by John Corwin
The thought of being knocked out that far from the ground dragged another ugly realization from the shadows. Kohval wants us dead.
Elyssa bared her teeth. "It was an ambush."
My stomach tightened like a drum. "What now?"
"We'll see how long it takes them to adjust to our unexpected move." Thomas folded his arms. "Act as if nothing is wrong. I don't want to spark an aerial chase."
"I don't think an aerial chase would be much to worry about," I said. "We can easily outrun them."
Thomas looked back toward Kohval's headquarters. "I'm not so certain about that."
Elyssa and I swiveled our heads like owls and watched as the Daskar effortlessly lifted off the roof of headquarters and flew in pursuit on shimmering wings of Murk. Unlike the trainees, they formed a neat formation and jetted forward.
Kohval's ambush hadn't worked, so now he meant to stop or kill us directly.
Chapter 7
We raced for the Northwestern Pass. From there we'd have to circle north to reach the meeting place. The Daskar were a few hundred yards behind, but closing the gap fast.
Thomas crouched on his knees to reduce wind resistance. "We have to reach the rendezvous point. I don't think the Daskar will risk engaging Arturo's soldiers." His carpet shot forward.
Elyssa and I opened up the throttles on our brooms and paced him. We could've gone faster, but neither of us were about to leave her father behind.
Our brooms swept into the pass, a tight canyon with steep rocky walls and hazardous outcrops of rock. We dodged back and forth, diving and climbing to clear obstructions, steadily aiming higher.
Snow swept into the crevice, pelting my face and making my nose run. The Daskar shot into the pass about a hundred yards behind us and gaining fast. Their bodies shifted side-to-side to avoid obstructions, their ethereal wings sparking where they touched the rocky walls. We burst through a blanket of snow at the lip of the canyon and emerged onto a steep slope on the other side of the mountain.
Elyssa's broom lurched and stopped. With a shriek, she plummeted twenty feet and fell out of sight into dense snow.
"Elyssa!" I whipped the broom around.
Thomas turned and came to my side, sword drawn. "Where did she go?"
I spotted the divot where she'd landed. "She's there. Something happened to her broom." We didn't have much time before the Daskar caught up so I dove to the ground and found Elyssa struggling to rise through seven feet of powder.
"My broom won't turn back on," she called.
I levitated lower and flung a strand of Murk at her. She caught it and I willed it to shorten, towing her up and out. The broom sagged lower, unable to support the extra weight.
"Put her on my carpet," Thomas said.
Elyssa shook her head. "That's a one-person carpet. It won't carry us both."
A blanket of white covered the steep slope, broken only by black rock jutting out like broken teeth. In the distance, I saw the grassy blue plateau atop Mount Ulladon where Arturo would soon be expecting me.
"Commander, get to the mountain." I channeled a flat barrier of Murk on the snow. "Elyssa, get on the sled."
Elyssa dropped from the magical rope and onto my magical platform. "This isn't a sled."
"It'll have to be." I landed the broom next to her and looked back up at Thomas. "Sir, go to the mountain. We'll be there soon."
"Take care of my daughter." Thomas sheathed his sword. "I'll tell Arturo to expect you." He spun the carpet around and set off down the slope.
Elyssa twisted the handle of her broom to fold the saddle and stirrups into compact form, then slung it over her shoulder. She took my broom and did the same. Folded up, neither broom was much larger than a broomstick.
The first Daskar exploded out of the canyon, the gems on the back of his armor shimmering with energy. Apparently, they had flight suits similar to the one Issana had used last night. He rolled around and spotted us. "Down there!"
Another dozen whisked into view. Blazing pinions spread wide to hold them aloft. The Daskar aimed their fists and orbs of ultraviolet energy gathered to strike.
"That is so badass," I murmured.
Elyssa wrapped her arms around my waist. "It's gonna be our asses if you don't go!"
I snapped from my stupor and adjusted the shape of the Murk shield into the approximate size of a snowboard. With a shove from my foot we hit loose powder and gravity took over from there. Energy blasted the snow behind us, throwing huge white billows into the air. I leaned left to avoid rocks, but with so many, it was nearly impossible. My knees buckled to absorb the shocks. Elyssa grunted as we flew off a mound of snow and nearly plowed into a boulder.
