Moonshadow

Chapter Twenty

Afterward, she was never able to fully describe the experience of that ride.

There was a wild speed and so much magic, and the land sped past impossibly fast. Sparks from the stallion’s hooves lit up the night, and something in the wind laughed in response.

Terrified and freezing, she lay along the stallion’s back and clung with her knees while clenching her hands so tightly in his mane she couldn’t feel her fingers. She tried to look out at the landscape, but the air was too frigid, and tears streamed down her face. Eventually she gave up and hid her face in the puck’s mane while he raced along precipices and leaped over ravines.

Just when she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer and she might fall off despite Robin’s help, he surged up a long incline, past torchlit sentries, tents, campfires, and makeshift houses. Shouts rose behind them, far too late to stop the puck’s forward movement.

Finally Robin galloped up to a stone building at the top of a bluff. As guards ran up, one made as if to put his hand on Robin, and the stallion screamed a warning and reared in response, kicking out so violently the guards scrambled back.

Someone ran into the building, while Robin whirled to threaten off the guards that circled them.

“Stop doing that or I might be sick!” Sophie called out hoarsely as the world spun.

Baring his teeth at the guards, Robin stopped spinning.

Soon several more guards poured out of the building, along with a tall, auburn-haired woman in armor. “What is going on? Robin! Where have you been?”

“Away,” said Robin. “I have been away and trapped by evil.”

“I need to speak to Annwyn.” Sophie’s teeth chattered. “We came from Earth, and it’s urgent.”

“I’m Annwyn,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “Get down and say what you’ve come to say.”

That was easier said than done. The ground was so far away, and her fists had stiffened in Robin’s mane. “Robin,” she muttered. “Help me.”

Bowing his head, the stallion went down on his front knees. Sophie slid off his back in an ungainly sprawl. When she yanked her hands free, she tore long black strands out of his mane, but he didn’t complain.

She didn’t trust herself to get to her feet. Instead, she turned on her knees to face Annwyn and the circle of suspicious guards staring down at her. Holding out her shaking hand, she showed them the gold commander’s ring on her thumb. For the first time, she noticed the lion rampant on the head of the ring.

“Nikolas,” Annwyn whispered. Lunging forward, she knelt in front of Sophie. “Bring a cloak and a hot drink!” Annwyn turned back to Sophie. “Are you wounded? You have blood all over you. You’re insane to ride out in this weather dressed like that. How did you come here—and where is Nikolas?”

“I was wounded, but I’m healed now. We don’t have time for niceties. Listen.” Sophie grabbed her hands, and while Annwyn froze at her presumptuous touch, the other woman did not shake her off.

Words tumbled out of Sophie. Earth. A stray dog. The house. Broken passageway. Nikolas and the other men. The pub attack. Lycanthropes. Morgan.

She didn’t mention Ashe. That matter felt too private and raw, and it deserved its own telling, by someone other than she.

“Wait!” This time it was Annwyn who grabbed hold of her. “They’re here, in Lyonesse? You’re saying you found a way through?”

“Yes, but we might l-l-lose it,” she stuttered. Someone settled a fur-lined cloak around her shoulders, and someone else thrust a tankard of mulled wine into her hands. It was too hot for her frigid skin, and the tankard slipped through her clumsy, cold-numbed fingers to spill on the frozen ground. “Time moves faster on Earth than it does here, and when we left, Morgan was trying to tear down the house. He might destroy the way back if we don’t stop him.”

Annwyn swore, then said behind her shoulder, “Muster a force of five hundred. We ride within the next half hour.” As guards raced to do her bidding, she said sharply, “Puck! Your master is in an enchanted sleep, and we need to search for help from Earth. If we don’t get Oberon the medical attention he needs, he’ll die, and the idea of Lyonesse will die with him. Will you let us ride in your wind? I fear if we ride on our own, we will be too slow—and we will arrive too late again.”

The puck stood protectively at Sophie’s back. He blew in her hair. Robin owes them nothing, he said in her head. Because nothing is what they did for him.

