Black Frost (23 page)

Charm whined softly against my leg, so I gave
her more water from the Camelback unit in Dad’s vest, while I made
some preparations of my own. One of the HK mags in the vest had a
clamp on it that allowed a second mag to be fastened to it upside
down. Once I had rigged it to the mag already in my gun I would be
able to reload by just pulling the empty out, spinning it around
and sliding the full one in. Then I prepped my last two flashbangs
along with one of Dad’s surprises, drank a little water myself,
split a granola bar with Charm and waited.

Twenty or thirty minutes later I heard the
Hunt Leader voice change from clipped contentious tones to
something that sounded congratulatory; it sounded like an agreement
had been reached. Looking at the scene of the negotiations, I saw
him nodding and bowing to Morrigan, who smiled in victory. Zinna’s
beautiful smile twisted into an ugly snarl and she rapidly spat out
words that made Gwyd smile and bow. The antlered elf then bowed and
backed away, watching as the two Queens and their daughters squared
off. The troops assembled behind each tensed up, gripping weapons
and lowering helmets. Flights of poisonous fairies and shark-jawed
pucks swarmed into the air, ready for aerial combat.

Morrigan swept her arm across in front of her
and a cold wind blew over the assembled armies, getting everyone’s
attention. The blast of icy air was strong enough to move my hair
when it finally reached my position, and the smell of it reminded
me of snow.

Morrigan spoke loudly, her words carrying as
if she had a microphone. I guessed it was something along the lines
of ‘
I challenge for single combat!’

Queen Zinna drew herself up and nodded once,
then both sides drew back into separate huddles, like high school
football teams.

The Summer Court ranks parted, allowing a
giant of an elf to stride through. He was well over six and a half
feet, armored in blue crystal with a white sword whose gently
curving blade reminded me of a Japanese Katana. He swung the
gleaming weapon with fluid ease and if his armor weighed on him it
wasn’t noticeable.

The Winter group opened to reveal Neeve,
stripped to what looked like a white sports bra and shorts made
from leather, her hands empty but twin frost blades wrapped around
her wrists. Her sudden appearance gave the Summer Court pause,
although from my angle it looked like a ridiculous match up. A
giant armored warrior versus a small, athletic woman. But looks
were deceiving. Greer had said that his mother rarely chose to risk
Neeve in Challenges, but when she did, the slim Guardian always
won.

If Eirwen looked like elf-maid Barbie, with
all the requisite curves, then Neeve looked like an Olympic athlete
elf. Her midsection was extremely defined, arms and legs jacked
with lean, functional muscle. Through the monocular I could make
out a curving scar on her right thigh; one that wrapped around from
the inside up to the leg-hip socket. Like someone had tried to clip
her femoral artery, if in fact she had one. She had a series of
slashes on her left forearm and what appeared to be tooth marks on
her left bicep.

Gliding out to the open area that would
apparently serve as the fighting circle, she first stretched
lithely, then flowed into some type of empty hand kata; something
that looked like fast motion tai chi mixed with gymnastics. Her
flips and airborne twists seemed weightless, as if she were lighter
than air, the impact of her feet landing on the ground hardly
making the dust rise.

She had yet to draw her blades, yet I could
see the elves recalculating the odds and not liking the results.
Finally, she came to a slow stop, raised her head then moved nearer
her mother; her warm up completed. The giant she faced twisted a
sneer on his face when she sketched an open handed salute in his
direction, but I could see the uncertainty that was now lurking in
eyes of his fellow Summers.

