by Hiatt, Bill
My friends were badly outnumbered, but even though the security men had morphed into something stronger than normal humans, the magic swords helped keep the battle from being lost, especially since the guards had no weapons besides their useless guns and had to depend on morphed claws. Gordy’s fear aura had no effect—Winn had prepared her men to resist it, no doubt—but his weapon still had all the advantages of an unbreakable, ever-sharp faerie sword, and Gordy wielded it well. Stan, now again enfolded in his greatly expanded muscles, did equally well. Carlos’ blade, about which Winn knew nothing, did its drowning trick well on unprepared opponents. The virtue of Dan’s sword was more defensive, but he waded forward fearlessly and did as much damage as anyone. The real star, though, was Shar wielding Zom, another of the swords about which Winn knew nothing. Every successful hit, even if it did not draw blood, ruined the shift and returned the shifter to his normal form in a greenish burst. Well, at least the form that was their default now. I knew from their psyches they were not truly human, but they looked human enough. Winn must have done something to them to bury whatever their true form was. Of course, they could have been human sorcerers, but I saw no sign of magic except the shifts.
I tried to will White Hilt’s flames to bite through the encrusted darkness. Winn’s spell was strong, but given time, I thought I could beat it. I could feel the darkness shudder and struggle each time I focused.
The problem was, I didn’t really have the time to mess with it. My friends were running up against the same problem I had hit in fighting the pwca weeks ago. It is one thing to train with a sword, another to use it in combat, and the more successful my friends were initially, the more the carnage overwhelmed them. Adrenalin can only do so much. Already, the floor around them was a bloody pool, strewn with severed limbs. Survival instinct kept them going, but they were losing momentum, and more shifters kept pouring in. Where could Winn have found so many?
“They’re not human!” I yelled, charging forward, sending a surge of numbness into them, trying to get them through what would be a horrible situation no matter what I did. I sang then, pushing each of them into the highest gear of which they were capable. At some point Nurse Florence appeared by my side, having somehow magicked Coach Miller to forget about her and help the other students find their way out of Awen. Her face of mask of strain, she seemed to be trying to heal our team on the fly, or at least keep them from bleeding when shifter claws raked them.
Still singing my song of empowerment, I again tried to free White Hilt. Then, realizing what I had to do, I ran toward Shar. I could feel Nurse Florence’s disapproval, but she was too preoccupied even to call out to me. She thought I was charging into battle when I should have focused on support, but I had something else completely different in mind. I broadcast to Shar what I needed, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he drove his sword down on White Hilt, which rang with the impact. In a greenish flash the darkness splintered and was gone. I backed up a little as White Hilt flamed. The darkness tried to regroup, but sluggishly, and I was ready for it, slicing it with white hot flame, shriveling it with White Hilt’s might focused with laser-like accuracy. It was hard to maintain my song and fight the darkness at the same time, but I managed it long enough to beat the darkness, at least for the moment. To make sure, I sent a few thoughts through the lighting system and turned the room lights on. My guys were dazzled for a moment, but the shifters, who I suspect had shifted their eyes to give themselves night vision, were momentarily blinded. Before they recovered, I used a wall of flame to drive them back and out of the door, after which I crafted flame barriers to cover all the possible entrances, careful not to start a conflagration, at least until I checked the whereabouts of Coach Miller and the other students. I had to keep feeding those barriers, of course, but with no shifters in the room, I could at least stop singing and conserve some of my energy. Nurse Florence helped by trying to feed me as much of her energy as she could spare—a good thing, as it turned out, since sculpting White Hilt’s flame into multiple barriers rather distant from each other was more draining than I had anticipated. Even if she helped, I doubted I could keep that tactic up for very long.
“What’s our next move, Tal?” asked Shar. I glanced over at him. Even his trained-to-perfection arms were shaking ever so slightly, as were Dan’s. Gordy looked glassy eyed. Carlos kept trying to find a way not to look at the blood, limbs, and corpses. Stan was shaking visibly, shaking all over. All that mayhem, even against non-humans, was clearly taking its toll. I could sing them back into some semblance of fighting readiness, to be sure, but there were limits, and I would crash into them before very long. Nurse Florence could keep us all going longer. The question was, how long before even her considerable reserves were exhausted. She already looked a bit unsteady, and certainly more pale than normal.
