Shades of Avalon

by Carol Oates

  All of a sudden, everything snapped back into place, and I faced the guard’s back instead of his front with my sword still raised. Without hesitation, I brought the weapon between his shoulder and elbow, carving though meat and bone with ease, intent on making him suffer. He screamed and tumbled into the space I had just vacated. Blood pulsed from the mangled stump and sprayed over the floor and wall when he waved it about in horror. Wet flecks landed on my hands and the cuffs of my shirt. Pearly white bone peeked out of the fleshy mess. I didn’t allow the disgusting sight to distract me, knowing he would have done the same to me.

  When he turned, I lashed out with Lasair and slammed the tip into his chest. It went all the way through, catching in the wall behind him, and our eyes met for the first time. Wide topaz eyes framed in fair eyelashes stared at me though the round holes in the mask, and I saw the reflection of a person I didn’t recognize. My face wore an alien expression of wild hate and power. I felt the heat of it in my blood, pounding in my ears. I wanted to torture this man, tear him apart while still alive. The animal in me wanted to bathe in his blood.

  I hissed in a breath through gritted teeth and twisted the blade, splintering the wall behind him before wrenching it out. It would destroy his heart beyond healing and finish him quickly. I wasn’t Zeal. I refused to allow myself to take pleasure in the suffering and death of another for the sake of revenge. It could so easily turn me into the thing I hated.

  The guard slid to the ground, his dead eyes still watching the room from behind the skewed mask. The cumbersome thing had to have gotten in the way.

  “Hey,” a male voice called behind me. He had Amanda trapped in his arms, her back to the guard’s lower chest, and his long fingers wrapped around her slender neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed and jerked, showing no fear for herself.

  The pair inched toward one of the locked doors, and his long curved mask grazed the side of her face.

  “If you try to stop me, I’ll rip her throat out.” Each word vibrated with fear.

  Samuel came to my side, watching my back while this guard distracted me from the fight.

  I inhaled the coppery air of the room and listened carefully for Amanda’s heart. It fluttered like a small trapped bird. Dark notes of excitement laced her usual scent. This was my worst fear, and my body battled conflicting desires to stand down and attack. The only thing I knew for sure was they were not leaving this room.

  He rattled the handle of the door but it wouldn’t budge. It must have been reinforced on the other side.

  Ice slithered down my spine when Amanda began to inch the fabric of her dress up her leg. My head shook without my intention. She was going for the dagger strapped to her thigh, and it would get her killed. The air in the room grew so thick I couldn’t suck it into my lungs. Fear and rage trembled through my body. Hot breath forced its way through my flaring nostrils.

  “Just let me go,” he begged somewhat desperately, and I noticed his voice broke. Contrasting the others, this guard was terrified and young. It made him more dangerous.

  “You don’t want to die here,” I warned him.

  “I want to go home,” he said, and his hand tightened around her neck. His long nails scraped her skin.

  “Let the girl go, and we can talk,” Samuel assured him, holding up his free hand.

  Amanda’s fingers trailed up the sheath of the Druid Blade when he jerked.

  “No, she’s coming with me.”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you.” The words emerged rumbled and deep. My fingers tightened on the hilt of Lasair, and the metal pressed into my palm.

  “It’s okay, Ben. I’ll go with him.”

  “No,” Samuel said.

  My eyes flickered to her hand, and I shook my head, hoping she’d stop this madness.

  Her fingers wrapped around the handle of the dagger and adjusted unnoticed by the boy guard.

  “He doesn’t want to hurt me. Trust me, Ben,” Amanda murmured and in one swift motion withdrew the dagger and slammed it into the guard’s leg.

  My heart leapt into my mouth, and I dove toward them. He tossed Amanda aside, but I was there to catch her as Samuel grabbed hold of the guard, wrenching off his mask.

  “It’s okay,” Amanda assured me, her palms pressed to my chest. One crescent indent marred her smooth skin. “He didn’t want to hurt me,” she said back to Samuel, who was holding the boy against the wall with his forearm wedged at his throat. He couldn’t have been a year awakened, if even, probably more like months. Sweat plastered the boy’s raven hair to his head, and tears streaked his narrow face. He didn’t even try to get away from Samuel. Instead his hands hung limp by his sides.

