Shadow Trials

by Isla Frost

  “You stayed behind while the others ran. There are only two ways to get points in this trial. Speed, or acting as savior to the poor helpless humans.”

  “Oh. Right.” He glanced at the second walker, who’d remained behind. She was the frost-haired girl from my Warfare Strategies class, and she was ignoring us all, crouching over a trio of toadstools like they might hold the meaning to life.

  “That’s Lirielle,” Theus said. “Her mind works differently than most, but it’s sharp enough, and she’s lethal in a fight.”

  I’ll bet she was.

  The girl rose with liquid speed and snapped her attention to us. “I will stand with you, prophesied one.”

  Caught in the strange intensity of her smoky blue gaze, for a surreal moment I thought she was talking to me.

  Then Theus said thank you, and I felt like an idiot.

  I glanced from her lovely, delicate features to his. “Prophesied one?”

  Theus shrugged uncomfortably. “Just some old thing no one really understands. Lirielle is… unique in thinking that it has anything to do with me.”

  The way he’d said unique suggested he’d wanted to say wrong.

  Right now I didn’t care.

  I brushed my dagger hilt through the hole I’d put in my pants pocket and the thaumaturgy rod I barely knew how to use. Not convinced either of them would save us from the creatures roaming the woods. Not convinced I could trust the walkers to save us either.

  But it was still the best shot we had.

  “Okay, prophesied one”—I smirked to cover my fear—“how do we get everyone back to the academy alive?”

  Chapter 12

  The answer, of course, was with great difficulty.

  It was a miracle we weren’t attacked in the long minutes it took to organize ourselves. Perhaps the teachers had somehow protected the clearing.

  Perhaps we should stay there until they came to fetch us in disgust.

  Or perhaps they’d let us die.

  One thing was certain; none of us would be getting any points for speed.

  Eventually Theus and Lirielle took the lead while Bryn, Ameline, Klay, and I formed the rearguard.

  Bryn and Klay had both been first to light the candle in their respective magic classes, and I wasn’t letting Ameline out of my sight.

  We crept out of the clearing, almost as slow as the snails Cricklewood had accused us of being. We’d gone three paces when I saw something move.

  A raven maybe? They were one of the native species wily enough to thrive since the invasion. There was plenty of food for scavengers after all.

  Stories said they would flock to the site of an oncoming battle as if they could sense a feast was imminent. Many cultures had considered them dark omens. Harbingers of death.

  But was it just me or had that particular raven have antlers?

  I didn’t point it out to Ameline, whose hand was trembling hard enough around her wand. Bryn in contrast was looking more cheerful than I’d seen her all day. Like this was some grand adventure.

  I shook my head and concentrated on my own hands. My own senses. Keeping every one of them alert for incoming danger.

  But I didn’t see the vine shoot from the canopy above and snake around a kid’s neck. I was facing behind us, monitoring for signs of pursuit.

  The sound of a scream cut short made me whirl.

  He was suspended a foot above the forest floor, his eyes wide and bulging, his fingers clawing futilely against the thick, sinewy vine cutting off his air supply.

  For three heartbeats, I was too shocked to react. Then I forced my wand hand upward and visualized the vine letting go.

  It was sloppily done, hard to make my brain focus on the image I wanted with the nightmare unfolding before me. I longed to make the evil thing wither but sensed that would use more power.

  I was not alone in my casting.

  At least two dozen spells hit it at once, and the vine burst into flames, flew backward, turned purple (who knew what that was meant to do), let go of its victim, and finally recoiled into the canopy.

  All eyes were on the body of the boy sprawled in the leaf litter.

  Then one of his hands lifted to gingerly touch his neck, and he sat up.

  Alive!

  A ragged cheer went up from our group.

  The boy was shaken, his hair restyled by the flames that had ignited above his head, his neck bruised from the vine’s grip and bruised worse from being flung through the air along with it, but alive.

