Ulrich yelped as he received the blow intended for her against the side of his head. He went down like a felled tree.
The best thing she could do right now was to lead away the revenant. Bent at the waist, Gossamyr ran toward the square, luring the skeletal beast with her. No,you'll lead it toward people. Gossamyr stopped, jumping to turn and face the creature. Taking an arret in each hand she began to spin them.
The revenant hung before her in the sky, sunlight ripping through the slashed wings and glinting on the ichor-dripping muscle shreds clinging to the ribs. A shred of mail hung from one rib bone. It wielded her staff with such ease, transferring it from one hand to the other as if a mere toy. Not mindless then. It could remain if it so chose. And this creature sought some fight before returning to Faery.
Judging the best hit for her tiny obsidian blade would not be between a rib or on the tattered wing, Gossamyr thought to try the eyes. Nothing in the skull that she could determine, but it was worth a shot.
A death cry preceded the revenant's swinging attack. Gossamyr leaned back to avoid the hit. She swung, releasing the arret. It
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soared through the open jaws of the revenant and out into the sky. Blight!
If skulls could grin, the creature cracked a bitter smile at her. Swiftly it returned the staff, bringing Gossamyr down. The arret abandoned on the wet cobblestones, she rolled to her knees, clutching her gut. The staff had connected directly. But she hadn't time for pain, for the revenant attached to her back. Strength immeasurable pressed down on her spine. Bony fingers dug between her ribs.
The thing thought to rip her apart!
And it would. Rolling to the side, the revenant clattered upon the ground, bone against stone, but would not release Gossamyr. She managed to slip a hand around and grip bone. Her finger slid into—an eye socket. She felt the skin on her back tear. A cry of pain escaped but was swallowed by the revenant's manic screeches.
Slamming hard, Gossamyr heard the skull crack. Working another finger into the other eye socket, she held fast. Repeatedly she beat the skull against the cobbles. Each pound released the pressure on her back until she was free. She flipped her legs out from under the revenant. Using both hands, she made to pound the skull one forceful time but instead pulled the head off complete.
Amidst the terror, Gossamyr found herself kneeling on the ground, stunned to be holding the skull of a dead fee in her hand. The jaw opened and let out a yowl.
Gossamyr whipped the skull across the square.
It landed a stone wall and shattered into a glimmer of dust. Strange to think the sight pretty, but it was.
Now a skeletal hand groped her knee. Gossamyr stretched along the cobblestones and grabbed her staff. The tip of a finger popped through the silk skirt and opened her flesh. Smashing the staff in a purely desperate move, she obliterated the offending arm and hand. The hips and legs were put to end with a fervent pounding. Faery dust rained upon her head and shoulders and legs.
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Satisfied the beast was demolished, Gossamyr flung back her arms and lay upon the cobbles, heaving and panting. Dust coated her eyelids. Whimpers of pain punctuated her frantic breaths. Air wheezed from her lungs. Blood from her knee oozed down her leg and soaked her braies.
But successful, she thought. A smile was the only thing that did not hurt. One less revenant to torment Faery.
Avenall's face appeared above her. Insectile in his movements he looked over her. Streams of red-and-black hair tipped her aching muscles.
"Avenall," she gasped.
"Impressive, mortal wench."
"I am not..." Too exhausted to argue, she thought to expend her energy mentally. What be his name? He was of the tribe... Rogue. Torn. Not enough to invoke a reverse glamour, but certainly worth the effort. "Avenall of.. .Rougethorn."
But a single red eyebrow lifted. Considering? Remembering? Both brows narrowed to study. Gossamyr stared into the violet depths that, with a blink, were sluiced over by red.
"Rougethorn,"he said, trying the word, but not saying it as he'd once said. A thoughtful tilt of his head was followed by an adamant shake. "No. You shall not win the prize this night, pitiful one. Puppy must return to his mistress."
With that he dashed off, leaving Gossamyr sprawled in the center of the street, her arms spread wide and her body coated with the revenant dust.
