Jocelynn Drake - Dawnbreaker

“Let’s get going!” I shouted. My group was finishing up the last couple of wolves. A dozen lycans were sent and all had died. I lost several humans as well. Several of the survivors would also grow fur at the next full moon. I was beginning to believe that this mountain carried some kind of curse with it. There was a price extracted each time someone set foot on her hallowed soil.

“Where’s the other group?” Danaus asked, stepping over a dead wolf as he climbed the hill.

I started walking again, while my mind stretched out to find Stefan. His anger hit me first, causing me to stumble. His group was in the middle of a battle. Stefan felt my presence and sent back one word before pushing me from his thoughts: Guardhouse. I skimmed over his people. Most of the humans were dead and I felt only a light scattering of lycans, but there was still something wrong.

“Hurry!” I cried, jogging up the path while it was still clear. “Stefan’s group is not far from the guardhouse. Something strange is going on. The nightwalkers keep thinking about rocks and the mountain eating them,” I called over my shoulder at Danaus.

“It’s the earth clan,” Cynnia volunteered. She ran close to my side, staying on my left so it was easier for me to protect her. “They have the ability to move great boulders, or split the earth open and then close it again around their victim.

We had to hurry. While Stefan was encountering some interesting problems, he was farther up the mountain than I was. He was going to reach the Main Gate before I was in position to meet him. If the naturi were going to conduct the spell at the Temple of the Condor, Stefan needed more help if he wanted to survive.

I was about to ask what they were going to send at us when I felt something stir in the air. Not questioning it, I grabbed Cynnia’s arm and pulled her to the ground with me. It was the same feeling I had moments before seeing the harpies at Crete. A shifting in the air, the feeling that something was about to land on your head from above. With a growl, I released Cynnia and rolled over onto my back. I reached for the Browning with my right hand and was about to raise it when I paused. They weren’t harpies. It was worse.

Overhead, with a set of massive gray wings, was a creature that resembled a gorilla more than a man. Its face was large and flat, with a wide nose and fangs that protruded out from beneath its fat lower lip. In its arms it held a dainty woman with blue flowing hair. Her small, fragile hands rested against the pebbled skin of its arms and chest.

“Cynnia, what the hell is that thing?” I demanded, my aim adjusting to take in both the flying creature and its little treasure.

“In your language? An air guardian,” she replied, seeming to back slowly away from me.

“Anything in particular I should know?”

“They’re killers.”

Keeping my back pressed to the ground, I fired at the air guardian as it swooped through the air. For something so large, it was amazingly fast, but I still managed to clip its wings. It roared in pain, wobbling in the air as it tried to lighten the strain on its wounded wing.

I tried to sit up to get a better angle on my next shot when a tree root erupted from the ground and wrapped around my chest, slamming me back down to the earth. I blinked against the stars exploding before my eyes. The root tightened around me, nearly crushing my ribs. I pushed against my earthy bindings, but these roots were controlled by magic, making them stronger. Another root near my foot sprung from the earth and grabbed my ankle, pinning me down. The earth clan naturi laughed from the cradled embrace of the air guardian as they hovered a few feet above my head. I struggled to cut through my bindings with my sword, but the progress was slow. In a moment my arms would break under the pressure and I’d be helpless.

“Come, little sister,” crooned the earth clan naturi with a wave of her hand toward Cynnia. “You belong with us.”

“Why? So you can kill me like the others tried to?” Cynnia snapped, crawling away from where I lay tied to the ground with a bunch of roots.

“You’d rather side with the nightwalkers?” the naturi gasped. She gritted her teeth and waved her hand toward the mountain trail. “Well then, I guess I’ll leave you with no other choice but to side with us.”

Down the line I heard a nightwalker scream seconds before his existence was snuffed out. From what I could tell, most of my kind were being tied down with the roots and then staked. A swell of panic filled my chest as I released my weapons. They were of no use since I couldn’t lift my arms. With my palms open, I conjured up a wave of fire that covered the length of my body, biting into the roots that held me. The earth clan naturi above me squealed in frustration and tried to crush me with the roots, but they were already beginning to weaken. With my binding crumbling, I sent a fireball screaming through the air. The air guardian turned and tried to escape, but the flames engulfed him and the earth naturi in an instant. His tough hide melted, his flesh sizzling and popping in the night sky before he finally lost the ability to fly and tumbled back to the earth.

Pulling against my bindings, the roots snapped and broke. On my feet again, I lifted my hands and torched two other air guardians I could see in the air above me. Cynnia rose as well and called up a storm, bringing up a swell of air that kept the air guardians fighting to stay close to where we were located on the side of the mountain.

“With these iron cuffs, I can do no more,” she confessed, holding her hands out to me.

“Betray me now and I’ll destroy you,” I snarled. With a grunt, I pulled apart the bindings of each iron cuff until they fell to the ground with a clatter. I prayed I wasn’t about to regret this, but I needed all the firepower I could get. She could have gone with her own kind but had stayed with me.

Beside me, Cynnia drew in a deep sigh as she raised her arms freely up into the air. Black clouds swirled around us like a thickening witch’s brew. I took a step backward and laid a hand on her shoulder, wary of what she was doing. In the flash of an eye two lightning bolts slammed to the earth, plunging through the two remaining air guardians before they had a chance to escape.

Along the path, the nightwalkers were breaking loose and getting back to their feet. Unfortunately, the humans had been quickly crushed and broken under the squeezing roots. I had also lost five nightwalkers. More than half of my army was gone now, and we had yet to reach the mountain ruins. I hoped Stefan was doing better.

Frowning, my narrowed eyes scanned the area laced with dancing shadows cast by the last of the burning roots. Danaus had disappeared from sight when the air guardians appeared. A chill ran up my spine. His name was on my lips when I finally spotted him sitting on the ground, his back pressed against the stone wall of the mountain. When I walked over, the harsh wheeze of his breathing could be heard over the crackling fires. Sheathing my weapons, I knelt beside the hunter. His throat was raw and bleeding. One of the roots had wrapped around his neck and crushed his windpipe.

“Is it healing?” I asked. He tried to say yes, but the word never made it up his throat. I held up my hand, stopping him from trying again. “Just nod or shake your head.” He nodded once, drawing in a sharp breath. I could feel the panic starting to swell in his chest. It wasn’t enough air, not by a long shot. His body was healing, but too slowly, and soon he would suffocate.

“Anything else hurt?” I demanded. Danaus shook his head. “We’ll wait,” I announced, kneeling on the ground in front of him.

“What? Let’s leave him!” snapped one of the other nightwalkers watching our conversation. He was young and had no concept of what he would face at the Machu Picchu ruins.