Jennifer Estep - Killer Frost

But despite Oliver’s Spartan skill and Alexei’s Bogatyr bravery, they were still going to lose.

Reapers surrounded them on three sides, severely outnumbering Oliver and Alexei and pinning them back against the van, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed my friends. Even if I stepped up and joined the battle, it wouldn’t be enough to save them. There were just too many Reapers for that. Desperate, I looked around, trying to figure out some way to help Oliver and Alexei and at least give them a fighting chance. But all I saw were the smashed vehicles, Reapers, and the Black rocs they’d brought along with them—My gaze locked on to the flock of birds. The Reapers had left them at the edge of the road, where the pavement gave way to the woods. The Reapers who had been watching the rocs had joined the fight against Oliver and Alexei, so the creatures stood by patiently, waiting for the warriors to climb onto their backs so they could fly off to parts unknown.

I didn’t know all that much about Black rocs, just that they were big, strong, and deadly, like Nemean prowlers, Fenrir wolves, and Eir gryphons. But a crazy idea popped into my mind. Maybe . . . maybe if I could startle the rocs into flying off, it would at least draw some of the Reapers away from Oliver and Alexei.

It was a hasty plan at best, but it was the only chance

I had—and my friends too.

So I stepped off the pavement and raced in that direction, hard bits of snow and frozen leaves crunching under my boots, all the while wondering how small, pitiful me was going to scare mythological creatures that could easily eat me with one snap of their sharp beaks.

“What are you doing, Gwen?” Vic shouted. “The fight is over there!”

“You’ll see!” I screamed back.

At the sound of my yell, Vivian whirled around in my direction. Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but that Reaper red spark flared to life in her topaz eyes. She shook Agrona’s arm and stabbed her finger in my direction. Agrona’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and she pushed Vivian forward, clearly ordering the Reaper girl to kill me. Vivian stumbled and almost fell to the ground before she managed to right herself.

But I shut the two of them out of my mind and focused on the rocs in front of me. A couple of the birds had realized that I was running toward them, and their heads turned this way and that, as though they were wondering what I was doing.

Yeah. Me too.

I sucked down a breath and shoved my shoulder into the side of the closest roc. It was like hitting a warm brick wall, and I bounced off the creature’s side and staggered back. But I sucked down another breath and surged forward, hitting the same roc again. This time, the creature hopped a few feet to the right and flexed its wing, as though I were a bothersome bug that it was trying to shoo away. I ducked, although the roc’s soft feathers brushed across my nose, making me want to sneeze at the strange, oddly ticklish sensation.

Okay, then, it looked like more drastic measures were called for, especially since I could see Vivian racing toward me, her talking sword, Lucretia, clenched in her hand and her black robe streaming out around her like a cloud of death—my death in the making.

So I raised Vic high and charged deeper into the group of rocs.

“Fly!” I screamed. “Fly! Fly! Fly!”

I swung my sword this way and that, not really wanting to hurt the creatures, but trying to incite enough panic in them to make them bolt, either up into the sky or better yet, into the Reapers still swarming around Oliver and Alexei. But all the rocs did was jump around me, as though we were all playing some bizarre game of hopscotch.

So I moved as close as I dared and lashed out with Vic again. This time, I managed to clip one of the creature’s wings with the edge of my sword.

The roc let out an earsplitting shriek and lurched away from me. It slammed into the roc closest to it, which set off a violent chain reaction. A second later, all the creatures were in motion, in a panic, exactly like I’d wanted. I ducked down in the middle of the flock of birds and put my hands up over my head, trying to shield myself as best I could from the roiling mass of wings and beaks and long, black talons.

With one thought, the rocs stepped onto the pavement and raced across the flat, smooth surface of the road, like airplanes trying to gain enough momentum to take flight. The Reapers who’d been fighting Oliver and Alexei whipped around in surprise at the sound of the rocs’ frantic, high-pitched caw-caw-caws . The Reapers were right in the path of the rocs’ stampede, and the birds slammed into the warriors, knocking several of them down and giving Oliver and Alexei some muchneeded breathing room.

I grinned. That had worked out even better than I’d hoped—

“Gwen!” Vic screamed. “Watch out!”

I ducked down, and a blade whistled through the air where my head had been a second before. On instinct, I spun around, raised Vic high, and surged to my feet.

CLASH!

I managed to get my sword in position just in time to keep Vivian from cleaving my head in two with her own weapon. We stood there, seesawing back and forth, our two swords scrape-scrape-scraping against each other, and spitting out red and purple sparks in every direction, even as Lucretia and Vic shouted insults at each other.

“Tarnished tadpole!” Lucretia yelled.

“Mouthy matchstick!” Vic yelled back.

I shut the sound of the swords’ bickering out of my mind and focused on Vivian, whose pretty face was twisted into a hate-filled grimace, just like mine was.

“You just had to show up, didn’t you, Gwen?” Vivian hissed. “You’re ruining everything! Again!”

“Ah, come on, now, Viv,” I snarled back. “You know it’s not a party unless I’m invited.”

She screamed and swung her fist at me, trying to use her Valkyrie strength to shatter my jaw, but I sidestepped the blow and raised my sword for another attack.

Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang!

Vivian and I fought and fought, moving back and forth along the edge of the road, our boots kicking up thick wads of snow and then the hard, frozen dirt underneath.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bit of gray swirling around, and I realized that Linus and Inari had finally gotten out of the front of the van and were helping Oliver and Alexei battle the Reapers. The two men had helped turned the tide in my friends’ favor, and it wouldn’t be long before the four of them cut down the rest of the Reapers. Behind me, Aiko and the other Protectorate guards were steadily working their way through the Reapers there.

“You should go ahead and surrender now, Viv,” I sneered into her face. “And maybe, just maybe, the Protectorate will let you and Agrona live for a few days before they execute you.”

“Never!” Vivian hissed back. “I’ll die before I give up—”

“Vivian!” Agrona screamed, running toward us. “We’re leaving! Now!”

“No, you’re not!” another voice chimed in.

I whipped around. Grandma Frost had managed to get out of the SUV. She wobbled on her feet, but she hurried toward Agrona as fast as she could, a sword clutched in her wrinkled hand.

Vivian’s golden gaze flicked from me to Grandma Frost and back again, and her eyes narrowed. “This isn’t over, Gwen!” she hissed.

Vivian raised her fingers to her lips and let out a loud whistle. A shadow fell over the two of us, and a Black roc dropped down from the sky. I thought I’d scared all of the birds away, but Vivian’s must have been better trained than the others because it landed right beside her, looking completely calm and unconcerned by the battle raging all around it. I charged at her, determined not to let her get away again—