by Nora Roberts
The stake missed Cian’s heart by a hairsbreadth, and the pain buckled his knees. As he went down, he thrust his sword up, all but cleaving his attacker in two before he managed to roll. A lance dug into the stony ground beside him. He gripped it, heaved it up to strike at another heart. Then planting it, he vaulted up, kicking out to send another flying to the wooden stakes the Geallians had hammered into the ground.
He saw Blair through the smoke that billowed from the fireballs and flaming arrows. With a pump of his legs, he leaped up, grabbing her dragon’s harness to swing behind her an instant before she released another bomb.
“Didn’t see you,” she called out.
“Got that. Moira?”
“Don’t know. Take over here. I’m going down.”
She jumped down to the table of a rock. Cian saw her flip off, shooting stakes from both hands before the haze buried her. He swung his mount, aiming his sword, sending out fire. The ground continued to pull at him; its intoxicating scents of blood and fear driving hunger into him as keenly as a sharpened stake.
Then he saw Glenna, struggling her way up a sheer slope, and outnumbered three-to-one. Her battle-ax flamed, and each time she took an enemy, more crawled their way up toward her.
And when he saw the black figure on the high ridge, he understood why so many would go against a single woman.
The power of the circle battled back the hunger as he swept through the air toward his brother’s wife.
He sent three tumbling down against rock, into traps of stakes and pools of holy water with a wild strike from the dragon’s tale. His sword took two more even as Glenna’s fiery ax turned enemies into flaming dust.
“Give you a lift?” He swooped down, circled her waist with his arm and hauled her up.
“Midir. The bastard.”
Understanding, Cian soared up again. But when he struck out with the dragon’s tail, it bounced off as if it hit rock.
“He’s shielded. The coward.” Breath short and choppy, Glenna searched the ground for Hoyt. And felt the lock on her lungs release when she saw him fighting his way up the slope.
“Set me down on the ridge, and go.”
“The hell I will.”
“This is what’s needed, Cian. It’s magic against magic for this. This is why I’m here. Find the others, get ready. Because by all the gods and goddesses, we’re going to do this.”
“Okay, Red. My money’s on you.”
He flew over the ridge, pausing while she slid down. And left her to face the black sorcerer.
“So, the red witch has come here to die.”
“I didn’t come for the ambiance.”
She raised a hand, and charged with a swing of her ax. The widening of his eyes told her the move had surprised him. The flaming edge of the ax cut through the shield, but the blade missed its mark. She was propelled back, lifted into the air, slammed hard into the ground.
Though she threw out her own power, the scorching heat of his black lightning seared the palms of her hands. She held them out, held her power in them as she pushed painfully to her feet.
“You can’t win this,” he told her as dark shimmered around him. “I’ve seen the end, and your death.”
“You’ve seen what whatever devil you sold yourself to wants you to see.” She hurled fire, and though he deflected it with a snap of his wrist, she knew he felt her burn even as she’d felt his. “The end’s what we make it.”
With icy fury on his face, he brought a cutting wind that slashed at her skin like knives.
They were holding, Blair thought. She believed they were holding, but for every foot of ground the Geallians held, more vampires swarmed through the night and over it.
She’d lost track of her kills. A dozen at least with sword and stake, at least that many with air attacks. And still it wasn’t enough. Bodies littered the ugly ground, and even her strength was pushed to its limit.
They needed to pull the rabbit out of the hat, she thought, and screamed in vengeance as she slayed a vampire who’d stopped to feed on one of the fallen.
Whirling, slashing at others, she saw Glenna and Midir on the high ridge, and the firestorm of black against white as they battled.
She grabbed a lance from a dead hand, shot it out like a javelin. The spear tip went through two vampires fighting back to back, and the wood pole pierced hearts.
Something leaped down from above. Her senses caught just the edge of it, and her instincts had her pumping up into a high, wide flip. She slashed her sword as she touched ground, and clashed it against Lora’s.
“There you are.” Lora slid her blade down until it met Blair’s to form a V. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Been around. You got something on your face there. Oh! Gee, is that a scar? Did I do that? My bad.”
“I’ll be eating your face shortly.”
“You know that’s wishful thinking, right? In addition to being disgusting. Enough small talk for you?”
“More than.”
The swords sang as they slid apart. Then the music crescendoed as blade struck blade.
