“What is it?” I ask, taking Percy’s pulse, then feeling his burning face.
“We lost her,” she says.
“The banshee? Why was she after you?”
“I was after her,” Blanchefleur snarls. “She killed my sister; she has to pay for it.”
Coming to stand beside us, she holds her sword up so its light can shine onto Percy’s injured body.
His clothes have partly burnt away, showing pale skin beneath.
I draw in a sharp breath—covering most of his torso is a bright red Lichtenburg figure. The lightning-shaped burn goes from his shoulder all the way down his back, branching out over and over again like a leafless tree. My heart skips a beat as I realize that Percy really could have died, and all because of me.
“I need to go get help,” I say.
“You’re not going to find any,” Blanchefleur says. She sheathes her sword, throwing us back into the decreasing darkness.
“The school can’t be far. There are healers there who ca—”
“It’s too late for that now,” Blanchefleur says.
“I don’t understand.”
The Fey’s blue eyes look straight into mine, reflecting the pale dawn. “It means your school’s probably already under attack by now.”
As if to corroborate her words, I hear the faint but distinctive sound of the tocsin[33] ringing in the distance. I rock onto my feet.
“What?”
“Fomori invasion,” she says, pointing up.
I look at the sky-lake. Streaks of light pink are bleeding into the midnight blue and, with them, strange dark clouds, the first I’ve ever seen down here. As I peer more intently at the odd-moving patterns, I realize that those aren’t clouds, but four-limbed creatures descending from the lake, crawling along the barrier that separates the lower world from the surface.
“But I thought Fey weren’t allowed to step into our school unless invited or…”
“Or enslaved?” Blanchefleur finishes for me. She shrugs. “The barrier’s been breached. And on that note, I’ve got to go.”
With dread, I realize that all those black spots are converging toward the school.
I look back down at Percy. His ordinarily smiling features are now distorted with pain, though he barely lets out a sound. Remorse gnaws at my insides; I can’t leave him like this.
“Wait!” I call after her before she disappears. “We can’t let him die!”
Blanchefleur grimaces at Percy.
“Please!” I beg her. “He saved our lives.”
After another moment’s hesitation, she lets out a deep sigh. “Help me take off his armor,” she says, “and I’ll take care of him.”
“You will?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t say so if it weren’t true,” she retorts, flashing me a look of contempt.
Right, the whole Fey-can’t-lie thing. I grab both her hands in mine. “Thank you so much! I owe you one.”
Blanchefleur pulls away, wincing. “Just get it clear in your little head. I’m not doing this for you. As you said, I owe him a favor, and so I shall repay it before it’s too late.”
“Right, right,” I say as I hurry to take Percy’s armor off—not an easy task considering all the knots and how some of the metallic plates have melded together.
“Are you sure you want to go there?” Blanchefleur asks as I pull the vambraces off Percy. “It might not be wise, especially for you, since the reaping’s nearly done.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, taking Percy’s steel-toed boots off. “Do his pants have to go too?”
Blanchefleur leans over me, then points at his torso. “Just that, and it should be fine,” she says.
I place Percy’s shirt on top of the growing pile of iron items. “There, all done,” I say, dusting myself off. “Don’t forget your promise.”
“A word given cannot be taken,” Blanchefleur says, carefully kneeling down next to Percy’s unconscious body.
I watch her closely as she places his head onto her lap.
“Are you all right?” I ask, noticing for the first time the gashes in her shoulder.
“You better hurry if you hope to still find your school in one piece,” she tells me without looking up.
I don’t have to be told twice. My feet pound the ground as I run full speed across the fields, following the trail of Fomori crawling on the sky-dome above me.
“Dear God,” I pray under my breath, “please let them be OK!”
◆◆◆
Fighting a stitch in my side, I reach the large standing stone that’s a mile west of the landing area. As I near it, I realize the boulder’s cracked in two, as if it’s been struck by a giant hammer. I crest the hill, arriving by the first longboat, and suck in my breath. From here, the breach in the barrier is obvious; it’s like an angel’s punched a hole through the sky, and now hundreds of creatures are dropping through it to land on the school below.
Using the boats for cover, I hurry toward the front of the wharf, coughing on the smoke billowing up from the burning keels. Beyond the flames awaits a nightmarish vision of chaos.
I see Laura and Diana run up the hill toward me, pursued by a Fomori—the Fey’s even uglier in reality than in the book illustrations, and, for once, I wish I’d been wrong and that they were extinct.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m sprinting down to their aid. The creature’s long limbs quickly catch up to the two terrified girls. It smiles at them, showing two rows of jagged teeth in its brown-green face, its eyes glowing with a white-blue, feverish light.
I slide down the remaining few feet and tackle the Fomori to the ground.
“Run!” I yell to my classmates.
I don’t have time to watch them escape as the creature bounds my way. Its webbed hands whip down toward me, thin spikes out. Rolling away, I see its sharp claws dig into the earth where I’d been standing.
I use that moment to kick the Fomori in the face, hearing its jaw crunch under my boot heel. Without waiting for it to retaliate, I scramble away and into the thick of the battle.
