Kori was sweating profusely when she saw Pollyanna had disappeared. The woman had left a trail of corpses in her wake, and it was deathly silent.

Kori looked to her left and saw Eory crying, clutching his dog to his chest for comfort. After being assured that Pollyanna was not on that side of the carriage, she turned her attention back to the right side of the carriage. She gasped in fear. 

Pollyanna appeared right beside the carriage--keeping pace with it. After a few moments, the warrior-maiden hopped, gripping the carriage door with one hand and keeping her sword at the ready in the other—but Kori launched fireball after fireball, dislodging the warrior-maiden from the door. Pollyanna went tumbling backwards through a flurry of snow.

Eory watched with anger suddenly seething in his veins.

I told her not to hurt her… He thought to himself. I just want one thing from her and she doesn’t grant it to me!

The woman, Taylor, encouraged cruel thoughts within him. We could easily push her out of the carriage, she’d never know what hit her!

Eory could feel the darkness growing and slithering inside him--stretching from his stomach to the tip of his toes and fingers, and eventually, worming into his mind. He hunched over, holding Gershom all the closer. He pressed his cheek against the top of his dog’s head and tried to hold all evil intentions within him.

Kori was looking behind the carriage again and launching fireballs at Pollyanna who kept tumbling further and further behind the carriage and had no opportunities to climb to her feet.

Kori was sweating with exertion after unleashing eight fireballs. She could feel her heart pounding so hard that she felt like it might give out. She could conjure no more fireballs and took deep breaths instead.

Eory fought the urge to jump out of the carriage and go meet the woman he had always had such admiration for. He glanced over the back of the carriage, seeing that Pollyanna was woodenly climbing to her feet with scuffs and dirt all over her skin. She began speeding up her pace gradually.

“She got back up.” Eory said ineffectually.

Kori wiped her forehead and she yelled to the man driving the carriage, “Faster! Faster!”

“We’re already driving the horses too hard! If we drive them harder they’ll die, Redeemer!” The driver said.

Kori gritted her teeth. “Dammit!”

Eory’s mind went white with fear as a sword spiraled swiftly through the air and into the head of the driver.

The executioner stomped on Gershom’s back to keep him down with his axe at the ready. One swift motion and his brother’s head would—

Eory screamed as the carriage careened off the road, running into the forest where it collided with a tree.

Pollyanna approached the broken carriage slowly. Kori groaned, her body exhausted from the exertion of using so much magic. She summoned a fireball and said to Eory, “Go Eory! I’ll hold her off!”

“No!” Eory protested as Pollyanna walked past them, retrieving her sword from the driver’s head, and then turning to Kori who was feeling too exhausted to move, and sat, unmoving, on the plush carriage seat.