic the thorndevil did, that spell erased it. Green
flames meant dark magic. And that made Storm nearly as dangerous as
the monster he was fighting.

But between him and the giant, spiked
creature towering over her, the latter was more of an immediate
threat.

Storm’s fire spell did little more than
irritate the enormous monster, which let out an earth-shattering
cry and stomped one leg in fury. It swiped a tentacle toward Storm,
but the Enchanter vanished in a flash of light, then reappeared
behind the thorndevil, just inches from the tip of its flaming
tail. The thorndevil twisted back to face him, turning away from
Aurelia, and she spotted her opening—it was distracted, and it
couldn’t see her from its present angle.

She had to take it. Her instincts—skills
that were as much a part of her as her bones—sprang into action. A
faint voice in the back of her mind chirped that she could let the
thorndevil and Storm battle it out while she got away, but that
could mean letting a monster live … which she couldn’t do. If the
thorndevil struck again when she wasn’t around to stop it, and
someone died because of that, then it would be her fault for not
stopping the creature when she had the chance.

So she rushed forward, her eyes fixed on the
tentacle that sat curled on the ground. Chopping it off wouldn’t
kill the beast, but she had to weaken it before she could attempt a
fatal blow. And at the moment, the thorndevil was too occupied by
Storm to realize that it had a second attacker. This was her best
chance. She paused, watching, and right when the Enchanter threw
another blaze at the monster, leaped at the flamed-tipped limb.

Her blade sliced through the scaly flesh,
green blood spurting from the wound. The severed tentacle landed on
the ground, its flames dying out, but almost before she could look
up, a second fiery appendage was slashing toward her. She rolled
out of the way just in time to avoid the poisonous spikes.
Springing up, she caught sight of a tentacle crashing down and
whipped both blades out before her, forming an X with them. The
tentacle landed in the crook and she pulled her arms apart, slicing
through it.

Sensing that something else was about to
strike her, she jumped back just in time to avoid the stream of
spit spewing from the thorndevil’s snout. And a good thing too—a
thorndevil’s saliva was acidic, and could burn through your skin as
easily as fire burned through paper.

A burst of green-tinted flames exploded in
the corner of her eye, calling the monster’s attention, and its
gaze shot back toward Storm. She darted forward, taking the
opportunity to cross under its belly. Though she’d hoped to gut it,
she realized right away that she was too short. Even a strong jump
and outstretched blade wouldn’t reach its stomach.

Good thing I’m in the
middle of the woods
. Aurelia wasted no
time in dashing toward the nearest tree—a springy evergreen with
rough bark. That made the trunk great for climbing. The branches,
not so much. The closest one was about fifteen feet from the
ground.

She went for it anyway, leaping up with all
the strength her legs could muster. In the middle of her jump, she
tossed her right sword into her left hand, freeing up one set of
fingers, which she dug into the bark. She clenched her knees around
the narrow trunk and pressed the wrist holding both blades into
it.

As she scrambled upward,
she caught sight of another set of flames, accompanied by a low
incantation. It had to be Storm, and though she hated to admit it,
he was distracting the monster, which was helpful. But why was it
attacking him when they both served the Underworld? Shouldn’t the
thorndevil have recognized him as one of its own? And why was he
fighting the beast when he could just goldlight away? Was he trying
to prove something? Or was it because
she
was his ultimate target, and the
thorndevil was just an obstacle?

What in the world would an evil Enchanter
want with me?

Reaching the nearest
branch, she pulled her body onto it and reminded herself firmly
that just because Storm was kind of helping her out didn’t mean he
was on her side. In fact, he probably didn’t realize he was helping
her—just as she wasn’t really trying to help
him
.

They had a common enemy,
which could slaughter them both. But that didn’t make them allies.
By wielding the magic of the Underworld, Storm proved that he was
evil, and not just power-hungry evil like the Triumvirate.
Evil
evil. Like the
ferocious, spike-covered killer that thrashed its flaming tentacles
against the tree she was climbing.

She planted both feet on the branch and,
straightening, found herself at eye level with the
thorndevil—except it wasn’t looking at her. Its attention was still
fixed on Storm, which meant it was twisted away from her. All she
saw was a back full of spikes, when its throat and underside were
her targets. The rush of combat pounded through her veins; she
needed to kill that beast as much as she needed air to breathe, and
she couldn’t succeed when it was targeting someone else.

Recalling what Connor had
told her about the swords, she decided now was as good a time as
any to see if his magic was as brilliant as she believed it was.
Clanging the blades together, she yelled, “
Metal fire!
”

Yellow light blazed around the twin black
blades, which glowed glaringly against the night’s shadows, and the
thorndevil turned toward them, its eyes glinting with hunger.
Sensing a threat approaching, Aurelia—perched on a single tree
branch—pressed her back into the trunk and whipped her left blade
out without turning the rest of her body, as that would have sent
her hurtling toward the ground. Though she hadn’t had a chance to
look, she knew before her blade hit the attacking tentacle that she
would meet her target. Its path had been clear in her mind, and her
arm barely needed a command from her brain to act.

She hardly felt any pressure as the sword
cut through the tentacle, but the thorndevil’s ear-splitting cry
told her she’d succeeded. Once again its eyes fixed upon her, and
this time she didn’t want anyone to distract it. She needed it to
face her and get closer. That was the only way she could reach its
weak spots and kill it.

“
Hiiii monster,” she
taunted in a singsong voice. It was about ten feet in front of
her—too far to reach with her blade as long as her back was pressed
against the tree trunk. The branch was too thin for her to go
forward, though, which meant she needed the thorndevil to attack
her if she was going to reach its throat.

Its long snout turned to point right at her,
and it bared its sharp teeth, which dripped with yellowish-green
acid. In the corners of her eyes, she could make out the remaining
tentacles curling behind it and the serpent-like tail beating
angrily against the ground.

“
La, la, la,” she sang,
holding her stare. “Come get meeeee—”

The thorndevil took the bait, just like she
knew it would. And the moment it moved to snap its jaws at her, she
used the tree trunk as a springboard to launch herself forward,
stretching both swords out in front of her. As she shot through the
air, her scalp brushed the creature’s chin. Then the blades pierced
its throat, spewing hot liquid onto her face.

She slid downward, cutting through the
creature as she went, and relished the sensation of winning. More
blood spilled form the lengthening gashes she created, and the
monster’s gurgling cries shook the air.

By the time she planted
her feet on solid ground, the thorndevil was dead. It remained
upright for about three seconds, then collapsed onto its side. A
great
thud
shook
the forest.

I win,
monster
. Aurelia lifted her chin with
satisfaction. No matter how many beasts she killed, each victory
tasted fresher than a swig of water on a hot day.
She swung her blades by her sides, silently
thanking Connor for giving her the best present a fighter could ask
for. They’d not only made the monster turn to her at just the right
moment, but cut through the thorndevil more cleanly than any normal
blades would have. In fact, they’d kind of saved her.