Chapter 31 #3
She loosed her arrow and hit its flank, but the thing didn’t slow. The great black shape lurched toward them through the fog, picking up speed as it went. Copper panicked, and Sol slid off the horse, letting him go. When she moved to help him, he pushed her back.
The familiar lunged.
Sol slashed at its arm, and she dropped her bow, reaching for her knife.
There were noises all around them. Voices calling out. They might have been illusions, or maybe the echoes of their own shouts.
Sol struck again, driving the familiar back with heavy, brutal swings of his sword.
Though he was less graceful than Casrian, he was equally effective.
The familiar pulled back to circle them.
Recognizing her as the weaker target, it adjusted its attack.
She dove to the side, the boggy ground breaking her fall.
When she rolled, the familiar stood above her.
It turned to bat an angry hand at Sol’s sword.
She drove her knife into the back of its knee and it shrieked, spinning to face her.
She fell.
The impact knocked the knife from her hand. The nightmare creature leaned down, its gaping maw revealing row after row of needle-like teeth.
They hadn’t made it to the good patch of woods, and that seemed a shame, that she would die here on this foul ground. She’d rather her corpse feed the healthy trees than this monster.
She reached out for the alders from that quiet place inside where the magic lived.
Some people thought alders were linked to death because their sap ran red, but she’d always liked them. They were fighters, thriving in swamps and bogs, resistant to rot. She closed her eyes and stretched herself in that direction.
Help me.
In all of her years, she’d never asked the trees for anything but information. They knew everything. They felt everything on a vaster scale than she could truly comprehend. But she didn’t think they could actually do anything to help her.
She reached out now with a desperate plea.
Help.
She didn’t expect them to answer.
Daughter of the forest… Child… Child of the wood… We come.
Soil trembled beneath her fingertips as roots twisted below. She heard the sigh of the wind as it changed course, sifting through dry leaves and filling her lungs with clean air.
She felt the trees wake, felt their awareness curling toward her like a living thing. Moving sap. Clinging moss. The fading life of the turning leaves. All of it reached toward her, thread by golden thread.
The air grew charged with a nearly audible hum. Every hair on her body lifted.
She opened her eyes to find the familiar above her, poised to strike, but frozen in impotent rage.
Its eyes blazed red. Saliva dripped from its fangs.
The golden threads that connected the trees in the forest had taken shape to form a web holding it back.
Its black skin sizzled wherever they touched.
There was a faint green light, fresh as a new leaf, that moved in the air around her.
Behind the familiar, Sol was unaffected. He struggled to his feet and drove his sword into the thing’s flank. Blood spattered across the forest floor as he pulled the blade free.
And then there was chaos.
Horses—an entire herd of them—rushed into the clearing. There were men there, surrounding them, shouting out orders, shooting bolts into the familiar.
The green light faded. The golden threads ceased to hold the familiar and it sagged lifeless to the ground. The fresh breeze was subsumed by the foul air.
Sol fell to his knees, and she scrambled toward him.
“Let them work,” he said, sounding relieved.
“You know them?”
“Emrys’s patrol. They’ve come to help.”
When she looked closer, she noted the uniforms. Witch hunters.
Thank God.
The reinforcements had come. She clung to Sol as they watched the soldiers make certain the familiar was dead with the slice of a sword across its throat.
“We’re safe,” she whispered, hardly believing it herself.
Sol’s grip fell away and she cried out as his head lolled back. She caught him, searching his body for the wound. She couldn’t find it. There were just the bandages she’d placed there herself. Some blood beginning to seep through. His skin was too hot.
She looked up as the shadows retreated, chased off by the witch hunters and their blessed swords and holy water and witchstones.
She’d never seen a more welcome sight. The thinning shadow seemed to solidify at the edge of the tree line, taking the shape of a woman for the briefest of moments.
She stared, but the impression was gone as soon as it appeared.
And it was only shadow. Only the fog. Her imagination getting the best of her after a scare.
The sight was blocked by a flurry of movement around her.
Horses turning as their riders searched for any other threat.
She looked up to call for help, but the cry died in her throat as the first sword was leveled at her.
The next man held a crossbow aimed at her chest. His green eyes narrowed with deadly intent.
A lock of black hair fell across his high forehead.
“Step away from him, witch.”
She raised her shaking hands. “I’m not a witch.”
One corner of his mouth curled in a sneer. “Take her.”