The Outskirts: Thé Crystal Keepers (Jace x OC)

The Crystal Keepers: 2

Trying to collect my panicked thoughts, I slid off the stone horse, keeping the petrified animal between myself and the oncoming riders. My previous encounter with Enforcers had taught me that they had shaping abilities. In Elloweer that meant they were enchanters, capable of creating illusions and changing living things. I recalled the soldier, Russell, who had survived an encounter with Morgassa because an Enforcer had turned me to stone. That explained the fate of my horse.
Dalton and the others were racing out of sight.
The other horses all appeared to be fine. I was glad they were getting away but terrified at being left behind. Would they notice I wasn't with them? How long before I became the next statue?
Everything went dark. I blinked and strained my eyes, but there was absolutely no light. I could hear the thundering approach of the Enforcers.
I tried stay calm. The sudden blackness had to be some sort of illusion. I kept a hand on the stone horse to retain a sense of my location. The Enforcers pounded nearer.
When we had fought Morgassa, wearing the animal masks had prevented her from working changings on them. If a mask could frustrate Morgassa, it should provide plenty of protection from the powers of some Enforcers.
Reaching out in the blackness, I felt the saddle.
None of the gear had turned to stone, which made sense, since changings only worked on living things. The mask was in a saddlebag on the other side of the petrified horse. To get it would mean exposing myself to the oncoming riders.
I ducked under the horse and blindly fumbled open the saddlebag. I yanked out the mask and hesitated for a second. The last time I wore the mask I had been terribly wounded by Morgassa.
I had abandoned the tiger form on the brink of death. What if the tiger form was still horribly injured? If that was the case, I supposed I could quickly take the mask off again.
As I placed the mask over my face, a flurry of disorienting sensations overwhelmed me. I tipped, spun, and grew.
Suddenly, I stood on four paws. I felt balanced, and calmer. The new form was familiar and most welcome. With my heightened hearing and smell, I knew the position of each of the oncoming riders. Their mounts smelled peculiar. I could sense they had been changed.
No natural horses were so large and strong.
It felt as if my previous injuries had never occurred. No soreness lingered. I supposed that made sense. When wearing the mask, I was the tiger. It didn't exist elsewhere. The wounded tiger had been erased the instant I removed the mask. When I put the mask back on, it had changed me into a healthy tiger, not a wounded one. That meant I could heal any injury to my tiger form simply by taking the mask off and replacing it. I wished I had known that when we fought Morgassa.
My first instinct was to attack the riders. But what about my friends? They needed to know the masks were safe to use. Jace's wolf and Skye's bear had been badly wounded as well. If they hesitated to put on the masks, the Enforcers might work changings on them.
Powerful paws pulling at the ground, I bolted after my friends, thrilled by the rapid acceleration. I rushed ahead low and fast, muscles churning. No regular tiger was this large and strong. No ordinary mountain lion was this fast. I knew from experience that I could maintain a full sprint all day without tiring.
I swiftly exited the dark patch and once again could add sight to my other senses. Glancing back, I saw a black sphere that reflected no moonlight concealing the stone horse and the surrounding area. The Enforcers rode hard, but despite the impressive speed of their enhanced mounts, I was much faster than them. Leafy forms of shrubs and trees whipped by as I plunged forward through the gloom.
Before long, I reached the Red Road. Benefiting from a head start, my friends galloped away on the smooth pavement.
All except one.
Dalton had halted his horse and was looking back. He waved when he saw me.
I dashed to Dalton. I was glad he had noticed me missing, but stopping his horse had put Dalton in greater peril. The Enforcers were close behind.
"Put on your mask," I cried. "It's your best protection."
Dalton started digging in his saddlebag. With the Enforcers closing in, I sprinted past Dalton.
It didn't take me long to catch up to the others.
The Enforcers would soon overtake their ordinary horses without much trouble.
"Use the masks!" I called. "Our animal forms aren't hurt!"
Looking back, I saw a dark sphere where Dalton had been. I slowed and was about to turn back when a huge bull charged out of the blackness.
I let Dalton catch up, then rushed to rejoin the others. While still riding, they were putting on their masks.
Tumbling from her horse, Skye became a huge, shaggy bear. Jace gracefully rolled off his horse and transformed into an enormous wolf. As Mira reached into her saddlebag, her horse slowed and turned to stone beneath her. Me and Dalton stopped to stay with her.
Mira put on her mask and dropped to the ground as a bighorn sheep. After reining in his horse, Joe was the last to change form. He hadn't worn a mask before, so he used Twitch's eagle.
Everything went dark again. Growling, I spun around the Enforcers. Sound and smell told me exactly where the nearest horse was charging.
Attacking low, I dove into the legs, biting down and swiping with my claws. The large mount was moving at great speed. and though legs and hooves crashed into me, making me flip and slide, the mutant horse got the worst of it, pitching forward violently onto the pavement.
