Blood of Centaurs: Book 12 of The Witch Fairy Series

by Bonnie Lamer

  Both King Bayard and King Yerwen approach with grievous expressions on their faces. “My sincerest regrets for any lost belongings,” Bayard says.

  Fortunately, Fairies travel light. “We have not lost belongings,” Dagda says tightly.

  Yerwen glances around and then his eyes zero in on Kegan but he doesn’t question his presence. Instead, he stupidly acknowledges Tana’s absence. “Has the Queen retired to safety?”

  Magic once again leaks through Dagda’s pores. “The Queen,” he says through clenched teeth, “is missing.”

  Horrified, Bayard’s eyes move to the pile of ashes that was once the barn and then back again. “Has she perished?” he asks with more than a little fear in his voice. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out the odds that the attack on us led to the barn burning to the ground and the disappearance of Tana.

  “No,” Kallen says. He has angled his body in a way that puts him in a position to throw himself upon Dagda if he decides to rush the Centaur King.

  “Then it is a simple matter of forming a search party. I am certain she will be found quickly,” Yerwen says. The confidence of his words doesn’t reach his eyes. His own disbelief of his words also makes my skin crawl.

  “Both Centaurs and Sasquatch attacked us. Either of you could have given the order to seize the Fairy Queen,” Kallen accuses. “Trusting you to help find her seems contrary to our goal.”

  Both Kings register the implications of his words. Bayard is the first to react. “You believe the Centaurs injudicious enough to declare war in such a blatantly stupid manner? We have no quarrel with the Fae nor do we wish any harm to the Queen.”

  “Nor do we,” Yerwen reiterates.

  I hold up a hand before he can continue. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve had this conversation already. Instead of telling us these things, maybe you should be addressing your armies. They seem to be confused as to what they are here to accomplish. Peace hasn’t really been on the agenda since we arrived,” I point out.

  Galloping hooves drown out whatever the Kings are saying in response. A haggard looking, soot covered Centaur practically barrels into Bayard. Getting himself under control, the Centaur bends at the waist. “My Liege, there is something you must see.”

  “What is it?” Bayard demands.

  The Centaur is still bent at the waist, his eyes cast downward. “As the flames extinguish, a hidden escape route has been discovered.”

  Hope blooms in my chest. “Where does it lead to?” I ask.

  Of course the Centaur doesn’t answer me. He waits for Bayard to ask him the same question. Jerk. Finally, he says, “The way has been blocked. It will take some time to remove the debris and continue our search as all the flames have yet to be extinguished.”

  Dagda has already started for the barn. Kegan and Kallen are right behind him. I scramble to catch up. When we reach the pile of wood that used to be the barn, we can see what the Centaur was talking about. In one of the barn stalls, the one Dagda and Tana were using, a trap door has been discovered in the floor under where the bed would have been. Did Tana know it was there all along? Is that why she sent Zac and Garren out while she attempted to battle the flames? Because she knew she had another way out?

  “Clean the area of debris!” Bayard shouts to his Centaurs. Many of them look from him to the burning embers and random flames still encompassing the barn. Trying to clear the debris with their hands right now would lead to serious injury.

  Lucky for them, their manual labor isn’t necessary. As if we have been practicing, Dagda, Kallen, Kegan and I all pull magic and begin using it to remove the debris from the area of the trap door. The Centaurs and Sasquatch scramble out of the way of the flying debris. My worst fear is that when we have cleared it all away, we will find Tana and Felix lying beneath it.

  “Is that the best you can do?” Taz complains. “Put some weight behind your magic, for bloody sakes. Are you Fairies or humans?” If I wasn’t concentrating so hard, I’d kick him. Instead, I limit my reaction to a glare which goes completely unnoticed as the Tasmanian devil focuses on the trap door as if he can move the debris with his eyes.

  It only takes a few minutes for us to burrow through. What we find is confusing at best. Beneath the trap door is a room. A basement to be more exact. The trap door had been huge, large enough to turn into a ramp leading down to this area. A ramp large enough to be used by a Centaur. In the center of the room, there is a high table but the rest of the room is empty. It appears we have stumbled upon a secret meeting spot for Centaurs. My eyes stray to Pholos to garner his reaction to what we’ve found. He seems as surprised as the rest of us.

