“Get that door open!” Agrona shouted above the commotion. “Quickly! Before the Protectorate calls for reinforcements!”
The van was about fifty feet away from me, and I’d just stepped past the front of our smashed SUV when I spotted a swirl of black out of the corner of my eye. One of the Reapers had been standing on the other side of the vehicle, watching to make sure that no one got out of it. He raised his sword high, ready to bring it down on top of my head, but I darted forward and slashed Vic across his chest. The Reaper crumpled to the ground.
“That’s my girl!” Vic crowed. “Let’s fight another one!” I would have preferred not to, but another Reaper had noticed me battling her friend and came running over as well. But once again, I managed to get the better of the other warrior, and she crumpled to the ground as well, moaning and clutching at the stomach wound I’d given her. But fighting the two warriors had cost me precious seconds, and I wasn’t any closer to the van
than when I’d started—
SCREECH!
The Reaper with the crowbar finally managed to wrench open one of the van’s back doors. He must have been a Viking and used his strength to help him get inside the vehicle. He reached through the gap, unlocked the second door, and threw it open as well. Any second now, the Reapers would get their hands on the wooden crates containing the artifacts, load them onto the rocs, and disappear into the woods with them—
Oliver and Alexei erupted out of the back of the van and jumped down into the group of Reapers closest to the open vehicle doors. Alexei clutched the twin Swords of Ruslan in his hands, swinging the weapons at every single Reaper who came near him. Meanwhile, Oliver punched the Reaper closest to him, plucked the other man’s sword out of his hand, flipped it around, and stabbed the other warrior in the chest with his own weapon. Spartans had freaky magic like that, the ability to pick up any weapon—or any object—and automatically know how to kill someone with it.
But despite Oliver’s Spartan skill and Alexei’s Bogatyr bravery, they were still going to lose.
Reapers surrounded them on three sides, severely outnumbering Oliver and Alexei and pinning them back against the van, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed my friends. Even if I stepped up and joined the battle, it wouldn’t be enough to save them. There were just too many Reapers for that. Desperate, I looked around, trying to figure out some way to help Oliver and Alexei and at least give them a fighting chance. But all I saw were the smashed vehicles, Reapers, and the Black rocs they’d brought along with them—My gaze locked on to the flock of birds. The Reapers had left them at the edge of the road, where the pavement gave way to the woods. The Reapers who had been watching the rocs had joined the fight against Oliver and Alexei, so the creatures stood by patiently, waiting for the warriors to climb onto their backs so they could fly off to parts unknown.
I didn’t know all that much about Black rocs, just that they were big, strong, and deadly, like Nemean prowlers, Fenrir wolves, and Eir gryphons. But a crazy idea popped into my mind. Maybe . . . maybe if I could startle the rocs into flying off, it would at least draw some of the Reapers away from Oliver and Alexei.
It was a hasty plan at best, but it was the only chance
I had—and my friends too.
So I stepped off the pavement and raced in that direction, hard bits of snow and frozen leaves crunching under my boots, all the while wondering how small, pitiful me was going to scare mythological creatures that could easily eat me with one snap of their sharp beaks.
“What are you doing, Gwen?” Vic shouted. “The fight is over there!”
“You’ll see!” I screamed back.
At the sound of my yell, Vivian whirled around in my direction. Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but that Reaper red spark flared to life in her topaz eyes. She shook Agrona’s arm and stabbed her finger in my direction. Agrona’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and she pushed Vivian forward, clearly ordering the Reaper girl to kill me. Vivian stumbled and almost fell to the ground before she managed to right herself.
But I shut the two of them out of my mind and focused on the rocs in front of me. A couple of the birds had realized that I was running toward them, and their heads turned this way and that, as though they were wondering what I was doing.
Yeah. Me too.
I sucked down a breath and shoved my shoulder into the side of the closest roc. It was like hitting a warm brick wall, and I bounced off the creature’s side and staggered back. But I sucked down another breath and surged forward, hitting the same roc again. This time, the creature hopped a few feet to the right and flexed its wing, as though I were a bothersome bug that it was trying to shoo away. I ducked, although the roc’s soft feathers brushed across my nose, making me want to sneeze at the strange, oddly ticklish sensation.
Okay, then, it looked like more drastic measures were called for, especially since I could see Vivian racing toward me, her talking sword, Lucretia, clenched in her hand and her black robe streaming out around her like a cloud of death—my death in the making.
So I raised Vic high and charged deeper into the group of rocs.
“Fly!” I screamed. “Fly! Fly! Fly!”
I swung my sword this way and that, not really wanting to hurt the creatures, but trying to incite enough panic in them to make them bolt, either up into the sky or better yet, into the Reapers still swarming around Oliver and Alexei. But all the rocs did was jump around me, as though we were all playing some bizarre game of hopscotch.
So I moved as close as I dared and lashed out with Vic again. This time, I managed to clip one of the creature’s wings with the edge of my sword.
The roc let out an earsplitting shriek and lurched away from me. It slammed into the roc closest to it, which set off a violent chain reaction. A second later, all the creatures were in motion, in a panic, exactly like I’d wanted. I ducked down in the middle of the flock of birds and put my hands up over my head, trying to shield myself as best I could from the roiling mass of wings and beaks and long, black talons.
With one thought, the rocs stepped onto the pavement and raced across the flat, smooth surface of the road, like airplanes trying to gain enough momentum to take flight. The Reapers who’d been fighting Oliver and Alexei whipped around in surprise at the sound of the rocs’ frantic, high-pitched caw-caw-caws. The Reapers were right in the path of the rocs’ stampede, and the birds slammed into the warriors, knocking several of them down and giving Oliver and Alexei some muchneeded breathing room.