narrowed eyes, making her out clearly despite the creatures shielding her, and drew my spears, which had been safely locked by the magic in the leather harness. Dashing toward her, I slashed, aiming for her neck, but she spun away at the last moment, nearly tripping on her tight silver gown.
Her gleaming crown tumbled from her head and rolled in my direction. Reaching my foot out, I stepped on its rim, halting it mid-roll. A bloodthirsty desire for her head to be the object beneath my foot flashed through my mind. “I guess this belongs to me now,” I bragged, jabbing the knife through the crown before I tossed it aside. Elongating one of my spear-knives, I drew my arm back and aimed for her heart.
“So much for your rule. Have a nice trip to wherever it is bad little queens like you go.”
The Devourer’s body disappeared in a burst of winged creatures just as my spear tore clear through them. The bats were replaced by dozens of demons that had surged up from cracks in the ground. They rushed me. Just as I raised my remaining knife to defend myself, two bodies descended from the sky and met the group with a clang of weapons.
Asten had stowed his bow and now fought with his fallen brother’s golden scimitars. We positioned ourselves so that Amon was protected in the center of our formed triangle. Facing outward, we protected each other’s backs as we fought.
“Just take him and go!” I yelled as I speared an opponent through the throat. “I’ll hold them off!”
“Can’t do that, little lioness,” Asten said over his shoulder as he swung both scimitars in opposite directions, decapitating a demon. It disappeared in a cloud of dust. “We’ve got to kill her. If we do, Amon will gain his power back. If not, he might never recover.”
“Fine.”
The demons and what remained of the jackals, which the queen managed to funnel into our circle in the center of the storm, were still far too many in number and continued to rush us in a never-ending stream. The queen was nowhere in sight.
I instinctively raised my shield, and when I did, the heart scarab burned at my waist. A powerful burst of green light shot forward and felled dozens of creatures, their shrieks of agony echoing off the iron walls before they turned into clouds of dust. “That’s handy,” I said, and attempted to use the power again as the next wave warily gathered around us.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to duplicate the process. Frustrated, I jabbed my emerald shield down into the sand and tossed aside my helmet. Asten had been able to recover my lost spear when a demon decided to use it as a weapon against him. He tossed it to me and I immediately felt better having both spear-knives.
There was definitely a side of me that thirsted to test myself in battle. I wanted to see the fear in my opponents’ faces as I gutted them. It was much more satisfying up close rather than from the distance of a spear length, especially when killing the jackals.
“I liked you better with your bow,” Asten said with a backward glance as we waited for the next onslaught of demons.
The three of us breathed heavily. Even with the strength of a sphinx, I was tiring. The wind died down, and the demons that’d been pressed against the wall began making their way toward us. My chest rumbled in anticipation. “I prefer claws, actually, if given a choice.” It was Tia who’d risen to the surface to speak. The three of us had been acting harmoniously for the most part, but standing back to back with Asten had brought her out.
“I’ll bet you do,” Asten said with a triumphant grin that was totally out of place but somehow made me smile. “Let’s swing things a bit more in our favor, shall we?” He began murmuring a spell, and I thought the result would be his familiar cloud of obscurity. Instead, the entire arena was quickly bathed in starlight.
Stretching forth his hands, Ahmose joined his own power to the spell and the light increased tenfold. “Let’s see if those who conspire in darkness scramble like roaches in the light of day,” he cried.
Their instincts were spot-on. The demons blinked and began groping around blindly, bumping into one another as they searched for us, leaving them much more vulnerable to attack. It evened the odds a bit. But the jackals