Enchanted Warrior

by Sharon Ashwood

  About halfway across the drawbridge, Gawain tensed, looking up as a flock of crows swarmed from the western tower window. They spiraled and turned, a croaking, flapping mass of jet-black wings, and then dove for the drawbridge. Gawain pulled Tamsin low, shielding her with his body. Even so, she heard the hum of wind through feathers and felt the vicious stab of a beak as it plucked at her braid.

  It was over in a moment, but it left her rattled. “What was that?”

  “Messengers,” Gawain said darkly. “The entire forest will soon know we’re here.”

  And that meant someone had seen them. A cowardly corner of Tamsin’s soul balked when they reached the massive doors of the castle gate. They were open just far enough for them to slip through one at a time. Gawain went through first, Tamsin hard on his heels. The castle walls framed the courtyard, making a large and perfect flagstone square dominated on the far side by the main castle keep.

  They’d barely set foot inside when they both froze in their tracks. They’d found the riders, though none of the horses were there. Bodies littered the courtyard, sprawled in their own blood. Tamsin dragged in a breath. The gulp of air should have revived her, but the taste of slaughter washed over her tongue instead.

  Gawain was on alert, sword raised and scanning every inch of the yard. “Get back out the door.”

  “We’re giving up?”

  “The blood is still wet. Whatever did this is still nearby.”

  That was good enough for Tamsin. She lunged for the door but stopped dead. “The doors are shut and there’s no handle on this side.”

  There was definitely magic here, and they were trapped.

  Gawain didn’t falter. “Then get your back to the wall and start looking for movement. If you see something, call out.”

  Tamsin complied, though it took a long moment before she calmed her mind enough to look closely at the scene around her.

  “There’s got to be dozens of soldiers here,” Tamsin murmured. “Who were they?”

  Intent on searching out the enemy, Gawain didn’t answer. He was looking for the living, though nothing stirred but the breeze. Tamsin shifted her weight nervously. She couldn’t stay cowering by the gate. If she did, she’d freeze there like a terrified rabbit, unable to move ever again. Instead, she would answer her own question.

  While Gawain prowled in ever-widening circles, Tamsin forced herself to take the dozen steps to reach the nearest of the fallen men. She crouched beside him, her healer’s senses telling her he was unquestionably dead. Even so, her muscles coiled, ready to spring at the slightest twitch.

  The man’s features were invisible behind the bucket-like helmet. It had slits instead of a visor, making it impossible to peer inside. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the helmet and pulled. It came off an inch at a time to reveal the honey-brown skin and white hair of a faery. The lean, beautiful face looked almost serene.

  “What are you doing here?” she wondered aloud.

  More to the point, who had stopped Mordred’s army? Who was badder than the bad guys?

  Chapter 19

  Moving among the bodies, Gawain picked up a shield painted as bloodred as the massacre around them. There were a dozen things, from arms to water skins to a decent horse, that they’d need to survive in this land. He’d start with the weapons. From another corpse, he took a spear that was unbroken. He tested its balance and approved of the workmanship. With no wasted motion, he sheathed his sword. A spear was of little use in close quarters, but he wanted the reach. Whatever monster had slaughtered the faeries, it had claws and teeth, and fighting it would take all his skill. Anticipation sang in his blood.

  As he continued scavenging for weapons, he checked to make sure Tamsin was close. By now, it was pure habit—he always seemed to know just where she was, as if they were joined by an invisible chain.

  “Come here,” he said. “I’ve found you a knife.”

  She drew nearer, but paled when he bent to clip the leather sheath to the belt of her jeans. He looked up, reading the expression in her dark brown eyes. “Take it. I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t need it for anything but slicing apples.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her skin so bloodless he could see the fine freckles across the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know how to use a knife in a fight.”

  The simplicity of the statement wrung his heart. She was as gentle as she was courageous, a healer at heart. “It’s only as a last resort.”

