The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (40 page)

Deciding dying in a pool of her own vomit, wasn’t the
most dignified way of going, Avery wrenched her top wrist slightly
to one side, then yanked with her arm as hard as she could. Her
still throbbing shoulder begged her to stop, but she ignored it,
finally wrenching her wrist free. The creature jerked his head up.
He let go of Avery’s arm, not bothering to hold them down, and
instead, wrapped his hands around Avery’s throat. Avery grabbed at
his hands, trying to wrench his crushing grip off of her
windpipe.

“Who do you think you are?!” He screamed down at her,
“I am Sevil, a Serpentine Demon of the Drake Clan. You are nothing
compared to me!” He laughed down at her, “You are still so stupid.
Just like you always were, stupid and weak. They died because of
you, you know. You led them into slaughter with your stupidity.
Your weakness killed you…it killed all of them.”

“Get the hell off of me!” Avery shouted, tugging at
his hands. More than anything she wanted him to stop talking. It
was a horrible realizing his words were hurting her worse than
anything he could do to her body.

He laughed down at her, picking her up slightly and
pounding her back into the ground, “You’re just the same.” He
hissed, “You haven’t changed. They’re stupid and weak, too. They
would follow you right into their deaths, just like they did last
time. I’m really doing you a favor by killing you. Saving you the
trouble of killing yourself and everyone you love.”

“Shut up!” Avery screamed agonizingly.

“Don’t worry,” He whispered into her ear, “they’ll
join you soon enough. I’ll make sure of that. I’ll taste their
blood too.”

She let go of his hands and tried pushing on his
chest, anything to get him off of her. His hands tightened around
her throat and Avery chocked. She couldn’t breathe and her vision
was beginning to get fuzzy.

Not like this, she thought to herself, I can’t die
like this. I’m not ready. She thought about never seeing her family
again, or hearing Cinder ask her a hundred nonsensical questions.
She thought of her friends having to fight on without her, and she
thought of Jade. She thought about never talking, or laughing,
fighting with, goofing around, and touching the people she loved
again. Avery couldn’t let that happen, she knew she just
couldn’t.

She placed her hands flat on the creature’s chest and
pushed with all the strength she had left. As the world in front of
her began to fade, she felt a warm sensation growing throughout her
body. It began in the middle of her chest, and then spread out to
every other part of her. A surge of searing hot energy went off in
her body, snapping her eyes back into focus. A split second later,
a blinding white light burst from her hands, sending the creature
sailing backwards through the air, landing a good twenty feet away
into the forest. Avery lay on the ground for a moment, shocked by
what had just happened. She sat up slowly and examined her hands.
They looked just as they always did, only covered with spots of
blood and a few scrapes. She had no idea how she had done what she
did, or where the powerful energy had come from. What she did know,
is that whatever it had been, it was gone now, and she could see
the creature painfully picking itself up from the forest floor.

Avery stood up, taking in a deep breath of the cool
air that she had been cut off from not too long ago. She turned and
walked over to the tree where the ax the creature had thrown at her
was still sticking out of. Avery heard the creature behind her,
running towards her at a hasty pace. The ax was stuck deeply into
the wood, but Avery’s Protector strength allowed her to pull it out
with ease. The creature was less than three feet away when she
turned around. She gave him a hard thrust kick to his chest, close
to his broken collar bone. The creature cried out as he fell
backwards onto the ground.

Avery strolled up to the creature, lying on the
ground, clutching at his collarbone. On his chest, where Avery’s
hands had been when the electric energy had exploded out of them,
were two large burn marks where his cloak had been singed away, and
his scaly yellow skin was charred and bleeding. She looked down at
the creature who had almost killed her. The last thing he had said
to her, thundered in her mind, ‘I’ll taste their blood too’.

Avery lifted the ax high above her head, and as he
wailed, “Noooooooo!” she brought it down on his neck, severing his
head from his body.

