by Candace Sams
She pulled her sword from her baldric and gripped it hard. Sounds drifted toward her, from some distance. She tilted her head and heard the faint call of men in battle.
If nothing else chilled her to the bones, that sound did. These were the cries and ghostly leftovers of battle that Garrett Bloodnight had warned about. Though he’d been very dramatic in his description, she wasn’t prepared for the haunting quality of those ghostly remnants of history. These were the spirits of the men who’d died fighting Morgan. Impressions of the past were upon them. Perhaps, if the enemy heard this, they wouldn’t be ready for it. Maybe those restless spirits had come to give a haunting advantage to the allies. It would be nice to think that their presence was a signal of camaraderie.
Suddenly, a white, mystic fog appeared from a line of woods directly opposite the allied position. The moon’s eerie glow made the billowy, ground-hugging vapor look ominous. Like death itself, that mist crept closer and closer.
She saw shapes in the opposing tree line, and sensed the presence of others who were not here to help. Their anger, rage, and readiness to kill was palpable. Every immortal on the allied side must feel what she was feeling this moment.
Rogues.
She took a ready stance. She lifted her blade and planted her feet squarely. Not until Garrett Bloodnight made his loud announcement about his heritage would the attack begin. He’d do so from a hilltop where his words would be heard by every living thing in these hills. Then, he’d signal the attack.
She would lead her faction forward then.
Sounds of ghostly battle still echoed around them. There was no source for the sounds, but she felt she could reach out, into the low fog moving toward her feet, and touch someone or something.
Out of the tree line, directly across a small valley from Garrett’s position, two blood-red lights appeared. She focused as hard as she could and denoted a form undulating beneath the lights.
Those aren’t lights. They’re fucking eyes!
The morphing, dark smoky mass in which the eyes were situated moved steadily but quite slowly forward. It stopped at roughly half the distance between the trees from which it had emerged and their line of defense.
“Bring your impotent hordes forward, Merlin!” a female voice commanded.
“Morgan!” Frankie whispered as she lowered her stance. She didn’t know that Merlin wasn’t there. Morgan didn’t know that he’d succumbed to darkness. What else was she clueless about?
All questions as to what a practitioner of dark magic would look like after so many centuries were answered. Morgan LeFey wasn’t remotely human-looking any longer. She was a whirling, altering blob of nasty-looking gray and black smoke, about five feet high by several feet wide.
The rogues behind her stayed in the darkness of the forest, away from the light of the awesome moon.
Where there was no tree canopy, every detail on the landscape was plainly viewable. The moon’s glow made Morgan look so much more frightening than…than what?
Frankie had no frame of reference for this kind of magic. Something told her, that there was no shred of any soul left in the monster that had just spoken.
She waited for Garrett to speak. His voice would carry to every corner of the hills and into the woods. She instinctively knew it, and had no fear of missing her cue to attack.
If a prayer was appropriate, she would have said one. Not for love of God or country could she have uttered a sound at that moment.
Chapter 13
Mac fought the shock of what he was seeing. All the other warriors on their side were equally mesmerized and frozen. He sensed their hesitation and awe.
In front of him, perhaps not more than two hundred yards away, a smallish blob of gray and black smoky undulated within a compact oval shape. From it, at the top, were two red eyes. The scene was like something from a horror movie.
He gripped his sword hard, and focused on the area surrounding Morgan LeFey’s malignant presence. At any second, her rogues might charge. There were possibly a hundred. Their number consisted of forty-three. If he’d guessed correctly, that put the enemy at a slight advantage. Their odds were good enough for him. From nearby and to his right, Garrett Bloodnight spoke out, into the eerie light, toward their adversaries.
“Morgan LeFey, you stand on hallowed ground. The spirits of those who fought with the good King Arthur will not let you win this battle. You can hear their cries in the night. Surrender now, and you will receive fair judgement, as the law requires.”
“I am not in a surrendering disposition this night, Bloodnight. It would take more than a mere immortal to confine me,” Morgan loudly returned.
“I am no ordinary immortal, sorceress! I am the descendant of one who killed your son in fair battle. Sir Galahad’s blood runs through my veins. Use your dark magic to glean the truth for yourself!”
Mac held his breath but raised his sword higher. A few moments passed. He waited as did all the other defenders. He felt his allies around him and sensed each presence as if they were all one. He even felt the Americans as they, too, prepared for the charge that would come in only a matter of seconds, after Morgan had magically gleaned the truth of Garrett’s words for herself.
A shriek, the likes of which would have rivaled any banshee, rose from the dark, floating mass. If her eyes were red before, they were like flaring volcanic openings to hell now.
One long arm-like appendage rose from the blob’s left side and pointed toward the line of fighters preparing to defend themselves. “Kill them all…leave Bloodnight to me!”
That did it.
The line of rogues rushed forward, apparently not considering the advantages of guerilla tactics. Morgan assumed she was invincible. The next hour would tell the truth.
