They arrived close by the Illisrian border at evening two days later, stopping only to allow Rafiq and Kako to change into their human forms. Much to Dion’s surprise, the shard she and Kako had sensed while in Shinpo had not moved while they flew from southern Shinpo to the Illisrian border. She was quite sure of it, because Kako and Barric had both given her the shards they were carrying, and it was now a very easy matter to sense where the other shards were. The fact that she couldn’t sense the seventh shard at all had begun to worry her a little; but more immediately worrying was the lack of movement of the fifth shard.
“Maybe no one knows it’s there,” she said hopefully. “Maybe no one is looking after it at all.”
Barric didn’t answer, but his thumb brushed the pommel of his long dagger. Dion recognised the gesture immediately: Barric was expecting trouble.
“I’d lay you odds it’s a trap,” said Padraig, “but I’d not wish to steal from you, cherry.”
“Then what should we do? If it’s a trap–”
“–then we spring it,” Padraig said, a light of enjoyment in his sapphire eyes. “Have you ever seen a furry Long-tail spring a trap, cherry?”
“No,” said Dion, whose quarters had always been mercifully free of the rat-like pests.
“He always makes sure that something else is in the trap when he springs it. And then he takes the bait and leaves the other poor, unfortunate animal in the trap while he skips merrily on his way.”
“Us being the Long-tail in this scenario?” said Kako. She didn’t sound quite convinced.
“Even so,” nodded Padraig.
Still, when they had found the place that housed the Illisrian shard, it didn’t look like a trap. Dion was already feeling anxious: all of the shards they had collected to date were bundled in her pack, wrapped so that they didn’t rattle against each other, and she was feeling distinctly noticeable. It didn’t help that Barric and Padraig were both several streets away with Kako and Rafiq– or that she had insisted upon it herself. Barric had agreed that Padraig and she should be separated in expectation of a trap, but he hadn’t been happy to leave her to the sole guardianship of Fancy and Carmine.
The place was a shop; old and dusty-windowed. Dion was much relieved to see that the shop-keeper was human. He welcomed them in, his eyes darting curiously from face to face as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of their exotically pale skin. He seemed both convinced and interested when they told him they were simply travelling from Llassar to Illisr for the Festival of Lanterns; but though he was unsuspicious, he was more than slightly inconvenient. He followed them about the store, chattering almost without pausing for breath, and it was only when Carmine engaged him in conversation with a small, encouraging flick of the fingers at Dion, that she was able to search the store without the shop-keeper’s sharp eyes upon her.
She knew immediately where the shard was: the difficulty was in keeping her eyes from straying in that direction while the shopkeeper still watched them so curiously. When she was free of his gaze, Dion went straight to it. Someone had mounted it on a piece of polished wood with a tiny plaque that declared it to be ‘the last piece of Dhoni Kumba’s sword’; which was rather clever, Dion thought. It was the hilt-piece, and rather bigger than she’d expected. She didn’t touch it immediately, because there was a sly, almost unnoticeable spell on it, and she wanted to know what it was before she activated it by picking up the shard.
“You’d best hurry,” said Fancy, in a low voice. “His little eyes are darting all over the shop, trying to see you. I don’t know if he’s part of all this or if he just thinks we’re likely to steal from him, but even Carmine won’t be able to keep him there much longer.”
“It is a trap,” said Dion. “But I think I can spring it safely.”
Fancy’s hands instinctively rose to her shoulders in search of her knife hilts. “Where are the Fae?”
“Not here. I think they’re keeping their distance so they don’t frighten us away.”
“That’s a bit stupid of them,” said Fancy.
“Not really,” Dion said slowly. “I can’t actually remove the spell, and as soon as I tinker with it, the Fae will know. After I start, we’ll only a have a few minutes at the most before they get here.”
“All right,” said Fancy. “What do you need us to do?”
“Grab the shop keeper and sit on him,” said Dion. “I’m going to pin the spell on him instead.”
“With pleasure!” Fancy said, and hurried back to the other side of the shop. Dion heard a brief scuffle, then the sound of the sign in the front door being flipped.
