Spirits Collide, page 19
part #2 of Evil Awakened Series
Pamoon reached over her shoulder, the hilt of the sword finding her hand. She drew it out of its sheath, and called for the flame. The blade glowed a scorching blue and without hesitation, Pamoon plunged it into Celia gaping wound, drawing out just as fast. Celia’s eyes flew open, her hands tore at her shirt, and screamed loud enough to wake the dead.
Pamoon dropped to her knees and clutched Celia’s face against her own chest. “Don’t you die,” she cried. “I need you. I need you to fly with me and defeat this evil.”
“Why didn’t you say that before and maybe I wouldn’t have been stabbed.”
Pamoon’s eyes, dilated; she looked her friend in the eye. “You’re alive?”
“I better be because if not then there’s a bunch of us that are dead.” Pamoon laughed through her tears and snot as her friend pointed to all that had gathered. “Now what’s that you said about flying?”
Pamoon wasn’t sure if Celia even knew how close she had come to death, but she didn’t care. All she knew was her friend was alive and she had a battle to win.
Standing, she gazed at the sky. The skies were a war all to themselves as the ravens and eagles battled the Pukwudgie. Pamoon smiled as it appeared as if the Pukwudgie would be defeated. She studied the sky, spotting a bank of clouds moving in fast from the south. Grabbing Celia by the hand, she pulled her into the mist. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”
“Time for what?” Celia said, tripping over her feet as she tried to keep up.
Pamoon pointed. “We need to be above those clouds when they cover the valley. At the speed they’re moving, that only gives us minutes.”
Celia smiled as she closed her eyes and called forth her demon. She felt the fire deep within her as she continued to call for the demon. I command you to come. The piasa—dragon— awoke. Celia could sense its eyes blink open, fire shooting from its jaws. As she transformed, her muscles tore, her bones broke, but she felt no pain.
Pamoon nuzzled the piasa’s snout in her hands. “Are you ready Celia? Are you ready to release your fire?”
The piasa’s snout bobbed up and down, smoke billowing from its nostrils.
“I knew you would,” Pamoon said as she untied her belt and placed it across the bridge of Celia’s snout. She wrapped it just like Kise had and tossed the reins over the dragon’s back. Pamoon kept her hand on Celia’s scales as she rounded the dragon. Celia lowered herself so that Pamoon could jump on top of her back. Once seated, Pamoon fisted the reins and pulled back. She felt Celia’s legs bend just in time to squeeze tight with her thighs before Celia launched herself into the sky.
Okay, Pamoon said, we need to stay hidden among the trees until we get to the south side of the valley. Then we—
Just hang on and I’ll get us above those clouds.
Pamoon nodded and held on tight as Celia weaved in and out of the trees staying under cover until they were in the right spot. The clouds were just about to break over the valley when they made it to their destination. We only have seconds before the clouds are no longer over the trees.
Hold on tight, Celia huffed. The next thing Pamoon knew, she was gripping Celia’s neck as the piasa pointed straight up, shot past the tops of the trees, and caught the last of the clouds, before leveling off above them. Pamoon looked down and saw the flickering of lightning through the black of the clouds. See that lightning? We’re going to enter the valley at the same time it strikes.
Just tell me when.
Pamoon reached over her shoulder, felt the steel of the blade against her palm and drew her blade just as another bolt of lightning flashed followed by the clash of thunder. She felt Celia twitch below her. Not yet, she said. Wait for one more cycle. After another flash of lightning, Pamoon lay her blade against Celia’s flesh. Feel that power? she said.
Celia bobbed her head, flames shooting from her nose.
Good. Match its intensity and count down from five. Pamoon held her sword above her head, called forth the flame and counted to one. At zero, Celia’s body tilted ninety degrees and tore through the clouds just as the next bolt of lightning struck. The bolt must have sensed the power of the sword, because instead of shooting downward, the bolt arched sideways until its tongue touched the tip of Pamoon’s blade, pouring its power into the sword and into Pamoon and Celia.
When the dragon and rider ripped through the bottom of the clouds, they were aglow.
