The Heartstone Saga by Archibald Bradford (short novels in english .TXT) 📕

to use today, working alongside Ophelia and the Aegis medics to keep the death toll down while they all hoped for a miracle.

As she was working there was a warning shout and a moment later an Echidna burst into the middle of their triage center, her eyes black and spines quivering as she shrieked at them.

Helen backpedaled away, the Echidna snarling as its spines struck in the mud, drawing a line that stopped short of impaling the terrified young woman.

Then another shriek sounded, this time coming from the Griffon scout who swooped down to land on the Echidna’s back and roll over her into the mud, the two monsters clawing and biting viciously.

“Hot-stuff coming through!” Someone shouted from behind Helen.

She turned in time to see a Lapine fearlessly leap over her and sprint into the scuffle, hopping off the ground again at the last second to land with both feet on the back of the Echidna’s head, knocking the girl into the mud and into unconsciousness.

Helen looked to the rapidly breathing Lapine and the bleeding Griffon, her heart pounding in her throat.

“You saved me. Thank you.”

The Lapine looked back at her and smiled nervously.

“All in a day’s work?”

“My thanks as well, Lapine. But the battle continues with or without me, and I’d rather it be with, for I have a score to settle with some Harpies.” The Griffon pronounced.

But before she could leave, Helen grabbed her arm.

“Wait! You’re hurt!”

Rather than address her concern, the proud and bleeding warrior turned and pulled her into a sudden kiss that knocked the wind right out of the baker’s youngest daughter.

It was brief and hungry and altogether out of place in the middle of a pitched battle.

But it bolstered the monster girl’s resolve.

Once they broke apart, the Griffon very deliberately winked at Helen and took to the sky again with a triumphant shriek, soon disappearing from sight in the chaos.

“Come on, uh, medic lady.” The Lapine called to bring the dazed teen back into the moment; “Let’s get this spiky girl somewhere she can’t hurt anyone.”

Shaking off her befuddlement, the human turned to the bunny with the pierced ears.

“Helen, my name is Helen.”

Together they worked to get the Echidna on a stretcher, binding her hands and feet together carefully to avoid the spines.

Once they were finished, the Lapine smiled at her.

“Becks.”

Unfortunately, though the people filling the support roles were doing their jobs admirably, Evadne was not the only leader amongst the Tenebrae forces.

And in the midst of the fiercest fighting, things took a turn.

The Longinus line suddenly buckled as a dark Amazon slammed into it, her spear a whirling maelstrom of death that overwhelmed even the doughty shields of the legionnaires, striking several dead in rapid succession.

She was Yana Brael, and her heart was black.

As the Antlions struggled to reform their defenses and contain the breach, two Aegis members tried to stop her with a combination of strobes and goo bombs.

They died within seconds of each other on the tip of her spear, their bond-mates following shortly after as the rest of the Tenebrae exploited the break in the shield-wall and showed no pity for their grief.

But Yana was not the only warleader on the field.

Not far away another Amazon held the line as the battle slipped towards chaos, flowing around the surging horde of Tenebrae and exploiting their single-mindedness to great effect; already dozens were unconscious and incapacitated from the work of her twirling spear.

Upon spotting the breach in their lines, Alcaia gave a resounding shout and slammed the butt of her weapon into the temple of yet another Tenebrae, leaving her unconscious in the mud.

“Mightiest daughter of Brael! Leave our sisters alone and face me or be labeled a coward!”

The dark Amazon whirled, her short hair a tangled mess, her eyes like twin pools of night and her face a storm cloud of hate, stained black with Chimera blood.

“I’ve met your sister Warleader, and she is mighty.” Alcaia continued; “She bested my second, so let us see then which of us is strongest!”

Alcaia readied her spear and Yana let out a bestial snarl as she charged.

In the midst of the battlefield, two peerless Amazon warriors collided.

While Xalanth battled Evadne in the sky above, people gave the two Amazons room as a massive ring of bodies naturally formed around them.

Like many of the warrior breeds, Amazons train practically since birth, and they never stop: their prowess growing to allow them to pit themselves against nearly any creature living, and only their greatest combatants could call themselves warleaders.

Rarely do two such Amazons fight, so the whirling dance of spears as they came together would have been a sight to behold if anyone had the time to witness it.

Yana was enhanced with the dark energy of being a Tenebrae, which gave her superior strength, but her blind rage caused her technique to suffer.

Meanwhile Alcaia was in top form, the mightiest Amazon in her village and a veteran of many conflicts in defense of it.

The Brael tribe’s fighting style was firm and rigid, while the Saenga fought like a rushing river, fluid and adaptable.

But the Saenga warleader’s aim was to save Yana, not kill her, which put her at a severe disadvantage.

The clatter of their spears came so fast that it was hard to tell where one strike ended and the next began.

Alcaia’s was the first to shatter.

With the canniness of a seasoned warrior she was undeterred and spun around Yana’s opportunistic thrust, twirling to one side and seizing the Tenebrae’s weapon before throwing both feet against the other woman’s ribs to wrench the spear away from her.

Her victory was brief though as Yana snarled and threw herself back at the other Amazon before she could bring the stolen