by Billy Wright
A horn sounded from somewhere in the surrounding forest, two quick blasts, an intruder signal from the bright elf scouts. It was the first such occurrence on this journey.
The camp sprang to life. The Royal Guard burst out of their small huts, weapons already in hand, helping each other into their armor. Floating globes of light appeared and illuminated the scene to near daylight. Several bright elves approached Liz and their hut, forming a circle of protection around it.
Liz shook Hunter’s foot. “Wake up, guys. Something’s happening.”
Hunter sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“Wake up your sister,” Liz said.
Hunter reached over and shook Cassie. She groaned and slapped his hand away. “Come on!” he said.
A noise in the woods drew Liz’s attention. A chorus of hoarse, high-pitched cries. The enormous bear—Liz could not cope with the idea that his name was Pooh—roared in alarm from somewhere in the darkness. The waving of the treetops revealed his location, crashing through trees and undergrowth.
Across the camp, one of the scouts emerged into the clearing and ran up to Commander Ar-Chaheris, delivering a report that Liz couldn’t hear. But she did hear a strange whine in the distance, like projectiles. More cries rose, shouts of anger, bleats of pain.
Commander Ar-Chaheris shouted commands. The bright elves were awake and alert, fully armored now and holding their guns.
Hunter’s voice erupted behind her. “Dad! Dad! Dad, wake up!” Then his face turned to her, glowing with fear in the firelight. “Mom! Dad won’t wake up!”
***
Jorath cocked a furry ear, listening to the sounds of battle among the trees, lifting his snout into the breeze.
His mounted goblins would lead the bright elf scouts on a merry chase. The goblins would not be able to remain in the Light Realm for long, but they would last long enough. Even Jorath felt the quiet sizzling and tingling of the magical war-paint on his face and paws, the same that had been smeared on the faces of the goblins and their coyote mounts. The war-paint had been made from the blood of the Princess of Light, and served to allow them to remain in the Light Realm, but only temporarily. When the war-paint’s magic was exhausted, he would slip back into the Dark Realm.
The frustrated roars of the great bear echoed through the trees as its charges and attacks were thwarted by the goblins’ superior quickness. High-pitched chortling echoed in the forest’s dark recesses.
But that was all a distraction from the real attack.
He climbed down the cliff face silent as a cat. His iron claws dug into the rock face and into every available crevice, his low-slung body sliding over the rocks like liquid menace toward the little hut directly below him.
***
Liz crawled into the hut, knelt beside Stewart, and shook him. He emitted a fitful snore. “Stewart! Wake up!”
The clash of arms echoed across the mountainside. The firing of the bright elves’ guns sounded like the snapping of steel cables. What were they shooting at?
“What do we do, Mommy?” Cassie asked. Jaclyn and Jazlyn moved to the doorway of the hut, their dark, glittering eyes soaking up the action outside. They had little obsidian knives in their hands.
Liz said, “You glue yourself to my leg.”
“I don’t have any glue,” Cassie said with a snicker.
Now was not the time for jokes, but Liz couldn’t blame her for trying to lighten the mood.
Hunter gripped his hunting knife, crouched just behind the dolls, scanning the night for threats.
Liz took her water pouch, uncorked it, and squirted some into Stewart’s face. “Wake up!”
He coughed and sputtered, throwing an arm out and slamming her into the wall of the hut. Leaves fluttered down from the domed ceiling. Stewart’s eyes remained closed. Sweat glistened on his brow, and his breathing came in short intakes and expulsions.
The roar of the great bear grew louder, as did a small chorus of squeals and shouts from the bright elves.
“What’s happening, Hunter?” Liz asked.
The boy’s eyes were wide. “Pooh just chased a bunch of little creatures—I think they’re goblins—out of the woods, and they’re fighting with the elves! Holy cannoli! He can turn his fur into armor!”
Cassie jumped up beside him, peering outside. “Wow, look at his fur! It looks like shiny, jagged rocks!”
“Yeah, like armor on a dinosaur!” Hunter said.
