Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 28 of 86

The giant swung. Its fist tore through the air where Zach had stood a breath before. He rolled across the mud, blade up. Beside him Garrok's axe bit deep into the giant's leg and stuck fast in rotted flesh. The monster kicked. Garrok flew back and slammed into a boulder. Ayla ran to him, her crystal barely glowing. She had nothing left to heal. The giant fixed its dead eyes on the wounded pile of them. It stepped toward Ayla and Garrok. Zach's arms shook. Lyra threw frost that only cracked against the gray hide. The thing kept coming. It raised its cart-sized hand to crush the two on the ground. A shape dropped from the sky. It landed on the giant's shoulder, light as a leaf. Steel flashed twice. Two blades sank into the monster's neck. The giant howled and clawed at its own back, but the shape was already gone, tumbling down and landing between Zach and the river. He wore black. Cat ears rose above his long dark hair. Two katanas turned in his hands. His eyes found Raven, and he froze for half a second. "Talon?" Raven's crossbow dropped to her side. Her voice cracked. "You're dead. They told me you died." "Later, little sister," he said. "The big one first." Zach didn't understand it yet, but he understood the swords. "Its neck!" he shouted. "The old wound. Cut where he cut!" Talon moved like water. He drew the giant's swing and slid under the fist. Zach charged the leg Garrok had opened. He stopped fighting the blade's weight, and the edge went light and true. He drove it deep into the wound. The giant buckled to one knee. Raven fired. Her bolt punched into a dead eye. The giant lurched sideways, its balance gone. Talon sprang up its bent back in three steps. He crossed both katanas at the neck and pulled. The rotted head tore free and dropped into the ash. The body fell after it and lay still. Silence came back to the riverbank. Zach stood over the corpse, breathing hard, and lowered his blade. Raven crossed the mud slowly. She stopped in front of Talon. Then she hit his chest with both fists, once, and grabbed him. "Five years," she said into his shoulder. "Five years, and you let me think you were gone." "I couldn't come back," Talon said. He held her tight. "I'll tell you all of it. I've been tracking the sorcerer's men north for a long time." Zach helped Garrok to his feet. The barbarian grinned through the blood on his face. Ayla sagged with relief. Raven pulled back and looked at her brother, then at Zach. "He knows this land north of the river," she said. "Better than any map." Talon slid his katanas home. He looked at the black water ahead, toward the tower they had to reach. "Then I'm coming with you," he said.