The Grey Witch
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: I have just not been motivated, my wonderful readers. I am so sorry. And we're so close to the end too! Just two more chapters after this. For this chapter we're not going to be doing perspectives, we have a lot happening so it's all going to be in third person, bouncing around everywhere. I thought that that would be the best for the fight, hopefully you guys enjoy it. Next chapter we're back to normal, which is good because next chapter is also the end of the story! As always, don't forget to leave a review or drop a fav or a follow and I'll see you guys next week.
Chapter 10
The witches arrived on the island to a foggy jungle of dense trees. The trip over had been hellish, filled with rough waters and singing monsters.
They lost two witches to the Sirens before the learned to block them out.
The remaining witches were ready for whatever else the idiots of this island were ready to throw at them. Or, you know, so they thought anyway. They made their way in through the trees, heading for the castle they knew was at the center of the island. They travelled in small groups, hoping to come together in a circle in the middle of the island to have them completely surrounded.
But they must have expected that because witches began to come apart. Whizzing arrows rained down on them that must have been blessed with holy water because one hit took them apart. There was a strange glowing blue gem, and those that stood near-by to them were hit with a fragmented explosion that melted them.
By the time they made it to the castle their large numbers, several covens combined into one, had dwindled down to at least half. But that was still more than the backwater gods had in their ranks and they knew that. Taking to the air, as more arrows came at them, the witches were better prepared, weaving in and out of the arrows and hitting them with their own spells back.
The gods stood on their parapets, with the elven archers. The plan Hansel and Gretel had given them worked to dwindle their number but their numbers were large so even cut down by half they outnumbered them.
By the time the witches had taken to the air, they had moved onto the second phase. This phase was also the final phase as it involved heavy magic, but it also involved moving and leaving the elves and their holy water soaked arrows.
Hansel went with Lorne, simply to be sure that she was okay which was important because she was walking her normal lady-like speed as the witches swopped in on them hurling destructive spells. That might have been because she had refused to actually change into an outfit that would be better suited to battle. Still in a purple dress with a black spiked corset. She looked fierce and beautiful at the same time. But stonework was coming apart and raining down on them and she hadn't picked up her speed.
"Oh come on!" Gretel snapped taking a hold of Lorne and dragging her down the steps and to her mark. Hansel trailed behind firing his own holy water-soaked arrows at any witch coming toward them and while he did knock a few witches off their brooms, their numbers were still a lot greater than Hansel and Gretel had anticipated.
The mark Lorne needed to be on was in the middle of the courtyard. A special chalk had been made to draw this particular square with circles and glyphs inside. It was an old protection spell that the Gods of the island knew, and it needed all four of the Gods to function.
The elves all descended from the parapets as the gods got into position all circling around them to protect them from the witches as they swooped down. They were struggling to find ways inside but all the doors, windows and any other openings had been boobytrapped. They had realized that the only way in was through the main doors which were blocked by the gods and their spell. They would need to take out the gods.
Hansel and Gretel joined them, though Hansel chose to stay close to Lorne, because his priority would forever be to protect her. Gretel was weaving in through everything, shooting as she went.
Behind them the gods chanted their olden words and the magic hummed around them. It started first with Posidian whose water magic bubbled around him. A beam of blue light traveled to either side of him and then to the middle of the circle they had created. The beam touched Apple first, which in turn ignited his fire magic and his whole body was aflame. His beam too, went to the center, met his father's half way and then reached out for Lorne.
Lorne was a being of wind, Hansel had recently found out. Though it made sense because those were the attacks she used most frequently. She drew forward her winds, whipping around her like a hurricane, funnelling, with her in the eye of the storm.
When Lorne's beam of white reached the centre, when they reached Heraphony, who was the catalyst for it all and apparently their strongest magic user, her magic shot forth a vine straight into the centre.
That vine turned into a monster, growing enormously and wrapping the castle up in protective thorns. Anything that got close was eaten up, witches were strangled by it until they popped. Blood bones and black tar flying everywhere.
It was working, everything was going to plan there was no way for the witches to make it into the castle and to the tree of immortality.
All they had to do was make sure that the gods held this position until all the witches were killed.
It was Gretel who noticed her first. The person moving towards one of the gods, a bone dagger in her hand.
