Dragon Knight - The Ancestor Gods Saga Book 2

22. When Things go Wrong, Things go Wrong

Spider felt strange. He had been doing something, but now he could not recall what it was. He stood in the middle of a garden, staring around him as if nothing were real.

There was Gruft pounding down a heavy door that was holding up to his endeavours. His men were helping him as best they could, but some of them were lying on the ground.

Sleeping?

Spider wrangled his thoughts.

No, they were dead and there was a fight occurring, a furious fight, and he was just stood there.

Spider rocked from foot-to-foot.

What was he doing?

He heard a weird, muffled roar and glanced to his right. He saw the horse-beast rolling to its feet, shaking its monstrous head. There was a long blade thrust so deep into the beneath of its bottom jaw that only the hilt was visible. The blade had struck upwards and jammed into the roof of the mouth. The creature could not open its jaws, nor could it close them. It was now in a lot of pain and extremely anger.

Whatever the Creatoress had intended the beast to be, the one thing she would have been pleased by was its single-mindedness. Even when suffering a terrible injury, its only purpose was to destroy Tylesin.

Tylesin had lost his attention on Spider, with that loss of connection, so he was losing his thrall over the man. Spider was feeling his mind returning to him and with it the end of the soft daze that had left him simply standing and watching.

He remembered his purpose too.

As the beast lunged at Tylesin, so did he.

It ought to have gone smoothly. The death of the demigod seemed inevitable, but right at that moment a terrible scream erupted from Gruft and his men nearest the door. Suddenly outlaws were running in all directions, and one ran straight into Spider, shrieking and wailing as he knocked him to the ground.

The servants of Parameer had not been idle while their master's home was being assaulted. They had boiled up a huge cauldron of water and had slipped up to the window just above the door. From there they had poured the contents down on the invaders, burning and scalding them and sending them running.

Kelt was unharmed and was taking out any man who stumbled too near him. His mortal comrade was suffering from a bad slice to his sword arm and was struggling to do anything.

Spider shoved at the man who was on top of him, still screaming like a whipped child. The man had been burned all down the right side of his face, steam was rising off his drenched clothes before Spider's eyes.

"Get off!" Spider grimaced, uninterested in the man's whimpering.

He managed to kick him to one side and rose to his feet, trying to get a grasp on what was happening.

The horse-beast had jumped at Tylesin, but it was hamper by having its killing jaws disabled. It tried to pound at the demigod with its hooves, which would have caused considerable damage, but Tylesin jerked away.

When the beast came at him again, he dodged to the side. The monster tried to follow, but turning fast wrenched at its impaled jaws and it was slow. Tylesin dipped and with one slice, using Spider's knife, cut at the creature's hamstrings on its hind legs.

The beast let out a screech, then tried to rear and bring hooves down on Tylesin. It collapsed instead, disabled by the dainty cuts, its rear legs useless to it. It still strived to get up, determination overcoming pain. It could do nothing but thrash on the ground.

Spider felt an unexpected surge of compassion for the monster, followed swiftly by outrage. He was ready to go for Tylesin himself, keen to slit the man's throat, when a meaty hand grabbed his arm and swung him sideways.