Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (58 page)

Neither side had won the last engagement on
the Wall. Both the skraelings and the Liosalfar had been overcome
by the storm, an incarnation of Mother Nature as virago. The
thunder was deafening. Lightning skittered everywhere when it hit.
He’d lost soldiers to crashing waves that washed the trail clean
and to gusts of wind that plucked men up and dropped them into the
sea. The skraelings had fared no better. If any were left on the
exposed face of the Wall, they wouldn’t be for long.

Mychael grasped one of the bridge ropes with
both hands and waited for his chance to cross. The bridge had
literally been blown to pieces by the storm, with ropes torn loose
and fraying, and many of the wood slats reduced to splinters. Such
did he feel inside, splintered into a thousand sharp shards. The
strange feeling had begun with the rising of the storm, and like
the storm had not abated, but grown in strength. ’Twas a yearning,
a terrible yearning, that had taken root in his heart and made his
pulse race. The icy numbness that had encased him in the Dangoes
was a blessing in comparison with the growing flood of emotion.
Better to have remained frozen than to be pulled along by this
fierce tide, helpless.

When Kenric reached the damson cliffs,
Mychael started across. Out on the sea, ships were being tossed and
sunk. Slott’s barge had run aground on the beach, and the Troll
King was wreaking havoc among the troops who had not found shelter
either to the north or up in the
pryf
nest.

Mychael recognized Quicken-tree Liosalfar in
the melee, among them Trig and Llynya. Hundreds of skraelings had
landed with the troll, along with a Dockalfar captain and a
crippled man whose yellow hair streamed out from beneath his
helmet. He wore Slott’s brand on his upper arm, but he’d not yet
been turned into a skraeling. The part of his jaw that showed
beneath his helmet was not overly pronounced or beholden of
fanglike teeth. The Kings Wood elves were joining the fray, and
Mychael plunged in behind them.

Shortly into the battle, he realized all the
cutting and dodging of the skraelings was for one purpose: to
isolate the aetheling and drive her toward Slott. The Troll King’s
bellows added to the chaos. His voice, like no other, rumbled off
the cliffs, garbling words and noise into a cacophonous assault on
the senses. Those who had been weakened by the fight could scarce
endure it, and when Slott roared his war cry, some fell where they
stood—a grim fate, for he ate even in battle.

Seeing that the worst of the fighting was
around Llynya, Mychael fought his way toward her, hacking away
right and left at the beast-men, drawing ever closer to the
ax-wielding Slott. The Quicken-tree would fail if she was lost.
Though final victory would be denied all of them by the pestilence
of Dharkkum, she did not have to fall to the Troll King.

Slott was huge, broad in every way and thrice
as tall as the tallest man, though his back was hunched. His tail
twitched and whipped behind him, sending his enemies flying. Before
him, his ax rose and fell with terrifying monotony as he made his
way up the beach toward the aetheling.

The Liosalfar with Llynya fell back under the
giant’s assault, and Mychael felt the stirring edge of panic take
hold. Slott was running her troop off, while the skraelpacks were
keeping her from escaping, forcing her onto the southernmost trail
leading into the
pryf
nest.

All of the trails were littered with bodies,
some even of the great worms that had been butchered by the
skraelings. Soon Llynya was trapped high on the trail, against the
nest wall, bounded in by dead worms and Mor Sarff. Mychael saw her
look to the sea, the surf crashing on the jagged rocks below, and
he cried out, “No!”

She ran then, farther up the trail, away from
the sheer drop into the sea, and Slott’s ax missed her by a
hairsbreadth. When next the Troll King swung his blade, ’twas one
of the dead
pryf
he hit—but not so dead, for as the greenish
black skin opened up, the worm turned and a keening wail rent the
air. The
pryf’s
green life’s blood ran out onto the trail,
pouring over the side into Mor Sarff, and Slott lunged for the
elf-maid. With a cry of triumph, he snatched her up in his
fist.

“
By the Stones!”
he roared.
“By the
Stones of Inishwrath!”

Fury swept through Mychael, and the yearning
that threatened him took on new force. With a cry of his own, he
rushed forward, his sword in one hand, his dreamstone dagger in the
other. Llynya’s screams echoed in his ears as he cut and slashed a
path to the trail. The skraelpacks closed in behind him, but none
could stop him, until they shoved the yellow-haired warrior forward
into battle.

