Galanthre knelt over Ashley to examine his wound. She was pleased to find his armour had soaked up the brunt of the troll’s blow, and that the cut that made it through was superficial at best. He’d be left with a scar, nothing more. A scar on his chest to match her own. How romantic. She leaned across to Thrungle’s body, gathered up a fistful of necklaces and tugged them over his head. She held them there, letting the pendants dangle in the breeze. They no longer chattered. The teeth of her forefathers were silent now. Avenged.
Terry’s shadow loomed over her. “Where is he?” he snarled, knuckles white on the hilt of a discarded sword. “Where’s Clive?”
Having crawled out from beneath the balloon and fled in the confusion, Clive had arrived at the opposite end of the citadel. His lungs were broiling, his heart pumping Red Bull. He tore up to the gondola station and threw himself into the waiting cable car. This was his getaway across the chasm, his ticket to freedom.
His first instinct—once he’d realised he was outnumbered and caught in a losing fight—was to make his departure using sorcery. To levitate away, or anchor a magical bridge to the mainland. It wasn’t to be. His reserves were tapped, his mana sapped from holding sway over enchanted swords and hurling giant fireballs. The gondola would have to do.
He tugged on a lever and felt the car lurch forward as the system’s winch came to life and began to convey him across the gorge. His heart was in his throat. He hated heights. Hated them. Then he saw Terry screeching up to the gondola’s embarkation point, eyes burning with malice. That he disliked even more. Phobias were one thing—irrational, incoherent—but the raw contempt on Terry’s face was so absolutely real. All the magic in the world wasn’t going to quench the hellfire in those eyes.
Terry arrived at the gondola station, muscles stinging, the soles of his bare feet crying bloody murder. Spotting a nearby lever, he closed his hand around it and pulled hard, like Doctor Frankenstein waking his monster.
Nothing.
He reset the lever and pulled it again.
Still nothing.
He slammed it up and down, but it was no good, the car was in motion and bound inexorably for its destination.
He had to do something. Had to stop Clive making it to the other side of the chasm. He looked up and saw the gondola system’s revolving winch mechanism and knew what he had to do. Sword by his side, he climbed a wooden mast until he reached the cable propelling the car to freedom. Legs gripping tight to the mast, he raised the blade in both hands and prepared to bring it down on the giant loop of cord abetting the traitor’s escape. He smiled as he did it. Smiled and looked out to the fleeing car so he could meet Clive’s eye as he sent him to his doom.
What he saw did nothing to hasten his revenge, in fact it did the opposite. As he watched Clive slip into the distance—fearful and pathetic—he was reminded of a time that his own life had hung in the balance. Back at the elf village, during their first encounter with Drensila’s army. If it weren’t for Clive coming to his rescue and sticking a hammer-wielding troll in the back, he’d have ended up a smear. Clive had saved Terry’s life that day. He lowered his sword. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to kill an old friend. At least not like this.
The sword fell from his hand and struck the ground with a single, pure note.
Chapter Nine: Party Crashers
“GO ON, GIRL, chop chop!” urged Cleaver, as Nat carried him up the circular staircase to Drensila’s the Black’s minaret.
Nat hoped she had what it took to end the dark queen’s reign. Hoped she could cross that line. After all, it was one thing to cut down Drensila’s trolls—those were just bundles of evil packed into a familiar shape—but ending the life of a fellow human being… that was something else.
Eathon bounded past her, his treads of his running blades landing in the footprints of his departed brother, who had once scaled this very tower. Reaching the top of the staircase, he silently nudged open the door to Drensila’s minaret, just as Gilon had.
Saw her sitting there with her back to him, same as before.
Began closing the distance to his prey, sword arm raised.
Didn’t detect his image reflected in the minaret’s window.
Failed to notice Drensila following his every move.
“Stop!” screamed Nat as she stormed into the room, panting for breath.
