Street Fair (24 page)

"But if the walls are that warded, Ashling's guidance shouldn't work. How are we supposed to find a hidden door? The place is huge."

Cassia nodded. "There's actually a number of them. Ric knew where a couple were. He knew some of the undertakers, used to hang out and collect the occasional bookmark. He told me how to find one."

"Ok, but they're still going to see us coming. They've got people... ex-people... things on the walls all the way around." Megan said.

"No they won't. You're missing a very important part of 'we.'" Ashling said, gesturing the Count forward. The others followed further into the ranks towards some of the support staff, with Megan trying very hard to ignore the shouting and din of battle behind her as the red light renewed the enemy armies yet again.

Kerr met them amidst the support staff lines, bearing a plate of cookies. Kerr insisted they each take a few, before handing off the serving tray and letting a couple of other brownies help fit Kerr into a light armor vest, and a belt bearing a selection of cleavers and heavy knives.

"Wait," Lani said, as the armor was buckled into place, "You're a civilian."

Kerr shuffled a little, but finally gestured out towards the battlefield. "I don't think they care. Besides, you're an engineer, and you're going. I want to help my friends too."

Lani looked ready to protest further, but finally just nodded.

A new charge began from some of the reserves to draw attention as Kerr masked all nine of them with brownie illusions, and the group followed Cassia, circling around the faerie ranks and giving the battle a wide berth. It seemed to Megan to be taking far too long, but the only alternative she could think of would risk being caught up in the fight. When they'd cleared the main lines, they still passed skeletal patrol groups, some on foot, some on similarly skeletal horses or grouped with skeletal hounds.

Finally, they rounded one corner of the city walls, before travelling some distance along the side. Eventually, Cassia pointed to a spot on the wall with a patrol group staying near it. "There." she hissed.

The group moved quickly towards it, with Cassia explaining. "We'll take care of that bunch and draw attention. Figure out the hidden door and get inside. Kerr's illusion won't protect you once you pass the wards. Don't attack anything until you're in or they'll see you. Find O'Neill."

"And then force-feed him his organs, one by one," Ashling suggested, far too cheerily.

"Right, we'll... do something like that." Megan said, trying to focus on the door, and not the large group watching over it. Despite her worries, the illusion held, though Kerr seemed to be watching a couple of the skeletal animals on guard as nervously as Megan did.

The thought occurred to Megan that, over that much time, her father's memory might be faulty. She certainly didn't see a door in the wall. Before she could voice the concern, Cassia charged, rushing at the group. The first of the undead hounds shattered under the blow, and she was already on to the next. Kerr followed, somewhat less effectively, with Ashling shouting encouragement from the brownie's shoulder.

While the enemies were occupied, the teens and animals searched the wall, before Justin finally found a thin seam in the stone. "I think I found the door."

With the fight raging nearby, Lani still managed the concentration to figure out how to open the hidden passage. As soon as she pressed the right combination of bricks in the wall, a section of the wall slid open, if not quite as quietly as any of them would have liked.

Cassia, Kerr, and Ashling continued distracting and destroying the guards outside the walls, but more skeletal guards lay in wait inside the city, lifting their weapons when the door opened.

Justin and the cats led the charge through the door and into the city, while the girls and the Count followed behind. The sword proved just as effective this time, sweeping through everything in the way, skeletons collapsing if the sword so much as touched bone. Jude went low, taking the legs out from under a couple of the nearest attackers, while Maxwell feinted, drawing a swing and a miss from one skeleton before the cat pounced, knocking the undead warrior back into others.

Megan tried to keep her music quiet, going into her inspirational music to bolster Justin and the cat's efforts. It didn't feel like enough—especially when she was feeling like they needed to finish this quickly before reinforcements arrived.

Justin advanced into the ranks of the skeletal warriors, smashing down a couple more, leaving broken bones behind him. Once he did, Megan searched through the bones, drawing one of the swords, hoping to be able to possibly defend herself a little better. It felt odd in her hands, far heavier than she'd imagined. Still, she felt slightly better being armed, with so many skeletons, and all of the full fae left outside. The attempt at inspiration, being better armed, and her own shifting thoughts put her in minds of one of the stories of different types of bards Ashling told her. The Norse skalds still did the singing and inspiring but also helped with the charge.

The longer the fight dragged on, with Justin repeatedly forced onto the defensive, the more sure she was reinforcements would arrive any second. She was already rushing to help, wielding the sword in the closest approximation to Cassia's style as she could. She caught one skeleton entirely off guard, severing it at the spine as she moved to help Justin. Her first kill, or perhaps re-kill, with the blade convinced her to get more aggressive, try to help out more, and end the fight more quickly so they could move on. She was pretty sure Lani was saying something behind her but couldn't make it out over the fight.

Megan quickly regretted her aggressiveness when one of her swings deflected off a bit of rusted armor a skeleton still wore, and the flat of the blade struck Justin. He turned at the impact, reacting to a perceived attack, barely stopping himself from hitting her. As he did, one of the skeletons struck him. The blow didn't penetrate his chainmail but did knock him to one knee. With more warriors coming, he shoved Megan away, out of their reach, and did his best to defend himself under the assault.

After crippling one of his own skeletal opponents by shattering one leg, Jude came to the rescue, pouncing on one of Justin's attackers, though the cat took a both a cut to one flank as he turned, and then a glancing blow to the head as he attacked—which might have been worse had it not been for the helmet. Maxwell, having rushed into enemy ranks, used to fighting alongside Cassia, wasn't faring much better, bleeding from a dozen wounds, but still fighting.

