“This is bad,” Coram said. “The closer the Abomination gets, the worse it’s going to be. We have to move fast before we’re buried in here.”
They quickened their pace, rising and rising through the castle and, to their relief, they didn’t encounter any witches for some time. But Rose knew that wasn’t exactly a good thing. There were far too many in here for them to be hiding for long. The tension mounted with each step, and she found it almost unbearable until, a few flights later, she was proven right. They had walked right into a trap.
Like ghosts, the witches came straight out of the walls. First arms and legs, then entire bodies. Without warning, they appeared right atop the Order, closing off any escape up or down the staircase. In seconds, they had engulfed Ridge, spreading through his branches, their touch paralyzing him.
“I can’t move!” he screamed. “I can’t move!”
The torch was pulled from his hand and snuffed before his eyes. Then they went for his throat. Rose’s hands trembled as she watched their mouths growing impossibly wide, their jaws unhinging, row after row of razor-sharp teeth emerging. With a trembling hand, she raised her torch to the one nearest to her, and it quickly backed away, its eyes frozen on Rose, its tongue lashing out in her direction.
Beside her, Eo shot his spikes into the branches, piercing the witches who were climbing down from them and toward Ridge. They writhed on the golden spikes as he pulled them free from the branches, slamming them hard against the wall. As they were pinned, Coram set them afire with his torch.
But as this happened, Rose was pulled back. There were no hands on her, but she went flying backward all the same, tumbling down the stairs. When she finally came to a stop more than a dozen steps from the others, her body was all twisted up, her legs awkwardly pinned beneath her, blood seeping from her skin. She moved, very gently, a groan escaping her lips. Nothing’s broken, she thought. A miracle. You’re going to live. For a little while anyway. But as she looked up, she saw three witches floating down the stairs toward her and realized it might be even sooner than she thought. They came fast, hands extended, their mouths wide open. Rose glanced around quickly, desperately. Her friends were too overwhelmed by the other witches to do anything; there was no way they’d reach her in time. Behind her, three steps down, lay her torch. The flame was small but alive.
The witches were nearly on top of her, and Rose couldn’t get up; there was too much pain, her body locked tight. She tried sliding down the stairs on her back, her arm reaching out behind her for the torch. The sharp steps dug into her skin, slicing it open. She stretched as far as she could go, but the torch was just out of her reach, her fingertips nudging it however slightly. If she pushed it any more, it might go tumbling all the way down.
The witches reached her. She could feel their hands on her legs, skittering up toward her torso, where Orange Blossom hid trembling. Within seconds, they would be draining them both of life. She braced herself. She had come far, but there was no pride in such an achievement. All that mattered was reaching the Abomination and saving her brother. In the end, she had failed.
As the witches’ faces hovered over her, salivating over the fresh meat, something large slammed against the castle. The entire structure shook, and the witches were thrown against the wall. A strange sensation lurched in Rose’s gut as the castle began to tilt. Her hand was still open, reaching for the torch, and it rolled right into her grasp. Gripping it tight, she reached up, and thrust the flame into the trio of witches, watching them burn. Seconds later, Coram leapt through the fire. He picked Rose up and put her on his back, begging some unseen entity to keep her alive.
They were all breathing heavily now, the castle straining to stand. Only Rose still had a torch—Coram must have lost his sometime in the melee. All around them, the light was dimming and the storm was raging.
After gathering themselves, they continued climbing, the stairwell vertiginously tilted. They walked on an angle, and although a few witches kept appearing out of nowhere every now and again, there wasn’t a second large coordinated attack. For that, Rose was thankful. She was well enough to walk now, but she ached all over, her body sick with fever. Still, she had to push through; they were so close now.
“They’re not hiding,” Meadowrue said. “And they’re not scared.”
“They’re waiting,” Rose agreed. She knew it to be true, and the thought alone was enough to nearly fell her.