While Eathon had allowed his thirst for revenge to cloud his judgement, Nat had exercised a morsel of caution and seen Drensila’s game for what it was. The queen whirled about to unleash a bolt of frost and put Eathon on ice, but, forewarned by Nat, Eathon was able to spring like a jack-in-the-box and dive off to one side. The incoming bolt passed him by and smashed into the stone wall behind him.
With her magic all but depleted, Drensila howled in dissent. She was, as Cleaver aptly put it, “mad as a dog in a dustbin.”
It had been a long time since Nat had seen Drensila the Black in the flesh, and despite the evil sorceress’s aggravation, she looked as put together as ever. Her elegant dress clung to her in all the right places, and her plunging neckline and fuck-me heels would turn heads from a mile away. Ugh. She was like all the Kardashians rolled into one.
All Eathon saw when he looked at Drensila was a despot and a murderer. “I’ll make you pay for what you did to my kind,” he told her. “Driving us from our homes. Massacring us like animals. Bringing us to the brink of extinction.”
Drensila grinned. The elf had sidestepped his fate once, but she would still see to it that history echoed today.
Moving like quicksilver, she snatched an onyx pin from her hair bun, liberating it from its sheath and setting loose the poison upon its tip. There was a poetry to what would come next. Even now, beyond his death, Stinger would deliver the reaper's kiss and finish the job he started when he took this idiot’s legs. She hurled the hairpin and it sailed through the air, dead on target—
—then suddenly Nat was there, knocking the dart aside in one impossibly fast flash and leaving it buried in the wall.
Nat seemed as surprised by this turn of events as anybody. While she had seen the missile fly and reflexively moved to intercept it, the propulsive action that carried her there had been her sword’s doing. After all, Cleaver had seen this trick before, and he wasn’t about to get taken in twice.
“No flies on me,” he told Drensila.
“You… you bastard sword,” she cursed.
“Broad sword, actually.”
For Eathon, the time for repartee had long since passed. He pulled back his sword arm and went to take Drensila the Black’s head.
“Please,” she begged, backing away. “Violence accomplishes nothing.”
But her cries for clemency were only a means to distract the elf from the dark magic she was working behind her back.
The poisoned onyx hair pin ejected from the wall, span counter clockwise and buried itself between the elf’s shoulder blades. Nat plucked it from his flesh, but the damage was done. Eathon faltered, stumbling against her, holding onto her to stay upright.
“You fool,” mocked Drensila. “Did you really think I’d go down so easily?”
Nat had some wicked shade to throw on that. “Looking at that slutty little number you’re wearing, I’d say, yeah.”
It was a sweet burn.
“You pathetic giblet,” bawled Drensila. “I’m going to scoop out your womb and use it for a fruit bowl!”
This interloper, this silly girl that had treated her world like some bedtime story, was about to receive a fatal dose of reality. The sorceress used her last remaining scrap of mana to accomplish a lightning-fast streak across the chamber, so quick that she was able to land a punch in her would-be assassin’s gut before she could even blink.
The wind left Nat’s belly and she landed on all fours, wobbling about like a perplexed AT-AT.
“Now who’s going down?” squawked Drensila.
She went to deliver a spiked heel to the side of Nat’s skull, but her adversar
y was fast and brought her sword up in self-defence. Cleaver bit into Drensila’s shin, drawing blood and growling like a Rottweiler.
The queen screamed in agony. “You’ll pay for that, you tub of lard!” she bawled, tugging herself free of the blade.
She delivered another a kick and this one connected, knocking Cleaver from Nat’s grip and sending him clattering out of her reach.
Suddenly Nat found herself entangled in a proper hair-pulling bitch fight. It was the kind she hadn’t known since the school playground, only the stakes were altogether higher than the time she dobbed in Susan Jenkins for looking at her Maths answers.
Drensila slapped the taste out of Nat’s mouth with a stinging backhand, then raked her claws across her cheek, drawing blood and damn near putting an eye out. Any reservations Nat had about causing Drensila harm swiftly departed. Now she was out to kill the cow. Let them call her a murderer if they liked, she’d wear the badge with pride. She’d write it on a flag and wave it at a parade if it meant putting this skinny bitch down.
