Venom and Song (3 page)

The assignment had seemed so easy that Gwar Commander Sorbin Heathmord had already begun mentally counting the vanadils he'd been promised.
I should have been rich. Simply backup Mobius's team at the last Earth portal. Mobius—the legendary Drefid warrior and strategist. How could he fail? All Mobius had to do was trap and kill the seven teenage lords and a ragtag bunch of Elves
. But clearly these were no ordinary Elves.
With more than a dozen Drefids, scores of Warspiders, and Cragon trees at his disposal, there was no way Mobius could lose. But he did. Worse than that, Mobius called half of my Gwar battalion and all of my Warspiders through the portal for support. Got them killed, too. Now I'm left chasing the Seven Lords. . . . Perhaps the Age of Reckoning is no more a myth than the might of my war hammer. Yet could their gifts be matured already?
Sorbin could just see his reward disappearing, coin by coin.

But all was not lost . . . not yet.

“Ferral!” he yelled to his subordinate. “Ready the reserves. I will lead them myself.”

“Yes, Commander,” Ferral replied. Ferral lumbered back across the uneven ground. He returned leading more than a hundred Gwar soldiers. These were not limber, cross-country Gwar like those who patrolled the Lightning Fields. No, these were the strong arms of the Bludgeoners—mace-, cudgel-, and hammer-wielding Gwar who knew nothing of pain except how to inflict it upon any who stood in their way.

Sorbin slammed two hammers together above his head and bellowed, “No mistakes! Make sure every Elf is dead!”

“Quickly!” Grimwarden shouted as he sprinted along the barely visible path. “Our escape lies just ahead!”

“Where?” Goldarrow asked, sprinting behind him. A sudden clamor from very close behind them caused her to stop and look back. She could see only a tumble of shadows. Then there came a single word cried out in agony and then strangled off: “GWa—!”

“Ellos, save us,” Goldarrow said. “Grimwarden, the Gwar have broken through!”

“So fast? Jett, Johnny, fall back with me,” ordered Grimwarden. “I know you're tired, but you must keep going. Brynn, lead the rest to the hidden gate!
All
of you, watch your backs!”

Flet Marshall Brynn forged ahead leading the others to safety, while Grimwarden and the two young lords stopped running.

As Grimwarden barked out orders, retreating Elves jostled between bodies and the rock walls. “Johnny, ready your flames, but wait for my signal. We must be sure the remaining Elves get past.”

Grimwarden snatched a war hammer from the holster on his back. “Jett, I know you are better at hand-to-hand, but take this. Make your first blow to the stomach, then to the head. The Gwar are coming, and there are many.”

“How can you see them?” Jett asked.

“I've spent more time in the Veil. My eyes have ad—LOOK OUT!”

There was no time for Grimwarden to intervene as a huge Gwar swept a wide-bladed axe toward Jett's neck. Jett ducked. Using the massive Gwar's momentum against him, Jett rammed the hammer head into the Gwar's shoulder, then swung the hammer at the creature's spine. The Gwar dropped to the ground and did not move.

“Johnny, ready your flames!” Grimwarden hollered.

“Right now?” Johnny answered nervously, wondering how he could work his gift with more accuracy.

“Not yet!” Grimwarden cried just as he swung his war staff into a Gwar's abdomen. The enemy doubled over, and the Elven commander brought his staff down on the back of the Gwar's skull, right on his tribal tattoo. The Gwar went down in a heap, but now the staff had a crack running through the center. “Hard-headed beasts!”

Elves, some fighting off Gwar as they ran, continued to race by.
What if the Gwar win? What would happen to Autumn?

“Ahhh!”
Johnny dove at a Gwar's legs. The creature rolled but clawed back to his feet. He turned, brandished a mace with curving thornlike spikes, and lunged for Johnny. The young man from the little town in upstate New York felt trapped. One moment he was safe in the comfort of routine—school, homework, bike riding—now he was face-to-face with a monster that he was sure would kill him if he didn't act.
Come on flames! Do your thing
. He raised his hands, more out of defense than aggression, and felt tingles on the rims of his eyes. Two white streams sputtered to life, flaring when they hit the Gwar. The engulfed enemy fell to the ground.

