Faerie (35 page)

“Rocks!” she shouted, grabbing his mail at the sleeve and pulling him. “Watch out!”

Too late, he banged against a huge, dark boulder, knocking out his breath. Close by, the water turned milk white, frothing as it raged through a narrow channel, a strid between the boulders, so constricted it forced the water through it faster than an arrow shot. If it dragged him into its power, it would tear him apart.

“Get out of the water, Leonie! Don’t let it suck you into that!” He braced himself with his feet and arms against the rock, struggling against the mighty flow.

“Not without you!”

“Do as I say!”

“Some other time!” She climbed upward. Then something pulled on him, a force counter to the powerful current. She could barely hold on to him, but the effort gave him just enough purchase to push himself higher out of the water and drag himself out of the torrent’s power onto dry rock. His chest heaved as if he’d been in a battle with death for hours. Every corner of his body felt bruised.

Leonie collapsed on the massive boulder beside him.

“The mail has to go,” she said.

“We don’t have time. They’ll be down on us before we can get it off. Where are they?”

“Across the river. We were carried to the other side, and they don’t seem to want to try the water.”

“That sounds intelligent of them.”

“Trust me, they aren’t. There is some sort of creature who commands them, but they aren’t all that hard to fight. It’s the thing that commands them I’d worry about.” She pointed.
Philippe shook his dripping hair out of his eyes and trained them on the far bank.

It looked like a man. It was the right size. But it sat upon its horse, completely clothed in a black cloak with a large, concealing black hood.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “I only know it has no face.”

A
THICK KNOT
formed in Leonie’s throat. The black cloak swirled around the thing as it dismounted from its restless black horse and strode toward the jumble of rocks on the far side of the strid. It had no eyes, yet she could feel its vile gaze fixed on her.

The entire flow of the river was forced into the very narrow channel. There were rumors about men who dared to jump the strid but missed and were torn apart by the fierce current. But she had no idea what this creature might be able to do.

Instinctively, Philippe jumped to his feet, his hand reaching for his side but finding only empty air. “My sword. It’s gone.”

“Which makes running a good thought,” she replied.

“We need it. I can’t defend us without it.”

“Too late. You probably lost it when we jumped in the water.”

“Nay, I felt it moments ago. It’s close by.” Urgently, he tried to peer into the frothing water near the strid.

“Come on, run!”

“You run. I have to find it!”

“In the water? You’re daft!” But he was also right. Well, there was little sense in pretending she was just a human now. Leonie stretched her arm out over the water and let her senses call the sword, hoping it would respond. She turned her hand palm up. Would it come? She begged for it in her mind.

Out in the deep water, something stirred. With the force of an arrow, the sword shot up, point first, and came to rest on the fast-flowing surface, floating—nay, moving faster than the current!—in their direction with the current.

“God be merciful,” he said. “Swords can’t float.”

She blinked. Her concentration failed her. The sword sank. Leonie slapped her hands against her temples. “Oh, do pardon me, adoring husband,” she sneered. “I forgot.”

“Leonie, stop that!”

“Make up your mind, brave spouse. This is hard.” Turning her palms toward the sky, she tried again, and the sword, still riding with the current, resurfaced. Her fingers beckoned, and it sped toward her.

Philippe stepped into the water and snatched it up, broken belt, scabbard, and all. The fiend in black was starting across the rocks with an assurance that told her it could make the jump over the strid.

“Run, Leonie!” Philippe shouted. “Get up there to that cave.”

Frowning, she looked at the cliff behind them, which had probably been the cause of the jumble of rocks that stretched across the river. “What cave?”

“The cave in the cliff. Go!” He had his sword drawn and his feet planted wide, which said he stood for a fight, guarding her while she ran.

He really was daft! “There’s no cave! We’d just get trapped in one anyway.”

“Up at the top of that rockfall. There’s light coming through, so there has to be a way out. Go!”

The thing picked its footing, moving from one rock to another, sidling around larger boulders. Getting closer.

But if she could call Philippe’s sword...and the arrows...

“Haps I’ll just steal his sword,” she suggested. Well, why not try? She held out her hand as she had done before and called to the sheathed sword at the fiend’s side.

The black-clad creature stopped. Whatever it was, it focused on her. She wavered, stepping back. It drew the sword and pointed the weapon at her. Blue and red lightning streaks streamed through midair and slammed into her chest. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Not even the muscles of her face could release a scream. Its earthquake-like evil laugh convulsed through her.

“It’s a sorcerer! Run, Leonie.”

She couldn’t even move. Her lungs were burning, fierily demanding breath she couldn’t draw.

Philippe leaped in front of her, his huge body like a giant shield, braced and ready for battle.

The power that had imprisoned her broke abruptly. Blocked. Philippe’s enormous body stopped it. But it would kill him!

The long streams of blue and red light bounced off him like sunlight reflecting from highly polished steel, back to the creature, knocking it backward. It stumbled, barely saving itself from tumbling into the swift water.

“Run, Leonie!”

She was so glad to move she would have willingly jumped over the cliff into the river again. She scrambled up the scree slope with Philippe at her back, goading her onward. But she still couldn’t see a cave. Did he see some shadow and think it was a cave? They were heading into a trap. Every time she slowed down or looked back, he prodded her on.

“Go! Go!” he shouted.

At the top of the scree slope, she put her hands against a solid, nearly vertical rock face. She could climb no farther and the top of the cliff was still beyond their reach.

“What are you waiting for? Get in there!”

“There’s nothing here but solid rock!”

