Free The Labyrinth of the Dead by Sara M. Harvey Page B

her
chin down and came at them with her shoulders, catching them just below the
knees. She pushed upward with all her strength, opening her wings for more
leverage, and sent both of them over the side of the bridge into the stream
below.
    The next attacker was on her before she
could regain her footing. This one came with far less bravado. It approached
with blade raised, knocking into Portia with its bulk before swinging the dark
sickle toward the back of her thighs to incapacitate her. She let herself fall,
spreading her wings wide to cushion the blow, and plunged the point of the
battle axe between the chestplate it wore and the
leather corselet protecting its abdomen. With practiced ease, she brought up
her feet and kicked the reaper over her, using the inertia of its enormous body
to keep it moving. Springing to her feet, she hacked through the leather flap
covering the base of the creature’s skull until purple-brown blood began to fly
and the reaper shuddered violently and went still.
    Only one of the reapers was emerging
from the water. Coils of steam rose from its flesh as it staggered toward the
leader still idly leaning on the rail. Without taking his eyes from Portia, the
captain pulled a black kris blade from a thigh
sheath. The knife’s edge looked dangerously sharp, but no light glinted along
its surface. In fact, it seemed to draw in the surrounding light and devour it.
Noticing Portia’s discomfort, the captain smiled and ran his tongue across the
rippled surface of the blade before plunging it into the reaper’s throat. He
commanded the others forward with a guttural order and they came in a swarm.
    These troops were cautious, none
wanting to be the first to engage her. They feinted forward and back at the
foot of the bridge, trying to draw her down to them. Portia could see the
radiance of her flesh reflected in their armor and in their eyes. Finally, the
leader barked something at them and swung one reaper up onto the bridge by its
arm. As it stumbled forward, the others pressed in behind. Splinters shivered
loose from the understructure of the bridge as so many of them piled onto it.
She stretched her wings wide, preparing to take to the air should it give way.
    Portia swung and blocked with the axe,
chopping through fingers and arms as easily as cutting up carrots with a
kitchen knife. But there were always more, cramming themselves bodily onto the
bridge. Nails shrieked as they tore loose and the structure began to weaken. An
upward arc cleft one face in two, but as the reaper fell, more just climbed
over the body to reach her. And so it went; as Portia dropped one assailant,
two more took its place until she had retreated just past the apex of the span
and over twenty reapers—living, injured, and dead—were crowded onto the
ornamental bridge.
    The collapse began as a moan and a
shudder that quickly progressed into a violent shaking, compounded by the crush
of reapers trying to remove themselves before they faced a watery end. Portia
jumped, flapping her wings in a slow, steady beat to gain as much altitude as
possible.
    The reapers leaped as well, and they
jumped higher. The barbed hooks dug into her trousers and her skin, catching on
whatever they touched. She could not escape their weight, and they pulled her
down toward them. She swung wildly with the axe, severing fingers, hands, and
arms, but more came. There were always more.
    As she fought to stay aloft, she saw the
supports blow out in a shower of splintered wood. The decking fell straight
down before it broke into pieces on the stream’s bed. Jagged shafts of wood
impaled a handful of the reapers, and the water began to scald the rest. Portia
landed heavily atop them all, finding little to soften her fall among the
armored bodies sharp with bone spurs. It stung mightily to tear the hooks from
her flesh, and each time she rested her weight anywhere, more pierced her. She
crawled over the moaning pile toward the leader, watching a safe