“Go,” Emily panted at Celine. “They’ll figure out where we are soon. Go!”
Celine stood paralyzed, staring down at the fifty foot drops on either side of them.
“Em, I can’t…I can’t…” Celine’s voice was shrill and on the verge of hysteria.
Fine, Emily thought. She’s afraid of heights. Just what we need.
“You have to,” she said. “Crawl if you have to, but get moving already.”
Celine let out a long, unsteady breath, then dropped to all fours and began crawling forward, resolutely only looking at the rough stone between her hands.
Emily pushed the boy in front of her, keeping her hands clasped on his arms and steering him forward between the drops. Below them, they heard voices and shouted orders, but it didn’t seem that anyone had noticed them up on the wall yet. She wondered how long that could last. Not very, she supposed. Across the courtyard, the bell rang on. Sooner or later, the moon would show itself from behind the clouds, and they’d be like Marcom’s stuffed owls, sitting patiently up here and waiting to be shot.
The streets below on their right were beginning to fill with people. The low babble of their voices carried easily on the night air.
Probably hoping for another execution, she thought bitterly. Well, they might get their wish yet.
They crept forward as quickly as they dared, making as little noise as possible. Not that it mattered, given the relentless din of the bell that tolled on and the increasing roar from the crowd below.
They were almost three-quarters of the way across to the guard tower, and Emily was starting to think they might actually make it inside, when the boy came to a sudden halt and would not go further.
She leaned around him and saw that Celine had stopped as well. She crouched at the boy’s feet. A few branches from the grove of trees that separated the guard towers from the rest of Seven Skies had grown up and over the wall. Celine could climb over them, but it would require getting back to her feet.
Emily was opening her mouth to tell Celine to keep going when there was a crash in the direction of the guard tower ahead. The door stood open, and the dark silhouette of a figure was rushing toward them. They were trapped.
Celine got to her feet, let out a horrible keening sound between her teeth, and then climbed into the branches of the tree, moving as fast as she could. She thrashed like a drowning man, and for a moment, Emily’s heart stopped as she expected to see Celine tumble from the boughs and dash herself on the stones far below.
The branches bent and swayed, but they held her, and she kept crawling through them toward the trunk.
What about the boy?
That question answered itself immediately. The boy took one look at the figure coming toward them, then followed Celine into the branches. He climbed with sure movements and a grace that Celine utterly lacked, and he had caught up with her in seconds.
Emily stepped up alongside the branches, her gaze flitting back and forth between her companions and the figure coming toward her. She had to wait for them to reach the trunk, or risk their combined weight breaking the bough and sending them all tumbling to the ground.
Clouds shifted in the sky overhead, and the figure coming toward her was suddenly illuminated in stark detail, painted in silver moonlight and black shadow. The movie star good looks of Corbbmacc, his face drawn in lines of concentration, hurtled toward her.
She looked back at Celine and the boy. They were almost to the trunk now. She was out of options; she was out of time. She had to risk it.
She climbed onto the sturdiest of the branches and began making her way toward the trunk.
“No!” Corbbmacc had reached the place where the branches extended over the wall. He motioned at her to come back.
Fat chance, she thought and moved faster, clinging to the thick tree limb with hands and knees. Now and then, she glanced back at Corbbmacc’s shape on the wall. He didn’t dare follow her for fear the bough would break beneath his weight.
By the time she reached the trunk, Celine and the boy were already on a pair of branches below her and slowly making their way down the tree.
She was about to follow them, when a terrible creaking of wood tore through the night and sent tremors through the tree. There was a rustle of leaves, and the limbs around her began to move.
Strong wooden fingers clasped her arms. The branch she was clinging to began to twist and turn toward her. Below, Celine let out a long piercing shriek that sliced through the night like a knife.
