The cliffs they raced toward were treacherous, composed of loose shingle and shale, and no place for horses or fighting. Farther to the south lay the lowlands of the Seine Valley and the port of Le Havre. If Pierre meant to catch a ship from France, he would go there — after saying farewell to his parents near Étretat. He would not suspect that Ian and Murdoch were so close on his trail, intent on reclaiming the chalice. She trusted Ian not to harm Pierre but feared Murdoch would not hesitate to shoot him.
She couldn’t bear Pauline’s grief if that happened.
Drawing on her love for her home, Chantal hummed a triumphant battle song to bolster her flagging courage and steered her horse along the road to Étretat. The chalk plateau did not provide shrubbery for shelter, but once she reached the safety of —
Galloping hooves trembled the ground, and her mare nervously tossed her head. Glancing over her shoulder, Chantal saw the blue uniforms of the Assembly’s National Guard on her heels. Lost in concern for Ian, she’d forgotten she could still be taken as a traitor.
She did not have time to explain herself. If they meant no harm, they would leave her be. If not…
She whipped the horse across the field in the westerly direction of the cliffs.
The cavalry wheeled and galloped after her.
* * *
Following the sound of gunshots, racing the stallion across the chalk plateau with little or no cover, Ian sought Murdoch’s mind — just in case the feeble idiot would open it to him.
Murdoch didn’t, of course. But Ian did find the arrogant threads of Murdoch’s two mercenaries. They thought to chase away a ragtag band of foot soldiers with their mighty steeds, greater training, and deadly weapons.
The fatal flaw in that theory, Ian realized as he came upon the scene from a distance, was that the local militia knew the countryside, and Murdoch and his men did not. They’d been surrounded, a dozen against three. One should never underestimate a man fighting on his own turf, especially one defending home and family. The power of Other World emotion seemed almost as great as his gods-granted gifts.
Which placed Ian in a dilemma. He and Murdoch were intervening in Other World affairs. Yes, the priest had the chalice, but did they have the right to injure anyone in their pursuit of it? Wasn’t it, to some extent, his and Murdoch’s fault that the chalice had escaped?
He had no stomach for killing a man who was fighting to defend himself and his own kind. From the militia’s fierce thoughts he gathered that these men were loyal to Pierre’s family, and they fought to shield their hometown priest until he could escape. Placing his own desire for the chalice above theirs to protect loved ones would reduce Ian to Murdoch’s level of selfish ambition.
He needed to find a path to the shore, in the direction the chalice had gone, except he couldn’t abandon Murdoch and his men.
He definitely couldn’t abandon Murdoch, whose anger had brought down lightning and killed before. Even if he wished to cause no harm, Murdoch could kill.
With no place to run or hide, Ian sighed and rode straight into the fray.
The dozen or more militiamen broke line when Ian’s staff swung methodically from left to right. He restrained his might, not only because his shoulder still ached, but also so as not to cause broken ribs or heads.
A musket ball ripped dangerously near his ear. He reined Rapscallion around to find the gunman and, with a mightier blow, knocked the weapon from his adversary’s hands. It flew across the terrain and slid on a flurry of shale over a cliff.
It was then that Ian fully appreciated the trap in which Murdoch was caught. They fought on the brink of a crumbling cliff, with no visible path downward. How the devil had Pierre carried the chalice this way?
Rather than risk his gallant stallion on the treacherous shale, Ian chose to fight on foot. He let Rapscallion loose, ordering the horse to find a path back to the mares. Murdoch and his two officers had apparently already recognized the danger and released their mounts as well.
The local foot soldiers in their striped sailors’ trousers must have used firearms to force Murdoch and his companions to the edge of this precarious precipice. One of Murdoch’s royal guards had taken a bullet in the leg, quite possibly in error, given the erratic aim of the muskets.
Somewhere on the narrow shelf of beach below, Pierre raced in a southerly direction, toward the harbor. Not as foolish as he seemed, he’d apparently set his aristocratic father’s hired soldiers to stop any pursuit, if Ian was reading their thoughts correctly.
