Frank-SPrinces

by The Shadowed Princes [lit]

  "Winter is not my best season, said Sugar Maple. So I will bring up the rear."

  Pieface looked grim as he patted his pie pans of doom. I'll get him."

  "No, I will. Bodi drew his wooden sword, Sillior, from his belt and brandished it.

  Lilac stood close to Bodi. Let's get him."

  Grym Ghoul shouldered his scythe and headed through the shattered door.

  They spread through the first floors in pairs: Grym and Frankie; Sugar and Pieface; Lilac and Bodi; and finally Drakengrim and Frozbie.

  Eiko walked over to Dyna. Try not to knock the manor down?"

  Dyna shrugged. We'll try. If we knock down too much of it, I'll give them a new one. Then she ran through the door to overtake her paladins, shouting Funsies!"

  Frankie sauntered over to a wall and placed both hands upon it. His eyes closed for a moment and then he opened them. Blood on the stones of the second floor."

  "He's up there. Pieface ran for the stairs with his friends close behind.

  * * * *

  Eamon gave a coughing jerk as his heart stopped. A loud pop sounded and the pouches hanging from Eamon's belt exploded. Malthus wore Gavin's money pouches and they exploded an instant after Eamon's.

  Windows shattered and trees stretched their long limbs through to grab him. Malthus sprang to his feet, backing up before the strange manifestation. Twigs closed upon his sleeves and wrapped around his arms. He threw everything he had at the branches to no avail. He drew his sword and chopped himself free, wishing for an axe. He retreated into the corridor.

  The sound of footsteps and children's voices came from behind him. Malthus turned and stared. A silver disk flew from the hand of the oldest boy. Malthus ducked and the pie pan struck the wall, knocking a chunk from it.

  Malthus hand swept out in the same spell that had killed the gryphons. Sugar Maple sprang forward and waved her broomstick at him. The spell turned aside at an oblique angle and struck the ceiling above him, raining chunks of stone on his head.

  A slender mon stalked along behind them. She reached into her pocket and brought out a handful of glass globes. This is for Todd and all the rest of them."

  She hurled the globes of Beast Repellent at Malthus. They exploded around him. His skin itched, his lungs hurt, and his clothes were singed.

  Bodi gave Lilac an impish smile. I like it when she's angry."

  Every time that Malthus threw a spell at them it missed. The tables along the corridor began to dance around. More chunks of the ceiling fell on his head. The furniture flew at him. A tapestry began jerking and swirling on a wall, leaped off as if it were alive and came down over Malthus head. As he thrashed free of it, Bodi charged in and smacked him soundly on his shins.

  Malthus threw the tapestry off and it settled over Bodi. The strange assault had him confused. He retreated down the hallway to buy himself a moment to regroup and scanned the children. The swirling confusion of power brushed against his awareness and he realized what he faced.

  "Badree Nym."

  Those ever-cheerful little walking-disaster-zones had a poltergeist-like effect that protected them on an instinctual level while they wielded their affinities on a conscious level. To those nasty children, a battle was a romp. No one in their right mind went up against them.

  Malthus did what most sane myn would: he took to his heels.

  At the top of the second flight of stairs, Malthus paused to get his breath. He threw every bit of power he could gather down the stairwell at the Nym scampering after him and then turned to run again.

  He got only two steps from the stairwell when he heard the resounding crash of the walls collapsing. They had turned his spell, as he knew they would, and brought down a long section of the walls and ceiling, blocking it.

  Spending power at such a great rate made hunger an issue for Malthus again. At the end of the short hallway that led into the old family section of the manor, a group of guardsmyn were herding the last of the nibari to safety.

  Food at last.

  He loped toward them. The six guardsmyn recognized him and made a vain attempt at forming a shield wall between Malthus and the nibari. He felled the lycans with a gesture; but the nibari were already bolting down the hallway, escaping him.

  He dropped to his knees and sank his fangs into the nearest mon. The heady rush revitalized him. Malthus grabbed another and drained that one also.

  "There he is!"

  The familiar baritone, too deep to be anyone but Stone, brought Malthus head up and he dropped his meal.

  Stoneriver, Kynyr, and Jordan appeared at the head of twenty Guildsmyn.

  Ladyfaith leaped from her sheath into Kynyr's hands.

  Jordan went for his axes.

  Stone raised his arms to the heavens, called upon his grandfather, and felt the flash of divine power as the change swept over him. Silvery light shone around him, and the change arrived with suddenness, without shifting, in a transformation of divine response. His armor altered with him. One moment a mon stood there, and in the next a gigantic grizzly bear in armor confronted Malthus.

  The sa'necari faltered, recovered in an instant, and threw a scything attack at them, centering it on Kynyr in deep hatred.

  Stone stepped into the path of the spell, shoving Kynyr behind him. It staggered Stone. He dropped to his knees with a groan; his eyelids fluttering as he tried to keep them open. His shoulders jerked and twitched, but Stone remained on his knees and did not topple over as Malthus had expected him to.

  "What madness is this? Malthus retreated two steps, incredulous and disturbed by Stone's survival. He turned, and fled down a side corridor. Jordan set off in pursuit and half the myn followed him.

  "Stone? Kynyr touched his shoulder.

  "Get after him. I gotta catch my breath. Spending power like that ... he's going to be hungry. Don't let him eat."

  Kynyr took the rest of the myn and ran on.

