High off the ground, Gahkra waved her arms and flexed her clawed hands, but there was nothing she could do. The creature couldn’t see to attack anybody, and its life blood flowed all over the red carpet leading to the Phoenix Throne.
At that moment, Ross stepped forward. He raised one hand toward the monster, and a concussion boomed out of his palm. It struck the creature in the face as the monster rose off the ground to rear one more time.
In an instant, the monster vaporized in a cloud of soot and ash. The shock wave sent little wisps of black soot wafting through the Throne room. Gahkra sailed into the air with a shriek. Every man watched her open-mouthed. She followed a graceful arc over the space where her monster used to be and landed in a crouch on the floor.
Her eyes flashed, and she let out a howl that curled the hair on Angus’s neck. In the blink of an eye, she was on her feet. Faster than anyone could think, she sent a blistering barrage of those devilish fireballs whistling down the hall.
One of them whizzed past Angus’s head. He didn’t see where it landed. He was too busy raising his sword to meet the next several dozen coming at him faster than his eye could follow. He cut his blade in front of his face and pulverized three of those fire balls in one hit, but hundreds more flew down the hall at him and his brothers.
The friends fought all over the hall, but Gahkra fired off every weapon she had. Just like she did upstairs, she sent dozens of different threats their way. The rolling blades buzzed all over the floor. The bees swarmed in Angus’s face. Snakes corkscrewed through the air to bite and strangle anyone they could grab.
Gahkra chortled with insane glee. Her arms windmilled around her. Every time they passed by her head, some new evil power materialized in her hands to fly down the hall at Angus’s party. They couldn’t stand up to her. Angus knew that. Carmen releasing the monster defeated Gahkra last time, but they couldn’t pull the same trick now.
Angus had to think of something. He had to find a way to defeat this hag. He couldn’t come all this way and suffer all these hardships for nothing.
In the midst of this chaos, Ross appeared out of nowhere. Where had he been before? Angus couldn’t remember. Ross strode into the thick of the melee. He extended his hand toward Gahkra one more time. A huge curved sphere sprang out of his hand to surround the party.
Gahkra’s weapons bounced off that shield. The fire balls and snakes and bees couldn’t penetrate it. Ross strained every sinew to the breaking point holding them back, but for a brief interval, the friends were safe.
Gahkra gnashed her rotten teeth. She redoubled her efforts and bombarded Ross with everything she had. He stumbled back, but the shield held firm. She advanced on him. A tumbling fireball struck the shield and left a dent before it rolled away.
A muffled noise caught Angus’s ear. He looked over his shoulder one more time. He expected to see the dragon staring down at him to spur him on to what he needed to do. Instead, he gasped out loud when he saw the whole Throne in flames. The fireball that missed his head landed on the Throne. Licking flames engulfed the dragon in a hellish inferno. Flames lapped up the tapestries to the roof.
Angus spun around the other way to see Ross holding out both hands against Gahkra’s attack. He couldn’t hold the shield much longer. She kept advancing, one step after another. He fell back, but he couldn’t keep his shield intact to defend the party. They had to find another way to defeat Gahkra before she destroyed them all.
Angus cast around for something, anything to fight this hag. She concentrated all her attention on Ross now. Maybe, just maybe, he could get a shot at her.
He seized the dagger from his sock and made a wild dash to one side. He dove out from behind Ross’s sphere, wheeled on one foot, and sent the dagger hurtling down the hall for Gahkra’s head.
She broke off her attack against Ross just long enough face Angus. The dagger somersaulted through the air. Gahkra swept one hand sideways. The dagger bounced back the way it came and went screaming toward Ross.
Gahkra’s bombardment paused one heartbeat. She guided the dagger with one hand. She dropped on one knee and threw out her other arm straight at Ross. A solid mass of flame shot out of her fingers. It blasted against the shield and curved all around the party sheltered behind it.