Eventually, they reached the end of the stairs. They were at the very top of the castle. There was a long dark hall before them, and at the end of it was a red door.
“The sword,” Coram said. “It has to be in there.”
Nothing stirred in the hall. It was empty, the walls tilted and blank, begging their trespass.
“It’s another trap,” Meadowrue said.
There was a second crash against the castle, and it wobbled some more, a deep screech running throughout from the bowels all the way to the top. Cracks could be heard spreading along the walls, the wind incredibly intense. It was like there was a perpetual shock wave slamming into the castle.
“Well, we can’t just sit here and wait,” Coram said. “We have to run for it.”
They all looked at one another, their faces grave. Rose nodded, and soon they all nodded in return. Then, with deep breaths, they took off.
A few strides into their run, and Rose really thought they were actually going to make it. The door was getting closer and closer. And that meant the sword was too. She could almost smell it.
They were nearly halfway down the hall, halfway to escaping this nightmare, when the witches appeared. Swarms upon swarms of them seeped through the walls and out of the darkness. They dropped in front of them and in back. There must have been a hundred, if not more. And they had them surrounded.
The Order froze in their places, their faces dropping.
“Shoot,” Meadowrue uttered.
Rose held her torch tight as a voice barreled through her head. You’re never going to make it, it said, and she knew the voice wasn’t her own.
“What do we do?” Eo cried.
“Um …” Coram kept saying, glancing back and forth. “Um …”
The witches closed in, tongues lolling out of their mouths. Their arms were extended, hands open in anticipation. They made strange little sounds, something that could have been language, and Rose wondered which of them was calling dibs on her. Chest heaving, she held the torch like a baseball bat, ready to swing. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. As her fingers tightened around the torch, she felt it begin to rise up out of her hands. But this time it wasn’t the witches. It was Ridge.
“Go,” he said, and he didn’t yell. For only the second time since Rose had been in Eppersett, his voice was soft. He wasn’t quiet in prayer like before, reaching far into his family’s history. This time it was like he was at peace. In the middle of all this madness, he had found what he had been searching for all his life. He sounded like a different person. “To the door,” he said.
Rose watched him raise the torch high above his head, the flames tickling his branches. “Ridge, no,” she said, the words barely escaping.
But she could have shouted it and he wouldn’t have listened. The fire took hold quickly and spread even faster. In seconds, Ridge was a tree with a full bloom of bright orange flames. He placed a hand against Coram’s chest and moved him aside.
“Ridge …”
“It’s been fun, friend. Gotta run.”
Then, with a yell, he charged toward the door, plowing straight into the witches. The Order followed right behind, and because the witches were packed so tightly into the narrow hall, their bodies practically atop of one another, the fire spread wildly, jumping from body to body. Coram and Meadowrue cut a path through the burning witches, as Eo’s spikes carried more into the fray.
But Rose saw none of this. Looking behind her now, she only saw Ridge. He was fully engulfed. Every part of him burned, but still he fought, dancing up and down
the hall so that no witch remained untouched. His branches reached out, attacking every one they could grab, both in front of him and behind. He was screaming the kind of scream when one knew the end had come, but had not given up the fight. And as he blackened in the fire, arms swinging, branches flying, Rose thought she could see him looking her way. They locked eyes for just a moment, his charred face both hopeful and sad, and it was as if her heart were cleaved wide open.
By the time they reached the red door, the hall was full of flames and in the middle was nothing but a black stump. Ridge was gone, a legend in his own time.
With a punishing blow, Coram kicked the door open and staggered through into the dark chamber. Eo and Meadowrue spilled inside only seconds after, while Rose was the last to enter. When she did, she saw two things. One was the sword of Tarr; the other was a red witch.
“Bahgdaal,” she said, recalling the story of Deedubs battle with her in Widcrook. Beside her, Eo was growling in a way that turned Rose’s blood cold. It was guttural and thick, drool oozing between his teeth, the hair on the back of his neck sticking straight up, nothing but vengeance in his eyes.
