CHAPTER SIX

The sun-dappled tree tops crashed by like waves on either side of me as I rode toward the Avalons. My entire body bounced with each stride. Flatchert strode forward, her hooves hitting dirt and spraying it into the air. She was neither a racer nor a war horse, so she must have sensed my anxiety because she moved quicker than I ever thought she could. Perhaps, she knew as well as I did, that although we were safe, Mallow was not.

As I crested the hill, I could see the Avalons on the other side of the steep slope. The road was a strand of compacted brown dirt flanked by tall grass. They were trotting along, as ignorant as I thought they'd be of the crisis occurring just a few minutes' ride away. The flag was held aloft with magic; no gloved hand wrapped around the pole. It levitated at a great height. One Avalon's laugh caught on the breeze and met my ears.

I didn't stop to catch my breath, but kept riding, knowing my words couldn't reach them from this far away. They were mere glints of silver, three stones in a brown river beneath the summer sun. As the indistinct shimmer of their armor became clearer the closer I got, they saw me as well. Their postures became rigid, the darkened eyes of the helmets locked onto me. The Avalon that was riding a little bit ahead of the other two reached to the side of her horse.

She drew out a bow, not quite as tall as me. It was shapely silver, more expensive than the yearly taxes most villages paid. She said nothing, warning me by aiming. The other two that were with her glanced toward her, and then reached for their own weapons. Now that their chatter and laughter had gone, the sounds of Flatchert's heavy breathing and straining legs in the empty space was too loud.

"Help!" I screamed. She reached behind her to her quiver. I was close enough to see the fingers, articulated and wrapped in white leather, searching to grab hold of the feathery fletch of an arrow. I continued. "We're being attacked by bandits!" I roared, flecks of spit escaping my lips. They continued to stare at me, only breaking the glower to throw sidelong glances at one another.

Then the one in front, her face shrouded by the obtrusive silver helmet that made all Avalons indistinct, gave a slight nod. She lowered her bow. Her companions, both men larger than her, sheathed their weapons.

Their horses, twice as big as my wheezing Flatchert, were thoroughbred. Without straining, they were on me in half the time it would have taken me to reach them. I yanked Flatchert's reins hard, her hooves struggling to find purchase in the dirt. I wordlessly guided the Avalons back toward the attack. I could heard the Avalons following me. If they could help, make sure we all made it out of this in one piece, then I could forgive Avalons for their usually annoying tendencies.

We crossed the peak of the hill together, but on the descent the Avalons pulled ahead of me.

The woman rode in front. She shouted something I couldn't hear over the four sets of hooves thundering in the dirt. She drew out her bow. I surveyed the scene, searching for the other bandits. The one Mallow was now holding by his hair several feet off the ground wasn't a threat, so I wondered if the bandits had somehow gotten down from the trees. The lady loaded a feathered arrow into her bow, pulling back her arm. Her horse came to a stop, as it recognized the shifting of its rider's weight when about to attack. The other two stopped beside her, short swords revealed from their scabbards and held at their sides.

There was just the gibbering of the man, the weak panting of Flatchert, and the drowsy singing of birds in the afternoon. The bow released, a fwicking sound, and the arrow sailed toward its target. My breath stopped as I charted its trajectory, not toward the tree line, not even to the dangling bandit with his helpless kicking legs. The arrow would find its Giant target easily. There was the wet sound of punctured flesh, and then Mallow's booming, animal-like scream.

I tried to shout, but my words were stuck by the shock of seeing Mallow attacked. Flatchert whinnied and galloped toward Mallow without me urging her. The Avalons hurried to where Mallow and the bandit were.

Although Mallow had jerked when hit, she still stood and held the bandit up by his hair. She swatted at the arrow that had planted itself in her side, the bloody tip dropping and rolling against the dusty road. Silver against white, a trail of blood rolled from the wound the arrow left down her side. She had not screamed intelligently, and had only glanced at me and the Avalons. Despite the more pressing threat, she was focused on the bandit.

"The arrow did nothing to her, Sir Medenhall," one of the men said. The lady Avalon, Medenhall, swore.

"We're going to have to use magic," she said.

"Wait..." I tried to ride up beside her, but the two men flanking her allowed me no passage. I hopped off Flatchert and shouldered my way next to the woman, scraping my arm on the toe of her metal boots. She gawked down at me in surprise. "Wait, don't attack. Those men are bandits!"