Nat fought back, thrashing her arms about and windmilling her fists until she finally landed a blow. Somewhere in it all, the sharp point of her elbow struck Drensila square in the tit, causing her to shriek in protest. Nat managed to bang her funny bone in the process, but the pain was totally worth it.
“Go on, Red,” shouted Cleaver, unable to fight but happy to offer some pep talk from the sideline. “Give her a punch in the bracket!”
But the sorceress was having none of it. Reaching for a side table, her hand came back brandishing a silver-plated letter opener. It looked silly there—like a toothpick in the fist of a giant—but Drensila’s intentions were serious enough.
She aimed the point of the blade at Nat’s throat and charged, a banshee’s scream upon her lips. Nat tried to bat her aside, but Drensila was too strong, grappling onto her and knocking her from her feet. The Chosen One hit the ground with a sound like a stepped-on puppy, then Drensila was on top of her, bearing down with the letter opener, which looked anything but silly now. Nat fought frantically to push her off, but Drensila had gravity and the weight of an impressive bosom on her side. The sharp end of the weapon edged closer to the soft flesh of Nat’s throat.
Closer.
Closer still.
She turned her head in an effort to avoid the blade and found Eathon, helpless by her side. Though he could only lay there, paralysed, the fight in his eyes told her he was doing everything he could to resist the effects of Drensila’s toxin. In fact, he was working so hard to get between Nat and the knife that it was a wonder his bones don’t tear free of his skin and hurl themselves into the fray.
Nat felt the point of the blade dig into her windpipe. Soon it would break the skin and slip inside, putting a full stop on her life. She turned back to Drensila, hovering over her, muscles corded, a smug grin on her face as the knife drew its first drop of blood.
No.
Absolutely not.
No way was she about to be beaten by this vast hussy.
Nat fought back. Fought back with everything she had. She’d always been a fierce competitor, but she had something in her arsenal even more valuable than that. She was a really sore loser.
Nat brought up her knees, worked the soles of her feet under Drensila’s stomach and kicked out as hard as she could. Her unusually strong, hockey-fit thighs launched Drensila over her head and into the minaret’s circular window.
CRASH!
The glass exploded under the force of Drensila’s momentum and she found herself soaring headfirst through the night sky, into the abyss, screaming the whole way down. Soon the queen’s cry was gone, swallowed by the howling winds of the Durkon Chasm. Drensila the Black was no more.
“Off you toddle,” yelled Cleaver, bidding the queen a fond farewell.
Nat was about to allow herself a moment of celebration, then remembered Eathon dying by her side. She rolled herself over and put a hand on his cheek. He was so cold.
“Come on, wake up,” she demanded, but the elf’s condition was only getting worse. A crimson sweat beaded his skin and the light in his husky blue eyes—so strong before, so full of life—was starting to fade.
“Heads up, love,” said Cleaver, whirling about on the ground like the centrepiece in a game of spin the bottle.
The tip of his blade pointed towards the departed queen’s bedside dresser. “Go on, ‘ave a gander in there,” he told her.
This wasn’t the sword’s first time in Drensila’s bedchamber, and he knew something about it that his wielder didn’t.
Nat followed the direction of his blade, grabbing the handle of the dresser’s drawer and pulling it so hard that the compartment came clean out. She turned it upside down and tipped the contents of the drawer onto the bed. Various odds and ends rained down—finger bones, a pouch, her long-lost mobile phone—but the object that most caught Nat’s attention was a small, crystal vial.
“Get that down ‘im,” Cleaver urged. “Go on, get a jog on.”
Nat hurried over the Eathon, uncorked the vial and poured the antidote into his mouth. He laid there, too weak to swallow, forcing Nat to prop him up and massage the liquid down his throat. She held onto him, calling his name, but Eathon refused to respond. She lowered him back down and beat her fists on his chest. Still no sign of life. His limbs hung slack, his head off to one side. Skin pale. Lips a lurid blue. Nat’s heart sank. The room felt empty, even though it wasn’t. A tear ran down her cheek, blazing hot. He was gone. She pressed her lips to his to kiss him goodbye.