  He climbed to his feet, and several kids ran to help him rejoin our ranks. No one said a word about the awful stench of burned hair. Our first altercation with the wilderness had been a success, and most kids were bolstered by the small win.

  I kept my own thoughts to myself. That had the strangler vine been the nasty kind with thorns that sank into the victim’s flesh, we would have killed the kid, trying to save him. We were lucky we hadn’t anyway. And if I’d been alone and fallen victim to that strangler vine, I didn’t think I would’ve had the presence of mind or the focus to save myself. Not with magic anyway. Who could summon the clear imagining needed to spellcast while being dragged off to be eaten?

  Instead of lowering morale by voicing any of that, I retrieved my dagger from its sheath for faster access. Then worked with the group to organize a rotating system for who was on wand duty at any given time and spread them throughout the crowd. Hopefully the next crisis would be dealt with more efficiently. In part to waste less magic, and in part to reduce the likelihood of harming the person we were trying to save.

  We set off once more, everyone on lookout duty now. We made it all of three hundred yards before the group jerked to a stop.

  “We need to back up and go a different route,” the green-eyed walker called from the front. “Tread lightly. There’s a terrant nest ahead.”

  I swallowed. Professor Wilverness had taught us about terrants today. They were small but carnivorous ant-like insects that nested in the soil in huge numbers. I couldn’t remember if it was magic or mechanics, but the evil critters hunted by shifting the soil out of their way to form a kind of terrant-filled quicksand beneath the leaf litter. Their unsuspecting prey would step into this trap and immediately be feasted upon by the millions upon millions of devouring insects.

  Oh, and worst of all, they could move their quicksand deathtrap, following vibrations on the forest floor to capture their prey.

  “Nobody move,” I shouted back. “Theus, you might’ve noticed we aren’t as light on our feet as you walkers.”

  It was amazing the terrants weren’t already moving toward us. Or maybe they were.

  “Before anyone takes another step, we should use magic to kill them or hold them or—”

  A tree branch crashed to the forest floor thirty feet to our right.

  “Redirect them?” finished Theus.

  Another tree branch fell, close to the first but a little farther away.

  I hoped whatever lived in those trees wouldn’t want revenge. Maybe it was just a nice, normal squirrel.

  Sure. Why not?

  A minute passed, and then another, and nothing came screeching from the treetops. Theus and Lirielle announced the way was clear, and the group moved forward again, giving the recently terrant-occupied ground an extra-wide berth.

  We traveled what I estimated to be a mile without further incident. Perhaps Theus and Lirielle were doing something with their much stronger magic to keep the monsters at bay. Or maybe the teachers were doing more than they’d admitted to.

  When nothing was trying to feast on your flesh, the forest was eerily beautiful. I’d had dreams, sometimes, of walking through it. But my dreams were nowhere near as good as the real thing.

  I began to hope we’d make it.

  Nor was I alone in that. Around me, my classmates were showing signs of relaxation. Lowered shoulders. Wands clutched less tightly. Gazes wide with wonder rather than worry.

  Then Misty, an absentminded girl who
I suspected might’ve been responsible for turning the strangler vine purple, gasped in delight.

  “Look, it’s a flum!”

  She dashed over to the fluff ball of a creature, and contrary to what I expected, it didn’t run from her advance.

  I adjusted my grip on the dagger in my right hand and the wand in my left.

  Why wasn’t it running away? Her clueless approach ought to terrify a small prey animal. Was it injured? By a much meaner predator who was still lurking nearby perhaps?

  Misty reached the flum and bent down to pet it or pick it up or something equally inadvisable.

  “Don’t!” Theus snapped from the front of our group.

  Then the earth exploded.

  Misty screamed.

  Clods of dirt pelted me in the face.

  And the flum vanished as a humongous, hulking brute twice the size of a grizzly bear erupted out of the soil.

  The monster looked a lot like an overgrown groundhog except for its giant jaw crammed full of vicious, triangular teeth.

  The kind of teeth that specialized in shredding flesh.

