by B. V. Larson
“Ha!” Brand shouted in return. His body was bathed in sweat and Kindred blood. His eyes were alight with the twin heat of fire and battle. “I was wondering when the Queen spider would come to me! Come here, treacherous worm. I would do battle with my real enemy this day.”
“Fall back Brand, or better yet surrender. I can burn you if I come a few paces closer. My flame will reach further than your arm. Your Axe will never touch me.”
Brand, despite his heaving sides, his wild grin of bloodlust and his rage toward Gudrin for her treacheries, realized that she was right. If they did battle, he could not win if she burned him down before he could close with her.
The Kindred troops, sensing a battle they could not hope to compete with, had fallen to the sides and watched silently. It was strange, as Brand knew that any normal mass of the Kindred would have been catcalling and chanting for their Queen. These troops, however, were as quiet as the grave. They’d never shouted out, not even when mortally wounded—not even while burning alive.
“So, this is what you’re fighting for?” he asked, indicating the troops. “They are the living Dead. They have no souls in them. You’ve done your own people a wicked turn, O Queen.”
“You don’t understand what’s at stake. I’m trying to relieve the world of its burdens in a stroke. The process is painful, but the rewards will be great and long-lasting.”
“For who? For your beloved mistress? You disgust me!”
Gudrin took a step forward, then another. She was almost nonchalant about it, and spoke to Brand all the while.
“I repeat, you don’t understand. Trust me just this once, Brand. I won’t disappoint you. Things will be better soon, if you don’t fight it.”
Brand lifted his Axe, as if to charge. Gudrin raised her finger to shoot a jet of flame at him if he dared. He was still beyond the range of her fire.
“You make me sad, old friend,” Brand said. “But I do what I must.”
Gudrin took another step closer, and she opened her mouth to speak to him, to give him more platitudes—but he had heard enough. He was saddened, despite the grin on his face, as he caused the Axe to shoot a thin focused beam of intense light at Gudrin. The Axe was not so powerful as the Orange when it came to burning and heat, but it had greater range.
The beam, as bright as the summer sun overhead, struck Gudrin’s face. As she was immune to heat and flame, it did not burn her—but her eyes were not immune to the fantastic light that blazed into them. Blinded, the Queen howled and spun around.
From her outstretched fingers swords of fire shot, burning down Kindred where they stood and washing over the scorched walls.
She fell in a heap, mewling. Brand drew himself up and faced the Kindred warriors, who came forward and looked stunned. Gone were their expressions of dazed pleasure. Gone was their boundless confidence.
“I leave you to care for your Queen,” Brand said. “Tell the witch she is not welcome within these walls. Tell her I will slay all of you, or cripple them as I have your Queen, if I must!”
Brand turned away from them and followed his retreating army toward his central keep. There the battle would be finally decided, if the enemy did not lose heart first.
* * *
From a safe distance, hateful eyes watched these proceedings. Morgana cursed when she saw the Kindred milling about at the gate. Why couldn’t anyone follow a simple order?
“Perhaps we should send in the Rainbow, milady,” Tomkin suggested to her.
In answer, Morgana extended a single, finely-manicured finger toward the Great Tree which stood in the distance.
“If that thing comes to life again, it might yet push us back. I want your monster to stand here with me and my elves until the Kindred succeed or fail.”
Tomkin looked annoyed. Much like the Axe Ambros, Morgana knew that the Blue Jewel Lavatis liked to do battle. When the Rainbow was called, it almost never stood quiescent at its master’s side. It was a creature of violence and madness. The mind of the being that controlled it yearned to release the beast upon any target that was offered.
Morgana could see something happening at the fallen gates. It appeared that the humans had withdrawn, but her Kindred forces were still not advancing into the interior lands beyond the walls.
“What is taking that ancient crone so long?” she demanded.
Every minute or two her eyes flicked up to the Great Tree. That monstrosity had still not moved. It was if it had taken root and grown there. But she knew it would move eventually, if its master still drew breath. And when it did, she was uncertain how she should go about destroying it.
