Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 153795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 769(@200wpm)___ 615(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 769(@200wpm)___ 615(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
I climb over jagged rocks and slide down a short, mossy embankment. My feet land in a deep, slushy puddle and nearly get stuck in the muck. As I grunt with frustration, struggling to free my boots from the mud with each step, I notice the monster is so much uglier up close. And it smells like pure shit.
“Thane!” I yell once I’m on stable ground again.
Thane whips his gaze in my direction. “What the shadows are you doing?” he shouts. “Get back to safety!”
“The gills!” I yell. “Stab it in the gills!”
His face warps with confusion. Either he can’t hear me, or he doesn’t understand what I’m going on about.
“Damn it,” I hiss.
I look in Rynthea’s direction. She’s now bound in two tentacles. She bites one of them with a growl, but that does nothing to the monster. Rushing her way, I clumsily dodge and duck tentacles until I stumble across her scythesword lying next to one of the trees and grab it.
It’s heavier than I expected.
Rynthea grunts, trying to break free, but the monster only squeezes her tighter. Her agonized cry makes my heart sink. One of the tentacles rises behind me, but I hold the handle of the scythesword in a firm grasp and use all my strength to swing. To my surprise, I chop the thing in half.
“Oh shit.” I pant, astonished.
The monster screeches once again, just as Algar appears in front of me.
He sticks his hand out. “Give me that damn thing before you cut your leg off!”
I place it in his hands, and he teleports to the other side of the tentacles that are death-gripping Rynthea. With a mighty holler, Algar swings the scythesword and cuts through both of them, sending black blood spraying toward the trees as Rynthea collapses on the ground.
“Rynthea.” I dash her way, trying to help her stand.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She presses her knuckles into the mud and pushes herself up.
We look for Algar. His clothes are now stained with inky blood. “Fucking disgusting!” he shouts.
“Give me my scythesword,” Rynthea demands.
Algar tosses it to her, and she catches it with one hand just as another tentacle aims straight for us. She whips the scythesword by the handle and slashes through it before it can strike.
“You both are meant to be hiding!” she barks at us.
“Well, if we’d kept on hiding, your precious guts would be spread all over this swamp right now, wouldn’t they?” Algar fires back.
Her nostrils flare as she glares at him, shaking her head.
“Rynthea, listen to me.” I grab her arm and force her attention on me. “You need to aim for the gills. A monster that size must have lots of them, and they’re probably close to its hearts. If you can strike some of the gills, you can weaken it even more and finish it off.”
She stares at me for a fleeting second. When my words sink in, determination settles on her face, and she nods. Stomping past Algar, she charges toward the beast and leaps into the air. Her scythesword swings downward, and the tip lands close to the monster’s ribs, piercing right through one of its gills.
The monster belts out a scream that seems to shake the entire forest.
Tentacles flail as blood oozes down its side.
Algar wrenches me toward him, and there is a sudden drop in my stomach as he teleports us away from the battle area. The ground feels unsteady beneath me as we wind up next to another boulder, this one smaller than the previous.
“Whoa.” I throw my hands out to steady myself again, blinking several times to clear the short spell of dizziness. “I didn’t know people could teleport with you.”
“Yeah,” he replies, panting. “Wears me out, though, so I don’t do it often.”
“But you kept telling Thane constantly to use his whispershade in Ruvain, even though you knew it would wear him out. That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me. If I hadn’t insisted that he use it, those Ruvainers would be fucking you in a dungeon right now! To death!”
“Orvena help me,” I groan.
The monster howls again, drawing my attention back to the onslaught. I look in its direction. Thane has caught on to what Rynthea is doing as she runs along one of the thicker tentacles before it can descend and penetrates another gill. He swings one of his swords at an angle to stab the set of gills on the other side of its neck.
The monster roars in agony.
Thane and Rynthea don’t relent.
They manage to reach the monster’s shoulders as it throws up all of its remaining tentacles in an attempt to stop them. The two of them bob and weave, look at each other, nod, and then jump off either side, but not without piercing their blades into the creature’s neck. With their descent, the blades drag downward and slide right across the monster’s throat. Two cuts interconnected.