Straken

Twenty–Nine

When Shadea a’Ru reached the sleeping chamber door and pushed her way through the knot of Gnome Hunters that surrounded it, the first thing she recognized was that the door was magic–sealed.

« She’s free!» she hissed at Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence as they came up next to her.

« Free? Of the triagenel?» The Gnome looked stricken. «That’s impossible! No one can break out of a triagenel!»

Traunt Rowan smiled faintly, almost as if he had expected as much. «Perhaps we failed to build it properly.»

Shadea didn’t know and didn’t care. What mattered was that their worst enemy was no longer a captive in any sense. She would have to be dealt with in a more direct and immediate manner or they were all finished.

She motioned for the Gnome Hunters to move behind her, thinking to put some space between all of them and the closed door. «To my left,” she told Pyson, pulling Traunt Rowan to her right. «When she comes through that door, burn her. Don’t hesitate. Don’t think about it. Just do it. We’ll catch her from three sides. Even Grianne Ohmsford isn’t impervious to Druid magic!»

They backed away, Shadea all the way across the hall to the far wall, where she pressed her back up against the stone and summoned her magic to her fingertips. She glanced left and right to the other two, standing perhaps twenty feet away on either side in the middle of the hallway. The Gnome Hunters were crouched behind them, swords drawn, arrows noched into bows.

Thirty, perhaps forty strong, they waited.

Then the door flew open, banging hard against the wall, and a specter emerged, a black and impenetrable wraith backlit by light that poured through a ragged hole in the sleeping chamber wall. Its robes billowed out from its slender form, and light from the flameless hallway lamps reflected off the shiny surface of a clasp fashioned in the shape of the Eilt Druin, a hand holding forth a burning torch.

For a second, in spite of their combined resolve, no one among those who obeyed Shadea a’Ru moved. The sight of the ghostly form froze even the sorceress herself.

But then Shadea broke free of her momentary shock and sent Druid Fire streaking into the black–cloaked form, burning it to ash. Fire from the other two Druids followed on the heels of her own, disintegrating even the ash. Shouts of encouragement rose from the Gnome Hunters, who leapt up and down in response to the destruction.

Then silence settled over the hallway, and everyone went still again. Shadea moved out to the center of the corridor, peering cautiously through the haze.

« I am not where you thought me to be,” Grianne Ohmsford said from somewhere off to the right.

All three rebel Druids froze where they were, staring at nothing but wall and smoke and ash as they tried to find her.

« You are not my equal, Shadea,” Grianne continued quietly. «You never were. You never will be. You are banished from the order and from these walls. All of you are. If you leave now, I will let you live. I have seen enough of killing and vengeance and do not wish to see more. You deserve much worse than banishment, but if you go now, that will be the end of it. You have my word.»

A dozen responses went through Shadea a’Ru’s mind, all of them pointless. «I don’t think banishment will suit me,” she said finally. «And it remains to be seen if I am your equal or not. Show yourself, and let’s find out.»

But Grianne Ohmsford stayed invisible, speaking out of shadows and smoke. «Do you have any idea of what you have done? Do you have any idea at all? You sought to confine me to the Forbidding. To do so, you enlisted the aid of demons. One demon, in particular. You never stopped to consider why that demon would want to help you. You never thought that it might be using you as you were using it. What you did, Shadea—what all of you did—was to release a demon into this world by imprisoning me in the Forbidding. That demon remains free. It has a purpose in coming here. It seeks to destroy the wall of the Forbidding and set free all the demons it contains.»

What nonsense,Shadea thought at once. «Where is your proof of that, Grianne?» she snapped angrily. «Do you think us fools to believe such lies?»

« I think you fools not to. You have set free a changeling, Shadea. You have set free a creature that can disguise itself as anything or anyone. It will have already assumed the identity of another and begun seeking ways to destroy the Ellcrys. If we don’t stop it, it will succeed.»

« We? You would enlist us? Even as we are banished?» Shadea straightened to her full height. «Come out of hiding and persuade us better, Grianne.»

But even as she spoke, she was thinking of Iridia. Iridia, who had not seemed herself in that last encounter and who had gone to Sen Dunsidan to be his adviser when Shadea would have bet anything against that happening. Iridia, who had subsequently disappeared completely.

Could it be?

In an impulsive response to a possibility she could not bring herself to face, and disregarding her own safety, Shadea sent a scattering of illumination specks all across the facing of the wall fronting the bedchamber, trying to uncover Grianne’s hiding place. The glittering specks coated everything, leaving a clear outline of what lay concealed within the shadows and smoke.

Grianne Ohmsford was nowhere to be found.

« Show yourself, you coward!» Shadea screamed in fury.

« Turn around.»

Shadea stiffened, and then did so. Grianne Ohmsford stood a few yards away against the wall behind Shadea and to the right. She mirrored the wraith that had appeared in the doorway, cloaked and hooded in black, the Eilt Druin clasp at her throat. Her face and hands were pale and ravaged. She looked beaten and tired, she did not look up to a confrontation. Shadea took her measure and recognized the truth. The demon business and the offer of banishment were all a bluff.

