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Keera scrabbled to wrap Pearl’s sword in a cloth and pack it next to Ruby’s.
“Good. I’ll take that.” Burcham grabbed at Pearl’s sword. “Ow.” He snatched his hand away fast.
Keera glared at him, and, using a rag wrapped around her hand, pushed Pearl’s sword back into her pack. “I’ve told you a million times, my swords can only be used by the people they’re forged for.”
“But—”
“Earthside isn’t here. Brocéliande has its own rules. Now, go.”
“Dammit.” Burcham spluttered, shaking his burned hand. Keera ignored him and rushed out to find her family.
Above, the remaining bell tower’s bell was ringing again. A relentless dong...dong...dong.
§
Trying to ignore the thick black smoke from the burning buildings, Corson turned back to face the grey-streaked marble demon and its companions, thanking his lucky stars that he had one of Keera’s swords in his hand.
It slowed its advance, and so did the others. Step by step, Corson gave ground, giving other fighters a chance to join in: mostly smiths who wanted to try their weapons out on a demon.
A young lady with dark hair and a tiara led a handful of the younger smithies. She yelled and swung her blade at the marble demon. The weapon clanged off its skin, leaving barely a scratch.
She was picked up in its fist and flung into the wall. Her tiara jangled to the ground.
Corson roared with anger and charged in to help. He wasn’t the only one rushing to the woman’s aid. Two of her young companions darted in to protect her. The best thing he could do was buy them time. The others clearly thought so, too. Ducking close and then darting away, they threw slabs of metal at the oncoming demons, taunting them. They were skilled fighters; it was a shame their swords were no more use than soft sticks against the oncoming demons.
Corson stepped forward as if pressing his attack, buying time for the wounded young lady and her companions to flee. More iron nuggets flew through the air.
The demons took a step backward. And another.
Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, the three girls made slow progress.
The slate demon grinned and crowded in, balled its fist and threw a punch. Corson dodged the blow and chopped, his sword slicing right through the arm. The limb clanged onto the stone pavers; the stench of sulphur competing with the choking black smoke. Molten demon-blood hissed as it cooled in the night air, while the hand on the severed arm continued opening and closing—as if it was still desperate to grab him.
The demon grunted and Corson removed the slate demon’s head with a sweep of his sword.
The creature dropped, crashing to the ground like an earthquake, its head tumbling after.
Two grey-marble demons jumped up to take its place on the narrow path between the burning buildings. And then the remaining tower-bell rang. Dong...dong...dong. Corson glanced behind. The village was evacuating.
“Run,” he told the young people helping him.
They held on until their swords were twisted scraps of metal. “I said, run!” Corson bellowed. He listened to their retreating footsteps with some small satisfaction, then turned his attention back to the demons.
Alone, he had no hope of stopping the demons, only slowing them.
§
“Keera!” Aiden called. She’d been gone too long.
“Keera will be fine,” his mother said, dropping Pearl into his arms. “She doesn’t need you getting underfoot.”
She should be alright. At least Burcham had left his parents’ house, and was doing his job of trying to wrangle people to safety, despite not really knowing where to wrangle them to.
Pearl sucked her fingers and leaned against his chest. “I know how you feel,” Aiden murmured.
“Fae incoming!” someone shouted.
“No, they’re demons!” Aiden yelled. Except it wasn’t demons they were pointing at through the swirling smoke. Outside the village, through the web-encrusted iron bars, silver fae armour flickered eerily in the moonlit woods.
Aiden’s heart constricted. Fae were moving to climb up the spiderweb-draped gates, and more still were headed toward the river.
Wooden arrows sailed into the village square. Fae archers. They must be hidden behind the warriors.
A flurry of arrows from the remaining bell tower pattered down harmlessly as the fae hunkered down behind their silver and wooden shields, inching toward the building.
They’d take the last bell tower and the village...
And the demons were coming from behind the town hall. He hoped Corson could slow them down a little longer. Long enough to evacuate over the river.
The bells rang relentlessly. Dong...dong...dong.
“Keera better hurry,” his mother said. “We have to go.”
“She’s coming.”
“Quick!” Burcham yelled, ushering people around the other side of the town hall and toward the suspension bridge. The stocky man held a knife in one hand and a small hammer in the other. He’d already proved he was about as useful with them as an umbrella in a tornado. At least he seemed to have his self-confidence back as he rallied the township. “I said, bring only weapons and torches. Everything else needs to stay behind.”