More careful with her attacks this time, Megan looked for an opening, then lunged in with her borrowed sword again, shattering the skull of one skeleton. Lani found another fallen warrior's weapon and joined in. Neither girl had any practice with swords, but managed, so long as they caught busy attackers off-guard. As soon as that changed, and the skeletal warriors turned their attention to the girls, both quickly found themselves forced back, retreating from swings until Lani stumbled over a couple of broken bones and went down.

Megan took a deep breath. “Thistle, Lavender, Mulberry, and Mauve.” The song developed into a burst of wind that caused the skeletons attacking her and Lani to stumble backwards. As Megan did her best to help Lani back to her feet, the skeletons recovered and advanced again, with a couple more joining them.

The two were backed up to the walls, fighting defensively. Megan managed to parry a sword blow, but found her sword trapped, even as another skeleton raised a spear. Before it could strike her, the skeleton's torso flew apart on impact from Justin's sword. In the time they'd divided the numbers, he'd managed to finish off those left facing off with him, and had rushed to help the non-combatants. He made short work of the attackers, and moved to help the cats destroy the last defenders.

"I think I'll stick with engineering. Unless I can bring a trebuchet next time," Lani said, dropping her sword.

"I don't know. That was kind of fun," Megan said. "Justin, could you teach me some sword moves?"

"Of course, my lady," Justin said.

"Okay, that's fine," Lani said. “But Megan?"

"Yes?"

"Until he does, maybe you should lay off the She-Ra act?"

Megan dropped the sword. "That might be for the best, yeah."

"Come on," Justin said, limping just a little as he headed deeper into the city, "Reinforcements will be coming soon, and we still need to figure out what O'Neill is doing."

Chapter 35: Hail

The group scrambled into a hiding place around the corner of a gray stone building just before the first skeletal patrol arrived. A pair of riders showed up first, soon joined by a crew of more typical skeletons.

"How many of these guys are there?" Megan asked in a whisper, peering out from around the building.

Lani tugged Megan back into hiding. "A lot, apparently. At least they're not individually all that tough. There's just a lot of them."

"Tough like iron golems?" Megan said.

"Or wights," Lani said. "I'm okay with there being just a few of those."

"If there are any more that aren't out on the battlefield, O'Neill will likely have them close at hand," Justin said. “From the inscription in the first tomb, we're missing at least one.”

"So comforting," Megan answered.

The group started moving again as the literal skeleton crew left the site of the little skirmish and started checking the surrounding buildings. Trying to stay ahead of that patrol nearly ran the group into another. They were just able to wait until that patrol had passed, sneaking across a street to another alley before their pursuers found their hiding place. After that, they ducked into one of the larger buildings to get out of the streets, heading to the second floor to get a better view of the streets below.

"I can see at least three groups down there," Lani pointed out, after going room to room. "I'd have thought if he had this many more skeletons, O'Neill would have put them outside too."

"He doesn't need to as long as the army he has keeps getting back up." Megan said.

"And I'm starting to think he's just as worried about us as he is the fae army outside," Justin said.

"What exactly does he think we're going to do that the faeries won't, when they get a hold of him?" Megan asked.

"Walk right past the faerie wards," Lani said.

"Well, sure, but the pixies and sprites will undo those eventually, and they'll get in. Even with the skeletons getting back up, you saw Inwar. They were making progress. O’Neill can't think he's going to win like that, right?" Megan said.

"With so many resources held in reserve, carefully planned patrols, wards against the faeries," Justin said, "No, he doesn't think this army is going to win. He's studied the fae. He knows them too well. He's just delaying them."

"Okay, but delaying them for what?" Megan asked.

"I don't know,” Lani said. “Something an Ard Ri wants to do.”

“So you think he really is the Ard Ri?”

“I think it's likely he's likely gotten on the stone and proven himself, yeah, what with all the power. Like, y'know, necromancy.”

“He's been doing necromancy already,” Megan said. “He raised the wights.”

Lani shook her head. “That's not necromancy. Wights are kind of self-starters. He just gave them a reason. But once he came to Falias, he could use the stone. And with the stone, and the right qualifications—bloodlines and body parts intact, mostly—he's the High King. And since High King trumps other kings, and Falias doesn't even have anyone else at the moment, boom: instant Sorcerer-King complete with necromancy.”

“And an immediate skeleton army,” Megan said.

"As a delaying tactic," Justin said again. "He's thinking bigger than just an army."

"Okay, so what's enough bigger than an army that you think it will stop the fae? He's made himself an awful lot of enemies," Lani said.

Megan glanced out the window and towards the highest tower. "Uhm, could Balor have been buried near here?"

"Well, no one know—wait, raising Balor? That's insane!" Lani said.

"Is it?" Megan said. "You saw the Queen. If someone had Balor on their side, they could control an awful lot, right?"

"Balor was on Balor's side," Lani said. "I mean, yes, in theory, but Balor isn't a weapon. He was a warlord with armies of his own. Some college professor isn't going to come along and be able to tell him to do anything."

"But he's not a college professor anymore, or he wouldn't be. If the stone says he's the rightful Ard Ri, that's got to be worth something, right?" Megan said.

"Balor fought the gods. What's a king in comparison?" Justin said.

"Okay, okay, so not controlling him. We'll assume for a second that he's not dumb enough to think he can do that." Megan said.

"Ashling would disagree," Lani said.

"Right, and maybe he is that dumb," Megan said, "But let's assume he isn't. What if he's not trying to control Balor, just trying to be important enough to make a deal with him?"

"What sort of deal?" Lani asked, sounding more like she thought the idea was plausible.

"Bringing him back from the dead would be pretty good leverage, to start with," Justin said. “O'Neill's obviously well informed. If he can make the deal in the process—which shouldn't be impossible to work out with necromancy—”