The Adept (34 page)

He had no idea, for that matter, what he was going to do himself. It was not a comfortable reflection. Glancing down involuntarily at Adam’s ring in his hand, he hastily pulled off his gloves and slipped the ring hastily onto the third finger of his right hand, as he had seen Adam wear it. The fit was loose, but its presence somehow made him feel less vulnerable. As he returned his attention to the distant cave, he squared his shoulders and closed his fist tightly, so the ring would not slide off, hoping he would not prove to be more of a hindrance than a help.

Even as this thought crossed his mind, a sudden, high-pitched screeching broke out below. The angry dance of emerald lights quickened to a feverish tarantella, and a sullen glow flared deep inside the tunnel, spreading unevenly toward the mouth of the cave. A moment later, a cluster of black-clad figures became barely visible at the cavern’s horseshoe-shaped entrance.

The man in front was tall and slight, moving with arrogant grace, both arms raised above his head. The three men following behind him looked bulky by comparison. Two of them were staggering under the weight of a smallish metal-bound chest that seemed inordinately heavy for its size. The man who brought up the rear was carrying a large oblong picture frame elevated like a shield between himself and the motes of light that whirled menacingly above him.

“The Fairy Flag?” Adam murmured to McLeod.

“Aye, and the chap at the front must be controlling it. Look! He’s got a sword. You can’t see it except when he turns just right.”

Peregrine craned his neck for a better look, so much that Adam had to tug at his sleeve.

“I think it’s the Hepburn Sword!” he whispered eagerly. “If only I could get a closer look—but I’m nearly certain it is!”

“No doubt it is,” Adam replied. “But if you don’t keep down, you’re liable to get a much closer look at it than you’d care to.”

As the party emerged fully from the mouth of the cave, under the milling cloud of the Faerie Host, more details became apparent. All of the men were wearing hooded black macs, but the leader also was masked across the eyes like an executioner, with a silver chain of office about his neck that Peregrine was willing to bet held a medallion he had tried several times to draw. He was holding the sword horizontal above his head, one beringed hand gripping the basket hilt, the other clasping the naked blade a few inches from the point.

A baleful greenish light played about the damascened blade, but the source was not the sword itself, but the frail fabric of the Fairy Flag, held aloft in its frame by the party’s rear guard. The sword seemed to draw light out of the Flag, like a spindle gathering floss, subtle as spider-silk, weaving a ghostly canopy above the procession. Green fairy-motes swooped down on the four from all sides, only to sheer off and retreat as though repelled by an invisible wall of force.

“Is the Fairy Flag doing that?” Peregrine whispered.

“Aye, that and the Hepburn Sword,” Adam replied. “The sword is an implement of summoning and control. The leader is using it to call forth and direct the Flag’s protective influence, against the very creatures who gave the Flag its power.”

“But, how can he
do
that?” Peregrine wanted to know. McLeod glared down at the procession’s leader in mingled revulsion and disbelief.

“Not by any honest means, that’s for certain,” he muttered. “But it’s bound to be costing him dear.” He glanced at Adam, “How long do you think he’ll be able to sustain the power link?”

“Probably long enough to allow his party to reach the boat with their plunder,” Adam said. “Unless, of course, we provide a suitable diversion. Noel, do you think you could work your way around to the far side of the cave without being seen too soon?”

McLeod cast a shrewd eye over the ground above the cave mouth. “I’ll do my best,” he agreed, and began edging away through the undergrowth to the left.

“What about me?” Peregrine whispered eagerly.

Adam flashed him a swift, commanding look. “You stay here and keep watch—and try to avoid being eaten.”

Before the artist could react, Adam was gone, slipping lightly down the hillside and over the rocks. At the lower end of the rough incline, he stopped with one foot braced against a knee-high boulder and leveled the point of his skean dubh at the cluster of men straggling across the flat toward the boat, drawing himself up to his full height. Power welled up within his grasp, tingling at the center of his palm, but he held that power in check as he drew breath to call out.

“That’s far enough, gentlemen. Halt where you are!”

The little cavalcade started around at the sound of his voice, someone muttering an imprecation as they spotted him. The leader whirled to face him, silencing his followers with a sharp command, but he did not lower his arms. His left hand opened and then closed on the end of the blade, as if he longed to turn the sword against his challenger; but Adam knew he dared not, lest he lose control of the Fairy Flag.

“Who the devil are you?” the man demanded, the voice hard and cool against the continued drone of the fairy voices. “And just what do you think you’re doing here?”

