: An’desha, Chosen. Never Falconsbane again. Don’t worry, I can hold you forever, if I must. My strength is yours. Take whatever is there for your own. With you always.:
The dizziness steadied, ebbed, faded. He opened his eyes.
Nyara stood beside him, leaning on the blade, panting as if she had just run for miles. There was no sign of the wound except the dark slit in An’desha’s shirt, and the blood soaking into the ground. The chest rose and fell with full, even breaths, and under his hand the pulse was strong and steady. And even as he stared down at the miracle in his arms, the eyes opened, and looked up into his.
Innocent. Vulnerable. Terrified.
And no more Falconsbane’s eyes than Nyara’s were.
An’desha looked up into the face of the stranger, the one who had been making shadow-gryphons with his fingers, and who now held him carefully, with no sign of the hatred he must feel toward Falconsbane. He looked over at Nyara, who leaned heavily and wearily on a sword but took a moment to smile encouragingly.
They did know who and what he was!
And he looked at the sword. Which, he now realized, was the old woman.
: You lied to me!: he wailed, as he started to shake, still held in the terror of near-death.
:I never told you I was your Goddess,: came the tart reply.: I only asked if you trusted Her.:
Firesong was hot on Falconsbane’s trail, flying through the spirit-realms, a silver falcon. The traces faded with preternatural speed, and Firesong poured even more of his own life into tracing Falconsbane back to the little pocket of the Nether Planes where he had made his hiding place, his place of refuge, where death and time could not touch him. Through the swirling colors and chaos of the paths of power, he followed the spark that was Falconsbane, until he watched it dive into a pocket of blackness, an opening into a greater darkness. Small wonder he had not gone mad when trapped in the Gate’s greater Void! He had practice, after all, in coping with such things.
Falconsbane reached the shelter of his refuge, fled inside, and sealed it up from within. If you had not seen the rabbit dive into its warren, you would never have noticed it. Clever, clever Falconsbane, to have seen that the Void held all in stasis, and to realize that in the shifting swirls of the paths of power, no one would ever notice a little flaw, a seam, where none should be.
But Firesong did know. And what was more, he knew how to get into it.
Death was about to keep a long-overdue appointment with Mornelithe Falconsbane.
He paused for a moment, then allowed himself a grim smile. He had told Elspeth and Darkwind that there would be a sign when it was time to attack Ancar. And here was all that energy, so much, in such a tiny and compressed package. Granted, it was blood and death energy, and too tainted for a Healing Adept to actually use. But it would be a shame to get rid of Falconsbane and allow it all to go to waste, drifting back into the currents of energy and fading away. . . .
And fire purified. Wasn’t that why his use-name was “Firesong?”
So it was, and it was time to sing. He seized the shelter in fiery hands—talons—of energy.
As he tore open the walls Falconsbane had built, he sensed an instant of surprise, followed by pure panic.
But that was all he allowed time for.
In passion, he took on the aspect of his firebird, and used every last bit of his powers to sink talonlike fingers and sharp, silvery-white beak into Falconsbane, shelter and all, tearing them into motes and ribbons and sparks, flinging them across the sky of Hardorn in a burst of fireworks that would be seen for leagues—
Every mote, every ribbon, every spark, he personally and completely purified with his own soul’s fire while he sang in triumphant ecstasy. He wiped it all clean of every sickening memory, every jot of personality, and scattered it far and wide into the bitter night air.
If he ever comes back again, it will be as a cloud of gnats!
Firesong burned away the last little bit of the shelter within the Void, released the magical “ash” of it into the flow of the Void, and then sank back into his own body.
He opened his eyes to find himself on the ground, with Nyara propping him up, and Skif and Fal—no, An’desha—staring at him intently. It was An’desha; Falconsbane would never, ever have had traces of tears on his cheeks. Falconsbane would never have Nyara’s hand resting on his shoulder in a gesture of protective comfort.
It was An’desha who broke the waiting silence, as outside, people still exclaimed over the fading fireworks.
“Is he gone?” An’desha asked tremulously.
