I wonder how the Errant Companions will react when they find out they’ve all got Fey blood in them.
“Your leg’s OK,” Arthur says, pulling me away from my thoughts, “but I don’t see an exit wound from the bullet in your side.”
“Oh, joy,” I say.
“Brace yourself,” Arthur adds.
I let out a low groan as he deftly cuts my stomach wound further open to pull out the bullet still lodged within my flesh, the pain making me burn up despite the freezing temperatures.
“Almost done,” Arthur says through gritted teeth.
“Do you think our Order would have given up the use of oghams if they knew Myrdwinn taught it to us only to weaken Carman’s prison wards?” I ask, feeling the slug sliding out of my body under Arthur’s coaxing.
“I frankly don’t know,” he says at last, rocking back on his heels with a sigh. I watch him clean the blood from his hands in the snow. “Power has a tendency to lure even the best of us. You saw how it’s affected Jennifer, Agravain, and the others.”
He takes another look at my already closing wound, his hand chilly against my skin, then gives me a small smile as he pulls my shirt back down.
“Good as new,” he says. “But I, for one, am glad that such a power has allowed you to stay by my side.”
Words of thanks die in my throat as Arthur’s other hand comes up to brush my hair back, then lingers along my jawline, so soft I can barely feel it. Heat radiates from my face despite the icy storm, and I quickly look away from his hazel eyes to hide my sudden embarrassment.
“Morgan,” Arthur starts, sounding uncertain. “I—”
A loud explosion shakes the whole compound, making me slip off the bench. Terrified screams rise on the other side of the Ops Center.
“It’s her,” I say tightly, jumping to my feet guiltily. How could I have forgotten about Carman, even for just a second?
“Lugh must be fighting her,” Arthur states, pulling his gloves back on and motioning for me to stay close.
We rush across the courtyard, vault over its low wall, then pelt down the once-pristine alleys towards the Dining Hall where the sounds of battling are the loudest. Another detonation sweeps across the grounds, taking with it half the Ballroom’s domed roof.
We round the dorms, and fall onto a group of young knights huddling among the rubble, eyes wide with fear as they stare high up at the wrathful sky.
“Retreat by the Eastern Woods!” Arthur shouts, waving them back. “It’s too danger—”
BOOM!
The force of the blast slams into us, sending us sprawling across the path. I hit the frozen ground hard, cracking my head on a rock. White pain explodes behind my eyes. All slows, sounds gone except for my wild-beating heart. Then the ringing in my ears turns into a dull whine, and I can finally make out the frenzied shouts of those still fighting, the soft sobs of the dying.
A demon lands next to me with a hair-raising shriek, long limbs scraping the ground for prey. I struggle up, fight back a bout of nausea. The creature finally sees me, large eyes slitting at the sight of easy prey. Then a stray blast of salamander fire hits the monster in the head, taking it out.
I scramble to my feet, gaze sweeping the ravaged grounds for Arthur. I find the southern edge of the dorms where the knights had taken refuge, but the building’s collapsed into an avalanche of white dust, taking everyone around with it.
“Arthur!” I scream.
I lurch forward, forcing my panic back down.
“Art—”
A kick lands on my back, flattening my back down to the hard ground. Air whooshes out of my lungs with a surprised yelp.
“I wouldn’t think about interfering,” Urim’s distinctive drawl says in my ear as I try to roll away from him. “We won’t be nice like we were at that silly school of yours.”
“Didn’t think you…nice,” I wheeze out.
Urim laughs. “Here’s the deal, sweet cheeks: We’re not gonna meddle, if you don’t interfere either.”
His knee digs deeper into the small of my back, as a figure detaches itself from the horde of demons swirling around the large fountain.
“Get away from my son!” Luther shouts, pointing off to the side.
“Arthur?” I whisper, craning my neck around to look where he’s pointing.
I let out a gasp of fear as I finally catch Arthur facing Mordred, the two of them slowly circling each other. Thummim’s there too, watching them with bated breath.
“Oh, please don’t let them fight,” I beg Urim, as Mordred strikes first, forcing Arthur back.
