The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  “We’re not going back,” Alric said.

  “And you’re not getting the relics,” Lorcan said as he pulled out the faery bags he had in his pouch. With a whistle he called Irving down. “Taryn? If you please?” He threw the bags in the air.

  “Irving! Eat them! Then fly away!” I didn’t think the knights would hurt the constructs, but even Flarinen would figure out what was in those bags soon enough.

  Irving did as he was told and swallowed the bags, then he and Bunky tore off toward the south.

  “Garbage, take the girls and stay with the constructs. Guard them.” This wasn’t going to end well.

  “Faeries rule, elves drool!” Garbage yelled as she flew down low over the elves. Then she and her flock followed the constructs. Their cat steeds had already slipped into the woods.

  Alric got back on his horse and grinned at Flarinen, and it wasn’t a nice one. “We’re not going, and the relics certainly aren’t going.”

  Siabiane and Mathilda had been talking fast and low. I doubted I could have understood them even if they spoke louder; it didn’t sound like any language I knew. Siabiane turned to the knights. “I’m not going back either. I now understand their plan here, and it will end this quickly. The only relic the others have is the sphinx. We will place information in select circles that we can destroy the others without it, and with enough historical creativity behind it we can make it appear valid. A large battle must be called; we will need all of the enclaves to attend. We will get the sphinx back and destroy the weapon—and there will be no doubt.” She folded her arms and managed to look down at Flarinen, even though she was standing on the ground and he sat on a horse. “This will be over.”

  I had no idea that was what Mathilda and Lorcan had been planning, and no matter how simple Siabiane made it sound, even I knew it wasn’t going to be anything but close to impossible. But I trusted them.

  From the looks on their faces, Alric and Padraig hadn’t been completely involved in this plan either. But neither said anything in front of the knights.

  “Someone is coming back to explain this to them. If not, there is no way the clans will support your fight.” Flarinen scowled at everyone with narrowed eyes.

  Padraig nodded. “He is right. This is an ambitious plan, and we need two knights to explain it to them.” He looked at an even more annoyed Alric.

  My head spun toward him. He was a knight? And never told me?

  Alric scowled. “I gave up that life; I never followed it.”

  “Yet you and I are still knights,” Padraig said. “We can discuss this, but we have to go back.”

  Alric gave a short, tight nod, but wouldn’t look my way.

  After us just saying we would stick together no matter what, he was going to leave. I knew about it this time. But I was still pissed. Not to mention, the bastard never told me he was a knight.

  “We will go with Siabiane and the rest.” Nasif had been watching the exchange, and also looked annoyed that he hadn’t been told the truth by the king and queen. Dueble just sat awkwardly atop his horse in silence.

  “I’ve a better plan for you two,” Siabiane said. “Rather, for your academic nom de plume. You need to get the word out about the five out of six majority needed to destroy the weapon. I know you can get it established quickly.”

  Nasif bowed from his horse. “As you wish, milady. Come on, Dueble, we’ve a lot of work ahead.” He started to ride away.

  “Nothing has been decided,” Flarinen said.

  Nasif looked back over his shoulder. “Yes, it has, you just haven’t caught up yet.” He and Dueble went the direction of the faeries, cats, and constructs.

  Alric wouldn’t look at me, and he seemed to be having a serious fight with himself. He finally said a few quiet words to Padraig and rode over to me.

  “We won’t run off, but I’d like to talk to Taryn alone.” It wasn’t a question, and as he rode closer he nodded to the forest behind us.

  I knew I wasn’t going to like what he said at all, but we did need to talk.

  The others could be heard discussing the situation behind us; Flarinen’s annoying tones and Lorcan and Siabiane pushing back at everything he said. Once we got far enough to not understand what they were saying, Alric stopped his horse and got down. I did the same.

  “I have to go back. If I don’t they won’t support this. Knights can call witness and make the royals reconsider our side quickly.”

  “Why do you need two? Can’t Padraig go on his own?” I wasn’t happy about losing Padraig either; he was a good fighter and magic user. But that wasn’t as emotional as Alric not being with me in what could be the final battle. Somewhere deep inside, as soon as they said he was a knight, I knew if he went back he wouldn’t come back to us. We could both die in this, never being close enough to say good-bye. I rubbed my arms at the chill that thought brought.

  Alric came and held me tight. “It’s a knight thing. Formally, our knights work in pairs. Some, like Flarinen, are assigned whoever is available. Normally he’s leading a troop so it doesn’t pertain to him. But when he came after us those months ago, it did, so they matched him with Kelm for that trip. Padraig and I have to go in together.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were a knight? I thought you hated them?”

  “I do, on the whole. There are some good ones, more good than bad. But as a concept, and people like Flarinen who embody that concept, I don’t agree with them. I trained as one when I was young. Padraig was doing it, and I wanted to be like him.”

  “I don’t want you gone.” It sounded whiny and petulant when I said it; the tone more so than the words. But I had a horrible feeling we shouldn’t be separated right now. We needed to be together to see this through.

  He didn’t answer me, but kissed me. The intensity told me he didn’t want us to be separated either. But there was enough regret there that I knew he was going through with it.