Carmine’s voice called: “Would you care for delivery, madam?”
“Yes, please,” returned Dion, grinning. She didn’t dare to move the shard until the spell was activated, and she preferred not to activate it herself. Fancy and Carmine made their way between displays, cheerfully carrying the terrified shop-keeper between them, and deposited him at her feet. His popping eyes stared wildly up at her, and Dion said kindly: “Don’t worry. I’m only going to get you to pick up this curio. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
The shopkeeper flailed desperately, scrabbling against the floor until Fancy, rolling her eyes, actually did sit on him.
“I take it you know what the spell does,” said Carmine, his eyes very narrow. “And I’m guessing that it’s not a particularly nice one. Well now, you’ve got two choices, my talkative little friend. Either you pick up the curio, or I cut off your hand. Which would you prefer?”
The shop-keeper said something muffled into the carpet.
“My darling, perhaps you could allow the poor fellow to take his face out of the carpet.”
“All right,” said Fancy. “But if he tries to bite me again, I’ll knock all of his teeth out. Got it?”
The shop-keeper made another muffled noise, which seemed to satisfy Fancy, because she allowed him to rise.
“We’ll have to be quick,” Dion warned. “The Fae will know as soon as I trip the spell.” She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it: the shopkeeper’s eyes flashed, and he snatched the shard up before she could stop him. Dion yelped, her hands reacting almost before her mind did. Her right hand flicked a touch of magic that hove the shard free from its mount while her left hand pinched outward, expanding a domed barrier over the shopkeeper. She leapt away from the dome almost the next moment, fearful of being touched by the spell that was still seeping through her barrier.
“What was that?” demanded Carmine, his eyes even more narrow than before. Within Dion’s domed barrier, the shopkeeper had frozen, his hand still on the mounting that had held the shard. The shard itself had caught in mid-air just beyond Dion’s barrier. No, not exactly stopped; slowed. It still moved, but barely.
“Get back!” Dion said sharply. “My barrier isn’t filtered narrowly enough to keep it all in.”
“What is it?”
“There was a targeted time spell on the shard,” said Dion, cautiously circling closer to the shard while Fancy went to check their way out.
“How do we get the shard if it’s frozen?”
“It’s not exactly frozen,” Dion said, biting her lip. “It’s just moving through time more slowly than we are. I think. We’ll have to wait for it to come out of the influence of the spell before we can touch it.”
“How long will that take?” called Fancy, from the front door.
“I don’t know.”
Carmine’s brows rose. “That’s unfortunate. One of us will have to wait here.”
“We’ll all–”
“No, we won’t,” said Fancy. “And you can’t argue when you made Padraig stay outside for the same reason. Carmine and I will stay until the shard leaves the spell. You join Barric and the others.”
“I’ll send one of the dragons back,” said Dion tightly.
“Best hurry,” Carmine said significantly. “I feel a storm brewing.”
Dion knew what he meant as soon as she left the shop. There w
as a pushing sensation of built-up magic rolling in fast from the west: a significant amount of Fae were swiftly approaching. She broke into a run, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. Barric caught her as she sprinted around the next street corner, his scarred face light with relief, and said: “Where are the others?”
“With the shard,” Dion said. “It’s coming, but they need more time.”
“I can buy them time,” said Barric.
Rafiq nodded. “As can I.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Kako said at once. “They know you here. I’ll go with Barric: you take Padraig and Dion. Don’t change until it’s safe.”
“You’ll go with Rafiq and Padraig,” Barric said to Dion, but she heard the question in his voice.
She sighed. “Yes. But–”
“I’ll make sure they’re safe.”
The street was dark and silent as they ran. Away from the town centre, Fae lanterns were fewer, and Dion knew it wouldn’t be long before Rafiq was safe to change. She felt the vast blockage of Fae behind them at the edges of her mind: a dam waiting to burst. She shivered, afraid for the others and sick at running away.
“This greatly smacks of running away,” said Padraig, as if he’d read her mind.
“I know,” she said shortly. “But–”
Padraig’s eyes met hers for a brief moment. “I know.”
