The Cypher Wheel (27 page)

They all looked up to see two more of the hideous
creatures appear over the trees and descend upon them.

“Run!” Faen shouted as he grabbed hold of Faedra and
Allora's hands and started running towards the trees where Aesti
still stood at the edge of the forest. Todmus grabbed hold of
Alyssa's hand and followed suit.

“Where's Etyran?” Faedra asked Alyssa as they ran
towards the trees.

“On top of Aesti,” Alyssa replied.

“Is he okay?” Faen asked, a spike of concern hitting
him in the gut.

“He took quite a knock to the head...” Alyssa said,
but before she could add anything further, one of the erchyll was
swooping down on them. They tried to duck as they ran, which caused
Todmus to stumble and roll taking Alyssa with him. Faedra saw what
happened and reached a hand out to the two on the ground as Faen
kept running.

Faedra was able to grab Todmus's outstretched hand
and, literally, launched him off the ground with the force of
Faen's forward momentum. Alyssa's hand slipped from the dwarf's
grip. Todmus tried to release himself from Faedra to go back for
Alyssa, but she wouldn't let him go. A second later, the erchyll
was on top of them and scooped Alyssa up just before she had the
forethought to turn invisible. A bodiless scream ripped through the
air.

Faedra yanked her hand out of Faen's causing her
Guardian to stop running. She turned to aim her hands at the
creature that had the young Lightbender in its grip. But she didn't
get to it before one of the other erchyll let out a hellish shriek,
sending the sensation of pure fury coursing through Faedra's body.
Bemused, she glanced down at herself. She knew it wasn't her
emotion. Could she sense the otherworldly creature's energy now,
too? When she returned her eyes to the sky, she couldn't quite
believe what she was seeing. The other erchyll dive-bombed its
counterpart that was holding Alyssa, slamming into it with such a
force it sent them both tumbling head over tail in the air. The two
creatures were a mass of sinuous muscle and leather wings. The
sounds they omitted were painful to the ear. Their wings were
beating ferociously to keep them in the air during their
dog-fight.

Faedra, Faen, Todmus and Allora all stopped in their
tracks and watched the surprising event unfold.

Alyssa was still invisible so it was impossible for
Faedra to tell which one had hold of her, not that she could have
gotten a clear shot at either of them, anyway. Right now, they
looked like a single cruelly deformed creature.

Faedra tried freezing them both, but collectively,
they were too strong for a power that was so new to her. She had
struggled a few moments ago to contain just one of the creatures.
Two were proving too much for her to handle.

“I'm not strong enough,” she said to Faen. “We have
to do something. They'll kill Alyssa if they carry on like that.
They could've done so already.”

The jumble of bodies zigzagged across the sky and
four pairs of eyes followed, as both creatures tried to get the
upper hand over each other. It didn't take long to realize which
one was winning. After a few more moments, the injuries on one of
the erchyll far outnumbered those on the other. With one last fatal
blow, the winning erchyll raised a taloned claw and swiped it
across the neck of the other. Blood spurted from the lacerated
artery and its wings flailed helplessly. The winning creature
snatched something from the other before pushing it away with a
disdainful shove. The injured creature fell backwards and plummeted
to the ground where it hit with a crunch of bones, landing
awkwardly on one wing. The other wing beat a couple of times before
resting on the grass.

The winning erchyll flew towards the group still
standing in the meadow. Faedra raised her hands.

“No, wait!” Alyssa shouted.

Faedra hesitated and lowered her hands a fraction
just as Alyssa
unwrapped
herself and was seen to be sitting
comfortably in the palm of the erchyll's claw. The winged creature
landed a few feet in front of the group and lowered Alyssa to the
ground with care.

Faedra's jaw dropped when it then proceeded to nudge
the young Lightbender, quite obviously asking to be petted. Alyssa
giggled and ran her hand down its bony head.

“You may want to shut that or you might catch a fly,”
Etyran said to Faedra.

All heads turned to see Etyran hobbling towards them
with a lopsided grin.

Faedra did as he suggested and shut her mouth,
although she wondered how many more times she could be shocked in
one day.

