Master of Valor (Merlin's Legacy 2)

by Angela Knight

  “This is pointless.” His eyes blazed red as he caught her arm and twisted it savagely.

  She bit back a scream of pain, only to lose control of the shriek as Jack and Ellie wrenched so hard, she felt the joints start to give… Until the spelled scale mail beneath the plate went rigid at last, protecting her legs.

  She gasped in relief as the frustrated wolves snarled.

  “I will pry you out of your shell, snail.” Walker drew back and slammed his fist into her faceplate so hard, the impact rattled her head in her helmet. Pain spiked behind her eyes.

  Even if he didn’t manage to break her visor, he could kill her just by slamming her brain against the inside of her skull. She grabbed for the axe with her magic, and drove it through the air, straight at the werewolf’s head. He ducked, and it sailed harmlessly by. Snarling, he slammed both fists into her faceplate again, and the world broke into dancing black sparks. The pain dimmed…

  A crunching, shrieking sound knifed her ears, jolting her back to full consciousness. Dazed, she looked up as Walker drew back his fist as Jack and Ellie punched and clawed at her armored boots, trying to crush them and the legs beneath. Sweet Lord, Duncan! I need you!

  * * *

  Duncan screamed into the luminous sky of Afghanistan, his body on fire with the worst pain he’d ever felt. Lifting his head, he stared down the length of his torso. His legs were gone, his groin a gory ruin, and the remnants of his bloody pants were on fire… Bellowing in pain and confusion, he threw himself out of the bed, though his body felt impossibly heavy. One shoulder slammed into the bureau so hard, wood cracked as it crashed into the wall, which crunched under the impact.

  Confused, frantic, he caught a glimpse of himself in the cracked mirror that hung askew from the bureau. And stared. He wore a combination of scale and heavy plate armor. Where the hell had that come from?

  Masara. Masara must have sent them to me before I woke up. But what the fuck’s wrong with my legs? They felt like they were being crushed in a vise…

  Something slammed into his head so hard he reeled into the wall again. Not a flashback. The pain was real, but it wasn’t his -- it was Masara’s. He was feeling her pain through their psychic link again. The fucking werewolves are doing something to her.

  Backup. He needed backup. He looked around wildly for his magic cell phone, then caught sight of his own reflection again. He was wearing a helmet -- and the Magekind always spelled helmets for communication. “Belle!”

  Interference shrieked.

  “Goddamnit!” He didn’t have time for this. Masara didn’t have time for this -- not the way she was hurting. What had they done to her? And where the fuck was his sword? There was no sign of it… But a massive double-headed battle-axe lay on the bed, its blade heavily engraved. Duncan snatched it up.

  “Duncan,” Masara’s voice said in the air, sounding impossibly calm given the agony he could feel radiating through the link. It must be a magical recording, a spell she’d laid on the axe before they attacked her. “The axe blade emits an electrical field whenever you hit something with it. It should act like a Taser, stunning the werewolves. The new armor I’ve created should protect you from their bites. It’s much heavier than I would like, but we can’t afford to be infected by whatever this is. When you’re ready to gate, say ‘Take me to her.’”

  “Masara!” he howled in the depths of their link, reaching for her desperately.

  All he felt was pain. Cold spread over him. He had to save her, even if it meant going up against the two Dire Wolves alone. He didn’t give a fuck.

  Focusing on the vicious psychic burn coming through their bond, he snapped, “Take me to her!”

  The white-hot point of the gate appeared directly in front of him, expanding to full size in a blink. All that was visible through its wavering frame was a view of moonlit woods. He thought he recognized the trees behind the Harrington house.

  A roar sliced through the night, echoed by a chorus of snarls. What are they doing to her? Raising the axe in both hands, Duncan leaped.

  Chapter Nine

  The minute Duncan touched the ground, the gate vanished. He looked around -- and swore. Three enormous werewolves had pinned a small armored female figure to the ground, one kneeling astride her hips, the other two beating and clawing her legs, trying to crush the armor. Three? Where the hell did the third…

  The wolf’s gold fur was the same shade as Walker’s, though the enormous deformed creature looked nothing like the cop’s Dire Wolf form. Shit. They’d infected Walker. Horror chilled him. You poor bastard…

  But he didn’t care if it was Walker. Duncan wasn’t going to let them infect her. If that meant he had to kill them all, he’d do what he had to and deal with the consequences later.

