Only then did Elynna realize that a wall of Undeani warriors had closed in behind them. She could not have fled if she had wanted to. Their line of spears stretched from the northern spur of the mountain to the southern, blocking her companions’ retreat.
She was not the only one to notice. “We’re betrayed,” Hruach shouted.
“What do we do?” Aram asked in a low voice. “It should be easy enough to break through the line of warriors, but where would we escape to?”
“Escape?” Cane laughed. “It is not we who need to escape. What is there to fear? We came to destroy, not to be destroyed.” He reached down into his shirt and withdrew the stone. It now glowed in his hand. An instant later, he drew his sword and lifted it high over his head. The blade burst into bright blue flames. He laughed again, more loudly and wildly. “Yes. It is we who will destroy, and we will begin right here with the Gaergaen and the traitorous Undeani.”
The Undeani warriors backed up. As the flame on Cane’s blade grew larger and brighter, several of them bolted for safety, and their line broke. Even the Gaergaen looked surprised. Elynna could sense his power falter.
But the scene had not yet played itself out. There was another power also—another familiar presence nearby searing Elynna’s mind and clouding her thoughts. As Cane stepped toward the throne with his flaming sword, the Gaergaen rose to his feet. He picked up his staff and banged it into the dais. The ground shook beneath their feet, and the great stone hall boomed with a terrifying explosion. Elynna stumbled and covered her ears. Cane halted as the ground beneath him rocked.
A second time the Gaergaen slammed the floor with his staff, and again the earth shook. Cane stumbled. The confidence slipped from his face, but he regained his balance and continued on. Three steps. Four. Five. The blue flames engulfed his whole arm now. With each step the flames intensified. Cane was rife with power. Soon the flames rose twice his height. Yet he was still fifty feet from the throne—too far away to strike a blow. A third time the Gaergaen’s staff came down. Red light flashed like a lightning bolt from the top of the staff. The flames about Cane dimmed as a bolt of red light beat against the blue.
Then came the shouts from behind. Elynna turned in time to see the Undeani warriors fleeing. The wall of spears that had prevented their escape crumbled away. The momentary relief that they would not have to fight a human enemy did not last long, though. Too late Elynna recognized the other presence she had sensed. Though she could not see it, she knew by the power of her gift.
The Daegmon had come.
An instant after she identified it, the creature’s screech filled the air, echoing off the mountain walls around the village. “Look out,” Elynna cried. “The Daegmon is upon us.”
The company burst into motion. Bandor and Anchara had already drawn their bows. Two shafts flew together toward the throne. The Gaergaen laughed. Red flames leapt from his staff and engulfed the arrows before they reached him.
On the other side, the massive winged shape of the Daegmon dropped down into the village, filling the gap vacated by the retreating Undeani and again blocking the companions’ escape. Elynna had seen the creature many times. She had watched it destroy her village. She had faced it three times in battle with her companions. But the sight of it still filled her with terror and awe. Great gaping jaws, each tooth like a man’s sword. A body as long and massive as a row of five horses. A tail like a battering ram. Talons that could rip a man in half. The shadow of its wings could engulf the whole company.
She could feel its malice now. It had come to destroy. To put an end to the gifted. To put an end to all who opposed it. She understood that now, though she did not understand why. She also knew that without Cane and his power, she and her companions stood no chance.
“Cane,” she shouted.
Cane took one last look in the hall at the Gaergaen, then turned and strode past Elynna and toward the Daegmon. His sword still flamed bright blue. Elynna and the others, gathering around the flame as though it was their banner, went with him. A hundred feet away the Daegmon watched them approach. It let out another cry that rattled the village—a warning that its enemies should come no farther.
But Cane did not halt, and upheld by its power Elynna and the others continued with him. When they were forty feet away, the creature lifted its wings, rose into the sky, and came toward them. Its shadow blotted out the sun. Three arrows bounced harmlessly off its belly as it slammed its tail into the earth just a few feet in front of Cane. His sword erupted like a bonfire. Several of their companions fell away, some retreating from the flames and others from the Daegmon itself as it soared overhead and landed on the side of the mountain. But Elynna stayed beside Cane, as close as she dared. For she knew he held the power from which their hopes sprang.
