"Get back," Alara said, pointing her staff at the door.
I thought about stopping her, thinking she needed to save her energy to use against Ms. Thompson and her wizard sugar daddy, but everyone scrambled out of the way and she blasted the door to pieces. The sound of the exploding door boomed and echoed through the room.
Alara collapsed and her staff rattled when it hit the floor beside her. I ran to her side. Nithia did too. We helped her up.
"I'm sorry, Den," she said. "I thought I had more in me." She looked at the stairwell. "It's them."
I jerked my head to see the stairs, expecting Ms. Thompson and Evil Grandpa Merlin to be standing there. But they still hadn't come down.
I looked over to the others who were between us and the now open front doorway. "Gulny, help get her out of here." I tipped my head to signal for him to come over.
"Right." He ran over and took one of Alara's arms over his shoulder and neck.
"Nithia?" I said.
"Yeah." She put her arm around Alara's waste and came up under her arm like the boy had done. "I've got her." The three of them made their way to hole that was the front door.
Tara ran over and picked up Alara's staff. She looked to Nithia, who was still helping Alara out the door. "Nithia, can you use this?"
Nithia shook her head. "Just bring it. Come on you two."
Tara started for the door but glanced back at me. I had taken a few steps, but was keeping an eye on the stairs.
"Den!" She waved me to follow her.
"Right behind you," I said, moving her direction a little more, but not looking away from the stairs.
I could still hear the two of them talking, just a little way up and around the curve.
"Den! Get your ass over here!" Tara stood in the doorway. Everyone else was outside, presumably getting away from the tower as fast as they could.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. "Den? Is that you?"
I knew I should run to the door and get out with Tara, but the voice coming down the stairs threw me into a temporary stupor.
Is that…
"Victoria?" Tara said. "What the hell?"
Victoria had come around the curved into view. She continued down the stairs. She was alone. Her clothes were different than when I last saw her—before she got naked and tried to seduce me, I mean. She had on a blue dress, darker from the waist down to her knees, lighter blue on top. Not only was she alive, I thought, but she wasn't on fire—nor seemingly burned at all. She seemed calm, which freaked me out almost as much as how not dead she was.
"Den," Tara said, still standing in the doorway. "What's going on?"
"I have no idea." I held my sword up, pointing the tip toward Victoria as she walked closer. "What happened? How are you here?"
"It's okay," she said, extending her arm toward me as she kept walking closer. "It was a misunderstanding." She glanced back to the stairs, then faced me again. "I sorted everything out with them." She smiled. "You don't have to worry. You're not in danger anymore. She just needs something from you, from inside you. From all of us. This isn't our world, but she'd figured out how to help us. She just needs the power so she can save us. I gave it to her, and look at me. I'm fine."
"Den." Tara sounded nervous. "This isn't natural."
Victoria waved dismissively at Tara but kept her eyes on me. I wanted to lower my sword. She's just a young woman, I thought. I don't need my sword.
"What are you doing?" Tara said, but I knew she'd understand soon as I did. She's just afraid of Victoria, but she doesn't need to be.
The tip of my sword touched the floor and I felt the grip sliding down my open hand. Victoria walked closer, raising her other arm too. I could see she wanted to embrace me. She needed me.
"Stop! No!" Victoria said, looking beside me.
"Hey!"
Something hit the top of my head. It hurt. "Crap! What'd you do that for?" I looked at Tara who was standing next to me with Alara's staff near my head.
She gestured for me to look forward and I did. Victoria no longer looked calm. In fact, she appeared enraged. And I saw fire in her eyes. Literally. She had fire in her eyes.
"Holy shit." I stepped back to get away from her arms just as she grabbed for me. I almost swung my sword at her as a gut reaction, but I held back. She was still Victoria, I thought, but I wasn't entirely sure.
Tara pulled at me by my wrist. "Come on!"
I let her take me closer to the exit, but then I stopped.
Victoria had dropped her arms and was standing in the middle of the room looking at me. The rage had left her face, replaced by a look of contempt. It seemed so odd to me that she just stood there.