Mallow dropped him, but before he hit the ground, she landed her injured foot onto the man's chest. He went sprawling back, flipping several times, his arms like that of a doll. He came to a rest, but Mallow inched forwards. Gasping and sputtering blood from where it gathered somewhere deep inside of him, he moved to grab one extra sword from his side. Mallow slammed her foot down. Not even too hard, not that I could tell, but placing it well. Right at the elbow.

The bandit leader's screams ripped through the trees. Mallow twisted her heel, and she hissed. The man beneath her foot swatted at her ankle with his free hand.

"You expect us to sit here and watch a Moon Giant eat this man?" Medenhall asked me.

"She's not going to eat him. She's just scaring him," I said, keeping the sound of my own doubt out of my voice. I shouted to Mallow. "Mallow, it's okay! I found help!"

A low growl rumbled through Mallow. She hadn't heard me. She moved her foot, and the man scurried. She stomped down again, pinning his ankle this time. It had been crushed into powder, and I winced in sympathy.

"Please!" he cried. "Show mercy!"

"Who..." She removed her foot, but he was in too much pain to escape now. "Ever heard of a Giant showing mercy to a weak little morsel?" she asked. My spine crawled with panicked itching as I watched her tongue emerge from the corner of her mouth and lick across her lips.

"Giant, who is—" Medenhall began to speak. But no, it wasn't speaking. Her voice had become flat, unaffected by the current situation, the tone of a recitation. She was going to cast a spell. I broke free from the crowd of the Avalons and ran forward, waving my hands.

"Mallow!" I shouted. "Mallow, it's me! Your Dad!" The word 'dad' felt awkward, but I had to say it, I was desperate at this point. The trick worked. She tilted her head in confusion, and it took her a few seconds to focus on me instead of the man on the ground crying. It took a few more before she turned her attention to me fully. Her eyes were wide, the blood red pupils huge, but gradually, as I talked to her, she focused. "Yes, me, Dad."

"Dad?" she repeated, her voice searching like when still half asleep and she had not yet opened her eyes. I grimaced. I was in a lot of pain, not just from hearing the man's wails, but from my own hand, shoulder, and chest wounds. I hadn't lost control of her yet. Not yet.

"Yeah, Mallow, we won." I panted, the words were breathless from this last sprint. There was one bandit unaccounted for. The Avalons were remote on their horses as they watched. Medenhall was no longer moving her mouth. "No need to go any further."

Mallow's attention was once more removed from me. She stared out at the crying bandit. Her eyes took on a distant glaze as his cries continued. Mallow breathed in once, heavy. She took a long step toward the man. It was like his crying was drawing her, igniting her hostilities. Is this why she had been so hard on the man at the tavern? Did patheticness somehow trigger this reaction?

I reached up my hands to touch her, to slow her. Wind struck me, and silver blood sprayed out in a fine mist around my wrist. I stumbled back from the dark shafts that blurred in my vision. Mallow pulled away from me, howling.

Three arrows were embedded in her skin. Their colored feathered tips danced as Mallow twisted in pain. They were tipped with magic, sparks crawling out from the shafts like a burst egg sack of baby spiders. These sparks bit deeper than spiders could have. I could tell by Mallow's pained moans as she lost her balance. The arrow that caught along the top hem of her loin cloth emitted a burning fabric smell. Mallow fell to the ground with a heavy thud and began to tear the arrows out.

"Frigid misery and wintery..." She cried. "Bitter ice... what happened?"

Her words were mangled by the tears running down her face. The Avalons were composed in the distance but drawing nearer with the steady, unhurried clopping of hooves. They chanted:

"Giant who snapped ligament and bone, to this dusty road be laid prone."

Mallow muscles strained visibly against the flesh but her body was pinned by invisible ropes to the ground. Then she sobbed, a wind of surrender, and sank against the dirt. The crumpled feathers of the broken off end of an arrow were still in her hand.

