Tinn’s throat felt dry as he swallowed. Old Jim wasn’t moving.
Evie vaulted forward.
“No, wait!” Fable tried to catch her arm, but Evie threw herself into the fray. Tinn bolted after her, Cole fast on his heels.
The myriad sounds of battle melted into a deafening roar as the children pelted between slicing blades and slashing claws. Evie ducked under a troll’s swinging fist and Cole dodged a swiping spear tip. Fable heard a pop and felt the air part in front of her as something shot past, inches from her face. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and for all her frantic searching, there was no sign of her mother in the crush of bodies.
Somehow, in the fog of smoke and sound, Evie found Old Jim and threw herself down at his side. “He’s still breathing!” she cried. “He’s alive!”
No sooner had she spoken than an arrow thudded into the soil a foot away from Jim’s leg, the bolt vibrating from the force of impact.
“He won’t be alive for long if we can’t get him somewhere safe,” said Tinn.
“Where is safe?” said Cole.
Hoofbeats thudded up behind them like thunder, and in the next instant a pair of centaurs leapt over their heads. The kids threw themselves down, feeling the ground shake as the hooves slammed to the earth and pounded off again into the fog of war. Somewhere behind them a voice bellowed something loud and incoherent. A shrill screech answered.
Fable’s head spun. It was all too much. The gun smoke hanging over the field stung her eyes and burned her throat. “Stop,” she tried to say, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice over the din.
“We can’t stay here!” yelled Cole.
“We’re not leaving him,” said Evie.
“Come on!” Tinn grabbed Old Jim under one arm. “Anywhere is better than here. Let’s just find some cover.” Cole grabbed Jim’s other arm. Jim let out a low moan, his head lolling to one side as they tugged at him.
They dragged the old man toward the wreckage of the ruined oil rig, keeping their heads low as they moved. They had barely reached the shadow of the shattered structure when an unearthly wild pig bounded out of the fog, its eyes like embers and its back lined with spines as jagged and sharp as saw blades. Cole threw himself aside just in time to avoid being cut to ribbons.
Fable raised her eyes and tried to calm her pounding heart. It was too much. Through the haze to the east, she could see spear tips waving. Atop the hill to the west, a group of townspeople had set a hay cart ablaze, and they looked as though they might send it rolling down. All the while, the air crackled with the incessant popping of gunshots.
“Stop!” Fable screamed. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” She was choking on noise and smoke and violence. At the top of the hill, the blazing hay cart began to roll. It caught a rough patch a few yards down and toppled, spewing its fiery contents across the hillside like a hellish blanket.
“We can’t stay here!” Cole yelled. “We need to—”
But he did not finish. A booming voice from the forest’s edge barked a command and the sky was suddenly full of arrows. The projectiles looked strangely graceful as they reached the top of their arc, moving toward the children like a hungry swarm.
Time stopped.
Fable’s heart paused. In that frozen moment, the strangling panic lifted, the deafening noise died away, and she felt herself go hollow and empty.
Thum. Her heart beat. Thum. The pounding echoed through her, rippling the tips of her fingers. Thum. Magic tingled in Fable’s veins.
Fable’s mind was clear and calm. Cole was shouting something, but his voice was a million miles away. Evie had thrown herself over her great uncle’s chest, and Tinn had thrown himself over Evie.
Fable took a deep breath.
And then she let it out through the wind.
The breeze moved through Fable and Fable moved through the breeze. Gale, she thought. Trees whistled, smoke whorled, and with a whoosh, the swarm of descending arrows curved abruptly upward, their sharp tips sweeping over the children’s heads to bury themselves harmlessly in the burning hillside. The flames crackled happily and began to consume the shafts at once.
Fable closed her eyes. She felt the heat of the raging fire, and reached out for it in her mind and grasped it with a hand that could not be burned. Extinguish. Her fingers clenched at her sides as she concentrated. She felt the flames cool by slow degrees under the pressure of her mental grip, until they were no warmer than a summer breeze—and when she opened her eyes, the fire was out. A cloud of ash and smoke spun lazily over the charred earth.
Fable turned back to Cole and Tinn and Evie, still huddled over Old Jim, their arms around each other in the shadow of the broken rig. Cole’s urgent shouts reached Fable like a gentle whisper. He was yelling at her to get down, and Tinn was waving for her frantically. Their eyes were full of fear but also desperate hope. Fable smiled. Her friends wanted to protect her.
She listened. She breathed. She concentrated.
She wanted to protect them, too.
And so she did.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The breeze shifted, and the queen’s cloak whipped in the draft. She felt a familiar tingle running up her neck, but she kept her focus. There were six of them, men and boys, racing across the gap toward the waiting gnome forces. The human fools wielded kitchen knives and broken table legs. Perhaps they thought their height would give them the advantage. They would not survive the encounter. The gnomes tensed as they waited for the men to close the final distance.
The queen flexed. At her command, the grass slithered with motion and the first man tumbled to the ground. Not remotely enough time to summon a full wall, but she could fill the field with knotty, troublesome roots. The second man twisted as he
