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“Do you have any combat training?”
He shakes his head, and I swear I see a shooting star curve up where a smile might be. “No. I’ll need you to protect me.”
I grin at him, glad to have purpose and something to keep my mind off my family. “I will gladly protect you.”
“We should start going now,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “I don’t know how long those city gates will hold, but I don’t want to be here when they fall. All I know is that our problems will be a lot worse.”
“All hell will quite literally break loose,” I say under my breath. “Come on.”
We start back the way I came. I wish I had an extra sword I could give to the Magician, but if he doesn’t have any fighting training, then I don’t think it would do him much good. On one hand, I don’t see why anyone, including my mother, would bother with him. On the other hand, he’s been sending centuries of people to the pits of Hell, so he’s the first person they’re going to want to kill. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ethel Bagley was the first one out of the gate and coming for him.
On that note, I pick up the pace so we can put as much distance between us and the City of Death as possible.
We run and run, ducking through the trees, following the river, until my legs feel like they’re going to give out. Eventually, the forest and mountains subside, and we end up walking along the Gorge of Despair. Occasionally, a Bone Straggler will appear from nowhere, running toward us, but the Magician smartly steps out of the way and lets me do all the fighting, lopping off their skulls left and right.
But all the swordplay and running has left me tired, with barely enough strength to cross the last hurdle before we reach the Hiisi Forest: The Liekkiö Plains.
This is my least favorite part of Tuonela, and the one I get through the fastest when on the boat.
“What is this place?” the Magician says as we come to a stop so I can catch my breath. He’s looking along the horizon at the large expanse of dry, red soil and the few scraggly bare trees that reach into the smoky air like grasping, dark fingers.
“The Liekkiö Plains,” I tell him. “Surely you’ve heard of them.”
He glances at me from the side, and suns grow round in the center of his face. “The murdered children.”
“Yes,” I say grimly. “The murdered children. Once upon a time, long before you became the Magician at the gates, the spirits of murdered children gathered here on the plains to roam for eternity, their bodies forever on fire, creating the smoke and mist you see here. According to the stories, anyway.”
A faint wailing punctuates the air, and I can’t help but shiver.
“They are Old Gods themselves,” he says warily. “Would that not mean they’ll turn on us?”
Oh fuck.
I didn’t think about that.
“Yes. Well, I guess our little break is over then.” I take a deep breath, trying to find strength and courage. I usually consider myself quite brave, but there’s something about these dead children covered in flames that gives me the creeps—and it’s not just because children give me the creeps in general. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
We start running again, as fast and quietly as possible, our feet barely making a noise against the crumbly dry ground, though the wailing of the children gets louder and louder.
“Over there,” the Magician says, pointing at the smoke, where a couple of bodies emerge. They’re tiny skeletons, half-rotted so you can still tell they were human children at somepoint, their mouths open in a never-ending scream, their bodies in flames. They spot us and start walking toward us quickly.
“My father told me they bite,” I tell him, taking my sword in my hand. “It’s best we not put that to the test.”
I move my legs faster now, and the Magician effortlessly keeps up, even in his heavy robes. More children emerge from the smoke, running unnaturally fast.
This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.
Straight ahead, I can see the tops of the trees that make up the Hiisi Forest, where the children can’t cross through the protective wards. If we can make it there before the children, then we’ll be safe.
Providing the same old rules apply.
I’m about to tell this to the Magician when I hear a sharpthwack, and suddenly, an arrow appears, slamming into the galaxy void that is the Magician’s face.
I stop and scream, watching as the Magician sways on his feet and then falls backward onto the dirt, the arrow sticking right out of his face.
I whip around in the direction the arrow came from, my sword raised, prepared to see one of the murdered children with a bow in their hands.
But instead, I see a man standing between us and the flames.
