Magician's Touch (Deadly Touch book 3) Chapter 48: 48: Unstoppable

Read chapter 48 of Magician's Touch (Deadly Touch book 3) by Deb E Howell on NovelPedia.

Jonas rose above the Ajnais without drawing attention from the force gathering on the road. The front-most officers drew aligned with the farm entrance and turned to face Llew’s little army while those a row behind about-faced to await their rearmost troops to collect. One of the officers startled, hesitating that fraction of a moment Jonas had predicted before alerting his compatriots to the approaching risk. The entry arch afforded some protection, forcing the troops to bottleneck through, or jump the fence and risk a fall, but Llew’s soldiers wanted to keep the fight on the road. They raced to meet the challenge, Winnie and Blink leading the charge, engaging with the temporarily disoriented officers, then positioning themselves to keep the fence to their backs. Llew placed herself right in the mix and gripped bare skin at every opportunity. Eyes widened and mouths gaped at her then screamed as soldiered fought to free themselves from her grip. Some tried to help their comrades, only to feel the burn where their skin brushed hers. Such a distraction opened up opportunities for Ivor or Delwynn to strike. She glanced up and along the road to see Jonas dodging arrows and flinging knives from the air. The distraction cost her. A sword sunk through her side. Before the pain fully registered, she gripped the blade and yanked it further into her, slicing her own hands and pulling the soldier off balance, grabbed his wrist. He bellowed under her burning grasp and died before she could pull the blade free. Ripping blade from flesh already healed around it hurt far more than the blade sinking in. She flung it aside and hurled herself at another soldier, finding more flesh, healed her wound and kept draining. She pulled a knife to defend against further attack, finding more flesh when she could. She wasn’t confident in her ability to deliver a killing blow with a blade. Draining life required no skill. Three thunderous booms echoed across the wide valley. Already in the process of pulling someone close, using them as a shield as she drained life from them, Llew’s head filled with images of blood spurting from Jonas’s chest and him flying backwards, hitting the ground a dead-weight. Could Turhmos have Braph’s machines? Gaards, he had called them; named for inventor and first victim, both. Of course they could. Jonas was in trouble. Grabbing bare flesh, pulling soldiers into her and letting them fall dead, Llew pushed her way through. Boom! Weapons pierced her from behind. She pulled free and forged ahead, dropping the dead and clutching new life ahead of her, slicing a path, leaving death and confusion behind her. Boom! Turhmos’s Aenuks may have been trained to take their Quaven killers with them, but no Turhmos soldier would expect to have such power turned on them. Boom! Stop! Not again … Llew emerged into a clearing, where Jonas stood, his knee bent in as stable a crouch as he could manage; eyes alight, a dark smile on his face, Syakaran blades in hands, and very much alive. Six small metal balls littered the ground near his boots. Had Llew ever seen him so happy? One Turhmos soldier stood directly before him, a Gaard held in one hand, lowering, his face drawn and paling. The rest of the fight passed in a blur. Jonas was and would be fine. Llew’s ghi-sink strategy worked better than she had anticipated, and just as well for Blink and Winnie, and soon the road outside Merrid and Ard’s farm was littered with the bodies of some sixty Turhmos soldiers, plus some of their comrades. Before she could assess their injuries, Llew had to make herself safe to touch again. Llew, Blink, and Winnie ran back inside the farm boundary and to the Ajnais to heal their Syakaran blade wounds. “It’s over!” Llew called as she neared the trees. Rowan emerged from the farmhouse. “Any of ours dead? I have a tiny amount of purified magic. The sooner we can collect more of your blood the better for Jonas. I presume Blink and Winnie can take care of the injured.