Fury roared through Ashe; he found himself stepping forward, then stopped, waiting for the sign that the Thrall had taken.
Achmed jerked his arm, drawing the threads of the wind taught with a snap.
Michael’s eyes widened; even from the distance they could see the white gleam suddenly in the gray haze.
His body lurched slightly in Achmed’s direction.
The Dhracian’s excruciating song grew louder.
As Achmed slowly approached the edge of the precipice, balancing the invisible web of wind, he noticed Ashe shifting his grip on Kirsdarke’s hilt.
Michael stood as if thunderstruck, watching them approach, his sword hilt in hand, not moving.
When they were within a few paces of the seneschal, Achmed wrapped the net of wind tighter, and gave it another pull.
Michael’s arm wrenched back.
Ashe began his approach, lifting Kirsdarke, its blade running in frothing rapids of blue and white, aiming for the seneschal’s throat.
With a vicious sweep, Michael sliced through the air in the direction of the Dhracian, severing the ropes of wind.
Hrekin! I should have known, Achmed thought as he desperately tried to gather the tattered threads of the Thrall.
Michael gestured savagely and Achmed felt his breath ripped from his body, choking off his strange song in midnote.
A gust of wind exploded over him, blasting him into the air, hurtling him off the promontory and far into the sea.
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Ashe reared back in shock as the Bolg king’s body flew over the edge of the cliff. He raced the few steps to the point of the precipice and pointed the sword at the pounding surf, reaching into his own elemental bond to the sea, commanding it to bring forth a wave to catch the Dhracian and speed him away from the rocks, knowing that while it would spare him death from the impact, it would not save him from drowning.
Michael threw back his head and laughed into the wind; the breeze caught the dual tones of his voice, the joyous chortle of the man, the harsh, cackling screech of the demon.
“You did this in jest, did you not?” he said to Ashe, who was staring desperately between the waves, searching for signs of Achmed’s black robes. “You thought you could contain me with a Thrall ritual? I command the wind, you fool. I am the wind, the Wind of Fire, the Wind of Death.” His voice grew harsher as the demon came forth, causing the clear blue eyes to redden at the edges.
“I will eat your soul,” he said as he moved closer to Ashe, the blade of his weapon finally visible, the outline burning with black fire. “I will keep you alive for a while, however; tonight you can come with me to the ship. Before I let the crew bugger and keelhaul you, I’ll grant you a boon; I’ll let you watch me violate your lovely wife, who is mine to play with now.”
Ashe gripped Kirsdarke’s hilt, breathing shallowly.
MacQuieth’s voice rang out, as if in his palm.
Go. Save him.
He turned and looked behind him. The ancient hero was standing erect, his body rehydrating as if with the elemental power of the water sword.
Leave this to me, Ashe heard in his mind; it was as though the words were vibrating through Kirsdarke’s hilt into his hand, through his heart and to his brain. They were not spoken lightly, but with grave depth, the command of a Kinsman, his kinsman, his ancestor.
The Kirsdarkenvar.
If you remember but one thing about me, remember this: I have never failed to complete a quest that I undertook alone.
Ashee turned to MacQuieth began to offer him the sword, holding its hilt to him.
The old man shook his head. Ashe heard the voice one last time.
He may command the wind, but I am the sword.
In his mind he recalled the words the soldier had spoken in the dark of the crumbling shack the night before.
The sea is the one thing that still touches us all. Earth is broken, wind is lost, fire is quenched, The waters touch us all.
Kirsdarke is our sword.
Ashe grasped the sword tightly, the frenetic currents of power running through his arm, changing his mass, the water within him, so that it was vaporous, sea spray. With the last of his corporeal strength he bowed slightly to his forefather, and then, with a great leap, followed Achmed into the sea.
Rhapsody was floating at the edge the tidal cave, her back braced against the wall, clinging to the mat of igneous rocks, when she heard the voices, the shouts of the men above.