My concentration wavered as we gathered momentum. Holding a shield while moving this fast was a tremendous chore. Elyssa's grip on my waist tightened. Her feet shifted and we narrowly missed a jagged boulder. She guided the snowboard into a narrow gap between more rocks and we hit open air.
I screamed as we plummeted all of ten feet to the snow below. The snowboard shimmered away to mist as my concentration broke, leaving nothing to land on but snow. We tumbled through the powder and came to rest against a shelf of rocks hanging over a slope so steep it made my pounding heart miss a few beats.
"Keep your concentration, Justin!" Elyssa grabbed my arms and snapped her fingers in my face. "Let me drive, okay?"
I pushed to my feet. Took a deep breath. "I can do this." I channeled another board beneath my feet. She hopped on in front and I grabbed her waist.
Daskar appeared overhead and spotted our black uniforms against the white almost immediately. Elyssa shoved off and took us over the rocky shelf and into a long fall to a forty-five-degree decline.
I held back a cry of terror and concentrated on maintaining the snowboard. We hit the snow and hurtled down the slope so fast, my eyes watered. Deadly blasts of Murk hammered the mountain behind and around us. It took every ounce of concentration I had to keep channeling the shield while moving so fast.
Elyssa expertly guided the snowboard around rocks and over small cliffs, each time finding a line in the snow that would guide us into the forest far below. We hit a ramp and flew through the air before landing on a narrow cliff at the edge of a ravine.
"Holy mother!" Elyssa whipped the board right, leaning hard to dig the edge into the powder. We skimmed the ledge, the Murk throwing sparks against the rock. The dark gorge below gaped like an open maw, ready to consume a meager meal. Wind whistled in my ears. Snow and ice pelted my face. My butt cheeks clenched tight and I barely maintained the pattern of the snowboard. If I lost the weave now, we'd tumble to our doom.
Despite the armor, my hands were freezing and I felt snot forming icicles on my nose. I spotted another issue looming ahead. The ledge narrowed to only a few inches wide.
I tightened my grip on Elyssa's waist. "Uh, babe?"
"I see it." She jabbed a finger right where a crack in the cliff wall formed a narrow tunnel. "Duck!"
I bent my knees just in time to avoid decapitation. Wind howled through the tunnel, propelling us faster and faster. We shot from the other side and hit a wide open slope. The Daskar reappeared overhead shortly after and resumed their attacks. Snow exploded in front of us leaving us blind for an instant.
A deep rumble vibrated me all the way down to the bones. I wiped the powder from my eyes and looked back. A tsunami of snow cascaded down the slope after us. "Avalanche!" I shouted.
Elyssa looked back at the wall of doom rushing after us. "Can you shield us?"
"Maybe." I couldn't even begin to calculate the immense power my barrier would have to withstand. It was all I could do to keep the shield beneath our feet. "Can't we outrun it?"
"I don't think so." Elyssa looked at the great white plain before us and shook her head. "We've got another problem."
"Another problem?" I peered forward and saw what she meant. The slope vanished over a cliff. It might be a small drop off to another slope or it might be thousand feet to the groun
d.
"Please tell me you have an idea." Elyssa gripped my hands still tight around her waist. "We're running out of mountain."
We had only one chance but it would require some top-notch channeling on my part. I fortified my confidence with a deep breath. "Go with the flow, babe. I got you."
That was all I needed to tell her. She lowered her head against the biting wind and we barreled toward the Devil's mouth with Hell right on our heels. The Daskar circled overhead like vultures, eager to watch us die so they could pick at our bones and take them home to their master. Somehow, I had to make them believe we died, or else they'd swoop in and finish us off.
We reached the end of the line and leapt off the cliff. The only thing between us and the valley below was open air and the promise of death. I released the channel for the snowboard. It vanished in a puff of ultraviolet mist. Holding Elyssa by the waist, I adjusted our angle of descent. Gravity wrapped us in its merciless embrace and pulled us toward our doom. A storm of snow followed us over the cliff, blotting out the sky and the Daskar.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my shoulder blades, imagining the itch that meant I was doing it right. My magical muscles were exhausted from the strain of channeling the snowboard through all the high-velocity maneuvers and for panicked instant, I didn't think I'd be able to manifest my wings.
