Dolmarehn - Book Two of the Otherworld Trilogy (30 page)

“How are you going to defeat them Cade?” I whispered as the tears fell down my face.

The cold rain lashed at me and the wind chilled me even further.  As the creatures circled around Cade, I began chewing at my fingernails.  He didn’t stand a chance.  Suddenly a surge of anger hit me and the burning next to my heart heightened.  I cried out in pain, wondering if the shock of everything that was happening would cause heart failure.

I glanced up to check if the monsters had attacked yet, only to fall back down on my rump in surprise.  The beasts had made a circle around Cade, but he stood absolutely still, his arms held open at his sides, palms facing out, his head bowed in concentration.  I could almost make out the rage and aggression pouring off of him, like heat waves rising off a road in the desert.

With sudden violence, one shoulder dislocated with a tremendous CRACK, then the other.  His hair grew and formed into spikes and something that looked disturbingly like blood gathered at their points.  The rain pelted down, making it run in crimson rivulets down his pale face.  One of his eyes swelled to an unnatural size and I was sure it would burst out of his head.  His clothing tore as he grew larger and more like one of the Morrigan’s monsters.

There was one last crackling of joints and Cade stood transformed, slightly taller than the creatures surrounding him, but exuding a fury that terrified me.  I gaped at him, my eyes gone wide, my tears long dried up.  So this is what the Morrigan had been talking about.  This transformation that had made Cade a pariah among his peers.  This is what I’d witnessed when I nearly died a year ago.

I blinked up at the Morrigan, standing only a few feet away from me.  She looked smug, eyeing me with condescending dislike.

“Who would want such a monster?” she crooned.  “It’s clear you’ve never seen my son overcome with his battle fury, this warp spasm.  It’s a shame he’s sacrificing himself for you.”

She sighed, having the nerve do sound like she cared.  “If only I had convinced him to go into ríastrad before making the blood oath, it might have saved me so much trouble.  You would’ve seen him in this form,” she waved at her newly transformed son, now carefully eyeing the creatures that circled him, looking for a weak spot, “and like the others, you would have run away screaming.  Eventually, he would have gotten over you and then I’d be free to seek you on my own, taking what I wanted.  Now I’m going to lose a very useful tool.”

My anger blossomed and spilled over.  “I don’t care about the ríastrad.”  I turned my eyes on her, my voice raw with emotion.  “I love Cade.  I would never leave him for something he has no control over.  He cannot help who he is; who his parents are.”

“Too bad,” she snickered, nodding her head in Cade’s direction, “because after tonight he will certainly be leaving
you
.”

I shouldn’t have looked because the battle had begun.  I cried out when the long, clawed arm of one of the monsters swung out and made contact with Cade’s own arm.  But the move had been meant as a block and he quickly twisted the limb of the creature until it broke free of its body.  The Cúmorrig howled in pain, and I swallowed back bile.  Cade, in this horrible form, was brutal, fighting like a feral animal.  His grotesque appearance almost made it hard to distinguish him from his adversaries.

The Morrigan yawned in a bored fashion as the battle raged on.  A gust of wind and a sheet of rain slammed into us, driving me to the ground once more.  I had long given up trying to keep my knees from getting muddy and the cloak I wore was already drenched.

“Such a shame, really,” the Morrigan said above me.  “He is far more useful to me alive than dead.  Who is going to fetch back my dear little pets from the mortal world when he’s gone?”

I swallowed, the lump in my throat proving to be an obstacle.  No.  Cade would not die.  He
could
not.

“He won’t die,” I whispered, my head down.

I tried to ignore the sounds of the fight.  The last time I glanced up, Cade had destroyed two of the monsters.  I had no way of distinguishing between his shouts of outrage and their cries of pain.  I guess I should try finding solace in knowing that if I could still hear them fighting, then the battle still continued.  And if the battle still continued, Cade was still alive.

The Morrigan’s laughter started out as a quiet chuckle, but soon rose to match the thunder overhead.  “Oh, dear girl!  He’ll not survive this fight!  Do you have any concept of the amount of magic I poured into my Cúmorrig?”

She leaned over me and willed me to meet her eyes.  Reluctantly, I did.  The irises were no longer deep red, but swirling with living flames.  Her glamour at work. 
My stomach turned
.  I didn’t want to know what amount of magic she poured into her diabolical creations.  Nor did I want to know how many lives had been sacrificed to gain that power.

