Terry Brooks - The Elves of Cintra

Use the tools you have at hand.

It rushed her again almost instantly, attacking in the same fashion. But this time she was ready for it. Johnny's words had triggered an idea, and she knew all at once what she must do. She did not try to slow it with her magic; she let it come. Again it hurtled into her, bearing her to the ground, trying to pin her in place so that it could tear her apart. Again she caught it on her staff. But this time she tucked her legs against her body as it knocked her backward, boots pulling free of the ice, the wicked metal teeth of her crampons levering toward the demon's belly. As it landed on top of her she kicked out, jamming the crampons against the beast's exposed underside and ripping downward with all the strength she possessed.

The demon screamed. She had never heard a scream like this, a ter–rible wrenching cry that echoed all across the mountain slopes and the valleys beyond. She felt flesh and muscle give way beneath her boots, saw blood spurt everywhere. The beast clamped its jaws on one arm and her staff as well, but she used the magic to keep those jaws from closing all the way and the teeth from tearing off her arm.

An instant later it broke away, rolling across the snow in a tangle of blood and scales and ragged flesh, feeders clinging to it in black patches. It should have been either dead or wounded badly enough that it could not continue the fight. Any other creature would have been finished. But not this one. It was already back on its feet and stalking toward her, ignoring the feeders, its underside a mass of blood and torn flesh it barely seemed to notice. Angel felt her courage fail. She braced herself for the rush she knew was coming, summoning what magic she had left to wield.

It wasn't enough. The demon came at her so quickly that she barely had time to react. Fire lanced from her staff, burning into the creature, breaking through skin and scales and flesh and perhaps even bone. But it didn't stop it. Ignoring her efforts to keep it at bay, it slammed into Angel, knocking her backward across the ice, knocking the wind from her lungs. Claws ripped and tore. Heavy limbs pounded. She felt streaks of fiery pain race up and down her body. She felt ribs snap. She felt her right arm go numb and her left leg collapse. She felt her joints loosen and her head spin. For a second, she thought she was going to break apart.

But she held on. She might have been finished then and there, but the demon had come at her so hard that its momentum carried it past her once again, across the frozen surface of the snow and into the rocks out of which it had come. It screamed and hissed as it flew past, claws digging at the ice, fighting to gain purchase, failing to do so. Angel saw it for only seconds, a dark shadowy nightmare, and she whipped her staff at its head and chased after it with her magic's fire. Slowly, she staggered back to her feet, leaning heavily on the staff. The entire right side of her body was a mass of blood. She could barely keep herself up–right. She pulled the all–weather cloak from her back and wrapped it around her injured arm, trying to cushion it against further damage. She couldn't tell, but the bones of her forearm might already be bro–ken. She grimaced. If so, they were not the only ones.

She watched the demon emerge from the rocks once more, slouch–ing out of the shadows. It looked worse than she did, but it was still coming. She shook her head, despairing. She did not know what it would take to stop it, but she did not think it was anything she pos–sessed.

The feeders, she thought darkly, massing all about them, were an–ticipating that they would feast on both.

The demon charged her again, not so quickly this time, its stamina sapped and its strength depleted. Even so, she could not get out of its way. She used the fire on its face, and as it slammed into her she shoved her bad arm, still wrapped in her cloak, and the length of her staff be–tween its jaws to try to block away its teeth. Then, as fresh pain ratch–eted through her, she did the one thing she had always known she must never do. She let go of her staff and with her hands freed, she ripped at the demon's face with the serrated palms of her needle gloves.

A second time, she got lucky. One of the gloves caught the demon just above its good eye and tore downward across its face.

The cat thing shrieked in pain and rage, the entire half of its face turned into a red smear. As she struggled to break free of it, claws tore at her, opening fresh wounds. Angel ignored them, regaining her grip on her staff, calling up its magic the moment her fingers closed about its length. She thrust the demon away, watching it thrash in a blind frenzy as it slid backward. Still collapsed on her belly, she used her pain and rage to fuel the Word's magic and sent it tearing into her adversary.

She screamed at it as she did so, in that instant little more than an animal herself

The magic struck the demon with a fury that transcended anything of which Angel had thought herself capable. It exploded against the demon's mangled head, bore into it and shattered it like glass.

The head flew apart, gone in an instant. The body thrashed for long moments after, as if not yet aware that it was no longer whole, that it had noth–ing to guide it. Feeders descended on it, burying it in a mass of writhing shadows. It collapsed beneath them, shuddered once, and lay still.

Angel dropped to her knees, her staff gripped tightly in both hands, the fading magic of the Word's fire licking at the smooth black ends like cat's tongues. She stared at the demon's corpse, not quite comprehending that it was lifeless. She waited for it to move. She waited for it to rise and come for her.

But the demon lay where it was, headless and lifeless. When the feeders began to drift away, Angel realized finally that it would not ever move again. She tried to lever herself up so that she could go to her friends. She had to find them and protect them. The other demon could have reached them by now and it would finish the job that this one started and the Loden would be lost and the Elves compromised

She struggled to rise but found that her legs would not work; her muscles were too weak. She could only get to her knees.

Then she could not even manage that, and she collapsed into black–ness.

KIRISIN STARED AT THE APPARITION standing before him, trying to make himself accept that what he was seeing was real. "I thought you were dead?" he exclaimed in disbelief.

Old Culph chuckled. "Well, now, what led you to believe that, Kirisin?"

"Tragen found your body?"

"Is that what he told you?" Even in the near darkness, Kirisin could see his eyes twinkle. "Were you sad for me? Did you think the demons had found me out? Did you think they had caught and killed me?"

"We all did!" Kirisin declared, relief flooding through him. "After Ailie and Erisha were killed, we thought the demons had gotten you, too! We didn't have time to do more than make a quick check; we had to flee Arborlon right away."

The old man ambled forward a few steps, dropping the beam of his solar torch and nodding his understanding. "You were right to do so. No point in taking unnecessary chances. I certainly didn't. I waited until it was safe to do so, and then I followed you. I tracked you all the way here, to these caves." He looked around. "Impressive, aren't they? An Elven safehold." He looked back quickly. "Did you find it? Did you find the Loden Elfstone? Do you have it?"

Kirisin held out his hand, revealing the Stone cupped within his curled fingers. "Inside the dragon's maw. Guarded by the magic of Pancea Rolt Gotrin, just as you thought it might be. You were right about everything. We couldn't have done this without you." He shook his head. "I still can't believe you're alive. How did you manage to get here on your own?"