The ax slid from her hands, and Avery gently backed
away from the body. The adrenaline that had been rushing through
her began to subside, leaving her feeling dizzy. Avery felt a tear
sliding down her cheek. She hadn’t even realized she had been
crying. If at that moment, Phantom hadn’t strolled up to her,
giving her a sweet little nuzzle on the side of her face with his
fuzzy nose, Avery was sure she would have collapsed into a shaking
weeping ball. She wrapped her arms around Phantom’s neck and let
herself release a few more tears. The tiniest of smiles touched her
lips when she realized she was alive. She had done it.

As she was about to mount up on Phantom and head
home, Avery noticed a glowing orange light coming from around a
curve in the road up ahead. She grabbed a hold of Phantom’s reins
and walked him up the path. When she turned the corner, she had to
catch her breath slightly.

She had reached the end of the road. She was standing
at Wildpoint Lookout. In front of her was one of the most awe
inspiring views she had ever seen. The large trees of the forest
ended, giving way to a small circular clearing about fifteen feet
in diameter. At the other end of the clearing was a drop-off. Avery
tied Phantom’s reins onto one of the branches of a large tree and
walked over to the edge of the drop-off and looked down. It was a
sharp fall, at least a good thousand feet.

Avery took a seat on the cool grass, curling her legs
up underneath her, and gazing out at the view below and in front of
her. She could see everything. Directly in front of her was forest,
green and lush treetops blowing in the breeze. She could see random
clearings throughout the forest area. In a few of the clearings,
she was able to see dots of tiny houses. Little puffs of smoke
streamed out from a few of the clearings with houses. In the far
distance was a mountain range. The sun was just beginning to set,
lighting up the high rounded peaks of the mountain in a rust
colored glow. In the very far distance, slightly to the right,
Avery could see, what looked to her, like the outline of a castle.
It sat mainly in a heavy forested area, only slightly elevated.
Draven’s castle stood proud and clear to the left of her. She could
see the entirety of Knighton Castle, resting on its hill, its black
flags clear and waving. Avery could see the valley below, with its
small farm houses. People that looked the size of ants could barely
be seen walking around. To her far right, Avery saw, clear as day
and unmistakable, the Emperor’s fortress. It was too far in the
distance for Avery to see much detail, but what she could see gave
her chills. The fortress was dark as night, with one high pointed
tower in the center of it. The top of the tower was surrounded by
high sharp pillars. The enormous wall surrounding it was heavy
stone, with pointed towers protruding out from it. The fortress sat
on top of a hill made of black ragged rock. The same black rock
seemed to comprise the high mountain range that lay behind and to
the east and west of the fortress. The forest that lay in front of
the fortress looked nothing like the dense green Wildwood forest,
teeming with life, that Avery was use to. This forest, which Avery
knew must be Darksin, was filled with twisted and misshapen barren
trees.

Avery pulled her eyes away from nightmarish sight and
focused on the beauty around her. When Avery leaned her head all
the way back, she was able to see the round full moon beginning to
take over the sky, chasing the sun away. The moon on Orcatia was
unbelievably big, at least twice as large as the full moon back on
Earth. It lit up the entire land, like a giant night light. Behind
the moon, Avery could see a planet glowing brightly, a delicate
purple shade. It was about a third of the size of the moon, with
wispy white cloud-like areas dotting it.

Avery lost herself in the peaceful beauty of the
moment. She let her mind wander to thoughts she would have normally
preferred to keep at bay. She thought about what the creature said
about everyone dying being her fault. She wondered how much truth
there was to his statement. It had hurt her more than she was even
willing to comprehend. The thought of her friends getting hurt just
because they followed her was unacceptable, and the idea that Jade
could get hurt was just something that Avery couldn’t let
happen.

A little while later, Avery wasn’t sure how long, but
it was long enough for the sun to have almost set, casting the
whole landscape in a bath of orange and purple, the sound of
galloping hooves caught Avery’s attention. A moment after that, a
worried looking Jade galloped around the curve in the road. She
pulled up Steel, her worried expression turning to one of
anger.

“Where the flaming hell have you been?!” She shouted,
jumping off of steel, “You were supposed to be back at the library
over two hours ago! Everyone is out looking for you!”

Avery had completely forgotten that part. Although,
after the fight she had just went through, she felt she deserved a
little leniency.

“I’m sorry,” Avery said, straightening herself up off
the ground, “I guess I just lost track of time.”

