It wasn't until dawn started glowing behind the never ending clouds that we grew desperate. I could tell that Oren and Harper were utterly exhausted but they kept up tough appearances. The Demon army hadn't halted through the night and we were still about a couple miles from the closest mountain.
Oren called out a little while ago that he could see the first crevice and he had increased his speed, and even with my holding myself up as well as I could, my muscles had been shaking so badly I had been back to being carried like a child a few miles back. Harper was holding me now, and he was stumbling over his feet every couple of yards, his arms shaking so badly I felt like my convulsive shivers were back and his face strained and flushed from the exertion.
I thanked my Elven characteristic of my lightness, because if I had weighed as much as a normal girl my size and age should we would all have been captured hours ago; as it was we were barely a few thousand yards behind us. Plus the fact that I was dead also lightened my weight by quite a bit.
"Oren, I don't think we're going to make it." I didn't want to say it but I felt like I had to. Oren was already breathing heavily with running so far and so fast, even though he wasn't the one carrying me. Oren stubbornly increased his pace forcing Harper to groan with exertion.
"We will Elowen, we'll make it, and then we'll be safely in Celestine. We will make it. We will make it!"
I didn't comment any further; I knew a desperate man when I heard one. Harper was too exhausted and focused on breathing to argue against Oren right now.
When Harper stumbled big time Oren caught me as I was about to hit the desert floor and slung me over his shoulder. It wasn't comfortable. I had to flex my stomach muscles so that I could breathe but at least it allowed Oren to run his fastest, while Harper fell behind because he was throwing up stomach acid since he had nothing in it. I wanted to tell Oren to slow down but with how overwrought Oren was I didn't dare say anything.
Impossible as it may seem the crevice was only a couple hundred feet in front of us. The Demon army was closing in fast, especially considering how completely and utterly fatigued Oren and Harper were. Oren put on one more burst of speed, but just before we were about to leap into the crevice a row of Demon's blocked the entrance and pointed weapons at us.
"NO!" Oren shocked me so badly with his shout, and then he fell to his knees and I went rolling on the ground. I lifted my head to look at Oren but he was out cold, his limbs trembling and twitching, his breathing fast. Harper helped pick me up and limply lifted his sword to protect the fallen Oren. The row of Demons advanced on us, keeping their distance and taunting us with ropes and swords.
"Harper." I said frantically. We didn't have any more tricks up our sleeves. I didn't even know how to make a portal to Beth-el. But maybe Harper did.
"Harper make the portal, go to Beth-el!"
Harper shook his head and squeezed my forearm. I looked at him desperately. "Harper please!" Harper turned to look at me, his face utterly resigned.
"No Jenny. I'm not leaving you."
I sighed and tried to pick myself up enough to grab Oren's sword. There was no point, I couldn't even lift it. But I'll be damned if I was going down without giving these Demon's a fight. Besides, I wasn't exactly looking forward to being claimed by Morton as his one hundred and fortieth bride as soon as I died... again... if in fact my spirit didn't disintegrate before then . . . oh such happy options.
The Demons surrounded us and kept on laughing and taunting us with wicked looking weapons I had no names for, but were covered in spikes and thorns and some even wielded hissing snakes ready to throw at us. Then the lead Demon, a short fat little thing with mounds of rolls jiggling all around him, stepped forward and held up a hand for the Demons to quit being such jerkish Neanderthals. Then the Demon lowered his head and concentrated. At first I was imagining he had a power to reach into our minds and deliver horrible torture, but when he spoke, it wasn't to us.
