Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK (17 page)

“You will yield, River Folk,” said this captain.

“Why?” asked Brand reasonably. Inside, he raged. But he wished to contain himself. He needed to save that rage for a more opportune time. That time, he suspected, was soon at hand.

The question seemed to surprise the goblin captain. “Because you are surrounded.”

More faces showed themselves now. To Brand’s surprise, they were not all goblins. There were others present, the dark snouts of rhinogs were not a surprise, but the merlings were. Since when did merlings and goblins march together?

“Your master has given me his word,” shouted Brand into the night. “He withdrew your folk from Cymru. Why have you returned from Eire to break your master’s promise?”

“You speak of Hob,” said the captain. He grinned and his white cat’s fangs gleamed wetly.

“Yes, I speak of Old Hob.”

“It is he that would speak with you. Drop your weapon and crawl here. We have binding fiber ready.”

Then, Brand really did laugh. These folk did not know him. They could not have seen the axe in action at Castle Rabing. It occurred to him that if they did not know him, he could use that to his advantage.

“Very well, you have me surrounded. Simply come forth and grab me, little ones. What do you have to fear? Don’t shame yourselves. I’m alone out here in the woods. If you can’t overpower a single man under the light of the moon, how can you hope to stop our armies?”

“River Folk have no armies,” spat the captain.

But Brand’s words were beginning to work, he could tell. The fact that none of them had yet died emboldened them. They crept forward, two score of them he saw. Half were merlings, accompanied by a dozen goblins and as many rhinogs.

When the pack of them reached the edge of the gap in the trees, Brand gave them all a strange smile. He could not help it. He almost laughed maniacally as well, but that he managed to contain.

There were a lot of them, and they might well pull him off his feet. The rhinogs carried clubs to beat him down. The merlings bore nets. The goblins were in the rearmost rank, naturally. They crept forward with two daggers shaped like rippled icicles, one in each hand.

 He realized they were under orders to capture him. All the better, he thought. To capture a man, you must surely come within range of his axe.

A moment later they made their final rush. Rhinogs snarled with clubs upraised. Merlings lifted their nets, swung them overhead and made ready to cast the moment he went down under the thumping storm of clubs. The goblins excitedly lifted their twin daggers and opened their shining maws, mirroring their daggers with their fangs.

It was that moment when Ambros flashed, and yellow lightning fell across forty sneering faces. They barely had time to recoil, to lift their hands to their burnt eyes before Brand’s first cut traveled low and sweeping, horizontally over the ground. He took their legs out from under them, and six blind rhinogs toppled dying to the ground.

Most of the rest clawed at their eyes and dropped their clubs, but a few managed to swing their clubs from behind him. His shoulder caught one blow, his helmet the next. Inside his mind a great sound rang, but he paid it no heed.

The scene took on a dream-like quality for Brand, as blood ran down into his eyes, nose, ears and mouth. The blood was his and others both mixed in many salty flavors. He hewed wildly with the axe now.

Merlings threw their nets, but most tangled themselves or their fellows, their aim spoilt by steaming eyes and sudden terror for this demon who’d stepped from nowhere among them. The nets that reached him he swept from his shoulders and legs with strokes of the axe and then he was enclosed in a struggling knot of them.

To their credit, the rhinogs who he had crippled still strove with him, grabbing blindly with their clawed hands at his feet and pulling away his shield. They had no legs nor working eyes, but they still chewed at his boots and clutched at his greaves.

He hacked them until they stopped moving and then went for the goblins. The merlings had fled, croaking in horror, the moment things had gone wrong. But the goblins had waited to see how their rhinogs fared. The delay soon turned out to be a costly mistake.

Brand ran them down and chopped their heads from their hunched shoulders. Some fought and slashed at him, others fell while running in terror. It mattered little, as either way, if Brand got within range they died.