“That was a stupid move,” Murdoch complained as Ian spun his staff and daringly stalked toward the soldier blocking the southern edge of the cliff. “You should have left us and gone after the chalice.”
“Or waited to see if you’ve learned to fly?” Ian asked with a touch of exasperation, giving up his target to knock a loaded musket from another man’s hands. “I know I haven’t. The chalice is down there, on the beach, and I don’t see a path.”
“You can’t read their minds?” Murdoch mocked, lunging at a foot soldier who came too close, sending him scrambling backward at the point of his blade.
“They know the path Pierre has taken, and they’re keeping us from it. Beyond that, I cannot tell if it’s to the north or south or straight over the edge.”
“You take the north, I’ll take the south, and my men will take the middle,” Murdoch ordered in the French that his mercenaries could understand.
Despite their injuries, the two officers spread out with rapier and sword in hand, but there were three militiamen to each of them. All must die if Murdoch’s plan was to work.
“A waterspout might carry us down,” Ian suggested, ignoring Murdoch’s command and lashing out with his staff at the men on his right. They dodged and feinted and reloaded their muskets.
A waterspout would terrify the natives, but with the chalice slipping from his grasp, Ian was prepared to scare the trousers off them if necessary. Unfortunately, he was only a Sky Rider. Murdoch was the one who could harness the powers of wind and water.
Ian swung his staff and advanced menacingly. He’d lost sense of Pierre’s thoughts in the assault of false courage from these brawny men.
“Your control is better than mine,” Murdoch asserted in frustration, gesturing for his men to follow him in a show of strength behind Ian. For Ian’s ears alone, he spoke in their Aelynn language. “I’d drown us and everyone within a mile. I vote we set fire to the lot.”
This was the second time Murdoch had admitted that his abilities were erratic, which meant they must be even more skewed than Ian had supposed. Now he had to worry about not only Murdoch’s allegiance, but also the survival of everyone on the cliff.
“And trap us with a wall of flame?” Ian replied blandly so as not to set off his companion’s rage. He struck his staff downward, forcing men to leap and jump away from him, but they did not fall so far back as to free him from the cliff’s edge. “Charming notion. I’d rather find a way down than burn alive. The men mean no real harm. They’re merely hampering our progress.”
“Is that all? I thought they meant to push us over the edge,” Murdoch said sarcastically, glancing at the sea pounding the rocky shore far below. “Have you looked down? The rock spires along this coast are awe-inspiringly sharp.”
Ian snorted at this show of bravado. Even with their ability to run swiftly and leap far, they couldn’t soar past jagged stone to the uncertain depths of the sea. “We’re no more than curiosities to them.” With satisfaction, Ian whacked another musket so accurately that it spun over the cliff. To his left, the less injured mercenary engaged in a swordfight with a crude pike, without evidence of success. “They have no reason to kill us, just keep us from reaching Pierre.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t kill them.” Murdoch lunged with superhuman speed and power at his nearest captor, and the soldier collapsed, clasping his shoulder with a cry of pain. “Let them see we’re not cowards.”
“Angering them is hardly useful,” Ia
n objected as one of the rural militia ran to save his comrade and Murdoch’s royal officer discouraged him with a sword. “I can read the heavens or their minds, but I can’t force either to go against their nature. You’re the one with earth skills. Aside from creating an avalanche to take us down, is there nothing you can do?”
The militiamen milled angrily.
Talking while fighting was second nature to Aelynn men, as was fighting for the sake of fighting, but Aelynners had known peace for thousands of years, so fighting to actually cause harm went against their inclinations. Ian sensed some of Murdoch’s tension in doing so. He had to find some way out of this tangle before any of them unwittingly killed a man.
Wielding saber and rapier, Murdoch advanced slowly, pushing southward along the cliff’s edge. “Your puling heart would object to a hurricane.”
“You would drown Pierre and the chalice,” Ian said in growing irritation.