"Sir Halley, go attend to the injured man," Mendenhall ordered. One of the male Avalons loped over to the injured bandit. With a voice full of compassion and sweetness, he knelt down and checked on him. The bandit avoided the other's gaze. This just made him seem more wounded, and the Avalon went to work trying to heal him with more fervor than before. The spells fluttered out, short couplets of soothing. And yet, the man remained in a critical state, his deep red blood pooling the ground where the Avalon knelt. If it wasn't for the helmet, I'm sure I could have seen Halley's face scrunching in confusion and frustration.

I could tell him the magic wasn't working because the guy he was trying to heal was a bandit and the incantation aimed to heal an innocent victim. Yet, I stayed quiet. I wanted to let the icicle suffer more. I wanted to argue and harass the Avalons... but the three arrows jutting up from Mallow's stomach like a macabre flower bed demanded my attention. Mallow screamed. I hadn't heard her howl like that since she'd taken a rough fall into a riverbank when she was three. It was a child-like and uncontrollable weeping. She wasn't even saying 'Dad' or 'Help,' just sounds.

I fell to my knees on the path next to her. It was unsettling for her to be beneath me, for me see her face from this angle. I was so used to the view from below her chin. The sparks were now only trickling out of the arrows instead of swarming. Everywhere strands of blue wove in and out of Mallow's skin bloodlessly like an afterimage of staring at the backs of my eyelids.

"Mallow," I said, hands flexing uselessly. I wanted to pull the arrows from her stomach, but I knew that would make her bleed faster. And what if they triggered something even worse in the strands of the spell that had already settled into her body?

"Careful!" Medenhall ordered after me. "Even an incapacitated Moon Giant—"

"She's my guard, you ice brained dolt." I clutched Mallow's massive hand in mine. My eyes swept up to the carriage. No solutions there. If only I were a real Potioneer, then... then I lowered my hand to my side. I slipped my sash aside. Inside a padded pocket, beneath my sash, the glass of a delicate potion bottle met my fingertips. I could stop her bleeding right now.

The only legitimate potion I had. The only thing I'd stolen, broken my own rules for. I had to have just one. Just one to make sure I didn't die the same way my dad had, waiting for someone to help me, just one rhyming sentence away from salvation. My thumb hesitated on the cork as Mallow bled out. If I used it, I'd likely never be able to get another one.

"Your guard?" Medenhall asked me, the clinking of her armor irregular as she inched forward to get a better view of Mallow. As she got behind me, she lifted her gloved hand and covered her nose. "Ugh. What's that smell?"

I ignored her. Mallow's smell had gotten stronger. Her distinct magical creature scent that tickled the roof of my mouth. Her enchanted blood was outside her body, on everything. Usually I found Mallow's odd scent comforting, it reminded me of wealth, but right now...

I heard the voice of Halley travel from behind me, unseen. It was accompanied by the sound of tearing bandages. So he had given up on the magic by this point and had gotten out the Avalon's handy medicine kit. He blamed himself for the spells failure.

"You know, this guy is sort of familiar," Halley said. "Sir Stricklen, get over here."

Stricklen's armor clinked as he shuffled over to where Halley and the bandit where, leaving me and Medenhall alone with Mallow.

"You've got to heal her." I pleaded with Medenhall. I couldn't use the potion. It was worth more coin than I'd earned these last four years. I just couldn't. What if something happened to me later?

"She was going to eat that man; we both saw it. Leaving her to die is for the best," Medenhall said. "It's unusual that she's down here during the day, but with the other evidence that's no guarantee of- Is that tree bleeding?" Medenhall's head turned to examine the tree line. She was examining one of the bandit-occupied trees.

Mallow gasped, trembling. The sparks had now stopped, and she was able to move. The magic had done its damage, now to remove the arrows...

She twisted reflexively, and I knew the arrows were getting buried deeper in her. I reached out, grabbing her and trying to keep her from curling further with one hand while the other searched for the arrows.

"Calm down, Mallow, come on." I yanked, my own injured hand pulsed with pain as I pulled. I couldn't nudge her an inch; she continued to shift inwards like a bug beneath a rock exposed to sudden sunlight. A second after, my fingertip flitted across the now-sticky feathers. I pulled one arrow free, and like wine uncorked silver blood gurgled out. This wasn't going to work. I tossed the arrow aside.

I found Medenhall peering up at the branches of a tree. My eyes skimmed to the tree tops. One leg still jutted out. Oh hex it...

"She's innocent! Think of how bad it'll be if you kill an innocent," I shouted at her.

