Page 140 of Atop the Faerie Throne
“Hey, this thing has furandscales.” He stabs viciously down into one tiny green eye. “You can have a coat and boots!”
The wyrm lets out one of those whistling shriek-hisses, shaking its head from side to side as Lore clings on for dear life. Another wall comes collapsing down on our right.
Goddess. Now there aretwoof them?
“Rose, get to Drystan.” Bree draws his own weapon.
I slide back, intent on following his orders. The movement breaks my own fear’s hold on me, and I reach for my powers as I struggle to my feet.
Mab is right there, offering me a hand, as Titania draws her bow, and Maeve hefts a wicked-looking sword.
“To the dullahan,” my grandmother orders, releasing me as soon as I’m upright. “We’ll take care of this.”
The first tunnel wyrm rears back, slamming its head into the rock above. I expect Lore to blink away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps his blade in place, swinging from it in time to avoid the blow. He drives a second one up through the underside of the serpent’s maw.
His next attack doesn’t manage to penetrate the scales
He might as well be a mosquito, inflicting pinpricks of damage.
A strong arm surrounds me, dragging me against a familiar chest as a whip of flame snakes out, extending and wrapping around a tail that was seconds away from crushing me. Drystan snaps the whip, his whole body straining to keep the wyrm in place as the fire flares, drawing an anguished whistle screech from it.
Green mist surrounds us like a creeping fog. Each breath that the creatures take spreads more of the stuff. The charms are working, for now, but how long can they hold out?
Caed’s swords are busy trying to pry open the beast’s jaws. Jaro’s wolf leaps this way and that, evading the talons as he tries to tear a chunk from its furred hide. A blur of black feathers is thrown back, landing in an explosion of bones.
Bree.
For a heart-stopping second, he’s still, and I desperately funnel Danu’s energy to him down the bond. When he erupts back into the fight, he’s not Bree like I’ve ever seen him before.His legs are gone, replaced with a huge black serpentine tail that’s almost as large as the tunnel wyrms’, with a mouth that’s now feline, full of rows of needle-sharp teeth.
It’s amazing, and I can’t stop staring.
Drystan’s fireballs are the only things that the wyrms actually seem to fear, but even those can’t drive them back. My Fomorian was right. Whatever territorial urge the creatures have to defend their nest is stronger than their dislike of the flames.
Then the room shakes again.
“More of them?” Caed asks, exasperated. “Ancestors’ hairy fucking balls.”
“This is the best party ever!” Lore agrees, somehow having regained his spot on top of the first serpent’s head.
Titania’s arrows fly past, embedding themselves into the eye sockets of the beasts, drawing more angry hissing from the lot of them. Mab and Maeve are hacking away with their swords. Every blow is crushingly ineffectual, making my fingers itch as I resist the urge to rush forward and help.
I’m not well trained enough. I’d just put them all in more danger. Only a delusional idiot would believe I could do more with my few months of training.
A tail sneaks out, and Drystan throws me into the air to avoid the blow. My wings catch me, but the dullahan isn’t so lucky. The serpent slams into him, and I stifle a cry at the loud crash that follows as he smacks into a wall, then down into another bone pile. He’s back on his feet within seconds, and a burst of urgency hits me along the bond.
With dread in my gut, I turn and come face to face with another hissing, shrieking menace. Worse. There are shadows building in the tunnel we came from.
We can’t fight all of them. My eyes flicker to Caed as one of his swords dives into the throat of the wyrm he and Lore are fighting.
These creatures will defend their nest to the death. Theirs or ours. Even if we miraculously manage to kill them all, we’re wasting time.
Our priority is Elatha and the portal.
“We need to go!” I call, fluttering backwards and trying to keep my breaths shallow as I focus on channelling all the magic my Guard needs and shutting out my racing heart and pounding head.
“But this is the fun part,” Lore protests, and I dart a look in his direction to find he’s managed to sink a second dagger into the beast’s other eye.
The wyrm finally falls. Collapsing to the ground under a wave of Mab’s lightning as Caed’s swords take its head from the inside. Blood weeps from the gaping wound in its neck, coating the floor in reflective red darkness. Twin tongues dart out in front of me, tasting the air and responding with outraged hiss-whistles that have me covering my ears.