  Stone crawled to the wall and put his back against it. His yuwenghau healing processes had begun working; however, he was out of the battle. His eyes closed as he tried to rest. He did not realize that he had slipped from consciousness, until soft hands on his face brought him back to full awareness.

  "Stone?"

  He opened his eyes and a weary smile touched his lips. Pandeena."

  "Where did they go?"

  He glanced at the myn assembled behind her: Kady, Hathura, his cousin Jushan, and fifteen lycans in their hybrid forms.

  Stone pointed. Don't let him eat. He's some kind of freak. Be careful."

  "I will. Pandeena kissed him, straightened and loped in the direction that Stone had indicated.

  * * * *

  Jordan Sinclair surveyed the empty corridor, counting the closed doors along the length of it. One of the Guildsmyn had his hand on a doorknob and Jordan motioned him back.

  "He's gone to ground in one of these rooms. That's for certain, myn. However, I don't think he's hiding. Whichever room the bastard is in, the first mon to open that door is going to get blasted."

  Jordan moved to the wall beside the door and gestured for one of the Guildsmyn to do the same to the other side of it. The mon turned the knob and quickly put his back to the wall. Jordan pushed the door open with the head of his axe. Nothing happened. Jordan faced the door and stepped inside, looking around.

  Kynyr and his myn joined them as they searched the second room. The fact that they were single rooms and not suites, suggested to Kynyr that they had once been servants quarters. Despite the tense situation, he found himself wondering what the manor had been like during the reign of his great great grandfather, Suleahan.

  "How's Stone?"

  "Hanging on, Jordy."

  They searched four more rooms and by then Pandeena had joined them.

  Kady hugged Kynyr. I worry about you."

  "It's mutual."

  A bit of brightness on the floor drew Kady's eye. What's that?"

  She bent, scooped up a bright penny, and spied another and another. It's
a trail of pennies."

  Kady continued down the hallway picking up pennies. They felt strange in her hand, conjuring images of Bodi and Lilacand Malthus. She closed her hand around them, jingling them and trying to read the vibrations. A scene of Malthus pouches exploding and then coins leaking through the tears flashed across her awareness. The trail ended abruptly in front of a large door near the end.

  "Kynyr, I know where he is. She pointed at the door.

  "Don't open it. Jordan came to stand beside her. He's probably crouched in there with a spell in his hand."

  Kady chewed her lip for a moment in thought. Everyone move away from the doors. I'm going to open all of them at once."

  Stepping away, Kady swept her hand out. Every door in the hallway banged open.

  A blast of black energy burst from the door where the trail of pennies ended. Kynyr darted through as soon as it dissipated.

  Kady shrieked for him to stop.

  Pandeena rushed in on Kynyr's heels and threw a golden shield around him. A hard explosion shook the walls as raw arcane power struck the shield. She swayed and recovered, holding it steady.

  Kady joined her and they stood side by side.

  Malthus snarled and drew his sword when he realized he could not get past the barrier.

  It was a large room, filled with furniture. The one talent that Kady had gotten down pat was levitation. She flicked her hands at the chairs and tables, sending them flying across the room to batter Malthus.

  Ducking and dodging the wooden missiles, Malthus lunged at Kynyr; swinging his sword with a strength and speed that Kynyr had never suspected the sa'necari had. The sword struck the golden shields and they shattered.

  Pandeena staggered.

  Malthus threw another spell at Kynyr, but the king saw the patterns of the energy. Kynyr brought Ladyfaith up as if in salute and the spell broke against the magic of the sword. The power recoiled on Malthus and he screamed.

  Kynyr glided to the side and then lunged. Ladyfaith slammed into Malthus belly. Light burst forth as the power of the sword swept through Malthus body, sundering his dark arcane magics.

  Malthus stiffened, staring down at the sword in his gut. No. No, I'm steeped-in-death."

  He crumpled, dragging the blade from Kynyr's hand and convulsed on the floor; vomiting forth the souls that had given him his power. On and on they came, flowing in a ghostly white stream of billowing vapor. They filled the room and flowed through the corridors.

  Kynyr blinked and swayed as his soul healed.

  "Spare Lyrri. Malthus eyes began to glaze.

  When the white flood dwindled to a trickle, Kynyr knelt and touched Malthus.

  "He's dead."

  EPILOGUE

  Kynyr watched the children playing. Lyrri had been found by Jenny Sherbourne and coaxed out of the hearth. She had become a sad, quiet child; accepting the overtures of the other children with a fragile tentativeness. The irrepressible Shelley Brawleigh had made a project of her and the two little girls became inseparable.

  When the defenders of Wolffgard counted up their losses, they discovered that Merissa was missing. Some suggested that Lord Hoon had made good on his threat to kidnap her. Others believed that her fragile mind had finally given way and she had wandered off into the woods never to be found again.

  Prince Cooley Diomedes de Waejonan Blackwood was sent to Creeya both for his safety and to be educated at a proper court in the ways of nobility. He became a ward of the Grand Master of Creeya and, despite missing his friends, Cooley thrived in the exotic atmosphere of that realm.

  Ossian O'Reilly welcomed Nikko back to Wolffgard and gave him a place among the lawgivers. He set Nikko to work upon a codex of the laws and customs of his people, had him keep the books, and record the evidence on various investigations. It meant a great deal to the invalided young lawgiver to be part of it all again. Waid O'Reilly lived, but his wounds mended slowly.

  Although the spring would bring a time of war, for now, the people of Wolffgard were content to enjoy the respite that their king and his allies had brought them.

  END

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