by Wendy Knight
Stunned silence descended on their little clearing, and then Iros started to laugh. “Oh yeah, she’s a rider alright.”
“Of course you’d defend them. You’re probably best friends with them. It explains a lot.” Kylin smirked from behind Trey’s shoulder, glaring out at Scout like a mouse staring out its hole.
“They’re what saved you from the soul stealers. Otherwise you’d be lying in a hospital, too,” Scout snapped. She whirled on Iros. “I didn’t say I’d be a rider. I’m weak. I’m hurt. I’m angry and bitter. Lil Bit said you would save us. Not me.”
Above them, something interrupted Scout’s tirade. Trey jerked Kylin to the ground, covering her with his body. “Scout, get down!” he yelled. But Scout stood frozen in pain, watching him protect Kylin. The hunter green horse landed in front of her, mercifully blocking her view. She stumbled backward, crashing into Iros. He caught her, holding lightly to her upper arms.
“Taraxippus are moving on to the next town. They’re already attacking.” The horse wasn’t a horse at all, but another unicorn. Much smaller than the big black ones, with sleek wings and the same misting mane and tail. “We need to move immediately, Iros.”
“Why is that one green?” Kylin whispered loudly.
“He’s an Eske. A tracker.” Iros said distractedly. “We need to move. And we need help. Scout?” With one graceful leap, Iros landed on Havik’s back, pulling a staff with a glowing orb from the belt at his waist. It wasn’t a sword at all, like she’d originally thought.
“I can’t! I don’t even know —”
Ashra’s horn glowed, sparks crackled, and in the flames another staff formed. “Take it, human. Stop being a baby. You want to save your sister? Then do something about it.”
Scout choked as fear rose like bile into her throat. Iros and Havik watched her expectantly. The green unicorn leaped into the air and was gone, crashing through the branches like they weren’t even there. And she felt herself nodding. “Okay. Okay, give me that thing. Someone tell me how to use it.” She jogged to Ashra’s side. “And someone tell me how in the world I get on.”
“Oh good grief. Are you always so helpless?” Ashra muttered as her horn sparked again and flames spread, forming steps from her back to the ground. Before she could pass out from panic or die from a heart attack, Scout jumped up the stairs and threw herself across Ashra’s back, tucking her legs around the wings.
“Let’s go!” Iros yelled. Havik’s big wings spread out, nearly enveloping the entire clearing.
“Wait!” Trey ran in front of them, holding his hands up like he could stop beasts the size of small elephants. “I’m coming. I want to fight, too.”
“You’re kidding me.” Scout nearly fell off her unicorn.
“Your family isn’t the only ones we lost, Scout. My brothers and my parents are gone, too.”
“Torz!” Iros called.
Torz tossed his head, creating a staff the same way Ashra had. “Get on, human. We can be properly introduced later.”
“What about me?” Kylin cried. “Trey, pull me up with you!”
“You can’t have more than one rider. If you want to fight—” Havik started, but Kylin cut him off.
“No! I don’t want to fight! I’m a fashion designer!” She yelped like someone had bitten her.
“Go home where you’re safe, Kylin.” Trey tossed her his truck keys. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Kylin jumped away from the keys and they fell into the thick grass at her feet. Her mouth opened and closed but she only made infuriated little squeaking sounds.
“Unicorns, ride!” Iros yelled.
Their wings exploded into flames. Scout screamed.
Kylin finally found her voice. “You’re leaving me? Are you serious with this?” she screeched, but Trey’s unicorn had already launched himself into the air.
Ignoring Kylin, Scout opened her mouth. Was she supposed to yell ‘yah!’ or something? “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.” How Ashra could sound so firm and annoyed at the same time when she wasn’t actually even speaking was beyond Scout, but she snapped her mouth shut and looked around wildly for reins, or a mane to hold on to, or something.
“Grab the mist. It will become what you need.” Ashra still sounded annoyed, but she waited until Scout had a firm hand on the mane-of-mist.
