Thornspell

by Helen Lowe

  Flor threw back his head, his laugh a crack of satisfaction. “My father and your mother were cousins, so of course my mother visited yours in the Southern Palace. She was always closely watched, but who pays attention to a child playing, or whining around his mother’s chair? No one was even looking when I worked the poisoned thorn into your mother’s glove.”

  Sigismund shut his mouth hard on the rage that surged through him. Beneath and above it he could hear Balisan’s voice, reminding him that there was no room for emotion when facing an opponent: frustration, fury, fear—all would kill him more surely than any enemy.

  In his mind Sigismund stood again on the West Castle tower at midwinter, counting the numberless stars. He breathed in the snow-chilled air and felt it curl into his stomach; he released the cloud of his anger and watched it dissipate against the frosty black of the sky. Only then did he toss the glove back to Flor, smiling faintly as their eyes met. He drew Quickthorn from the dragon scabbard and walked down the belvedere steps.

  Now, thought Sigismund, we shall see.

  He never took his eyes off Flor for a moment. Nor did he allow himself to consider the handicap of an already injured shoulder, or the limitations imposed by having to defend the entrance to the belvedere. Instead he slipped into the familiar oneness with the red and white blade and felt its energy course into his hands. There was no light, no sound, just that fiery ripple up and through his body as he shifted on the balls of his feet and watched Flor.

  He shifted again as Flor took a first step forward, feinting a thrust and trying to draw him out. Sigismund parried but refused to be drawn, watching Flor’s eyes for the tiny flicker that presaged a second attack—and then red and white fire crackled, crossing blue-edged gold. The clang of the blades followed a split second later and then the fight was on in earnest, sword hammering on sword as both combatants strove for the advantage.

  The first flurry of blows seemed even in skill and strength. Flor was good, very good even, but this was not fencing and Sigismund had been trained by Balisan, who was a master. He remembered Flor’s temperament too, from their lessons together, his desire to finish quickly and his love of flashy moves. Sigismund’s main weakness was his injury, especially since his inability to move away from the belvedere meant close-in work, slugging it out toe to toe.

  Flor’s faie companions were hanging back for the moment, waiting to see if their champion would prevail, but Sigismund had no doubt that they would use their nets if things went badly. They were here to serve the Margravine’s interests, not play by chivalrous rules. He parried as Flor pressed in again, locking Sigismund’s blade against his own and trying to push through by sheer brute force. The blue eyes snarled into Sigismund’s but there was strain there too, and the first flicker of doubt as Sigismund hurled him back.

  Flor hesitated, but only for a moment, before blazing in again, raining a fury of blows against Sigismund’s defense and forcing him to retreat into the shadow of the belvedere. The black-clad faie rolled forward a step, then retreated as Sigismund countered, pressing Flor back in his turn—but once again, he could not advance too far and leave the access to the belvedere unprotected.

  Flor smirked as he withdrew, knowing what constrained Sigismund. Sigismund registered the expression, but from a distance, parrying any attendant emotion like a blow. He settled into a grim defensive pattern, fuelling Flor’s impatience and luring him into doing something rash. In the end it worked more quickly than he expected. Sigismund could almost feel the moment when Flor’s patience snapped and he came charging in with a wild flurry of blows, only to cry out and reel back as Quickthorn slipped through, opening his right side from shoulder to hip.

  Flor staggered further back and out of Sigismund’s range, dropping his swordpoint and clutching at his wounded side. Blood streamed red through his gloved fingers and his face twisted, something ugly and dangerous snarling out of it as he turned on his followers: “Don’t just stand there, fools! Rush him!”

  The faie warriors, however, seemed to have their own ideas about the best approach. They spread out in a loose half circle, with both sides closing on Sigismund in a pincer movement. The two with the weighted nets shook them out as they stepped forward, and Sigismund took a step back. He could not hold off ten, and these faie looked like they knew their business. There were no wasted moves or breath; they advanced steadily and in silence, black shadows reaching out for him across the grass.

