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  Gallien stepped closer to him. “Tayben?” Gallien reached out and grabbed Tayben’s arm, and Tayben jumped and stared in terror at his friend, like being woken from a nightmare. Vainly, Tayben spun back to see the glowing flower, but it was not there. “Tayben,” said Gallien, “you’re not well.”

  Tayben looked at his hands and whispered, “I know.”

  Gallien put a hand on Tayben’s shoulder. “Your country needs you, Tayben. The Ferrs are pressing through Endlebarr and we’re the only thing that’s stopping them.”

  Tayben nodded. “Gallien, are we on the right side of the war?”

  Gallien looked around and swallowed. “Of course . . .” He seemed to be unnerved by the question. Changing the subject, Gallien shook his head. “. . . You need some water; then let’s get back to the rest of the group.” Gallien led Tayben through the undergrowth of the forest. But Tayben suddenly came to a halt.

  “Tayben, come on, let’s go.” Gallien looked in the direction Tayben was looking — empty, golden-red forest. “What are you looking at, Tayben?” A single flower bursting with rays of light glowed on the ground in front of Tayben. “Tayben, what are you looking at?” Gallien saw nothing but more trees ablaze with autumn colors.

  Tayben shook his head. “Nothing.”

  ◆◆◆

  Gallien Aris sat on a tree branch, scanning the golden forest around him, sensing every moving leaf and scurrying forest animal. Albeire Harkil of the First Platoon sat beside him doing the same. “Aris,” he said, “do you feel it?”

  Gallien nodded with his eyes closed. “Yes.”

  “That’s what we’re fighting for, the nymphs gave us this power, and the amount of loyalty we give them determines how much of that power lives within us. It’s fading in some of us.”

  Gallien opened his eyes. “It’s fading in Tayben, isn’t it?” Harkil stayed silent. “When we fought at the hollow and the unseeable beast attacked, he wasn’t paralyzed . . . that beast had something inside of it . . . a force, a magic, or something of the sort, that fights us . . . It didn’t fight Tayben.”

  Harkil closed his eyes. “Trust the nymphs, Aris . . . don’t let their power fade in you as well . . .”

  ◆◆◆

  “We’re right about here.” said General Lekshane, pointing at a map of Western Endlebarr. “We think there’s a massive Ferramish force about to leave Camp Stoneheart about ten miles away.” he traced a little path through the miles of forest and the rest of the Phantoms listened closely. “Although we haven’t heard from Vaya Irroy since the destruction of the Great Gate, Harkil pointed out to us that the songs have changed from birds that are flying from this direction.”

  “The objective?” asked Thephern Luck.

  General Lekshane folded the map. “To cut their force into two pieces. If we take out this group of Ferrs, it will split their communication chain.”

  “And how much time will that buy Cerebria?”asked Thephern.

  General Lekshane hesitated. “A week.”

  Thephern shook his head. “What does a week matter?”

  Harkil glared at Thephern. “It’s all we have; time is all we have at this point . . . We lost at the Great Gate and we lost in Aunestauna. The Ferrs are pushing back with frightening force.” Harkil breathed in the cool forest air. “What’s a week? . . . A week is a chance.”

  “Harkil is right.” said General Lekshane. “We must do everything we can to buy our army time. Our forces are building again to meet the Ferrs. The war will be won or lost in this forest.” General Leakshane looked to the canopy. “We can travel by ground until we come within three miles; then we go to the trees. We’ll scout out the Ferrs and decide on a course of action from there . . . I don’t want any surprises this time.”

  ◆◆◆

  After travelling for a few hours, the night fell, and Tayben followed behind Gallien, who ran after fellow Phantom Chent on the massive tree branches of the forest. Tayben’s legs ached and his lungs heaved for breath; his muscles burned after running for so long. Slowly, he fell behind the rest of the Phantoms. Trying to keep up, he vainly pounded his legs forward, but his boot slid under a vine on the tree, sending him flying forward, slamming his chest into the wide branch.

  The little air he had managed to keep rushed out of his body, and Tayben gasped for air after falling. Finally managing to catch his breath, Tayben looked behind him at the root, which he didn’t see in the dark . . . the forest was darker every day. Why didn’t I see that root? A feeling of weakness overtook him — a feeling of human vulnerability.

