Page 97 of A Subtle Scar
My ward deflated, almost like I’d made a mistake in casting it, and for a second, I thought I had. Then the light spell Hermes had cast died, bright butterfly wings simply stopping to exist and leaving barely an afterimage on my retinas. That was odd, given it was divine magic. My heart started racing, and I broke out in cold sweat. Out of reflex, I tried to cast another silence ward, but that wouldn’t work. Reaching for my magic was akin to running up a steep hill glazed in black ice.
Next to me, Charon sucked in a breath and tightened his hold on my hand, the one he’d tape spelled against his. He could feel no more spell tying our hands together though.
Then, sounds. Something zipped through the air ahead of us and hit a wall. The light had gone out when we were at a wide spot in this winding cave. I thought it was a rock that had come loose. My imagination suggested a stalagmite, aiming to impale. I didn’t see, and I hated that I was so blind. I thought,What if Hermes fell into a shaft, a tear in the cave floor?
“Hermes!” I screamed.
Before either of them could say anything, someone screamed. Or no. This was no ordinary scream of terror or fright, but a battle cry. And not being able to see anything made hearing that noise a hundred times worse.
The beam of a flashlight hit me right in the face, and I was momentarily blinded. The rustling of wings drowned out the shouts and the cruel light, and Charon sheltered me behind his feathers. I heard a wet noise, a thudding. Flashlight beams raked through the darkness like errant knife cuts. Charon growled, and a pounding against his wing once more made me reach for magic I couldn’t get to.
His feathers and wing bones trembled, and I heard the impact, saw, in someone’s flashlight, what looked like the blade of a spade, aiming for a wing join.
“Leave him the fuck alone!” I screamed.
“Ronny!” Hermes said.
Charon turned the exact moment I’d twisted to the other side, and our hands broke apart. I dropped to the floor just when he spun the other way, his feathers still close enough to graze my back. I couldn’t see why he was doing that, but there were legs, and I caught a glimpse of someone getting hit by his wing and losing their footing.
“I’m fine,” Charon said with a booming voice. “Darling?”
“All good,” I said and rose to a squat.
I assessed the situation as quickly as I could. Charon in front of me, using his wings to keep people away. The lights were madness, and the swinging cudgels scared me. Hermes had moved a good five feet, I caught his golden curls in an arcing flashlight beam. One person was on the rocky ground, moaning and twitching. There were maybe ten people attacking us if I was getting the count right in the confusing light of a few flashlights.
I pulled on my magic once again—and nothing.
“Kill the diseased!” a male voice screamed.
Well, that sounded not ideal.
That and my inability to reach my magic scared me, but I never had the chance to get lost in the fear. Instead, something else kicked in, either training or instinct, I wasn’t sure.
I scrambled out of the reach of Charon’s wings. They blocked me from the fight, from helping with the fight.
He cursed, but that could have been because someone was hurling rocks now too. I ducked to avoid one, took a large step forward, and met the oncoming attacker withirimi nage,the Aikido move so ingrained that I didn’t think.
From there, the movement flowed, and he was on the ground. The man screamed when I put him in a lever that would have made a trained fighter yield rather than resist. I could feel and hear something snap in his arm, but there was no time to dwell on that or even hold on.
“Infected plague carriers!” another attacker yelled, and I just barely managed to take a step back and avoid getting hit. With a broken broom? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter.
I sidestepped, grabbed, turned, piled him on the ground next to my first attacker, One of them screamed, the other huffed. I thought the second had fallen on his buddies broken arm maybe.
A third person grabbed my wrist with both hands. I had her on the ground in moments, then yowled when a fucking rock connected with my shoulder.
Before I moved to seek cover, I had a moment to look at the woman. Her mouth was open, the air gone out of her with the fall. If she’d been puppet spelled, she’d have been unable to open her mouth, which meant she was doing this because she wanted to. Because she thought it was the right thing to do.
“Baby!” Hermes screamed.
Arms came around me, the instinct to fight them off never kicking in. Hermes bodily lifted me, and someone grunted as he shoved them. Or kicked them. I couldn’t be sure.
“Monsters! You’re going to kill us all,” the woman on the ground said, but Hermes was stepping around her and heading deeper into the cave.
“Look out!” I screamed when I saw the rock aimed for his head.
Hermes’s hand moved fast. He caught it from midair, and with a vicious growl, he squeezed, turning the stone into smaller shards and dust that crumbled from his fingers like shortbread.
“Ronny!”
