JOXIE
"NO!"
Whirl's frantic shout made Joxie's ears ring on a whole new level, but she didn't comprehend it, her horrified gaze locked on Sendi’s fallen body.
"NO!" Whirren screamed again, barreling forward. "SENDI!"
"Beware!" Riln called out sharply from where he ran behind Whirl.
Whirren jumped to the side, and the weapon streaking for him swept by harmlessly. Coiling a fist, Whirl smashed it into the side of the adult's head, sending them rolling to the ground in a heap. As Joxie rushed towards the collar there, Whirl barged onward, breathing heavily.
He's too late, Joxie thought in dread, too distracted to feel the pain of removing the collar. She didn't notice Riln beside her, healing her hands as he had been faithfully doing the entire battle. There's nothing Whirl can do. Her eyes snapped upward, to the right, squinting. Then widened. "Look!" she commanded, wrenching one hand free to point.
There, on a ridge smothered with large, daunting boulders, stood a number of the adults. Their backs and shoulders were shoving against the topmost rocks, clubs wedged beneath as they pried. The boulders quaked beneath their efforts.
Directly below, the majority of their children, who had gathered around Sendi's fallen body, stood in a ring to face the few scattered adults who were still conscious. Where Whirl ran to so desperately.
Chills shot down the girl's back. "They're all going to be killed!" Futile though it was, she began to run, shouting on the top of her lungs, while Riln sped past, a determined rush of movement.
With an ear-splitting bang, the explosion on the other side of the gulley went off, shaking the earth beneath them and tossing them all of their feet. A reverberating roar announced the release of the ravine’s waters through the gulley.
Joxie looked up to the boulders, nearly loosed from their places, and towards the mouth of the canyon where the water would soon carve a trail of destruction. They were trapped.
NATE
LANEE’S VOICE WAS SHRILL. “THEY’RE GOING TO BE KILLED!”
"We can't let that happen," Nate shouted above the wind, leaning low over Morrith’s back.
In reply, the creature let loose a shrill cry that called her freed brethren towards her. In a tight group, they dove downwards with her. Nate’s stomach flew up into his throat from the sheer drop, and it was all he could do to hold on for dear life. If he weren't so concerned about what was happening below, he would have found the dive thrilling.
The ridge loomed closer and closer at an alarming rate. Morrith banked her dive and sped onwards in a loop that drove them directly towards one of the Gron's at work on the boulders.
The adults took only one mild glance at the birds before shoving as one against the boulders.
Just a little bit closer, Nate thought frantically.
The stones let loose with a sharp crack and began to fall, just as Morrith and her freed fellows swarmed around the Grons responsible for the rockslide.
Distantly, Nate could hear startled screams from below, above the rumbling mass of tons of rocks crashing and rolling down the cliff-side. With an angry shout, he hurtled himself towards one Gron, latching onto its collar. The woman cried out in pain as it dissolved, and Nate tumbled downward through the air, his thoughts desolate.
I was too late. They're all going to be killed down there.
No. I just have to trust them.
His body smacked into an outstretched hand, and everything rushed around him as he was pulled upward, towards the woman-Gron's blinking face.
"Who are you?" she questioned, looking around with large eyes. "Where am I?"
Exhilaration shot through Nate's veins, casting away the panic that had tried to consume him. "I just freed you," he told her hastily, then pointed towards her fellows. "I'm going to free them too."
"Those are...collars. And...." She was looking down to where the children scattered to avoid the oncoming rockslide. At the mouth of the canyon, water frothed and foamed, cascading past in a river. "Our children!"
"Lanee! Morrith!” Nate shouted. Morrith circled back, veering towards him as he continued, “I’m going to take off these collars. Help the others down below. You know what to do.”
“You got it.” Lanee clenched her knees, pointing down. “Let’s go!”
In a spiraling rush, the birds converged, diving as one. Swirling in a cyclone, they flapped their wings, creating a rumbling torrent of air. The rushing wall blasted against the tumbling boulders, smacking them off course. The stones flew into the raging torrent of water, splashing a waved that drenched those in the canyon. Soaring onward, the birds emerged from the canyon, cascading through the air towards the battle marring the plain below.
RYA
QUIVERING WHERE SHE STOOD, RYA HELD A MASK OVER THE TERROR SHE FELT. She couldn't let the Pack see what she was feeling and unsettle them.
The phantoms rushed towards them, and she knew death approached. These Dark creatures carried the ability to tear a soul in half by harming a physical body. Memories washed over Rya like cold rain. Memories of Kal, dying in Jan's arms, because another group of phantoms had stabbed her. It had taken the help of the Magi and Jan tying his soul to hers in order to restore her. They were nightmares come to life.
