All Ava could think about was trying to stay alive, keep away from those snapping jaws, those empty-shelled people with glaring red eyes, and watch for everyone else fighting their way to them. It was worse than a nightmare; It was reality.
Sirrush had easily dispatched the first moloch, and as their numbers surged forward, he was a blur, keeping them all at bay. Lula and Ava did their part, a slash of crystal blade, a flash of gold, but mostly it was Sirrush protecting them all. Lula’s enchantments were just turning the beast’s or the person’s hair pink. Every once in awhile her focus was clear and a little pink bunny or rodent would scamper by.
“Can’t you just kill them?!” yelled Ava as another cute fluffy thing that resembled a chinchilla hopped by. She swung her sword with terrified force, slicing at an advancing moloch which leapt back, snarling.
“I can’t!” Lula yelled. “That’s not how my magic works.” She turned a soulless person into a pink mouse that blinked at her, then ran off into the midst of monsters. “My powers only do nice things.” She made some pink tulips sprout from a moloch’s open jaws. It stopped and looked surprised. “Which is why when I’m angry it doesn’t work so well!”
The little chinchilla thing bounded towards Sirrush who sliced it in half without hesitation. Ava actually felt sorry for the thing a moment before she remembered it had been a monster. Her necklace didn’t seem to respond to her frantic demands for its power. No matter what she thought, or however she tried to grasp at that power from before, nothing happened. She was getting tired, her arms were aching, her vision blurring. The only respite they had was the lessening rain.
A wall of white fire blazed out of nowhere, racing like a steam engine through their enemies, then spreading and surrounding the three of them in a circle. Mira, Ava’s parents, Orin, and Capella ran through the ten foot wall of flame, unscathed by it. Most of them, however, were covered in mud and cuts, and Orin collapsed with exhaustion. Ava went to him and he smiled.
“Well,” he said between gasps. “I see you didn’t get far.”
She tried to grin. His own smile slid away as she glanced at Sirrush. He was staring back and his eyes were freezing what little courage she had left.
“What is it?” Orin asked.
She turned back to Orin. The edges of her mouth tried to smile, but her eyes made him grab her by the arms.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, truthfully.
She touched his face then pulled away. He let her go, but shot a glance towards Sirrush and tightened his grip on the axe handle. They were safe for the moment as long as Mira’s power held, but she was drenched in foaming sweat.
“Ava,” Warwick said, striding over to her. “Mira will take you to the mountain.”
She nodded, looking around. “Wait, where’s Antares?”
A fireball of red and gray, trailing whips of light, soared into their safe haven. Antares crumpled to the ground, his sides heaving. Ava ran over and laid a hand on his dark gray fur to find it softer than she expected while little tingles of static electricity jumped up her arm.
“Thank you,” she said to him.
He gave a big gruff sigh and raised his head. “Do you think they survived? Do you think they’re safe?” His whiskers drooped, his eyes sadder than she could have ever imagined.
“The…villagers,” he said to her silence. “Do you think they’re safe?”
Her eyes stung. She knew he meant the little girl, Mia.
“Yeah.” She blinked, choking back her own grief. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Ava,” said Mira, throwing her head up. “Quickly!”
“But you’re exhausted. You need to rest.”
“I cannot rest, and none of us will, not until this is done. If we cannot get you to Lesath, then everything we’ve done has meant nothing.”
It already does mean nothing, but she kept her doubts to herself. She walked over and heaved herself onto Mira’s back.
“Hold on with all your life,” Mira said only to her. “We’re at the mountain’s base. We’ll be making a run for its peak where the gateway stands open.”
“And if it’s not?”
“It will be. Now hold tight.”
Her mother ran up to her and grabbed her hand. “You can do this. It will be all right.”
Then her father came up to her. “We have always been here for you. It seems impossible, but…well, just—I’m so sorry this had to be. I wish…” She could see his heart breaking in his eyes as he walked away.
She knew he was hiding tears. Adhara let go of Ava’s hand. She nodded at Mira and stepped back. Warwick stepped to the other side while Antares took position in front of them. Sirrush, much to Ava’s surprise, and Capella stood to defend from behind. Lula flew over to sit on her favorite perch, Ava’s shoulder. Orin jumped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
“Don’t tell me not to follow you,” he said as she twisted around to face him. He smiled. “And you can’t do this alone.”
She looked him up and down, and grinned. “Don’t tell me I can’t,” but her smile and attempt at light-hearted banter melted away.
How could she do this after what Sirrush had told her? What was the point of any of it? They were all just going to die, for nothing; for a dragon’s lie.
Orin’s grin melted with hers. “Something is wrong.”
