Dandelion Fire (43 page)

Uncle Frank nodded. “It's been a long while since we threw stones at the bishop's dog.”

Mordecai laughed. “And who is this tainted wizard in the corner?” He pointed at Monmouth, still sleeping.

“He's a friend,” Henry said. “He helped me get here. I'm glad I didn't hit you with the knife,” he added. “I was trying to. I thought you were Darius.”

“Who is Darius?” Mordecai asked.

Beneath them, the ground shook. Wineglasses tipped and spilled on the table.

Bells began ringing.

Mordecai looked to Caleb, confusion on his face. “What strength is this?”

“Nimiane of Endor has risen,” Caleb said. “She possesses a wizard called Darius. He is more than my match. I stalked him once, and even struck him with an arrow handed down to us from the Old King. It turned to ash in his flesh.”

Mordecai pushed his face into the top of Hyacinth's head. “Reunion must wait. I will not be lost again.”

She released him, and he walked quickly to where his mother sat smiling in her blindness. He kissed her, and she grabbed his arm.

“You were hidden for a while,” she said. “But I walked with you.”

“You did,” he said. “Thank you.”

Both of his daughters stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He moved to them. “You were too young to
remember me,” he said. “But soon, we shall know each other.” He kissed them both on the head and then the cheeks.

“Mordecai,” Hyacinth said. “Are you not weary? Should you go into battle weakened?”

“I have had nothing but rest for years on end. The weariness in my bones cannot be shaken off with more. Men who can fight, come. Father priest, stay behind. There will be wounded in need of you. My son, you and I have had one adventure together that is now ended. We will have another, and briefer, tonight. The last blood of Endor waits on us.”

the flash of lightning and the glow of burning houses, Henry could see that the wall was down from breach to breach. The wind blew against them as they struggled down the hill to the bridge. Unlike the last time, Henry could see no hurrying shapes, no black robes standing out in the flames.

“He is strong,” Mordecai said. “As taut as a bowstring.”

The three brothers hurried at the front of the group. Sergeant Simmons limped beside them. Zeke and Richard were on either side of Henry. Fat Frank danced around and between them while Eli followed behind. Caleb had not allowed him to stay.

Mordecai sniffed the wet air, now laced with smoke. “The life is all but out of this place. His fingers touch it all. Have we nothing?”

“Nothing but ourselves,” Caleb said. “I have already wasted an heirloom against him.”

They crossed the bridge in silence, bows drawn and shotguns leveled. The streets were empty of everything
but rain. As they moved forward, archers stepped out of doorways and alleys and followed them.

“Mordecai returns!” Caleb yelled, and more men poured from the shadows. “You must be our talisman, brother,” he added quietly. The earth rumbled again, and another stretch of the wall toppled in the distance. With a rush of hot wind, houses sprang into flame ahead of them. The rain steamed on the street.

“I may be no charm against this,” Mordecai said. His voice was quiet.

Henry stopped suddenly and turned. Eli tried to step around him, but Henry grabbed his arm.

The little man shrugged his hand away. “If I must die, I must die,” he said. “But must I be gripped?”

“Eli,” Henry said. “You gave away talismans from FitzFaeren.”

Eli cleared his throat. “It may have been foolishness, but I have no desire for your judgment now. At that time, they were mine to give.”

“I don't care,” Henry said. “But you did give them to my grandfather, didn't you?”

Eli nodded. “FitzFaeren was to have the doors at our disposal. Travel within a world is open to many with magic—wizards, faeren—but from world to world? Time to time? Our people would have been greatly strengthened.”

“Whatever,” Henry said. He looked around. The group was continuing slowly down the street, scanning
every intersection. “Was one of them an arrow?” he asked.

“Yes.” Eli wiped his forehead. “The Arrow of Ramoth Gilead. Some called it the Arrow of Chance. It had not been flown for an age and had no value as a weapon. But oh, the threads all twined within it, the stories in that shaft. They took on a life of their own, a life that could not be killed. Our charms drew on that life. I have never seen or touched it. None of the FitzFaeren have. It's in a sealed case.”

“Where is it?” Henry asked.

Eli looked at him. “I don't know. And you could never open its case.”

Henry thought for a moment. “What were the other two things you stole?”

“I didn't—”

“No. Of course not. Sorry. What were they?”

“A sword hilt and a stone. They were both—”

“Are they in the Kansas house?”

Eli pulled in a deep breath and pursed his lips.

“Right,” Henry said. “Tell my father and uncles not to die. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Henry turned toward the lower city and cupped his hands. “Fat Frank!” he shouted. “I need you!”

The thick faerie came bounding back up out of the darkness. Eli sniffed, and the faerie made a face at him.

“Come on,” Henry said, and ran back up the street. The faerie looked confused, but stayed beside him.

“Tate said there was a faeren hall by Hylfing,” Henry said quickly

“By the south gate,” Frank said.

Henry stopped. They were well out of Eli's earshot. “I need you to help me find it. I need to get to Badon Hill now, and then back again fast.”

Frank blinked. “Why?”

“I can't explain right now, but will you help me? We have to hurry.”

Frank nodded.

“Good,” Henry said. “Where's the south gate?”

The two of them ran. The faerie easily, but just fast enough to burn Henry's legs and lungs. While the bells rang and fire grew behind them, they climbed the hill back to the house.

How was he going to do this? Just getting there was going to be near impossible.

“It's down the hill and turn to the other side,” Frank said.