Brand took several wounds before it was over. The goblin daggers, rippled icicles of cursed metal, were by far the worst. Three of them had left their points within him. Inside his body, like triangular shark’s teeth, he felt the tips worming their way for more vital spots. He might have shorn away his own limbs to stop the tips, if it would have helped. But alas, one was working up his thigh, a second his belly. The third wormed high on his back, trying to cut through his scapula. He might be able to cut that one out easily, if he could reach the spot.

The goblin captain did him the worst injury of all. Missing a leg, the captain didn’t make a hopeless attempt to escape. Instead, he crawled to where Telyn lay helpless. With spite and a hissing sound of satisfaction, he drove the silvery point of his last dagger into Telyn’s back.

Brand sprang back to the spot as if he himself had been stung. Screaming incoherently, he shot a beam of yellow light into the captain and then lopped off his head, which went flying into the night.

But it was far too late. His love lay dying at his feet now. He cared not for his own injuries, which were likely fatal. Instead, his attentions frantically focused upon Telyn. She moaned, feeling the bite of the triangular tooth of cursed metal within her. The agony of it cut through her delirium.

Brand stood over her, breathing through his mouth like an animal. Blood trickled from his lower lip and fell upon the ground, unheeded. They were both dead. He could walk still, but only due to the power of the axe.

He would carry her as far as he could, he decided. But they were both unlikely to see the dawn.

They might yet reach the shore of the Berrywine. He promised himself that he would do this thing. It would be a fitting end, or at least as good a one as he could provide. He would carry Telyn to the River and he would bathe her there as they died together in the moonlight, wading in the waters for which his people were named.

As he lifted her into his arms, flopping and moaning, he heard another sound behind him. It took him a moment to identify it, but then he had it. A clapping sound. Slow, deliberate claps, as if someone mocked a performance.

“That was magnificent!” said a voice. “Absolutely stunning.”

Brand turned, head low, eyes blazing. Telyn lay in his arms, cradled to his body. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Each breath, he knew, he drove the dagger points deeper into his flesh.

The one who clapped was small. Ridiculously small. He stood upon the goblin captain’s head, which had come to rest at the edge of the clearing. Brand knew the figure and the voice. It was Piskin of the Wee Folk.

And the manling now had two hands with which to clap.

“Are you hurt, great knight? Oh dear, if I’m not mistaken, so is your lovely lady fair!”

Brand grinned at him. It was as if death itself split apart his face. “I’m glad you’ve come to gloat, Piskin. I shall enjoy this immensely.”

Piskin sniffed unconcernedly. “No children for you two, I’m afraid. It does an old changeling’s heart a twist, it does. I so hate to see a maiden die before she even produces a litter. Such a waste.”

“You will cease your mocking, manling, or I will slay you now with my last breath. Do not believe that I can’t do it.”

“Then why do stand there jawing, oaf?” asked the other, smiling.

Brand raised the axe, shifting Telyn’s weight. He would burn the little monster, he would burn him through with a tightly focused beam of Ambros’ light. Death had come tonight to him and his, but he could still do the world this final service.

“Hold!” said Piskin, eyes glittering in sudden alarm.

Brand knew the other was only mocking him now, enjoying his death throes the more. Maybe he simply wanted to watch two River Folk die close-up. The axe continued to rise, and the Jewel lit the glade with building light. He would make this beam of light his brightest. The sun itself could not flare so brightly.

Piskin lofted his own two arms and did something Brand did not comprehend. Somehow, a black mist formed in front of him, as if the air itself thickened. Indeed, in less than a second, a dark, liquid-seeming wall formed between them.

But then the power of Ambros was strong in him and he no longer cared. He loosed a beam of light toward his tormenter. He grunted with the passing power of it.

The beam struck the thickened air, which had now become opaque and taken on a reddish flavor. The beam burnt into this circular shield that had formed before Piskin. The beam caused a great hissing. A gout of what could only be steam plumed up. Brand could hear the manling shrieking something, but he didn’t know what the words might be, and he was beyond caring.