"Don't let her do that to you again," Tara said. "I'm not above giving you another whack on the head if I have to."
"What if she comes with us?" I said. "Maybe if she gets away from here, whatever spell she's under will lose its grip on her."
Tara grunted with frustration.
Victoria laughed. "I'm not under a spell, you idiot."
"She's telling the truth." Ms. Thompson came down around the curved of the wall.
Victoria smiled, then looked back to her. "Except maybe the spell you've always had over me."
"You always were a good student," Ms. Thompson said, running her gaze up and down Victoria's body. "Such attention to detail."
Victoria nodded toward her. "I had a good teacher."
Ohhh.
I shook the images of the revelation out of my mind and scrambled for the front door, making sure Tara got to it first. I didn't want my English Lit teacher to force me to stay for detention, plus I knew the creepy old guy might come down eventually, and I didn't need that either.
"No!" Ms. Thompson said. "Pelamiere!" I heard her scream echo behind me as Tara and I ran out the door into the night. "The creatures! Send them after him!"
Shit. What's she talking about?
We were forty yards through the waist-high grasses when I heard her again, shouting from the tower doorway. I didn't look back, as she screamed.
I could see the others' silhouettes. They had made their way across the field a good distance. They were headed for the woods. Risky, I thought, but we needed to get out of sight as fast as possible. I didn't know if Ms. Thompson and the old man would leave the tower to come after us or not, but I didn't want to take any chances. And whatever creatures she was calling for—asking for the old man to send them, I figured—were probably some shit we needed to avoid at all costs.
Tara's young toned body moved fast. Old me couldn't have kept up with her, but as Den, I matched her pace. Neither of us said anything. Clearly, she had the same idea as me—run your ass off. I hoped we'd never see the tower again. I felt sorry for Victoria. Whatever she had going with Ms. Thompson back in college pushed her to make the wrong choice, I thought. Turned to the dark side.
"We're catching up," I said, still running beside Tara. Alara and the others were fifty yards ahead of us. Nithia looked back. I waved her on. "Keep going!"
"Den," Tara said, looking off to the side. "Something's over there."
I scanned the field, slowing slightly so Tara didn't block my view to her side.
"I don't see anything. Oh, w-"
The giant spider leaped into me. My sword flew out of my hand, and I landed on my back ten feet from where Tara stood. The impact knocked the wind out of me.
She screamed.
I jutted my arms in front of my face to push the creature back. I felt it scrape and scratch my arms as I kept its mouth from biting my head or injecting me with venom—whatever it wanted to do.
Tara screamed again. I knew I couldn't count on her to help me. Not against the spiders.
I tried to push it off me, but it shifted its legs to keep centered on top of me. It smelled like syrup, but the odor was so strong I spit to keep from tasting it too. I felt my own blood running from the cuts on my arms, some of it dripping onto my forehead. We struggled to overcome one another for s
everal seconds, while a few sticks or rocks ground into my back. I heard the sound of air rushing in and out of the creature, but like it was pushing through an opening that was too narrow or blowing through a perforated wet membrane of some sort. No matter how hard I pushed or what way I shifted my body, I couldn't get out from under the creature. Its legs gave just enough to absorb my strength, and I couldn't move fast enough to get off to one side of it. I was keeping it from getting a fatal attack against me, but I knew I couldn't hold it off forever.
"Tara!" I could see her, but I hoped she could push down her fear enough to do something, anything.
I wrestled the giant spider longer, now panting to keep pace with its frenetic attack, but I was losing hope of coming out of the fight alive.
A thunderous sound came in toward the right side of me and the creature, growing louder for a few seconds. I felt a jolt of force as something struck the giant spider, sending it flying off me. I had tuffs of the spider's hair in my fists. A loud whinny rang my ears. I blinked to clear the blur my own dripping blood had put in my eyes. When my vision cleared, I saw my horse, Pudding, standing over me. She snorted, spraying me in the process.