  He had no choice, Sigismund thought, except to retreat into the belvedere or be entangled. He guessed that they would leave killing him to Flor, who was crouched over his wound at a safe distance, watching with a fixed, glittering stare. Sigismund moved back again and placed his rear foot on the lowest step of the belvedere. He could feel the sweat, hot on his face and body, but he realized now that the day had grown even colder while they fought, and the clouds had spread out to cover the sky.

  The faie warriors paused, and now the one with the long narrow pipe unslung it and lifted it to his lips. Quickthorn thrummed, fierce in Sigismund’s hand, and behind him Rue uttered a whispered cry: “’Ware the dart! They dip them in a venom that freezes their victims.”

  The trees on the hill were tossing and bending now, the way they had when Sigismund confronted the Margravine in another belvedere. His eyes remained intent on the pipe as he retreated again, uncertain whether even Quickthorn could parry a blown dart. A half second later a horse crashed out of the trees and bore down on them at a gallop.

  It was his bay horse, Sigismund saw, startled, the one he had thought killed by the faie hunt. Its saddle was empty, the whites of its eyes showing, and the faie warriors scattered before its wild rush. Even so, the bay veered away from the closest warrior at the last moment, turning back into the trees on the other side of the belvedere. The black-clad warriors were already regrouping when two more horses, both with riders on their backs this time, burst from the trees and thundered toward them. The riders wore breastplates and helmets, but Sigismund caught a glimpse of red hair as one of the horsemen lifted a bow and shot from the saddle.

  Sigismund would have called it an impossible shot, except that the faie warrior with the blowpipe crumpled to the ground while the others ran for cover, dragging Flor with them. Sigismund stared in disbelief, recognizing Fulk and Rafe, then leapt aside himself as Fulk’s horse slid to a halt in front of him. “How—” he demanded, and for a fleeting moment he was sure that a knot in a nearby tree had twisted into Auld Hazel’s face, and that she winked at him.

  “What—” Sigismund began again, recovering his balance. Rue reached out from behind and dragged him fully into the belvedere as Fulk and Rafe struggled to stay on their horses, which were rearing and bucking as though they had suddenly gone mad.

  “There’s no time,” Rue said, her voice tight. Her eyes were darker than the clouded sky. “She’s here.”

  “A meeting long overdue,” said a voice Sigismund remembered from that other belvedere. It beat around them like a great wind and darkness pressed in thickly from every side. Fulk’s and Rafe’s horses bolted, their ears pressed back flat against their skulls and their riders clinging on desperately as they were borne away toward the palace in the distance.

  Sigismund looked up and saw the Margravine floating in the air above them, her hair streaming out like a banner and billowing into the growing storm. Shadow flared on either side of her like the batwings he remembered, and the clouds rolled close, dark as nightfall with lightning at their heart. The Margravine’s hair was bone-white against their darkness, and her eyes had narrowed and lengthened into feline slits; her gaze was indigo fire. The wind gusted down, whipping at Rue’s hair and skirts and tearing their breath away.

  “You will not keep me from what is mine,” the soughing voice said, cold in their heads.

  “It is not yours,” Rue said clearly, projecting her voice above the howl of the wind. “You have no right or claim here, Farisie. Leave now, while you still can.”

  “Or you w
ill do—what?” mocked the Margravine. “You are powerless to stand in my way.”

  “Not so,” Rue said to Sigismund, but quietly, never taking her eyes off the hovering faie. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be exchanging these pleasantries.” The wind whipped a strand of hair across her face.

  The Margravine floated higher into the sky, the clouds boiling and lightning flickering all around her. “She can’t have many choices left,” Rue whispered, but she sounded far from certain. “Not now that Flor has failed her. And surely she won’t dare come against us herself?”

  Sigismund glanced toward the place where Flor had found shelter, just inside the first line of trees. The blue ring had begun to pulse, and magic and the storm broke around them at the same time. Lightning leapt down and hail drove in through the open sides of the belvedere as the Margravine floated closer. The bone-white hair had fanned out around her head, wildfire crackling along every strand. Fissures appeared in the mask of her face, flickering like the lightning as her eyes widened, deepening into twin pits that opened onto a void. The wind howled back toward her, filled with dirt, leaves, and branches, as well as wooden tiles from the belvedere.

