Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm)

by Valerie Douglas

  A bowstring twanged and an arrow shot toward Colath from out of the wheat.

  With a flick of his fingers, Jareth sent a flash of mage fire to intercept it even as Colath got his bow strung and fired an arrow toward the thatch from where the arrow had emerged.

  “Wizard,” someone shouted, “this isn’t your fight!”

  “It is now,” Jareth called back. “You just made it mine.”

  A dust cloud - riders - approached from the road ahead as dozens of men burst from cover in the fields around them, some bearing bows and firing as the rest ran toward them, waving their swords and shouting.

  Elon reached for his bow even as Colath did and sensed Jareth raising power. The bow wasn’t his best weapon, Colath bested him there but he was still better than any of these. Sheer numbers though would do for them, though.

  Obedient to the commands of their riders’ knees, the three horses spun on their heels to face outward, putting them back to back.

  A flash of mage fire torched an arrow in flight with a precision Elon had to admire.

  Jareth’s oath as a wizard prevented him from using magic against a man without it. Even the thought of turning mage fire on a man - having him roast alive - was enough to make his gorge rise. But there wasn’t anything in his oath that prevented him from using it against their weapons.

  Meanwhile, Elon and Colath targeted the archers with the lethal accuracy for which Elves were known as the swordsmen closed on them.

  Even so, arrows penetrated their defenses. Most fell harmlessly but not all. One creased Elon’s thigh, another Jareth’s arm… then one slipped past Jareth’s guard to catch Colath in the lower back.

  The pain struck, hard and fierce, shared across the bond between Colath and Elon, the shock of it startling, the force of it catching Colath off balance and nearly driving him out of the saddle.

  Fear shot through him.

  On the ground? Even with his swords and uninjured he’d be more vulnerable there. Wounded, against these numbers…?

  Empathetic pain flared through Elon and his heart wrenched as he turned his head, already reaching for Colath but Jareth was closer.

  Instinctively, Jareth snatched at Colath’s shirt, keeping his friend in the saddle.

  With his free hand he sent a burst of mage fire flaming in front of them to guard against another arrow.

  Fear for Colath was piercing but the swordsmen were closing and Elon only had time for a quick glance, the sight of Jareth steadying Colath in the saddle a relief so great his vision blurred. Then Elon turned back to the fight, his bow claiming the last of the archers.

  Slinging it over his back, he reached for his swords as the swordsmen burst onto the road - shedding wheat chaff as they charged.

  Willing himself strength, Colath nodded thanks to Jareth and drew his swords despite the pain of the wound in his back, freeing Jareth to fight as well as he could.

  Spinning his swords in his hands, Elon looked over the oncoming men and set heels to his horse.

  He charged into them, Faer wheeled and spun beneath him, hooves lashing out. Colath came in behind him, matching him with only his shortsword in hand, the other clasped to the wound in his side. Blood stained his tunic and Elon’s jaw tightened fractionally in helpless fury at the sight.

  None of it showed clearly or these then might have turned their focus on Colath as such men had in the past, using the true-friend and soul-bonds to wound and weaken both.

  The on-coming riders were almost upon them. They were running out of time.

  At Colath’s back, reduced to using his sword, Jareth hacked and cut, clearly no swordsman, yet still keeping both Colath’s and Elon’s back covered as well as he could, despite the risk to himself. The men they fought were too close for his magic.

  Elon trusted Zo to keep Jareth where he could do the most good and faithful Zo did as required, kicking at anyone who came too close.

  Which left Elon to do what he did very well.

  It was a deadly and nearly hopeless dance of swords and horses, driving off their attackers.

  Colath lashed out on each side desperately as warm blood drenched his side, soaking his trews. He and Jareth kept the swordsmen from flanking Elon, who fought like a cornered lion, slashing on every side, driving this one back with a kick, his sword cleaving the throat of another.

  Even so, the riders crested the rise before the last of those around them fell.

  But the last did fall.

