More gates appeared around the picnic grounds, making the air dance, big shimmering ovals that disgorged armored knights who immediately moved into position around the werewolves.
“Hey, they’re surrounding us!” someone shouted. The werewolves sprang to their feet with cries of alarm.
Magic exploded across the grounds in a series of blue detonations. In moments, the area was packed with Direwolves who glared at the warriors in defiance. Growls rumbled, and the light wind carried the reek of fear and fur and rage.
Oh, sweet Jesus, Davon thought. This situation is about to go straight to hell.
Belle stood at Tristan’s side, just to Arthur’s right. The werewolves, realizing they were surrounded, backed away from their armored foes, some of the women whining softly in anxiety as the men growled. It was like listening to a huge chainsaw.
“Oh,” Belle thought into the Truebond, “I don’t like the way this looks.”
“They don’t say war is hell because it’s a great way to spend a Friday night.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Sorry.” But it was absently said. His attention was focused on Warlock. “I think Fido there is about to make his move,” he murmured to Arthur.
“Yeah. He’s letting ’em stew. Then he’s going to come to the rescue.” There was a note of lazy cynicism to Magus’s voice. “Funny how dictators always follow a pattern.”
They sound so damn calm, thought Belle wildly.
We’ve been at it a while, darlin’, Tristan said in the Bond. Evidently he’d picked up the thought. She was going to have to learn to shield the ones she didn’t want him to hear. “And we’re not really all that calm.”
Actually, he was. Through the bond, it felt as though Tristan stood in the eye of a hurricane, his mind cool and crystalline in the face of all the violent emotion swirling among the werewolves. When Belle glanced up and down the line of Round Table knights, she saw the same watchful stillness in their faces.
Tristan’s mind touched hers, enveloped her fear like comforting fingers clasping a shaking hand. She felt her battle nerves drain away. “You’ve done this before, Belle. And I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“We have no intention of harming any of you.” Arthur’s battlefield-trained voice cut over the werewolves’ fearful growls. “All I want is my agent returned safely from this farce of a trial. Warlock played him just as he’s trying to play you. But I assure you, the last thing Merlin would want is to see us killing each other over anyone’s lies.”
“I am not lying!” Warlock threw up a hand. A bolt of searing white energy burst from his fingers, arched high over the heads of his people, and slashed down toward Arthur and his knights. Belle threw a defensive shield up out of sheer reflex.
The curving field she created interlocked with the shields springing into place above all the other witches, forming the magical equivalent of a Greek shield wall. It was a move they’d all been practicing for years, and it had saved their collective asses more than once.
The bolt slammed into the shimmering golden wall and danced along its surface as if looking for some chink, some weak spot.
“Fuck, he’s powerful,” one of the witches gasped.
Belle, too, gritted her teeth, fighting to maintain her section of the barrier against the raging energy. Warlock definitely wasn’t playing games.
“Did that son of a bitch just throw a lightning bolt at us?” Gawain demanded, his worried gaze on Lark’s strained, white face.
“Yeah,” Smoke gritted, as he and Eva reinforced the Majae’s shield wall. “He does that.”
At last the bolt faded away as its energy dissipated. The witches sighed in relief, but they didn’t let the shield drop.
“How long do you think you can keep that up?” Warlock called, mockery in his voice. “Because I have plenty more where that came from.” He spun his battle-axe in a showy revolution. “I’m more than a match for all your little witches, Arthur.”
“Fuck that,” Arthur growled. “Kel, shut the bragging bastard up.”
The tall knight on his left threw himself into the sky, blasting upward on a wave of foaming blue magic. The moment he had room, power flashed over the intricate cobalt scales of his armor, and he transformed.
Forty feet of blue dragon hovered in the air over them all, tail lashing, great wings beating, creating furious downdrafts that hit the grass like a rising storm. Papers flew and blankets tumbled across the picnic area. Werewolves screamed.
Kel winged over the cowering Direkind, straight for Warlock. By all rights, the werewolf wizard should have looked at least a little anxious.
