Song of the Unicorns (Avalon: Web of Magic #7) (7 page)

“Ooooooooo.” The dragonflies were shaking as the portal quivered in and out.

“Someone go first!” Emily hissed.

Without warning, a giant creature punched through the mist. Multiple eyes looked everywhere from stalks reaching out of a bulbous head covered with needles. The color of bruised purple, the grotesque centipede creature advanced on dozens of noisily scissoring legs. Thick, oily armor plated its huge body, needles protruding everywhere. Tentacles twitched as its mouth stretched wide in a fetid hiss, revealing rows of thorny teeth.

The unicorns stampeded. Six tried to jam themselves through the portal at once. The dragonflies yelped, squashed by the struggling mass.

“Lemme through!”

“SPLLARRP!”

“Ow! My nose!”

“Phooob!”

Adriane was already in motion, whipping a ring of golden light at the monster. Squealing like a ferocious pig, the thing convulsed, armor rattling. Gooey tentacles writhed as the warrior danced away from their twitching grasp.

Emily and Ozzie pried the babies apart and pushed them through one by one.

“Keep that portal open, no matter what!” Emily instructed the dragonflies.

Lyra leaped into the air, her shimmering wings flaring open. Razor claws ripped away the tentacles reaching for the unicorns.

Kara stepped forward, pointing her glowing unicorn jewel at the creature. A flare of white light shot straight up, slamming the cave ceiling, sending rocks flying. The blond girl stumbled back, face flushed.

The creature lunged, trying to swallow the unicorns whole.

Adriane struck again, wolf fire hammering the monster’s head, forcing its snapping jaws away from the portal.

“Lyra, get everyone through!” Adriane yelled. “We’re right behind you. Move!”

Ozzie and Tweek crammed the last two frightened unicorns through the portal and raced in. Nosing Kara and Emily through, Lyra leaped and disappeared.

“Dreamer!” Adriane looked around frantically. “Where are you?”

“Packmate! Go!”

Dreamer stood in solid wolf form right in front of the monster.

The thing swung its massive head, mouth gaping.

Moving with lightning speed, Adriane raced past the creature and shoved Dreamer into the portal. The dragonflies squealed as the warrior dove through.

Shrieking, the monster charged in after them.

A
DRIANE AND DREAMER
tumbled onto the barn floor, the monster’s foul breath hot on their backs.

Needle teeth gnashing, the creature thrashed its head through the portal.

The warrior rolled into a fighting stance, crossing her wrists in front of her face. “Dreamer, behind me!” she commanded as wolf fire surged from her jewel.

“
GrEEP!”

“Hide me!”

“Snoooop!”

“Run away!”

The unicorns scrambled through the barn, diving into stalls. Horses neighed, surprised by their visitors, as Lyra nosed the stragglers out of harm’s way.

Adriane swung her fists, firing a blast of magic.

With a fierce growl, Dreamer leaped at the monster—right in the path of the bolt.

“No!” Adriane wrenched the magic away. Light arced wildly, wrapping the warrior in sparking golden fire.

The monster lunged, closing its massive jaws completely around Dreamer.

Zzzzap!

In a brilliant flash, the portal vanished, severing the gruesome head. Slime-covered skin and twisting eyes morphed into a pile of green guck that splattered to the floor. Unharmed, Dreamer shook drops of goo from his fur.

Five dragonflies peered from a floating bubble. “Pee-yuck.”

“Good job, guys!” Kara called out.

“Get off me, Ralfie!”
Dante complained, crawling out of a stall.

“Where are we?”
Ralfie asked, bits of hay stuck to his forelock.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” Emily said, sending a wave of calming magic over the frightened horses that currently occupied the stalls. She quickly shut the barn door before Electra could stumble outside.

Ozzie ran about, herding the unicorns into the empty stalls.

Adriane picked sticky muck out of Dreamer’s fur. “You have to learn to listen to me! Next time we might not be so lucky.”

Dreamer’s eyes were downcast.

Gently, Adriane raised Dreamer’s head, looking deep into his emerald eyes.

“Packmate.”

“Yes.” Adriane hugged the wolf close. “What would I do if I lost you?”

“Looks like my grandma’s creamed spinach.” Kara wrinkled her nose at the gob of goo splattered across the floor. “What
was
that thing?”

“Elemental, my dear mage.” Tweek plucked something from the guck. “A prickly pear needle, I believe.”

“So it was what, a cactipede?” Kara asked.

“All this magic isn’t supposed to be on Earth,” Tweek fretted, wringing his crackling twig hands as he looked at the unicorns.

“We have to get to Dalriada,”
Riannan demanded, stamping her feet.

The others squeaked and tooted like a broken carousel.