Darting out her tongue, she tasted Faery. And for the moment she reveled in the shroud of glamour that revisited her home.
I am coming home. I will become the champion.
TWENTY
By the time Gossamyr reached his side, Ulrich was standing—wobbling and muttering a blue string of oaths about vicious faery women—and alive. Which, after that nasty club to the side of his head, is all Gossamyr worried about. Unthinking, she pressed both hands to the sides of his scalp—a Mince gesture.
"Ouch!" He wriggled from her touch and slid along the wall, his eyes manic on her. As if she had been the one to hurt him!
"I didn't—"
"It was jour bloody staff!"
"Sorry." She twirled one half of her now-short staff and snapped it to hide behind her back. "'Tis gone, the revenant. Ulrich, I must go in search of Ave—the pin man. Can I leave you to find your way home to your uncle?"
"You will leave me, faery." He touched a stream of blood trickling from the depths of his tangled hair. "I've had enough of your danger. I'd rather defend the alicorn from a thousand wailing banshees than to stand again in the midst of one of your battles."
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"Ulrich."
No time to argue. It mattered naught who was right or wrong, only that he was alive. And that she must move while she could. The revenant had pushed one of its fingers—bones—through the side of her knee. It hurt something fierce. If she did not walk the muscle, it would bind and ache all the more.
As well, the pin man would not get away this time.
"Sorry. I must be on to it." And with a long, fretful pause, looking over his skull—the blood no longer trickled, in fact it looked a scratch—Gossamyr scampered off.
"I would have preferred another Dance!" Ulrich shouted in her wake. "Damned bloody faeries!"
"Return to your uncle, Ulrich. Do not veer from your path!"
The pin man dropped from the painted rafters of a tanner's shed. The stench of urine did not bother, so honed his senses were to the task. Foolish woman. That he had slipped from her so easily with both prizes intact!
Clutched in his left hand he held two pins, each heavy with a fee essence. A smile curved beneath the scatter of crimson-and-black hair that spilled across his face. His mistress would be pleased this night. Good puppy.
In his right hand he drew out from his pin sheath the bloodied pin that reeked of the warrior woman's scent. He waved it beneath his nose, again trying to determine the curious origins of her essence. 'Twas not fee or troll or elf, but mysteriously, she did not seem all that mortal, either. Powerful, she. To have defeated that hideous skeletal monster?
/ know why you were banished.
She lied. Even he could not summon the memory.
And she had Named him, or rather, called out a name. The name Avenall strummed within him, residing with little protest. Such ease it made itself home.
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Rougethorn? It did not resonate as the other name did. Yet, he did remark the name; it was her tribal origin.
The warrior wench toyed with him. She sought to trick him, surely. Lower his defenses. A feeble mortal woman. She could not be anything but! Otherwise, the Red Lady would have scented her presence as soon as she landed Paris.
Could his mistress be slipping?
A delicious thrill shivered gleefully through him. Skipping merrily, he headed toward the succubus's lair, leaving all curiosities about his name to the stench of the tanner's shop.
Gossamyr followed the skipping man, keeping far enough back so he would not detect her. Ulrich had promise
d he would return to his uncle. She hadn't meant to hit him so hard, but when in the midst of battle, who was afforded the time to think? With rest the man would fare fine and well. There, he could keep the alicorn safe. There was no sense bringing it closer to the succubus who craved it.
As for herself, she gripped her pulsing knee. Every step shrieked with pain. Blood drooled down the back of her leg. Frustrated with the cumbersome skirts, she bent and gripped the tear through which the revenant's finger had poked. She managed to rend the entire hem away, as high as her knees. The braies beneath looked parti-colored, for blood stained the left leg.
Sniffling, she smeared a bloody fist across her nose.
Don't think about it. Do not consider the pain pierces with each beat of your heart. You may hurt later.
Avenall scampered, his posture bending and streamlining as he quickened his pace. She assumed being the Red Lady's minion required a subservience that would tax any man's posture. Held at each side, the glimmering essences called out his journey through the streets like a supernatural beacon clutched in the grip of a lantern man. The red flooding his hair shocked. A mark of the banished or the Red Lady's taint?