  “I have to do this. I have to say their plan sounds dangerous to me. Neither Lorcan nor Mathilda had brought it up before. But we can’t take the relics back to the enclave.”

  “I feel that if we separate now, I’ll never see you again,” I said. “And no, I’m not being melodramatic.” I wished there was a way to make him understand the growing fear in my head. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. “I can come with you.” Not my first choice, but I couldn’t help it. We needed to be together on this.

  He kissed me again, softly. It was a farewell kiss. “Not unless you can get that manticore out of you for good. I don’t want to risk any of the relics with them. Besides, you will need all of them together to destroy them. There’s no guarantee that Padraig and I can get the royals to agree.”

  He was being so logical, but it was tearing me up. “Don’t. Die.” I gave him one more kiss, then ran for my horse and rode back to the others.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  That night was rough. I kept going over the things I could have said. The things Alric should have said. Alric, Padraig, and the rest of the knights had left as soon as Alric came back into the clearing.

  At one point I dreamt that I was walking through the forest, but it felt much darker than it had when we’d set up camp. An icy wind shot through me, and an unnamed terror struck my soul. I had no idea what it was, but something was following me, and even knowing it was a dream wasn’t enough to stop the feeling.

  I kept walking, almost unable to stop. Then I heard the chanting. It was loud, but the voices were high pitched. Their volume was due to the quantity of voices, not because they were loud on their own.

  Part of me yelled to wake up, or at least turn a different direction, but my feet kept moving. The clearing ahead of me had a small fire, and shadows danced around it. They were chanting but I wasn’t sure whether they were actually dancing or not.

  My heart dropped. The fire was surrounded by hundreds of squirrels, all flashing the red amulets we’d found before. But what was worse were the three still forms tied to a
stake at the top of the pile of wood: Crusty, Leaf, and Garbage.

  I ran forward, stubbing my toe as I did so. Two things came immediately to my attention: I was barefoot and this wasn’t a dream.

  I must have been dreaming and walked out of the camp—a disturbing enough thought made worse by the fact that someone should have been on guard.

  The stumbling into their clearing and the swearing that followed got the possessed demon squirrels’ attention. Something I was pretty sure I didn’t want to happen.

  I glanced to the fire and my faeries, they were unconscious, but I had hope they were still alive. The flames weren’t close, but I still ran toward the fire, grabbed a big fire-free stick, and used it to smack the stake with the faeries into the bushes. The demon squirrels watched it fly, but went after me instead.

  I flung a push spell at them but it made no impact. I tried slowing them down, making them sleep, anything my frantic brain could think of. Of course, my sword hadn’t decided to join me either.

  My first night away from Alric, and I was going to be torn apart by rabid demonic squirrels with a jewelry fetish.

  The initial wave of demon squirrels was almost upon me when a band of new furry beasts ran in front of them. More squirrels. These turned their backs to me and charged forward, attacking the possessed ones. The new ones didn’t have the red amulets, but they were armed. I looked twice, but yes, every squirrel out there—on either side—was armed with tiny, real looking swords.

  I really should be asleep for something as insane as this. A few hundred squirrels, sword fighting over me and my three faeries.

  The faeries.

  I skirted around the battling rodents—yes, the possessed ones had been focusing on me, but apparently the non-possessed squirrels were a more dangerous enemy to them now.

  I ran to where I thought I’d flung the stake with the faeries on it. It took a few panicked moments to find the stake; the fire wasn’t large enough to throw much light, but I finally spotted a tiny orange arm sticking out of a bush.

  The girls were just starting to regain consciousness when I finished untying them. “Are you all right? How did they grab you?”

  Garbage shook her head and looked a bit cross-eyed. “Sewer-weed. Didn’t smell. Trap.” She kicked my hand. “Go fight now.”

  I’d kept all three in my hands once I’d freed them, but she startled me when she kicked my hand so I’d opened it automatically. And she fell right out of it. I grabbed her and looked at the other two. They were even groggier than their leader. None of them would be flying for a bit.

  The fight was still going on, and my new friends were falling back. “Girls, I have to find a way to help those squirrels—they are trying to save us.” I wasn’t sure where to put the faeries, but I had to try to help.

  Garbage focused on my words, and all three noticed the squirrels for the first time.

  “Need help!” Garbage yelled, but I really wasn’t sure who she was yelling to. A moment later, Bunky, Irving, the remaining faeries, and a couple dozen more, many clothed in leaves, swarmed the area.

  My original three were in no condition to fight, but the rest of the faeries and Bunky and Irving helped the normal sword-bearing squirrels fight off the possessed sword-bearing squirrels.

  Irving would dive down low and chase them toward Bunky, who zapped them. I watched to make sure Irving wasn’t going to turn them to stone, but his mouth stayed closed. Maybe he was being more cautious now that he had other relics in there as well.

  “No! You go!” Garbage didn’t look good, but she’d staggered to her feet and was waving off the constructs. “They want.”

  I looked around, not sure who they were, then I saw three of the mayor’s thugs come out of the woods on the far end of the clearing with a net and cage. They didn’t look good; someone had beaten them badly. I was thinking there had been a recent change of leadership in the evil thug army. By someone with enough magic to trigger the demonic squirrels to act as a distraction.

