Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,105

the creature would’ve cut through him like a butcher. “How do you like my heavy armour now?”

Tancho conceded a breathless nod. “Thank you.”

Just then, more creatures came running down the corridor toward them, and Crow gripped his sword in both hands, readied his stance, Tancho by his side.

He would take them on the best he could. They were outnumbered, out-sized, but Crow held his head high. “For the Northlands.”

Tancho nodded. “For us.”

But just then, a batallion of soldiers arrived in a swarm of red, green, white, and black. They cleared the sleeping creatures from the doorway and mowed into the Ascii like a multicoloured cloud of death.

One green-clad soldier pointed his axe down the corridor. “The grand hall,” he said, before chopping into a creature who came for him.

Crow and Tancho didn’t need telling twice. They raced past the swarm of battle, but as they neared the huge double doors, another herd of creatures were ravaging the remains of fallen soldiers. If they wore red, green, white, or black, it was hard to tell now. There was so much blood and gore, Crow’s stomach soured, and the only thing that kept his bile down was the anger and fury that replaced it.

Tancho aimed another smoke bomb at them, and the creatures’ panic and attack were quelled by the smoke. They scrambled to charge but fell over themselves, asleep in a few moments.

“I will make every last one of them pay for what they have done,” Crow said, his jaw clenched. And he felt no remorse at all for hacking into their sleeping bodies. He could see now the uniformed soldiers had been black and green. His men, Elmwood’s men . . . “I will kill them all.”

“And I will be by your side as we see it so,” Tancho said. He pulled Crow’s arm toward the door. “Don’t look at them. There’s nothing to be done for them now.”

“I want Maghdlm,” Crow whispered, seething with a rage he could barely contain.

But the doors wouldn’t open. They’d always opened as someone approached, but as they stood in front of them now, nothing moved.

Crow aimed his sword at the ancient wood. “Aperi ianium!” he roared. “Open the fucking door.”

And, as though the doors had been under the same spell as the magical doorways with Maghdlm’s chant, they opened at his command.

Opening wide, they revealed the new grand hall like Crow couldn’t have imagined.

The room was cast in an eerie golden glow now, the eclipsed sun and moons were directly overhead the glass-roof dome. The total eclipse was straight above them, and a shaft of golden light beamed directly through the dome onto the centre of the compass on the floor.

It was time.

Whatever Maghdlm had planned was happening.

She stood at the top of the compass, her arms outstretched, chanting something in a foreign tongue. Three circles of purple sparks spun in mid-air. Not one, but three! Ascii creatures stood around, watching, waiting . . .

A burst of husky laughter rasped from the corner, and Crow risked a glance at the sound, to see Soko on his knees, smiling at Crow. His hands were bound, his face was bloodied, his eye swollen. He laughed again, this time at the Ascii creatures. “Now you arseholes are in trouble.”

Maghdlm glanced up, surprised to see Crow and Tancho. Pointing at them, she yelled. “Get them, bring them to me!”

One of the creatures backhanded Soko and knocked him to the ground, and Crow swung his sword, leaping at the Ascii. Tancho did the same, unleashing his two katanas and slaying any beasts that charged at them, but there were too many.

Soldiers filed in behind Crow, men and women in black, white, red, and green, and they swung, sliced, skewered, and stabbed. But Maghdlm had a doorway open, a sparkling purple circle that Ascii creatures were crawling through.

“The doorway,” Crow called.

Tancho took his last smoke bomb from his belt and launched it at the doorway. A second later, smoke seeped out and a beast fell out of the doorway and onto the floor.

Maghdlm roared and the door closed, and she focused her narrow gaze on Tancho. “Separate them! They cannot survive a distance between them.”

The creatures tried to fend off the soldiers, aiming for Crow and Tancho, and there was so much commotion, so much distraction, Crow hadn’t realised Tancho was edging around to the corner of the room.

Crow then saw why.

Karasu lay on the ground, Kohaku by her side. Neither of them was moving and Kohaku had a