Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

THIRTY-FOUR

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was not one creature, but in fact several: hundreds, thousands.

Sludges of black and lumpy, knobbly limbs crawled from the crevice, hissing with a sound that Circe could only describe as hunger.

What on Callistra was that stake and why was it sending out disasters with every movement?

Circe was thrown on her back as one of the creatures jumped at her, latching onto her arm.

She swallowed a scream, batting at the thing, but her fingers stuck to its skin like tar. The creature was only the size of her head, but it had jaws, and it was trying to close them around her wrist.

"Ah!"

She brought her arm to the floor and scraped it off, but in that time, five more had jumped on her, and more were on their way.

One bit down on her shoulder, and she hissed, scrambling for the stick she had shoved into her boot. With more aggression that necessary, she secured a grip and slammed it down on the creatures, getting rid of most of them as they rolled onto the ground. She hit one hard enough that it shook and exploded in a mess of dark goo.

That was when the stick snapped open at midway and turned into the staff that Rhoden had meant for her to have. 
Circe swung the weapon in her hands.

The creatures squeed, trying to move as the blunt edge of the staff skewered multiple bodies. While some exploded, others deflated slowly, like a balloon that was scratched rather than popped.

Circe smacked the staff down like it was a club, sweeping creatures out of the way. As soon as she had cleared some semblance of a path, she attempted to retreat back up the hill.

She had teeth marks in her ankle and teeth marks on her stomach. Deaths, why did these blobs of tar even have teeth?

Circe took a leaping step forward, but as she lifted her foot, a creature rushed to grab on, and she crashed to the floor, her chin smashing against the ground. Grass and soil smeared onto her face. She was almost certain she had dirt in her mouth.

"Enough!" she spat, whirling up. She slammed the staff down beside her. A shockwave reverberated from her palm, and as the creatures flew back a wide meter, Circe pulled herself upright and sprinted for the stake. Over on the other end of the field, Arche was struggling with the creatures just as much, having allowed them to create a pile onto her head as she knelt on the ground and flailed.

Circe ran for the stake, but too slowly did she remember the glimmer that surrounded it. Headfirst, she rammed into a forcefield, and then she was flung back so hard that she was seeing stars in the orange-pink sky.

A buzzing sounded across the field.

Circe sat up woozily, finding herself eerily close to the corpse of the third contender. She hadn't been able to get through to the stake, but she had nudged it upright once again with her magic, and the creatures had disappeared.

She stayed in her slouched form, waiting for the next threat, but nothing came. The wind stayed still, the trees continued whispering, and the boy kept bleeding out a little to the left of her, one of his hands across his chest and the other outstretched like he had a chance to get away.

There was no doubt his heart had stopped. She wondered how much more blood his body had left to expel.

Across the field, Arche had met surprise in the quiet as well. But she recovered faster than Circe.

Arche shot to her feet and pushed out with both her hands.

And Circe couldn't breathe.

She keeled to the ground, gasping and gasping but taking in nothing.