Into the Nightfell Wood

by Kristin Bailey

  “Wynn will save the queen,” Elric insisted. “We have to give her time. Lexi, lead all those who cannot fight to that grove,” Elric ordered, gesturing to the trees where Elk had pointed. She gave him a brisk nod and began shouting to the crowd of elves. “Osmund, go with her and protect them should the fight turn that way. Zephyr, cast your twilight over the grove to shield them. Then use your healing powers on the wounded.”

  “I’ve never done magic that big before,” he said. He paled, and his eyes dimmed to a soft yellow.

  “Now’s your time,” Elric stated.

  Zephyr let out a slow breath, squared his shoulders, then flew off after the trail of the elf carts. He picked up an elven toddler and marched next to Lexicon as they headed for the grove.

  “Prince Elric,” Elk said as he placed a hand on his shoulder, “you must go too. You have to stay safe. You should aid your sister. Go to the queen. She is dying.”

  “The Grendel is coming. There will be nowhere in this world or the next that is safe,” Elric said. “Wynn will reach the queen. I will do what you have ordered of me. I will use my life to distract the Grendel as long as I can and give Wynn the chance to save us.”

  “Elric, that was never—”

  A loud clap of thunder sounded with such force Elric felt as if the inner parts of his ears had broken. Several of the elves cried out as their boar mounts squealed in pain.

  An ominous laugh circled around them like a carrion crow. Elric felt like the voice came from within his own head, but he noticed others looking around too.

  “You fools,” the terrifying voice said on the howling wind. It sounded like thunder and the distant howl of a fierce gale.

  Elric gripped the hilt of his sword and took his place next to Elk.

  “You think you have the power to stand against me?” It didn’t sound threatening, though. It was worse than that: it sounded amused. Elric felt a wave of doubt and fear pass over him.

  “Filthy elvish mortals, you will die. Those blessed with magic will diminish. And then the Between will belong to me. It is my right. I am its true king.” He laughed again, and the sound made Elric feel sick to his stomach. “You have no hope left.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Elric shouted. He still had hope, and he had faith in his sister. She knew what to do. He silently prayed for Wynn to reach the queen in time. “Your plan did not work.”

  “Brave words from a little boy.” The Grendel laughed again. “Would you sound so brave if you had to face me?”

  A final boom thundered through the air. Screams rose up around him as the clouds that had covered the Nightfell Wood rolled over the countryside. They cast the fairy realm in shadow, and seemed to steal the vibrant colors of the world as they went.

  Forked lightning cracked overhead and struck the ground, sending the armies scattering. The shadows wrapped themselves together into a being as dark and as frightening as death. He wore a robe of black, billowing storm clouds that curled around his feet. His body was formed from the deepest darkness of night, and his eyes burned from the dark pit of a black hood with the frantic fire of lightning. He looked as if he were made from dark magic itself. He had lost everything that made a fairy seem human.

  He floated forward and drew an obsidian sword that crackled with lightning around it. Elric felt as if he were staring at fear manifested into a single form. Elric shook with it, but he held the hilt of his sword tight. Now was the time for courage. Now was the time for strength.

  “Go back to the Shadowfields, where you belong!” Elric shouted at him, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

  “I belong here,” the Grendel said. “This is my kingdom. My sister stole it from me long ago. I have come to take it back, and then all of the world will be mine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Elric

  THE QUEEN’S BROTHER? ELRIC STEPPED back in shock. The Grendel was the queen’s brother.

  That meant he was just as old—and just as powerful—as the queen. They had no hope of defeating such an ancient fairy.

  Elric’s knees shook as he stared down the immortal. He couldn’t see his face, only his burning lightning eyes. Bolstering his courage, he shouted, “There is only one of you, and we are a hundred strong.”

  Between the elven boar-riders and the fairies, they had the Grendel outnumbered. But they were dealing with a force of darkness able to reach across the divide between worlds. Their numbers might not matter.

