Warrior Everlasting

by Knight, Wendy

  Torz dipped his wings, and they soared to the ground, Ashra following close behind.

  Trey slid from Torz’s back before the big hooves had even hit the soft moss and sprinted over to his brothers. “Are you okay? Did they get to you—”

  “Trey! Where’s Mom and Dad?”

  “I don’t know. I lost them. Did you see—”

  “No. We were trying to shield Lil and—”

  They were all talking over and under and all around each other. Scout slid from Ashra’s back, her legs numb, and stumbled over to her sister, who still hid behind Tate and Liam.

  “Scout? Mom and Dad are gone because of me.”

  Scout wanted to crush Lil Bit to her chest, to stroke her hair and tell her it would be okay. But she couldn’t do any of those things, so instead she dropped to her knees and searched Lil Bit’s eyes. “Mom and Dad are out there somewhere, and they’re safe. They did it to protect you, Lil. Because they love you that much. But they’re super tough, right?” She tipped her head sideways until Lil Bit met her eyes. “They’re super tough, and they’ll never leave you. That’s how I know they’re okay. We’ll find them, and we’ll bring them home.”

  Lil Bit’s bottom lip quivered. “Do you promise?”

  “Yes,” Scout said fiercely. “I promise.”

  “We need a plan.” Torz was watching the skyline as it became darker and darker with the oncoming soul stealers. There was absolutely no way they could fight them all off.

  “Run?” Tate asked, trying to be brave, trying not to shake. Scout’s heart ached for him as she met Trey’s eyes.

  “We could hide. But not forever,” he said. “And we can’t hide all of them. There are thousands and thousands of souls.”

  “I don’t care about the other souls! I care about Lil Bit. That’s all,” Scout cried, throwing her hands up. But the words felt like venom, eating away at her throat. She felt tears stinging the backs of her eyelids.

  Trey’s eyes softened, and he raised a hand and brushed away the escaped tear with his knuckle. “That isn’t true, Scout. And you know it. You came in here to save them all.”

  “And I failed. Aella is already dead,” Scout whispered. Aella’s beautiful, kind face flashed across Scout’s mind, and her heart ached more. Much more aching, and it would crack into a thousand pieces. That’s what happens when a heart is shattered too many times. Eventually, it starts falling apart too easily.

  “You freed her. She’d rather be dead than locked in that cage for even one more day,” Ashra argued, but she wasn’t looking at Scout She was watching the horizon.

  Scout glanced up, too, wishing she’d see unicorns instead of demons. But it had taken her little group more than a day to walk this far, and they hadn’t been fighting things every step of the way.

  “Iros will use part of his force to rescue souls trying to escape and take them to Paradesos where they’re safe. The rest will be trying to get to us,” Torz said, seemingly reading her mind. “But even with Havik leading them, there’s no way they could get here before the Taraxippus do.”

  “Do we have time to look for my parents at all?” Scout asked, choking on desperation as she spun in circles, scanning the jagged cliffs and shadows for any sign of either her or Trey’s parents. There was nothing.

  “By the time you run to the end of the canyon, the Taraxippus will be here.”

  Trey sucked in a breath. “Scout. We need to gather the souls in this canyon and get them behind us so we can protect them.”

  “But your parents. My parents—”

  He grabbed her shoulders, his thumbs running lightly against the skin. “We have to trust that they’ll take care of themselves, Scout. We have to be warriors now.”

  “I’m not a warrior! Lil Bit is the warrior! She’s the powerful one. She’s the strong one! I’m just her big sister!” Scout cried.

  “Scout?” Lil Bit’s voice sounded amused, of all things. “You’ve always been a warrior. Where do you think I learned to be strong?”

  Scout turned to look at her, crying openly now. Tate and Liam both reached out to comfort her, but their hands only shied away from her. “I learned to be strong because of you, Lil. Not the other way around.”

  Lil Bit’s lips twitched, and she put her hands on her hips and turned to Trey. “Has she been this stubborn the whole time I’ve been gone? How do you put up with it?”

