Rem jumped off of the carriage, staggering when blackness momentarily consumed her vision, the world spinning when her eyesight returned.Need to take it easy…
Following Halvar, Rem lightly jogged to the best of her ability as they made it to the bridge, passing streets and other shifters that were being carried or limping toward the bridge themselves.
Halvar mumbled to Nia, "Sorry for jostling your limbs. We're getting closer."
Fresh tears left streaks on Nia's dirty cheeks, her eyes alive with a fury, trying her best to keep her ankles and wrists steady.
They halted as a dozen humans on horseback rounded the street corner, pointing at least seven silver arrows directly at them. The danger may have been absent for Rem—as long as they didn’t strike her heart—it would be catastrophic for Nia or Halvar.
Rem decided that she hated city warfare. It was too confusing, as everyone came from different angles and streets.
"A Silver!" a woman shouted, holding up a raised fist to the rest of them.
Rem heard the smacking of paws before three wolves ran past Rem, chargingtowardsthe horses. The archers released their arrows, shooting the shifters in the shoulders, thighs, and one in the chest. Loud whimpers echoed in the wake of the wolves smacking into the cobblestone street, one taking out a horse as it fell. The shifters writhed on the ground as if their wounds were on fire.
A hunter jumped off of a horse to slice a shifter right through the neck with a silver blade, killing them. Once, Rem would have considered the humans her saviors and even cheered them on for slaying the beasts.
Instead, her heart ached for the silenced shifters.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Leave them alone—"
A few ceramic shingles shattered on the ground to her left.
Everyone looked up and saw a giant black beast crest over the rooftop, gray clouds blowing rapidly behind it as the wind pulled at its fur.
A warg.
She gasped asanotherappeared, climbing on another building. They were like two ebony sentries, snarling at the hunters. An archer shot at them, but the arrow deflected, smacking down on the roof before slowly rolling off and hitting the cobble street below with a fainttap.
The beasts cried out and leapt down, crunching the horses under their weight, blood and guts spraying on the surrounding stone. At least half of the humans died instantly.
Halvar fell to his knees and started mumbling something in his language, his shocked eyes wide and on the wargs—these beasts had never entered the cities, according to the Elders. The wargs bit at the other humans, a whip of their tail slamming men off their feet.
The remaining humans fired their arrows in a last attempt for survival, the wargs stamping out the remaining human life. Rem ran towards the beasts, an indescribable pull calling to her at the sound of their pain—one seemed to have an arrow sticking out of its thigh; the only arrow to pierce.
The giant beast lumbered over the dead bodies. Rem carefully neared the creature as it scanned the area around them. Going near it was something right out of their stories, the massive beast moving as if in slow motion. She quickly found the arrow and yanked it out while the animalroared, its breath hot and wet against her. Rem took a step back, nearly stumbling over a dead body. Pools of dark blood and scattered corpses twisted her gut in nauseating ways as she looked for a clean place to stand.
The warg glanced at her, looking her over like intelligent thought guided it, before giving her its back as it ate a fresh kill, chomping a body in horrible crunches before swallowing.
As much as she wanted to marvel in such a creature, she neared Nia and Halvar, the very warg she helped following close behind after ripping a leg off of a horse.
Halvar took an extra moment to longingly stare at the warg, but it was Nia’s groan that prompted them all to move. The small group headed in the bridge's direction, the warg following with vigilance as it continued to survey the land. The other wargs moved closer to the battle.
It made it almost too easy to walk among the carnage with the holy beast in their shadow, as if the battle couldn’t touch them.
They reached the bridge, setting Nia down against a stone fence that lined the river before Halvar fetched an Elder. Rem searched for anything to get the silver chains off. She reached down to try to pull them apart like earlier, but Nia’s bones were so shattered that even touching the chains was too painful.
Then, the idea struck her, and she ran a comforting hand over Nia’s balmy forehead, who breathed slowly with closed eyes.
"I'll be back, Nia. I'll check the smithing street. It's got to have chain cutters," Rem suggested.
"You know where it's at?" she asked with a stringent voice.
"Loral and I visited it a few times before the Elders locked us away… She likes blacksmithing. Long story, but I know where to go."
Rem left before getting a response, the warg staying with Nia. She reached the outskirts of the town square where the thick of the fighting was at its height, panting as her hair clung to her face. She slowed when she saw another warg leap down into the crowd. Rem’s vision faded out again, her heart pounding, desperate to keep what little blood she had cycling through her veins.
A cry from around the corner made her pivot to see a human man running at her with a hammer. She almost rolled her eyes from how annoying this was getting but steadied herself, nonetheless.
