Beyond the Dark

by Angela Knight

  “Never you mind me, girl!” the old warrior ordered angrily, just above a whisper. “I’ll do very well now. You go see how you can help your soldier.”

  Owen stopped below the inner wall, the highest and thickest mass of all. Once this had been the keep, the center of the castle’s life, the place to be defended above all else. Now it surveyed the greensward—with its small mound only a few paces from the keep—and the ocean beyond, with the lurking French warship.

  Even as Owen looked, a great drum roll sounded across the water. Bonaparte’s frigate was clearing for action, ready to support the French mage and his coterie in Trevelyan’s duel.

  Would the bastard use magickal weapons or nonmagickal? Mages typically shielded themselves against only magickal weapons during duels. If the French mage chose to hurl nonmagickal weapons, everyone inside the Morthol could be injured—including Emma and the General.

  Trevelyan drew his saber and tossed his sword belt aside. Owen did likewise, sending his into the colonnade near the General. They began to circle, gauging each other and their surroundings for every possible advantage.

  Coolness washed over Owen, the old calm he’d known before so many battles as a dragoon.

  His signet was light on his finger and no hindrance at all to his sword grip. Gryphon wings brushed him once and were gone, a reminder that the elemental spirit was aiding him enough to remove the signet’s metal as a distraction. It also meant that no gryphon would personally appear unless he could open a channel for it, which was beyond the capability of any one mage.

  “If you surrender now, you’ll live,” Trevelyan offered, never lowering his saber’s tip. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “All Bonaparte wants is surety the spell doesn’t reach London.”

  Owen snickered, keeping one eye open for his lady. “You’ll need to lie more smoothly next time, Trevelyan. Even your saber blushed at those words’ falseness.”

  Trevelyan clenched his teeth. He must have already sent most of his magick into his sword, including the ability to discern lies—the fool.

  Emma stepped out of the shadows onto the grass. It came alive, standing upright and waving softly. She took a few steps more, reaching the edge of the mound.

  Fire erupted in a thin line from the ground and raced through the grass, twisting and turning around the mound in an ancient, interlocking pattern like a labyrinth. Another line leaped up and echoed its pattern around the mound’s other side.

  Emma gasped and stood still, the flames leaping and dancing around her feet. Yet no matter how close they came, her clothing never caught on fire.

  The two flames hurtled onto the mound’s crest and entwined, leaping into the sky until they towered beyond the keep’s roof. They exploded into an enormous scarlet and gold cloud before evaporating into the bright blue sky, leaving behind only charred black lines through the grass.

  The old general let loose a string of foreign words, probably a curse. He was free from magickal compulsions since he wasn’t a magick worker.

  Owen swallowed hard, his magick awestruck and frozen in the face of a far greater power.

  The flames had drawn an altar at the mound’s center, with a labyrinth around it like a walking spell to approach and protect its worshippers. Owen would have wagered his signet only Emma could see the spell’s full details, granted that grace since she stood at its origins.

  He’d also wager that the spell only protected her from magickal dangers, not nonmagickal threats.

  Emma was shaking softly, but her gaze met his steadily. She blew him a kiss, and he inclined his head, the only movement permitted by the resident magick.

  Trevelyan growled, the animalistic sound turning into the first words of an attack spell.

  She put one foot forward onto the charred grass, then another, and another. She’d be safe now, protected by the Morthol’s ancient magick.

  Owen came on guard, his own battle spells long since said and committed to his saber.

  Trevelyan matched him, his blade flashing in the morning light. He swung, and their blades rang against each other, singing with bloodlust. Flames ran the swords’ length and flared up, scarlet against taller indigo.

  Dear God in heaven, the traitor did have a blade that hungered for blood…

  At least Owen’s nonmagickal blade hadn’t broken.

  Their eyes met above the steel. Trevelyan’s mouth quirked, he parried, and disengaged. “Surrender now, and I may let you live.”

  “I’ll see you in hell first.”

