Haven 3 Shadow Magic (Haven Series 3) (18 page)

Ambros flashed then, even as Brand stepped up to swing again. Startled, the Wee One’s desperate leap took it right over the side of the battlements. Brand laughed as it blindly tumbled down to smash upon the rocks far below. Corbin shook his head and wondered if even one of the Wee Folk could survive such a fall.

They heard a sound behind them then, the sound a gusting wind whipped around great exposed stones might make. They turned back to see a courser land beside them upon the battlements. Another arrived a moment later, landing its horse as a man would taking a great leap over a fallen tree. Brand hadn’t until this moment really seen them fly, but now he had no further doubts.

“Retreat down the stairs, Corbin!” shouted Brand. “They can’t get off their horses, they won’t be able to follow.”

Corbin dove for the steps, even as the coursers began their approach. They ignored him and were intent solely on Brand.

“Come with me!” demanded Corbin.

“No!” shouted Brand. “Telyn and Tomkin are somewhere in this keep. I’ll not be driven from it.”

“Then I will stand with you,” said Corbin, coming up behind him.

Brand frowned, but felt a twinge of gratitude. He hadn’t relished facing two specters alone. The coursers came at them, and Ambros flashed, but seemingly without effect upon the enemy. Perhaps their eyes were too old, too fleshless, to be pained by light, no matter how bright.

“Look, Brand!” shouted Corbin. “The Rainbow!”

All of them looked, even the coursers. An astounding figure of beauty rose up and rounded the towers of the keep to stand beside them. Up close, Brand saw the pure colors that striped its body, each hue more brilliant than the last. Its head was on a level with them, and Brand looked into its dancing eyes made of blue flames. The otherworldly eyes regarded him and the others, each in turn. Even the coursers seemed at a loss in the face of such fantastic beauty.

A great hand rose up. With a deliberate, swift motion, the Rainbow swept the coursers from the battlement. They fell away into the wind without a cry. Brand saw one horseman’s claw-like hand of white bone clutch at the edge, and then it was gone. Brand and Corbin raced for the nearest doorway that led into the keep, lest the Rainbow change its mind about whom it favored.

“Well,” said Corbin as they huffed down another hall of fallen walls and bodies. “At least we know that Tomkin is still in command of his creature.”

“But for how long?” asked Brand aloud.

They continued through the keep in silence. Ever it seemed that the battle had escaped them. In the distance they heard the shouts and screams of dying men and rhinogs, but around them was only the aftermath of battle, never the event.

After mounting another set of steps, however, they came upon a knot of soldiers in the ragged, stained, blue livery of Riverton. As one, they raised their weapons at the sight of Brand and Corbin, and then lowered them in relief and recognition. They set up a ragged cheer as Brand lofted Ambros and commanded it to wink at them.

“Brand! Corbin, my son!” shouted Tylag, coming forward with his arms spread. “How glad I am to see your young faces!”

“How goes the battle, father?” asked Corbin anxiously.

Tylag’s face faltered. “Not well,” he said, his voice hushed. “We are reduced to small pockets like this.” He indicated the score of men who stood with him in the shadowy halls. “Our forces are scattered about the keep. I’ve dispatched messengers to try to gather them together, but as yet, none have returned.”

“What of Telyn and Tomkin?” asked Brand.

“They are both here,” said Tylag, nodding toward another chamber.

Brand noticed that Tylag and the other men of the Haven shunned that chamber. All of them stood far from the entrance. But his heart leapt at the news that Telyn still lived. Without waiting to hear more he strode into the chamber and found her crouched over the tiny figure of Tomkin. Tomkin lay beneath a pile of what looked like sackcloth. She looked up and briefly smiled.

“I’m glad that you live, Brand,” she said.

“I too, am uplifted,” he said. They came together and quickly embraced. Brand smelled her hair, and his chest seemed to expand with well-being.

“How is Tomkin?” asked Brand in a whisper. “Has he gone feral yet?”

“No, but I fear that is not far off. He has been calling for you.”

“How soon thy Folk forget the quality of good hearing,” chuckled a voice from beneath the sackcloth. There was a sudden flurry of movement under the material, and it was thrown back. “Ah! There, I can breathe! I’m not a sick child, woman!” shouted Tomkin irritably.