“Against the north cliff,” Cane ordered. “Keep the rock behind us, and make it come at us from the ground.” Perhaps it was the power of Cane’s stone, or perhaps only that she had seen this enemy defeated before. Elynna was no longer overcome.
She risked a quick glance around her. So far, her companions held together. They obeyed Cane’s command and within moments had formed a tight wedge with their backs to the wall. Elynna stood with them, just three long strides from Cane’s side. She wrestled down her fear and prepared for the battle they had been seeking. What could she do? she wondered.
As if in answer, Tienna’s words from the night before suddenly came to her. She could choose to use her gift.
It took her only an instant to gather her courage and make up her mind. Then she sent her thoughts reaching outward toward the mind of her enemy. Trying to understand its plans, its strategies. Anything that might give her companions an edge.
Through the searing pain, she felt it at once. She understood its thoughts. The glee mixed with its malice. The creature was still waiting. The trap was yet to be sprung. Some other power was yet to come.
But what? Elynna wondered. She looked around at the hills with new terror and then back at her companions. What had they walked into?
They were preparing for battle against a Daegmon. She knew that. They had come for that. And against some other creature in human form, akin to the Daegmons. But what power did it have? And what was the rest of the trap she sensed in the mind of their enemy? Whatever trap still awaited them, they could not escape it now. Her companions’ strategies unfolded alongside their enemy’s.
Cane and Cathros stood in front of her at the point of the wedge, with the other Anghare on each side and Namha a step behind them. Further to the left were Bandor, Theo, Noab, and the Plainsfolk, including Keet, who stood with his brother. Along the right stood Elynna, Pietr, Falien, Noaem, Anchara, Lluach, and Alrew.
Above, the Daegmon circled closer. Bandor, Tienna, and Anchara all loosed arrows. One flew wide of the large target, and the others again bounced off the tough hide and fell to the ground.
The village was now empty, or nearly so. The Undeani warriors had fled and disappeared. A few shapes flitted from building to building, but none came out in the open. Elynna looked back at the great stone hall. Through the high arched entrance she could see the dais and throne. Her heart grew chill at the sight. She saw no sign of the Gaergaen, but a strange red smoke seeped from the top of the archway. It grew and spread as it rose and soon flew as if of its own will. Some seeped into the ground. Some floated upward.
Elynna had no time to wonder what this new enchantment was. No time to dwell on the expressions of horror on her companions’ faces. For at the moment she felt another searing touch. Now she understood what the trap was, and what the Daegmon above waited for. She felt the burning scent of a second Daegmon.
Though she could not see it, she could sense the separate consciousness. Another spirit of malice.
Yes, a spirit, but not yet a body. With both horror and searing pain of the creature’s thoughts piercing her consciousness, she understood that as well. T
he physical form, the giant winged shape—that was only the creature’s fleshly manifestation. A powerful one, yes, but not the fullness of its being or might. The power of this enemy—its very existence—was not something less but something more than physical.
All of this understanding passed through her mind in an instant, for it was the creature’s own understanding. She had seen its mind. Or it had revealed its mind to her, knowing the terror it would cause. And an instant later, the burning smell became clearer. It took a place and a form. She sensed the Daegmon’s presence inhabiting the hillside, merging with soil and rock. Corrupting it. Wounding it. Possessing it. Enhancing its own power over the region. This was what had happened so many days ago in the Ceadani Mountains, but she had not understood then.
Now Elynna’s gift was grown, or enhanced. And she understood. She cried out in agony and despair, but her cries were lost amid the turmoil. The slope against the far side of the village began to bulge, and the ground contorted. Tienna cried out in pain.
Upward shot the head of the creature, taking on its fleshly form from the substance of the earth. Then the fore-talons, then wings and rear legs and tail. A second Daegmon appeared, nearly as large as the first. It lifted its wings and launched itself skyward to join its brother.