Rafiq segued from man to dragon the next instant, his shadow sweeping vast and dark against the passing walls. He stopped briefly to allow them to climb on, and then launched effortlessly into the air. If Rafiq’s human walk was not quite so smooth as Kako’s, his launch was far smoother than hers.
Padraig’s voice said in Dion’s ear: “Did anyone see us?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. Her eyes anxiously searched the Fae-lit streets below as they flew overhead. There! There was Barric, sweeping wide and strong with his greatsword. Fancy danced beside him, her blades cutting through Fae-light and Fae flesh alike, and Kako was behind, sending bright sparks of magic into the enemy that sought out the unarmoured Fae. Mingling with the Fae were Illisrian soldiers, their bows levelled at Kako. As Dion watched, Padraig clutched at her arm.
“There!”
Carmine burst from the shop below, a glint of Fae-light from the public lanterns betraying the presence of the shard in his left hand. Kako whirled and changed in an instant, Carmine clinging to her back and Fancy and Barric leaping to join him as she barrelled past them, charging the Fae.
“And we’re off!” said Padraig gleefully.
They had already outstripped the scene below; but Dion, who craned her head to the very last moment, cried out. The Fae that Kako had charged were sending filaments of sticky magic after her: they clung to her wings and dragged her down.
Dion didn’t hear a sound, but Rafiq must have caught a mental trace of distress from Kako, because he wheeled in the air without warning. Padraig yelled, and Dion felt him seize her waist convulsively as they both lurched in their seats. Rafiq made a stomach-churning dive, molten fire blasting a swathe through the Fae below, and Dion felt the heat of magic in her fingers. She slashed through the nearest filaments that pulled dangerously at Kako’s wings, and saw Carmine’s startled, understanding face as they bypassed the others in a singeing torrent of displaced air. When she looked back, he was doing the same thing. Kako, her huge wings beating in laboured strokes, began to rise again.
Something stung Dion’s cheek. She blinked, swiping at a tickle of what turned out to be blood, and saw another arrow streak by Rafiq’s massive head. Filaments of sticky magic followed, thick and fast, as both Fae and Illisrian soldiers turned their attention from Kako to Rafiq.
Padraig pounded Rafiq’s back. “Go, go! She’s free!”
Dion snatched away sticky Fae magic as she saw it attach to Rafiq’s wings, but Rafiq’s shoulder muscles still strained with the effort of rising. Dealing with the magic left her no attention spare to ward off the arrows, and she heard Rafiq’s roar as two of the arrows pierced his left wing, dripping steaming blood on the rooftops below. Kako shot past them at speed, both Carmine and Barric leaning out perilously to slash through the remaining magic that weighed on Rafiq, and Dion felt a sudden lurch as they were free to rise. It was a ragged ascent: Rafiq’s left wing was losing not only blood but air.
Dion heard Kako’s voice say grimly in her mind: Rafiq, stop and change.
A few more miles, said Rafiq’s voice, just as grimly.
“We can’t stop yet!” said Padraig. “There’s too many Fae, sure!”
“Arrows!” yelled Fancy.
Dion spun a defensive spell from her fingers, but even as it arched beneath the dragons to join with Barric’s defence, Padraig gasped and lost his grip on her waist. She looked around at the empty space behind her in wild confusion, and heard the distant sound of something hitting the roof-tops below. Padraig, his body as limp as a rag-doll, slid down one of the roofs and dropped heavily into the darkness of the street.
She heard Carmine shout, “Man overboard!” but she was already stretching down, reaching further than she had ever reached, to find the time-slowing spell that had begun it all. She broke away the barrier she had made around it, feeding a furious chunk of her own magic into it; and it grew immediately and vastly, encapsulating both the Fae and Illisrian soldiers in a moment.
“Up!” shouted Barric, an edge of fear in his voice, and both dragons shot high into the night, away from the heaviness of slowed time.
“We have to go back for Padraig!” screamed Dion. She was already scrambling free of Rafiq’s neck, clumsy in her haste, when he landed heavily on another of the rooftops. Kako came to a more elegant stop in a swirl of heated air, depositing her passengers without notice as she resumed her human form.
