arrow in his crossbow, but Keenan threw himself at him. “Stop shooting at it. And get her out of here.”
“It’s just one monster, we can handle it,” Will argued.
“The dullahan is a harbinger of death,” Keenan rumbled, stormy eyes urgent. “If it spots Fairuza, she’s done for.”
This was why it struck such dread within me. “But if we turn back, I’ll miss my last chance to break my curse. I’m already starting to disappear.”
“We need to keep going,” Robin agreed, agitated. “We must get it out of the way.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. But it stopped being interested in me when it sensed your party riding down the Path.” Keenan jabbed his thumb behind him. “It wants to get to Fairuza so badly, it didn’t even go after its head when I dropped it in the Open Eyes.”
Robin blinked. “The what?”
“The part of the Pumpkin Path where the eyes in the poplar trunks open,” Agnë said. “They usually watch travelers, but also mess with them at times. I’ve seen them once when I accompanied my brother to Queen Rowena’s manor, while he courted her daughter.”
Keenan jumped back on his reindeer, and steered Agnë’s horse off the Path. “If they didn’t mess with you before, I elect you to find the dullahan’s head with me, before it kills one or all of you. If it feels its head is in danger, it will have to come after it.”
A loud snap blasted through the woods ahead, and Jon hit the ground with a shout of agony, his broken spear embedded in his shoulder.
Agnë screamed for him, but Keenan dragged her horse away, circumventing the dullahan, shouting back at us, “Keep it occupied until we find its head! And don’t let it touch Fairuza!”
Will and Robin rushed to defend their fallen friend, but it wasn’t interested in him anymore, and knives or even magic arrows did nothing to deter it from advancing. On me.
Robin launched himself at it, trying to unseat it from its horse, yelling desperately at me, “Turn back!”
“I can’t! I’ll die anyway!”
“Then follow the others around it! We can’t hold it back for long!”
I didn’t want to leave them. This thing had already tossed the strongest of us aside like a broken doll. It might do far worse to Will, to Robin…
But until Keenan managed to lure it away, there was nothing I could do but distract them. I’d only make Robin take deadly risks to protect me.
Urging Amabel off the Path, we galloped aimlessly through the woods.
I kept trying to listen for the others through the racket her hooves made over the dead leaves covering the ground, furiously praying that Keenan and Agnë had found the creature’s head.
Just when I thought I heard their voices, the demonic neigh of the dullahan’s horse ripped through the cold air.
It was coming after me.
But if it was, what had it done to my friends?
I tried to turn around, but Amabel only ran faster, crossing a silvery stream as she hurtled in the direction of Keenan’s and Agnë’s voices.
The whip cracked behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. Amabel whinnied desperately as she leaped over a fallen log—but she didn’t land.
Time seemed to slow down, keeping us in a mid-air arc as black eyes covering the pale poplar trunks all around us opened.
Colors reversed, the trees becoming black as they started to shiver and moan, and the eyes turned pale yellow with black, slit pupils. They watched us unblinkingly as we sailed through the air, the captives of some dark magic, and the dullahan closed in on us. I screamed and even my voice distorted to a deep, horrifying parody.
This land was the stuff of nightmares!
Just as I could almost feel the dullahan’s whip tear through my dissipating form, the eyes blinked en masse, and we were released from the stasis, landing hard on the ground.
Not wasting a second, we exploded ahead, and in the distance, I saw Keenan’s silhouette lifting a severed head by the hair. He’d found the dullahan’s head!
My relief was short-lived as it cracked its whip again, hitting Amabel this time. An agonized whinny tore from her as she leaped, landing near Keenan, before turning to face the dullahan.
Keenan jumped between us, swinging the head over his own. “You dropped this?”
Forgetting me for now, the dullahan charged after Keenan, only for him to catapult its head away. It urged its horse to leap, but an arrow beat it to its own head, piercing it in one