The Sky Demons Part One: Journey

Chapter Ten- To Ashes

Serefk’na-To Ashes

The remaining five prowled into position, forming a larger circle around our own; four spectrumosi and two deishani. I began to wish I wasn’t so much younger than my brothers, with their years more experience than me one of them would have been able to sort out this situation single-handedly and with ease; I wasn’t at that level yet.

I trembled, my magic had been run down and I was beginning to doubt that we would escape; our abilities were rusty after having spent so long in hiding and only recently recovering from a sealing spell. It was over, we were going to- I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Tigre, she glared defiantly at our remaining enemies and a purring growl rose up in her throat, her hand dropped from my shoulder. I looked around and clenched my fists, suppressing the shivering until I was the only one who could have known I was still doing; I would channel that nervous energy into speed and strength and I would live to be as skilled as my siblings some day. That’s what the adrenaline was there for after all.

Whispering the words, I summoned my sword to me and sheathed it as I summoned my ketan. My left ear twitched three times in a secret signal and Tigre and Senka reacted immediately, covering their eyes and turning away as I used one of the magic spells I was most practiced in. “Kino” I growled, channelling the power flooding through my veins and guiding it outwards, fashioning in my hand a ball of light and letting it flare to blinding brightness as I turned away, my eyes closed.

I heard hisses of pain as our enemies reeled away, covering their eyes as their retinas burned. I let go of the spell immediately with a call to my friends, who uncovered their eyes and set about raising Nightshade’s body onto Tigre’s back as she shifted into her large deishan form. I shifted as well and picked Senka up, ignoring her protests as we both knew she couldn’t run fast enough.

We fled, Senka doing her best to use magic to prevent Nightshade falling off of Tigre’s back from her position and I trying very hard to ignore the pain in my recently defrosted paw.

I heard yells and thudding feet behind us, and looked over my shoulder to see that the small town’s guards had not given up. They pursued us even as they attempted to wipe their streaming eyes, but they were gaining ground. We could not run fast trying to carry Nightshade like this and Tigre’s familiar was in no state to move of her own accord.

“Senka, Serefk’na, we’re going to use super speed” Tigre yelled over my back. I glanced at her, the idea was a gamble, having already used some of our magic we would not be able to run for more than four or five minutes before we ran out of ketan and collapsed, but we would leave the spectrumosi behind and hopefully the deishani too. Then it would all depend on us regaining the ability to start running again before those left behind caught up to us.

“Are you ready?” shouted Senka, “one, two three-Ah!” Lightning cracked past my ear, barely missing hitting both Senka and I, however it was followed seconds later by a blast of wind. Senka was lifted off of my back and fell heavily to the ground; considering the distance between us our chasers had a good aim.

I stopped and swerved around awkwardly, almost tripping over my paws as I attempted to turn a full one-eighty; without Senka to hold onto her Nightshade quickly became unbalanced and Tigre had to call upon her own magic to prevent her crashing to earth. I leapt towards Senka as she stood up painfully on her bad leg and bared my teeth at our enemies as they caught back up to us, half smirking at what had turned into a rather pathetic escape attempt and half grimacing at the pain in their still stinging eyes.

I skimmed our surroundings; my ears flattened to my head as the realisation that we weren’t getting away hit me, the shaking that I’d be trying to tamp down got a little stronger again and my stomach was doing flips. Tigre slowly let Nightshade back onto the floor and moved to stand over her defensively, grabbing her scythe again and whirling it in front of her angrily. I bit back the nausea and tried to reach again for that strength; I would do my best not to allow my friends to die. I growled quietly as the deishani and spectrumosi began to approach, my nostrils flared.

Wait a minute.

Was that smoke I could smell? There was a crackling noise, and now I could definitely see a thick grey cloud building around us, it clogged inside my nose, blocking my sense of smell and causing my eyes to sting. Was the phoenix deishani back? I shrank back from my wolf body and into my smaller one; I covered my nose with an arm, ready to call up a wind spell to clear away the grey-black fog, which had now become blindingly thick.

I heard running footsteps over to my right, “Here! We’re over here!” Senka yelled from the same direction. I reached out and felt Senka grab my wrist, she hadn’t moved from my side. Dark shapes moved through the fog as our enemies began to shout and run in the direction of the phantom voice, which had now been joined by Tigre’s and my own, calling to each other somewhere in the distance and getting further and further away. The outlines of the spectrumosi and deishani faded into the distant forest in pursuit. I glanced at Senka bemusedly, yet she merely stared back looking just as confused: she had not cast any illusions.

The sound of crackling fire died down and suddenly I spotted a dark shape in the smoke moving towards us, as one we all tensed and I placed a hand on the hilt of my sword, ready for more fighting.

The grey mist began to ebb away and the shape became clearer and clearer, revealing a young teenage boy only slightly taller than I was. He glided through the fading smoke, looking like fire itself as the dying embers shone on blood red hair, copper skin and animalistic ears. He wore odd bits of armour, some bronze and some steel but all glinted with a reflected orange light at that moment, apart from one small section of a breast plate which glowed with the sigil of an eight pointed red star. A huge sword almost the size of him was strapped to his back. He swished a stoat-like red and yellow tail and smiled slightly crookedly, his shocking bright blue eyes crinkling as if his face was accustomed to wearing such an expression and I stared at him in disbelief, my hand dropping away from my sword hilt.

“Asher!?”