“Etyran!” Alyssa cried and ran over to him, almost
knocking him over as she threw her arms around him. “You're
alright.”

“Well, half left, and a bit down the middle, but I'll
live,” Etyran said.

Alyssa's brow creased.

Faedra raised her eyes heavenward and smiled. At
least she knew her friend was going to be okay if he was already
making stupid remarks like that. In the next heartbeat Faedra's
smile fell from her face and she stiffened.

“Faedra?” Faen asked. “What is it?”

“We need to get out of here,” she said. “I can
sense...”

“Arawn,” Todmus continued. “He is closing in on
us...” A noise from the trees cut him off.

Everyone's attentions turned to the forest.

“...and fast,” Todmus finished his sentence.

“We've got no chance of getting out of here unless we
fly, but that means two of us will have to go on foot,” Faedra said
looking at their options. Aesti could carry two; Faen could also
fly and carry one other person. “Alyssa, you can turn invisible and
I can probably find something useful in my mishmash of powers to
delay him. We should go on foot.”

Alyssa nodded. Faedra didn't know that the young
Lightbender could be seen by Arawn. Alyssa also knew the options
they had were not good, and she wanted to see Etyran out of there
safely, and Allora, too, so she decided to keep that piece of
information to herself.

“Absolutely not!” Faen exclaimed. “I will not leave
you behind. How could you even think of such a thing?”

Faedra could sense his horror at the thought and
placed her palm on his cheek. “Think about it, Faen. Etyran is
injured; he probably can't even wrap the light at the moment.”

Etyran proved her statement by showing Faen his
'flickering TV' routine.

“There is no way he would have any chance of
outrunning Arawn. Neither would Todmus, and Allora doesn't yet know
how to use Vivianna's wings. Alyssa and I would have the best
chance of escaping on foot. You know we would.”

Faen looked at the others in question, took a deep
breath and dropped his head.

“It's agreed then,” Faedra continued, noting his
acquiescence. She turned to her small statured friend. “Todmus, you
take Etyran on Aesti.”

Todmus nodded and took hold of Etyran’s shirt sleeve,
leading the injured Lightbender towards the huge black horse still
standing at attention on the edge of the field. Etyran hobbled
along behind him like a lost puppy.

Faedra turned back to her Guardian. “You take
Allora.”

Faen inclined his head but did nothing to hide the
fact that he was doing this under duress. He scooped Allora up into
his arms. Aesti, who was now carrying his precious cargo,
maneuvered himself next to the Faen.

Faedra let her hand trail over his velvety fur. “Hey,
boy,” she whispered. The gesture scored her a snort of
appreciation. “Yeah, I missed you, too.”

Noise from the forest was getting louder as their
pursuers gained on them.

“Go!” Faedra insisted in a loud whisper. “We'll meet
up at the cave.”

Todmus spurred Aesti on. The magnificent beast took
off down the field in a thunder of hooves, kicking up clods of dirt
before stretching out his wings and taking off over the trees.

Faen gave Faedra an expression that spoke a thousand
words, before he, too rose above the grass.

“I'll be careful, I promise,” Faedra said.

Faen turned and flew off in the same direction as
Aesti.

“We better start running,” Faedra said to Alyssa.

Just as they were about to take off at a full run,
the erchyll nudged Alyssa in the back pushing her forwards.

“What's his problem?” Faedra asked.

“I don't know,” Alyssa replied, turning to look at
the ferocious looking creature. Although, Faedra thought, it didn't
look so ferocious anymore.

It nudged Alyssa again, then turned its neck to look
at its back.

Alyssa held her arms open, palms up, asking a silent
'what do you want?'

The erchyll nudged at Faedra this time, and again
turned to look at its back.

“I think it wants us to get on its back,” Faedra
said.

Alyssa's eyes widened. “I think it wants to fly us
out of here.”

Faedra glanced up at its bony back and hesitated. The
idea of sitting astride that was not appealing.

“There they are!” An angry shout came from the
trees.

Faedra decided she'd take her chances on the
erchyll's back and grabbed Alyssa by the arm. “Come on! I guess
we're going to find out if you're right, aren't we?”

