65. The Shade Storm

65. The Shade Storm

Warrose

“What are you doing?”I yell to Dessin after stabbing a soldier in the eye.

He’s just standing there. Marilynn and I are holding up the line alone. And Dessin is standing among the bodies holding something small in his hands. He rubs his fingers over it.

“Help us!” I shout again.

Dessin finally looks up at me with a cloud of black dust traveling in a vortex around him.

“I am,” he says.

That ominous cloud travels high, cutting through the hail and rain, polluting the atmosphere overhead. There are whispering words of vengeance that spiral through the entity, carrying a weight of hatred and venom.

The fighting slows down as the soldiers look up to the sky, afraid to breathe in the thick substance flying through the air. And the attack isn’t normal, it isn’t human. It’s supernatural as shadowy figures shoot out from the funnel of smoke, scampering toward our enemies in a feral attack. They slice through soldiers and swamp dawpers alike, moving the fight away from us as we scramble to understand what the fuck Dessin has done.

“I called for help,” Dessin explains, which doesn’t actually explain anything at all.

I hook my weapon on my belt as I lift Ruth from Niles’s arms to further retreat back. She quivers against my slippery skin, gripping the back of my neck as she kisses my cheek.

“Thank God you’re okay,” she gasps.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby girl.”

“Fall back!” Dessin guides us away from the heavy smoke.

“How much time will this buy us?” I ask as we run into the open desert.

“I’m not sure.”

The rain morphs into thin waves of mist against the sun rising behind the East Vexello Mountains. We’re almost there. It’s so close, and hopefully the army will see our signals like a smudge of charcoal in the sky.

It isn’t long before the army strongarms the wall of shadows, forcing their way through in numbers far greater than anything I could have ever imagined.

“If we don’t make it through this…” Ruth speaks close to my ear as I run with her.

“Don’t.”

“Warrose, I need you to know—”

“Ruth!” I bark, losing my temper. “I told you that once we’re away from all of this, we can go to pieces together. You’re going to tell me whatever you feel when you’re ready, when we’re free.”

She nods with a sniffle, wiping her eyes.

Although there’s that doubtful part of me that fears the worst. I may die today without ever hearing what she wants to tell me.