Firesong nodded wearily but with immense satisfaction.
An’desha stared at him for a moment, and then, unexpectedly, began weeping again; hoarse, racking sobs of long-pent and terrible grief.
Sobs that sounded uncannily like the ones Liam had made. . . .
Firesong hesitated for a moment. Was there anything he could offer this poor boy? Would he believe comfort coming from another Adept such as his tormenter had been? Yet—oh, how he wanted to offer comfort and have it taken!
: You’re a Healing Adept, boy,: Need reminded him, gruffly. :But you don’t need magic to Heal. Just words. And kindness, and care.:
Firesong shakily levered himself up off the ground, knelt beside An’desha, and offered his arms tentatively.
An’desha folded into them as into a haven of safety. Firesong cradled the boy carefully, murmuring into his ear.
“It’s all right, An’desha. It’s all right now. He can never hurt anyone again. You beat him. You are safe now, and we will always be here to help you. I will always be here to help you. . . .”
Chapter Seventeen
The sky overhead erupted into a garden of fiery flowers. Darkwind jerked up his head like a startled horse, and he stared at the odd-colored flashes, showers of sparks, and soundless lightning playing across the sky and lighting up the clouds.
“Damned showman,” he muttered under his breath. “That ‘Pandemonium’ persona is rubbing off on him!”
:Time to move, ashke,: he sent to Elspeth, who nodded.
Darkwind was on a horse he’d stolen from the stable of an inn; the horse, if not the current rider, belonged to Ancar’s Elite. Elspeth was on Gwena, still cloaked in her illusion. Both of them were in stolen uniforms, with Elspeth’s hair tucked up under her uniform hat, and her breasts bound flat, so that she looked like a very slender man. The uniforms hadn’t been very difficult to get; there were plenty of troopers getting drunk in the city taverns, and if two of them woke up in the morning to find themselves stark naked, bound and gagged—well, it probably wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. And by then, he and Elspeth would either be long gone, or no longer in a position to worry about the consequences of being identified.
He had cobbled together something that looked enough like a messenger pouch to pass at a distance, supposedly containing dispatches from the front lines. That had gotten them as far as the courtyard; they were about to dismount, when the fires in the sky began, and the currents of power around them bucked and heaved like a herd of startled dyheli.
To anyone with a scrap of mage-sense, it was distressing. He had never felt quite so violent a disturbance in the energy-currents before.
: Ancar can’t possibly miss this!: Elspeth “cried,” as they both tried to look as if everything was normal—except for the fireworks, of course—she shouted and pointed upward as all the ordinary people on the walls and in the courtyard were doing. :And I can feel a mage-storm building very fast. People are probably getting nosebleeds all over the city—; Even now, a huge anvil-shaped cloud was boiling up over the city seemingly from nowhere.
And now every man guarding the walls and the gates, every servant that heard the cries of surprise, and every stableboy came running out to gape at the skies like a parcel of fools. Their cries brought others.
And, unbelievably, Ancar!
He could hardly have missed the upheavals in the magic-currents, and given how many sp
ells he had tied into Falconsbane, he must have been knocked metaphorically head-over-arse when they snapped back on him at the Beast’s death. But they had never, in all their wildest hopes, imagined he would come running out onto the landing in front of the main doors of his palace like any other fool, just to look up at the sky!
And no one, no one, was paying any attention to Elspeth and Darkwind in the middle of the courtyard.
They didn’t even pause to think; as one, they drew strung bows and a pair of arrows from the cases on their saddles. As one, they nocked and fired and followed the first arrows with a second, then snatched for a third while the first two were still in the air.
Ancar was a mage; he was likely to be shielded against a magical attack, but not necessarily a physical one. . . .
So they hoped, anyway. It was the best chance for a physical attack that they were likely to get. Darkwind watched the arrows arc toward the oblivious King and held his breath, not even daring to mutter a prayer for success, his whole being straining after the streaking shafts.
All four arrows hit the edge of a mage-shield set against physical attacks, and disintegrated in a shower of sparks.
