Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa (7 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There were five of them in all, their skin white as snow, their
platinum
hair flying behind them as their horses gained speed. Chris scurried behind us, warming the air up enough so we could function. He wouldn’t be able to use his power for anything else right now, so it was up to the four of us to defeat the ice nymphs.

“We need to knock them off their horses!” Blake yelled to us. “Then they’ll be easier to fight.”

I steadied my bow, ready to shoot. I didn’t even need to ask Blake to give me fire—he lit up the tip of the arrow with flames a second after I’d strung it through. I released the flaming arrow, aiming straight for the nymph in the center.

But she held her hand up and shot ice out of her palm, extinguishing the flame and stopping the arrow in its path.
As
the
arrow fell to the ground, Kate and Blake shot their guns at the nymphs, but the bullets deflected off their icy skin.

“The guns aren’t working!” Chris shouted to them. “You need to try something else.”

“I can’t!” Kate backed up and held her gun up in defeat. “The ground here is buried under more than a mile of ice—my powers won’t reach that far.”

The nymphs shot spears of ice at us from their hands, but Blake stopped each one with a fireball, melting them on impact. “They’re shooting fast,” he said, and just when he spoke, he missed one. It grazed Kate’s shoulder, ripping her outer layer of clothing. “I won’t be able to hold them off like this for much longer.”

Danielle held her hands up, and the ice daggers stopped. The nymphs flung their hands out as if creating them, but nothing happened. They pulled back on their horses, bringing them to a
halt
, and examined their hands in confusion. They raised them up and tried again, sneering when their powers still didn’t work. Their eyes were such a pale shade of blue that they looked almost white, and the inhumanness of their sharp features made me shudder. There was no warmth or kindness in their eyes—only a steely determination to kill us.

“I’m holding them off from using their powers.” Danielle still held her hands out in front of her, and her voice was straining from the effort. “But they’re strong—I won’t be able to keep this up for much longer.”

I strung another arrow through my bow, eyeing up my targets. “Give me more fire,” I told Blake, and he lit the tips of my arrows up with his flames. “Let’s see what the burning arrows do to them now that they can’t block them.”

I shot the arrow straight at the center nymph, and it seared into her chest, knocking her off her horse. She dropped into the snowy ground and melted right into it. I did it again, and again, and again, and again, until all of the ice nymphs were gone. Their horses looked around in confusion, as if searching for their riders, but I left the animals alone. It wasn’t the
horses
faults that their riders had been trying to attack us.

“That’s it?” Kate asked. “We’re in the clear?”

“Maybe…” I held tight onto my bow, just in case. I was about to lower it, when more horses with ice nymphs on them rose from the water and started galloping toward us—maybe twenty of them in all.

“Crap.” I gripped my bow and glanced over at Danielle. “Can you hold off their powers, too?”

“No.” She looked at them straight on, her eyes hard with determination. “There’s too many of them. But I have an even better idea.”

“Great,” Kate said, her voice shaking. “What do you need us to do?”

“Stand here, and don’t move,” Danielle instructed. “Use your swords to deflect their ice daggers
.
I’m going to let them get close. Just… don’t freak out, okay? I know what I’m doing.”

“I can melt most of the ice daggers with my fire,” Blake said, his lighter ready. “If they get too
close, I’ll fry them.”

I nodded, even though I’d never seen him control enough fire to fry all twenty ice nymphs at once. Hopefully they wouldn’t get close enough that it would come to that.

In the meantime, they were closing in on us, so I swung my bow over my shoulder and reached for my sword, ready to deflect any ice daggers that came my way. All I had to do was focus on feeling
where
the ice daggers were heading before they made their way there—like when Luke used the Force to deflect blasters off his lightsaber with his eyes closed.

The nymphs kept throwing their daggers, and we moved so quickly that we would be a blur to any human looking on. But doing so took energy, and the nymphs were seconds away from reaching us. Whatever Danielle had planned, she better do it
now
.

Just as I was preparing for onslaught, the ground shook and cracked open.
The gap
crumbled out toward the nymphs on their horses, until it was so wide that it would be impossible to jump. They screamed as they skidded forward, pulling on the horses to get them to slow down, their faces twisting in horror as they realized they didn’t have enough time to stop.
Together
w
ith their
horses
they
tumbled into the abyss, their cries echoing upward as they plunged down the dark descent.

I stared down the ravine until the last of the screams were silenced. My heart broke for the lives of the horses lost, but I forced myself to focus. 

“Was that the last of them?” I asked, glancing back up in preparation for more of them to surface from the moat.

“I hope so,” Chris said. “Because I’m not going to be able to keep the air around us warm for much longer. We need to get inside—quickly.”

“The horses from the first five nymphs are unharmed,” Blake said, looking at where the horses poked at the ground, as if expecting their riders to rise again from the snow. “We can take them and ride up to the palace.”

“How are we supposed to cross this canyon?” Chris asked. “I can’t fly each of us across and
keep the air warm at the same time.”

“It’s hardly a
canyon
,” Kate corrected him. “More like a ravine. But yeah, we’ll need to get across it. Danielle—you managed to open it. Now… can you close it?”

“Not without expending tons of unnecessary energy,” she said. “But this continent is
covered
in my element. I can figure out a more efficient way to get us across.”

With that, Danielle turned around, facing the expanse of snow behind us. She raised her arms, and when she did, the snow in front of her spiraled upward, as if caught in a tornado. More and more snow was pulled into it, until it was taller than a tree. Then it transformed from snowflakes to water, glimmering and sparkling under the sun. Danielle turned around, the water moving with her, and shot it toward the cliff. It molded itself into the shape of a bridge, freezing in an instant.