  He smiled, a flash of white in a face hidden by shadows. His eyes sparked white-hot with lightning. “Oh,” he said. “I have not come alone.”

  The Grendel lifted his arms, and the world seemed to fall into the dark of a winter night. In the depths of the woods, hundreds of burning eyes peered out at them. What little light remained caught on their sharp teeth as an army of fearsome beasts stepped forward out of the shelter of the trees.

  Elric recoiled in terror. It was as if some horrible butcher had cut up several fearsome creatures and pieced them back together in terrible ways, then made them all enormous. There were bears covered in scaly armor like a lizard. Great insects with whiplike tails that ended in poisonous stingers, but were the size of oxen. Creatures with the head of a lion on the body of a goat. Giant spiders. Elric’s mind could never have created such a nightmare on its own.

  The monsters charged forward in a rush of snarls and grasping claws.

  The boar-riders raised their weapons and shouted as they kicked their pigs toward the Grendel’s terrible army.

  Their cry seemed to wake the fairies from their stupor as they too ran forward to meet the beasts. Magic swirled around them as they charged into the fray.

  Elric stood his ground, sword in hand. An enormous spider scurried forward to meet him, but darkness enveloped the beast as the Grendel appeared before him. Elric brought his sword up out of instinct and it met the Grendel’s obsidian blade as it came crashing down onto his. His fingers went numb as he squeezed his hilt with all his might. Lightning arched around the blades, but Elric held fast.

  His arms shook as the Grendel crushed Elric under the strength of his blade. The churning clouds that made up the monster’s robes surrounded Elric, and the darkness swirling around him seemed impossible to overcome.

  Elric’s sword glowed with cool, white-blue light but it was no match for the obsidian sword.

  The shadows hiding the Grendel’s face deepened, forming layers of shifting substance that weren’t quite flesh and barely hid a grotesque white skull. The shadowy flesh pulled over the long teeth into a grimace. Lightning flashed in the deep pockets of the Grendel’s eyes.

  “Fool,” the Grendel said. “You have no hope. You have no power that can defeat me. Prepare to die. And then I will find that half-wit sister of yours. I will enjoy slowly ripping out her spirit, leaving her body as worthless as her mind. Then the queen will meet the same fate as the one she claimed to love.”

  The Grendel pressed down on his own hilt, and drove Elric into the ground. Elric cried out as he felt his strength giving way.

  Just then a strange sound soared over the roar of the battle. Voices, a chorus of voices, were rising together from the grove. He didn’t understand the words floating on the air. He didn’t have to. The melody was strange—unearthly and haunting, but no less powerful for the emotion that it carried.

  The elves were singing.

  The Grendel staggered backward and flinched, as if he had just been struck by a physical blow. Light seemed to return to the battle. It was as if the cloud that had blocked the sun had rolled away. The magic of the fairies, locked in battle with the monsters of the Shadowfields, flared. They gained strength through the power of the song, and the darkness shrank back.

  Elric used that moment to slip out from under the Grendel’s sword. He rolled to the side, letting the Grendel’s obsidian blade slice into the ground, and swung his sword at the back of the monster’s leg. He sliced into the smokelike robes until his sword hit something of substance.

>   The Grendel screamed, and thunder rolled overhead. A bolt of lightning struck the ground nearby.

  Elric tried to pull the sword back, but a powerful blow hit the side of his head. Pain erupted in his skull, giving way to a heavy thudding that seemed to block all thought. He had to force himself to open his eyes as he stumbled backward. His sword clattered from his hands, and he fell onto the grass. No. He had to keep fighting. But he couldn’t seem to will his feet back under him. His head felt like it was being stabbed with a dagger from the inside.

  “You will pay for that, boy.” The Grendel lifted his obsidian sword high over his head. Elric panted through his pain and willed everything in his body to move at once. He watched the blade slice through the air, straight for his head.

  Suddenly a white stag crashed into the side of the Grendel, knocking him off balance. Pure darkness spread out from the wound in the Grendel’s leg. It surrounded the Grendel in a cloak of night. Enraged, the Grendel swung his sword back around and sliced into Elk’s side.