“Very pretty,” she said to Dion. “But did you catch Padraig in there, too?”
“Maybe,” Dion said, holding back hot tears. She couldn’t afford to be sick or tearful right now. “I think so. We’re on the right street, but I don’t know how far back he fell. And I don’t know where the arrow–”
“Shoulder,” said Fancy briskly. “High up. He’ll be fine.”
“He wasn’t moving,” Dion said. She took the hand that Barric offered her, and was lowered gently from the roof to a balcony below.
Fancy, dropping down beside her, said lightly, “Must have hit his head,” which would have been comforting had not Dion seen the slight grimace that pulled across Fancy’s lips.
Dion was the first one on the street, and she didn’t wait for the others. It was darker here, away from the high street, and she stopped briefly at each alley and road that opened onto her own with the fretful fear that she would miss seeing Padraig.
The others were spread out behind and beside her, following her lead, and Carmine’s voice floated up to her. “What was it someone was saying about being unprepared?”
“Shut up, Carmine,” suggested Kako’s voice, in a friendly fashion.
“Something about being fools,” continued Carmine. “And a court of reason. One hardly cares to make snap judgements, but–”
“You can’t say we were unprepared,” said Dion miserably, taking a few steps down another street. There was no sign of Padraig here, either, and she could feel the time-slowing spell beginning to falter up ahead. The Fae hadn’t designed it to be quite so large. “We had a plan.”
“Big man, your protective spells aren’t particularly protective,” said Carmine, evidently determined upon mischief. “All in all, I can’t help feeling that you leave something to be desired as a Guardian. Is that cabbage? Fancy, I’ve been made to stand in liquid cabbage, and if you roll your eyes at me–”
Barric ignored it, but Dion flashed, “Barric couldn’t help it! It was my spell that wasn’t quick enough to stop the arrows.”
“That’s no excuse,” Carmine said firmly. “He’s the Guardian, and–”
There was the wet, slapping sound of old vegetables hitting something soft.
“Ow!” said Carmine, outraged. “Was that you, Fancy?”
“No,” said Dion, flushing hot in the darkness but still annoyed enough to make her voice clipped. “It was m-me!”
“Fancy,” Carmine said, in a pained voice. “Remind me not to insult Guardians around the tender young waifs they protect.”
“I could say something about fools,” said Fancy’s voice dryly. “But–”
“Fancy, I won’t have my mockingly quoted words quoted mockingly at me.”
“What are you going to do about–”
“There,” said Barric, speaking at last. Dion saw a ripple of light glowing against the cobbles: it flowed across the stones and gently lit a supine form that was caught in free-fall a bare yard above the street. Even Carmine was silenced for a moment.
Then he said: “Yes, beautifully done; but how do we get him out?”
“The spell is weakening,” said Barric. “We’ve only to wait. Dion, can you–”
“Yes,” said Dion, who had already seen Barric’s magic carefully insinuating itself between the time-spell and the cobbles: a cushion with which to catch Padraig when he eventually fell. She coated a patch of the spell closest to Padraig with a veneer of her own magic, her eyes anxiously upon the arrow that was protruding from his shoulder both at his chest and his back. And as her magic ate away at the time-spell, Dion clasped one hand in the other, her fingers white and just barely shaking.
When Padraig dropped into Barric’s netted magic, heavy and limp, he was whisked away from the rest of the spell immediately.
“Best to get that out right away,” opined Fancy, looking at the arrow with something of a professional eye. Barric nodded, snapping off head and fletch effortlessly, and stood aside to let Fancy draw out the shaft.
“We’ll have to heal him as we fly,” Dion said. The time-spell was fading rapidly now, and she was almost as anxious to be in the air as she was for Padraig. Rafiq grew darkly in the shadows of the over-arching houses, wedging himself tightly between the surrounding houses, and crouched low to allow Dion to climb on his back. She settled herself and reached out as Barric half-lifted, half-levitated Padraig up in front of her, and when she threw an anxious look at Rafiq’s left wing, prepared for a rough launch, she discovered that it was whole. Instead of a large hole, there was a large scar.
Shards of a Broken Sword Page 37