  Resolutely, Colath drew his bow, despite the wound in his back, despite the pain, training an arrow on those who approached even as Elon finished the last of those around them.

  “Hold,” Elon called to those riders drawing near, “on the orders of Daran High King. You attack his Envoy.”

  “Daran is a paper tiger,” one of the men shouted. “Who will tell him of what passed here when you’re dead?”

  “Arlis of High Reaches?” Elon called, the man’s voice familiar from Daran’s Council. “Do you know what it is you do?”

  One of the lesser Kingdoms to the North, High Reaches was one of the Kingdoms that crowded tiny Lothliann, its people straying across the Enclave’s borders time and again to take what wasn’t theirs.

  Warily, the men pulled up just out of reach of Colath’s bowshot.

  Jareth couldn’t imagine how much pain Colath was in, how much blood he lost with each moment he held his bow at full pull. It was as if he were poised there, a statue of an archer, unmoving, locked on those beyond.

  He frantically searched for a solution, a way out for all of them that wouldn’t require him to violate his oath.

  “More of my men are on their way, Aerilann,” Arlis said, leaning indolently on his saddle horn.

  He looked at the dead scattered around their horses’ feet, at the blood staining Colath’s tunic.

  And smiled.

  “How long do you think you can hold out against us, Aerilann?” he asked.

  Tall and spare, balding with only a fringe of grayish hair around his head, his face narrow, Arlis of the High Reaches was far from his own lands. He sat his saddle with the ease of many days spent in it. So far from his own lands he felt himself safe from censure for his actions. He cared little whether another took the blame so long as his own lands were secure, but he didn’t care to be called greedy for wanting some of Lothliann’s lush green lands. Few would seek to blame him for this so long as no one knew where he was this day.

  “Go back to your Enclave, Elf. Forget this Agreement. Don’t draw a line in the sand you don’t want to cross.”

  It would serve him well if Elon did; having an Elf - especially this one - break the Agreement, which he would do if he gave up his mission.

  Even if he would have, though, Elon couldn’t have. Foresight had spoken.

  The first step on this path had already been taken, for him there was no turning back or turning away. Doing so would be the death of his people as men encroached more and more on their lands with nothing to hold them back and Elon knew it. The first act of backing down or backing away would only cede power and give credence to those who fought against him.

  His people would suffer if men were allowed to spread unchecked, despoiling everything they touched.

  They wouldn’t die easily but they would die and then the races of Elves and Dwarves would die as well. All for the greed and hate of men like this.

  Arlis hated Elves, hated Elon’s gentle people with a passion Elon couldn’t understand.

  He couldn’t allow a man like this to win, not if his people were to survive.

  Now was their only chance for a peaceful resolution. Even if they had to fight for it, as ironic as that was.

  Few would know of this solitary battle but it must be won if the elder races were to continue.

  He looked to Colath, resolute.

  Colath dared not take his eyes from those before him but he didn’t need to, it was there in the bond for Elon to know.

  Elon could feel the pain in his old
friend, deep and terrible, the waves of weakness that battered him that he wouldn’t show to these.

  Although it pained him deeply, he knew Colath would fight until his last breath.

  He looked to Jareth.

  These were his folk, his people.

  Meeting that look, Jareth nudged Zo a little closer to Elon, making his allegiance clear to Elon as well as to Arlis and his men.

  “I would have peace, Elon,” Jareth said, quietly, “even if I have to fight and die to achieve it.”

  He was more than aware of the irony of their position, too.

  Elon met those deep brown eyes.

  Jareth was no swordsman but he was strong and sure, determined.

  It was no less than Elon expected, knowing Jareth as he did. As young as he was, Jareth knew Honor as most of his kind didn’t, he had courage and strength of purpose.

  All right.

  “We would as soon not fight, Arlis,” he said, “but if we must fight, we will.”

  He spun his swords around his hands in a glittering arc.

  A challenge, if Arlis chose to take it.

  Behind them, the fire spread, closed. Flame now blossomed to each side of them, hemmed them in further. Their choices narrowed.