Brand’s mouth hung open to see him. The whole of the dark chamber throbbed with the light from Lavatis, which hung as an impossibly huge weight around his tiny neck. After a moment, Brand recognized the pulse of the light. It matched the beating of the Wee One’s heart. His face was pale, drawn and sickly-looking in the blue light. He struggled up to a sitting position, but then sagged back down with a sigh and closed his eyes.

“Another gang of rhinogs!” he screeched. “The coursers cut at me!”

Brand and Telyn knelt beside the dying manling.

“He’s torn between two worlds,” said Telyn.

“He’s strong, but it’s only a matter of time until he becomes one with the Rainbow and goes feral,” said Brand.

“Do not talk as if Tomkin were already dead!” shouted Tomkin, his eyes fluttering open. His great mouth split wide in a familiar grin. “Saved thy arse, I did, river-boy!”

“Indeed, Tomkin. You did that,” said Brand.

Shouts erupted from the larger chamber outside. Brand jumped up, expecting a flood of rhinogs and coursers. Perhaps Herla himself was making his final move to claim a second and third Jewel.

Instead, a bounding figure came into the room and pounced upon the prone form of Tomkin. Brand lifted the axe, suspecting it was another of Herla’s turncoat runners. But after a moment, he recognized the intruder. It was Piskin, the one who had made deals with him on the part of the Wee Folk just a few nights ago.

“Fool!” screamed Piskin, shaking Tomkin’s fallen body. “You’ve ruined the chance of a millennium! Never shall our people again be so close to grasping true power!”

“Have a care, changeling,” said Tomkin’s weak, but dangerous voice.

Brand and Telyn looked at one another. Brand realized then where he had heard Piskin’s voice before. It was that of the false infant they had chased from Lanet Drake’s apartments. He took a breath and took a single step toward the two Wee Folk.

Telyn laid a hand upon him. “Perhaps we shouldn’t interfere. This is their business.”

“I’ll have the Jewel instead!” shouted Piskin, “Dando was in my debt, he did me a great harm, and I’ll take the Jewel as my repayment.”

Brand thought to see him lay hands upon Lavatis. Tiny hands grappled and teeth flashed white. Brand was reminded of two tomcats as a flurry of a struggle ensued, the action too fast to follow. Before Brand could reach out to restrain Piskin, the manling leapt up and ran away, shrieking. His eyes bulged, his face was white. He held his right arm curled against his chest. Dark blood stained his fine waistcoat. Brand saw that his hand had been bitten off, leaving only a stump at the wrist.

Brand knelt again beside Tomkin, and the dying manling flashed him a smile full of blood-circled teeth.

“Told him I would have his foul hand!” chuckled Tomkin. He made no move to spit out the severed hand. Brand reflected that the Wee Folk were a strange lot.

The pulsing Jewel on the manling’s chest beat faster now, and it seemed less regular.

“Should we take the Jewel from him?” asked Telyn in alarm.

“Try it!” said Tomkin. “My hunger has yet to be sated!”

“Would it kill him to remove it? What would the Rainbow do?” asked Telyn. Even as she spoke, Brand knelt beside the manling. He reached out his hand tentatively, wondering if he would fare better than had Piskin, should he try to snatch it.

Tomkin made a choking cry. “The ants cut at me!” he cried. Brand’s eyes widened as he watched rips appear on the thin flesh of the manling’s shins and ankles. Blood welled up from the cuts. Tomkin writhed in agony. The blue pulses filled the chamber with rapid, flashing light.

“Brand! The monster is coming!” cried Tylag from the hall. Even as he spoke, Brand felt the stone beneath his knees shiver. The ancient timbers creaked and groaned. A great crash sounded out in the main chamber and men screamed. Daylight and clouds of choking dust flooded into the room.

“We must get out, Brand!” cried Telyn, tugging at him.

“Tomkin!” shouted Brand, and for a second the manling’s eyes fluttered open. “You have earned my friendship. Have I earned yours?”

Tomkin’s grin resembled a snarl. He nodded weakly.

“Then Tomkin, allow me to take the Jewel from you. Let me take up this burden, that you might live to see another day.”

Tomkin didn’t reply. His eyes were closed and his breathing was ragged.