She glanced at Sirrush who was also looking at her, then turned away and gripped the mane in her hands till her knuckles went white.
“Now!” shouted Mira.
Warwick, Adhara, and Antares blasted through the molochs, razing a long clear path up the mountainside that was hemmed by walls of flame and red lightning. Antares sprinted away, continuously keeping the light ahead of them, and Mira galloped after. Warwick and Adhara raced inhumanly swift not far behind, throwing defensive spells around them. Sirrush and Capella lagged behind doing what they could, still protected by the white fire left in Mira’s wake. Ava’s hands were bleeding again from clutching the mane, and more than once Orin nearly pulled her off from trying to keep his own balance. Antares was doing a splendid job of disintegrating whatever barred their advance. Everything was going smoothly until they were half way up the mountain.
Suddenly, Antares stopped, his ferocity dead in its tracks. Mira nearly trampled him.
“Antares! The shield!” She pranced in place, her ears plastered back.
He didn’t move. He was fixated on the creature with life-less red eyes coming towards them. It made inhuman screeching noise, ungainly stumbling along, desire to kill all over its sunken face. Antares made a growl of intense pain. Hairs prickled up Ava’s arms.
“Mia,” Lula gasped.
“Kill it!” demanded Mira, stamping a hoof as Antares backed further away from the little girl.
“Antares! She’s lost. It’s not her. Attack it!”
His wide eyes reflected the once bubbly, happy, little girl that had curled up between his paws every night. She no longer recognized her Ant-aewy. His growl turned into a whine, so pitiful, so wretched that Ava felt her stomach clench. Antares backed himself against Mira’s legs, all his lightning fizzling to tiny sparks. Mia’s reaching skeletal fingers were only yards away. Mira reared, leapt over Antares’ crouched body, and made for the child creature. He appeared like a strike of lightning between them, roaring, wild with fury. Mira slid to a halt in astonishment and before any of them could react, the moloch-child leapt like a spider onto his back.
“Antares!” Ava shrieked.
He whirled and threw the little girl off, then swiped his giant paw; the paws she had slept between, guarding her safely from shadows in the night. The paws that had rolled her playfully head over heels and folded around her with care. Those once gentle paws now extended towards her, claws outstretched, ready to truly take her from the nightmares. His deadly lightning coiled around her tiny fingers, fingers reaching not to hug, but to destroy him. The light co
iled up her arms, her deformed body, her wide sightless red eyes, and then she was gone. She burst into ash and evaporated into the drizzling mist.
No one else moved or made a sound except Antares. He rumbled deep in his chest. It was the most intense heart-breaking moan Ava had ever heard. His ears were laid back, every tooth bared, every claw dug into the earth, as if he were trying to keep the ground from falling away. The others caught up to them and froze in their tracks to stare at Antares. They were still encircled in Mira’s high flame while the darkness, so determined to engulf them, prowled its edges. A moloch, then another, roared outside their tiny island. Ava could feel Mira trembling beneath her from the immense effort to help keep them safe.
Antares tensed, roared savagely, then hurled himself into the waiting jaws of Mia’s nightmares. He disappeared through the white wall of fire and a shock wave of crimson lightning erupted. Molochs all around him burst into nothingness, caught by the lightning bolts of his torment.
“We have to keep going,” Mira said, as Antares roared again.
“But Antares?” said Ava.
“We can’t help him. He’s lost.”
Without another word, Mira extended the path ahead of them, pushing back molochs, and galloped on once more, leaving Antares to his own fate.
We left him!
Ava couldn’t believe what they were doing. It was happening all over again; a sacrifice for her sake. How could they just leave him? She tried to see where he was, their guide and guardian for so long, so devoted to protecting those he cared about more than she ever realized. He was a tempest to behold, but even his bravery, or madness, would not be able to hold off so many monsters. As they climbed further up the mountain, Antares’ light grew fainter and further away until it disappeared entirely behind a curtain of dense fog. She had watched the entire time, then turned her head and shut her eyes, trying to remain numb. She couldn’t allow herself to feel, not now, if she did—
They were so close to the peak, running through shrouds of clouds, but all too soon their façade of safety was torn away. Sirrush, wounded and exhausted, stumbled to his knees. From beyond the fire where it was just a little weaker, a little lower, leapt a moloch. Sirrush swung up his blade as Warwick, Adhara, and Capella turned to help, but the creature smashed into them all. The fire closed in around Mira, cutting them off.
“No!” screamed Ava.
