Nightrise (29 page)

The knight who had just tried to kill him had taken out a twin-bladed sword. He was already galloping forward, the horse aiming directly for him with its deadly spike slanting out of its head. Jamie didn't move. He simply sent out an instruction.

"You cannot move. You cannot hurt me."

The knight was almost on top of him but didn't even try to swing his sword. Nor did he flinch when Jamie lifted Frost and drove it straight into his chest. He was helpless. Jamie felt the sword cut through and recoiled in horror as the entire body fell apart, becoming in an instant a buzzing cloud of flies. The hesitation almost cost him his life. He saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye and turned just as another man-scorpion began its strike. Its tail and stinger were already slashing down and he thought he was finished. But they never completed their journey. In front of his eyes, they seemed to separate themselves from the man-scorpion's body. The creature howled and died…and Jamie saw Corian saluting him with his sword and realized that his life had just been saved for a second time.

Briefly, he caught sight of Scar — over to his left. She had disappeared, but now she was back again, chopping and hacking with her own sword, keeping five or six half-human creatures at bay. Finn was close by. Jamie knew that the older man would never be far from her if he could help it. At the same moment he realized, with a jolt, of alarm, that Finn had been wounded. There was a gaping wound in his shoulder, which opened and closed like a bloody mouth as he moved — a blow from an ax that had almost taken off his arm. But he didn't seem to have noticed it. He had transferred his sword to his left hand and swung his blade. Another of the knights disintegrated into a swarm of black flies.

Something slammed into Jamie's shoulder and he looked down, afraid he had been hit. It was an arrow, the tip laced with poison. He saw it just as it bounced off his shield, leaving a slight dent. A man-alligator snatched up the arrow and twisted around, planning to drive it into Jamie's leg.

"Into yourself."

Jamie thought the two words and watched in satisfaction as the creature turned the arrow on itself, driving the point into its own neck. The man-alligator howled in protest and crumpled to the ground.

Then something blotted out the light. He just had time to see Scar staring at him in horror. Perhaps she was trying to warn him. But she was already too late. An enormous shape was hurtling toward him.

Jamie looked up just as the hummingbird dive-bombed him, plummeting down at fantastic speed. Had it picked on him because it recognized who he was? Jamie knew there was no time to defend himself. His sword would be useless — the bird would split him in two before he had time to move. There was only one thing to do. He let go of the reins and threw himself backward, onto the ground. The world turned upside down and for a moment the armies were above him and all the fighting had become a swirling mass of noise and color and he was drowning in it. Then his shoulders slammed into the earth, his sword left his hand, and all the breath was knocked out of him.

If he had waited another second, he would have been killed. As it was, the pointed beak of the hummingbird slammed into his horse, impaling it. The horse cried out— a terrible, deafening scream.

Then the hummingbird pulled away. Jamie could feel the air being blasted by its wings as it hovered over them. The bird was searching for him, hoping to strike again. But then Erin appeared from nowhere and slashed at the bird's face, using the five knives that were his thumb and fingers, aiming for its eyes.

The bird reared back and flew off. The horse collapsed on its side and lay still.

Jamie had bitten his tongue when he fell and could taste his own blood in his mouth. Worse, he had lost his horse, his shield, and his sword. He still wasn't scared — there was no time for fear — but he suddenly wanted this to be over. Scar had been right about one thing: He had no idea how long he had been fighting. A few minutes or several hours? Either way, he was worn out. He'd had enough.

But he knew he had to find Frost. He was lost without it. He looked around — and there it was, lying undamaged on the ground. But even as he bent to retrieve it, a man-pig holding a wicked-looking curved dagger scurried toward him. Jamie dived underneath it, grabbed Frost, then lunged upward. The sword buried itself in the creature's belly. Jamie jerked it out again, rolled over, and got to his feet. There were bodies all around him. Men and creatures fighting. Knights and horsemen. Everything was a blur. His neck was hurting. He touched his fingers to it and saw red. The man-pig had managed to cut him — but the wound couldn't be too bad. There wasn't enough blood. He let his hand fall. What now?

