Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [122]
Her claws sank into the mortar between the stones of the frame. She looked at them with surprise, then bared her teeth and swung out from the window. Digging in with fingers and toes, she scaled the wall as easily as if it were nothing more than a steep bank of earth. Six feet… ten feet… twelve… and she was racing up the pitch of Moonshadow Hall's roof toward the high walkway. All along the parapet, the iron hooks of grapples shook as Sharrans scaled the outer walls while Selunite priestesses huddled against the edge of the walkway, driven back by the unnatural horror of the black dogs' howling. They shrieked and flinched as Feena vaulted onto the walkway.
Moonshadow Hall's defenders had been reduced to frightened girls. Feena spread her hands. If she could speak in hybrid form, could she work magic as well?
"Selune be with us," she prayed. "Protect us from the terrors of the night!"
The Moonmaiden's magic swirled like a stirring song, blotting out the lingering echoes of the black dogs' howls. The priestesses gasped as renewed courage took hold of them.
"To arms, sisters!" Feena howled. "To arms!"
She whirled toward the parapet-just as the first Sharrans hurled themselves over the edge and onto the walkway in a frenzy of screaming madness.
If the sight of a werewolf startled them, they didn't show it. A surprisingly well-dressed young man flung himself at her.
"Beast!" he shrieked. "This is for Cyrume and Keph!"
He swung at her with a sword, but Feena blocked it with her arm. The blade sliced into her flesh-but without magic or silver behind it, the cut was no more than a sting. The young man's blow was unnaturally strong, though. She could almost smell the dark magic that clung to him. Growling, she caught his arm before he could swing again, then grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in close.
"You fool!" she roared in his face. "Keph is my friend!"
The wolf in her bayed for blood, urged her to rake claws across the Sharran's flesh. She held back the savage instinct and punched instead. A jab rocked the Sharran's head back. A backhand twisted it around. If Keph could recognize the mistakes he had made and turn from Shar, maybe there was hope for the other cultists as well. When she released her grip, the young man slid down to sprawl across the walkway. Feena grabbed the next Sharran to come over the parapet and gave him the same.
Bolstered by Shar's magic, none of the cultists went down easily. Selune's faithful were better armed than the Sharrans, however. Inch by inch and blow by blow, the Sehlnites pressed them back toward the parapet-
–until a woman's voice rolled up from below, speaking a blasphemous prayer to the Lady of Loss.
The worst of the wounds the defenders had inflicted on the Sharrans vanished. The cultists surged forward with renewed vigor. Variance! It had to be the dark priestess.
Feena cursed and leaned out over the parapets, but could see nothing in the shadows below other than the black dogs. They paced and snarled, waiting for prey to come within reach. Feena howled at them and their snarling broke into a frenzy.
Farther along the curve of the wall, though, there was trouble. The battering ram she'd heard as she spoke the oath of the New Moon Pact was swinging again at the front gates. Its dull thunder echoed in the street. Feena wrenched one of the Sharrans' grappling hooks, abandoned now, free of the parapet and charged along the walkway, rope trailing after her.
"Make way!" she shouted. "Make way!"
Another Sharran tried to stop her. She met him with a stiff arm that knocked him back off his feet and left him clutching his chest and choking. On the ground below, the black dogs shadowed her in a growing pack.
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