Lula flew up, and to everyone’s surprise, a great wall of golden light cut through the molochs, even through Mira’s fire, and encircled all of them. Ava saw that Sirrush, Capella, and her parents were unharmed. She smiled until she looked at her parent’s faces glowing with Lula’s golden light. She had seen that look in their eyes before; they were letting her go. Her mother gave a sad smile, and Ava felt her heart constrict. Lula’s light was starting to flicker as her strength waned, but Mira’s fire was coming back.
“Go!” Orin shouted to Mira.
“What?” said Ava in disbelief. “No! No!”
“They’re staying behind, Ava. They’ve done what they can.” He pointed up the steep incline where no molochs yet awaited them. “Our way ahead is clear.”
Lula flew down, exhausted, and almost fell onto Ava’s head. She climbed onto her shoulder and let her wings droop. Mira, though on the verge of collapse as well, threw herself forward with renewed strength, fire igniting around her hooves and blazing a giant blue-white inferno behind them.
Ava could hear the clash of fighting, then ear-wrenching shrieks as they galloped away towards the stone arch above. When she turned around, she saw Broga and the other harpies had joined the fight. Though they were fierce, Shawna knew they would be taken by the molochs as well. Sirrush, Capella, her parents, and Antares were lost—left behind. She wanted to cry, scream, run back, let herself go mad like Antares, but a strange energy was calming her and giving her strength. Mira’s powerful conviction was flowing through her as well. Ava could feel that Mira believed in their quest, believed it with all her being as she heaved herself up the mountainside. Her exhalations were like gun shots while foam flew from her mouth and hide. The distant barrier of flame behind them started to diminish, it fluttered, then evaporated. Mira’s strength was gone, but they had breached the legions of molochs.
Her parents had turned to fight the oncoming deluge with no last words, no farewells, no reassuring gestures. All she had been given was a last look and smile of pride from her mother before they too were erased from view. Everyone she cared about was gone and she was running; running from everything. It felt like Orin’s arms, wrapped around her body, and Lula’s tiny weight on her shoulder, were the only things keeping her from falling apart. They had all said they would be there for her, and she had left them.
Sparks flew from Mira’s silver hooves as she clambered through narrow passages of boulders and leapt up and down walls of rock, and still the hordes of molochs thundered after them, ever closer. A layer of thick cloud still clung to the mountain’s crown, obscuring their destination. Ava tried not to look back. Instead, she tried to remember the confident belief in herself, in their purpose, she had once held. Her fingers clutched the sapphires and she focused on feeling the same electric flow through her veins, but all she could feel was the weight of watching everyone disappear behind her. All she knew was the fear of losing them, and the fear of failing after all they had done for her, after all they had sacrificed. Her face went slack and her eyes grew wide. Sacrifice. Sirrush had said, the unicorn’s sacrifice must now be yours. Is that what he had meant? Or were they just more meaningless words meant to twist things to his whim?
She ground her teeth and her eyes flared in rage at the thought of him and his arrogance until a flash of realization almost made her let go of Mira’s mane. She wasn’t angry at Sirrush or his lies. She was angry with herself. She was angry that she had so blindly believed all she had been told. Never once did she feel in control. Never once did she blame herself for her predicament. She had chosen this, but not to embrace it. She had chosen to fear it. Always, her whole life, she had felt helpless, weak, a victim, and she loathed herself for it.
But It didn’t matter what Sirrush said, what anyone said, every action, every feeling, had always been her choice. Like a demon waiting to be discovered, her anger collapsed in on itself, tore from her, and lifted. All at once she felt light and free from a weight she hadn’t even been aware of. At the same moment of Ava’s sudden clarity, Lula, who had been clinging to her shoulder the entire time, flew up and zipped alongside.
“Keep going! You can make it. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Lula?” She tried to twist in Orin’s arms to see Lula. “What are you doing?!”
The mist below them was fading, and as far as she could see the land was a black tsunami, seething like waves of tar. She could see nothing of her parents, of Sirrush, Capella, or Antares. They were truly gone. And there was Lula, the most unlikely best friend she had ever had, ready to fight off millions in order to give them the last precious minutes they needed to reach the top.
“Don’t you dare,” snapped Ava, flinging out a hand to catch her, but Lula flew above her reach. “Not you too! You can’t stop them all! We can make it, don’t lea—”
“I’m not leaving,” said Lula, hovering where she was, letting the space between them stretch as Mira pranced a few paces away. “Why would I leave?” she shouted above the rising maelstrom. “Since we met, this has been the best time of my life.” She winked, smiled, and waved as Mira broke into a trot, then a run.
“Lula!” Ava shouted as molochs climbed the boulders and leapt with snapping jaws at the tiny fairy. “Come with me! Please!”