  “I will not be denied!” It was hard to tell where the storm’s voice ended and the faie’s began. “I will have what is mine, or destroy it all!”

  “We can’t hold—against this—for long!” Rue shouted into the devouring wind. The faie warriors had disappeared, abandoning Flor, who was flattened into the ground at the base of a large oak, his fingers trying to dig into its roots as the tree streamed into the wind’s vortex. Not much further away, a sapling was wrenched up and sucked toward the abyss that was the Margravine zu Malvolin.

  Sigismund took a step forward, struggling to keep his footing against the wind. “Yes, we can,” he said. “We have the sword, and we have each other.”

  He raised Quickthorn, extending the red and white blade toward the faie, and let his mind and heart grow clear as the sky that follows a storm. He could feel the earth turning, and the rumble and crack of rock and fire deep beneath its crust. There was a taproot of strength that went down, far below the hill on which they stood, and then spread out, in a network of roots and fiber, across the vast expanse of the Wood. Through it, Sigismund could sense the shy presence of all the strange and wild creatures that inhabited the forest, and its cool green power flowed into him like a tide.

  Rue was part of that power, and it of her. Sigismund could see it without having to look at her, and feel her power joined to his without having to ask. It twisted its way round and through the green flow like a rose vine, tenacious as the herb for which she was named. They reached out together, north and south, east and west, tapping into the layers of energy until the belvedere crackled with a power to answer the Margravine’s.

  Sigismund felt as though together they had encompassed the world. He had a fleeting vision of Auld Hazel, her flat-bowled pipe clamped between her teeth and its spark reflected in her blackbird eyes. A moment later the air was filled with the scent of lilacs, subtle and tranquil as moonlight falling on herringbone brick. Sigismund let the calm fill him and flow into the sword in his hands. It was living fire, answering the Margravine’s lightning, and at first the bolts of power writhed and strove together, red and white against lurid indigo. But slowly, the red and white fire forced the lightning to retreat.

  Calm, thought Sigismund, and the debris on the wind began to fall back toward the belvedere. The flow of power was reversing, just as it had done in the energy river between the planes. Gradually, the wind died away, and the fissures into the void closed as the Margravine coalesced back into human form. As she did so a bell rang out, sweet and clear from the white palace, to be answered by another, and then another after that, all pealing in joyful chorus. The faie hunt that had pursued Sigismund through the forest winked into view and wound their horns, then as quickly disappeared. Sigismund threw a quick, questioning glance at Rue.

  “The sleepers in the palace are waking,” she said, low-voiced. “Farisie has lost.” But she didn’t sound exultant, just kept watching the Margravine, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

  Sigismund reached out his free arm and drew her close. “Surely she must accept it,” he said, speaking to Rue’s doubt. “The terms were bound into the spell, at least part of which came from her own magic.”

  “I, accept?” The Margravine’s voice echoed in thunder, filling the sky. “I am the Farisie, not some sprite to let myself be hedged about by petty rules.” There was nothing human remaining in the eyes that glared down at them.

  “We held against the storm,” Rue began, then stopped, looking toward the lake and the palace beyond. All color drained from her face, and her voice sank to a whisper. “But we can’t hold against that.”

  Blood Price

  Sigismund followed Rue’s gaze, and for a moment he thought his heart had stopped, until it slammed against his chest again. The surface of the lake was boiling, reflecting the clouds overhead, and then the water parted, spinning outward as an enormous head broke through and reared skyward. The eyes that gazed down on them were stone and Sigismund looked away just in time, avoiding their mesmerizing effect. The serpent’s head plunged down again as more body looped up behind, curving out of the lakebed as it had pulled itself out of rock inside the Faerie mound.

  The Margravine’s laughter echoed with the thunder overhead. “See, Prince Sigismund, I bring you an old friend. And this time you have nowhere to run.”