Instead he smiled. Which was really chilling with all those teeth.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Belle told Tristan.
“Have faith, darling. Kel will send Fido yipping for home.”
As the dragon approached Warlock, the civilian werewolves, trapped, fled as far in the opposite direction as they could before the encircling Magekind stopped them.
“Let ’em go!” Arthur roared to the fighters on that side. “I don’t want them in the line of fire!”
“Stay, you cowards!” one of the werewolves howled. “Will you leave our lord to face his enemies alone?”
“Nay!” Warlock bellowed. “I want none at my back without the courage to fight!”
Which statement had the predictable effect of stopping about half the crowd in its collective tracks. Nobody wanted to be thought a coward.
Then Kel blew a gust of flame down on Warlock. The blast hit the werewolf’s shield with a roar like the Space Shuttle taking off.
On the opposite end of the field, the agents formed a corridor to allow the werewolves to escape. Belle noticed that most of those who fled were females, who probably had no idea how to fight anyway. The males stopped as other wolves blocked their way, yelling insults.
“Let them go,” Belle muttered. “Damned if I want to fight a bunch of hapless civilians, claws or no claws. Especially considering Merlin created them, too.”
Looking across the field, she saw Petra hurrying forward with two brawny vampires at her heels. The three reached Davon without anyone trying to stop them. A quick burst of magic freed him of his chains, and they hustled him back to the ranks of Magekind.
Now if only we can kill Warlock, we can all go home, Belle thought.
A roar went up from the watching Magekind, echoed by a despairing cry from the Direkind. Belle jerked her head around and saw that Warlock was down inside his shield, as though he could no longer withstand the pounding pressure of Kel’s flame.
The dragon dove like a hawk and slammed into the shield, attempting to batter through it with his scraping claws and pounding wings. His jaws opened wide, and his head snapped forward . . .
Warlock dropped his shield and hit him full in his open mouth. The blast of raw magic gave Kel no time to shield as it picked him up and flung him over the trees. He hit the ground somewhere out of sight with a boom that shook the ground.
NINETEEN
“Kel!” cried Nineva, his pretty blond Sidhe wife. She threw herself into the air and took dragon form, flying hard toward the impact site. Belle watched her go, feeling helpless and sick.
“Gate over there,” she heard Morgana snap somewhere to her left, apparently talking to a healer. “Help her.”
“Oh, hell,” Tristan muttered.
Warlock was moving toward them, both hands gesturing a spell as magic flared blue around his fingers.
“Shields!” Morgana shouted.
Belle threw up another barrier, fitting it to those of the Majae on either side. The wall had barely formed when the blast seared into it with such raging force, Belle was terrified they wouldn’t be able to hold it back.
A savage roar rose from behind her. Tristan swore and spun.
“What the hell is going on?” Belle demanded as werewolves howled in chorus.
“Direkind! They’re sweeping down out of the trees. And they’re armed with sword
s. It’s an ambush.” She felt the jolt roll through his body as he used his great sword to block an attack. Steel rang on steel.
Grimly, Belle poured all the power she had into her shield as Tristan pressed his back against hers and fought their werewolf attackers. She could feel the roll of his powerful shoulders, the leap of muscle in his arms, the grim, cold intensity of his mind.
But she didn’t dare let any of that distract her. He would defeat his opponent while she kept Warlock from frying them both. Otherwise they were dead.
It was as simple as that.
Somebody had taught these bloody werewolves how to fight. These were not the clueless civilians the Magekind had surrounded so easily. Every one of the furry bastards attacked with a savage abandon, long curving blades in either hand, ready to stab or parry with powerful arms.
In terms of sheer skill, Tristan knew he’d be able to take any of them apart. Unfortunately, this fight was about more than skill. The werewolves were huge, and their height and muscle gave them a far greater reach than Tristan had. The werewolf he fought was so tall, he could have stood back and cut Tris to bits while keeping him from getting close enough to do any damage with his sword.
