Read Hollow by Caroline Peckham Chapter 41 – “So typical of the Fae to think themselves the only creatures powerful enough to hold the key to a prophecy,” the Dragon scoffed in the back of my mind while Bane and Islasees fought each other and the other Fae fought with the Hollows, cutting down the dead one after another.
I’d scrambled away from the fighting, not needing to risk my neck by getting in the way.
“What do you mean?” I hissed, looking around in alarm as Helga dove behind another tree with Devlan, the two of them seeming as content as I was to stay out of the Fae fight and hide from the Hollows.
“Why would the key be the royal blood of the Fae?” the Dragon muttered, its voice rough with disdain. “What care does the Great Elm have for their crowns?”
“But if she doesn’t care for their crowns then what does it mean ‘imperial blood?’” I asked, quoting the words Hendrix had spoken about the key, realisation sinking into me as my fingernails dug into the bark of the ash tree I’d hidden behind.
“What, pray tell, does the Great Elm value most dearly?”
I scoured my mind, the riddle to that question setting my thoughts scattering. We needed to figure it out. We had to get inside the labyrinth and return the amulets to the Great Elm itself. So what did she care about? The trees, yes. The Lost Children perhaps? I tipped my head up to search the branches, looking between the countless faces that watched us from above.
“How am I supposed to convince one of them to come down here?” I muttered, looking around for a place where I might be able to start climbing but the Dragon huffed loudly, its power spilling from the amulet in a gust of wind which spun my hair around my face.
“Yes, she loves her children, but they are not born of her magic,” it harrumphed like this conversation was so very draining.
I opened my mouth to make another guess but cried out as a grey and rotting hand took hold of my wrist and hauled me out of my hiding place. The Hollow grinned, its skin sagging as it branded its yellowing teeth at me.
“Ferris!” Bane barked, lurching towards me, though Islasees swung his sword out to block him.
“Risking your life for a human, Crownthief?” Islasees sneered as he forced Bane to parry a savage blow and I was thrown to the ground beneath the Hollow. “I knew you were low but the reek of desperation on you has truly deepened if you’re reduced to fucking the short-lived peasants now.”
I kicked and fought beneath the impossibly strong corpse, its yellowed teeth closing in on my throat as it lunged for me.
My spirits were writhing through the corners of my mind, waiting for my call but with the Hollow’s hands locked around my throat I was unable to make it.
Bane lunged for me but Islasees blocked his advance again and he roared a wordless command as he was forced to block his opponent’s sword once more.
The Hollow jerked back as if a string had cinched tight around its neck and heaved it from me.
I gasped as I scrambled away from it, the ground turning to festering spoil at my boots as the dark power of the Necromancer bled from Bane. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I touched it but with his focus on his fight with Islasees, I couldn’t risk finding out.
“You’ll hold your tongue if you value keeping it inside your skull,” Bane growled, feinting to the right then swinging for Islasees’s gut, cutting the fabric of his tunic and drawing a thin line of blood.
“Get out of the way,” he barked, his eyes on me and I nodded as I scrambled aside, not needing to be told that twice. But Islasees watched our interaction with calculating savagery and a knot tightened in my gut as I ran for the closest trees.
“Grab that human!” Islasees bellowed at his pair of brutish followers though their attention was firmly fixed on the hoard of dead beings who were intent on their demise and they couldn’t follow his command. Yet.
“Think, spirit singer, you’re allowing yourself to get distracted,” the Dragon chastised as I ducked behind a horse chestnut tree and hunted the shadows for signs of more danger.
“It’s hard not to be distracted when most of the creatures in this glade would like nothing more than to see me dead,” I hissed.
“Less griping, more thinking.”
I bit back a retort and did as the spirit had commanded, running over all it had told me along with the Hag’s words to Bane. Not a Fae royal. And it wouldn’t be human either – not that any of our royalty were here if it had been. Not a Lost Child but something the Great Elm cared about, something born of her magic…
“Is it you? You and the other spirits?” I gasped, darting from my hiding place as the fight between Jadina and the Hollows she was fending off drew too close.
“We spirits don’t bleed in the way of living beings,” the Dragon dismissed.
