And she had refused. In her arrogance, her own imposed morality, she had refused to exact that price from the Dwarves, or to pay it herself. Had refused to accept, at the last test, the responsibility of the Baelrath. And so now Tabor dan Ivor, hopelessly overmatched, was rising into the sky, into the wind, to pay the price for her refusal.
If he even could. If they weren’t all to pay that price. For the Dragon that was coming down upon them meant the end of everything. Kim knew it, and so did every person on the ridge or on the bloody plain below.
Stricken with a guilt that numbed her senses, Kim watched Imraith-Nimphais fight desperately to hold her place in the air against the annihilating whirlwind of the Dragon’s approach.
There was a hand gripping her shoulder: Gereint’s. She had no idea how the old shaman knew what she’d done, but nothing about Gereint could surprise her anymore. It was clear that he did know and was seeking, even here at the end, to comfort her—as if she had any claim, or right, to comfort.
Blinking tears from her eyes, she saw the monstrous, jointed, grey-black wings of the Dragon pound the air. The sun was lost; a huge, rushing blackness lay over the land. The Dragon opened its mouth. Kim saw Tabor let fell his sword. And then, unbelieving, stupefied, she saw the glorious creature he rode, gift of the Goddess, shining, double-edged, begin to move forward into the maelstrom, straight toward the obliterating vastness of the Dragon of Maugrim.
Beside her, Gereint was still on his feet despite the force of the wind, stony-faced, waiting. Someone cried out in fear and awe. The horn of Imraith-Nimphais was a dazzling thing of glory at the edge of night.
And then it was a blur, moving almost too fast to be seen, as she found, from somewhere in her being, an even greater, more defiant dimension of speed. And Kim finally realized what was happening, and just how the price would be paid.
“Teyrnon!” Paul Schafer cried suddenly, at the top of his voice, screaming it over the wind. “Quickly! Be ready!”
The mage threw him a startled glance, but Barak, without questions asked, fought to his feet, closed his eyes, and braced himself.
And in that instant they saw Tabor thrown free.
Then Imraith-Nimphais met the Dragon and a fireball exploded in the sky, too bright to look upon.
“Teyrnon!” Paul screamed again.
“I see him!” the mage shouted back. Sweat was pouring down his face. His hands were outstretched to their fullest extent, reaching. Power surged from them in shimmering waves, as he struggled to break the fall of the boy tumbling helplessly earthward from so high.
The Dragon crashed to the ground with a sound like a mountain falling. All around Kim, people tumbled like dominoes to the trembling earth. Somehow Gereint kept his balance, staying upright beside her, one hand still on her shoulder.
And so, too, did Teyrnon and Barak. But as Kim looked up, she saw that Tabor was still falling, if slowly, spinning like some discarded toy.
“He’s too far!” Teyrnon cried in despair. “I can’t stop him!” He tried, though. And Barak, shaking in every limb, fought to source the magic that could break that terrible fall.
“Look!” said Paul.
Out of the corner of her eye Kim saw a flashing movement on the plain. She turned. A raithen of Daniloth was streaking westward over the ground. Tabor fell headfirst, slowed by Teyrnon’s magic but unconscious, unable to help himself. The raithen shot over the ground like a golden and silver brother of Imraith-Nimphais herself. On its back, Arthur Pendragon let fall the King Spear and rose to stand in the stirrups. The raithen gathered itself and leaped. And as it did, Arthur stretched forward and up toward the boy spinning down out of the sunlight, and with his strong hands he caught Tabor as he fell and cradled him against his chest as the raithen slowed and stopped.
Racing in his wake, Lancelot leaned sideways in his saddle and reclaimed the fallen spear. Then together the two of them sped southward up the rise of land, to halt on the ridge where Kim stood, and Gereint, and all the others watching there.
“He is all right, I think,” the Warrior said tersely. Tabor was ash white but seemed otherwise unhurt. Kim could see him breathing.
She looked at Arthur. There was blood all over his body; one deep gash above his eye was bleeding freely, partially blinding him. Kim moved forward and waited until he had handed Tabor down to be taken by a great many hands; then she made Arthur dismount while she tended his wound as best she could. She could see the ruin of Lancelot’s palm, even through the glove he wore, but there was nothing, really, that she or anyone else could do about that. Behind her, Jaelle and Sharra were dealing with Tabor, and Loren had knelt beside Barak, who had collapsed. They would recover, she knew. They both would, though Tabor would carry an inner wound that only time might salve. If time were granted them. If they were allowed to go forward from today.
Impatiently, Arthur endured her ministrations. He was speaking constantly as she worked on him, relaying crisp instructions to the auberei gathered around. One of them he sent to Ivor, with word of his youngest son. Down on the plain the army of Light was battling again, with a passion and hope that the afternoon had not yet seen. Glancing down, Kim saw Aileron carving a lethal swath through the urgach and wolves with Diarmuid’s men beside him, moving forward and to the east, struggling to link with the Dwarves in the center.
“We have a chance now,” Teyrnon said, gasping with fatigue. “Tabor has given us a chance.”
“I know,” said Arthur. He turned away from Kim, preparing to race back down.
Then she saw him stop. Beside him, Lancelot’s face had gone ashen, as pale as Tabor’s was. Kim followed their gaze and felt her heart thud with a pain beyond words.
“What is it?” Gereint asked urgently. “Tell me what you see!”
Tell him what she saw. She saw, at this moment, even as hope seemed to have been reborn out of fiery death, an end to hope.
“Reinforcements,” she said. “A great many, Gereint. A very great many coming from the north to join their army. Too many, shaman. I think there are too many.” There was a silence on the ridge. Then: “There must not be,” Gereint said calmly.
Arthur turned at the quiet words. There was a passion in his eyes beyond anything Kim had seen there before. He said, in echo, “You are right, shaman. There must not be.” And the raithen leaped down the ridge, bearing the Warrior back to war.
For one second only, Lancelot lingered. Kim saw him look, as if against his will, to Guinevere, who was gazing back at him. Not a word was said between them but a farewell was in the air, and a love that even now was still denied the solace and release of being spoken.
Then he, too, drew his sword again and stormed back to the battle down below.
Beyond the battlefield, north of it, the plain of Andarien was lost to sight, dark with the roiling movements of the advancing second wave of Rakoth’s army: a wave, Kim saw, almost as large as the first had been, and the first had been too large. The Dragon was dead, but that hardly seemed to matter. It had only bought them time, a little time, shaped in fire to be paid with blood, but leading to the same ending, which was the Dark.
“Are we lost?” asked Jaelle, looking up from where she knelt by Tabor.
Kim turned to her, but it was Paul who made reply, among all the people gathered there.
“Perhaps,” he said, in a voice that suddenly carried more than his own cadences. “It is likely, I’m afraid. But there is one last random thread left for us, among all the weavings of this day, and I will not concede dominion to the Dark until that thread is lost.”
Even as he spoke, Kim’s own knowledge came sweeping over her, in an image like a dream. She looked at Jennifer for an instant, and then her gaze went north, beyond the battlefields, beyond the thunderous approach of Maugrim’s reinforcements—they had been seen now, down below; there were cries of harsh, wild triumph rising everywhere—beyond the blackened line of fire-ravaged earth that marked where the Dragon had flown. Beyond all these, far, far beyond, Kim looked toward a place she’d only seen in a vision given her by Eilathen, rising from his lake so long ago.