I struggled against the prehensile tongue to no avail. Galin charged from the entrance of the tomb, trying to distract the boar, to offer himself instead, but the creature wasn’t interested in him.
I had to do something. The boar’s tongue was tight around my ankle, purple and glistening. Then, a thought came to me: maybe the tongue wasn’t as tough as the creature’s hide.
“Skalei!” In one swift movement, I slashed. It was like a hot knife through butter.
Blood sprayed the snow. I’d hacked part of its tongue right off. I was free.
I tried to stand, but my injured leg buckled, and I fell.
The boar squealed again, a broken gurgling sound this time. Then, it fixed me with its beady black eyes and lunged for me, trying to gore me with its tusks. I barely rolled out of the way. Grunting and snorting, it spun on massive hooves, and I scrambled away on hands and knees, pain racing up my thigh.
The boar charged, its breath clouding in the frigid air, blood and lather dripping from its chin.
Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow moved. Galin was racing toward the beast, something long and pale flashing in his hand. He leapt, silent as a ghost, and thrust his weapon at the boar’s face. The boar’s screeches rent the air, and it staggered back. Two more steps, and then it toppled like a felled tree. A human femur quivered in its eye.
Galin turned to me, but my gaze was on a new boar—massive, with black fur and a tank-like body. Eofor stared right at us from the top of the hill.
He stood for a long moment, snorting steam. Then, he threw his head back and squealed—a terrible sound like jagged bones scraping on stone. An instant later, he was answered by another, then another. And now, a chorus of squeals and grunts rose from the woods behind him.
“Ali!” Galin held out his hand to me and pulled me up. “We can’t stay here.”
Again, Eofor’s enraged cry rent the night air. I doubted I’d be able to outrun him.
Chapter 34
Galin
The cold air burned my lungs as I raced with Sune and Revna through the snow of Mount Auburn Cemetery. Ali was managing to hold her own, keeping up with our frantic pace, even with her injury. I broke trail through six inches of snow. Ali just had to hold out a bit longer. I knew a safe place.
A boar squealed suddenly into the night. They were closing in on us.
“Where are we going?” whispered Revna sharply.
“Shhh … don’t let them hear us.”
Revna was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke again. “Galin, we can’t run forever. We should find somewhere to make a stand.”
The boar screamed again, cutting her off. It couldn’t be more than a hundred yards away.
“There,” I whispered sharply, pointing up.
Silhouetted against the night sky was Washington Tower. Nearly five stories tall, it had been constructed as a lookout atop the tallest hill in the cemetery. It would be the perfect refuge, built from solid marble, the stairwell far too narrow for the boars to climb. We just had to get there.
I led the way up the hillside, weaving between trunks of ancient trees encased in ice. Half way up, I looked back down into the valley below. The enormous shapes of the boars were closing in on us, charging.
When we reached the summit, I let Sune and Revna go on ahead, as I held out my hand to Ali. She gripped it hard, and I pulled her up. She crouched beside me, gasping for breath and grimacing. Obviously in considerable pain.
I slid my arm around her waist and helped her move toward the entrance. She was limping, leaning into me. As the boars started charging up the hill for us, I scooped her up and carried her into the tower stairwell.
I heard tusks rake the stone, but we were safe for now. Holding her tight to me, I started climbing the spiral staircase. She rested her head on my chest, and my pulse raced at the contact.
Just a little farther and we could rest.
At last, I reached the top. I eased Ali from my arms, and she slid down my body, sparking a surge of warmth throughout my muscles.
We stepped onto the top of the tower, a small circular roof ringed by tooth-like stone crenellations. From below, the boars grunted with frustration, trying to hammer the tower with their shoulders and tusks. I peered over the edge. Four of the beasts paced around the base of the tower like sharks circling a life raft.
Still, there was no way they could possibly reach us. We were safe.
Revna leaned against the railing, next to Sune. “You made it,” she said to me, then narrowed her eyes at Ali. “You trailed blood all the way here, you know.”
My chest tightened as I saw the blood streaming from Ali’s leg. She desperately needed medical care.
Suddenly, a shadow passed over us—a High Elf riding a moth. One of the judges. “One hundred and fourteen remain. The Night Elves have lost badly!” she shouted down to us.
“One left,” said Revna, turning to look at me. “One more elf dies, and this is all over.” She refocused on Ali and drew a dagger. “The Night Elves are losing anyway. She dies no matter what. Those were the terms, right? If the Night Elves lose the Winnowing, they all die.”
“Looks like we can win this,” said Sune.
“Don’t you dare,” I growled.
“Skalei,” whispered Ali.
Revna lunged with a knife, but Ali parried the strike. Fast as lightning, Ali lunged, slashing Revna in the face with the tip of her blade. Blood sprayed across the white marble of the tower.
At first, I thought Ali had killed her, but then my sister moaned. Slowly, she sat up, clutching her face in her hands. Ali had carved a gash diagonally across her face.
With a snarl, Sune slammed his fist into the side of Ali’s head, so hard I heard the crack echoing out over Boston. Before she had a chance to recover, he was holding his own knife to her throat. “You dare come after my sister?”
Ali was out cold, limp in my brother’s arms.
I wasn’t going to stand by and watch them kill Ali, even if it meant I would give away the truth about the Helm, that I’d found a way around it.
Help me kill them, Ganglati.
Certainly, he whispered.
Sune brought his blade up, ready to bring it down into Ali’s throat.
Ice water filled my veins, and I lost control of my body. With an inhuman scream, I ripped him away from her.
I threw Sune over the side. For a final instant, I saw him suspended in midair, pale hair flying, eyes wide as saucers, before he disappeared out of sight.
Then came the jubilant squeals of the boars, and the shouts from the judges that the hunt was over.
Chapter 35
Ali
I paced the length of my room, back and forth, back and forth. Even after rewrapping the bandage, my leg ached. My thoughts whirled wildly between three things.
The first was the Winnowing. The final tallies had been thirty-nine High Elves, thirty-nine Vanir, and twelve Night Elves remaining. The Vanir and the High Elves had tied so far.
Worst of all, the Night Elves had lost. The addition of the Vanir to the Winnowing had disrupted our plans completely. I thought if they hadn’t turned up, we would have won. We could have freed ourselves from the caverns, lived in the sunlight, found a new source of food. We could have stopped the starvation.