Into The Fire (Renna)
"Move, move, move!" I hiss, as shouting fills the forest, the ring of metal travelling through the trees as swords get drawn. I’m slowed down by my leg.
Stellan hops up another branch before hurling himself like a monkey into a different tree. This is why we train the way we do, hours of our lives spent climbing ropes and balancing on beams. We torture our bodies to be good in these very scenarios. I watch as Onyx runs along a tree branch, hopping from tree to tree as arrows start firing up at us.
"Who's there?" Bellows a loud voice, one of the enemy commanders walking the forest floor with a crossbow aimed blindly at the sky. There’s an unhinged sort of glint in his eye that chills my blood. He starts firing aimlessly in our direction.
"Your worst nightmare!" Yells Onyx, his deep voice ricocheting off the leaves around us, and I realise he's dragging them all towards him so that I can move without being noticed. Stellan helps me across a gap between trees. My right leg feels like it’s on fire.
"Come down before we find you up there and rip out your insides!" Shouts the enemy commander, underneath the tree that my brother had shouted from.
"Oh, but you’re getting colder!" Taunts Onyx's voice, sounding much further away now. The Commander cries out in frustration.
"Warmer!" My brother shouts, from my left. He's good at this. Even I’m on edge, and I’m on his side.
"And colder," teases his deep his voice, sounding a long way over to the right now. The enemy soldiers are running around like headless chickens, baffled by Onyx’s voice as he zips through the tree canopy. Pride swells in my chest.
That’s my brother.
His voice gets quieter and quieter, and so does the forest floor below us. He has drawn them away like poison from a wound, and Stellan and I are free to move to somewhere safer.
"Let's get this little bugger back in the pool, okay?" Asks Stellan, tossing brown-black hair into a bun, his eyebrow piercing catching the light as he gestures to the stone.
I nod, even though I doubt I have the strength to do it. He points to my necklace. "That's new. It’s pretty.”
I run my fingers over the delicate gold chain and heavy gold ring around it. "It was a gift to Rexxan from his mother just before she died."
Stellan smiles, pulling a steel chain out from beneath his black top. I grin at the delicate rose gold rings that jingle on it; his wife's engagement and wedding ring. He's never taken them off except to have them repaired and renewed since she died centuries ago.
As the sun sinks lower whilst we wait on the edge of the tree line, we're confronted with the reality of what we're against here. I don’t know where Onyx is and that scares me. Terrifies me. Splitting up was never in our plan.
The Vault, built into a sheer rock mountain, has an expanse of grass at its feet, about half a mile of flat field before it meets the forest border. We’re at the forest border, which means there’s one short run, one final push across open flat land to take us to victory.
But life is never that easy.
As we creep to the edge of the trees, facing the field beyond, hundreds of wolves and soldiers roam the grass. Our plan comes crumbling down before my very eyes.
"Fuck," states Stellan, echoing my thoughts aloud. Not every soldier left in pursuit of Onyx. Some remain.
"Fuck, indeed."
Stell scrubs a hand over his mouth, frustrated. "What do we do? Wait for Rexxan?"
"I don't know. Maybe. He could be here in ten minutes, he could be here in seven days. It just depends on the river conditions because they'll be coming in boats." I whisper, trying to work out what we're going to do here. We can't fight them. We can't cross without being noticed.
"So here's what's going to happen," says Stellan, an odd calm about him. "I’m going to draw them east, make them think I have the stone. They're stupid. They'll fall for it. It'll grant you the time and space to get across."
No. He is not risking his safety for me now. "I like the plan, but you should go across. I can't run at full speed at the moment anyway."
"I don’t know how to get through the ten doors, even with your instructions. Only you can get where we need to be. I’ll draw them away and then find Onyx. You put the stone back."
I open my mouth to object but Stellan reaches into my cloak and plucks out the stone. "I'll leave it in that branch," he points to a gnarled branch about ten yards from our position in the trees.
"Stellan, no!" I hiss, but it's too late. He climbs forward so he's at the very front of the tree line. His hand holds up the translucent grey stone, the sun making it glow as he whispers the Evergreen incantation to amplify his voice.
"You're after this, I assume?" He shouts, his voice carrying over the green plains before us. Dread sits heavy in my stomach like a ball of lead. A huge man in black walks through the army as it parts ways for him, every archer training their bows onto Stellan.
"And how do I know that isn't the fake one that I had made?" Shouts the man, drawing his sword. Stellan raises his other hand, now holding the fake one. "Maybe it is. Maybethisis the real one."