  From ahead, running footsteps approached, and Gallien soon appeared in the dark. “Tayben, are you alright?” Gallien, who even after sprinting back, wasn’t breathing any different from normally, helped pick Tayben up. “Did you fall?”

  “Yes, sorry . . . I- I didn’t see a vine.”

  “You look a little green, Tayben.”

  Tayben breath heavily. “I’m just tired . . . I don’t know why.”

  “Well we need to catch up to the rest, they’re going a bit slower for you . . . Tayben, is there something you need to tell me?”

  Tayben hesitated. “No.”

  “If there’s anything —”

  “I’m fine, Gallien!”

  Gallien looked out into the fog surrounding them. “Alright, you know yourself . . .” Gallien pointed forward, still concerned. “Let’s go.”

  Tayben nodded and followed, glancing to the side at a bright glowing flower that Gallien apparently could not see.

  “Smell that smoke?” whispered Lekshane to the Phantoms who stood in the massive trees. A dim orange light glowed a mile away from them, and a far-off clanking of armor could be heard. “We’re here.” said Lekshane. “First Platoon, scan their perimeter and come back here to report. Second, take these branches and scout the area above the Ferramish camp. Come back if you see or hear anything . . . strange.”

  “You mean the beast?” said Thephern.

  General Lekshane nodded and a chill ran through Tayben, who saw flashes of the creature’s terrible claws crashing through a tree. They had not encountered the beast since the last time they attacked Stoneheart, but now Tayben knew what is was — a weapon.

  “I think it will see us before we see it.” said Thephern.

  “Just be on the lookout . . . Third platoon, branch out and report any movement; the Ferrs shouldn’t relocate tonight. Go.” The platoons departed, and Tayben and the Second Platoon followed Thephern toward the lights of the Ferramish camp.

  A hundred feet below Tayben and the Phantoms, even rows of Ferramish soldiers stood with shields and swords. A commander in a large scarlet cape and helmet addressed his soldiers by torchlight that illuminated the fog and the underbrush. Tayben couldn’t pick out what the commander said, but high in the canopy, the others heard and widened their eyes. Ferron Grenzo turned to Thephern, “Why are they ready to fight? We should’ve caught them in their sleep.”

  Thephern shook his head. “I don’t know, but there’s something strange about this . . . they shouldn’t know we’re here.” From down below, the Ferramish commander looked straight up at the canopy, and the Phantoms dodged out of view.

  Gallien peeked over the edge of a branch again to see the soldiers. “We have to tell Lekshane that the Ferrs are prepared for an attack; it’s too dangerous.”

  “He’s right.” whispered Chent. “We can’t take this many of them.”

  “We did it last time we were here.” whispered Ferron.

  “Last time,” said Chent, “we were paralyzed by one swing of that monster.”

  Thephern turned to them. “We haven’t sensed it.”

  “Did we sense it last time?” whispered Tayben, now knowing the full capabilities of the monster and its brothers. “If it wants to attack again, we won’t know.”

  Ferron pointed below. “We don’t even know that the thing was Ferramish.”

  “In this whole forest, the only time we’ve seen it, it was a thousand y
ards from a Ferramish camp.” whispered Gallien. “That’s no coincidence. General Lekshane needs to know we have lost the element of surprise and then decide what to do. Let’s go back.”

  The Phantoms agreed and turned around. Tayben stepped forward and broke through a small dead branch, and Gallien caught his arm as the branch snapped and plummeted a hundred feet down. Tayben held his breath as the branch hit the ground not two feet away from the commander, who turned around and picked it up.

  “Go!” whispered Gallien as the commander shouted out orders, and the Phantoms sprinted in a blur of black away from the scene.

  Reaching the General at the same time as the First Platoon, Thephern and the others told Lekshane what they saw. “They’re in armor?” he asked. Thephern and the others nodded. “How do they know they are about to be attacked?”

  “We don’t know, sir.” said Thephern.

  The General thought in silence for a minute. “We need a win.”

  “Sir,” said Gallien, “how are we supposed to beat a force this size when they’re prepared for us? Plus, we don’t know if the monster is here.”