Nobody listened. But they were moving toward the bridge—luckily the wind was blowing the smoke toward the building.
Aiden’s party was moving too. Slowly inching toward the building. “Keera!” he yelled, waking little Pearl, who pummelled him with her legs and fists and sobbed into his shoulder. Damn.
And there she was, running toward them, carrying her large pack, stuffed to the gunnels.
Most of the others were carrying packs every bit as heavy as Keera’s and with less excuse. None of it was going to slow down the young and fit. The wounded were doing their best, encouraged by the two medics and some help they’d rounded up. The gap was widening. The two families were falling behind. Alice hurried her two eldest along, clinging to the sleeping Tailor. Aiden’s father snatched Ruby up into his arms.
“Stay close, let’s go,” Aiden’s father ordered. “We have to keep up with the others.”
Keera, still light-footed, only took moments to catch up. “Sorry.” She glanced behind. The fae were close, their silver armour ghostly in the smoke-dimmed moonlight.
Faster now, they passed the smoking ruin of the town hall. And then suddenly they’d caught up with the stragglers—not so far from the snarl-up of people desperate to cross the overloaded bridge.
Hazel fired an arrow toward the forest. “I can protect you.” She fired another.
“Hazel, stop, you’ll hit someone,” Alice ordered.
“Close up. Close up. Protect the children,” Keera yelled over the hubbub. Swords and other weapons drawn against the slowly approaching fae, the people of New Avalon jostled for the exit. Some had lanterns, some had swords, but many had nothing to protect them if spiders and fae were waiting for them in the woods.
A volley of arrows flew overhead. A group of roving archers were holding the fae back with carefully targeted attacks.
Aiden thought he saw the nearest fae hold their hands up to shield their faces against the torch-light before they ducked for cover. Maybe spiders weren’t the only creatures who abhorred flames.
“Wait!” Aiden yelled to Keera. He handed Pearl to his mother again and emptied his pack, keeping an eye on his parents and the children. He needed to get this done before they became little more than shadows. The contents of his pack tumbled to the cobblestones, a dark mass of shadow. He pulled out two brands and scrabbled to stuff the fallen clothing back in.
A burning arrow flew overhead, arcing along the river. The fire glinting on silver armour. Damn, half the fae are moving down river. “Quick!” Aiden yelled, pushing his family toward the bridge, wishing they were all moving a little faster. “Before we’re cut off.”
The clang of swords reverberated around the square. Corson! He was fighting a slate demon near twice his size, and holding a marble one at bay near the flaming eaves of the town hall. He must have retreated half the way around the building. And he was fighting the demons alone while a tough group of smithies shielded his flank from two spiders.
Corson bent his knees and levelled his sword, creating a moment of stillness before he sprang into action—slashing with precise strokes in a whirlwind of activity. He was excellent—but he wouldn’t be able to hold them off alone. An army wouldn’t be able to hold them off.
Aiden, torn between protecting his friend and staying with his children, hesitated. The children had his parents, the Faulkners and all the other villagers.
“Dammit,” Keera muttered and ran toward Corson and the demons.
“Dammit,” Aiden echoed, and followed.
§
Step by step, Corson was pushed back—the heat from the burning building near baking his left-hand side. Still, he had to stay. He blinked away sweat, too tired to wipe it from his face. He needed every ounce of strength to keep on fighting.
Only the villagers were moving too slowly. Hurry and cross the bridge!
Three huge demons rushed toward him. A granite demon, a marble demon and a slate-green demon with sparkling crystals on its elbows and shoulders. Corson held his ground and swung at the marble demon.
Focus. He levelled his sword threateningly, and they hesitated.
Good. Time to move. He lashed out and sliced the slate demon’s arm and whirled to the next one. And the next. They both dodged away, then lunged in to attack again.
He had to keep moving. Had to ignore the kids fighting the spiders...so close. Protecting him from that threat, at least. He whizzed through half a dozen training sequences, not really hoping to hit anything. Just to stop them from coming closer and to focus on the discipline he needed to keep going.
He struck the marble demon’s shoulder, and pulled the sword free, whirling to attack the granite demon—but someone else was there already. Keera! She sunk her sword into its chest.