The bear’s thunderous rumbles retreated into the distance again.
Meanwhile, Liz did everything she could to awaken Stewart, but in vain. This was no normal sleep. She even pinched his nose and mouth shut, but he unconsciously flung her aside again. Her husband’s physical strength terrified her. If he ever chose to unleash it, she didn’t want to be anywhere nearby.
Then suddenly a tremendous weight crashed onto the four bright elf guards outside, smashing them to the ground, not ten feet from where the children knelt.
Cassie and Hunter screamed and flung themselves backward.
Three of the guards struggled to right themselves, but the fourth lay motionless under the weight of a huge, hairy beast, perhaps half the size of Pooh. But this was not a bear. Its face was pure fury, a snout full of needle-like fangs twisted into a horror of dark, murderous purpose. Its fur was a mangy black coat, with a pale stripe down its face, almost like a badger. But it was a badger the size of a Volkswagen, with claws like steak knives. With one swipe of its claw, it knocked one of the guards aside, slamming him into the cliff wall with a terrific crunch.
The remaining two raised their guns and fired point-blank at the thing. Up close, the weapons made the strangest noise, but the beast howled in pain and rage as the elves’ flechettes disappeared into its coat. The elves fired again and again, shouting the alarm as they did.
Liz snatched up her sword belt, whipped out the rapier Bob had given her, and jumped past the kids.
The blade gleamed, its razor edge catching the moonlight. It was pretty, but right now she wished for a ten-foot spear to keep this thing at bay. Or a machine gun.
The beast swatted again at the elves, but they were too quick, dodging and rolling out of the way. It snarled its frustration, then took a deep breath, and spat a line of scarlet fire across the two guards. One of them managed to roll away and came to his feet slapping at the flames licking at his breastplate. The other took the brunt of it, screaming as he was engulfed in crimson flame. Liz’s gorge rose into a violent retch, but she choked it back, took her rapier hilt in both hands and leaped toward the beast, sword point foremost.
A foot of the blade disappeared into the creature’s side. Its jerk of pain threw her off her feet and yanked the sword out of her hand. The rapier landed a couple of paces away, and she dove for it.
The remaining guard raised his gun and fired again, but this time he was too slow for the beast’s backhand. Its massive paw swept him into the air. He sailed for ten paces and landed hard against the rocky ground, where he remained still.
Liz stumbled to her feet, her heart pounding so hard she could barely breathe, clutching her rapier with both hands inside the basket hilt. She stood between the beast and her family. “You have to go through me!”
The monster turned to face her and crouched, slinking forward with amusement in its eyes. Liz couldn’t peel her eyes away from its claws, six inches long and gleaming like serrated steel.
In the distance, a cry of warning went up, but she didn’t dare look away from the giant badger-wolverine monster. Spots of dark moistness glistened from its wounds, but didn’t seem to slow it down.
Suddenly it lunged for her. She dodged aside, but its blow took out one entire side of the hut, splintering wood in all directions.
She interposed herself again between the monster and her children. “Run, kids!” she yelled.
Another animal bounded up beside her, growling and snarling. It resembled an Irish wolfhound except that it wore a vest of glittering emerald green. It snapped and barked
, baring its teeth.
Hunter and Cassie scrambled to their feet and dashed out of the ruined wall of the hut toward the closest trees.
A tiny voice niggled at the hindquarters of Liz’s mind—this thing had dropped from above, it could climb.
Quick as a cobra, the monster’s claw slashed out and knocked her rapier out of her hands, numbing her arms to the elbow. It lunged forward with a roar and hit her again, this time catching her in the side below her ribs. It felt like a sledgehammer knocked her through the opposite wall of the hut. She came to a stop buried in the wreckage, unable to breathe for the agony.
A few feet away, Stewart still snored.
Thirty yards away, the kids were climbing a tree.
The wolfhound darted behind the monster and clamped its jaws into the monster’s furry flank.
