Child of Darkness-L-D-2 (26 page)

And while she mused, still paralyzed by the sight of her first true battle, an Elf suddenly gripped the cage. “Want to go for a ride, missy?” he cooed. The smell of his breath indicated that he was either too drunk to realize or care that he was in danger, that violence raged all around him. He shook the bars, and the chain began to slip free. “What in Hades?” he muttered, confused at what he saw as the links came loose easily in his hands. The drunken veil lifted as his eyes met hers, though the cruel, lecherous intent of before returned. He smiled, displaying rotted gray teeth that jutted like broken pebbles at odd intervals in his black gums. “Pretty birdy’s got out of her cage.”

She flattened herself against the bars behind her and drew her knees back as far as she could before thrusting her feet forward. The chain slipped loose the rest of the way, the door sprang open, and the Elf received a face full of iron before falling back in agony. Rocked by the force of her kick, the cage teetered over the ledge it had been placed on and fell. Cerridwen tumbled inside like a discarded doll. Her breath whooshed from her lungs as she collided first with the top, then the rear bars of her prison. Mercifully, though, the cage landed with the door unobstructed. Dizzy from the fall, she pulled herself through the open hole now over her head. The Elf had recovered enough to spring at her, and she tripped, sprawling on the filthy, bloodstained ground. He caught her by the hair, jerked her to her knees. She saw the flash of a blade from the corner of her eye and knew his intent. She fumbled for the knife in her trousers, but she saw, as if through a portal to the very near future, how it would play out. Even if she pulled the weapon free, his blade would slit her throat before she could raise her hand. Still, she tried, unable to stop the lightning-fast motion in progress.

Something interrupted the fall of the Elf’s blade. He released his hold on her, screaming, and she turned to see him clutching his face, blood streaming from a slash across his eyes. The Faery who had been her deliverer had blinded his opponent, and now she leaped onto his back, plunged her dagger straight down, behind his collarbone. She spun the body as it fell, put a foot on the creature’s shoulder and kicked it free from her blade. She wicked the blood off with a quick shake, her incredulous gaze on Cerridwen. But she said nothing, opened her wings and sprang back into the fray.

Cerridwen scrambled to her feet, pulled the dagger free just as a hand fell on her shoulder. She spun, saw the white of the creature’s hair, and rammed the blade home into its throat. It took more force than she had expected, the shock of flesh splitting by her own hand reverberating up her arm painfully. She gripped the knife harder, pushed with all her might. Someone screamed in rage, a chilling, amazing sound, and she realized it came from her. She pulled the knife back, let the creature fall to his death on the floor. Beside her, a Faery in flight was struck down by a Human weapon that rent the air with loud cracks. The Elf holding the weapon unleashed a torrent of projectiles that flew too fast for the eye to see. Cerridwen dropped to the ground and rolled behind an overturned table, listened as the unseen force’s noise drowned out the sounds of battle. Though it did not go on for very long, it left both Faeries and Elves on the ground, riddled with bleeding wounds, some with limbs severed messily.

“You fool!” a voice cut through the screams of the dying and the sounds of those still fighting. “You’ll kill our own!”

Fenrick. She pulled herself up to peer over the edge of the table. He wrestled the weapon from the Elf who had wielded it, threw it against the wall. It discharged another loud crack, then fell harmlessly to the ground. Then, spying the empty cage, Fenrick looked around the hall, panicked and less composed than she’d ever seen him.

There would be a penalty, Cerridwen realized, for her disappearance. An Elf shrieked behind her, and she turned to see it fall, neatly halved by Cedric’s twin blades. Her mother’s advisor glared down at her. “Get yourself somewhere safe. We cannot protect you here.”

As if she needed his protection. The power of her first kill vibrated through her, inflamed her. It was only encouraged by the sights and smells of the battle around her. The scent of burning flesh was the most exotic perfume, the screams of the dying the best music she’d ever heard. She watched in fascination as a Faery brought down a huge cudgel upon an Elf’s head, smashing it, hammering it into the creature’s torso. A Faery’s head flew cleanly from its neck, leaving the body on his feet for a long moment before it crumpled. The violence was more intoxicating than the strongest wine. She reveled in it, was drunk on it.

