Change of Darkness (The Change Series Book 3) by Jacinta Jade (best new books to read txt) 📕

when she commenced her attack, so that she could have driven a blade through the vulnerable skin of his neck or into the space just below his ribs, killing him outright and stopping him from firing the arrow, but while time had slowed before, it seemed to be getting away from her now.

So she’d settled for the quick slash and was rewarded with a grunt of pain.

But Falir had still loosed that arrow.

Another cry of pain from behind her told her it had hit its mark—Pyron was down.

And while some obscene part of her was glad, another, deeper, part of her seemed to burn in anger.

Both feet back on the ground, Siraay lifted her blades, meaning to sink them into Falir’s body and rid Xarcon of a lethal enemy.

But the cook was far more experienced than she, and a quick backwards roll of his body, which made the swiftest of her moves seem slow in comparison, had him up and facing her once more, a solid-looking staff in his hands.

Siraay advanced on the cook, not wanting to give him a breath to recover, but she had to stop suddenly when pain seared through her neck. She gasped and actually dropped one of her knives, the free hand then going to her neck in alarm. Had she been hit?

She could feel nothing, and her hand came away clean, but the pain still echoed there, stealing her breath as it came on in waves.

And now the situation had turned, with Falir stalking quickly towards her with long, smooth strides, spinning the staff as he came, raising it …

Then the ground was shaking beneath Siraay’s feet, and she twisted her head in alarm.

An enormous beast was racing towards them, its lumbering mass a lethal object as it ran down and batted Resistance soldiers out of its path, their bodies flying through the air.

That’s when Siraay realised.

Torina had finally arrived.

Siraay threw herself out of the way as the segmented armoured body of an infuriated wynceen stampeded past, its four legs beating out a thunderous rhythm, and Siraay rolled several times to be sure she was safe from the creature’s weighty feet.

As she stopped rolling, Siraay moved swiftly to a standing position, checking behind her as she rose to be sure she was clear.

Although there were still some Resistance soldiers fighting Drosni, Lifron, and the sergeant, most had been cut down or lay in the wake of Torina’s devastating rampage, some screaming, some unconscious, and some …

Siraay looked away, swallowing hard against her rising stomach. Pulverised skull and bloody tissue weren’t a sight that she wanted to see, even battle hungry as she was. So that’s why wynceens are considered so dangerous. Apart from being the largest predator on Kaslon, the beasts’ rages apparently made the risk of shortening your lifespan quite high. Luckily, there weren’t many of them anymore.

Turning back, she expected to see Falir also picking himself up from the ground. Or not.

But she was surprised and immediately concerned when she couldn’t spot him at all.

He was gone.

Frowning, Siraay wheeled around, wondering if he might pop out from behind her.

Instead, her eyes widened briefly as she saw that the remaining Resistance soldiers were now running. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Hunt them down!’ she yelled towards a growling cripwof and blirrus that had just brought down another Resistance soldier.

She began to run towards Drosni and Lifron, meaning to Change and join the pursuit, when a voice called out to her.

‘Lady! The chief archon …’

Siraay slowed but didn’t stop as she called back over her shoulder to the sergeant, ‘I know—we’ll avenge him with their deaths.’ She kept running towards Drosni and Lifron.

‘No, lady—he’s not dead!’

Siraay skidded to a halt, glancing back in disbelief. Pyron was alive? She whirled, unsure how she felt about that.

Several body lengths away, the sergeant was bent over Pyron, his hands busy at the chief archon’s neck.

Siraay glanced back towards Drosni. If Pyron was alive, then she needed to re-prioritise. It would take at least two of them to carry Chezran’s favoured archon back if he was too injured to walk, and then two more would need to run ahead and clear the way of any lingering enemies.

Which would leave only one person chasing down the runaways.

Great way to die quickly—catch up to Falir and the other Resistance soldiers and then be killed by sheer numbers as the hunted turned on the hunter.

Or worse, be captured.

It was the type of tactic Siraay might have used herself, and she was fairly sure that Falir could come up with something even more cunning.

Too bad she hadn’t been the one to discover Pyron was still alive—one quick slip of her blade, and no one would have been the wiser. Ah well, next time, she thought. For now, it was time to retreat and get Pyron back to the city.

So Siraay paced rapidly back to the sergeant, dropped to her knees and swiftly assessed the chief archon’s injury.

She bit her lip.

His neck had been slashed open by Falir’s arrow, and the edge of the arrowhead had cut deep, causing blood to soak into Pyron’s hair, clothes, and skin. In fact, the injury seemed to be right where—

‘Lady?’

The sergeant’s voice cut into Siraay’s thoughts, and she stirred, shifting her focus back to the task at hand.

‘Alright—lets bind his neck and then move. Do it fast.’ Acting even as she spoke, Siraay grabbed on to the lower section of her already torn top and ripped it further, tearing away a long strip relatively easily. This she wadded up and pressed against Pyron’s wound. ‘I need something to hold this in place.’

The sergeant’s hands were moving before she had even finished speaking, and an instant later, he produced a spare strap from a pocket on his gear. He wrapped its length around Pyron’s throat, then tied off the ends securely over the fabric Siraay had pressed against the wound.

When they were finished, she stood, wiping her bloody hands against her pants as she spotted Drosni, Lifron, and Torina