Pain blazed through her torso. Her jacket and shirt hung in tatters, revealing the coat of diamond armor underneath, still intact. But that didn’t mean her ribs were intact, or her internal organs.
She levered herself onto her hands and knees, shedding wreckage.
The badger-monster was spinning in a circle, vainly trying to dislodge the wolfhound’s fangs from its haunches.
Dark wetness soaked the front of her jeans.
She heaved herself upright, grabbed a broken stick and flung it at the monster. It slapped ineffectually against the monster’s side, but she got its attention.
“You leave Bob alone. If you’re after me, bring it on!” she cried.
Several bright elf warriors were charging up the slope toward them. Would they reach her in time?
She grabbed up another stick, this one with a splintered pointed end. Somehow it was heavier than it looked. “You might eat me, but I’m going to choke you on the way down!” Her legs were weakening. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand.
The kids had reached the highest point of the tree, maybe twelve feet from the ground. The tree swayed dangerously under them. This monster would make short work of it, if it chose to go after them.
Then the closest of the bright elves paused to fire their weapons at the creature.
Their flechettes sliced into its body and pinged into the rocks around her. The beast howled in fresh pain and frustration.
Bob the wolfhound held on to the creature’s haunch with all the ferocity he could muster, growling and tugging.
The remaining strength drained from her legs, and she sank to her knees.
The bottom of her diamond doublet was wet with crimson. “That can’t be good,” she said. Reaching under it, her fingers touched the lips of a terrible gash. One of the beast’s claws must have slipped underneath the bottom edge of the mail. A strange thought rambled through the thickening fog of her mind. Now she’d have a scar that would look like she’d had a C-section. If she lived.
Bright elves fired their weapons into the creature’s furry bulk. Liz saw the moment the monster’s courage wavered and broke.
It launched itself at the cliff face, leaped upward, and clung to the rock like an enormous spider. It scuttled upward with a speed only a bird could match, leaving a dark, wet smear up the cliff face behind it. Bob crouched at the base of the cliff, barking up after its flight.
The blood looked shockingly red on her shockingly pale hands. She tried to stand but collapsed again.
Cassie came running up to her, sobbing, “Mommy!”
Hunter was close behind. “Are you okay?”
She couldn’t let them see all the blood, so she collapsed onto her side and curled into a ball. “I’m fine. Just need to rest for a while.”
But they weren’t buying it.
Cassie saw the blood, and her sobs shrilled. “Mommy!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hunter could only stand there looking at his mother with his mouth agape.
The Royal Guard warriors surrounded them, firing their weapons up at the retreating wolverine-monster.
All Hunter could do was stare at all the blood soaking his mother’s jeans and stop himself from crying. His hands were clenched into tight balls of dough.
Dad wasn’t moving.
Sounds of battle still echoed from the surrounding forest, the cries of the goblins, shouts from the bright elves.
Come on, do something, he told himself, but his body seemed paralyzed.
Cassie was kneeling beside Mom, pleading, “Mommy, get up! Get up!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, baby,” Mom said. “I’ll be okay, just need somebody to patch me up.”
The Royal Guards stopped firing. The monster had climbed out of range.
Claude came running, along with a bright elf named Telwyn. Hunter had met him a couple of days earlier and they talked at length about the bright elves’ armor and weapons.
The two of them knelt beside Mom and eased her onto her back. She groaned.
Cassie cried louder.
Bob’s voice appeared right next to Hunter, knocking him out of his stupor. “My boy, let’s take your sister over here and let the healers work, shall we?”
Hunter nodded and went forward to take Cassie’s hand. “Let’s go over here and see if Dad’s okay.”
She sniffled and came along, tears and snot streaking her face, her breathing short and shuddering. Jaclyn and Jazlyn stuck to her as close as socks. He led her over toward Dad, but she hung back, clearly remembering what happened last time she tried to wake him up. Dad lay where he had fallen asleep, twitching and mumbling in the throes of a terrible dream. His face was wet.
