He wondered why she sounded so sad. Perhaps it was because of the battle yet to be fought. No doubt she wished they could live normal lives, like everyone else. He knew how such a desire felt, having longed for this nearly all of his life.
Without any urging, Lancelot picked up the pace. His war horse, Kenric thought with a wry smile, who now had a name. It had taken Megan and her unwavering love to show him that detachment wasn't living. Lancelot was important to him, had always been, nameless or not, and the fondness he felt for the strong-hearted animal deserved to be shown.
As he showed his affection for his faerie kin by fighting their battle for them.
Fat drops of icy rain began to pelt them. He covered Megan with his cloak as she huddled against him. The wind howled, sending the rain into their skin like shards of ice. Head down, Lancelot plunged doggedly forward.
So it had begun. From afar, Myrddin sought to torment them. With a casual gesture, Kenric created a shield around them. Instantly they were dry. Rhiannon did the same for herself and Edmyg. A simple matter of magic, this. It would take more than bad weather to win this battle.
As if Myrddin could see, the wind calmed and the rain stopped. The trees, no longer bowed at the onslaught, stood straight and tall. Not even the faintest breeze stirred their leaves. Though the sky remained the color of slate, the clouds held their places, no longer racing across the horizon. To all outward appearances, it looked peaceful, yet somehow it seemed more ominous. A feeling of dread, of watching and waiting, hung over the landscape like fog.
Still, Kenric did not relax the shield. He would keep it until they reached the battle place of his choosing, a full days ride from here.
"Does he come?" Low voiced, Megan rested her head on his back and sighed. She sounded weary, though he knew she would never admit it.
"Soon." He would tell her later of the fierce pride he felt for her. Even knowing what they faced, she showed no fear. Instead, she rode at his back, her love and trust evident in every feminine gesture she used, from her smile to the way she held her head high.
He had never known a woman like her; few men either that could match her for valor and integrity. There was no one he would rather have at his side than Megan, his soul half. The only other woman he’d ever met as strong would be Rhiannon, Queen of all Faeries, who ran a close second .
Edmyg's horse, a beast nearly as large as Lancelot, kept pace with them. Kenric found it surprising that the mage, who had once seemed so elderly and frail, owned such an animal. Though it was no more surprising than the muscular warrior's body Edmyg now wore. The spell that had made him old and weak had been a strong one and, though Edmyg had never said it, Kenric knew it was one of Myrddin's. Perhaps that was why the mage insisted on riding with them into the battle.
"The time grows near." Rhiannon warned.
Kenric glanced at her, searching for signs of fear in his sister's lovely face. If she felt anything, she hid it well. Her violet-eyed gaze seemed serene, her expression calm and peaceful.
Without even an increase in the wind to warn them, the day turned to night. Utter blackness settled upon them like a shroud. There was no moon, no stars, nothing to light their way.
"Halt." Kenric ordered, reining Lancelot to an immediate stop. "If we go forward now, we could ride over the edge of a cliff and not know it."
"There are no cliffs in this part of the country." Edmyg scoffed. "If we stay here, then we wait like lambs to be led to the slaughter."
For Megan's benefit Kenric forced a laugh, though it was a dry and humorless sound. "There may be no cliffs now, my friend. But who's to say Myrddin would not create them?"
"This is not what I expected." Megan spoke, her voice low with what sounded like suppressed fury. "This Myrddin fights like a coward, with thunder and lightening and darkness. Is he afraid to face us like a man? Is he so afraid that we will best him that he will try to make us stumble around in the dark?"
After a moment of stunned silence, Kenric chuckled. Ah, his brave soul half. In her anger she sounded like a female warrior, like one of those Amazons of legend. About to tell her that Myrddin would use whatever means he had at his disposal, low handed or not, he held his tongue when the darkness instantly lifted.
"Myrddin has heard you." Satisfaction colored Rhiannon's tone. "He does not like being named a coward."
"He will try to avenge this insult." Edmyg sounded
worried. "We shall have to guard Megan, and guard her well."