The rider went down hard, armor clanging and scraping against the Red Road, and Skye fell upon him savagely.
In his wolf form, Jace took out the next horse much as I had done. Before the rider could rise, Dalton came at him with his horns lowered, goring and trampling him.
I rolled over and crouched for another attack, but the other riders were swerving off the road.
Six remained on their mounts, fanning out.
Strange tingles sparked across my hide, and I realized that changings were being cast against me and failing. As expected, the changing caused by the mask was too potent for other changings to take hold.
Something lanced into my side, and I swiveled to discover a crossbow bolt protruding from my ribs. By the sudden difficulty in my breathing, I knew it had punctured a lung. I let out an angry yowl, noticing as I did how easy it was to switch from my human voice to my tiger growl. Skye let out a roar as well, deeper and more rumbling than mine.
The darkness lifted, revealing that all of the Enforcers had bows or crossbows trained on them and were firing at top speed. An arrow hit Jace in the neck, and two already protruded from Skye. In his eagle shape, Joe soared upward, flying out of range.
Skye tore off her mask, and immediately stone walls appeared between the horsemen and their targets. I knew the stony seemings were intangible, but at least they would make aiming difficult. I dodged to the side and pulled off my mask. The world spun and flipped, and I returned to two legs, but no sooner had I become myself again than I replaced the mask, passing through another whirlwind of sensation to emerge as an uninjured tiger.
Beside me, Jace did likewise. Still in her human form, Skye retreated down the road on foot.
"Run!" she called. "Make for the palace."
The Enforcers rode forward through the stone walls, and Skye covered their heads with wooden crates. They batted futilely at the illusions.
Mira crouched near Skye, allowing her to climb aboard.
Once Skye had mounted, the big ram took off down the road. I felt more tingling as additional changings failed to alter me. Our remaining horses turned to stone. Deciding to forgo more attacks and follow Mira, I turned on the speed, exhilarating in the stretch and pull of running as a cougar. Jace, Cole, and Dalton sprinted beside me.
Skye put on her mask, rolling off Mira to become a bear again. A glance back told me that as soon as Skye replaced her mask, the illusionary crates had dissipated. Skye could only maintain seemings while in her human form.
Once again the Enforcers took up the pursuit. I pushed to my maximum speed, my paws slipping a little on the smooth pavement. The Enforcers charged after us, gradually losing ground.
Up ahead, four mounted Enforcers rushed onto the road, Two of them held a flaming net between them, barring the way. Another readied a huge bow, while the fourth leveled a lance at them. But I didn't smell the horses, or the Enforcers, or the fire, though I heard it crackling.
"Fakes!" Jace shouted.
"Seemings," Skye agreed.
The closer I came to the Enforcers, the more certain I became that they had no scent. We barreled through the insubstantial Enforcers and continued down the road. Dalton laughed,
Jace gave a quick howl, and Cole let out a snarling roar.
A rearward glance showed the Enforcers even farther behind, allowing me to wonder where the chase might end. Would they take the Red Road all the way into the Lost Palace? Putting themselves back into Trillian's power could prove more dangerous than fighting the Enforcers. What if the gates at the end of the road were closed? That would force a showdown unless they veered off to one side and kept running. Might Trillian send help?
What if the help he sent turned into even bigger trouble?
Settling into a steady sprint, I let my worries get swallowed by the joy of running. Something about being a tiger made it much easier to tune out fear. I wasn't fleeing in terror-it felt like a race, and I was confident that I could keep stretching my lead.
"Why run?" Jace complained, dashing at my left.
"They want a fight. Let's give it to them."
"I feel the impulse too," Dalton said from the other side. "The mask wants me to turn around and plow through them."
"It's not just my mask," Jace replied. "We could take them."
"They have pretty good aim with those bows," I said. "They didn't miss many shots until Skye put up those walls."
"It would be harder for them to shoot us if they were dead," Jace growled.
"Keep running," Skye called back from a few paces in front of them. "These Enforcers will give Trillian something to worry about besides capturing us."
"Nobody is going to capture us with these masks on," Jace said.
"Remember the sky castle rules," Mira said.
"Don't fight when you can run. Why risk arrows bringing us down if we can get away?"
"She's right," I said.
"Whatever," Jace said. "Is it bad to hope we get cornered?"
"It's not healthy," I said, though I also felt the strong urge to fight. What if Skye returned to her normal form and raised some illusions so they could attack out of hiding? The Enforcers would be down before they knew what hit them.
The conversation ended. We ran onward in silence, the rumble of hoofbeats receding.
In the moonlit distance the Lost Palace rose into view.
The skeletal castle looked like it had barely survived a bombing raid, but I knew that for anyone who passed through the front gate, the charred building became a shimmering wonder of pearl and platinum. I had never figured on whether the real version was the scorched ruin or the fairy tale palace. Maybe they were both seemings.
"Riders," Mira said.
Peering ahead along the road, I counted at least ten riders approaching, shrunken by the distance.
