by Tara Janzen
“Hard to starboard!” he yelled above the wind to his helmsman. The sails were reefed. ’Twould be up to the oarsmen to get them away. The incentive was strong, to be gone from the battle and the choking, smothering smoke.
The skraelings pulled against the wind and the waves, turning the ship to the west and open water. Far enough out, they headed south, fighting their way into the channel. Halfway down the narrow mouth, they suddenly sailed out of the storm into a sea of calm. Relief weakened Caerlon’s grip on the mast. The storm was of Mor Sarff alone and had naught to do with the Irish Sea. Thunder and lightning still echoed behind them, but close to the ship there was naught. He could hear the gentle lapping of water against the strakes with each pull of the oars. The air was sweeter, the future brighter.
They sailed to the northernmost point of the channel, leaving the sounds of battle to the Serpent Sea. As they rounded the point, though, Caerlon was surprised and dismayed to see the storm roiling again ahead of them where Mor Sarff emptied into the open water.
A bewitchment? he wondered. Who could have contrived it, a pool of serenity in the midst of a storm? But mayhaps not so serene, for even as he wondered, the water began to bubble around them. He lifted his dreamstone high against the surrounding gloom. Yellow light glinted off the small waves churned to life by the odd bubbling. He caught a glimpse of movement beneath the surface, a flash of red in the liquid shadows, and excitement surged through him. Another flash, this time of grayish green, nearly sent him into paroxysms of giddy laughter.
They had come!
Victory was yet at hand!
He squeezed his dreamstone harder, making it shine brighter, creating a beacon for them to follow. The dragons had come!
But mayhaps they were coming in too fast, too hard. A red-tinged wake parted the waves, a rippling arrow of swells heading straight for the halvskip. Caerlon took a step back, his tether trailing on the deck. On his next step, he tripped, his foot tangling in the rope, and ’twas thus that he met Ddrei Goch, flat on his back, staring up as the great beast’s head broke the surface in a rush of bloodred scales, golden eyes, and ivory teeth running green with seawater. Fangs the length of a ship’s mast glowed with reflected dreamstone light, a pair of them, one on each side of the bow, carving a death gate out of the darkness.
The skraelings dropped oars and raced to abandon ship, but Caerlon was tied to the mast. He clawed at the knot, fear making his fingers stiff, and in the next moment the mighty jaws closed and the halvskip was no more.
~ ~ ~
Forced back by the driving rain and the waves breaking against the Wall, Mychael had ordered a retreat to the beach. He’d fought the last skraeling to come up the trail from the south, killing him at the bridge with one cutting blow. Nearly all the Kings Wood elves were across to the damson cliffs, a dangerous endeavor made one man at a time, hand-over-hand on the wind-whipped ropes.
Neither side had won the last engagement on the Wall. Both the skraelings and the Liosalfar had been overcome by the storm, an incarnation of Mother Nature as virago. The thunder was deafening. Lightning skittered everywhere when it hit. He’d lost soldiers to crashing waves that washed the trail clean and to gusts of wind that plucked men up and dropped them into the sea. The skraelings had fared no better. If any were left on the exposed face of the Wall, they wouldn’t be for long.
Mychael grasped one of the bridge ropes with both hands and waited for his chance to cross. The bridge had literally been blown to pieces by the storm, with ropes torn loose and fraying, and many of the wood slats reduced to splinters. Such did he feel inside, splintered into a thousand sharp shards. The strange feeling had begun with the rising of the storm, and like the storm had not abated, but grown in strength. ’Twas a yearning, a terrible yearning, that had taken root in his heart and made his pulse race. The icy numbness that had encased him in the Dangoes was a blessing in comparison with the growing flood of emotion. Better to have remained frozen than to be pulled along by this fierce tide, helpless.
When Kenric reached the damson cliffs, Mychael started across. Out on the sea, ships were being tossed and sunk. Slott’s barge had run aground on the beach, and the Troll King was wreaking havoc among the troops who had not found shelter either to the north or up in the pryf nest.