"I had intended on it." Now that he could see, Kenric urged Lancelot on again, this time at a controlled gallop. Though Megan had but spoken truth, he wished she had not singled herself out to the evil mage. Now Myrddin would have two reasons to try and hurt her - the other knowing no doubt that Kenric would die for her. This gave their enemy a slight advantage that Kenric did not care to contemplate.
Edmyg spurred his own horse until it drew apace.
"You will have to strike fast." Rhiannon glanced at Megan and smiled. "Do not give Myrddin any opportunity to touch her."
With a nod, Kenric tightened his shield, feeling a double urgency driving him to reach Blackstone Keep. He only hoped they would have time before Myrddin truly attacked.
As it turned out, they nearly made it. Kenric didn't know whether Myrddin was licking his wounds or gathering his power, but by mid-afternoon on the second day they drew near to the jutting boulders and rocky landmarks that surrounded his cave.
Megan, recognizing them, grew restless. She shifted and squirmed so much that Lancelot faltered in his stride.
"What is wrong?" Kenric spoke low, knowing she would not confide in him if the others could hear.
"This place--" her voice broke. For the first time she showed fear, though not of the battle to come. "This place is where I woke up, after the lightening struck me and brought me through time. What if--"
He would not let her speak it. Words had their own power, something few people knew. "You will be safe with me." He told her firmly. "I will let nothing happen to you."
Slowly, her gaze locked on his, she nodded. "I trust you." She told him, her voice a husky murmur.
His heart swelled at the honor she so casually gave him. But then he remembered his human family and how they had perished at the swords of his own kind. They too had trusted him to protect them, to help keep Blackstone Keep safe. He had failed them then. But he would not fail Megan.
Straightening, Kenric pushed away his doubts. Desire for this woman raged through his blood, mingling with the ever present simmer of the power he now knew he could command.
Impatient for the battle to begin so that he might finish it, he reined Lancelot to a halt near the hidden entrance to the cave.
"This is a place of great power." Dismounting, he held out his hand and helped Megan down, letting her body slide down the length of his so there could be no doubt in her mind how badly he wanted her. Still. Even with the tremendous task ahead of him, he yearned to take her into the cave - their cave - and make fierce, passionate love to her.
"I would have first blow." Edmyg declared, his face hard.
Immediately, Kenric shook his head. "This is my battle."
"No. Edmyg pulled Rhiannon close. "The legend says half human, half faerie. That is what Rhiannon and I are, each of us making the half to complete the whole."
Rhiannon immediately nodded. "There are many ways to interpret the legend. Myrddin believe it is he who defends his right. Edmyg believes it is two individuals, separate yet one. Soul-halves. Like you and Megan."
Eyes narrow, Kenric thought on Edmyg's words. Could this be possible? Mayhap this was not his battle at all, but his sister's. All that training-- but now, he could not take the chance that they were wrong.
"We will all fight then. Together."
Megan made a small sound, whether in protest or agreement he could not tell. It happened then, just as Kenric let go of his lady, just as Edmyg released Rhiannon from his embrace. A noise filled the air, sharp and shrill, lik
e a thousand hawks screeching as they sighted the kill. Megan clapped her hands to her ears, her face contorted in pain.
"He comes." Rhiannon shouted over the din.
It grew dark, then light, then dark again. The very air they breathed became heavy and dank, pressing at them as if to crush them into powder on the earth.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Myrddin stood in front of them, his darkly handsome face contorted with hatred. Kenric could feel the evil emanating from him, great waves of it so strong that he staggered back a step.
The noise grew louder, bring back the wind and the
turbulent skies. Edmyg, his own face contorted with rage, rushed at Myrddin, but before he got within a spear's distance he was repelled with such force that it tossed him across the clearing, into the rocks near the cave. Rhiannon rushed over to him, drawing Myrddin's glare.
"She and her kingdom should have belonged to me." The guttural words sounded unnaturally loud in the din of the storm. "All of it - Rune, the earth, the prophecy, truly belongs to me."