Head for the battle closest to the mist. We’ll work backward from there, Pamoon said.
One hand on the reins, the other clutching her sword, Pamoon directed the dragon into a cluster of fairies on the way down. She felt the rumble in Celia’s chest just before the dragon opened its mouth. Flames shot out of the Celia’s gaping jaws burning the Pukwudgie to nothing more than ash before they fell to earth. They did this again and again on their way across the valley, making sure the ravens and eagles were out of the line of fire.
By the time anyone fighting on the ground noticed them, they had ridded the skies of most fairies and had made their way to the far end of the battlefield. Attacking from the rear, the first ghost-witches saw nothing but a lengthening shadow before it was too late. Between Celia’s fire and Pamoon’s sword, they burned a path of victory towards the mist before disappearing into the woods.
We’ll circle around and enter from the north. That’s where I saw most of the fighting.
Celia nodded her head, flapped her massive wings, and tore through the trees, circling wide in order to stay hidden from everyone in the valley. Pamoon pulled back on the reins, lifting Celia into the sky until they were again hovering above the clouds.
Pamoon leaned forward, resting her chest on Celia’s back. Are you okay? Pamoon asked.
I’m good. Let’s hit them again before they can regroup.
Pamoon held her sword out in front of her, the tip just to the left of Celia’s eyes and sighted the valley floor. As soon as they were directly above the fight, she squeezed tight with her thighs and slid her right hand up Celia’s neck, loosening her pull on the reins. With the extra slack, Celia was able to point her head down, and with a flick of her wings, she ripped through the clouds back into the fray.
43
Ayam
Ayam could feel a change coming, but what kind of change she had no idea. As the clouds rumbled in from the south, she took it as a good sign. She knew the witches wouldn’t have any problem navigating the wet ground, but the mortals—the braves that had accompanied the girl as well as the others that had arrived to help—would not fair too well on slippery grass. The slick surface combined with the impaired vision brought on by the rain and the drop it temperature that accompanied the oncoming storm were all good signs that by days end Ayam would claim the mount.
The ghost-witch retreated from the battlefield, pulling two of her top lieutenants, Keegsquaw, known as Keeg and Meli with her. From under the cover of the pines, Ayam slunk low pulling her sisters down until they all sat on the bare ground beneath the canopy of low-hanging branches and pine needles. Facing away from the valley, she eyed her sisters and pointed to the sky. “We wait here until the rain and wind covers the valley. Then we attack.”
The three of them smirked with the same sense of victory and began to cackle. As the thunder and lightning struck, they heard screaming coming from the battlefield. Turning to finish what she’d started, Ayam was dumbfounded at what she saw. “It’s the girl . . . and a dragon?” Shocked at the carnage they were causing, she realized the screams she and her sisters had heard were not the screams of pain and death, but the screams of victory coming from the braves. As Ayam tried to wrap her mind around what she was seeing and hearing, Keeg pulled on her garment. “Look! The girl fights with the Blade of Fire!”
Ayam stared at the girl and the blade, her mind piecing together the impossible.
“The legend must be true,” Meli breathed. “If she can hold the Sword of Truth and ride a dragon, she must be the goddess.”
Ayam’s temper started percolating, her sisters’ words felt like knives to her heart. By the time Meli had finished calling the mortal a goddess, Ayam’s temperature boiled over. “You dare call that bitch a goddess,” Ayam said with the point of her knife pricking the neck of Meli. “It’s a trick. No mortal would ever be able to carry the sword of angels.”
“But—”
That was the only word the witch mumbled before Ayam drove her blade into the front of Meli’s neck and straight out the back.
Pulling her blade free, she watched her sister fall dead. “How about you,” Ayam said, pointing the blade at Keeg, “do you think she is a goddess?”
The witch shook her head. “You’re the only goddess there is.”
“Damn right,” Ayam seethed. “And what about her sword, do you think she fights with a blade of fire?”
Again, Keeg shook her head. “It’s a trick to scare us. I know only you could wield such a blade and bring fire from its steel.”