  “We’ve made it work before, we’ll do it again.”

  “I’m sorry sir, but it didn’t work the last time we tried.” said Chent.

  “Well then why are we here!” yelled the General with no regard to the fact that they might be heard. The General sighed and lowered his voice. “We must take risks . . . get Third Platoon back here and prepare yourselves to attack.”

  A battalion of Ferramish soldiers — around one tenth of the Camp — stood unmoving in the underbrush with their swords drawn. The fog around them swirled strangely, and they barely had time to turn their heads when sixteen black shadows shot out of the trees.

  Within seconds, the entire battalion rang out in clashing swords and armor, and men yelled, trying to duck below the arrows that the shadows fired at them.

  Tayben and Gallien stood back to back, driving their spear and sword into the Ferramish troops. Tayben tried to block out the gut-wrenching screams from his mind as he felt his spear sliced through flesh and bone — men that had families and memories. Battle horns blared as Tayben ducked from a swing of a longsword. Seconds passed by like minutes as the Phantoms battled off Ferramish soldiers slicing them apart, leaving them dead on the forest floor.

  A Ferramish commander yelled out formations as the ground began to shake from the pounding of a charge of cavalry. Tayben yanked his spear out of a dead soldier and embedded it into the chest of a horse as it drove past. Gallien jumped up and knocked a soldier off a horse as Thephern grabbed another and slit his neck.

  As the horses fell dead or ran away, Tayben looked down to see a blonde phantom from another platoon lying unmoving on the ground with a bloody face. General Lekshane pulled out his sword from a horse and shouted to the Phantoms, “To the trees!”

  Tayben followed after the streaking shadows, trying in vain to keep up. His strength was draining from his body by the second. As he grasped the vines and knots of the mossy tree, the commander below ordered another formation. Tayben scurried up the side of the building-sized tree trunk and onto a bridge-like branch far above the forest floor, hidden by a canopy of leaves.

  The Phantoms regathered and Thephern spoke up. “We need to get to their watchtowers.”

  General Lekshane nodded. “Chent, you lead the rest of our archers to the watchtowers. Take out the sentries at the top and climb up to pick off the generals and officers from above.”

  Chent nodded and motioned four others to follow him, and they jumped off the branch into the canopy, grabbing onto vines as they descended.

  Lekshane looked to the remaining cloaked Phantoms. “The rest of us will re-form by the eastern barracks and fight the Ferramish brigade there.”

  ~Ten Minutes Later

  Tayben landed on the soft soil of the underbrush next to Thephern and Gallien. The First Platoon of Phantoms had taken out droves of Ferrs while the Phantom archers were taking the watchtowers in the distance.

  Another swarm of Ferramish soldiers rushed towards them with raised spears. The Phantoms drew their weapons, but just before the Ferramish reached them, they stopped at a command from their officer and almost immediately began retreating.

  Gallien looked to Tayben for an answer, but Tayben was just as confused. A smile crept over Lekshane’s face at the sight of fleeing soldiers, but it vanished when a reptilian roar shook the earth.

  Lekshane spun around to the Phantoms. “Ready yourselves,” he said, “it could be anywhere.”

  The forest fell silent, and the Phantoms’ heightened senses turned dull. Tayben’s heart pounded as he waited, standing at the ready. And then, just to his side, Thephern yelled out. Tayben turned to see what had happened, but it looked like he was fine. And then he saw it, a tree root like a living serpent wrapped around his leg. It tightened and then smashed his body into the ground, snapping his leg. Tayben then looked forward and saw it, a monster like a living tree, made of roots and leaves, sprung out from the underbrush, sending roots shooting through the ground and up towards the Phantoms. Tayben felt it latch onto him as he dug his spear downward, into the beast.

  With no time to think, Tayben wrenched his foot free and through his spear into the beast, causing it to roar a strange, rattling noise. Tayben looked down at Gallien, whose body was covered in roots that were slowly tightening. Tayben jumped forward and slashed the beast’s branches off Gallien and pulled him to his feet.

  As the two turned back to help the others, who fought off the beast, another shape like molten metal and fire began to form and claw at the others.

