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

soon became clear that even with only one good arm, Evadne was a formidable foe.

A thousand years or more of malice could not so easily be undone.

“You stupid cunts! Do you even realize what I have become? I will- I will kill everyone myself if I have to! Starting with you!”

“You sound like a budget villain. Shut up already, it’s annoying.” Nina panted out, spitting blood into the mud around them.

Evadne’s claws had torn into her skin from her forehead to her chin, narrowly missing one of her eyes. Blood and muck had caked into that side of her face so she couldn’t see clearly as she wiped at it with one shaky hand.

And her injured ribs were screaming at her to cease whatever the hell she thought she was doing.

“It really is.” Xalanth wheezed plaintively.

She coughed and an alarming amount of blood spattering out from her mouth.

The Dragon was gravely wounded now and was kneeling once more, one wing broken and useless while the other trembled with fatigue.

In all her years she had never been so hard pressed, not even when fighting the Dragon-killing weapons used by the Divine Republic during the war.

But something had shifted in their opponent: she was off-balance.

Far too much of their fight had been at the direction of the demon within her, and now it had all but turned away in disgust, recognizing the inevitable.

With the loss of the Tenebrae, Evadne’s ultimate goal was very clearly out of reach, and black tears streaked down her face as her bottom lip quivered with real emotion.

“Why can’t you all just die!” She wailed; “Why do you fight so hard to carry on with lives of grim misery and pain?!”

“Because sex is a thing dumbass.” Nina snapped irritably; “Maybe if you’d gotten laid more you wouldn’t be such a twat.”

Clawing at her hair with her good hand Evadne was quick to refute her.

“Tell me that once you’ve had your children stolen from you!” She spat out, raw pain in her words.

Having to relive the moment over and over in her head in order for Jonathan to create the army of Tenebrae made the deaths of Kaylen and Petra that much more immediate to her. And with Jonathan unconscious and her demonic patron sulking within her, she had no means of shielding herself from it.

Nina huffed out an impatient sigh.

“It really blows what happened to your kids. But you can’t punish the whole world for it. That isn’t cool.”

“I have to!” Evadne sobbed, ever more black tears streaking down her face; “Don’t you understand that?! There is nothing else left for me! I have- I am nothing! Nothing!”

The Gigas slowly nodded as her breathing evened out.

“Yeah. I get it. Which is why I have to kill you.”

In once last desperate bid to accomplish as much destruction as possible, the demon within Evadne once more flexed its power to swallow her despair and replace it with the same seething hatred she always felt, causing her to hiss and drop back down into her predatory crouch.

Meanwhile Xalanth had recovered what strength she could, and Nina cleared the last of the muck and blood from her vision by mopping at her face with the remnants of her tattered shirt.

Again they both felt the shift in their opponent.

No more words.

“Hey ‘Lanthy, I have a crazy idea. I’m tired of this dipshit, help me end her?” Nina asked with her eyes locked on Evadne.

“Thought that was what we were doing?” Xalanth held one hand to her side, her breathing coming with difficulty; “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Good, I’m gunna need some more of that fire of yours. In fact, I need every bit of it.”

Without explaining further, she began to move deliberately towards the Chimera, shaking out her hammer arm in preparation.

“But-”

“No time. Breathe on me. Now!”

With that Nina shook the ground with another mighty roar and made one final reckless leap towards Evadne.

Though taken aback, Xalanth didn’t hesitate: she threw her arms back and drew in a painful breath and unleashed it with everything she had left, the billowing wave of fire quickly engulfing the Gigas as she soared through the air.

The Chimera hissed and shielded her eyes from the radiance of the flame, too slow to bring up another shield of shadow.

And blinded as she was, she couldn’t see Nina’s hammer as it descended on her head with all of the mountain’s strength and rage behind it.

For her sisters.

For her bond-mate.

For Kar...

And above all else for every one of the Ogres that she had been forced to kill.

The curtain of flame billowed over them, both monsters disappearing from view.

And within it Evadne was pounded into the mud under the weight of the giant’s long-delayed vengeance; her snake tail limp at her side, the armoured shadows that coated her finally shattering under the relentless assault of Dragon-fire and Gigas-iron.

Xalanth slumped forwards onto one hand just after her breath ran out, her other still holding her wounded side as she coughed up more blood while the last of her fire quickly dissipated in the persistent rain.

Her fiery attack hadn’t lasted nearly as long as it had earlier, but it had been enough.

The now naked Nina loomed over the stunned Chimera, lying prone on the battlefield. The giant’s skin actual glowed cherry red from the heat of the Dragon’s flames, as did her massive hammer.

Flat on her face, Evadne’s vision was limited to one eye, and it was dominated by her own arm, limp and splattered with muck and black blood.

Neither the Chimera nor the demon within her could will it to move even an inch.

“C-Can’t you see th-tha’s the only way?” She slurred out; “If I don’t k-kill you all, he will.”

She could feel the