  He finished buckling on the knife and rose. Tamsin lifted her chin, following his movement with a fearful intensity. Despite her powers, despite her bravery, he was the only protector between her and this brutal reality. The thought nearly stopped his breath. He reached up, running his thumb along the clean line of her jaw and over the rose-petal softness of her lips. She sighed at his touch, the warmth of her breath almost lost to the hard, scarred flesh of his hands. All the weapons he’d handled, all the wars he’d fought had taken a toll.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  Gawain didn’t have a good plan, so a bold one would have to do. “Nimueh put us here for a reason. We’ll search the castle and maybe we’ll find out why. Maybe we’ll find Merlin’s books. She couldn’t give them to us, but perhaps a scavenger hunt isn’t against the rules.”

  “She attacked me before in the church,” said Tamsin. “Why is she helping us now?”

  Gawain frowned as the fae’s words came back to him: Mordred will get his reward, or I am the Lady of the Lake no more. “Mordred crossed her. He never knew how to keep allies, much less friends.”

  Wisps of hair had escaped Tamsin’s long braid and blew like threads of sunlight across her face. He brushed them back, his hand feeling too large and coarse for the delicate job. Gawain couldn’t help a smile. “You may have studied castles, but I’ve lived in them. We should begin our search with the room where such books would be kept.”

  “And where is that?” Tamsin smiled. “Since you’re an expert and all.”

  “These are valuable books of magic. If the lord of this place has found them, then they will be with his other treasures, close at hand.” He bent and kissed her temple, where the skin was so fine he could see tiny blue veins. “Follow me and stay close. Someone sent those crows to greet us. This place is not deserted.”

  She gripped his hand a moment, her long, fine fingers folding over his, and then released him, as if she’d taken what courage she needed. “Then let’s go.”

  Gawain looked around the courtyard. He could pick out the granary, bake house, chapel and kitchen. But what he wanted was in the tall keep that overlooked it all. He picked up his salvaged weapons and led the way.

  The keep was a square tower with a central stairway. They ascended slowly, stopping often to listen for footsteps or voices, but heard nothing. There were rooms on each floor, and all seemed deserted. A scatter of leaves and dirt had blown in through the narrow windows.

  He paused again. Another crow burst from an open window in a flap of wings. The sound startled Tamsin, who clutched his elbow before she could stop herself. She snatched her hand back with a look of apology and nervously wiped her hands on her pant leg. She knew better than to get in the way of his sword arm, but her instinct was to look to him for protection. That felt right to Gawain, and he held on to the notion as he climbed the stairs to the top of the tower, the spear raised to thrust at the first sign of claw or tentacle.

  What they found instead was a private room with large windows and comfortable furniture. In contrast to the rest of the castle, it looked as if someone had been there minutes before. A pewter plate and tankard sat on the table. The plate was scattered with crumbs of bread and cheese, the tankard still half-full of dark amber ale. Gawain suddenly felt thirsty though he knew better than to eat or drink anything where magic was present. The room looked restful, even pleasa
nt, but he could feel the thrum of dark energy just under the sunny surface, like a fruit gone rotten beneath an unblemished skin.

  Tamsin had fastened on the shelf of books behind the table. There were about twenty—a generous collection when everything was written by hand. She had opened the cover of one and was scanning the Latin text with an ease Gawain admired. “This is a book on demonology,” she said with a mix of wonder and revulsion. “I thought demons were banished.”

  Gawain winced. “Merlin banished them from the realms of humans and faeries. The Forest Sauvage belongs to no one but itself. It’s possible one or two might linger here.”

  She let the cover of the book fall closed and backed away from the lectern where it sat. “Were the demons truly that bad?”

  “Yes,” Gawain said, leaning the spear against the table so he could begin his search. “For all the destruction Merlin caused, I do not blame his instinct to scour them from the world.”

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a drawstring bag sitting on the window ledge, half-buried by a jumble of other items—a hat, a hunting horn and a wadded-up cloak. He lunged across the room and snatched it up.

