“And we will not know until the time comes.”
Caelin shook his head, but dismissed his qualms about proceeding. “How are we to crack this little nut? You could carry me and Faine could carry Gwyneth, but only if we try before the sun sets. If we wait till dark, when we would have a far better chance of reaching the temple in one piece, Faine will have shifted and then only you can fly.”
“That does present a problem, particularly when we can’t afford to enter the temple in a weakened state—which we will be if we are full of holes. I am as certain that I can be that it will take everything all of us have to defeat him, together.”
“There are archers among them. I don’t know that we could reach the temple and get inside without becoming pincushions even with the dark to conceal us, and tonight is the full moon. We would have to reach the temple before the moon rises, not only for the cloak of darkness, but also because they will begin the ritual.”
“I think I must fly over and have a better look at the temple before we formulate any plans,” Drake said thoughtfully.
“They will see you and they will know we are here.”
“They will know we are here because tonight is the night,” Drake pointed out.
“True,” Caelin countered, “but they might decide to strike instead of waiting for us to come to them if they can figure out where we are.”
Drake frowned. “They will have a close idea of our approach,” he agreed. “Let us move around the army, then, and see how much we can learn about the temple. We might well find a weak spot in their defenses while we are about it.”
Despite every effort to dam the surge of hope that kept building inside of her, Gwyneth found that she couldn’t. She might not meet her fate tonight! She might live to see many more days, might have the chance to live a full life, have children ….
She might even now be carrying a babe! She hadn’t allowed herself to think about that, despite the fact that she’d been well aware that they were trying to insure that she was, because she hadn’t believed that there was any chance at all that she would live to bring it into the world. She’d thought that it would die with her, and she hadn’t wanted to think about that.
She couldn’t hold those thoughts back once she’d allowed hope to begin to rise inside of her. It thrilled her to think that Drake or Caelin or Faine had fathered her child even more than the thought of having a baby excited her.
For a time those thoughts buoyed her spirits so high that she spared none for what must come before she had any chance of the life she’d begun to envision. As the day wore on, however, weariness finally brought her from her lofty perch to recall the conversation between Caelin and Drake that she’d dismissed.
Neither Drake or Caelin were confident that they could succeed in what they’d set out to do. All the time that she’d been thinking about dying, she realized, they’d been facing the same possibility.
It almost seemed worse when they had so much more to lose, for they were magical, perhaps not entirely immortal, but such long-lived people that death was a virtual stranger to them.
She didn’t want to think of death claiming them. She thought she could accept being claimed herself far easier than to imagine living if they didn’t. If they died together, she wondered, would they remain together? Or was there one world for the spirits of humans and another place entirely for magical beings?
She shook the thought, unwilling to examine it too closely. They weren’t going to die—not today. Somehow, they would triumph. She knew that any single one of them was a formidable foe and that, together, they were as near invincible as it was possible to be. They would find a way and they would destroy Artimus. She knew they would!
The sun had sunk toward the horizon before they had made it even half way around the temple. They stopped again on a rise to study the problem.
“There is a protection spell over the temple,” Drake said emphatically.
Caelin nodded. “I have not seen a single soldier within twenty yards of the base of the temple. The question is, what sort of protection spell?”
Drake folded his arms across his chest, studying the temple thoughtfully. “It would not have been designed to keep her out.”
“Nay, but it might have been designed to keep us out.”
“That is what troubles me,” Drake admitted. “Even if we reach the temple unscathed, there is still the possibility that we won’t be able to get inside.”
“Our options for getting to the temple are lessening by the moment,” Caelin said pointedly.
Drake shook his head. “I had already dismissed the first option. Trying by daylight is just too risky and too fraught with disaster. I am thinking that the priests will begin to grow anxious as the sun sets. They may be more inclined to open the doors to us all if we wait until the moon is risen. They will want to begin the ceremony when it reaches its zenith.”
“Moonrise will leave us more exposed.”
“I did not say that we would wait … only that, if we discover that the spell also shields the temple from us, we can try again when the moon rises. Also, I discovered when I attacked Belmor Castle that the topmost peaks weren’t protected at all. Do we assume that it was forgotten? Or that it was left open specifically for me?” He shrugged. “Or Faine.”
“I do not think we should assume that Artimus forgot anything. I am not saying it is not possible, but I do not think it likely.”
“Still—regardless of the why of it—if the same is true of the temple, we could get inside from the top. It will open for the ritual.”
Caelin frowned. “You are saying if we arrive and discover that only Gwyneth can pass through we try the top of the temple?”
“I do not like it.”
“I do not like it either, gods damn it! There is too much risk that we would not get in at all!”
“We may not have a choice,” Drake said tightly.
Caelin stared at him for a long moment and finally nodded. “I will take the temple apart by hand if I have to!”
“Let us hope we do not have to.”
“How are we going to do this? You cannot carry the three of us at once.”
Drake shook his head. “I have been thinking and thinking, but I do not believe that I can get high enough to avoid the arrows carrying three. I had the devil of a time with that gods damned horse.”