"Another illusion?" I asked.
"They're pretty far off," Skye said. "I think they're real."
"Red Guard or more Enforcers?" Dalton asked.
"It's hard to recognize color in the moonlight,"
Skye replied. "They seem to be coming from
Trillian's prison."
Joe came swooping back from the direction of the Lost Palace. "Red Guard!" he called.
"Twelve of them."
"Think they're here to help?" Dalton asked.
"If not, it's their funeral," Jace said.
"Leave the road when they get near," Skye said.
"If they ride past us, we'll know they're after our
foes.
I had heard that the Red Guard were dangerous, though on our previous visit to the Lost Palace I had only seen a few people besides Trillian. But that proved nothing. Other members of the Red Guard could have been out on assignment, or they could have been hiding.
Running at top speed, I watched as the galloping riders rapidly drew closer. Still charging hard, Skye led me and the others off the road as the riders came near. With hardly a glance to the side, the riders raced by them, except for a woman who slowed her chestnut stallion to a stop.
Coldly beautiful, she gazed down at us as we also came to a standstill.
I recognized her. It was Hina, the woman who had escorted us around the Lost Palace.
"What are your intentions?" Skye asked.
Hina turned and looked down the Red Road, where her fellow guardsmen were about to engage the Enforcers. She waved a hand, and the number of guardsmen suddenly tripled.
"Are any of them real?" Cole asked.
"Eleven," Hina said, her voice calm and rich.
"Should we go help?" Jace asked.
"Not necessary," Hina assured him.
Just before the clusters of horsemen collided, Hina made a curt gesture, and for a moment the Red Road beneath the oncoming Enforcers flapped like a towel in the wind. All but one of the Enforcers went down in a calamitous tumble as the Red Guard reached them.
I watched as the Red Guard cut down the single Enforcer who remained mounted and wheeled to engage the fallen ones. It was hard to catch many details. The skirmish ended quickly.
"You know why I'm here?" Skye asked Hina.
"Naturally," the silver-haired enchanter responded. "My master welcomes you. He laments the passing of Callista, but believes you have the potential to surpass her in many
ways."
"The others in my party have business elsewhere," Skye said.
"We know," Hina said. "He'll allow it. He would like the other heiresses to come out of hiding. I will accompany your friends to the edge of Elloweer, where Zeropolis begins."
"You?" Mira challenged.
"The masks will enable you to elude your pursuers a get to Zeropolis," Hina said. "But someone must bring the masks back. They are too valuable to leave Elloweer."
Nine of the Red Guard came trotting back down th Red Road. One pair of riders held a dark-armored captive between them by his arms. The injured Enforcer jogged alongside the horses, struggling to keep up. A second pair held another prisoner. First one of the Enforcers stopped jogging and let them drag him, then the other.
"We lost two men," Hina said. "But we gained two captives. My master is studying their minds. Upon finding you, they sent three of their number back to report. The messengers split up and rode hard. This was one of many search parties. They did not expect to find you here. Had they known, they would have sent more men."
"Seemed like a lot," Cole said.
"The Hunter has learned respect for you," Hina said. "As has the High King. Many resources are now bent on finding Mira and bringing her in.
This was a relatively minor show of force."
"You can hear Trillian from out here?" Dalton asked.
"As long as I remain on the Red Road," Hina said.
"What of my mother?" Skye asked. "Have they information about her?"
"She lives, so far as these men know," Hina replied.
"Trillian suggests that the best thing you can do to help her would be to let your companions take the chase to another kingdom. The farther away Mira goes, the less relevant your mother becomes."
"Does Trillian really want us to find the other princesses?" Jace wondered. "Or does he just want the masks?"
"Both," Hina replied. "The masks are the greatest legacy left behind by Callista. Those in her home must be protected as well. And my master wishes you well on your journey. With the masks, crossing Elloweer should be quick."
"You want us to wear the masks until we reach
Zeropolis?" I asked.
"My master insists upon it," Hina said.
"Reinforcements will come searching for you.
The speed afforded by the masks will baffle The speed afforded by the masks will baffle them. They are your best chance of shaking the Hunter off your trail for a time."
"Does Trillian know much about the Hunter?"
Cole asked.
"Not directly, but he knows of him," Hina replied. "The Hunter is among the most competent Enforcers. He now has knowledge of your whereabouts, which would normally be enough for him to ensnare you. But he doesn't know about the masks."
Joe landed on a nearby limb. "The Enforcers sent some riders back," he reported. "I tried to chase them and got shot in the wing. I took the mask off and put it back on, and they gained a lot of ground on me, splitting up. I don't think I can stop them alone."
"No matter," Hina said. "The information they bring to the Hunter will mislead him. Using your masks, we'll reach Zeropolis inside of four days."
"We?" Joe asked.
"We'll fill you in," Mira said. "Looks like Hima is coming with us."
"We should make haste," Hina said, "Skye? Do you mind if I borrow your bear?"