Elynna looked around her, awash with despair. Two Daegmons flew above them and the Gaergaen was somewhere within its stone throne room. In the past, with the increased power of the stone, they had proven a match for one creature. But only barely. How could they hope to face all three?
With crushing force and even deeper despair, Elynna sensed a third Daegmon.
It was as though pain and malice and despair had become the only reality, the only possible thought. Her mind was reduced to only this. And so great was the weight, Elynna would have fallen to the ground right there, broken and defeated.
But then she felt another force. It was like plunging into the cool waters of the Lienwash River on a scalding day in midsummer. Cane’s power washed over her. Bathed her. And behind that shield, beneath those waters, Tienna’s words from the previous evening came back to her. We have chosen how we carry our burdens. Even hope is something we choose.
Her will and awareness returned to her just in time. “Away from here,” Elynna yelled. “Away from this wall.”
For a second the others just stared at her, then the earth shook. Elynna bolted toward open ground. Even as the others forsook their place of defense and raced after her, the first rocks tumbled free from the mountain and crashed on the ground they had just vacated.
Another Daegmon was emerging from the hillside above where they had just been standing, its malice-filled spirit taking bodily form fitting to its hate and power. Taking its flesh and form from the hillside itself, even as its embodiment left a gaping scar. Its grotesque form squirmed and stretched as it freed itself from the ground and took incarnate form. It launched slowly over Elynna’s head, just out of reach of her companions’ longest spears, and flew toward the northwest end of the village. There it landed and turned around.
Finally, in the door of the hall, the Gaergaen appeared. Elynna felt it before she turned and saw it. Even as her eyes fell on its human form, it slammed its staff into the ground and again the ground shook. Louder still was the combined shrieking laughter of the three Daegmons.
“Where do we go?” a voice cried in a panic. “We can’t fight them all.”
Elynna knew the words were true. The power emanating from Cane shielded her from the worst of the agony and unreasoned terror assaulting her, and for a moment her thoughts were unmuddied. Yet still she knew that fighting their enemies all together was hopeless. They needed some far greater power than they had. But no such power was to be found—not in Cane. They needed to escape.
She looked around and saw no path of escape. They stood in a small circle about a hundred feet from the throne hall and an equal distance from the two jutting spurs of the mountain. The Gaergaen stood in the stone mouth wielding his staff. The third Daegmon held the village behind them. The other two perched on the slopes above. Their giant talons scraped at the rocks, eager for battle. A long terrible silence followed as both sides looked at each other.
Then, to Elynna’s amazement—for she was thinking only of retreat and escape—Cane raised his sword above his head, and as it burst into flames of blue power, he charged. Shouting the great Northland battle cry of old, he ran straight toward the throne hall, where stood the one enemy in human form.
Their enemies were surprised also. Elynna could feel it. Fear passed through the Gaergaen’s thoughts, and he retreated several steps back into the mouth of the hall. Cane had no chance to reach him, however. The two Daegmons above launched themselves downward. Dirt exploded beneath their talons as they crashed to the ground on either side of the hall.
Elynna, still frozen in a tight circle with the others, watched with horror. Cane did not slow. He swung his blade, and a shower of blue flame flew in all directions. The flames struck the Daegmons like arrows. Yet even as the great beasts screamed in pain, they met his attack with a counterattack. A bolt of red shot from the staff of the Gaergaen. It detonated against the blue just feet from Cane’s head with a concussion that nearly toppled him over backward. His blade spun from his hand, and the flames flicked and died.
Down lunged the nearest Daegmon, snapping its jaws at Cane’s head. He rolled to the side, escaping death by a fraction of a second, and somehow he came to his feet holding his blade. The sword burst to life once more, and he took a great sweeping blow at the exposed neck of the enemy lunging at him.
