Arc 5: Chapter 17: Laertes
“Emma, behind you!”
My warning came too late. I’d known it would, and was already moving. But without my axe…
Emma had managed to get one foot under her, though it was clear the wolves had hurt her bad. She brought up her sword, but it was a distraction. Her other hand flexed, and three shrikespears screamed up from the melting bodies scattered around her.
All three went into the Count, punching through his ribs before emerging from his back with sickening squelching sounds. I heard him grunt, a very human noise, and he stopped.
Emma bared her teeth in a feral expression I couldn’t call a smile, then swiped her blade sharply from left to right in a flourish, right through the Count’s jugular.
The hulking form slumped, a tongue of viscous blood seeping down from the wound below his chin. I saw him better then, though most of his features remained caught in some unnatural darkness, giving only telltale signs of what he looked like. He was inhumanly tall, over seven feet, and might have been even taller considering his dramatically hunched posture. He wore some kind of rich enshrouding robe or coat lined in fur, giving him a broad, shapeless figure.
His eyes were milky and pale, and those I could see clearly. Further, by the way they shifted down to Emma even after his throat had been sliced, I knew he wasn’t dead.
“Hendry!” I barked. “Your sword!”
Hendry had moved forward to help Emma, but her own pikes blocked his way. Most of them had disintegrated, but some remained. His gaze flinched in my direction. He hesitated a moment, then tossed his sword through the air.
I tracked its motion as it tumbled end over end, reached out, and caught it by the handle. I stepped forward to save my apprentice.
And—