With no word passed between them the Shades dashed forward. Just as she’d promised, Sha’ira sent both her arrows at Nephthys, one high and one low. Long Sword kicked a leg up to avoid the low shot while deflecting the other with a snap of her blade. Averna, covering a lot of ground in a hurry with her long antelope’s legs, reached Sha’ira before Morrigan. Slashing diagonally down then straight back level as one continuous attack, she hoped to catch the dreamwriter before she could recover from the bow shot.
But her attack bit air. Sha’ira leaped up and over Averna, yanking her own sword from the sand left-handed as she went. Gaining height I would’ve thought impossible, she landed with the bow already slicing at the tall Shade’s legs. It tangled in them, but didn’t knock her down. Releasing the bow, Sha’ira tossed the scimitar into her right hand and drew her curved dagger with the other, intent on getting to Morrigan. Nephthys came in hard from the left with a cobra-quick thrust. The dreamwriter caught it in front of her face with the dagger and smacked it away with the sword. But the small Shade let the momentum take the blade around her own head to try a sneaky cut from behind her opponent. Sha’ira dropped down low in a split, making Nephthys’ edge hiss just over her head. Hey! That’s my move. The curved dagger slashed belly-high, forcing the assassin back. Rolling right, Sha’ira arched herself upright without using her hands, just in time to catch Morrigan’s blades, one over her head and the other at a thigh. Kneeing the Shade leader in the ribs to drive her back, my protector had to dive aside to avoid another thrust from Nephthys.
I couldn’t watch any more of the fight. While I stood dumb and amazed, Averna saw her chance. With Sha’ira farther up toward the trees engaging the other two Shades, the Stone-Warden was flat-footed and vulnerable. “Hey, wake up!” Jasper bellowed, making my head ring. Her arm whipped forward. Wrenching my attention to my left front, I managed to get the cup in front of me. By the time Averna’s small spiked ball reached my face I gripped a knight’s heater shield. The wicked throwing weapon, which resembled a sea urchin, bounced over my head toward the water. I braced myself for her attack, not having time to do anything other than to huddle behind my steel wall. But her blade never landed. Romulus rushed her with a great slash of his Bowie knife. With what looked like no effort she stepped inside the knife’s arc, spun the Marshal like a tornado, and let his own momentum throw him ten feet across the beach. Her attention turned back to me. For maybe one-half of a second I considered trying Morphageus against her, then gave that up as a childish fantasy. There’s no way I can fence these women. Not until somebody shows me how. Instead I swung the shield at my feet. It became a wide deep corn shovel halfway through the motion. A wall of sand, blasted toward her by sudden Stone-strength, hit her dead in the face. That forced her to stop and clear her eyes, which didn’t take her anywhere near as long as I’d hoped. But it still gave me time to melt the shovel into those good old foot springs and bound out of her range as that nasty curved sword cut where I’d stood. I landed next to Romulus, who had already stumbled to his feet. We backed away, hunting for help in the sky. Standin’ on this beach waitin’ to get sliced up ain’t no good. Time to see if my idea will work.
Tyrell tried to catch my waving hand, but we slipped off from all the sweat. Alcibiades swooped past. Another trooper got lower, towing a spare Norn horse, and Romulus managed to climb on and get into the air. Great. Now I’m stuck on the beach with the death ladies and no way off. A third Reb came in to try to pick me up, but one of Averna’s lethal Christmas ornaments rocketed through the air and shredded the hand he offered. Cursing, he pulled up before she could do more damage.
I had the shield in hand again, way out in front of me to block whatever she sent my way. Averna didn’t rush this time, but walked slow and careful. Every time a trooper tried to fly low and use his saber on her, he’d get disarmed or his horse would lose wing feathers. That’s when she even let them get close. Most of the time her nimble dodging made them miss. The Marines and Ernie were nowhere to be seen. Can’t blame you fellers for that.I’d like to be elsewhere, too. Higher up the beach I could hear the music of steel kissing steel. The clinks, the screeches, the sighs. Sha’ira must still be okay, then. Here’s hopin’ she lasts until I can get this crazy plan goin’.
