137 – And kill her dead

         The Queen advanced on the apparently dead body intent on dismembering it. She picked up the lifeless form by the throat, chains dangling with the right arm still restrained behind the back. She drove her claws back through the hole, and added her tail to the mess. She jerked hard, and the corpse was torn in three large pieces, and allowed to fall to the ground.
         Diana screamed.
         The Queen, covered in blood, turned and walked over to her. “It’s not our time yet. But we will fight soon enough.”
         She unhooked Diana’s chains from the tree, to drag Diana out of the grove. Diana was fixated on the dismembered body that moments ago had been her mother.
         Then both of them felt the gathering of magic. The Queen tried to focus on it, but could not find a focal point. She picked up Diana and turned, spreading her wings as she ran toward the doors of the fortress to get Diana out. The doors closed as she got to them, barring that way. The Queen tossed Diana down, and drove a claw through her, but Diana wasn’t there the moment she let go. The empty chains and manacles clanged on the ground. The Queen, still unable to focus on the source of magic, turned back for her tree. Wings wide she ran as fast as she could.
         As she entered the clearing, she skidded to a stop. The dismembered body was not the only thing there. Roxanne was standing there very much alive, and fully dressed, with an arrow knocked in her bow and aimed at the Queen. Rox let go, and it was the woman’s turn to be impaled by a two-foot shaft.
         The Queen being unable to easily push it through her chest left the metal arrow there for a moment, then spoke a word and pulled it out, growling in pain as she did so. The barbed arrowhead brought shreds of wet flesh with it out of her chest.
         While the Queen was busy Rox handed her bow to Diana who stood behind her. She then got out her staff, activating both ends. Diana took the bow aside, and stood behind a tree.
         Rox twirled the staff a bit in display. “Come, vile creature. Let’s dance.”
         The Queen was not anxious to engage, as she did not know what was going on. She had dismembered this woman. Who had then apparently pulled off a magic trick that not even the most powerful that she had heard of could easily do. Now she invited her to a hand fight. The woman spread her wings and arms, and let the bark covering her tighten, to sharpness.
         Rox watched as the Queen’s covering became dangerous to the touch and the woman went into a battle crouch, wings and tail wide for balance. Rox was not really interested in a hand fight, but had needed to get the Queen to focus that way. Suddenly she pointed her staff, and shot a blast of energy which caught the woman full in the chest, sending her flying backward, crashing through the limbs of several trees.
         Diana had the bow ready then, and brought it back.
         Rox took it, turned and shot the aluminum arrow almost straight up, into the top of the tree. The silver line tied to it playing out behind. Rox then took the staff back and turned to catch the charge of the woman. The Queen carried Rox back into the cavity she had come out of. Diana scampered away, taking the end of the line with her.
         The Queen held Rox against the tree as its tentacles stretched to take hold of her.
         Rox smiled. She twisted the staff in two, the Queen suddenly pushed against the Rox in a bizarre hug. Rox whispered a phrase in the local language into the woman’s ear that horrified the woman. That phrase was never spoken at close quarters unless some serious shielding was in place.
         Diana watched the base of the tree explode in a ball of fire that blew out a quarter of it. Many of the people attached to the tree screamed in pain, feeling the pain of the tree.
         The Queen picked herself up from the wreckage of another tree near the edge of the grove, and looked through a trench of broken limbs at the center tree. It still fed her power, and maintained her form undamaged, but it was also hurt. Then it called her attention to what Diana was doing.
         The girl had drawn a small bi-level octagram, and was sitting in it, chanting.
         The Queen charged at her, determined to stop her, the prophecy be thwarted.
         Rox blind-sided her, pummeling her with both ends of the now divided staff. The Queen tried to get away, but Rox had the upper hand for the moment.
         Then Diana had her spell finished and a little cloud of rain appeared at her eye level, and rained itself out to nothing. Diana smiled, and turned to her bag, to finally put some clothes on.
         Rox was not paying attention to Diana, just to the Queen, and determined to keep her from the tree and from Diana. She would pummel her this way and that, then dodge like a professional boxer. She was too close for the Queen to effectively lash her with tail or stabbing wing claws, but they were still punishing each other. Then the first rumbles of thunder started.
         The Queen, still distracted by Rox, had no time to spend on Diana. But the tree did and it knew what she was up to.
         Diana finished getting dressed, and then got the tinderbox out. She opened this up, and put it in the center of the octagram. She then got out the paper Karen had Rox write the words on. Carefully she read them, but nothing happened. So she did it the old fashioned way. She got out the matches and used these to light the tinder. Then she read the spell again. Again nothing. Diana was untrained at sensing magic or mana, so she could not tell that the tree itself was blocking the mana from her. Rox was too distracted to do anything. Finally in her frustration, Diana just stuck the end of the silver cord into the dying fire. A thunderclap sounded nearby.