Mychael recognized Quicken-tree Liosalfar in the melee, among them Trig and Llynya. Hundreds of skraelings had landed with the troll, along with a Dockalfar captain and a crippled man whose yellow hair streamed out from beneath his helmet. He wore Slott’s brand on his upper arm, but he’d not yet been turned into a skraeling. The part of his jaw that showed beneath his helmet was not overly pronounced or beholden of fanglike teeth. The Kings Wood elves were joining the fray, and Mychael plunged in behind them.
Shortly into the battle, he realized all the cutting and dodging of the skraelings was for one purpose: to isolate the aetheling and drive her toward Slott. The Troll King’s bellows added to the chaos. His voice, like no other, rumbled off the cliffs, garbling words and noise into a cacophonous assault on the senses. Those who had been weakened by the fight could scarce endure it, and when Slott roared his war cry, some fell where they stood—a grim fate, for he ate even in battle.
Seeing that the worst of the fighting was around Llynya, Mychael fought his way toward her, hacking away right and left at the beast-men, drawing ever closer to the ax-wielding Slott. The Quicken-tree would fail if she was lost. Though final victory would be denied all of them by the pestilence of Dharkkum, she did not have to fall to the Troll King.
Slott was huge, broad in every way and thrice as tall as the tallest man, though his back was hunched. His tail twitched and whipped behind him, sending his enemies flying. Before him, his ax rose and fell with terrifying monotony as he made his way up the beach toward the aetheling.
The Liosalfar with Llynya fell back under the giant’s assault, and Mychael felt the stirring edge of panic take hold. Slott was running her troop off, while the skraelpacks were keeping her from escaping, forcing her onto the southernmost trail leading into the pryf nest.
All of the trails were littered with bodies, some even of the great worms that had been butchered by the skraelings. Soon Llynya was trapped high on the trail, against the nest wall, bounded in by dead worms and Mor Sarff. Mychael saw her look to the sea, the surf crashing on the jagged rocks below, and he cried out, “No!”
She ran then, farther up the trail, away from the sheer drop into the sea, and Slott’s ax missed her by a hairsbreadth. When next the Troll King swung his blade, ’twas one of the dead pryf he hit—but not so dead, for as the greenish black skin opened up, the worm turned and a keening wail rent the air. The pryf’s green life’s blood ran out onto the trail, pouring over the side into Mor Sarff, and Slott lunged for the elf-maid. With a cry of triumph, he snatched her up in his fist.
“By the Stones!” he roared. “By the Stones of Inishwrath!”
Fury swept through Mychael, and the yearning that threatened him took on new force. With a cry of his own, he rushed forward, his sword in one hand, his dreamstone dagger in the other. Llynya’s screams echoed in his ears as he cut and slashed a path to the trail. The skraelpacks closed in behind him, but none could stop him, until they shoved the yellow-haired warrior forward into battle.
The man bore down on him, forcing him away from the trail, fighting with far more finesse than a skraeling. He was taller and heavier than Mychael, with a longer reach, and his sword was wondrously strange, limned with a gridelin edge. He fought like a blade-master whose technique had been honed in war.
“Wyrm-master!” The gravelly voiced call came from above, from Slott, and the chant was taken up by the skraelings.
“Wyrm-master! Wyrm-master!”
Mychael heard Trig shout to him from the beach, but he couldn’t discern the captain’s words. What he could discern, when he dared to glance up, was the terror on Llynya’s face—but to reach her, he first had to conquer his foe.
The Wyrm-master’
s limp made him vulnerable to a swift attack, and Mychael did not hesitate to deliver one. He darted in under the glittering sword’s arc, moving nearly as fast as Llynya in a fight, and cut the Wyrm-master twice, a nick to his chin with Ara, and another shallow cut to the man’s thigh with his sword. Wyrm-master retaliated with a lunging strike that pushed Mychael backward into the waiting skraelings.
A pair of rough hands seized him, and Mychael ducked and rolled, taking the eager skraeling with him. Wyrm-master’s blade came down where he’d been, catching the skraeling instead. The beast-man screamed in agony, and Mychael smelled burning flesh where steel had cut through mail and skraeling with equal ease. The beast-man released him to writhe on the ground, the stump of his arm smoking with the acrid scent of poison. Mychael leaped to his feet, ever more mindful of the Wyrm-master’s sword. A blade that could cut through chain mail deserved added respect. That it was poisoned demanded extra caution.
