96 Ride Like the Wind (2/2)

I stole another glance at Aura and found her smirking at me. I quickly turned away while feeling like I'd rubbed chili all over my cheeks.

Seriously! Stupid teenage hormones making me lose focus like that. Almost made me miss the spear lancing toward me. It had been thrown by a rather ugly looking, beady-eyed, bald-faced elven warrior—the first one I'd ever seen—who'd aimed to skewer me through my ribcage.

I ducked to the side on instinct. The spear zipped by me only to collide with something metallic close behind me.

”Dammit, Dean!” Ashley yelled.

I took a quick peek behind me.

Ashley had her shield raised as if she'd just used it to defend against incoming projectile.

”Sorry!” I yelled back at her.

She responded with the finger, and not the Fayne kind, but the Mudgardian middle finger that we all knew meant, well, something derogatory. Yeah, I didn't like to swear. Sue me.

I faced forward and saw another spear lancing toward me.

”Shit!” I hissed. I know, I know. I just swore.

I unsheathed my falchion and despite my weakened sight parried the spear before it killed me or Myth Chaser.

”Watch out for projectiles!” Luca yelled from in front of me.

It seemed he'd been blocking most of them with the help of Shaqs' battle-ax.

”Could have said that half a minute ago!” I yelled at him.

Luca didn't respond as a hobgoblin rider had just crossed his path. He raised his ax and swung it sideward in one quick motion, catching the hobgoblin by surprise and, if you could believe it, sending its severed head bouncing toward me.

I smacked it out of the way with the flat of my falchion. Right afterward, I glared daggers at Luca.

”You did that on purpose!” I accused.

Luca spared me a backward glance.

”I don't know what you're talking about, Dean!” he yelled back.

”Then why are you grinning?” I replied.

Luca quickly turned around and yelled, ”Hard right, everyone,” effectively ending the interrogation.

A few more zigs and zags and we finally cleared the center half of the battlefield. In the near distance, perhaps a good sixty yards away, stood a mass of bodies gathered in a circle around something I couldn't quite see.

I spared another glance behind me, and with a quick count, I estimated that we'd lost a fourth of our riders during our mad dash across the field. Even worse, Edo's group along with the rest of Ashley's Shield squad were nowhere in sight.

”Muddammit,” I whispered.

That was all the pity party I could manage however, as Luca and Aura had both called out to me at the same time.

”Dean, look!” they both yelled.

”Wh-what?” I asked as I turned my head back to the front.

Luca had a hand pointed toward the blue and gray crowd ahead. Their constantly shifting positions allowed a partition to open up and reveal what was happening in the middle of all that chaos.

We were around twenty-five yards away, but I could clearly see the worrisome scene beyond.

Darah, her golden armor gleaming under the light of the golden moon, picked herself off the ground using her golden sword as a crutch like she was injured or something. Above her, maybe ten feet off the ground flapped a black pegasus. Its masked rider looking down at Darah like some supervillain relishing his victory.

”Muddamit!” I whispered. ”We might be too late after all.”