Startled, Kenric saw how the wizard's dead eyes filled with such pain that it made him appear human. But the emotion was fleeting; flashing into Myrddin's gaze, then vanishing, replaced once again by the flat, dead eyes of a man who had nothing to lose.
Like Kenric himself had once been. Before Megan.
Had Myrddin loved his sister that much? If so, it had not been mutual. Her loving attention to the fallen Edmyg attested to that fact.
"This is between us." Kenric shouted, drawing Myrddin's ire. "We are both the same, of two worlds - human and faerie."
Myrddin jerked his head in a nod, showing he understood and agreed. "Aye, this battle is between us. Prepare to die as your human family died, Kenric of Blackstone."
By those words Kenric knew it had been Myrddin who had led the assault against Blackstone Keep. He fought to keep the rage from consuming him- to do so would be foolhardy, with so much else at stake.
Prepare to die. Myrddin had said as much to him before, when they'd met by chance in the marshes. Even then, untrained and weary, Kenric had been able to turn away his magical ire.
"Before we fight, explain one thing to me. I do not understand." Kenric shouted, as the unholy noise shrieked and eddied around them. "What have I ever done to you, that you bear me such ill will?"
With a narrowing of eyes, Myrddin laughed. His laugh was a horrible thing, both bitter and full of an agony that Kenric doubted the other man even knew he exhibited. "You have stolen my birthright, my place in the annals of time. It is I who fulfill the prophecy, I who should take Rhiannon to wife as my soulhalf, I who should be worshipped as a savior by the people of Rune."
In a flash Rhiannon stood beside Kenric, a shaken but determined Edmyg standing tall and straight by her side. She opened her mouth to speak and the air became still and silent, so that all might hear her ice-toned words.
"You are both wrong and right, Myrddin. I am not your soulhalf - how can I be when Edmyg is mine? And you are mentioned in the prophecy, though not as the savoir, but as the evil which must be defended against. Look deep within your heart, if you still have such a thing beating within your chest, and you will find the truth of these words that I speak."
With one arched brow, Myrddin aimed a look at Rhiannon that promised retribution. He lifted his hand, gesturing so rapidly that his movements were a blur.
Edmyg staggered, doubling over. The wind howled, echoing his cries of anguish.
Rhiannon made no sound, simply stepping forward and taking Edmyg's hand. With a softly chanted spell of her own, she vanquished Myrddin's. Edmyg immediately straightened and drew his sword.
A look of baffled rage came over Myrddin. "Do you think that I will not hurt you, Rhiannon, Queen of Rune?" He made the simple title sound like an insult. "I will rule without you, and no longer only Rune, but the entire world. After all, who better? I am of both places, Faerie and mortal. So tell me, how is it that you truly believe I will let you go unharmed?"
Still Rhiannon said nothing to him. Still chanting, she held fast to Edmyg's hand, watching and waiting.
Love is the most powerful magic. Remembering the truth of these words, Kenric held out his hand. With a shaky smile, Megan took it, her devotion shining bright and true from her amber eyes. With his other hand, Kenric took Rhiannon's, and Megan took Edmyg's, linking all four of them together with the bonds of love.
Seeing, Myrddin’s eyes narrowed with fury.
"I will have retribution!" One with the awful keening of the wind, he howled. "Victory as well. This I swear."
Kenric tensed. "You foreswear then. I will not allow it to be so." He inclined his head, the impact of the invisible blow sending Myrddin staggering back.
Myrddin let out a cry of rage and pain. Straightening, he lifted his hands, both simultaneously. Twin bolts of jagged, white lightening flashed at them.
Without a single movement, Kenric deflected it. As the love/contentment/joy of their linkage flowed through him, filling him with raw power, he knew awe. Never had it been so strong, so powerful as it was now.
Myrddin issued another challenge, growling words so tangled up with furious emotion that they were unintelligible. Flinging spells at them in rapid succession, spells so full of darkness and evil that they fouled the very air, he howled curses. Each and every one of them bounced harmlessly away from Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg.
