“You are coming with me!” Audrianna pleaded.
Aully shook her head. “No, Mother,” she said. “I can handle this myself.”
A hard, determined look came over her mother’s face, and Lady Audrianna sharply nodded. She ran, hunched over, across the walk, until she collided with Kindren, who was halfway to standing. Her mother and betrothed both toppled over the side of the causeway, falling down among the charging soldiers below. Aully felt a sharp needle of panic plunge into her gut, but she did her best to ignore it. She had to trust that her mother knew what she was doing.
Aully reached down within herself, said more words of magic, and traced a line across her gown with a scorching hot finger. When she was finished she stood up, the billowing part of the dress falling away along with the train, smoking where it’d been singed. Then she stepped confidently toward her bastard brother, arms outstretched. Electricity sparked between her fingers, even as the arrows came down. Carskel finished batting down the flames, which had burned away a large portion of his frock. It dangled in two pieces from his back.
She stopped ten feet away from him. “Brother!” she shouted.
Carskel spun around, still hunkered down, khandar held at the ready. His eyes widened when he saw her. Aully thrust her hands forward and shouted the words, and lightning shot from her fingertips, arcing across the span between them and striking Carskel square in the chest. The elf fell flat on his back, the khandar bouncing away from him as his body shuddered violently. The electricity continued to course through him. Aully took one step toward him, then two, not letting up. Smoke rose from Carskel’s chest, and she could smell burning flesh. When she saw his eyes roll into the back of his head, she drew her hands back to her sides. The lightning ceased to crackle. Carskel fell still.
She snatched up the fallen khandar and knelt beside her brother, the would-be ruler of the Stonewood Dezren. He appeared dead, though his chest rose and fell. Aully crept along his side until she reached his shoulders. She placed the cutting edge of the khandar against his neck.
Carskel’s eyes snapped open, and amazingly, he grinned. Aully started in surprise, her moment of hesitation giving her brother the opportunity to shove the blade away from his neck. Stars then exploded in Aully’s vision as his fist connected with her cheek. She dropped the weapon and fell away from him, grasping at the side of her face. It was on fire. Her eyes watered, blurring her vision.
Still the arrows rained down, and the soldiers galloped.
“You have injured me,” Carskel said, almost playfully. “That will not do.”
The elf stepped toward her, bending over and picking up the khandar just as she’d done a moment before. His hand reached out and grabbed a handful of hair. Pain spiked in Aully’s scalp as he dragged her along the causeway. “You won’t do that again, sweet sister. Consider your precious Kindren’s life forfeited, as well as-”
Carskel doubled over, a wad of phlegm ejecting from his mouth. His grip on Aully’s hair loosened, and she pulled free from him, scurrying away on her hands and knees before turning back around. What she saw, she couldn’t quite understand. A shadowy elf was now on the causeway, his fists pummeling her bastard brother, knocking him from one hempen rail to the other. Carskel’s head snapped back; he doubled over when struck in the gut; he fell to the side when battered on the ear. Finally, the shadowy elf grabbed Carskel by the back of his breeches and tipped him over the rail. Aully’s brother disappeared from sight. The shadowy elf then turned to her, and for the first time she saw his face. Aully’s jaw dropped open.
“Ceredon,” she said.
Ceredon grabbed her hand and held it tight.
“Run.”
Above them, the forest city of Stonewood exploded in a shower of wooden shards.
“Run,” said Ceredon. His knuckles were bleeding from striking the elf that had been attacking Aully, and his entire body was sore from untold days trying to lead the demon Darakken away from Stonewood, a plan that he realized was doomed to fail from the start.
Aully just stood there, gaping at him. No time for this. The massive beast that was Darakken burst forth, demolishing trees and homes, forcing his hand. He snatched up Aully by the waist and lifted her, leaping over the side of the rope bridge just as it collapsed.
Behind him, Dezren elves screamed and wood shattered. Rising above it all was the demon’s trumpeting howl.
He landed on the hard-packed earth and held Aully tightly to his chest, shielding her from harm as they rolled. When they stopped, he hastily got back on his feet and glanced up at the huge, raging beast. The thing was clawing at Stonewood’s tall trees with its lizardlike claws, deeply scoring the bark and using its horns to pry into the still intact domiciles. Its spiked tail lashed from side to side, impaling an unfortunate soldier through the chest; the horse he rode galloped off riderless. The demon then plunged its snout into a treetop home, its horns collapsing the side of the structure. Its jaws snapped shut, and when its head withdrew, it had a female elf trapped in its maw. Blood poured from the poor elf’s mouth even as she beat at the beast’s scaly hide, pulverizing her own fists on its scales. Darakken tensed, its jaw trembling, and with a loud crack the elf split in two. Her upper torso and legs plummeted to the earth while the demon gulped down her midsection. From inside the ruined domicile, children shrieked. Ceredon’s stomach churned.
He turned away from the morbid display, only to see that Aully was still staring. “Do not look,” he coaxed, gently touching her cheek to avert her head.
“Lolly,” she said with a whimper, her eyes bulging. “Hadrik, Mella. . ”
“Do not think of them. Just run.”
Aully nodded, but she still appeared too frightened to move. It was chaos all around them, with both elves and human soldiers storming across the clearing, trying to get away from the giant, ravenous beast. Not all of them fled mindlessly, however. A few of the soldiers paused to allow stranded elves to climb onto their horse with them. One of those was a woman dressed all in black, a beautiful creature, for a human, whom Ceredon recognized. He’d seen her when he raced past the human caravan on his way into the forest. The woman looked determined, but not overly frightened, impressive given what she faced. She rode off, followed closely by an odd-looking man wearing a bright green cloak. Then he too was gone.
It was time Ceredon followed suit.
He grabbed Aully’s hand and began to run, but the young Dezren princess fought against him. “No!” she shouted.
“We have to go, Aullienna!” he yelled back at her. The demon continued to feast on elves in the treetops.
“No, we have to find Mother, we have to find Kindren!” Aully exclaimed. “I won’t leave without him!”
Ceredon nodded, fighting off the urge to throw her over his shoulder and scamper off. She seemed to have shaken off her paralysis, and though her flesh was still pale as the sky on a cold winter’s day, there was a determination in her eyes that he couldn’t deny. He hadn’t come all this way to protect just her; he knew he couldn’t turn his back on the others.
He took her hand, and together they ran toward the center of the clearing, where the remnants of the hanging bridge now lay ruined. Human soldiers still charged through the clearing, looks of pure terror on those faces not covered with helms. They flashed by on either side of Ceredon and Aully, so close that wind whipped through Ceredon’s hair. There were bodies littering the ground, and horses trampled them. In their terror, a couple of the soldiers blindly ran down the fleeing Dezren, crushing them beneath heavy hooves. Bones snapped. Blood flew into the air and seeped into the soil. It was pandemonium.
“There!” Aully shouted.
Ceredon followed her gaze, and finally he spotted Kindren and Lady Audrianna, holding one another while they limped across the frenzied clearing. A man on horseback veered too close to them, clipping Lady Audrianna in the process. The Lady of Stonewood was tossed aside, falling on top of Kindren. They lay there shouting while another soldier passed by, missing them by mere inches.