Page 42 of Thornlight

“The Gulgot...,” the unicorn said at last. Its harsh voice broke open. “The Gulgot... is coming. Soon. Sooner.”

Zaf whispered, “The Gulgot is coming sooner than we thought?”

The unicorn’s eyes snapped open, spotted with milky-white clouds. “Yes. Weeks. Days.”

Days?

Thorn swallowed hard, tasting a sour film of terror.

“How do you know this?” Bartos knelt on Thorn’s other side. “Are you sure?”

“Came... from the Break...” The unicorn’s voice was fading. “Saw him myself. Fast. Angry.”

Zaf slapped the mud. “But what does he want? If he’d just tell us—”

Suddenly the unicorn began to shake. Zaf jumped away with a sharp yelp.

But Thorn held on, cradling the unicorn’s shuddering head. “You didn’t want to kill us, did you?”

The unicorn coughed up a viscous black liquid that steamed when it hit the swamp. “Was leaving, like the others. To protect the Vale... the Star Lands... we hide there. We’re too dangerous.Changed.”

Noro stepped forward. “The unicorns who have been touched by the Gulgot flee to the Star Lands to hide?”

The unicorn nodded, his breathing now a thin, jangling whistle.

Thorn blinked past her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“Listen,”the unicorn hissed. “Go east. Gofast. Find... Quicksilver.”

Bartos frowned. “I know that name.”

“She is... a great witch. She... can help.”

Thorn stroked the hollow dip between the poor creature’s eyes. “She lives in the Star Lands? Where?”

But the unicorn didn’t answer. It had gone still in Thorn’s arms, its eyes white and wide open.

Thorn looked up at Noro, a sob wedged in her chest.

“I thought he would hurt you,” said Noro. He would not meet her eyes. “I didn’t know. Thorn, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for that.” Gently she lowered the unicorn’s head into the swamp. “None of us knew he didn’t want to hurt us.”

Zaf was watching her closely. “You knew.”

“I didn’tknow, I just... hoped,” Thorn replied. The sight of the unicorn half buried in swamp sludge was so awful that onlya small, quiet part of her mind noticed that her cut left hand was no longer hurting.

“Quicksilver, he said.” Bartos paced, scratching behind his right ear. “The queen knows of her. There have been stories brought back by our scouts. She fought somebody called the Wolf King.”

“Did she win?” asked Zaf.

“Yes. And she has a friend. A boy, a witch named Ari. He’s powerful too, I think. I don’t know the full story, but maybe they could help us. Star Lands magic has to be at least a little like Vale magic, right?”

Zaf snorted. “And you, Bartos the human soldier, know a lot about magic, do you?”

“Oh, come on.” Bartos took off his ruined feathered cap and wrung the swamp muck out of it. “I’m not trying to start trouble, Zaf.”

“Funny for somebody who kills innocent grandmum stormwitches to say that.”

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