Averna got within eight feet of me, no matter how fast I tried to back away. Behind her the Redeemers landed their horses and got them into line. They were going to charge her, try to run her down with brute force, accepting whatever horrible losses came of it. I caught Tyrell’s eye and shook my head. He cocked his head at me like he thought I was loony, but nodded agreement. Just then the night sky blew apart with noise and sparks as a shell from the Merchantry gunboat exploded in the air just above the waterline. If the Valkyrie mounts had been up there we’d have lost some of them. Lucky call on Tyrell’s part, then. As it was two troopers and a mount took light wounds from shrapnel. I risked a sideways glance south, down the beach. Not much firing came from the battle site. Either somebody had won or both sides had decided a long night fight was a bad idea. That meant that the Old Guard and friends might soon be back to help finish things. Have to get this goin’ right now. No time to lose.
“Look to your front about ten feet, at two o’clock,” Jasper advised me. “Down low in the sand.”
I did, and almost smiled, which would’ve ruined the whole thing. So I grinned inside instead.
Like I had not a care in the whole blessed world,I shrank the shield back into a cup and edged right, inviting Averna to take a whack at me. She had no problem accepting that. But just when she started to dance toward me, raising her scimitar to end my great quest, she let out the kind of high girlie yelp she probably hadn’t made since she’d been four. Hopping on one foot, she raised the other up to see what she’d stepped on. It had pierced her soft black boot and savaged her instep.
Her own throwing spike clung to her bleeding foot, the weapon that’d bounced off my shield.
“Aw, does the widdle Shade have an owie?” Ernie taunted, popping up out of the sand where he’d been hiding with the errant weapon, waiting for his chance. He raised his sharpened knitting needle spear. “Here, let me take your mind off that, love.” Grunting with the effort, he plunged the lance into her other foot as if harpooning a whale.
It did my heart good to hear the terrifying assassin howl in pain again. So you are human, after all. That’s good to know. But it didn’t do Ernie a lot of good. Averna plucked the spike out of her foot and threw it into the water. Then she planted the same foot and kicked the needle free of her other foot, with the stout mouse still holding onto it and crowing. He landed in a pile of damp seaweed, whooping in victory.
“Looks like Shades are quick healers,” Jasper said.
“Yeah, just our luck,” I sighed. “Let’s see if she can heal from this.”
I raised a giant magick metal hand about three feet across. Before Averna could get her bearings and resume the attack on me, I reared back and slapped her silly. She rolled up the beach toward her sisters. Sitting up and shaking her head, I saw that her mask and hood were askew. The deadly assassin turned out to be a pretty blonde girl of maybe eighteen.
“Kinda thought she’d be a Cyclops with a forked tongue,” said Jasper in a disappointed tone.
“Yeah, me, too. Live and learn, I guess.”
More shells came in from the Yankee gunboat, even closer this time. Ground bursts now, spraying up water and mud. Guess theMerchantry’s none too worried about losin’ a few expensive Shades, long as they get me. I waved the Redeemers and Marines forward. Ernie, none the worse for his aerial journey, skittered along the beach next to me. My aim was to press the Shades into the tree line at the top of the beach. A surprise waited for them up there, if what I’d seen earlier had been real. I told Ernie to run over to Tyrell and let him in on my idea. As the little Marshal scampered off on his mission I slogged through the sand to close with the enemy. That gave me a chance to watch Sha’ira in action again, and to see something
special.
Though fighting two Shades at once, the dreamwriter still held her own. Sparks flew in the dark as blades skittered off one another, looking like lighting bugs. Sha’ira never stayed still, never gave Morrigan and Nephthys any chance to coordinate strikes at her. She spun like a top, bounced like a ball, crouched, rolled, whatever it took to keep one of her opponents in the way of the other. I didn’t know if whatever she did had a name, but it resembled a blend of ballet and gymnastics. The Shades were getting frustrated, making wilder strikes than they’d been doing before. As I watched the unbelievable combat before me, I noticed something strange.
