“To the end!” Hatan shouted, and their troop began marching. Potions were distributed as everyone got to the gate. Hatan drank his in one gulp, still unsure of its effects, but he quickly felt a sharpening in his senses and powerful endurance in his muscles. No wonder the shamanfolk warriors had such an edge in battle.
When the gates to the palace opened, the Bayvana Tribe stood outside of it, armed and ready. Manahae and Mashe stood at the front. “We are here to aid the city,” Mashe said, her eyes hard.
“Then now is the time,” Hatan said, feeling encouraged by the new arrivals, despite the one or two-hundred waheshi that had already broken through the walls. His heart pounded with the idea that everyone on the walls had possibly been butchered already, including Falshon and Shanon.
He should have been there with them this whole time, not holed up at the palace. His place was on the front line.
“To the end!” he shouted again, steering Bahdin up the street. He’d die, of course, but he’d give this bleeder army an ending they would not soon forget.
Chapter forty-one
Storm
Katsi felt the tears welling in her eyes as she looked up at Migo. He was dying. The waheshi were tearing him apart. The sound of it was torture.
He stopped fighting, knowing their end had come, only to look down at her with all the sorrow she could imagine in the eyes of a giant lizard.
“Sands, we really messed things up,” Katsi said, her voice weak.
Migo grunted back to her, shaking his head slightly. But then he snarled, rearing in pain at whatever was happening to him.
Katsi couldn’t stand it. Her whole body shook with grief, twisting her stomach. Wasn’t she supposed to be powerful? Wasn’t she supposed to be able to save them? She took a sharp breath and rolled out of Migo’s weakened grip, struggling to her knees.
A waheshi dove for her, but Migo snapped its head off as it got close.
Katsi groaned between her teeth as she got one foot up, bracing her hands against her knee. She was tired. Her body ached. But that would not stop her. If she was to die today, it would be her own doing as the lightning consumed her body. She would not die to the claws of some monster.
Migo collapsed with a terrible groan. A waheshi bore into his neck, right next to her.
Katsi bit her lip, drawing blood. She drew energy not only from the armlets, but from her heart, from her blood, from her very soul. Dark red lightning trickled from the ground, arcing into the sky. It spread out like splashing water, incinerating a wave of waheshi all around her.
She gasped and fell back to her hands and knees. The heat had flushed from her body. Everything was cold. So cold. Even the stone on her face felt cold. When had she fallen to her face?
Sands, she was dying. Her eyes shifted to Migo. His massive head rested beside her, eyes closed. She reached out her hand, touching his scaled face, but he didn’t move.
At least she would die beside him. Her husband. The man she loved. The man who’d given everything for her.
She closed her eyes for the last time.
Only to snap them open as something landed beside her with a croak. She looked up into the face of another lizard.
Scales opened his mouth, dropping a piece of jewelry on her face.
“Ouch,” Katsi said. “Why?”
He nipped at her hair and croaked again, nudging the jewelry.
Wait. Could it be?
Beside Scales stood Ris. How had she gotten here?
Katsi summoned all her remaining strength to lift her arm and grab the artifact. She felt its power instantly, like the burning intensity of the sun, it surged through her.
Ris waved her hand over the artifact, mumbling words that Katsi couldn’t understand. The energy within the artifact swelled.
She shot to her feet with a gasp, instantly connecting with the air.
A waheshi was inches away from Scales. It would reach him far too quickly for her to call lightning in time.
But Scales skipped to the side, flicked his wings, and chomped down on the waheshi’s neck, killing the beast in the same moment. Scales staggered away, spitting and shaking his head, clearly displeased with the waheshi’s taste.
“Alright show-off,” Katsi said. “Get back to the city! I’ll handle things from here.”
Scales let out a growl and jumped into the air, swirling around Katsi before sailing back toward the city.
Ris had vanished as well. Where could she have gone?
But Migo… was he dead? He still didn’t move. His wings were in tatters, and his dark red blood soaked the muddied ground.
“Stormcaller,” a voice said. She snapped her head over, regarding a middle-aged man in ragged clothes, thronged by several others, all armed.
Shamans.
“You have fought nobly,” the man said. “I can respect that. I never thought Ashjagar would be a creature capable of love, but perhaps that’s why my experiments all failed.”
One of the shamans approached Migo’s body, an open vial in her hand.
“Don’t touch him!” Katsi screamed.