"Uh, Justin?" Elyssa's voice sounded on the verge of panic. "Wings, please?"
Gritting my teeth, I dug deep and pulled on my reserves. First an itch, then knifing pain as flaming wings sliced through my skin. Blazing white energy shimmered on my right, and ultraviolet to my left. I quickly folded them against my body.
"Yes!" I would have pumped a fist, but I needed to hold onto Elyssa.
"Why aren't you spreading them?" Elyssa said as we continued to fall at terminal velocity.
"The Daskar need to think we're dead, and I don't want the snow to catch up with us." I let the edges of the wings catch just enough air to angle us to the right and the edge of the snowstorm on our heels. If I spread my wings all the way, we'd be buried in snow and forced to the ground.
The fringe of the avalanche reached us. Powder and ice stung my face. Wind whipped my hair and did its best to blind me with tears. The air thundered with cracking rock and the chafe and grind of tons of snow. A massive boulder streaked past, narrowly missing us. We were a thousand feet from the ground, and a few hundred yards from the edge of the storm. I risked a little more wing to sharpen our angle, but it was too much and the main body of the avalanche nearly engulfed us. I quickly retracted my wings, but we'd lost too much speed.
Elyssa looked up. "Watch out!"
Another boulder nearly took off my head. A crazy idea smacked me in the noggin and I risked it. Flinging out a strand of Murk, I caught the boulder and let its heavier mass pull us after it and out of the lighter snow. Back in relatively clear air, I released the boulder and angled once again for the edge of the avalanche.
A hundred yards. Fifty. Thirty. Ten. We cleared the fringe with a few hundred feet to spare before the ground claimed us. I spread my wings and held Elyssa tighter. My shoulders ached and Elyssa seemed to gain a hundred pounds as we fought gravity and glided in for a graceful landing on the ground.
By graceful, I meant we smacked into a giant sunflower and tumbled head over ass until we came to rest in a patch of scrubby grass. Thunder echoed through the valley as the avalanche crashed into the ground, sending up a bank of mist for hundreds of yards in all directions.
Now that we were out of the snow zone, the temperature climbed from frigid to balmy, but my limbs were still shaking, and my face felt numb.
I couldn't see the Daskar, which likely meant they couldn't see us. Groaning, I staggered to my feet and found Elyssa woozily shaking her head a few feet away beneath a sunflower nearly ten feet tall.
A forest of the giant flowers stretched in all directions, their heads catching the sun and beaming multicolored rays back into the sky. I touched one of the golden stalks and felt warmth emanating from it. "Brings a whole new meaning to the word sunflower."
"No time to sightsee." Elyssa grabbed my hand and pulled me along. "We need to reach Mount Ulladon."
"Where is it?" I turned in a circle.
"Over there." Elyssa grabbed my chin and angled my peepers right. About five miles away Mount Ulladon rose from the middle of the valley. She grimaced. "You have frozen snot all over your nose."
"Really?" I rubbed my nose with a finger and felt the crusty grossness. "Ugh!"
"Hold on." Elyssa reached into her ninja fanny pack, took out a wet wipe, and applied it to my icky spots. A moment later she grunted in satisfaction. "You're presentable now."
"Wouldn't want to negotiate peace with boogers hanging out of my nose."
She laughed. "It'd be funny though."
I massaged my temples. "God, my head hurts."
Elyssa checked the time on her arcphone. "We only have an hour. We need to run."
I unslung her broom from my back and tried to activate it, but it was dead as a doornail. "I don't get it. Your broom doesn't look damaged."
"It died like it ran out of charge." Elyssa pushed past a giant stalk. "We don't have time to figure it out."
"This model should have had plenty of aether left." I flipped open the broomstick and checked the aether battery, stumbling as I tried to walk through the scrubby underbrush without paying attention. I checked the magic meter. "The battery is still at eighty percent."
"Justin, you need to pay attention so we can run." Elyssa looked up. "The Daskar will see us the moment the snow clears."