He could feel the cup slipping away, along with his patience. Murdoch would have them embroiled in a real battle if he did not find a better focus for his temper. “Seek their thoughts.”
“That’s your ability, not mine!” Murdoch slashed his sword in the direction of a soldier aiming his weapon. “To hell with this!”
Fire erupted at the soldier’s feet. The earth trembled beneath their boots, sending showers of shale crashing to the rocky beach below.
“Stop it, Murdoch, or you’ll destroy us!” Even as the words emerged, Ian knew he’d have to act on them — halt Murdoch’s explosive reactions before he endangered more than a dozen men.
But the only way to stop an out-of-control Murdoch was to slay him.
As if in protest of his thoughts, a shriek like the wail of ten furies carried over the wind and struck his heart with the force of a blow.
Chantal — in danger, and both afraid and furious.
Fear gripped Ian in a fist so tight that instantly, all his strength, all his talent, poured into one goal — reaching Chantal.
He spun around to face the plateau, and the staff in his hands began to vibrate as raw energy filled him. The ground stopped trembling. Murdoch bent in two and fell to his knees in pain — whether Ian had done that to him or Chantal had was impossible to tell. Ian’s entire world narrowed to removing anyone who stood between him and his endangered amacara.
Grabbing one end of his staff with both hands like a cricket bat, he swung the oak with all the power in him, creating a wind of such force that the militia stumbled backward in astonishment. Had he time to think about it, he would have stumbled in surprise as well. He had many minor abilities and could raise a breeze for amusement, but never a hurricane’s gale.
He lashed out again, clearing a passage with the force of his will and the thunderous storm of his staff. Chantal’s fear and fury tapped energies deep inside him that he’d long ago locked away. They exploded from their strongbox now, but unlike Murdoch, whose tempestuous anger was erratic and uncontrolled, Ian ruled his ferocity with an iron will, directing it toward a single purpose.
Any militiamen still standing fell over their comrades in their efforts to avoid the lashing of his mighty oak. They stumbled faster once Ian exercised the full fury of his mental forces. He’d never unleashed his abilities to this extent for fear of the damage he’d cause, but Chantal’s voice held him steady.
Her screams were closer, more like war cries than panicked shouts. Knowing Chantal better now did not ease Ian’s alarm. Her untempered wrath could wreak as much havoc as Murdoch’s, perhaps more since she had little knowledge of what she did.
“By the gods, Olympus, you’ll rip all our heads off!” Murdoch shouted as Ian’s staff spun in circles, disarming those who dared rise behind him as well as those in his path.
The warning didn’t hold him back. Ian swung his staff with such speed that men who raced to halt him now dropped to the ground to evade his blows. Chantal had released the beast he kept caged inside.
She streaked across the horizon, bareback, her hair streaming like a flag behind her as she aimed — not toward him, but toward the cliff to the north, with half a dozen blue-clad National Guardsmen in pursuit.
In her haste, she was riding directly toward the precarious edge of the cliffs.
Finally free of the trap of armed soldiers, Ian broke into a sprint, running along the cliffside. Until now, he’d not felt the sweat on his brow, but his hope of intercepting Chantal’s mad dash pushed him to his limits. He could match the mare’s gait, but neither the force of his mind nor the brawn of his muscle could stop animal and rider from bolting over the edge, or falling in a crumbling avalanche of loose shale.
In the back of his mind, Ian was aware that Murdoch might grab this opportunity to chase after the chalice on his own. It no longer mattered. Swinging the staff to send sprawling a soldier who approached from behind, Ian focused, seeking the connection that bound him to his amacara, hoping to warn her of the danger. He was almost there…. Just another moment…
Her thoughts were clouded with unheeding fury, and the recklessness of her intent nearly brought him to his knees — she thought to save him. In desperation, Ian swung around, knocking down two more men. He had no time for indecision. And no time for disobedience.
“Murdoch!” he yelled at his nemesis, who was already halfway down the crumbling rocks to the beach below. When Murdoch only hesitated, Ian channeled his amacara’s compelling tones. “Waterspout, Murdoch!” he thundered.