"Damn, you, Pudding," I said. "You are a good horse." I looked to my left and saw the giant spider scrambling to get off its back. I sat up. Tara stood in front of me, still holding Alara's staff. She was shaking, but apparently physically unharmed. I got up and took her by her hand, bringing her over to Pudding as fast as I could. I lifted her onto Pudding, then glanced around until I spotted my sword. I fetched it and mounted my loyal horse as the giant spider ran toward us.
"Come on, girl!" I heeled Pudding on her sides and she jumped into a gallop, then to a run. I didn't have to bother steering her wide to avoid the giant spider. She had enough sense to do it without my input. The creature sprung toward us, but Pudding was too fast for her. It chased us for several seconds, but as we pulled farther away it gave up. I urged Pudding to keep her speed and guided her toward Alara and the others, who wisely had veered north at the wood's edge, and were nearly over the ridge at the far side of the field. I looked back at the tower, thinking of Victoria and Ms. Thompson, but it was too far away to make out anything but the outline and the light coming from one of the windows near the top.
Chapter 22
I brought Pudding to a stop as we caught up with the others, dismounting to see how everyone was holding up.
"What happened?" Gulny said, standing beside Alara who still looked exhausted.
"Your horse," Nithia said. "She came back."
"We barely made it." I glanced to Tara who was still on the horse. She was looking back across the field. "Pudding saved us."
They looked confused.
"In the field," I said. "One of those giant spiders. They're pets of the guy in the tower."
"Who keeps something like that as a pet?" Nithia walked over to Pudding and pet her above her nose.
"We should keep going, Den." Tiffin kept looking back at the field, though it was too dark to see into it in any detail.
"She's right," Galim said. "We need to get as far away from here as possible, and do it now."
"No argument with you there," I said. "I want you and Alara up on that horse." I glanced to Tara. She was already dismounting. "The rest of us will have to tough it up and keep going on foot." I looked back toward the tower. "I don't know if that creature or either of them is coming after us, but I'd rather not slow down until we're farther away."
Everyone agreed, and once Alara and Galim were on Pudding's back we kept going. I'd fastened Alara's staff to the side of the horse, to make sure she had it close by.
"Father," Gulny said. "We could take them home."
"Yes," Galim said. "We'll be safe there, and they can rest."
Nithia walked alongside the elder Balinite. "Thank you. That's kind of you and your son."
"Aren't you going to tell them?" Tara said, looking up at me. She had stayed by my side since getting off the horse.
"You mean, Victoria?" I nodded to her.
Alara turned around to hear what I had to say. "Victoria?"
"She's alive," Tara said.
I stopped and looked at everyone, who appeared eager to hear more details. "It seems the fire which consumed her, only transported her."
"To the tower?" Alara asked.
I nodded.
"We have to go back!" Nithia's expression showed great concern.
"Not a chance," I said.
She took a few bold steps toward me. "You can't just leave her there!"
"Hey." I approached her and put my hands on her shoulders. "She wanted to stay."
Nithia shook my hands from her. "That's crazy! You can't just leave her there!"
Tara hurried over to help calm Nithia down. "He's right. I saw her myself. She's with Ms. Thompson. They're both…" She looked up at me for help with what to say.
"They've both succumbed to the dark side," I said.
"The dark side of what?"
"Just the dark side." I glanced at everyone else, but they had nothing to say. I realized I was the only one who got the reference.
"They're working with the sorcerer who owns the tower," Tara said. "Willingly."
Nithia settled down but looked disappointed and sad. She lowered her gaze to the ground and shook her head.
I moved closer to her again and put my arms around her. "You have the biggest heart of any of us, but Victoria doesn't want our help."
She took a few deep breaths, then stepped back to look up at me. "It's just sad, that's all."
"It is," I said.
"We're not going to get to safety standing here," Galim said from atop Pudding.
"He's right." I looked back to Pudding and made a clicking sound with my mouth. "Come on, girl." She began walking, as we all did.