The impact collapsed the shield. It blinked and disappeared, but Gahkra’s fire never touched them. She cut it off the instant the shield broke. Angus’s dagger came flying down the hall. The metal handle struck Ross in the forehead and sent him staggering backward. His feet hit the steps, and he pitched over on his back.
Without missing a beat, Gahkra leapt to her feet. She whirled from one foot to the other, and another hail of fireballs popped out of her hands to shoot down the party. Angus raised his sword and cut here and there as fast as he could move, but Gahkra kept him on the defensive the whole time.
Out of nowhere, a rolling tumbling cannonball of searing heat hit him in the chest. He fought to regain his footing when another missile punched him in the guts. He doubled over and tripped over his own feet. He stumbled back, straight into the burning Throne.
Chapter 31
Angus screamed, and Carmen swung around just in time to see the blasting furnace of flame engulf him. He flailed his arms in wild confusion, but he couldn’t get out in time. The fire surrounded him on all sides. It ate through his clothes and hair, and his face disappeared in a mass of flame.
Carmen darted forward. She would have run straight into the flames to save him if Callum hadn’t caught her in his arms. “Nae! Ye cinnae save him now.”
She fought to escape. “I have to! We can’t let him die.”
“Ye’ll die in there,” he shouted in her ear.
“I don’t care!” she shrieked. “Let me go.”
He didn’t let her go, and he didn’t try to reason with her. He crushed her in his arms. She couldn’t get away no matter how she struggled.
The Throne crackled all over. The dragon’s looming presence shone through the flames long after Angus lay still. His body and head collapsed in on themselves. Carmen screamed and bellowed in agony, but she had no choice but to stand by and watch the fire consume him.
The dragon remained sitting there, inviolate, long after Angus ceased to exist. It appeared more majestic and intense in the destructive heat of the fire than it had before.
Carmen’s struggles diminished. Angus wasn’t there anymore. He was gone. She would never see him again. She gave up everything—and for what? He was dead. She stopped fighting, but Callum didn’t release her. He held her tight against his massive bulk.
From a great distance, she became aware of him shaking. She glanced over. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he fought for every shuddering breath. Ewan and Jamie and Fergus stared into the flames where Angus disappeared. Only three men remained out of fifty, and the Throne was destroyed.
Carmen wriggled out of Callum’s arms, and he didn’t hold her back. The four of them stared in stunned shock until the fire consumed the throne. The dragon slumped. It lost its grandeur. Its wings buckled to the floor, followed by the great glaring head. Inch by inch, it ceased to be until it imploded into a smoldering pile of ash and charcoal.
Callum ran his sleeve across his face. “Weel, that’s it, then. Come on, lads. We’ll be goin’ hame now. There’s no reason fer us tae stick around this graveyard anymore. I dinnae care if we ha’e tae fight the wraiths e’ery step o’ the way. We’ll no stay in this death trap another day. We’re goin’ hame to our auld place and beware anyone who gets in our way.”
Jamie turned away from the ruined Throne. Carmen remained where she was. She couldn’t take her eyes off the ashes on the floor. All her dreams and hopes and plans and loves came to this. That pile of ash was her life. That’s what her life was worth now, a pile of ash.
She no longer cared about anything. She didn’t care if she stayed in this castle alone for the rest of her life, or if she went back to the Camerons’ home castle, or if she went back to her old
life in modern America. Nothing mattered anymore. Angus was dead. She no longer cared if she lived or died.
Callum came up to her and touched her arm. “Ye’re comin’ wi’ us, lass. Ye’re part o’ us now, and no mistake. We’ll tak’ ye hame, or if ye want, ye can go back where ye belong, just as ye wish. We’ll no leave ye behind tae fend fer yerself.”
His words touched her heart. Her lip quivered. She would give anything to break down crying right now, to curl up in his arms and grieve with him. She envied his tears, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything. She was dead. She died with Angus in that fire.
Callum pressed her arm and turned her away from the ashes. He pushed her forward to walk out of the room when her eye fell on Gahkra standing a few paces away. The old woman no longer fired her magical weapons to kill them. She stood still with her arms at her sides.
