Windston held a cup of tea, the last he'd have for a while, especially of elvish brew, to see if the water still rippled in the air. It did.

  “Something nears us from the north and east!” Elgreth shouted from his post atop a nearby rock. He was shielding his eyes and peering out again when Clement and Frem both flew up to meet him for a look.

  “There's a cloud of dust that stretches for miles,” Clement said.

  “Feathered drakuls!” Frem shouted. “Thousands! Hundreds of thousands!”

  “Madness!” shouted Ulius. “There is no time to flee!”

  “Nowhere to flee,” Clement said. He closed his eyes and thought to himself while his men below looked about in panic. When he opened them, he shook his head and then nodded.

  Windston watched him all the while. He had his sword, and Bombo's hand lay on his shoulder.

  Frem flew up in a circle, landed on the other side of Windston. He checked his big bag for his little bag, which he stuffed in his shirt and fastened around his upper left arm so that it stayed tightly bound against his chest. He tucked his shirt next and tightened his belt. He was a light green color with darker green hair, and his eyes were blue with green rims. Looking at Windston, he smiled and said, “I'm about to show Clement why it doesn't matter if he can best me one on one. I am the true warrior here when it comes to crowds.”

  Windston, who was quite honestly confused by the mention of betters or warriors, lowered his eyebrows and watched as Frem leapt up into the sky, flapped his arms so that his winglets appeared, lay back steady against the wind and lit his hands aglow.

  Swallowing nothing, he looked up at Bombo, who was staring at Clement, his eyes narrowed against what was gust after gust and had been for days.

  The elves were readying themselves; they unpacked armor and unrolled bundled spears.

  Clement, who still stood atop the rock, crossed his arms now as he stared at what appeared to him to be a nearing brown cloud; his eyes were no match for Frem's.

  “I'm counting them,” Frem said, still airborne, steadied in the gusts so that he stayed fixed above the crowd. “Just there in the center is more than a few hundred. I can't see how far back they go but I can see that the dust goes on for miles.”

  “There are millions of them,” Clement said. “This is the greatest horde of our time. It moves from sacred lands, where the parri bird roosts. They're… stirred, one could say, but by what, I don't know. Somebody does, I fear.”

  Windston looked at him, and it was at that moment that he thought of Agnessa Iadora and what she had said to him in his dream about her brother. “Clement,” he said aloud, though quietly.

  Clement glanced his way, and Windston noticed their appearance was strikingly similar. They were both beautiful and platinum headed, healthy and shaded lightly brown. But she was an adult – or was she? – while he was but a boy of Frem's age.

  Could she be their age too?

  “Ready yourself, Frem,” Clement said. “Spears, leave you things and climb this rock at once! That includes you two!”

  Windston and Bombo looked at one another before following the elves up the slanted rock. The elves let them in, surrounded them and bore long spears, which they faced out and away at all sides.

  The thundering was deafening at this point, and the ground shook so that one felt a vibration deep within himself.

  Unable to see the approaching horde, Windston and Bombo waited. The sky, Windston saw, was bluing now, the clouds dispersing so that they were misty shreds. It would be a clear beautiful morning, and yet possibly hanging over a field of blood, both black and red.

  The rock itself was trembling.

  “Steady!” Clement called. “Hold on, Frem! We don't know what they'll do!”

  “I don't wanna find out!” Frem yelled.

  “Wait!” Clement yelled, ducking and lying flat against the rock on his belly.

  The others did the same.

  A great roar and then the throaty sucking and belching sound of huffing feathered drakuls running at their max as if for days.

  The sound could grow no louder and dust fell upon them with one swift gust.

  And then:

  “Argh!” a great bird yelled as it leaped over the rock, which was fifteen feet high at its peak.

  It came crashing down among them as thousands of others raced by like a great pouring of sludge from a bucket down sloping ground. For miles this line of death birds stretched, and it was miles deep across with a tail of stragglers itself miles wide and miles deep. Over one million birds in one tight and one loose group trampled the countryside, and more and more landed among the elves and Windston and Bombo as Frem shot blast after blast after blast at those that nearly had.

  Among them, a fight broke out.

  The first spear that met a bird was cleaved in two near the point by a beak. These birds were all over twelve feet tall, old, heavy legged and with jagged barbs that protruded beyond the rims of their beaks.

  Windston stabbed one with his sword and watched it shrivel like the pine tree Clement killed.

  Bombo grabbed one by the neck and squeezed its head off in his bare hands.

  Several elves had stuck another and it fought and raged to get away.

  Clement fell on it with a black sword with silver edges. It was wide at the hilt, narrowed in the center and widened again before narrowing back to form a point. It rang clear as it cleaved through bone and cracked the air as he swung it through it.

  “Fight!” he yelled. “Fight for your lives!”

  The boys and Bombo did. They fought and fought on that wedge of rock as it was the only place high enough above the grass for miles to escape most of the horde thundering past.

  Among the birds, few were aware of their fighting brethren. Some few heard shrieks and turned to run against the crowd in hopes of finding blood.

