Of Witches and Wind Read Free Page B

for the wings!” Chase said. “Where are the spears when we need them?”
    â€œComing!” cried someone down the beach.
    It is extremely hard to run with a spear and not stab the guy running next to you, but the seventh-grade spear squadron—the Zipes triplets and Paul Stockton—managed it. Very impressive, considering Paul had only been at EAS a couple months.
    â€œI want two of you defending them.” Chase pointed to Ben and Mia. “She’s the Snow Queen’s target. Rory, you help them. The other two, help me finish off the griffins our archers bring down.”
    â€œGot it.” Something flapped behind me. I whirled around, heart sinking. “Three more incoming! Lakeside.” They were close, just a hundred feet away, fifty, moving so fast the fog rippled away from their wings.
    I lifted my sword, but at the last second all three griffins plowed into the lake at once and sent an enormous wave crashing over our heads.
    I choked on a lungful of water.
    When I opened my eyes, my throat raw with coughing, the griffin was ten feet from me. It knelt down, breathing its icy breath across the puddle. I darted forward, swung my sword two-handed like a baseball bat, and sheared its head from its feathery shoulders, but I was too late—the beach was already frozen. The griffins were trying to screw us up the same way they’d dealt with the eighth graders.
    Unfortunately for the griffins, we seventh graders had more experience fighting on ice. And we had a magician.
    â€œI’m on it!” Feet planted far apart, Lena dug through her backpack again.
    With quick measured slides, like I was wearing ice skates, Ihurried back toward the fight, three times slower than normal.
    The archer’s bows twanged. From the shrieks above us, I guessed their arrows were hitting their marks.
    â€œOkay, raise your hand if you want spikes on your sneakers!” Melodie shouted over the griffin cries. “We need to know how many dragon scales to use!”
    â€œWe all do.” Chase leaped on the back of a griffin as it frantically flapped its arrow-riddled wings ten feet above the sand. He stabbed its neck and hopped off before the dead griffin hit the ground. Someday he would have to teach me how to jump that high. “And what kind of idiot is going to raise his hand during a battle?”
    Ben sheepishly dropped his raised hand.
    Lena held out what looked like three mini CDs, colored green and gold, and shouted another Fey spell. As the dragon scales crumpled in her hands, spikes sprouted on the soles of every seventh grader’s shoes.
    â€œThanks, Lena.” I could run again. I sprinted straight for the new kids.
    Kevin Zipes’s spear was pinned under a dead ice griffin. He struggled to free it, glancing back anxiously at Ben and Mia, but three more flockmates closed in.
    The runner’s high came back. I ducked under the closest one and slashed at the belly, where the brown feathers gave way to leopard spots. It screamed above me, but by the time it turned around, I had already moved on. I stabbed the next griffin in the ribs, but when it clawed at me, I dodged at the last second. The blow fell on the first griffin.
    The third one bit toward me and pinned my blade in its beak. Great. Of course I’d get stuck fighting a smart griffin.
    I kicked it in the throat, hoping it would let go, but the spikes on my shoes barely knocked any feathers loose. The griffin tugged, almost yanking me off my feet, but then an arrow thunked into its forehead.
    â€œYes!” Tina cried behind me, bow in hand, as the griffin keeled over. “Did I get the last one?”
    I looked up, surprised. The icy beach was littered with seventeen bodies, arrows poking out of most of them.
    â€œIs it over already?” Ben said, still crouched in front of Mia. Both of her hands were clamped over her mouth, her face white.
    Another griffin soundlessly glided up behind them, almost