Callum glanced down at the shaft. “I’m fine.” He twisted the arrow with practiced skill, unhooking the beaklike head from his shoulder. “It’s one of ours.” Callum’s wide eyes darted around the camp. “An ambush. They’re here!”
Figures appeared along the edges of the clearing. Stark gray shapes that lumbered within the whiteness.
They had been elves once, Zed could see that much. But where living elves were beings of color and beauty and magic, these creatures blighted those qualities from the landscape with their very presence. Most were little more than skeletons, on which pustules of flesh and hair clung stubbornly, like toadstools to a dying tree.
The only color Zed could make out in all that deadness were the pinpricks of bright purple light that burned from within every skeleton’s eye sockets.
They were led by a single stooped elf for whom death was more recent. Her skin was ashen, as if she were wearing thick layers of makeup, and her eyes were spoonfuls of cloudy milk. She moved in teetering steps, as if just on the verge of falling over. Beyond these strange, dancing strides, she made no other noise.
None of them did.
“Stay behind me,” Callum whispered as he stood. Slowly, the High Ranger unhooked the longbow from his back, nocking it with fluid, almost casual motions.
Zed shook his head, though he didn’t dare look away from the figures. They were forming a staggered line, separating Zed and Callum from the others. A few of the skeletons carried jagged, rusty weapons. The bent elf stood behind the line, wielding a bow just like Callum’s. She wore the uniform of a ranger.
“Zed, behind me,” Callum rasped. “I can’t protect you and fight them at the same time.”
Zed took a deep breath. He’d expected to feel afraid right now. He’d been in a near panic the entire journey so far. The fear was still there; Zed’s heart beat in his chest like a dog scratching at a flea. But above it, insulating him from the worst of the terror, something else was growing. It was a restlessness, a yearning.
Zed wanted to burn.
“No.” He pulled the crystal-topped scepter free of his belt. Zed narrowed his eyes, drawing carefully from his mana. “I’ve gotten this far without your protection,” he said. “I don’t need it now.”
And as a nimbus of silver mist closed Zed off from the world around him, the last thing he saw was Callum’s stricken face.
He reappeared several yards away, trotting out of a second cloud just behind the line of undead. This was elf-stepping, the first sorcerous ability he’d manifested. It allowed him to pass between distant locations in a blink, as long as he could see where he was going.
Zed raised the scepter, recalling Hexam’s lesson. Fold the magic into the material. He summoned his mana and focused on the crystal, pointing at the back of the stooped undead ranger. He felt the magic thrumming through his hands like usual, felt the air around his fingers begin to boil, but he tamped it down. The current passed easily into the rod, as if it were an extension of his own arm. As the mana left him, the crystal at the top glowed vivid green.
A high, tinny noise rang out from the stone. The air around the undead elf shimmered with heat. But just as the power exploded from the scepter, the implement kicked back, throwing Zed’s aim off course. Green fire discharged into a row of skeletons, incinerating them.
Zed had missed the archer. Her empty gaze flicked back at him, pinpricks of purple light widening slightly, like pupils dilating.
Three long strides and she was on him. The elf leaped into the air, pouncing upon Zed and sending the scepter pinwheeling away into the snow. The wind left Zed’s lungs in a great rush as he crashed to the ground.
Whatever bluster had insulated him from his fear evaporated now. The ranger bent over Zed at an inhuman angle, pinning him to the ground with spindly limbs. This close he could see her face was ripped with a ragged, untreated wound. Behind the violet gleams, insect larvae swam in her milky eyes.
Zed tried to scream, but the elf grabbed his neck and squeezed hard. Her face was completely emotionless as she started crushing his throat.
Then, suddenly, she was gone. Zed heard Callum bellowing as the High Ranger ripped the undead elf off of him. A hoarse gasp later, and his lungs filled gratefully with cold air.
Zed was getting very tired of being strangled by Dangers.
He scrabbled up to his hands and knees to find Callum wrestling with the undead elf.
“Get to Frond!” Callum roared as he plunged a hunting knife into the creature.