Beyond her and a few isolated Nalii, past the phantoms, the bulk of the Horde tore into the rest of the Pack. They struggled to not be overwhelmed by the sheer number of the beasts. The reek of blood and gore wafted from the battlefield, foretelling a terrible outcome.
We're going to die, Rya realized, suddenly and strangely calm. She took a deep breath, tightening her hold on her crays. But not without a fight.
She was airborne the next moment, tumbling disoriented across the ground as a quake rumbled around her. Looking towards the plume of smoke that store through the sky, she knew that her powder had done its job. The resounding gush of water that bore down, spraying from the gulley, was a frothing storm unleashed. The green-blue water crashed down, eating up the distance like a hungry animal intent on devouring all before it.
“Higher ground!” she shouted, signaling with a cray for the Pack to rally to her.
They retreated, feet pounding against the shivering world. Shrieks of greeting brought their attention to the heavens. Light rebounded off the wings of the steel-birds and they plummeted down, snatching hold of beasts with their talons that tried to flee the flood, tossing them in. Others took hold of Nalii, surging upward, releasing them on the rock outcroppings high above the raging water.
Far in the distance, Rya could see Lanee on Morrith’s back, her spear swiveling as she directed the birds. With her pulse racing, she hoped Nate was safe, wherever he was at the moment.
From her periphery, Rya saw a flicker of shadow.
The phantoms amassed together, a cloud of ash and sparking fire, imperious to the tumult behind them. They screeched, driving towards her and the Pack.
“To me!” she cried, holding up her crays before her. “Stand your ground! We aren’t finished yet!”
WHIRL
"LET GO OF ME! LET GO!"
"Are you dense, Whirl?" panted one of his friends who dragged him by one arm. A second young Gron had hold of Whirren's other side. Both were struggling to pry him away from the barely settling rockslide that had nearly killed them all. "There's nothing we can do! Nothing!"
"Sendi," Whirl sobbed, reaching out a hand to where the giant cloud of dust that had been tossed into the air from the rolling mass of stone was finally beginning to settle. Beneath it, his sister’s body was buried.
"She's dead," his friend snapped, gulping air as tears streamed down his face. "And so are the rest of the parents we didn't free. That rockslide killed them."
"Coerce just wants us all dead,” the one on Whirl’s other side noted quietly. She, too, was crying. "She’s after all of our souls."
"Momma!"
The shout made the three young Grons look away from the rubble. A younger Gron boy was hurtling helter-skelter over the battleground towards a figure that was slowly rising to her feet, rubbing her head. A woman that Joxie had taken the collar from. When she spotted her son running for her, she lunged for him, arms open wide, crying out his name.
"It worked," Whirl breathed, feeling the faintest stirring of something strange within his chest as he watched his friend throw his arms around his freed mother. Both began to sob and were joined by the crowd watching. Before long, the adults they had rendered unconscious, who were slowly coming to, gathered around by their children, who simultaneously laughed and cried. "It actually worked."
Whirl realized the feeling in his chest was hope.
The friends at his side were soon off and running to see if their own parents were among the rescued. Whirl stood, turning to study the mound of stone that entombed his sister. He saw some of his peers there, desperately clawing at the wreckage now that the rocks had stopped moving, trying to tear their way to their parents. As if they could still free them. He noticed that the adults who had caused the rocks to fall were there too, some working side-by-side with their children.
Nate was on one’s shoulder. He met Whirl’s gaze, reading the question there. His face fell and he shook his head.
Whirl knew then that his parents lay beneath those stones as well. Bowing his head, he set a palm against his chest, feeling his three hearts beating. As tears slid from his face to splatter against the ground, he clenched his eyes shut against the agony of loss.
While I still live, I will hold you with me, he vowed. I will carry on.
The hope in his chest timidly bloomed.
JOXIE
HER FINGERNAILS WERE BLEEDING, BUT JOXIE DIDN'T CARE. SHE DIDN'T CARE THAT she was bawling, undoubtedly looking like a bigger mess than anyone else did as she scratched and pulled on the rocks feverishly.
"Let them go, child," Riln said softly, setting a hand to her shoulder gently.
"I failed them!" She fell still, breathing hard. "I could have saved them, and I didn't!" A fresh wave of tears spilled from her eyes and she, making a fist, punched the unmoving stone before her with a furious shout, cracking the bones of her knuckles. The girl then let her knees fold beneath her, crying in heavy, broken sobs.
Riln, with his fingers laced in blue light, healed her broken hand before lifting her from the ground, surrounding her in a hug.
NATE
The Grons gathered in a group, ragged and worn, carrying sorrow with them. From his vantage point on a Gron’s shoulder, Nate watched them all.