Urim twists my arm so hard my shoulder pops. “No touchy, I said,” he whispers in my ear.
I watch helplessly as Luther tries to run to Arthur’s help, only to find himself surrounded by Mordred’s creatures, with but a handful of knights to defend him.
One of the Dark Sidhe lashes out, raking the knight closest to it down the face. Bellowing in pain, the man swings his sword blindly around, nearly cutting the woman next to him. Then, with a sinister laugh, another demon punches the knight in the back, its long claws piercing through the iron-plated shirt with ease, and the knight stops moving.
“What are you shitheads doing?” Luther shouts angrily. “You’re supposed to be protecting me, not dropping like a bunch of flies!”
One of the knights tries to parry a second attack, but his sword misses wildly, and he lets out a cry of pain as another Dark Sidhe strikes him, pinning him down through the leg with a long bony tail.
Luther reacts immediately, blasting the monster in the chest, then hacking the tail off the injured knight. But a fourth demon uses the opportunity to stab Luther beneath the shoulder blade.
“Father!” Arthur shouts in anguish.
With a vicious growl, Luther twists around to hack at his attacker, then moves onto the next two demons, cutting them across the chest and legs, a tempest of blood and death.
Off to the side, Arthur tries a faint, wanting to rush to his help, but Mordred’s always there, blocking his way, corralling him away. He’s toying with Arthur, enjoying the sight of his growing despair.
And then I feel it, a slight, distant pull that makes the blood in my veins thrum in recognition. Dread sets in as I look up at the sky, squinting against the sleet. We’ve run out of time. Carman’s called her dragon over, and it’s heading this way.
“Get off me!” I shout at Urim, trying to wriggle free.
But the Dark Sidhe sends a shock of power through me in warning. “Your boy will be fine if he stays put,” Urim says, misunderstanding my sudden alarm.
Off to the side, Thummim’s decided to take part in the fun, sliding inside Arthur’s reach while Mordred hops backward, and punches Arthur in the chin. Arthur reels back, slips on the ground, and nearly loses Excalibur as he tries to right himself. Then the Dark Sidhe’s elbow connects with the back of his temple, and Arthur’s eyes roll back in his head.
I reach for my power, letting it rip out of me. Ribbons of flames whip out of my splayed hand, crackling and hissing as they come into contact with the snow. But with a savage growl, Urim twists my arm further up, and I lose all control in the pain that follows, the fire I summoned exploding in a shower of harmless sparks.
“Hush, he’s fine now, princess,” Urim says, as Thummim gently lays Arthur on the frozen ground. “Now watch as justice finally takes place.”
The Dark Sidhe forces my head around, and through the tears and sleet, I see Mordred’s tattooed back advance upon a cornered Luther, power radiating from him in waves.
“Do you know who I am?” my brother asks, stopping a couple feet away from the tall knight’s sword in challenge.
“Don’t give a rat’s ass who you are, demon,” Luther spits, eyes cold and calculating.
“It’s a shame, for I know a lot about you, Luther Pendragon,” Mordred says, a raw edge to his voice. “I know you betrayed my father to satisfy your base urges to bed his wife and take his place on this silly little Council of
yours. You should have killed me too, when you had the chance.”
Luther’s lips curl up as he puts two and two together. “Not for lack of trying,” he says. “But your parents had already tossed you out like the garbage you are, so I couldn’t find you.”
He kicks his last knight from behind, sending her crashing into Mordred. The woman lets out a surprised yelp, raising her sword at the last moment. But with a quick turn of his hips, Mordred dodges the weapon, and hits the knight on the forehead with the palm of his hand, before sidestepping her as she drops to her knees, unseeing eyes crying blood.
“At least you’re not denying it,” Mordred says, inching forward again.
Luther mirrors his movement, taking another step back, and bumps against the courtyard’s fountain.
“My question now to you is this,” Mordred continues, “Will you have the balls to fight me, or are you going to run for it, old man?”
Sword held defensively in front of him, Luther steps onto the wide basin, and thrusts his gloved fist down. Purple light blooms outward across the basin, the fountain’s ice cracking into hundreds of frozen splinters. Then Luther snaps his hand around, and the shards of ice rush straight at Mordred.
