Lovely Dark Things

TWENTY-FOUR (RUBY POV)

"What the...? I told her not to leave my side for one second, damn it."

I walk out of the tent angrily, looking around, but Iselen is nowhere to be seen. Las time I talked to her she was working on her maps, leaning over the table, focusing on who knows what... I told her I needed to meet the King to talk about something concerning the army supplies and I'd be back as soon as possible, she nodded absentmindedly not even raising her head, frowning and staring at the damned map. It only took me 20 minutes but she's not in the tent now and I don't know where she is.

I walk across the camp covered in snow with firm steps, dodging humans, elves and dwarves, feeling more and more furious. I know she's not in the tent where the leaders meet because I'm coming from there and would've bumped into her on the avenue, she's not with the King or my father because she's been avoiding the Captain of the Black Guard since she knows he suspects I killed my brother. She could be with the Queen, with Sryne, with my mother, with the King of the Dwarves... there're dozens of different possibilities in this massive camp full of warriors. And most of them have a good reason to kill her...

Minutes tick by and rage turns into fear when I reach the other end of the avenue, where the temporary stables for dragons have been built next to the camp gate, unfortunately I haven't found her yet. I catch a glimpse of Katal's red hair out of the corner of my eye, so flashy that's impossible to ignore, and I run towards him to ask if he's seen the advisor but I realize he's surrounded by elves of the forest and My Lady and her acolytes are here too. All of them are looking at the sky and the high mountains that are very close, Iselen insisted on setting up camp here and told us this would be the penultimate stage of out trip, finally.

"What's that?" I ask out of breath staring at the black dot that's flying very high among grey clouds even if I think I know the answer.

"That's Sulepeth, the Queen's winged horse," Katal answers monitoring the animal's movements with curiosity. "The advisor told us she needed to take a last look before ordering the army to climb up those mountains till reaching a mountain pass that leads to a high plateau. She doesn't want us to fall into a trap."

"Iselen is riding that horse? I'm going to kill her..." I whisper angrily, looking at my girl ready to scold her but she's out of reach right now. The Queen looks quite calm, I know she adores that animal and would never put him in danger which means that, in theory, the advisor is safe as long as she stays on the saddle. Seraphon and the dragons from Caledor have walked out of the stables with Urian, the Beast Lord, and his assistants, and are staring at the sky too, sniffing the air carefully. They look slightly confused but everything is all right, apparently, because my precious human is going down slowly.

"A black swan, it's beautiful..." One of the forest elves smiles when he sees the gorgeous bird spreading its wings, the black feathers shine like polished jet under the dim light coming between the grey clouds.

"Since when swans have those sharp fangs?" Katal asks puzzled and worried and my heart skips a beat.

"Iselen, come here!" I cry desperately but my girl can't hear me because Seraphon is growling, calling other dragons, and they all fly away ignoring Urian's orders to come back. "What's that?" I ask when I realize that the swan is coming with some friends.

"I think they're harpies," the Queen answers and extends her arm to throw some witch fire balls that disperse these demons that have the body of a bird and the head of ugly women. Dragons are fighting them, chasing them between the clouds to try to keep them busy while Sulepeth flaps his wings flying as fast as possible, trying to land before the swan gets too close to the advisor.

The animals roar and shriek while crossing the sky fast as lightning, dragons bang the harpies' heads with their strong tails despite they're really agile and manage to dodge them most of the time, they spin in the air, hissing furiously before fighting back again. Sometimes, they all vanish behind the tall mountains for a few seconds and two harpies tried to get closer to us but the forest elves grabbed their bows quickly and those demons have decided that it wasn't worth risking their wings getting hurt by their arrows. The entire camp is focusing on what's happening above our heads right now and the King of the Dark Elves walks closer too along with his guards.