Page 48 of Up from the Earth

The word was small, spoken in my head in a voice no bigger than a thimble. I scanned the battle zone around me. There was nothing up at the distant edge of the hill, nothing behind me in the grayed-out landscape that stretched for eternity.

And then I felt it.

Something tugged at the hem of my dress, and I looked down. My eyes flared wide, pooling with tears as my jaw dropped.

“Cern?”

The small rabbit leaned back onto his hind legs, blinking his dark eyes up at me.“I am here. Tell me what I can do.”

“Oh, Gods,” I knelt at his feet, reaching out to stroke my fingers across the silky fur of his back, “I don’t know. I can’t get near him. I have no weapon or protection now that my plate has been damaged. I can’t feel the earth, Cern. It’s so far away, and I…I need it back.”

I’d never been very confident in this endeavor, and whatever little shred of it I’d had was failing.

“I am of nature, Mistress. Connect to me. Call up what you need.”

It seemed ridiculous. He was a rabbit, a tiny little bunny against the forces of a profound evil that even The Beast King couldn’t affect. But what the hell did I have to lose?

Taking him in my arms, I pulled him against my chest, connecting to that heartbeat that we both shared. He was of nature, and wasn’t I? Had I forgotten that in all this chaos? I wasn’t simply Cerridwen. I was everything that I’d been through, everything I’d learned. The power of instinct and devotion and wisdom rang in my bones like the first bird calls of spring.

I need you, Cern. I need you to be strong with me. We can let him destroy…everything.

A rush of wind lifted us through the air, taking us several feet above the ground. I was tossed up, and the warmth of new growth extending from beneath the soil gripped and bolstered me. Cern levitated there before me, emanating a nearly blinding glow. I held up my hand to shield my eyes, peering through my fingers.

And he changed.

Cern elongated, expanded, and evolved. At once, he was a massive creature of emboldened sinew and smooth gray hair. Crawling through the air toward him, I climbed aboard his back, mounting my unorthodox steed. He shook his head as I settled over his back, the connection between us resonating through my blood.

I could sense it. That bit of earth, of air and water and fire. I could channel them—with the help of my familiar.

“This is hardly what I expected.”Cern’s long legs carried him through the volcanic sky toward Father Paine.“But I shall fight with you to the end, Mistress.”

“She can’t keep that barrier up, Cern. Be ready for the shockwave.”

As if on cue, it faltered, my Queen knocked down to her knees as the shimmering darkness was shattered into fragments of the afterlife. Father Paine reached forward with a spindly arm, his fingers too long for his body, as large and larger than his torso. The clawed appendages seized hold of her hair, coiling the unending length of her braid around his fist before throwing her from the hill.

“No!”

Digging my heels into Cern’s sides, I urged him onward, a direct rush for the priest. I held out my hands, channeling that wild essence I felt between us. A vine shot forward from my arm, wrapped around the lower half and lancing straight through the air to Paine’s head. The tip twisted on itself to form a crude point, resembling my blade. It drove into his temple, knocking him backward as he floated.

Blood dripped down the side of his face, putrid and coagulated, the color of spoiled excretions. But then a spike from below rocketed up toward us, and Cern had to bank hard to the right, nearly flinging me off into the pits below. I clung to his fur, knowing it had to ache where I yanked on his skin, but I held my place.

“Get me down there.”

Without hesitation, Cern maneuvered through the weeds that sprang through the ground, chain and iron facsimiles of the natural order. We weaved in and out until we hovered in the space in front of Father Paine. My back was to the uncorrupted horizon while the priest’s pit of hell swelled behind the tear he’d created.

“You will not touch them again.” I sent daggers through my stare into the abomination.

“Oh, ho, ho. The little bitch found a horse to ride into battle.” He slowly withdrew my blade, his tongue flapping in his mouth as he did so. “Oh, wait. That’s a fucking rabbit. And I touch whatever I want.”

The sword zoomed across the sky toward me as Father Paine hurled it from his short distance away. I flung up a shield of wind, but as it flew end over end, the point settled in the gust wall, digging in, refusing to back down. It persisted, and my strength was faltering, too much used to merely keep Cern and me aloft.

“It’s going to penetrate.” My heart sank a second from the moment my magic snapped apart. “Duck!”

Time felt as though it froze. I could hear someone screaming from fathoms below me as the air whizzed by my face. Cern dove down with everything he had, turning his body in mid-air so that he existed between me and the sharp end of the incoming blade. We moved quicker and quicker, my being humming with the desperate need to get out of range.

The earth rushed toward us, its deteriorated features growing in clarity as the two of us hurled closer to another end. Hitting the craggy stone would serve us no better than being run through with a sword. Though, Cern might be able to roll at the last moment, saving us from the worst damage.

“Cerridwen!”

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