The first arrow punched through a Centaur’s neck with a squidgy sound that was seriously unpleasant, but it had the desired effect. The Centaur flailed, and when the others crowded around him saw what had happened—they panicked.
A panicked scream is a much different sound than an angry one.
Fortunately, Judtha knew the difference.
Moments after the Centaurs gathered to watch the executions began to panic, yodha arrows rained down on them from above. The perimeter cleared out quite nicely.
Centaurs were nothing if not predictable.
Barb grunted her approval as a path to the main floor appeared, and she pointed. Jenny grinned, gathered her bow and arrows, and they sprinted through the chaos to the nearest boulder.
The reddish dust of the mountain gathered against her bare knees as Jenny slid to a stop behind the boulder. One or two Centaurs spotted them as they ran, but yodha arrows took care of them before they could sound an alarm.
What next? What next? Jenny peered around the boulder.
The Centaur near the pit was still struggling with Danny.
That’ll do. She stood and took aim, drawing the arrow back against the string until it burned in her fingertips. She released it.
The arrow streaked across the room and struck the Centaur holding her brother squarely in the joint of his right arm. The Centaur reared back, wailing in pain, and dropped Danny, who sprawled for a moment before flipping to his feet and racing out of the Centaur’s grasp.
Another Centaur dove for him, but Danny squeaked away with a kick to the Centaur’s kneecap.
Seriously, Centaurs needed better armor. They knew their knees were out in the open, but they refused to put armor on them. Not that she would say anything about it. Being able to kick them right in the knee was a handy option when you were being attacked. But still—if they had half a brain, it was an easy thing to fix.
Chaos erupted as more yodha arrows fell. Some of the Centaurs pulled out their cannons and started aiming for the ceiling, but without a clear target they only dislodged boulders and rocks from the wall that fell back down on top of them.
Nobody ever said Centaurs were bright.
“Ready?” Barb leaned toward her.
“Let’s go.”
They dashed out from behind the boulder. Jenny shot a Centaur in the face and another one in the leg. She stopped and knelt to gather up the yodha arrows that had fallen from the ceiling and reload her quiver.
Next to her, Barb grabbed a pulse cannon for herself and started shooting.
Barb had developed an affinity for the staff weapon. The next greatest challenge they would face was prying it out of her hands when they sent her back to Terran.
Jenny ran to another boulder, pulling out an arrow and loosing it into a Centaur that was charging at her. She peered around the rock to the other side of the chamber.
Danny had reached Mickey and helped her out of her bonds, and Mickey had come alive. She’d found a rope somewhere and was using it like a whip, snapping it around Centaur legs and yanking them off balance, lassoing it around their necks and jerking them backward to the ground so Danny could knock them out.
They made a good team, for sure.
Jenny shot another Centaur and looked for Barb. Barb met her eyes and pointed wildly to the other side of the chamber.
Jenny glanced. Jim had run to help Meg, and the two of them were struggling against a much larger Centaur who was trying to knock them both out. Meg was still half bound, and Jim wasn’t coordinated enough to kick or punch the Centaur. He was trying, though it looked more like a stork trying to can-can.
“Oh, boy.” Jenny drew back an arrow and let it fly.
The Centaur attacking them dropped as her arrow planted itself in his neck.
Barb dashed out from her boulder and ran toward Jim, pausing only to shoot more Centaurs between them.
With an angry thwacking sound, the floor of the chamber began to shake. The Centaurs on the mezzanine had gotten organized and were firing pulse cannons at them.
Great.
Jenny leaped out from behind the boulder as a pulse blast disintegrated it. Ahead of her, Meg was locked in combat with another Centaur. The tehnyga blasts were going to get them all killed.
Jenny raced toward her sister. She skidded to a brief stop, though, as she spotted three energy sabers laying in a pile on the floor. She recognized all of them. Velanna’s, Tzaitel’s, and Meg’s.
She picked up speed again, scooped the sabers up, and dropped them into her quiver. The pulse blasts followed her footsteps like some sort of demented waltz. With a cry, she dove under a small ledge and waited until the pulse blasts lightened up.
She took two quick breaths, pulled an arrow, and peered out into the chamber. The Centaurs weren’t even aiming.
Fortunately, the Yodha were still shooting as well and had taken down several of the cannon users from the mezzanine.