The white scars burned onto his hands pulsed steadily. Forcing himself to look away from the massive tomb of rock, he searched for Joxie.
RYA
COLD AIR BRUSHED AGAINST RYA'S SKIN AS SHE LURCHED BACK, barely managing to dodge the razor-fingers of a phantom. Exhaling heavily in annoyance, she brought her hands together, swinging down into a crouch. The monster swerved in a twirl of smoke, lashing out at her. Stinging lacerations opened up along her arm as she blocked, driving the other cray to bite into the phantom's side. Sparks scattered into her face as it skid its razor fingers over the protruding blade. Forced to squint, she ducked away.
Her crays wove through the air tirelessly, contrary to what her body felt. The rim of the world was clothed in hues of dusk, and she sagged with the effects of fighting through the entire day. The Pack around her obviously felt the same, and their dwindling numbers was a painful reality to face. But, for all the effort they were putting in, they were making no headway in the results.
You can't destroy Phantoms, Rya told herself for the hundredth time. The words still created the same, awful cascade of chills down her back. You just have to survive until Jan arrives. Not allowing herself to wonder where he and Malin were, or what they had encountered during the day, Rya pressed on wearily. She refused to let herself slow. Ramming the edge of one cray into the reaching hand of a phantom, shoving it away from her, Rya spun her other one around and sliced at the beast. It gave a mocking smile as her blow did nothing more but tear one more gash into its body.
A rush of cold air behind her caused her to bend, and the phantom behind her soared ineffectively above her head. The edge of one of its razor fingers sliced down the length of her spine, and a hideous frigid burn spread through her body.
The Nalii next to her suddenly gasped, then gurgled on blood as the phantom he had been targeting pulled its razors from his neck. As the body slumped to the ground, the beast, now stronger than ever, rushed towards its nearest opponent.
Her.
Seven against one. They spun around her, hissing eerily.
I survived their Death March, she told herself sternly. Resolution flared to life within her. I survived when they enslaved me and my people in the Barren Lands. I can do this.
The nightmare fragments stopped swirling, spread their razors, and heaved towards her. She spread her feet, bent her knees, braced herself —
Something roared.
The sky overhead and the world beneath her feet, shuddered from it. There was a flash of blazing white light that stretched over the land, causing the phantoms to scream in pain, swirling around in a giant mass, with nowhere to go to escape.
Rya looked through slitted eyes, her breath catching in her throat. Those around her were just as stunned. A smile slowly made its way across her face.
Jan.
The Gift, a mass of light and flames, bounded across the landscape from the mountain range, as if the suns had shifted into a creature with wings of fire to race across the world. Once dark as shadow, now purified by Kaleen, it gleamed whiter than snow. The Gift curled its lips back from its sharp teeth, growling in a low rumble that caused the stars to shake in the atmosphere. Its eyes were a swirling mass of crimson flames, trained on the phantoms.
"It's awakened!" they screeched as one, a frenzied mass. They sped away, shadows fleeing from the light. As the Pack cheered on, the Gift sprang forward, catching them in its jaws. With an earsplitting burst of power, they dissolved, fraying apart into nothing.
Relief hit Rya so hard she staggered. Weariness melted her bones within her, and it was a struggle to remain standing. Rya turned to find a familiar form coming to a halt near her, his stallion-tail settling around his legs, blonde hair streaked with blood and grime.
She hurtled herself at him, nearly knocking him off his feet. "Malin!" Though he hugged her back, smiling wanly, she could sense something was wrong and frowned at him. "What?"
He took a deep breath. "I think you should know, before you see him, that something happened to Alajan as we fought Lenon."
"Is Lenon dead?"
"Oh, yes," Malin assured her blandly, his eyes flat. The scar along his cheek shone white. "Definitely dead. It's just..."
There was an uproar of commotion from the Pack, and Rya pivoted to find them greeting the approach of a solitary Nalii walking towards them. Jan had shifted back. The phantoms were no more. The Horde was gone.
Rya smiled warmly, taking hold of Malin's hands, trying to soothe away the worried expression on his face. "Everything's alright, then. We should all hurry back to the Grons and see if they—"
"Rya."
"—need..." She faltered, her eyes fixated at her nearing cousin, who looked tired to the core. The Nalii murmured in trepidation, and a few stepped forward, and then paused, uncertain.
Jan looked to his Pack with a dry smile twisting his lips. His eyes were sad.
With her shoulders sagging, Rya whispered, "Oh, Jan."
"Don't be concerned," Jan told his Pack members. "It won't kill me." He glanced to his side. "It's just going to be really annoying."
With tears welling up in her eyes, Rya said, "We can't heal that, can we?"
Malin gazed solemnly at his friend and shook his head.