Killer Frost (Mythos Academy #6)(69)

Daphne sent three arrows straight into three different rocs.

I blinked, wondering if I was only imagining things. But she reached back, drew three more arrows out of the quiver strapped to her back, and sent them into three more rocs, all of which plummeted to the ground, taking their riders down with them.

For a moment, Daphne looked as startled as I did. She stared down at her weapon, Sigyn’s bow, the one she’d had ever since the Reaper attack at the Crius Coliseum, the one that had kept reappearing in her room no matter how many times she gave the weapon back to Metis. Then, she grinned, gave me a thumbs-up, and reached back for three more arrows.

Nike had once told me that Daphne would know what to do with the bow when the time was right. It looked like Daphne had finally figured out what her artifact did, and she put it to deadly use.

But more and more rocs still swooped over the quad. I heard a loud screech and realized that one of the creatures was heading for me, its talons outstretched as it aimed straight for my throat. I threw my hand up, trying to block the attack, although I knew how useless my hand was against the creature’s sharp claws—

A bronze blur moved in front of me, slamming into the roc and driving the bird back. The leader of the gryphons landed on the quad, threw back his head, and let out a loud screech. The rest of the gryphons rose up from where they’d been hiding and launched themselves off the tops of the towers and balconies, clashing with the rocs in midair. Caws and screeches and spits and hisses tore through the quad above my head as the two sets of creatures slashed out at each other with their beaks and talons, and their wings crashed together, sending them all spinning down to the ground.

But with the gryphons involved in the fight, the archers got some much-needed breathing room and focused their arrows back on the Reapers. Wave after wave of warriors flooded the quad, their boots flattening the grass, their bare faces free of masks, their lips curved into evil grins, their black robes swirling out around them like clouds of deadly fog slowly spreading and infecting everything they touched.

Still, as I waited for the Reapers to reach my position, I looked past the ones rushing toward me, searching for Vivian, Agrona, and most important, Loki.

And I finally saw them.

Vivian and Agrona came striding onto the quad in the middle of the waves of Reapers. The two of them flanked Loki, who seemed to float rather than actually walk across the grass. Whatever the laurels had done to him, he wasn’t showing any visible effects from it now. If I hadn’t seen how completely ruined his face was, I might have thought the laurels hadn’t injured him at all.

And then the Reapers reached the library steps, and I

was in the thick of things once more.

Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang!

I cut down every Reaper who came close to me. Logan, Oliver, and Alexei did the same, and I got glimpses of my other friends fighting farther out in the quad. Kenzie stabbing at Reapers with a spear, with Talia slashing her sword across another warrior’s chest. Savannah twirling her staff from one hand to the other before smacking the heavy wood into the Reaper in front of her. Then Doug, her Viking boyfriend, stepping in to deliver the killing blow with his battle axe, protecting her as much as he could. Morgan alternating between sending crossbow bolts into Reapers, then stabbing them with the dagger she clutched in her other hand.

Linus, Sergei, Inari, and Ajax were also fighting together in the middle of the quad, with Reapers all around them. And I saw Professor Metis, heading in their direction, her staff in her hands, whipping it back and forth and clearing a path to Linus and the others.

I blinked again. I’d never really thought too much about what kind of warrior Metis was, but she had to be an Amazon to move that quickly. One second, she was fifty feet away from Linus and the others. The next, she was right beside them, taking some of the pressure off their flank. Soon, the five of them were fighting back-to-back, creating a ring of death in the middle of the Reapers.

But it still wasn’t going to be enough to save us. Because even more Reapers streamed into the quad

behind Loki, Vivian, and Agrona, and I could tell we were in danger of being overrun—and then executed.

“We have to push them back!” Logan screamed. “We have to get them away from Dad and the others!”

I knew that as well as he did, but I didn’t see how we could make it happen. Linus and the others were near the center of the quad, and we’d have to kill half the Reapers simply to get to them. Not to mention the fact that Vivian and Agrona were just standing by, as if waiting for Loki to do something spectacularly deadly.

I didn’t know if the god had that kind of magic, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Because it would be just our luck if we managed to take out all of the Reapers only to fall to Loki instead. I wondered if he could wave his hand and reduce us all to dust like he had the stone sphinxes down by the main gate. I shivered at the thought.

A sharp, sudden, clattering sound caught my attention, and I whipped my head to the right to discover that Carson had dropped his staff, and not because he was fighting and a Reaper had knocked it out of his grasp. No, the band geek seemed to have let go of the weapon of his own free will. To my surprise, Carson stepped forward, clutching the Horn of Roland in both hands, as though it were some sort of shield that would protect him from the Reapers and all of their slashing swords.

“Carson?!” I yelled, burying Vic in the chest of another Reaper before shoving the warrior away. “What are you doing?!”