  “No!” Elric cried out. Elk was disappearing. “No!” he cried again. He scrambled for his blade.

  He reached the handle just as the Grendel swooped down on him. Elric couldn’t see anything. He was surrounded in darkness. He lifted his sword and swung wildly, completely blind in the presence of the Grendel. The clouds of darkness poured out of the evil fairy like smoke billowing from a raging fire. It covered the battlefield. He could not see.

  “There’s no one who can save you now.”

  The Grendel loomed over him, his sword snapping with deadly energy that did nothing to light the dark. He was going to die.

  A roar sounded nearby and Elric felt a sudden wave of heat.

  “I can,” a girl’s voice said behind him.

  Elric turned around. There stood Flame with Shadow at her side. Blue fire licked over the ground around her, burning back the darkness and illuminating her eyes that now glowed with the fire of burning stars.

  “You came back.” Elric couldn’t hide the shock in his voice.

  “Wynn asked me to,” she said as she offered him a hand up.

  The Grendel stumbled backward. “It can’t be.”

  Flame let out a roar of her own as she charged forward into the darkness with her staff at the ready. The shadows didn’t deter her at all. With a powerful blow of her staff, she hit the Grendel across his dark skull, then landed another blow to the bleeding wound on his leg.

  The symbol on Flame’s back began to glow with bright white light, and a great shout of triumph came from the fairies as the boar-riders charged against the monsters on the plain.

  The Grendel gathered himself, building the shadows around him until he became a towering figure twice the size of a normal man. He swung the obsidian blade at Flame, the lightning sparking off it, crackling in the air.

  “Flame! Get down!” Elric shouted, but he didn’t have to. She ducked, but not before the blade hit her staff and cleaved it in two.

  Elric ran forward with his sword in his hand. The mark on her back glowed like a star within her, shining through her skin. He touched her shoulder. “I’m here,” he called, reaching down to place the hilt of the sword in her hand.

  She grabbed it, her fingers wrapping around the hilt like it was a natural extension of her own arm. Elric could feel the dark energy crackling off the Grendel as he rose. Flame lifted the sword in front of her, and Elric fell back.

  The sword had always glowed with a soft blue light, but now it burned with a bright white light as powerful as the sun. It flashed in Elric’s eyes, and he had to look away. When he finally cleared his vision, he saw Flame clothed in a dress of pure starlight. She shone just as brightly as she battled the Grendel with her tigereon pacing behind her.

  He didn’t know how she was doing it. Perhaps she could see the darkness of the Grendel in contrast to the light pouring from her, or feel the foul presence of him. Maybe Shadow was telling her how to move, but in the midst of the vicious fight, Flame met the Grendel blow for blow. His darkness could do nothing to deter her.

  Elric looked around, hardly aware of the pain in his own body. Swirling colors from the lingering effects of the light of Flame’s new power danced in his vision. As he pulled himself across the battlefield, a monster crawled through the grass toward him. It had the body of a snake, but with insect-like legs and large pincers that protruded from the front of its body. Its hairy mouth-parts clacked as it crept toward Elric.

  A high-pitched cry drew the creature’s attention as Hob leaped onto the creature’s back and bounced up its scaly body. He grabbed the beast by the head, scratching at its mirror-like eyes. “I have you, yes!” Hob shouted as he grabbed its antennae and used them like reins to pull the monster away from Elric.

  Elric turned as the faint body of Master Elk appeared next to him. He looked transparent, like he was slowly turning into a soft silver mist. He was diminishing.

  No.

  Fighting to his feet, Elric half stumbled, half crawled to Elk. He pushed under the ancient warrior’s arm, and used whatever strength he had left to drag Elk toward the grove.

  The elves still sang, but their voices were growing fainter. Monsters charged toward the trees even as elves and fairies battled together to protect those sheltered there.

  Flame cried out. Elric looked back to see her locked blade to blade with the Grendel.