  Misty had been flung back by the force of the monster’s ascent and was crab crawling away still shrieking.

  But the beast took only a fraction of a second to locate her. It lunged forward and down, its fearsome maw open wide.

  There was no time for magic.

  I hurled my dagger at the monster. It was like stabbing a grizzly with a toothpick, but maybe it would buy a few precious seconds.

  My dagger lodged in the brute’s eye. A lucky shot. I was good, but not that good.

  The gaping maw recoiled and snapped shut. Then opened again to bellow so loud and deep I felt it thrum through my bones—along with a good dose of terror.

  But by now some of the other kids had gathered their magic focus, and they blasted the monster back. It roared again in fury, but Misty was scrambling out of reach, and more magic pelted the beast.

  Even so, it wasn’t going anywhere. Our simple spells were no more than wasp stings. A painful nuisance, but the monster’s outrage would soon overcome them.

  Should I try a bigger, nastier spell and risk knocking myself out? Or worse?

  That was when the walker Lirielle glided over to stand between the monster and its prey.

  She was average height but slender, with a loveliness that seemed too fragile for this world. And she was utterly dwarfed by the savage, snarling beast.

  Despite myself, I felt a flash of fear for her.

  Then she placed a dainty hand on her hip and spoke softly.

  “Run, little one. I’ll give you three seconds.”

  The monster dropped to all fours and shuffled back a step. Then another. Then, with a final bellow of frustration, it turned and loped away.

  That was good.

  What was less good was that the brute had stolen my dagger.

  Misty staggered into the safety of the group and broke down in sobs. No doubt a mixture of delayed shock and fresh relief.

  The nearest kids rubbed or patted her back, and after a minute, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Wha… what happened to the… flum?”

  Lirielle turned and canted her head at the girl as if in mild curiosity.

  “There was no flum,” she stated in her musical yet oddly inflectionless voice. “The groundbeast uses its tail as a lure to attract other predators, then bursts out of the earth and devours them.”

  “Oh,” Misty managed.

  “It is fortunate you did not sink your teeth into the lure like a predator would have, or you would have been eaten in return.”

  “Oh,” Misty said again. But she’d stopped crying now.

  Lirielle seemed to interpret this as a natural end to the conversation and drifted back to the head of the group. Klay and Bryn assigned new kids to spell-casting duty on the side of the attack, and our shell-shocked group trudged onward.

  I had a bad feeling I would regret losing that dagger.

  The next magical creature we came across was already dead.

  Decapitated, to be precise.

  It was a dragon. A massive, glittering dragon, twice again the size of the groundbeast, its copper scales undimmed by death. The sight of such a terrifying yet magnificent creature slain hit me harder than I expected.

  The other walkers must have done this.

  The idea that they could—and had—bested such a creature, that they’d cut off its head rather than evading it—was perhaps more frightening than the dragon itself. And though I was pleased we did not have to face the legendary beast, a part of me grieved at its passing.

  Ameline too looked upon its body with regret.

  Bryn went up and poked at its teeth. “These things are huge!” She glanced over at us. “Anyone know if the scales are worth something?”

  When no one answered, she rolled her eyes, tugged fruitlessly at one of the beautiful, glimmering scales, and stalked back to take her place in the group.

  Fifteen minutes of trudging later, the manicured lawn of Millicent Manor could be spied through gaps in the forest’s undergrowth. I could’ve cried in relief.

  A few of the kids did.

  But we weren’t safe yet.

  An eerie wail bounced off the trees, quickly followed by another, and another, until a whole chorus of yowls filled the air. So many voices. And whatever was responsible for making the racket had us surrounded.

  Our handful of designated casters were not going to be enough this time.

  “Everyone prepare to fight,” I shouted above the din. “But hold off so we attack as one. Pass the word.”

  Ten seconds later, the chorus abruptly ceased.

  The ensuing silence was heavy with dread.