Finally, a knot of the Kindred left the rest and retreated toward her position. She stood with mouth agape, unable to imagine what they were up to.
As they drew closer, she marched out to meet them. Tomkin stood at her side and the Rainbow towered behind them both.
“Gudrin? What are you doing on a litter? You can’t tell me that you’ve been injured—”
Then Morgana saw the sightless, rolling eyes of the Kindred Queen and she knew the tale in a second.
“Fool!” she screeched. “You tried to do battle with him honorably, didn’t you? One Jewel versus its brother? You, of all people, should know the Orange cannot beat the Amber!”
“I’m sorry, milady.”
“That will not do,” Morgana said. “What kind of a puppet bites its master’s hand and simultaneously fails to perform the simplest tricks? You’re nothing more than a sightless crone who can’t wield her own Jewel properly. You had an army and a Jewel at dawn, and now you are broken.”
“You have only to send in the elves—and the goblins when they arrive.”
“The goblins? Old Hob has forsaken me. He is not in my power. He refused every entreaty to talk directly, and sent cretins in his employ to talk in his stead. If you’d done the same—well, maybe I was wrong about you and your army. You’re no better than the worthless, absent goblins. You seem helpless against Brand.”
When she stopped talking, no one else dared to speak. The only sound was the labored breathing of Gudrin, who seemed to be truly spent.
Morgana came to a fateful decision then. She turned to Tomkin.
“Take her Jewel. The Rainbow can do it.”
Tomkin looked startled, but he nodded. “I think it can.”
“No!” moaned Gudrin.
“Hold her!” Morgana shouted at the Kindred who bore the Queen’s litter.
She rapidly backed away, suspecting what was to come next. All who bore a Jewel, even the lowest of them, came to love the stone deeply and would fight to keep it as a bear would fight to protect her cubs.
As the Kindred guards reached in, grasping Gudrin’s limbs and restraining them, the Rainbow stepped forward, a shimmering cloud above that resembled a mass of soap bubbles. The elemental’s hand came down from so high it seemed to take a great while to reach the Queen.
Gudrin gave an inarticulate howl as it touched her. Spittle flew from her lips and her sightless eyes rolled as she raved. She writhed with unexpected strength, but the Kindred held her firmly.
Fire exploded in every direction a moment later. Burned, the Rainbow cried out, but still it groped with its hand in the flames, seeking what must be there.
The Kindred guard, resolute in their duty, held onto her limbs even as their hair burned away and their clothes caught fire. Soon, they were like ghostly lumps of burning flesh. Still they clung to Gudrin, who squirmed and fought them.
The Rainbow at last lifted its prize high into the air. Sizzling droplets of its molten flesh ran from it. Morgana stepped forward, eyes lighting up. Here, for the first time, she’d dared take a second Jewel for her own. It was a magical moment she’d dreamt of for years.
But her face fell as she realized that the Rainbow was not holding just the Orange Jewel Pyros in its pendant. Instead, it had lifted Gudrin herself into the air. It had plucked her free of the Kindred guardsmen, who were all dead by now and burning like lumps
of wax.
“Just the Jewel, manling,” Morgana said to Tomkin. “You’re as incompetent as the rest.”
“The Rainbow’s fingers are burned away. I can’t pluck it from her.”
“Drop her then! We’ll pick it out from what remains.”
Tomkin frowned and seemed to struggle internally for a moment. His own hand, however, had no such misgivings. It simply lifted itself higher then turned over, palm down. The Rainbow mimicked the manling’s actions perfectly. Gudrin fell a good fifty feet, and when she landed with a thud, her flames finally went out. Morgana rushed in and used a stick to remove the amulet. Gudrin was no longer stirring.
Morgana paid no heed to the Rainbow, Tomkin, nor the dead and dying all around her. Her eyes were fixed upon Pyros. She could stare at nothing else. She stepped over the fallen Queen and walked away to her tent, holding the Orange Jewel on a forked stick.
