“Get on, you troublesome creature!” the elf dragging her shouted as he kicked open the wooden door to another building partially built down into the ground like a cellar. They carried her down a narrow and dark hallway with crossed timber beams overhead. An elf in a simple brown hooded robe used a key to unlock a narrow door. The elves holding her tossed her in a dark room, and shut the heavy door.
Wynn struggled to her feet. Her arms burned where they had held her. She pounded on the door and screamed at it. It wasn’t any use. It didn’t matter. She pounded and screamed at it some more because she wanted to. She was angry. She carried on until her throat felt raw and her fist burned with pain and splinters.
Finally she collapsed on a framed rope bed in the corner. Wynn hugged herself as she sat on the lumpy mattress. The ropes creaked beneath her as she rocked herself to soothe her fear and her anger. Mildred and Hob were gone. That was good. She didn’t want them trapped too.
It was very dark in the room. There was no window. Just bits of streaky light shining in between the planks of the heavy wooden walls. She was completely alone, and she didn’t see any way out.
CHAPTER SIXTEENElric
ELRIC PUSHED ASIDE A SMALL pile of leaves on the trail he had been following most of the day. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake, even if it meant the hunt for the reaper lasted until they lost the light of day. He would search all night if that was what it took. Each moment that ticked by was another moment that his stomach twisted into knots and the bile rose in his throat. Wynn was in danger, and he couldn’t find her.
They had tracked the reaper back toward the stormy shield. “Elric! Over here!” Osmund called as he stood on the root of a large tree and stretched upward to get a closer look at something on the trunk. Elric ran to him. There was a dark stain above the bushes. He reached up and touched it. His finger came away smeared with old blood. Small red hairs had caught in the bark.
Hob.
He was wounded.
Elric searched the bush below. He saw broken leaves and twigs, but he didn’t find Hob’s body. He couldn’t locate Hob’s tracks, either. Blood stained some leaves beneath the bush, but Elric detected no signs that he was still alive. Elric’s heart pounded harder as he searched for signs of Wynn. Footprints, bits of cloth, anything.
“Over here,” Osmund called. He held up Wynn’s crown.
The dangers of the wood faded away. He took the circlet in his hands. It was a simple crown, a silver band engraved with stars, where his had leaves. It was bent in on one side, like it had been stepped on. Now it was nothing more than a fragile broken circle that had once sat on his sister’s head. Words didn’t come. Thoughts wouldn’t come. Even his feelings seemed pressed under a weight so thick and terrible it seemed like he could drown in it.
The terrifying monster had his sweet sister. He had only had the courage to face one through the safety of the shield. There was no safety here. Those claws, those teeth, those burning eyes.
A creature like that could kill Wynn in a second. It had no mercy.
Elric gritted his teeth. And Master Elk said that a reaper would drag him back to the Grendel. They didn’t kill outright.
“He’s taking her to the Grendel,” Elric said. “We have to stop him. Follow me.” Elric ran down the narrow path.
“Elric, wait!” Osmund demanded.
He clutched Wynn’s crown, following the path of the reaper like a hound on the scent of a wolf. His rage drove him forward as he climbed over the twisted roots of the trees, and leaped over ditches filled with slimy leaves.
Osmund did his best to catch up, but an unnatural determination had come over Elric. He wanted to destroy the foul beast for daring to touch his sister. He had to find and stop the creature before he could deliver her to the evil fairy who waited in the shadows.
The Grendel had caused the fairy realm endless misery. No more.
Elric blazed forward, but the trail was becoming harder and harder to follow. The ground was firmer here, the tracks less evident. Under a bush he found a piece of bright silk, Wynn’s slipper. He was going the right way.
Just as he was about to run forward again, Osmund caught him and spun him around. He fought to catch his breath, but his expression looked as if he were about to breathe fire.
“You have to slow down,” he panted. “We are going to lose the trail, and then we will be turned around in these infernal woods.”
Elric paused enough to take a quick glance around. The trees had grown thicker, their branches hanging with heavy vines, turning the forest into a maze beneath the dark canopy. Cold water dripped on his shoulders from the edges of serrated leaves. Every feature of the woods looked the same until he had a hard time distinguishing the direction they just came from.
“We can’t let him get away,” Elric said. His throat burned, and he, too, struggled for breath. “She might still be alive.”
Osmund put a hand on Elric’s shoulder. “I know. But now is not the time to lose your wits. Your sister needs you, and the queen needs all of us.”
“I don’t care about the queen,” Elric said.
Osmund took a step up the path. “Yes, you do. And you care about the people beneath that shield. They would be in terrible danger if the queen died. The best thing you can do right now is keep your head.”
“The queen doesn’t care about me,” Elric said. “It’s Wynn she loves. She wanted to use me as bait for the Grendel to keep the reapers