Well, that certainly got his attention, he thought fleetingly as Ancar spotted them.
Ancar’s eyes slid right over Darkwind and fixed on Elspeth. And even from halfway across the courtyard, there was no doubt in Darkwind’s mind that he recognized Elspeth. There was an instant of frozen shock, and his lips moved as his eyes widened. He knew. Somehow, through disguise and illusion, he knew who it was who came to kill him wearing the cold mask of diamond-pure Vengeance. Elspeth was an arrow of justice sped from the hand of the Queen and the bow of Valdemar.
Ancar seemed to go mad then, his eyes blazing with anger. His hands flared up in an instant with blood-red mage-energy. Rather than stunning him, the shock of recognition seemed to galvanize him into sudden action. Darkwind and Elspeth both dropped their useless bows; Darkwind ducked over his horse’s neck and kicked free of his stirrups, just as Ancar let fly a mage-bolt that passed through the space where he had been and shattered the pavestones, making Darkwind’s stolen horse buck and jump sideways. The Hawkbrother rolled out of the way, shoulder against the hard stone.
Elspeth tumbled in a more controlled manner off Gwena’s back. Darkwind reached out an ephemeral “hand” to her; the two of them meshed powers with the ease of long practice, joining shields, just as a second mage-bolt crashed into their united defenses.
They were not given a chance to breathe—bolt after bolt of raw power crashed into them, burning away outer shields and forcing them to devote all of their attention to defenses. . . .
Nor was that all; the death of Falconsbane, the battle, all these had tipped the precarious balance over Hardorn’s capital. For too long Ancar and his mages had worked their magics without regard for the world around them, throwing it further and further out of balance.
Now something had thrown it too far, as Firesong had warned might happen. Nature went as berserk as the King.
As Ancar cast his deadly bolts of power, another equally deadly bolt lanced down out of the clouds overhead and struck somewhere in the back of the palace. It hung, shattering the night as it lanced from the skies and lingered, momentarily deafening and blinding them, signaling the worst lightning-storm Darkwind had ever seen. It easily surpassed the storm they had triggered over Ashkevron Manor with their Gate for sheer fury.
Twice, as they bowed beneath the battering of Ancar’s mage-bolts, lightning hit the palace itself, setting fires on the roof. Ancar seemed oblivious to it all, intent only on pounding the two of them into red dust on the cobbles of the courtyard.
Then a third bolt struck the doors behind the King. The bolt’s thinnest tendrils—enough to split huge trees—licked Ancar’s shields, then the charred, exploding doors knocked Ancar to the courtyard itself. It left his clothes singed, but it didn’t seem to affect his concentration; he came to his feet immediately and resumed his attack, even as Darkwind was still trying to clear his vision from the flash. Vree and Gwena were nowhere to be seen.
He could not imagine where Ancar was getting all this power! The man couldn’t be more than a Master—how was he holding off two Adepts?
“He’s mad!” Elspeth cried out, as another bolt of lightning struck and exploded the wall above the metal gates, scattering bricks and bodies down onto the pavement below. Another bolt followed it, and by its light, Darkwind caught a good look at Ancar’s face.
He realized that she was, literally, right. Ancar had bitten through his own lip and hadn’t even noticed. He was mad; mad enough to burn himself out, crazed enough not to care, using himself up in a prolonged version of a mage’s final strike. What was more, the King was insane enough to use the lightning-power. Darkwind felt his skin prickle, his only warning of a bolt coming in the next instant. He leapt to catch Elspeth’s wrist, and jerked her aside only to see a bolt of lightning sear the stones where they had just been.
And Ancar laughed, a high-pitched cackle that held nothing of sanity in it, his eyes so wide that the white showed all around, reflecting hellish-red from the blazing mage-energy of his hands. He pointed his finger at them; this time it was Elspeth who shoved Darkwind, and once again they evaded a lightning-strike by no more than a few arms’ lengths.