No, they didn’t bleed like a human. But… I did. I was human but I was born of the forest, I’d been born of the forest over and over again, always following the call of this place. I’d come here thirteen times and if I really was the key then that made sense because they would have needed me to open the door. That was why the Great Elm had given me to my mother. It was why the forest and the spirits favoured me too. They knew I was the one who was needed to open the door and allow them to return to their mother. It seemed impossible that such an enormous task could have been placed on my shoulders all along but it was the only truth that made sense.
“It’s my blood?” I guessed, my heart thumping wildly at the thought, the Dragon’s only reply that deep and mocking chuckle in the back of my mind.
But that was enough for me. The moon had risen into the sky overhead, the trees were all thrashing back and forth while the Lost Children sang their wild songs. Every amulet was here barring the Serpent and I had to have faith that my sister would deliver that last piece of the puzzle in time.
I could only believe that this was the first time any set of Champions had come so far and for every life I’d lived before in whatever form that may have been, I could well have been the key. So if that was the case then I was going to have to unlock the labyrinth.
“Please, help me,” I begged of my spirits and at last the Dragon relinquished, allowing the Raven and Unicorn to join it as all three of them burst from their amulets at my throat.
The rush of power spilling away from me had me staggering, a gasp catching in my throat. The Dragon roared and the fighting taking place in the heart of the clearing before the entrance to the labyrinth stilled for a beat as the incredible beast tore past over their heads.
The Raven circled me, cawing in wild warning as I ran for the stone door, the image of the Great Elm carved upon its face seeming to writhe across its surface as if beckoning me closer.
Islasees released the Tiger from its amulet at his throat and the enormous beast leapt straight at Bane, slamming into him and sending them both tumbling away across the clearing.
The red-haired Fae turned my way with a sneer, lifting his sword as he levelled his focus on me but the Unicorn charged at him before he could get close, its horn lowered and flowers blooming everywhere its hooves struck the forest floor.
Islasees was forced to throw himself aside, the Rat leaping from its amulet as he ducked behind the trees. I stared in wonder at the spirit he’d sent after my Unicorn as the creature raced forward. It was the size of a large dog and where its fur might have been on a real rat, this creature was instead crawling with insects of every variety, its job to protect and ferry them around the forest.
The Unicorn turned to charge at Islasees again but the Rat raced into its path, squeaking shrilly and sending a flood of cockroaches spilling away from it across the ground to swarm my spirit and hold it back.
I shrieked in alarm as the carpet of insects hissed and chittered, climbing the Unicorn’s legs and tail, sending it whinnying and rearing up in panic.
The Raven swept around me as I stumbled back, my path blocked by the Hollows behind me, the Rat and its hoard of insects ahead, and Islasees striding from the shadows on my right, his sword drawn.
“Benson!” Islasees barked. “End her!”
I whirled around as Benson shot an arrow for me, my death flying for me so fast I was only able to stare it in the eye as it came.
Bane bellowed from the trees beyond the clearing, the Tiger roaring in what sounded like pain. And then the Raven was there. My sweet Raven with wings made of midnight was diving into the space before me, the arrow which had been meant for me instead piercing its breast.
“No!” I cried, lurching for my spirit as it crashed out of the sky, tumbling across the dirt and knocking a swathe of cockroaches aside.
I threw myself down with it and it gave me a harrowing caw, its feathers silken soft beneath my fingers for a moment before it spilled away into tendrils of night and returned to the amulet at my neck.
“Sleep,” it whispered in my mind before its presence faded away and I scrubbed tears from my cheeks as I stood, hoping against hope that it truly only needed rest now.
Islasees leapt from the trees and came for me again, Bane lurched into his path, his teeth bared in a feral challenge. His shirt was torn open with four bloody gashes showing through it where the claws of the tiger had cut into his side, but he wasn’t slowed by the wounds and there was no sign of Islasees’s spirit returning from their fight.
“You’re alive,” I breathed, the relief palpable in my tone and my beautiful Fae warrior turned a roguish grin my way that made my heart fall over itself.
“As if a little Tiger could make a dent in me,” he crooned just as another tremendous roar came from the trees where he’d been and I caught sight of the Bear locked in combat with the Tiger, the two spirits fighting a battle of brawn and savagery.
Islasees bellowed in fury, launching himself at Bane and they fell back into a furious fight, their swords colliding so fast that it was impossible to trace the movements.