Ayam lowered her knife, wiped the blood on her garment, and turned back to the valley. Just then the girl and dragon burst through the clouds a second time and descended on her witch army. Ayam trembled as she watched her sisters go down in a fiery blaze. Her flesh ran cold as she feared for her life for the first time since her rebirth. Keeg drew her knife and started to run back out into the battle, but Ayam jerked her back. “Stay down,” she hissed.
Ayam shook her beads calling for a retreat when she spotted the two braves that had come with the girl, an older one and one not much older than the girl. She clutched her beads in her hand before she could rattle a retreat. “If she’s mortal,” Ayam thought aloud, “then she has a heart. If she has a heart, then she loves.” An idea blossomed in her head as the words spilled from her stitched lips. Shaking out a new order with her beads, she eyed her lieutenant. “Take ten of your best witches and bring me the little person who boasts of the girl. And bring him alive.” Her message sent, she fisted her totem beads. “Our sisters will do the rest.”
“But they’ll die in the process,” Keeg said.
An evil smirk painted Ayam’s face. “So.”
Keeg opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by rustling in the woods behind them.
Ayam jerked her head toward the noise, a grin so wide it busted the stitches on her lips. “It’s about time you arrived.”
44
Ice
Ayas fought from the bluff high in the tree. Kwanokasha had convinced him that being on the valley floor would just agitate the witches. Having killed more of the enemy with his bow than he could have on the ground with his knife and sword, Ayas had to agree.
Searching the valley, he spotted Ayam running from the valley toward the western woods. Without taking his eyes off of her, he reached to his right and felt the arrow he had been saving. It was his best arrow, one he had made moons ago with his father. Since learning that his mother was responsible for his father’s death, he knew how he would use it. It would be fitting to end his mother’s wretched life with the arrow his father helped him make. He strung the arrow on the bow string and pulled it back until the muscles on his forearm and biceps gorged with blood. About to let it fly, he heard Pamoon yell. “Watch out.”
His eyes and bow followed the sound until he spotted Pamoon and Celia. When he saw Pamoon drape Celia over her shoulder and cut through the witches with her staff with abandon, he knew she was desperate. He knew Celia had been hurt . . . or worse.
Just when he thought she was safe, he spotted two separate covens flank Pamoon. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as he waited for the right moment. He quickly placed his father’s arrow down and grabbed another, stringing it all in the same motion. As Pamoon laid waste to the one group of witches, the other attacked. With a blinding speed and a rhythm that only comes from decades of practice, Ayas fired, reloaded, and fired again until all of the witches lay dead. Exhausted, he leaned back against the trunk of the tree to catch his breath. Minutes later, revived, he looked down to find Pamoon, but she and Celia were gone. Not understanding where she could have gone, he searched the battlefield and mist for a sign of her. That’s when he heard a crack of thunder louder than the rest and saw a flash of lightning that was too bright to be natural. Blinking against the flash of light, he saw a piasa rip through the clouds with a rider on its back. Remembering the only other time he had faced the piasa, he knew immediately it was Celia. In that same instant, he knew who the rider was, and that’s when the words of the Goddess Freyja made perfect sense. The one who controls the fire, controls the earth as well.
Ayas swung from branch to branch as he made his way down from his perch. He grabbed his sword, threw its strap over his head, reached over his shoulder as he ran, and unsheathed the Sword of Freyr. As he ran out of the mist onto the valley floor, he felt his powers of air and water mix together and bleed into the hilt of the sword. He felt the icy cold heat before he even looked at the blade. It was a double-edged, razor-sharp piece of ice. Ice meant for one thing. Ice meant to kill.
Ayas found himself fighting with a tribe of Kowi Anukasha led by Kwanokasha himself. “I see you’re feeling better,” Ayas said as he parried his blade against two of the ghost-witches. He was awestruck at how easily his blade cut through everything it came up against, be it steel, flesh, or bone. He hardly felt any drag as it passed through his enemies’ chests. Remembering the instructions Pamoon gave to the owl-women, Ayas refrained for the final death blow. He left his victims alive to be dealt with by the Stikini. As he turned to face more of the coven, he could feel the owls swoop in take the still beating hearts of the witches.
