Lord's Fall
Page 31

She shrieked, spun and kicked at him. “Stop it!”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, wild to yank her out of whatever she was experiencing. “You’re dreaming,” he said harshly. “Snap out of it.”
“I know I was dreaming,” she shouted. Her eyes swam with tears. She hit him in the chest with the back of her hand. “I almost had him. Dammit, why do you always assume that you’ve got to stomp in and save the day?”
He sat back on his heels, astonished by the violence in her reaction. “You were dreaming,” he repeated. “And Gaeleval’s using the Machine again. What did you mean, you almost had him?”
As they stared at each other, shouts came from the direction of the bluff. He hissed, grabbed her chin and looked deep into her eyes as he sent a spear of Power into her. Her back stiffened and she gritted her teeth, but evidently she recognized what he meant to do, for she bore with it. As soon as he was convinced she wasn’t controlled, he pulled out.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, digging her thumb and forefinger into her eyes. “Just go.”
The sound of running footsteps approached, along with a ripple of reaction through the camp. “Put your armor on,” he told her. He rolled to the edge of the tent and planted his feet just outside the flap. Just before he shoved to his feet, she grabbed his arm and he paused.
“If you can, try not to kill him,” she said quickly. She looked hard into his eyes. “Gaeleval is a victim too.”
Bloody hell.
The reaction came closer as people shouted to each other. He gritted, “Pia, I don’t know that we’re going to have a choice.”
“I know, I know. Just try.” She searched his expression. “Trying is enough.”
He nodded and expelled a breath. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.” She leaned over and kissed him quickly. “And I’m sorry too.”
He hooked an arm around her shoulders and crushed her to him for an all-too-brief moment. Then he shoved out of the tent and rose to his feet.
Outside, the night had begun to pale, and the scene looked dirty and washed out. In contrast the light of the individual campfires, along with the larger fire still blazing in the passageway, looked garish and unsatisfying. The encampment had churned all the snow in the surrounding area to mud, and it had frozen into solid brown chunks of ice. If the temperature got over freezing that day, the ground would turn into a filthy soup.
Bayne walked toward him. Despite the sentinel’s bulk, he was light on his feet and dodged nimbly around those who stood in his way. As soon as the gryphon laid eyes on him, Bayne said telepathically, The Numenlaurians are starting to climb the bluff. Looks like Gaeleval has kept back the strongest and healthiest. He’s sending in his battle fodder, and that includes the kids. There’s too many to take prisoner, but I don’t think any of us have the stomach to cut ’em down. They look bad, Chief.
Dragos wanted to spit fire. What a cluster f**k. Even if they took the enthralled Elves prisoner, they didn’t have any place to hold them. Get back to the bluff and issue a no-kill order, he snapped. If you can, focus on taking the kids and knock the rest of them back when they reach the top. Then if the falls kills anybody, it’s on me.
Bayne spun on his heel and loped away.
Dragos had to find Calondir. They could not continue to stay in this frozen state any longer. Whether Amras Gaeleval was a victim or not was beside the point. He was too dangerous, and he was causing too much damage. They had to stop him.
He strode to the heart of the Elven camp. “Get Calondir,” he said to the first Elf that came toward him. The Elf took one wide-eyed look at him and spun away. Moments later, Calondir shoved out of a tent and hurried toward him, buckling on his sword as he approached and followed by Ferion and a few others.
Dragos told the Elf Lord in a preemptory tone, “Gaeleval slipped past our defenses. Somehow he got to Pia in a dream, and he might have gotten to others. Now he’s sent Numenlaurians to scale the bluff. I’ve told my people to knock them back for now, but there’s no more time to f**k around. We can’t put this off any longer. We have to go after him, Calondir.”
Calondir studied him with an inscrutable expression. Then the Elf Lord said abruptly, “I understand.” He said to the others, “As heartsick as this makes all of us, we must find where he is keeping our people and concentrate our efforts on them. After that, we will help who we can of any Numenlaurians that survive.”
