Page 3 of The Coven of Ruin
The thought crept through her. Settled. And still she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the maimed torso.
Move!
Clawing the sand, she managed to wiggle one leg out and then the other. As she did, a dagger’s silver glint caught her eye. Trista scrambled for it. She didn’t notice the short, barrel-chested man lunging for it at the same time until his fist collided with her side. The blow landed on her ribs, knocking the air out of her. Sharp and splitting pain spread throughout her already aching body. He grabbed at her as she spun away, ripping and fraying the fabric of her dress. Stumbling backward, she witnessed her attacker’s head crumple as it met the flail of another opponent. Whoever had been wielding it didn’t even spare her a glance.
She grabbed the dagger and gulped for air, taking in her surroundings. The sounds of steel hitting muscle and bone echoed off the walls almost as loudly as the death cries.And red covered everything.It gathered in pools in divots of sand and adorned mangled corpses like splashes of paint, as if it were merely an abstract creation. She had never seen so much blood.
Remembering her original plan, she continued to back away from the fighting around her. Just as her back touched a perimeter wall, it shook with the sound of groaning stone and metal. And then two otherworldly howls cleaved the air. A pair of black-furred wolf-like beasts emerged from larger side gates. Impossibly massive, they seemed as if they had been conjured straight from a nightmare. One leapt immediately on a dueling pair of combatants and ripped a man clean in half, shaking its head viciously.
The battle changed again as the fighters took in the new threat. She watched the giant wolves with a disturbed fascination as they tore through the prisoners. Vaguely, she was aware of the announcer’s voice, but it sounded far away, as if her head was underwater. Another awareness dawned on her then too—she was going into shock.
Stay present.She shook her head in an attempt to clear the haze.Stay focused.
“And what’s this,” the announcer’s voice boomed from above. “This is a surprise even to me. That’s Ares, God of War and Courage, who jumped into the fray. I guess spectating just didn’t feel right. He’d rather fight! An honor, and most likely a death sentence even for our bravest fighters.” The cheers from above seemed viciously in support of this development. Even in the state she was in, she noticed a charged ripple of awareness throughout the coliseum.
The crowd’s cheers, the cries of dying men, and the beasts’ snarling were all too much. Even as she knew,sheknew, her mind and body were succumbing to the freezing grasp of shock—she slumped against the wall and closed her eyes.
The bloodbath disappeared. The world went mute. Trista’s heart pounded in her ears like a war drum, and her magic ached for her. Time passed. She didn’t realize how much until she was jostled and jerked upright. Her eyes snapped open, and the noise and sights returned in a disorienting rush. The fighter grabbing her smelled of rot, and recognition entered her hazy mind as she glanced at the dancing woman insignia he bore.
“You’ll be useful as bait for one of these wolves,” the champion sneered as he roughly threw her over his shoulder. “It’s unfortunate I can’t make use of you outside of here.”
Adrenaline surged through her with overwhelming heat, giving her a renewed sense of strength. Trista brought the dagger down, burying it into his back. He threw her away from him abruptly, cursing all the while. She scrambled back, even as her body protested the sudden movement. But when someone else approached, she knew her luck had run out.
His calm demeanor was more terrifying than anything else she had seen. Already covered in a thick coat of blood, he didn’t appear to be a prisoner nor a champion. Death preceded him like a kneeling servant before its king. A fighter rushed him, and he mercilessly cut him down in one violent swing.
The champion who had picked her up was half kneeling as he pulled the blade from his back. Cursing, he lunged for her but was slain in a single lethal arc, his fingers grasping only air. The new warrior turned his focus to her. Before she could even scream, he was on her and pulling her to her feet.
“Let me go,” she shouted as she struggled against him uselessly.
“Stop fighting, witch,” he said evenly, turning them so that his back was now to the wall.
His grasp was so tight she couldn’t pull free from him. She collapsed into him instead, trying to knee him and wiggle free. While her movements were wild and untrained, his reactions were calm and controlled. He met her every action with a countermove that kept her trapped. Even as she bit down on his bicep, he didn’t elicit a sound. He merely grabbed her hair with his other hand and jerked her head back sharply. All she accomplished was blood and flesh in her mouth and her neck feeling as if it would snap.
She was going to die.
When he crushed her body against his, causing her wrist to strain at a dangerous angle, she spit the chunk of his flesh in his face. It was the last courageous thing she would do. Blood and saliva trickled over her lips and down her chin.
He blinked once against the spray of blood. His jaw ticked. Nodding slowly, he bared his teeth, visibly restraining a rage she didn’t want to experience.
But she wouldbe damnedif she died begging for her life.
“Like a feral little beastie,” he sneered. Lifting his head up, he looked at something happening behind her. “You know,” his voice reverberated through her, “I’m trying to keep you alive, but you’re making that rather difficult.”
“Keep me alive?” The metallic taste of his blood in her mouth was nauseating.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pivoted them, pushing Trista around him. He walked several paces away from her, holding his sword low. His gaze trailed a fiery path as he marked each of the three men who had come for him. With a flippant shrug, the golden-eyed man said, “Should have kept fighting out there.”
They rushed him, yelling what sounded like “for honor!” He let them come fatally close before he even lifted his sword.
The first fighter caught the warrior’s blade through the chin, his face slicing open in a spray of crimson. Trista’s hand flew to her mouth as the body fell with a sickening thud. Swiftly switching his sword to his other hand, he stabbed the second one through the chest. He side-stepped the dying man to cut the last fighter’s head off.
Her mind was muddled as she stared at his back, open-mouthed. Unable to focus, her eyes glazed over the bodies that had been whole men just moments ago. Then she was screaming—the type of scream that ripped at her throat. She hadn’t even realized that she was on the ground, her knees pulled into her chest, her lungs raw until he turned to assess her. She snapped her mouth shut, the terrible noise withdrawing to her depths.
Completing a quick survey of her form, noting that she was not in imminent danger, he evaluated the battle around them. Satisfied, he closed the distance between them again.
He held out his hand. “Get up,” he commanded roughly. “We have to move.”
She hesitated briefly before she took his hand, and he pulled her toward him.
