Chapter 15

"That thing," he inquired. "Can you see its soul?"

Atticus took a look and shook his head. "I only see the spirits of the dead," he said.

Dane lingered, going over the plan in his head. It had to work.

"Its soul is small. It does not even cover half of its body," he revealed. "It moves from end to end. And, the end without the soul can't move."

The priest looked at Dane. "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"Get Sir to attack its tail, and you stick to the head. I'll tell you when its soul moves to the tail. The window will be short…but if you're fast enough, you can get the relic out of its mouth or kill it."

Atticus wasted no time. He strode toward the serpent and ordered the weary men to focus on the tail. They all had shards of glass in their hands now. Dane joined them.

The knight was battered and injured but still fighting. He bounded toward the tail with a spring in his step as Atticus drew its attention.

Dane struck the tail with everything he had, which wasn't much. The glass drew blood, but only barely. The men around him did not yield as much as he did. The knight reached them, balls of fire hovering around him already. Dane moved out of the way as they flung themselves toward the tail.

'Come on,' he thought, hoping against hope as he pierced the veil. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the knight brandishing his flaming sword against the serpent amidst choking smoke. The scales were red hot, glowing like molten. But the serpent did not respond. Not yet.

Sir's sword sunk into the tail and slashed through. The tip and a fair chunk fell to the ground with a thud. The metal surrounding the wound began to bubble, taking the knight by surprise as he stepped back, keeping his distance.

The bubbling iron shaped itself pointedly around the wound, and then the wound was gone. Even the heat of the fire had subsided. It was as if it had never been wounded. Dane would have certainly thought so if he couldn't see that it had become visibly smaller, losing maybe two or three meters in length. The serpent still did not respond.

Atticus was struggling on his side. He barely avoided the serpent's angled strikes. The serpent lashed at him from below, venom drizzling outward. The priest jumped backward and raised his robe. The venom slid off harmlessly as he raised his sword to strike at the overextended serpent.

Glass met an iron fang in a clash of sparks. Atticus groaned against the weight. The serpent was nonplussed, pushing Atticus's blade away slowly.

Suddenly, the priest's left hand left his sword and reached for the hilt as his blade lost support and was pushed to the side, the head of the serpent going with it from the sudden loss of balance.

The sword dissipated into nothingness, and Atticus immediately retrieved it again and flicked it. The transparent glass was bathed in blue blood streaming from the Terror's eye.

A rumbling hiss raised Dane's hackles and sent shivers down his spine. "Sir, more fire!" he shouted. The knight did not disappoint. A half dozen balls of flame fell on the ophidian's tail, two of which exploded with blinding light.

His eyes begged to be closed, tears of pain sliding down his face, but Dane did not give in.

Between having its eye mutilated and its tail almost eviscerated, the Terror must have been in a world of pain. It craned its head up wildly and shook wildly. It barreled downward onto Atticus, almost crushing him. The man lost his balance and fell backward.

Immediately, the creature took the chance as Dane watched its soul rush toward the tail. "Now!" he cried. He bounded away from the tail as it twisted like a sword and slashed toward Sir. "Atticus, now!" he yelled again, seeing Atticus lying on the floor, motionless.

The ground rumbled beneath him as the tail smashed into the floor. Sir narrowly avoided it and embedded his sword into it, slicing through a length of iron scales. Blue blood drizzled onto his face and got into his red eyes.

"Shit!" Dane cursed, running as fast as his body could toward the Terror's head. He glanced at Atticus and the blood covering the floor where his head was. Poor guy must have fallen hard.

The legacy wasted no time. He dropped his glass shard, tugged the sword of glass out of the priest's clenched hand, and turned to the Terror. Its remaining blue eye glared daggers at him from the floor, and its head twitched silently as he saw the soul rushing back. Dane brought the blade down as every part of his upper body protested with violent pain. The sword bit into its head, barely.

He did not have enough strength. The sword did not go any farther. Dane tried to lift the sword, but iron bubbled around it. The serpent's head rose high above the ground and coiled like rope, and the muscles contracted impossibly, pulling Dane toward its venom-coated fangs.

He did not resist the pull. He strained his forearms taut, vaulting himself up above its head. Adrenaline made it all seem slow, and his heart raged in a storm of fear as the head twisted toward him. A ball of fire licked his feet as it whizzed past him and struck the Terror. Momentarily safe from the serpent, Dane realized he was falling neck-first from over five meters in the air. Crap.

The only thing he could use to break his fall was the serpent. He was not keen on it. His instincts told him that he would die if he did not take hold of it.

His right-hand shot toward its neck and grasped it. His hand and forearm wrapped around it desperately. The head was speeding to the ground in a strike, facing Sir now. He saw it looking at him from the corner of its evil eye. Pain jolted from his hand as red bathed its scales. The iron of the serpent's neck had become sharp and cut him. Screaming with his mouth closed, Dane let go, now falling on his back.

The serpent did not relent, snapping toward him and abandoning the earlier strike. Dane fell with a thud and groaned as he felt glass piercing his back. He rolled to the side as the serpent crashed into the marble where he just was.

Everything asked him to stay down. To die. He wanted to give in. 'Just this much?' he asked himself in spite. 'Come on. Get up.' The serpent was already raising its head.

Dane crawled backward as he forced his left hand to push himself up. His right hung limply. Uselessly. Blood dripped from it, draining him. His head throbbed dully, and his ears rang. 'Just have to get that sword," he thought. The glassy sword stuck in its head.

The knight appeared and brandished his sword wreathed in fire. It glided through the air and met the serpent's snout. This was all the help he was going to get. The knight was tired and wouldn't last long. The man was breathing heavily and groaning silently. The remains of the host, two men, had abandoned all hope, pressing their backs against the walls. As far away from the Terror as possible. Cowards. They were surrounded, serpents barred the entry, and the ghouls waited in the basement. There was no escape. They were dead men waiting for death.

He wobbled onto his feet and shuffled to the side, where the serpent's mutilated eye was. If there was any hope of surviving, it was where it could not see. To bide his time and wait for an opportunity to—an opportunity to arrive? None would come. He was foolish for even thinking so. He would have to fight tooth and nail if he wanted to beat this trial.

As soon as he was out of its line of sight, he summoned the Dead Medallion. His body turned cold, and the blood dripped out of his hand slower than before. This thing attacked everywhere, even if it couldn't see. Either it could sense souls, with how peculiar its soul was. Or it was feeling body heat to a ridiculous degree.

The knight spun his sword in an arc, opening a gash in its face that closed as quickly as it opened. It snapped forward and caught his sword between its iron fangs. As they struggled, Dane leaped forward from the side.

He was behind its head, and the serpent was none the wiser. He lifted the glass sword by the hilt with adrenaline-fueled strength. The sword came free. He swung into its open maw. The flesh inside was not nearly as tough as the iron exterior, cutting open easily before Atticus's sword. The serpent let go of the knight's sword and recoiled in pain as Dane sprang away, and Sir did not let the chance go. He slid the Relic off its fang and backed away as the serpent immediately sprayed venom.

The venom did not miss its mark. Dane watched on in horror as the knight's shrieks overlapped with the ringing of his ears. The ring fell from his hand, clattering. It stopped at Dane's feet. The knight took a deep breath and balanced himself, crying tears of blood. Balls of flame coalesced in his hands, just like at the gate.

"Boy! Take the Relic and go! Up the stairs! Out the window!"