Chapter Nineteen: That you can

In the weeks after this adventure, Evie would wish that she had taken this time to enjoy an experience right out of a bedtime story. She never, in her wildest fantasies imagined riding on the back of a Pegasus. It must have been breathtaking in the twilight. Unfortunately, however, she couldn’t keep her mind from trying to figure out a way out of this mess.

In the course of her thoughts, though, she kept stumbling onto little details that didn’t make sense. So, she asked Bridget. Well, she shouted to Bridget. The wind whipped their faces and clothes, making it impossible to hear properly. “How does he know where to go?”

“Because I’m telling him,” her sister shouted back.

“What?” Evie yelled.

“Remember when Master Oilreid told me there were others that could teach me to speak to animals? He was talking about pegasus’. They can communicate with almost anything. I spent the afternoon with these two. They came to the spritested just to meet me! They won’t go in. I’m not sure why. Now, be quiet so I can figure out if we’re heading the right way.”

Evie chanced a look over Bridget’s shoulder and saw her fiddling with that stone. It glowed very bright red in the dark. She couldn’t help staring. It had looked so much like an ordinary white stone when Bridget first showed it to her.

She tried hard to be quiet and let Bridget concentrate, but her curiosity overcame her. She shouted, “How are you directing him? I haven’t heard you say a word.”

“Pegasus’ don’t usually talk with words. I can talk to him the way he talks to others of his own kind.” She almost quivered with excitement when she added, in a quieter tone that Evie could barely hear, “It’s something only aniray can do.”

That created more questions than answers, but Evie fell silent. She remembered too well the explanation Bridget had given about understanding animals by their noises and the way they smelled. She couldn’t grasp what in the world that meant. She didn’t really want to know how her sister was telling the Pegasus which direction to fly. If it didn’t require talking, it seemed way too complicated for her to understand anyway.

She didn’t have a chance to go back to thinking about how to save Trevor, however, because the two flying horses lowered slowly toward the ground. For a few minutes Evie could feel the tops of the trees whipping her shoes and bare legs. She held tighter to Bridget and hoped they would land soon.

When they did land, she regretted it fervently. As soon as they touched the ground, Devin jumped off of the Pegasus and strode over to Evie and Bridget. He might have learned to ride before he learned to talk. He was wonderful. In a whisper, he said, “Did you see them through those trees? It looks like they have got Trevor in a sack.”

Bridget nodded immediately. Evie turned to stare at the forest. She had been so worried about her poor legs that she didn’t see anything that happened on the ground. Now, though, she didn’t seem to feel the aching in her legs any more. Three ogres held Trevor in a sack just a little way through the thick trees.

Devin continued, “We have got one shot at this. Ogre’s startle easily, but they are fierce in a direct fight. If we can scare them into scattering we might be able to get Trevor and get away. If we have to face them, I am sure we will not win.” He looked at each of them in turn to emphasize his point. But he didn’t appear as sure of himself when he took a deep breath and said, “Any ideas?”

“What do you mean?” Evie exclaimed in an excited whisper. “If all we have to do is startle them you can just conjure up a fire like you did in class today. It scared me to death.”

Devin shook his head, “It will not work. I keep forgetting how little you guys know.” He ran a hand through his hair and continued in a lecturing tone. “Ogre’s have very poor eyesight, so they depend on their other senses to do most of their seeing. If I made it look like the forest was on fire, they would be the very last to be fooled by it. Do you not remember that the fire had no heat? They would know that there was no fire and they would know that someone had tried to trick them. We would lose our only advantage.
”
Bridget looked from Devin to Evie and back again, perplexed, but Evie felt no desire to explain. She loved her sister, but she felt grateful for a time when Bridget was the one who had no idea what was going on. Besides, they didn’t have time to focus on anything except the problem at hand. How could they possibly scare three ogres enough to make them run away?

Devin glanced strait at Bridget. “You are an aniray. You could do it.”

“What?” She stepped back. “I don’t know how to talk to an ogre. I am barely learning what an aniray is.”

The boy looked over toward the two pegasus’. “We do not need someone who can talk to ogres. We need someone who can talk to wolves.”

Bridget looked down and said, in a small voice, “I don’t know how to do that either. I’ve only ever talked to small animals.”

“But they do.” Devin nodded toward the two pegasus.

The brown animal eyed Devin suspiciously. “What do you want wolves for? They are very proud. They will not hunt for you. In any case, Ogre flesh is bitter. They would only eat one if they were starving. And an entire pack might die bringing it down.”

