Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (38 page)

“No, Daylily,” he said to her. “It will kill you only if you cling to it. But if it dies, others will die as well. For they need you, Daylily. They need you as you truly are. Not this thing you pretend to be, this mimic of the real woman.

“Let it go. Release the wolf into my care and keeping, and I will show you how the worst in you, all that you most fear, may be transformed. Let the worst be made the strongest, the truest, the best!”

He put his hands on her shoulders. And suddenly she was the wolf herself, crouched in her chains, slavering at the mouth.

“Please!” she said, and her voice was the wolf’s, and the wolf’s voice was hers. “Set me free!”

The Prince smiled. Then he reached out and broke the chains.

The red wolf jumped forward and shook, and the shackles fell away, ringing as they struck the hardened ground. Her great claws tore at the soil, and she felt strength returning to her, beyond any strength she had ever known.

Then she leapt into a run across that barren landscape, chasing the dark shade that attacked Foxbrush. Running beside her, shoulder to shoulder, was a great golden Hound, and she matched her stride to his, pace for pace, and her heart thrilled in rhythm to his; as unlike the driving rhythm of Cren Cru’s shared purpose as a brilliant spring dawn is unlike the vacuum of deep space.

That which she had feared most in herself—that which she had struggled most to hide—the strongest, deepest part of her soul—flew now with every stride. Her eyes fixed intently upon the shadowy nothing that struck and bit and clawed at Foxbrush as he struggled with it on the ground, helpless before its wrath. He could not see it; neither could Daylily.

But she could smell it. The stench of greedy, desperate searching for something that could never exist. The slayer of worlds, the stinking Parasite.

“You are the Protector!” the Hound declared, and she knew he had called her by her true name, the name she had never known existed. “Now strike!”

She was not the Betrayer.

She was not the Manipulator.

She was not the Destroyer.

“You are the Protector!” bayed the Hound. “Mighty Protector! Courageous Protector! Beloved Daylily, strike!”

The she-wolf sprang at the shadow. Foxbrush looked up in time to see the red fury falling, the flash of white teeth, the burn of intense blue eyes, and he thought he saw his own death. But her jaws clamped down upon the shadow itself, upon the being of Cren Cru that hid inside this Mound and stole the minds of those it wished to possess. But
it
was nothing. It was no more than a bloodied, suicidal dream.

She took that dream between her teeth, and she tore it into pieces.

———

Reeeeaaaaarraaa!

The high, piercing screech shot across the empty wasteland, tore through the sky, cutting it so that raging red light shone through. To Foxbrush, it seemed as though the rest of the floor beneath him shattered and pillars crumbled and the ceiling overhead broke to reveal fire. A wind rose up, howling in agony, and it whirled through the children gathered above, tossing them like so many leaves in a storm. The walls gave way, collapsing in silence, for they were unreal, and nothing could be heard anyway over the continuous ravaging shriek of Cren Cru.

Foxbrush stared at the destruction, at the children falling down and down, for there was nowhere for them to land now. And he realized that he too was falling, and all the world was made up of that single, ongoing scream.

T
HE
STONE
KNIFE
LAY
just beyond reach.

Eanrin saw Sun Eagle’s hand reaching for it across the blackened grass, and he brought both fists down hard between the warrior’s shoulder blades, knocking him flat, then reached out and snatched for the knife himself. It was like a dead thing, and Eanrin shuddered and hurled it far into the darkness beyond the bronze light, where the frantic voices of the Faerie beasts rose like a wall all around.

Sun Eagle spat dirt from his mouth and sprang to his feet, standing opposite Eanrin. The two circled each other before the mouth of the Mound, alone within the surrounding Bronze other than the remaining children, who stood silent and unmoving before the doorway to their doom.

Eanrin glanced at them, cursed, then turned a flashing smile at Sun Eagle. “Did we interrupt some charming little ritual? How inconvenient for you. But you know, child sacrifice isn’t the thing these days, not since Meadhbh played out her hand all those ages ago.” He spoke lightly, but fury laced each word.

Sun Eagle’s face remained as stone. When he spoke, he said only, “You’ve lost her.”