How is it even possible to have a firm hold on mist? Scout wondered wildly as Ashra launched herself into the sky — straight up, no running start or anything. Scout stifled a howl and threw her arms around Ashra’s thick neck. She could hear the unicorn laughing at her; it bounced around like a loose pinball inside her skull.
“Quiet, you. I’ve never even ridden a horse, let alone a flying unicorn!” Scout yelled, but her words were lost in the wind as Ashra’s giant flaming wings spread out, beating easily against the sky.
“Holy Hannah! Holy Hannah we’re moving too fast!” Scout whimpered, clutching tighter as they flew across the treetops like humongous bullets. Rockets, Scout supposed, was a more apt description.
“You can’t fight if you’re holding on to my neck, Princess. Your boyfriend seems to be doing a fine job adjusting.” Scout risked a glance at Trey, who held his glowing staff with one hand, the misty reins in the other, his eyes scanning the horizon. It was like he was born for this exact moment.
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not even my friend,” Scout muttered. “Actually, I hate his—” She froze as the clouds appeared over skyline that Trey had been watching so intently.
“Trey, look out!” she screamed. They weren’t clouds at all, like Scout had initially thought. The smell hit her before she fully realized what she was seeing, like being trapped in a greenhouse with a thousand decaying corpses.
“Here we go. You ready, Princess?”
“Does it matter?” Scout muttered. The dark things swooped toward them, screeching. As they came closer, the noise got steadily louder until it was so unbearable Scout thought her eardrums were going to split and bleed. She clamped a hand over her ears, but she couldn’t hold the scepter and cover her ears at the same time. It was like the wind howling, but a gazillion times louder, and it got worse as they flew toward the... whatever it was making the noise. And then she could see them clearly, and she realized why Lil Bit had frozen in terror. They were the stuff even her worst nightmares couldn’t have come up with. Dark, skeletal with what seemed to be rags of clotted blood hanging from their decaying frames. Long sharp claws instead of fingers, and she heard Lil Bit’s voice in her head, With long claw-y fingers that they use to steal souls.
“Oh my,” Scout murmured.
“Move your hands, Princess!”
“I can’t! My ears—” Ashra’s mane floated up, wrapped around her hands, and pulled them down, out of the way as another wispy strand coiled around each of Scout’s ears, blocking the sound. Oh. Thank you. Scout thought it, but by the way Ashra’s ears flicked back toward her, she knew Ashra had heard her anyway. Another strand wrapped firmly around Scout’s middle, holding her on.
“Now you’re ready.”
“But what do I do?” Scout yelled to be heard over the screaming, because she didn’t have time to figure out how to talk to Ashra in her head again.
“Your boyfriend figured it out. Why can’t you?”
Scout scanned the sky, but it took her several seconds to find him, surrounded as he was by dark, writhing masses. Her heart stopped. “Trey!” she screamed, and Ashra darted through the sky.
Scout had no idea what she was doing, but she pointed the scepter like a wand, channeling every magic movie she’d ever seen in her life. Colorful flames that matched Ashra’s horn shot from the scepter’s glowing orb, streaking through the sky. They surrounded the nearest soul stealer, smothering and weaving around and over and under until there was nothing left.
It took seconds, and it was beautiful, like watching light conquer darkness. But there were so many. “We need help!” Scout screamed. She couldn’t get to Trey. She couldn�
�t save him. The soul stealers were going to take him away, just like they had everyone else she loved.
“If I were you, I’d pray that the soul stealers kill him instead of taking his soul.” Ashra had apparently heard Scout’s thoughts, and her voice was grim. “It’s better that way.”
Scout wanted to pass out. She felt the world sway, saw blackness creep in on the edges of her vision. But she fought it. She had to hold on. If she blacked out now, they would all die. Lil Bit. From somewhere deep down where Scout didn’t even realize she had, she pulled strength and courage. For Lil Bit, she could do it. For Lil Bit, she had to do it.
“Good girl,” Ashra yelled as she darted through the sky, weaving around soul stealers. Occasionally her immense stretch of fiery wings would catch a soul stealer and ignite it in flames, but the demons were terrifyingly fast and dodged out of the way, except for the few unlucky ones. Scout forced her mind to focus, watched where Ashra was attacking and swung the scepter toward the creature in front of her. Even as it screamed and disintegrated into bloody ash, Ashra moved on, dragging the flames through the sky to the next demon in her sights. Scout followed, but there were so many, so many that they were blocking out the sun...
