Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Corvid Trials (The Bagsy Chronicles 2)

Through the Shadows

Bagsy stopped the boat in its tracks. She didn't care if it put her in danger – she was going back for her friend.

'No!' the worm growled, noticing her hesitation to leave. Bagsy glanced around herself, thinking fast. She couldn't run past Cora. She would catch her for sure. Bagsy needed something fast...

She gripped the edge of the boat with her spell-sponge gloved hands. Pulling as hard as she could, ignoring the pain of her cut palms, she splintered a plank of wood clean off the boat. It was about as long as her leg.

'Let's hope you're not mundane wood...' Bagsy murmured. 'Some kind of magical energy connected by metal...' Bagsy repeated the instructions for her task in her head. 'Of course!' She pulled the broken necklace from her pocket – it was made of metal – and slipped the two spell-sponge gloves from her hands – they had to be full of magical energy, given the attack they'd absorbed from Cora. With quick fingers, she tied the gloves onto the plank of wood using the necklace. It looked a mess, and not anything like what Bagsy was aiming for, and with the exhaustion in her muscles from all the running and dodging she'd done it had been shoddy work. Even so, it would have to do. She glanced up. Cora was almost done fending off the worm. She didn't have long. 'One more thing...' Bagsy murmured. The parts had to be combined using a spell. She felt in her robe pocket for her hornbeam wand but found something else.

The walnut wand.

Bagsy whipped the walnut wand out and pointed its dagger-sharp pointed tip down at the plank of wood, necklace and gloves.

Cora had broken free, her gleaming violet eyes finding Bagsy.

Bagsy knew she had one chance at this. 'Please!' she whispered, tensing her tired muscles, squeezing her eyes shut and thinking of Mezrielda trapped with the blood eyed beast.

A thrill of power ran through Bagsy like a bolt of electricity. It was the exact same sensation she'd felt when she'd completed the corvid trials, as if there was a deep well of power somewhere in the world she was stealing from. Like a bubble bursting, she felt it forcing itself down her arm and into her wand. It was breathtakingly painful, yet so quick that she didn't have time to cry out. When Bagsy opened her eyes the gloves and metal necklace had fallen into the wood, bound into the make-shift broom, ready to fly.

Bagsy didn't waste a precious second realising she'd managed to cast a spell. Instead she mounted the broom and kicked off.

Cora screamed in frustration and swiped at the air, sending slash after slash hurtling towards her like sharp disks of death, aiming her fingers to pull Bagsy towards her but missing as she flew past. It seemed if her hand wasn't perfectly pointed in her direction, she couldn't pull her towards her as she had done earlier. Bagsy just needed to keep moving and she'd make it – or so she repeated to herself in her mind.

Worms shot out of the ground around her like spurts of water in a fountain. Bagsy weaved in and around them, ducking below worm-made tunnels and around twisting collections of the creatures. They shielded her from the volley of deathly purple light seeking her flesh. Cora's attacks rarely got through and when they did Bagsy ducked her head or swerved to the side.

The broom rattled in her hands, barely chugging along as she pushed it to go faster and faster. It wasn't half the speed of Bagsy's Fleet Footed Fox, but it was twice as fast as her on foot.

The red eyes in the shadow grew as Bagsy approached them.

'What are you doing!?' the worms called in panic. As they did, the underlake began to tremble. Cora's attacks had carved deep cracks into the walls, and it was beginning to crumble. Bagsy shot to her left, narrowly missing a chunk of dirt and rock that fell heavily into the shallow waters, liquid splashing out from the impact.