The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (31 page)

Chapter 36

There wasn’t even a question on any of the three faces before me and my gut did another twist. Was I taking us all to our doom?

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Taryn.” Harlan stood firm, but the fact was he was a lover, not a fighter.

None of us were. I certainly wasn’t unless we could figure out what was in that spell bomb that caused such a change. Even then I wasn’t sure how I felt about my body going off damaging villains without my brain seemingly involved. Covey was the closest we had to a fighter. My normally very academic friend was busy patting down the unconscious guard for any weapons. She’d already given his revolving short crossbow to Harlan. She pulled out two knives and handed them to me.

I took them, then nodded back at her. “But don’t you need something too?”

Covey let loose a howl that would have made a pack of wolves run in fear. She flung back her poncho and flexed her fingers. Rather the talons that had once been her fingers.

They looked long and sharp enough to take a good chunk out of even a syclarion’s hide.

“I’m good, I think.” She turned to Foxy. “Are we going to be okay?”

Foxy had been holding back during the encounter with the faeries, and he watched all of us now. His eyes stayed on Covey the longest, but they didn’t waver. He nodded slowly.

“Aye, we are ok.” A look of compassion flashed across his face and I realized that he faced looks like Covey was going to get every day. Even in a world of dangerous beings, looking like one was difficult.

Covey handed me two sheaths for the knives and we started into town.

“Do you think now would be a good time to tell us the plan?” Harlan sounded like his normal self. The terror of the last hour was gone.

I looked up where a quickly growing column of smoke marked the center of town.

“Sure. We go that way.”

I really hoped I knew what I was doing. The faeries were sure I was going to die and didn’t want to stick around for it. Some ancient prophesy predicted that this was where my world ended—possibly where the whole world ended, or at the very least was changed into something horrible for anyone who wasn’t with the syclarion in charge. I had myself, one pissed-off trellian, a 765-year-old chataling, and a barkeeper.

The odds were not in my favor.

Even though I still wasn’t completely sure which side he was on, I would have been extremely happy to see Alric right about now. Preferably armed to the teeth and with a small army of secret friends just like him.

Unfortunately all that greeted us were a bunch of empty streets and heavily shuttered doors. You could tell the folks who had already started taking down their winter shutters, they were back up and being supported with whatever wood they could find.

Apparently the general population of Beccia was far smarter than I was.

We were all moving as slowly and silently as possible, but I still didn’t see any syclarions. I turned to Foxy with a questioning look, but he just shrugged and shook his head. Obviously it hadn’t been like this before.

We were just crossing the street one over from the Shimmering Dewdrop when an idea hit me. I dropped back to Foxy. “Is Dogmaela still in her condition?”

His heavy brows hunkered down over his eyes, but he nodded. “Aye, she’s at the tail end of it. She’s hiding in my apartment. But I don’t think we should be being of disturbing her.”

“Is there anyone else in the pub?” I gave his arm a pat. “I’m sorry, Foxy, but we don’t have a choice. We know we’re up against the two biggest crime lords the city can muster, plus an unknown number of syclarions. Even Covey can’t take on all of those.” I didn’t mention that I might actually be able to do some damage if we could get them to do whatever they did to me with the spell bomb. Somehow I didn’t think walking up and asking for another dose would help though.

But maybe I could improvise. I grabbed Foxy’s arm and held up my wrist where the liquid from the spell bomb had hit. It had dried long ago, but Foxy had a hunting dog’s sense of smell. “Do you recognize this?”

He slowly nodded. “Mayhap so, mix of a few things, but aye, I recognize it.”

“I need you to get Dogmaela, anyone in the pub, and whatever this was. As much as you can.” I had no idea if any of this was going to work, but I had to try something.

Foxy shook his huge head, and clenched his jaw so his tusks protruded a full couple inches out. Then he sighed. “I don’t know as what you gotten us into. But if we need people, I guess we have no choice.” He held up one giant paw. “But you stay. I’s told them to protect the pub.” He bobbed his head. “Stay put. We be back.”

I forced a tough smile as he turned towards the pub. I didn’t want to use people, but I didn’t see we had a choice, there was really no one else standing to try and fight back. Along with the lack of syclarions on the street, there hadn’t been a guard to be seen. Had the entire police force just vanished? A low explosion shook the ground, and another burst of smoke joined the dark column. Now that we were closer I could make a better guess as the where whatever was going on was happening. The park.

The battle for Beccia and possibly the world was taking place in a park.

Maybe I had really underestimated those squirrels.

Harlan was just starting to get fidgety when Foxy, Dogmaela, and a small gnome army came down the lane.

They weren’t all gnomes, only three were, and there were only about ten, rather small for an army. But the fact was we now had added a breeding troll and ten cranky and heavily armed little old people to our fighting force. Not much granted, but better than before.

Dogmaela was still looking a little wild around the eyes. She ignored Covey and myself, but was looking sideways at Harlan.

“I think Dogmaela should be up front. She and I will take point.” I then put the army of the old after us, and had Harlan, Foxy and Covey bringing up the rear. Covey was still sounding guttural, and looking unique, so even though she wasn’t saying much I knew she was still taped into that ancestral anger.

As we moved forward, Dogmaela started to quiver. Her in-season trollish sense of smell obviously found something ahead of us that she liked. With a grunt she started jogging. Her footsteps caused windows to rattle at every building she passed.