  “Last chance. Go back to Aerilann,” Arlis said. “Forget this nonsense of borders…”

  Sheer hypocrisy from a man who pressed tiny Lothliann - his real motive for being here. It wouldn’t serve him to have borders set that he couldn’t encroach upon without reprisal from the High King as he did now. No more would the High King send the armies of the Kingdoms against Elves for the actions of men like Arlis, thanks to the Agreement.

  An agreement Arlis had signed.

  With a sigh, Elon said, nearly regretfully, “I cannot.”

  Borders.

  Jareth had been frantically seeking a solution. Maybe there had been one before him all along.

  Casually, Arlis gestured.

  A bowman behind him lifted a bow as another lit it from the torch he carried.

  The arrow arched into the sky, trailing smoke.

  Jareth incinerated it before it reached the sky.

  “Wizard,” Arlis said, furiously, “you try me. This is none of yours. Remember who and what you are.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, Arlis of the High Reaches,” Jareth said, slowly gathering power. “I’m the motherless bastard who once lived on the streets of Doncerric. A beggar that men like you kicked away with their boots.”

  As no Elf would ever have done.

  Only his magic had saved him from a life there, that and the kindness of his foster parents, wizards both of them.

  There was shock and disgust on Arlis’s face, his lip curling in a sneer.

  Jareth looked at him. “You care about that. They don’t.”

  He had a plan, an idea…

  Why, Elon wondered, was Arlis spending so much time talking? It wasn’t just to get his people in position, although doubtless that was part of it.

  And what could they do about that? Nothing.

  So, there was a specific target.

  Him.

  Arlis would want a quick and painless - for Arlis - resolution. He’d already lost too many men to explain away easily.

  Where was the danger?

  Fire closed in on every side, the snap and crackle of the flames becoming louder, concealing the movements of assassins.

  “Let us pass,” Elon said. “Let it go, Arliss.”

  He saw the man’s eyes slide to the left even as he sensed movement there.

  As did Jareth and Colath.

  Slowed by his wound, Colath didn’t react as swiftly as Jareth did.

  His mind and power locked up in the spell he’d been about to cast, Jareth knew he couldn’t unleash it in time, so he did the only thing he could…and threw himself into the path of the arrow aimed at Elon’s back.

  The arrow punched into him high and deep, driving into his chest. Even as he fell, Jareth looked down at the arrow that pierced him to where the fletching emerged from his tunic. Then he struck the road and the arrow protruding from his back snapped.

  A second later the true depths of the pain hit and his concentration shattered.

  The spell he’d been conjuring was loosed even as Elon and Colath turned in their saddles in horror to see him fall. Neither could have reached him in time to stop it.

  Seeing where the arrow had taken him, Elon knew Jareth’s lung was pierced at the very least. Worse still, they couldn’t help him, not with the enemy still before them.

  In the self-same motion of turning, Colath released the arrow that took the assassin. The motion jarred the arrow in Colath’s own back. Pain shot through him, clearing and sharpening his mind. Shock, he knew. If there was time, he would heal.

  It didn’t look as if there would be time.

  His eyes went to Elon.

  Elon met that steady gaze, fear and grief for Jareth, for Colath, for all that might have been, ripping through him and then he set his heels to his horse even as Colath did.

  If there was to be any hope for Jareth, for any of them, they had to move swiftly and surely…and there was little chance they would succeed.

  Tossing away their bows they reached for their swords - drew them even as they bore down on the men before them. More of Arlis’s archers charged out of concealment in the wheat beside him even as they did.

  Jareth, lying in the dirt and the dust of the road, dying in the street as so many had once predicted he might, thought he’d never seen anything so magnificent, so incredible, as that charge.

  He saw the archers turn, their bows drawn, as Elon and Colath rode down on them, and the arrows flew…

  Then his spell took hold.

  An arrow caught Elon high in the shoulder. At that close a range the archer could hardly miss, but he and Colath were almost on them.

  To Elon’s astonishment stones rained from the sky.