But Meg was still fighting the Centaur. Unarmed.
Because Meg had to do everything the hard way.
Jenny groaned and jumped into the open, drawing her bow and arrow and aiming for the Centaur’s face. She loosed the arrow, and it plunged into his neck.
Not where she was aiming.
But she was stressed.
And he was dead. So, close enough.
Meg spun around, surprised as the Centaur she’d been fighting dropped dead, and she froze, dirty face turning the color of ash. “Jenny?”
Jenny tackled her around the waist, rolling them both under a ledge as a chorus of energy pulses pounded the ground behind them.
Under the ledge, Meg hauled her into her arms and nearly crushed her in a trembling embrace.
Meg gave the best hugs. She put her whole heart into them. Jenny let her bow fall to the floor as she clutched her sister’s back and buried her face in her shoulder. Meg smelled like ginger and lilac and wild, fresh air, and it was a scent Jenny had thought she’d never smell again.
“Hi, Meg,” she whispered.
“You’re alive.” Meg heaved a ragged sob. “How are you alive?” She detached herself and took Jenny’s face in her hands, frantically turning her from one side to the other. “Are you hurt? Are you bleeding? Where have you been? What happened?”
“Meg, breathe.”
Meg kissed her forehead and pulled her back into an embrace again. “I thought you were dead. I thought I lost you, Jenny. I was losing my mind.”
“I’m sorry, Meg.”
Meg gasped and pulled back. “Barb?”
“Barb’s okay. She’s here too.”
“Thank God.” Meg pressed her brow into Jenny’s. “Thank God.” Her voice shook.
Jenny beamed up into her face. “I have too much to tell you. But we need to go. The yodha can’t hold them off forever.”
“The yodha? Why are they here?”
“Part of the long story.” Jenny moved to stand, but Meg stopped her.
“We can’t go.”
Jenny frowned. “Why not?”
“Tiron took something from me. I have to get it back.”
Jenny took her arm. “Meg, I’m fine. I’m right here, okay? He didn’t take anything.”
“Oh sweetheart.” Meg kissed her forehead again. “Not you.”
“Then what?”
“He took something Velanna gave me.”
“Oh.” Jenny reached for her quiver and pulled out the energy saber she’d picked up off the floor. “You mean this? I found it on my way over here. You need to do a better job of holding on to this thing, Meg.”
Meg blinked in surprise and chuckled quietly as she took it from Jenny’s hands. “Thanks.”
“Now can we go?”
“Jenny.” Meg caught her arm. “Velanna had a weapon. It’s how she defended the castle.”
Jenny knelt again, tuning out the sounds of battle outside the relative quiet of the ledge they crouched under. “The Light?”
Meg scowled. “Yes. How—?”
“Tiron talked about it. He thought Velanna had it.”
“She did. But using it nearly killed her, so—”
“She gave it to you?”
Meg nodded.
“Meg, that’s great!” Jenny shifted to her knees. “That’s exactly what I would have done.”
Meg looked away. “It wouldn’t work for me.” She peered out around Jenny’s shoulder. “I did everything she told me, and it didn’t work. So I need to go get it back and give it back to her.”
Jenny sat back on her heels. “Why didn’t it work?”
“I don’t know.” Meg leaned over, squinting to see outside.
“Did Velanna think it would?”
“Yes, of course.” Meg checked her saber and slid it into her hilt on her lower back. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have given it to me, but I failed. Sort of par for the course, I think.”
A burble of anger bubbled up in Jenny’s throat, and she sat up straighter. “So it should have worked for you.”
“Obviously not.”
“So Velanna was wrong?”
“She just put her hopes in the wrong person, Jenny.” Meg grabbed her shoulders. “Now we need to stop talking about this so I can go—”
“Why didn’t it work for you, Meg?”
“Because I’m not her.” Meg’s voice cracked, and she shook Jenny’s shoulders a bit. “I’m not Velanna, Jenny. That’s why it won’t work for me.”
Jenny tilted her head. “That’s a lie, Meg.”
Meg blinked.
Jenny stared at her. Didn’t she see? Didn’t she understand? How could Meg not know?
“Meg, Velanna doesn’t want you to be her. She knows you can’t be, because you’re you.” Jenny offered a smile and wrapped her fingers around Meg’s elbows. “You don’t need to be anyone else.”