  Gallien looked in horror. “There are more of them . . .”

  The molten beast turned toward Tayben and Gallien and sent a fireball toward them, which they barely dodged, singeing the ends of their cloaks. The beast’s roar reminded Tayben of the billow at his father’s blacksmith shop in Woodshore . . . only a hundred times louder

  Tayben quickly stood and drew his sword, ducking to the side to dodge another fireball. He grabbed Gallien and pulled him through the underbrush over rotting logs and winding brooks to try and escape the beast.

  Crossing another stream, Tayben and Gallien stopped in their tracks when a different roar thundered through the forest. The sound rumbled through their bones and then stopped, leaving everything deathly still. Gallien raised his longsword. “We need to get back to the—” another roar broke out, and the two of them whistled for the Phantoms, communicating their location. To Tayben, the forest was silent, but Gallien heard a return call and began to climb a tree. “This way!”

  Tayben climbed after him but was far slower. The ache in his shoulders and legs tore at him as he grabbed vine after vine. Tayben could no longer see the black shadow of Gallien that had disappeared into the canopy. The energy inside him was fading. Trying not to think of it, he fought up the tree in pursuit of Gallien’s long-gone trail. He reached for another vine, but couldn’t pull himself up before it snapped, sending his body tumbling through the air, slashing through forty feet of razor-sharp branches. Cut and torn, his body hit the damp forest floor with a crack. Coughing, he pushed himself off the ground and glanced a red helmet . . . a Ferramish officer stood before him. The horse beside the General ran away at the sight of Tayben, and the officer held a gleaming sword more perfectly crafted than anything else he’d seen before.

  Not waiting for the Ferr to take the first blow, Tayben lunged forward with his sword, but the Ferr swiped it to the side. Tayben took another swing at the Ferr, but the Ferr blocked it, expertly trained. Tayben hesitated when the Ferr shouted at him, “Stop!” Tayben glanced around, and then took another swipe at the Ferr, who blocked his blow perfectly. The Ferr repeated, “Stop!” Undeterred, Tayben drove his sword forward deep into the foot of the officer who screamed out in pain. Tayben knocked the glimmering sword out of the officer’s hands and kicked him back. The Ferr crawled back against a tree root as Tayben stood and raised his sword high wi
th a tear in his eye. Just kill him. As Tayben began to swing, the Ferr tore off his scarlet helmet. Tayben stopped his sword a foot from Eston’s neck; Eston looked back at him with tears in his eyes and raised hands.

  Tayben dropped the sword and stood in shock, as a roar echoed around Tayben and Eston. Tayben looked to himself in fear, but Eston raised a hand in pain and grimaced. “Wait.” said Eston, breathing heavily. To Tayben’s right, a dark shape grew larger in the fog, and his heart began to race. The shape let out a rumbling growl as it came closer and emerged out of the fog.

  Tayben held his breath, gazing at the enormous creature standing in front of him. Glistening like a million icicles, the beast’s white ice spikes and scales jingled and chimed as it stepped toward on four legs to Tayben. Nearly thirty feet tall with four jagged wings and two scaly tails, the beast stepped closer to Tayben, sending freezing gusts of air with every breath; it stood there like a dragon of ice.

  Realizing he could not outrun the monster and nearly paralized with fear, he chose to stand his ground. The beast lowered its head next to Tayben’s body, where its eyes were the size of Tayben’s head. From a few yards away, Eston tried to stand, but failed. “Show him the flower.” Eston said to the creature.

  Tayben shrank back as the creature bent down and its bright blue iris began to swirl like ink in water. But when he looked closely, the eye reflected an image of a glowing flower. Entranced, Tayben inched closer to the monster, gazing in its eye that seemed to expand and encompass his whole field of vision. As he looked into the eye, all was dark, save for a single glowing flower in the middle. I know this . . . what is it? I’ve seen it before. From somewhere he couldn’t see, Tayben heard Eston shout, “You have to go . . . you have to leave this place . . . leave the Phantoms.”

  Where do I go? A different voice from someplace he couldn’t see whispered, “Here.” The forest around Tayben began to reappear, and Tayben wiped a tear from his eye as the beast stood back up.