Sha’ira didn’t attack them. She just defended herself. At no time did she aim a serious blow meant to cause real damage. Sure, she’d swipe at one of them to get them away from her so she could deal with the other, but no killing blows. What’s she doin’? Tryin’ to exhaust ‘em so they lie down and take a nap? They’re sure tryin’ to hurt her and no mistake. That strategy was about to get a real test. Avernapopped up from where I’d knocked her and added her scimitar to the mix. Now Sha’ira had to go to work. The third attacker made things too complicated even for her to manage for long. Her escapes became narrower, her maneuvers harder to accomplish. It looked to be just a matter of time before her sisters would bring her down before we could all get up there to help.
Or so I thought. With the three Shades pressing her up the hill, Sha’ira showed them the other course of study she’d been on besides dreamwriting. That moonstone glow crept into her eyes again, giving her a catlike look. Her long black hair lifted off her head and spread out around her in a sort of halo. Milky mist, resembling the most translucent white silk scarf, rose from her skin and swirled around her like a living thing. Just as she’d done when I’d first laid eyes on her, she rose from the ground without wings, maybe five feet. The Shades all stopped fighting and retreated a couple of steps, as amazed as the rest of us. Our astonishment grew when she began to… sing.
More chanting than singing. It sounded more like what I’d heard an Injun chief say around a campfire once when I’d been real small. To this day I can’t tell you why’d he’d been on our Maryland farm, but I recalled it clear as day. Sha’ira’s singing felt like that, raw and ancient, something from a time at the beginning of magick, maybe. I didn’t have time to wonder, because it only lasted about ten seconds. Pale jagged fire flared out of her sword and dagger as she crossed them, knocking all three Shades down like cornstalks in a gale.
My mouth dropped. “What on earth is that?”
“Songline magick,” said Romulus from right next to me. Ernie sat on his shoulder looking all smug. “She told me she’d learned it some.”
“Some?” I said, looking at the felled assassins. “Looks like plenty to me.”
“Can’t hold it long. Says it drains her.”
Sure enough, she’d already floated back down to the marshy ground, the weird light fading from her eyes. The mist had melted away. Sha’ira’s legs gave out and she slumped against a tree. I’d looked like that once as a toddler, after a week of the influenza.
“Quick!” Tyrell shouted. “Before they recover.” The Redeemers spurred their horses forward to prevent the Shades from resuming their attack.
Too late. They sure were quick healers, all right. Morrigan rose first, then Nephthys. Averna rewound her mask and slid her hood back on. With a high yipping cry they charged. Not at the helpless Sha’ira. At me.
They were too close for me to do much, or to think much. The dreamwriter’s magick blast had knocked them within ten feet of me. Romulus drew his Bowie, but I knew he’d just end up on the sand again. With Stone-strength and the calm that it gave me I shoved him away and swung a silvery steel bullwhip at the onrushing assassins. Even their unnatural quickness couldn’t get them out of the way in time. Sha’ira’s spell-cast probably slowed their reflexes some. The Jasper-whip slashed all of them across the head and shoulders, opening up bleeding wounds and shredding their dark costumes. Masks fell away. None of them looked to be past twenty. All were pretty. Morrigan, her long hair the color of dried blood, had a blade scar in precisely the same spot as Sha’ira. I kept the whip moving in a vicious series of figure-eights, not giving them any time to recover. The Redeemers split into two groups, sabers low, one on either side of me. We advanced up the hill, giving them no choice but to head for the trees. Hissing in rage, Morrigan got there first. She grabbed the semi-conscious Sha’ira by the hair and raised one of her short swords.
“Ah, well,” the Shade leader croaked in her Highland burr, “at least the night will no’ be a total loss.”
The sword fell to the ground next to Sha’ira, followed by the other blade. Morrigan rose up into the air, but not from any Songline witchery. Her feet kicked. She yelled, thrashed, cursed. Still the old oak held her.
“Wiggling won’t do you much good,” my new tree friend said in his slow careful voice. “When Langhorne gets them they stays got.”
Nephthys and Averna had been got, too, one by a pine and one by a hemlock. Their struggles proved just as futile. They all hung from the trees like some strange fruit, yowling and threatening. I figured that they’d never learned how to lose all graceful at their Academy. Probably not even on the curriculum.
