Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,92

trick, their one and only plan, was useless against them.

Tancho didn’t have time to think. Another creature came at him, huge hands like battering rams, and Tancho ducked low under its swinging arm, and spinning on his foot, plunged his katana up under the creature’s armpit, piercing its chest.

He stood tall as the creature fell and Crow smiled at him as he swung his sword at another creature’s arm, slicing it off at the wrist. The creature screamed and Crow silenced it by taking off its head.

He was strength and sheer brute force, and Tancho couldn’t help but admire him as he fought. Even sprayed with green blood, Crow was a glorious sight.

But he didn’t have time to admire for long. Another creature came at him and Tancho took out his second katana, a sword in each hand, and as the creature came at him, hulking and clumsy, Tancho crossed both blades at its throat at sliced its head off.

And another, and another. He swung, he sliced, he plunged. The creatures seemed unending. There were so many . . . too many.

He saw Karasu and Kohaku holding their own, graceful and lethal, fighting as he knew they would. Soko fought like Crow, the same style, the same type of weapon. How they could be so agile with such a heavy weapon, Tancho would never know.

But as Tancho took on another creature, this one bigger and angrier, he stepped away, vying for a better angle, and he stepped too far away from Crow.

His wrist burned, more painful than he could remember it ever being. And they weren’t that far apart. Had the distance closed even further with the approaching eclipse?

“Crow!” Tancho yelled, his voice taut with pain.

“Tancho!”

But now there were two beasts separating them . . . and another, and the pain was almost unbearable. Tancho could barely hold his sword, let alone use it. The creature took a closer step, its hog-mouth open in a wicked smile, knowing it had the advantage . . .

Tancho dropped his katana, unable to stand the burning pain up his arm one second longer. It was burning him from the inside, turning his bone and blood to ash, he was sure of it. The pain was blinding, all-consuming, and for one split second, he wished for Crow with all his heart. He wished he’d told him how much he loved him, and he wished they’d had more time. But above all, he wished the creature would kill him now just to end the pain.

Tancho held his wrist, fell to his knees, and screamed.

Chapter Twenty-One

Crow couldn’t see outside the searing pain. His hand, his arm, felt as though it had been immersed in lava. He wondered how much more he could endure before it killed him . . . He almost wished it would.

Even with two creatures surrounding him, he couldn’t think . . .

He needed Tancho. He needed to be near him, to be with him, to hold him.

He needed the pain to end.

But none of that compared to hearing Tancho scream. He’d take the pain every second of every day, he’d take both his own and Tancho’s if it meant Tancho was without it.

But it was too much. Excruciating, bewildering, his sword fell to his feet, and he went to his knees. Holding his wrist, he looked up at the golden sun, as the moons closed in on it, the fighting around them, at the two Ascii beasts in front of him.

“Tancho,” Crow whispered as the creature raised its talons aimed at Crow’s head, ensuring Tancho’s name would be his last breath.

Crow waited for the blows to come. The pain of dying this gruesome death would be a relief to the burn that consumed him. It travelled up his arm now, the pain seeping into his chest.

Oh, by the blue skies, if I die here, let Tancho live . . .

But the blow never came. The first creature’s eyes went wide as a blade stuck out from its throat. The second creature’s head tilted at an odd angle, green blood gushing as a blade sliced through its neck.

Through the haze of pain, Crow could see the figures in white standing where the creatures had been. Karasu and Kohaku . . .

Karasu hooked her arm under Crow’s and heaved him to his feet. “Get him closer,” she said, as Kohaku’s stronger grip picked Crow up and all but threw him on the ground near Tancho.

The pain was gone, but the breathlessness, the haze remained.