“How many more shifters left?” I asked her. “It’s hard for me to read them from a distance and keep the doors warded.”
“I think we killed about a third of them,” she said in an almost impassive tone with just a hint of quaver.
I could see all of the guys sagging at that revelation. I had fought one pwca before and been so unhinged by the whole experience that Dan had had to carry me at first. They had had to become killing machines. Yeah, they had had more chance to prepare themselves psychologically, but how does someone really do that?
Abruptly, Stan started crying. He was doing it as quietly as he could, but in the comparative silence of the room, everyone noticed.
Reflexively, I moved in his direction, as did Gordy, but oddly enough the person who hugged him first was Dan.
“It’s okay, Stan. We will make it through this,” he said with a confidence he clearly did not feel. It was at that moment I became convinced that we wouldn’t.
“Is it time to retreat?” I asked Nurse Florence. “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.”
“Find Coach Miller or one of the students with him and check their situation, Tal.” The one I found most rapidly was naturally Carla, who was still broadcasting her thoughts pretty loudly. I slipped into her, viewed the scene through her eyes, and then pulled out quickly. Being that psychically close to her started weakening my grip on reality almost instantly.
“They didn’t escape,” I reported. “I couldn’t stay connected long, but from what I gather, the front door is warded in some way. They are hiding nearby in hopes of making a run for it if someone opens the door.” I paused and sent my mind swirling toward the exits I knew of. “It looks as if all the possible escape routes are warded.”
“Just as I feared,” said Nurse Florence slowly. “Carrie Winn can’t afford to let us retreat and has taken steps to make sure no one can leave. We know too much, I think, and there are too many of us, enough to raise quite an uproar if we managed to get out. Not just us, but the others Carl has downstairs. I’m afraid that if we try to leave now, it may occur to Winn to take them hostage. Or, if we try to get to the front door and have Shar cut through the ward with Zom, Winn will throw every last shifter she has left into that area. We might be able to survive, but at least some of the others will not in that kind of all-out fight. If we keep pressing the attack, there is a chance Winn won’t pay much attention to the others. We still have to defeat her to make them safe permanently, but at least we have a shot at keeping them all alive that way.”
Carlos became suddenly more alert. “Should I go to protect…them?”
“We can protect them best by keeping Winn’s attention diverted, as I have just said.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know if we can win. And I think we have a decent shot at getting everyone out if we can move quickly.”
“Nurse Florence is right,” said Stan weakly. “We’ve played almost every surprise we have already. Winn, or at least her minions, have seen all of the swords in action now. She knows Tal can hex technology. Now she can develop counter-measures at her leisure and then come after us, probably pick us
off one by one. If we are going to beat her at all, we have to beat her tonight.”
“We’re pretty exhausted,” I pointed out.
“So must she be. Look, Tal, I know you’ve been throwing magic around ever since we got here, but so has she. And we haven’t seen any of the shifters do anything magical except shift, so as far as we know, all of the magic, including a whole ballroom full of illusionary guests and a spell strong enough to choke White Hilt, has all come straight out of her. Wouldn’t that pretty well drain her?”
Nurse Florence was clearly impressed by his acumen. “Yes, I believe it would.”
“Are we sure we are up to this?” I asked, looking at Stan a little more pointedly than I intended.
“Okay, I cried a little. Sue me. You’ve been known to cry in the past yourself.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Stan, I didn’t mean it like that. What do the rest of you say?”
“If Stan’s in, I’m in,” said Gordy simply.
“We have to see this through now,” said Shar. Dan and Carlos both nodded.
“Well, okay then.” I smiled weakly. “Watch the doors. I’m going to drop the barriers and see if I can find Winn.”