They were one entity, joined in love. As such, they could not, would not kill unless it became absolutely necessary.
Slowly, with an infinite patience that came from somewhere outside himself, Kenric opened a tiny chink in the armor their joined love created. He sent love/patience/kindness at Myrddin, small waves of it at first, then gradually increasing in strength until the light it created was blinding.
Resisting it, Myrddin continued to fight, his visage dark and unforgiving. His aura, black and unwholesome, swallowed Kenric's attempt to make him see/feel/understand, turning the love into something unholy.
Kenric saw and mourned. And still, the mighty strength of love flowed through his every pore.
By Myrddin would have none of it. Darkness clashed with light as the powers of love and good warred with hatred and evil. Above them the sky mirrored the struggle below, dark clouds roiling furiously against the pure cobalt blue of a perfect sky.
The power increased, solidified. Exultation flowed through Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg.
A crack appeared in the earth between them, a jagged fissure that snaked between Myrddin and them. With a cry of triumph, Myrddin moved towards it. From it, indeed from the bowels of the earth below came an unearthly wailing, a stirring of beings so evil that their names must never be spoken out loud.
"He summons help." Rhiannon cried. "We must be strong."
Pure blackness seemed to envelope Myrddin - an inky darkness that flowed from the bowels of the earth. The chants and moans and cries of the voices below grew louder, more certain.
Myrddin began to change.
Kenric had heard of such things - dark faerytales, mere stories meant to frighten children into behaving. But never, even in his training with the Faeries, would he have believed the thing that Myrddin became.
Twisted and misshapen, Myrddin moved in some sort of jagged dance. Steam poured from the cracked earth, reeking with the stench of things better left alone. No longer appearing even remotely human, he embodied the very things that he would not release. If bitterness and hatred, evil and rancor could take shape, so Myrddin's visage and body transformed to give them that vessel.
Then Kenric knew he had no choice. Knew they had no choice. Myrddin - or the thing that Myrddin had become - would have to die.
"You're no longer alone." Megan told him, whether out loud or inside his head he could not tell.
"We are here, all of us." Rhiannon/Edmyg confirmed.
Though he didn't want to, indeed every fiber of his being fought against it, Kenric fused their energies into a sword of light, even as th
e evil thing that Myrddin had become loomed dark and foul over them.
Still, he hesitated, remembering his vow not to kill. "Now." Rhiannon/Edmyg/Megan urged.
But the minute hesitation was enough for the evil energy to attack. Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg felt the force of it course through them, soiling them on contact, venomous and rank. If it penetrated their pores, they would die.
"Now." And Kenric, no longer doubting, sent the sword of light into Myrddin, striking him down with one blow.
The power it took was enormous. As Myrddin fell with an inhuman howl of fury, the black bowels of the earth yawned open even wider to receive him.
Kenric/Megan/Rhiannon/Edmyg were knocked back A loud groaning filled the air as the earth began to close again.
Everything changed in that instant.
The earth moved together with a loud clap and a shudder.
The clouds fled before the blue sky, the sun peeked over the horizon and then rose in a glorious blaze of gold and orange.
The foul stench vanished, replaced by the heady scent of wildflowers and green grass.
Once more the birds began to sing, songs of joy and hope and peace.
All was right with the world.
Unutterably weary, Kenric climbed to his feet. Next to him, Rhiannon and Edmyg did the same. He turned to his right, to help Megan up, to pull her close for a well-deserved embrace.
She was not there.
Something should have warned him, even if at first he believed the awful emptiness he felt inside came only from the destruction of another human being. But the horrible truth dawned on him as he searched right, then left, behind him and in front. Disbelieving, he sank to his knees, head tilted back in a silent howl of anguish.
Megan, his soul mate Megan, was gone. And this time, he could not sense her anywhere.
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One moment Megan had been standing at Kenric's side, her hand linked with his, her heart as well. The next, she knew only blackness, then woke to a sound she had nearly forgotten - the low pitched sound of electricity humming.
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