It grinned back at her, sulphurous steam rising from its breath.
“Damn it!” Keera kicked its chest, freeing her sword, and swung again.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” Corson whirled aside to give himself a little room and hacked at the granite demon. A hit gouged through the rock-muscled chest. The impact juddered through his body and he failed to dodge the demon’s sulphurous blood. It spattered his arm, burning and hissing.
Corson squared his jaw, determined to block out the pain screaming down his arm, and willed himself not to step aside.
The creature knocked Corson’s hand. More pain flashed through his hand and up his arm. He tried to regain control of his sword, but his hand wasn’t working as intended, allowing the demon to pull the weapon clear of its chest and cast it aside with a disdainful flourish.
Damn.
Aiden arrived, protecting Corson with his body. Good man in a fight Aiden. Trustworthy. But he shouldn’t be here.
“Go!” Corson yelled, retrieving his sword with his off-hand and jumping up to block the path to the bridge. “Let me defend. You two crazy kids go look after your babies.”
Aiden swung his sword in reply.
“Dammit.” Corson waved the sword at the demon awkwardly.
Next to him, Keera was poised. Not making stupid mistakes, but still unable to best the marble monstrosity attacking her. I need her balance.
Which gave him an idea to try his old trick. He swung his sword wildly, hooked his leg around the creature’s, and pushed.
The demon lifted an arm and smashed a giant fist into Corson’s shoulder. Sword flying from his grip once again, he fell, gravel skittering under him as he rolled with the punch. So, that worked about as well as when Aiden tried.
More demons were just beyond, seemingly in no hurry to push past the fight. What are they waiting for?
The marble demon backhanded Corson. Bones crunched and fiery pain lanced through his face.
Keera swung hard, hacking it through its chest. It looked up, grinned, and fell to the ground.
“Yes!” Aiden yelled. “One down.”
“Several more to go.” Corson sensed movement and ducked away, the wind from the granite demon’s hand cooling his face as it flashed by. Dammit. Focus. Ignoring the burning pain, he kicked out, grabbed his sword, and twisted to safety.
The slate-green demon burst through the burning wall of the building, blindsiding Corson.
“Watch out!” Keera yelled.
Corson ducked its flying fist and swerved away, only to find the granite demon winding up a punch. He swerved again, too slow, and its grey knuckles cracked into his jaw. Red pain exploding behind his eyeballs, Corson tumbled back. This can’t be happening. Breath rasping in his throat, Corson wiped away the hot tears streaking down his cheeks.
“No!” Keera screamed. Hacking and slashing, her sword glowing in the light of the fires, she rushed to Corson’s aid.
“This is going to be fun!” the slate-green demon growled and stepped toward them.
Aiden swiped at its flank, careless of the danger. Hot lava-blood boiled and steamed out of its wound, spattering the cobbles and carrying with it an eye-watering stench of sulphur.
Unperturbed, the demon stepped forward.
A glance confirmed two other demons were trying to flank him. The granite one, and a new lumpy greyish one.
Damn. Corson’s vision swam, his right eye swollen shut. He held his soot-blackened sword out. He needed to dispatch this slate demon and help Aiden.
“Fighters. We have to slow them down.” It was the injured woman from earlier. Battered and bruised, but jaw set in a determined smile she was calling out to two young friends she’d brought to help. Princesses by the look of them.
Aiden’s two demons turned to face the oncoming threat.
The princesses’ swords clanged ineffectually on the granite demons’ hide and sank into the lumpy greyish ones’. A mud demon? But damn, they’re brave, dancing in and out like that.
Corson and Keera quickly re-joined Aiden, the slate demon falling back under their concerted attack.
A scream. The granite demon had pulled a sword out of one of the young fighter’s hands. Grinning, the demon closed its fist around the blade. The blade produced a hideous shriek of graunching metal as it crumpled into something resembling a giant paperclip.
“Princess Eirlys!” Her companions yelled, surging into danger.
“Get back,” Keera yelled. “If your sword’s not effective, get back. Everyone else, listen up.”
“One,” Aiden called.
She thrust her sword into the lumpy greyish demon.
She pulled. Hard. The sword squelched, but didn’t come free. A clay demon?
“Two.”
The clay monster grinned. “Got you, now,” it said, reaching out to grab her.
