Wards of Faerie

30

Everything happened quickly after that.

Bombax and Cymrian, the former stripped of encumbering clothing and weapons and the latter armed with a dozen blades strapped to his arms and legs and torso like body armor, left the other defenders at the doors leading out to the airship landing platform and went down through a utility hatch into the crawl space that led to the catwalk.

“Wait until you know the barricades are down and the way to the airship is clear before you open these,” Bombax instructed Krolling, pointing to the huge ironbound doors with their massive slide bars and multiple bolt locks. “Don’t open them otherwise. Not to try to help us out, not for anything. If we don’t make it to the airships, take as many as you can and go into the tunnels and do your best to find a way out.”

Aphenglow, standing close, listened and felt something clench in her stomach. That Bombax and Cymrian would fail, that they should be killed, was unthinkable. Even in the abstract, she rejected it out of hand. “We’ll be ready when you are,” she assured him, looking him in the eye in a way that left no doubt as to how she expected this to go.

Bombax smiled. “You should be the one going instead of me, as fierce as you are.”

She blushed, leaned in, and kissed him hard on the mouth. “I’ll come after you if I have to.” She glanced at Cymrian, who was looking away. “You, too. I need my protectors.”

“You don’t need anyone,” Cymrian declared, giving her a momentary glance before looking away again.

They moved into an adjacent hallway, to where the hatch cover stood ajar, slipped through the opening, and were gone.

“Come on, Arling,” Aphenglow said at once, taking her sister’s hand, telling Woostra and the Trolls she would be right back.

She had been thinking about this since she knew what the Borderman and the Elf intended to do, wondering how she could put herself in a place where she could watch over them even if going out onto the catwalk was not possible. Even if she couldn’t go with them, she reasoned, perhaps she could find another way to help.

At the very least, she would be able to see what happened.

She took Arling up to the next floor, fueled by a rush of adrenaline that masked the pain in her leg and the weariness that flooded through her body. At the bottom of the stairs, she led her sister into a small anteroom adjacent to the Outer Wall and from there through a doorway that opened onto a raised ledge warded by a half wall. She motioned for her sister to crouch down, and together they climbed four steps to what was no more than a ten-foot-long observation balcony that overlooked the landing platform and the airships.

From this vantage point, they might be able to see what happened once Bombax and Cymrian traversed the catwalk and came up behind the barricade.

Aphen put a finger to her lips. No talking. There were slits cut into the stone blocks of the half wall, and the sisters peered through these at what lay below. The Druid airships moored to a series of locking rings numbered six, and while none of them was the size of the Walker Boh, midsize vessels like Arrow and Wend-A-Way were large enough to carry all of the defenders in the Keep. Two airships would have been better than one, but they could make do with one if they got away quickly enough to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers. Flits were fast enough to catch up to them no matter what, but flits lacked sufficient firepower to bring down ships the size of Arrow and Wend-A-Way—and Federation airmen lacked the flying skills of Gnome raiders in any event.

That’s what she told herself, even though she had her doubts and could not entirely banish them.

The barricade constructed by the Federation to block the rampway was a makeshift affair of logs and crates and hunks of metal plating. A pair of rail slings and a fire launcher had been mounted on portable swivel stands and faced toward the Keep. Torches wedged in crevices and set in iron stanchions burned in bright patches in the darkness. Perhaps twenty soldiers loitered about, a few of them watching the Keep, most visiting with one another and throwing dice. There were no guards at all back where the airships were moored. The soldiers did not look as if they expected anything to happen soon and certainly not where they had been stationed.

Aphen smiled grimly. It would be a very unpleasant surprise indeed when Bombax and Cymrian appeared.

Farther away, out on the battlements of the Outer Wall, a handful of Federation guards were hiding behind half walls and bulkheads where they undoubtedly hoped they were at least marginally protected from the uncanny bowman who had killed Deek Trink.