I let White Hilt rest as I spread my mind out gradually, reaching, searching, probing every inch of Awen. As my thoughts rose higher, I encountered more resistance, but I thought I could sense Winn at the very top of the structure.
“There is one hell of a lot of magic in the air, but I think I can sense her on the roof. There are a lot of shifters in that area, too, as far as I can tell.”
“The roof it is, then,” said Dan. “How do we get there?”
“I thought we might need to know that kind of thing,” said Nurse Florence, “so I studied the plans on file with the city inspector’s office.” You could pretty well guess how she must have gotten her hands on those. “There is a stairway up each of the four corner towers, and there appears to be roof access from each one. That’s a risky attack route, though. If Winn knows we’re coming, as she almost certainly will, all she has to do is have shifters right outside the door from the tower. They can all attack the person at the front of our line.”
“That will be me,” said Shar, brandishing Zom, “and I can take on all the shifters if I have to.”
“Don’t get too cocky,” cautioned Nurse Florence, “but you are right. The shifters are uniquely vulnerable to your blade.”
There was no sign of shifters at the moment, and we moved to the stairway without incident. It occurred to me that Winn might want us on the roof, though it was equally possible she was hiding there until she had the next attack organized.
Cautiously, we climbed the narrow stairs. I sang softly, gradually rebuilding our fighting morale without draining myself any more than necessary. It seemed to help everyone else, but my own heart remained strangely untouched. I had the increasingly strong conviction that we were climbing to our deaths. I checked to make sure it was not another ambient mood altering spell, but that had seemingly vanished as our band had performed earlier, and it did not seem to have reappeared. Still, I could not shake a feeling of foreboding.
When we finally reached the door to the roof, Shar flung it open, and we raced out as fast as we could. Winn did not attempt to block the door with shifters. Clearly, she didn’t need to. As soon as we were out, we saw a vast horde of shifters, more than we had expected. But that was not what confirmed my growing dread.
We also came face-to-face, not just with Carrie Winn, but with Morgan Le Fay as well.
CHAPTER 20: THE FINAL SHOWDOWN
I tried to evaluate the situation as fast as I could. Stan’s whole argument for attacking had been based on the premise that Winn was the only spell caster on her own side, but there were clearly at least two. I spent a second being shocked by Morgan’s presence—wasn’t she imprisoned in Annwn? Then I remembered it was Carrie Winn who had told me that in the first place. That cleverly planted piece of disinformation could now cost us dearly.
Judging from Morgan’s pale, exhausted look, she had been primarily responsible for all the magic we had seen, though the uniqueness of some of it suggested that Carrie Winn had given her a few tidbits from Winn’s own magical research. In any case, Winn was looking both well rested and triumphant. Not only that, but the shifters were clearly readying themselves to charge us. We were outgunned magically. Our only hope was to cut through the shifters and hit Winn before she could launch a major arcane assault on us. Even before the shifters, though, there was the matter of Morgan. Shar had never seen her before and seemed confused. In his moment of hesitation, I heard a sound all too familiar from previous lives, the twang of a bow, and suddenly an arrow pierced Shar’s right shoulder. Zom slipped through his suddenly limp fingers and went clattering to the ground. Winn may not have anticipated that I could disable all the guns, but she had had some time to dig up a bow and find someone to use it.
I drew White Hilt and conjured up a wall of flame in front of us, but clearly that was a stopgap measure at best. Whoever the archer was would be unable to see through it, and it would keep back the shifters, but it would do nothing to stop Morgan or Ms. Winn from hurling magic at us. Nor would Nurse Florence, tending the badly wounded Shar, be able to lend me much energy now.
With Shar down, I needed to think about who could best wield Zom. I might have been inclined to pick Dan, but he appeared to have numerous wounds that only his current sword was keeping from bleeding. Stan wasn’t trained in two-weapon fighting, and using Zom instead of the sword of David would deprive him of his strength boost. Carlos was the least experienced swordsman.
“Gordy, take Zom!” I yelled. He stepped forward without a question, sheathed his fear sword, and picked up Zom, raising it above his head.