Worse, the creature had the strength to match, so that every attack rattled Tristan’s teeth. None of which mattered one damned bit. Tristan was still going to kill him. Because Arthur Pendragon fought at his side, grimly battling an eight-foot wolf with fur the color of sable. And he could feel Belle pressed against his back, dragging power from the Mageverse and flinging it into her shield, maintaining their only hope against Warlock’s savage attacks. The two people he loved most. The two people he would not fail.
Tristan sensed the opening in his opponent’s flashing blades with some whisper of warrior’s instinct. He struck even as he felt the weakness, stabbing his blade through the breach, knocking aside one knife and shattering the other. His sword rammed into the werewolf’s chest and out the other side, pushing bone fragments into heart and lungs.
The wolf’s orange eyes flared wide, and for an instant, Tristan glimpsed the man’s hopeless realization that his death was upon him. Tris jerked his blade from the body, spinning to block another werewolf’s hacking strike at Arthur’s skull. Arthur used the opening he’d provided to chop through the wolf’s neck with Excalibur.
Somewhere down the line, a vampire screamed in agony. He’d been bitten. The screams went on and on, until some endless time later, they fell silent. Tristan snatched a glance at the fallen vampire and saw that his pauldron had flapped out of position. His opponent had simply grabbed the armor section and jerked, breaking the straps. Then the bastard had bitten him on his unprotected shoulder.
The healers were all busy shielding them along with the rest of the Majae, keeping Warlock from frying them with a lightning blast. There was nothing Tristan could do for the dying vampire.
So he gritted his teeth and fought on, sweeping his sword left and right, fighting the damned werewolves as they surged at him, with those long, long arms and flashing blades.
“Enough!” Smoke’s voice rolled across the field, deep and resonant with power. He stepped out from the shield wall’s protection, lifted one hand, and sent a lightning bolt shooting across the picnic grounds straight at Warlock. The wizard barely blocked its searing white impact in time. Its crackling boom deafened Belle, and she jerked, resisting the urge to duck.
Smoke had one hell of a lot of power. Maybe as much as Warlock. And then there was his wife, who had changed to werewolf form. She looked tall and regal as she strode at his side, the great rack of her ghostly antlers spreading to either side of her wolf’s head.
As Warlock focused on the couple, Belle blew out a breath and flexed her aching hands. Her skin burned from all the magic she’d been using, and her head ached savagely. But even as she tried to shake the circulation back into her numb arms, she was acutely aware of Warlock. She had to be ready with her shield when he returned his attention to attacking them.
Then Eva spoke in a voice far too deep and masculine to be her own, even in werewolf form. “You have misused my power, Wizard.”
With a chill, Belle realized it was Zephyr, ghost of the murdered elemental, speaking through Smoke’s wife.
Warlock laughed at her, a savage bark of amusement. “And what are you going to do about it, stag? You, in the body of a woman? I killed you once and took your power. I’ll slay that little bitch as easily and devour what little is left of you.”
“Oh, you really shouldn’t have said that,” Smoke snarled. “Now you’ve gone and pissed me off.” Magic exploded from his hands in a golden bolt that tore across the field, lanced through Warlock’s shield, and blasted his chest. The impact picked him up and blew him backward into the forest with a crash of breaking wood. He kept going for quite some time, trees toppling in his wake.
“Merde,” Belle murmured in awe. It was damned disconcerting to realize your friends were all but gods. Especially when the friend in question spent half his time in the form of a seven-pound talking house cat.
Eva and Smoke broke into a run, sprinting toward the tree line, apparently hoping to hit Warlock again before he recovered. Smoke shifted on the run, sliding into the massive form of a great tigerlike beast, black as a lake of ink except for the silver stripes on his haunches.
Belle spotted movement as Warlock staggered to his feet to meet Smoke’s charge. The weight of the big beast drove him back as Smoke raked scimitar claws into fur and flesh. Warlock roared and ripped his talons across Smoke’s powerful chest. Blood flew around them in arcs.
Eva lowered her ghostly horns and threw herself into Warlock’s side, driving him away from her husband with a punishing jolt of magic.
