Summoned to Tourney (35 page)

And beside them, playing music, a faint Irish melody that he now heard over the clattering of arms, was the Bard.

“The Bard!” Dharinel shouted elatedly, then was momentarily annoyed at himself for that display of unseemly emotion. The other elven warriors gathered around the barricade, and Korendil and the two human women joined them, peering around the pile of overturned desks and cabinets.

“The Bard, the Bard!”

The Bard saw them and smiled, though he continued to concentrate on playing the melody. The dark-haired human child walked beside him for a moment, then dashed past, heading toward the others at the barricade. The older human woman caught up the child in a hug, pausing only to wipe tears from her eyes.

Dharinel also saw someone else, and it was a sight that heated his blood with quick anger. Warden Blair, described to him by the human scientist and seen in the memories of young Korendil, walking with the other captured human guards. Warden Blair, the man who was responsible for all of this.

Warden Blair, who alone of his contemporary humans had captured and held an elf—and who might come to realize what he had done. Warden Blair, the most dangerous human to elves to walk the waking earth.

With a start, Dharinel realized that Blair was the target of the Bard’s melody-magic, that Eric was using his music to keep the Nightflyer-possessed human under his control.

Not bad
, the elven lord thought grudgingly.
Perhaps this Bard is all that Korendil has said he could be, not merely a powerful child gifted with too much magic for his own good. He seems to have overcome this situation easily enough.

Perhaps one of the captured human guards had that same thought at the same moment. Because, before the Bard could react, the human guard broke from the ranks of captured soldiers and leaped at him. Startled, the Bard turned too quickly, and the guard’s closed fist connected with a large darkened bruise on the Bard’s temple.

The Bard fell like a poleaxed horse. A moment later, his flute clattered to the floor, rolling to a stop several feet away.

A stunned silence descended upon the corridor. Dharinel saw the guard blink in surprise at his unexpected success, then turn toward the shadow-demons, as if suddenly realizing that the Bard had been the only one preventing the monsters from harming him.

The demons surged forward, and that guard was the first casualty, caught for a brief moment with his mouth open in a silent scream as the monsters descended upon him.

Dharinel brought up magical wards an instant later, though he knew that he could only hold them for a few minutes. Fighting against a single demon, he might give himself even odds in that kind of battle—against a horde of them, he knew they had no chance. And what of the others? Some of them had only the thinnest of defenses. Had the crisis foretold in all the visions begun?

The demons rose slowiy, leaving nothing behind from their first victim, ignoring Warden Blair and the other guards to drift toward the unconscious Bard.

Of course
, Dharinel thought, even as he fought to bring up a ward over the Bard’s body as well.
The Bard, the only one who can control and banish them, he will be their main target. Only then will they turn to feed upon us
.

The Bard braced himself with one hand, painfully levering himself up to glare at the demons.

No wards, no shieldings. Nothing between him and the horde.

“Get lost,” the young man said hoarsely, and Dharinel felt the rush of magic pouring from the human. His jaw dropped in disbelief, and he did not even try to close his mouth.

Like standing in the full desert sun—or beneath a pounding waterfall—now his shields were shunting some of that incredible power away, rather than warding against the demons, He noticed out of the comer of his eye that some of the lesser mages had ducked down behind the barricade to avoid being overwhelmed by the profligate strength of the young human’s magic.

The Bard hadn’t used the crutch of music this time, only focusing his will upon the creatures; his will, and the power that he now controlled, Dharinel sensed, with a sure if heavy-handed touch.

Silently, the mass of demons faded from view.

The young man slumped back against the floor, not moving.

Dharinel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The other human soldiers, as if recognizing how narrowly they had just escaped death, looked at one another, saw no officers among them, and took off running in the other direction, quickly disappearing around the corner.

Warden Blair stood alone, glancing from the unconscious body of the Bard to the elven warriors behind the barricade.

Korendil was the first over the barricade, vaulting over an overturned desk with a sword in hand.