I could hear Morgan beginning a spell, and, though I could not hear much else, I knew that Carrie Winn would be doing the same. Letting the wall of flame down long enough for anyone to charge Morgan, however, would invite the shifters to attack. Still, there seemed no other option. Gordy could now run through the magical fire unharmed, but he was the only one, and if he punched through it, there was a good chance it would collapse anyway.
“Guys, charge Morgan and eliminate her. I’ll try to keep the shifters off of you.” Dan, Stan, Gordy, and Carlos moved forward. I dropped the flame wall, and all four of them charged the suddenly terrified Morgan, cutting down the couple of shifters near enough to assist her. She had a defensive wind going already, and the others slowed, but Gordy, immune to anything she could dish out, kept coming. He would be on her in seconds.
And then an arrow pierced his side. He gave a heartrending scream but tried to let his momentum carry him toward Morgan to get in at least one good sword stroke—and with that sword, one stroke would be enough. Morgan threw herself back, and he fell before he could reach her. He was coughing up blood, and I feared the arrow might have pierced a lung.
I managed to get a flame barrier up just before the wave of shifters hit them. One or two lunged through the flames, screaming and burning but, like Gordy, trying to maintain enough momentum to slam into what was left of our fighting force. Stan lopped off the head of one, but the other one screamed right past Dan and Carlos, landing on top of poor Gordy and ripping Zom from his limp hand. The moment the shifter touched the sword, he reverted to his natural form, and the flames, supernatural in origin, stopped burning him, though the burns he had already sustained would not be healed that way.
With Zom in the enemy’s hands, defeat had just become inevitable. The shifter spun around and tore the sword through my wall of flame, collapsing it in one stroke, and the other shifters dashed forward. Carlos, Dan and Stan formed a circle around the fallen Gordy and did their best to cover each other and him, but it was clear that they would eventually be overwhelmed. I shot bursts of flame into the shifter ranks, and that tactic might have been enough to stave off defeat, but the shifter with Zom charged me, and I had to focus on defending myself or be cut down where I stood.
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br /> I couldn’t use White Hilt’s fire against him, but he did not seem to be as good a swordsman as I was. Then I realized two things. First, the shifter seemed to be holding back. I made a couple of fatigue mistakes, and he failed to exploit them. Either he was content to prevent me from helping the others or outright unwilling to harm me. Second, and supporting the latter idea, the archer who had cut down Shar and Gordy should logically have taken aim at me and had not. I thought back to the first attack in the ballroom, and it seemed to me that when the security guards aimed their guns, none of them had aimed at me.
Carrie Winn wanted me alive.
Well, that was a bargaining chip of a sort, if I could figure out how to use it.
At that moment Shar tackled the shifter, who was so surprised he lost his grip on his sword.
“He’s not completely healed yet,” said Nurse Florence in my mind, “and I think the archer will try to take him out again. You have to find that archer.”
Shar had grabbed Zom again and ran the shifter through before he could get back up. But then Shar hesitated a moment, perhaps dizzy. I encircled him in flames while he recovered. Then I started burning as many shifters as I could hit in the group encircling the rest of our fighters. A few of them had already been drowned by Carlos’ sword, while others had been wounded by Dan or Stan, but all three of them were taking damage too. All the while a barely conscious Gordy was still coughing up blood. As for me, the pounding in my temples told me that I could not keep aiming my fire in two different directions. That kind of move was a strain when I was fresh, let alone when I was nearing exhaustion.
“Tal!” Stan yelled desperately. “Gordy’s dying!” Nurse Florence was trying to move toward Gordy, and I did what I could to keep shifters off of her, spreading myself still thinner. Then an arrow whistled past her, narrowly missing.
It was about that point that I started praying. In the course of my lives, I have practiced many religions. My current family raised me Episcopalian, but I had been more or less Christian almost since the days of Taliesin 1. I can’t honestly say I prayed much normally, and I hoped I wasn’t so superficial as to be acting just on the “there are no atheists in the trenches” idea. But I wanted so badly to keep my friends alive, and I didn’t know what else to do.