Mac rushed forward even as Garrett shouted the order to attack. Rogues and immortals from the British and American factions met them with blades clanging and with shouts of encouragement for their fellows.
Before him appeared a rogue of considerable size. At a few inches over six feet, Mac wasn’t and never had been considered a small man, but the foe facing him now was a bit larger, and had at least thirty pounds more bulk.
Still, he swung and felt the familiar bone-jarring sensation of metal against metal. Dressed totally in black, his nemesis fought like a man possessed. He was a bald, snarling representation of a berserker of long ago. Mac knew some magical spell protected this rogue, but Morgan would have to use considerable power to keep her side safe. At least whilst she battled Garrett. All her attention now, as Garrett supposed, was on killing the last living blood relative of Sir Galahad.
“Put your sword down, you idiot! Do you think, for one moment she cares about you? You’re expendable,” Mac shouted as he swung toward his opponent’s head.
“Prepare to die,” the fellow yelled back as he parried the blow just delivered.
“Give up!”
“I don’t listen to a lackey of the crown,” the rogue fighter responded as he poured on a new, swifter onslaught.
Mac swiftly moved backward, to avoid a blow to his mid-section that, while it wouldn’t kill him, it would have rendered him injured enough for the other man to take his head. A split second later, the rogue leaned a bit too far forward, and he stumbled. Before the stranger could regain balance, Mac brought the pommel of his sword down on the back of the rogue’s neck. The guy fell to the ground, but quickly tried to stand once more.
“Stay down, give up,” Mac advised.
When the other fighter didn’t do as he was told, Mac swung his sword in an arc up, then down. The fellow’s head fell.
Another rogue was upon him in an instant. Mac swiftly turned to face the new threat.
* * *
Frankie shouted for her people to attack, even as the British took their first steps forward, into the fray. The first rogue she met swung his blade to her right. The man missed and never got a second chance to come at her again. She took him out with one, running strike.
&nb
sp; The next rogue that attacked took a bit longer to dispatch. He had a good blade, great skills and was on level ground. What he didn’t have was enough speed.
Frankie had always prided herself on her agility. Her blade wasn’t as long as his, and not as heavy. Like a lot of rogues, this foe carried an oversized piece of armament that was better suited for Renaissance festivals. She’d learned long ago that rogues loved brandishing such arms, to frighten their prey. While she, too, loved larger swords in these kinds of confrontations, she could handle hers. He could not. He just couldn’t move it as fast as if he’d chosen something less decorative and lighter. She parried his heavy, slow swings, and eventually took his head.
Almost to the tree line now, she felt the most bizarre sensation. It was the same sensation she’d felt when she’d met Scotty up on the hill. She recognized the new fighter coming her way. She slowed her run to a very fast walk, only because she sensed complete and utter confusion on the part of the new enemy before her. They stopped only twenty feet apart. The opponent she faced was wearing a hooded cloak. This individual, as she sensed, was male. He was tall, and looked rather lanky with all the fabric of the cloak billowing out, around his body. The light from the moon was so bright that it may as well have been twilight. What she couldn’t see was the man’s face. He tucked his chin, and let the fabric of his hood ride down to his cheeks; not a particularly smart move to make when one was entering a sword fight and needed clear vision.
“I thought I killed you, girl!”
Anger like a hot spike of iron ran straight through her heart. She knew who he was, even without seeing his features. Then, she felt a great sense of both sadness and pain. He’d never loved her. How could a father not love his child?
Even if the medicine available had warped his logic, he should have enough sanity left not to bludgeon his daughter.
“Hello…Dad!?”
Her father finally threw back his hood, with a swift toss of his head. He brought the tip of his blade up to eye level. “Morgan never said anything about you being alive.”
“Yeah, I hear she’s a bitch like that,” Frankie said as she lifted her blade, and got on the balls of her feet so she could move fast.
In all these years, he hadn’t changed a bit. He still wore his hair neatly trimmed, close to his head. He still had a thick mustache, and the same piercing, relentless gaze. They had nothing in common. Nothing it all. His eyes were dark brown. It was her mother who’d given all her children their clear gray gaze.
Another difference was more obvious. She had a different conscience, a different sense of what was most important in the world.
She shook back her ponytail and stared at him. For the first time in their relationship, she knew she was about to best him. Anger and raw pain made her want to kill him. Years of professional behavior forced her take a higher road. “Don’t think for one minute that you’re getting out of this alive. I’ll give you one chance to lower your damned sword!”
He snorted in disdain.
“It might interest you to know that Scotty’s here, too.”
“Scott survived the storm?” he asked as his gaze shifted slightly.
She registered the shock in his voice, but simply nodded. If he didn’t believe her, she didn’t a flaming damn.
“He was never the man he should have been. And you…you were always interfering with everything. You never knew your place. I should have done what Judge Monroe suggested and had you locked in an asylum. Your behavior back then would have warranted it.”
“Is that your syphilitic opinion?”
He slowly smiled. “I’m not sick anymore.”
“Oh, yes you are! I’m about to be your cure.”