And right then it all became clear.

Ahead of him, there was an open space. It was as if the fighters had deliberately parted to create a circular arena. And in the middle of it, two figures were standing, facing each other. One was Matt. The other was the King of the Old Ones, the creature that had been given the name of Chaos. Matt had a sword, but he wasn't using it. Jamie could feel the power emanating from the first of the Five. Someone hurled a spear toward him but it never came anywhere near him. The air shimmered around him. The spear shattered. The pieces were spun away.

"You cannot defeat me. Kneel before me and still I may let you live." Chaos did not speak. Instead the words radiated from him, ice cold and poisonous. He towered over Matt. Was it Jamie's imagination or had he grown since the fighting had begun, as if feeding on so much death?

Matt stood where he was. Jamie examined him properly for the first time. He was just a boy with square shoulders and short, dark hair, but his face was much older than his fourteen years. He had the eyes of a man, full of wisdom and experience. He was dressed, like Jamie, in a coarsely woven, gray shirt that hung down below his waist, crossed by a leather belt running diagonally across his chest. He had a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The symbol that he had chosen was a fish.

Matt suddenly raised his hand, not attacking his opponent but pointing to the side. Two knights had been closing in but they were instantly thrown back, sent flying off their horses by an invisible force. Several humans — overlords and slaves — were hurled into the air. Matt had created a corridor in the fighting and a second boy stepped into it.

Jamie looked across the clearing and saw what could have been a mirror image of himself. Or it could have been Scott. But he knew that it was Flint. Flint was bruised and exhausted from the battle, his clothes torn and his shield broken, but still quite obviously his identical twin.

Flint walked forward and at the same time Scar made her appearance, bringing down a man twice her size, stabbing a second, and leaping over a third with her sword angled up in front of her, her eyes fixed on Chaos as if she planned to attack him all on her own. Now there were three of them surrounding the motionless figure, the black space at the center of the conflict.

The King of the Old Ones was amused by the new arrivals. "Three of the Five. But not enough. Still not enough!" The words vibrated in the air. They made Jamie's head ache. He felt sick.

He was about to step forward but before he could move, another boy ran past him, almost brushing his shoulder. It was Inti. He was soaking wet from the rainstorm and there was blood running from a wound on his cheek. He had lost his shield but he still had his sword.

"Four of you!" The words came hissing out of the darkness, full of contempt.

"Five," Jamie said, and joined the circle.

Flint saw him and nodded, his face filled with delight. Inti and Scar smiled. Matt gave nothing away. He unsheathed his sword.

And that was when the King of the Old Ones knew that he had been deceived. The boy who was dead was somehow alive again. Inti had arrived, unseen, on the battlefield.

Chaos was surrounded by the Five who had been born for this very moment and sent to defeat him. Four boys and a girl. Each of them armed. The battle, raging all around them, was almost forgotten.

"Go back where you came from," Matt said.

He took a single step forward and stabbed with all his strength, burying his blade in the creature's heart.

The others did the same. First Flint, then Inti. The King of the Old Ones writhed as each blade went into him. His shape was shimmering like ripples on a pool of water. But three blows were not enough to finish him. Scar went next, burying her own sword up to the hilt. And at last the creature cried out, feeling pain for the first time.

Jamie was the last to step forward. Gritting his teeth, he plunged his sword into the blackness in front of him. He felt his arm freeze and wondered if the blade had shattered. At the same moment, he was deafened by the terrible death scream of the defeated king.

The five points of the five swords had touched.

Chaos had never been a man and at that moment he lost the pretense. He seemed to explode outward, completely losing his human shape, becoming nothing more than a huge shadow, a sort of living night that was at last being torn apart by the coming of the day. He screamed one last time and his servants knew, right then, that the battle was lost. The sound reached the farthest corners of the world and still it didn't stop. Every evil being in the universe heard it and knew that the end had come.