"There's more men up here," Medenhall said. "They are not in good shape. I'll heal them... let's see... Men in a tree, repair all wounds I can see," she chanted. She stared for a few more seconds. She winced as a trickle of blood from the tree rained down on her helmet, and then side-stepped. She studied her hands.

"My magic... it's not doing anything."

"That's because—" I began.

Halley and Stricklen had been talking between themselves, hard to hear the rapid and quiet back and forth for a while. I was cut off when Stricklen raised his voice, calling out to his commander, Medenhall.

"It might have been self-defense after all, Sir Medenhall." Over my shoulder I saw Stricklen and Halley crouched down on either side of the bandit. Halley was holding him up by the back so that he could clearly examine his face. Sir Sticklen leaned in close, and then focused on Medenhall. The bandit's head swayed as he tried to find a way to hold up his own weight with the injuries. "This scar here... This is the bandit Tyrone Toombs. Back at the Avalon Academy we've got a criminal scroll a mile long on this gu-ack!"

The bandit leader elbowed Halley, knocking his helmet askance and blinding him. Stricklen caught a knife in the neck. Halley struggled with his helmet. Stricklen collapsed to the ground wheezing. Tyrone Toombs scrambled to his feet and limped toward the woods. Since he was the bad guy, I had been trying to tell these icicles for the last ten minutes, they hadn't been able to use healing magic on him and his wounds were still fresh.

Tossing his helmet aside, Halley then cast a quick spell on his friend, who had gone motionless. Halley yanked the knife from Stricklen's throat, the wound sealing in its wake magically. The only blood was that which slicked the discarded knife

"Don't stare, let's get him!" Stricklen shouted as he staggered to his feet. He was still disoriented from his near-death experience. Halley hesitated, holding his comrade's armored elbow to steady him.

"Dad." Mallow gasped. "I'm dying. Where's the moon? I need it. I'm dying." She whimpered. I stood up and shouted at Medenhall to get her attention.

"We were the victims, all along, just as I said" My arms swept the air for emphasis. "She was defending us. You must heal her. You cannot kill her for protecting me from a notorious criminal. Or do you favor the criminal who stabbed your own man?"

Over her shoulder, Stricklen's steps were evening out. Stricklen drew his sword, uttered something quietly. The sword's blade ignited into flame.

Mendenhall inhaled and then cast.

"Arrow sent in error, undo the damage that gives this man terror," she said. I hovered over Mallow hopefully, but nothing happened. Mallow's words melted together; 'dad', 'moon', 'death'.

"You didn't heal her!" I shouted, unable to contain my composure. "I guess you must not like having magic that much if you're going to go around murdering innocent people!"

"I-I tried." The lady Avalon protested. She held up her hands. "It's because I struck an innocent..." Her eyes went wide. "Quick! Help!" She reached after her friend. "Sir Halley, if that Giant dies, I could lose my powers forever!" Good. About time she showed some urgency when it came to helping me and Mallow.

Sir Halley lingered in concern for Stricklen. Stricklen's white leather gloves popped a thumbs up. Then Stricklen ran into the woods, magically brought back to health already. He was going to get revenge on the bandit leader, one-on-one. Halley snatched his helmet from the grass, then hurried over to Medenhall.

He crouched down next to Mallow. He put his helmet back on, casting his face into darkness. There was silence for a second as he gathered his thoughts, and then:

"It's too soon for this Giant's end, for each present wound I request a gentle mend. Do not allow her blood to spill, for if it continues such action will kill."

My hand lingered above the potion. Maybe I should give it to her... but... it would be a waste if the spell worked this time... but then again... it could fail... . Magic had healed Sticklen so easily. He hardly felt the pain of having his throat slit. I waited, breathless.

Her eyes became more focused as she rolled her face toward me. The muscles of her body pushed the arrows out. The shafts rolled along the ground, gory but harmless. The blood dribbled from a gash across her stomach. Then, as soon as it had started, it stopped, lying stagnant in pools that rolled off her stomach like tears.

"Mallow?" I asked, concern clouded by relief. My hand left the potion in my sash.

She hiccupped. She propped herself up on her elbows. The two Avalons backed away, afraid in spite of my story panning out.

"That..." She wheezed. "... froze."

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