“Okay, everyone settle down,” Emily said, herding Snowflake and Pollo into the stall. “You have to stay here until we can figure out what to do.”

“If those elemental monsters found them in the desert, they’ll find them here,” Adriane pointed out. “The unicorns are sitting ducks without the protection shield.”

“What’s a duck?”
Electra asked, flopping over a hay bale.

“How do we recharge the amulet, Tweek?” Emily said.

“You’d need unicorn magic,” Tweek said.

“PhoOOT!”

“But that’s out of the question,” the E.F. continued. “Without their horns, there’s no way for them to focus their magic. It’ll just go wild like it did in the cave.”

“What if
we
could focus the unicorns’ magic?” Emily asked.

Tweek eyed her suspiciously. “How would you do that?”

“You said it was tuned to Kara’s unicorn jewel,” Emily said. “Maybe we can help the unicorns.”

“That might work—” Tweek began.

“Nuh-uh.” Kara closed her hand around her jewel and sighed. “Okay, you guys, I admit it. I don’t know what I’m doing with it.”

“We’ll help you, Kara,” Emily pressed.

The unicorns sat up listening.

“It’s too dangerous!” Tweek rattled, twigs flying.

“It’s worth a shot,” Adriane said.

“Let’s all form a circle,” Emily instructed.

Scuffling and bumping into one another, the unicorns managed to form a ring in the center of the barn. Ozzie marched around, pushing or pulling here and there to make the circle even.

Tweek stood in the center holding the amulet containing the shield in his twigs. “This is highly irregular.”

Radiant gold arced from Adriane’s wolf stone, surrounding the amulet. Summoning a dazzling beam of pure blue, Emily’s healing magic swirled around the warrior’s.

Holding out her gem and pointing it at the amulet, Kara shut her eyes. Blazing white magic exploded from the unicorn jewel, engulfing Emily and Adriane’s steady light.

Kara shrieked—her hand had morphed into a giant, hairy ogre hand!

“Ewww!”

“
That’s gross!”

The blond girl coiled huge stubby fingers around her jewel, face tense with determination. In a flash she had her hand back, with a bonus: freshly polished pink nails.

“The unicorn jewel is completely flooie!” Tweek announced.

“Unicorns can use music to focus magic,” Emily said excitedly to her friends, remembering she had helped heal Lorelei with a special song.

“Spellsinging,” Kara finished Emily’s train of thought.

“That’s strong fairy magic,” Tweek said, astonished. “How do you know about—never mind, I don’t want to know.”

Emily faced the herd. “I’ll hum a note, and you follow. Ready?”

“Yay!”

“Oooo, fun!”

“Me, me, me first!”

“This is silly! I’m not singing!”
Riannan stamped her foot down.

“Riannan’s a ’fraidy corn!”
one of the others teased.

“Am not!”
she shot back.

Holding up her jeweled wrist, Emily pressed her lips together and hummed a single note.

A deafening racket of blaring noise rattled the barn.

“Stop!” Ozzie yelled.

“
BlaaRp?”

Emily smiled. “You have to follow the music. Let it flow.” Remembering the beautiful song she and Lorelei had sung together, she hummed the first verse. Pollo’s little squawk joined her, wavering an octave too high, but in tune.

“Good. Now you try it.” Emily nodded toward another.

“WEEEEAHHHHHHH!”
Spruce blasted in an abrasive tenor.

“Spruce!”
Dante frowned.

“Concentrate on singing together,” Emily told the unicorns. “Listen to everybody around you.”

Clio and Snowflake started tooting.

Violet added a soft, shaky note.

“That’s nice, Violet,” Emily complimented the unicorn.

“Easy there, guys,” Kara said nervously, watching her jewel pulse with light.

Dante, Electra, and Ralfie tootled and honked. Not to be outdone, Calliope joined in with a bell-like tinkling. Soon every unicorn jingled, jangled, yodeled, and yelped. Except for Riannan, who stuck her nose in the air and huffed.

Power flared from Kara’s jewel, enough to make the amulet pulse radiant silver.

“Look!” Tweek said. “It’s working.”

“FLEeepBaaARrrG!”
Spruce unleashed a blast of off-key noise.

Dante and Pollo sang louder, each trying to outdo the other.

Calliope tried to drown out the boys.

Kara’s magic undulated strong and bright, threatening to burst free of her control. Emily and Adriane twined their magic around Kara’s, holding it steady by creating a braid of diamond, amber, and topaz.

In a bright flash, the amulet projected a small, shimmering bubble hovering in the air.

“Holy HORARFF!” Tweek exclaimed.

Everyone watched as glowing lines appeared within a network of stars. A fiery pulse swept along a path of shining points.

Tweek’s quartz spun in his bushy head. “You’ve unlocked a fairy map!”