Carmen stared at her. The hideous disgusting ugliness fell away from her wrinkled old face. She ceased to be a fearsome witch. She became nothing but an old woman, harmless, shrunken, almost kindly.
Carmen peered into her face. The old woman resembled Lucy, but with a slightly rounder, flatter face. Carmen swallowed hard. “Alice?”
The woman gave her a gentle smile and spoke in a clear American accent. “The Tribute is paid.”
Carmen’s jaw dropped. “The Tribute?”
Fergus called out behind them. “Look!”
The party whipped around. Fergus still stood in front of the Throne. He stared down at the smoking embers. In front of their eyes, a faint breeze stirred the ashes. Where could a breeze come from in that chamber?
The ashes swirled. They drifted up and formed a small cloud. As Carmen watched, the whirling funnel spun faster and faster, growing bigger all the time. It rose out of the smoldering remains of the Throne into a tornado climbing to the roof.
Carmen and the brothers staggered back to get away from it. It towered over their heads until it filled the whole Throne room. All of a sudden, the ash sucked in on itself to form a solid shape. It darkened into a black wall. In a puff of acrid smoke, it concentrated into a huge black dragon exactly like the one that once sat behind the Throne.
The lizard arched back on its hind legs. Its wings extended on either side, and it whipped its head back. It let out a high-pitched screech. The sun streaming through the stained glass windows glimmered purple-black along its scales, and shimmering metallic points ran down its head and neck, along its back, to the whiplash tail slithering over the floor.
Carmen stared up at the thing in astonishment. The dragon plunged and called again and again. Its razor head bobbed on its curving neck, but she wasn’t afraid. She understood the truth. That dragon was Angus. He was King. He paid the Tribute by dying in the fire, and now he rose from the ashes to take his true form.
His voice shook the castle. He wouldn’t stop crying and calling over and over. Out of nowhere, hundreds of people materialized all around her. They packed the hall so tight she couldn’t move. The brothers and Ewan and Alice crowded close to find space for themselves, and all the time, the dragon kept writhing and calling and screaming at the top of its lungs.
Every eye trained on that enormous reptile. People gasped and exclaimed all around Carmen. She looked right and left at men and women dressed in the most magnificent costume. Some wore circlets of gold around their heads, and precious stones encrusted their clothes.
Murmured remarks flew from mouth to mouth. No one noticed the strangers wedged in their midst. Everyone watched the dragon. He gave off calling and turned his burning eyes on the crowd. He dropped onto all fours. His head bobbed back and forth to peer at the people all around his feet.
His neck rippled when he moved. He walked over to the platform where the Throne once stood. He climbed the steps and coiled his long body on the platform. He hunched his shoulders and crouched in an attitude exactly like the wooden dragon that once sat behind the Throne.
The moment he took that position, the crowd erupted in loud cheers. Whistles and applause broke out through the hall. People waved their arms and hailed the new King.
Carmen’s heart burst with confused emotion. The curse was lifted. All the people of Urlu were back, and Angus sat on his Throne. What did it all mean? What would become of her now?
She glanced at her friends. The same questions shadowed all their faces. Victory left them more uncertain than defeat. None of them knew what to do. Would Angus be stuck in this form forever?
She elbowed Callum and inclined her head toward the side door. He nodded, and they shouldered their way through the crowd. She opened the door and held it while the four men ducked through, out of the Throne room and away.
Just before she passed through it herself, she cast one last glance at the platform. At that moment, the dragon shrank in on itself to become a man, the man she knew and loved. Angus wore his same kilt, his white shirt, and the extra length of plaid across his shoulder. His sporran hung in front of his hips, and his long hair draped to his shoulders.
He looked over at her, and their eyes met. In an instant, people rushed up the steps to mob him on all sides. They talked in his ears a mile a minute. They clasped his hand. Some fell on their knees and kissed his knuckles.
He observed the whole scene standing erect and impassive on the platform. He smiled and nodded to anyone who spoke to him. His eye trailed around to see Carmen standing there.