  Owen reached deep within, opening himself to every drop of his mother’s blood. She’d been sworn to King and Country as he was, as his blade was. He’d never used all of her magick before, but he needed to now. A whispered spell and a quick kiss of his blade sent it into the steel.

  Trevelyan lunged—and he parried, flinging the other back. Thank God he’d gained strength from his mother. Would it be enough?

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Wheeeeee!

  They looked up to the sky. Several balls were shooting through the sky toward the castle. They crashed into the outer bailey’s wall, shaking it slightly, and fell into the ocean in a shower of rock chips.

  The third cannonball smashed through the wooden gallery atop the battlements and bounced into the inner bailey, stopping against a wall. The ancient timber high above burst into flames, crackling with white-hot heat and sending off clouds of smoke.

  A salamander, the French national elemental spirit, couldn’t have caused more damage.

  The damned French were shelling the Morthol with white-hot cannonballs, a nonmagickal weapon. It could kill either him or Trevelyan—or Emma or her grandfather, as well as burn down the entire castle.

  If only the British fleet were here with an admiral’s guard of gryphons to catch those cannonballs!

  “They’ll gladly kill you to see me dead, Trevelyan,” he warned, trying to distract his enemy.

  “They’ll love any man who brings them a chalice.” Trevelyan underlined his retort with a nasty and very skillful flurry of sword-work, which sent crimson and indigo sparks flying high—and left Owen bleeding from a cut high on his arm.

  He’d suffered worse, but this was only the first wound from a sword whose cuts would grow deeper and deeper.

  God willing he’d last until the adepts came.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emma took another step, sliding one foot into position in front of the other, moving as fast as she dared. The scarlet and gold lines were so intricate that her feet had to touch each other—and tracing them allowed her no leisure to think of anything else, such as the appalling cannonballs whizzing past. More than one had come close enough to brush her skirts, yet she’d never been so much as singed.

  Waves pounded the land, roaring like hungry tigers as the tide came closer and closer.

  None of that made her pulses hammer as much as the glimpses she caught of Owen. He and Trevelyan were hammering at each other with those swords, moving in clouds of fire which seemed to fight each other as much as the men did. Both men were bloody, but Owen—dear, brave Owen was bleeding from a wicked cut on his cheek. Another dreadful slice seemed to have cost him the use of his right arm. He was fighting with the dogged, stubborn brilliance of a man who has nothing left to lose.

  If she managed to reach the center of the mound, where the altar stood, surely she could summon the ancient magick there and give it to him. Surely she could help him.

  She simply had to ignore the pesky cannonballs, no matter whether they were flying overhead or bouncing over the grass.

  Somehow Emma managed to take the next step a little faster. And the next and the next…

  She burst out onto the open expanse of grass and faced the ancient altar.

  Now what?

  Owen had said it would be very easy for her to claim the land’s magick, since she was attuned to it by blood.

  The altar wasn’t stone, so she couldn’t climb onto it. Perhaps…

  She curtsied politely to it, asking p
ermission—of what she wasn’t quite sure—to join its company, and walked into the ancient enclosure, which was barely large enough to stand in.

  Something instantly shimmered in the air around her and hummed through her bones, making her ache with awareness and strength. Was it magick? The Morthol?

  Aye, you have finally succeeded in reaching me, a deep voice answered. My power is yours to command in this battle against traitors.

  Emma gulped. My deepest thanks, sir.

  She looked out across the grassy courtyard. God help them all, the British fleet was still trying to beat its way against the wind toward the French frigate. They were so far away, even their cannonballs made little impression on the brazen foreigner.

  Protecting the Realm—saving Owen and his vital message—would have to be done by those within the Morthol. Somehow.

  OWEN was bleeding from a small cut on his left hand, his sword hand. He ignored it grimly, focusing on Trevelyan’s dislike of having his pretty face carved up. Owen had learned a few tricks on his travels about how to do that, and the old general’s sword danced through many—but not all—of Trevelyan’s shields.