  What we don’t find is Tana and Felix. My heart breathes a sigh of relief, but my head pounds with frustration. Where did they go? There doesn’t appear to be a way out of the room except back up the ramp. Granted, the room is smoky, but there are no obvious indicators in the walls or floor that we can see to indicate there is yet another trap door leading to the outside.

  “Your men meet in secret?” Yerwen sneers. “It is no wonder your army lacks cohesion.”

  The tightness around Bayard’s eyes and mouth indicate he is thinking the same thing. At least about his men meeting in secret. As mine did, he searches for Pholos. There is a touch of relief in his expression when he realizes his son is as stunned as he is about this.

  “Uncle,” Kallen says quietly. “It is almost time for Xandra to open the passageway.” The Fairy army must be assembled on Isla’s beach by now.

  Dagda is shaken from whatever homicidal fantasy he was indulging in. “Yes.” Turning his cold, hard gaze to the other Kings, he says, “My army will be here within minutes. I suggest you direct your troops to give them a wide berth. Any act of aggression will be returned in kind.” Several times over I suspect.

  “Why are you all being so nice about this?” Taz demands. “We are losing precious time. Let’s string them up by their hooves and hair and beat a confession out of them. Stick bamboo in their hooves, gum in their hair! Better yet, shave the Sasquatch and put saddles on the Centaurs. That’ll get them talking.”

  He’s right, those things probably would. The idea of the Sasquatch trying to pick gum out of their precious white hair does bring about a sense of satisfaction. Even if they aren’t responsible for Tana and Felix being missing. I can’t imagine the indignity a Centaur would suffer if forced to wear a saddle.

  The current stress I’m under makes my magic all the more potent. It seems all I need do at the moment is think hard enough about something to make it happen. Around us, Sasquatch are suddenly bellowing and clawing at their long body hair. To be more precise, they’re clawing at the pink chewing gum clumped in their hair.

  Kegan snickers aloud and Kallen punches him in the arm. I believe he does this more to cover his own desire to snicker than to chastise Kegan. Even Dagda’s eyes show a hint of humor.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Yerwen demands, trying to yank out an especially large piece of gum in his armpit. The more he pulls, the farther the gum stretches and more and more of his long hair gets tangled in it.

  The Centaurs would find great amusement in this as well if they weren’t currently trying to yank the saddles off that have become adhered to their backs. Pholos rounds on me, sensing correctly this is my doing. “You choose to humiliate us! You degrade us by reducing us in your eyes to pets to be ridden and broken?!”

  “He’s a real smart one, he is,” Taz says. “Lift me up so I can ride on his back until he confesses.”

  “Xandra,” Dagda says, getting ready to chastise me. But he stops. Looking around for a moment at the general chaos, his eyes come back to the Kings standing before him. Clearing his throat, he says, “Wars cannot be fought by troops who are too consumed with their own problems to defend themselves. The Fae do not require your blood to bring your armies to their knees. Unless my wife and my daughter’s Familiar are returned, this realm will be plunged into chaos. This is simply a taste of what could come.”
To prove his point, he creates a pair of scissors and uses them to magically cut a large chunk of hair from a random Sasquatch’s abdomen. The Sasquatch bellows in anger and despair.

  I appreciate that Dagda added Felix into his demand even if the Tasmanian devil isn’t exactly my Familiar. He’s still my friend. And my responsibility.

  Kegan and Kallen have joined the fray and are creating their own interesting takes on items of torture. Kegan is using magic to fling something resembling tar at the Sasquatch and Kallen has created a swarm of horseflies. Centaurs are swatting at them with their hands and tails as they wince in pain from the tiny creatures’ bites.

  Unfortunately, none of this is helping us find Tana and Felix. And the Centaurs and Sasquatch will not be of any help in their current condition. I pull my magic back and the others do the same. The gum, saddles, scissors, tar and horseflies disappear. The Centaurs and Sasquatch are returned to the same condition they were in before our magical attack began.

  Kono is on the brink of a total meltdown she is so angry. “You will pay for this,” she growls.