« You don’t look well, Grianne,” she said. «You look as if a strong breeze might topple you. I don’t imagine it was very pleasant inside the Forbidding, was it?»

Her enemy said nothing, but those strange blue eyes never left her own. They were watching her, waiting to see which way she would go. Whatever else Grianne was, she wasn’t a fool.

« I think you have come to Paranor for the last time,” Shadea continued softly. «I think you have just wasted your one chance at escaping with your life.»

« Don’t mistake what you see,” the other whispered. «Take my offer. Go now. Banishment is not the worst of what can happen to you.»

« I’ll burn your eyes out first,” Shadea responded.

« Shadea, wait!» Traunt Rowan stepped forward, hands stretched out in a gesture of supplication. «Enough of this. It’s over. We’ve lost. Don’t you see?»

« Be silent!» she hissed.

« To what end? The time for silence is past. Look at what’s before us. Anyone who can survive the Forbidding and come back alive to the Four Lands and then break free of a triagenel is no one I care to challenge. If she can do all she has done to get back here and confront us like this, she has magic and luck beyond anything we possess.»

He looked at Grianne. «I told you once that you should resign for the good of the order. I have not changed my mind about that. I still think you should. I still think you are too divisive to ever bring the order together in the way that will serve the greater good. I took sides against you because of it. Maybe I was wrong to do so, but I was not wrong about you.»

He shook his head. «You must make your own decision. I have made mine. I accept this offer. I accept banishment. I’ve had enough.»

He gave Shadea a hard, searching look, and she returned it with enough venom to poison a city. But he would not look away, and he did not blink. «Do the right thing, Shadea. Give it up.»

He turned away from her and stalked down the hall, brushing aside a cluster of Gnomes that barred his way.

Shadea stared after him in disbelief, and then screamed in rage. «Traitor!»

She sent an explosion of Druid Fire into his back, white–hot and corrosive. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and flung him against the far wall, where he slid to the floor, a lifeless, burning wreck.

In the next instant, Pyson Wence attacked Grianne Ohmsford.

Kermadec had climbed almost two flights into the Keep before be realized Atalan was following him. He wheeled back instantly. «What are you doing?» he shouted at his brother in dismay. «Go back and wait with the others!»

Atalan kept coming and shoved past him as if he weren’t there. «Go back yourself, brother.»

Kermadec reached for him angrily and then stopped himself. Getting into a fight with his brother would serve no useful purpose. If Atalan wanted to come, it was because he wanted to help. What was the point in being angry with that?

The point, he knew, was that he was afraid for Atalan. But he also knew that their relationship was well beyond a time and place where he could do anything about that.

He forced his concerns aside, caught up with Atalan, and without looking at him said, «We’ll go back together when this business is finished and done with.»

They passed knots of Druids who stood looking at them in surprise, books and scrolls cradled in their hands, dark robes gathered close. A few recognized him and nodded. They didn’t seem to know what was happening. One or two moved quickly away when they realized he had been in a fight, and he shouted after them to go to the Assembly and stay there. He assumed that most of them would; he was still convinced that they would not fight for Shadea if they were not threatened themselves.

The hallways came and went as the two Rock Trolls raced ahead. Only once did they encounter anything resembling resistance, and that was an unexpected run–in with a knot of Gnome Hunters who fled the moment they saw what they were up against. Kermadec had not been inside the Keep in years, but he remembered it well from his time as Captain of the Druid Guard, and he found his way without difficulty. Almost all of the Gnomes were on the walls, fighting to hold against the onslaught of Rock Trolls pouring through the north gates.

As they neared the upper reaches of the north tower, Kermadec grew increasingly uneasy. He did not like the Keep’s empty feeling. He did not like the unusual quiet. His battle instincts were finely tuned from years of fighting, and he knew better than to ignore them. There was an edge to his anticipation this time that was unusual. He had the strange sensation of wanting to hurry and at the same time needing to slow down. Perhaps it was the nature of the mission or what was at stake. Perhaps it was the place and time. He could not explain it. But he did not slow. His concerns must be for his mistress. She had come back to them, he believed. She had escaped the Forbidding. The explosion in the north tower told him Penderrin had succeeded. She was there, and he knew in his heart that she needed him.

As he neared the upper hallway and the sleeping chamber of the Ard Rhys, the sounds of a desperate struggle convinced him that he was right.

Grianne Ohmsford was caught off guard by Pyson Wense’s attack. She had assumed that any attack would begin with Shadea, to whom the others clearly looked. On coming out of the sleeping chamber and using the false image to distract the Druids, she had placed herself in a position where she could best defend herself against the sorceress. She had not forgotten about Pyson or Traunt Rowan, but she had focused her attention principally on Shadea.