  Unfortunately, the bastard’s sword was far better at reaching him. At this rate, he’d be on his knees within the next quarter hour at the most—or five minutes, more likely. He was now using the last dregs of his own magick simply to stand upright, while barely powering his shields or flaming his saber against Trevelyan’s blade.

  Any gryphon was a distant memory.

  Trevelyan chuckled, tasting the end’s approach as well as Owen could. He was almost lasciviously watching every move Owen made, as if the most delightful act he could imagine would be delivering the coup de grâce.

  Another cannonball screamed overhead and smashed a corner of the keep. Trevelyan never blinked.

  “Bonaparte promised a title for the man who brings him your head,” he cooed.

  A shadow glided along the high stone wall behind him, unaffected by Trevelyan’s shields against magickal entities.

  “I had thought to do so in the classic fashion, with magick. But perhaps a more mundane solution would be better. A keg of brandy or—”

  Whack! Thunder clapped in the blue sky, and the air grew still, as if gathering itself.

  The shadow stumbled back toward the wall, chortling. The General had rapped Trevelyan very hard across the back of his knees, breaking his concentration—and his control over the weather.

  Trevelyan stumbled and almost fell, cursing violently.

  Owen took a step sideways, keeping a wary eye on the sky.

  The few birds still within hearing, although beyond the cannons, squawked and dove for cover into the trees and cliffs.

  With a whoosh and a roar, the wind rose up from the ground and formed itself again, hurtling out of the east toward the Morthol and sweeping the British ships toward the French frigate.

  The British Navy now had the weather gauge and the advantage in battle. The French mage would have to fight them, rather than simply shell unarmed civilians.

  But Trevelyan would be stronger, since he didn’t have to maintain the weather spell.

  Owen reached deep for more magick—and found none of his own. Beyond that were the craggy walls he’d erected at Villers-en-Cauchies so long ago, when he’d vowed never to be destroyed by linking with another mage. Block after weary block, embedded deeply in his channels…

  “You fool! You doddering, dim-witted ass! Do you know what you just did?” Trevelyan whirled. “By all the elementals, I’ll destroy you for that!”

  He advanced on the old man, his sword at the ready and his shadow rising up behind him with every step.

  “Hah! I’m still a King’s man, foolish puppy!” The General twisted his cane, revealing a swordstick, and flourished it. “I’ll prove to you who has the right to live in this Realm.”

  “Grandfather!” Emma cried.

  Owen fumbled through his resources. He threw a fireball, that simplest of mage school tricks. A puff of smoke the size of an apple wafted from his fingers and faded within a yard.

  “Owen, please, please look at me,” Emma gasped, her voice breaking. “Please let me give you the magick.”

  He spun back to face her, and their eyes locked, equally anguished.

  He didn’t know if he could—but Trevelyan was only a few steps away from the old general. Owen had no strength of his own to stop him, let alone save himself or Emma.

  He had to trust Emma—and his love for her.

  Love, the most dangerous and overwhelming emotion of all.

  He was so weak magickally that, even if she gave him all her magick, he wasn’t sure he could defeat Trevelyan. But he was entirely sure he didn’t want to live without his beloved Emma by his side.

  A mage’s lifespan depends on his loved one’s strength.

  Gritting his teeth, he ripped out his old walls, an effort that left him pale and sweating.

  “Owen, darling,” she sobbed, her breath catching on his name. She took a step toward him but stopped before she left the altar precinct.

  Her grandfather yelped—and hurled another, weaker insult at Trevelyan.

  The last block broke free and disappeared from Owen’s magickal channels.

  Emma’s gaze swept over him, bathing him in trust and approval. She offered him her cupped hands, as if she was giving him a drink of water.

  He smiled at the childlike imagery—and a flood of magick burst into and through him. He was everywhere and everything in the Morthol, as aware of the ocean as the winds or the grains of sand.

  Owen twisted his free hand with the signet in a mage’s instinctive gesture to shape magick. Sparks danced and gathered in his palm—and burst upward into a pillar of light. Wings swept past him, and an eagle shrieked a war cry overhead. The eagle called again, sending echoes through the castle and the cliffs.