Aphenglow scooted along the stone-block wall to where she had a slightly better vantage point. Arling came right behind her. From where they were situated above the rampway, they could see nothing of the catwalk or the progress of the Druid and the Elf who by now were navigating it. It was supremely frustrating.

The sisters waited, huddled together behind the wall, eyes on each other, listening to the voices of the Federation soldiers clustered below.

Then Aphenglow heard the sound of radian draws being snapped in place and diapson crystals powering up. She had just enough time to peer through the slits in the half wall before Arrow had shed her mooring lines and lifted off. Bombax had chosen to take back his own airship, as she had suspected he would—familiar with its weaponry and operation, comfortable behind its controls. She could see him situated in the pilot box, already swinging the airship around so that its starboard rail slings were turned toward the barricades where the Federation soldiers were scrambling in every direction. Cymrian had cocked all of the slings, and now he was racing back the way he had come from one sling to the next, releasing their triggers.

Shards of metal flew everywhere, tearing into the barricades, shredding them. The Federation soldiers not caught in the firestorm and dispatched had flattened themselves against the decking to either side, finding cover wherever they could.

Then abruptly Cymrian disappeared.

Aphenglow searched the decks of Arrow for him without success. Bombax had turned his airship so that her bow was facing toward the barricade, assuming a course that would take her either through or over its center and to the doors leading into the Inner Wall of the Keep.

Cymrian was still nowhere to be found.

Then she saw him. His white-blond head flashed across the landing platform, darting through the shadows between airships until suddenly he reappeared aboard Wend-A-Way. Apparently the Elf and Bombax had decided to steal both ships to rescue their companions, thinking the chance to do so too good to pass up. In seconds Cymrian had the light sheaths raised, the radian draws locked down, and the thrusters engaged. Wend-A-Way lifted off, swinging around to join Arrow.

Behind the barricade, the Federation soldiers still standing had recovered enough to try to stop them. A handful had converged on the only weapon still available to them in the wake of the initial raking of the wall, a rail sling situated on the far left of the barricade. Bombax, focused on his efforts to surmount the barricade, nevertheless saw them. Without leaving the pilot box, he summoned the Druid Fire and sent it hurtling into the soldiers and their weapon. Both vanished in a cloud of debris and smoke.

But with his attention momentarily diverted, he missed seeing the Federation soldiers atop the Outer Wall who were now alerted to his presence and scrambling to ready a fire launcher on the battlements directly across from him. As Arrow sailed over the top of the makeshift barricade, the men manning the fire launcher fired it point-blank at Arrow. An explosion of fire flew right where Bombax was standing at the controls and the pilot box simply disintegrated.

Aphen screamed and surged to her feet, Arling clinging tenaciously to one arm, trying to pull her back down again.

For a second the air was so clouded and thick with debris and smoke that it was impossible to tell anything. Aboard Wend-A-Way, Cymrian had abandoned the pilot box to man her starboard rail slings, turning them on the Federation soldiers at the fire launcher on the battlements of the Outer Wall. It only took a single shot to smash them both. Then he was back in the pilot box, easing Wend-A-Way forward to where he, too, disappeared into the roiling cloud left by the hit Arrow had taken.

As Aphenglow struggled in Arling’s grip, Arrow surged back into view, a stricken wreck with her controls gone and her mainsail shredded. At first she couldn’t find any trace of Bombax, but then Arling screamed out his name and pointed. The Druid was clinging to what was left of the mainmast, bloodied and dazed, holding himself upright by what appeared to be sheer determination. Arrow dropped toward the rampway, listing and on fire, struck hard enough to shatter the keel, and slid forward toward the barred doors to the Keep and the defenders hiding behind them.