“Cave down here, m’lord!”
No, gods, no, she thought. He has found me.
She grasped tighter hold of the mat and slowly, agonizingly inched closer to the edge of the cave, staring out in her muddy vision at the swirling water beyond. The tide was low; if she went now, they would see her, but if she stayed —
There was no alternative.
Come, my child, she thought, taking a great breath and reaching, her hand slippery, around the outside edge of the cave. Now for it.
With all her strength she pushed the mat out ahead of her, diving beneath the waves and kicking off the wall with as much force as her legs could summon.
The current caught her and dragged her down immediately, swirling in a vortex of spray and rock. Immediately the breath was torn from her lungs and she struggled not to breathe, her body battered by the crags beneath the surface.
Tumbling, whirling end over end, she clung to the mat, its buoyancy useless in the overwhelming flood of the tide.
Rhapsody was suddenly lifted by the swell that dragged her, powerless and choking, whisking her rapidly out to sea. She was vaguely aware of bodies falling or hanging from the cliff wall above her, but all other thought, other reason, was lost in the mad roar of the waves.
The seneschal watched in amazement as the second man who had threatened him leapt from the cliff.
He turned to the last, the half-figure, expecting to see some third champion, some last show of this land’s muster against him, noting in surprise that it seemed healthier, somewhat taller and broader now, but was still nothing more than an old man in ragged clothes, approaching with a half-smile on his wrinkled face. With a deep bow Michael stepped aside and presented the cliff’s edge.
“Pray, don’t let me stop you,” he grinned. “By all means, throw yourself off as well.”
“Come to me,” the old man said.
Michael’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon?” he said, more puzzled than angry, at least for the moment. “You must be addled, old man; clearly you do not see where you are, or have any idea to whom you are speaking.”
“No, I do know,” the aged man answered. “But I was not speaking to you.”
The seneschal rolled his eyes, irritated now, then stopped when the realization came over him.
The old man was speaking in the harsh guttural tones of the language of the F’dor.
“Who are you?” he demanded, raising Tysterisk menacingly.
“I am one is who far more hospitable than you, Michael,” the man said, walking closer. “A much better host. I have lived longer than you have, without even a sword for a crutch, nor any help from a demonic guest; my elemental power precedes yours in the order of birth of the Creator’s gifts. I am stronger, and truer, and a better choice than you in every way. I would have killed you long ago if you had not been the coward that you are, would have torn your life from your useless body and buried you in a midden or a pile of manure, so that as you rotted at least some good would come of you one day.” He stopped within reach of the seneschal. “I am the black lion. He who stands in the shadow of the king. The queen’s champion. And after escaping me all these years, I am finally come for you. But it is not you I want.”
The seneschal began to tremble with a mixture of rage and terror, his hand gripping the sword.
“MacQuieth,” he whispered, “you should have died with the Island.”
“And you should have died long before. It matters not what should have happened, only what happens now.” MacQuieth put out his han
d in a gesture of welcome and spoke in the dark and ancient tongue again. “Come. Abandon him. He will only disappoint you ultimately, if he has not already.”
The seneschal lifted his free hand and pointed it, palm front, at the ancient warrior. Instantly a swirl of black fire appeared and billowed forth, fed by the wind, blasting over the old man in front of him.
It burned for a second in the hot air, then fizzled, snuffed as if by a wet cloth.
MacQuieth merely stared at him.
Fury blackened Michael’s brow. With a vicious swing, he sliced at MacQuieth’s throat, only to hear the voice in his head speak commandingly, bringing him up short.
Stop.
MacQuieth did not move.
Within his mind, the seneschal could feel the demon considering its options.
Michael clenched his teeth to quell his panic and rage. “Surely you are not fool enough to consider him? You have the master of Wind; you yourself are the servant of Fire! What good would water do you? If you want another sword I’ll dredge the bay where the last fool dropped it. You can’t accomplish your burnings with water. This man is a husk!” He stepped forcefully through the demon’s command and resumed his swing.