  Scout opened and closed her mouth, but no sound would come out.

  Trey’s brothers both chuckled, and Trey smiled, just barely. “I haven’t been with her much, but yeah, she’s a stubborn thing.” He pulled Scout close to him, pressing a kiss against her temple. “Scout, baby, I know you’re tired. I know you want to quit. But we can’t yet. You have hidden fire in that soul of yours. Find it. Fight with me.” Trey’s lips quirked, his smile broadening, and he quickly clarified, “Fight by my side. Not with me. Let’s be done with that.”

  Scout couldn’t help it. She wanted to scream and throw things and maybe toss herself to the ground and kick and punch, but instead she laughed. “Right. Let’s be done with that.” Sucking in a deep breath, she met Lil Bit’s eyes and nodded, then turned to her unicorn. “Ashra, you should eat something. Maybe it will help replenish your energy.”

  “What is it with humans and thinking food solves everything?” Ashra asked, but snapped up a mouthful of grass, glaring at Scout the whole time.

  Scout’s soul healed. She felt strength come in from their bond — from her bond with Ashra, from her bond with Trey. And most of all, from her bond with Lil Bit. “Torz, rest also for as long as you can. We’ll try to get all the souls together. We can protect them from above, hopefully fighting our way through the soul stealers to Iros and Havik.”

  “We can help,” Tate said, sounding more than a little relieved that there was finally something he could do.

  Trey nodded. “Round them up. Tell them to stay underneath us. If they get ahead of us or behind, we can’t protect them.”

  “On it. Lil, stay by my side, no matter what. Got it?” Liam asked, looking down at her sternly.

  Lil Bit nodded, staring back at him with her great big eyes.

  Scout couldn’t wait until Lil Bit was back in her body, and those great big eyes were also dark and framed by black lashes and silky hair.

  Liam and Lil Bit started further into the canyon, but then Scout’s little sister pulled away from him and ran back, throwing her arms around Scout, stopping just before she’d be pushed away. “Be careful, Scout. No matter what, you’re my hero. Always.”

  For the eight thousandth time in the past twenty minutes, Scout found herself fighting tears. “Yes ma’am. And no matter what, you’re my hero, too, little sister.”

  Lil Bit nodded, smiling even as translucent tears soaked her little cheeks. And then she turned and raced back to Liam.

  “Tate, wait,” Scout called quietly as Trey’s brother made to follow them.

  Tate paused, glancing from Liam to Scout and back again. “If — if anything happens to me… don’t let her see it. Promise me?” Scout asked.

  Tate glared at her, fierce even with no color to him. “Nothing. Will. Happen. To. You.” And then he nodded once and jogged away.

  “Your brothers are stubborn. I wonder where they got that from,” Scout said, her hand somehow finding Trey’s as they started toward their waiting unicorns. But she stopped him, pulled him back to her. She could hear the soul stealers now, screaming, shrieking. The smell nearly made her gag. But this, more than anything, had to be said. Because she was pretty sure there would not be a chance again. “Trey.”

  He stopped, and his eyes didn’t glance over her shoulder at the demons approaching. They didn’t watch his brothers racing away from them. His eyes met hers and he held them.

  “I love you. I always have. I always will,” Scout whispered.

  “I love you, too, Scout. Always.” Trey searched her face, and she could feel his heart hammering inside his chest as she leaned into him, as clo
se as she could get. His entire body shook as she slid her arms around his neck and rose on her tiptoes. Her lips brushing his was the most natural thing in the world, something she’d done a thousand times before, and yet it felt like electric fire shooting through her veins, infusing her with an unmistakable energy.

  It was time to ride.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ashra soared into the air, wings pumping almost lazily. “Eating helped, didn’t it?” Scout called to be heard of the wind.

  Trey, riding next to her, glanced over and grinned.

  Ashra flicked her tail, slapping it against Scout’s leg. “Whatever. This doesn’t mean you’re always right, you know.”

  Scout was pretty sure it had less to do with the grass and more to do with the strength of the bond between them, between Trey and Torz.