  Dagda is not concerned. “You have seen the power of four,” he says in a voice much calmer and more relaxed than a few minutes ago. “Do you believe you have the means to stop my army?”

  “The Fae and the Sasquatch have never met on the battlefield,” Kallen says in the same calm tone Dagda is using. “I, for one, would welcome the opportunity at this point.” The menacing grin on his face is enough to make Kono screech in rage and lunge toward him. Kallen’s magic is too strong for her and she is forced back.

  Kegan and I look at each other. This has gotten completely out of hand. Yeah, I started it but I never would have guessed Kallen and Dagda would egg it on. What has flipped the universe upside down and made Kegan and me the reasonable ones? “Perhaps we should seek a plan of rescue as opposed to a plan of war,” Kegan suggests.

  “We are here to create peace, after all,” I add. Peace may be off the table, though. There are no peaceful thoughts roaming the realm at the moment.

  It must be the shock of being rasher than I am that brings about the contriteness in the back of Dagda’s eyes. He and Kallen both know they may have made grievous errors in their handling of the situation, even if I was the one to start it. It shows me I can’t always rely on them to keep me from doing stupid things when the stakes are so high. We’re all vulnerable to behaving stupidly under this amount of stress.

  Taking a deep breath, Dagda says, “My daughter and nephew speak with great wisdom.” Kegan isn’t really his nephew, but he considers him to be in his heart. “My apologies that the grief of finding my wife missing has led me to behave in such a rash manner.”

  Whoa. I didn’t expect him to apologize. After all, it is more than likely that one or the other of the Kings is responsible for Tana and Felix’s disappearance. This is not a time to show weakness.

  But Dagda’s words have done much to calm the situation down. Yerwen inclines his head. “I cannot imagine the pain in your heart. Your actions are understandable as there are no lasting effects.” Meaning he didn’t need to cut a giant ball of gum out of his armpit hair. Since I don’t have a creepy crawly sensation on my skin, he must mean it. Kono obviously disagrees, but she keeps her mouth closed.

  “My mate passed many years ago. The pain in my chest can still be crippling at times,” Bayard acknowledges, meaning his second mate. From what I discerned in his secret place, his first mate is still alive. “Come, let us adjourn to the Hall of Justice where we can devise a plan to find those who have been lost.”

  “Wait!” Taz screeches. This causes Kono to take a defensive stance. We ignore her. “I can smell him!” My Familiar dashes off toward a clump of trees on the other side of the smoldering barn.

  I don’t know how Taz could possibly smell anything other than smoke and charred wood, but nonetheless, I follow him. I take off at a run but he is at least twice as fast as I am so he reaches the clump of trees well before I do. Kallen and Kegan catch up to me and we reach Taz at the same time.

  We find him behind a large tree. There, on the ground, is Felix. My breath catches at his stillness. Is he alive? Taz is pushing at him with his nose and shaking him with his paws but Felix doesn’t respond. Throwing myself to the ground next to him, I reach out and press my palm against his little chest searching for a heartbeat. To my great relief, I find one. It’s faint, but it’s there.

  “What are you waiting for?” Taz growls. “This is a bad time to test your abilities to raise the dead, which he’ll be if you don’t start using magic on him.”

  I try to keep in mind how worried Taz is so I don’t reach out and throttle him. Focusing my attention on Felix, I do as Taz so pleasantly suggested and use my magic on him. My healing magic. It is only a moment before he begins to stir.

  “Iron,” is the first thing Felix wheezes. “Iron chains.” His meaning is clear and my heart sinks until it’s touching my toenails.

  I don’t even want to look at my biological father at the moment for fear my sudden knowledge will be easy for him to discern on my face. I know what iron does to most Fairies. It may not affect me much, but it is torture for Fairies to come into contact with it. Now, I have to tell him that Tana is somewhere bound in iron chains.

  Kallen kneels down next to me. Reading me as well as he usually does, he asks softly, “What is he saying?”

  I close my eyes and search for the courage I need to say the words. Finally, I just jam them through my voice box. “He’s saying ‘iron chains.’”