And he coughed.
Air surged through him and his eyelids snapped open to find Nat’s mouth locked to his own.
“What happened?” he croaked, the colour returning to his cheeks.
“We did it,” Nat replied, uncoupling from him, embarrassed. “We won.”
Cleaver concurred. “I’m not gonna lie, you played a blinder. Now go on and tie a ribbon on it.”
Nat knew what he was getting at. She nodded and went over to the bed to collect another item that had fallen from Drensila’s dresser drawer. She placed the object on the ground and brought down her foot, crushing it beneath the heel of a Size 7 Ugg boot. Again and again she stomped, only stopping when it lay in bits.
Her phone, recovered at last, was smashed beyond repair.
Chapter Ten: Bleed Out
WITH THE CITADEL of Durkon claimed as their own, Nat Lawler and her gang saw to it that the place was made a bit more habitable.
The overhaul began with Drensila’s throne room, which was stripped of its ghoulish adornments and transformed into a banquet hall. Menacing tapestries were torn from the walls and replaced with braziers that filled the chamber with a warm, inviting glow. The black marble floor was broken up with a patchwork of homely rugs. Even the room’s seat of power was cozied up; decorated with a chenille blanket and some nice throw pillows. And in the centre of it all, people. People of all shapes and sizes, playing music, breaking bread and toasting to a battle well won.
Nat looked on at what she’d achieved and was struck by a sense of disbelief. Was any of this actually happening? Could it really be that a girl from Chipping, Ongar had travelled over the rainbow to a parallel dimension, overthrown the queen of evil and saved a race from the brink of extinction? Or had the whole thing been some nutty cheese dream?
As her eyes drifted across the room, they found Terry’s. No, this was real. The contented look he returned was too authentic to belong in some delusion, no matter how vivid. She looked to Eathon, who’d only recently recovered from the worst effects of Drensila’s poison. He picked distractedly at a portion of suckling pig and returned a weak nod when he caught Nat’s gaze. She sketched out a smile and nodded back. Eathon hadn’t been himself for a while now. Not since back in Bludoch Dungeon even. He’d get better soon enough though, Nat thought, ignorant of the fact that she was the source of the elf’s pain.
Galanthre and Ashley clashed goblets and flirted outrageously. They hadn’
t declared anything yet, but Nat had seen their shadows pass under the crack of her bedroom door as they made furtive rendezvous’ to each other’s chambers. They’d make a cute couple she thought. More power to them.
Neville held a leg of lamb in one hand and a brimming mug of ale in the other. He’d earned them both, and then some. When he’d arrived from the dungeon a few days ago, the first thing he did was get to work on making the citadel fit for its new occupants. With the assistance of Tidbit—whose bravery and ingenuity had earned him permission from the dwarves to explore the world above—Nev set about building new furnishings for the place. Together they made cots to sleep in, cupboards for storage and dining tables for the feast of pork and roast mutton that lay before the assembled. It was largely thanks to them that the citadel no longer looked like it shared an interior designer with Skeletor.
Nat drew Cleaver from his scabbard. “Well?” she said. “Not bad for a girl, eh?”
Cleaver grinned. “You did alright, love,” he told her. “Now how about you toddle off to the kitchen and make us a pot of tea?”
Nat shook her head and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. She’d made friends with a sass-mouthing magic sword. What a world.
Terry ambled over and joined Nat’s side. Boy, he looked good. Since being stripped of his old LARP outfit, he’d finally given in and adopted the local fashion. Gone forever were the shabby yellow tights and harlequin patch tunic. Instead, Terry wore a pair of deerskin breeches split along the sides to reveal a tasteful brocade, and above the waistline, a tailored doublet that flattered his newly-toned body. It had to be said, the starvation and torture that Terry had endured—while unthinkably awful—had done real wonders for his physique. Thanks to a spell in Drensila’s prison cell, her sweaty, oblong boyfriend was now all cheekbones and snake hips.
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