“You’re quick to escape,” the yellow-haired warrior said, “as your sister was ever quick, Mychael ab Arawn.” He advanced on Mychael with his sword raised. “But not quick enough!”
The sword sliced through the air, aimed for Mychael’s middle, and only a lightning-fast pivot saved him from the gridelin edge.
Caradoc was grinning beneath his helm, playing the boy for his moment of glory. Slott had dared to brand him, but he’d been well fed since taking up with the skraelings, and he’d been well armed for battle. Even the little weasel Caerlon had been helpful with his healing salve. Rasca, the Dark-elf had called it, and it had taken the pain from his leg. He still limped, but the injury no longer hindered him.
“Aye, I knew your sister,” he said, relishing the confusion on the younger man’s face. He lunged again, but the boy was quick. Damn quick. Spent too long with the green ones, he had.
The sword Caerlon had given Caradoc was dazzling, with yellow crystals illuminating the hilt and grip, but it was also poorly balanced and unwieldy. Still, it would be enough to win the day against Rhiannon’s whelp.
Above, in the worm’s nest, Slott had captured the means to an even greater victory. The Troll King had a live Quicken-tree. ’Twas the lavender woman, though any one of the green guard would suffice for Caradoc’s means. He would have their knowledge of the wormhole. Christe! He was so close, he could hear the golden worms calling to him. He could feel the charging power swirling in the hole.
But first to Mychael ab Arawn. The sister had eluded him in the spring, so her brother would harvest the revenge. A curse on all their line!
He swung his rich sword again, and again missed the friggin’ boy as he darted away like a dragonfly in flight. Ab Arawn’s strike rang more true, and Caradoc was suddenly blinded, his iron helm set askew by a ringing blow. He twisted the thing aright, his grin turning to a grimace of pain and anger taking the place of reason.
“I knew your mother too, boy, even better,” he taunted, and went in for what was to be his killing blow, but the boy parried and cut him.
Caradoc howled with rage, one hand coming up to his face to stanch the blood from the boy’s last strike. The bastard had nearly taken an eye.
“Wyrm-master! Wyrm-master!” the skraelings shouted around him. He wanted to tell them to shut up so he could think, but the boy struck again, another blow to his head that set his helmet askew again and his ears to ringing.
God’s balls! He clawed at the ill-fitting helmet, dragging it off before it was the death of him.
His hair came falling out of the iron helm, yellow gold with a bright auburn blaze, and Mychael stumbled back, shock draining the strength from his arm. ’Twas Caradoc, son of the destroyer—and Mychael remembered. The last of Dharkkum’s death touch left him, melted away by a flood of living pain, as he suddenly remembered everything he’d seen in the Dangoes.
His sword fell to his side, leaving him helpless. He stood facing his mother’s murderer, her rapist, and the effort to breathe was more than he could bear. Here was the man who had set the course of Mychael’s life by taking Rhiannon’s.
Caradoc came at him then, and instinct alone lifted Mychael’s sword in defense. He deflected the blow, and the next, retreating, until instinct gave way to anger, and anger to heat, a raging heat that roared to life in his blood and turned retreat into attack, a relentless attack as every fiber and thought in Mychael’s being vowed to beat the Boar of Balor into hell.
It was butchery. Nothing more. Nothing less. Fueled by sick fury, Mychael gave no quarter. Every blow was for blood. On the beach behind him, the Liosalfar rallied for a fresh assault, and the skraelpack circling him and the Boar dispersed into renewed battle, leaving the two of them alone in the chaos.
Mychael left no weakness unexploited. Spurred by a hate so strong he tasted the bile of it in his mouth, he cut and slashed, sliced and thrust, and parried each of Caradoc’s attacks. ’Twas as it had been in Dripshank Well, when he’d been on Llynya’s trail. The skraelings had fallen then under his knife with powerful ease, and he had not been injured. Neither could the Boar connect a blow with his cutting edge, yet he bled in a dozen places from Mychael’s blades. Blood ran into his eyes from the swipe Mychael had taken to his forehead with the dreamstone dagger. His nose was broken from feeling the flat of Mychael’s sword.
Mychael knew the instant when Caradoc realized he was going to die; he saw the flash of terror that cut through the blood lust in the Boar’s oddly colored eyes. His mother must have looked the same when her time had come, or had the terror come before, during the rape?