  As they flew, her eyes scanned the ground beneath them, unwilling to see the thousands of demons coming after them, looking instead for her parents. But they weren’t there.

  She had so many questions. So many thoughts. So much exhaustion. How had her parents and Trey’s parents just disappeared? How were two unicorns and their riders supposed to protect the thousands of souls below them? How were they supposed to not die when they had so very little energy and even less magic left?

  How?

  “I’ve learned if you think too much, bad things happen. Just fight as hard as you can for as long as you can, and things usually work out,” Ashra said, apparently eavesdropping on Scout’s internal conversation again.

  “It’s the usually part I’m not so thrilled about, Ashra.”

  Ashra snorted.

  They positioned themselves above the souls in the canyon below. The opening was narrow enough that soul stealers could only go through one at a time, and as the first ones approached and attempted to do just that, drawn by the overwhelming energy of the mass of souls, Scout and Trey could easily shoot them down. It was nice having attacks that were actually effective against these creatures. It was like having gone from wrestling a gorilla to wrestling a capuchin. Except that there were a lot of capuchins.

  “We’ll take them on a first come, first serve basis. That seems the most fair, don’t you agree?” Ashra asked.

  Scout shook her head but said nothing. As relieved as she was to have her normal, sarcastic and snappish Ashra back, she was terrified. Behind them, Ariston’s ruined castle crumbled in the distance. In front of them, an army of soul-stealing demons came ever closer. There was no way out of this. All she could hope is that her parents would find Lil Bit, and Iros would find them, and they would all make it home alive. And for that to happen, they needed time.

  Scout could give them time.

  She gritted her teeth, and the orb in her scepter glowed brighter. Ashra seemed to feed off her anger as her horn lit, sparks escaping, fluttering in the breeze like little lightning bugs. “Let’s go, let’s go!” Scout screamed.

  Ashra reared in the air, paws clawing at the sky like she could tear it in two and give them all a way out. Scout swung her scepter, lighting it, and a flat wall of flames exploded, racing across the sky, joining with Ashra’s to become bigger, brighter, more powerful. It hit the first real wave of soul stealers, lit them on fire, and they burned out within seconds, raining ash and blood and fire onto the souls below.

  Trey and Torz flew above them, soaring through the sky, attacking the ones who sought to go around. Twice Scout tried to watch them, and twice she got flecks of soul stealer in her eye as they fell apart like burned paper.

  She stopped looking up.

  The next wave and the next they did the same thing, shooting great, flat walls of fire to burn the entire front line of soul stealer offense. And Scout started to think maybe there was a chance, after all. “Again!” she screamed, reaching deep for the magic.

  It wasn’t there.

  “Scout, we only have so much…” Ashra trailed off as she fought to concentrate.

  We only have so much. But it’s not all gone yet. Not yet. I can feel it. Scout searched, digging through her heart and soul and spirit and courage and fear. She gathered every little bit of strength she had left, and she lit her scepter. The flame exploded. Ashra did the same, and the inferno engulfed the next two or even three waves of demons. And the wave after that crashed into their bonfire of burning flesh and lit them as well.

  Scout and Ashra hung in the air, watching silently, trying to muster more energy. They had been fighting for days now, Scout was sure. Getting out of the castle had taken hours and hours alone. The race across the valley nearly a day in itself, most of which Scout hadn’t been conscious for. They had given everything they had. There was nothing left.

  “Not everything, Scout. Magic might be gone but I’m not built like a death trap for nothing.”

  Scout raised her head. Ashra soared forward, tired of waiting for the next soul stealers to venture through the smoke and the flames. She shot through them, right into the midst of the demons, wings on fire, lighting everything around her.

  She kicked with her hooves and bit with her teeth. Tearing, shredding, breaking. Impaling with her deadly, fiery horn.

  Scout nodded, belatedly realizing she had a scepter, and it had a wicked curve on the end. She swung it up, spearing the creature trying to rip her heart out, and twisted viciously. She felt things tear as the Taraxippus screeched, and then she jerked her scepter back and watched as it fell from the sky. She swung her scepter again, smashing it like a baseball bat into the next demon’s head. The skull sunk, and she swung again, harder, relishing this new, physical attack. It was so much more satisfying than watching from a distance as magic did her dirty work. The creature’s head snapped off and it, too, fell, still screaming until it… wasn’t screaming anymore.