In a fluid motion, Keera let go of her weapon, ducked low to avoid its fists, then regripped the sword and yanked it clear. Hot mud gooped from the wound.
“Three.” Aiden yelled, grabbing hold of Corson’s sleeve. “Time to go.”
The three women cheered and ran. “Go! Go! Go!” they yelled. A call echoed by more of the fighters still protecting the village.
“But...!” Pulled along by his two friends, Corson decided to stop complaining and start retreating. Barely able to see out the eye he could open, defending any longer would be the stupidest kind of self-sacrifice—Keera and Aiden were right not to let him throw his life away. And so he ran with them, down the path toward the river. More warriors joined them, pulling back from their battles to join the stragglers still trying to push trolleys of possessions across the overladen swing bridge. With one last backward glance, Corson yelled at the people mooching around. “Move. Now. How many have to die so you can carry your pillows? Let’s go.”
Lending urgency to his words, another volley of arrows shot toward them, piercing Keera’s backpack and grazing his arm.
“Run!”
Far too many people surged over the bridge at once. It creaked alarmingly. “Slow down! Don’t all cross at once.” Corson shook his head and turned to face the oncoming foe. Fortunately, the long lived, and quick footed fae were reticent to fight. Even so, he would have loved the women who’d come to his rescue during the demon attack to stand with him, Keera and Aiden, but they’d melted into the crowd. Maybe it was for the best.
It was the demons trudging closer that worried him. Slow and steady, the fae darting here and there, but never taking the lead.
They backed up, retreating step by step, all too aware that, once again, he and Aiden and Keera were the last line of defence. A fae arrow zinged past his ear. More arrows from the other side of the river, sent the fae archers ducking back behind cover.
“Run!” Aiden yelled.
Corson ran. In two strides he was on the old bridge. Hades, he hated this thing. It bounced with every step. Still, it had its advantages, the large metal cables deterrent enough for most of Brocéliande’s most dangerous creatures. A torrent of water crashed over the boulders below.
They were running, and nothing was chasing—except the slow-moving demons. Another arrow whizzed past his ear.
“Keep low!” Aiden shouted.
Corson ducked to the height of the handrail cable. “Where are the spiders?”
“Heading for the crossing upriver.”
“They won’t cross.”
“Hopefully not,” Aiden muttered.
They passed knot after knot of people on the road, and still Aiden’s parents and the children were nowhere to be seen. From the lights flickering ahead, it looked as if the village had split in two directions. Half continuing up river toward Market Town, and the Three Sisters, and half heading down river to the sea.
“Which way do you think the children went?” Keera asked, looking down the two tracks.
“Out through the Three Sisters,” Aiden said. “The Society and all the Earthsiders will be trying to get back to Earth. Besides, Alice knows that way’s our best chance of getting to FaerLand.”
Corson scanned the far bank. No spiders or fae...not that he could see.
“Wouldn’t the circus-town by the coast be safer?” Keera argued. “That’s where they found the library. We could get to FaerLand through there.” Not get caught in an ambush.
“Really?” Aiden said. Even in the moonlight, Corson imagined he saw his friend’s eyebrows raised.
“Didn’t Burcham say it had a room of many ways?”
Corson took a couple of steps back; he didn’t want to be in the middle of a decision like this. Instead, he kept his eyes peeled, and listened to the night. Screams echoed in the distance—downstream. People were being ambushed by spiders or fae. Exhausted as he was, he kept his sword drawn, and his senses on high alert to every wind-blown leaf and every scream.
Not going toward the sea had been the right idea.
Footsteps echoed behind him. Villagers who’d been downstream, now changing their minds and running past, their possessions—if they’d brought any—abandoned.
Like we’re being herded upstream—into a trap. Another trap.
“Stop. This is wrong,” Corson said, pausing.
Moonlight pooled on this slow-moving section of the river. Something was moving to his left. A silver-armoured fae. Faer appeared out of the forest and flourished a sword.
Corson defended, flicking away the sword casually. “Fae!” he yelled. “Protect the villagers.”
A blow thunked into his back.
Fiery pain sliced through him as bone grated and a sword burst through his chest. Blood bubbled from his mouth. “Look after the children,” he burbled, gasping for air.
A beautiful face leered over him.
§
The fae laughed and turned toward Keera and Aiden. “Run, little humans, and don’t come back.”
