THE FINISHER

I would pass out. When he set me back down, both our eyes
were closed. When they opened, nearly simultaneously,
Delph and I just looked at each other for what seemed a hand-
ful of slivers.

Finally he said, “So what now?”
“The Wall,” I said. Something struck me. “How did you
know I’d be here?”
“Didn’t. Been running all over the place trying to
find you.”
“A while back I picked a particular finished spot on the
Wall. I think it’s our best shot to get through.”
“Wug guards on the towers,” he said anxiously.
“I know that. But the distance in between them leaves
a gap.”
He eyed my cloak. “Got your chain?”
I nodded. “You ready?”
When we reached my planned breach point, we hid
behind a bush and looked up at the Wall. Two hundred feet
on either side of this spot were lantern-lighted watchtowers
with Wugs carrying mortas stationed in them.
I hooked up Harry Two with the harness and he dangled
from my chest. With Destin across my shoulders providing
me strength, he felt no heavier than a couple of pounds.
“Wrap your arms around my shoulders, Delph, like we
did before.”
He never got a chance to.
“There they are!” yelled a voice.
At the sound, my heart sank.
I looked to the right and saw a cluster of Wugs rushing
toward us, mortas in hand. My heart sank even more when I

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saw who it was. To our left was Ted Racksport hobbling on
his gimpy foot, Cletus with bloodlust in his wicked eyes and
Ran Digby with his ugly beard and filthy face.

To our right was Jurik Krone and Duk Dodgson.
And leading all of them was Morrigone. “No, Vega,” she
screamed. “You will not leave Wormwood. You cannot.”
They were each cocking their mortas and starting to
take aim.
I grabbed Delph by the hand and ran, Harry Two bang-
ing against my chest with each stride. We were within fifty
yards of the Wall when I left my feet, pulling Delph with me.
It was an awkward balance and I veered to the side Delph was
on before righting my path of ascendance.
I turned in time to see Morrigone aim her hands at us.
The full Elemental was in my hand a moment later and the
deflected beam of red light she hurled at us struck part of
the Wall and blasted a hole in it. We soared on.
“Fire,” shouted Krone.
The mortas roared. I felt something race past my head. I
heard Delph cry out and he went limp. I gripped his arm
tighter.
“Delph,” I shouted.
“Just go, go,” he said in a strained voice. “I’m okay.”
But I knew he was not okay. I banked to the left and then
back to the right as the mortas fired again. Harry Two barked
and then howled and then whimpered. Then he fell silent. I
felt something wet against my face.
Harry Two had been shot as well. I shrunk my Elemental,
put it away and supported Harry Two with my free hand
while my other clutched Delph.

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“Stop firing!” I yelled.
I didn’t think they would, since they had already hit two
of us. I just wanted an instant to do what I was about to. I
banked hard right, flew around a tree, cupped Harry Two
with my elbow, ripped off a branch as I raced by, and when I
came out of the turn, I was facing the Wugs.
I threw the branch, scattering them, and it plowed into
the dirt right where they had been standing. I turned once
more and aimed for the top timber of the Wall.
The mortas were quieted for the moment. But I knew I
didn’t have much time. Delph was moaning. And, even more
frightening, Harry Two was hanging limp in his harness, not
moving at all. I headed right for the Wall at speed, but I was
having immense trouble gaining enough lift with Delph and
Harry Two.
When I looked back I froze in fear.
Jurik Krone, the finest shot in all of Wormwood, had his
morta pointed directly at my head. I could not pull my Ele-
mental because I was holding on to Delph with one hand and
I was supporting Harry Two’s body with the other.
I could see Krone smile as he started to pull the trigger
that would send a morta round directly into my head. And all
three of us would fall to our deaths.
And then something hit Krone so hard that he was
knocked sideways for thirty feet. He tumbled and rolled and
his morta flew from his hands.
I looked to see what had just saved my life.
Morrigone was lowering her hands, which were pointed
at where Krone had been standing. She turned and looked at
me. For an instant I imagined a metal helmet around

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­Morrigone’s face, the shield raised, and how she looked so
much like the female on that battlefield from so long ago.
Then she lifted her hands once more and I felt an invisible
force, like an iron tether, grip my leg. When I glanced at her,
Morrigone was moving her arms as though pulling a rope
toward her. I felt my momentum stop and with a jerk, I felt us
being pulled backward, downward.

This was it. This was the moment. If I could not do this,
then everything would have been for nothing.

With a scream that seemed to go on for slivers, I sum-
moned every ounce of strength I had. I felt energy surging
through me. I kicked with my feet and I could feel the invisi-
ble tether loosen. I kicked harder and bent my shoulders
forward as though I were laboring under an impossibly heavy
weight. And then with one more long scream and my muscles
so tense I thought I was paralyzed, I broke free, soared over
the top timbers — D​ elph’s boots actually scraped across
them — a​ nd we were past the Wall.

As I looked back once more, I saw Morrigone on the
ground, spent, dirty and defeated. Our gazes locked.

She raised one hand toward me — n​ ot to try and stop
me — ​but, I realized, simply to say farewell.

The next quarter sliver we cleared the filled moat

below and passed into the Quag. We sailed over the first
stand of trees and bushes. And then it became so dense I had
to quickly drop to the ground.

It was good that I did. I already had snatched the Adder
Stone out of my cloak pocket. Delph was slumped on the

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ground, holding his arm, and blood had saturated his shirt. I
ran the Stone over it and the wound vanished and the pain on
his face disappeared. He straightened and gasped, “Thanks,
Vega Jane.”

