Free Arrival by Charlotte McConaghy

come. Jane, always cool and controlled, curled up into a ball and clenched her eyes tight.
    She did not look up again until she heard the sound of hooves nearby. Fern dismounted Nuitdor. “Jane! I told you not to come up here.” He slid down onto the grass next to her.
    “Sorry,” she whispered.
    Fern hesitated a moment, then gently reached out to pull her into a hug. The unexpected gesture hit her like a punch to the stomach, and tears began to fall.
    “It’s just so awful,” she muttered. “Why are they doing that?”
    “I don’t know,” he replied softly into her hair.
    “But the killing...”
    “It is the way of life here. You come to accept it after you’ve seen enough of it. I must help my father. Go back down to the bottom of the hill. I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
    “Fern, you’ll be killed!” she gasped.
    “Of course I won’t.”
    “How can you say that?”
    He grinned then, recklessly, and he was the man she’d known all these past days. “It hasn’t happened yet.”
    And then he was back on his horse and charging down into the valley. She wondered how he could smile like that in the face of such horror. She wondered, too, if he’d managed to contact the Elves. Wiping away her tears she climbed back down the hill.
    ***
    As the remaining soldiers saw Fern coming down the slope, a ragged cheer escaped their lips. Upon reaching the fight, he screamed out orders.
    “Fall back and form a line!” Killing two sabre-tooths with one sweep of his sword, he raced around to the front of the line now in the process of being formed. There was a lapse in the fight as they sat facing the beasts.
    “Help is on the way, men. We just have to hold out until they get here. Form two groups and come at them from either side. Form an attack from all angles, surrounding them. Don’t let any of them get behind you, and stay on your horses!” He gave his father a quick nod and hurled himself into the fray.
    There was a reason these were his men. A reason he was the captain of the king’s army. At fighting, Fern was brilliant. His sword was an extension of his arm. It moved perfectly to his will, and before long, he had killed twenty beasts on his own, all with a fluid elegance that could not be matched by anyone around him. But the men were tiring—they had been fighting all night—and were paying dearly for it.
    Fern could not beat so many on his own. The reinforcements he had called for were not going to make it. It was just too far. He had hoped that, as the Elves were known to be the swiftest riders in Paragor, perhaps they might have made it in time. He had hoped for too much.
    Well, he was just going to have to take a few of them down with him then. He had a fleeting image of Jane curled up on top of the hill, and something constricted inside him.
    Distracted, Fern was pulled roughly from his horse and onto the ground. Three beasts were on top of him now. Whilst running one through with his sword, he pulled out a smaller knife and stabbed another. There was blood all over him, all over his eyes, and he couldn’t see. He felt more of them on top of him, and he struggled to wipe his eyes clean.
    There were other men trying to fight the beasts off, but the sabre-tooths were determined to get to Fern. They knew he was the leader, that if they killed him the group would be in disarray once more. Nuitdor was above him, also trying to block the passage to her master, but to no avail. Fern felt a slash of claws across his chest and silently endured the pain of teeth sinking in his shoulder. Hacking around blindly, he managed to wound a few. With his uninjured arm, Fern raised the knife over his heart. He would not let these beasts kill him—he would end it on his own terms.
    But then he felt the weight lifted off him, and was able to wipe his eyes clean. Standing above him was his half-brother, fellow prince of the Elves, Eben.
    “Come, brother. It’s not your time,” the Elf said, heaving Fern off the