They scrambled up the creature's scaly body and
seated themselves just behind its neck. Thankfully, it didn't take
exception to having passengers on board.

The erchyll raced down the field and took to the air.
It wasn't the most comfortable mode of transportation. Faedra
envisioned some bruising after their journey ended. The creature
was a lot bonier than Aesti, but right at that moment she wasn't
complaining. She looked down to see Arawn and his guards burst from
the trees just a few seconds too late.

Arawn shot several fireballs at them but the erchyll,
which had been trained by the very same person, had no trouble
dodging the fiery missiles. It was as if it could sense the tyrant
sorcerer's every move. A few more seconds of hanging on for dear
life and they were soaring above the trees on their way to
rendezvous with the others.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The erchyll flew them along the tree line. Faedra,
having no idea where the cave was from her vantage point, could
only send the creature in the right direction. She was hoping the
others would show themselves as she and Alyssa got closer to the
trail that led to the cave. Although, they didn't know the erchyll
had come to their rescue, and she assumed they would hide, thinking
it was one of Arawn's spies. How was she going to see where they
were waiting for her if they were hidden in the trees?

“So, when did you become so pally with one of Arawn's
pets?” Faedra asked Alyssa, who had her arms wrapped around the
Custodian's waist as they flew high above the tree tops.

“I don't really know. This must be the one that let
me pet him once. All the others just wanted to eat me whenever I
walked past them, but there was one of them that would just look at
me with a kind of sadness in its eyes. It mirrored the sadness I
felt, so I walked up to it once and petted it on the head. It must
be this one.”

“Well, whatever you did, thanks. You probably just
saved our lives back there.”

“What are you going to do about Allora?” Alyssa
asked.

Faedra sighed a big, heavy,
weight-of-the-world-on-your-shoulders kind of sigh. “I have
absolutely no idea,” she admitted. “I'm hoping that Todmus might
know a thing or two about switching them back. He's turned out to
be a bit of a dark horse, that one.”

“You should have seen him in the castle, he was
amazing. He threw something at Arawn and it froze him on the spot.
Saved my life, he did.”

“By the looks of his cottage, he's been working on
getting his family back for quite some time,” Faedra said. “Now I
just need to think of a way for him to get his realm back.”

“We should be fairly close by now,” Alyssa said,
pulling Faedra from her thoughts.

Faedra scanned the meadow's edge along the tree line.
It was as she'd thought. There was no sign of the others; they were
probably hiding in the trees thinking the erchyll was a spy. She
had an idea. There were four people down there; four very strong
energies with all kinds of emotions being shared between them.
Could her ‘energy sensor’ pick them out from this high? She closed
her eyes and concentrated, allowing that part of her brain to send
out tendrils to touch the area she thought they may be in. After a
moment, she sighed and opened her eyes. They were either too high
up or her friends weren't close by.

“Take us lower,” Faedra commanded the erchyll without
thinking for a second that it wouldn't understand her. It was
something she had become quite accustomed to in her adventures.
Unless otherwise informed, she just assumed all otherworldly
creatures could understand her.

She was not misguided in this instance, either. The
erchyll went into a graceful dive and flew closer to the ground,
flying alongside the forest. She and Alyssa scanned the wall of
trees but could see no one with the naked eye.

“Can you fly us around again?” she asked their ride.
The erchyll responded immediately, banking around before
straightening up alongside the forest.

Faedra closed her eyes again, sending her sensor
tendrils into the woods. She felt Faen first. It was like a zap to
her heart. His anxiety for her safety was overwhelming.

“Stop!” Faedra shouted.

The erchyll adjusted the angle of his wings until
they were like a vertical sail, effectively slamming on the brakes.
Faedra and Alyssa lurched with the movement. The creature hit the
ground, talons outstretched in front of him. Its talons tore up the
turf as it used them to slow it down, throwing Faedra and Alyssa
forward with such a force that they nearly went shooting over its
neck. Faedra grabbed hold of the scaly skin around its neck and was
able to stop them from tumbling off the creature.