Blair moved quickly, and even as Korendil ran toward him, placed one hand on the Bard’s unconscious body. Korendil skidded to a halt, sensing that there was more here than met the eye, and poised, sword ready, but posture betraying uncertainty.

“Harm me,” a voice hissed from the human’s mouth, a voice that had the lifeless tones of the demon within it, no longer even pretending to be human, “and I will eat his soul before I die.”

Can’t we ever do something like this according to plan?
Beth Kentraine asked herself, still not quite understanding how they’d gotten themselves into
this
situation.

She was still unsteady on her feet, shaking from the claustrophobia attack. Elizabet had managed to stave off part of it, but just walking down the hallways of this place had brought back all of the living nightmares. Just remembering that the decompression chamber was here, several floors below her…

I’m not going to lose it now. I’m not.

She heard the shouts of “The Bard!” and fought her way to her feet—saw Eric leading an army of the shadow-things, and let out a cry of her own. She staggered to the barrier, but by the time she got to the barricade the situation had changed.

The thing in Blair’s body—she didn’t know how she recognized that he wasn’t the same scum she had faced, but she knew it with complete certainty—held Eric’s life beneath his hand. Kory faced him, sword in hand, but too far away to strike before the thing killed Eric. If anyone else moved, she had no doubt that the creature would strike.

Stalemate.

Suddenly she knew what she could do, what
only
she could do. She was the only one with the contacts, the training, and most importantly, the knowledge. She was the only one that Blair would not see as a threat, because he had already reduced her to nothing. And she greatly doubted that he would understand what she was doing.

The demon within Warden Blair was going to kill Eric in another few seconds, unless she did something, unless she…

…reached out to the impromptu coven of witches and psychics, reaching for the mind and heart of the woman she related to best: Marge Bailey, who had been made impromptu leader of the circle on Mount Tam.

They were singing and holding hands, those crazy thirteen people— Marge and Chuck and their son, Jeff and Sister Ruth, a wild long-haired singer who was into more political and religious fringe groups than Beth could count, seven more who Beth only knew as casual acquaintances but who had come through when they were needed. Even Jeff, who was pouring everything he had into this—even Sister Ruth, who was calling up a tower of light and fire. And Beth heard a faint echo of the words, something about Mount Tam, and all of this like being back in Viet Nam, with the battle coming soon…

…reached further, to the circle of power that they had been building for the last hour, and caught hold of it. The magical energy coiled down to her, making her skin tingle.

Unbelievable. Intoxicating. Riding the whirlwind, roping the lightning.

She wanted to laugh, half-drunk with the power of it, but fought for a last measure of self-control.
This must be how Eric feels, when he’s controlling that unwieldy but ridiculously powerful Bardic talent of his
. She struggled with it; after a moment it seemed to recognize her and came tamely to her hand, the wild stallion willing to bear her because it pleased him.

She pushed her way past the elves, walking slowly toward Warden Blair. Permitting him to see what a tasty little chocolate eclair of Power she was—but not permitting him to see the trap behind the bait.

“Beth!” Kory called, and she glanced back at him.

He looks terrified. I bet he’s afraid that I’m trying to commit suicide.

Am I?

Good question. Wish I knew the answer.

Something cold pressed against the back of Eric’s neck, a touch of ice. The cold sensation dragged him up from a tangled web of pain and exhaustion, as effective as a sharp slap in the face.

Oh, please, I don’t want anybody else to hit me in the face again today,
he thought blearily.
I can still taste blood from the last time… can’t I just go back to sleep now?

He took a deep breath, about to open his eyes… and froze, all senses gone to red-alert.

There was a Nightflyer right next to him. An uncontrolled, full-grown, very hungry—he could sense that without even opening his eyes—and very deadly Nightflyer, not even six inches away from him.

He knew he was closer to death than he had ever been in his life. In fact, he
should
have been dead, but the thing wasn’t doing anything, other than keeping one hand (
hand?
) on the back of his neck. That was what he had felt—a human hand with a Nightflyer on the other end, going through that hand to touch… something of his.
The source of my magic?
My soul? Whatever it was, it made him want to scream, that icy touch that cut through him to his most private self.
Warden Blair
, he realized a split-second later.

