Page 19 of The Last Valkyrie

As draug burst through the trees behind us.

With both hands on my huge axe, my shield resting on my back, I swung like a baseball bat and beheaded a draug before it could get within five feet of us.

The others were on us fast, scraping their claws and dirty swords at our shields.

One of them charged me. I showed it my back, the clank of its sword bouncing off my shield jarring my shoulders. I backed into the draug, off-balancing the mindless beast, and Magnus came around to cut his bloodblade into its side. I spun to the other side, swinging, and met Magnus’ blade halfway through itsbody with my axe. Our weapons met in the middle, separating its torso from its legs.

The legs dropped, the upper body crawled after us.

We quickly moved onto the next enemies.

Arne was pelting the things with ice, slowing their movements so the rest of us could plunge our weapons into their soft, dead flesh.

Ravinica moved swiftly, stabbing and keeping the draug at range, pushing them back but doing little to destroy them. It seemed that only separating their bones from their musculature was doing the trick.

With a twist of his wrist, Corym wrapped three draug up with vines from nearby trees, holding them back.

All of this was preventative, I noticed, and our swings were getting slow and clumsy. We were tiring, while these monsters never did.

“Behind!” shouted one of our recruited cadets. “More of ‘em, gang—lotsmore!”

My eyes snapped over my shoulder. I could hear their stampede and feel it trembling the earth. “Fuck,” I groaned, and gave Ravinica a small shake of my head.

The first signs of their skeletal bodies and rotted hands showed through the trees—at least twenty of the motherfuckers.

“North!” she shouted. “Break the wall and run!”

We careened out of our shield wall at her command, sprinting through the trees. I lumbered, growling, ready to shift on a moment’s notice if it came to it and we needed to move faster. Or if someone needed to stay behind.

You don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than your friend . . . especially if your friendisthe bear.

The draug pursued, their grisly, desiccated grunts echoing behind us. It was a chase scene out of a nightmare. Arne andCorym kept halting to try and slow their progress toward us, throwing up walls of ice and twisting vines and tree limbs.

Glancing right, I noticed more shadows—what I thought were draug coming in to swarm us from the fringes.

Then I noticed the gait shift, from a bipedal sprint to a loping, four-legged gallop as the group ran parallel to us.

“Sven!” I called out, pointing as I sprinted. “He’s over there, Rav!”

She nodded and we veered to the right, meeting with three wolves and Randi Ranttir alongside them. There was no time for pleasantries as more draug came in from the north, moving to sandwich us between their two masses.

“Shit!” Arne yelled.

The wolf shifters jumped into action, large gray blurs bouncing through the trees to tackle and rip at the sagging flesh of the incoming draug.

I swung my axe, then got jealous and shifted, roaring as I went on my hind legs and pawed great swipes at the creatures. My animal instinct took over, the scent of their corroded flesh sharp and disgusting.

They were coming from every direction now. I felt one of them bite into my white fur, splashing me with blood.

I roared, reeled back, and kicked the thing ten feet away.

When it vanished, three took its place.

Corym moved faster than anyone, but even the elf was being overwhelmed.

We were going to lose. My animal brain knew it in that moment. We had stopped to convene with Sven and his pack, and it had cost us dearly.

Smoke filled the space between the trees, making the fighting harder than ever. We had little room to work with. The smoke was making it difficult to tell friend from foe. The nearest inferno blazed nearby, engulfing countless trees.

---