“You may address me as Master of the Hunt,” Adam replied, keeping an eye on the boatman as well. “As for my purpose—I am here to see justice done.”

This announcement elicited a murmur of uncertainty among the leader’s subordinates, but the leader himself only curled a sneering lip.

“Justice, indeed? And what are our alleged crimes?”

“They include, not least, the injuries done to one once known as Michael Scot of Melrose, for the purpose of gaining unlawful possession of his property,” Adam said sternly, pointing at the chest. “I believe you have it there.

“In addition, there is the matter of the Fairy Flag of the MacLeods, which you have wrongfully appropriated and grievously profaned. The sword in your hand is also stolen, I believe. If you are wise, you will relinquish the artifacts you have stolen and submit yourselves to the temporal authorities, while there still is time to make reparation for your grosser crimes against the laws of the Inner Planes.”

The air above the four was seething with bright fairy shapes, the mounting buzz of their anger like the buildup of an electronic overload. Watching helplessly from behind his concealing boulder, Peregrine cast an anxious glance in the direction McLeod had gone. The inspector’s head and shoulders showed briefly above the boulders overshadowing the cave’s entrance, and then a ripple in the bushes beyond marked his progress toward a sizeable outcropping of stone on the opposite side of the archway.

Down on the shore, the masked man was staring at Adam in bristling defiance, “I think you overestimate your own importance, ‘Master of the Hunt,’ or whatever your true name might be. My colleagues and I do not recognize your authority. Nor do we accept your right to judge our actions.”

“You mistake me,” Adam replied. “Your own actions have already condemned you. I am here to demand your surrender—and to compel it, if necessary.”

By now, McLeod had had time to reach his chosen lair among the rocks to the right of the cave mouth. From his concealed vantage point, he saw the hooded leader of the opposition make a covert sign to the pilot of the speedboat. The man nodded almost imperceptibly and reached below the craft’s steering console. As he straightened, McLeod glimpsed the sleek, deadly silhouette of an Uzi in his hands.

“Adam, look out! The boatman’s got a gun!” he shouted.

Chapter Twenty-Two

ADAM
had already seen the boatman move, and threw himself flat as a chuttering spray of bullets cut the air where he had been standing a heartbeat before. In the same instant, the gunman swung around on McLeod’s position. Rock chips flew and shrubbery disintegrated under a withering volley, but McLeod was already pressed flat against the inside face of the outcrop, bracing himself to return fire.

Another salvo brought down a clump of sapling trees to his left. The gunman paused briefly to let the debris settle, and in that scant interval McLeod reared up from cover, steadied his wrist, and squeezed off three quick rounds.

The first shot ricocheted off the speedboat’s hull; the second and third shattered the windscreen. The gunman flinched aside, then fired off another burst, but McLeod was already down. Lead thudded harmlessly into the seamed cliff-face above his bent head, but then, before he could dive out of the way, the weakened section of the wall collapsed, partially burying him under a stunning battery of loose earth.

Adam started up in alarm, all but certain McLeod was shot, but the gunman fired off another burst in his direction, forcing him to hug the ground again. Meanwhile, the rock slide that had knocked down McLeod rumbled on down the hill. Catapulting stones hit the shingle and rebounded. The flag-bearer at the rear of the party recoiled before the shower of flying gravel, and as he gave a yelp and sprang backwards, he collided with his nearest companion.

The impact jarred his grip on the sides of the Flag’s protective frame, and it twisted in his hands. As it did, one corner struck the ground sharply and the frame burst apart with a dissonant tinkle of shattering glass.

Instantly the protective canopy above the party collapsed. The leader gasped. Shrilling triumphantly, the hovering Faerie Host swooped in for the kill.

The men carrying the chest dropped it, screaming and beating the air around them as the fairies tore at them with needle teeth and claws, like tiny, ravening piranhas made of light. The Fairy Flag lay on the ground, tangled in debris of glass and ruined frame. Crazed by fear, his exposed face and hands already running with blood, the flag-bearer made a panic-stricken dive to retrieve the only source of protection he could think of. But as his profane hands touched the sacred relic, there was a sudden, sulphurous bang and a greasy surge of black smoke.

As the smoke thinned, no trace of the flag-bearer could be seen. Stunned by what he had just witnessed, Adam cautiously lifted his head again just in time to see the fairy vanguard descend on the next man. As the man sank screaming under a seething blanket of tiny, glowing forms, his horrified leader clutched hard at the shoulder of the remaining porter and gestured toward the boat, still brandishing the Hepburn Sword above his head with one hand.

“Help me get the chest aboard!” he ordered shrilly, “They can’t follow us over water!”

