“Die!” screamed Glissa as the blind and mindless leveler chewed its comrade.
The elf jumped off her mount and landed on the next one’s back. She intended to blind it as well, spurring the huge metal beasts to tear each other apart as they had her parents and sister. Instead, as she landed, the creature twisted its body and reached for her with its pincers. Glissa lost her footing and fell backward. Her foot slid down past the beast’s head, close to the twirling blades. She pulled her feet up and rolled backward onto the floor, landing hard amidst the rubble of the kitchen, her back against the rear wall.
The levelers turned-all except the blinded one, which had made its way back into a spire room. Glissa pushed on the floor with her hands and legs, inching her way up the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. The levelers advanced on her, one behind the other. Glissa thought about jumping over the front creature’s rotating blades and trying to run across the backs of the killers and escape. The warrior inside her couldn’t bear to retreat in the face of her family’s executioners.
“This is it,” she said. Her family was gone. Her life was over. All she had left was this moment. “You’ll pay dearly for my family’s deaths before I die!” she growled.
Glissa held her sword up in front of her. The tip wavered a little. She readied for the attack, then stared at the tip of the sword. It glowed faintly. Soft green tendrils of energy played up and down the length of the blade. It was the same energy she had seen in her flare, and it was building. Now the entire blade was bright green, and the energy was climbing her arm. With a blinding flash, a tendril of energy lashed out from the tip of the sword at the nearest leveler, engulfing it in green fire. Glissa could feel the heat from the intense flame, but the fire died quickly, leaving nothing but slag where the beast had stood.
The other levelers still advanced, their blades sweeping from side to side as they inched closer. They seemed totally unaware that she had just turned one of their number into a puddle of molten metal. Like hunters who had caught scent of their prey, they would never turn away before the hunt was concluded.
The elf tried to fling another tendril of energy from the tip of the still-glowing sword, but the energy would not obey her command. The glow began to fade as she waved the sword back and forth in front of her.
“No,” she cried.
The green energy was gone. She tried to summon it again as the levelers inched closer, but it was no use. Whatever force had brought the energy from her twice this day was not under her control. She glared at her blade and tried to will the energy to reappear.
She was aware of something strange happening in front of her. Glissa watched in amazement as the levelers stopped, then turned in unison and headed for the door.
She couldn’t believe her luck. What had happened? Why were they retreating? Were they afraid of the sword or the green energy? She didn’t think so. They had continued to press the attack even after she had blinded one leveler with her blade and destroyed a second with that strange energy. Was something controlling them? And, if so, what or who was it?
All of these questions flashed through her mind, but Glissa decided she didn’t need answers. She needed vengeance. With their backs turned, the levelers were vulnerable. The elf hacked at the retreating beasts with her sword, cutting off legs, pincers, claws, anything she could reach.
She pursued them all the way to the door, but none ever turned to meet her attacks. The carcasses of several levelers lay in pieces around her, but most of the silver creatures escaped down the tree. Breathing hard, sweat streaming down her face and mixing with the tears, Glissa thought about climbing down after them. The thought of her mother and sister stopped her at the doorway. One at least might have survived. She had only seen one body. She had to go back and check.
She turned back to the main room and heard movement. The blinded leveler bore down on her. She had no time to run or jump. The metal beast slammed into her, sending Glissa sprawling onto its back. Her ankle caught in the leveler’s broken blades. She tried to pull her foot free, but the blade dug into her tendon. She screamed in pain as the blades cut through her metal skin.
The beast lunged over the lip outside the door and headed down the tree. Glissa grabbed onto the back of the leveler as she began to slide down toward the broken blades. There was nothing to do now but hold on until the creature reached the ground, when she could kill it and extract her foot.
The leveler reached the forest floor. The pain in Glissa’s leg made her wince, but she got onto one knee, brought her sword up over her head, and struck down through the back of the creature. It didn’t seem to notice. Glissa struck again with as much power as she could muster.
A movement in the Tangle beside her caught Glissa’s attention. Perhaps Kane had come to help. Maybe Chunth had left his seclusion to watch the destined one die. From the corner of her eye she saw someone … or something … she’d never seen before. It was about the size of a troll but stood erect, covered in dark robes. The gelfruit light glinted off the stranger’s head in a way that suggested it was neither metal nor flesh. She could have sworn she saw four arms.
It was gone. Glissa stared into the Tangle, looking for the figure, but saw nothing but trees, now whipping by at an incredible speed as the leveler ran. She looked down at the beast and watched as its feet swung back and forth so fast they turned into a blur. Glissa reached down to pull the sword out, intending to strike the beast again.
Something struck her head and knocked her down onto the beast’s back. Everything darknened around her. Turning her aching head to look behind, the last thing Glissa saw before she blacked out was a low-lying spire swaying back and forth from a sharp impact.
CHAPTER 4
Glissa moaned and rolled over in her sleep. It felt as if her foot was caught in the leather blanket on her bed, so she tried to kick it off … and screamed. Pain shot up Glissa’s leg from her ankle. Something was cutting into her flesh. She opened her eyes, but it was pitch black, and she had no idea where she was. She pushed herself up and hit her head on the ceiling.
“What the flare is going on?” muttered the elf. She began to remember: trolls, levelers, her parents, Lyese. It all came rushing back to her like a nightmare. There was no time to dwell on that pain or the one in her ankle. She was caught in the broken blades of a leveler. Where had it taken her? Glissa squinted into the darkness, trying to make out anything around her. As her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she could see the curving back of the leveler beneath her. Similar curved shapes surrounded her.
Where am I? she thought. Am I in their lair? They weren’t moving, and she was afraid to wake them up, much as she wanted to kill them all. If they were asleep, it would be better if she freed herself and found her way out. She wouldn’t stand a chance in the dark with her injured ankle. Glissa inched her way down toward the blades, wincing every time her ankle moved against the blades. More than once she banged her head against the low ceiling.
Finally she got both hands on her aching foot and tried to ease it from the viselike grip of the broken blades. The leather had taken the brunt of the blade, so her ankle wasn’t cut too badly. At least, she couldn’t feel any blood dripping. Perhaps she could pull her foot from the boot. When she tried, Glissa bit her lip to suppress another scream. Even the slightest movement pressed the blade into her flesh. Her ankle must have swelled inside the boot.