She looked over her shoulder, into the stallion’s fiery eyes. Robin, you were hurt in your heart as well as in your body, and I understand how terrible that was. But sweetheart, not everybody could have known to look for you or send help. Not everybody abandoned you. The people in Lyonesse have been as caged as you were. Don’t let your hurt blind you to what is true and right, because if you do, Isabeau will have destroyed you. She will have won. Please don’t give that victory to her. You don’t belong in the cage of your abuser any longer. Choose to be stronger than that. Choose to be free.

The fire in the stallion’s eyes grew hotter, brighter. He said, And if we cannot get back to Earth, we can’t defeat her.

“Yes,” she said out loud.

The puck said to Annwyn, “You may ride in my wind, this once.”

Annwyn told him, “Thank you.” The other woman turned her attention to Sophie. “You should stay here, rest, eat, and warm up. You are in no shape for another ride with the puck.”

“No,” Sophie said so fiercely the other woman looked taken aback. “Tie me to Robin’s back if you must, but I have to go back.”

“If you insist,” Annwyn said.

After Sophie and Robin disappeared, the night felt even more cold and bleak with emptiness.

Finally Nikolas forced himself to stop looking after them. As he turned back to the other men, he found Braden standing at his elbow.

“Vicansha and the children are so close,” Braden whispered.

Nikolas’s chest tightened. As difficult as the last decades had been for him and the other men, they had been even harder for Braden.

He gripped Braden’s shoulder. “When we get reinforcements, I’m releasing you from duty. You can go to your wife and children.”

Tears spilled down the other man’s taut face. “Thank you, sir.”

Nikolas paused. “How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you make that kind of commitment, when we live such dangerous lives?”

Braden shrugged and wiped his face. “The love has to be bigger than everything else. The isolation, the separation, the danger. When the love is bigger than all that—you just do it. You pay the price in uncertainty and sometimes bereavement, because every moment you’re together is worth the cost. If the love is big enough, yet you don’t take that chance… man, it doesn’t matter what you’re fighting for. You’ve lost.”

Nikolas tightened his fingers, then let his hand drop and bent to pick up the skull again.

Watching him with a grim expression, Gawain said, “We might have known that poor bloke well. He could have been a friend.”

“Whoever he was, we need to give him a proper burial,” Nikolas said. “Sophie promised.” He tucked the skull aside carefully so that it could be attended to later, and he told the others, “We need to get a fire going and build a wind barrier.”

They set to work. After some quick effort, they had a large lean-to built and propped against the hillside to cover the hole that led to the oubliette. It was constructed of pine branches heavy with needles so that it blocked the worst of the wind.

While some worked on building the lean-to, others sourced deadfall wood, and soon they had a fire going. It didn’t feel like it warmed the area so much as eased a little of the bitter chill, but at least they could heat some of the water and the food they carried in their packs for calories and warmth, which helped.

Nikolas thought of Sophie, riding the puck in the elements, and clamped down on a surge of worry. None of them were dressed for deep winter, but they were hardier than her, and they had the advantage of some rudimentary shelter.

Time passed, and the moon traveled across the sky. Most of the others huddled close to share body warmth while they napped, but Nikolas couldn’t rest. He fed the fire and kept watch.

Sophie and Robin had to have reached Raven’s Craig by now. He imagined them talking to Annwyn. What would happen next? She would muster a fighting force, and while they would have the advantage of horses, the route would be treacherous with snow and ice. It might be another thirty-six to forty-eight hours before anyone arrived.

He sat on a log, at one end of the lean-to, his head in his hands. Two days in Lyonesse would be weeks on Earth. Morgan might have weeks to do as much damage as he could. After so much effort, they might not make it back across in time after all.

Thunder sounded in the distance and grew louder. It approached too quickly to be a thunderstorm.

It sounded like many galloping horses.

Cael stirred and murmured, “What’s that?”

Nikolas stood, looking out as the first of an army of five hundred appeared over a rise, with a fiery black stallion racing at their head. Annwyn had made the two-day journey within a few hours.

Robin plunged to a halt in front of Nikolas, followed by Annwyn astride a dappled gelding, along with Hershel, Rogier, Dihanna, and many others Nikolas recognized.

But he had eyes only for the cloaked figure lying prone along the stallion’s back. Running over to Robin, he lifted back the hood to stare at Sophie’s white face. As he touched her cold cheek, she whispered through bloodless lips, “I’m okay. Just super cold and tired. They tied me on so I wouldn’t fall off.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he swore. He felt along her arms to discover the rope tied around her wrists and worked to get the knots undone.