This time Zed didn’t argue. He snatched up the scepter from the ground and took a quick gulp of mana, casting his eyes to the other camp, where many more figures were blurring between the trees.
A skeleton lunged at him just as the silvery mist enfolded Zed. Its rictus grin disappeared into the clouds.
When the mist parted, Zed fell out of it and into a full-scale battle.
All around him, elves fought for their lives against a skeletal horde. The queen and her ministers stood together, buffered by Petal and Thorn, who whirled and slashed with their longswords whenever the creatures came too close.
Energy sparked from Queen Me’Shala’s hands—Zed could feel the charge in his own hair—and then bright webs of lightning connected a whole line of the skeletons, burning them with a sudden flash. A loud crack followed the brightness, popping Zed’s ears.
Selby was chanting under his breath, a spell that seemed to be generating a bright red aura around the elven forces. Threya brandished two large swords and used them to impale a Danger that had made it past Thorn’s defensive line, right through the eyes. She removed the offending skeleton from her weapons with a spirited shove of her boot.
The queen’s gaze landed on Zed, her expression brightening. “Zed!” she called, waving him over. “This way!”
The queen is lying.
I’ve brought you into terrible danger.
Zed took a step back, shaking his head. His hands clenched around the scepter’s handle.
The queen watched him retreat and something in her face changed. For a moment she looked alarmed. Then her eyes narrowed.
Zed whirled around and ran. He searched the woods desperately for Frond, or any of the other adventurers, but he couldn’t find a familiar face in the chaos.
A shadow fell across his path. Zed glanced up in time to see a skeleton plunging down toward him from the trees. He yelped, elf-stepping out of the way. Zed tumbled out of the silvery mist and slammed against a tree just as the skeleton hit the forest floor, exploding into a mess of bones.
He stood there for a moment, propped against the tree, just panting and willing his heart to be still.
That was when he saw Frond. The guildmistress was midleap, swinging her curved sword out in front of her. She unburdened a particularly stooped skeleton of its cumbersome head, then skidded into the body, sending it crashing away. Frond was back up immediately, her sharp eyes scanning for threats.
They landed on Zed. Frond raised her hand, her lips parting to say something, just as a scream filled the encampment.
A high, keening voice echoed from the forest. The sound was unearthly in its pitch and intensity, but somewhere inside it was the wail of a woman’s voice. Zed grabbed his ears against the cry, searching the camp for the source. He gasped as the Dangers began to part, making way for something else to come through.
What emerged was no shambling corpse. A female elven figure floated several feet off the ground, shivering with ghastly purple radiance. Lank strands of hair encircled her head in a snarled corona. The dead woman—for she was surely dead; her mummified face was frozen in a sob—was almost transparent. She flickered in and out of sight, her form blurring one moment, and then focusing the next.
“Ban’shea!” Many elven voices began screaming the word, all of them sharp with panic.
An armored figure exploded toward the spirit, her sword carving looping patterns through the air.
It was Petal. The sword sister moved with languid
grace. Her flowing slashes drew the ban’shea’s attention. Petal caught Zed watching her and spared him a cheerful wink. She stepped between Zed and the creature. She was protecting him.
The spirit turned toward her. The ban’shea’s sorrowful eyes brightened with desperate intensity.
Petal spun, expertly swiping her longsword into the Danger. But the blow passed right through it, leaving only a billowing trail of purple vapor. The sword sister tilted, caught off balance.
The ban’shea descended before she could recover. The purple light radiating from the Danger brightened, flooding the encampment. She took Petal’s face in her hands and the echoing wail sharpened, rising to an almost unbearable pitch. Zed kept his hands pressed firmly over his ears, but he watched as Petal’s face went slack. He saw her wide, lovely eyes unfocus as she stared up at the spirit. The sword sister’s mouth fell open, and the pinkness drained from her skin, blanching to pale blue.
The ban’shea’s wail relented, but the silence that followed was almost as awful. She released Petal, and the elf’s body fell to the ground.
Petal was dead.