Struggling, Emily wrenched her arms free. The branch bent and swung, and she lost her grip. As she fell backward, she locked her knees, grasping the limb with her legs and hanging upside down. Her sword slid from the sheath at her belt, and she snatched at it as it flashed past her face. Her fingers closed on the blade, and bright pain blossomed as the sharpened edges sliced into flesh. She felt blood trickle into her palm, mixing with the sticky sap from the tree. With an effort, she managed to get a grip on the handle.
More branches were tugging at her from below. They’d gotten a hold on her backpack and were pulling it with tremendous force. Her shoulders groaned with the strain. If she didn’t do something about it quickly, the tree was liable to rip her to pieces. She wriggled free of the straps, and the pack was carried away by the monstrous boughs, which proceeded to rip it to shreds.
Branches clawed at her legs, lighting a fire in the lacerations made earlier by the thorns.
She tilted her head back, looking down the length of the tree from her upside-down perspective. A few feet below her, Celine was fighting the tree wildly, a dagger in each hand. Her hair was full of leaves and bits of twig. Of the boy, she saw no sign.
More limbs scratched at the back of her neck and pulled at her hair, and she had a sudden, intense moment of total recall. She saw the condemned man again; she saw his head being torn from his shoulders.
And Emily did the only thing she could; she relaxed her legs and let go.
She threw herself backward toward Celine, feeling the tree’s bony fingers scrambling to get a grip on her. A few managed to catch hold of her hair, and there was more pain as a lock of it parted company from her scalp with the sound of rending cloth.
I have to hang on to my sword, she thought desperately. It was the only weapon she had left.
She crashed down on the branch beside Celine, and it snapped, sending both of them tumbling downward. They collided with, and glanced off of, smaller branches, breaking many as they fell. Celine screamed again. Emily tried to grab the trunk as it flashed past, but only succeeded in stripping layers of skin from her arms.
All the air was knocked from her as a limb as thick as a man’s arm bent and caught both girls around their middles, only a few yards from the ground.
The tree began to close in around them as Emily gasped for air. She struggled and fought as groping fingers tore flesh from her legs, leaving long and bloody gashes in their wake. One closed on her ear and twisted, and pain exploded in her head.
She struggled to free herself, whipping her body around.
She found herself looking into a single wet and shiny blue eye that peered out at her from the trunk of the tree. It looked human, but only the light of unfeeling, reptilian intelligence shone there, gleaming in the darkness and reflecting the moonlight. It was a window into the depths of a soulless creature, long ago stripped of any humanity.
The action was utterly instinctual. The knowing played no role. Only pain, terror, and a sense of self-preservation propelled her forward. Emily drove the point of her sword directly into that terrible blue eye. She plunged it as deeply as she could—and twisted.
The tree began to shudder violently. She felt the limb that held her convulse, the wood beneath the bark rippling like muscle before it hurled her and Celine away. They tumbled to the ground, and the air was knocked out of her once more. She lay amidst the brush, unable to breathe. Beside her, Celine gasped for air.
The greenery stirred around her.
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br /> Wheezing, Emily got to her knees, and then to her feet. Weeds twisted around her ankles. Vines began creeping up her calves. She kicked them away.
Somehow, she’d managed to hang on to her sword. She lifted it protectively before her face, and caught a glimpse of something glistening on the blade. It ran slowly down the metal like a dollop of jelly, and she realized with dawning horror that it was the remains of the tree’s hideous eye. She felt her gorge rise as it fell with a thick, wet plop to the ground. A white rose at her feet bent down and scooped the gelatinous mass up between its hungry petals. Emily looked away.
Beside her, Celine was trying to get to her feet as well, but vines had curled around her arms and yanked her back to the ground. Sage and other brush Emily couldn’t identify scratched at Celine’s exposed arms and face.
She crouched down and started hacking at the brush, but it was difficult. She was terrified of hitting Celine.
“Where are your daggers?” she asked between gasps.
“Lost ’em,” Celine panted, beating the vines away with her hands.