  “No running,” said Rue, but her expression was pinched, her eyes strained. “Running won’t save us, not if she gains control of the belvedere.”

  Sigismund tightened his grip on Quickthorn, but thought that nothing was going to save them anyway. The earth serpent was a monster, at least half as high as the palace when it reared up, and the best they could hope for was to do it some damage. The next downward plunge of that rock-eyed head was going to be right on top of them, and the huge mouth was already gaping wide.

  It’ll swallow us whole, by the looks of it, Sigismund thought, as the belvedere shook. The floor buckled, as though there was an earthquake directly beneath them, and both he and Rue struggled to maintain their balance while the serpent’s head reared high, and higher again—then whipped back, recoiling on itself.

  “What—” began Sigismund, then flung up a hand to cover his eyes as the sun rose directly in front of him, a huge flaming ball of carnelian and gold. There was light and heat and fire that burned without consuming, and then the sun exploded—or he thought it did, except that there were no flames falling from the sky, just a giant dragon hovering where the sun had been. Its scales were red and gold, with light rippling over them like water, and its wingspan was immense, filling the sky. The Margravine had already retreated, dark cloud and lightning pulled in tight around her, but the dragon was watching the serpent, its eyes flame.

  “I’ve seen this dragon before,” Sigismund said, finding it hard to breathe. “Just for a moment, the last time we met the earth serpent.”

  Rue’s hand found his. “It’s going to speak,” she whispered.

  The dragon’s voice filled their minds and the air around them, much as the Margravine’s had done except that it was deeper, and with a curious sibilance that came, Sigismund realized, from breathing fire. “Go back, Brother of Earth,” it said. “This is no battle of yours.” The flames roared, red gold as the sun that had exploded and white-hot along the edges.

  “How dare you, Dragon!” The Margravine’s wind voice boomed, cracking around them, and the trees on the hill bent almost to the ground before its force. “This is no affair of yours!”

  “Oh, but it is, Faie,” the dragon replied. “I find it necessary to offer advice to my brother of earth, on behalf of our younger kinsman here.”

  “Balisan?” breathed Sigismund, staring. He recognized the hum in that fiery voice now, like bees swarming, and the flicker of humor beneath the flame. It can’t be, he thought, a little wildly, except that it
is. He found that he wanted to laugh, but the Margravine did not seem to be amused.

  “This boy?” she sneered. “Kin to either of you? As well call a pig kin to a king!”

  The fire in the dragon’s eye blazed hotter, as though an inner veil had lifted. Its other eye remained fixed on the earth serpent, which had withdrawn to a safer distance. “He and his father are the blood of the dragon,” the sibilant voice replied, in a long gout of flame. “And now, thanks to your plots and poisons, they are the last of that line. We are not pleased, Lady Farisie.”

  The storm wind boomed again, but with a new note in it now. Could it be uncertainty? wondered Sigismund, and caught a gleam of hope in Rue’s expression. Then the Margravine laughed.

  “The blood of the dragon,” she said. “How quaint, but forgive me if I find it hard to believe—given your tender care for that line over the past thousand years.”

  “The affairs of humans,” Balisan replied, “are rarely the concern of dragons, even when they bear our blood. But some things we do notice, like the hand of the faie at work picking off our kin, one by one. You might say, Lady Farisie, that you attracted our attention.”

  The lightning had died as soon as the dragon arrived, and now Sigismund was sure that he saw a patch of blue above the palace. The Margravine was silent, studying the dragon, and the earth serpent’s head swung slowly, looking from one to the other. “But still,” the faie said at last, “you may not aid your kinsman to lift the spell. That is forbidden by the terms of the magic.”

  “Ahhh,” said the dragon—a long, outward sigh of fire. “I think you know, Lady Farisie, that he has already lifted the spell, fulfilling all the requirements of your faie magic.” He stretched like a cat in midair, extending scythe-like claws on every foot. “But regardless of that, there is still the matter of kin right to be resolved with my brother of earth here. And that, Faie, is no business of yours.”