Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 14 of 24

The roar came again, closer. Trees cracked to the north. Lena shoved the silver needle deep into her coat pocket, next to the crystal. Nell pulled her back from the roots. Linny drew her iron blade. Forge stepped in front of her without thinking. “Run,” he ordered. “Creek,” Nell said. "Now." They turned. The fox shot past them, green tail low. Ten paces from the bank the ground shook. A shape came through the frostwood trees, snapping trunks like reeds. It was taller than the shack Nell lived in. Pale stone for skin, cracked at the joints where blue light bled through. Vines wrapped its arms. Ice hung from its jaw in long spikes. One eye burned pale blue. It fixed on Lena. "Warden's price," Linny said. "Your life. Or its freedom." "I heard her," Lena said. The troll swung. Forge shoved Linny sideways. The stone fist hit a tree and split it. Bark rained down. Nell's eyes lit green. He put a hand flat on the nearest trunk and the branches above the troll bent low, snagging its shoulders. It roared and tore free. The forest groaned around them, angry at Nell for using it again. "It's stone," Forge said. "Iron won't cut it." "The cracks," Lena said. "The light. That's where it's held together." Her hands were shaking. She made them stop. She pulled thread from the air, silver-fine, and cast it at the troll's ankles. The thread caught in a vine and pulled tight. She spun more, faster than she had before, until her fingers burned. She looped the troll's knees, then its wrist. It stumbled forward onto one hand. "Forge," she said. "The seam at its neck." Forge ran. He jumped onto the troll's bent arm, climbed the shoulder, and drove his iron blade into the blue crack under its jaw. The blade bent. He wrenched it free and drove it in again, deeper. Linny threw her own blade up to him. He caught it and struck a third time. The troll shuddered. Blue light poured from its neck. Nell pulled Lena back as the stone came apart. The head fell first. The body folded. Vines slid loose in a wet heap. The warden's tree, forty paces back, cracked open and the woman-shape stepped out of the wood on new legs. She looked at Lena once. She walked north and did not look back. Forge dropped down beside Linny. His sleeve was torn. Blood ran from a cut above his eye. She tore and cloth and held it to his head with a dainty touch. "Test enough for you?" Linny said, her voice soft. His hand covered hers as he held it against his head. "For today." Lena pressed her hand over the needle in her pocket. It was still there. Her father was still waiting. Then she felt the scent-band on her wrist crumble to nothing, thread by thread, and drift away in the cold air.