  Marker stones…dozens of them.

  Jareth.

  Horses screamed and shied. Men shouted. He and Colath rode into their midst like scythes through wheat while they were in disarray.

  Arlis dodged one marker stone that nearly crushed his skull and found himself face to face with a furious Elon of Aerilann. His own paxmen charged up to defend his left as Aerilann rained a series of blows on Arlis’s sword. Even with an arrow buried in his shoulder the Elf’s strikes made Arlis’s hand go numb. Aerilann blocked Arlis’s paxman easily, nearly thoughtlessly. His horse held off the other. One fell as Arlis watched, trying to back his horse with one hand on the reins, while others rallied to his aid.

  Spinning his horse around, Colath charged into the mass of those who came running through the field like a grim reaper.

  A reaper of men, his beautiful face expressionless and implacable.

  Elon urged his horse between Arlis and his remaining paxman, hacking and slashing with terrible accuracy, raining blows on their swords until the paxman fell away. With a scream of terror at the grim and terrible look on Elon’s impassive face, Arlis tried to turn his horse, tried to run.

  Some of Jareth’s folk believed in avenging angels. In that moment - watching Elon and Colath - he knew how they’d come to believe such a thing.

  Relentless even in the face of their own pain, they fought.

  Even with the pain piercing him, Jareth couldn’t help but admire them and then he tried to take a breath. Pain struck in earnest. His body arched in protest as his breath bubbled in his chest. As many times as he’d been kicked, battered and beaten as a boy, he’d never suffered pain like this. Darkness crowded his vision, yet still he watched.

  His jaw set, Elon battered through Arlis’s defenders as they fought to defend their Lord, but one after another they fell to his relentless blade, as danced and darted beneath him, giving him room to fight…and then there was only Arlis.

  His hands still stinging from Elon’s blows, Arlis couldn’t run, there was no place to go and he knew it.
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  Desperate, he fought, tried to get past Aerilann’s swords, tried to keep to the side with the wounded shoulder but it was as if the Elf didn’t feel the wound. Any more than Arlis felt Elon’s sword slip past his guard. The punch of it into his chest widened his eyes even as he knew he was done.

  Arlis of the High Reaches fell, toppling from the saddle, dead.

  Spinning Faer around, Elon shouted, “Your King is dead. Arlis is dead. How many of you wish to follow him to his grave?”

  A stunned silence fell over the field of wheat as they watched Arlis tumble to the road, a small puff of dust spraying up around him.

  Stillness…

  Not even the cry of a bird broke that terrible, pregnant silence.

  Elon watched as they disappeared, turned away into the fields of grain, fading into the tall stalks that hadn’t yet begun to truly ripen, to turn silvery gold in the warm sunlight.

  Impatiently, he snapped off the end of the arrow in his shoulder, fought the darkness that threatened to close around his vision before swinging a leg over the Faer’s withers to reach Colath’s side.

  Colath and Jareth needed him; there was no time for his own pain.

  His pale eyes stunned and weary, Colath looked down at him as Elon offered his hand.

  Looking at it, Colath sighed. “This will hurt.”

  “Indeed,” Elon said, his own shoulder throbbing.

  Feeling the echo of pain, Colath mimicked Elon’s gesture and swung a leg over his horse’s withers to drop to the ground.

  The small jar as he reached it wasn’t pleasant.

  Elon was there to steady him, as always, as they always were for each other.

  His vision went gray for a moment and then Colath steadied as his Elven constitution sought to heal him.

  “This must go,” Elon said of the arrow, laying his hand lightly on it.

  With another sigh, this of resignation, Colath nodded.

  Setting himself, sensing the arrowhead buried between Colath’s ribs, Elon took a breath, knowing it would hurt Colath to do and it must be done as the arrow couldn’t stay there. With a quick twist and swift tug, Elon pulled it free.

  A freshet of blood burst from the wound.

  The pain was sharp, incredible. Colath nearly went to his knees as the pain and loss of blood swamped him. Already, though, his body rushed to heal him.