Zed discovered he’d stopped breathing, and couldn’t will himself to start again. In place of air, a liquid rush of horror flooded his chest. His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Only the sheer force of Frond’s order brought him back.
“Zed, run!”
Zed came to in time to discover that the ban’shea’s fervid eyes were now trained on him.
He ran.
He plunged into the trees without a thought for where he was headed. Behind him, the spirit’s wail rose again, echoing miserably. Zed sucked in a gulp of mana and cast his gaze as far out into the forest as he could see. He passed through a tunnel of mist and arrived many yards away.
He curved right, into a thick stand of trees, panting and sobbing as he ran.
A shape leaped in front of him. Zed screamed, lifting his scepter and summoning his mana. It flooded into the crystal, the stone glaring green, just as recognition dawned.
He knew the person standing there.
It was Brock.
His friend’s eyes widened as he saw the glowing scepter pointed right at him.
Zed’s mouth fell open. “How—?”
The spell went off before he could stop it. A spray of green fire gushed from the crystal, splashing over Brock and exploding with blinding intensity.
Zed was blown off of his feet and landed in the snow with a hiss and a cloud of vapor. He pushed himself up in a panic, his eyes darting wildly to where he’d just annihilated his best friend.
Brock still stood there, totally unharmed. Though he looked a bit shaken.
Surrounding him was a glittering, semitransparent barrier. Then Zed saw Jayna standing just behind the boy, her arms raised. Her red curls were matted with sweat. Jayna lowered her hands and the shield dissolved into air, a bubble popping.
Zed and Brock said nothing for a long moment, both boys just huffing and staring at each other.
“Am I dreaming?” Zed finally asked.
“We came to warn you that the Lich knows your plan,” Brock said. He waved weakly toward camp, where the sounds of battle still raged. “Brock to the rescue.”
“ ‘We’?”
Other figures stepped into view. Liza stood just a short distance away, with Jett beside her. Micah hung back, nervously scanning the forest, while Fel moved to help Zed to his feet.
“When the undead attacked, Frond ordered Micah and me to run.” Jayna shook out her trembling hands. She looked even paler than usual. “We ran into Lotte and these guys just a few moments ago. Zed, you nearly killed us!”
Zed grabbed Fel’s arm after she’d helped him up, his eyes searching the trees. “That doesn’t matter right now. Where’s Lotte?”
“She ran toward the battle,” Liza said. “She made us promise to stay far away.”
“Naturally, Liza ignored her,” Brock said with a sigh.
The image of Petal’s blue face pushed unbidden into Zed’s mind. “We have to run!” he said. “There’s something still chasing me. It killed a sword sister with just a scream. It—”
“Ban’shea . . .” Fel’s voice wheezed in Zed’s ear, so thick with fear it seemed to fog the air around them.
Zed turned just as the scream rose through the forest, high and despondent.
The ban’shea floated through the trees. Her anguished eyes were wide and wild. She reached pleadingly for Zed.
“Run!” he screamed.
They ran, tumbling backward into the woods. Trees flashed by Zed, and he heard shouts from the others, though he couldn’t pick out any distinct voices. Behind them, the ban’shea wailed again, alarmingly near.
As he ran, he glanced above him into the bony branches of the trees. In the distance, Zed spotted what he hoped was a particularly sturdy one. He held his breath and leaped into the air. Mist exploded around him, and then the wind was knocked forcefully out of Zed’s chest as he slammed into the branch. He latched on to it with his arms and legs and just hung there a moment, willing himself to breathe until he finally could.
Zed crawled carefully on top of the bough, acutely aware of the sound of creaking wood. He glanced down. His friends were still running, some in wildly different directions. Beyond them, the sickly purple light of the ban’shea flitted between the trees. If he could just get close enough to hit her with his flame, before she caught him like she had poor Petal . . .
There was a crack, and a sharp dip. Zed shrieked as the branch buckled. He sucked in a breath and fell through fog—
—then landed in a heap on the ground. Zed scrambled to his feet, raising his scepter, which was illuminated by a strange purple glare. He looked up.