  Everyone around us stills. Before, it was conjecture that Tana was kidnapped. I was still hoping for a spell or something she used to get her and Felix to safety. After all, she knew Zac was with Garren so she wouldn’t have really been leaving him in danger. But all those ideas are now ground into dust and being served up on an iron platter as kidnapping.

  “Impossible,” Pholos says, breaking the thick silence. “All iron was removed from the village before your arrival.”

  Well, that was considerate. But removing it and destroying it are two different things. “Apparently, you missed some,” I say dryly.

  Kono’s androgynous face melts into an ugly sneer. “You have barely roused the creature from the brink of death. How could you have garnered such information already?” I really don’t like the Sasquatch.

  I’m about to share this information with Kono when an unfamiliar sound whooshes through the air. In unison, all heads turn toward the sound. Also in unison, curses are uttered all around.

  Several things happen at once. Centaurs who have been keeping their distance rush forward. Shields in hand, they protect their King by pushing him behind them and raising their shields. Several Sasquatch do the same for their King.

  Brave as these actions are, they are almost pointless as hundreds of flaming arrows are flying toward us. A few shields provide very little cover. Thank goodness for magic. The arrows are rendered useless as they fall to the ground around us, unable to penetrate the wall of magic that is being held by those of us with the power.

  Rendered useless is not really a good description. The arrows were unable to penetrate our bodies, yes. Did the magic put out their flames? No. Since we are standing in a clump of trees that are being turned into firewood, we are not quite out of danger yet. This produces another chorus of cursing.

  Cries come from Centaurs and Sasquatch alike as they rush to save their Kings. The rest of us are secondary concerns. The buckets used earlier to bring water from the well to the barn are now being used to put out the flaming trees. Within just a few minutes, we have an escape path before us.

  We also have a much bigger problem. It’s not just Fairies who are in danger. It seems someone wants to kill everyone in charge.

  15

  If Dagda continues to act like a caged tiger, he’s going to grow stripes all over his body soon. He has been pacing the marble tiered room in the Hall of Justice for the past fifteen minutes. I keep waiting for him to attack someo
ne just to relieve a little of the tension flowing through him at about a million volts.

  “Does anyone else see the lack of wisdom in meeting in a place that can be burned to the ground?" Kegan asks quietly. I give him a slight nod. It doesn’t seem to be the smartest thing to do. Yet, here we are.

  “Between our forces and those of the Centaurs and Sasquatch, we will be fine,” Kallen assures me. I do feel a little better now that I’ve brought the Fae troops over. At least they have magic to defend against flaming arrows.

  A Faun comes hurrying into the room with an armful of objects. “I believe I have everything you requested,” the out of breath Faun says. In the middle of the marble tiered room, he places the items on the floor. Four candles, matches, a ceramic bowl and a knife.

  Nerves build within me. I’ve done various locator spells in the past, but this one is more personal. If I fail, it could be the last chance we have of finding Tana without war. And at this point, none of us are certain who we’d be fighting. There doesn’t seem to be a clear enemy for anyone at the moment. Hushed conversations between the other Kings and their men are reaching the same conclusion.

  Accepting the inevitable, I sit down on the floor in front of the objects. Kallen kneels next to me. “Which spell will you use?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I guess I’m just going to wing it.” Tight lines form around my gorgeous husband’s mouth but he doesn’t say anything.

  Kegan kneels on the other side of me. “My cousin probably knows every locator spell there is. Sure you don’t want him to help?”

  I am going to put their doubt down to their love for Tana. My own doubts I’m going to simply ignore. Deep down, I know I do my best spells when I let them simply come to me in the heat of the moment.

  Reaching into the bowl, I remove the candles. I set one down in each point of direction, south, north, east and west. I use the matches to light them. Finally, I stare at the knife. I asked for it but I wasn’t sure why at the time. My subconscious brain had kicked in and I asked for it without knowing the reason why I needed it. Seeing it now, I know what it’s for. Drawing blood. I’m going to do blood magic. I’m sure this will make me popular with our hosts. Nobody ever gets freaked out by blood magic. But blood magic is stronger than any other type of magic and I’m not taking any chances with this spell. With a sigh, I pick the knife up and examine the edge. Nice and sharp, just as I asked.