Chapter 47 – Neve #2
“I will find you,” the Shadow Fae continued, his tone lower, more deadly in his promise of violence. “Mark my words, granddaughters. And when I do, you will rue the side you chose.”
“Like you said, you have to get out first and that doesn’t seem like your strong suit!” I shouted as a dozen spiders the size of direwolves scurried our way.
The Shadow King roared in fury, but we pivoted and with Vale, Prince Thordur, and Caelo in the lead, we rushed the spiders.
Blades cutting and arching through the air, the best warriors took out the first wave of monsters.
Two more died by arrows flying from above, archers positioned at the sunshaft.
The rest of the eight-legged horrors leapt over Vale, Caelo, and Prince Thordur and extended their legs straight at our back line.
A web shot for my face. I ducked and thrust my sword up and forward. The spider coming for me skewered itself on my blade and dark, black blood ran down and onto my face.
“I’m going to be ill,” I muttered, spitting spider blood from my mouth.
“We need to fly,” Vale said, and I was relieved to find that while I’d been dealing with one attack, the others had already taken care of the rest of the spiders. “But why are so many dwarves still down here?”
“The air workers can only handle one or two at a time,” Thordur said, as he pointed to the sunshaft.
In addition to what seemed to be four air workers, gryphons were diving down, gathering dwarves and soaring upward.
Only the king and a force of twenty or so remained, most of them still battling Falagog.
“The moment they saw you enter this cavern, they were to begin the process, and it looks like they did, but we brought so many down here.”
“Wings out,” Vale said, scrutinizing the escape that was underway with the eyes of a male who’d led many battles. “The air workers are going too slow. We’ll grab dwarves and carry as many of them as we can on our way out.”
I slipped my wings out from the protection of the cloak.
“Neve, you take Thordur,” Vale said.
I wanted to argue, because by giving me the dwarf farthest from Falagog, he was protecting me at the cost of everyone else.
“He’s your ally’s heir,” Vale added, as if knowing what I was about to say.
I could not argue with that. Prince Thordur was an ally and a friend and as such, incredibly important to save.
If anyone else felt bitter about the favoritism, they did not show it, for as I rose into the air to do as Vale said, the others flew off to secure the dwarves fighting Falagog. “Grab my ankles and hold on, Thordur.”
Thordur did so with one hand and continued to brandish his battle-axe with another.
“Just don’t hit me with that thing. Here we go!” I beat my wings and rose slowly. But I was as strong as I’d ever been so while it took great effort to lift us both, I managed.
Sweat dripped down my face as I aimed for the sunshaft and rose higher and higher.
Smaller spiders leapt out of the tunnels riddling the rock, four of which Thordur deflected with his axe.
Three were felled by the archers above before they got close enough to harm us.
We were in a moment of quiet when a rebel faerie healer dove from the hole above. She offered her leg to the prince.
The prince wasted no time situating his axe behind his back and grasping the healer’s ankle. Together we flew for the hole, faster and stronger.
With the healer’s help, we reached the hole quickly, soaring out together and then out of the way of those who were, hopefully exiting after us.
“Where are the others now? Close?” I asked, breathless not because I had been flying for my life, but due to the flaring of my magic. Outside the cavern, the ice spider’s influence was nonexistent. My power was rushing back at full strength, stealing the air from my lungs.
“They’re coming. Most are more than halfway here,” said Sigri, another one of our Valkyrja, the dwarven member, who stared down into the hole and took careful aim with her bow.
She loosed an arrow, and by the savage smile that lined her face, I was willing to bet that she hit her target.
“Vale is nearly here. He’s carrying two.
The others are behind him, including four that the air workers are lifting.
No more on the ground, but spiders keep leaping from those holes. That’s what’s slowing them.”
“Everyone get ready to leave!” I yelled.
The rebels were mostly helping injured dwarves.
Rynni waited, still in her dragon form, just a few paces from the sunshaft—poised to fly people to safety.
Above, Arava and Lasvin flew in circles.
Shocked as I was that the others had gotten the pegasi to come, I swore Arava’s eyes brightened when I caught sight of her.
I joined Sigri at the hole and when I peered down, a relieved exhale parted my lips. Vale was so close, and holding onto his legs were the king and another dwarf.
Falagog was alive, but between Rynni’s pointed attack and the dwarves axes, she’d sustained great damage.
The mother spider lay on the cavern floor, her legs twitching and shuddering and two dozen of her children swarming her, presumably trying to help.