The ban’shea floated just above, watching him with her dolorous gaze. The Danger’s face blurred, her features swimming, and when they reformed Zed was surprised to see a normal elven face staring back at him.
This woman was beautiful. She had kind, wet eyes, which reminded Zed of his own mother’s. Her expression was soft and sorrowful. She reached a hand down toward Zed, seeming just on the verge of telling him something. Some tragic and wonderful secret.
No, Zed. This isn’t a secret you wish to know.
Something called him back to himself. Zed raised the scepter high, toward the ban’shea’s outstretched hand, and summoned every last bit of mana he had.
The fire erupted as a great green sphere, enveloping the Danger in a swirling orb. It churned like a miniature sun in the desolate forest.
Zed’s stomach quailed as the last of his magic was used up. His legs buckled beneath him, sending him sprawling into the snow. He panted, closing his eyes as the heat of the flames swept over him.
He was alive. He was alive, and he’d rescued his friends.
Eventually the blaze faded, the warmth giving way back to crisp, cold winter. Zed opened his eyes.
The ban’shea still floated above him. Somehow the green flames, which burned anything they touched, hadn’t touched her.
Oh, no, Zed thought exhaustedly. There’s a flaw in the plan.
The spirit’s beautiful face liquefied, contorting into a wide, starving smile. Zed screamed, crawling backward. The ban’shea sailed slowly closer. Her ragged locks of hair reached toward him like fingers. Her torn lips opened wider and wider.
The trees around them began to glow with honey-colored light, illuminating the forest in sunny radiance. Zed wondered if he was dying already, if this was part of the ban’shea’s deadly scream. But this light seemed wholly different. It reminded Zed of Micah’s healing hands, but instead of coming from a person, it rippled out from the forest itself, billowing from the leafless trees.
The ban’shea recoiled from the light, shielding her eyes. Zed noticed that several figures had joined them, emerging from within the foliage.
Brock? he wondered. Liza? Micah? No, these shapes were too tall. The figures stood in a tight circle, positioned behind the sudden glare, shroude
d in shadow. And they were all chanting something in a language Zed didn’t recognize.
Above him, the ban’shea shriveled beneath the amber light. She fractured and folded in upon herself, until she was nothing but a curl of violet smoke. Then the smoke vanished; the warm light dimmed, and Zed dimmed, too, falling into unconsciousness.
“Zed!” Brock shouted. “Zed!”
The forest mocked him with its silence.
It was awful, that silence. Unnatural. No matter how far he hurled his voice, the snow seemed to swallow it up. The sounds of battle had been so loud, a fearsome din of clashing steel and shouted curses. And that dreadful wail. But now, utter silence. Just how far had they run?
And at what point had Zed fallen behind?
“Zed!” he screamed, and even though his voice, high with panic, fell flat among the drifts and barren trees, still there was an echo of a sort as Micah took up the call, and Jayna, and Jett with his tenor sounding out like a foghorn.
And then Fel’s voice cried: “Over here!”
Brock scrambled through the snow, arriving at the base of a tree where Fel squatted, examining the ground. But he saw only more snow.
Liza’s breath was visible in little clouds. “What are we looking at, Fel?”
“Here.” Fel gestured at a spot where the snow was disturbed, as if pushed aside. She picked up a broken branch, gazed up at the tree. “He fell. He scrabbled about. And here . . .” She took a few steps forward, to where the snow remained unmarred, and placed a hand upon a patch of ice. Brock noticed the area shimmered in the sunlight like glass. “The top layer of snow was melted and then froze again. As if exposed to a brief burst of extreme heat.”
“His fire,” Jayna said.
Micah tucked his mace under his armpit so that he could rub his frozen fingers together. “Fire, right. So there is a good reason to find him.”
“But where is he?” Brock asked, scanning the trees.
Fel pointed off to the side. “Footprints.”
“So he’s okay?” Brock prompted. “He got up and walked away?”
“I’m sorry, Brock,” she said. “I don’t think they’re his footprints.”
Twilight of the Elves Page 16