My brother laughs excitedly, flicking the icepicks aside to let them fall harmlessly to the ground.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, old man, or it’s going to be over too quickly,” he says.
Without waiting for an answer, Mordred rushes forward, black flames erupting from his extended fingers. I cringe inwardly at the sight. His power’s too similar to Carman’s and Dub’s, tainted. Like mine is.
Luther’s sword sings, cutting through the air. But my brother’s too quick, a flash of darkness that cannot be stopped. He ducks, slipping past the blade, then strikes. Luther winces as black fire licks his thigh, melding the iron of his cuisses[21] to his flesh. He tries to take another step, falters, then slips off the fountain in a crash of metal on stone.
Mordred lets out another chuckle. “Like I said, over too quickly.”
Bile rises to my throat. He’s like a leopard, toying with its food, taking cruel joy in the bestowing of pain and fear, all the while knowing he can take his victim’s life at any moment. Yet despite all the evidence, I still can’t accept that this is my brother’s true face.
“Mordred, stop it!” I shout.
I gasp in pain as Urim yanks hard on my arm to keep me subdued, but I’ve managed to make Mordred pause. He looks over his shoulder at me, confusion and anger warring on his tattooed face.
“After everything he’s done to our family, to you, you still want him to live?” he asks.
“Killing him is not the way to go,” I say feebly.
A sneer pulls at Mordred’s lips. “You’re only saying that because you’ve got a crush on his spawn. But that doesn’t excuse the sins of the father.”
Behind him, Luther tries again to crawl away, eyes wide with fear. And I finally see it, the dark, writhing mass extending from Mordred’s feet to the fountain, consuming all in its passage.
“Blood calls to blood, sis,” Mordred says, turning away from me.
He closes his fingers into a tight fist, and the tar sweeps up to take Luther out. There’s a startled shout to my left, then Arthur’s suddenly in front of his father, Excalibur held before him as the inky wave crashes over them.
Terror twists my insides viciously, and with a howl of rage, I let my power loose. This time, Urim jumps off me with a string of curses, holding his midsection like he’s just been stabbed. I haul myself to my feet, and bolt for the fountain.
I find Excalibur lying in a pool of blood, and I grab it without breaking stride, the sword pulsing in my good hand at my touch, as if in acknowledgment. In the span of a breath, I close the distance between me and Mordred, and swing Excalibur down, aiming for his head.
Searing pain lances down my arm, blurring my vision with tears. I clench my teeth, forcing myself to finish the strike, but at the last second, the blade swerves to the side, leaving Mordred unharmed.
“Did you just try to kill me?” Mordred asks, eyes wide in disbelief.
Excalibur falls from my numb fingers, and I stumble back, seething.
“You would choose him over your own flesh and blood?” Mordred continues.
“You killed him!” I shout, my voice breaking with a sob.
“He’s fine,” Mordred snaps.
He steps away, and behind him I can see Arthur helping Luther up, tar surrounding them like a dark moat, faint traces of a sylph’s shield still flickering in the cold air.
I look back at Mordred, the full weight of what I just tried to do dawning on me. I’m not sorry, not truly. Not after what he did. Yet the hurt that flashes on his face makes me doubt myself. I open my mouth to apologize, then clamp it shut again. There’s nothing I can say that’ll make any of this better.
That’s when the screams erupt. We both look up at the cloudy sky as it lights up a bright, fiery red somewhere to the north. And then I hear it, the steady pumping of giant wings beating at the air.
I forget to breathe.
“I had a feeling things might get to this,” Mordred says stiffly. “You should’ve stayed put, like I said.”
Behind him, Arthur raises both arms up, as if to wave the dragon over. Then his voice rings out sharply. “Tháinig anam sa dragan!”
I have to avert my gaze as light flares out from his raised hands, then a powerful double roar rends in the air.
“That’s only going to piss her off more,” Mordred states, sounding oddly calm. “You might want to leave now.”
