The Final Redemption by Michael Manning (little red riding hood ebook free .txt) 📕

tokeep up with his ever increasing pace. Her childhood friend stoodclose to nine-feet in height now, if she had to guess.

The rest of their partyhad slowed to a walk, letting the distance grow between them andtheir ‘vanguard’. Cyhan’s face was a study in restrained suffering,but Ariadne ignored him and continued issuing a litany of smallcommands, more to reassure the group and maintain calm than toeffect any strategy. Deep down she wondered why she bothered, forthere was little hope in facing so many powerful foes with so fewcapable defenders. Logic told her they were minutes, if notseconds, from their deaths. Because thisis what he would do… she told herselfsilently, thinking of her father …becauseI am my mother’s daughter, a Lancaster, and the daughter of aking.

Ahead of the main group by over thirtyyards now Dorian met the first of the fallen dark gods withbreathtaking ferocity. Leaping forward he tore the first of hisopponents, a massive dog-shaped creature, into three parts in lesstime than it took to blink. Violence incarnate now, Dorian whirledand slashed, using his entire body as a weapon. The diamond bladesand spikes seemed to have grown from every surface and it wasdifficult for his foes to find any purchase to grapple his hardunyielding body.

Penny and Egan followed in his wake,keeping their distance and burning or hewing apart anything thatstill moved.

Stephen Balistair was uncomfortablewith letting the three fight alone, but Cyhan caught his arm as hestarted to draw his sword and advance, “Don’t.”

“The Countess is fighting for my sake,I will be no man at all if I don’t at least try to assist her,”Stephen protested.

Cyhan grunted. “You’ll be dead, andrather than help, you’ll become a guilty memory of failure for her.Besides, she isn’t fighting to protect you. It’s them she’ll diefor,” he pointed at the children in their midst, “not our sorryasses.”

“Then what should I do?” asked theyoung lord.

“The same as any good man would, whatyou can. Watch the children, and be ready to run with one ifnecessary,” answered the veteran.

A strange light filled the roadwaywith odd shadows as one of the monsters attacked Dorian with amagical blast of some kind, but the crystal warrior was so lost inviolence and rage that he ignored the barrage of magic completely.Within seconds his latest enemy was ripped asunder. Several morepiled onto him, striving to subdue him with sheer mass, but Dorianwas too strong and no matter how many grappled him, he continued toswing and twist his arms and torso, shredding the bodies of anythat came into close contact.

The battle had been raging for lessthan two minutes, but already almost half of their enemies weredisabled, and Dorian showed no sign of slowing. If anything, heappeared to be even faster now. Within his translucent chest abright red stone could be seen in roughly the same spot his heartwould have been, if he had still been human. It was the size of alarge man’s fist, and it pulsed with a slow throbbingcadence.

“Are we—winning?” asked Gramincredulously.

His grandmother, Elise Thornbear,answered first, “Your father never learned to lose properly. It wasalways one of his greatest weaknesses.”

“How can winning be bad?” wondered hergrandson, but she didn’t respond, other than to look at Rose.Neither woman appeared pleased, and a deep anxiety was written inboth their faces.

They were distracted from theirconversation by a series of sharp sounds as a number of largeenvenomed spikes hit an invisible barrier in front of their group.Young Moira Illeniel had been shielding them from flying debris ormissiles, though no one had told her to do so.

The arrow-like weapons had come fromsomething that looked as though it had been inspired by someone’snightmarish vision of a scorpion. It had bypassed Dorian’s melee byvirtue of its small size, it wasn’t much larger than a hound, andit dodged Egan’s flames with surprising agility. The projectileshad been spines that it launched from its whip-liketail.

Penny reached the insectoid monster ina mad dash, and using two hands on her sword, she removed the tailin one swing, severing one of its many segmented joints. Dodging apincer attack she ducked low and removed the tip of one of itslegs, causing it to stumble. One more leap took her out of range,and Egan’s next blast of fire caught the thing before it couldrecover.

Dorian had almost reached the gatethat led to Lancaster, and the number of monsters that still stoodbetween them and their escape had dwindled to four now. Victory wasclose at hand, but a rush of air and a great roaring noise heraldedthe arrival of a new threat.

“They’re flooding the tunnel!”announced Ariadne loudly.

One of the defenses built into theWorld-Road was the ability to close off any section and flood itwith seawater to defeat would-be invaders. Whoever was in thecontrol room had decided to take matters into their ownhands.

Rose Thornbear had been silent sinceDorian had left her side to take on the enemy, but the urgency oftheir situation had finally brought her back to herself. Her eyestook in the situation at a glance. “They haven’t closed the gate toLancaster yet. We can still escape.”

“The water is coming,” said MoiraIlleniel. “We can’t reach it in time, even if Uncle Dorian hadfinished them already.”

“Run for it anyway,” shouted Ariadnefor they had no other options. Heeding her command everyone beganrunning at their best pace, but it was readily apparent they wouldbe far too slow. The noise of the oncoming water was growingsteadily louder.

Meanwhile Dorian’s foes had alreadysensed the imminent flood. They abandoned their attempts atdefeating him and instead switched to delaying tactics, avoidingclose contact, they danced around him. They knew the others couldnot reach the gate while they still fought.

Ariadne’s party was forced to stop ata dangerously close distance of ten yards. Any closer and theywould be caught up in the fray. The gate to Lancaster loomedtemptingly a mere twenty yards farther on, but it might as wellhave been a mile. The furious battle raging in front of them wastoo terrifying even for the threat of drowning to force themcloser.

Dorian danced back and forth acrossthe roadway, attempting with each movement to either catch one ofhis opponents or stop one from slipping