Her mouth trembled. “Don’t yell at me right now.”

“I’m not going to yell at you, my Sophie,” he whispered. “I’m going to yell at them.”

Annwyn approached. She clasped Nikolas’s arm in a tight hold and gave him a look that sparkled with unshed tears. Then she moved to untie Sophie’s other wrist.

“I tried to talk her into staying behind at Raven’s Craig, but she insisted,” Annwyn told him.

“I take it back,” Nikolas said to Sophie. “I am going to yell at you.”

As her hands came free, he lifted her off the stallion’s back and cradled her in his arms. Bowing his head over hers, he hugged her tight.

“Fine,” she gritted, shivering. “But I get to have a cup of coffee first.”

He looked up at the puck, who stared back, ferocious and unfriendly. Telepathically he said to Robin, Thank you for carrying her safely. And for bringing the others. We owe you—I owe you so much.

Some of the starch seemed to go out of the stallion’s black mane, even as Robin said fiercely, “You will not forget a puck again.”

“Never,” Nikolas said. “I swear it.” He looked at Annwyn. “Much as I would love to have a leisurely reunion, we don’t have time.”

“We will take time on the other side.” She clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to start issuing orders.

Some of the troops would stay behind to set up a winter camp and care for the horses. Annwyn had laid plans based on hope. Temporary shelters would need to be erected, while wagonloads of supplies and more troops would arrive over the next two days. The troops that remained behind would then work on erecting more permanent structures.

In the meantime, Nikolas and Annwyn would be able to take as many as four hundred and fifty troops across to Earth—assuming they could get through.

He looked down at Sophie, who had revived enough to stare at him pointedly. Eyes flashing in the moonlight, she told him, “Shush. Don’t you start yelling. My coffee is in the great hall.”

Laughter bolted up from his belly. He clenched her tighter so that he could bury his face in her hair. “We’d better go get it then.”

If there was a great hall to get back to. Neither one of them said it.

“Put me down,” she told him.

“Are you sure you can stand?” Gingerly he set her on her feet.

She wobbled but stayed upright. Beside them, in a shimmer of magic, the stallion vanished and a monkey took its place.

The monkey leaped onto Sophie’s back, and she staggered. “I can stand. I can’t run, and I don’t have another fight in me, but I can stand.”

“You’ve had your fight. This next one is ours.” Exasperated, Nikolas said, “Robin, can’t you go under your own steam?”

“We go together,” the monkey said, wrapping its arms around Sophie’s neck. “We go at the same time.”

The emphasis he put on the last word was a good reminder of how much time slippage there would be on the way back. Nikolas told Sophie, “You and I are going at the same time too, and I’m in the forefront.”

She looked upward briefly, as if to ask for help from the heavens. “I will deign to agree, but only because I dislike winter so much and my coffee is back on Earth. The fact that my decision coincides with your orders is purely coincidental.”

He took a deep, bracing breath and reached for patience. “I’m well aware of that.”

He led the way back to the hole, where he found all his men except Braden waiting. He told all of them, “You’re relieved of duty too.”

Gawain shook his head. “Not happening, mate.”

“Me neither,” Rowan said.

The rest of them shook their heads as well.

He was so damn proud of them. So damn proud.

Giving them a curt nod, he said, “Let’s go.”

After that, things appeared to happen quickly. The first wave of troops, including Nikolas, Sophie, the puck, and the rest of his team, went through the cramped tunnel to the oubliette.

“I did the math,” Rowan said almost cheerfully. “A fortnight in Lyonesse roughly equals six months on Earth. It took four hours or so for Sophie to contact Annwyn and to bring the troops. That means it’s been two and a half days on Earth. Not counting all the time slippages from when we ran around in the house, of course.”

Gawain growled, “If you mean to be encouraging, you’re not helping.”

Together they hoisted Cael up, then Rhys, who took a rope ladder with them. After a long, long—long—moment, they tossed one end of the ladder back down. The next man up carried another rope ladder, and the fourth man carried another, and then there wasn’t any room for more.