  “You don’t know that.” I said to Amanda.

  “I do. His heart was a jackhammer, and his hands were slippery. He’s just scared.”

  Samuel pulled the Druid’s blade from the boy’s leg, and he let out a howl of pain.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Amanda yelled.

  Samuel frowned but nodded.

  “I’m okay,” she assured me. “I’ll stay with Samuel. Go help the others.”

  I didn’t want to leave her. Apprehension sat as curdled milk in the pit of my stomach, and my grip tightened on her upper arm. I tugged her to me and kissed her forehead, only moving away when Amanda pushed me.

  “Lewis needs your help,” she insisted.

  I didn’t think any longer. If I did, I wouldn’t have been able to leave her side. I spun lithely into the air. With all my strength I brought my bloody sword down on the collarbone of the guard cornering Lewis and Carmel. His body parted to his stomach with a gut-twisting squelch. I had spilt his heart in two. When he remained standing, I reached into his chest cavity with my left hand and tore one half of his already papery heart from his chest, tossing it aside. Carmel released her sword. It landed on the ground with a clatter, and she turned her attention on Lewis who was drooping sideways.

  I couldn’t pause to think about his injury or the second guard I’d dispatched. As the broken body of the guard dropped, I stepped on his shoulder and summersaulted backward into the mêlée.

  Several minutes later we stood amid carnage in the previously elegant room. Disemboweled and dismembered bodies lay scattered on the floor, both humans and Guardians, guests and guards. Only three of the guards, two of them hardly past puberty, surrendered. They included the boy who’d held Amanda.

  We assessed our own injuries. Lewis needed medical attention despite insisting he was fine. His lacerations weren’t deep, but they would be difficult to stitch. Carmel had escaped with a few scrapes and a nasty red mark across her cheek where she’s been slammed into a wall. Arthur’s right eye had swelled shut, and Guinevere had caught a blade at the top of her arm, near her shoulder. She was healing, but slower than Guardians did.

  “Tell me one thing, Guinevere. Are you with us?” I asked her.

  “I always have been,” she answered directly, glancing at Eila a couple of feet away.

  It would have to do for now. We didn’t have time to discuss her short defection further just yet, but Arthur had clearly already forgiven her. He stood by her side with one hand firmly pressed to her back. Any other injuries were minor or already healing. Amanda’s foot moved forward, but she hesitated, her gaze passing over the bloody obstacle course in front of her. She offered me an encouraging smile instead. Triona limped over to the window. The breeze disturbed her disheveled hair, and blood smeared her cheek.

  Pink had mixed in with the pale blue of the sky.

  “What next? How do we reach them in time?” Triona asked. “It’s almost sun up.”

  Emma’s eyes darted around at us when no one answered. “Someone say something. We can’t do nothing.”

  Annice stepped over a black cloaked body and came up beside Emma, placing a hand around her shoulder. “Of course we will do something.”

  “Ben, you can get there,” Guinevere suggested. “Emrys was sure of it. He wouldn’t have left you
behind otherwise.”

  “I can’t. Even if I could, I can’t take us all.”

  “I can,” an unfamiliar voice spoke up. We turned our attention to the boy who’d tried to escape with Amanda. He sat against a wall, his now healed leg bent in front of him. When no one said a word, the boy raised his head and gauged us with violet eyes. “He chose me for the guard because I can travel. It comes naturally to me.”

  “Then why not just go puff earlier?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ve only been doing it a few months and then only when I was allowed. I panicked.”

  Caleb maneuvered over to him, taking tentative steps to avoid a puddle of blood. “Why should we trust you? Why would you help us?”

  The boy dragged a slim, grubby hand through his hair. “He lied to us. He left us here to die.”

  Caleb looked over his shoulder at Triona and raised an eyebrow.

  “We have no other choices,” she said.