MacQuieth’s left arm came up sharply against the flat of the sword. Michael’s blow went high, and he stepped back, the edge of the precipice now at his heels.
All of the Seren history, the reports of his scouts, all he had forced from his memory about this nemesis came rushing back to mind. He tried to suppress it, tried to clear his mind of the fear, the jealousy, the awe in which he had held the ancient warrior, the king’s shadow, the queen’s champion, hated himself for his grudging admiration, his loathsome inadequacy in the face of the warrior’s reputation, his unparalleled might. Michael tried to forget the day he had taken the demon’s offer, had escaped this ancient hunter, the craven relief he had felt being spared from MacQuieth, he believed, for all time.
But he could not force any of it from his mind.
Because the F’dor remembered it, too.
The demon was leafing through him. It was preparing to choose.
He stood, almost slack, on the edge, his eyes frantically scanning MacQuieth, noting with vague, detached interest that he could see a dangling hand. He appeared to have broken the old man’s arm; slashed it; one of the forearm bones jutted sharply through the skin, blood spurting quietly around it.
What kind of man seeks out a duel and brings neither armor nor sword? he wondered.
The F’dor was at that moment asking the same question.
With a slight smile that had no joy in it, the ancient hero spoke.
“Does this mean you yourself are not already master of fire alone, Michael? A pity. Without acting as a host, on my own I have been to the soft places beneath the sea.”
The hush of this whisper quenched the wind. It took Michael a moment to realize the import of this terrible utterance.
MacQuieth knew the entrance to the Vault of the Underworld.
For the first time in years, the demon in his mind was silent, contemplating the possibilities.
In the depths of his brain, Michael felt its loyalty shift like a scale plate that had fallen to the earth with a thudding certainty.
The seneschal’s face contorted with rage.
“You want him?” he screamed. “Go to him! I will kill you both!”
He leapt on the ancient warrior, blood in his eyes.
MacQuieth opened his arms and threw them around Michael’s waist, catching him low, slamming him to the rocky ground of the promontory. As they grappled, MacQuieth stretched his mouth up so that it was just outside of Michael’s ear.
“Waste of Breath,” he said with a derisive snort. He reared back, staring down at the man beneath him on the ground.
Then he drove the jagged, exposed bone of his forearm into the seneschal’s abdomen.
Michael gasped.
With a burst of strength, a wave of energy that caught the demonic thrall off balance like a sudden swell of the sea, MacQuieth pushed as hard as he could against the rocky ground of the promontory, raising the impaled seneschal and himself to a stand at its edge.
Michael struggled for purchase, too close to bring even the ephemeral blade to bear, he smashed the Kinsman against the face with the air sword, striping his eyes with blood, gashing him open with cruel, gaping wounds from the weapon’s edge, but he could not get a grip on the ground.
Suddenly it seemed as if he were floating at the crest of surf, buoyant, without limitations, in the wake of a great rolling wave.
He saw the ground and sky flash intermittently as the cliff edge rolled closer. Michael made a final grab for the edge of the promontory and missed, swept up in the flood that was the man clinging to his body, piercing his flesh with the warrior’s own bone, violating him, swallowing his demonic soul.
Knocking Tysterisk from his hand.
Michael felt darkness swallow his mind as the power of the wind sucked from his body and soul in one horrific rending sound.
He could feel in the recesses of his mind the demon searching madly for a different host, anything to flee to, but MacQuieth had made certain that escape was impossible; even the horses had been left too far away to refugee into.
Through the pain Michael tried to call to the wind to hold him aloft, but it barely slowed their descent. It was as if the ocean itself already weighed him down.
His scream blended with the howl of the wind and was lost in the fall to the rocks below.
Achmed pitched at the crest of the wave that caught him, flailing helplessly in the wide expanse of the sea.
Don’t panic, he willed himself. Don’t panic.
