Orlind by Charlotte E. English Page B

the two
worlds, creating a churning field of energy.
    It mesmerised the
drauk, and the creature began to shuffle towards it.
    ‘ No!’
she cried. If the drauk went through, it would be set loose upon
whichever Daylands realm they were closest to just now. It would
kill people, people who had no way to defend themselves against it.
She ran forward, Tren barely a step behind her. Planting herself
squarely in front of the drauk, she took a quick breath and turned
her will on the creature.
    It was hard; not
just because her own focus was poor, but also because this drauk
was strong in mind as well as body and deeply disturbed. It fought
her attempts to control it, its head weaving back and forth and its
jaws snapping as they wrestled together. At least it was fighting her and not attacking Tren.
    Eva gritted her
teeth and bore down on it with every ounce of her determination.
She silently thanked Limbane for his insistence on training her
will and focus, even though she hadn’t thought that she needed it.
It helped her now as she was forced to fight two battles at once:
one against the mind of the drauk and one against the collected,
frenzied minds of all the other animals in the area that threatened
to overwhelm her.
    Without her
unusual combination of draykon and Lokant heritage, she feared she
would have lost this battle. As it was, the drauk began to weaken
at last and steadily, more gently now, she brought it under her
will. It calmed slowly as she mastered its mental processes,
smoothing away the panic that had gripped it before.
    The nausea had
faded. Turning, she saw Tren but no sign of the gate.
    ‘ Closed it,’ he confirmed, and she nodded. Thank goodness he’d
been with her. She was no sorcerer; she couldn’t manipulate the
energies of the Off-Worlds the way he could, so she would have had
no way of closing that gate. And she had no idea whether the pull
of the gate would have been a stronger influence over the drauk
than she was.
    ‘ Thanks,’ she murmured. The drauk waited patiently, calm now,
but she was wary of releasing it. How long would her imposed calm
last against the influence of the disrupted energy flow of
Iskyr?
    Not long, she
feared. But there was nothing else she could do for it just now,
nor for the other animals whose distress still buzzed in her
summoner’s ears.
    She paused a
moment to look for Rikbeek. He was nearby, to her relief, flying in
mad circles around a boulder that towered some way over her head.
Focusing on him, she calmed him down until he consented to return
to the protection of her skirts. Good.
    ‘ Tren,’ she said then. ‘I am going to release this thing, then
I must take us straight back to Rheas’s house. Keep close to
me.’
    He nodded and
clutched her hand. But then her grip on her own mind suddenly
melted away, ripped to shreds by a renewed roar of aggression and
panic that sliced through her concentration. She sensed more drauks
on the edges of her range, moving fast. They had spotted - or
smelled - the two humans, and were coming at them with all the rage
she’d so narrowly managed to suppress in the first.
    She counted
three, four, five. Far more than they could handle. And they were
closing fast.
    ‘ Run!’
she cried. She and Tren turned as one and fled. The stone-littered
ground with its carpet of mushrooms hindered their progress, and
when her foot tangled in the hem of her skirt she would have fallen
if not for Tren hauling her up and dragging her onwards. As they
ran, she tried to access Limbane’s Map and pinpoint a destination.
If not Rheas’s house, then just about anywhere would do - as long
as it wasn’t here. But it was one thing to accomplish this without
distractions while standing in one place; quite another to do so on
the run, with five drauks close behind her.
    They weren’t fast
enough. The drauks were vivid in her mind, closing rapidly on them.
She couldn’t help picturing those wicked claws, and the agonising
mess they would make as