“We’ve seen plenty of those,” Kara said, making Tweek jumble. “Each one of those stars is a portal.”

“That’s where we started from,” Pollo said, pointing a hoof at a blinking light at the edge of the map.

“So then,” Emily said, following the bright line to a last blinking star, “there is where you have to go, Dalriada.”

“Inconceivable!” Tweek blustered, twigs flying. “They can’t open a portal without their horns. Besides, we can’t trust this map to be accurate anymore. Who knows where you’ll end up?”

“We’ll worry about that later. Right now we need to get the shield over the entire ranch,” Adriane said, guiding Kara between herself and Emily.

Dreamer and Lyra stepped closer. The unicorns closed their eyes in concentration.

Emily reached out with her magic. She could
feel
her power coursing through the map. “I add the protection of healing magic,” she called out.

Adriane’s amber wolf magic pulsed bright. “I add the strength of a warrior!”

Now it was up to Kara. She took a breath and lifted her jewel high. “I add the fire of the blazing star to bind it together!”

The fairy map was replaced by a glittering dome hovering in the air.

“That’s it!” Tweek yelled.

The mages stepped back, allowing their magic to stretch the shield wider and wider. It floated to the ceiling in shimmering blue, gold, and white magic, passed through the roof, and vanished.

“I can’t believe my quartz—you did it!” Tweek yelled, handing the amulet back to Kara.

“How long’s it good for?” Adriane asked.

“Few days, maybe,” Tweek said, pacing wildly.

Emily plopped down in the hay, exhausted. Clio, Spruce, Violet, Pollo, and Snowflake piled over her, snuggling close.

“We rock!”
Ralphie brayed proudly.

“What’s Dalriada?” Kara asked, carefully draping a blanket over the hay so she and Calliope could sit without getting dusty.

“
That’s where the Unicorn Academy is,”
Calliope responded, nudging the others away from the blazing star.

“I’m going to run the web!”
Dante snorted.

“I’m going to run it faster!”
Ralfie said.

Dante and Ralfie began tussling, rolling over Ozzie.

“GarG!”

“I’m going to run with a blazing star.”
Calliope eyed Kara lovingly.

“We have to get these unicorns to Dalriada before their horns sprout!” Tweek stumbled over the mages to examine each of the unicorn’s foreheads closely.

“What do you mean, Tweek?” Emily asked.

“The first thing they’re trained to do is tune magic with their horns. Without proper supervision, it would be disastrous—O’ me twig!” Tweek’s quartz eyes began spinning wildly.

“
Whoa.”
Dante went cross-eyed as Tweek stood on the unicorn’s nose, brushing away his forelock.

“This is awful, just terrible!” the E.F. wailed.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.

“Look!” Tweek shuddered uncontrollably, pointing a twig at Dante’s head. “His horn is about to sprout!”

“That’s right, I’m bad!”
Dante proudly displayed a small nub protruding from his forehead.

“OOOOO!!”
The unicorns all started concentrating, trying to make their horns sprout.

“AHHH!” Tweek was in a frenzy.

Ozzie grabbed the distraught E.F. “Keep yourself together, man!”

“There’s
thirty
unicorns. It’s an almost inconceivable amount of power! If they can’t control their horns, it could throw the
entire
web off balance!” Tweek cried, shuddering dangerously. “I’m just a rookie!”

Bang!
The E.F. burst apart in an explosion of twigs and shrub.

“Not much for good-byes, is he?” Ozzie commented.

Violet brushed shyly against Emily. “
You can teach us how to tune our horns, Emily.”

“Pleeeezzzzz!”
the others pleaded.

“We’ll see,” Emily said, rubbing her eyes. “But right now we’re tired. It’s been a long night. Ozzie, I want you to stay here.”

“What?” The rest of the ferret’s protest was lost as the unicorns nuzzled up to him.

“I’ll stay as well,”
Lyra said.

“We’re hungry, Fuzzy,”
Clio complained, dancing on her socked legs.

“You did say something about feeding them, as I recall,” Emily said, smiling.

“
Food! Food! Food! Food! Yay, Fuzzy!”

“‘Ozzie!’” the ferret protested. Then, throwing his paws up, the ferret gave in. “Fine, I’ll get you some… uh… what
do
you eat?”

“
Unicorn food, what else?”
Ralphie laughed, making his spotted coat jiggle.

“Er, remind me again what’s in it.”

“
It’s easy,”
Dante said.

“
Pure morning dew,
” Riannan began, swishing her beautiful tail.

“
And a handful of starlight,
” Spruce honked loudly.

“Don’t forget fresh honey
!” Electra pushed clumsily to the front of the group.

Licking his lips so enthusiastically he lapped his big round nose, Pollo chimed in.
“And you have to stir it exactly nine times under the light of the moon.”