Two of Bosse’s friends worked their way through the room, tackling guards and ripping the useless rifles from their hands. Bosse started toward them.
The third friend, a behemoth of a guy, shouted something at Bosse and ran past him.
Those watching the cage area raced up from the basement, some with crossbows lifted to shoot.
Alifair pointed her hands at the basement guards. She called out a spell to make the arm muscles in those holding crossbows turn rubbery. Nothing happened. Only guards carried the crossbows, so this time, she chanted louder and louder, hoping to be heard over the din of noise.
One of the guards released his crossbow, and then his arms fell limp at his sides. He stared at his weapon as if he didn’t understand.
Two more guards ran past him, unharmed by her magic.
Damn!
As they clashed with the big guy Bosse knew, she chanted again and put more force into her voice, booming her spell. It was almost as if she could hear Magdelina ordering her to believe in her gift.
Bosse changed directions, running over to help his friend, who had knocked one crossbow out of a guard’s hands. His friend snatched away the second guard’s crossbow, then dropped it with his arms falling loose.
Knocking the empty-handed guard down with one blow, Bosse turned to find another, lifting to shoot an arrow at his friend. Snarling, Bosse lifted the guard, who dropped his crossbow and threw him on top of the unconscious one.
He shook his friend, whose arms didn’t move, then he glanced at the stairs. He must have figured out what she was doing.
“Free this one from magic. We need Justin.”
“Sorry.” She panicked and changed her chant, spewing it as fast as possible. Please tell her she didn’t get it wrong and do something awful to Justin and Bosse.
Justin came alive with a roar and swung around on Bosse with a fist drawn back.
“Not me!” Bosse shouted. “I’m on your side.”
Justin shook it off and jumped back into the fray.
Alifair looked up as more guards ran into the room from the front doors, some carrying blades as long as their forearms. How many had Krol hidden around his fortress?
Bosse shouted at Alifair, “Stay out of this. Go hide.”
Did he really think she’d do that? He started toward her, looking terrified when she pointed past him. “Look out behind you. Two more coming from the kitchen!”
He had lightning reflexes, but she’d never seen anyone move so fast as when he went after the new guards. Justin and Bosse worked their way through them, fighting entirely in human form when they would be impossible to defeat in animal form.
They turned to help the other two near the entrance to the hall.
That allowed a guard to run from the hallway to her room and race across to take the steps to the basement cage area.
What was he doing?
An earth-shattering sound of roaring and screeching animals erupted, then the scream of a human. Had that stupid guard thought he could release caged shifters, and they’d just let him live?
A giant white tiger shifter burst from the basement steps first with a raging black bear on steroids right behind, then a honey badger the size of a Volkswagen and a buffalo like she’d seen in the western states, but this one was twice as big as the tiger.
With Justin knocking the heads of two guards together, the last of Krol’s men went down. She suspected the other two friends had shot many of them with some drug. Add that to what she’d done, and they’d won the battle with the humans.
She screamed, “The shifters are loose!”
In less than a heartbeat, Justin shifted into a gigantic grizzly bear. Bosse gave Titan his body. Those two massive animals crashed into those escaping the cages. With claws flying and teeth ripping chunks out of bodies, the sound was horrific.
Bosse’s other two friends remained in human form but stood ready to stop whatever tried to make a run for the front doors.
While all that went on, up came a repulsive nightmare in half-human form.