I was forced to back away from them, though as I turned to run for the door, I found my way barred by both the Hollows and Jadina and Benson whose focus was split between the dead they fought and following the commands of their leader to strike at me.
Jadina hacked the head off of a Hollow with her double-headed axe, opening up enough space for Benson to ready another arrow in his bow, aiming it straight at me. I threw out a hand, warding off the strike while crying out for help which came not from my Dragon as I’d expected but in a rush of grinding stone and a war cry from the lips of the girl I loved more dearly than my own life.
Rissa rode the Serpent from the trees in a charge, a wild laugh spilling from her as Benson released his arrow and it simply bounced off the spirit’s rocky scales.
Relief rushed through me at the sight of her. She was here. She’d brought the Serpent. We had all thirteen spirits and the end to this nightmare was finally within reach.
The Dragon dove from the trees above me, plucking me into its grasp and hurtling across the clearing so fast that tears were ripped from my eyes by the rush of wind which assaulted me. It dropped me before the stone door and I tumbled across the dirt, landing in a heap by the trees closest to it.
A gasp drew my attention to Devlan and Helga who were lurking in the shadows, taking cover while the Fae fought one another.
“I never thought you’d make it this far,” Devlan told me plainly, the look of stunned awe on his face enough to soften the blow of the insult.
“I’m used to being underestimated,” I replied before shoving back to my feet and setting my gaze firmly on the door to the labyrinth.
“They’ll kill you out there,” Helga hissed but I barely glanced back at her.
“And you think they’ll spare you hiding there? We need to get inside that labyrinth and return the spirits to the Great Elm. That’s how this ends. Or did you forget that part?”
They exchanged a loaded look but I was already running from them, racing for the door, my gaze locked on my target and all of the fighting, the spirits, the Fae and the Hollows, just fell away because I had to get to the door.
The Serpent slunk through the canopy overhead, Jadina and Benson once again occupied by the Hollows and unable to fire at me.
Rissa called out in encouragement as I sprinted across the clearing, tearing a small dagger from my pocket.
The blade sliced into my hand a beat before I reached the door and I slapped my palm to its surface with a cry which met with the blast of power that resounded from the stone.
The image of the Great Elm emblazoned on the huge plate of rock sighed, its branches whipping back and forth as the doors began to part, my blood smeared across the runes which had kept it sealed for so long.
Magic rattled through my bones, a tether seeming to reach out from me to not only the spirits I’d claimed but to each of the thirteen magical beings in the clearing, forming between us for several heady seconds.
The fighting all fell to nothing as every spirit present felt the weight of that power awakening and we all watched in reverence as the door slowly opened.
Finally, the entrance to the labyrinth loomed like the yawning mouth of some great beast hoping to swallow us whole and I found myself standing before it, ready to dive in regardless.
Your task’s near done, the end near come,
Thirteen spirits brought home as one.
But as your journey reaches its end,
The time has come to turn on friend.
Though you all have hunted well,
One alone, this curse shall fell.
So no more will the blood rule stand,
You may claim prize with swords in hand.
By death or cunning, by arrow or blade,
For this last task the price shall be paid.
So make your choice in this final hour,
Will you gift or steal their power?
For when the amulets return,
Only one Champion, the boon shall earn.
There was a pause in which the whole world held its breath as those words sank in, each of us turning them over within our minds and realising at once what they meant. There was no longer any rule in place to prevent the Champions from killing one another to steal the amulets. And if that was the case then this would turn from a fight to a massacre and I – alongside the remaining humans – knew that we would not be the last one standing when that happened.
I was no warrior but I was fast and I already held three amulets – four if I could count the Serpent as mine with Rissa’s aid. There wasn’t time to waste on puzzling out the rest of the Great Elm’s song. Islasees and his cronies were already circling like vultures with their weapons ready.
I locked eyes with Bane whose green gaze sparked with panic as he took me in.
“Go,” he commanded. And then the Dragon swept over my head and led the charge into the darkened passages, sparks of teal lightning guiding me after it with urgency as my doom rushed close at my back.
I broke into a run, the Raven bursting once more from its amulet and flying over my head, the Unicorn galloping at my heels as it shook off the cockroaches.
And every remaining Champion took chase too, their spirits bursting free of their amulets as we all chose different paths and plunged into the unknown.