The resulting reverberation forced Murdoch to scramble upward again. “Blast you to Hades, Olympus, I can’t control the sea,” he cried, but miraculously, he acted upon the command, running along the edge of the precipice to join Ian.
Intent on her goal — a point jutting toward the sea to the north of them — Chantal was merely a furlong away from the precipice, her pursuers an equal distance behind her.
In an age-old ritual of obeisance, Murdoch held out his sword to Ian’s outstretched staff. “You’ve never done this,” he protested. “You’ll kill us both.”
“Better that I die than live without her. You needn’t follow.” Ian staggered as Murdoch’s erratic power surged into the already pulsating staff. “Now!”
They opened their minds, as they once had as children. Only then, it had been child’s play, and Murdoch hadn’t needed guidance. Now, Ian had to take the full brunt of the storm, remain standing, and harness the energy in tandem with a man whose mind he no longer knew.
Surging through Murdoch, the force of wind and water slashed into and through Ian, wild and unmanageable, until he channeled his strength through the staff and sword, achieving the center of power that Murdoch desperately sought through a haze of pain.
Together, from that core of strength, they commanded the wind and waves. The air whipped and the tide rose, crashing along the jagged point where Chantal was headed. If they worked swiftly enough, they could catch her, prevent her fall….
At the cliff’s edge, Chantal wheeled her horse. Her pursuers hauled on their reins to prevent crashing into her.
To Ian’s horror, as the National Guardsmen fought to control their mounts, Chantal’s horse reared. For one startled instant, their eyes met.
In that one moment she was there, full of life and roaring her defiance. In the next, she tumbled backward off the horse and disappeared over the cliff, onto the rocks below.
Power and fury swept through Ian to Murdoch. The howling waterspout rose to its full menacing height — too late to save Chantal. With no other alternative, Ian raced to leap into the rising storm to follow her down, not caring whether he lived or died.
Twenty-seven
With a scream, Chantal flung herself free of the horse and tumbled off the edge of the cliff, straight into an unanticipated gale-force wind.
Dying for her cause was not her intent.
She landed on a grassy ledge hidden directly beneath the cliff overhang and hastily grabbed a boulder to keep from being blown into the sea below.
Above her, the mounted
soldiers trampled the plateau a distance away, wary of meeting the same fate — not knowing what she had known: that the jut of the cliff hid a grassy area and a clear path down to the water.
Despite the wind, her heart pounded with terror and exhilaration. She could not describe the primitive rush of excitement she felt at outwitting and outriding a troop of trained cavalry. Bruised and filthy, she slid down the muddy path through the rising wind, toward the crashing waves, to duck under an outcropping of rock.
The full impact of Ian’s grief abruptly blasted her exhilaration like ignited gunpowder. Panicking, she glanced from beneath the overhang. Where was he?
An unusual blast of wind whipped her skirts and toppled her sideways. Alarmed, she pressed back into the lee of the overhang. Below, the extraordinary wind caught the wild waves and whirled them ever higher. She blinked in astonishment as a wall of water rose and swirled from the cove.
A waterspout!
Horses pounded the ground above her head, running to escape the dangerous gale. Shouts of alarm echoed over the wind’s howl. She prayed frantically as water sprayed across the cliffs, raising fears of Neptune rising from his watery grave. She could think of no other reason for the wind and water to blot out a clear summer day.
Earlier, when she’d been riding, she’d felt Ian’s presence in her head, giving her courage. It was as if he were the air current beneath her newly fledged wings. She’d felt invincible when she should have been shaking with terror. Now his agony tore at her heart.
Finding a strong handhold, she peered from her hiding place. Her gaze was drawn to the cliff on her left, where two tall masculine figures raised their weapons in salute to the tempest. Then, to her horror, they deliberately dived off the edge, into the howling maelstrom.
Ian!
The cries escaping her throat matched the silent screams echoing in her heart.
Mystic Rider Page 23