Nikolas went up before Sophie, and when she climbed up with Robin on her back, he was waiting to lift her the rest of the way out. They strode down the corridor. Someone who had come before them had moved Ashe’s body. Nikolas caught a glimpse of a still form lying in the armory, covered with a tapestry.

Cael met them in the courtyard. “Watch yourself,” Cael warned. “There’s damage, and the bastard hasn’t stopped.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Nikolas growled. He exchanged a look with Sophie, then they both hurried down the passage that connected the courtyard to the great hall.

Once there, they turned in a circle, taking in the scene. It had changed drastically. Giant cracks marred the hall. The iron-bordered windows had warped, and the chimney over the large fireplace had broken in two. Stones had fallen out of the balcony floors, and timbers from the roof crisscrossed the open floor.

The monkey jumped off her shoulders and ran to the window. Sophie rested both hands on top of her head, her expression dismayed.

“My beautiful, spooky house.” Her mouth drooped. “I don’t have chimney or roof insurance for a house built on a broken crossover passageway.”

“Don’t think about that right now,” Nikolas told her. “We’re here, and we’re not blocked off from Earth yet.”

“I know that’s the most important thing,” she said bitterly. “But I loved this place, and he’s tearing it to pieces. If he’s broken my jar of instant coffee, I’m going to have a meltdown.”

As she went rummaging in the grocery supplies, Nikolas joined Robin at the window to look through fractured panes of glass. A rumble began low in the distance and grew to vibrate through the building. He could feel the strain in the flagstones underneath his feet.

The interior of the house had taken serious damage, but outside, the scene looked downright apocalyptic. Trees had been downed, and wide, deep cracks ran in the earth across the clearing. Most of the gatekeeper’s cottage had crumbled to rubble. The gate pillars themselves, at the border of the road, had toppled over.

Morgan knelt outside, hands planted flat on the ground, while Hounds kept watch in a circle around the house. Nikolas checked the sun’s position. He guessed it was late morning. It looked like the bastard hadn’t taken a break in three days.

Nikolas said over his shoulder to Sophie, “You’re not going to like what he’s done to the rest of your property either.”

“Goddammit! I haven’t even gotten the title documents yet!” she wailed around a mouthful of food.

She joined him at the window, carrying a half-eaten protein bar in one hand and a bottle of black water in the other. She had changed her blood-soaked sweater for a clean, long-sleeved, gray cotton shirt. As he watched, she shook the bottle of water, uncapped it, and took a long swig while she glared out the window.

Distracted by the sight, he curled a lip in disgust. “You’re drinking cold, instant black coffee.”

“It’s caffeine and hydration,” she muttered. “I’m still on my feet, aren’t I? Besides, I didn’t feel comfortable lighting one of the propane stoves.”

“Good point.” Squeezing her arm, he turned to face the great hall.

Soldiers poured in.

“Archers to the front,” he said. Four women and three men stepped forward. He told them, “We’re not going to make the same mistake we made the last time we fought on this land. We concentrate everything we have on bringing Morgan down. The Hounds might be dangerous, but they’re incidental.”

Cramming the last of the protein bar into her mouth, Sophie turned to listen. When he paused, she said telepathically, Every good magic user I’ve ever known has some version of an avert spell for defense. And clearly Morgan is one hell of a magic user.

He raised an eyebrow. Your point?

Well, you don’t want to just shoot at him, right? She drank the last of her coffee. You want to take out his magic too.

He said out loud, “The null spell. We need the null spell on as many arrows as we can get. How much magic-sensitive silver do you have?”

“Not enough to spell all their arrows,” she said grimly, gesturing to the group. “I was on vacation. Choose your best archers, and we’ll go from there.”

While Nikolas prioritized the group, Sophie retrieved her luggage and pulled out a small package. She called out to the gathering crowd, “Gawain?”

“Right here, lass.” Gawain shouldered through to her.

“Did you get metal-making tools for me?”

“We didn’t have time.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Okay. Doesn’t matter. This doesn’t have to be pretty. We’re going to need to light a propane stove after all and use one of the cooking pots. All we have to do is get the silver melted enough to dip the tips of the arrows in it, and then we can cast the spell.”

“Got it.”

