Behind her and four yards away from where Ember sat in her wheelchair, the sky darkened. Ember turned away from the battle to look at the crackling, hissing black portal ten times the size of the others opening where the Nimlothar illusion had been. The fae’s eyes widened as a rolling crack like thunder emerged from the portal, blasting Ember’s hair away from her face with a numbing cold wind. “Cheyenne!”
“Little busy, Em.” The halfling launched two spheres of black energy at two goblins scrambling toward her, knocking them off their feet before they crashed into the trees at the edge of the clearing.
“Yeah, I know, but this looks bad.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Cheyenne turned away from the war machine and froze when she saw the hissing, sparking outline of the massive portal in the air. Like the first time I trained with Corian. That one’s coming straight from the other side.
“Shouldn’t you do something?” Ember shouted, trying to get the attention of the other rebel magicals. They were all busy fighting the loyalists, and Cheyenne took a few steps closer to her friend before having to throw up another wide shield beneath the war machine’s next artillery blast.
“Yeah, probably. Corian!”
The nightstalker dropped out of his enhanced speed at her shout and looked at the massive portal. His silver eyes widened, then he raced toward the ogre he was fighting and threw a spray of magical spikes at him. The ogre bellowed and crashed to the ground but somehow managed to snag the nightstalker by the ankle. Corian growled and turned to fight the hulking loyalist off.
The war machine angled toward Cheyenne, and the activator helped her rip two more handfuls of its inner parts through the gaping hole in its side. A chorus of dark, wailing voices came through the growing portal from Ambar’ogúl, and Cheyenne blinked beneath the wave of déjà vu washing over her. I’ve heard that before.
A skaxen leaped at her, shrieking with laughter as his long claws slashed toward her face. She blasted him back with telekinetic force and focused on the war machine, which launched another red magical bomb across the clearing. Take that thing down first, then I can deal with the rest.
Ember glanced at the crackling portal, which was still emitting the dark chant in a chorus of otherworldly voices. Does no one get that this thing is the biggest issue right now?
The surface of the portal rippled like a giant pool of black sludge. Sparks flew in every direction, and a dark hand emerged from the other side.
“Cheyenne! Something’s coming through!”
The halfling tore another chunk out of the war machine, making it shudder and momentarily pause in its rumbling advance across the clearing. “In a second.”
“I think now’s probably better.” Ember jumped in her chair when the tank’s next blast hit Cheyenne’s large shield and sent her sailing through the air. The halfling landed on her back four feet from Ember and skidded across the grass with a snarl.
The hand coming out of the chanting portal reached out farther, dark nails glinting against slate-gray skin. The chanting intensified until it almost drowned out the sound of the battle. The rest of the arm followed, then came the tip of a dark boot poking out from beneath the hem of a black robe rippling like water. A figure cloaked from head to toe in swirling black emerged from the portal, leaning forward against the force of magical laws that should have made this impossible between two worlds.
“Cheyenne!” Ember glanced at her friend, who was too busy blasting black energy spheres into another ogre barreling toward her to pay attention to the warning. The figure stepped fully out of the shimmering portal and turned its head. Ember gaped at the two glowing golden eyes within the hood’s black pool and thought she felt her heart stop.
The figure turned away from her and headed toward Cheyenne, stepping slowly forward as it hovered an inch above the grass. The dark hand that had emerged through the portal now reached for the drow halfling as the chaos of battle raged.
She won’t make it.
A rush of fierce energy bloomed in the center of Ember’s chest and she shouted something unintelligible beneath the noise, awed by the words flowing out of her as if her voice had taken on a life of its own. Purple and pink light burst around the fae, surrounding her in a halo of shimmering magic as she reached out with both hands.
That light hurtled toward the dark figure approaching Cheyenne. The glowing golden eyes within the hood locked onto Ember a second before the fae’s magic pummeled the black cloak enshrouding the stranger. A shriek of rage and pain filled the clearing, and the figure hurtled back into the massive portal, hissing and twisting within the billowing folds of the whipping black robe. The chanting voices screamed, and the shuddering dark portal from Ambar’ogúl snapped shut with a resounding boom. For a brief moment, the battle in the clearing paused at the startling sounds and the hideous tremble shaking the ground.
Cheyenne sent a wave of earth and jagged shards of stone at the orc bearing down on her. He slid across the ground and roared when the ground opened and swallowed him beneath her manipulation, burying him in two seconds. Then she whirled to face the portal that was no longer there and saw Ember.
“Holy shit.”
The fae stood two feet in front of her wheelchair, surrounded in pulsing violet light that whipped her violet-streaked hair away
