Magda put her daggers away and charged up the hill. “We have to go—”
More branches cracking.
Magda turned again.
An Elf, a woman with silvery-blond hair and deep green eyes, emerged from the woods riding on the back of another manticore. Two more flanked her.
She flashed a deadly smile. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
MAGDA CHARGEDat Honey. “Go!”
Honey nodded and raced away, whistling for Anqa.
Magda seized Kaelan’s arm. “There’s an old fortress on the peninsula, high on the cliffs, the tower still stands. Crane-on-the-Rocks. If we don’t meet you there in two days... don’t wait any longer.”
Down at the stream, Damion planted his feet.
“Hello,” he said casually to the Elf. “Who might you be?”
“You just murdered a member of an endangered race and one of the King’s Pride. The penalty for both crimes is death,” the Elf told him.
Kaelan gripped Magda’s arm. “I can help you.”
“No arguing—”
Before she could pull away, he drew her back into the Shadow Realms. They reemerged behind the Elf and her attendant manticores.
“He didn’t—” the Elf was saying. She whipped around as Magda and Kaelan reappeared, her eyes narrowing at them. “There!”
Magda shoved Kaelan away. “Go!”
She leapt towards one of the towering hemlocks, using her daggers to skitter up the tree’s trunk.
High overhead, Anqa shrieked. Her shadow blotted out the light between the tree branches.
Damion seized the distraction and attacked. Before he could reach the Elf, one of the flanking manticores headed him off. Swiping at him first with her claw, the manticore’s stinger curled up over her shoulder and lunged at him.
The second manticore took flight, lofting up to follow Magda, who finally reached the lowest branch of the tree, fifteen feet above the ground.
“Take her alive!” the Elf ordered from below.
“Like hell,” Magda muttered, leaping down and slamming onto the manticore’s back, plunging the spear of her dragon blades into the beast’s shoulder.
Flailing and screaming, the manticore fell.
Magda tumbled away as they crashed. Its stinger smashed into the ground inches from her nose as the manticore thrashed to right itself.
Magda whipped her wolf blade up and around, slicing through the manticore’s tail as she rolled over onto her stomach and then pushed up to her feet.
A roar of agony, a half-human, half-lion sound, erupted from the manticore as her tail flew upwards, spurting blood, while the stinger remained lodged in the ground.
Blood flowed down the manticore’s side. Magda’s initial shoulder strike had been off target, wounding but not deadly.
As soon as Magda was on her feet, she sighted the arrow nocked in the Elf’s bow. At that moment, a swirl of shadow swept around the Elf. Her manticore’s tail swiped at it. The Elf released her arrow just before she was swallowed by the black miasma.
Magda dodged the arrow, but threw herself in the wrong direction, towards the injured manticore.
The stinger-less beast thrust back her wing, which sported fang-like barbs, and jabbed Magda just above the shoulder blade.