In moments, Blair understood she was facing the most formidable enemy of her career. Lora might look like a B movie dominatrix wrapped in snug black leather, but the French bitch could fight.
And take a punch, she thought when she finally got past Lora’s guard long enough to slam a fist in the vampire’s face. Blair felt the burn shoot a line across her knuckles as fangs sliced her flesh.
Blair flipped up to the jagged teeth of a rock, hacked down. And met air as Lora rose off the ground as if she had wings. Lora’s sword whistled past Blair’s face, and the tip of it sliced her cheek.
“Oh, will that leave a scar?” Lora landed on the rock with her. “My bad.”
“It’ll heal. Nothing about you is going to last much longer.”
She answered first blood with a lightning parry of her own, gashing Lora’s arm, then followed it through with a ripple of fire.
But Lora’s sword struck the blade aside, going black against the red flame. The fire spurted and died.
“You think we weren’t ready for that?” Lora bared her teeth as they hacked and thrust and swung. “Midir’s magic is more than your magicians can ever hope for.”
“Then why don’t all of your troops have swords like yours? He couldn’t pull it off.” Blair flew up again, flipping over and striking Lora with her feet. The vampire used the momentum to soar up, driving down with the sword on her descent.
Raising hers to block, Blair didn’t see the dagger that flew out of Lora’s other hand. She stumbled from the shock, the pain, when it pierced her side.
“Look at all that blood. It’s just pouring out of you. Yum.” Lora laughed, a tinkling sound of delight, when Blair fell to her knees. And her eyes gleamed red as she raised the sword high for the killing blow.
With a mad, undulating howl, the gold wolf pounced from above. Claws and fangs raked as he leaped over the swinging sword, as he lunged and snapped. When he bunched to spring for the throat, Blair cursed.
“No! She’s mine. You gave your word.” Her breath whistled as she stayed on her knees, the dagger still lodged in her side. “Back off, wolf-boy. Back the hell off.”
The wolf shimmered into a man as Larkin stepped back. “Get it done then,” he snapped, his eyes grim. “And stop messing about.”
“Pussy-whipped, is he?” Lora circled so that she could keep them both in her line of sight—the bleeding woman, the unarmed man. “But he’s right, we really should stop messing about. I’ve a busy schedule.”
She swung the sword down, and Blair thrust hers up to meet it, to block it, to hold it. The muscles in her arms screamed with the strain and her side wept blood and agony.
“I’m no pussy,” she panted. “He’s not whipped. And you’re done.”
She yanked the dagger from her side, stabbed it to its bloodied hilt into Lora’s belly.
“That hurts, but it’s steel.”
“So
’s this.” With all her remaining strength, Blair shoved Lora’s sword aside, and plunged her own into the vampire’s chest.
“Now you’re just annoying me.” Lora hefted her sword, point down. “Now who’s done?”
“You,” Blair replied as the blade still in Lora’s chest erupted with flame.
Burning, screaming, Lora started to tumble from the rock. Blair yanked the sword free, swung it, hard and true, and cut off the flaming head.
“Fucking well done.” Blair stumbled, swayed, would have fallen if Larkin hadn’t sprung forward to catch her.
“How bad? How bad?” He pressed his hand to her bleeding side.
“Through and through, I think. No organs hit. Quick patch to stop the bleeding and I’m back in the game.”
“We’ll see about that. Get on.”
When he shimmered into a dragon, Blair crawled onto his back. As they soared she saw Glenna on the ridge clashing with Midir. And she saw her friend fall.
“Oh God, she’s hit. She’s done. How fast can you get there?”
Inside the dragon Larkin thought: Not fast enough.
Glenna tasted blood in her mouth. There was more seeping out of a dozen shallow slices in her skin. She knew she’d hurt him, knew she’d chipped at his shield, his body, even his power.
But she could feel her own power ebbing out of her along with her blood.
She’d done all she could, and it hadn’t been enough.
“Your fire’s cooling. Barely an ember left to glow.” Midir stepped closer now to where she lay on the scorched and bloody ground. “Still it might be enough to trouble myself to take, along with what’s left of your life.”
“It’ll choke you.” She gasped out the words. He’d bled, she thought. She’d made him bleed onto the ground. “I swear it will.”
“I’ll swallow it whole. It’s so small, after all. Can you see below, can you? Where what I helped wrought runs over you like locusts. It’s as I foretold. And as you fall, one by one, my power grows. Nothing will hold it now. Nothing will stop it.”