The witch, however, hardly moved. Her skin was heavily wrinkled, the creases so deep the red had become rust. Thick rungs hung off her arms and from her face, pulling everything down. Her body was hunched far over, her spine like a weak branch bearing rotten fruit. Wheezing, she looked old and tired, her eyes dry and unblinking. But still she was smiling as if she knew something the others did not.
With a nod from Coram, the Order spread out within the room, weapons at the ready, waiting for the right moment to strike. All the while, Rose’s heart was beating fast, sweat dripping down her face, her legs about to give.
Your luck has to run out sometime, doesn’t it? The voices in her head were becoming more and more distorted. She didn’t know what thought was hers anymore.
Bahgdaal brought her face close to the sword of Tarr. The final weapon in the group’s search was stuck in the dark floor in the center of the room and was the sun they all gravitated around. It was broad and shining, the steel almost transparent—little specks of flame danced up and down within the blade like living things. It bore an intricate gold hilt full of ancient symbols and was almost as tall as Bahgdaal herself. Beside it, her face inches from the steel, she stuck out her tongue. The moment the black tip flicked against the edge of the blade, it was set aflame. Pulling back, without so much as a flinch, Bahgdaal brought her fingers to her tongue and snuffed the fire out. Then she laughed something like a hoarse bark.
Meadowrue’s response to this madness was to launch an arrow right at her face. It was fired in less than two seconds and cut through the air at an even faster clip, but Bahgdaal calmly waved it away as if it were nothing but a foul stench. The arrow shifted around her and continued on as if it came out the other side of her skull. A foot from the wall, it turned and came back, aiming to strike her from behind. As if sensing this, Bahgdaal reached behind her and snatched it out of the air, an irritated look falling across her face. Opening her palm, she inspected the arrow over closely, perhaps realizing its power. Looking to take flight again, it trembled in her hand as if wounded. She blew on it, and the arrow bolted from her palm and returned to Meadowrue’s quiver, like a frightened child running home to its mother.
Rose watched this and swallowed hard. Meadowrue glanced down at her bow, stunned at its ineffectiveness. Coram’s grip tightened on his sword, and Eo’s tail lowered, doubt creeping into his eyes.
With a speed that betrayed her age, Bahgdaal’s hands shot out and the four of them flew back against the walls.
They slammed hard, and hanging there, Rose’s body tightened, like it was constricting into a single point. Defenseless, she felt her bones crunch and her skin shrink, squeezing her insides flat. Her head lowered against her chest, her knees pulled up, her shoulders in. Her ribs felt as if they closed around her heart, her stomach churning. She was a ball of pain and the pain was monumental. Yet, within her head she heard only laughter.
Across the room, Eo’s spikes fired from off his back. They came at Bahgdaal from all sides and as her hands waved with a counterspell, the four of them dropped to the floor. Rose landed hard, the breath leaving her body in one quick burst. Orange Blossom left quickly too, darting out from under her shirt and scurrying into a corner. As Eo screamed about taking Bahgdaal’s eyes, Rose clutched the ground and looked past them at the sword. They had to reach it, but there seemed to be no way of getting past the witch.
As Rose slowly regained her breath, she thought about using her voice, but Coram’s warning flared in her head—she would need everything she had for the Abomination. A hand went up to her throat, scratching at it. The white of the disease had nearly reached it now. It crawled up past her chest in thin strands, reaching, stretching, for her one true weapon. Her throat began to burn, and quite soon, she realized, it might not matter whether she conserved her power or not.
The castle continued to tilt, the ever-increasing wind hammering away, knocking everyone off balance. Bahgdaal, meanwhile, glared at Eo, a look of familiarity in her bulging eyes. “You’re his boy,” she said with a smile. It was the first time Rose heard her speak, the first time she had heard any of the witches speak so clearly, and the voice sounded almost artificial. Like, after thousands of years, she had finally forced the evolution of language off her tongue.
