It turned toward Master Elk, who was charging at it in the form of a white stag.
Glittering light streamed from several wounds on the powerful stag’s snowy hide. Master Elk’s silver horns gleamed like blades as the fairy charged with his head bent low so he could skewer the beast against one of the wide trunks of the ancient trees of the Nightfell Wood. He didn’t have the safety of the shield to protect him from the beast. He was fighting on the far side of it.
Elric watched in horror as everything seemed to happen with an unnatural slowness. The sound of the Elk’s hooves hitting the rocky ground clattered in his ears. The monster’s arm swung in a ruthless arc. Claws the size of skinning knives, slicing across Master Elk’s neck. The blow sent the stag flying toward the dark shadows of the trees.
“Master Elk!” Elric rushed forward, remembered Fox’s words, and stopped himself. There was nothing he could do from this side of the shield.
The reaper stalked forward, its bony shoulders undulating beneath its shaggy hide.
Elk transformed into a fairy warrior and pulled himself to his feet. He braced himself, holding his sword at an angle in front of him. Magical fire reflected in his shining blade. But Elric noticed how low he held the tip. His stance didn’t show the strength it usually did as silver light flowed from his neck. He sliced his sword in front of him and a wall of flame appeared between him and the reaper.
The monster reached the wall of fire and roared.
The reaper swung at him, but Master Elk dodged and slashed at the creature, cutting the reaper across its hairy forearm. The creature howled, then snapped at him. It fell onto its bony hands and stalked in a tight circle, walking on all four limbs like a beast, pushing Master Elk closer to the edge of the dark wood.
Elk was trapped. With his back to the wood, he was vulnerable to attack from another beast lurking in the shadows. It was the beginning of an ambush.
The reaper sprang. Master Elk slashed at it with his sword, but it reared up and used the mass of its thick body to knock Elk over. The reaper grabbed Master Elk in its bony fingers, then bared its long fangs.
Elk disappeared, then reappeared as a stag, crashing into the beast with his sharp silver horns. The beast swung its enormous arm into the body of the stag, throwing Master Elk into the trunk of a tree.
The stag collapsed, and didn’t rise again. The reaper stalked toward him, letting out a snarling bark.
Elric had to do something. Master Elk was in trouble. He glanced behind him, but there was no army charging through the plains to come to their rescue. Only Fox and Zephyr remained hunched in the grasses. He turned back to the shield. He wasn’t a warrior, not yet. But he had never been a coward. If the reaper wanted a good look at him, that was fine by Elric.
“Hey!” he shouted, charging at the shield. “Hey, you there!” He ran down the slope, waving his arms. “You want to take someone back to the Grendel, why don’t you take me?”
If Lord Raven had wanted him to be the decoy that protected his sister, he might as well do it now. The slope steepened toward the shield, and his feet skidded in the loose rocks. The beast turned to him and Elric stared into its cold, dead eyes.
“You heard me, come and get me!” Elric shouted. He scrambled toward the enormous monster that could easily tear him in two. Black blood flowed from its wounds into its matted hair. It charged away from Master Elk and toward the shield. Elric fell on his hip and slid toward the shield. He scrambled to hold on to something to keep himself from sliding through.
His heel caught a stone, and he stopped his slide just inches from the edge of the shield. He was so close that the light of the shield cast his feet and legs in washes of bright color.
The reaper’s eyes glowed with a killing light as it slowly took a step toward him.
Elric pushed himself to his feet, his nose nearly touching the shimmering barrier. “That’s right!” he shouted, though his arms were shaking. He waved them at the beast. “It’s me your master wants. I’m the Otherworld child!” Elric sidestepped along the shield, drawing the creature away from his wounded teacher until he came to the large crack.
Elric could feel the beast’s low growl rattle through his bones.
The reaper shook out its scraggly black ruff like a wet dog. Its wounds oozed as it snarled and stalked closer toward the shield. Elk staggered to his feet and gave Elric a nod. His distraction was working.
“Come and get me!” Elric shouted again.
The creature threw its head down and crashed into the shield like a battering ram. The crack lengthened. A sound like ice fracturing echoed through the air.
Elric’s heart pounded as he took a step back. The reaper threw itself against the shield again, and branches appeared on the crack, limbs on a dead tree.
Elk slipped through the shield to the safety of the open field. “Elric, run!” Elk screamed at him. “It wants you. Run!”
But Elric couldn’t move. His legs felt as if they were made of stone, too heavy to lift. The creature’s eyes burned brighter, and Elric heard a distant laugh on the wind, dark, cruel, and full of malice. He had felt the chill of that wind before back in the Otherworld.
The Grendel.
The reaper stilled at the edge of the shield, listening to its master’s voice on the wind. It tapped a single claw against the crack as if testing the damage it had caused. This wasn’t a mindless beast, and that frightened Elric more than anything