I only wished they’d managed to end the bloodthirsty beast for good.
One after the other, Vale, Thyra, Luccan, and Caelo emerged from the hole, carrying dwarves in various states of injury. The King of Dergia released Vale’s ankle and stood stoically, not a scratch to be seen on him.
Tonna and Halladora followed, neither of them had carried dwarves, though they’d been fighting off spiders leaping from tunnels the whole way up. As a result each Valkyrja was covered in dark spider blood.
Livia came next, emerging unharmed.
Thantrel rose right behind the vampire, and was nearly to the top when a spider the size of a boar leapt from one of the tunnels high in the rock. I screamed as the spider landed on Thantrel’s back and tore into his wing.
Somehow Thantrel ripped the spider off his back, only for the creature to fall on the dwarf he carried. It knocked off the soldier’s helmet, revealing none other than Princess Bavirra.
“Bleeding monster!” she shrieked and wriggled which did not help Thantrel, now injured, as he continued to fly for freedom.
“I have him!” Thyra leapt into the hole, wings spread and soared their way. When she reached them, she offered her own ankle not to Bavirra, but Thantrel. “Grab on!”
Thantrel did so, and I couldn’t decide what shocked me more: that Princess Bavirra had been allowed to leave Dergia and fight or that Thyra was letting Thantrel touch her.
“Sister! What are you doing here?!” Thordur bellowed.
I winced, realizing how wrong I’d been. Bavirra was not here by permission. She’d snuck out. Disguised as a soldier no less. Both the Prince and King of Dergia glared down at their family member, a mixture of worry and anger in their eyes.
But there was no time for me to fixate on their family issues, for the next second, Thyra, Thantrel, and Bavirra appeared, followed closely by Astral and Freyia and their dwarves. Lastly the four soldiers being lifted by the air workers soared out of the sunshaft.
I double checked below. Everyone was out.
“Time to fly!” Sigri yelled when it became clear that King Tholin and the prince were in no shape to give commands. They were too focused on Bavirra.
Everyone dashed to a creature, just as Arava appeared at my side. She snorted, her eyes wide and wild as she cut a glance to the sunshaft.
“Ice spiders are one of the only creatures pegasi are terrified of,” Aleksander said, mounting a nearby gryphon. “But we needed more fliers for the dwarven army and told the creatures. Your pegasi seemed to understand you and your sister were in trouble. They recruited the gryphons.”
My throat tightened. Arava and Lasvin hadn’t fought the spiders, but they’d done what they could for my sister and me.
“Good girl,” I mounted the pegasus.
“Everyone’s up!” Vale yelled, from where he sat right up against Rynni’s neck. “Ready to fly!”
“Fire, Rynni!” Thordur’s voice boomed from above, where she circled the sunshaft on gryphonback.
Fire? What does that—
The answer came when the dragon lumbered toward the sunshaft hole and bent her neck so that her maw entered the hole. Heat built in the air, and I stiffened as what the Shadow Fae King told me came rushing back.
“Only the most remarkable magic can free me. Only the most powerful creatures.”
Rynni had already targeted Falagog. This time, I had a hunch that she was going for utter destruction.
“No!” I yelled just as the dragon loosed her flame—one of two good ones that she had per day, or so she’d once told me.
The blast of heat made me recoil, and Arava launched into the sky.
“Wait. I need to see inside the mountain!” I yelled into the wind, and though I could tell she didn’t want to Arava circled toward the shaft.
I peered down at the flame filling the cavern, and dread welled inside me.
Never could Rynni have known what her fire had the power to do. Dragon flame was easily one of the most destructive forces in our realm. A remarkable magic. From a powerful creature.
The Drassil was wildly aflame, just like everything else—living and dead—in the cavern.
The purple leaves shriveling, the bark darkening, and as darkness coiled from the trunk of the tree, I felt my blood pound harder through me.
Slowly, the inky tendrils extended out of the tree, as if stretching for the first time in many, many turns.
The shadows expanded to fill the cavern, twisting and devouring the light in their path.
The Shadow King’s low, menacing laugh filled my ears.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Princesses!” he boomed and a moment later, the tree split down the middle, the fire having done its damage.
The dragon beat her wings and rose. Arava did too, and once we were a safe distance from the mountain, I urged Arava toward the dragon. Vale caught my eyes, his face moon pale.
“We just did exactly what he wanted, didn’t we?” He shouted into the wind “He’s truly freed?”
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”