“Yes, she ran where I’d prefer not to follow,” Eanrin agreed, placing his feet carefully as he eyed his enemy. He saw that Sun Eagle was slowly approaching one of the bronze stones, but he could not guess why. He prepared to spring before Sun Eagle could reach it. “Our little mortal king has gone in after her, and he’s the hero of this tale, or so the future me implies, so we’ll just—”

“She never loved you.”

The smile fell from Eanrin’s face.

“She would never love one such as you. Her heart is always with her people. Her heart is always with me.” Sun Eagle’s face was hidden from the bronze light, darkened by shadows cast from the Mound itself. But his eyes glowed with a spirit that had nothing to do with Cren Cru, a spirit that remained vital and resisting, deep in the center of his being. “Even as I wandered the Wood alone—even as I prepare to enter the darkness of my master—even in that darkness, her heart will always be mine.”

“Dragons eat you,” Eanrin whispered.

It was then that the Mound collapsed.

It fell away like a melting candle but left nothing behind as it went, disappearing into a swallowing emptiness, silently at first. Then the scream caught up—reaching out from the depths of Cren Cru’s pain into this world—and shot through those gathered, through the bloodied brawl beyond the bronze light, knocking warriors and beasts off their feet, leaving them curled up in sympathetic agony, clutching their ears.

Eanrin, his mouth twisted with pain, forced his eyes open. He saw the warriors, eleven of them now, none wounded from their fight so much as brought low by this shrieking that filled the worlds within their minds. They crawled in shuddering anguish toward their stones.

Something landed beside Eanrin. He turned, and to his great surprise, he saw Foxbrush lying as though he’d landed from a ten-foot drop, the breath knocked out of him but alive. Foxbrush also put up his hands to cover his ears, his mouth opening in a scream that could not be heard above the shrieking of Cren Cru.

Then, quite suddenly, the shrieking stopped, replaced by the roar of
a great wind. It was enough to set the smaller of the Faerie beasts flying, caught up and hurled like dandelion fluff into the night sky away from the breaking center. The wind rose up from the black hole where the Mound had stood, swirling in a twisted rush.

Eanrin reached out and grabbed Foxbrush’s arm, and the two of them, straining against the wind, supported each other to their feet. They heard then a new set of screams.

Turning, they saw the warriors beside their bronze stones. The stones, larger than life, fixed into the turf, were melting. Runnels of liquid bronze ran down into a pool on the ground, steaming there before sinking into the dirt and vanishing.

And as the stones melted, the warriors themselves faded to wisps of nothing.

The giantess Kasa howled. Her stone broke at the sound and vanished in an instant. She herself, caught in the twisting wind, dissipated and was gone, never to be seen again. Her brethren, watching her fate, screamed with redoubled terror.

Foxbrush stared at them. Then he pushed himself from Eanrin’s grasp and turned to the one bronze stone that stood without its warrior.

“Daylily!” he gasped. Though the wind threatened to fling him off his feet as it had the Faerie beasts, he put his head down and started toward the stone.

“What are you doing?” Eanrin cried, his voice barely audible.

“I’ve got to reach her! I’ve got to find her!” Foxbrush replied, but since his face was turned away from the poet-cat, his voice could not be heard. But Eanrin read his purpose in the set of his head and shoulders, and the words of the ballad sprang to his mind.

No lance, no spear will save the night,

Nor bloodshed on the ground.

This alone will be your fight:

To hold your lady, hold her tight

When once again she’s found.

Eanrin leapt forward and caught Foxbrush’s arm. He put his mouth to the mortal’s ear and shouted to be heard.

“Grab the stone! Hold on to it and don’t let go!”

Foxbrush nodded and Eanrin released him. Another wail broke suddenly into nothing, and Eanrin turned to see that a second bronze stone had disappeared, taking its warrior with it. Then he saw Sun Eagle standing in stoic silence, staring at his own stone as it melted away. There was little of it left now.

“Lord, grant me strength,” Eanrin muttered between bared teeth. Then, the wind propelling him from behind, he ran to Sun Eagle and threw himself at the stone. He took it in both hands.

It burned.

“Dragon’s teeth!”
Eanrin shouted and yanked his hands away.

Sun Eagle looked down. The wind should have knocked him over, but he braced himself against it, his shoulders back, his chest bare and covered in old bloodstains and scars. He was fading around the edges, losing his form and substance as the Bronze melted away. His long black braid whipped behind him, melting into the night, and his eyes were mere dark slits as he gazed at Eanrin.