But I wasn’t listening to him. I had unhooked Harry Two
from his harness. He lay limply on the ground. He was barely
breathing. His eyes were closed.

“No,” I whimpered. “Please, no!”
I pulled off the breastplate and saw where the morta
metal had pierced it. I rubbed the Adder Stone over the
wound on his side where the morta metal had struck him. He
was so badly hurt I thought that touching the Stone to his
body would make the wound heal faster. I kept rubbing,
pressing the Stone into his fur and passing it over the wound.
Still nothing. The tears streamed down my face as Delph
knelt next to me.
“Vega Jane.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, trying to draw me away.
“Vega Jane, leave him be now. He’s gone.”
“Shove off!” I screamed and pushed him so hard he flew
backward and sprawled in the dirt.
I looked down at Harry Two and thought every good
thought I could think of.
“Please, please,” I moaned. “Please don’t leave me again.”
In my despair, I was merging the two canines in my mind. My
vision was blurred by my tears.
Harry Two didn’t move. His breathing was slowing down
to where I could barely see his chest rise.
I couldn’t believe this. I had lost my Harry Two. I turned

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to see Delph picking himself back up. That’s when something
nudged my hand. I snatched it away, thinking it was a crea-
ture of the Quag testing my flesh for eating.

Harry Two touched my hand again with his wet nose.
His eyes were now open and he was breathing normally. He
rose on his paws and shook all over, as though throwing off
his near death good and proper. I think he even smiled at me.
I was so happy I shouted for joy and hugged him tightly.

In return he licked my face and barked.
Delph knelt next to us. “Thank the Steeples,” he said,
scratching Harry Two’s snout.
I smiled and then I stopped smiling. I was staring at
Delph’s hand.
Delph’s ink-stamped hand from all those sessions at
the Mill.
That’s when I heard the growls on either side of us.
I slowly turned.
There was a garm to the right and an enormous frek on
our left.
The blue ink: like honey to stingers.
I didn’t wait an instant longer. I drew the Elemental and
thought it to full size. I threw it even as the frek leapt at
Delph. It struck the frek dead center of the chest and the
beast disintegrated.
But the garm had lunged forward, its own blood pouring
down its chest and its odious smell searing my lungs. And
bursting from its powerful jaw was that awful sound it makes
when on the hunt. I knew the next thing leaping from its jaws
would be a chest full of fire that would cremate us.
I snatched the jug of water from my tuck and hurled it at

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the creature. It struck it full in the snout, the jug cracked open
and the water splashed in the garm’s face.

It only gave me a moment, but a moment was all I needed.
As soon as the Elemental touched my hand on its return from
destroying the frek, I flung it onward.

The Elemental passed right through the garm’s mouth
and burst out its backside. The creature turned a burning
orange, and flamed up, as though all the fire on its inside
couldn’t reach the outside. A moment later, it exploded in a
cloud of black smoke. When the smoke cleared, the garm was
no more.

“Bloody Hel,” exclaimed Delph.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
We had no time to celebrate our victory. I grabbed
Delph’s inked hand and snagged the bottle and cloth Dis
Fidus had given me from my pocket.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Just shut up and know this is going to hurt like the
blazes.”
I poured the liquid on the cloth and then pressed it on
his hand.
Delph clenched his teeth and to his credit didn’t utter a
sound though his body shook like he was having the heaves
after eating bad creta meat.
When the liquid had done its job, the back of his hand
was as pink and scarred as mine. But all the ink was gone.
“Is this a good thing?” he asked, wincing and shaking
his hand.
“It’ll make it harder for those beasts to track us.”
“Then it’s a good thing,” he said with conviction.

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We grabbed our tucks where they had fallen.
“We need to keep moving, Delph.”
I went first, with the fully formed Elemental ready in my
hand, Delph second and Harry Two covering our rear flank.
We cleared the trees and thick vegetation, and then the
most astounding thing happened. The Quag opened up to a
flat expanse of green fields with small stands of towering trees
that allowed us to see many miles in the distance. Far off to the
west was a wide fog-shrouded river full of black water. To
the east was a rocky slope that led up to somewhere. Far
ahead of us to the north was a towering forested mountain
that in the uneasy darkness looked not green, but blue.
There was only one problem. Before we could reach the
flat expanse where we could see danger coming at us from a
long way away, we had to get past the next obstacle. We were
right on the edge of a cliff. I looked down. I figured the drop
to be nearly a full mile. I looked at Delph and he looked back
at me.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
He gripped my hand and nodded.
I lifted Harry Two into his harness and gave his head a
pat. I had come so close to losing both of them so soon in
here that a part of me wanted to go back to Wormwood. But
a bigger part of me knew I couldn’t. Not now. Perhaps one
light.
We heard the sounds behind us and they were coming
fast. From the quantity of noise, I figured three or four garms
and what sounded like a whole herd of freks. They had no
doubt been alerted to our presence by the previous battle.

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They burst from the dense forest, which lay behind us. I
looked back. I had been wrong. It wasn’t four garms, it was
ten. And they weren’t freks. They were amarocs. And if any-
thing, they were even more terrifying than the freks.

I turned and looked ahead to the distant blue moun-
tain that somehow I knew was where we needed to go. Just
beyond that, in the sky, were the stars, the lost stars as I
thought of them now. Lost, like we were. Would they ever
find their way? Would we? Perhaps not. Perhaps we would
simply flame out. But at least we would have tried.

I looked once more at Delph, attempted a smile that died
before it reached my face, and then we jumped. The three of
us were suspended in air for a long moment as the wicked
beasts sped toward us.

And then we soared downward, now fully embraced by
the Quag.

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