I skid to a stop before a group of knights fighting off a couple more Fomori, their sweaty faces lighting up with the various elementals they’re calling.
I dive behind a tree. What am I doing here? I don’t know how to fight, I don’t have a single EM to control, and I still have no weapon.
“I should’ve borrowed Blanchefleur’s sword,” I mutter as an explosion shakes the ground, so loud it momentarily overcomes the sound of the tocsin. My ears ringing, I see more and more Fomori arrive—too many for us to fight, too many for us to survive.
“Please, dear God, have mercy on us,” I pray out loud.
One of the Fomori falls down on the gravel path between me and the school, writhing beneath an iron net. But the other Fey march past him, oblivious to their comrade’s pain.
“Don’t try to capture them!” a knight yells. His dark hair looks familiar. He whirls around to stab a Fomori in the guts, and I recognize Hadrian, Bri’s older brother. He pulls out his sword, wet with dark blood, and helps a girl up. “Remember to aim for their vitals!”
“Get everyone inside the school!” someone shouts nearby, bringing me back to my senses. “They haven’t gotten through the main defenses yet!”
“Gather all those who can’t fight inside!” I hear Hadrian shout again.
I’m about to dart inside myself when I notice a squire cowering beneath a bench, his eyes wide with terror. Just two feet from him are a couple Fomori, their slitted noses smelling the air like hunting dogs on a scent. The hairs on my arms bristle as the creatures’ big heads snap toward the boy, drool falling from their spiky teeth and onto their slick, murky brown bodies.
The boy screams as one of the monsters reaches down and grabs him by the hair, its maw gaping wide open, ready to chew his head off. I grab the first thing I can find, a large rock, and hurl myself at the creature. The stone connects with its temple, and its webbed fingers let go.
“Inside!” I yell to the kid as both Fomori turn on me.
The first one swipes at me, and my jacket rips in two. I topple backward onto the ground, hitting my elbow on the bench. Breath cut short, I remain still for a moment, and blink up at the hideous creature.
The Fomori sneers at me, if such a thing is possible from a creature that has no lips. Then something crashes into it with the force of a bull, sending it flying into the bench. Before the second creature knows what’s happening, there’s a bright flash, and its head rolls off.
“Morgan, ma chère,[34] what you doing here?” Gareth asks me, helping me up with his gauntleted hand. “Thought you were upstairs, safe and bound.”
“No, they didn’t tie me up,” I say as we dodge under shots of fire that have sizzled astray. “Which is how I’ve found myself here.”
“What about Percy?” he asks. “Weren’t he keeping his eyes over you?”
He holds out a beefy arm to keep me back and swings his broadsword up, cleaving a Fomori in half before it can finish a knight who’s fallen down.
“He’s injured and can’t come,” I say, helping him lift the unconscious girl he’s just saved.
“Like most of us here, hein?”[35] he says.
I sweep my eyes around the gory scene, afraid to look too closely at the bodies scattered about, afraid I may recognize anyone. Afraid one of them may be a friend… or Arthur.
“What do they want from us?” I catch myself asking. “Why are they fighting us like this?”
Gareth shrugs. “Why does any war start?” He waves at me. “Well, better get you inside before I find my poet cousin and see what trouble he’s plugged into.”
“Great idea,” I say.
We reach the main building, crack the western door open, and push the fallen knight’s body inside.
“Tell them to get the lady to scry for the Board’s help,” he tells me, wiping blood and sweat from his eyes.
“Who?” I ask as I try not to succumb under the knight’s weight.
“Vivian,” he replies. “If she hasn’t done already.”
“Help, right,” I say. “I’ll go look for her.”
“Brave petite,”[36] Gareth says with a sparkling smile before he charges into the fray once again.
“May God protect you,” I whisper, “and the rest of the knights.”
A soft moan brings me back to the injured girl, and I shut the door behind me. If I thought the outside was chaotic, the inside halls of the school are completely topsy-turvy.
“Can anybody help here?” I call out, grabbing the knight under the arms to get her to the infirmary. But without Gareth’s help, it’s impossible to lift her. “Anybody?”
A strained-looking, but otherwise impeccably dressed Keva appears at the end of the hallway.
“Morgan? What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” I say, gritting my teeth as I pull on the body with all my strength to move it a couple of inches. I look over my shoulder. “A little help?”
“Right,” Keva says, running away.
Great, just great. I try to pull the girl a little farther up the flagstones, but her armor catches on something, and I find myself sprawled on the cold floor.
“Now’s not the time to be sleeping, you know.”
My eyes roll back to find two pairs of boots a handspan away from my forehead.
“What do you expect from the likes of her?”
To my surprise, the voice belongs to none other than Daniel. The boy bends down and lifts the girl up by the shoulders, motioning for me to grab the feet. Between the two of us, we manage to get the squire to the infirmary, where the nurses and Dr. Cockleburr are running about like chickens whose heads have been cut off.
“Morgan, perfect timing!” the doctor says when she sees me. “Go grab some clean water and soap and come help me.”
“Right away,” I say.