The man bore down on him, forcing him away
from the trail, fighting with far more finesse than a skraeling. He
was taller and heavier than Mychael, with a longer reach, and his
sword was wondrously strange, limned with a gridelin edge. He
fought like a blade-master whose technique had been honed in
war.

“Wyrm-master!” The gravelly voiced call came
from above, from Slott, and the chant was taken up by the
skraelings.

“Wyrm-master! Wyrm-master!”

Mychael heard Trig shout to him from the
beach, but he couldn’t discern the captain’s words. What he could
discern, when he dared to glance up, was the terror on Llynya’s
face—but to reach her, he first had to conquer his foe.

The Wyrm-master’s limp made him vulnerable to
a swift attack, and Mychael did not hesitate to deliver one. He
darted in under the glittering sword’s arc, moving nearly as fast
as Llynya in a fight, and cut the Wyrm-master twice, a nick to his
chin with Ara, and another shallow cut to the man’s thigh with his
sword. Wyrm-master retaliated with a lunging strike that pushed
Mychael backward into the waiting skraelings.

A pair of rough hands seized him, and Mychael
ducked and rolled, taking the eager skraeling with him.
Wyrm-master’s blade came down where he’d been, catching the
skraeling instead. The beast-man screamed in agony, and Mychael
smelled burning flesh where steel had cut through mail and
skraeling with equal ease. The beast-man released him to writhe on
the ground, the stump of his arm smoking with the acrid scent of
poison. Mychael leaped to his feet, ever more mindful of the
Wyrm-master’s sword. A blade that could cut through chain mail
deserved added respect. That it was poisoned demanded extra
caution.

“You’re quick to escape,” the yellow-haired
warrior said, “as your sister was ever quick, Mychael ab Arawn.” He
advanced on Mychael with his sword raised. “But not quick
enough!”

The sword sliced through the air, aimed for
Mychael’s middle, and only a lightning-fast pivot saved him from
the gridelin edge.

Caradoc was grinning beneath his helm,
playing the boy for his moment of glory. Slott had dared to brand
him, but he’d been well fed since taking up with the skraelings,
and he’d been well armed for battle. Even the little weasel Caerlon
had been helpful with his healing salve.
Rasca
, the Dark-elf
had called it, and it had taken the pain from his leg. He still
limped, but the injury no longer hindered him.

“Aye, I knew your sister,” he said, relishing
the confusion on the younger man’s face. He lunged again, but the
boy was quick. Damn quick. Spent too long with the green ones, he
had.

The sword Caerlon had given Caradoc was
dazzling, with yellow crystals illuminating the hilt and grip, but
it was also poorly balanced and unwieldy. Still, it would be enough
to win the day against Rhiannon’s whelp.

Above, in the worm’s nest, Slott had captured
the means to an even greater victory. The Troll King had a live
Quicken-tree. ’Twas the lavender woman, though any one of the green
guard would suffice for Caradoc’s means. He would have their
knowledge of the wormhole.
Christe!
He was so close, he
could hear the golden worms calling to him. He could feel the
charging power swirling in the hole.

But first to Mychael ab Arawn. The sister had
eluded him in the spring, so her brother would harvest the revenge.
A curse on all their line!

He swung his rich sword again, and again
missed the friggin’ boy as he darted away like a dragonfly in
flight. Ab Arawn’s strike rang more true, and Caradoc was suddenly
blinded, his iron helm set askew by a ringing blow. He twisted the
thing aright, his grin turning to a grimace of pain and anger
taking the place of reason.

“I knew your mother too, boy, even better,”
he taunted, and went in for what was to be his killing blow, but
the boy parried and cut him.

Caradoc howled with rage, one hand coming up
to his face to stanch the blood from the boy’s last strike. The
bastard had nearly taken an eye.

“Wyrm-master! Wyrm-master!” the skraelings
shouted around him. He wanted to tell them to shut up so he could
think, but the boy struck again, another blow to his head that set
his helmet askew again and his ears to ringing.

God’s balls! He clawed at the ill-fitting
helmet, dragging it off before it was the death of him.

His hair came falling out of the iron helm,
yellow gold with a bright auburn blaze, and Mychael stumbled back,
shock draining the strength from his arm. ’Twas Caradoc, son of the
destroyer—and Mychael remembered. The last of Dharkkum’s death
touch left him, melted away by a flood of living pain, as he
suddenly remembered everything he’d seen in the Dangoes.