As they set to work, Nikolas organized others to shift the supplies, along with the fallen timbers and stones, into the side halls to make more room for arriving troops. They weren’t going to get all four hundred and fifty into the great hall, but if the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, they could get most of them in. The rest would have to line up back in the courtyard.

“Watch out for the painted lines!” he called out to the workers. “They mark time-space shifts. There’s a shift along one side of the courtyard too—Rhys, go back there and make sure people know to avoid it.”

“I’m on it.” Rhys worked his way to the back.

Annwyn appeared at Nikolas’s side. She stared at the Mini and the Harley for a long moment and took a breath as if she meant to ask a question. But then, in the next moment, she seemed to think better of it, for she shook her head and let it go.

“How many have come through?” he asked.

“Close to three hundred,” she told him.

Nodding, he strode to Gawain and Sophie, where they bent over a small propane stove set on the dining table. He asked, “What do you have?”

As he spoke, another low rumble started. This time it rose and rose, and a sharp crack sounded overhead. Immediately Gawain doused the flame while Nikolas lunged forward to cover Sophie’s head and shoulders with his, and people swore and crowded as close as they could to the walls.

For a long moment everyone in the great hall held tense and still as they waited, but nothing fell. Then Sophie said in a cranky, muffled voice from underneath him, “We’ll get you ten spelled arrows as soon as you get off me. Any minute now.”

With a growl, he expelled a sharp breath and rubbed his face in her hair.

Crazy. She made him crazy. Somehow in spite of that, he was more in love with her than ever.

Straightening, he said to everybody, “Get back to work.”

Activity resumed. Gawain lit the propane stove again, and he and Sophie went back to spelling arrows. Annwyn joined them and said, “I don’t think this old place can take much more.”

“I don’t either,” Nikolas told her. “Soon as Gawain and Sophie are done, we’ll make our move.”

“We’re done,” Gawain said. He doused the flame again, and he and Sophie sat back. She handed Nikolas two fistfuls of arrows.

He strode over to the archers and handed the strongest ones two arrows each. “These are only to be used on Morgan,” he said. “This is your only job.”

“Understood,” the lead archer said, her expression direct and clear.

As Sophie joined them, Nikolas said, “Morgan doesn’t know we’ve broken through to Lyonesse. He doesn’t know about any of you. Let’s keep it that way until we strike. I’m going to hide you with a cloaking spell. We’ll open the doors, and then you’ll hit him with everything you’ve got.”

“Yes, sir.”

They strode over to the doors. Annwyn said to the troops, “Get ready.”

The troops drew their swords and readied shields, then silence fell in the great hall.

When Nikolas, Gawain, and Sophie reached the doors, Nikolas cast a massive cloaking spell over the five archers who took their places behind them. Then Nikolas fixed Sophie with a stern look. “You’ll stay out of it.”

She widened her eyes. “Oh, believe me, this is not my fight.”

They pulled open the doors. Morgan lifted his head.

Sophie surveyed the wreckage of landscape with tightened lips. She called out, “I don’t know if you’re a monster or if you’re massively misunderstood. But I do know one thing.”

Morgan stood. Even from the distance of twenty meters, Nikolas could sense him amassing Power, as Morgan asked, “What is that, Sophie Ross?”

“You need to get off my lawn,” Sophie said. She stepped to one side.

Nikolas whispered, “Now.”

Five arrows flew through the air. Morgan dodged, moving so fast he turned into a blur. Most of the arrows missed.

One didn’t.

It struck him in the arm. The Hounds to either side of Morgan broke into a run, hurtling toward the house.

Even as Morgan reeled back, he flung his hand out in the direction of the open doors. Nothing happened. Behind Nikolas came the distinctive sound of the archers drawing their bows. Raising his hand, he kept his eyes trained on Morgan and the approaching Hounds.

Morgan tore the arrow out of his arm. The archers loosened their arrows, and he blurred again as he dodged. Another arrow hit, this time in his side. He stumbled and fell to his knees.

Nikolas dropped his hand and roared, “Go! Go!”

Soldiers sprinted out the open doors and collided with Hounds. More and more poured past Nikolas while he drew his own sword. He lunged onto the field eagerly, looking for Morgan.

This time, centuries later, the Daoine Sidhe had not come too late.