Eanrin reached out to grab the stone again, cursing at the pain but determined. “Hold on!” he shouted, looking up at Sun Eagle. “Help me!”

Sun Eagle bent down, his face level with Eanrin’s. And the cord around his neck dangled, the bead with the white starflower flashing bright for an instant.

“Tell her she is always with me,” Sun Eagle said.

Then he brought his fist down, striking Eanrin in the jaw and knocking him over. Eanrin let go of the stone, and when he did so, it burst.

With a cry, Sun Eagle vanished, carried away like smoke in the wind.

Foxbrush was thrown from his feet several times as he struggled toward the stone, his mind a cacophony of sounds and sights he could not understand. But the Bronze gleamed in its melting. And there came to his mind suddenly the woodcut image in
Eanrin’
s Illustrated Rhymes
, the one he had seen long ago as a child.

King Shadow Hand, bearded and fierce, holding the Fiery Fair as she melted.

He could not see Daylily, had caught no sight of her after the wolf tore into the shadow of Cren Cru. The ceiling and floor had broken, and she had vanished, lost in the storm of pain and the whirling fall of the stolen children.

And now here he was, somehow back in this world. The phantom children were nowhere to be seen, not Lark, not any of them. All he saw was the stone.

He reached it at last and stood over it, watching helpless as it collapsed on itself. What had Eanrin said? Hold it?

“This alone will be your fight,”
he whispered.

He put out both hands, one bleeding from bite wounds, the index finger partially torn away. They shuddered with redoubled agony as they neared the stone, which radiated a dreadful heat.

Then, with a cry, Foxbrush grabbed it.

Pain coursed through every nerve of his body, up his arms, his shoulders, into his brain, down into his very core. He screamed and wanted to let go, but some drive beyond self-preservation made him tighten his hold instead, even as the Bronze dripped over his fingers, melting his skin and bones along with itself.

Suddenly Daylily stood beyond him. Daylily, wolf or maid, he could not say. It did not matter; it was she in truth.

She stared at the Bronze, at his hands. Then she looked at Foxbrush, her eyes, always unnaturally large, enormous in her face.

“Foxbrush!” she cried. “Let it go!”

He screamed still, unable to stop for the pain. But he shook his head.

“Please!” she cried. “You have to let it go!”

She grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look into her face.

The wind and the pain and the howls of the dying warriors.

The burning, burning, searing heat.

All of this vanished in the depths of her gaze.

“It’ll destroy you, Foxbrush,” said Daylily. “Don’t love me. Let me go.”

Foxbrush shut his mouth against his own cries, closing his eyes. Tears of utmost pain streamed down his face, and he thought his head would explode.

Then he looked up again. He poured all his soul into Daylily’s eyes, all his heart into his words.

“I’d give my life for you.”

Another shriek, and another warrior vanished into the rushing wind. Daylily stood, her bloodstained dress caught up in a cloud, her red hair streaming, her being much faded. She stared down at the young man clutching the Bronze and his own destruction.

And she saw there the painful truth of his words, and it smote her to the core. He would die for her. This man she’d despised. He would die for her, and he would deem it a worthy death.

“Foxbrush.” She whispered his name.

He tried to respond, but the pain was too much and he screamed again, his body convulsing. But his hands never let go.

Daylily reached out. She put her hands around his.

She could not feel the burn that he felt, but she could feel the strength of his grasp.

“Hold on, then,” she said. “Hold on to me.”

The stone continued to melt. Bronze sizzled and bubbled and pooled away at their feet. One by one, the Twelve Bronze disappeared, and the warriors followed their master into oblivion.

But when the last stone joined its brethren and became nothing but a sodden mass and then not even that, soaking into the ground . . . when the wind streaked up into the night sky and vanished, leaving behind a breathless hush and many Faerie beasts lying low, their hands over their heads . . .

When Lumé crested the horizon and gazed into the place of darkness where for so long he had not dared to shine, his great golden eye fell upon two figures kneeling together in the dust. The one strong, clad in rags, held the other, who fell against her in shuddering weakness, his head upon her shoulder, his face buried in her neck as he wept. Her hair cascaded over him in a comforting shield against everything he must soon face.

And she held his ruined, melted hands in hers.