Magic Rises

of a power word exploded in the back of my skull. Blackness mugged me. My momentum carried me through it. I tore through the haze.
    Time slowed to a crawl.
    Radomil stood frozen in midstep. I punched the spike into his throat, stabbed Slayer into his gut, and dragged the blade, wrenching it with all my strength, ripping a gap in his stomach from foreleg to hindquarters.
    Radomil’s legs trembled. I yanked a bag of powdered silver granules from my belt, ripped it, and emptied it into the wound.
    Radomil whipped about. Claws scoured my back. It felt like someone had dripped molten metal down my spine.
    I ran.
    Right now silver was burning his insides. The longer it melted his innards, the less work I’d have to do. The sound of huge feet thumping behind me chased me, blocking out the roar of the fire. I lunged to the side. He hurtled past me and whirled, snarling. Gray blood wet the cut. Singed with silver, the laceration refused to close, and his body sped up the bleeding, trying to purge the poisonous metal from his system.
    Radomil swayed and charged me. A big feline paw raked at me. I sliced with my sword. He swiped at me again, like a housecat trying to shred a toy, except Radomil was forty times the size of a housecat. I cut across his paw.
    Radomil rammed me. I clutched onto his scales and stabbed into his chest with my sword. He leaped up, the wings beating, roaring in pain. I hung from his neck fifty feet above the fire raging below. To let go was to die. Radomil bent in midair. The claws of his hind feet ripped into my armor, down my side, and deep into my right leg. My whole body hurt so much, I no longer cared.
    Radomil careened back toward the keep, screaming. The gap in his stomach hung open. Now or never. I stabbed my sword straight into the wound. Radomil plunged down. My hand slipped off the scales. For one desperate half-second I held on, and then I fell. There was no time to right myself. The orange body thudded onto the stone with a wet thud. I fell next to it.
    * * *
    The world swam. The air vanished, sucked out of the Universe. I gulped like a fish on dry land, trying to inhale and failing. Don’t pass out. Just don’t pass out.
    My lungs opened. I inhaled smoke-ruined air, coughed, and rolled upright. My left arm hung limp. It hurt so much, I couldn’t tell if it was broken. Hot wetness ran down my back. I was bleeding.
    The orange body shivered and melted back into human form. Radomil’s beautiful face looked at the sky.
    Everything hurt. It hurt so much, I could no longer tell what hurt the worst. But I was still breathing. Without the armor, I would’ve been dead. His claws would’ve finished me.
    I staggered to my feet and dragged myself to the door leading down. A wall of fire greeted me. The heat pushed me back. Out of the question. The flames would cook me two steps in.
    I limped to the eastern side of the keep and looked down. The wall was sheer, the stones fitted together so closely they might as well have been a single smooth block of concrete. No way. With a rope, maybe, and even that was risky. Bleeding, ropeless, and with one bum arm, no.
    Flames filled the courtyard. The roofs of the side towers had crashed down and the blackened beams popped like logs in the fireplace. Cracks filled with orange-and-blue flames fractured the huge building. The castle was breaking apart. It looked like hell on Earth.
    The doors of a side tower burst. Furry shapes ran out—shapeshifters in half-form making a break for the gates. I saw Christopher’s blue shirt. The familiar gray werelion was missing. Curran wasn’t with them. He hadn’t made it out. Where are you?
    I inhaled a lungful of sooty air. “Hey! Andrea! Look up!”
    They didn’t hear me. They were running too fast, the way one ran when chased.
    People in black and gray poured out of the doors. The Iron Dogs, at least fifteen, probably more.
    The shapeshifters ran through the fire. Derek’s shaggy back flared, the fur igniting in a flash. He kept running, carrying Doolittle forward. The Iron Dogs followed as if the fire weren’t even there.
    Go , I willed, go .
    A lean, darker bouda stopped and turned around. Raphael. Andrea skidded to a stop, a smaller slender creature.
    The first Iron Dog fell on them, a tall lean man, swinging an axe. Magic sparked and bit Andrea in the chest. She snarled and clawed the Iron Dog’s side. Raphael tore his stomach. The man swung, oblivious to his guts hanging out. The axe grazed Raphael.