Page 438 of Of Empires and Dust
Rist needed them closer, needed less ground to protect.
“Lightning Storm!” Rist shouted.
Rist pushed outwards with the Spark, Neera’s threads weaving around his own. The wind howled about them, ripping back and forth, tearing the kerathlin from the ground as lightning burned through them. The creatures died in their scores, smoke pluming from where lightning cracked their shells.
But it wasn’t enough. Even as the kerathlin fell, burning and shrieking, more swarmed over the dead. One of the creatures leapt through the wind and lightning, hurtling towards Neera.
The drain sapped at him, pulling the strength from his bones, and Rist did the only thing he could: he tapped into the vessel that hung around his neck. Ice flooded his veins, the world growing still and silent before exploding with light and raucous sound.
He pushed the Essence into his fist and punched through the leaping kerathlin’s carapace. The creature thrashed and writhed, blue blood pouring around Rist’s arm, warm innards tangled about his fingers. Rist flicked his arm down, the kerathlin sliding free, limbs curling inwards.
Rist pushed harder, funnelling the Essence through him, drawing deeper from the Spark, his veins burning, muscles screaming. He glanced over his shoulder to see Neera staggering, then collapsing, one of the soldiers catching her.
“Neera!”
He wanted to run to her, to make sure she was all right, but if he moved, if he stopped at all, the kerathlin would crash through the Lightning Storm and rip them all to shreds.
Rist pulled deeper from the Spark than he ever had before, feeling each elemental strand wind around him. The power poured into him like molten fire in his veins, and the Lightning Storm raged with a fury, the air itself seeming to shimmer and ripple as kerathlin careened off stone and were ripped apart by arcs of blue lightning.
He pulled deeper, the drain burning his soul, pain blending with euphoria. In their hundreds, the kerathlin died, shrieking and wailing, swirling about Rist and the others like leaves in a storm. And still they kept coming. Relentless. Savage.
Rist dropped to his knees and screamed, pushing the threads outwards with every drop of strength he could muster.
But there were simply too many.
Two kerathlin broke through his barrier of wind and lightning, one leaping from a window ledge above, the other scuttling along the ground.
The one above shrieked and crashed into his shoulder, a black claw plunging into the flesh of his left arm, mandibles carving through his shoulder and scraping bone.
Rist howled in pain, tapping deeper into the well of Essence in his gemstone. He reached over with his hand, grabbed the kerathlin, and ripped it free, smashing it against the ground. The creature’s shell cracked and blue blood spilled, but still it twisted and lunged.
A flash of steel and a sword impaled the kerathlin, pinning it to the stone. The second creature launched itself upwards, and one of the Lorian soldiers leapt forwards, wrapped his arms around it, and hauled it to the ground. As the thing tore at him with black claws, Rist pushed the Essence into the ground beneath the kerathlin’s abdomen, turned it to molten stone, then punched upwards. The creature went still, a solid spike piercing its carapace, barely a hair’s breadth from the Lorian soldier’s face.
“We’ve got you,” a woman said to his left, pulling her sword from the first kerathlin’s body.
The words had barely left her mouth when the ground shook once again and one of those monstrous Depth Stalkers burst through the building on the opposite side of the street.
The men and women who were huddled together screamed and wailed as they fled into the Lightning Storm. Above, chunks of stone fell, and the creature reared onto its hind legs.
Rist looked to Neera, who knelt in the street, two soldiers refusing to leave her. He let all other thoughts flood from his mind, releasing his hold on the Spark, the world dulling. But before he could take a step, a chunk of debris from abovecrashed down and plumed dust into the air, knocking Rist onto his back.
His entire body shook as he dragged himself to his feet, dust occluding the air and filling his lungs. “Neera!” He staggered forwards, hearing theclick-clackof kerathlin around him, men and women screaming. “Neera!”
Through the dust a red light ignited, casting a man in shadow. Rist could feel the pulse of the Spark thrumming in the air. The red light flashed, and a kerathlin shrieked.
Rist staggered forwards, finally seeing the shape of Magnus down on one knee, a red níthral in his hand. The stump of his severed arm was pointed upwards, and in the haze, Rist thought he could see Magnus’s arm, hand, and fingers wrought from the Spark, seeming to glow with threads of Spirit and Air. That Spark-wrought hand held up an enormous chunk of stone three times the size of a bear.
And there, pulling herself upright between Magnus and Rist, was Neera.
Rist’s throat tightened, relief flooding him.
“Don’t just fucking stand there, lad,” Magnus shouted. With a pulse of Air, he sent the chunk of debris crashing to the ground behind him, then spun in the same motion and carved through a kerathlin with his níthral.
Rist sprinted forwards and wrapped his arms around Neera, who fell into him.
“Rist…”
“It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