So drunk that she forgot about Fenrick, and that made it so easy for him to find her. He grabbed the collar of her shirt and used it to haul her off the ground, the fabric choking her, she clawing at it, but she could not unfasten the buttons without letting go of her weapon. He placed another hand at the small of her back, found the waist of her trousers, and she saw herself flying through the air before he threw her. She landed in the pile of bodies the Human weapon had cut down, sliding over sticky blood and spilled vitals. Still, she held the knife, had managed to stay alert so as to not fall on it.

Fenrick stalked toward her, kicking bodies and smaller pieces aside on his way to her. “We wished to present you alive to your mother, but you will be as fit a prize dead, I think,” he growled, and he reached to his belt for the sword that hung there. She had not been trained in weapons, but Cerridwen knew that the dagger would do her little good against that. She slipped it into her waistband and scrambled over the floor. The weapons of dead Elves and Faeries lay scattered where they fell, but which one to steal?

There was an ax here, a spear there. She could crawl to a sword, but he would be more skilled, she was certain.

She gripped the ax and scurried to her feet. It was heavy; it dragged her arms to the ground. She lifted it, knowing it was too late to change her mind.

Fenrick lunged at her, his sword held in one hand, a loose, easy posture that suggested he was as comfortable fighting as she was inexperienced at it. But he did not know of her newfound talent, her ability to see beyond the immediate. She saw the trajectory of the blade and stepped aside easily. Her body knew the space around her, though she did not give it conscious thought, her feet knew to avoid obstacles she could not see. Unperturbed by his miss—surely, he believed it but luck on her part—he came at her again, striking out with the sword. This time, she brought up the ax, and their blades met with a force that shocked Cerridwen’s bones.

Surprised rage lit Fenrick’s eyes, and she could not help but laugh, though she knew it would only serve to fuel him in their skirmish. Truly, he must have believed her weak. Weak in body, weak in spirit, weak enough for him to take all he wished from her without complaint. He’d expected her to cower, she realized now. When he’d brought her here, she had been meant to cower. And she had, for a while. But he had gotten nothing he’d worked for from her. He had not taken her body, and he had not been able to break her to his will and use her in his father’s campaign against the Fae. Even now, as he tried to kill her, she opposed him. He had thought her weak. And that gave her the rage she needed to drive strength into her arms, which ached under the weight of the ax. She shoved, hard. His blade slipped as he fell back, and he stumbled. Before he could right himself, she swung the ax. Her blow was clumsily aimed, and did not catch him. She cursed herself, gave herself over to the stream of images that she’d ignored when she’d taken action of her own accord. He would regain his footing, and he did. And he would rush at her with the sword, to drive it into her middle. She brought the ax head down as a shield, and he redirected, raising his blade over his head. She met that blow, as well, and their steel clashed briefly before he dropped his arms, intending to cut her from the side. She matched him, her weapon whirling in looped arcs to meet his attacks at his every turn.

And then, pain. Nothing had struck her, but her leg faltered, crumpled beneath her. She fell to one knee, unable to stand any longer, her arms shaking with strain. No! It was not supposed to be this way! She could still see in her mind all the ways she could have defeated him. Now, he stood above her, frozen in disbelief as she was. She looked down, saw the wet that stained her trousers, the blood she had not realized was her own, flowing from the perfectly round hole in her calf.

Fenrick raised his sword, and she tracked his motion with despair. He lifted the sword high, with both hands, as if intending to cleave her head from her neck. She closed her eyes and saw the intent, and saw how she could stop it.

Time felt slow as she moved. She opened her eyes. The blade still fell. Her hand moved—so fast it was as if she had not commanded it to do so—to the knife at her waist, and she pulled it free. The blade still fell. And she lunged forward, catching him in the stomach before he could stop the downward motion of his arms to defend himself.

Someone shouted her name, but Cerridwen could not see who. She saw only Fenrick’s face, his yellow eyes wide with disbelief as the sword swerved left and fell from his hand to clatter to the ground. Cerridwen forced her arm upward, widening the wound until it would cut no further. She wrenched it free, her gaze still intent on his face. He stared at her as if unable to comprehend what she’d done, unable to grasp the reality of what had just happened. A stream of dark blood rolled from his mouth, and he looked down to where his hands clutched at his wound.