Ancar pointed again—in the flash of a secondary strike behind him, Darkwind saw all of Ancar’s hair standing on end as he absorbed the chaotic power of the storm. His aim was improving with every strike, and this time they were both flat on the ground. They would never get out of the way in time!
Two ghostly shapes moved on the scene. One fell from the sky, pale compared to the lightning, but almost as swift.
Vree!
Gwena reared up out of the shadows of the staircase where she had been hidden. Vree dove at Ancar and struck, clawing the King’s face to distract him, tearing huge furrows in his scalp and forehead to keep him from seeing the Companion.
Ancar shrieked with pain and his blazing hands rose to engulf the bird.
Gwena came down on Ancar with all the force of her powerful body behind her forehooves and knocked him to the ground. The bones of his shoulders shattered audibly even above the thunder.
Ancar screamed again, first in pain and anger, then in sheer terror, as he saw the hooves coming down on him where he lay.
A single blow of those silver hooves to his head would have killed him instantly, and with a malicious intent Darkwind would never have credited if he had not seen it himself, she deliberately avoided such a blow. No—perhaps it was to avoid striking Vree, who struggled from where he’d bound to Ancar’s scalp and flapped away, wing-wrenched and upset, but alive. In a frenzy of rage nearly as mad as Ancar’s, Gwena trampled him, dancing on him with all four hooves until the screaming stopped, and he was nothing more than red pulp seeping into flagstones.
:That!: Her mind-voice was a scream, and she was still pounding the inert meat with her wet, red hooves. :That! That’s for Talia! That’s for Kris! That’s for—:
“Laugh now, horse!” came a shout from the palace, and a mage-bolt took Gwena in the side, lifting her right off the ground with the force. Gwena hit the ground, hooves slipping beneath her, and landed on her side with a thud.
Darkwind’s gaze snapped up, to the balcony above the doors.
Hulda!
That was the only person it could be, even though the woman was dressed in servants’ livery, and was as wild-eyed as Ancar had been.
“Go ahead and laugh at this—” the woman cried, raising her hands for another blow. Darkwind erected hasty shields over Gwena, who moved her legs feebly and flailed her head as she tried to rise.
Behind Hulda, a man grabbed her arm, distracting her for a moment. “Don’t be a fool!” he shouted in oddly-accented Hardornen over the roar of the thunder. “We have to get out of here! Leave these idiots!”
She pulled away from him and started to build power for another attack—but once again
he pulled her away, this time succeeding in drawing her back inside.
Darkwind was not going to let her escape—and there was no sign that anyone was going to interfere at this point. The mage-storms and lightning had driven everyone out of the courtyard and off the walls.
He scrambled to his feet and ran up to the sundered stairs, then hooked his fingers around stonework, climbing to reach the balcony. :Go!: he shouted at Elspeth, :Get inside and cut them off from below!:
This kind of climb was nothing to a Tayledras. As Elspeth dashed into the doors below him, his hand reached the balcony itself, and he pulled himself up and over the railing.
And just as he burst into the ravaged room, he felt the unmistakable shivering in the power-currents of someone building a Gate nearby. . . .
They had all studied the plans of Ancar’s palace until they could have walked the place blindfolded. Elspeth remembered a stair going right up into the hallway above, just inside the main doors. The place was deserted; everyone had either gone off to fight the fires or fled in terror when the mage-battle began. She ran up the stairs two at a time, and as she reached the top and the corridor that it led to, she heard the sound of a fight on the other side of the second door along the corridor.
She didn’t stop to think; she just gathered power and blasted, disintegrating the door and running through the hole while the dust was still raining down.
And she stumbled to a halt as she hit something that felt like a web, a net that closed around her in a heartbeat and held her immobile.
But her eyes still worked, and the very first thing she saw, by the white light of pure power, was the man that had pulled Hulda inside.
The man, who bore a distinctive device on his tunic—
Dear gods—the Emperor’s envoy!—
—was building a Gate! He already had the framework up. He wasn’t even using a real door as his anchor, he was simply building the thing in midair!
How much of what’s happened has been his doing?
Winds of Fury Page 39