As they passed by the house, Henry looked at the door still thrown wide open. A shape stood in the road with arms crossed.

“Henrietta?” Henry asked, and she jumped.

“Henry? What are you doing? I thought you'd gone with—”

“Just come on. I think I'm going to need you.”

“I should—” she began.

But Henry hadn't even slowed down. He and the
faerie had turned into a side street and were disappearing quickly.

“We have to go now!” Henry yelled back from the darkness.

Henrietta stuck her head back into the house. “Pen, tell Mom I'm going with Henry. He says he needs me. I won't get in the fight. I think.”

She didn't wait for an answer. It was more notice than she usually gave.

Henrietta caught her cousin and the faerie on the next turn, after slipping twice on the dark cobbles.

“What are we doing?” she managed.

“The arrow Grandfather stole from the FitzFaeren,” Henry said.

“Yeah?”

“We're getting it.”

“We are? How? We can't get back to the house, and even if we did, how would we find it?”

Henry thought about the diagram he'd seen in the journal. There had been a line drawn between the compass door and the door in Grandfather's room. And there had been a circle, which could have been a stone, and a
T,
which could have been a hilt. And an arrow, which hopefully had nothing to do with directions.

“There was a diagram in the journal. I think I might know where it is.”

“You might know?”

“Well, I can't double-check, because it's at the bottom of the harbor.”

“You two should hush,” said the faerie. “Unless you'd like to be shot in the dark. The south gate's ahead, and the guards will be tetchy.”

Both of them shut their mouths, at least from speech, but they couldn't quiet their breathing or the slap of their feet on the road. They could only hope the wind did that.

The wall at the gatehouse loomed suddenly in front of them, and a voice cried out.

“Hoy there! How goes it?”

“Ill!” Frank yelled. “There's a breach fifty yards wide in the eastern wall. And yet it goes well, for Mordecai has returned.”

“Mordecai?” the man asked. “Then why do you flee?”

“We're not running away,” Henry said. “But we have to get outside the walls.”

“I can't open the gate. Caleb's laid a strict law about that.”

Henry didn't want to wait any longer. There wasn't time to convince anyone. “We'll jump,” he said.

“Off the wall?”

“Yes. How do we get up?”

The man became a shape in the darkness. “You're children.”

Frank's voice raised hackles. “I am not a child.”

“Children and a whatsit,” the guard said. “I can't let you out.”

“There's a stair behind the gatehouse,” another voice said from the wall. “I hope you know your business.”

Henry pushed into the shadow and felt his way carefully around the small building. When he found the stone stair, he scrambled up quickly. On top of the wall, a few men had gathered from their posts. All carried bows.

Henry peered over the battlement and immediately wished he hadn't. The darkness of the ground made it seem several ages away.

“It's higher than the hayloft,” Henrietta said beside him.

Henry gritted his teeth, swung one leg over before he could think about it, and then the other. He twisted onto his belly and scooted backward. For a moment, he dangled with his fingers on the lip of the stone. And then he dropped.

His feet dug troughs through the mud of a steep slope, and his body slammed against it before sliding into brush.

He coughed, trying to get his wind back, and twiddled his toes and fingers to see if everything was working.

Henrietta crashed into him.

Fat Frank somehow managed to keep his feet, slid past, and grabbed on to the brush to steady himself.

“Up if you're alive,” he whispered. “If we're going to do this, then there's no time to hurt. No time to feel. Up.”

Henry and Henrietta managed to find their hands and knees and then their feet. Frank moved carefully off into the darkness, and they followed close behind.

As he moved farther into the brush, he began whistling a tune.

After a moment, his tune whistled back.

Frank stopped and turned in place.

“Who goes?” a voice whispered.

“Franklin Fat-Faerie, District R.R.K., Region Zed, Badon Hill detachment.”

“Poem?”

“I don't have one,” Frank said. “We haven't time. We've got news for the mound. For right now. I'm in the union. I've a right to come in.”

“This is a conflict zone. The hall is operating under martial protocol.
Book of Faeren,
section 7, article 2. Poem?”

Frank took a deep breath. “There once was a man named Tiggle, whose wife always walked with a wiggle. And whenever she wiggled, Mr. Tiggle, he giggled, and those giggles all turned into Tiggles.”

“It's a bit off,” the voice said. “At the end. Not warlike. Too many syllables, I thought.”

Henry stepped forward. “Mordecai has returned,” he said. “And I am his son. If you don't open the hall now, you'll be the one with the wiggle.”

“And we'll giggle,” Frank added.

After a moment, a different voice spoke. “There's nothing in the notifications about a return, and there's not much I can do without committee authorization. Not in a conflict zone.”

“Now,” Henry said. “Do it now.”

“I can't—”

Muffled voices cut him off. A group of bushes shifted and lifted to the side. Henry looked down into a lit hall, just like the one he had already visited. Only this one was much larger and was crowded with above twenty faeren.

He slid down inside and looked around. He knew he was covered in mud, but he didn't care. Henrietta and Frank followed.

“I need a doorway to the Central Mound now,” Henry said. “Right now.”

A smaller faerie grabbed two buckets and hurried to the back wall, where multiple stick doors were imbedded. The remaining faeries all watching him silently.

“I am Henry York Maccabee,” he said. “I am the seventh son of Mordecai Westmore, who has returned. He was betrayed and entrapped for twelve years by faeren on the committee of this district. He will repay you all.”