She watched for a minute longer. He was King. He belonged to his people. Now that they were back and he was back, they had a lot of work to do. He won, and now he had to rule this realm.
She withdrew through the door and pulled it closed behind her, but she left a piece of her heart in that room. She always would. She turned around to face her friends. The four men and Alice stood in a small room off the main Throne room. They stood and stared at each other in stupefied silence for a long time.
What would they do now? Angus was King. They lifted the curse. Success was almost more than they could comprehend.
While they stood there in shock, a young woman bustled into the room. She wore a long dress, a tight bodice laced up the back, and puffy sleeves ending at her elbows. She wore a white linen cap over her hair tied up in a bun.
“Aye, Miss,” she panted to Carmen, “yer bath is waitin’ in yer room as ye asked fer it, and yer clean dress, and Mrs. McConaughey wishes tae ken when ye’d lik’ yer dinner brought tae the Dining Room, and if ye’re wishin’ tae dine wi’ the Master. Ken I tell ‘er yer wishes before ye go up tae yer bath?”
Carmen stared at her. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. The brothers blinked in wonder at the scene. A horse neighed in the distance, and the sound of a coach’s wheels clattered along the paving stones outside. Before their eyes, a bird landed on the windowsill and twittered before it flew away.
Just then, a man burst into the room and spoke in a panting voice up to big Ewan Munro. “Sir! The Guard is prepared fer yer review in the courtyard as ye requested, and yer charger is waitin’ by the guard room door. The Chief wishes tae ken whether ye’ll want tae organize a new roster of scouts tae patrol our perimeter, or if we’re tae continue the same pattern yer established last month.”
The brothers stared at each other and the newcomers, but no one could speak. The castle and all its business went on as if nothing had happened, as if four generations hadn’t been trapped in some shadow world as ghosts, and the castle asleep and abandoned all this time.
Carmen crossed the room to another door on the other side. She looked through it, across another hall, and through the portico into the kitchen garden. Kitchen girls and gardener’s boys moved back and forth between the hedges. Women’s voice called from the kitchen, and horses stamped near the stable.
Voices, sounds, and activity filled the castle, but Carmen and her friends couldn’t join it. The moment of their victory when they finally released the castle from the curse turned them into ghosts. None of these people could see them for what they were. Carmen and her friends
looked in on the castle’s life from outside.
The guardsmen and the maid watched them and waited for them to answer. What should they say? Did Angus experience this in the Throne room, with hundreds of people pressing him on all sides to run the country and make all the decisions and answer all their small concerns?
What Carmen wouldn’t give to be with him out on the road right now with nothing but a band of surly men as companions. What she wouldn’t give to be alone with him in the fields or the woods with no one wondering where they were or when they would come back.
She would never get that time with him again. They would never be outcasts and wanderers again. She gathered her resolve and smiled at the maid. “You can tell Mrs. McConaughey that the Master is too busy to dine just now. I’ll take my dinner in my room after I have a bath.”
The maid gave a little bounce. She smiled and sailed out of the room.
Ewan watched the exchange, and when Carmen nodded to him, he faced the guardsmen. “I’ll be alang fer the review in a moment. Keep the patrol the same fer now. Once I get a chance tae review the Guard, I’ll review the patrol asweel.”
That satisfied the guardsmen, and he hurried away. Carmen and her friends remained standing in a circle. They looked back and forth at each other a long time more until Callum broke the silence. “We’as best get alang wi’ it. We’re still alive, I guess.”
His words broke the spell holding the party frozen. They were still alive, and life waited for no one. They fought all this time to live, and now that they succeeded, they better embrace it in all its crazy reality.
Ewan left the room first. Where he went, Carmen didn’t know. Callum went out into the kitchen garden and started talking to the gardener’s boys about something or other. Jamie and Fergus drifted off somewhere.
Carmen went down the hall to her room, but when she opened the door, the same young maid came bustling down the hall going the other way. “Yer bath’s ready and waitin’, Miss.”
Ghost Clan Page 22