Chapter 90 — The Last One Standing

Chapter 90: Chapter 90 — The Last One Standing

~ Raven ~

The hand came down, and the clearing came apart.

"HALE, WITH M—"

Garrick’s voice vanished beneath the sudden noise, but Raven heard enough. She crowded closer to Brielle with the others. An elbow caught her in the ribs, and pain flared through her side.

Isolde was already moving.

A reddish distortion tightened around her body as she met the attacker coming down the slope. She slipped outside his reach, caught his arm and drove a knee beneath his ribs. He staggered backward through the leaves.

A second attacker rushed her exposed side, but Brielle stepped into his path. Her forearm slammed across his throat and knocked him away from Isolde.

Against Ashbourne, Brielle had still been fighting within the rules.

That restraint was gone now.

For several breaths, the students held them back.

Garrick shouted warnings over the noise, and Hale responded. When Dorian drifted too far from the others, Mara caught his sleeve and dragged him back before an attacker could enter the space he had left. Dorian, who had found something to say about nearly everything for the past three days, fought beside her in complete silence.

On the opposite side, Ashbourne’s captain kept his own team together with the same short warnings, while Seren moved to cover each opening as it appeared.

Celeste broke away twice.

The first time, Seren caught her arm and pulled her back. The second, an attacker came through the opening beside her and Celeste stumbled into open ground with a scream tearing from her throat.

"CELESTE." Seren didn’t turn. "Your left. Left—"

Celeste twisted.

The attacker was already on her.

Essence gathered around her hands, then faltered when she saw how close he was. She struck anyway, but he knocked both arms aside, caught the front of her harness and drove her backward into a tree.

Bark broke loose above her head.

Celeste dropped to her knees, coughing desperately for breath.

Seren left her position and hit the man before he could reach for Celeste again.

The opening she left was all another attacker needed.

He slipped inside the Ashbourne third-year’s guard and buried a fist beneath the boy’s ribs. As the student folded, the attacker caught the back of his neck and slammed him face-first into the ground.

That should have been the end of it.

The attacker stamped on the boy’s wrist.

Bone cracked.

The boy screamed, but the next kick caught him across the mouth and snapped his head sideways. A third drove into his ribs hard enough to lift his body from the leaves.

He stopped moving.

"He’s down!" Dorian shouted. "He’s fucking down!"

Nobody answered him.

They weren’t there to be argued with.

After that, it stopped being a fight and became work.

The attackers pressed through the students from three sides at once, opening gaps for one another and forcing people into them. Mara caught one across the jaw with everything she had. His head snapped sideways, but he turned back and kept coming.

Across the clearing, another walked through a strike from Ashbourne’s captain that should have folded him in half.

Nothing lethal gets through the Ward.

Garrick had said that during their first briefing, holding up his fist and counting through the rules on his fingers.

Raven watched a curved blade slide from beneath a hooded coat and understood exactly what that promise was worth now.

Raven did what she could.

She couldn’t meet any of them head-on. She stayed close to Brielle, shouted warnings whenever someone came through the trees and ducked beneath the strikes meant for stronger bodies.

When an attacker pushed past Mara, Raven kicked the back of his knee. His leg buckled just enough for Mara to seize his coat and drive him headfirst into a tree.

Twice, the students were forced apart and Raven found herself exposed.

Twice, the attacker nearest her refused to strike.

The first shoved her with both hands, sending her stumbling back toward the others.

The second caught her by the shoulder and hurled her into the middle as casually as someone moving a chair out of a doorway.

Because you’re the smallest thing here.

Raven forced her feet beneath herself.

Isolde’s shout cut through the clearing.

She had injured one of them badly. He was down on one knee with one arm hanging uselessly, and Isolde was still advancing when another attacker caught her from behind.

Instead of pulling away, she twisted toward him. Her fist closed around his hood and tore it back.

Raven glimpsed the side of his throat.

Thin black veins spread beneath his skin, fanning upward from his collar toward his jaw. They seemed to shift with every beat of his pulse.

Then his forearm struck Isolde across the face and sent her backward over a root. He dragged the hood into place before she had finished falling.

"RIVERS."

Garrick stood several paces away with blood across his teeth.

"They’ve had you twice." He knocked an arm away from his face and drove his shoulder into the attacker behind it. "Both times they threw you back."

"I know."

"They don’t want you down."

His gaze found Ashbourne’s captain across the clearing.

"Clear the north side!"

"Garrick—"

"RUN, RIVERS!"

Mara and Dorian rushed the northern slope together. Ashbourne’s captain brought the students still standing behind them, and an opening tore through the attackers.

Raven ran.

Branches caught at her clothes and whipped across her face. She kept going until she realized there were no footsteps behind her.

She stopped.

Then she turned.

The leader had not moved from the centre of the clearing. He stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, watching her escape without the slightest attempt to follow.

Behind him, the attackers closed around the students Raven had left behind.

They didn’t need to chase her.

They would finish everyone in the clearing and come for her afterward.

Worse, they knew she understood that.

Raven’s gaze passed the leader and found Seren.