Brand reached down and gingerly took the Jewel Lavatis from his neck, expecting at any moment to see those sharp ice-white teeth snap shut upon his fingers like a poacher’s trap. But although Tomkin’s body shuddered when the Jewel was lifted from his breast, he allowed it.

Brand staggered to his feet. The wall before him gave way, and he felt the terror of facing the Rainbow once again. A great shimmering hand forced its way into the chamber and began to grope for the Jewel. The Rainbow loosed an odd, insane howl that shook the flagstones.

Brand looked down and saw Telyn take up Tomkin’s limp form and hold it to her chest as one would a child. She fled the chamber with Tomkin’s body flopping loosely against her.

The Rainbow, now freed of any master and full of madness, reached for him and the Jewel. Brand cried out and hacked at the brilliant fingers. Chopping into the hand felt odd, almost as if he were cutting at a bag of soft cotton. A shimmering finger fell to the floor of the chamber and flailed there. The great hand was snatched back. The flagstones ran with liquid colors and outside, the creature loosed another howl. Its huge face came near the opening and a single, mad eye of blue flame regarded Brand.

He wasted no more time. He ran into the hallway after Telyn. Behind them there was a terrific sound as the Rainbow ripped away the wall of the keep. Those of the men who had not already fled in terror joined them, including Tylag and Corbin. As they ran they could hear the thunder and the smashing blows of the Rainbow as it followed them unerringly.

“It’s no good, Brand!” shouted Telyn. “The Rainbow can sense the Jewel! It is drawn to it the way things are drawn to my beacons!”

Brand stopped and eyed her, knowing the truth of her words. He put away his axe and lifted the chain from which Lavatis hung and looked into the depths of the stone. It seemed to him that something there regarded him in return. He felt a shiver chase through his body. He kissed Telyn’s head, and then pushed her away.

“Run,” he told her. He glanced at Tomkin’s still form, which Telyn still carried, and wondered if he yet lived. Telyn looked at him in surprise, and she searched his face for a brief moment.

“You mean to wield the Jewel,” she said, her eyes filling with an expression of horror. She opened her mouth to beseech him. He shook his head, kissed her mouth and lifted up the chain and the brilliant Blue Jewel again, gazing into it.

“Good luck, cousin,” said Corbin. He pulled at Telyn’s shoulder and together they fled with the rest of the troops down a stairway that still remained whole.

Left alone in the shaking keep, Brand stood to face the Rainbow. It shook the walls and stove in the ceiling. Insane eyes burned down upon him.

Brand slid the chain amulet that contained the Jewel Lavatis over his head, and he took it for his own.

He fell to the dust-laden flagstones and began to rave.

Chapter Sixteen

The Bloodhound

Brand awoke groggily with great pain in his legs and side. He was surprised to find that he was outside, lying across something large and hard. Disoriented, he looked around. In the west, the sun was dying, already half-hidden by the crooked dead trees. He was vaguely surprised to realize that the battle had lasted a night and a day. Then he rose up on one elbow, and saw that the thing pressing against his belly was the wall of the keep. Then he saw his belly, and he screamed.

His scream came out as an odd, warbling howl. His belly was a vast shimmering spanse of brilliant hues. He was the Rainbow.

Tiny things pained his feet and side. He turned ponderously to see that rhinogs were hacking and cutting chunks of the vaporous stuff of his body from him. He swatted at them and they died. He stood up, then staggered, unsteady on his injured feet. He fell to his knees again…

…and was back in the keep. His mouth was encrusted with centuries-old dust. He choked on it, and tried to rise. He sensed something near him, something bad…

…he was the Rainbow again, but now he had lost his balance and was falling. It seemed that he had been falling for a long time, as if it took quite some time to reach the distant ground with its tiny, fuzz-like grass and pebble-like boulders. He wondered if it would hurt when he hit, and it did…

…in the keep again. This time he tried to rise quickly. The thing that approached him, the bad thing, was very near now. He felt for Ambros, and it slapped itself into his hand eagerly. A shock ran through him as the two Jewels sensed one another, and declared war upon one another. The battlefield was his mind, and as the two siblings charged one another, it seemed like great wet clumps of brain were torn up and tossed about in his skull. He groaned…