“No.”
Ava could barely hear her now.
Lula dodged a moloch. Fangs snapped on thin air. “Don’t worry about me. It’ll be okay…” She was becoming a tiny golden speck.
Ava half gasped half sobbed, still calling for her to follow. She tried to look away. She should have looked away. Lula fl
ew like a tiny comet, trailing gold dust, and created a thick wall of rose-crystal stone from the muddy earth. The narrow passage between the high wall of boulders was blocked for now, but a shadow crept from a hidden crevice beneath.
Lula didn’t see the glowing red eyes, didn’t hear Ava’s distant scream as she yanked so roughly on the mane between her fingers that Mira skidded to a stop and reared. The beast lunged, a dark silhouette against the pale-rose wall. Lula was waving, so happy and proud at helping her friends, but her smile fell away as she turned her head. The moloch snapped her between its teeth.
Ava couldn’t stop screaming. Lula was gone.
Antares was gone. Her parents. Everyone had been taken by the molochs, had become the very thing trying to destroy them. Except for Orin and Mira…she was now utterly alone. She fell silent with shock, with such heartbreak, that even the molochs could feel it, and their eyes burned brighter at her distress. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She did not feel Orin’s comforting hand or hear his words. She didn’t even notice the sapphires glowing and evaporating the clouds around them as Mira galloped into the belly of the next thunder storm rolling towards them.
A moloch appeared from the mist at Mira’s heels. She kicked at it and dashed away. She galloped with renewed strength, given by the demonic jaws of Hell behind them. Ava blinked through her grief at the ground rushing by below. Tiny veins of light were glowing between the rocks. The earth’s skin was glowing just as her mother’s skin, her father’s, and her own had. She stared through blurred vision at this interesting phenomenon, not comprehending.
“There!”
She looked up at Orin’s shout and felt her heart race with the pounding of Mira’s hooves. The doorway was there. The massive arch, built of stone crackling with light, towered into the clouds. It was open. The storm swirled like a tornado around it. Yet, there was no storm within its huge opening, instead she could see beautiful light dancing with blues and violets. She felt Mira’s powerful muscles beneath her shaking, fighting to stay alive. She gripped the silky mane and closed her eyes, willing Mira to keep running.
At first there was only the roar of a million beasts howling for her, the sharp crack of thunder, the awful silence of her lost loved ones. Then those sounds began to fade, and all she heard were the deep breaths of Mira. She heard the clatter of hooves and explosive exhales as if they were her own. Her mind tried to take her far away from it all. Nothing existed but the feeling of wind on her closed eyes, cooling the tears on her face.
Memories swam in the darkness under her eyelids: Lula twirling in her dress of sunset kisses, Sparkle snoring happily from the rafters, Antares playing with Mia, the first time she saw Orin and the first time they kissed. She screwed her eyes up even tighter against the pain welling up within. She saw her parents joy in seeing her again, and she heard Capella’s cackling laughter over the troll-tea. Even her friends and family from another world, another life time it seemed, their faces flashed one after the other before her. What had she done? Everything was turning out so wrong.
“Now.”
The echoing voice sounded so far away, a whisper.
“Now!”
Her eyes slowly opened. Reluctantly, she came back to the present moment.
“Ava, you must go!” Mira yelled in her mind.
Mira was stumbling, and there was the giant arch, only steps away. The light was so intense she couldn’t look at it, but she could feel it sparking off her hair and skin like little electric finger flicks. Mira fell to her knees and Ava and Orin were nearly thrown from her back. They both jumped to the ground that was splintered with blue-light, and unsheathed their weapons. Orin shouted and Mira leapt up to kick viciously with her back legs, crushing a moloch’s skull, but another was right behind it.
“Run!” Mira turned her wild eyes on them, rearing.
They began to turn away, but Ava faltered and looked back.
Without having to ask, Mira answered her. “My realm is cursed. If I enter I am lost as well. Now, run!”
They turned and ran. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to see Mira desperately kicking, goring, thrashing, with all her might. She didn’t need to see the molochs beginning to overwhelm her. However, nor did she see them begin to flow past Mira as if she no longer existed.
The light from the archway was so brilliant she thought she would also burst into ash before she could reach it. The sapphires pulsed with her heartbeat. When she reached the blinding opening, she finally turned her head to risk a glance. The gleaming tusks and fangs of a moloch were sailing through the air straight for her. She threw her sword up just as Orin shoved her aside and rammed into the moloch.
She only had time to let her eyes widen in silent horror, stumble backwards, and as the moloch clamped its jaws on Orin’s shoulder, she was pulled into the unknown.