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The pin man suddenly slipped inside a doorway and a crack of light closed behind him.
o
Gossamyr stepped up to an iron fence surrounding a stone and red-tiled manor. So this was the Red Lady's lair? Unremarkable. It was a small dwelling at the corner of three intersecting streets. A crossroads?
A shiver, in anticipation of unseen souls, prinkled across her chest, matching her lost blazon. The iron gate closed in a small garden rimmed with a pink shell path. Even the evil succubus would have use for a garden, for nature was a fee lifeline.
As well, stolen faery essences.
Carefully she picked across the shell path; her light footsteps made no sound. Gossamyr snuck into the shadows and limned her body to the limestone wall. The exterior verily hummed, she could feel Faery shimmy through her being. Enchantment within. Curious to find such a concentration in the depths of this mortal city.
Touching the crease between the door and the wall, Gossamyr contemplated what she must do.
The fetch landed Shinn's forehead, stretching its wings beyond his temples—scritch-scratch across the horns—and its elongated thorax down his nose. Closing his eyes, Shinn allowed the communion to begin. Images recorded from the Other side flickered as brief and darting as a dragon's flight. A battle. Two Disenchanted, their shining armor decimated. Revenants taking to escape. Again, his daughter was the victor. But she suffered injury.
Another flicker focused a disturbing image in Shinn's thoughts. The soul shepherd kissed Gossamyr. A flurry of faery lights shimmering throughout the city ended the recorded communication.
Sending gratitude to the fetch, Shinn did not open his eyes until it had lifted from his forehead and twinclianed.
"She is in Paris," he murmured. "That kiss."
While he should be more troubled his daughter was forced to
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face bogies and maniacal minions of the Red Lady, the image of that kiss disturbed him fiercely. Now was no time for Gossamyr to stumble. She risked much more than her life. All of Glamour siege relied upon her success.
His deepest fear had come to fruition. The mortal passion had taken hold. She invited distraction when her goal must be focused.
"My lord." Desideriel Raine stood waiting in the great hall. The marshal at arms reported morning and evening now that the troops had been mustered.
"How many?" Shinn queried solemnly.
"Two, my lord. We've taken care of them. But their frequency increases. It is difficult to determine where in Glamoursiege the revenants will next arrive."
"How many casualties?"
"But two."
"Their essences?"
"Safe."
Shinn nodded and Desideriel bowed then left.
"You are so close," he said aloud.
Images of Gossamyr's determined grin fixed before him. How she loved adventure. But could she separate the adventure from true danger?
"Concentrate, child of mine."
The small outer manor deceived as Gossamyr tracked Avenall down a slanting, curved marble hallway until she estimated she marked out a path as vast as the market square where Ulrich had explained the Parisians hung their criminals. Damp and the scent of clay were eminent even for the marble that covered walls and floor and ceiling. Torches hissed on the walls and flickered as she brushed by them. Gargoyles, the torches; each of them holding an eerie glint in their hollowed stone eyes, for the flames flickered below their jaws.
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The pin man danced joyously toward his destination, quite unaware Gossamyr had closed the distance between them. He had no sense of the man he had once been, a regal fee princeling. And despite his obvious change, Gossamyr still clung to that image of his former self.
Would he lead her to the Red Lady? Gossamyr's entry into the lair seemed entirely too easy. And she held but a short staff now for she'd left behind the other half. Where were the minions? Surely the succubus commanded an army of red-eyed sycophants. If there was Avenall, there must be others.
In the air hummed a strange susurration, like tiny whispers, secretive and stealthy. And beyond the murmurs the single tone of a harp string sung out from a dense and muting distance. Be this the sound that lured Ulrich? Wasn't nearly so sweet as a midsummer reel sung by a forest siren.
Avenall sang, tapping the heads of each gargoyle torch as he passed. "Seraphion, Martimanas, my sweets!"
