Page 166 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
And blood spurted onto the cobblestone.
I could feel, in the way Steeler’s shoulders hunched and the air seemed to suck in a breath around us, that he was about to Walk. But…
“Wait!”
He jerked back. Trying to block out the image of the monster’s tail whipping the woman’s body back and forth, I pointed at it.
“Do you see that imprint on both of its shoulders? And another one in the middle of its head?”
Steeler squinted at the vague circles just barely visible on the monster’s scaly skin. I was willing to bet there’d be two more beneath each of its lizard-like arms.
“Yes?”
“Those are its brands. Killing them isn’t going to put out the fire they created, but if we can mutilate their brands…”
“…we’ll destroy their ability to use magic,” Steeler finished, his eyes widening, “and put out the fire. Did everyone hear that?”
“Damage the brands,” Garvis repeated, dipping his head and clutching his machete close to his heart.
Nara raised her two spades, and Barberro followed suit with an axe in one hand and a sickle in the other.
“COME AND GET A PIECE OF THIS,FYKA!”
He charged at the monster with the spiked tail just as it narrowed its sights on another nearby victim, Nara hot on his heels.
Garvis sprinted for the monster beyond it, but Steeler and I pivoted at the same time when a terrified holler rang out on the other side of the raised dais in the middle of the square. A man was on his knees before a creature that looked more dragon than human, except…no, that wasn’t right, either. The body resembled aninsectmore than a lizard: tall, spindly legs, horns that almost looked like antennas, and thin, membranous wings that draped alongside it like…
Like a butterfly.
I was already running, throwing a knife at its bristled, tube-like tongue as it unraveled to lash out at the man cowering beneath it.
My blade sliced through flesh before it could. The monster shrieked and turned to me while the man himself scrambled away.
Two milky, unseeing eyes stared right through me, and recognition hit me all at once, turning my kneecaps into lead.
Jenia.
Her unraveled tongue still drooped with the weight of my knife stuck through it, but she seemed to sense me anyhow. Her wings gave a few angry flaps, her monstrous form lifting into the air until she was bearing down upon me, groping at me with hooked feet covered in tiny, prickly hair.
Steeler used the moment of distraction to disappear.
When he reappeared above her, it was to carve a slice of skin from her sloped head with a flash of steel.
And one of Jenia’s brands was no more.
She shrieked again, a sound so high-pitched it had my eyes watering… but by the time she landed on those spindly legs and swung toward him, Steeler was gone.
“Here,” he said, his presence solidifying by my side as he handed me back my knife he’d ripped from her tongue.
“Thanks.”
I claimed the knife but didn’t slip it back into place, holding it poised and ready when Jenia’s giant wings began to flap toward us once more.
“Do you trust me, Rayna?” Steeler asked grimly.
My focus never wavered from Jenia, but I found the answer sliding from my lips more readily than I ever thought possible.
“Yes.”
