Syl spins back toward the creature at the sound of a feral scream, and is just in time to see the creature hurled up into the air. It's body connects with a tree with a sickening crack before slumping to the ground, blood already pooling around it's paws. It does not get up
Max topples to his knees from his place in front of where the creature had been standing. A golden-orange glow just fading from his fingertips.
Confusion crosses Syl's face as his smoke addled brain struggles to keep up. Then it dawns on him. Of course Max's magic worked on it. Demon scales are metallic.
Max slumps completely to the ground in the time it takes for Syl to recover, passed out from using to much magic at once. He's no doubt been using it ever since this started.
Syl is rapidly becoming numb to the burning sensation at the back of his neck, caused by the approaching flames. There is very little they can do to stop the fire until help arrives.
At the beginning of the night there were easily twenty other children in this valley, fighting. By now, the fire would have pushed any other survivors out toward the water, as it had done with max and Syl. They are completely on their own now.
Syl moves toward Max weakly. Rocks clatter beneath his singed shoes as he drags his feet slightly.
He sees their faces as he pulls Max's dead weight back up.
They are bright and hopeful.
He drags Max away from the fire and into the water. It's all he can do to keep both their heads above water as he wades in as far out as he can while still touching ground.
Their faces haunt him. He can't help but hear the screams. Sharp sounds that earlier, he had thought nothing more of. Now he knows better.
He wraps his arms around Max's chest, tears streaking down his dirt and blood stained face. They are not from the smoke this time.
He sees the faces of his friends. He remembers how eager they'd all been for this day. Only for their lives to be scorched away like seedlings reaching up toward an unforgiving sun.
Until today, the war had been a mere whisper. A ghostly figure pressing it's face up to the glass of their carefully protected peace.
He understands now the mistake he made in trusting that glass would hold.
He will not make that mistake again.
YOU ARE READING
These Dark Eyes
Fantasy19 year old Evelyn Harris is a world class eventer, and a well known one at that. Building up her career from a young age. It's been stressful, for both her and her family, but she wouldn't give it up for the world. Eve definitely never expected it...