  As Clement had said rightly, the drakuls had started from the north and east in what are holy grounds called “Feather Hills” by locals. They hadn't stopped since they began, three days prior, for food or for drink, and wouldn't until they found their mark southwest in southern Cor, where Galsia would meet the Freelands south if not for the black wall at Ogden.

  Blood would suit them nicely, even a mere lick.

  Blood had just entered the air, too, fresh red blood unlike the sizzling black tar in their veins. It was like a beacon to those within that square mile and a little way beyond it, and their drive to sniff it out, on some occasions, overpowered their instinctual pilgrimage south toward Cor.

  It was Hoopus who fell first, and Gorgrund fell immediately after him. Next fell Homney and then Steelus. These deaths were gruesome, at times involving more than just the loss of limb, but rather the deletion of a chest cavity within the mouth of a single chomp.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Bombo had seen enough. His need for wits was replaced with a feral need to survive. His nails became claws, his eyes became black, and his canines sharpened and stretched like a lion's. He himself grew larger and longer. He stood as a lion man, furious and enraged, willing to fight anything anywhere at any time, which he immediately did, leaping into the sea of birds and wreaking havoc.

  As the last living elves in that meadow besides Clement fell, Windston felt a fury like Bombo's and dove into the sea himself. Clement did the same, and Frem found himself the only one outside of the stampede. He hurled blast after blast after blast.

  The fighting went on for hours, and it appeared it would continue this way. Clement, the boys and Bombo had exercised every single skill they knew again and again and again against birds and then more and then more. Still, the sea of them was endless, and feathers piled on black blood and burned in it in bubbling, oozing masses at their feet.

  For a while, they became separated, each one. All alone, they fought, each thinking surely the others must have fallen.

  Frem, in desperation, let loose the largest volley he'd ever thrown where he had last seen his friends. Like fleas they fled the area for the rock, and then they were together again, fighting in a triangle with their backs facing one another.

  Atop the rock, which they cleared quickly, there was a moment when they could check in on one another.

  Clement, panting, was the only one able to speak. He said, “I'm ready to flee this accursed place, although I don't know toward what aim.”

  Windston nodded, and Bombo, who was less a lion in his fatigue, growled agreement.

  “I think maybe northeast is where I head, for that is where my bird rests. But this is also where these accursed beasts are in concentrated numbers. I wonder if it would not be better that we should part ways in our flight.”

  Windston nodded again. Still, he couldn't speak. His chest hurt fiercely, as if he'd been breathing in the cold, though it was warm in their vicinity thanks to Frem.

  “You're headed for your ice mountain,” Clement said. He turned and pointed. “There is the gap where you rest. Head there before the drop.” He swiveled and pointed due north. “You cannot see it, but that way leads to the mountain you seek.”

  Windston and Bombo both nodded. Windston realized Frem had been keeping the peace for them on their rock that whole while, seeking out only those who leaped their way.

  “I have been to this town in this gap,” Bombo said, now all the way man. “It is where I go. The boys should go with me, but I do not force them.”

  “We'll go with you,” Windston said.

  Bombo nodded, and Clement said, “Very well. If we should survive this, anyone, we shall meet again. I'm sure of this. Farewell, my friends!” he shouted.

  Windston reached out and hugged him, and then Bombo hugged them both while Frem cursed at them from above for misusing the time he spared them with girly crap, like hugs.

  “Goodbye, Frem!” Clement shouted.

  Frem took a moment to shoot him the bird between shooting birds, and then the king leaped northwest and was off on foot sprinting northeast.

  Frem yelled at Windston and Bombo, who could barely hear him. He said something like “northwest” and “on my” and then he was counting down. Before they could figure out what he meant he changed his aim from around them to down and to their left. He was clearing a path for them, though they didn't realize until it was almost too late.

  And then they fell behind his wall of blasts and marched.

  This plan, which Frem carried out with confidence, did not work. Not at all. The ground was pitted from explosions and melting from the heat, and the birds, in their frenzy, found a way around and over everywhere he shot.

  They resorted to dodging, weaving, leaping and rolling. Little did they know that their weeks or more of training in the Witchee Woods had given them the necessary agility to just barely survive this onslaught, and their eight days' rest caught them back up to peak physical shape.

  Still, the restful recovery was already wearing off; should they have seen what Frem could see, the two on the ground would know they were surely doomed to die.

  The horde that had clustered in a bunch of lagging birds northeast had smartened up enough to realize the grass was open northwest and so sped that way. Now, an even spread sixty miles east to west and fifty miles deep filed south in a sweeping line at thirty-two miles per hour. The total number the boys, Bombo, Clement and the other elves had killed was sixteen-hundred and eighty-three, and almost all of that was Frem's doing. Between them and clear meadows was still a number greater than one million, and, in any straight line, tens of thousands.

  They fought on.

  Frem, whose arms and legs could no longer fight the wind, dipped down among the two and ran alongside them. Together, they zigged and zagged and flipped and slid and did whatever it was they had to do to progress northwest.

