Free Web NovelChapter 465: Chapter 465
The breath was knocked out of him. He lay there with the sky tilting overhead, his sword still in his grip by instinct alone, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t draw air, but he could still hear the fight continuing around him as though it were happening somewhere distant.
The ground beneath his head was cold and wet and he could feel something warm spreading along his scalp. Above him, he could hear the fenrar moving.
The instant the connection to his shadows severed, the tendrils that had been coiled around the first fenrar simply ceased to exist. One moment they were there, dark and solid as it wrapped tightly around the creature’s legs and throat. The next, they were gone, dissolving into nothing.
The fenrar lurched forward the moment the restraints fell away, throwing itself at the nearest hunters with renewed fury. A man went down screaming. Another scrambled back barely fast enough to avoid the snap of its jaws.
Ragnar was still trying to get air back into his lungs, his chest locked tight, his vision still fractured at the edges from where his skull had struck something hard.
He did not let go of his sword, some deep and automatic part of him still holding on to it.
Then a shadow fell over him.
He turned his head just enough to see the fenrar bearing down, close enough that he could see the wet glint of its teeth. It had found him on the ground and decided he was the easier target.
A throwing axe came hurdling toward the beast.
It cut through the air with a clean and buried itself into the beast’s back between its shoulders. The fenrar’s charge faltered. Its body twisted sharply, a sound tearing from its throat that shook the air around it and it turned to the man that threw the axe.
One of the demon riders stood a few paces away, already settling into a ready stance, meeting the creature’s gaze without flinching.
The fenrar went for him.
Ragnar watched the demon move, drawing the beast and he used the window it bought him. He rolled, got his knee under him, then his foot, and pushed himself upright with a groan.
The pain that greeted him was blinding. His back had taken the worst of the fall and something in his leg had been wrenched badly enough that putting his full weight on it felt like torture.
He ignored it and gripped his sword tighter.
Some of his hunters were already killed. The hunters who were still on their feet were scattered. There was no formation left, no plan. What remained was men trying to survive.
He moved back into the fray. But their chances of survival dwindled even further when a third fenrar appeared.
It broke through the tree line at full speed and attacked one of the hunters before the man even had time to turn. The remaining men faltered. Ragnar could feel it, the shift in the group as the realization settled over them. They had ridden here expecting to find one beast. They hadn’t planned for three. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
The fenrars, he understood now, hunted in groups. None of them had known that before today. Whenever the creature crossed through the veil during the solstice, it almost always did so alone. But this time was different.
One of the demon riders was already dead. A fenrar’s claws opened his throat before anyone could reach him. It
The second demon rider had seen it happen.
He let out an angry snarl as he unleashed a wild torrent of shadows. They slammed into the nearest fenrar and wrapped around it, dragging it down, holding it against the ground as the creature thrashed and fought the restraints with everything it had. The demon pressed harder and the shadows formed spikes that drove into the beast’s flesh until dark blood began to seep through its fur where the points dug in.
The fenrar growled but it did not break free.
Ragnar crossed the distance in long, uneven strides and climbed onto the creature’s back, finding purchase against the thick muscle and bloodied fur with one hand while the other drove his sword down into the back of its neck. Then he withdrew the blade and the fenrar went still beneath him.
He climbed off and turned.
Two left.
The hunters still standing were fewer than he would have liked. Six, maybe seven. The demon rider had already shifted his focus to the next.
They wore the second fenrar just like the first one. The process was slow and it was ugly and it cost them two more men before the creature finally fell.
Ragnar took a hit from it that sent him sprawling to the ground and had barely gotten back upright before it charged again and hit him a second time. He landed badly on his leg both times, and by the second fall he could feel that something was seriously wrong with his leg.
There was a sharp, clean snap. And pain, so much pain. Blood poured from his wounds.
He clenched his jaw, breathing through it, hand still on his sword.
Around him, what remained of his hunters were still fighting.
He focused on that and used it to pull himself back upright once more, though he could put almost no weight on the leg now. ƒreewebɳovel.com
The last fenrar circled the remaining men. It was larger than the first two and stronger as well. The injuries it had taken had not slowed it in any meaningful way.
He knew he would not be able to fight properly with a leg that was most likely broken, but he tried regardless, just as he had when he could no longer call upon his shadows. He refused to stay down. Refused to give up. So he kept fighting.
Each movement was agony. Every shift of his weight sent sharp, splintering pain up through his leg and into his spine, yet he forced himself forward again and again.