Sounds from the battlefield filled the air, but none of the combatants were near enough to interfere with their terrible reunion.
She took several steps toward him. “You left mother and the twins alone. They died.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know you don’t,” she shot back. “That’s why I won’t have any trouble doing what I have to do.”
Without giving him any more time, she shot forward and swung her blade as hard as she could.
Her father blocked the blow that would have taken his head, but she saw the light of real fear in his eyes. He swung back, but she easily dodged and maneuvered to his rear. He turned like a trapped animal.
“Morgan kill you if you so much as scratch me.”
“I don’t fucking intend to scratch you, Daddy!”
For the next three minutes, they engaged in a display of swordsmanship that proved he was nowhere near her equal. She kept advancing, he retreated. This happened over and over. Apparently, he’d spent the decades letting Morgan take care of him. Unlike the other rogues, he’d have found a way to live in some degree of comfort, without training for a day of reckoning. It was totally typical of who and what he’d always been.
“Morgan!” he shouted as he glanced toward the battlefield.
“Don’t count on her. She’s otherwise engaged. If you’re not going to surrender, you’d better lift that sword and fight. At least die with some dignity, and not like the misogynistic coward you always were!”
“You bitch!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing…Daddy!”
Her father swung his sword several more times, but she refused to give ground. Then, with a swift parrying move, she dislodged the sword from his right hand. It went sailing onto the landscape, some fifty feet away.
“I won’t die here. I won’t!”
He turned and ran into the tree line. She snarled and ran after him. “I’m not letting you hurt anyone else,” she muttered as she picked up her pace.
* * *
The eerie fog that drifted into the small valley when Morgan appeared now rose to waist height.
Mac heard the clanging of swords. Beneath the real battle sounds were the cries of spectral allies reliving the horrible night of their demise.
He fought on, incurring only a few cuts to his arms. These healed quickly enough.
The enemy was willing to die to please their mistress. But they fought automatically, without the motivation they should have had, if they’d believed in their cause. This, more than anything else, told him that the rogues were being forced to act.
To stay away from the authorities and the immortals working within the law, rogues typically chose to stay in small groups of no more than ten. They roamed the fringes of society, hardly ever wandering near large cities where they’d make swift contact with the law, in the form of agency immortals who’d sense their presence in any bar or hotel where the opposite sides happened to run across one another. Rogues were nothing if not cowards. They didn’t want that kind of confrontation or even the possibility of one. That so many were gathered for this event was expected. It was always assumed that, to gain their cooperation, Morgan would offer access to powers that the rogues wouldn’t have on their own. She would therefore be able to accumulate many of those existing criminals to her side.
However, this battle wasn’t being fought by those with something to gain. Instead, he sensed the rogues battled out of desperation; to keep from being punished or suffering something possibly worse than death.
After taking the head of one more of their ilk, something flew from that dead adversaries’ neck and landed some feet away. Without thinking, he kept his eyes on his surroundings while simultaneously kneeling to pick the object up. Only then did he avert his gaze.
The object in his hand was a stone of some kind; oval shaped and about two inches in length. It had a hole drilled into one end, through which a bale was attached. The cord that had been threaded through the bale was missing, but he slipped the stone into his pocket and moved on. The small act of gathering any kind of possible identification was one of habit. He wanted to know who he’d destroyed. If the man had family left alive, Mac would be sure to break it to them gently, if allowed to do so. All that was assuming he survived.
It seemed the sounds of battle waned. And rather quickly. Still, the moan and cries of the ghosts who’d fought here previously, wafted through the air. Noises from the current combatants had fallen off sharply. There was only a clang or two of swords now. Either another rogue was about to die, or someone from their side was.
He ran toward the last place he and his comrades ran into battle. It was there that he found several Ethereals and familiar POSI agents standing. They had their backs to him, but had to have recognized one of their own, who was approaching from the rear. Surely, they did since they didn’t turn around to look at him. All of them were staring into the distance where the last of the swordplay was heard.
He looked to his left. Trey jogged toward him, apparently having finished the last of those rogues in his immediate vicinity.
“Where are the other rogues? What the hell happened?” Trey softly asked.
“I don’t know. Something is going on,” Mac responded as he gently nudged his way through the crowd of allies now standing in a group. As he did so, he opened his mouth to remind those who should have known better, that standing so close made them an easy target. He soon found out why they’d taken their respective stances, and stopped to stare as everyone else had. Trey took up a position next to him.
“What the fuck?” Trey whispered.
Mac simply shook his head in wonder.
Garrett Bloodnight now stood some twenty yards away from the amorphous figure of Morgen LeFey. Surrounding her were what he assumed were the only rogues left alive.
Mac counted about thirty of them, standing in a semi-circle around their mistress. Even the fog couldn’t wipe out the ethereal glow of the moon as its light fell over all those in the small valley.
In that ghastly fog, and that terrifying glow of an overly large and eerie moon, the allies stood watching. Morgan and her rogues faced Garrett Bloodnight.