  The gold werewolf lifted a huge fist and brought it slamming down on Masara’s faceplate.

  He remembered the sensation of enchanted plastic shattering, the shards cutting his own face. I don’t fucking think so! He threw himself into a run, rage boiling through him as he raised the axe. The female wolf saw him coming and leaped up, releasing Masara’s ankle to backpedal away. The other two wolves scattered, snarling, glowing ruby eyes focused on him with murderous intensity.

  Masara sprawled unmoving in the grass. He reached for her through the Truebond and hissed a relieved breath. Alive, just out cold.

  He planted himself between her and the three wolves, his axe raised.

  The Dire Wolves spread out, as if to encircle him. He moved to the right, trying to lead them away from her. Masara? he called into the link. Get up. I need you, Masara! If anything could bring her around, that would do the job.

  There was no answer in the mental link. She wasn’t dead -- he’d know if she was dead -- but she was so deeply out he couldn’t even feel her mind at all. Fuck shit piss!

  Christ, all three of them had at least a couple hundred pounds on him, including the female. He was so dead.

  Shut up, he growled at the treacherous mental voice. If he lost, Masara was dead too, so he fucking well wouldn’t lose.

  The thing that had been Walker moved toward him. Where the cop’s eyes had been gray in werewolf form, now they were a rat-like ruby red. But even without the color shift, Duncan would have known the thing looking at him wasn’t Walker. Its stare was too cold and soulless to be the cop’s.

  Walker’s mouth opened, revealing a forest of deformed, curving teeth. “Leave or die with her.” It didn’t even sound like the deputy anymore, the voice grating and rusty, even deeper than Walker’s had been.

  Well, that didn’t sound like magical rabies. Duncan forced a nasty smile despite the little voice screaming I’m fucked in his head. “Yeah, no. You’re about to find yourself ass deep in Knights of the Round Table, hairball. They’re going to chop you into meaty chunks.”

  Lips peeled back from malformed teeth. “You look all alone to me. And by the time help arrives, you will both be mine.”

  There was such utter certainty in the thing’s words, fear iced his stomach. He forced a smirk anyway. “Sorry, we’re not into threesomes.” He caught a blur of gray from the corner of one eye. Ducking, Duncan swung the axe at the wolf as he spun away. The blade bit into flesh with a savage crackle. He jerked it free, slinging an arc of wet droplets through the moonlight. The thing that had been Jack hit the ground and rolled with a high-pitched yip of agony. Ellie echoed the sound, taking a half step toward him, only to freeze a heartbeat later. Behind her, Walker’s head jerked as if in pain.

  Duncan recognized that reaction. He’d found himself flinching from Masara’s pain the same way. The three were mentally linked somehow, feeling each other’s pain the way he and Masara did. Could he use that?

  Ellie charged him, moving with such impossible speed he had no time to react. Claws dug into his left pauldron. Duncan pivoted, swinging the axe, but the angle was bad and the flat of the blade hit her in the temple. The axe discharged with a loud electric pop. This time it was no glancing blow, and she f
lew ten feet to hit the ground in a tumble. Before he could move in on her, Walker bounded at him, fanged jaws gaped wide. Jack lunged from the other direction.

  Shit.

  * * *

  Even as her skull rang with pain from the electric blast, Eleanor’s mind cleared. The invader was gone. Jack! she screamed in her mind, reaching for her husband along the Spirit Bond.

  Her gaze fell on the huge, grotesquely distorted figure that had been the man she loved, stalking the young vampire. The thing that had been Walker closed in from the vampire’s other side.

  They’d spent days trapped in this hell, watching in helpless horror as their bodies did unspeakable things. The infection, and the delirium that followed, had given the invader an opening he’d used to seize control of them. Yet somehow the vampire’s axe had broken the bastard’s hold. Jack?

  Fortunately, the usurper was concentrating so hard on controlling all three of his puppets’ bodies, he was paying no attention to her thoughts.