But Piskin lived. Frowning, Brand let the beam die down. He was more tired than ever. He was gladdened to see that the manling had slumped down upon the ground and looked worn and terrified.

Piskin raised a hand toward Brand, and even the hand looked strange—twisted.

“I can save her!” said Piskin, as Brand took a step toward him.

“Speak, manling.”

“I can save her. I can save you both. I wield the Red!”

Then Brand saw then the thing that followed Piskin. The thing that stayed close to the manling’s legs like a pet rodent. It was the bloodhound. It returned Brand’s gaze curiously, much as it had the very first time he’d seen it, when it had ridden upon Herla’s steed with that ancient, deathly king.

And Brand, gazing upon it, was just as certain of the hound’s evil intent as he had ever been.

“You have the hound,” said Brand, regarding Piskin with eyes that were half-shut. He knew he did not have long for chatting and fighting. Within an hour or two, he would be slumped upon the ground, axe or no. “You claim yourself to be attuned to it?”

“Did you not see?” exclaimed Piskin, daring to approach one step, then two. “I wielded it just now, in my own defense.”

“Blood magic,” said Brand, trying to think. What had Myrrdin said of it? So long ago, it seemed now. Power over flesh and blood. Healing, wounding, cure and pestilence. All these things were within the power of the Red, and the manner in which it was used depended upon the nature of the wielder. He reckoned that Piskin was more likely to bleed him than to heal him. Perhaps, his own dribbling blood had been part of that used to form the shield that had stopped the burning Eye of Ambros from scorching the little monster.

“Hold, manling. Creep no closer, or you life is forfeit, be you in truthful earnest or filled with deceit.”

Piskin, who had been about to take his fourth step, froze. He returned his foot to the ground beside its brother, thus retreating a fraction.

“Very well. Let us parlay. But, as a token of good faith, I would ask that you set aside the axe.”

Brand laughed. It was an unpleasant sound, and ended with a bout of wet coughing. “You are the one who talks like a youngling fool. You know nothing of the power of the Jewels. The bloodhound already grips your mind, whether you know it or not. If you can spurn the Red, then I will put down the Amber.”

Piskin frowned. He made no attempt to shoo away the bloodhound that crouched at his feet. “Very well. We’ll proceed. Firstly, to demonstrate my good intentions, I will remove that ugly splash that emblazons your face. I will trowel new flesh over your scarred cheek. Poor boy, simply shaving every morning must be an ordeal of self-mutilation. Wouldn’t it be better, on your wedding night, not to make such a pretty maiden look up into a hideous twisted mask?”

Brand grunted. He cared little for his scar. He wanted Telyn to live, and himself second.

Piskin lifted his arms and produced a flashing, tiny blade. He stabbed himself, one hand slashing the other. The blood ran, and the hound at his feet gave excited hops, licking the drops from the air as they fell.

Around him then, the blood of a dozen corpses rose up in tiny dark droplets. Like a cloud of mist that gathered together rather than spread apart, it formed into a ball in Piskin’s upraised hands. He threw the ball toward Brand.

Brand stirred, lifting the axe and suspecting treachery. The ball floated in his direction very slowly, like a giant soap-bubble.

“Touch your cheek to it, Lord Rabing,” said Piskin gently.

With infinite suspicion, Brand approached the undulating globule of blood. Faintly sickened, but allowing hope for Telyn and himself to blossom in his heart, he slid toward the bubble. He first poked his finger into the bubble, one that had sustained a crushing blow from one of the rhinogs. The nail was black and swollen.

There was a strange sensation in his finger. It seemed to him that hot ants crawled over his fingertip. He snatched it back. Piskin made an exasperated sound and gestured for him to continue.

“The sphere won’t last forever. Do you care nothing for your lady? Set aside your superstitions and embrace the finest gift this old changeling has ever bestowed!”