A horrible agony cut through him, the cry of it strangling in his throat. The bastard had raped his mother. He wanted to kill Caradoc a thousand times, and even a thousand times would not assuage the pain.
Mychael cut him again and again, until Caradoc was at his mercy on the sand, a bloody pulp, half-blinded by blood and wheezing through his smashed nose. With no satisfaction, and no sense of justice, he took the Boar’s own poison-edged blade and impaled him through the heart, cutting through mail and gambeson to the depraved flesh beneath.
A great roar sounded from above, bringing Mychael’s head around. Up on the trail, Slott set Llynya aside and took his ax in both hands with another great roar, Wyrm-master’s master coming to match himself against a dread warrior. Llynya was limp on the ground, and as Mychael watched, the wounded pryf rolled over her, gathering her beneath its soft, dark body, removing her from the line of battle. Wild though they were, he’d not yet seen a pryf hurt a tylwyth teg. He prayed this one was no different.
Bruised and battered from the days of battle, he retrieved his own sword and set himself to meet the Troll King. Whatever skill had protected him from Caradoc and the skraelings, ’twould not be enough to withstand Slott. Speed would help against such a giant, but speed alone would not suffice. A thousand victories dangled from the troll’s braids, each ivory skull a testament to combats won, to a barbarism beyond what Mychael had ever known.
The troll had a rancid smell that preceded him down the trail. He wore no armor, only a vest made of skins. His wiry hair was dark and greasy, the plaits softly clinking and rustling against one another in a susurrus of corruption.
Mychael found himself taking a step backward. ’Twas death advancing on him, slogging down the trail through layers of mud and worm blood. He felt the certainty of it down to the marrow of his bones. Blood dripped from Slott’s ax. Drool ran from his mouth. One eye was milky, but the other was dark and keen and leveled at Mychael with a killing glare.
The wounded worm that held Llynya let out another keening cry, a death cry, and great shudders rippled down its body, revealing for an instant the small form lying beneath it—still whole. The pryf keened again and began to turn, rolling across the trail and up against the troll. Slott paid it little mind, only pushed it back and swiped at it with his ax as he came onward into battle, but the worm would not be denied. It rolled again, and its turning pushed the troll closer to the edge of the cliff. Slott fought back in earnest now as the beast
took more and more of the trail from him, but the ground was wet with rain and slick with the worm’s blood, making for treacherous footing. Slott slipped in the muck and in a trice the pryf was on him. Worm and troll grappled on the edge, until with a final mighty heave the beast sent itself and Slott of the Thousand Skulls careening off the edge of the trail and down the cliff face.
Mychael watched the two giants crash on the rocks of Mor Sarff and be washed into the sea. The pryf’s sacrifice had saved him, had bought him time, but it would not be enough. He looked up through the rain and saw the small form yet on the trail, a small form stirring to life. His first sense of relief in days flooded through him, and he took off at a run. She was drenched and shivering when he reached her, the bandage on her arm in bloody tatters, her face drawn and pale, but she was all of life in his arms.
He kissed her cheeks, her brow, her mouth—and lingered, drawing her closer and losing himself in the relief of touching her. She clung to him, her lips coolly sweet, the taste of lavender only faintly detectable. Not so the scent of Dharkkum. A trailing wisp of smoke passed by them, startling him out of the kiss and back into bleak reality.
“Come,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “We must be away. The smoke reaches even the pryf nest now.”
“Mychael?” She looked at him through slightly dazed eyes and lifted a long golden swath of his hair for him to see. ’Twas cut through with the auburn blaze, his fif braid bright and plaited down its center. His skin, too, had regained a healthy color.
“ ’Twas the storm, I think,” he said in answer to her unspoken question.
She smiled weakly, a stark reminder of what they had endured. “I knew you were sín. Druids call storms. Did you call this one?”
“Nay, cariad. This one has called me.” He looked to Mor Sarff, knowing he spoke the truth. The storm had called him. It was still calling to him, though not with yearning any longer, nor with the fury of battle, but with something more elemental—blood. He felt it coursing through his body in a manner he’d thought he had lost, a wild heat grown strong with the pounding of his dragonheart.