“My first trophy!” she shouted. “Too bad it had to come from one of my own.”
Looking around herself at last, she walked to where Oberon sat with his elf warriors on a hillock carpeted in greenery.
“Brand has done well for this land,” Oberon said. “For too long this place was a dismal swamp. I’m surprised he could make it bloom again.”
“I don’t give a damn if it all burns to ash or molders into slime,” Morgana told him. “Get to your feet and get onto your mounts. The moment has come to attack the inner keep. The Kindred will rest, while you carry the battle to the enemy this time. Follow the Rainbow at its heels, and kill every human within those scorched walls!”
“As you wish, milady,” said Oberon, his face shining with eagerness. Unlike Tomkin, he had no trouble following these orders.
* * *
Brand reached his central keep and mounted the stairs to the outer battlements. Every bell in the place was clanging, and it gave him a headache. To bolster himself and his men, he called upon Ambros to shine. He called upon the Axe to give him strength and his men courage.
On both accounts the Axe outdid itself. Moments later, he was springing up the stone stairs, taking them three a time. His face was split in a wide, feral grin and his garrison began singing rather than grumbling and staring.
Out on the open fields between the outer walls of the castle and the inner walls surrounding the keep, Brand saw the Kindred fall back while the elves created fresh formations and began their final march. Once the heavy oaken door to the keep went down, there would be nothing left but the steel of their weapons to stop the elves.
Far from being maudlin however, Brand was shouting and laughing on the gatehouse walls. From time to time he struck a square merlon with the Axe, chipping the stone apart as if it were cordwood.
Less than a mile distant, the Rainbow charged toward them. Behind it came a flood of mounted elves, bows and swords held high, throats calling for blood. They were as mad for it as he was, he realized. They wanted battle. They wanted to fill this castle with corpses, and he meant to oblige them.
He counted his numbers and the enemy strength arrayed against him. The enemy had twice his number—maybe more. Once the Rainbow took down the gates, things would go badly.
Stricken by a sudden thought, Brand twisted his neck to look upward at the Great Tree. He frowned, because it still had not moved a fraction.
“What is taking that fool Trev so long?” he demanded of everyone around him.
They quailed back and shook their heads in response. No one wanted to be the perceived cause of anything frustrating for the Axeman.
With a growl of irritation, he turned back to making his arrangements. Ivor he placed behind the oak gate, to give the elves a nasty surprise should they manage to take it down. His archers and weapon crews were already hurling darts and stones at the approaching army. For the most part, they seemed unable to hit the elves at this distance. The enemy was too fleet of foot and easily dodged the projectiles.
The Rainbow, however, was not so agile. It took great hits, which tore chunks from its running body. Shimmering masses of translucent flesh quivered on the ground behind it. These chunks of gauzy meat slowly dissolved into a dozen brilliant, oily colors.
Brand chuckled to see it. Soon, the beast would howl and low until it went mad. Then, with luck, it would stop hammering on their gates and turn to slay the elves at its back instead. Many were the battles in which the Rainbow had gone mad and damaged its comrades as much as its foemen. The witch was inexperienced. She should have sent the Rainbow alone, or not at all. To send it into harm’s way at the head of an army was the height of foolishness.
The next minute, however, shattered Brand’s confidence. Despite the intoxicating effects of the Axe in his hand, he could not believe his sudden misfortune. For at that moment, a new player decided to step onto the field: Old Hob had finally arrived.
Goblins appeared on the walls all around Brand’s men. They were not just stealthy this time—they were like ghosts. Brand could only surmise that Hob had become a better master of his Jewel, and that perhaps the Lavender was not so impotent as everyone said it was.
Stepping out from the dark pool that was each soldier’s shadow, hundreds of goblins appeared on the walls with jagged blades in their hands. These daggers were thrust deep into the soldier being stalked. Some veterans managed to wheel and grapple with the goblins before the daggers could bite them, but many fell in shock, hamstrung. These men had to turn painfully and do battle on their knees.
