Sain and Dramin sat, huddled into each other not thirty feet from where we had emerged, their weak, defensive magic serving as no more than a shield around them. Wyn and Thom stayed as close to them as they could, their magic surging as they fought the Trpaslíks who streamed through the trees like a slow-flowing ketchup bottle.
Amongst them all was Ryland. A Ryland who screamed, and yelled, and cried. A Ryland who was attacking everyone.
Light and fire erupted from him as he screamed, his attacks firing at everyone with no regard for what side they might be on, or if they had already been attacked or not. He moved from screaming to crying so fast that it looked like someone had punched him. He cried as he turned to Wyn, his wails ringing through the trees as he fired a stream of golden knives at her.
The sharp blades glinted in the dim light before Wyn deflected them in one glance, her magic sending them to the ground before her hand pressed away from her. A line of dark ink shot from her palm, right to a Trpaslík who had just exploded from the trees, dropping him to the ground.
I’ll stop Ryland, Ilyan said urgently, my mind buzzing with the strength of his magic as he pushed the words into me. You get everyone to the cave. Ilyan pushed a flash of our destination into my mind, the path perfectly laid out as he ran to his brother’s aide.
I rushed toward Wyn as her magic surged, burning the two attackers in front of her to ash right before my eyes. They were frozen in screams before what remained of their bodies floated into the wind, adding to the mass amount of ash the burning forest had already surrounded us with.
Wyn’s face lit up as I met them, the smile on her face chilling.
“Did you kill Edmund?” she asked in mad excitement, her hands flicking just as a tree to the right of her caught fire. Thom lifted it from the ground from where he stood, throwing it into a line of Trpaslíks running toward us.
“We have to get out of here!” I yelled back, purposefully avoiding her question. I didn’t even know where to begin with an answer.
I stretched my magic out, my heart falling at the wave of attackers that were headed in our direction. We hadn’t even begun to see the end of this; our only hope now was to run.
Wyn looked at me like she was going to press for information before she thought better of it and nodded once. Her jawline tightened as she turned to where Thom fought behind her, his magic strained as he tried to keep up with the battle that had surrounded them.
“Thom, you take the Draks with Jos. I can stop them all long enough to give us a good start, but you all have got to be ahead of me.”
Thom nodded at Wyn’s instructions at the same time that Dramin and Sain pulled themselves to standing. Thom moved closer, ready to whisk them away toward the cave that stood just beyond the next clump of trees.
Thom had just begun to get away as a woman with wild hair broke through the tree line right behind them, blocking their path. Her hands rose as I felt her magic surge toward Thom’s exposed back, and my heart raced as I witnessed the underhanded attack take place.
My magic surged at seeing her there, the power reacting without me having to so much as move. The powerful pulse I sent toward her slammed into her heavy frame, sending her right into a large tree trunk, which promptly broke apart into slivers at the impact.
The three men jumped at hearing the wild woman scream, seeing the flash of light that had flown right over their heads. Their faces turned up to me in panic, but I only stood still, my chest heaving as I waited for my heart rate to stabilize after witnessing an attack on my family so close to me. Thom nodded toward me in thanks before he helped the two men into the forest, the Draks’ tired bodies making their movement slow.
Ice raced through my blood as Wyn’s scream rent the air behind me, the name on her lips igniting my fear “Ilyan!”
My magic surged toward him as I turned, almost expecting Ilyan to be writhing on the ground in agony. Instead he stood, his hand on Ryland as he put him to sleep, throwing his limp body over his shoulder before he turned to push the enemy that surrounded him back, their bodies crumpling to the ground.
“Ilyan!” Wyn screamed again, realization dawning on me. She wasn’t scared for his life, she needed him to move.
Ilyan, run. You need to be ahead of Wyn. Run, I rambled. His fear heightened as he heard me, his confusion at what was going to happen running wild.
Run! I yelled to him, pleased when he turned, ready to make his escape. I didn’t have time to explain.
“He’s coming,” I said to Wyn before turning to run after Thom, only to find him just beyond the clearing as he fought through a line of Trpaslíks who had hidden in the trees.
My magic surged as I threw one of the Trpaslíks to the ground, severing his spine as I pushed another away.