Page 196 of Sword & Shadow
Deckard whirled, panic searing in his chest. Then he found the Warriors, sprinting ahead with inhuman speed. Yet, they, too, were staggered, Evylin slightly ahead of Ethenn.
“Time,” Deckard murmured to himself. They were each locked in their own rate of time.
The whisper of a hum hit Deckard’s ears. “No,” he gasped. The Shades couldn’t come yet. Not while they were all isolated like this.
Deckard didn’t know what to do; he didn’t know how to stop the drag of Time magic on their group. The hum began to fill his ears, a sharp, rhythmic sound like the ticking of a clock.
Deckard took a step forward, but Evylin was too far away. He couldn’t reach her fast enough. “Evylin!” he yelled, desperate to get her attention. She was too far, too out of sync with his timeline to hear him.
The hum increased, the vibration shaking him to the core. A horde of Shades would come, and they’d kill them all.
Ahead, Evylin stopped.
She turned, the Night sword a bright amethyst beam in her hand. From across the expanse, Deckard knew instinctively that she was looking at him. She’d heard him.
Suddenly, Evylin moved. With speed like he’d never seen, she was at Ethenn’s side. Then they were sprinting back.
Another swell of the hum pressed in on Deckard like a chime of a kirk bell. Evylin and Ethenn were on their way to him, but the army of Shades had arrived. Their clay forms spiraled, white sand swirling around the pieces of their magic-cobbled forms.
Deckard raised his sword, ready to fight. He just had to hold his position long enough for Evylin and Ethenn to reach him.
A hand gripped Deckard’s arm, and he jerked away, thinking it was a Shade.
“Jonn!”
Instantly, Deckard’s tension calmed at Evylin’s voice. He turned to her, sword still at the ready. She gripped his arm tightly as Ethenn kept a hand on her shoulder. “We have to hold onto each other,” she explained.
As one, the Shades moved in, each poised to attack.
“Evie,” Ethenn said warily, “I kind of need my hand back.”
Evylin cursed under her breath as Deckard swiped at the first Shade that came near. With her fingers clutching his arm, his reach wasn’t as precise as usual, and he narrowly missed the creature. Evylin struck out with the Night sword, slashing the Shade across the chest. It burst apart in a shower of sand.
The three of them shrank back from the spray. With a flash, Evylin shifted the sword into a Relic, flung it around her neck, and then knocked Ethenn’s hand off her arm. She shoved it toward the Wind bow before grabbing the collar of his coat. “Shoot!” she ordered.
Ethenn let off a flurry of arrows, each one a wisp of silver. With deadly accuracy, he killed Shade after Shade, eruptions of sand crashing like waves onto the glass floor.
Lunging with his sword, Deckard fended off each Shade that made it through Ethenn’s cover. Sand cascaded at their feet. Hands occupied with keeping their trio on the same timeline, Evylin could only strike with her feet when a Shade came near.
“We have to help the others,” Ethenn said as the horde thinned.
Deckard caught a glimpse of the Calders, struggling to defend themselves with slow flares of light and spurts of flame. At the top of the staircase, Thom and Rafferty remained frozen as the Shades dodged the Calders to attack them.
Evylin adjusted her grip on the men. “We run together,” she said.
Cautiously, they turned, moving as one. They broke into a sprint, ignoring the press of Shades to get to the Calders faster. A handful of the creatures burst apart at the strike of one of Ilain’s flames, white sand and fresh shards of glass spraying into her face. She stumbled back into another Shade. Ethenn let off an arrow, striking straight and true through the Shade’s head. It burst apart, and Ilain jerked forward, the sharp spray causing her footing to be off balance.
Evylin locked her ankle around Ethenn’s, then reached out to catch Ilain.
Ilain’s forward motion yanked Evylin, and subsequently, Deckard, forward with her. However, she caught herself before falling. “What’s happening?” she asked immediately.
“We have to keep a physical connection to stay in sync with one another,” Evylin explained while Deckard and Ethenn attended to the Shades around them.
Ilain scowled. “I hate Time magic.”
Ethenn ducked under a Shade’s swipe, and Ilain blasted it with Fire. “We have to get to the others,” she said.
“We know,” Ethenn replied.
