Stealing the Dark Moon

The Red Unicorn's Trap

A fever racked King Highbolt where he lay shuddering with sweat in his pallet of hay. He banished the ring of anxious physicians offering him tonics to soothe his pain, for he wanted nothing to obscure his senses and dampen whatever visions were left to him. His shattered spire no longer bled—but nothing could stop his life force from slowly slipping away through the wound. Perhaps this closeness to his own death was also what allowed him to sense the failing life force of the guardian.

The dragon that guarded the Dark Moon was not so very far from dying, either. Highbolt wondered who would fail first—the Guardian, or himself? His body stiffened as a fresh vision slammed over him. Neither of them would have to die if the mortal child perished first! It was the only destiny that would allow both the King of Arvustel and the Guardian of the Dark Moon to keep their lives, and yet, and yet—this child was so young. And those eyes . . . they haunted Highbolt with a strange familiarity.

Hadn't he seen their shine once before?

***

An eerie silence hung over the Galefang as the four companions broke through the forest's border. No bats crawled in the branches, not a single pixie chittered on a breeze; not even a stag's hoof beat shattered the unnatural quiet. Stranger still was the growing dark as the soft blue glow of will-o'-the-wisps winked out one by one.

Kit couldn't help but gasp as an invisible weight slammed into him as Moony charged through the underbrush. He pressed his face into the dire wolf's warm silver fur, trying to ignore the needling pain in his veins as Sheen's magic pushed back the banishing spellfire trying to worm its poison through his blood. A shaft of moonlight cut through the canopy, and all around him the trees cast sharp-edged shade that whispered with the scratch of dagger tips. He shivered at the memory of Aerohim's curse: The shadow of every leaf will cut into your skin with the sharpness of a thousand knives.

The tree line of the forest suddenly gave way to a desolate plain. Ash puffed up in clouds under Sheen's hooves and the dire wolves' paws as they reeled to an abrupt halt at the foothills of Mt. Galefang. Kit coughed as smoke stung his lungs. The woods encircling the mountain had been blasted to a splintered wasteland.

"Are you telling me that the Inorog survived all this?" Kit asked, awestruck by the destruction that stretched on for cinder-blackened miles.

Sheen tossed her head. "Hah! The Inorog are the masters of this hunt. They're just toying with Aerohim, goading him to fight." Her voice lowered. "I fear your dragon's already wasted most of his magic on their games—he hasn't come out of the mountain since yesterday."

Were Lady and the five friends he'd been forced to leave behind holed up inside the cavern, too, or had they all been incinerated in Aerohim's fury? Kit strained his gaze to the peak of Mt. Galefang, but it was shrouded in billows of smoke that still radiated intense heat. Even the flurries of falling snowflakes sizzled and evaporated into rain before they hit the sooty earth. Mopping sweat from his brow, he turned to Sheen.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Kit said even though his show of confidence did nothing to untie the knot of fear in his belly.

Sheen's ebony horn flashed in the light of stray fires as she stepped forward.

"Wait!" Selene said, crouching low with a sudden snarl.

"Why?" Sheen asked, hesitating with her hoof raised mid-step.

"The mountain smells wrong," Moony said, his ears flattening against his head as he backed up.

Sheen's eyes widened, gleaming wild. "Oh no," she said softly. "We're too late."