  The boy shuffled to his feet, brushing Caleb off when he tried to help. He was taller than Caleb by a couple of inches but wiry, as though he’d recently had a growth spurt.

  “If we link, I can guide you there,” he said. “I can tap into abilities of those near me if they give permission. That’s my gift. Together, we should be able to take another four.” Beneath his robe he wore black pants and shabby band T-shirt. He looked like any one of the people we had gone to school with.

  “We don’t have the time to think over this decision.” Triona rubbed the back of her neck roughly. “Who should come?”

  “If you’re going, I’m going,” Caleb stated in a tone that invited no argument.

  “And I have to,” I added.

  “It should be Arthur and me.” Guinevere approached, pulling her hair into a braid over her shoulder. “We should be with Emrys.”

  “I should be with John.” Emma threw her hand up as if she should be an obvious choice.

  “Don’t suggest it,” I warned Amanda. “I need to know you’re here and safe.”

  Amanda finally made her way over to me and slid her arm around my waist. “I know. I don’t like it, but I know.” She placed her head against my chest and squeezed my waist. I pressed my lips against the top of her head, not knowing what was waiting for us at Knowth.

  My encounter with the first guard had been a rude awakening. I had come close to slipping over the edge into enjoying the kill. The only thing that dragged me back was Amanda. That wasn’t the man I wanted to be for her. I wanted to try for that better life she talked of.

  “That’s it then.” Triona rubbed her hand anxiously along her thigh, ignoring Emma’s suggestion to come with us. “We don’t have time to waste. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 38

  Knowth

  THE BOY’S NAME WAS ANDREW, and he didn’t exaggerate his abilities. We had to maintain physical contact, and it was as uncomfortable as ever, but unlike other times, I didn’t have to concentrate on where I wanted to be. I didn’t have to think too hard. It was as if he dipped into a pool of my energy and scooped it out. We snapped back into the real world behind a large, domed mound of grassy earth surrounded by flat, standing stones. It was the first in a row of four satellite mounds—passage tombs—on the northwest side of the main tomb. Behind us, an angular, dark wood structure rose from the ground, surrounded by a rail.

  We ducked with no one speaking. There were people a short distance away on top of the largest mound, a monstrous structure forty feet high and well over two hundred feet wide. If they came to the edge they’d see us. There were eighteen mounds here, seventeen satellite mounds around the large central tomb with two passages leading to burial chambers. From what I remembered, the entrance to the eastern passage and the underground tunnels were on the other side from where we were.

  My fingers slid over the cool grass, and I noticed the speckles of blue flowers emerging. I expected this place to remind me of Tara, but it didn’t. It was greener, fresher, the grass less rough. Tara held a powerful life force in its earth that vibrated in Triona and me the closer we came to it. Tara was a connection to the Otherworld where life continued even after we died. There was something finite about the energy here, in contrast to its appearance. As though it was blocked or drained.

  A muffled shriek rose up, and birds scattered to the sky from the surrounding trees and bushes.

  “We have to get up there,” Triona mouthed. “But let’s not make it easy for Zeal.” She closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly as she raised her hands. Black bilious clouds rolled in as she drew them down again. It was as though she enticed the sky to darken, obscuring any sunlight that might hit the top of the large mound.

  Guinevere stood, extracting Excalibur from the scabbard beneath her skirts. Its light seemed brighter in the early morning. Caleb attempted to grasp her free hand, but she stepped out of his reach and fixed him with serious eyes.

  “Don’t fool yourself. They know we are here as sure we know they are. Let’s not waste any more time. There’s at least twenty guards up there or around here somewhere. If we don’t move on them, they’ll move on us.” She clasped Arthur’s hand and helped him to his feet.

  “What’s our plan?” Caleb asked.

  “Take down Zeal and anyone else who gets in our way,” I answered without missing a beat.

  “You’ve done enough, Andrew,” I told him. “You don’t have to come with us.”

