The Duke turned away to hide a sudden look of fear, trembling.
“Turn not away!” Rod barked. “Face me, coward, and give answer—what child was this?”
“Indeed, do stay,” the faery duke murmured. “Or wilt thou so straightaway abandon this thy King?”
“The King!” Foidin gasped, whirling back. “Nay, assuredly, thou shalt not keep him—for if thou dost, my power fails!” He stared at the faery duke, drawn and palsied, nerving himself up to it—then his hand flashed to his sword.
The faery duke snapped his fingers contemptuously, and Foidin doubled over a sudden stabbing pain. “Aieeengggh!”
Gwen seized the moment; Rod’s sword shot out of its scabbard to slash his bonds, then whirled to cut Gwen’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Magnus’s little blade shearing his ropes; then he sailed into the faery duke, knocking him back by sheer surprise, over Rod’s knee, Rod’s dagger at his throat. “Release my family, milord—or feel cold iron in your veins.”
But Magnus had slashed his siblings’ bonds, and he and Geoff were holding off a band of spriggans, who were throwing stones but retreating steadily before the boys’ swords. Gwen and Cordelia crouched, waiting, as the faery band ran forward with a shout, glowing blades whipping through the air. “Now!” Gwen cried, and a hail of stones shot toward the faeries, bruising and breaking. Some screamed, but most pressed on—and the thrown stones whirled back to strike at them again.
Duke Foidin saw his chance to curry favor, and whipped out his blade. “Nay, Theofrin,” he grunted around his pain, “I will aid thee!” And he leaped forward, blade slashing down at Rod.
Rod had no choice; his sword snapped up to guard, and Theofrin whiplashed out of his arms as though they were rubber. The Duke’s blade slid aside on Rod’s, but the faery duke Theofrin seized Rod’s sword arm, snatched him high, whirled him through the air, and tossed him to the ground as though he’d been a bag of kindling. Rod shouted, and the shout turned into a shriek as he hit and felt something move where it shouldn’t. His shoulder screamed raw pain. Through its haze, he struggled to his knees, right arm hanging limp—and saw Theofrin stalking towards him, elf-sword flickering about like a snake’s tongue.
Beyond him, Duke Foidin and his men frantically parried faery blades; his try for favor hadn’t worked. One courtier howled as a faery blade stabbed through him, and whipped back out; blood spurted from his chest, and he collapsed.
And Theofrin’s blade danced closer. Rod whipped out his dagger—what else did he have left? Theofrin sneered, and lunged; Rod parried, but the faery duke had overreached, and Rod flicked his dagger-blade out to nick the faery’s hand. The faery shrieked at the touch of cold iron, and clasped his wounded hand, the elfin sword dropping to the ground. Rod staggered to his feet, and waded forward. Theofrin’s face contorted with a snarl; his own dagger whisked out, left-handed.
“Papa!” Magnus’s scream cut through the battle. Rod’s head snapped up; he saw his eldest on the ground, spread-eagled, struggling against invisible bonds. A tall, thin faery stood above him, face lit with glee, as he chopped downward with his sword.
Adrenalin shocked through him, and Rod charged. Theofrin stepped to block his path. Rod barrelled into him, dagger-First, and the faery duke skipped aside with a howl of rage, the cold-iron dagger barely missing his ribs. Then Rod’s shoulder caught his son’s adversary in the midriff, and the sword-cut went wide, slicing his dangling right hand. Rod bellowed with the pain, but caught the hilt and wrenched the sword free. He howled again; it was cold, burning his flesh like dry ice; but he clung to it, lunging after the faery, stabbing. The sword cut into the faery’s belly, and it folded with a scream, sprawling on the ground. Rod didn’t stay to see if it were dead; he whirled back to his son, and saw the blood flowing from Magnus’s shoulder as he struggled up on one elbow, the invisible bonds gone with the faery whose spell had forged them. “Magnus!” Rod clasped the boy to him. “What’ve they done to you!”
“Just… a cut…” the boy choked out. His eyes had lost focus. “Couldn’t break his spell, Papa… Strange… too strong…” Then he collapsed across Rod’s arm.
Panic shot through Rod as he stared at his eldest son, dread clawing up into his throat. It couldn’t be—so full of life! He couldn’t be…
“Dead?”
A metal point pricked his throat. Rod looked up, and saw Theofrin grinning down, with glowing, gloating eyes. “Dead, as thou shalt be! Yet not too quickly. I’ll have thine entrails forth for this fell insult, mortal, and pack hot coals in their place, whilst yet thou livest! Thy wife shall be our drudge and whore, thy children slaves, with torques about their necks!” His mouth twisted in contempt. “Warlock, dost thou name thyself? An thou hadst been such, there’d have truly been a battle royal! Hadst thou been Lord Kern, now, our faery ropes would have crumbled ere they touched thee; our spriggans would have turned to stone! Cold iron in a thousand guises would have filled the air about thee, and thine every step would have waked the sound of church bells!”
Then Rod heard Gwen scream in rage. He darted a glance toward her, saw her kneeling with Cordelia and Geoffrey clasped against her. She had caught three fallen swords with her mind, and they wove a deadly dance about her, warding off a dozen faery courtiers; but the faeries’ blades all flickered closer, closer…
“They are not done with her, quite yet,” Theofrin said. “They’ll play with her a while longer, then beat down her witch-swords. Then will they play with her again, and her witchling with her. When that is done, if they feel merciful, they may then slay them.” His eyes gleamed with a chill, self-satisfied light.
Rod glared up at him, terror for his family boiling into anger. He shot that energy into a craving wish for steel to fill the air, for church bells to ring—anything, to banish this fell faery!
And up beneath his rage it mounted, that sense of a kindly, outraged presence, a spirit other than his, reassuring him, but smashing out with all Rod’s rage in one huge hammer blow.
Distantly, a bell began to toll.
Closer at hand, another bell began to peal.
Then another joined it, and another, north, east, south, and west—and more, and more, till the bells in every village church for miles around must have been clamoring.
He’d done it! He’d broken through his barrier, through to Gwen—and she’d set the bells to ringing!
The faery duke looked up, horrified; his glow seemed to dim. Then he threw back his head and let out a howl of rage. It echoed from every side as his court picked it up, till the whole of the glen was one huge scream.
Then, still screaming, they flew. A door swung open in the mound, and the faery folk lifted off the ground and whisked away toward it, like dry leaves borne on a whirlwind.
The duke tarried a moment, glaring down at Rod. “I know not by what magics thou hast wrought this, wizard—yet be assured, I shall avenge it!” Then he shot up off the ground and towards the mound, with a long, drawn-out scream of wrath, that dwindled and cut off as the mound’s door shut. For minutes more, there was screaming still, muted and distant, inside the knowe; then all was quiet. Moonlight showed a peaceful glen, silver leaves tinkling in the breeze; only a circle of flattened grass remained, to show where the fairies had danced.
And the Duke Foidin, and his henchmen. The Duke stood staring at the fairy mound; then, slowly, his eyes moved over the glen, till they fastened on Rod. He stared; then a leering grin broke his face, and he moved forward.
Slowly, Rod laid Magnus’s body down and rose to his feet, albeit shakily, dagger at the ready.
Gwen turned and saw. Then she shifted her gaze, seeking and finding Rod’s fallen sword. It lifted itself from the ground and shot to his side, point toward Duke Foidin, circling in the air. Through the numbed sorrow that filled him, Rod felt the comfort of her support. “Whoever dies, milord, thou shalt be first.”