“None of this is going to come easy,” Dragos told him. “Bayne said Gaeleval’s keeping the strongest back and sending out battle fodder to climb the bluff. Your people are the strongest. They’re certainly the healthiest. That means he’s holding them close. They’ll be wherever he is, because they are his best defense.”
The hollows around Calondir’s eyes grew deeper as his face tightened, but he nodded. “Above all else, we have to make him stop using the Machine. Will you allow me to ride with you once more, so that we can hunt him together?”
He ground his teeth. “Yes, of course, but we must do it now.”
Calondir turned to Ferion. “Keep the fight defensive, and don’t hesitate to do what you have to do to protect yourself.”
“Yes, my lord,” Ferion said. He said very low, eyes pleading, “But I would come with you.”
“No, Ferion,” Calondir said, just as quietly. “You are my heir. You know that we do not fight together.”
Dragos had had enough. They were idiots if they hadn’t already said everything they needed to say to each other before now. “Get out of the way,” he said to those that hovered nearby. As soon as they were out of the way, he shifted and expanded. The dragon looked down at the Elf Lord. “Come.”
Calondir leaped onto his back, and Dragos unfurled his wings. He took one moment to look over the encampment for one last glimpse of Pia. She was just outside their tent and tying on a cloak, and she paused as she caught sight of him. She looked calm.
She blew a kiss subtly, pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips and releasing them a few inches toward him.
The dragon smiled. Then he crouched and launched into the air. When he had cleared the trees, he wheeled and flew toward the Numenlaurian army in the valley.
• • •
Pia watched Dragos soar into the air. She fought the panicky compulsion to call out to him and try to coax him into returning. He wouldn’t, nor should he. Talking to him now would only distract him from what he needed to do.
Eva and the psychos stood in a circle around her. She turned her attention to them. They watched her, ready for orders.
“I have no idea,” she said irritably, unintentionally echoing what Dragos had said the night before. She looked at Hugh. “Except for you. You need to stay with me and be ready to shapeshift at a moment’s notice. If Dragos or one of the sentinels gets hurt, and I tell you to take me to them, you will take me. No hesitation.” Eva had started to protest, and Pia turned to stare the other woman down. “No arguments, no back talk.”
Eva’s face compressed. She looked ready to explode. “Jesus Christ and all his hairy-assed apostles,” she hissed. “Hugh can only carry one person at a time.” She turned to Johnny. “Find me another avian fighter who’s strong enough to carry me, and make it snappy.”
He looked from Eva to Pia, backed up a few steps and whirled to spring away.
Pia rubbed her face. Most of the camp had raced along the path to the bluff, and the noise level had increased from that direction. Shouts and curses echoed as sharp as gunshot reports against tree trunks. She pinched her nose. The sounds dug into her gut and strung out her nerves. It was even harder to listen to because she couldn’t see what was happening.
“Crossbow,” Eva said quietly.
She threw up her hands. “Fuck you.”
Despite her reaction, she spun and reached into the tent for the crossbow and the bolts. Then she hesitated as she contemplated her pack. She hadn’t been able to eat the night before and she hadn’t eaten this morning either. Nerves might have her stomach tied in knots, but she also felt lightheaded and hollow.
She spat out another curse, snatched up her pack to find a protein bar, tore it open and jammed it into her mouth. With the way her luck had been going lately she was probably going to hork it all back up again, but she had to try to get some nutrition down.
When she turned around, Johnny jogged back on the path from the bluff. A large familiar figure ran beside him.
Graydon.
Another shock rippled through her as she caught sight of Graydon’s expression. His face was set in such savage lines, she almost didn’t recognize him. Pia broke through the circle and ran toward him, her heart in her throat. “Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know rightly how to answer that, cupcake, because it’s a hell of a mess.” He hugged her tightly. “Numenlaurians are climbing the bluff, and we’re shoving them back and trying to grab any kids that make it to the top. There’s too many of them, and we’re making plans to fall back. The High Lord’s home might be burned, but the cliff is too steep to be scaled there, and that area is still the most defensible place around. Other than flying, the path is the only way you can get up there, and we can defend that in shifts.” He cocked his head at her. “Heard you wanted to nail down a ride?”
