“Be careful. I cannot—”
Elmerah patted the small hand on her shoulder. “I know. It will be alright.”
She hurried out the doorway before the moment could grow more emotional. She knew Saida could not bear to lose anyone else so soon after her mother. She understood. But she still had to venture out into the night in search of demons.
Her breath fogged the dark air outside, still crisp though the growing season had arrived. Soon the final frost would come and go, and the more delicate crops would begin to sprout. She wondered if she’d live to see it. Rissine’s tall form was little more than a shadow walking down the quiet dirt road bisecting the small settlement.
Elmerah hurried after her, eyes on her surroundings, keeping her senses open for any signs of demonic magic. The dark road, the surrounding hills, and the sparse forests beyond were quiet—too quiet. No chirping insects nor hooting owls. Something was out there.
She sensed them a moment before they crested the hill overlooking the northern end of the settlement, but it took her eyes far longer to make sense of things. Spiders. The Ayperos. She had battled the massive creatures once before, but this time, there were more. Their hairy legs carried them over rough terrain like they were floating. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the other demon creatures in the distance. They were most certainly not timid little bristlepigs. They were wild boars, even larger than the Ayperos, black tusks catching moonlight, the slivers of light echoing on the quills coating their bodies. Now she knew where the spike piercing the elf’s back had come from. How he’d managed to get one of those quills in his back was anyone’s guess, and it was the last thing on her mind now. The demons charged down the steep hill toward the settlement. In a heartbeat, they were at the first of the buildings.
Suddenly Rissine was at her side. “Summon your storm, Elmerah, we must strike while they are still gathered closely together.”
She blinked, nodded, then unsheathed her cutlass and raised it skyward with a shudder. There were so many of them, so many demons heading right their way. They’d never be able to overcome them all.
Thunder rattled the earth beneath her boots, echoing her call. Rissine had unsheathed her rapier, mimicking Elmerah’s stance.
Elmerah dared a glance at her, surprised since Rissine felt using a weapon to guide one’s magic was amateur.
“We must be precise,” Rissine explained.
The demons reached the street in a cacophony of swishing hairy legs and pointed hooves the size of Elmerah’s head.
“Now!” Rissine shouted.
Rain burst from the sky, pelleting Elmerah’s face as she directed her lightning toward the front line of demons. Screams and shouts sounded behind her. The tavern patrons must have emerged at the sound of thunder.
They were just in time to see brilliant lightning surging forth from two directions—each summoned by a single witch—zinging across the first long row of demons. The strikes collided, erupting in a blinding explosion of light.
The boar demons shrieked, the spiders hissed, flesh and hair sizzled, but still more came, trampling the corpses of their fallen brethren. They didn’t veer toward Elmerah and Rissine further down the street as expected. Instead, they ignored their sole threat and headed right toward the tavern, where Saida and Alluin now stood framed in the outpouring light from the door amongst a crowd of elves and humans. Some patrons screamed and ran back inside. Others fled in different directions into the night.
Elmerah lowered her cutlass. Sick realization dawned on her as Alluin stepped in front of Saida and lifted his bow. Hotrath, High King of the Akkeri, could summon demons, and he wanted Saida.
“Get to Saida!” she screamed to Rissine. “It is her they want!”
But Rissine wasn’t listening. She directed bolt after bolt of lightning into the oncoming horde, thinning their ranks but only by half.
Elmerah lit her blade with flames, then ran toward Saida and Alluin into the fray of demons. The sharp hiss of raindrops hitting her cutlass was deafening, but her fire burned strong. The cumbersome boars were struggling to climb over demon corpses, but too many spiders were ahead of her, behind her, and all around. If they changed targets, she would die. But she had to risk it. Once the spiders reached Saida and Alluin, they would be overcome in an instant.
She squinted her eyes against rain and darkness as she ran, racing breathlessly toward the guiding light of the tavern. Closer now, her vision cleared. They were already overcome! The spiders moved too quickly for her to keep track of them. She reached the opened tavern doors and moved past, launching herself into the chaos of spindly legs and plump black abdomens. The boars squealed far off behind her, more frightened of the lightning than their spider kin.
Fortunately, Elmerah knew exactly what the Ayperos feared. She forced more energy into her burning blade until it shone like a tiny sun. Spiders hissed all around her, trying to leap away, but she showed no mercy, slashing their limbs off to land in sizzling, twitching heaps.
“Saida!” she called, slashing her way through spider limbs. She glimpsed all the frightened patrons hovering inside the tavern—too frightened to shut the damn doors—but no Alluin nor Saida.
Rain soaked her hair and clothes, plastering her coat to her body. “Alluin!” she screamed, turning back toward the spiders. They weren’t even attacking her, entirely intent on their purpose.
“Here!” Alluin’s voice could barely be heard over thunder peals, pounding rain, and hissing spiders.
She flicked her sopping wet locks out of her face, then starting cutting her way back through the demons. She didn’t understand what they were doing, swarming but not attacking. She realized it too late as she reached Alluin, trapped in the midst of the spiders, his bow nowhere to be seen.
He lifted slime-coated daggers in each of his hands. “Find Saida!” he urged. “They carried her off!”
The spiders’ intent clicked into place. They were swarming in this mind-boggling manner to prevent her and Alluin from going after Saida. They might not be intelligent beasts, but whoever was directing them was.
“Son of a muckdwelling bristlepig!” she cursed, stepping a safe distance from Alluin. She lifted her cutlass, pumping so much magic into it that she was on the brink of burning out. Flames whipped around her, forcing the spiders back.
In flashes of crackling lightning, she spotted two figures far beyond, standing atop the hill opposite the one the demons had descended. A man’s silver hair whipped in the storm winds, and a gleaming circlet was upon his brow. She’d never seen the circlet in person—only the velvet box which had contained it—but she knew what it was. Malon was wearing the Crown of Arcale, and he’d used its magic to summon demons. All so he could kidnap the elven priestess now grasped in his arms.
Saida sagged in his grip. Elmerah could only pray she was not dead. Even from the distance, with lightning flashing, Malon’s eyes met hers. She watched him through gaps of hairy spider legs, growing thicker around her, blocking her way to Saida. She’d never break through their ranks in time. Malon smiled, then turned away.
“Saida!” Elmerah screamed, slashing her burning blade through the Ayperos. Her arms throbbed, and cold rain chilled her to the bone. She could sense Alluin at her back protecting her as she made way through the spiders. Rissine’s lightning crashed closer and closer, but she could not wipe out many of the spiders at once, lest she hit her trapped allies.