Kate Gallagher and the Bexus Prophecy

“I’ll go fir—.” He didn’t finish the sentence. From behind, a low, deep-throated growl made them both freeze. He eased himself to his feet and turned slowly. Kate was standing to one side. They faced the two Abyssi, which had stolen silently out into the clearing, the shak-shak of their claws against the rock masked by the distant roar of the waterfall. Their heads were slumped forward as if they’d run far and fast and their shaggy coats glistened wetly in the last of the afternoon sun. “Don’t—move!” he whispered. One of the animals growled again, then licked its lips with a flick of its pink tongue. Kate still held both staffs in her hands. He kept his eyes on the two hunched beasts. “Get ready to throw me the staff,” he breathed. He saw her nod perceptibly from the corner of his eye and could sense her tension and her fear. The trick would be in the timing. He figured the Abyssi would have been trained to track the girl, maybe incapacitate her until the handlers arrived. They’d not kill her. However, he was another story. They’d rip him to pieces; scatter the memory that defined him, that held him together. He’d bleed energy, not blood, but the end effect would be the same. The creatures parted slightly. The larger of the two fixed on Kate, held her in its gaze, forced her to step backwards and cut off any possible escape route. The other, smaller dog stepped towards Hawklight, twitching like a cat ready to spring, crouching, tensing. Hawklight waited, judging the moment. “Now!” he cried. The staff flashed sideways through the air and he caught it instinctively, his eyes never leaving the animal. He brought it to bear as the creature launched itself at him, its claws extended like the vicious talons of a bird of prey, its jaws gaping, revealing the wicked curved teeth that would clamp across his throat. The tip of the staff blazed blue and a white-hot lance of energy cut the air with a crack. It sliced through the dog’s torso in one swift move, cutting the animal completely in two. The animal was dead, but its momentum propelled it forward. The top half slammed into Hawklight and knocked him to the ground. He rolled sideways with the impact and narrowly avoided being raked by the claws. The flying torso had been impaled on his staff; its tip penetrated the exposed, bloody ribcage and it had snapped under the flying weight. Both halves of the animal kicked and twitched in a macabre death-throe dance, with half of the broken staff still protruding from the heaving chest like a deeply embedded arrow shaft. Hawklight was up on one knee in one fluid movement. The second animal switched its gaze to him, and turned towards him, coiling. He saw the telltale twitch in its tail and reached behind him to where the short sword was tucked in his belt. He jerked it free and rose to his feet at the same time the second beast sprang at him. His left arm was bent at the elbow, and he brought it up and outwards in an arc that slammed the lower jaw shut and barely deflected the bite. His right arm thrust the sword in a short, vicious jab as the animal cannoned into him. He felt the claws rip apart the fish leather hauberk, the armoured clothing that protected his front and his back, and they flayed his skin. The two of them stood momentarily, clenched in a desperate and bizarre embrace before Hawklight’s strength gave out completely and they toppled backwards off the cliff and into the yawning void below. Kate heard a distant splash as they hit the water together. It seemed to wake her from the paralysis of fear that had rooted her to the spot, and she dashed to the edge of the cliff. Ripples were spreading outward from the impact but there was no sign of Hawklight or the creature. It was as if the pool had swallowed them whole and sucked them into its murky depths. “Hawklight!” she screamed. The forest around her fell silent, listening, startled. “Hawklight!” There was no reply. She was stunned, and stranded at the top of a sixty-foot precipice. She made an instant decision. Holding tightly to Rhyanon, she stepped back, then sprinted for the edge and launched herself off the cliff.