The man’s face and hands were a mass of bloody gouges, but somehow he managed a comprehending nod. The fairies seemed still intent on tearing their other adversary to bits, and the leader’s sword kept the occasional scout at bay. Between them, the two managed to manhandle the chest over the remaining yards of rocky beach. The boatman, no longer under fire from McLeod and unable to see Adam, threw aside, his machine gun and slewed the boat around sideways, reaching over the side to help.

“Get the chest on board!” the leader shouted. “I’ll keep them off!”

Leaving his subordinates to wrestle the chest over the side, he turned to beat back the advancing Faerie Host with fierce, slashing sweeps of the Hepburn Sword. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of glowing shapes snapped and buzzed about his head like a swarm of enraged wasps, but every time the sword connected with one, sparks crackled at the point of impact and a tiny light went out, in a curl of wispy smoke. A look of triumph was beginning to light the leader’s face when suddenly he spied an upright figure moving from behind the fairy cloud, heading directly for him.

Adam was holding his
skean dubh
elevated before him like a holy relic, the pommel uppermost rather than the blade. The blue stone set in the hilt gave off a soft, shimmering glow like the clear light of summer twilight. The fairies shied away from him as he passed among them to halt only a few paces from the masked man.

“Two of your companions already have perished needlessly,” Adam said sternly. “Leave the chest and put yourselves under my protection, before you pay for your obstinacy with your lives.”

The masked man hackled like a jackal.

“You go to hell!” he shouted. “I’ve paid for this chest, and the cost wasn’t cheap! I’ll be damned if I’ll let you have it for nothing!”

With a sudden savage backlash, he whipped out at Adam with the blade of the Hepburn Sword. Instinctively, Adam raised his skean dubh to parry the blow. Peregrine, who had been creeping nearer while the leader was distracted, let out a horrified cry of protest as the two blades clashed in a flash and a crackle of blue-white fire. In that instant, all the intimations of mortal danger he had seen hanging over Adam in the days gone by came surging back to memory.

Without thought for what he might be able to do once he got there, Peregrine broke from cover and dashed across the dozen yards still separating him from Adam and his foe—and the fairies—praying that Adam’s ring would give him some protection from the latter. Blood-hungry motes of light closed around him in a screeching throng, but he flailed at them with his bare hands and continued, half blind, toward the place where he had last seen Adam. Abruptly, two dark shapes loomed before him, one on one knee on the ground, bathed in a pale blue light and reared back on one supporting hand, the other poised above him with steel death in his hand, already starting his downward blow.

The Hepburn Sword flashed green as it descended. Not thinking of the possible consequences, Peregrine grabbed for it with both hands. His left briefly blocked the other’s wrist jarringly at the basket hilt, slowing It, but not” with enough force to keep his right hand from impacting solidly with the blade, right across the palm and back edge of his hand. Searing pain flung him backwards against Adam, rolling him into a tight ball as he clutched his right hand to his chest, fire searing down his fingers and shooting up his forearm. All he could think, in that infinite instant of first agony, was that he might never paint again.

But before he could even draw breath to scream, a heavy boot took him bruisingly in the ribs, with enough force to tumble him farther across the rough shingle. Somehow he managed to protect his head, and not to lose his glasses, but what he saw as he twisted round gave him no comfort as his adversary turned to attack Adam again.

Shouting wordlessly, his lips drawn back in an almost feline snarl, the swordsman lifted his blade to slash. But as the blade descended, Adam was already lifting his
skean dubh
—not with the hilt uppermost this time, but with the point directed toward the air between them, to rapidly sketch an arcane symbol.

Blue fire left a visible trace as the skean dubh flashed. It was nowhere near the intended path of the descending blade, but suddenly the sword was diverting to meet it, like steel drawn to a magnet. White-eyed with disbelief, the swordsman tried to correct, but Adam merely made a sharp, wrenching movement with the
skean dubh
.

His adversary gave a hoarse cry as the basket-hilt twisted in his grasp. Unable to hold onto it, he flung the weapon from him in defiant anger and turned to make a desperate running leap for the side of the waiting speedboat.

He never reached it. Alert for just such an opening, the Faerie Host swooped down again with greedy shrills of elation, blood spattering from their midst as they snapped and snarled and tore like piranhas in a feeding frenzy, keening their triumph. Adam flung himself protectively across Peregrine, at the same time closing his free hand around the hilt of the Hepburn Sword.