Cackling and shrieking manically, the goblins slaughtered the helpless and fled from those that they could not take down by surprise. Instead of fair fights, each sought another back to sink their steel into.
Brand himself felt the bite of steel at the back of his right knee. It was driven with great force, but such was the strength of the Kindred mail he wore that it could not punch through.
He turned and barely glanced at the surprised goblin that’d just been given birth by his shadow. He swept away its head, sending it spinning out over the battlements. The head fell with a thud to the distant ground.
“HOB!” Brand thundered. “I will slay thee for this!”
Hob himself did not answer, nor did he make a personal appearance. Brand knew the goblin’s cunning mind. He did not believe Hob had fallen under the influence of the witch. Hob was too deceitful—too wary. Instead, he’d been watching this struggle from a cloud or a puff of mist nearby. When the outer gates had fallen and the enemy was charging toward the inner keep of Castle Rabing, seemingly unchecked, he’d decided to do what wise goblins always did: join the winning side.
Brand had no time to further contemplate the depths of Hob’s treachery now, however. He ran along the battlements, striking down a goblin with every stroke of his Axe. This made the twin blades happy. They flashed with the light of the sun with each head they took, and soon Brand was lost to the slaughter. He sang, he laughed, and when there were no more goblins in sight to be slain, he had to control himself to keep from killing his own men. The Axe was like a fire: it wanted blood and licked everywhere for it with growing heat as it burned.
The goblins that survived fled by jumping off the walls or stepping into shadows that embraced them, vanishing as inexplicably as they’d appeared. But they’d done their work well. Half the garrison was dead or wounded to the point of incapacitation.
Then the charging Rainbow reached the gates at last.
Chapter Seventeen
Of Madness and Battle
Trev and Fafna had arrived at the Great Tree to find Myrrdin in a sorry state. The old wizard was disgusting to look upon. Madness and physical hardships had taken a terrible toll on his body.
Rather than squatting inside the inner sanctum of his tree, attached by a dozen green tubers and supping upon the saps of the plant, he was stretched full length on the wood floor, barely breathing.
Trev tried to rouse him, but the half-dead wizard didn’t respond.
“What are we going to do, Fafna?”
“I can awaken him,” said
the dragon, sidling forward. Her jaws dripped flame and her eyes were alight with ill intent.
“No,” Trev said, holding up a hand. “Don’t burn him. I know you hate him for imprisoning you, but we must have his help in this battle.”
“Again I’m asked to sacrifice my wants for the benefit of others. I ask you why any thinking being would submit to such proposals time and again?”
Trev smiled. “I’m not sure, but you’ve been very cooperative for a dragon. Perhaps you like having friends and comrades. Most of your kind live out their existence in the lonely underworld with nothing more than an occasional shrieking kobold to talk to before you eat it.”
The dragon huffed, sending up a plume of smoke. “There’s no need to become insulting,” she said. “If you want to play with this dead wizard, go right ahead. I was only thinking of burning him to a perfect cooked texture so I could taste his flavorful meats before he died. I mean, there’s no point on fooling ourselves concerning that score.”
Trev turned back to Myrrdin, frowning. The dragon had a point: the man looked like he was done for. All that running away from the elves, from one world to the next, must have exhausted him. This tree he’d grown and driven so far, so fast, had taken all the energy he had to give. Now, he was spent.
“What’s that he’s lying upon?” asked the dragon.
Trev cocked his head and squatted beside the old man, examining the situation. It was gloomy inside the tree, but he could make out a shaft of wood. Ten gnarled fingers had woven themselves around it, and he was lying atop it as well.
“It must be Vaul, the Green Jewel.”
“Really?” said the dragon curiously. “Shall we take it?”
Trev looked up in surprise. “I can’t—at least I don’t think I can. I’m a Jewel myself. An anti-Jewel, sort of. I’m sure that I either can’t wield it, or it wouldn’t work right my hands. I once tried to use the Black, and that went badly.”
“How about me, then?” asked the dragon.
Trev laughed. “A dragon wielding the Green? How absurd.”