His sword fell to his side, leaving him
helpless. He stood facing his mother’s murderer, her rapist, and
the effort to breathe was more than he could bear. Here was the man
who had set the course of Mychael’s life by taking Rhiannon’s.

Caradoc came at him then, and instinct alone
lifted Mychael’s sword in defense. He deflected the blow, and the
next, retreating, until instinct gave way to anger, and anger to
heat, a raging heat that roared to life in his blood and turned
retreat into attack, a relentless attack as every fiber and thought
in Mychael’s being vowed to beat the Boar of Balor into hell.

It was butchery. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Fueled by sick fury, Mychael gave no quarter. Every blow was for
blood. On the beach behind him, the Liosalfar rallied for a fresh
assault, and the skraelpack circling him and the Boar dispersed
into renewed battle, leaving the two of them alone in the
chaos.

Mychael left no weakness unexploited. Spurred
by a hate so strong he tasted the bile of it in his mouth, he cut
and slashed, sliced and thrust, and parried each of Caradoc’s
attacks. ’Twas as it had been in Dripshank Well, when he’d been on
Llynya’s trail. The skraelings had fallen then under his knife with
powerful ease, and he had not been injured. Neither could the Boar
connect a blow with his cutting edge, yet he bled in a dozen places
from Mychael’s blades. Blood ran into his eyes from the swipe
Mychael had taken to his forehead with the dreamstone dagger. His
nose was broken from feeling the flat of Mychael’s sword.

Mychael knew the instant when Caradoc
realized he was going to die; he saw the flash of terror that cut
through the blood lust in the Boar’s oddly colored eyes. His mother
must have looked the same when her time had come, or had the terror
come before, during the rape?

A horrible agony cut through him, the cry of
it strangling in his throat. The bastard had raped his mother. He
wanted to kill Caradoc a thousand times, and even a thousand times
would not assuage the pain.

Mychael cut him again and again, until
Caradoc was at his mercy on the sand, a bloody pulp, half-blinded
by blood and wheezing through his smashed nose. With no
satisfaction, and no sense of justice, he took the Boar’s own
poison-edged blade and impaled him through the heart, cutting
through mail and gambeson to the depraved flesh beneath.

A great roar sounded from above, bringing
Mychael’s head around. Up on the trail, Slott set Llynya aside and
took his ax in both hands with another great roar, Wyrm-master’s
master coming to match himself against a dread warrior. Llynya was
limp on the ground, and as Mychael watched, the wounded
pryf
rolled over her, gathering her beneath its soft, dark body,
removing her from the line of battle. Wild though they were, he’d
not yet seen a
pryf
hurt a
tylwyth teg
. He prayed
this one was no different.

Bruised and battered from the days of battle,
he retrieved his own sword and set himself to meet the Troll King.
Whatever skill had protected him from Caradoc and the skraelings,
’twould not be enough to withstand Slott. Speed would help against
such a giant, but speed alone would not suffice. A thousand
victories dangled from the troll’s braids, each ivory skull a
testament to combats won, to a barbarism beyond what Mychael had
ever known.

The troll had a rancid smell that preceded
him down the trail. He wore no armor, only a vest made of skins.
His wiry hair was dark and greasy, the plaits softly clinking and
rustling against one another in a susurrus of corruption.

Mychael found himself taking a step backward.
’Twas death advancing on him, slogging down the trail through
layers of mud and worm blood. He felt the certainty of it down to
the marrow of his bones. Blood dripped from Slott’s ax. Drool ran
from his mouth. One eye was milky, but the other was dark and keen
and leveled at Mychael with a killing glare.

The wounded worm that held Llynya let out
another keening cry, a death cry, and great shudders rippled down
its body, revealing for an instant the small form lying beneath
it—still whole. The
pryf
keened again and began to turn,
rolling across the trail and up against the troll. Slott paid it
little mind, only pushed it back and swiped at it with his ax as he
came onward into battle, but the worm would not be denied. It
rolled again, and its turning pushed the troll closer to the edge
of the cliff. Slott fought back in earnest now as the beast took
more and more of the trail from him, but the ground was wet with
rain and slick with the worm’s blood, making for treacherous
footing. Slott slipped in the muck and in a trice the
pryf
was on him. Worm and troll grappled on the edge, until with a final
mighty heave the beast sent itself and Slott of the Thousand Skulls
careening off the edge of the trail and down the cliff face.