But I can’t tear my eyes away from the two red dragons speeding through the sky to intercept Carman’s beast. They are half the size of the dragon I helped create, but they don’t hesitate. The chest of one lights up, ruby red in the waning day, long neck curved gracefully back. And as the black dragon bellows out its torrent of fire, the smaller one spews out its own jet of scorching flames to counter it.
The two streams of fire meet in a powerful explosion that sends burning embers showering down upon the Headquarters, and the second red dragon launches its attack.
“No way,” I breathe. “I thought all dragons were extinct!”
“All wild dragons,” Mordred says. “Where did you think the Pendragons got their name from?”
One of the smaller dragons shrieks as it dives in an attempt to rip the larger beast’s wing with its talons, missing by inches.
Mordred grabs my bad arm, and I suck in a breath as pain stabs at my dislocated shoulder. “You really should leave,” he says tightly, as the heat from another charge blazes above head.
I finally look away from the aerial battle. The world is carnage, disintegrating before my very eyes. Men and women trying to hold the assailants back while not tripping over their fallen comrades. Sneering and hissing demons crawling everywhere, eager to bring down everything that comes in their way, even their own.
“I said to get a move on, and—”
A tinkling laugh floats down to us over the wind. Mordred snatches his hand away. Carman’s hanging in the air, feet away from her own dragon, like the angel of death itself. And, caught in some invisible bindings beside her, are Lugh and Blanchefleur.
“Take cover and get ready to fire!” someone shouts.
I blink slowly as Inspector Bossart rushes around the crumbling dorms, frantically waving his arms about.
“Fall back, all of you!” the man shouts at a group of men huddling behind the crumbled wall of the dorms’ southern wing.
Men dressed in camo and carrying rifles.
The very ones who shot at me before.
Mordred laughs quietly, following my line of sight. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”
The militiamen start firing in rapid bursts, aiming at the flying beasts without distinction between them. Not that it matters; bullets, it appears, can’t pierce dragonhide. Still, the guns keep rattling, casings pinging off stone and masonry,
smoke rising from the barrels.
Then Carman swipes a bored hand around, and all at once the bullets reverse their course, a metal hail that’s going to take everyone with it. Time seems to slow, yet I can’t make myself move to stop this nightmare.
My chest hollows out, despair filling it instead. Why am I so powerless? Why can’t I undo the wrong I’ve done?
Warmth suddenly radiates through my body, nerves singing with power, and time seems to stop. I gasp as my feet lift off the ground, the force carrying me high above Caamaloth, until I’m face-to-face with Carman herself.
Her dark stare fixes me like I’m the plague-bringer. A vein throbs at her temple, hair stuck to her face by the storm. Yet, strangely, I feel no fear. She seems so little now, while I feel so big, so full of energy.
I exhale, the smallest of breathes, and the warm power bursts free, spilling out of my outstretched fingers in a kaleidoscope of colors to sweep through the whole compound like a tidal wave.
I watch as the light dissolves Lugh’s and Blanchefleur’s bindings, draining them of Carman’s poison, without the witch being able to do a thing. Below us, cries of awe and wonder arise as knights and Fey alike find themselves healed, pain and injuries erased in a heartbeat.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the magic dissolves, and I find myself drifting back down, unharmed.
“Traitor,” Mordred says, glaring at me.
I look at my hands in confusion. “That wasn’t me,” I say, though my fingers are still tingling with the last of the energy.
Jealousy flashes in my brother’s eyes, quickly replaced by disgust. But before he can retort, loud cheers erupt across the courtyard. We both look up to find that both Carman and her dragon have gone, not a single trace of them left in the clearing skies.
The tide has turned, and the demon ranks are already splintering away, choosing to flee like their leader before we can retaliate.
“Luther, don’t!” Arthur shouts.
I barely have the chance to see Arthur’s father lunge at Mordred with a long dagger before I fling my hands out. With a thunderous crack, the earth splits open between Mordred and Luther, forcing the latter to skid to a stop, before he can fall into the abyss.
Curse of the Fey: A Modern Arthurian Legend (Morgana Trilogy Book 3) Page 24
