Free Offspring (The Sword of the Dragon) by Scott Appleton

their blades together with hers. Drops of blood fell from the weapons as blue energy sizzled along the rusted metal. A beam formed and shot toward the approaching serpents.
    Severing the heads of the two nearest serpents, the beam continued on, leaving deep gashes in the necks of the other three.
    Wide-eyed, a dozen of the creatures’ companions slithered backward. But others attacked viciously. The sheer number of them overwhelmed the sisters. Caritha saw Rose’el, Laura, and Levena disappear down serpents’ throats. She would have intervened, yet the other serpents crowded around her and Evela.
    Without the other three sisters, Caritha and Evela had to fight an impossible battle. Ilfedo frowned as he caught sight of them, but he was too engaged in his own battle with a dozen more of the creatures and wasn’t able to come to their aid. At least the creatures’ carcasses were piling up around the man faster than they could replenish their numbers.
    Not even half of the hundred or so serpents that had first met Ilfedo’s attack were still alive. His feet stood in a river of blue blood, lit by the brilliance of his sword and armor.
    Caritha stabbed the body of a nearby serpent, but the creature hardly twitched. The blade probably felt like nothing more than a nasty prick.
    Its head swung around as if to move away. She lowered her sword, looking about for a next target. The options were vast, the serpents many.
    But she had underestimated the wounded serpent. Its body had encircled her, separating her from Evela. She tried to jump as it tightened the coils around her. She was too late. Its body clutched her in a deadly embrace, squeezing until her breath was forced from her lungs in a burning gasp.
    Her feet lifted off the ground as the serpent raised her into the air with its coiled tail. Several pairs of big, round white eyes feasted on her as other serpents raised their heads to witness her demise.
    Her captor slipped its long, forked tongue out of its mouth. The twin tips of its tongue cooled her neck as they touched her. She looked down the long, red tongue and found herself gazing with helpless fascination down the serpent’s gaping throat.
    Beside her, another serpent captured Evela and hung her upside down from its tail. The youngest sister struck at the creature with her sword until it managed to pin her arms to her sides. “Let go of me!” Evela yelled before the serpent tightened its grip.
    Caritha struggled for air. If she didn’t breathe she would black out.
    One of the Sea Serpents rose beside her and opened its mouth as if to receive her. Suddenly the scales on the back of its neck rose as if pushed from inside its body, and the rusted point of a sword stabbed through.
    The serpent’s eyes seemed to pop out of its sockets; its jaw opened as if in pain. But the rusted blade divided the back of its neck with an incision several feet long that laid bare the white vertebrate of its spine.
    Rose’el rose out of the serpent’s body as it fell. She stood inside the incision and spat. “All right! All right,” she growled. “Fine—humph! Take that, Ugly!” She glared at another serpent, lunged for it. “You want a chunk of me, too?”
    Almost at the same moment that Rose’el’s blade cut into another serpent, two more of the creatures fell dead. Caritha gasped for air. Her captor seemed frozen by Rose’el’s actions. Its hold on her relaxed—though only by an inch—and its mouth opened and closed several times. But it was enough for her to catch the air she needed and to see that Laura and Levena had also killed their would-be-slayers.
    The group of serpents surrounding them slithered away from the sisters. Caritha counted twenty of them racing for the sea. A mere twenty more now remained to contend with. And these looked at the sisters and tried to avoid Ilfedo’s attacks.
    He dispensed with two more of them, sent three more scrambling to the water, and launched himself onto Caritha’s captor.