The two remaining men on the boat did not linger to see any more. They had then chest aboard. Terrified, the man at the helm gunned the engines and swung his craft around in a flurry of white water. Peregrine managed a dazed glimpse of the vessel pulling away from the shore, but he bit back a sob as fire shot up his right arm again from his wounded hand.

Half a dozen yards away, the fairy cloud was lifting from a fading crimson smear on the rocks, their keening almost deafening as they realized their foes were escaping. A few tried to pursue the boat across the water, but they could not maintain altitude and fell into the waves, perishing in high-pitched screams and puffs of steam.

Peregrine stifled a little sob, dazedly cradling his hand against his chest, not daring to open it for fear of what he might see. He was still wearing Adam’s ring, but dark blood was welling between’ his fingers, dripping onto the wet shingle of the beach.

“Where’s Noel?” Adam demanded, dragging Peregrine to his feet and looking around worriedly. “Do you see Noel anywhere?”

“No, I—”

“Here, take this and stand back to back with me!” Adam said, handing him the
skean dubh
. “They’ll be coming after us next. Use the blade to cover yourself.”

Even as he spoke, the shining emerald cloud yammered at the shoreline and then converged upon them, borne on a piercing skirl of high-pitched fairy voices. Numbly Peregrine raised the skean dubh as he had seen Adam do, though every fiber of his being shrieked that it was hopeless . . .

Meanwhile, up on the high ground to the right of the cave mouth, McLeod stirred groggily to find himself half- buried under earth and rubble. Somehow, his pistol was still in his hand, but he had managed to lose his glasses.

He turned his attention down to the beach. He could see no sign of the black-clad shore party, but a greenish swarm of light motes was whirling angrily just at the shore—and just beyond their reach, the speedboat was laboring desperately, trying to make headway against the dark chop of the loch. He could make out two black-clad figures in it.

Scrambling to one knee and locking into a combat stance, McLeod took careful aim and squeezed off half a dozen rounds at the men in the boat, even though he knew they were probably out of range. They were—but before he could even begrudge them then escape, his attention was arrested by new movement by the fairy column, now spiraling up from the water’s edge—and swooping down on two familiar figures standing back to back at the shore.

With a hoarse croak of dismay, McLeod launched himself down the slope, skidding on his butt and barely getting his feet under him as he hit the bottom. He was already in motion as he staggered to his feet and started toward them—and nearly tripped over the smashed frame of the Fairy Flag.

Intention sprang into his mind even as his body already was moving in response. Jamming his pistol back into his waistband, he bent over the Flag, in its shattered glass. No doubt assailed him, for he was a MacLeod—and he had not seen the flag-bearer perish for his presumption.

But Adam had—and realized what McLeod was about to do.

“Noel, don’t touch it!” he shouted, trying to ward off the menacing fairies and watch McLeod at the same time. “The legend is true! The flag-bearer went up in a puff of smoke!”

“Then he wasn’t a MacLeod!” came the inspector’s defiant reply, hardly even faltering.

Reverently he gathered the Fairy Flag out of the rains of its frame, lifting it triumphantly in MacLeod hands—and did not die! MacLeod blood singing to the music of ancient battle tones, he draped the Flag around his shoulders like a mantle and then bounded toward his beleaguered companions, shouting the ancient MacLeod motto at the top of his lungs: “
Hold fast
!”

Heedless of the milling fairies, he plunged into their midst to thrust himself between the astonished Adam and Peregrine. A strong, blunt-fingered hand clasped each firmly by the shoulder as he raised his voice fearlessly above the din.

“Avaunt ye, children of Earth, Air, and Fire! In the name of the MacLeod of MacLeod, Chief of all the Clan MacLeod, I, Noel Gordon McLeod, take these men under the protection of the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan! Harm them not, lest the ancient covenant be broken between MacLeods and the Faerie Folk!”

At once the ear-piercing skirl of inhuman voices subsided to a sullen buzz and the cloud lifted slightly, though the fairies continued to swarm angrily above their heads.

“
Lower your blades
,” McLeod muttered, in an emphatic aside to his two companions. “I’ve got to convince them that we are not the enemy. You’ve seen what steel can do to them.”

Without hesitation, Adam lowered the Hepburn Sword, Peregrine more reluctantly letting the skean dubh sink to point at the ground. As the hum of the fairy voices wavered, McLeod raised his face toward them again.

“Ye have, indeed, been grievously wronged, O People of Peace,” McLeod began again, “but do not vent your just anger on those who would be your allies. It is not we who have despoiled your treasure! Out there lie your enemies!”—he gestured briefly with the hand on Adam’s shoulder—“not here beneath the Fairy Flag!”