“I will.” Hoyt swung, bloody and battered, over the lip of the ridge.
“There’s my guy,” Glenna managed, gritting her teeth against the pain. “I softened him up for you.”
“Now here is something more to chew on.” Whirling, Midir shot black lighting.
It crashed, sizzled, spewed bloody flames when it struck against Hoyt’s blinding white. The force blew them both back, searing the air between them. On the ground, Glenna rolled away from a streaking line of flame, then clawed to her hands and knees.
Whatever she had left, she gathered to send to Hoyt. Closing a trembling hand around the cross at her neck she focused her power into it, and to its twin Hoyt wore.
While she chanted, the sorcerers—black and white—battled on the smoke-hazed ridge, and in the filthy air above it.
The fire that sliced at Hoyt carried the burn of ice. It sought his blood—what was shed, what it aimed to shed, to draw away his power.
It clawed and slashed at him while the air flashed and boomed with magicks, sending smoke billowing high to drown the swimming moon. The ground beneath his feet cracked, splitting fissures under the enormity of pressure.
While his lungs labored and his heart pounded, he ignored those earthy demands on his body, ignored the pains from his wounds and the sweat that ran salt into them.
He was power now. Beyond that moment at the beginning of this journey when he’d wavered for an instant over the black. Now, on this ridge over blood and death, over the courage of man, the sacrifice and the fury, he was the white-hot flame of power.
The cross he wore flashed silver and brilliant as Glenna joined her magic to his. With one hand he reached for hers, gripping it firmly when she linked fingers with him and pulled herself to her feet. With the other he raised a sword, and the fire on it went pure white.
“It is we who take you,” Hoyt began and slashed away a thunderbolt with his sword. “We who stand for the purity of magic, for the heart of mankind. It is we who defeat you, who destroy you, who send you forever into the flames.”
“Be damned to you!” Midir shouted, and lifting both arms hurled twin thunderbolts. Fear rushed over his face when Glenna waved a hand over the air and turned them to ash.
“No. Be damned to you.” Hoyt swung down the sword. The white fire leaped from the blade to strike Midir’s heart like steel.
Where he dropped and died, the ground turned black.
High ground, Moira thought. She had to get back to higher ground, regroup the archers. She’d heard the shouts warning that their line had broken again to the north. Flaming arrows would drive that invading force back, give the troops in its path time to forge their lines again. She searched through the melee for a horse or dragon that would take her where she knew she was most needed.
And looking up saw Hoyt and Glenna bathed in brilliant white, facing Midir. A spurt of fresh hope had her racing forward. Even as the ground seemed to catch at her feet, she swung her sword at an advancing enemy. The gash she served it slowed it down, and as she poised to strike again, Riddock took it from behind.
With a fierce grin, he charged with a handful of men toward the broken line. He lived, she thought. Her uncle lived. As she raced to join him, the ground bucked under her feet, sent her sprawling.
As she pushed up she looked down into Isleen’s dead and staring eyes.
“No. No. No.”
Isleen’s throat was torn open, the leather strap where Moira knew she’d worn a wooden cross was snapped and soaked with blood. Grief struck so strong, so deep, she gathered the body up against her.
Still warm, she thought as she rocked. Still warm. If she’d been faster, she might have saved Isleen.
“Isleen. Isleen.”
“Isleen. Isleen.” The words were a mocking mimic as Lilith flowed out of the smoke.
She’d dressed for battle in red and silver, a mitre like Moira’s banding her head. Her sword was bloody to its jeweled hilt. Seeing her crashed waves of fear and fury through Moira that had her surging to her feet.
“Look at you.” The grace and deftness with which Lilith spun the sword as she circled warned Moira this vampire queen knew the art of the blade. “Small and insignificant, covered with mud and tears. I’m amazed I wasted so much time planning your death when it’s all so simple.”
“You won’t win here.” Queen to queen, Moira thought, and blocked Lilith’s first testing thrust. Life against death. “We’re beating you back. We’ll never stop.”
“Oh please.” Lilith waved the words away. “Your lines are crumbling like clay, and I’ve two hundred yet in reserve. But that’s neither here nor there. This is you and me.”
With barely a blink, Lilith shot out a hand, grabbing the soldier who charged her by the throat. And snapping his neck. She tossed him carelessly to the ground, while slicing down at Moira’s swinging fire sword.