The overwhelming immensity of the waves caught him, cloaking his senses, stinging his skin like acid. He struggled not to breathe, not to succumb, trying to resist the torrent that held him, knowing if he could just relax long enough to get out to sea the waves would calm and he would be able to float.
But he didn’t have it in him.
The endless green water closed over his head; the myriad vibrations that assailed his senses every waking moment suddenly went silent, replaced by the muted noise, the deep, murky thudding of the sea that now enclosed him like the sky.
The last hazy thought in Achmed’s head before the breath was squeezed out of him was a memory from the old world. It was the recollection of a day when, on horseback and girded in full chain mail, a bridge had given way beneath him, tossing him and his mount into the great river that bisected the Island, swollen and roaring with the rains of spring. It was the closest he had ever come to death that was not of his own choosing, and the panic, the helplessness as his body was flung about in a flood of confusion came rushing back to him now, closing the darkness in around him.
He was losing consciousness when a firm, strong grip that seemed to grow ever more solid caught him by the neck and dragged him up out of the quiet green depths and into the cold, bright realm of the air again.
“Peace,” Ashe said, “I have you. Float now.”
The two men hovered for what seemed like forever, watching the cliff in the distance anxiously, bobbing in the rolling waves.
Ashe stretched out his draconic senses, trying to find a likely place to make landfall. In dismay he watched, holding Achmed’s head above the surface of the water, as an indelible image flashed into his mind’s eye.
Two falling men were locked in mortal and immortal combat, a demonic shadow in the breech between them. Wedged together in body, bone impaling flesh, and locked in spirit, a bridge of black fire and evil from before the dawn of Time, the entity that had once been Michael was flailing desperately, struggling to separate himself from the grimly determined Kirsdarkenvar, whose ancient mien was set in an aspect of concentrated calm. As the bodies pitched off the cliff, just before they impacted the rocks below, Ashe was knocked momentarily senseless by the wave of elemental power that had entered the sea, merging wind and water and dark fire in a miasma too overwhelmi
ng for his dragon senses to bear. He struggled to hang on to consciousness and braced for the impact of the tidal wave that was rising from where the two had fallen.
A plume of steam and black fire shot into the sky; the sea at the foot of the cliff boiled to its depths, lighting the cliff face and covering the surface of the ocean with a rapidly approaching wave of froth.
“Hang on,” Ashe said to the Bolg king as the swell approached; it was half as high as the cliff, churning madly as it came.
Ahead of the wave a body tumbled, rolling along the crest of a foreswell, curled around something buoyant that kept dragging it up again.
“Gods,” Ashe whispered, treading water, clinging to Achmed as the wave approached. “Oh, gods. Take a breath.”
He dove, with Achmed in tow, swimming parallel to the current, knifing through the water as the first shock of waves swelled underneath them, then passed.
The dragon in his blood, primed by the blast of power, had caught a flash of golden hair in the wreckage that was being dragged out to sea.
Faced with a lack of free hands, and the need to hold up a drowning man, catch his wife, or lose the weapon to which his soul was tied, without hesitation Ashe let go of the sword he had carried as Kirsdarkenvar, allowing it slip into the spinning green depths. He reached out and snagged the ratty mass floating in the wake of the wave and turned it over quickly.
“Oh gods,” he gasped, shaking the stunned Dhracian’s arm. “Rhapsody.”
A larger foreswell to the oncoming wall of water broke over them, death’s harbinger. Awash in a buoyant green world that spun around him, Ashe dragged his wife’s limp body against his chest, holding her in the crook of his arm, struggling to hang on to the Firbolg king, who was only semiconscious and trying not to flounder.
The sky above him roiled in green and black, as caustic steam blasted the air from the battle of the elements raging between MacQuieth and Michael, the ancient Kirsdarkenvar and the Wind of Fire. The cliff faces in the distance disappeared, swallowed by the churning seas and the smoke.
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