“There you go.” Danielle brushed her hands off and admired her creation. “Our very own ice-bridge, complete with railings so no one slips off. After all, we don’t need anyone scaring us, like Kate did when she almost fell off the ice-path I created in the cave.”

“I can’t believe that was only two months ago,” I said. “It feels like so much longer.”

“It does,” Danielle agreed. “It’s a miracle we got out of there alive. I had no idea what I was doing with my power back then.”

“We can talk about all this later,” Chris said, stepping up to the bridge. “We have to get to the palace before I run out of strength to keep the temperature up. Kate—are you coming?” He held his hand out to her and watched her expectantly.

“You don’t think I can manage to cross the bridge myself?” she asked.

“No—I know you can,” he said. “But I figured I would offer. For old times sake.”

“In that case…” She stepped up to him and placed her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

They led the way, and Blake held out his hand to me as well. I took it, allowing him to lead me across the bridge. Danielle followed behind.

Once Chris and Kate were across, Blake picked me up, cradling me in his arms and
starting
to run. “Race you to the horses!” he called behind him, as the others hurried to catch up. I wrapped my arms around his neck, laughing the entire way there.

The others reached the horses at the same time that we did. Even though we had a head start, we were slower since Blake carried me the entire way. He placed me down, and I looked up into his eyes, wanting to kiss him so badly. I almost did… but then I stopped myself. Because the last time I’d kissed Blake in the middle of a mission, I’d lost time that I might have been able to use to save Rachael.

We would have time together once we returned home. For now, I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted.

“Have you ever ridden a horse before?” I asked him instead.

“A few times at summer camp,” he said. “It wasn’t that hard.”

“Come
on
,” Danielle chimed in. “You quit after one year. I, on the other hand, stuck with it the whole time. I got to the advanced levels where I was doing jumping and everything.”

“Okay,” I said. “But have you ever ridden bareback?”

“No.” She shuddered. “I rode English saddle only. Why on Earth would I ride bareback?”

“Most people haven’t.” I smiled, happy to one-up her. “But in case you didn’t notice, these horses don’t have saddles, so we don’t have another choice. Luckily, one of my friends in Georgia lived on a horse farm, so I’ve ridden bareback a few times. It’s more difficult, but I’m sure we can manage. First, you need to vault yourself up, like this.” I hopped over to the nearest horse to demonstrate, but the moment I got close to her, she snorted and twisted away from me, hurrying out of my reach.

“Great start.” Danielle snickered and walked toward the same horse, who didn’t back away from
her
. Instead, the horse stood still, watching Danielle expectantly. “Explain again how I’m supposed to mount the horse without a saddle?” she asked me.

“Get some momentum, and then grab the mane and jump on up.” I watched her, waiting for her to fail. Instead, she did as I said, gracefully mounting the horse’s back.

Once situated, she shook her hair out and straightened her shoulders, smirking proudly.

“How’d you do that on your first try?” I asked. “I didn’t even think you
liked
animals, after you refused to touch the cows on Helios’s island.”

“You aren’t seriously comparing cows to horses,” she said, crinkling her nose. “Horses are
much
more civilized. And these aren’t just any horses—they’re
water
horses. Created by Poseidon himself. I think they’re connected to me because of my element.” She jumped off her horse and walked around to each of the other four. She touched each one of their noses, and they watched her diligently, as if they were somehow communicating with her. “Done,” she said, returning to her original horse and vaulting herself onto its back. “They’ll let you all ride them now.”

We easily mounted the horses, and then they were off. The ride was
much
smoother than any bareback ride I’d ever done—likely because these horses were far from normal. We soared across the snow, as quick and smooth as running water itself. I felt like I was flying, and I was having so much fun that I was disappointed when the horses stopped at the edge of the moat. I glanced warily at the water, worried that more ice nymphs might emerge from the surface. But so far, all was still.

“What do we do now?” Danielle asked. “Storm the palace?”

“I don’t think violence is the best way for us to introduce ourselves to the snow goddess,” I said.

“Seriously?” Danielle sighed and looked up at the sky. “She just sent all those ice nymphs to kill us. We’re past the point of avoiding violence.”

“She sent those ice nymphs to see if we’re worthy enough to claim the Golden Sword,” Kate corrected her. “We knew the sword would be guarded. We shouldn’t take it personally.”

“Agreed,” Blake said. “Danielle—can you make another ice bridge so we can get across this moat?”

Chris was unusually quiet, so I glanced over at him to see how he was doing. His jaw was clenched, his eyes full of concentration. He didn’t look like he could keep the air around us heated for much longer. 

“Once we’re across the moat, we can always knock,” I said. “We can ask whoever answers to take us to see Chione.”

Then the door swung open, and a tall, pale woman stepped through. Her light blue dress glistened and billowed out as if made of ice itself, and her white-blonde hair flowed down past her waist. She raised her hand, and snow whooshed around her, joining together to create a bridge across the moat. Once the bridge was fully formed, she stared at us, her gaze so cold that it sent shivers up my spine.

“Hi.” Blake stepped forward to take the lead. “We’re the Elementals—witches who’ve been gifted with abilities—”

“I know who you are,” she interrupted him. “I might live in Antarctica, but I’m not
completely
unaware of everything happening in the world. And after watching you fight and defeat my ice nymphs. I must say, I’m quite impressed. For that, you have gained entry into my home.”