Graymon wiggled and fought against the arm, slashed at it with the dagger, but a hand grabbed his wrist. The boy looked over his shoulder and saw his father’s face looming above him.
“Da!”
But his father wasn’t looking at him, he didn’t respond. Instead, he glared at the woman and made a much better angry face than Graymon had been capable of; angrier than he’d ever seen his father.
“Ah. The traitor king has returned.”
Graymon’s feet dangled above the ground as his father backed away. The boy looked from his father to the woman. She didn’t look amused anymore; her faced looked even angrier than his da’s. Hatred and rage twisted and warped her face, dissolved her beauty. Her lips pulled back to reveal gleaming teeth, sharp with points; her hair whipped out behind her as though she stood in the midst of a hurricane; she seemed to grow taller.
The woman held the glowing green staff in both hands in front of her and brought the butt end down hard against the ground. Thunder clapped, lightning jumped toward the sky and the earth rumbled. Behind her, a tornado of white smoke and snow rose up, swirling and twisting higher and higher, expanding wider and wider until it blotted out the sky.
Therrador put Graymon down, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him away.
“Run,” his father yelled.
***
“Get him,” Athryn snapped, but Therrador had already taken off after his son. “I must begin the spell.”
“Do you have to?”
Emeline’s voice held a pleading tone and anger flashed through Athryn. He wanted to ask her why she should show concern for him now, after what she’d done to his friend, but he bit back his ire and gestured at the wound in Khirro’s belly instead. Blood still oozed from it, though the flow had ebbed.
“If not this, he will die anyway, then we lose both Khirro and Braymon. And the kingdom.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Therrador scoop Graymon up in his arm.
“I have to begin.”
Emeline lowered her head and touched Khirro’s cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
Athryn traced his fingers along the tattooed lines on his torso, felt their power flow up his fingers, along his arms, and into his chest to infuse the air in his lungs. The charged air rose into his throat and spilled out of his mouth in words of a language he didn’t know. Finger traced, lips spoke; this is how it needed to be since Maes died and his magic returned. His flesh went cold and numb; sweat beaded on his forehead. A vibration started at his knees and shook its way up his spine.
Khirro gasped a sudden breath and Emeline cried out in concern, but Athryn didn’t let it distract him. The arcane words tumbled from his lips fluently, though his mouth had never formed them before and they felt uncomfortable on his tongue. The world narrowed to Khirro lying on the ground in front of him, Emeline and Iana at his periphery, the sound of the chant collecting in his ears, multiplying in his head.
Dimly through it he heard a crack of thunder, sensed a flash of light. The ground quivered beneath him with a vibration greater than what might accompany the casting of a spell; he focused on his words, on tracing the scrollwork’s path. Power built inside him, churning, straining to break free. He closed his eyes and concentrated on control as his finger continued its path, his lips continued their words.
In the distance, somewhere outside himself, he heard a voice strained with urgency. It came closer and a second voice joined it, this one higher pitched, a woman. He heard his name amongst the words they spoke and focused tighter, concentrated harder to shut them out, to keep from being pulled out of the spell and have the power welling up inside him dissipate.
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, grasping it, shaking him. Athryn stopped chanting and opened his eyes.
Emeline stood over Khirro, her hair whipped by strong wind Athryn hadn’t felt in his trance, her face distorted with fear. She gripped Iana tight against herself as the baby wailed. Therrador stood beside Athryn-it was his hand on his shoulder-and Graymon was beside him. Thunder rumbled across the sky bringing goose bumps to the magician’s bare chest.
He struggled to his feet and looked around.
Green lightning flickered and jumped from the staff in the woman’s hand, flashing out to strike down the living or raise the dead, depending on which it touched. A host of her newly-raised soldiers ambled along behind her, fresh wounds dripping, weapons covered with the blood of the men now marching beside them. Behind them rose a wall of cloudy white smoke and snow that hid the horizon and reached to the top of the sky.
Athryn bent and retrieved the Mourning Sword from where it lay on the ground beside his fallen friend, then nodded to Therrador. The king guided his son to Emeline and put the boy’s hand in hers. He touched Graymon’s cheek and his lips moved, whispering words of love, a promise, then he returned to Athryn’s side.
“You must stay with Khirro,” Athryn said to Emeline as he and Therrador started toward the Archon. “Without him, all is lost. Your love for him can keep him alive until I return.”
If I return.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
For the first time in his life, Therrador wanted nothing more than to flee from the fight before him, to turn and run and leave the fighting to someone else. He imagined himself scooping Graymon up in his arms, taking the boy away somewhere safe, and leaving the kingdom in the grip of the madwoman into which he’d delivered it.
Not much of a king.
Instead, he pressed forward-likely to his death-at the side of a man he didn’t know as his son watched.
The first wave of dead men rushed them, putting any thought but survival from the king’s mind. He should have been too exhausted to wield his sword, but knowing his son crouched a few yards away, and that letting one of the things past would surely mean the boy’s death, brought energy and urgency to his limbs.
Beside him, the magician hacked and hewed their adversaries, fighting with a ferocity Therrador wouldn’t have expected from a magic-user. The blade of the Mourning Sword glowed first red like the blood for which it thirsted, then orange and yellow, and back to red again. It shone on the faces of the men it cut down, reflected in their armor before cleaving it in two. Heads rolled and bodies fell as they made their way toward the woman.
Therrador’s sword found the eye of the last standing soldier of the first wave of undead, and he looked up, ready for the next attack. There was none. The other dead men hung back, standing on either side of the woman and behind her, the snowy wall of white mist pressing close behind them.
The king’s gaze fell on the woman. She stood with her legs spread to shoulder width, her arms extended as if awaiting his embrace; the sight of her stole the breath from his chest. His eyes moved slowly from her face to her neck, then her chest, his gaze flowing over her body like honey. His sword drooped in his grasp and he forgot what reason had brought him to this place.
Why should I want to kill such a beautiful creature?
The woman smiled, laughed with a sound like gold, her teeth pearls, her eyes sapphires. The hatred and rage in Therrador’s chest loosened and his mouth opened to profess his love.
Before his throat struggled the words into being, a yellow glow fell on the woman. Her smile faded and she diverted her eyes. Therrador’s chest lurched at the precious gift of her attention taken away, wrung from his heart so suddenly.
The glow brightened, illuminating the woman without shadow, without deceit. Her pearly teeth became fangs dripping venomous saliva, her sapphire eyes flashed jealousy and disgust, her laughter became the growl and roar of a beast.