Aphenglow and Arlingfant abandoned their observation post, rushing back inside, out into the hallway and down the stairs as fast as they could manage. When they reached the lower hallway where they had left Woostra and the Trolls, they found everything in chaos. The doors leading in from the landing platform ramp had been smashed in; Arrow’s bow jutted through the opening, charred and still smoking. Wend-A-Way was parked midair to the ruined vessel’s port side, using Arrow as a shield to protect it from the masses of Federation soldiers gathering on the battlements of the Outer Wall while the Keep’s defenders loaded the wounded and then scrambled aboard themselves. Rail slings and fire launchers were being turned on Wend-A-Way and her passengers, but none of them had been mounted where they could do much damage and there was no time to move them. Clouds of smoke from Arrow’s burning wreck made it more difficult still to see clearly what was happening.

Aphenglow searched frantically for Bombax, unable to find him. But then Cymrian appeared beside her, caught her arm, and shouted that Krolling had carried the big Druid off Arrow and put him aboard Wend-A-Way and she must board, as well. Right now.

Minutes later the entire company of defenders had gained the decks of Wend-A-Way, and the airship was lifting off and turning north for the safety of night’s concealing darkness.

Drust Chazhul had ordered Federation army commander Tinnen March to dispatch every soldier under his newly designated command to the landing platform in an attempt to stop the Druid escape, but the effort had failed. Flits had given pursuit, but with night settled in there wasn’t much reason to hope they could do anything. The Federation ships still weren’t able to fly and fight, so there was nothing to do but let the Keep’s defenders go their way.

At least, he told himself, somehow managing to keep his burgeoning rage and frustration in check, he had control of Paranor and whatever treasures it hid.

Stoon, standing at his side, warned him that it would be wise not to go in himself until his soldiers had been able to make certain it was safe. There was nothing to say the Druids hadn’t left traps for the foolish and unwary.

Reluctantly, Drust had agreed. He would have his chance soon enough. He would loot the fortress of her treasures, of talismans and artifacts, of histories and records, of all things Druid, and then he would tear it down. It might take some time, but he would use every soldier available to him and when he was finished there would be nothing left for those who had escaped him to come back to. He would raze the Druid’s Keep down to its foundations and obliterate all traces of the Druid order.

He would put an end to magic’s greatest stronghold and then begin the task of cleaning up whatever remnants might have been left behind.

“Once Paranor is destroyed, there will be time enough to hunt down the rest of the Druids and put an end to them for good. Then all the other magic users, as well.” Drust gave his companion a smile. “I’ll be appointed Prime Minister for life after that.”

They stood together in the darkness on the Outer Wall ramparts and watched as Federation soldiers poured into the Keep through the smashed doors off the airfield ramp. Arrow was no longer burning, her blackened hull crumbling and still.

Drust was about to comment on his plans for the remaining Druid airships when he saw a strange greenish glow seeping through cracks and crevices in the doors and windows of the lower levels of the Keep.

“What do you think that is?” he muttered. Stoon shook his head, watching silently.

The glow began to climb upward, infiltrating the Keep floor by floor. Within the tower walls, men began to scream in terror. Those not yet inside hesitated and then quickly fell back. The light had begun to pulse, as if it were reacting to the screams.

“Get those men out of there,” Stoon told Drust.

But Drust was unable to do anything except stand and watch, fascinated by what was happening. The greenish light was flooding the rooms and passageways of the Keep, and the screams of the men inside were intensifying. Men appeared on the ramparts and balconies and at windows, thrashing and flailing as clouds of mist enveloped them. Some, driven into a frenzy, began throwing themselves off. They fought and clawed and shrieked as the mist attacked them. Those who tried to escape their fate failed to do so. Those who tried to push past simply disappeared. The green mist filled the Keep from basement to tower pinnacles, and everything in between was consumed.

Those Federation soldiers still outside were fleeing for the gates of the Outer Wall, not even bothering to listen to the orders shouted at them by their superiors to stand their ground or make a disciplined retreat. Tendrils of the mist snaked along the ground in pursuit, snatching the fleeing men off their feet and dragging them back inside the Keep.

Not too far from where he stood, Drust watched as Tinnen March scrambled down the stairs of the wall and ran with them.

“We have to get out of here,” Stoon declared, grabbing Drust Chazhul’s arm and dragging him away.

