Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (positive books to read .txt) 📕

my ears rang. Bowstaff ran forward and used the back of Shielder as a springboard and leapt into the air. Her staff angled toward my head.

She’d made a mistake, and I capitalized on it. In the air, you’re at the mercy of physics, and she couldn’t change her direction. I grounded myself and covered my head with my shield, raising my sword. Bowstaff tried to correct herself with her weapon, but it slipped off my shield, and my blade speared through her side. Shadowsteel met shadowsteel, but gravity was on my side, and her momentum pushed my sword through her armor and into her flesh.

Her weight hit my shield and drove my blade deeper into her. She cried out in agony as my blade slid past a couple of her ribs and slid into her heart.

Her eyes widened as I punctured her heart, and she coughed as blood splattered across my face. I dumped her corpse off my shield and stood, just as a sword hit me in the chest.

Shielder had closed the gap me while I’d dealt with Bowstaff. His blade slid through my chitin, but thanks to my increased Durability, he didn’t have the strength to puncture my armor.

As he gaped at the fact I wasn’t bleeding out, I pivoted to my left, breaking his grip on his sword. He’d left himself open to a counterattack, a sloppy move.

I brought my own blade up to slice across his throat. He backed up, going for his neck, but I grabbed for his discarded weapon and jammed his sword through his nose and out the back of his head.

He toppled to the ground, dead.

I’d taken three of them, but I was tired. My battle fatigue rose quickly with the shield active, and it was over halfway full.

The battle was only going to get harder as it wore on.

The remaining three Chosen grouped by the open door.

My target was the one whose throat I’d cut. He had a health potion in his hands, and I didn’t want him healing.

I reached for the knife Thrayl gave me and realized I’d forgotten it back at the safehouse. Shit.

Can I throw my shield?

“What? No. What a stupid question. Who would want to throw a shield?”

I snorted. Saw it in a movie once.

“A what? Never mind, just go and devour them already!”

With a curse, I canceled my shield. I couldn’t justify the added weight.

The last female, an older dwarf with red hair shot through with gray, raised a hand and spoke a rolling incantation in Script.

Can’t let her finish that spell!

I changed my direction and went after her instead. Her eyes widened at my approach, but she kept up her chant as my sword arced toward her.

A dwarf stepped in front of her and caught my attack with his two handaxes. He was the oldest of the six; age had weathered deep lines in his face and left too many streaks of white in his once-black beard.

“You will suffer in agony for defiling our most sacred treasure!” he spat through gritted teeth.

With a twirl of his wrist, the dwarf hooked the head of his axe on my quillon and tugged, taking my sword from my grasp. It hit the stone a few feet away and skidded to a halt underneath one of the pews.

Fuck!

I backed up as his twin axes cried out for my blood as they sailed toward me. I stepped back as the blades bit gently into the soft stone, scoring shallow grooves where my foot had been. The dwarf came back up with a snarl. I pivoted into a crescent kick, striking the head of his axe.

It forced the axe aside, and his wrist buckled, sending the blade of the axe to his unprotected forearm, slicing a heavy gash across his arm. He cursed and dropped his axe.

As it fell through the air, I dipped low and snagged it before it hit the ground. Now we both had a weapon, and the playing field was back in my advantage.

The axe wasn’t my preferred choice, but I knew it better than most other weapons. I swung it light, as the dwarf sidestepped. He brought his axe overhead as he tried to go for my unprotected side, but I shifted on the balls of my feet and leaned back as steel passed two inches from my face.

I clamped my left hand over his wrist to stop him from bringing his blade back up and sank my stolen axe deep into the nape of his neck.

It didn’t behead him, but I’d at least severed his spinal cord, as he dropped lifelessly to the ground. I left the axe buried in its owner and quickly retrieved my sword from where it had landed.  When it was back in my hand, I turned to face the mage. Our fight had taken less than a minute, but it had given the woman all the time she needed to complete her spell.

A dark brown light flared from her hands as she grinned triumphantly.

Low rumbling shook the earth as the spell took hold. A mass of rock and stone rose from the floor and formed a rough shape.

It started as a massive blob, but within a second, it became humanoid with two legs, arms, and a head. The next second it had fully formed, and the stone golem stood silently, staring at me with empty sockets where its eyes should’ve been.

The stone golem stood nearly ten feet tall, relatively thin compared to its size, reminiscent of an artist’s sketching mannequin. Craggy rock formed its skin and bald, faceless head as it lumbered towards me. Unlike Adam’s creatures, this golem was crafted from the earth, but it was animated solely by mana.

I had to destroy it or the caster to get rid of the golem.