“Two?”
“Most likely.”
“But you are not positive?”
“I do not think that I could fly back and forth three times and still avoid detection. We will be lucky if I can manage it twice. I will take you first and then, if the protection spell presents no problem, return for Faine and Gwyneth.”
Caelin nodded. “I do not like leaving only Faine to protect her, but it will be far better here than there.”
The three of them dismounted and Caelin and Drake worked on devising a sling to support a rider while they waited for the sun to set. Caelin gave Faine his sword before he climbed up on Drake’s back, tested the sling they’d devised, and then adjusted the straps beneath his buttocks and around his shoulders.
Gwyneth felt her throat close with terror as Drake flapped his mighty wings and lifted into the air, not just fear of what awaited them, or even the fear that Caelin might fall, but the sheer terror of knowing that, when Drake returned, she would have to climb on his back.
She turned to look at Faine when they’d left. He seemed to realize she needed reassurance. Pulling his boots on, he got up and strode toward her, drawing her tightly into his arms. “It will be alright, sweeting. I swear it!”
Shuddering, Gwyneth tightened her arms around him, comforted more by his warmth and his touch than she was by his words, as certain as she was that he meant it. After a few moments, she drew away from him and moved to the edge of the rise to see if she could see what was happening in the field below.
The army camped there had built fires before the sun had set and she could see shadowy figures passing back and forth
in the firelight. Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed several figures stop abruptly and then a rushing she feared meant that they’d heard, or possibly seen, Drake. She knew it for certain when she suddenly saw flashes of light in the sky—arrows tipped with flames.
“Gods!” Faine exclaimed. “They have spotted him!”
On the way to the temple, Gwyneth wondered? Or on the way back? She had no idea how long it might take Drake to fly such a distance. To ride a horse so far would’ve taken several hours, but she’d had the sense that Drake hadn’t expected it to take that long. Thankfully, they saw the arrows arch in the air and return toward the ground.
The downward trek brought about far more chaos than the discovery, or the suspicion, that Drake was above them. Even from the distance, they could hear shouts and screams as arrows found victims on the ground and see a frantic racing around of the men.
“Fools!” Faine muttered. “They have fired into their own ranks in their zeal to strike Drake!”
“Mayhap they won’t be as quick to shoot when he returns,” Gwyneth said hopefully.
“I would not count on it,” Faine said. “That was not a few random shots fired by overzealous archers. They were ordered to shoot.”
Gwyneth didn’t suppose it would’ve changed anything if he’d kept his thoughts to himself, because she saw that he was right only a little later when they again saw a hail of fire tipped arrows. It might have comforted her for a little while to delude herself, however.
She rushed to Drake when he finally alit on the ground near them, searching him for any sign of injuries.
“They missed,” Drake said with satisfaction. “Caelin was neither favorably impressed nor particularly happy with my evasive maneuvers, but we came through unscathed. You might want to fashion another sling before the two of you climb up. You may share the one you sit on, but I believe you will each want one around your shoulders.”
Gwyneth stared at him with dismay. She hadn’t wanted to fly at all! It needed only the suggestion that it was liable to be more frightening even than she’d imagined before to convince her she would prefer to die on the ground. “Couldn’t … you just hold me?” she asked a little weakly.
His dragon chuckle was actually a lot more unnerving than Gwyneth would’ve thought. He patted her cheek. “No, my pet. You will be far safer on my back. They will be aiming at my chest.”
Gwyneth swallowed convulsively, but she didn’t point out that arrows in his chest might result in a crash anyway. She was shivering by the time Faine had helped her onto Drake’s back and adjusted the slings around her. She managed to close her hands around the straps, however. Her fingers were already beginning to cramp with the desperate grip she had them before Drake became airborne, but she was fairly certain once he did that nothing short of cutting them off was going to uncurl them.
It didn’t help particularly that it was so dark that she couldn’t actually see the ground and that Drake’s body cut off any view she might have had unless she’d leaned to one side or turned her head and she was too frightened to do the first and too frozen to try the second. The rush of wind through her hair and over her body was just as terrifying, she was sure, as it would’ve been if she could’ve seen how high they were. Faine shielded her from some of the wind with his body. She thought if it hadn’t been for the comfort of having him behind her and the warmth he shared with her that she might actually have died of fright before she reached the temple.
She was near to weeping with terror when Drake finally settled. Faine had to peel her fingers lose from the straps and she was too stiff to climb down on her own. She sucked in a frightened gasp when Caelin grabbed her and then flung her arms around him frantically when she realized it was him.
Drake shifted into human form. Pulling his clothing from his pack, he dressed quickly and then joined Gwyneth, Caelin, and Faine where they stood on the outer edge of the roof of the temple, staring down at King Gerald’s army.
It was clear that the king had figured out that his ploy hadn’t worked. The army had turned upon the temple and his men were readying their siege engines to assault the temple itself.
“He must know that it is useless,” Drake muttered.
“He is a desperate man. He thinks Artimus is about to be freed upon the world once more and he knows that Artimus knows he betrayed him,” Caelin said.