From a safe distance, Bob poked Hunter’s father with his cane. “’Tis the dark elf, I’m afraid. Got his fingers in yer papa’s mind, he does.”
A flash of blue-white light from behind brought a gasp from Mom.
“Eyes front, lad,” Bob said gently.
Hunter wiped the wetness from his eyes and nodded.
Bob went on, “We might be able to give the dark elf the boot, but it will take some time. His clutches apparently run very deep, or else they would have been broken when ye entered the Light Realm. A crafty villain, this one.”
In the distance, a bright elf horn sounded. Elven shapes emerged from the forest, mustering in the lights of the floating globes, some of them helping wounded brethren.
“I reckon I’ll need yer help, me boy,” Bob said, settling onto the ground near Dad’s head, where it was harder for any flailing arms to reach him.
“How can I help?” Hunter said.
“I need yer magic, yer sister’s, too.”
Hunter and Cassie looked at each other uncertainly.
Hunter said, “I don’t have magic.”
“Nonsense. If ye didn’t, ye wouldn’t be here. Now, come and sit. Get comfortable.”
Hunter and Cassie sat down on either side of Bob.
“Now, children,” Bob said, “give me yer hands.”
Hunter took Bob’s tiny hand in his, so small it was like a doll’s hand. Jaclyn and Jazlyn stood behind them, vigilant.
“Ye’re in the Light now,” Bob said, “close to the Source, so all you have to do is reach out and touch it. Magic is all imagination and will. That’s step one. To do that, just close your eyes and take a few deep, slow breaths.”
Hunter did that.
Bob’s voice was soft and hypnotic. “Take another deep, slow breath, let it out... Empty yer mind of thoughts. Ye’ll have some, but just wave at them and let them follow yer breath right on out...”
Hunter followed Bob’s instructions.
“Ye’re settling deeper and deeper, rooting into the earth. Can ye feel that?”
Hunter nodded.
“Let the sparks come in behind yer eyes. They’re mighty pretty. So many colors. Can ye see ’em?”
Cassie giggled. “Uh-huh!”
Hunter couldn’t. Too many other thoughts in the way.
As if sensing Hunter about to say no, Bob said, “If ye don’t, that’s all right. Might be ye got too many thoughts cluttering up the works.”
“Just let ’em go, let ’em wander off like stray monkeys...”
In Hunter’s mind, thoughts transformed into monkeys, chittering, scratching, then wandering off.
Then, behind his eyelids, he saw a spark arcing through the shifting colors like a shooting star.
Elation leaped up. More monkeys wandering in, wandering off. Another spark. Monkeys in, monkeys out. More sparks.
“I see them!” he whispered.
“Good, now see if ye can catch one. Imagine a baseball glove or a butterfly net or a fishing hook, whatever ye think might be best to catch them, gather them up into a ball.”
Hunter reached out with long, stretchy arms like a rubber superhero and started grabbing them, gathering them to his chest, where they formed a warm, pulsating ball over his heart.
Cassie giggled again, breathless with wonder.
“Gather as many as ye can, make a ball as big as ye can,” Bob whispered.
The sparks coalesced in Hunter’s imagination to a beach ball, glowing and throbbing with warmth.
“Now, children, hug that ball tight.”
Hunter squeezed the warm ball like it was his mother, and it sank into him. Toasty warmth burst through his body, up and down his limbs, flushing his face, tingling across his scalp. He breathed out in pleasure.
But then a cry from Mom yanked him out of that quiet, relaxed space, back onto a rocky mountainside surrounded by monsters.
Cassie jumped up and ran to her mother’s side.
Telwyn’s hands lay on Mom’s stomach. Mom’s face was a sweat-sheened grimace of pain.
Hunter trembled, his heart thudding. He suddenly realized the very real possibility that his mom could die. She might never see another sunrise, and his eyes teared up again.
Claude’s voice was grim. “There’s some kind of magical poison in the wound. We can’t heal her.”
Telwyn’s smooth, angular face held a frown. “With enough time and enough magic, we might root out the poison, but our adversary has not departed.”