Meg sighed hugely and pressed her brow against Jenny’s again. “Today, I do.”
Jenny frowned, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness under the ledge, noticing for the first time that Meg was dripping with thick, black blood. Jenny brushed at some of it.
“What is this?”
Meg winced. “Gaja blood.”
“Gaja. Is that the dragons?”
“Yeah.”
Jenny paused, watching her sister’s face closely. “Meg?”
Meg met her eyes.
“Who killed the big dragon?”
Meg bit her lip.
“Did Velanna do it?”
Meg sank inward a little. “No, I did.”
“You did?”
“Yeah?”
“You cut his head off?”
“Yeah.” Meg grimaced. “Kind of gross, right?”
“Meg, you’re a dragon slayer! That’s awesome!”
Meg rolled her eyes and blushed slightly under the dirt and grime on her face.
Jenny looked down at her bow and then back at her sister. “How? I didn’t think anything could get through their hide.”
Meg shifted again. “Jenny, we don’t have time—”
“How did you do it?”
Meg squared her shoulders. “I used a new setting on my saber. Velanna showed it to me.”
There it is. “And you followed her instructions to the letter, did you? And that’s how you killed the dragon?”
Meg started to answer again and paused with her mouth open. She grimaced and glanced away. “Not exactly to the letter.”
“Meg.”
“Jenny. No time.” Meg pointed out toward the main chamber and stood.
Why is she so stubborn? “Meg.” Jenny grabbed her arm. “You killed a dragon, and you did it on your terms. Not Velanna’s. That’s the truth.”
Meg stared at her.
“Velanna isn’t right about everything all the time,” Jenny said, met her sister’s gaze. “Sometimes you have to figure things out on your own. That’s what makes you strong. That’s what makes you—you.”
With an audible swallow, Meg shook herself. “I don’t know if I can do that, Jenny.”
Jenny wrapped her arms around Meg’s waist and laid her head on her shoulder. “Someday, Meg, you’ll believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.” She clutched the back of Meg’s blouse in her hands. “Just try. Would you please try?”
Slowly, Meg wrapped her in a tight embrace and sighed.
“For you? I’ll do anything, Jenny.”
Jenny pulled back and met her gaze without blinking. “Then, let’s do this together.”
“How?”
“I’ll shoot him.” She reached down and grabbed her bow. “And you get the Light thingy.”
Meg grimaced. “I don’t know. I would be more comfortable if you stayed here.”
And she’s back again.
Big Sister Mode back in effect.
Jenny held out her bow, grabbed an arrow from her yodha-made quiver, and snapped it in place. “Meg, you can’t do this by yourself.”
Meg hesitated.
“I’m strong enough to help.” Jenny stared at her. “Let me.”
Meg cupped the side of her face in a rough palm. “I don’t like it.” She smiled. “But I’m not sure I get a vote.”
Jenny grinned. “Nope, you don’t.”
Meg kissed her forehead again. “You got a plan?”
“Let’s get out there, and when Tiron raises his hand high enough, I’ll shoot him in the fingers.” She held up her bow. “That should make him drop your light thingy.”
Meg scowled deeply. “You have been hanging out with Barb too much.”
“I like Barb.” Jenny laughed. “She’s so grouchy all the time.”
Jenny ducked under the ledge and moved carefully into the open air of the chamber with Meg behind her.
Across the chamber, Barb had managed to wrangle a pulse cannon away from a Centaur and was shooting in between yodha arrow strikes. Jim wasn’t obvious anywhere, but it was probably better for everyone that he was staying out of the way.
Danny and Mickey had teamed up on the other side of the chamber as well, Danny with a set of knives and Mickey with a length of rope. They spun around each other like they were two halves of a whole, like they’d been fighting together their entire lives.
Toward the center of the room, near the lava pit, Tiron shouted at his troops.
Tzaitel and Velanna found side by side near him, energy saber blades swinging in unison like a dance.
Meg emerged next to Jenny and took her arm. “I’ll run at him. You shoot him.”
“Is that all?”
“We can improvise from there.” Meg smirked. “Unless you think you can’t hit him.” Her eyes twinkled.
“Oh.” Jenny spread her feet and took aim with grin. “Challenge accepted.”