Still lying on the ground, Johnny stared at his hands, amazed at the strange power. So it
was
something he could control. But exactly how, he wasn't sure. The pure desire to survive was what did the trick now. Grimwarden shouted to his right and pointed to the cliffs. Johnny swallowed and aimed his hands skyward, firing jets of flame high into clefts of rock on the mountainside. He overshot at first, but then found a ledge, letting the liquid fire pool to provide them more light in which to see the enemy.

EEEEeeeee!!
came the Kyrin scream as the flying creatures came once more en masse. A small cloud of them dove at Johnny. Again he aimed, held his breath, and raised his hands toward the birds. Nothing happened. For a moment he thought he might be out of gas or something. The Kyrin were racing toward him. He was so tired. He closed his eyes, then—
Whoosh!
—Johnny felt his shoulders press into the ground from the surge. The Kyrin fell, burning to the ground in black-charred pieces of bone and skin. But their kindred were not scared off, and they continued to attack. The Gwar pushed forward as well, and Johnny had too many targets to hit them all.

“Fall back!” Grimwarden yelled. “They are getting behind us! FALL BACK!”

At last,
thought Mr. Wallace as he ran behind the lords.
The Gwar have caught up to us. All is turning to chaos
.
It's time
. He drew a slim dagger from his belt, but his grip felt weak. The dagger became slippery and awkward. He looked at his arms. They wavered in the twilight.
No, not now! Not . . . now!
He stumbled to one knee.

“Mr. Wallace!” Jimmy exclaimed. “I nearly tripped over yu. Are yu hurt?”

“I . . . I just need a minute,” he replied, but his voice gurgled. “Go on, Jimmy! The only thing that matters is the lords getting to safety.”

Jimmy hesitated a moment. It was terribly hard to see in the gloom, but something seemed very wrong with Mr. Wallace.

“Jimmy, come on,” Regis called from the darkness ahead. Reluctantly, Jimmy left the stricken Sentinel.

But unknown to the others, Mr. Wallace was no Sentinel at all.
I must feed
. He was desperate now, shaking from head to foot. If any of the Elves saw him, it was over.

“Uhgg—ack!” Not six feet away, a Gwar fell flat on his back with an arrow buried in his eye.

Mr. Wallace vanished, leaving behind only a serpentine length of smoke. Invisible in the Veil's murk, the smoke traveled to the fallen Gwar and enveloped his head. A few seconds later, Mr. Wallace was whole again. He tossed an arrow to the ground and sprinted after the Elves.

“The enemy cannot be allowed to follow!” Grimwarden declared as he, Jett, and Johnny retreated. Now covered in blood and ash, the Guardmaster of the Elves was nearly spent.

Johnny had incinerated scores of Gwar soldiers. Using his lordly gift, he produced a near impenetrable wall of flame behind them. And try as they might, few Gwar could get through. Those who did fell at the feet of Grimwarden or Jett.

“I think that's the last of them!” cried Johnny. He willed the fire to stop and scanned the burning carnage behind them. “I think that's all. . . .” He swayed and would have fallen, but Jett held him up.

“C'mon, Johnny, I'll help you,” said Jett, taking his new friend's arm.

“We'll help each other,” said Grimwarden. “The secret gate waits for us. Let us hope the others have already passed through.”

With a little effort, Kiri Lee went airborne and found herself dodging Gwar arrows and fending off Kyrin with her sword. She felt her steps falter in the air. Through the kaleidoscope of black wings, the hail of arrows, and the gray shroud of the Veil, Kiri Lee watched as three Gwar—massive, lumbering beasts—converged on the Sentinels. They slammed into Edward and Miss Finney from behind, sending the protectors sprawling to the ground.

Kat, too, had been tripped and tumbled to a harsh stop, rolling onto her back at the base of a hedge of stone. Kiri Lee thought Kat looked unconscious, but at least the Gwar had left her alone. She began to make her way toward Kat; then she saw him.
Oh, thank God. It's Mr. Wallace. He's coming to help her
. Kiri Lee watched the Sentinel stride purposefully toward the fallen teen. Mr. Wallace reached beneath his cloak and pulled something out . . .
a dagger? What's he do—

EEEEeeeee!
She saw a flash of luminous green eyes, then felt searing pain. A Kyrin had dug its claws into Kiri Lee's shoulder. It started to peck and slash at her face with its beak. Kiri Lee cartwheeled backward in the air. She tried to slash at it with her sword, but the effort took her focus off her wind walking and she started to sink.