  A gryphon swooped down like a javelin from the sky above the keep. Its golden-furred body was half again as long as a man, and its wings filled the ancient courtyard, beating the air louder than any division’s cavalry charge. Its gilded feathers were like molten gold, blindingly bright in the morning sun. Its cruel beak was large enough to rip through timbers. Its intelligent dark eyes saw everything in a single pitiless glance, which spared no one’s emotion or thought.

  A gryphon had come in the flesh, the elemental spirit of Britain—master of the land and the air.

  A white mist whirled up around Emma from the ancient altar, marking her innocence.

  Owen instinctively prostrated himself. He’d summoned a gryphon, something only a party of adepts could do. He’d never imagined his potential was so great, and he knew he’d only reached it thanks to Emma.

  Trevelyan spun away from the General, his expression appalled. But he was no coward, and his sword came up, fire running along the tip.

  Emma’s grandfather bent his head in homage to the elemental.

  The gryphon shrieked its disdain of traitors to the skies and snatched Trevelyan up in two knife-taloned forepaws. The man screamed, the sound muffled by burbling blood.

  The gryphon sprang into the air, the downdraft from its wings battering the humans like a great storm. It circled high above the castle, displaying its judgment and its victim to everyone nearby—including the rapidly departing French mage in his frigate.

  It swooped upon the Morthol, the ancient hammer of protection for the confluence, and tossed the traitor onto the keep’s roof, removing his body from sight. It pounced upon him, ripping and tearing in a flurry of razor-sharp edges and beating wings, whose details were mercifully hidden from those on the ground. Trevelyan wailed once, a hideous cry cut abruptly short.

  Owen shuddered and signed himself. He’d never seen a gryphon take physical form, rather than mist, but he’d heard the stories. Trevelyan would never again be seen in this world, nor would his saber.

  He ran toward Emma’s grandfather, glad the Morthol’s magick was still floating within him.

  The old
man lay facedown on the grass, groaning.

  Owen patted him down quickly and carefully, checking for broken bones or cuts. He heaved a sigh of relief when he found none and rolled him over gingerly, just as Emma joined them. “Sir? How do you feel?”

  Faded blue eyes blinked at him. The General coughed and tried to sit up. “Never better, sir. I believe that when the gryphon destroyed that traitor, he removed the wounds the wretch had caused—both yours and mine.”

  Owen had to agree with that description. Even his unmentionables seemed to have been returned to their previous immaculate condition.

  MINUTES later, all of them were seated at the small table and chairs Owen had conjured and looking out to the sea, resting until her grandfather was well enough to return home.

  A talented landscape painter would have enjoyed memorializing the scene, framed as it was by the Morthol’s stone walls with their gothic arches. The ocean’s roar was almost hypnotically relaxing, marking high tide on the rocks below. The French frigate was now a small blur fading into the distance, while three British warships grew larger and larger as they chased her. Overhead, the gryphon amused himself with lazy spirals, his feathers flashing in the sun, while he waited for the adepts to arrive.

  Emma savored the peace, like a gardener enjoying a fragile flower. Mages had their own rules and way of life. No matter how Owen wanted to manage their affair, she’d still love him. But times like this, when everything seemed simple and ordinary, she’d cherish all the more.

  She had no intention of thinking about Trevelyan a moment longer than necessary. The memory of Owen’s battered body and that brute charging her grandfather with a drawn sword—well, she only wished the gryphon could have shredded the traitor into far smaller pieces.

  Owen flicked his fingers. Crumpets and tea settled gently onto the table, complete with all the trimmings and served on the finest china.

  Emma lifted an eyebrow at the arrival of her grandfather’s favorite meal, but said nothing. Owen had always preferred meats in the morning.

  “Splendid, lad, splendid. How did you know the wretch destroyed my breakfast?” The old man began to load his plate, his eyes still more than keen enough to find his favorite treats.