  They were trying to grab Irving.

  I was tired, pissed, had almost no sleep, and these bastards had tried to kill my faeries to draw Irving out. So they could rip him apart and get the relics inside him.

  My magic might not be working right now, but I had another option. I felt the change coming on, and this time I called it to me. “Bunky, get everyone out of here and guard Irving too.” Everything hurt as I changed into whatever my other form was. The manticore dropped out of me again, but I was too busy looking at the idiots in front of me. There were still some demonic squirrels, but the good ones fled with the faeries and constructs.

  The three thugs tried to run. Even though I was big, I was a lot faster than any of us thought and stomped on two of them before they knew it. The third I had to pluck out of a tree. She deserved to die just for being stupid enough to get eye level with the thing she was trying to escape from.

  I focused on changing back to myself, fell over once I’d done it, and threw up into some shrubbery. The flash of cold in my cheek told me the manticore was back.

  Once I’d recovered, I made my way back to camp. Covey and Lorcan were heading my way. When they saw me they both ran forward and each took a side and helped me the rest of the way to camp.

  “Garbage and Bunky told us what happened. Did you actually change?” Lorcan was definitely concerned about my well-being, but a thousand questions about what had happened were hanging around him as well.

  “They tried to burn the faeries to death in order to capture Irving. It sort of happened on its own.” Covey led me to a large log near the fire and pushed me to sit. “We need to destroy these things now, and I think it’s time they go into that chest. Those were the mayor’s thugs, but we have to assume Edana knows where they are too. If she can get enough power behind the sphinx, she might pull Irving to her.”

  “I have to say, I agree,” Lorcan said and dropped a blanket around my shoulders. “This was too well planned.”

  Harlan and Orenda joined us, but the sisters were missing. “Where are Siabiane and Mathilda?”

  “They had both been on guard when everything happened. A spell lured them away and they had just returned when the faeries arrived here. They went looking for the magic user behind the spell. I almost feel sorry for whoever did it.” Harlan shook his head. “Good to know you still get into a lot of trouble on a regular basis.”

  “If I hadn’t been sleep-walking, they could have killed the faeries.” It was a good thing I’d already thrown up, the thought of what those demon squirrels had wanted to do to my faeries made me sick. I didn’t think even the faeries could come back from the dead.

  The faeries and constructs were clustered in the middle of camp—well, our faeries were. The wilds had gone off again. Garbage trotted over to me, climbed up my leg, then up to my shoulder, and stared. “You save.”

  “Well, your squirrel friends, the other faeries, Bunky, and Irving saved you too.”

  She shook her head, her face uncommonly solemn. “You. Save. Me.” She actually had tears in her eyes and started hugging my neck. “Thank you.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek, patted the spot where the manticore was, and scampered back to her gang.

  I had nothing to say. Leaf and Crusty were often demonstrative, but I’d only seen Garbage get like this once—when the other two had been cut off from her.

  Mathilda and Siabiane must have come back while Garbage and I were having our moment. They were both standing across the fire and smiling.

  “I told you they needed to be together,” Mathilda said.

  Siabiane nodded. “As usual, you were right.”

  The fact that they were sisters was evident a moment later as the smiles dropped.

  “We couldn’t catch whoever was behind the spells or the trap.” Siabiane was usually the more vicious of the two, but Mathilda was showing it now. They were pissed.

  “We need to get the relics into the chest,” Lorcan said. “Although we will have to hide out for a bit, I’m a
fraid. Not more than a few weeks. We need to give Nasif and Dueble time to spread the academic ruse substantiating that the weapon can be destroyed with only five of the six relics. And let the others get the knights in place.” It was reassuring that he obviously didn’t doubt Alric and Padraig’s ability to convince the royals to go along.

  As much as I wanted these relics gone, I had to agree with him. There were many factions after the relics, and probably far more than the ones we knew about. Edana might have gathered most of them under her banner, but we needed everyone to know without a doubt that the weapon and the relics were destroyed. Once we were able to actually get the diamond sphinx back from Edana and do just that.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Two weeks later, almost to the day, we took our positions inside the tree line that marked a wide plain. We watched as the horses and riders that we’d been hearing for ten minutes finally came forward through the hills. Alric and Padraig were at the front of the elven forces as the mass rode forward. Both were almost unrecognizable in the bright armor of the elven knights. Even when they came to a halt and removed their helmets. Their faces were so cold and stern it was still difficult to recognize them, even with the spyglass Covey had gotten for me. But my heart knew who it was. I knew I had a massive part to play in this scenario, but all I wanted to do was run to Alric.

  The considerable number of knights behind them were too large to be from the Glaisdale enclave alone, and a closer look revealed that while there were a large number of knights with the same white plumes on their helmets as Alric and Padraig, there were at least five other colors. Even after a thousand years of hiding, they were prepared to fight. I’d guess over two thousand of elvenkind’s best warriors were out there.

  The knights parted, and the king rode forward. I almost expected to see five more kings or queens as well. After that many years, one would think the other enclaves would have started their own royal lines. Unless one knew how set in their ways elves were.