  The witch was the key. Everything the usurper was doing was about the Maja, about luring her here and infecting her. They could see that much from the bastard’s thoughts. Why infecting her was so important wasn’t as clear. But they had to protect her. Using the Spirit Link, Ellie flashed an image at her husband: the witch’s axe, the pain of the electrical shock, that glorious moment she’d been free. The shock disrupts his control. Not for longer than a few seconds, but maybe long enough. Too bad the damned Link couldn’t communicate verbal thought.

  She could feel Jack concentrating fiercely on the images she sent, trying desperately to decipher them.

  Until understanding dawned. Along with pain and resignation.

  And in the midst of all that, she felt the warm bloom of his love. Ellie’s werewolf eyes stung even as the usurper curled her lips in a snarl.

  * * *

  Duncan’s fury and desperation drove Masara back to consciousness. Instinctively, she tried to go to him, but just lifting her knee sent agony bolting the length of her leg. She jerked, triggering another savage blast of pain. Freezing, Masara stared wide-eyed at the starry sky. Remembered the werewolves trying to wrench her body apart.

  Somehow Duncan had saved her. She reached out to his mind, opening her consciousness to his, until she could see through his eyes. He leaped at Walker, the axe a crackling streak of light. The big werewolf ducked under his attack, claws flashing upward to grate furrows across the plate armor.

  And it wasn’t the first time they’d caught him. His armor was dented, scratched, gouges cutting through the plate to penetrate all the way to flesh. Pain sliced him with every move he made, and exhaustion and blood loss rode him hard. Sweat rolled into his eyes, but he kept fighting, kept swinging the axe despite his aching muscles and countless injuries. Knowing if he stopped, the werewolves would tear him apart. And she’d be next.

  Alone. Duncan was all alone against the three of them, grim and terrified and determined to save her. And they’d hurt Masara so damn badly, she wouldn’t be able to do a thing to help him unless she could heal herself.

  So she threw herself open to the Mageverse, dragging in every ounce of power she could reach, and sent it boiling the length of her body.

  Mangled ligaments and muscle and fractured bones itched and burned as they healed, the pain almost as brutal as the original injuries. Masara clenched her teeth and fought not to scream. When the agony faded, she tried to move again, but her armor was still locked down, rendered rigid by the protective spell. A whispered chant released the spell, and she cautiously rolled over. To her relief, she managed it without drowning in fire again. But when she tried to stand, the world spun around her, and she almost vomited inside her helmet. She staggered and fell to her hands and knees.

  I’ve got a concussion. One so severe she hadn’t been able to heal it completely. She needed a healer. Yes, well, Duncan needs me.

  Spotting her fallen axe, Masara crawled over and picked it up, planted its head on the ground and used the haft to lever herself to her feet. Leaning on the axe like a cane, she fought dizziness as the world revolved drunkenly around her.

  Duncan whirled and leaped as he fought the three werewolves, swinging the battle-axe in great arcs that forced them to keep their distance. Despite her savage headache, pride shot through her. Damn, he was good. When he’d come to her six months ago, he could barely control his vampire strength as he tripped over his own feet. Now he was all smooth agility and blinding power.

  As Duncan charged, Jack leapt aside, a huge clawed hand raking across his armored chest. Walker slammed one huge fist into his gut, sending him staggering back. Duncan almost fell into the ward, but Jack grabbed him by one pauldron and jerked him into the air.

  Oh no, you don’t. Masara staggered forward, ignoring the vicious pounding of her headache. Gathering her magic, she prepared to send her axe flying toward the werewolf.

  Something rammed into her from behind, smashing her into the dirt. Her face smacked against her visor so hard she saw stars and her mouth filled with bile. Something wrenched at her back. Not again!

  From the corner of one eye, Masara saw Ellie kneeling on top of her, hooking both claws under the edges of the back plate of her armor. Deformed muscle surged, and the plate tore free, half lifting her off the ground.

  The werewolf slung the back plate like a Frisbee, then slammed both clawed hands down between her shoulder blades. Jerking upward, Ellie ripped the scale armor like paper. Pain blasted through Masara’s back as the werewolf’s claws dug into skin.