I might be willing to face the end of the world and an artifact that could destroy time, but I was not going to get between an in-season troll and her prey. I motioned for the others to keep up.

With Dogmaela taking down small buildings with her footfalls, and our little gnomish bar sitter army so heavily armed they echoed down the street for a good block, we really lost any element of surprise.

All of us, including Dogmaela, slowed down when we came out of a side street near the park.

The park was gone.

The trees on the far side were still standing, but the majority of the ones up front had all been either hacked down or turned into withered twigs. I’d never heard of a spell that could reduce a twenty-five-foot tree into an eight-foot-high skinny sapling, but someone obviously had. And they weren’t afraid to do it.

Covey had gotten ahead of me during our run and spun on me. “How do you feel?”

“Annoyed that someone ruined a rather disturbing park and is set to destroy my town?” I shrugged. “How am I supposed to feel?”

Harlan finally caught up to us and draped an arm around me. “She’s not cold at all.”

I looked from one to the other in a complete loss. “What are you talking about?”

“Taryn, you’re part dryad, the destruction of those trees should have you writhing on the ground in pain and near death.” Covey cocked her head in thought, her still oddly silver eyes narrowing. “You are part dryad, right?”

“My parents always said I was. And if I’m not then my hair turning green in the summer is really a bad thing.” The loss of the trees freaked me out, but only because of the amount of power used. Part of me was relieved they were gone. Maybe the dryad part of the family was further back that I’d been told. On the plus side it looked like those possessed squirrels were homeless now.

“Damn it, there is something I should remember about this and I can’t figure it out right now.” Covey growled and turned back toward the denuded forest. “Oh no.”

I looked the same direction she faced but didn’t see anything. At first.

The smoke from a large bonfire changed direction and I finally saw what she did, a huge stone altar right next to the bonfire.

And a familiar black-clad form was laid out on that altar. My heart dropped until his chest rose. He was still alive.

Alric wasn’t on the bad guys’ side. And most likely the bad guys now had the glass gargoyle. The prophesy had mentioned a sacrifice to the gargoyle to bring forth the power, I just didn’t think it had been so literal.

I watched as Largen and Cirocco stood on either side of another familiar face. Thaddeus was leading the sacrifice. He was in scary syclarion form, but I still recognized him. Damn it, we had to get Alric out of there. Unfortunately there were a few hundred thugs standing between us and the altar.

While that thought bounced around my head for a few seconds, followed by a screaming echo to get the hell away from everything in front of me, two growls erupted on either side of me.

Covey and Dogmaela weren’t waiting for a plan. Both of them let out scarily similar howls and charged toward the altar.

I don’t know why I had thought a plan would be a good idea.

“Should I try to stop them? I don’t think our enemy has seen us yet.” One of the small daytime bar sitters, this one a real gnome armed with enough silver to kill a band of werewolves, nodded toward our two warriors.

“How?” I shook my head. “They may be our best option.” If they could cause enough mayhem, perhaps we had a chance.

Dogmaela hit first. She tore a bloody line through a couple dozen of Largen’s assassins, then kept running until she shattered the altar. Boulders the size of the gnome standing next to me flew in the air at her impact. Covey wasn’t far behind her, but she leapt high in the air and came down in the middle of a pack of Cirocco’s goons. Within seconds half of them were down for the count and Covey was looking far more like her ancestors than I ever wanted to see. She was right about one thing, she didn’t need any weapons.

Thaddeus had stepped back at the ladies’ first attack. He was at least three feet taller than he’d been in his dwarven form, and his arms were easily as big as Dogmaela’s and covered in silver scales. His face was long and lean; jutting out to accommodate a mouthful of razor teeth, and the ridge running the top of his head looked like it had barbs. He came forward and smacked Dogmaela aside as if she were a child. She slammed into a house on the edge of the park and took out an entire wall.

Covey broke free of assaulting Cirocco’s guards and managed to get up to the shattered altar and free Alric from the rubble before Thaddeus backhanded her across the square. She was lighter than Dogmaela and flew much further. I forced myself to look away as she slammed into another house.

Alric rolled off the shattered altar and struggled to his feet. Thaddeus was about to reclaim his prize when he got slammed by a furious troll and an agitated trellian. While the blows he’d given them could have probably killed me, in their current state both Dogmaela and Covey were a lot tougher than that. Thaddeus had a rougher time against the two at once, but he still managed to slam them into the clearing below the altar.

Alric took the distraction to move backwards and spun to grab one of Largen’s men in a head lock. His moves were so fast I didn’t think the assassin ever saw it coming. Snapping his opponent’s neck, Alric stole the dead man’s sword and started fighting his way toward the bonfire.

“Charge!” The old gnome who’d asked me about stopping the ladies had decided waiting by the sidelines was over. Waving a sword almost as long as his entire body, he led his band of pub regulars toward Dogmaela.

I turned toward Foxy and Harlan. Out of everyone here, the three of us were the worst fighters. But I had a plan. Along with Dogmaela and the old ones, I’d asked Foxy to bring me a last resort. I just really prayed I was right about it working.

“Did you bring it?” I asked Foxy.

He gave me a sullen look that told me he still didn’t agree with my plan. “Aye.” With a grunt he handed over a small bottle.

Harlan stopped looking at the battle before us in terror and now gave that same look to the small brown bottle. “Whisky? Is this really the time for it? Are you going to kiss that syclarion to death?”