         Rox and the Queen were dodging around trees trying to get a clear shot at each other. Rox was scraped up and had several gouges, but was still very much in the fight. The only apparent damage she had been able to do was the rapidly healing arrow wound, and lots of broken thorns. Otherwise she may as well have been hitting the woman with a feather. Time to change strategy.
         Rox stopped chasing around, and went for the tree again, reassembling her staff. She had used up the offensive spells in it for the moment. Time to go for the unexpected.
         Rox charged across the clearing and to the cavity, which still smoldered. She paused long enough to check Diana’s progression. It was plain that something was wrong, but she was not sure what. Then the Queen came charging. Rox hoped for the best, and improvised a spell, focusing on the outcome she wanted. Then she ducked.
         The Queen had come charging with her stabbing claws outstretched, and again missed Rox. Instead she drove them into the tree. She could feel its pain at this, but would soon act to relieve it. She was also feeling upset. It had never taken so long to kill anyone before. As she tried to pull loose, she found she couldn’t. Some kind of magic was holding her claws in the tree. The tree pushed and she pulled, but they would not come out. They turned their attention to the magic, to unravel it.
         Rox crawled away, careful of the Queen’s tail and its stinger, and over to Diana. She knew she only had moments. Rox looked over everything.
         “The magic fire isn’t starting.”
         Rox sensed around, and could not feel any magic. She stepped a few steps away, and felt it. Then back to Diana. Nothing. Great. More thunder sounded in the distance.
         “There’s a shell around your circle. It’s blocking the magic.”
         Quickly Rox scratched a circle, and drew a blank. But Diana knew what to do. She joined her circle to the one her mother had drawn, and said a phrase in elfin tongue. That quick the shell was breached and bypassed.
         “Cast the fire again,” Rox instructed.
         As Diana started to say it again, the Queen broke free of the tree.
         “Now the two of you die.”
         The woman started casting a spell, as Rox, nearly drained, again drew a blank. So she just stepped into it, and rammed the end of her staff into the sternum of the woman. But she was stopped by a shield, the backlash of the impact throwing her staff away into the trees behind her. But it made the Queen pause briefly. The woman had almost completed her spell when Rox felt all the hair on her body start to stand on end. She dropped to the ground, and covered her ears just in time. Diana had finished her spell first.
         The sound had a physical impact as lightening ripped through the tree going up, energizing the silver cord, and the magic fire. The fire leapt up the silver, turning briefly into that material that will destroy the earthly form of something from the infernal regions. A second bolt of lightening struck the tree from above before the first had fully faded, and ripped through the trunk blowing it to large chunks, killing many of the living not yet consumed. The burning silver being energized further exploded and drove the animating evil within the tree from the mortal plane.
         A tangible shock wave swept through the grove, ripping the closest trees out of the ground, and breaking up the farther ones.
         The two lightening bolts and the flight of the evil from the tree stripped the Queen of most of her power. The concussion blew her across the clearing again; this time when she landed she was out cold.
         Diana got up, her ears ringing and nose bleeding. She went over to her mother, and both crouched together as their heads cleared. Diana’s nose bleed stopped as quickly as it started. “I did it.”
         Both looked around. Then they spotted the Queen in a heap of wreckage. She was still very much alive. Large chunks of assorted trees were still falling as were parts of the fortress.
         Rox looked at the woman. “Alex’s silver blade may be the only thing we have to kill her.”
         “But I’m supposed to kill her, mom.”
         “I know. But except for this tree, you have never killed anything larger than a bug. Not even a fish. I’d rather you did not start killing. Let’s go find your dad and brother. Get your stuff.”
         Rox found her staff, and used it for a cane, leaning on it while catching her breath. She slid to the ground as she did. It had only been a few minutes since she had cheated death by substitution, and the resulting battle had taken a lot out of her. This on top of the last several days.
         Diana had Rox’s bags on with the bow and quiver over her shoulder. Diana helped Rox back to her feet, and they turned away from the Queen, and started to the doors into the fortress. Mother leaned on daughter.
         They were most of the way to the doors when the Queen screamed and charged, having recovered enough to continue the fight. Both turned, but Diana acted first, putting the heels of her hands together a yelling a pseudo-Hawaiian word. A ball of energy flew from her hands blowing the woman into a tree, burning through the body in the process and impaling her on a broken branch. Whether by magic or by physical damage this finished her for good.
         Diana had collapsed after channeling so much energy, and Rox held her up, and they made their way into the fortress, not looking back.
         “No more Gohan and Vegita for you, kiddo.”
         “Mom, how did we know to do all that?”
         “You can thank Karen, if we ever see her again.”