She sprinted into the maze without hesitating, the fire threads chasing after her, trying to cut her off, burning across the metal carpet in pursuit. Twice she went down in a long slide that took her under the threads, and once she barely cleared the edge of a wall before the fire scorched its smooth surface. Ahead, Ryer Ord Star was on her hands and knees, head bent, long silver hair hanging like a curtain across her face. Blood streaked one arm, soaking into the torn fabric of her tunic.
To Bek’s right, more creepers had emerged from the gloom and were descending on Ard Patrinell’s group.
Tamis reached Ryer Ord Star in a flying leap that sent both of them sprawling out of the sweeping path of a fire thread. Dragging the seer to her feet, the tracker led her back through the maze, running crouched along walls and across open spaces as the threads burned all around them.
They aren’t going to make it, Bek thought. It’s too far! The fire is everywhere!
He looked for Walker, but the Druid had disappeared. The boy hadn’t seen what had happened to him, where he had gone, even if he had managed to reach the obelisk. The center of the maze was choked with mist and smokeshrouded forms and sudden bursts of the red fire. To his left, Quentin was under attack, the blue fire of the Sword of Leah flashing bravely, the sound of his battle cry lifting out of the haze. To his right, the creepers were spreading out through the maze in search of Ard Patrinell, Ahren Elessedil, and the remainder of the Elven Hunters.
A trap, a trap, it was all a trap! The boy’s throat burned with anger and frustration, his mind awash with thoughts of missed chances and bad decisions.
Tamis burst through the smoke and out of the spiderweb of killing red fire, dragging Ryer Ord Star in her wake. “Go, go, go!” she screamed at the waiting Bek and his companion, and in a knot they charged back through the ruins.
Quentin! Bek cried out in the silence of his mind, glancing helplessly over his shoulder.
They had gone less than a hundred feet when a pair of creepers intercepted them. The metal beasts appeared to have been waiting for anyone who made it this far, emerging from behind one of the low buildings, metal limbs scraping and clanking as they blocked the way forward. Tamis and her companion leapt instantly to the defense of the boy and the seer. The creepers attacked at once, moving so fast that they were on top of the Elven Hunters before they could defend themselves. Tamis dodged her attacker, but the other Elven Hunter was less fortunate. The creeper bowled him over, pinned him to the ground, reached down with one pincer while the Elf thrashed helplessly, and tore off his head.
Bek watched it happen as if it were a dream, each movement of Elf and creeper clearly visible and endlessly long, as if both were weighted and chained by time. He crouched with Ryer Ord Star held protectively in his arms, his mind telling him to do something, anything, to help because help was needed and there was no one else. Frozen in place by his horror and indecision, he watched glimmerings of light flash off the edges of the pincers as they descended, the frantic movements of the Elf’s arms and legs as he struggled to break free, and the gouts of blood spurt from the severed neck.
Something inside him snapped in that instant, and forgetting everything but the now overpowering impulse to respond to what he had witnessed, he screamed. A dam broke, and rage, despair, and frustration that he could no longer contain flooded through him, releasing his magic in a torrent, giving it life and power, lending it the strength of iron, honing it to the sharpness of knives. It tore from him in a rush and it ripped through the creepers as if they were made of paper, shredding them instantly and reducing them to scrap.
He was on his feet now, wheeling in a miasma of invincibility, everything forgotten but the euphoria he felt as the power of his magic swept through him. Another of the creepers appeared ahead, and he savaged it with the same ruthless determination-his voice seizing it, lifting it, and tearing it apart. He sent the pieces whirling into space. He scattered them to the wind like leaves and cried out in triumph.