“You lost…you…lost” Jade raised her fist in the air,
and clenched it tightly, trying to get control of her anger, “You
just can’t do that Avery! People worry about you! You can’t
just…”

Jade’s words were cut short the second she walked up
to Avery and took in the state of her. Jade’s eyes immediately went
to the four gashes on Avery’s neck and the stream of dried blood
that led down from them and covered her chest. Then she scanned
over to the bruises left on Avery’s neck by the creature’s
throttling hands.

“Oh, my God, Avery,” Jade’s voice came out in a
rushed high-pitched whisper, “what happened to you?! Are you
alright?! Was it that headless thing back there on the road?”

Avery laughed and it caused the wounds on her neck to
twinge slightly, “I’m fine,” she said, “they just bled a lot, but
they’ll heal soon. That creature was some kind of snake Demon…mean
bastard to.”

Jade nodded and took one more wincing glance at
Avery’s wounds, “I knew something had happened.” Jade told her,
“There’s no way you’d be cruel enough to leave me alone with
Gumptin, Bunny, Skylar, and Sasha for over an hour.”

“Whatever,” Avery scolded, giving Jade’s foot a
little tap with her own, “you know you love them.”

Jade smirked, “I never said I didn’t care about them;
I just said that they bore me to tears. Seriously,” Jade continued
when Avery rolled her eyes, “I mean, what do I have to talk about
with those people? Their knowledge of movie quotes is pathetic.
Sasha doesn’t even know the difference between Star Trek and Star
Wars, and just a few days before we came here, Skylar referred to
my Suzuki as ‘adorable’. She should have just hit me…that would
have been less painful.”

When Jade lifted up her hand to tuck a loose strand
of dark hair behind her ear, Avery noticed that her wrist had a
white bandage wrapped around it.

“What happened there?” Avery asked, pointing towards
Jade’s bandaged wrist.

“Oh,” Jade said, looking down at her wrist like she
had completely forgot it was injured, “it’s nothing, just a sprain.
I ran into a group of dwarves trying to rob this family on some
crappy little back road.”

“Dwarves?” Avery asked, thinking how weird their life
had become to have actual dwarves come up in a sentence.

Jade nodded, “Yep, they basically looked like really
ugly Gumptin’s. Gumptin said they were most likely dwarves from the
Western Mountain Range, ’cause they’re the only ones that have
joined the Emperor so far. You should have seen Gumptin’s face when
I compared him to the dwarves.” Jade laughed out loud at the
memory, “I thought he was going to put some magical hex on me.”

Avery smiled and nodded, her mind still preoccupied
with what the creature had told her. She thought it was as good a
time as any to breach some of the thoughts she had been thinking
with Jade.

“Jade,” Avery asked tentatively, “if something had
happened to me, if I didn’t end up coming back…you’d be ok,
right?”

Jade looked at Avery like she had just spoken a
different language, her previous laughter completely gone from her
face, “What are you talking about?” Jade asked her.

“I mean, you wouldn’t do anything stupid, right?”
Avery pleaded with her eyes.

“Avery, what the hell are you talking about?” Jade
asked again, her voice growing higher and louder.

“Think about it,” Avery told Jade, “we all died last
time. I was the leader, and we all died…and that’s when I was crazy
single-minded warrior Avery. If you follow me now, there’s no
telling what could happen to you.”

“Well, it can’t be any worse than the last time.”
Jade tried to joke.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Avery said
passionately, “Jade, you could do anything you wanted. You don’t
have to follow me.” As Avery spoke, the creature’s words continued
to play in her mind, “I’ll have Gumptin talk to the Elementals. I’m
sure if I promise to stay…”

“Just stop!” Jade cut off Avery, “You know I’m not
going to let you go fight without me. Somebody’s got to look after
you. You’re more reckless than an adrenaline junkie.”

“I don’t want you here, following me, because you
feel like you have to protect me. That’s stupid, Jade. This whole
thing is becoming way too dangerous.” The idea that her old self
had possibly gotten Jade killed had put Avery in panic mode, “You
have to get away from me. You have to think about yourself. This is
your life!”