“I’m, like, so bad with directions. Is this the way to the gate?” said Meryl in fair imitation of an airhead.
A brownie looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you hear it? He’s calling us back.”
Meryl scrunched up her shoulders and stuck her fingers in her ears. “An elf hit me in the head. I can’t hear a thing.”
The brownie stared at her, then spoke to a druid next to her. They glanced at us repeatedly as we followed along behind them.
I poked Meryl in the ribs. “We’re trying to blend here.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What do you want me to do, a zombie shuffle?”
Elves swept suddenly down the slope to the left. They moved in a fluid unison, chanting great bursts of essence at us. The druids and brownies ran for cover, returning fire. Meryl and I backpedaled and took the opportunity to make for the gate again. We turned a corner, and another group of elves blocked the path. We backed away as they moved forward.
“I hate when this happens,” said Meryl.
“Can you take them out?”
She nodded. “But then I’ll be worthless until I recover. I only have my own body essence to work with, remember? You’ll have to leave me.”
I shook my head. “Not an option.”
The elves began to work a binding spell.
“I’m going to do it,” Meryl said.
“No.”
We backed against an oak. Meryl lifted her arms and began to chant. I felt a surge of essence behind me and something grabbed my head. An arm slithered around and grabbed Meryl’s face. The oak tree became pliant, its bark slipping roughly over us as something yanked us inside it. My vision went gray. I felt dizzy with a strange twisting in my stomach and head. Then I was coughing on the cold ground beside Meryl. Off in the distance, I could hear fighting. We were in another part of the cemetery.
I got to my feet and helped Meryl up.
“We’re dying,” a voice said.
I turned to face the oak tree. Molded into the surface of the bark was a small woman, pale ivory skin, long silvery hair covering most of her nude body. “Hala?”
She ignored me, looking at Meryl instead. “I do not have much time. The druid is distracted. He strikes at the heart of the oak. He devours my sisters. We have nowhere to hide, little one. You are called.”
“What do you want me to do?” Meryl asked.
“You are the only pure vessel left. We call on you for help,” said Hala.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Meryl waved me off. “Shhh. This is girl talk.” She turned back to the oak. “I’m only one person.”
“You are strong. Remember your vow,” Hala said in that same matter-of-fact tone she had used with me back at Carnage. It’s hard to resist, even if she isn’t pushing a little essence on you when she does it.
Meryl stared down at the ground.
“Meryl? What is she talking about?”
She looked at me, her face set grimly. “Looks like I’m it.” Her eyes were haunted, resigned as someone on death row. It was a look I’d seen a few times, one I didn’t like seeing on someone who was beginning to mean something to me.
I grabbed her shoulders, a little afraid of what she was saying. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged out of my hands and stepped away from me. “Get out, Grey. Find someone who can help.”
“Dammit, Meryl, you’re freaking me out. What are you going to do?”
She looked at me, still resolved, but with a touch of fear in her eyes. “I have a duty. I need to save the drys.” She looked off toward the glow of Kruge’s grave, and her voice became low. “Whatever’s left of them.”
I stepped closer to her again. “How?”
She held up her hands and backed away shaking her head. “No time, Grey. You can’t do this with me.”
“Meryl, talk to me! I don’t like the sound of whatever it is you’re about to do,” I said.
She bowed her head, then looked at me. “Stay safe,” she said. With a blinding flash of essence, she dove at the oak tree.
“Meryl! No!” I reached after her, but she was too fast. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and she was gone. Hala had vanished, too. Desperate, I spun in place, but they were nowhere to be seen. Meryl had disappeared into the oak.
I pounded on the tree. “Meryl!”
This sound came out of me, a strangled outburst of frustration. She didn’t answer. I had no idea what she had just done, but it scared me somehow.
The sensation of a new essence nearby brought me back to the immediate situation. My skin prickled as something moved in the darkness around me. “Alone,” it whispered. Dim yellow eyes gleamed around me. Another whisper, sibilant and menacing. “Taste.” I turned again. More eyes. Something darted out of the shadows, small and dark. It snapped at my hand and fled back. A dark shape dropped out of the tree from above me. It clung to my back and clawed at my head. I threw myself to the ground and rolled. It screeched and jumped away. Taller figures moved forward. Solitaries. Dozens of them gathered around me.
“Bright, bright.” A raspy chant.
I crouched, placing my hand on the ground. I could feel a wrongness there, felt the effect Gerin was having on essence. Even if I wanted to fight the pain of drawing it, he would have me. I slipped my dagger out of my boot. It burned in my hand with an almost unbearable heat. I tried to imagine it growing, lengthening into a sword. I had seen it do that once, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. Even as a dagger, though, it was still a blade with a sharp edge. I launched myself off the ground, slashing at the nearest solitary, a tall bark-skinned thing with sharp teeth. It howled in pain, and I knocked it back. I charged forward, small hairy-faced figures scrambling out of my way. I ran.
A howl went up. The sound of bare feet slapping pavement and tearing at the earth followed me. My heart pounded as I ran. I leaped over tombstones, the wild shouts of the solitaries filling the air.
“Run! Run!” a high-pitched voice taunted.
I ran like hell. Some came right beside me, strange brittle fingers pinching and poking, then falling back with laughter. Adrenaline surged through me as I dodged among the sleeping dead. I began to pull ahead of them, but they kept coming, screaming and laughing behind me. I came out of a line of trees to a wide lake. I knew where I was now, the center of the cemetery. As I pounded along the path, more solitaries joined the pursuit, forcing me away from the path to the gate. Herding me back to Gerin.
A spiraling tower of essence glowed ahead, marking Kruge’s gravesite like a beacon. I topped the hill and kept running down into the bowl. Still trapped in the chrysalis of essence, Eorla stood transfixed before Gerin. In the midst of the white tower of light, Gerin held his staff, its base planted firmly in the spiral of essence, drawing more and more power into himself. A drys revolved around him screaming. She spun faster and faster, funneling in toward Gerin. In a last surge of speed, the staff sucked her in. Another drys came sailing out of the trees, screaming as the essence spiral caught her in its vortex.
The shouts of the solitaries became louder, and I spun back toward the slope. They had reached the crest of the ridge, poised to descend on me, when the entire horde hesitated. They seemed confused. I could feel something coming with them, something huge. And it felt angry. A blaze of crimson essence seeped into the sky. The solitaries backed away from it, as the essence built behind them. They turned and swept down the slope toward me, madness in their eyes.
A cold feeling gripped my gut. I couldn’t hold them off, not all of them. I brought the dagger up as the first of them reached me. If I was going to be trampled, I was taking a few of them with me. I slashed at the first of them, just as a chilling scream rent the air. A spiderlike solitary spun limply through the air as a blaze of blood red essence crested the hill. Then another solitary went flying, and another, tossed like leaves in the wind. The horde became a tangled knot of panic as they chittered and screamed, scattering from the gravesite. As the path up the slope cleared, my jaw dropped in disbelief.