The surrounding elves, with goblins, steeds,
hell hounds and one bigfoot-troll, were assembled by affiliation in
rough thirds around the circle. The soldiers of the green realm
were all boisterous, cheering on their champion, the white elves
quiet and self-assured. The members of the Hunt, were the loudest,
calling out short sharp sounding words in Neeve’s direction and
making strange hoots like a band of demented owls. It was alien and
familiar at the same time. Inhuman and, strangely, humanlike as
well. The goading and catcalling (owl calling just doesn’t have the
same ring) would be expected of humans, yet the odd stiffness and
strange tones made it very, very weird. A sudden moment of culture
shock hit me – the realization that I was standing on a strange
planet of aliens watching two of them fight for possession of my
daughter. The cold pit in my stomach hardened to titanium ice and I
locked away the disorientation. Then I rechecked my weapons, patted
my dog and generally got ready to kick ass. Greer estimated a fifty
percent chance of success, my own estimation was much lower, but I
would give it everything I had and probably die trying. How Charm
would react, if she would live, I didn’t know. Ashley would
probably ask why I hadn’t tied her up to wait for us, but I
couldn’t do it. Charm was a hundred and fifty percent Ashley’s dog
and she deserved the chance to help her as much as I did. Leaving
her tied up where she would likely get killed by the first hell
hound or goblin to come along wasn’t right. Let her go down
fighting like me.

Chapter 22

By now both Champions were in the makeshift
arena, a circle that was about sixty or seventy feet in diameter.
The Summer warrior was buckling on a wicked looking shield, which
was also made of crystalline looking material. A long straight
spike protruded from the center of the disk, giving the round sheld
an offensive aspect. It was at least three feet in diameter, but
looked right in scale when wielded by the giant elf. Between the
broad coverage of the shield, the long reach of the sword and the
tank-like protection of the big warrior’s armor, it appeared to be
a one-sided fight.

Neeve , still stood with empty hands, looking
relaxed and calm, tiny in comparison with the Green Court’s
champ.

Despite the uneven matchup, the Summer crowd
didn’t seem too certain of the outcome; the onlookers studied the
athletic looking Guardian with serious expressions. The black clad
Guardians and troopers of Neeve’s Court seemed professional and
unconcerned as they stood quietly behind her.

Suddenly, heads from both courts began to
turn, looking back in the crowd where a disturbance moved forward,
parting the elves like Moses and the Red Sea. Stepping between the
gap that marked the division of Winter and Summer, came a little
old lady elf, by far the oldest I’d seen. Every elf in the vicinity
treated her with respect, bowing and backing from the tiny crone,
who for her part, pretty much ignored them all. Instead, she moved
directly between the groups to the center of the circle and waited,
head down.

Both queens, with attendants and their chosen
fighters hurried to the hunched figure in the center. When both had
arrived and bowed to her, the old elf raised her head, looking at
neither side, but straight ahead at the Hunt Leader and Ashley.

Gwyd sketched a bow in her direction, but she
ignored him, instead studying my daughter with green sparkling eyes
that were bright with life and intelligence. Then, oddly, she
turned her head slightly to look my way, almost as if she could see
my head across the hundred and fifty yards or so that separated us,
through the scrubby plant that I was using as cover and right into
my open right eye where it peered through the monocular. But that
wasn’t possible.

The moment passed before I could more than
draw my breath, and the old woman spoke, first in Elfish, then in
English.

“You agree that the outcome of this Challenge
will decide your respective claims?” she asked.

Morrigan and Zinna glanced at each other in
puzzlement, then Morrigan spoke, using the Elfish language. She
asked a question from the sound of it.

“Yes, I speak her language,” the old elf
answered with a hand gesture in Ash’s direction. Her voice carried
easily to me, which seemed odd, but maybe there was some natural
acoustic effect from the ring of little hills around us. “You fight
for possession of her life, you should at least speak in her
language,” the wizened female said.

“Very well, Caillach, we will speak the
humans language,” Morrigan agreed.

“And you both agree to abide by this
contest?” the crone asked.
“Yes Mother,” “Yes, Mother” the two queens intoned within a split
second of each other.

Mother?

The old elf was the mother of the Queens?
Maybe that was the reason for all the respect and bowing the
onlookers had shown her, although talk about dysfunctional
families! Two daughters that each had their own countries and
armies, always at the edge of war. Even Dr. Phil wouldn’t be able
to help this crew.

“Be it so,” the old one intoned, then
retreated from the circle with a grace and speed that belied her
obvious age.

Without any further ado, the Summer elf leapt
forward, his sword slashing horizontally at Neeve’s middle; a fight
ending blow that would leave two halves of one princess…if it had
landed.