The tainted blood of the Skadegamutc burned like acid as specks blistered his skin, but instead of feeling pain, he felt invigorated. With each step he made toward the western wall of the valley, another coven would materialize. He and Kwanokasha continued to make short work of the witches, his sword doing the majority of damage. Closing in on Ayam’s location, the ghost-witches suddenly dispersed. He thought they had run away in defeat, but then he spotted who they were running towards.
“No!” he yelled. Pointing his sword at Kwanokasha he shouted his command. “Take your men and help Tihk, I’ll help White Eagle.”
45
Consequences
As Pamoon and Celia tore through the veil of clouds and descended once more into the battle, the scene looked nothing like it did moments earlier. Only two battles remained, both causing shock and fear. On separate areas of the battlefield, White Eagle and Tihk were surrounded by ghost-witches.
Get me close to the ground, Pamoon said to Celia, I’m going to dismount and help White Eagle. You help Tihk.
Pamoon adjusted her position and dropped her reins, as fire billowed from Celia’s nostrils. The wind and rain stung Pamoon’s cheeks as Celia tucked her wings close to her body and dropped like a bomb from the sky. In synchronized fashion, Celia pulled out of her nosedive and swooped in close to the ground, while Pamoon threw her legs off the side of the beast. She hit the ground running, cutting and killing everything that stood in her way.
Nearing White Eagle, she heard a deafening rattle of beads. The rattle must have been some sort of communication between the ghost-witches because as soon as it ended, half of the witches turned from White Eagle and attacked her. Her battle-dress hid her movements as she met the attack head on. Through the mist of blood and rain, she spotted a funnel cloud ripping a path across the field.
Celia flew over the valley, closing in on where Tihk gallantly fought. The witches had him surrounded to the extent she couldn’t breathe fire down on them without scorching Tihk at the same time. Making another pass over the field, she attacked from the rear, torching as many of the witches as possible without burning Tihk. As the coven thinned, she swooped low, transformed back into her human shape, landing next to Tihk and Kwanokasha who had joined him in the scrum. Using her staff and knife, she battled the ghost-witches alongside them.
Pamoon felt as if she’d been gut-punched when she heard White Eagle cry out. Glancing in his direction, she knew he was hurt. He guarded his stomach with one hand while trying to fight with the other. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, she suddenly felt . . . human. Just as White Eagle dropped to his knees, the funnel cloud plunged from the sky tearing the ghost-witches limb-from-limb before picking up White eagle and transporting him to safety.
Go help Celia.
Pamoon wasn’t sure if she heard the words or imagined them, but either way, she ran towards the other battle. “Get down,” she yelled as she neared the frenzy. She watched Celia grab Kwanokasha and Tihk by his bloodied shirt and drag them to the ground. That was her sign to let loose the sword’s fire.
Pamoon funneled her emotion into the sword. The blade turning from molten steel into a torch of fire. With a guttural yell, she swept back and forth with her weapon. As the sword cut through the ghost-witches, they flickered from human to light, before falling to the earth, nothing but a pile of ash.
Continuing to battle the remaining foe, Pamoon heard another rattle of beads. In the time it takes a humming bird to flutter its wings, the witches that remained shifted into orbs of light, ending her carnage. Dropping to her knees, she noticed Celia’s hand covered in blood as she attempted to quell the bleeding from Tihk’s chest wound.
She pushed her friend out of the way and lifted her sword high to plunge it into his chest to stop the bleeding, but before she could, his life began to drift from his eyes, like a flame flickering in the wind. Overtaken by her emotions, Pamoon dropped her weapon, her tears soaking Tihk’s bloodied face.
“You thought you could just fly in here and save the day?”
Pamoon jerked her head up, and saw the lead ghost-witch cackling. “You’re gonna die for what you’ve done,” Pamoon snarled. Taking Celia’s hand, she squeezed it gently. “Take Tihk to the edge of the Misty Woods and wait for me.”