They clambered down the steps to the courtyard and ducked inside a hallway leading to one of the smaller exit doors. Drust was so badly shaken it didn’t even occur to him to argue. He let himself be led like a child down the corridor and back outside, then across the barren stretch of clear-cut and into the trees beyond.

When they had reached the shelter of the woods, they turned back to watch what was happening. The greenish light had enveloped the whole of the Druid’s Keep. It was climbing the walls like a live thing. It was hunting. A kind of odd vapor rose off the ancient stones as it slithered across them, like steam cooling, and the screams emanating from inside began dying away, turning into gasps and groans and finally going silent.

“It looks as if your plans for looting the Keep might have to wait,” Stoon observed drily.

“Only until morning,” Drust declared, evincing a confidence he didn’t feel. He was never going back in there, that much he knew. “We’ll send our men back in then.”

“Don’t bother asking for volunteers.”

Drust felt a weariness sweep through him as he watched the glow pulse softly against the darkness. “I wonder how many died in there?”

Stoon shook his head. “Do you really want to know?”

“Most must have made it out.”

Stoon did not respond.

“Well, it’s not our problem.”

Drust turned abruptly and started walking back through the trees toward the Federation encampment, already mulling over what he would have to do to minimize the damage. He couldn’t go back and face the Coalition Council without having accomplished more than this. He might have driven the Druids out of Paranor, but the fortress was still mostly intact and not in Federation hands. Hundreds of Southland soldiers were dead and many more wounded. His time as Prime Minister would be over if that was all he had to show for this expedition.

“We’ll go back in tomorrow,” he repeated firmly. “When it’s light again. We’ll loot her and begin tearing down the walls. That greenish stuff won’t still be there by then. You’ll see.”

“Will I?” Stoon asked mildly. “Maybe. But I’m not sure you will.”

“What are you talking about?” Drust snapped, irritated with the other’s intractability.

“I’m just saying I don’t think you’re going to be here tomorrow.”

Drust wheeled on him furiously. “Of course I’m going to be here tomorrow! Where else would I—”

A white-hot fire exploded in his chest, bringing a gasp that Stoon’s rough hand over his mouth only partly managed to muffle. He was suddenly aware of the knife protruding from his body as Stoon’s free hand grasped the hilt and twisted.

Stoon shoved the knife in deeper. “I’ve put up with you long enough, Drust,” he whispered. “I don’t have to do that anymore.” The knife slid out and then back in again, bringing new pain and shock. “You were never even half as smart as you thought.”

He released the Federation Prime Minister and let him fall. Drust Chazhul was dead before he struck the ground.

Aboard Wend-A-Way, Aphenglow Elessedil was crouched beside Bombax where he lay stretched out on a bed in a forward compartment, stripped of his clothing and covered with a sheet. Ointment had been spread over his entire body, providing some small relief for his burns. He had broken both legs and one arm and several ribs, and his internal injuries were so severe there was no reasonable chance of treating them. His breathing was shallow and labored, and his gaze distant and empty.

“Everything hurts,” he murmured.

She had given him medicines to help with the pain, but they weren’t doing much. She held one hand loosely, letting him know that she was there.

“I’m dying, Aphen.”

“Shhhh, shhhh,” she whispered. “Don’t talk.”

Arling, kneeling next to her, rose and cleared everyone out of the room. “I’ll be just outside,” she said before leaving.

Her sister knew. She was giving Aphen these last minutes alone. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing more any of them could do. Tears spilled down Aphenglow’s cheeks and fell on the sheet draping her life partner.

“I shouldn’t have let you go without me,” she told him, bending close. “I should have been with you.”

He sighed. “Think how much worse … I would feel … if you had done that.”

“I love you so much. I can’t lose you.”

“The choice … isn’t yours … or mine.”

“Stay with me. Try to stay.”

The faintest hint of a smile twisted his burned lips. “I’m right … here.”

Then he exhaled slowly and was gone.

“Brave Bombax,” she whispered, and released his hand.