The Fickle Winds of Autumn

79. A Deadly Ending?

A piercing, vicious yellow light crackled and shook the dark night.

Kira screwed her eyes to its startling brilliance.

Was this death?

The shocked priest cried out; anguished pain etched across his face; he thudded to the platform; the Quillon rattled free.

Kira's frantic mind raced and flooded.

Had she killed him somehow?

Even when she hadn't wanted to?

Was she truly the awful monster that Aldwyn had predicted?

The fizzing glare of another blast of energy hissed into the crowd of Reevers on the crater's floor.

That definitely wasn't her.

A fierce storm of glowering bolts rained down through the dim unsuspecting air; they ripped through the helpless gathering; their biting odour cut through the muggy warmth of sulphur.

She knew that smell.

Her traumatic memories spiked back to the panic and carnage of the Sacred Grove.

The witches!

Was there no escape from these wretched terrors?

She strained her eyes high up into the steep walls of the gloomy crater - a group of shadows hovered and darted, moving swiftly with a deadly menace as they speared down a torrent of brutal energy.

The Reevers thundered out vehement howls of anger; they scattered for cover at the perimeters of the hollow arena.

The two priests, who stood over Kira, turned and tried to run. One was struck immediately by a thudding blast and crumbled to the platform at the side of her bench; the other barely got a few steps away - even with the dazzling speed of his blurred movements - before he too was destroyed by a crushing shaft of magik.

Were the witches here to kill her?

Had they come to finish what they had attempted at the Grove?

A number of the Reevers charged up the steep sides of the crater and leapt out at those witches who had flown too low over the crowd; they hacked with swirling axes; the fierce barrage of magik pummelled down; its sharp, crashing deluge reverberated and blurred into the hideous screams and howling shouts of battle; the sulphurous air grew thick with the stench of charred remains.

A dark, shimmering shadow hovered near the platform; the violence of her spells cascaded and forked down, flashing and crackling against the dim night. A set of heavy footsteps charged forward past Kira; a Reever sprinted to the edge and leapt at the witch; his bulky weight dragged her down into the baying fury of the crowd; her dying screams ripped and echoed across the hollow belly of the crater.

Kira's terrified mind scrambled; she writhed against the brutal chains; a second witch landed on the platform and slithered towards her.

Her horrified skin recoiled; the foul creature came closer. Kira shuddered and tried to back away; the rough chains refused to allow her retreat.

She wanted to shut her eyes - to blot out the evil apparition - but the tormented memories of her dead classmates haunted her thoughts and forced her startled eyes wide.

A stark fear crawled across her skin. The grotesque witch loomed over her; she was certain to die - to be killed cruelly in tormented pain like the Harmonist and the others.

She winced; her body convulsed to be up so close to one of the repugnant things for the first time. How savage and inhuman it looked, this shimmering coiled vibration of female form - its flat face so cruel and distorted; its cataract-blinded eyes, so unfeeling and lifeless, without the flickering movements of a pupil to animate them.