She was on the ground with one knee beneath her. Her braid had come apart across her face, and the man standing over her had already raised his blade.

"KEEP RUNNING!" Garrick shouted. "RIVERS, KEEP—"

Run where?

Raven was moving before the question finished.

It wasn’t a decision. Her legs simply refused to carry her any farther in the other direction.

She came at Seren from the side at a dead sprint and drove her shoulder into the other girl’s waist. They crashed through the leaves together.

The blade came down where Seren’s neck had been.

Instead, it sliced along Raven’s left arm, opening a burning line from her shoulder almost to her elbow.

Same arm.

Some distant part of her actually noticed.

Same bloody arm.

Raven rolled, caught Seren’s harness and dragged her away. Garrick seized the back of Raven’s harness and hauled both of them behind him.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he shouted.

The opening closed before Raven could answer.

An attacker kicked the side of Mara’s knee. Her leg folded beneath her, and another struck her across the temple before she reached the ground.

Dorian lunged toward her.

Two attackers hit him from opposite sides. One drove a knee into his stomach while the other smashed an elbow into the back of his neck. Dorian dropped, but they continued kicking him after he curled around his head.

After that, Raven could no longer follow everything.

Three attackers converged on Isolde. She turned the first aside and struck the second hard enough to split his lip, but the third caught her wrist. Her reddish distortion flared as she tried to wrench free.

One of them kicked the back of her knee.

Isolde went down.

Another seized her hair and pulled her head back while the distortion around her body flickered and collapsed.

The sound torn from her throat made Raven’s stomach twist.

Brielle remained beside Raven longer than anyone else.

She drove one attacker backward and bloodied another’s mouth, but four of them had surrounded her. One caught her wrist. Another kicked her knee from beneath her. The third struck her in the ribs while she was falling.

Brielle still tried to swing.

The fourth came from behind and dragged her down by the throat.

"Brielle!"

Raven lunged toward her.

Something swept her legs from beneath her.

She landed on her wounded arm. The clearing vanished into white, and when it returned, a pair of boots stood inches from her face.

They stepped over her without slowing.

Raven pushed herself upright.

Blood ran down her arm and dripped from her fingers. Every breath caught beneath her ribs, but she stood and made it two steps toward Brielle before a hand struck flat between her shoulders.

It sent her facedown into the leaves again.

Nearby, Seren tried to rise, but her arms gave way beneath her.

Celeste was still fighting. Fear had stripped any shape from her movements, leaving only wild swings and curses that ran into one another. An attacker caught her wrist, twisted it behind her and drove her face into the ground.

Her next curse ended in a broken cry.

Then only Garrick remained.

He placed himself between Raven and the centre of the clearing, although he could barely stand. His left arm hung uselessly at his side. Blood ran from above his hairline into one eye, and he didn’t wipe it away.

"Rivers."

"Don’t."

"Run."

"Garrick—"

The leader walked toward him.

Garrick swung with his remaining arm.

The leader slipped past the blow and drove a fist into his throat. As Garrick’s knees buckled, the man caught the back of his harness and slammed him face-first into the ground.

It took less than two seconds.

Garrick remained where he fell.

The clearing went quiet.

Raven stood in the middle of it and forced herself to look.

Brielle’s fingers moved against the ground, curling and opening weakly. Seren was breathing, shallow and fast, but breathing. Garrick had managed to get one palm beneath his shoulder and was trying unsuccessfully to push himself out of the dirt.

Alive.

Most of them.

For now..

Only Raven remained standing.

Not because you beat anyone.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. It came away red.

Because they wanted you standing.

Raven walked forward.

Pain stabbed through her ankle with every step, and her wounded arm hung uselessly at her side. She placed herself between the fallen students and the approaching attackers.

Her breathing came shallow and quick. She couldn’t force it to slow.

The leader reached beneath his hood and pulled away the dark cloth concealing the rest of his face.

The others followed, unhurried now that no one remained capable of stopping them.

Ordinary faces appeared beneath the coverings. Men and women, some of them surprisingly young.

Black veins ran beneath their eyes and around their throats. Their pupils had spread until they swallowed everything else, leaving their eyes black from edge to edge.

Then the wind changed, and Raven caught their scent.

Blood came first.

Beneath it was something sweet and rotten, like meat forgotten at the bottom of a barrel through the heat of summer.

For one sickening instant, the clearing disappeared.

Raven was back among the wet leaves near the quarry, staring at a half-eaten stag rotting into the ground while a wolf dragged itself farther along the spear buried through its skull.

"Shadow wolves," she muttered.

The certainty died before the words had fully left her mouth.

Those creatures hadn’t spoken. They hadn’t waited, held their ground or moved at another person’s command. Their fur had fallen from them in patches, and their shadows had dragged behind their bodies.

These people weren’t rotting.

They were sentient.

Their shadows rested beneath them exactly where they belonged.

The leader watched Raven’s certainty turn to confusion.

His smile widened.

He did not correct her.

Around the clearing, every attacker turned toward Raven.

The leader stepped forward.

"Now," he said, "we can begin."