But Shadea’s unexpected attack on Traunt Rowan had surprised her, and for just a moment she had taken her attention away from the Gnome. Perhaps he had been watching for that. His attack came just as she realized the danger, but she was too slow to deflect it entirely. The Druid Fire slammed into her, nearly shattering her defenses. It scorched her hair and the skin of her face, and if not for the protective magic already in place, including that woven through her Druid robes, she would have been incinerated.

Even so, the force of the attack knocked her off her feet and sent her sprawling down the hall, tangled in her black robes. Furious at herself for her inattention and desperate to regain control of the situation, she sprang up again, but a second explosion immediately knocked her down once more. Pyson was moving toward her by then, leveling a steady barrage of incendiary magic, trying to keep her down long enough to finish her. She rolled and twisted, using the wall to lever herself back to her knees, and launched her own Druid Fire in response. But her efforts were weak and unsustained, and the Gnome kept advancing.

Then Shadea wheeled back, and Grianne was forced to turn her attention to the new threat, lashing out at the sorceress before she had a chance to join the attack. Shadea screamed in fury as the magic of the wishsong knocked her backwards. But Shadea was physically much stronger than Grianne and was quick to regain her balance. Within seconds, Grianne was under attack from two sides.

Just as it seemed that she had exposed herself too quickly and would pay the price for her impatience, Kermadec came charging down the hallway with a second Troll right behind, slamming into a cluster of Gnome Hunters that tried to slow him, scattering the gnarled figures as if they were made of paper. Roaring with a ferociousness that froze the blood, the big Troll went right at Shadea.

But Shadea a’Ru had fought on the Prekkendorran and was no stranger to hand–to–hand combat. Moreover, she was very nearly as strong as the Troll. She met his rush with a howl as ferocious as his own, slipped his grasp, and let his momentum carry him into the wall. Then she wheeled back on him, able to bring her magic to bear now, and sent the Druid Fire burning into him.

Just as she did so, the second Troll came at her, as well. «Kermadec!» he roared in what seemed more a battle cry than a warning.

Down went Shadea a’Ru and the second Troll in a tangled, thrashing knot, rolling over and over on the stone floor. Kermadec was struggling to rise, but Pyson Wence joined the attack and searing Druid Fire slammed Kermadec back against the wall, knocking the breath out of him and leaving his thick hide steaming from the heat. The Gnome struck at him again and again, shouting for his Hunters to move in and finish him.

But Pyson made the same mistake now with Grianne that she had made earlier with him. He forgot about her. She surged to her feet in a white–hot fury, summoned the power of the wishsong, and struck out at him with every ounce of strength she could manage. Sensing his danger, the Gnome turned from

Kermadec toward her just in time to receive the full brunt of the attack. She had a glimpse of his terrified face as he fought to protect himself. For just a second, his defenses held. Then they fell apart, and Pyson Wence simply exploded.

So damaged by the Gnome Druids attack that flames were licking at the burned places on his body, Kermadec was trying to get up again. «Atalanl» he called desperately.

Shadea a’Ru broke free of Kermadec’s brother, wheeled away, and went into a crouch. When she came out of it, she was holding a long knife at waist level. Atalan came at her fearlessly, his massive arms reaching out to crush her, but she sidestepped him easily in a practiced, fluid movement and drove the knife hilt–deep into his chest. Atalan sagged from the blow and dropped to his knees, gasping.

Shadea kicked his body aside and turned back to Grianne. Hands lifting, she attacked anew, sending a hail of Druid Fire into her enemy. Grianne was able to fight off the attack, but only barely. The force of it knocked her backwards once more, and she struggled to keep her feet as she sought to defend herself, trying in vain to mount a counterattack.

She felt her defenses crumbling. She felt the heat of the Druid Fire beginning to break through.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kermadec, his great body bloodied and steaming, lurch to his feet. One hand grasped a spear he had taken from one of his Gnome attackers. Bracing himself against the wall, he gripped the spear in one huge fist, set himself, and heaved it at Shadea.

Too late the sorceress realized the danger. She wheeled to protect herself, but the spear caught her in the chest and drove her back against the wall, the force of the throw pinning her fast. Her body jerked and her head snapped back. Her eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. She screamed and flailed, trying to break free. She sprayed Druid Fire everywhere. But the blow was fatal, and a moment later she collapsed and did not move again.

The remaining Gnome Hunters were already in flight, disappearing down the hallway as fast as they could manage. Grianne stood alone among the wounded and the dead. She lowered her hands, dispersed the magic she had summoned to defend herself, and stared at Shadea a’Ru. The sorceress was staring back at her, eyes blank and unseeing, face twisted in a death mask. Grianne looked iway, sickened, then walked quickly over to Kermadec. The big Rock Troll slid down the wall into a sitting position, his chin sunk on his chest. Blood and burned patches were everywhere on his massive body.

She knelt before him and gently raised his head. «Kermadec?» ;he whispered. «Can you hear me?»

His eyes opened and fixed on her. «Mistress,” he replied, his /oice thin and reedy. «1 told you they were vipers.»

She bent forward and kissed his face, and then cradled him against her and whispered, «You great bear.»