I kept thinking about what Victoria had said when she came down the stairs. 'She just needs the power so she can save us.' Save us? She couldn't mean take us all back to Earth, could she? I knew my understanding of how all of the summoning business worked was too limited. I needed to talk to Alara.
I moved over to walk beside Pudding. Tara, Nithia, and the young Balinite walked a little ahead of us. Alara sat behind Galim, who was leaning forward onto Pudding's neck and holding her mane.
She looked down at me. "What is it?" Evidently, my concerns were on my face.
"Something Victoria said."
"What did she say?"
"She said my old English Lit teacher, Ms. Thompson-"
"The crazy sorcery bitch." Alara grinned.
"Right. Her. Victoria said she wanted the power in us, so she could save us."
"In all of us?"
"No. I don't think so. I think Victoria meant in her and me…and everyone else here from Earth."
"Save us from what?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe she thinks she can send us all back home."
Alara shook her head. "I doubt that."
"That she can or that that's her intention?"
"Both."
"Yeah. Doesn't make sense. I mean, she's clearly gone power mad."
"There's no magic on your world. Right?"
"Not unless you count card tricks and camera tricks."
"Hmm. So, she wants you…"
"Can't blame her. Can you?" I grinned.
"Yeah, sure. You," she said. "And all the others caught up in the summoning…like she was."
"And that old guy she teamed up with is bad news."
"He scares me, Den."
"He's been teaching her. That's for sure." I glanced to Galim. He was listening but mostly kept his eyes ahead. I didn't have any reason to hide what we were saying from him. Besides, I couldn't wait to discuss all this with Alara in private. "
"How did they even know about her?"
"The sort of dark magic I felt- It's possible."
I suddenly realized if they'd gotten to Victoria, they might find the other women from Earth. And that's what she wants…to get t
he power that spilled into them during the summoning!
Alara evidently saw my deepening worry and had the same thought. "She'll go after the others."
It had been my plan to find and rescue all the other women from Austin as soon as I could, but knowing Ms. Thompson would be after them made doing so even more urgent.
"We have to get to Yedia," I said. "To find the woman taken there."
Alara nodded. "Before she gets to her."
Galim looked back at Alara and me. "You should go through Hyrin. It's the best way to get to Yedia. There's a trade route. When we get back to my people," he looked around. "And everyone's rested enough, I'll send my son with you to show you the way through the mountains to Hyrin."
"Thank you, Galim," I said, then I looked to Alara and she nodded.
We must have walked for a couple of hours before Galim pointed to a narrow pass between to hills ahead. "Through there. We're almost home."
The two hills were at the base of a more mountainous area, heavily forested. The air had grown cooler, but the sky was free of clouds. All of us appeared weary and ready to rest, and eat.
Gulny took the lead as we moved through the pass and into the foothills. He told us he needed to be out front to make sure his people knew we weren't a threat to them.
I didn't know what to expect, but I hoped for a small village or at least a substantial camp of some sort. We needed more supplies if we were going to make it to Hyrin. I hoped they had enough to spare for us, though I planned to pay them properly from the remaining coins in my pouch.
After walking for about twenty minutes up a mild slope which was heavily treed, Gulny looked back. "We're here, father!"
Here?
The only sign of habitation I could see was the clearing where we stood. The ground appeared heavily walked upon, and a few trees had been felled. I noticed the straight hewn edges on the stumps. Aside from the two with us, I saw no other Balinites, nor any huts or campfires, or anything else which indicated people lived here.
Gulny took a few steps toward the trees on one side of us. "They're friends!"
From behind trees and bushes, and out of shallows in the ground and around a couple of boulders, scores of men and women revealed their presence. They all wore greens and browns, blended well to their surroundings. A few children appeared too, though they stayed back behind the others. I hadn't taken particular notice of Gulny's and his father's brown curly hair, but seeing all of the other Balinites had the same general look, including a ruddy complexion, I realized they must have long lived apart from other peoples I'd seen in Galderia.
Swing and Thrust: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 2) Page 16