Belle opened her mouth to cheer—only to swallow a scream as a huge black werewolf suddenly soared over her head, landed in front of her, and jerked the helm off her head. Opening its jaws wide, the thing lunged for her face. She couldn’t fireball the beast—they were immune to magic—and she’d never draw her sword in time . . .
Tristan whirled around her, slashing his great sword in a vicious diagonal blow that beheaded the werewolf as if he were lopping a peach off a tree.
Belle blinked at him as he spun like a bullfighter, meeting the charge of another werewolf and plunging his weapon into the beast’s chest.
She had her own weapon out now, and she lunged, hacking the arm off a werewolf who was going for Tristan’s helm with his claws. Pivoting, she took the Dire Wolf’s head with another swing of her sword, though her gorge rose as his skull tumbled one way and his body fell the other.
Swallowing bile, Belle conjured a new helm to replace the one the werewolf had snatched. And spun, bringing her weapon around in a hard slash. The move drove back the werewolf who had attempted to sneak up behind her, jaws gaping wide for a lethal bite. She could hear other Magekind screaming, having been bitten in similar attacks.
Panting, Belle glanced around. Her gaze fell on Smoke, who had shifted to his werecat form. He’d swept his wife into a fireman’s carry as he backed away from Warlock, one hand lifted to project a shield against the wizard’s blasts. Blood rolled down Eva’s side in a slick black sheet that shone in the moonlight. Belle swore. Losing that much blood could kill even a werewolf. A female werewolf broke from the line of Magekind, a big male loping at her heels as she raced to defend the couple from other werewolves. Miranda and Justice. Belle had suggested they put aside their differences just for this evening, and it seemed they’d done just that.
The girl fired a salvo of crackling electrical blasts at her father, forcing him to retreat and giving Smoke the chance to get his wounded wife to safety. A healer ran out of the ranks to meet the couple.
“Fuck you, Daddy!” Miranda howled, and shot another blast at him. He barely shielded in time.
“Traitorous bitch,” he spat, and backed away, hurling a fireball that looked less savagely bright than those he’d been tossing before. Miranda blocked it easily and fired back.
He’s weakening, Belle realized. Exchanging all those blasts with Kel and Smoke, not to mention pounding us with lightning bolts—it’s drained him.
She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the wizard’s weakness. “Warlock, you faithless whoreson!” Arthur bellowed, swinging Excalibur up and starting across the field. Gwen moved after him, slim and blond and brave. “You’ve made a grand speech and gotten a lot of people killed. I wonder if you’ve the balls to face me blade to blade.”
“Oh, fuck.” The thought rang through the Truebond. Belle couldn’t tell if it was her own or Tristan’s.
Not that it mattered. She started after the Once and Future King, Tristan striding beside her, his sword swinging in threatening arcs to keep the prowling werewolves from jumping them.
Belle knew she was as bound to Arthur as she was to Tristan. She could feel her lover’s fierce determination to protect his friend and leader. It was a role he’d held through fifteen centuries, through blood and war, through times when he’d been all but mad. No matter how bad things had been for him, Arthur had remained his dearest friend, never wavering in his support.
“You do realize Warlock will cheat,” Tristan growled to Arthur as the other knights and their ladies ran to join them.
Arthur flashed him a boyish grin. “Oh, yeah. But I can cheat rings around him.”
Gwen glanced at Belle and rolled her eyes. Belle swallowed a hysterical giggle.
Warlock waited for them, swinging his huge battle-axe in circles with an easy rotation of one wrist. “Do you know what I call my axe?” he shouted.
“No, and I don’t particularly care.” Arthur stepped to face the wizard. The Knights of the Round Table arrayed themselves at his back, as werewolves appeared to form the other half of the great dueling circle. Warlock’s black-clad bodyguard moved into his habitual post at his master’s side, silent and menacing.
Warlock grinned. “I call her Kingslayer.”
Arthur snorted. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, asshole.”
Master of Shadows Page 28
