The Witch of the Castle of Glass

Calista bolted through the Gathering, headed for the nearest seonangdang. The deeper she went, the more bodies littered the ground at her feet, and she forced herself from staring lest she see a fairy she knew. The air filled with smoke as untended cooking fires spread into brush, fanned by wolves who tossed generations-old treasures into the flames.

The wolves did not act as an army, as the goblins had at the Battle of Tower Beach. They roamed the Gathering in small packs as they hunted down fairies and howled with sadistic delight. These were not soldiers. They were confident predators, infected with a sense of invulnerability, who enjoyed chase and cruelty as much as the kill.

“That’s their mistake,” Calista spat angrily, her eyes flaring. “They’re not the only hunters in here.”

The first seonangdang came into sight. At the edge of its light, four wolves had surrounded a winged fairy mother and her two toddlers. The mother lay on the ground, one of her wings ripped off and casually dropped at her feet. Her arms were curled protectively around her two children as the wolves began to slowly tear off her second wing.

“Anastia! Oh, god, please no!” shouted an elderly fairy who had taken shelter beneath the seonangdang – the fairy’s mother, given the similar pink and green patterns in their wings.

A teenaged frog-fairy held the elderly woman tight as she desperately tried to reach her daughter beyond the seonangdang’s light. In her blind panic, she showed strength beyond her years and inched closer despite the teenager’s attempts to hold her back.

“There’s nothing you can do, Grandmother Rena,” shouted the young frog desperately, his webbed feet brushing the seonangdang’s light. The other fairies beneath its light simply watched, frozen in place for fear the grandmother would doom them as well if they tried to intervene.

A grey wolf with white fur separated from the pack and waited at the edge of the seonangdang, licking its lips with anticipation. Fueled by impatience, it reached out to drag the grandmother and grandson from beneath its protection. The beast’s claws struck the light, and the seonangdang sent a small shock up the wolf’s arm, as if it had touched an electric fence. Unable to cross its barrier, the wolf rubbed it paw in annoyance.

It didn’t get another chance. A second later, the Spear of Pinga pierced the wolf through its throat. Every fairy within the seonangdang stared on in utter shock as Calista recalled her spear and the wolf’s throat was torn out with its return.

The wolf’s body collapsed against the protective light, its sparks cascading over the wolf's corpse.

The remaining pack ceased their torment of the fairy mother and followed the spear’s trajectory back to Calista’s palm. The mother lay on the ground, her remaining wing held by the pack leaders and half ripped from her back. Her crying toddlers poked at their unmoving mother’s face as her grip on them began to weaken.

Calista caught her spear mid-charge and leapt the remaining ten paces into the middle of the pack. She protectively straddled the fairy mother and her children and cast a weak protective shield around the family as her heel struck the pack leader’s chest. He soared backwards and landed hard against a fallen trunk. His claws ripped through the chitin of her wing, which settled at an unnatural angle across her tormented back.

She twirled the Spear of Pinga and carved a diagonal slash across the face of the first of the two remaining wolves. Its tip sliced from eye to chin and blood cascaded obscured its vision. Preserving the spear’s momentum, she pivoted and deflected the oncoming strike of the second wolf, which forced it off balance. She struck the wolf in the chest with her palm to shove it backwards and used the opportunity to invert her spear and pierce the first wolf through the heart to finish it off. It fell as she yanked the spear from its chest, and she nudged its body on the way down, so it did not land on the children beneath her feet.

Calista closed the distance to the second wolf with a single powerful stride. She clenched her bare fist and punched the wolf in the throat. A satisfying crunch was her reward, and the wolf collapsed to its knees, its windpipe collapsed. A kick to its muzzle sent it sprawling, out of the fight.

The pack leader had recovered, his breath shallow from broken ribs. His eyes shot intense hatred at Calista, until he saw his three companions lying dead and dying at her feet. At that moment, his fury was replaced by something even more primal. Absolute terror.

The wolf fled. It made it four strides before the Spear of Pinga imbedded in its back.

Calista knelt beside the mother and her toddlers as the wolf’s body struck the ground, already forgotten. The mother was covered in blood and her breath was shallow and erratic. She did not move. Calista carefully scooped up the woman and her children and carried they across the seonangdang’s threshold.