Enraged, Eo roared and fired his spikes again, but this time Bahgdaal waved her hand and disappeared. A moment later, she appeared beside Eo and sliced open his leg with a blue glow from the tips of her fingers. His body buckled and crumbled, and then she disappeared again, before his spikes had even returned to his armor.
The entire castle was shaking now. The howling wind cracking open the walls, the light and rain seeping in, though Bahgdaal hardly noticed. She was busy spinning Meadowrue through the air, around and around and around, until she smashed her face-first into the floor. With her opponent wounded and vulnerable, Bahgdaal scurried over, hands poised to kill.
Coram charged the witch, his sword raised high over his head. As he leapt through the air, seconds from delivering a punishing blow, he was frozen three feet above the floor. He hung there, and no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to move. Bahgdaal circled him, that deep bark of a laugh escaping her slit of a mouth as she observed her work.
Finally, she said, “I tire. I tire with all of you.” Then, holding Coram aloft with one hand, she waved the other.
Even over the noise that had leaked in from outside, a ripping sound could be heard as Coram’s skin began to slowly peel from his body.
Bahgdaal twitched a finger toward Meadowrue, freezing her in her tracks. There was a look of surprise on the fairy’s face, as some unseen force yanked her backward. Rose heard a strange sound come from her friend’s body, a tugging sound, like a tree being pulled from the ground. Meadowrue’s hands reached desperately for her back, fingers tracing the stumps of her wings as their deep roots were being pulled from her body. Her head reared far back, and she cried out in agony.
Eo fired his spikes in defense of his friends, and Bahgdaal twitched three fingers in response. The spikes stopped in midair and changed course. They flew right back at Eo, entangling him in their golden cords, squeezing his body tight. Like the deadliest of snakes, they kept constricting, cutting deep into his skin. Eo, unable to stand, fell to his side. He tried biting at the cords, but soon his snout was wrapped shut, nothing but a sad whimper escaping.
Bahgdaal glared at Rose as if daring her to do something. Anything. Rose, however, could only look down in shame. The witch laughed, turning her attention back to the destruction of her enemies.
Backed against the wall, Rose had never felt so helpless. Watching her friends suffer, she couldn’t bear it another second. In that moment, she cared for nothing else. She didn’t care about her illness; she didn’t care about what the witch might do; she didn’t even care about the Abomination. She just cared about helping
. And so she cried out, a spirited song, and the sword of Tarr wobbled in the floor.
Bahgdaal’s head snapped in her direction. It was clear she didn’t know what Rose was doing. Confusion shadowed her face, her spells weakening. Even though her throat was on fire, Rose sang with even greater intensity, watching as the weapon slowly rose up behind the witch. With the will of her voice, she turned it, aiming the tip right at Bahgdaal. Finally, the witch realized what was happening. “The Unwonted,” she uttered. Closing her hands, she shut down the spells she had placed on the Order and turned her full attention to Rose. When her hands shot back open, her fingers were burning with a new, powerful spell. Rose knew it was now or never. With one final note, her body completely draining of what little strength she had left, her hands writhing before her, controlling the sword, she drove it straight through the witch’s back. Bahgdaal’s eyes widened in shock as her hands wrapped around the blade. In a flash, she was engulfed in flames. Dropping where she stood, she writhed on the ground as strange words flew from her mouth. Rose knew she was cycling through all different types of spells, desperately trying to quell the fire, but the flames only intensified. This was no lick of the tongue. This was the sword of Tarr straight through her black heart.
Bahgdaal disappeared, then reappeared somewhere else in the room, the sword still burning a hole in her chest. She did this over and over again, but the flames continued to grow. The smoke that filled the room was as red as her skin, and it found the cracks of the castle and leaked outside like a tragic announcement.
Stepping forward, with his gold skin in its rightful place, Coram pulled the sword from Bahgdaal’s body, raised it up, and finished her off. Cut in two, she crumbled into a pile of red ash.
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