Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (read me like a book txt) 📕

hearing a whole lot of what not to do! Milo snapped across the psychic channel even as he fought to keep a sanguine exterior. What I need is some advice on what I should do!

LOOK OUT!

Acting on raw instinct, he threw himself to the left. Milo drew on the cane for strength, and though he didn’t get as much as he’d expected, he managed to clear a pair of snapping jaws made of raw shadow that emerged at his feet. He was still dancing across the snow-slicked ground when the beast vaulted toward him, claws and jaws stretched wide.

Fighting the instinct to backpedal, Milo launched, aiming to pass beneath the gaping maw. His unstable footing betrayed him, though, and with an undignified shout, he lurched into a shallow dive.

He felt streamers of hot spittle slap his ducking face as teeth filled his vision. A surge of hope erupted inside of him at the realization the fangs had missed him, which vanished the instant he realized they had missed his head and hooked the back of his high collared coat. His flight was arrested, and his body snapped back with bone-popping force. Milo tried to free his pistol from his belt, but he only managed to have it tumble from his grip as Borjikhan shook him like a slipper.

The world became a discombobulating pinwheel where the street and the sky exchanged places with terrifying alacrity. Milo drew on the cane to fortify his bones and joints against the violent movements, knowing that without it, he would be shaken to jelly.

He had just enough awareness to sense the incredible hatred radiating from the Hiisi, transmitted to his will like heat radiating from forge-heated iron. His skin prickled with the intensity of it, and he had an idea despite the brutal knockabout he was receiving.

Unfortunately, the second after that thought, he was sent flying through the air by a sharp toss of Borjikhan’s head.

Milo would have liked to think the scream that escaped his lips was one of challenge and not terror as he sailed through the air, but the hard landing knocked all breath and any illusions clean out of him. The enchanted coat protected him from the worst of the impact, but despite everything, he was slow to get up. Gasping and wheezing, he managed to make it onto one knee as the spectating monsters hooted and jeered.

“And you doubted me!” Borjikhan bayed, swinging his burning eyes around the circle. “You thought some capering ape could stand before me! Me, the Moon Hunter, Chorusmaster of World’s End.”

Milo saw the great wolf’s back exposed as it defied its fellows, and, his germ of a plan momentarily forgotten, lashed out with a volley of witchfire.

Borjikhan didn’t leap out of the way so much as melt into a ripple of shadow that slid away from the sorcerous blast as quick as thought. The standing horse gave a bestial snort as he ducked the bolt meant for the wolf.

“Careful, Czernoboch.” Borjikhan laughed, waving his shadow-wreathed tail like a teasing pennant. “I’ll protect you from the nasty little witch.”

Milo saw the shadows slithering along the ground toward him this time and fortunately remembered his plan before they reached him.

Shadowy jaws, umbral imitations of slavering canine fangs, rushed up from the ground and plunged into boots.

“Nowhere to run this time,” Borjikhan snarled as it sprang forward, jaws wide since the captive human possessing no ready means of escape. Milo’s belligerent yell became an agonized scream as fangs longer than men’s hands finger to wrist punched through fabric, tore meat, and cracked bones. With a sickening, slurping crunch, the jaws met, and everything below the waist fell to the snow with a sloppy thud.

Borjikhan, drunk on its victory, danced around the bloody circle holding the gory trophy high for all to see.

“Who doubts now?” it called despite a mouth full of broken meat and bone.

The other Hiisi stood mute, their gaze fixed not on Borjikhan, but on a space several strides away by the defunct tanks.

Milo, desperate for any arcane strength he could muster, released the illusion as he reached out to the unbound si’lat lurking within. The shades infusing the constructs, glutted on the massacre of the crews, were sluggish in responding. He needed them now, but they seemed obstinately opposed to being yoked to his mind once more.

“The coward fled!” Borjikhan snarled as the jeering of his fellow Hiisi needled him.

“Chase your tail, silly dog,” the pike-mouth called with a warbling laugh. “Maybe then you’ll find him.”

Czernoboch neighed savagely as its tusks raked the air.

“Your quarry eludes you, Moon Hunter!”

Milo knew he had less than two heartbeats before Borjikhan’s fangs sank into his neck for real, so he bent entirely toward taming the si’lat.

His eyes watered and his tongue tasted blood in the back of his throat, which he used as fuel as he drove the hammer of his mind down on a spike of focus.

OBEY

There was the press of resistance, but then the spike drove through and burst into a thousand barbed shards all bound inexorably to him.

They were his.

His howl of rage and lethal intent matched the great wolf’s as he whirled to meet the beast’s lunging charge. Milo saw the huge teeth lining the hideously stretched maw but didn’t shrink away as the shade-driven sand rushed past him and into the waiting jaws of death. For all its weight and momentum, Borjikhan was thrown back as though its charge had been checked by a hammer blow.

As the great wolf struck the ground, the shadows scattered like shards of pottery fleeing the scene of a dropped vase. In their absence, the freakishly muscled lupine form was laid bare, along with its mangled patches of fur and knotted whorls of scar tissue.

Milo didn’t give the creature a chance to gather itself but wielded the si’lat in sweeping waves that sent sheaves of fur and flesh flying into the air like wheat chaff before a thresher.

“I am Borjikhan,” it panted as it struggled to