She shook her head a little. “Only as a contingency. Can you be spared?”
“If you’re needed,” he said to her in a low voice as he squeezed her arm. “That will be the only thing that matters.”
They exchanged a sober glance, then Pia turned to look at the others. She paused, struck by the frustration she saw in their faces. Miguel was still with the other magic users, but James, Andrea and Johnny all stood tensely, their gazes drifting in the direction of the bluff. Only Hugh and Eva kept their attention squarely fixed on her and Graydon.
Well, Eva had said most of them would not choose to make the switch with her into bodyguarding full time.
Graydon tapped her chin, and she looked at him. He was frowning. “We should be proactive and make the shift over to the cliff now. That way we’ll be out of the way when the others fall back. Not only is it safer, it has a clear view of the valley. We can track events from up there.”
She nodded. “Strike camp,” she said to the others. “The sooner you can haul our stuff up the path, the sooner you can be free to join the fighting.” She said to Hugh, “Forget what I said earlier. Eva will stay with me, and Graydon can carry the both of us. You’re free to do whatever you think is best.”
Hugh said, “I’ll help strike camp, then I’ll come find you.”
“Great.” When she turned back to Graydon, he had already shifted. In his gryphon form, he was as big as an SUV, the tawny gold of his feathers and fur an oasis of warmth and color in the pallid cold day. He arched his graceful eagle’s neck and fixed a keen gaze on her and Eva, who wasted no time and leaped up on his back.
Pia stared at Eva and Graydon in resignation. Oh man. She might have known that sooner or later she was going to have to ride on somebody’s back without a seatbelt. Eva held out a hand. As soon as she took it, the other woman yanked her up.
“Giddyup, cowboy,” Eva said, smacking Graydon on the shoulder.
“Wait, try to up easy . . .” Pia started to say, at the same time Graydon sprang into the air. Shit! She clamped her legs and held on to him as tightly as she could. Sitting behind her, Eva hooked an arm around her waist as he flew low over the trees.
Cold seared the skin on her hands and face and burned in her lungs. As unsettling as the passageway blaze had been, she had gotten used to the warmth that it threw into the surrounding area. She coughed and wheezed, struggling to adjust.
As soon as Graydon reached the bluff, he wheeled to follow the path as it wound up toward the burned shell of the building on the cliff. Pia forgot to worry about an unsettled stomach as, for the first time that morning, she caught sight of what happened below.
When they had first arrived, she had only taken one look into the valley before she had turned away. Now the sight struck her again like a blow.
Gaeleval’s “army” was large enough that the valley floor seemed to undulate with movement as Numenlaurians pushed forward to climb the bluff in a mindless wave. Working together, the Elves and the Wyr shoved away those who reached the top, striking them with the flat of their swords so that they fell back to the valley floor. They disappeared, trampled underfoot by more Numenlaurians who pressed forward to begin the climb.
As she watched, some of the Elves on the bluff lunged forward to grab at one of the smaller figures that reached the top. It kicked and fought as they dragged it away from the edge. They must be trying to save one of the children.
Over the brawling mass, the dragon flew, sleek and dangerous with his gigantic wings outspread. Calondir, the High Lord rode at the base of his neck, a bright, shining splinter of silver against the dragon’s bronze hide. Dragos coasted a thermal, his triangular horned head lowered. He appeared to be searching for something. She guessed that they were hunting for Gaeleval.
Pia glanced back the way they had come, where the psychos had already grown small and antlike as they tore down pup tents. Beyond the camp, the inferno in the passageway towered above the trees.
Then the flames died down.
Just like that, from one moment to the next, the fire in the passageway disappeared as if it had never existed.
What did that mean? Had Gaeleval finally reached the limit of what he could do?