I watched as Vincent, Cadmus, and the Correction Officers turned back, their horses rushing and nervously neighing as the group looked for a path into the neighboring gorge. I couldn’t neglect the knots in my stomach as I returned to my normal vision and gave Hansa a concerned look.

“I can’t help but wonder if this was not accidental,” I said.

She turned her indigo horse and proceeded to catch up with the tracking spell, now twenty yards away from us, and we followed.

“Have you seen anything in this world, so far, that went wrong and was just a coincidence?” Hansa replied, visibly annoyed by this unexpected turn of events. We were, after all, fifty-one men short.

“Nope, it’s just one machination after another.” I sighed, my instincts kicking in.

“We need to stay hyper-alert now,” she said. “Whoever did this, they wanted us separated.”

We were in enemy territory. We all knew what she meant by “whoever”, and we were bound to see the air rippling around us soon enough. I couldn’t see them, but my spine was tingling with anticipation. Daemons couldn’t be far away.

“They blew up the gorge, though,” Patrik said. “This means they’re far better organized than we’d initially thought.”

“Yes, and it also means they may be just as dangerous and skilled in battle without their invisibility gimmick as they are with it,” Jax replied.

After following the tracking spell for another two hundred yards, my prediction came true.

The air rippled ominously before us as daemons emerged from nearby crevices. I heard their claws scratching against the stone, their feet shuffling around us.

“Get ready,” Hansa growled, drawing her broadsword.

Our blades swished out of their scabbards, eager to take on the beasts closing in on us. Our horses stopped, shaking their heads and kicking their front hooves against the hard ground, as if warning the daemons to stay away. My mare in particular was a feisty one, her muscles jerking as I tightened my thighs against her ribs.

There were at least thirty of them, based on the flickers of red eyes that I could see, and they moved in a wide circle around us, looking for the perfect attack angle.

“Patrik, be a doll and do the honors, please,” Hansa said, her glare fixed on a couple of fiends to her right.

The Druid nodded, then muttered a spell under his breath and put his left arm out, index and middle fingers pointing at the stream. The water burst upward, then spread out like rain, pouring all over us on a fifty-foot radius.

One by one, the daemons were revealed, shocked by this development. Their red eyes were wide, their mouths open—the only indicators of any emotion. Other than that, they were all designed to kill, just like the one back in the infirmary: they were extremely tall and robust, with razor-sharp claws and fangs, curved horns, and a plethora of tattoos covering various parts of their arms and chests.

They looked at one another for a moment, then scowled at us and began moving forward.

“Yeah, we broke their cover. They’re not happy,” I said, then patted my mare’s neck. “Sorry, my friend, you need to step aside for this one. These guys are big and mean, and I don’t want them to hurt you.”

I got off and pointed to the side, where a dark and quiet corner could be used for cover. The rest of our team jumped off their horses as well. I used my mind control to push them aside.

“Go on, go wait for us there. We won’t be long,” I told my mare.

The creature neighed and trotted off to that corner, followed by the other horses. We then turned around and moved closer to the middle, gathering in a tight circle with our backs to each other. The daemons growled and prepared to pounce.

“These dudes are huge,” Heron said, his sword out and thirsty for blood.

“It’s a good thing we don’t need any of them alive to lead us to Fiona.” Scarlett glanced around, then shrugged. “I’ve been looking to intensify my practice, anyway.”

“Let’s just get this over with fast,” Hansa replied, just as the first daemon smirked, then charged her. “The tracking spell keeps moving! Blaze, light ’em up!”

The rest of the fiends came at us at once.

But Blaze burst into full dragon form as soon as we made room for him, and the daemons were forced to scatter. The dragon was gorgeous, his black scales and dark orange underbelly rivaled only by his big, beautiful blue eyes, his clawed wings stretching out, and his spiked tail smashing left and right, into the fiends.

Some of the daemons evaded Blaze’s claws and tail hits, but my twin swords didn’t forgive. The horned creatures were ridiculously fast, though. Now that they were visible, they seemed even lighter on their feet, dodging my strikes left and right. I had two of my own to deal with, while Hansa, Jax, Scarlett, Avril, Heron, and Caia took on the others.

More daemons poured out of narrow slits in the stone walls, but Patrik’s water shower kept coming down, and the Druid launched spheres of blue fire with his spare hand. They didn’t kill the fiends, but they dazed them into standing still for long enough to get crushed between Blaze’s jaws.

I avoided a direct hit from one of my two opponents, while Blaze turned and tried to get as many daemons as he could in one blow. We were too close and the gorge too narrow for him to use his fire, but he was big and angry enough to not give them a chance to bring any of us down.

A claw slashed my shoulder, and I hissed from the pain, then slid on my back with both swords up. I cut through a daemon’s inner thighs, slipping between his strong, muscular legs. He roared from the pain, blood gushing on the ground in large crimson spurts, and I quickly jumped back to my feet and crossed my swords against the back of his neck. I cut his head off with one swift move, then took on another daemon.

I dodged its claws in a series of sidesteps, then brought my swords swishing through the air between us, the tips of my blades cutting deep into his forearms, then his chest and face. I kept hitting until the daemon was overwhelmed by the speed of my attacks. I caught a glimpse of our horses, and my blood froze, anger and bile rising into my stomach as I saw daemons tearing into them.

“No, no, no!” I growled, and drove my sword right through my opponent’s throat.

He fell to his knees, and I kicked him back with my boot. I swerved through the clashes of swords and claws between Scarlett, Heron, and Avril, and ran toward the horses. Three were down, including my mare, blood pooling beneath them. My heart ached as I sidestepped one of the two daemons attacking the horses, and decapitated the one whose fangs had just pierced a fourth horse’s throat.

The animal shuddered and managed to scamper off, while the other six moved farther back, unharmed and still under my control. I had a feeling the one that had just run off had snapped out after its injury.

I stumbled as a heavy kick landed in the small of my back. I managed to throw my arm back with one sword, but I missed the attacking monster by inches, and I left my side open for another attack. I saw his grin and his claws coming in for just that, when a wide blade pierced his neck from behind. He stilled, blood gurgling out of his open mouth, then fell flat on his face as the sword was withdrawn.

“What the—” I gasped, stunned to see Caspian standing before me, his mask and hood on, his jade eyes glimmering with fury, and his blade coated in daemon blood. I quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw a few more daemons coming, while the rest of my team killed their fair share, with Blaze still leading on the scoreboard.

“You’ll get yourself killed. I told you!” Caspian spat, then turned around and took on a daemon.

A second fiend tried to get his side, while a third came at me. Even in such circumstances, Lord Kifo still found the time and energy to berate me.

The nerve of this guy!

My anger served me well, though, as I evaded a couple of attacks, then ran one daemon through with both my swords. I followed it up with a 360-degree turn to gather some speed and slashed the second daemon’s side before it got a chance to hurt Caspian, who brought the other one down with a vertical gash, splitting his chest open.

“So, what, you’ve come along to die with us, Lord Kifo?” I said, gritting my teeth.

A couple more daemons scurried over their comrades’ dead bodies to exact their revenge, but Caspian still found yet another second to further annoy me.

“No, I’m here to save you, because I’ve been raised to be merciful and helpful toward lesser creatures!” he shot back, then engaged the incoming daemons.

My blood boiled. But it was good fuel for what came next.