  “I have them.” He passed the bag to Tamsin. “We were right. Nimueh did want us to find them.”

  Tamsin’s face lit up with relief as she reached inside to touch the covers, the gesture almost tender. “You’re brilliant.” She reached up, winding her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.

  The warm taste of woman went straight to his core as her tongue slid against his, firing needs there was no time to assuage. Still, he pulled her closer, taking her weight against his chest. The green, rich scent of the woods still clung to her hair. He could feel her magic, but in this dark place it felt pure as virgin snow. He stroked down the graceful curve of her back, thinking all the mysteries of the world could be reduced to the geometry of that shape. Everything he needed to know in that moment was here, in his arms, and her name was Tamsin.

  Gawain broke the kiss reluctantly, leaving a few of its smaller siblings behind. Finding the books would mean nothing if they couldn’t discover a means of escape. He brushed Tamsin’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Now let’s find a way out of this place.”

  “Absolutely.” Tamsin unzipped her backpack and rearranged the contents, adding her own spell book to the cloth bag and zipping it all up again. Gawain idly wondered if the pack had magical properties that allowed it to hold far more than it should, but then he’d seen women do amazing things with their purses, medieval or modern. Finally, Tamsin stood, shouldering the pack. “Let’s go.”

  A sixth sense buried deep in Gawain’s core raised a warning flag moments before he heard the smooth, light baritone.

  “Not so fast.”

  The voice made Gawain’s skin crawl. He followed the sound but could see no speaker. He reached instantly for Tamsin, pulling her close to his side as he turned for the doorway. He’d barely made it three steps before he stopped dead. Tamsin’s gasp said it all.

  “It’s bad luck to speak of demons,” said the figure. “It has a way of making us notice you.”

  The demon was—at the moment—wearing the face of a man. He was tall, bald but for a tightly clipped black beard, and dressed in robes the shade of drying blood. What gave him away were his pale yellow eyes slitted like a goat’s.

  Gawain stepped in front of Tamsin, making his body her shield. “What do you want, hellspawn?”

  “The same thing as you. The books. Which you are stealing from my study, by the way.” He stepped aside to peer at Tamsin over Gawain’s shoulder. “That’s not only unwise, it’s downright rude.”

  “Those aren’t your books!” Tamsin protested. “The Lady of the Lake sent them here for us to find.”

  “That might be true, and then again it might not,” said the demon. “They appeared right in the middle of my courtyard. How am I to know they weren’t meant for me?”

  “The books appeared in the courtyard? Along with Mordred’s fae armies?” Gawain scoffed.

  “Oh, them.” The demon’s mouth curled in a way that boded no good. “They were seeking the castle’s former master. Apparently the gentleman had something they want.”

  “What was that?” asked Tamsin.

  “I don’t know. I never had a chance to speak to the previous occupant of the castle. He had the wits to move out when he heard me coming.”

  Gawain tried to guess when that might have been. Long enough for the dirt and dead leaves to make drifts in the empty rooms.

  “Now leave me the books and go,” the demon ordered. “Or try to go. I have a hard time making up my mind about uninvited guests. They can be such a crashing bore.”

  The demon pointedly glanced out the window at the carnage below. “On the other hand, every so often they keep things interesting.”

  Gawain’s mind raced. Their odds of survival were low enough that there was little to lose in a gamble. He picked up the spear. “I like interesting.” He jabbed the tip at the demon’s face. It might be a magical being, but as long as it wore flesh, it could be hurt.

  It flinched back far enough that Gawain could push Tamsin toward the door. She scrambled forward, starting down the stairs with lightning speed. Gawain followed, dropping his guard in his haste to get Tamsin out of harm’s way. That was a mistake—the demon caught him with a backhand that sent him sprawling against the wall. He’d slung the heavy wooden shield across his back and it took the brunt of the blow, but the iron rim dug into the backs of his thighs. He staggered upright, pain surging up his body, and slashed with his weapon. The demon kept its distance, a slight smile on its lips.