They ducked instinctively as the army began to sling balls of fire at the temple with the catapults, but it was as if an invisible shield surrounded the temple. The fireballs crashed, shattered into flying, flaming pieces and fell away. When the moon rose, men lay dead and dying all around the foot of the temple from the missiles that had been flung at the temple, only to bounce back and kill the men who had sent them forth.
A trumpet sounded as the moon crested the horizon and the men abandoned their siege engines and began to flee to the north behind the king’s pennant. King Gerald had been defeated without managing to strike a single blow against Artimus.
It made Gwyneth’s blood run cold to realize an army had failed the task they’d taken upon themselves.
“I find it more unnerving that the protection spell did not prevent us from reaching the temple,” Caelin muttered. “It almost seems like an invitation … and an invitation from Artimus is never a good thing.”
Chapter Twelve
They were met by the priests and a contingent of the temple guards when they reached the temple entrance by climbing down the stair-like stones that formed the outer walls of the temple. The guards instantly brought their pikes level. “Remove your weapons!” the captain of the guards demanded in a voice that brooked no argument.
Their lips set in a grim line, Drake, Caelin, and Faine reached slowly for the knives in their belts, withdrew them and dropped them. Faine, lowered the sword he held in one hand and added it to the small pile.
The captain looked the weapons over and gave them another hard look. Nudging the man beside him, he sent him to collect the short sword and the knives. “Search them.”
The guard passed the knives and carefully checked each of the men.
“All of them. Her, too.”
Gwyneth stared at the man uneasily as he ran his hands over her and then lifted her skirts to check her legs. A shudder went through her when he slipped his hand to the top of her thighs and checked her cleft. He stepped back after a moment, collected the weapons they’d discarded and joined the other men, taking up his pike.
Two of the priests stepped forward when the guards had finished. Clamping a hand on each of her wrists, they jerked her forward when she didn’t immediately step forward on her own.
Behind her, she heard an aborted scuffle as one, or more, of the men surged forward and was blocked by the guards.
“You were to have brought her to temple five days ago!” he head priest said furiously when Gwyneth had been dragged past him. “There is no time for the purification rituals!”
“I was told she was to be here at the full moon,” Drake growled.
“Fool!” the head priest bellowed. “Be here! Yes! She was to be here, not to be brought here!”
“Well, she is here!” Caelin snapped. “We had a deal with Artimus! He gave his word that he would give us what he’d promised if we had the girl here!”
“You will be fortunate if he does not slay you!” the head priest snarled furiously and then turned to the guards. “Take them to the chamber and hold them there while we prepare the girl!”
It took all Caelin could do to refrain from glancing at Drake uneasily. If the ‘preparations’ the priest was talking about included checking to see if she was untouched they were all in trouble.
Gwyneth had disappeared by the time the temple guards escorted them inside. Caelin’s uneasiness deepened. He didn’t like being separated from her even for a little while, but there seemed no hope for it. Trying to comfort himself with the fact that the high priest had ordered them to be escorted to the chamber, he studied the interior of the temple a
s they were escorted down a wide corridor. His stomach went weightless when he saw they were heading directly toward what looked to be a pit but, to his relief, he saw as they neared it that stairs led downward in what almost looked like an endless spiral.
He glanced uneasily at Drake as they were prodded to descend, wondering if they’d been double-crossed already. He’d assumed, since the full moon clearly played a large role in the proceedings, that the ritual would be at the top of the temple. Tensing as they descended deeper and deeper until he was certain they were in the bowels of the earth, Caelin braced himself for battle.
They came at last to the bottom of the stairs. He paused, glancing up. A guard poked him painfully between the shoulder blades with his pike to get him going again. Stumbling forward at the push, he caught his balance and passed through the wide double doors in front of him.
The hair on the back of his neck began to prickle even before he’d passed beneath the huge lentil. His body began to tingle with the presence of magic and then to burn as the sensation intensified.
The chamber, he discovered, was surprisingly small, little more than thirty feet square. Torches had been placed at intervals along the walls and, in their flickering light, he saw that benches lined the walls and the temple priests, cloaked in the blood red of the temple, lined the benches. In the center was a single stone slab raised on a dais to about waist height. Coldness swept through him as he spied it. The guards directed them to a spot about half way between the benches and the sacrificial altar.
The priests began to chant almost as soon as they’d stopped. Trying to ignore the sense of stinging insects crawling over his skin that had begun almost as soon as they’d entered the chamber, Caelin studied the room, lifting his head to look upward when saw that the altar itself was glowing.
A channel, he saw, had been cut through the stone that led all the way upward through the temple and opened to the sky. He could see a sliver of the moon above him.
His belly tightened. He glanced uneasily toward Drake and felt a jolt run through him when he saw the priests who’d led Gwyneth away earlier, were dragging her toward the chamber entrance. It was hard to say whether she was struggling against them or if they were on rushing her so that she had to struggle to keep up.
A Lamentation of Swans Page 15