“I do not want them to fight, Pegasus. I just want them to howl. Any animal who is near would work. As many as we could get would be best.”

The male pegasus continued to stare, but the other one nodded her head, “We will ask.” She turned to her mate and said, firmly, “It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

An instant later Evie jumped at the sound of a distant howl. It was followed by answering calls from all around them. Within seconds the forest exploded with the cries of animals from every side. The male pegasus widened his big eyes. “I suppose they were more anxious to help then I thought. I should have known. Wolves don’t like having an army of men in their forest.”
Devin motioned to the two girls and began creeping through the trees in the direction he had said they saw Trevor. The two Pegasus flapped their wings and took off. Bridget looked back in time to see them leave. She muttered, “They wished us good luck.” Evie glanced at her, but didn’t ask any questions. Bridget hadn’t blinked an eye when she found out Evie might be souray. Evie needed to remember that this new talent didn’t change her sister. Together, they followed Devin through the forest. Hand in hand, both girls shook. The cries of the wolves might have been intended to unhinge ogres, but it surely managed to unhinge Evie and Bridget.

They moved slowly, now, so as to not let the ogres ahead know that they were coming. Evie didn’t think that was a problem. The howls seemed to be coming closer and getting louder. The moonlit forest hummed with the sound of life everywhere. She couldn’t be sure, since she didn’t know that much about forest life, but she thought the wolves had other allies. Some of the animals barked like she had as a fox, or perhaps the howls sounded like coyotes. Every animal in the forest came down on them. If that didn’t unnerve the ogres, nothing would.

She could see them now, through the dense forest. She didn’t think she’d ever seen an animal so large before. They towered there, like mountains of green muscle. But they cowered together now, back to back. One of them faced directly toward their pathetic little rescue party. Evie froze. It had a sack over one shoulder and what could only have been Trevor, wiggled inside. They were so close! Looking up at those huge monsters, though, Evie thought she and Bridget weren’t any closer to accomplishing their mission then they had been when they were locked up in Master Oilreid’s office.

Devin seemed frozen with fear as well. He had one arm stretched backward as if to stop Evie and Bridget from moving. Evie, at least didn’t need the cue. If the ogre’s eyes were as bad as Trevor thought, they were much less likely to see her if she wasn’t moving. She knew that much at least.

The howling intensified and the Ogres seemed to be pushing backward into each other. She caught sight of little Jayson fluttering above them, desperately trying to get them to move on. The sprite’s tiny hands flailed around and his squeaking shout was lost in the howls. They could hear more than just howls, now, Evie realized. She could hear owls hooting and there were definitely yapping foxes in the bedlam. It made her proud for a second, before she dismissed the feeling as silliness. She wasn’t a fox and this was no time to let her mind wander.

Suddenly, a high-pitched screeching sound joined the rest of the unnerving noises in the forest. Evie would have ignored it amid everything else, but it vibrated and seemed to get louder. As the sound increased it turned into chirping. At least she could hear that it wasn’t just one screech, but hundreds of them. All at once a colony of bats descended right into the area where the frightened ogres huddled.

Everything happened at once then. Jayson was swept out of sight, presumably picked up by the sweeping colony. The ogres bolted, each in a different direction. The enormous monsters knocked down trees with their swinging arms and smashed boulders with their huge, bare feet as they ran. Evie threw herself flat against the ground and covered her head with both hands. The earth shook and the sound of howling animals was completely lost in the roaring that came from the ogres as they ran.

When she finally had the courage to look up, she planted her hands on the ground to lever herself to her feet. At least, that was the plan. Her left arm slipped down a rocky incline. She turned to find the ground pushed down almost a pace where one of the ogre’s huge feet had landed right next to her. She had almost been trampled! Desperately, she scrambled to her feet and looked for any sign of her friends.

She could easily tell which ways the three monsters had headed. The trees leaned to the side or lay flat on the ground in three paths leading from where they had been. She could still hear the one behind her roaring. There may have been roaring down the other paths too, but she had focused on the one. He had the sack with Trevor in it. If her other friends were okay, they would have headed after him.

As she ran down the path of broken trees, she felt overcome with guilt. She was such a coward. Bridget and Devin hadn’t thrown themselves on the ground and hid their faces. If any of her friends were hurt, they could definitely blame her. She didn’t know what more she could have done, but she felt quite sure that she had done the exact wrong thing. Her own insecurities consumed her. She knew she had to stop analyzing and start acting. She shoved her fear way down and decided that the time for hesitation had long passed. Now she needed to act.

