Elemental

Chapter 18

Safia sliced at her opponent’s stomach. It scratched the surface, drawing blood. Unfortunately Safia couldn’t get close enough to it to cause it damage, as it constantly tried to strike at her. She danced around, trying to find some loophole in its defence, but coming up with nothing. She was already bleeding from several small scratches. It was too well defended for one person. She had tried her magic but it seemed immune. A fireproof snake. Perfect. It didn’t need to breathe either, as when she took away its oxygen it had managed to continue fighting with a pause. She had decided to stop wasting her energy and concentration and focus on sword fighting. Not for the first time she wished she hadn’t sent Matthew away. But he had his own problems. She wondered if he had solved it yet. Maybe he had come across a weakness as yet unknown to her. She doubted it, but she still felt hope. Matthew was a resilient boy and he would find a way to slay the beast, and he would do it in such a way that she would be absolutely amazed she hadn’t thought of it- just like with the door. It was obvious his brain worked in a different way to her own, she thought as she sidestepped another attack from the snake. It crashed into the floor next to her, but then straightened too quickly for her to be able to give it proper thanks for the injuries it had given her earlier on.  She hissed at it. She knew it was too advantaged, and that she was too weak alone. She wondered if she would have fared better if they had stuck together – two on two, instead of one on one. Perhaps only one could fight at a time, the walls were too close together to permit both of the snakes to attack at once…Two on one. But it was too late for regrets, she had chosen the path, and she would stick to it. But just as she had this heroic thought, her blade was knocked from her hand. She braced herself for the inevitable, and closed her eyes. She waited, for an attack that never came.

“Need some help?” James asked.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as James crawled over the body of the snake.

“I thought you might need help. And it looks like I was right.”

Safia rolled her eyes, but was really glad to see him.

“You haven’t seen Matthew anywhere, have you?”

“You mean that boy you were travelling with? No, why would I?”

Safia frowned. “You must have passed him as you… How did you get here by the way?”

“I shadowed in.” he said. Shadowing was a form of travel only Darkness mages could use – transforming the body into shadows to move. James was quite an expert and it had helped get out of- and apparently into- many sticky situations.

“But surely...”  Then abruptly the ground shifted, and the way back to the Door was lost. She banged against the wall.

“It does that a lot,” James remarked.

“No!” Safia cried out.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Safia explained about the door being the meeting point.

“Oh, that’s okay. I think I know another route.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

Suddenly a screech filled the air.

“We’ve got to go…unless you want to meet some of the other pets they keep around here.”

“But-”

“Now!” He said, grabbing Safia’s arm and pulling her along.

So Safia allowed herself to be pulled along, casting a concerned look over her shoulder, in the direction of the noise…and Matthew.