Emily pulled up a clump of weeds by the roots and hurled it away. That same terrible keening screech they’d heard in the tower as the vines had burned filled the air.
She pulled more brush out of the ground, showering Celine and herself in clods of wet earth and long wriggling worms.
She sliced at the vines around Celine’s shoulder and inadvertently carved a shallow gash in her arm. Celine cried out with pain, but she was free of the vines—at least temporarily.
Emily hauled her to her feet, kicking away more of the greenery that had wound itself around her legs.
Branches swayed above them, reaching out and filling the air with that horrible creaking that Emily thought she’d be hearing in her nightmares for the rest of her life. Pulling Celine along, Emily fought her way through the brush, kicking it as hard as she could and swiping her sword at vines that sprang up from the ground like cobras.
They were nearly out of the grove now, the pavement at the base of the guard towers only feet away, when something flashed forward and yanked Emily’s feet out from under her. She went down in a heap, hitting the ground hard. Her teeth snapped together, and fresh pain blossomed from her tongue. The salty, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth with sickening rapidity.
“Go!” she coughed, blinking away the tears that sprang to her eyes. She twisted to try to free herself, but more flora wrapped around her arms, pinning them to her sides. Long thorny tendrils crept over her face, and she turned it away, closing her eyes and struggling.
She felt Celine yank the sword from her grasp.
“No! Just go!” she shouted again, and when her mouth closed, it was on the bitter-tasting branches of some kind of shrubbery. They twisted and writhed in her mouth, trying to get a grip on her tongue and scraping her gums raw.
Emily clamped her teeth down as hard as she could, and she heard the branch snap. Her mouth filled with a viscous, sour liquid that burned her tongue. She spat out the remains of the branches, and a group of roses surged forward, seeming to soak up the drops of scarlet upon them. Tiny, bitter leaves clung to her lips.
She opened her eyes and saw Celine hacking away with the sword at the vines that held her. Behind her, in the moonlight, she saw a shape looming out of the darkness.
She started to call out a warning, but before she could, the figure shoved Celine aside and the moonlight fell across Corbbmacc’s handsome face. He wielded a battle axe, and he began chopping his way through the brush that surrounded her with quick, sure movements.
The vines fell away, and Emily scrambled to her feet. She grabbed a fist full of Celine’s tunic, and they ran the last few yards from the grove as Corbbmacc continued battling the brush behind them.
Emily ran for the tower that housed the stables, pulling Celine along with her, but they’d only gone a few feet when she felt a strong arm encircle her chest and bring her to a halt. It spun her around, and she found herself nose to nose with Corbbmacc.
“Where is he?” he asked, letting go of her and wiping sweat from his face.
“Who?”
“Who?” he cried. “The kid you’re risking your fucking life for?”
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “He was in the tree. I think he…I think he fell.”
“Shit.” Corbbmacc spun away and ran back into the grove, wielding his axe and carving a path for himself as he went.
“Is he mad? What the ’ell is he doin’?” Celine asked, clutching Emily’s arm.
The two of them stood for a moment, transfixed by the shadowy form of their savior as it flashed between the trees. From beyond the grove, they could hear the shouts from the rest of the guard. It sounded as though they were too frightened, or at least not stupid enough, to try to travel through the grove while it was alive like this.
And then she saw Corbbmacc rushing toward them with the boy’s limp body slung over his shoulder. His arms and legs dangled bonelessly as Corbbmacc fought his way through the brush, swinging his axe in wide arcs.
One huge limb from the tree whipped downward toward Corbbmacc.
“Look out!” Emily screamed.
For one terrible moment, she was sure it would snatch them both from the ground, but Corbbmacc looked up at her warning, saw the shadow of the branch as it swooped down upon him, and threw his body to the side at the last possible instant.
With one last leap, he cleared the grove and came hurtling toward them across the stones.
“Run!” he shouted at them, and he gestured with the axe toward the tower.