Jamie was paralyzed. If Frost was still in his hand, he couldn't move it. He could feel the power of the Five now that they were finally together, and although he had never been stronger, at the same time he was overwhelmed. The power was intensifying and he was sure that it would break him apart. It was more than he could bear. He tried to look for Finn or any of the others but it was as if nothing existed outside the circle they had formed. He was aware only of four faces. Matt, Flint, Inti, Scar. They were all strangely alike, all fixed in silent concentration and he knew that they were feeling exactly the same as he was.

The King of the Old Ones was no longer there. It was as if he had been turned into smoke that was already drifting away. The Five were standing in a circle, their blades still touching, but with an empty space between them. And nothing could reach them. Although the fighting still continued all around, it was as if they were inside a crystal jar. Swords flashed but the blades broke in midair. Spears and arrows rained down on them but bounced off uselessly. The condor plunged toward them in a last, desperate attempt to reach them but its outstretched claws suddenly shattered and it was sent spinning away, a shapeless ball of feathers and blood.

Jamie wondered if he had been more badly hurt than he'd thought. Was he dying? All the sounds of the combat were very distant. There was a great rushing in his ears and a sense of something flowing through him. The Five were cocooned, completely safe, at the very center of the battle but apart from it.

And now something even stranger was happening.

The five of them seemed to be moving, turning slowly as if they were on a merry-go-round. But it wasn't they who were moving. It was the world that was moving around them. The field and the forest and the hill were spinning faster and faster until they no longer existed. They had become a blur, nothing more than a streak of color that swirled around them with no beginning and no end.

There was an ear-shattering crack. Jamie looked up.

The sky had opened. A chasm had appeared, the very fabric of the day peeling back to reveal a universe filled with stars. At the same time, the wind was howling. It had formed a tornado that was tearing up clumps of grass and pieces of earth. First dead bodies and then living ones were being pulled into it and carried away through the vortex. With every second that passed, the process was becoming stronger and faster. One after another, the servants of the Old Ones were being taken, spinning helplessly as they were carried up. Jamie watched them as they were pulled into the void and knew that he was partly responsible for what was happening. It was his power that was doing this. His and the other four's.

The remaining fire riders had gone, ripped off their horses and blown away like rags. The fly soldiers had disintegrated. The spider and the hummingbird — all the giant animals — were no more than specks, spiraling ever farther upward. Finally, the dark shadow that was all that remained of Chaos was sucked in, following them into oblivion. And then at last it was over. The tunnel closed up behind them.

The wind died down. There was a distant rumble of thunder and the sky rolled back, closing off the darkness, healing its own, self-inflicted wound.

The Five stood in silence.

"Sapling…" It was Flint who had spoken. But Matt raised a hand, holding him back. Not yet.

Scar stepped forward. She was staring at something high above her, shielding her eyes. Jamie looked up and saw that at last the clouds had parted and the sun had been allowed to show its face.

"So that's what it looks like," Scar muttered. "I always wondered." She turned to Matt. "What does it mean?" she asked.

"It means that it's over," Matt said. "We've won."

EIGHTEEN

Under the Stars

They stood looking at each other, the five Gatekeepers: Scar, Inti, Flint, Matt, and Jamie. None of them spoke. Too much had happened, too quickly. Jamie only knew what Scar had told him, a very small part of the history that had brought them all here today. But he understood that a journey had just ended, and it was one that had taken their entire lives.

All around them, everything was changing. And it was happening with incredible speed. The Old Ones had brought the planet to the edge of destruction, polluting the water and darkening the sky. But now that they had gone, the world was restoring itself. The rain had stopped as quickly as it had started and the ground was already dry. The clouds had parted as surely as if they had been curtains waiting to be pulled and the sky on the other side was a dazzling blue, the sun already spreading its warmth over the ground. And with the coming of the sun, true color had returned. The forest, which had seemed black and gray, was now many shades of green. The pine trees were somehow less threatening, the grass softer and more natural.