“You want us to pick their arms and legs off?” the pine asked in the voice of a teen-aged boy. “I like that. It’s fun.”
“No!” I blurted, making all the Redeemers turn to stare at me. “I don’t want any more killin’ than there has to be. Just hold ‘em till we’re gone.”
“If you think that’ll endear you to these three---” Tyrell said.
“Oh, I’m not dumb enough to think they’ll turn over a new leaf, so to speak. But there’s too many folks dead cause of me already.”
“This is a mistake,” Jasper told me. “Leaf ‘em for the buzzards. Let the Guild know that they’re barkin’ up the wrong tree if they think they can take the Stone-Warden. Tear ‘em limb-from-limb. Otherwise you’ll be runnin’ from ‘em forever.”
With a sigh I ignored his horrible puns. “Then I’ll just learn to be faster than them, I guess,” I said in my head.
“Can you outrun a cannonball?” he asked.
“Huh?”
A deafening blast knocked me six feet. Spitting out sand, I shook my head to try to clear the ringing. Two Norn horses were down, and three more troopers. The gunboat had us dead to rights now and more shells were on their way. Picking myself up, I probed for bleeding or any other damage. I couldn’t feel any because the entire right side of my body was covered in medieval armor, dented from shrapnel hits. As it melted away and became a tin cup again, Jasper sighed, “Work, work, work, that’s all I ever do for you. I need a vacation.”
“You’ll get one when I do,” I told him.
We ran up the beach to try to get out of range, but the Merchantry gunners just walked the shells after us. South looked no good, either. I could see the Old Guard regiments marching toward us at the double-quick. “Into the trees!” I yelled. “Bring the wounded!” I dashed to the still-limp Sha’ira. Romulus grabbed her without my help and carried her toward the woods like a baby. Tyrell directed his remaining Redeemers to get into the air with the casualties and fly out of range. Langhorne and his friends stayed where they were, but turned away from the beach, still clutching the Shades.
It looked like we were out of time to do that or anything else. More and more shells hit the beach, sending sand and shrapnel everyplace. Some landed ahead of us in the forest, anticipating our flight. The ground shook like a rowboat in a hurricane. I curled into a ball, shield on top of me, and listened to pieces of hot iron rattle off it. If I took a direct hit I felt sure that even Morphageus couldn’t save my hide. My ears took such a pounding that I just knew I’d never be able to hear right again.
Then those ears heard one more big boom. It sounded more distant than the others. No more shells came at us. My whole body quivering from the pounding, I peeped out from under my
Jasper-shield to see what went on now.
Smoke and flame rose from the gunboat. I frowned. Was Phelps’s Brigade still shooting at it? Nope, they were moving away south again. Did some fool drop a cigar into the powder magazine? Nope again. The damage would be greater. What, then?
“Boiler blew up, looks like,” Romulus said, Sha’ira in his arms but with her eyes open. She looked better already.
“What’s the chances of that happening just when we needed it?” Tyrell asked while he wrapped a bandage around a trooper’s bleeding leg.
“The way things’re goin’ this week?” asked Ernie.
“Vewy swim,” said Gracchus from somewhere near my foot.
“Swim?” I asked Ernie in a whisper.
“Sure. Swim. As in ‘the odds’re swim to none’.”
At that moment the gunboat, not at all out of commission, started raising its sails while resuming its furious firing. But none of the shells were aimed at us. The Merchantry vessel had begun shooting at something out to sea. Squinting my tired magicked eyes, I saw a sight that made me want to jump and shout. A grey and gold ship under full sail, its guns blazing away at the Yankee gunboat.
“It’s Pitcairn!” cried Ernie. He jumped and shouted for me, waving his tiny black head scarf. “It’s the Penelope’s Kiss!”
36/ Penelope’s Kiss
“Mister Nickleby!” cried Pitcairn, “Chastise the so-called Honourable Merchantry, if you please.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” his gunnery officer said. “Love to.”
“How can you know that?” I asked. “I got witched eyes and can barely make out the ship.”
“He took out the engine with the first shot,” Ernie explained. “Pinned him against the shore with the wind to his back. Even if they get those sails up, they’re helpless. That’s classic Pitcairn.”
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 37