  They were running out of time. There was only one fairy with enough ancient magic to defeat the Grendel. Only one fairy who could draw the power from all the fairies in the kingdom. They needed the queen. Their only hope was Wynn.

  “Come on, little sister,” he whispered as he dragged Elk’s fading body inch by inch toward the grove. “We need you now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Wynn

  WYNN RAN VERY FAST. HER mouth was dry and she could feel her heart pounding. The shield in the sky had fallen. The storm clouds gathered over the great tree at the heart of the palace. She had to reach the queen and help her get better. The Grendel was here and Elric needed her.

  The sky thundered overhead and the palace looked darker than she had ever seen it. As she approached the great stone pillars circling the tree, the blue lights within them had faded away. They looked just like rocks. Mildred strutted up to her ankle and clucked in alarm as they stepped into a soft drift of snow.

  Wynn looked at the palace. It glistened with ice as heavy drifts of snow piled against the stone pillars and buried the gardens. Snow came from the queen’s magic. When a fairy died, they turned into their magic. The queen was turning into the snow. This was very bad. She had to hurry. Wynn fought through the heavy drifts of snow in the courtyard. Mildred hopped and struggled in the ice. Wynn lifted her and tucked her in an alcove created by the curling roots of the massive tree. “Stay here, Mildred. You be safe,” she said.

  This time Wynn wouldn’t be tricked.

  The snow crunched under her boots as she climbed the steps and into the heart of the tree. The enormous room where she first met the Fairy Queen opened in front of her. The floor shimmered. Wynn took a tentative step on it and her boot slipped. It was covered in ice.

  No one was around. The room was usually filled with fairies. Now it was empty. Snow settled along the wall, and ice dripped into sharp icicles in the windows.

  In the center of the room, a single figure hunched over. His back was covered with a robe of black feathers. Wynn cautiously stepped closer to him, crossing over the edge of the great seal. It was dark in the room. She glanced up and realized the crystal that hung over the seal was gone.

  No, it wasn’t gone. It was lying shattered at the feet of the dark figure. “Lord Raven?” She stepped closer to him.

  He didn’t look at her. Wynn wasn’t sure he really heard her. “The Grendel is here,” he said without turning to her. He stood over the shards of the broken crystal. “It is over. The queen is dying. Save yourself while you can.” In a flash he turned into a raven, and with a throaty caw, he flew out of t
he window without ever looking at her.

  The sound of his cry chilled her. She had heard a raven’s cry before, on the day she found her mother dead.

  Tears filled Wynn’s eyes. No. She didn’t like this. She had to change things.

  Her first mother had grown sick and died. There was nothing Wynn could do to save her. She had tried to bring wood for the fire, but she had failed. Elric said that the fire wouldn’t have helped. That there was nothing Wynn could have done, but it still felt like she should have been able to do something. She hated that feeling.

  The thunder rumbled overhead. She would not let her second mother die. Wynn slipped and slid on the ice until she reached the great spiral staircase that led to the top branches of the tree.

  The steps were coated in ice. Wynn put her foot up on the first one. She had to climb. Keeping a hand on the slippery wall, Wynn climbed the endless stairs. Her fingers burned at first, then turned numb in the cold. She could see her breath coming out in puffs around her. Through the windows, she caught glimpses of the storm clouds with their bright lightning and thunder. In the distance, she heard the sounds of a great battle.

  Elric was there. So were Osmund, Lexi, and Hob. Biting her chattering teeth together, she climbed faster. Her foot slipped, and she fell hard, knocking her chin on a step before she slid down several more. She threw her hands out, and her legs crashed into the wall.

  She touched her lip. It was bleeding. She couldn’t worry about that. She had to get to Mother. She had to reach her before it was too late. She would build a fire if she had to and melt the ice. She would find a way. She tried to do that for her first mother, but she couldn’t help in time. Now Wynn didn’t have any sticks for a fire, and she didn’t have any fairy magic.