He shared her worry. This giant looked to be severe trouble.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Pulling his blades, Aran melted into the shadows. He ghosted silently to one side of the path. It would be foolish to meet their adversary head-on, but the giant’s back was unprotected.
Faster than his bulk would suggest, the giant pivoted.
“I smell you!” he cried, then smashed his mace down, way too close to Aran.
He leaped clear, heart pounding. Okay, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
An arrow zinged through the air—Spark, taking advantage of the giant’s distraction to mount her own attack. Their enemy batted the arrow out of the air as if it were a crippled mosquito.
“Stings and pokes?” The giant laughed, showing huge, blackened teeth, and the heads hanging from his belt swung back and forth.
“How about this?” Spark said, holding her hand palm out toward their enemy.
She chanted a string of guttural syllables, and from her outstretched hand a wall of flame whooshed. It hit the giant and he yelled, beating at his rags as they caught fire.
Aran darted forward and sank both knives into the giant’s thigh. The neck would have been ideal, but it was above reach. Still, maybe the blow would bring the giant down.
Their enemy yelled again and swung his mace in a low, vicious swipe. Aran caught hold of the giant’s chain belt and pulled himself out of the way, grimacing as one of the severed heads brushed against him.
“Off me, pest!” the giant cried.
Too quickly—Aran really had to stop misjudging their enemy’s speed—the giant’s meaty hand lashed out and grabbed Aran by the shoulders. Damn. He twisted, bringing his blades around as his enemy lifted him high into the air.
Aran stabbed the giant’s wrist, but that only enraged him more. With a snap of his arm, he flung Aran through the air.
Trees spun past his vision and Aran desperately tried to orient himself. A trunk loomed ahead of him, and he brought up one arm to shield his face. The impact was going to break him. Dimly, he heard Spark yelling the words of another spell.
Everything slowed down, the air growing thick as honey. Aran hit the tree, the collision softened, though still incredibly painful. He bounced off the rough trunk and fell to the piney forest floor.
He sat up, head spinning, and flexed his arms and legs. Impossibly, he wasn’t injured. Spark’s spell had saved him. But now she faced the giant alone. He sprang to his feet, blinking with sudden dizziness.
The giant lurched and swiped, trying to grab onto the russet blur of Spark’s fox form. She leapt nimbly back and forth, evading the swipes of his meaty fingers.
Until the giant caught her by the tail.
“Aha! Foxkin head for my collection.”
“Spark!” Aran sprinted forward, ignoring the pain pulsing through him.
Her figure blurred, then solidified again in her human form. The giant still held her, however, her bright hair clenched between his massive fingers. With his other hand, he drew a thin, sharp blade.
“My best prize yet,” he crowed. “The pretty, pretty hair.”
Something glinted in Spark’s hand. Her dagger—but it was useless against the giant. She wrenched around, but she didn’t stab their enemy. Instead, she sliced at the top of her head.
Brilliant girl. She was cutting herself free. And the giant was now low enough that Aran could do some serious damage. Without slowing, he raced to the giant’s knee, then vaulted up onto his arm and plunged his knives into their enemy’s chest.
The giant swung his blade across Spark’s neck, but she had shorn off enough of her hair to squirm free. The giant’s slice did the rest, and he was left holding nothing but a fistful of magenta.#p#分页标题#e#
“Aargh!” he cried, then dropped the hair.
As Spark scrambled back, Aran stabbed the giant again. A moment later, one of her arrows whizzed through the air, hitting their enemy in the neck.
With a slow groan, the giant toppled.
Aran sprang free, knives at the ready. His breath rasped harshly through his throat, the sound nearly drowned out by the giant’s death moans. Beside Aran, Spark nocked another arrow.
“I think we got him,” she said, though her bow never wavered.
“Yeah. Good fighting.”
Warily, Aran watched the giant until his eyes glazed over, lifeless. The hand holding the blade went slack, the weapon crashing uselessly to the blood-spattered soil.
They’d won. Instead of a victory rush, Aran only felt tired. He wiped the giant’s blood off his knives, then sheathed them.
“I hear the stream,” Spark said, stashing her bow away. “Over there.”