  It was impossible. There was no way they were going to make it. Each one knew that. And yet they thought about Clement, who did this alone, and who was nowhere to be seen.

  The truth was that Clement had made at least double the progress they had, and was feeling fresh, if not a little enraged on behalf of his fallen men. But if the boys were like super people compared to ordinary people, he was like a super person compared to them, at least while he still surged with energy borrowed from the bird; for he was nearly as strong as Bombo's man form and could perhaps rival even his lion form with the use of elven-Gitran magic, and his Gitran speed.

  Still, they pressed. They pressed past noon, thirsty and aching with hunger pains.

  They pressed hours beyond that, when the heat felt unbearable.

  They continued pressing onward, forward, in zigs and zags, slashing and hacking, squeezing, crushing, tossing, blasting, hurling, slinging, smashing and clawing. At times, Windston found it possible to come down on a foe with the point of his sword, at which moments he'd feel a new burst of energy. But these bursts were fleeting, as the life stuff of feathered drakuls is mostly evil, therefore mostly disregarded by his wider self. Still, he was fresher than his friends, and this became apparent just before the sun fell, and troubling.

  Bombo was toppled twice now in this hour, and Frem had slowed to a steady walk while blasting. Both had fallen behind.

  There was nothing Windston could do to help. He could only slow to their pace and cleave paths when he could, when he was doing better than simply surviving the moment.

  Night fell and the moons rose high and bright. The red star was there, brighter than ever itself. A brief shower fell from nothing, maybe a small puff of a cloud that lingered not over them, but to the west. And then it was crystal clear, and there was the night sky to look up at, and shadows ahead that flashed in Frem's sprays of dwindling fury.

  Bombo was a lion again, maybe a last gasp as he was all lion, not at all man. He was on all fours, and he plowed mouth first, roaring and biting. Birds parted at his roars. Others fell in his jaws.

  Windston's sword's light was a dull blue now. His energy was waning, and even vampiric moments of drakul stabbings did little to brighten it any beyond purple, and even then, only for a moment. Still, there was nothing but thundering steps, horrid squawks and the sound of explosions.

  Suddenly, just as he had fallen to both knees and, for the first time so far, buckled before standing, he saw what looked like an orange light straight ahead. It wasn't a tangerine, but more like a cluster of embers and it brightened before fading.

  And then there was a flash of silver.

  There was another one, and then what looked like a dome of silver moonlight on the ground ahead.

  Bombo saw it too after Windston trudged that way, Frem as well. They all headed toward it like it was a beacon, like they were moths to a flame.

  Could it be Clement? Had he come back for them?

  It looked like magic. It looked like impenetrable magic as there was nothing under it other than one single person and he was walking leisurely, like the only torch bearer toward darkened wanderers.

  They could see him between birds, which flailed as they scattered around him like termites around a fire.

  Closer, they saw that he was tall, hooded and cloaked. He held a staff in his right hand above him and the light he made came from its tip, which was a gem like a large white diamond, kite cut and upside down so that the taller end faced upward.

  The light sprayed from and showered around him in a perfect dome of white sparks that fell like rain. As they passed over the boys and Bombo, the sparks felt heavy and slipped off them like water, though they retained their shape and simply splattered on the ground, leaving neither person nor grass wet.

  Under the dome, they knelt, heaving, while the man simply stood fixed in place, towering over them.

  Windston found himself completely winded and he stood on his knees and draped himself over his sword, which he had plunged into the ground in front of him.

  There, in peace despite the thunderous raucous all around them and the shadows of monsters that flapped and fluttered as they squeaked and squawked enraged, the boys and Bombo felt sleepy. They began to drift, as if lulled more by the humming and thrumming of the white magic than disturbed by the swarming monstrosities, which still passed over and around and would continue to do so for hours upon hours.

  At one point, Windston found himself craning his neck to look up at the robed figure. When he did, the figure glowed brightly, so much so that he couldn't bear to look. This happened to Bombo as well, and Frem, and they remembered in the morning when they found themselves alone in the beaten grass surrounded by blood and guts and beaks and heads and feet and wings and feathers – lots of feathers.

  They gathered themselves there and checked after their belongings, that which they could find. There wasn't much – no food, no water – but they carried on anyway. They headed north and north and north until noon and then west when they thought they saw a building on a hill beyond a trampled wooden fence.

  They had; it was an abandoned farmhouse and barn. The barn was tidier than the house, so they camped there in the hay. When they awoke it was morning again and a rooster crowed and starving pigs oinked and ducks chuckled on marches and on water in a pond north of the farmhouse. There were fish in that pond that Frem sent flying with submerged explosions, Windston caught, and Bombo cooked.

  They stayed there for three days. On the third, Frem left to search the rock they'd found themselves on at the beginning of the stampede. That night, with at least some of their valued belongings retrieved, they set out northwest toward the twin mountains, which were faint monsters on the horizon. There, Bombo would head his way and the boys would go theirs; he would hunt Boulder, and the boys, alone now again, would head north and east to the Great Drop and the Frozen Swamp to climb Ice Mountain with the stones.