“Those aren’t soul stealers, Princess.” Ashra said, sounding breathless even in Scout’s head.
Scout risked a look up, and wanted to shriek in relief. The sky was full of unicorns, huge black foreboding unicorns. And leading them was Havik with Iros on his back, practically glowing in the darkness. Iros shot his scepter into the midst of soul stealers, but where Scout’s light was weak and separate of Ashra’s, his bound with Havik’s and seemed to explode across the sky, taking out many monsters at once.
“That’s what happens when you bond,” Ashra whispered in Scout’s mind.
With an explosion of fire and mist, Trey and Torz soared free of the soul stealers, bloody but alive. Trey leaned backward, holding his scepter like a rifle against his collarbone while Torz shot his flames forward, but somehow the magics still found each other, winding together before smothering the soul stealer to the side of them. Scout looked up at the hordes of rider-less unicorns above her. They only had one strand of fire from their horns, no scepter help, and it took them much longer to kill a single soul stealer.
“Are you done looking around yet? They could use our help!” Ashra snapped, and Scout jerked forward, swinging her scepter around.
“How do we bond? How do we become powerful like Iros?” Scout yelled.
“You can’t force it. It just happens. And I don’t bond.” Ashra’s voice was distant, which seemed beyond wrong in a situation where they were fighting together for their lives.
“Well awesome. If you don’t bond, then how do we kill these things like Iros and Havik?”
She distinctly heard Ashra chuckle. “We move faster.” Her wings surged upward and she shot forward, leaving flames in her mist, circling the soul stealers and trapping them in the wake. Scout shrieked once and then clamped her teeth shut tight, focused instead on swinging her scepter to keep up with Ashra. Her arms ached and shook, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t lower her arms or they would die. And dying might mean an end of pain, physical and emotional, but it also meant that Lil Bit would be trapped with these monsters forever, and Scout couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t realize she was screaming in rage until her throat started to burn, and it wasn’t until then that she realized she was also sobbing, her face soaked with tears. She felt Ashra connect with her pain, and the flames from both of them burned hotter, brighter, more powerful. If unicorns could sob, Scout was positive Ashra would have been sobbing. She hurt, like Scout hurt.
Ashra flew through the sky, trapping soul stealers in her more powerful flames. From across the clouds, Iros shot another massive bolt of light, and the creatures screamed together like one giant demon before they turned and fled.
Unfortunately, Ashra and Scout were in their path.
“Ashra!” Scout screamed, but she didn’t know what else to do. The giant unicorn dove, and they streaked through the sky but they weren’t fast enough. Scout felt the claws rip into her, pulling at her heart, and felt blood gush from the wounds. Ashra shrieked in pain, an audible sound any horse might make if it were being ripped to pieces.
From Scout’s peripheral vision, there was a burst of light, like an explosion, and suddenly Trey was there, he and Torz attacking the demon that held so tightly to Scout’s soul. Trey swung his scepter like a bat as Torz kicked his powerful hooves, tearing into the monster’s bloody rags, breaking its bones. It shrieked, an inhuman wail that Scout was sure would haunt her for the rest of her life, and then it fell from the sky, dissolving into a shower of blood. Scout clutched Ashra’s neck, fighting blackness at the edges of her vision again. She raised her eyes, searching for Trey, finding him and holding on with everything she had left. He and Torz both seemed to be wrapped in the weird warmth that Iros and Havik had. “They bonded,” she whispered as she felt herself slip.
Chapter Seven
Trey held Scout tight in his arms while Torz and Havik struggled to keep Ashra aloft. The giant unicorn was only half-conscious, but she fought to keep her wings moving, fighting to make it home. “Where’s Princess?” Ashra moaned.