“Midir has his uses,” Lilith said when the fire died.
“I want to take my time with you, you human bitch. You killed my Davey.”
“No, you did. And with what you made of him destroyed, I hope what he was, the innocent he was, is cursing you.”
Lilith’s hand streaked out, flashing like the fangs of a snake. She raked her nails down Moira’s cheek.
“A thousand cuts.” She licked the blood from her fingers. “That’s what I’ll give you. A thousand cuts while my army feeds its belly full on yours.”
“You won’t touch her again.” On his stallion’s back, Cian rode slowly forward, as if time had stopped. “You’ll never touch her again.”
“Come to save your whore?” From her belt, Lilith drew a gold stake. “Gilded oak. I had this made for you, for when I end you as I made you. Tell me, doesn’t all this blood stir you? Warm pools of it, bodies not yet cooled waiting to be drained. I know what’s in you wants that taste. I put it in you, and I know it as I know myself.”
“You never knew me. Go,” he said
to Moira.
“Yes, run along. I’ll find you later.”
She flew at Cian, then sprang up a sword’s length away to spin over his head. As she sliced down, her sword met air while he threw his body up and back, with the heels of his boots barely missing her face.
They moved so fast, that eerie speed, that Moira saw little more than a blur, heard the clash of swords like silver thunder. This would be his battle, she knew, the one only he could fight. But she wouldn’t leave him.
Leaping onto the horse, she drove Vlad up blood-slicked rock until she was positioned over their heads. There she shot fire from her sword to hold off Lilith’s men who tried to reach their queen. She vowed that she and the sword of Geall would stand for her lover to the last.
Lilith was skilled, Cian knew. After all, she had centuries to learn the arts of war just as he had. Her strength and speed were as great as his. Perhaps greater. She blocked him, drove him back, slithered away from the force of his attack.
This ground was still hers, he knew. This pocket of black. She fed off it, as he didn’t dare. She fed off the screams that echoed through the air and the blood that seemed to spew through it like rain.
He fought her, and the war inside him, the thing that struggled to claw free and revel in what it was. What she’d made him. Taking her advantage, she beat his sword aside, and in that flash of an instant he was open, plunged the stake at his heart.
It struck with a force that sent him staggering back. But as her cry of triumph echoed away, he continued to stand whole and unharmed.
“How?” was all she said as she stared at him.
He felt the imprint of Moira’s locket against his heart, and the pain was sweet. “A magic you’ll never know.” He sliced out, scoring across the scar of the pentagram. The blood that welled from the wound was black and thick as tar.
Pain and fury brought the demon to her eyes, the killing red. Now her screams rang as she came at him with a new and wild strength. He slashed back, spilled more blood, drove as he was driven as the locket seemed to pulse like a heart on his chest.
Her sword ripped down his arm, sending his clattering against the rocks. “Now you! Then your whore!”
When she charged, he gripped the wrist of her sword arm in his bloody hand. She smiled at him. “This way then. It’s more poetic.”
She bared her fangs to strike at his throat. And he plunged the stake she had made for him into her heart.
“I’d say go to hell, but even hell won’t have you.”
Her eyes went wide, faded to blue. He felt the wrist he held dissolve in his hand, and still those eyes stared into his another moment.
Then there was nothing but the ash at his feet.
“I’ve ended you,” he declared, “as you ended me so long ago. That’s poetic.”
The ground under his feet began to quake. So, he thought, it comes.
The black stallion leaped from the rocks, scattering ash. “You’ve done it.” Moira vaulted from the saddle into his arms. “You’ve beaten her. You’ve won.”
“This saved me.” He dragged her locket out, showed her the deep dent in the silver from the force of the stake. “You saved me.”
“Cian.” As the rock behind her split like an egg, she jumped down, and her face went pale again. “Hurry. Go, hurry. It’s begun. Her blood, her end, was the last of it. They’ve started the spell.”
“It’s you who beat her, you who won. Remember that.” He pulled her into his arms, crushed his mouth to hers. Then he was flying onto the horse, and was gone.
Everything around her was chaos. Screams and shouts through the haze, the moans of wounded, the rush of the enemy in mad retreat.
A gold dragon speared through it, Blair on its back. With the ground rippling in waves under her, Moira lifted her arms so Larkin could cradle her in his claws. She flew over the quivering land toward the high ridge.