Grandmother Rena fell to her knees in tears beside the mother as Calista lay her gently on the ground. She handed the toddlers to the young frog grandson, who held them tightly.

“Anastia! Anastia, please, wake up,” pleaded Grandmother Rena as she gently shook the mother’s shoulder.

Calista forced herself to look away from Anastia as she fought back her own tears. She turned to the grandson. “Stay within the light of the seonangdang. If you see any other fairies, convince them to shelter here with you. Do not leave the light until this is all over. Do you understand?”

The young frog gulped and nodded his head. “How… how did you…?”

Calista didn’t hear his stammered question. She barreled through the trees, headed for the next seonangdang. The Arena screen was open in front of her, and she stared at the descending timer.

Seven minutes, three seconds to go.

* * *

Milly sought out the undead muskrat’s mind – this one was named Benjamin – and detonated it in the middle of the advancing wolf pack. It had been pursuing the family of eight monkey-fairies that Indigo led from the Gathering. Chunks of stone, brush, and wolf flesh rained down upon the fairies as they crossed their defensive line to safety.

Sapphire’s warriors advanced to finish off the disoriented wolves that had survived the blast, as Indigo approached Milly.

“Goddess, have you seen Nobori?” pleaded Indigo as the monkey family headed under the seonangdang. The bandage across her ruined eye was soaked as her wound had reopened during their flight.

“I’m not a goddess, Indigo,” Milly said reflexively, her voice cold as she studied the increasingly diminished defenses of their front line. She cursed as she saw a single wolf a hundred paces away battling three of Sapphire’s fairies. One warrior was already dead, and the wolf was casually batting away the strikes of the other two, a deathly smile plastered on its face as it played with its prey.

Milly’s hands glowed deep blue, and she launched a tightly woven bolt of ice across the battlefield and straight into the wolf’s left eye. The wolf howled in pain and clutched at its face as the bolt spiraled like a drill and burrowed deeper. Now vulnerable, Elder Twotongue popped out of his hiding place and struck the beast’s wound with his paralyzing tongue. Poisoned flowed, and the wolf fell helplessly to the ground. The two surviving warriors shoved their tridents into its stomach to finish it off and returned to their positions. They left the body of their companion laying on the battlefield, eyes open and clouded with nothingness.

“And no, I haven’t seen Nobori,” Milly continued. “Not since he led the Lost Foals and Floating Leaf Skulk to the seonangdang. He went back into the Gathering a few minutes ago.”

“I need to find him,” Indigo said desperately, and she rushed back towards the fray. “Nobori, where are you?”

Milly used her telekinesis to drag the purple monkey back to her side. Indigo’s feet skidded along the ground in protest.

“You aren’t going back in there, Indigo,” Milly said. She gently cupped the side of Indigo’s head and used her healing magic to seal her wounded eye once more. “You’re done here. Get under the seonangdang and stay there.”

Milly glimpsed back to the seonangdang. A hundred fairies were crammed beneath its light, the children seated anxiously along every branch as the adults circled the trunk.

“But…” Indigo protested, but Milly held her fast with her telekinesis.

“No buts, Indigo. Lightpaw!” Milly called, and the Elder appeared at her side. “Get her to safety. Please stress upon her the importance of not leaving the seonangdang.”

Lightpaw led the reluctant Indigo to safety. While Twotongue had elected to fight on the line, Elder Lightpaw had proven an invaluable resource to convince fairies who were intent on doing brave but foolish things to stay safe.

Milly wiped the sweat from her brow, her knees weak as she existed at the edge of exhaustion.

How long had we been fighting?

She quickly opened her player screen.

Time Remaining: 4:52

Total Fairies: 1,214

Fairies Enslaved: 313

Fairies Murdered: 376

Fairies Under Seonangdangs: 133

Remaining Fairies: 392

The countdown had just passed the half-way point, and half the fairies had been killed or captured, and with each one it seemed the path to victory grew narrower.

A pack of eight wolves emerged from the Gathering, attracted by Benjamin’s explosion.

Milly cursed. A pack of eight was too much for her to handle, and she reached out her mind to Olive – the nearest of the two remaining muskrats – to detonate when they approached.

How much longer can we keep this up?