Potenkiah, the deathgiver

Chapter 12

It all happened faster than a blink.

Amid a deafening roar, Zinget was launched back by a hot, invisible wave; she bled and writhed, trying to shake her off.

Bridget crashed into a rock. The air escaped from her lungs, and she felt the pain in her chest spread to her throat like molten lava. Her mind fell into a black void, where sound was dull, and there was no place for agony. Then her heart stopped.

***

Standing next to the last tree, Terry froze, deaf, except for the shrill ringing that pierced his brain. He had climbed the headland near the bend in the road to see the Royal Entourage when it rode by. To justify his curiosity to see Bridget, he had told himself it was the only way to catch her behaving according to the manual of spoiled, darling socialités, which he would throw in her face when he saw her. He never imagined that in an instant her world would collapse. An explosion!

He couldn't look away from the crater. Not even a memory remained of the front guards; where before there were arms and legs, now remained masses of skin, bone and black puddles. As he moved his eyes away from the center of the explosion, the mutilated corpses became more recognizable; the King and Queen could be identified by the scraps of clothing and the hair poking out under the amorphous remains of the unicorns, some feathers, mud and blood. The ones in the outer circle, including Bridget's, lay battered, unmoving... dead?

Terry fell to his knees, as if his strength had suddenly abandoned him, shocked and terrified, about to hyperventilate.

Goddess, I didn't mean it, I swear. I never wanted her to die.

The ringing in his ears was decreasing, and gradually he caught the sound of loud emergency alarms, voices barking orders, footsteps approaching, the flapping of wings, confused screams in the distance.

Dozens of guards arrived at the scene. While some secured the perimeter, others searched for survivors, and yet others fanned out on earth and sky, perhaps looking for signs of whoever was responsible for the tragedy.

Terry's stomach couldn't hold his breakfast any longer; the carnage of Eloahns in front of him was the most horrifying thing he had ever seen. When the heaving stopped, his arms and legs were shaking. He looked back and saw a rescuer practicing resuscitation techniques on the Princess; he was compressing her chest several times, and pumping oxygen into her mouth using an osmotic respirator.

A large hand grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

"Who are you, boy? What are you doing here?"

Confused and still trembling, Terry looked at him without answering. His pupils were dilated and his face sweaty.

Although it was clear that the young man had no connection to the attack, the guard patted him down, and verified there were no objects around him -like a weapon, a transmitter or a trigger- that could involve him in the assassination. He found fresh footprints belonging to a unicorn that had possibly fled, scared off by the blast.

"Was anyone else with you?" he asked, though the whip in the boy's hand was indication that the animal had escaped without a rider.

"No," he muttered, and spat trying to get rid of the bitter taste.

Noticing that the site of the explosion was visible from there, the guard realized the frightened boy was an eyewitness to the events; that was why he was so shaken. "Did you see what happened?"

Terry nodded, then shook his head wildly. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and noticed his shirt was stained with mud and blood that wasn't his. He almost threw up again.