The blow struck home, and the creature recoiled in pain. But the other Daegmon had moved forward. Its talons lashed at Cane’s middle at the same time another bolt of red fire shot from the Gaergaen’s staff. Cane swung his blade, deflecting both attacks at once. Then he stabbed in the direction of the Gaergaen. A blue lightning bolt burst from his sword and struck the staff, breaking it in two with a crack that made rocks fall from the side of the mountain. The Gaergaen stumbled over backward at the force of the blow.
But the Daegmons did not retreat. They were three and Cane only one. And a moment later, the Gaergaen was back on his feet, holding one half of his broken staff. Again the Daegmons attacked, and still Elynna and her companions watched from a distance, paralyzed. How could any of them enter such a fray and survive the blasts of power?
A great tail slammed into the earth inches from Cane’s feet. Talons and gaping jaws snapped at a furious rate, while the Gaergaen wielded his broken staff, launching bolt after bolt of red flame at the small human attacker. Somehow Cane managed to keep his feet, but he was hard pressed. The blue flame acted like a giant shield as his blade swung in circles about him. Each bolt of red deflected to the ground or broke apart harmlessly.
“We must help him,” Cathros shouted to the others. Elynna realized now that he, Tienna, and Namha had all taken several steps forward toward the battle. But how could they come to Cane’s aid? The two battling Daegmons continued to swing their deadly tails, keeping all others at bay and hopeless to help. And yet more deadly were the blasts of power that shook the earth.
“Can we climb up the ridge and jump down from above?” Tienna asked.
Cathros looked up but never got a chance to answer. The third Daegmon—momentarily forgotten by Elynna—now entered the fray. Elynna sensed it just in time. She felt her death in its thought—felt rather than saw it sweeping in behind her. She shouted as much in terror as in warning as she spun around to face it.
Just in time she dove out of the way, while her companions around her dove or rolled or ducked, scattering as chickens do when a fox enters the barnyard. Pietr did not move fast enough. A single snap of the Daegmon’s jaws caught him unaware and brought him to a quick end. Rolling back to her feet, Elynna saw Falien down too, face in the dirt and unmoving just a few inches from the creature’s right foreleg.
Beth, Nahoon, and Keet, who had darted in the opposite direction from the others, now stood alone and in the open. Elynna watched in horror as the Daegmon turned in their direction. Two quick steps brought them within striking range. Keet tried to back up but stumbled and fell. The Daegmon opened its jaws to snap him up as Elynna watched helplessly.
“No!” Marti yelled. He lowered his spear and charged. The rush caught the Daegmon by surprise, and it turned too late to face its new assailant. The spear caught it just below the neck, and the force of the blow drove the point deep through the scaly armor.
“Run, Keet.” Marti yelled as the Daegmon roared in pain. Keet lay there, paralyzed with fear. “Run,” Marti yelled again. He tried to yank his spear free. It would not come free. “Run!”
Elynna watched with relief as Nahoon and Beth reached down and yanked Keet to his feet, and the three darted toward the nearest building. But her relief did not last long. Marti watched his brother for just a moment, making sure he had escaped to safety, then he released the spear and turned to flee. At the same moment Tienna, Namha, and the remaining Northlanders rushed to his aid, but all were too slow. One blow from the Daegmon’s talons avenged it for the wound Marti had inflicted. Around came its tail, catching Kayle and Aram in the ribs and sending them flying.
Somewhere nearby, Cane fought alone against three foes. Elynna caught glimpses of flashes of red and blue. She could sense the thoughts of her enemies and could feel the power from both sides. But she could do nothing for him now. None of the others could. They had their own battle.
Elynna backed several steps away and put an arrow to the string, but she had no target. As she watched, Namha took a mighty leap over the swinging tail. He came down just feet from the creature’s side. Without breaking stride he leapt again—an impossible leap landing him squarely on the Daegmon’s back just below its neck. He had two knives out in an instant. With incredible strength, he drove them both deep into opposite sides of the creature’s neck. At the same moment, Tienna dodged between the slashing jaws and talons and drove her own blade into its throat. Hruach and Hrevia used the diversion to grab Falien and drag him to safety.
The Betrayed Page 38