Warden Blair, and whatever is inside of him.

Calmly, calmly,
he thought.
Don’t want the thing to sense that I’m awake, or that I’m going to blast it into Eternity if I get half a chance…

Oh bravado.

The problem was that if he gathered any of his Bardic magic, that thing would know it in the same instant, and probably kill him a second later. He knew how fast it could strike, having seen too many Nightflyer killings in his own memory and through Beth’s. Maybe it was only fate, justice, that this be how he died—after having caused so many other deaths, to be served up as the Blue Plate Special to a hungry alien monster.

“Hungry, are you?” someone said, not far away from him. Eric nearly replied,
No, it’s the beastie that’s hungry, not me!
when he recognized Beth’s voice, strained and tired.

He opened his eyes without even thinking about it.

Beth stood a few feet away, holding out her hands to Warden Blair, aglow with power. Behind her, he saw the pale faces of the elven assault team, Kory in the forefront.

“Come here, you slimy son of a bitch,” Beth coaxed, a wild look in her eyes. “Don’t you want me? I know you do. Here I am, I’m all yours, come and get me. Yummy, yummy, little monster.”

Eric blinked, trying to reconcile the Beth standing in front of him with the Beth that he knew so well. She glittered to his magical senses, inhumanly bright with life energy, more than he’d ever seen in a single person before.

There was no doubt that the Nightflyer/Blair was drawn to that, as irresistibly as a moth to the flame. The monster yearned towards her, most of his attention off Eric.

Too bad his hand wasn’t.

“You thought you’d bury us, didn’t you?” Beth continued. “Bury us down in the dark with the monsters, with the walls screaming and the air too thick to breathe? Everything’s burning, and all my life is on fire because of you. You’re crazy, did you know that? You’re as crazy as the human you took; you’re infected with him, reduced to
his
level, just a bastard, just a…“

Blair’s hand left Eric’s neck. He straightened and took a step towards Beth as she spoke, and another.

“No, Bethie, don’t!” Eric shouted, calling up his own power and knowing that Blair would strike before he could.

Just before Blair touched her, Beth swung her fist and connected hard on the man’s jaw.

Eric Saw it then, what she’d been hiding behind her glittery, enticing surface: the instantaneous flow of magical energy from Beth, combined with the power gathered by the coven on Mount Tam, slamming down with a rushing magical roar like a triumphant orchestral chord.

Blair staggered back, silhouetted in lightless black, only a dark shape of a man with the tall cloak-like wings of a Nightflyer.

Held for one timeless instant, a moth against an arclight. A hungry moth, that had met something it couldn’t eat. The Nightflyer tried to separate from Blair to save itself. Too late.

That blackened figure suddenly shattered into a thousand shards, clattering metallically on the floor around Beth with an odd musical ring.

Of Blair, there was nothing left, nothing at all.

The black pieces that had been the Nightflyer dissolved an instant later, a hundred thin trickles of dark smoke that rose slowly and faded away.

“Bastard,” Beth concluded, rubbing the knuckles of her hand. “Damn, that hurt. You’d think I could’ve remembered how to hit somebody from all those Shotokan Karate lessons.” She looked down at Eric. “Hey, Eric, you okay?”

He found his voice. “Oh yeah, sure. How ‘bout you?”

“I’m… I’m fine…” She staggered, nearly falling; Kory was beside her a half-second later. She gave him a wan smile as he held her for a few seconds until she could stand unaided. “We’re still alive. What a concept.”

Together, they helped Eric stand up—both Eric and Beth leaning on Kory, the only one of the three of them who seemed able to stand on his own two feet without assistance. Eric leaned into their embrace, too wiped out to do anything more than hold onto them, as the elves gathered around them, silent and respectful.

We aren’t done yet. Shit.

“Uh…” He tried to gather his thoughts, which was a remarkably difficult task at the moment. “Listen, guys, we have to get out of here… Blair set up the quake before we could stop him, it’s going to hit any second now.”