  He bit his bottom lip and pressed his head back into the grass. “I’ve done a terrible thing because I wanted to be a part of something. I don’t have a family, and everything Zeal told us seemed so exciting—the power, the strength…I wanted to belong. I’m sorry.” Deep frown lines pinched the skin above his nose and drew his eyebrows together. He scrubbed his hand over his face and through his straight black hair. Bangs flopped back over his brow before he looked at me again. “I swear I wouldn’t have hurt her. I just wanted to get away without hurting anyone, and I don’t want to die.”

  His earnest expression was convincing although I didn’t know this person at all. I didn’t have time for the empathy I felt for him, and I didn’t plan to hand over my trust so readily. A part of me saw how Zeal could have easily led him down this path. It wasn’t so long ago I was overtaken by obnoxious self-confidence in my own ability and choices.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “This isn’t your fight anymore. Get back to the others.”

  “Let’s go,” Triona instructed.

  Conflict still raged in his violet eyes, and he released a growl of frustration before he disappeared.

  “Let’s go,” Triona repeated. She moved off, her bare feet sinking into the dewy grass.

  Caleb stayed close behind her and was first to finish a guard who tried to surprise us, appearing around the edge of the next small mound. The guard pounced like a wild cat from above, his hands clawed, still wearing the hideous mask. Caleb crouched and drove sword straight up into the guard’s chest, tossing him aside with a heaving grunt as if he was nothing more than a piece of meat. In a flash Caleb was on top of him. His knees held down the man’s arms, and the point of his blade touched the guard’s throat beneath the chin of his mask.

  “Stay down,” Caleb seethed. The man squirmed. “Stay. Down!”

  My chest tightened as the guard forced his head up, driving the blade into his throat. Caleb pushed himself up and jerked his blade free. He swallowed hard and leaned lower to check for a pulse at his wrist. He blinked a couple of times, clearing his head and caught my eye. “I only grazed his heart. He’s alive…just. He will heal in time.”

  Triona tugged on his arm, and we followed Arthur to the side of the large mound. A lip of concrete slabs about five feet off the ground and couldn’t be original to the structure sat atop a ring of kerbstones. Some of the rough stones had decorations similar to the ones Merlin had drawn on the walls of his prison cave, albeit a lot more faded. I jumped up onto the grassy slope and braced one foot on the concrete edge to give Guinevere a hand up. She ignored t
he gesture and slid Excalibur into its sheath. She placed her hands on the lip and pulled herself up easily. Arthur took my help rather than laying down his sword. From there we began our scramble up the steep, forty-foot incline.

  Sweat soaked through my shirt causing it to stick to my skin. I was glad I’d left the jacket behind. A yell of pain echoed over the site, and I lost my footing, using Lasair to stab the earth. Guinevere caught Triona by the arm and leaned into her. “John must bathe in the light of the rising sun to complete the transition.”

  “Zeal will kill him the minute it finishes,” Triona hissed.

  “You will kill him if you don’t allow the sun through.”

  Triona scrunched her eyes shut, internally debating. She forced out a breath and shook her head. “We’re going to have to move fast.”

  Guinevere pressed her lips together and withdrew Excalibur showing she was ready.

  Triona slammed her sword into the ground and used it to anchor herself as another cry of pain rang out.

  She didn’t wait for the weather to change, the moment the clouds began to roll back, Triona wrenched the sword out spraying muck and clumps of grass in every direction.

  Another guard appeared above us, sliding down the grass on his ass. I rolled to the side and kicked out, catching his head with the heel of my shoe. He grunted, lost his hold on the slippery grass, and clambered to find his grip again. Arthur slammed the butt of his sword into the guard’s head, and he tumbled the rest of the way to the ground, appearing unconscious. Although, there was no way to know with his mask still in place. If there was any doubt Zeal knew we were here, it was gone now.

  I pushed forward, fired along by the momentum of the others swarming up the remaining distance. We reached the top of the mound and a weather-beaten wooden fence. My nerve endings were electrified, and my synapses were firing too fast. Adrenaline coursed through my body like a bullet from a gun. My limbs moved on pure instinct, launching me over the barrier onto the gray stone ground as the first rays of light broke the horizon.