  For a heartbeat, she was back in the barn, feeling rawhide slice her flesh as Emily whipped her in a frenzy of jealousy and rage. “You’re nothing, nothing, nothing!” Above her, the werewolf’s jaws gaped wide as the monster prepared to sink her fangs into bare flesh.

  “Fuck! You!” Masara screamed as she shot the axe toward the werewolf’s head with a blast of magic. The blow landed badly, the edge missing, yet the impact still snapped her foe’s head back so hard, it knocked her off her perch.

  Masara leaped upward, throwing out one hand. Her magic brought the axe flying back to smack into her palm. “I’m not nothing! I’m a Maja!” She swung the axe at the werewolf with every ounce of her strength.

  * * *

  The blade sliced toward Eleanor. The usurper started to throw her backward, but Ellie saw her chance and struck, locking the muscles of one knee. For a single glorious instant, her body obeyed. The axe bit into her chest in a blast of white-hot agony, and its electric charge went off with a crackling SNAP.

  Every muscle in her body seized, and Ellie toppled into the blue glowing barrier of the ward.

  Just as she’d intended.

  The blast of electricity seared her with the worst physical pain she’d ever felt.

  She embraced it as she flung open her Spirit Link to Jack -- even as he reached for her, accepting her pain. Deliberately magnifying and weaponizing it against the usurper.

  The invader howled as their joint agony ripped through him. Recoiling, he lost his grip on their minds.

  Jack released the vampire’s axe arm and arrested the punch he’d been about to throw. He met the young warrior’s gaze. “Take my head!”

  The vampire hesitated, eyes searching his…

  No, you will not! the usurper hissed, flooded back into his mind.

  “Now!” Jack howled.

  The vampire swung the axe in a hard, fast arc that cleaved through Jack’s neck in a single stroke.

  As her husband’s soul ripped free of his body, the Spirit Link did exactly what it was designed to, dragging Eleanor with him. With a cry of joy and relief, she exploded from her body the moment before the witch’s axe sent her head tumbling.

  Ellie swirled up to meet Jack’s spirit, and they streamed into the light.

  Together.

  * * *

  Axe in hand, Masara whirled at the sound of Walker’s howl of agony as Jack and Ellie died. The werewolf’s rat-red eyes went wide and round with pain, h
is malformed face contorted. Duncan cleared five feet in one leap, swinging his axe up and around in a backhanded diagonal chop that cleaved into the werewolf’s chest. And lodged there.

  Walker gasped, his tone desperate, “I’m free! Oh, thank God! Take my head before he regains control or he’ll…” He jerked backward, tearing the blade from Duncan’s hands and whirled to flee, only to topple to his hands and knees as if something had tripped him. “For God’s sake, do it!” It was a howl of anguish and rage.

  Masara tossed her axe to Duncan, who caught it and brought it down in one smooth, fast strike. The werewolf’s head hit the ground and rolled in an arc of bright blood. His body collapsed.

  “Jesus Christ!” Duncan stared down at the severed head, his expression sickened. “Did he say he was possessed?”

  “Wait,” she snapped. “Let me make sure they’re actually dead.” Masara sent a wave of magic dancing over the three bodies. There was none of the hum of magical energy she associated with werewolves. “I don’t sense any life force.” She blew out a breath, wincing as she looked down at the cop’s body. “God, Walker, I’m so sorry.” Guilt rose, choking her. She remembered the big werewolf’s dedication, his compassion for the jogger, his sense of duty toward his people. He’d deserved so much better.

  Duncan blew out a breath and moved to join her, the axe in his hand. “Even if you’d known they’d been possessed by something, what could you have done? They’re still immune to magic.”

  “Yes, they are,” Masara said, thinking out loud. “If it was the Fomorians, how did they do it? And where did the rats fit in?”

  “What the hell happened before I got here?”

  She described Walker’s arrival, and his request she let him in. “His voice sounded a little… off, but I thought he was just tired. Lord knows I am.” Her body felt impossibly heavy in what was left of her armor. With a gesture, she banished her helmet and dragged in deep lungfuls of air. “Jack and Ellie must have ambushed him somewhere. Probably at his home, since they all knew each other.”