Gretel shouted an order of stop, but Carol didn't stop, with bone dagger in hand she approached Apple and brought the knife down straight into his back without a second of hesitation.
Carol had been planning this all along, she hadn't wanted to find the god who bedded her and then sent her away to rekindle a romance. She wanted to punish him, she wanted revenge for her unfair treatment and for the death of her father at the hands of their monsters and storms.
Gretel's first arrow hit Carol in the leg a fraction too late. That dagger found purchase in Apple's back and he buckled, the magic already wavering. But his cry of pain jerked the others out of their trance, their glowing eyes turning to him in time to watch him fall.
The spell faltered, firstly because Apple was no longer powering his center, and secondly because the others all moved to react.
They changed the direction, each of them pointing at Carol, so not only did their powers change course, so did the vines. They stopped growing upwards, stopped protecting the castle, they shot forward, combined with all their powers, wrapping all around Carol.
And as all this happened, the witches swooped in, throwing one well placed spell into the middle of the crumbling circle-spell.
And then everything exploded.
The rubble stopped falling, the clouds drifted away and in the dying chaos, Hansel dragged himself up. He could see what was left of Carol and the carnage that had become her. He couldn't see the gods, they were gone, as were the witches.
There wasn't a single person in that courtyard with them.
But Hansel could just barely make out the edge of his sister lying I the rubble so he went to her first. He got the debris off of her first before moving to wake her up. It took light shakes and she had knife pointed up at him.
"Not a witch," he growled at her and she lowered the weapon.
"Sorry habit."
Yeah, a bad habit. But he got why she had a habit like that because he had a similar one. He had never pulled a knife of on his sister though.
"Where are they?"
He turned to where the entrance to the castle had been blown apart, remnants of vines scattered everywhere.
"I think they're all inside."
He helped his sister up and together they made their way into the building. When they got to the throne room, they found contained chaos.
Literally.
The vines were contained to the throne room, stopping the witches from getting through to the tree. Hansel and Gretel could make out most of the family behind the vines rallying around Apple, who was lying on the roots. The siblings could not tell if he was alive or not.
Hansel's eyes were one what was outside of the vines. The only family member that wasn't safe.
Lorne.
She had that white porcelain face on her again. The eyes a dark purple the lips am ebony black but the cracks in her porcelain face looked more numerous than before.
She stood alone against a coven of ten witches, eyeing them down carefully as they seemed to eye her. Hansel had no idea what was happening until a spell shot forward from one of the witches.
Lorne lifted her hands and deflected it and as she did another crack was added to that porcelain face.
That, that wasn't good.
"It's just you, alone, against all of us. You've been able to deflect us, but what happens if we attack together?"
Lorne had spotted Hansel and Gretel behind them and that seemed to ease her.
"I'm stronger than I look," she said as the two siblings began to load their crossbows.
She set herself into the ground so that when the Witches all shot forward to attack her they hit a wall of wind. And when they were pushed back, Hansel and Gretel unloaded their weapons into the witches following. With one bolt in each witch, with them on the ground, Lorne dropped her wall of wind and screamed: "Mom! Vines!"
There was a beat of silence and then quick as a bunny the vines had snaked out, grabbing the fallen witches and dragging them down into the roots of the trees, each of them howling as they went. When the witches were finally gone Lorne turned back to Hansel with a grin on her face, her regular face back, the porcelain and cracks gone.
She smiled, happy to see him, and he smiled too, happy to see her, happy to have won this. Hansel was walking towards her, his eyes only for her, but a shout from Gretel got his attention.
A shout of: Above!
He looked up, saw one witch, one last solitary witch, making a dive on her long-jagged metal sword of some cruel design aimed for Lorne's heart.
Hansel didn't think twice, he pushed Lorne away and took that sword to the chest.
The witch didn't even get a chance to collide with him, the sword hit him, went through him and then a blast of wind knocked her right back into the vines and away from Hansel. While the witch got dragged away and to the roots to face the same fate as the others in her coven, Lorne rushed to Hansel who had collapsed where he stood.
Already the world was going black around the edges. Words were coming and going, all in the color of Lorne's voice. She was worried, calling for him, calling for her mom, calling for her apple.
He tried to focus on her, because she was where he wanted to stay but no matter how hard he tried he felt himself slipping away. And he let the darkness take over.