Minutes seemed to pass, hours maybe, and I sat there, helpless with nothing but the Morrigan’s horrible commentary to shred apart my nerves.  Eventually, Cade managed to kill a third monster, then a fourth and fifth.  When two more died, I started to hope.  Three left, only three more.  I ignored the signs that Cade was tiring; convinced myself the bloodstains didn’t belong to him.  The storm raged on above us and the faelah surrounding the small valley kept up their disturbing chatter.

Another Cúmorrig down, then another.  Only one left.  My heart swelled with hope.  Cade would defeat it, like he defeated all the others.  But he appeared so weary, as if all of his magic had burned away, leaving nothing but a shell.

I watched, my lungs struggling to draw breath as the two of them circled one another.  Cade struck at the monster, but the Cúmorrig deflected his swing.  This last attack had taken too much energy from Cade.  He staggered back, his head bowed as he caught his breath, and the remaining Cúmorrig reached back with its massive arm and plunged its long claws into Cade’s abdomen.

“NO!” I screeched, running forward, tripping over the clumps of moss, grass and stones dotting the wide field as I tore through the magical barrier that had held me back all this time.

Crying, I pushed myself up, ignoring the sting in my left wrist, and gazed past my tears and the pelting rain to catch a glimpse of Cade again.  Only fifty feet or so away, I spotted him.  He was slumped over, the tips of the monster’s claws protruding from his back.  The ríastrad was leaving him.  His battle fury was coming to an end and he was beginning to change back into the form I knew so well.  With agonizing effort, he reached up, grabbed a hold of the monster’s grizzled hair, and violently twisted its head, breaking its neck and killing it.  Reaching down, Cade grasped the faelah’s arm and slowly pulled the claws out of his stomach.

Another sob broke free, and I reached out my hand, though I was too far away.  Cade dropped the arm and the creature crumpled to the ground.  He stood for a few moments, turning as if he were intoxicated, until he found me.  His eye had returned to its normal size and he was no longer as large as he’d been.

He gazed at me and I barely detected the last dregs of his battle fury blazing in his eyes.  He smiled then, and for the first time ever, I noticed the beginning of tears in his eyes.  He looked horrible.  He was deathly pale and splattered with blood, despite the rain.  I followed his left shoulder, down to where his hand covered the wound in his side.  I should not have done that.  Blood spilled freely from the holes left by the Cúmorrig’s claws and it didn’t seem likely to stop.

“No, Cade.  We’ll find someone to fix it.”  My voice hitched on another sob as I pathetically tried to comfort him.

He opened his mouth to say something to me, but a hacking cough took the place of words.  He doubled over, a thin stream of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.  With one last gasp he collapsed to the ground.

“No!” I screamed again, crawling across the rain-soaked field, ignoring my injured wrist.

I blocked out the unmoving bodies of the mutilated Cúmorrig that lay scattered about.  I only stopped after reaching Cade, and when I did, I nearly fell in anguish.  He lay on his back, his hand still clutching his side, his eyes staring lifeless up into the storm clouds above.

I refused to accept what I was seeing.  I sat down, rolled his head into my lap, and began stroking his face.  His hair was a mess and I smoothed it away from his forehead.  He must have been tired after such a fight, so I closed his eyes for him, tears streaming down my cheeks as my heart shattered.

“No Cade, no,” I murmured between sobs.  “No, you aren’t gone, you’ll get better.  You just need to rest.”

But I knew.  I’d known the moment the last monster impaled him.  He’d been too overwhelmed by such a large number of foes, there had been just too many.  I squeezed my eyes shut and let the despair flood over me.

“Why didn’t you let me help you?” I whispered when my throat stopped aching long enough to allow words.

I scooped him up and let his head rest against my shoulder as I rocked him like a mother rocking her infant to sleep, and all around me the storm raged on.  The faelah that had been surrounding us all this time, watching and barely reining in their desire to join the fray, started their complaints again.

“Such a pity,” I heard above me.  But the voice held no pity at all.

“Such a waste of useful talent.  Really, so foolish.  I should have refused his blood oath, but oh, the boy has always been headstrong.”