“She’s safe. We’ve got her.” Iros leaned awkwardly around Havik’s wings to lay a hand on Ashra’s bloody neck. Glancing at Trey, he said, “We haven’t far to go. That cloud will have a doorway.” Iros pointed with his metallic black scepter toward a thunderous storm cloud in the distance.
Trey stared at it dubiously, but he was in no position to argue. The soul stealers were gone, but he was covered in blood — Scout’s blood, and she was frighteningly pale. “Just stay with me, Scout. Stay with me baby.” His grip tightened, as if he could physically hold her soul within her body – as if he could keep it there with him.
“If we can get home, the Leerhas will help,” Torz gasped, flicking an ear back at Trey. Carrying two riders and helping Ashra after fighting so hard in that hellacious battle had exhausted Torz, although he didn’t complain. Trey didn’t know him well, but he was pretty sure complaining wasn’t something Torz did.
Trey wanted to ask where “home” was, or why they couldn’t just land in the town below and take Scout to a hospital, or a thousand other questions, but there was no time for conversation. Fifty other giant black unicorns surrounded them, some under Ashra as her wings threatened to give out, others holding on to her with the fiery magic from their horns. They neared the cloud, which seemed to get angrier and darker and more terrifying with each passing second. “Are you sure this is safe?” he yelled to Iros, who glanced at Scout grimly as if to say, “Does it matter?”
There was a second when lightning exploded right in front of them, splitting the sky, and in that split, Trey realized, was a doorway. Belatedly he also realized that it was from Havik’s horn that the lightning had erupted. The unicorns shot through it, their powerful wings holding it open as others sailed beneath them. Trey winced as they burst into the light, expecting to be electrocuted or something, but nothing happened. The storm died abruptly and he jerked his eyes open.
Beautiful.
They dropped to the floor beneath them, a valley covered in green mossy grass and thick trees. “Call the Leerhas!” Iros bellowed, and several dark green unicorns shot through the trees and disappeared. They hadn’t even gotten Ashra safely on the ground yet when the green unicorns returned, followed more slowly by metallic blue, even smaller unicorns — the size of ponies, maybe. They galloped closer, horns already bright and shooting sparks as the magic swirled ready inside them. “Move out of the way, let us—” The unicorn leading them threw her head back with a very horse-like whinny as she caught sight of Trey. “Humans! You brought humans to Paradesos?” she shrieked. Trey’s skull felt like it might explode.
“They’re riders. This is Trey, and that’s Scout. She needs your help.” Iros motioned toward them, but the unicorn backed away.
“No.
”
“She’ll die if you don’t,” Trey exclaimed, sliding off Torz, still cradling Scout in his arms.
“I don’t care. What’s another human life? Move out of the way so I can heal Ashra.” The unicorn tossed her head, sparks dangerously close to scalding Trey’s already burned, bruised arms. The other unicorns cleared a path to Ashra. Her side barely rose and fell in shallow breaths as she lay on the forest floor.
“Iros, if they won’t help we have to get her to a hospital—” Trey swung toward Iros, who was glaring fiercely at the unicorn in the front. She ignored him and leaned toward Ashra, the flames from her horn sweeping toward the bloody gashes in the sleek black unicorn’s side.
“No,” Ashra wheezed. The blue unicorn jerked her head up. The others who had appeared behind her also jerked like they’d all been slapped simultaneously.
“Ashra, I can’t heal you without your permission,” the Leerha whispered.
“Then don’t. Not until you—” Ashra stopped, her huge eyes rolling in pain. “—heal the human first.”
“What? Havik! Make her see —”
Havik lowered his head. “The human tried to help us. She risked her life to fight beside us. Will you really not do your best to save her?”
“But Ashra is—”
“No one…” Ashra sucked in air, fighting to keep her eyes open, “is allowed… to touch me… until she will live.”
The sapphire unicorn swung toward Trey, her horn glowing red-hot. “Set her down and get out of my way.”
Trey wanted to argue. How could he be sure they wouldn’t just burn Scout to death or impale her or something?
From behind him, Torz nudged him gently. “I’ll protect her.”
Trey had no choice. Scout was barely breathing herself, and if he waited, they’d lose her and Ashra, too.