With an impatient glower, Philippe stepped past her. Into the rock. She couldn’t even gasp before his hand shot out from
the rock, grabbed her arm, and pulled her through it. Her Faerie vision began to glow, but there was no space around them. They were inside rock!

Merciful saints, if I am Faerie, what is he?

“Shh.” Philippe propped the scabbard against a rock that was there yet was not, its broken belt dangling, drawn sword in his hand, waiting. He seemed to think they were safely hidden against a cave wall. But they weren’t.

Haps it might be better if she thought of things his way. Although being one with a rock wasn’t that appealing to her, he didn’t seem to mind.

But she could see outside the rock, or cave, or whatever, to the creature working its way up the scree of fallen rock. Could it also go through rock?

Philippe reached behind him to touch her, a reassuring touch that also commanded her to stay back against the so-called wall. Best to let him manage things here, since she had no notion what was going on.

With its feet placed broadly on the jagged rock, the creature in the black cloak turned its empty face at them. It knew where they were. Once again drawing its sword, it tested the outer surface, clanging the blade lightly against it, and it rang like a bell.

The beast tipped its hooded head back, showing only black emptiness where a face should be. A roar meant to shake the earth split the air. The beast pounded the hilt’s pommel against the rock, up, down, around in circles, but the rock only echoed back its solidity.

With a growl, the creature grasped the sword’s hilt and sheathed the weapon, for the first time baring the hilt to view.

A silver snake wound around the black leather, terminating at the pommel in a menacing head with tiny ruby eyes. She’d seen it before.

“Fulk!” she whispered.

The being turned as if it heard. Philippe touched fingers to her lips. She understood she’d made a mistake.

The fiend grasped the sword at the hilt, baring the grip. The silver snake uncoiled from the grip, growing as it moved through the air, toward the rock face. The spoon-shaped head blackened, and eyes like burning embers in a hot fire searched as the head wove back and forth before the rock, seeking its prey. It fixed on Leonie, and its enormous maw gaped, baring sharp fangs as it hissed.

The snake struck faster than lightning. Leonie leaped back. But it hit the stone wall of the cliff. It retreated, shrank, and recoiled about the hilt.

Enraged, the faceless being pounded its black-gloved fist on the cliff wall. But the rock face held firm. Nothing seemed to be working for the malevolent creature. Fulk—or the fiend that had Fulk’s sword—could not reach them.

At last it slammed the sword into its scabbard and climbed down the cliff in the direction of the river.

“Let’s go,” Philippe whispered when the being disappeared from their sight, and took her hand.

“Go where?”

“Follow the light. It has to lead out.”

She considered saying there was no light, but decided just to let him lead the way. After all, going back down to the river didn’t seem very appealing.

As long as she continued to follow him, she could see what seemed to be a path through the rock, and it looked very much like a cave, uneven to the point where from time to time they had to climb or descend, sometimes squeezing through narrow slits to broader spaces beyond. But looking around, she saw only the glow she could usually see in the dark. He continued to follow his light in full certainty that it was there.

“What made you call that thing Fulk?” he asked as he walked along his path, taking a moment now and then to run a hand over alabaster spikes of rock that seemed to appear from nowhere when he touched them.

“Have you seen the hilt of Fulk’s sword?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I have. That was Fulk’s sword.”

“Haps a similar one.”

“I would know that snake on the hilt anywhere.”

“But that was no man. The thing had no face. And it was commanding those bone demons.”

“Aye. You called it a sorcerer, but it seems more like a demon.”

“What if it is both? A demon sorcerer?”

“And a man as well? A man who is perhaps not a man at all?”

“I’ll wager we’ll find out soon enough.”

Philippe kept on walking through the cave along a path she could not see. But she followed in silence, not knowing what else to do. Or what had become of the simple, orderly world she had wanted to escape only weeks ago.

“How do you do that thing with the arrows?” Philippe asked as he turned to help her climb over jumbled rock that had appeared from nowhere, but that he obviously saw as clearly as if the cave were really a cave. Something that puzzled her even more, since she knew for a certainty that caves were black as midnight.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I never did it before. I just wanted a weapon, and they came.”

“How did you guide the arrows I shot?”

“I’ve always been able to guide them, when I chose. I sing to them in my mind and they heed me.”

“And how do you speak to me without sound?”

“You do the same to me. How do you do it?”

“It is something you do, not me. How do you do it? What are you?”

Leonie glowered. He followed a path through stone and he thought she was strange? Yet he did not even believe that she could not see what he saw. What was the point in answering him?

“And how do you pass through walls?”

“I cannot.”

“I saw you.”

“You think you saw that. You saw my appearance change so that you could not tell the difference between me and the wall. It’s called fading.”

“By whom, Leonie? Who calls it fading?”

She clamped her mouth closed to make sure she said no more. He would not believe her anyway. For what seemed like hours they roamed through the rock, and she patiently tolerated his decisions to go this way or that when there clearly was no way at all, for in spite of firm logic, he did keep moving forward.

He stopped and pointed at something somewhat above their heads. “There,” he announced.

“Where?”

“I thought you had such excellent sight. Why can’t you see anything? Up there. That’s the source of the light. We’ll have to climb, but it doesn’t look hard.”

She thought about suggesting that light from that location could not possibly have been bending around all the curves and ups and downs they had taken. On the other hand, he could invade her dreams, read her thoughts, hear things no one else could. And somehow he had stopped the beam of colored lightning from the sorcerer that had immobilized and nearly suffocated her. Why not a little thing like bending light?