I was too distraught to respond, to even think of how I should respond.  I simply sat on the wet ground, holding Cade close and denying that he was gone.

“Well, I am a very busy goddess and I’ll ask you to please move out of the way.  I’m owed quite a large amount of magic, and when someone is so freshly sacrificed as Caedehn is now, their power is even more potent.”

I didn’t move.  My mind had started to buzz, and a strange, warm tingling began to bloom in my chest once again.  Another reminder of my useless, pathetic, worthless magic.  Why must it be so weak!  Why did my glamour refuse to work for me!  Why didn’t it help me save Cade?!

“Move strayling!  Once I take the power owed to me, I’ll break through the barrier created by his oath and take yours as well!  Drop that corpse and obey me, or I’ll make your death far more hellish than his!”

Something burst in me then, something next to my heart, and for a few seconds I thought one of my major arteries had ruptured, spilling blood into the gaping hole in my chest.  I didn’t collapse, though, nor did I begin to convulse.  In fact, I felt light and full of energy.  I took a deep breath and rose to my feet.  Funny, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was floating.  I stepped away from Cade, but not so far away that the Morrigan could get to him without pushing past me.

And that’s when I realized the overwhelming awareness flooding my senses reminded me of my magic, only this time it was ten times more powerful than before.  A rush of warm and cool sensations coursed through me like waves crashing against the shore, and a delicious realization pierced my mind: my glamour was finally fully awake and ready to do my bidding.  My fear of the Morrigan had vanished, and for the moment I cast my grief aside.

“Cade might have sworn a blood oath with you, but I didn’t!”

And then I let my raw power free, willing the swirling essence to take full control and forcing it to the tips of my fingers, exactly as Cade had taught me.  This time, my glamour didn’t stop there.  The new experience was the most exhilarating thing in the world, like a pure rush of adrenalin but far more intoxicating.  The magic left my fingertips in a bright flash and sprung forth from my hair.  I imagined I looked like some terrifying angel of vengeance, standing in my ruined Beltaine party dress with Cade’s lifeless body at my feet, my arms spread wide, my head thrown back with my hair flaring out all around like a dark halo.

The earth trembled beneath my feet and the wind and rain stopped.  I dared to open my eyes.  The clouds above had parted, creating a column of sunlight shining down upon me.  I lowered my head and gazed at the carnage scattered over the field and gaped.  All of the faelah, every last one of them from the huge, bear-like creatures down to the ones that were no bigger than mice, lay strewn across the valley floor, charred black.

I shot my glance up at the Morrigan and saw on her face something I never thought to witness in my life: fear.  She had paled and her ever-present confidence seemed to vanish.  Despite my torn heart, I grinned with malicious vengeance because I sensed my own power surging once again.  I lifted my arms, admiring the beautiful blue lightning crackling between my fingers, and summoned all the magic I had left.  With a cry of anguish and loathing, I threw my arms forward, channeling all of my power directly at the Morrigan.  I doubted I’d be able to kill her, but I was pretty sure I could do a good deal of damage.

The goddess’ eyes went wide with shock, but before I got the chance to so much as singe her perfect hair, she clapped her palms together above her head, spoke an ancient word of power, and transformed into a huge raven.  My blue lightning missed her by inches, and as she squawked and let the winds of the fading storm carry her away, I collapsed onto the ground next to Cade.

My body was drained, both mentally and physically.  And magically if I was being completely honest.  I now understood what Cade had been talking about with regards to magic.  Too bad he wasn’t here to enjoy it with me.

The thunder rolled in the distance and the rain had long since diminished.  The sun was well above the eastern horizon, but still a good distance from its midday location.  The soggy ground pressed against my cheek and when I curled my fingers into a fist, I found Cade’s damp shirt gathering between them.  I lifted my head and winced from the pain pounding away at my skull.  I blinked the remaining tears from my eyes and glanced around.  If I hadn’t just lived through hell, I would have appreciated the beauty surrounding me.  The clouds above were still dark, but below them the golden rays of the morning sun lit the raindrops, making the small valley resemble a field of glittering gems.  That same sunlight splayed upon my face, warming my skin for the first time in over a day.  I closed my eyes and tried to find some consolation in the welcome radiance, but since my hands still clasped Cade’s shirt, I couldn’t bring myself to feel any relief.