Inheritance

Chapter 14: Vitriolic a Stroke

Kori was sweating in fear when she saw Pollyanna had disappeared. The warrior-maiden had left a trail of corpses in her wake.

It was silent but for the wind in Kori's long, pointed waif ears and the noise of the wheels on the carriage.

Kori looked to her left and saw Eory crying and clutching his dog to his chest for comfort. After being convinced that Pollyanna was not on that side of the carriage, she turned her attention back to the right side of the carriage. She gasped in surprise as Pollyanna appeared right beside the carriage--keeping pace with it. After a few moments, the warrior-maiden leaped and gripped the door on the carriage with one hand and kept her sword at the ready in the other—but Kori wasted no time in unleashing her fireball upon her.

Pollyanna lost her grip on the door. She went tumbling backwards.

Eory watched with anger suddenly seething in his veins.

I told her not to hurt her... He thought to himself. I want one thing from her and she doesn't grant it to me!

The woman, Taylor, encouraged cruel thoughts within him. We could easily push her out of the carriage, she'd never know what hit her!

Eory could feel the darkness simmering within him. He hunched over and held Gershom all the closer. He pressed his cheek against the top of his dog's head and tried to hold all evil intentions within him.

Kori was looking behind the carriage and launching fireballs at Pollyanna who kept tumbling further and further behind the carriage and had no opportunities to climb to her feet.

Kori was sweating with exertion after unleashing eight fireballs. She could feel her heart pounding so hard that she felt like it might give out. She could conjure no more fireballs and took deep breaths instead.

Eory fought the urge to jump out of the carriage and go meet the woman he had always had such admiration for. He looked behind the carriage and saw that Pollyanna was woodenly climbing to her feet with scuffs and dirt all over her skin. She again began running and chasing her charge.

"She got back up." Eory said ineffectually.

Kori wiped her forehead and she yelled to the man driving the carriage, "faster! Faster!"

"We're already driving the horses too hard! If we drive them harder they'll die, Redeemer!" The driver said.

Kori gritted her teeth. "Dammit!"

Eory gasped.

His mind went blank as a sword swiftly spun past both he and Kori in a spiraling fashion.

Pollyanna's sword flew through the air and drove itself through the driver's head.

A memory plunged its way into Eory's head.

The executioner stomped on Gershom's back to keep him down with his axe at the ready. One swift motion and his brother's head would—

Eory screamed as the carriage drove off the road and into the forest where it collided with a tree.

Pollyanna approached the broken carriage slowly as Kori groaned. She had hit her head on the ceiling and it was bleeding a little. The waif weakly summoned a fireball and said to Eory, "go Eory! I'll hold her off!"

"No!" Eory protested as Pollyanna walked past them, retrieved her sword from the driver's head, and then turned to Kori who screamed at Eory to get out and run.