They ran. Across the stones, up the steps, through the doors that stood open. The smell of horses and hay filled the air.
Two horses, one of them Storm, stood ready and saddled inside.
“Get on,” Corbbmacc wheezed, and he flung the boy’s body over the back of the second horse. The boy coughed, and Emily realized he was still miraculously alive. Unconscious—but alive.
Corbbmacc ran for the wall across from the stables as Emily mounted Storm and pulled Celine up with her. The smaller girl sat behind her, wrapping her arms around Emily’s waist. Emily could feel the trembling that racked her tiny form and the beating of her heart against her spine as she molded her body to Emily’s.
The wall slid away before them, and Corbbmacc ran back to his horse. He clambered on behind the boy’s still form, and kicked his heels into the animal’s sides. It began moving forward, and Emily did the same, following him.
Corbbmacc urged his horse faster, and by the time they reached the street, the horses were already walking briskly.
The crowds that had gathered scattered before the oncoming horses, and Emily saw a few people salute them as they went by. As far as these people were concerned, they were just members of the guard sent to deal with the commotion.
Corbbmacc dug his heels deeper, and his horse increased its speed. Storm, seeming to sense the urgency, followed along behind, increasing her own pace to keep up without needing to be told.
From behind them, the bell tolled on, and more shouts filled the night.
By the time they reached the end of the first street and Corbbmacc turned northward, they were moving at a trot, and the pounding of hooves had begun to clatter on the cobblestones behind them. The guard had launched its pursuit.
As they sped down the streets, moving farther from Seven Skies, the buildings became more sparse. Lights were flickering on in windows in some, and she heard a few muffled shouts around them.
They urged their horses onward into a gallop, and the cool night air stung Emily’s face and finished clearing her head.
It also brought Corbbmacc’s voice back to her, low and deep and smooth as honey, as he shouted into the night, “For the dragon!”
Chapter Seventeen
Corbbmacc’s shout echoed from the buildings around them, and windows blazed with golden light. Other voices rang out from every side, mingling with those of the crowds.
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“For the dragon!”
Emily felt a low vibration deep in the center of her chest before she heard the deafening crash that tore through the night and rolled away into the darkness. She and Celine twisted around on their saddle, straining to see in the fickle moonlight. One apparently abandoned building had crumbled into the street, creating a barrier of rubble between them and their pursuers. Shadowy figures scurried away from the destruction, and more shouts rang out from all sides.
“For the dragon!”
“The dragon!”
There was a rumble of thunder, and a second building exploded outward, adding its own debris to the street. Stones, bricks, boards, and mortar rained down everywhere. A cloud of dark smoke rose up from the chaos, momentarily blocking out the moon and plunging them into pitch darkness.
This must have been planned. These traps were too obviously devised to create obstacles behind them. Why? No one could have known what she was going to do.
As the sea breeze broke apart the smoke and carried it away, Emily turned to face forward again. She and Celine were falling behind Corbbmacc. With some trepidation, she kicked her heels into Storm’s sides, and the mare picked up her pace.
She felt Celine’s arms tighten around her as she, too, grew uneasy with their speed over the uneven and broken road beneath them. Cracks and fissures crisscrossed its surface, and Emily’s gaze flicked back and forth between Corbbmacc and the pavement with growing alarm, sure that it was only a matter of time before one of Storm’s legs caught in a pothole or crevice. The wind of their passage swept her hair away from her face and cooled the rivulets of sweat that ran from her temples.
As they crested a rise, they passed beyond the limits of the city, and the broken pavement gave way to hardpan. Emily could see the moonlight glimmering off the tops of the waves as they crashed against the shore. Behind them, another explosion mingled with the roar of the ocean. Fear gave way to exhilaration and an odd sense of familiarity. She sat up straighter in the saddle, lifting her face toward the sky and relishing the cool air. For a moment, she allowed herself to forget the trouble she was in. As it always had on the ice, speed soothed her soul.
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