It took only a moment for him to die, but time seemed slow again, in a different manner, and that moment was a lifetime.

And then, as he fell, eyes rolling back into his head, the world resumed its normal pace, and the voice shouting for her was in her ear. Huge hands, not Faery hands, gripped her shoulders, pulled her to her feet.

“Cerridwen, are you all right?” It was Malachi, and though she nodded, he did not let her go.

“We must get you to safety.”

“The Elves,” she protested as he supported her, helped her limp across the fallen bodies.

“We are doing fine, they can spare me,” he insisted. “Right now, we must get you home to your mother.”

The thought made her sick to her stomach, but not in the way it would have two days before. She had left her mother’s Palace with hatred in her heart, and learned that her hatred had been misplaced. Though her mother would not know the reason for her absence, how could she face her and not know herself to be the worst type of traitor?

“It will be all right. She will forgive you,” Malachi said, as though he’d been able to read her thoughts. And it did not matter to her then that he was a Darkling, that he had disgusted her before. Now, she wanted only to let him lead her from this place and keep her safe. She leaned against him and forced her leg to work, despite the agony that jolted through her with every step.

But Malachi went suddenly rigid beside her, staggered sideways. She kept her balance though it pained her, and then she saw it. A sword point protruding from his body beneath his ribs. The Elf that had struck him pulled the blade free the way it had entered—straight down, through the juncture of his shoulder and neck. It had plowed a jagged path through him, and he fell without a sound.

Cerridwen screamed, and the scream went on and on, fueled by her pain and fatigue. She crumpled beside him, aware of the Elf behind her, aware that there was nothing she could do to protect herself. She clutched helplessly at Malachi’s clothing, crushing it in her fists as she wailed.

But the Elf’s next strike never came. Cedric leaped, seemingly out of the flames of another burning table, hacking fiercely with a broken sword as he shouted his rage. He hit the creature once, brought him down, and again, and again, carving away at the shrieking body with each blow, driving the Elf to the ground in a spray of blood that wetted the front of the Faery’s already gore-crusted garments.

“Cedric!” Cerridwen screamed, when it seemed he would not stop until the Elf was nothing but sand.

He stood, wiped his forearm over the blood that coated his face like a horrible mask, and stared down at Malachi’s body, an unreadable expression on his face. He knelt, turned Malachi’s body over, saw the blood that flowed from the wound, and howled. Malachi’s eyes flickered beneath their lids, opened weakly.

“He is alive!” Cerridwen cried, gripping Cedric’s arm. “We must take him to a healer.”

“I must take you to your mother,” Cedric said, as though far away from the chaos around them. “Can you walk?”

“We can take him!” She shook his sleeve. “Please, we must take him!”

“No.” The word was a whisper from Malachi’s pale lips.

“I swore my oath to your mother that I would return you safe,” Cedric said in that same, mechanical voice. “You must come with me.”

Her limbs trembled with fatigue, but she forced herself to her feet. She ignored the pain in her body as she reached for Malachi’s arms, intending to drag him. She saw the pain it caused him, and she sobbed in frustration.

“Leave him.” Cedric stood and moved as if to grab her.

She stepped out of his reach. “We will take him!” Even her voice hurt as it scraped from her throat. Malachi had been wounded protecting her. She should not have been there in the first place. If he died, it would be her fault. “We will take him or I will not go!”

The loud, insistent whine of metal screeching against metal suddenly cut through the air in the hall, and the combatants on both sides halted in their fight.

“The Waterhorses!” someone screamed, and Cerridwen froze.

She did not have to argue further that they should take Malachi. Cedric stooped and lifted the fallen mortal’s large body, a feat that seemed impossible. “Run!” Cedric shouted at her, and she turned, helpless. She did not know which door would lead them out. Cedric grabbed her arm and tugged her nearly off her feet. “Run, or die here!”

A rusted metal door, one that Cerridwen had not been able to see from her place in the cage, cranked down on huge, creaking gears.