A deathly chill settles at the base of my spine as I cling to Azul, leaning low over his neck, trusting him to carry me safely across this deadly landscape.
“Straight ahead,” I whisper, barely able to speak past my dread as he beats his wings, his speed increasing.
The hammer presses to my chest, wedged between him and me, but nothing seems to constrain the dark light pulsing from it.
Far behind me, I imagine the starlight finally beginning to twinkle in the sky over the Iron Kingdom as I carry the hammer away from it.
A steady stream of starlight pours upward and, where the previous attempts have faltered and died, this one holds.
Stars brighten in the distance, and finally, I know I’ve carried the hammer far enough away.
The Iron Kingdom is safe now.
But I am not.
I’m not sure exactly when we crossed the border of the bloodlands. It was hard to tell with the darkness we carried with us. But the black peaks and shadowed valleys now below us are unmistakable.
Desperately, I seek the rivers of black liquid twisting along deep ravines, searching for the one we passed through when we first flew across the bloodlands.
The one with a bright light at the end of it. The only place it might be safe enough for me to land so I can test the hammer on the blade.
I battle tears of fright as I struggle to recognize the landscape now that we’re flying from the opposite direction.
The unbroken ink of this place makes it nearly impossible to tell one jagged peak from the next, and now the mounds of wrathful creatures are beginning to stir.
Shrieks rise up around me.
A growing whisper turns to a scream. “Blood.”
From nowhere, a form whips past me from my left, much closer than I was expecting, and then another from my right, their treacherous voices screeching across me. “We can drink her now. No stars to stop us.”
“Nothing to stop us!” comes the next shriek directly from above me.
“Azul!” I cry, and he tips to the side, an evasive maneuver.
I catch sight of the vampyr’s discolored fangs, fleshy white face, scaly scalp, and mangled, pointed ears before Azul increases his speed.
Far below us, more mounds of writhing bodies lift up from the ground, peeling into the air, and the sky now fills with blood-chilling screams.
My hand tightens on the hammer. My only weapon. Even if it only worsens the darkness, it’s solid, and I canswing it.
Just as the swarm edges up behind us, I recognize the sloping mountain up ahead on our right.
“There!” I cry. “Azul, to the right!”
He responds immediately, shooting in that direction so fast that I fear I’ll be ripped from his back, clinging as hard as I can.
He soars toward the mountainside while the screeching vampyrs clamber to catch up, their pale faces stretched thin, black robes billowing.
A second later, the mountain looms, and we soar into the tunnel where a silvery light glows ahead of us.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to calm my hammering heart, tears dripping down my cheeks as the screaming vampyrs fall back, none of them entering the tunnel with us.
Azul slows his flight, gliding toward the white light that rests far ahead of us and glows like a little sun.
But the closer we get, the more the light falters.
I gasp as I realize that the hammer’s darkness is fighting the light, inky streaks of energy spearing ahead of us.