The lithe female warrior simply bent
backwards in a
Matrix-
like move, letting the huge blade
flash by overhead.

I bet she never met a limbo contest she
couldn’t win!

Instead of using either hand to touch the
ground and stabilize herself, she simply shoved her right hand
forward, a flash of liquid black filling it and forming a gaff-like
hook that she used to snag her opponent’s leg. With a sharp pull
she sent herself spinning horizontally over the ground, while
causing the giant elf to almost lose his balance. Her move landed
her to his right side, which was still twisted to the left in the
follow-through of his strike. Her left Frost blade stabbed out into
a long thin spear point that the Summer elf just barely deflected
with his shield.

The two pulled apart and circled, the big
warrior glancing down at the newly scarred surface of his shield.
Neeve looked unruffled, but both hands were now filled with black
blades that were slightly blurry to the eye. The blades seemed in a
state of constant change as she swung both arms in easy graceful
arcs.

The big elf struck again, swinging from
overhead, but shortening the stroke at the last instance, moving
from a massive woodcutters swing to a close to the body downward
slice. It was like a Major League hitter switching to a bunt
instead of the fence clearing smash that everyone expected.

Neeve didn’t fall for it though, even as she
moved inside what would have been the arc of his false swing; a
move that should have brought her into the slice he had switched
to. Instead she floated to his right side and without bothering to
swing her own arm, changed the Frost blade in her left hand to a
needle like spear that shot out under its own power and punched a
small hole in the Summer elf’s torso armor.

He twisted to protect his side but she was
past him, chopping an ax shaped blade into his right calf armor on
the way by.

The fighters separated, the big elf shrugging
off the damage which was apparently minor, yet the crowd was quiet,
perhaps disturbed by liquid ease with which Neeve had drawn first
blood.

Limping ever so slightly on his wounded leg,
the Summer warrior spun his heavy sword lightly in his hand, eyeing
his slim opponent with a glare. Neeve watched him back, her gaze
more studied, coldly analyzing her enemy. Suddenly , she slid
forward, dropping to her knees for a flickering moment before
bounding backward in a very inhuman manner. I couldn’t follow her
arm movements, but when she stood up her left hand weapon was
formed into a nasty looking brush hook with blue blood dripping
from the point of the blade. I glanced at the Summer fighter, who
was looking wobbly, but couldn’t figure out his wound. Then his
good leg gave out and he fell to his knees, his hand clutching the
back of his thigh. That sudden move combined with a billhook shaped
weapon had severely cut the elf’s back leg, perhaps severing a
tendon or two. The fight was over, for all intents and purposes.
The big Hunter tried to spin on his wound knee to keep the mongoose
fast princess in sight but he couldn’t keep up and she was suddenly
behind him, her blades scissored together and his head jumped from
his broad shoulders in a geyser of blue blood. Just that fast the
fight was done.

The noisy Green Court elves went dead silent,
while the onlookers from the White Court thumped their left hands
to their right chests in applause.

For her part, Neeve simply flicked both
blades clean, then let the living weapons flow back to her forearms
before rejoining her mother. Morrigan nodded once in satisfaction
then turned to Zinna and spoke in Elfish. Her words were
meaningless to me, but the tone was crystal clear, ‘
I won, give
me the girl!’
, or something like that. When I glanced in
Ashley’s direction, I noticed Greer standing on the far side,
almost exactly opposite me with Ash in the middle. He was staring
in my direction and I suddenly realized that I had almost missed my
cue.

The two silver spikes were poking out of the
hard, red river bank in front of me, waiting their part in the play
about to happen. Greer had collected them from a Green Court Hunter
and one of the Hunt’s members, neither of whom had any further use
for the pointy weapons.

Pulling the spikes from the dry desert-like
sand, I hauled back my right hand and let fly with first one, then
the other, throwing as hard as I could. They went farther than I
expected, the first landing only ten feet from Greer who didn’t
have to fake the shock on his face. ‘
Didn’t know the human could
throw that hard did you?’