Ahead, a flash of white light stretched down the pale marble floor. Gossamyr pressed herself to the wall behind a grotesque torch; the blaze of flame would hide her from discovery. Sweet the candle fire, flames melting honeycomb. A cool wind tickled the side of her neck. She slapped a palm over her throat and scanned the smirking gargoyle to her right. The tiny whispers had stopped.
Had the gargoyle—? No. Couldn't have.
Avenall entered a room and the door began to close. Quickly, she tiptoed to the door and pressed a palm to it. Though forged of marble and massive in size it moved on a whisper.
Tang of citrus and hush of myrrh drifted out from the room. Peering inside, Gossamyr spied a bed of tousled red linens. Elegant tapestry hangings, fringed i n heavy gold tassels canopied the bed. No other furniture cluttered the vast marble floor. No succubus in sight.
On the wall opposite the bed there glowed such a marvel—Gossamyr gasped.
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Hundreds of luminous masses glimmered on the wall. Here the song of Faery blossomed and cried out. Not fearful, but neither joyous. Tentative, the tones, so leery. This was the melody she had heard.
Avenall thrust one pin into the wall, securing the quivering orange essence with ease. Silver into stone? The second pin was secured with equal aplomb. Mesmerizing. In proof, Gossamyr watched as the pin man lifted his head and looked over the essences, his arms falling slack at his sides. Trapped in a pose of worship, his hair dusted the floor at his bare heels. It appeared the crimson had flowed even farther, leaving barely a hand's-breadth of black at the tips.
Did the Red Lady possess hair of such color? Shinn had not remarked such.
And there, from beneath the heavy fall of crimson-and-black hair, unfurled the gorgeous papilinod wings, spurred with wispy filaments. Not violet. Not iridescent, so drained of color they were—much like a revenant. Now she noticed his arms. The Rougethorn blazon girdled arms and hips. Banishment had not stolen Avenall's blazon, yet, it was pale, barely a shimmer of curling arcs and dashes upon his flesh.
Gossamyr drew herself into the room. Wincing at the sharp pain in her knee, her bare feet made not a sound on the cold marble as she crept around behind the succubus's minion. So entranced he was he did not notice her. The glowing, shifting orbs continued their weird humming. Was the sound a death cry, a captured fee essence, unable to journey to
its final resting place? Did they suffer in oblivion? Would the revenant's death—somewhere in Faery—see an end to this captured essence?
No, for she had obliterated the one back in the square, and Avenall yet retained the speared essence.
The urge to leap forward and yank the pins from the marble flared in Gossamyr's gut. But she quelled the ache for justice. Do
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not seek vengeance, holdfast to valor. Be bold, be bold—until she knew where the mistress of this lair hid, she must be wary—be not too bold. Seek the truth!
Who was to know what their release would prove? Mayhap there was chance, with the revenant's death, the essence could then be granted the final twinclian.
For now, she was more concerned with Avenall's faculty.
Following the tilt of the pin man's head, she gathered he stared at the one essence pinned highest above all the others. A leap to touch the thick iron head of that pin. The essence there undulated lazily, fat and palest yellow, as the sun on a cold winter morn. It was different than the rest. Not as glimmery. More solid. As if.. .not filled with glamour.
For the Enchantment still reigned in Avenall? Of course, his blazon proved as much.
The softest of whispers gave away his fascination. "Mine."
"It is yours," Gossamyr blurted.
The fee startled, his wings twitching, but he did not turn from gazing upon the yellow essence.
"Be that how she keeps you?" Gossamyr approached the base of the curved marble stairs. Cool beneath her toes, the slick stone. "Is it your essence?"
"Oh, yes," he murmured in a reverent hush. Avenall stood tall and proud. The subtle sweep of his wings stirred heliotrope into the mixture of citrus and myrrh. Seductive. Can it be as it once was? Oh, but she ached for it to be so.
"Take it," Gossamyr said. "It is but a leap to your freedom."
A rabbity moan brewed in the man's throat. The filaments spurring his wing tips coiled tightly. He shook his head, dusting the cold air with his vibrant tresses. "It is too high."
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