  Gawain really didn’t like that smile. Rather than pressing the attack, he edged toward the door and the sound of Tamsin’s steps clattering down the stairs. The demon feinted, and Gawain parried, drawing a thin line of blood from its palm. The demon’s blood turned black the moment the air touched it.

  Finally, Gawain reached the doorway. The demon rushed him then, but Gawain had the spear ready, hovering just before the demon’s eyes as he descended the stairs backward two at a time. With a disgusted look, the demon slammed the door in his face. Not stopping to argue, Gawain turned and bounded down the steps to catch up to Tamsin.

  She’d just about reached the bottom of the tower when he found her. A half-dozen steps separated her from the floor. A dozen more would take her to the courtyard. But she wasn’t moving another inch. The fae were on their feet again, though they were still unquestionably dead. Gawain halted on the step behind Tamsin, fighting the urge to simply stand and stare.

  “Zombies,” she said in a cracked voice. “Faery zombies. That’s just—wrong.”

  Chapter 20

  Gawain wished he’d had a gold piece for every time he’d heard “wrong” when demons were involved. He’d have gilded armor for himself and his horse.

  The fae were starting to drift toward them with slow, deliberate steps, effectively blocking the main door of the keep. They were eerily silent, the only sound the clink of armor or squish of ruined flesh. Worse, they looked hungry. Panic rose like a gibbering imp inside Gawain, but he slammed it down hard. Tamsin was counting on him, and surrender was not an option.

  He slipped the shield off his back and slid his forearm through the grips. “Stay with me,” he said. “We’re going down the stairs and out the back of the keep. Keep running no matter what and look for a water gate. There should be another entrance to the castle grounds used to bring in supplies by boat.”

  Tamsin gave a spastic nod and clutched her backpack more securely. The dead were close enough now to see their eyes. Already, the film of death was turning them to opaque, grayish marbles. Gawain’s stomach rolled. This kind of nonsense was exactly why everyone hated demons.

  “Go!” he ordered.

  Tamsin dashed
. The zombies lurched forward, but not before Gawain vaulted from the last steps and stuck his spear through the throat of the first one. It barely slowed the thing down until he gave a savage twist that severed its spine. By then, three others had rushed to fill the gap. Gawain shoved the body, spear and all, into their path and drew his sword. Baring their teeth, the next wave trampled the fallen. Gawain slammed the shield into his closest foe and slashed the sword, aiming for heads. Two fell, but the third dropped to its knees and fastened its jaws on his calf. Gawain glanced down in disbelief. The fae was trying to gnaw through the leather of his high boot. With a cry of disgust, Gawain chopped off its head, shook away the remains and ran after Tamsin.

  She had reached what looked like a guardroom. Gawain followed, slammed the door and pushed a heavy table against it.

  “What now?” Tamsin asked. Her eyes were round with shock.

  “Through the window,” Gawain replied, boosting her over the wide stone sill. A body hurled itself against the door, making the table squeak on the floor. “Then run for your life.”

  He had exactly enough time to crawl after her before the walking dead smashed their way through the door. It seemed like miles across the grass to the stone wall that rimmed the edge of the moat. More faeries streamed from the courtyard in pursuit. Gawain saw a small gate in the distance but despaired of reaching it in time. The fae were gaining on them too fast.

  They had gone halfway when Tamsin fell to her knees, gasping. Mordred had sucked away too much of her strength. “Let me carry you,” he said.

  “Then how are you supposed to fight?” she panted, sitting back on her heels. Her eyes were fixed on the approaching enemy, her expression a mask of horror. “I’ll slow you down. It’s my turn to do something.”

  “What?” Gawain gauged the number of seconds they had before the dead faeries were upon them. Not many.

  “Help me up,” Tamsin said, struggling to her feet.

  As he did, he saw a pale blue light pool in her hand. A fireball. He flinched, recognizing the same spell he’d learned as a child. The one he’d used to burn down the nursery. Memory burned in his blood.