I dash for the dispensary, stopping only long enough to wash my hands. I try not to think about all these students lying on tables and beds, groaning and sighing in pain. Only one of the beds in the ward is quiet—Jennifer, despite the insanity going on around her, hasn’t moved a micro-inch.
I find Dr. Cockleburr in the intensive care unit already performing surgery.
“Is that Sir Boris?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes away from the deep slashes running down his torso.
“It is. Now get to cleaning.”
Sloshing water over the side of the basin in my hurry, I nearly drop the soap on a couple of occasions, then finally manage to mop up the already suppurating wound.
“How did he—”
“Was the first to respond to the attack,” the doctor says, tying up the last knot around Sir Boris’s quadriceps. “Fought a dozen Fomori on his own. Maybe if the old fool realized how much age and paunch he’s gained since last he was in a full-blown attack, he wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” I ask as I watch her sure hands fly over Sir Boris’s injuries.
“There’s no time for that,” she says. “You can’t let those feelings get in the way, or people die.” She casts me a glance. “But then again, I’m not on the front lines, am I?”
She moves over the now cleaned wound. I hand her retractors then hold up a candle so she can see if anything’s been torn inside as well.
“And maybe if Lady Vivian had paid attention,” I hear her mutter, “we wouldn’t be under attack at all.”
The name jars my memory, and I nearly drop the light.
“What are you doing, girl?” Dr. Cockleburr snaps. “If you keep this up, this poor man’s going to bleed to death. And I’m not letting anybody die in my clinic today. You got that?”
“Y-Yes,” I stammer, handing her a new needle and thread.
I watch her sew up Sir Boris, wishing her to go faster—the sooner I can get out of here, the sooner I can give Vivian Gareth’s message and my own warning about Carman.
The moment Dr. Cockleburr drops the scissors back onto the table, I thrust the bandages into her arms and rush out of the room.
“Where are you going, Morgan?” she asks, her eyes nearly popping out of her head.
“I have an urgent message,” I say, slipping on the floor slick with blood.
I don’t bother to clean myself up as I run back outside the infirmary. I plaster myself to the wall to let a couple of squires carry in another injured knight. If this keeps up, there won’t be anybody left to defend our school.
I slap myself to get the awful thought out of my head. There’s no point in going over what-if scenarios. Nothing good ever happens if you give up without trying.
I push myself away from the wall and run down the hallway, searching every face I pass for Vivian’s familiar features.
“Have you seen the principal?” I ask Elias who’s running around holding weapons.
The boy shakes his head.
“Gianakos, what are you doing?” an older man yells in a stentorian voice, his arms bulging under the weight of massive hammers. “We need to get as many tools and weapons out before they get to the forge!”
“Try the KORT room, she may be communicating with the Board,” Elias says before hurrying after the burly man.
Without waiting a second longer, I dash up the stairs, taking them three at a time, reach the second floor, then propel myself down the hallway toward the KORT room. I come crashing through the open door, stopped only when I slam into the large table.
“Lady Vivian?” I call out, rubbing my sore thighs. “Lady Vivian, I’ve got a message for you!”
Nobody answers. The drapes behind Arthur’s usual seat are standing wide apart, letting the first full rays of the sun reach inside the small recess and reflect back on the tall mirror suspended inside.
“Saint George’s balls!” I cry out, hitting my fist on the table. “Why is no one ever present when I actually need them?”
Muttering to myself, I cross the room back toward the door, when a large
explosion rocks the whole building. I have to hold onto a chair to stop myself from falling. The vibrations seem to last forever, reverberating down to the marrow of my bones. They must have gotten to the forge, I realize.
There’s a slight scuttling sound, as of a child running, and a small, bearded head appears at the door, crowned with two tiny horns.
“Puck! Just the one I wanted to see!” I try to stand up a little straighter. “Where is your mistress?”
The hobgoblin cocks his head questioningly. I want to growl in frustration, but, afraid to scare the creature away, I force myself to take on a soft tone.
“Vivian, Puck. Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?”
The hobgoblin’s face lights up, and he darts away.
“Hey, wait for me!”
I have to force myself to unclench my fingers from around the chair to run after Puck before he disappears again.
***
Puck takes me down the western staircase, which happens to be the one most packed with people, the battle raging just beyond its walls. I try not to look out the tall windows; I have yet to see or hear of Arthur, and it scares me to think that, like Sir Boris, he may be lying somewhere, shredded to pieces.
But no matter how well I try to keep a low profile, being one of the tallest people around still makes me stand out.
“Morgan!”
“Not now, Keva,” I say, looking for Puck.
“But the doctor is looking for you!” she says, pushing her way through the throng toward me.
“Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can!”
I round a corner and find the hobgoblin hopping down the corridor, his tiny hooves clicking on the stones. He pushes the door to the arboretum, looks back to make sure I’m still there, then scampers outside.
To my surprise, however, it is not Vivian I find in the courtyard, but a tall man dressed in white, his blond hair falling around his shoulders like a halo.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Where’s Lady Vivian?”
The man drops his gaze from the sky to my face, and I have a momentary start when I notice his eyes are so pale they look almost white. A blind person?
Morgana Trilogy Complete Series Page 36