  And then a horde of six-legged beasts slunk from the trees. They were small but many, like fox-sized hyenas with glowing amber eyes and an extra set of legs for slashing. They outnumbered us a dozen to one.

  Make that two dozen to one.

  On my left, Ameline breathed a curse.

  On my right, Bryn brandished her wand like she was itching to use it again and said almost cheerfully, “Well, it was nice knowing you.”

  The ground trembled as someone, surely one of the walkers, made a wall of earth rise around us in an impromptu defense. It stopped at a height just low enough for us to see over.

  “Wait for it,” Klay said loud enough for everyone to hear. “Target one beast at a time. And use the barest minimum of magic you can manage to get rid of them. Don’t panic.”

  The jerk had the audacity to sound calm. I was glad for it.

  Incredibly, everyone was holding off to attack as a united force.

  Either that or they were frozen in terror.

  The beasts circled, unperturbed by the new landscaping, and sized us up, searching for the weakest angle.

  I shared a quick glance with Klay over Bryn’s head, and we spoke as one. “Now!”

  Savage growls and high-pitched yelps erupted as dozens of spells hit the beasts.

  As I’d feared, our attack only drove the pack to strike. Sure, some fell or fled, but many, many more came at us. They snarled and morphed into speeding blurs, leaping and scrabbling up the dirt wall four times their height like it was nothing.

  The only upside to their sheer numbers was that they couldn’t all charge at once.

  Beside me, Ameline’s wand flicked rapidly from one to another, and wherever she pointed, the beasts turned and ran. Maybe her rapport with creatures was somehow helping her.

  Bryn was using a slower and less subtle method of lighting their furry ears on fire. But at least it worked.

  I was still rotating through spell tactics. One I set on fire, another I choked with a mouthful of leaves, another I slashed across the nose with a magical blade, a fourth I trapped one of its six paws in the earth, and a fifth I distracted with the intestines of its felled pack mate. Every method worked, but none of them were as efficient as Ameline’s.

  We couldn’t cast fast enough. Every bea
st we felled was replaced by three more, and an increasing number were making it to the top of the wall.

  We were about to be overwhelmed when the barricade grew spikes. It skewered the most recent wave of ascending beasts, buying us precious seconds. But the ones behind simply clambered up their pack mates’ bodies.

  Kids behind me began to drop like flies. Not from the predators but from the spells we were casting to keep them away.

  At least I hoped that was the case since I didn’t think any of the creatures that had breached the wall had survived for more than a few seconds.

  I cast a fear spell, then a slashing one. All the while, Dunraven’s guerrilla warfare tactics and all the ways we were failing to use them churned in the back of my head.

  Never let your enemy choose the battleground. Never attack a larger force head-on. In an open field, a smaller force loses all its advantages. If you are taken by surprise, retreat and regroup to strike in more favorable circumstances.

  “That’s all very well, Dunraven,” I muttered. “But what do you do when you’re outnumbered, taken by surprise, and can’t retreat?”

  More kids behind me dropped. Almost a third of our number now.

  In a desperate and dangerous move, I thrust my wand at the wall and imagined the spikes growing another six inches.

  A fresh wave of the beasts skewered themselves upon the extended spikes, and I swayed, suddenly exhausted.

  I’d used too much power. I’d lost my damned dagger. And the beasts were still coming.

  One of them leaped over the wall and latched onto one of the unconscious kids. I lunged, grabbed it by the ruff of its neck, and flung it at one of its pack mates.

  Three more took its place. I cursed and lunged at the nearest, planning on grabbing it and repeating my move, but it spun and snapped at my hand. I wrenched my fingers back from bloodstained teeth and, for want of a better weapon, smacked the beast over the head with my wand.

  Kids who’d been focused on casting spells shrieked and leaped out of the way now that the nasty, vicious brutes were on our side of the wall. Too scared to use their wands or do anything but dodge, occasionally treading on the unconscious.

  Bryn joined me in wrestling the beasts, then Klay did too. They at least both had daggers.