Willing Sacrifice Read Free Page B

him to follow where she led. A layered mess of fur, coarse fabric and leather covered her body, frothing around her calves with each hurried step.
    They ducked into a rough hut made from inky black sticks and thick, stiff grass the color of gunmetal.
    “Where am I?” he asked.
    “Temprocia, the world I now call home.”
    “Where’s Grace?” demanded Torr.
    “No time for that. We are under attack.”
    No way. Torr might get only one chance to find the woman he loved, and he was not going to waste it. “Your attack can wait. Where is Grace?”
    Brenya pulled aside a leather hide covering a window and pointed across the clearing. Several huts dotted the area. One large fire burned in the center of the clearing, ringed by pink stones. Just on the other side of the fire crawled a reptilian animal twice Torr’s size. It had six legs that sent it slinking across the ground like a centipede, but faster. Its long tail was forked, and each prong moved independently of the other. Both were thick and covered in bonelike spikes. Its elongated head was filled with rows of conical teeth meant for ripping apart meat and crushing bone.
    “Your Grace is dead if you don’t help. Now go forth and slay the beast before it reaches my baby girls.”
    A small child with white-blond hair raced toward a hut, but her chubby little legs weren’t fast enough to carry her out of harm’s way. The beast saw her and charged.
    Torr drew his sword as he bolted out of the hut. A bellow burst from his lungs, drawing the creature’s attention away from the child.
    It hissed, tensed its body and a second later used that massive forked tail to fling itself toward him.
    Torr leapt out of the way, rolling as he hit the ground. Rocks and sticks dug into his bare back, grinding the disk against his spine. The pain of it was a distant, inconsequential thing that he gave no attention to.
    He came out of his roll, landing on his feet, his sword level and ready to swing.
    The creature was only a few feet away. He could see now that it had massive eyes the color of swamp water. Its skin seemed to shift on its frame, creating a dizzying pattern of movement that drew his attention.
    Nicholas was right. Torr was way too easily distracted.
    From the corner of his eye he saw movement. A woman sprinted across the ground to scoop up the little blond girl and carry her to safety. For a second, Torr thought he recognized the woman. She almost looked like Andra, but younger.
    Tori? It was possible, but the woman he saw was too old to be the same one who’d left Dabyr with Grace only a few months ago.
    Now wasn’t the time to worry about who she was, not when the beast was preparing to charge.
    Torr shifted to his left, using the fire to protect his back. There was no way to know if this creature was alone, and the last thing he needed was a nasty surprise.
    Another hiss erupted from the reptile, and its tail curled up under it, preparing to launch it into the air again.
    Torr held his ground. The thing charged through the air. He stepped cleanly out of the way, letting it jump headfirst into the roaring fire.
    No!
called Brenya, her voice a resounding boom inside his skull.
Not the fire!
    Torr had no idea what she meant until he saw that the creature wasn’t screaming in pain. It wasn’t even moving fast to escape the blaze. All it was doing was burning as it turned around for another attack.
    That’s when Torr realized what Brenya meant. Fire wasn’t hurting the creature; it was simply giving it another advantage. Because now, he wasn’t just fighting a giant flying lizard—he was fighting a giant
flaming
flying lizard.
    And he wasn’t fireproof.
    The creature launched itself toward Torr again. He spun out of the way, but the beast came so close that it left a singed patch across his bare ribs.
    Blade in hand, he turned to face it, angling away from the fire and the surrounding huts. The lizard followed him, one huge eye focused on him and the other moving,