Devin came bounding out of the forest to one side of Evie. His sleeve looked ruined by a ragged tear that cut all the way from shoulder to wrist. If she wasn’t mistaken, the skin of his arm shared that tear. He ran with determination, though, a little lop-sided. When he came close enough to see her clearly he panted, “I was thrown…I thought it might have knocked me out. Wwwwhere’s Bridget? Did it drop…” He stopped running and rested his good arm on his knee for a moment. His hurt arm remained clutched to his chest. Then he swallowed, “Sorry…Did it drop Trevor?”

Evie shook her head, unable to rip her eyes away from his arm. He made a feeble nod of understanding, swallowed one more time and started running toward the ogre. Evie followed. With every step she repeated to herself, “I will be brave.”

They heard the roaring get louder before they saw the monster ahead of them. It screamed and cried as if in shock or pain. The ground was chocked by rocks here and Evie had a hard time running. She felt exhaustion creeping up on her and she twisted her ankles more than once by stepping on the side of a boulder rather than right on top. Still, she kept running toward the fierce ogre.

“Evie! Stop.” Devin still had to gasp for breath, but be managed to get Evie’s attention. She stopped abruptly and turned to face him. Her impatience had her hopping from one foot to another. That roaring continued just ahead. Bridget might be up there. “We have to…approach…slowly. You do not want…him knowing you are there.”

She let out a breath in disgust. He was crazy. Hesitation caused this mess. Bridget didn’t hesitate. Bridget would have run into a burning building without a second glance to save her. She turned and ran, ignoring Devin’s anguished cries of warning behind her.

Just as she saw that great beast ahead of her, she skidded to a stop. The thing still held the bag with Trevor in it. It swung the boy around wildly, screaming in frustration. A sharp stick stuck out from its right foot. It stomped and blood oozed out from the wound.

Suddenly Evie understood what the creature swung at. Bridget sat on the ground holding her head. Evie put the pieces together quickly. Bridget had stabbed that stick into the ogre’s foot in hope of making it drop Trevor. The beast had thrown her off, though. With all its stomping and jumping, it was a miracle it hadn’t crushed her sister already. Now they both might get killed. If that bag actually hit anything, Trevor would be crushed. He was lucky if no bones had been broken already.

It turned out, however, that Devin had been right in advising caution. The beast caught sight of Evie just as she came to a stop. It threw its head backward in a roar of pure fury and then descended on her, its humongous hand outstretched. At that moment, there was one part of the stories about ogres Evie felt quite sure was the absolute truth. Ogres ate humans. If it got a hold of her she knew it could throw her into its mouth like a kernel of popcorn. She knew she was about to die.

Evie turned to run, knowing she couldn’t escape, but Devin thought faster. He threw his good hand forward. Out of no where a wall of boulders appeared between Evie and the ogre. She could just see the monster’s head above the wall. It stumbled backward out of surprise and fell with a huge bang.

Devin still clutched his bad arm to his chest and the effort of creating this wall seemed to take all of his remaining strength. He pitched forward onto his knees and then again onto his good arm. He sat there, head bowed, panting.

Evie wanted to help him, but she knew that she had to save Trevor and Bridget first. That ogre still groaned in agony. Trust. She had to trust herself. She had to get to her friends. She scrambled toward the wall and began it climb. The boulders were simply stacked one on top of another without any cement, which made it so the wall had slanting sides, like a mountain of rocks. They felt smooth, too. She barely noticed them under her hands, but, strangely, it wasn’t difficult to get the traction she needed. She had no problems climbing to the top, but it still seemed to take forever. Bridget’s life was at stake!

When she got there, she wanted to scream. The bag lay to the side of the monster, who now sat on the rocky ground. It moved weakly, but Trevor didn’t seem to have the energy to escape. The groaning ogre, on the other hand, had found Bridget. She had rocks in her two hands and tossed them at it, but it brushed them away like flies. Its huge hand descended, now, toward her. To Evie, it felt as if time had slowed.

Without thought or emotion, with only the bare instinct that told her she had to save her sister, she leaned down and grabbed a boulder from the pile she stood on. It didn’t weigh a thing. It felt as if picking up this huge boulder required no energy from Evie at all. With a desperate scream, she ran the few steps the pile allowed and leaped toward the ogre, tossing the boulder at its head. The stone connected with a deafening crash, knocking the monster onto its back. Evie curled herself into a ball just before she smashed into the beast’s stomach and rolled to the ground. The world collapsed into blackness.