A Clash of Storms (A Shade of Vampire #50)(28)

More incubi and Destroyers came out through the front gates, shouting as they ran into battle. Limbs were lost. Lives were cast into the wind. It was brutal but necessary, and the alliance came in harder, energized by the imps’ lethal tricks and the dozen Dearghs sweeping through Azazel’s armies.

Bright green fireballs were cast from the castle walls, splashing onto the allies and swallowing them like liquid flames. I could hear their screams, the smell of burning flesh spreading out swiftly and making my stomach churn.

The skies grew dark above, black and gray clouds swirling in as lighting split the sky open. The green flames shrank in size but continued to shoot out of the castle. However, their aim got sloppier, and they wound up killing dozens of Azazel’s incubi and even engulfing a flying horde of Destroyers on the east side.

I had a feeling that was the last spurt of large-scale magic that Azazel could use against us, now that he’d been left without the Daughter or the volcanoes. I flew over the fights raging below a couple more times, drawing Destroyers after me. I slowed down, enough to give them the impression that they were going to catch up, before I did tight drops and brought them face to face with an angry Deargh.

I heard the beasts yelp behind me as I passed the Deargh and glanced over my shoulder. The Destroyers scrambled to fly away, but the stone giant burst into enormous flames and ran his fist through the horde, lighting them up as he crushed them into the ground. I then heard the shifters tittering beneath me.

With no intention of spoiling their fun, I let them repeat the pattern and taunt Destroyers into following them until they wound up in close proximity to the other Dearghs.

The battle raged on. Many of the incubi soon realized that they weren’t going to win. Too many forces had come together, armies that no one had thought would ever get along. The Destroyers, however, were relentless in their defenses—at least, until they were nabbed by Dearghs or pulled off their horses.

Further proof of Azazel’s loss of power came forward when the green fireflies started dying out, swarms upon swarms turning into lifeless little black insects that rained down on the fighters below.

The succubi and the Lamias had been instructed to try to take some of the Destroyers alive. The imps had brought in some interesting snare traps—it required a team effort, Lamias teasing and succubi running around and distracting the Destroyers until they could get them within the traps’ range. When the ropes were released, however, they slapped down so hard that the beasts were stuffed into the tall grass, unable to move as the trap mechanism twisted in rapid motions and tightened the ropes around them.

They couldn’t do that to all the Destroyers, but if they were able to gather at least ten or twenty of them, it was considered a success. From what information we’d gathered from the Druid archives, once Azazel’s control spell was broken from the source, the Destroyers would shift back to their original Druid forms, regaining their freedom. We needed as many as we could save, to rebuild Eritopia.

One by one, the Dearghs slowed in their attacks, the energy inside them dimming like flickering candle lights. I slowed near one of them, measuring him from giant head to massive toe.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

The Deargh nodded slowly with a heavy breath.

“Getting tired. My energy is running low. I’ll be nothing more than a statue soon…”

My chest ached at the sight of his and his brothers’ sacrifice. We couldn’t let them down. They were giving us everything they had in this war. We had to win. We had to give the world back to them.

We’d come so far. The ground outside Luceria was more or less covered by our troops. The allies were closing in, despite their casualties. The determination and resilience of oppressed nations were far stronger than troops driven by one crazy Destroyer’s tyranny. I could see it in their eyes.

They had nothing to lose, other than their lives. But no life was worth living if it was to be spent in agony, in fear, in shackles, and in hopelessness. The Bajangs, the Maras, the succubi, the Lamias, the Tritones, even the Dearghs still standing and the rebel incubi—they all had the fire burning in their eyes, the flame of hope, the blaze of yearning for freedom.

It was there, unleashing itself on the battlefield with every arrow shot, with every sword brought down, with every throat ripped out. Azazel’s armies were fighting to defend a tyrant. Most of their hearts weren’t in it. Their weapons were driven by fear and dirty magic.

We fought with our souls, on the other hand. We killed with our hearts.





Azazel





I wasn’t always like this…

The mirror in front of me showed me someone I still couldn’t get used to, someone I’d been forced to coexist with for centuries. Someone I’d allowed to become me because the reality of my weakness had been unbearable. My insufficiency had chipped away at my soul, leaving a black hole on the inside that needed to be filled. I was always hungry, and nothing sated me better than power.

Raw, unapologetic power.

I could hear them outside. Swords cutting through flesh and bone. Explosions tearing the hills apart. Stone giants burning my Destroyers alive.

I’d felt Nova’s departure deep in my core. The emptiness I’d once smothered with electrifying ribbons of pure pink energy once again howled in my head. The moment they broke the pendant I’d linked to her very essence was the moment I’d experienced a new, different kind of pain. It cut through me like an incandescent blade, burning my insides as they stripped me of her power.