The sunflowers hid us so long as we were careful to stay beneath their wide crowns, but running would quickly reveal us to anyone with sharp eyesight. It wasn't like we had much of a choice if we were to reach Mount Ulladon in time. I replaced the aether battery and slung the broom back over my back. "Let's go."
Elyssa started at a jog, dodging around the thick clumps of grass dotting the ground, then picked up speed as we gained knowledge of the terrain. She sprinted ahead and I followed—carefully. Our reflexes were supernatural, sure, but at top speed, even my ninja girlfriend had issues dodging giant sunflower stalks on uneven ground.
I looked back to check for pursuit and smacked into a sunflower, cracking the stalk and landing me on my butt. "Son of a—" I hopped back to my feet and spotted crystal armor glinting in the sunlight. The Daskar circled over the debris from the avalanche and didn't seem to be looking our way.
I hurried to catch up with Elyssa and found her waiting impatiently a few yards ahead.
"They' haven't seen us," I told her.
"Good." She gazed up at Mount Ulladon. "Maybe we have a chance."
We ran onward and reached the mountain thirty minutes later, only to find the next challenge. A steep cliff loomed for a hundred feet before turning into a slope we could hike. I flung out a hand and tried to channel a strand of Murk to help us scale the cliff quickly, but my mental faculties were shot from too much strain.
Concern flickered in Elyssa's violet eyes. "Spider powers not working?"
I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, digging deeper, but trying to force aether through my exhausted system only gave me a headache. I tried another tactic, using Arcane spell casting instead. Taking a breath, I drew aether into my well. The moment I tried to cast a spell, fist of pain kicked me in my cerebellum. I staggered back.
"Gotta rest my brain." I rubbed my temples to sooth the ache.
Elyssa pressed a hand to my head. "You're burning up."
"You know how I've always had trouble holding a shield while moving?"
She nodded. "Yeah, you said you had to calculate movement speed or physics or something like that."
"Constantly channeling a solid object in a specific position while I'm moving at high speeds requires a ton of extra energy and brain power." I stared up at the cliff. "How are we supposed to get up there?"
Elyssa dug her hands into the thick clay e
arth and rubbed it on her hands. "The old-fashioned way."
"Rock climbing?" I looked straight up and felt dizzy from vertigo. "Uh, I've never done that before."
"Technically, it's called bouldering." Elyssa grabbed a clump of blue clay and mashed it into my hand. "Rub this on your hands. It'll help your grip."
I did as instructed. "Now what?"
She inspected the rock face. "I see the line we can take. Luckily, it hasn't been worn smooth."
I saw a few rocky outcrops and some cracks, but I didn't see how in the world I was supposed to reach all of them. "How about I use my broom and you climb?"
Elyssa nodded. "That's fine. Catch me if I fall?"
I grinned. "Always." I unslung my broom and activated it. Instead of levitating it dropped to the ground. "What's going on with our brooms?"
Elyssa frowned. "Did you break it during our crash landing?"
I ran my fingers up and down the polished wood, but found no cracks. I took out the aether battery and verified it still had most of its charge left. "It's doing the same thing yours did. Everything looks fine, but it doesn't work."
Elyssa checked the time. "We're down to twenty-five minutes."
"We'll never make it in time."
"Not if you try to fix the brooms." She grabbed a ledge and pulled herself up. Bracing a foot on an outcrop, she leapt five feet and gripped another ledge, holding on by her fingers. Hanging fifteen feet above me, she looked down and said, "Do as I do. It's only a hundred feet."
I gulped and put the brooms back over my shoulders. "I should've made you carry these."
"Want me to come back down and take them?"
I shook my head and girded my loins. "Nah, I got this." Time to man up, you little wimp. I gripped the first ledge and felt the rough stone bite into my fingers. My muscles were already warmed up, and my supernatural strength hadn't been affected by my magic strain, so I easily pulled myself into position.
Elyssa had already climbed another ten feet. I saw the path she'd taken and leapt up. I overshot the intended ledge and barely grasped a crag before falling back to earth. Holding on with both hands, I braced my feet on the rough surface and took a deep breath before resuming the climb.