  Ash rained down on Scout’s head, coating her face, and she risked a glance up to see Torz and Trey fighting their way to Ashra’s side from above. So far, none of the demons had gotten past them.

  “We’ve got nothing left. Scout—” Trey yelled.

  Scout met his eyes; saw the defeat there. They’d lost. She opened her mouth to tell him — what? What do you tell the boy you loved when you were both about to die? I’m sorry we lost so much time. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I can’t spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I love you.

  “Scout! Your friend! She’s here! She’s here helping us!”

  Ashra’s head jerked, apparently having heard Lil Bit’s voice as clearly as Scout had. It was brief, before she went back to attacking like an enraged bull, and the demons were her matadors.

  “Kinda busy trying not to die, sweetie.”

  Scout swung her scepter up, using the curve to rip out the ribs of the creature above her, then slid it sideways to break the claws reaching for her skull.

  “I thought it might give you strength. If you knew that Aella is alive, and she’s protecting us.”

  Scout almost dropped her scepter.

  Ashra’s wings ignited in flames. She must have told Torz because he, too, lit from some internal magic, his horn shooting sparks.

  Aella is alive.

  Scout pointed her scepter, bloody and covered in the remains of who knew how many soul stealers, blasting everything around her with a wall of fire. Torz surged up, taking out the ones reaching down on them. Slowly, ever so slowly, attack after attack, they fought back, pushing the demons back, back, back.

  The souls below followed silently, watching the two unicorns and their riders fighting for all of their lives.

  Scout didn’t have time to look for Aella, or even Lil Bit, but she could feel them down there. And she prayed, in between attacks and fire and blood and ash and sweat and tears, that her parents and Trey’s parents had found their way back as well. That they were part of the group she was fighting so hard for.

  But Aella’s return could only give them so much strength before that magic, too, was gone. They were all forced to go back to physically attacking the soul stealers. And Scout started to lose
hope again.

  “No Scout. Not yet. Don’t give up yet. I feel her.”

  Scout could hear her sister, but she was faint, like Lil Bit, too, had used up everything she had.

  “Her? Her who, Lil?” Scout asked distractedly, trying desperately to free her hair from the creature’s grasp. It was tangled in claws, and the demon was reeling her in like a trapped fish. Normally, they had helmets. Armor. But not now. There hadn’t been time, or magic enough. All of them were fighting with zero protection.

  Blood poured down Ashra’s neck from a deep gash behind her ear. Her wings were tattered, and her legs weren’t even black anymore, so covered in blood were they. Trey and Torz looked similarly beaten.

  But they were all still alive, which was much more than any of them thought possible at this point.

  Lil Bit finally answered her. “My unicorn. She’s coming.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Scout swung her scepter, neatly decapitating the thing trying to decapitate her, and squinted into the horizon. “Your unicorn doesn’t fight, Lil. She—”

  The words died in Scout’s mind. There, through the demons and the mist and the low-hanging sun-moon, was the mighty Havik, racing across the sky toward them, igniting everything in his path.

  “Ashra! Trey!” Scout screamed. Ashra’s head jerked up, and Scout felt her tremble.

  Trey let out a whoop of triumph. They were saved.

  Havik was here.

  And behind him, the countless Irwarros in his army, as innumerable as the soul stealers themselves.

  “Just protect the souls until he can get here!” Trey yelled, as if Scout had any other plans. And since Havik’s progress was slow, they couldn’t pop the cork and toast with the celebratory soul-sucking river water just yet.

  But Scout couldn’t stop the wide grin that forced its way to her face. Havik was truly frightening as he thundered toward them. She’d forgotten how big and powerful he was. And he was coming. They would not die after all. But what…?

  Scout squinted harder, trying to give herself super vision. There was a tiny white blur racing alongside Havik.