Rogue's Pawn (19 page)

The great bird mantled a bit, but seemed more amenable than Larch, who looked decidedly grumpy. “My lady’s arms would be scored by the talons.”

“You hold him. I’ll come to you.”

I knelt down, coincidentally bringing myself to head height with Larch. From this perspective, I could see that his face, his head loomed out of proportion with the rest of his body. Uneasy, I looked away, focusing on the hawk instead. I dipped into its mind, and instantly dropped into spiraling vertigo, hot flight, tearing blood. Gasping, I yanked myself back out.

Larch watched me with a sardonic look that reminded me of Rogue. But all he said was, “Raptors can be difficult to talk to.”

I stood, as much to remove myself from the view of Larch’s odd proportions as to regain some dignity.

“Okay—let’s do this empirically. What is the unmistakable essence of my instructions?”

Larch blinked his catlike eyes at me solemnly. “Little in life is unmistakable, Lady Sorceress.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Yoda.”

“My lady?”

“Yeah, yeah, always in motion is the future, I get it. What do you
think
I am required to do?”

Larch frowned at the hawk. I reached for Darling while I waited. Maybe I could get him just to ask Puck directly. No answer still. And no way to leave a voice mail, either.

“Big, bright explosions spiraling in the sky that blind the enemy,” Larch finally said.

“What about the side effects of blinding our guys? Or us, up here on the hill for that matter?”

Larch squinted before conceding that wasn’t specified. I found myself picking at the dried dragon goo in my hair. “Does it specify permanent blindness? Or that the blinding must be a direct result of the sky explosions?”

When Larch allowed that neither of these things were specified, I had my plan.

I slipped off my shoes and clambered up to stand on the stool, which was nice and stable. Maybe I had known what I was doing after all when I fused it to the bedrock. The hawk showed no inclination to leave, so it and Larch watched me from below. I needed something more showy, like a wand or a few shouted words, but oh well.

I pictured Fourth of July fireworks, a whole half-hour show’s worth—granted not all of those would spiral, but I did make sure to include those ones that swirl down in fuzzy worms and then break into starbursts. I set that going and was startled by the burst of music that accompanied it. Apparently my mental movie of fireworks shows carried the typical soundtrack of patriotic songs. Done deal now.
Talk about not being able to run away from yourself.

While the disembodied voice belted out his thanks to be an American and how at least he knew he was free, the fireworks exploded with gratifying brightness—though it would have been better with full dark. The battle had ground mostly to a halt below, with men either cowering down or staring in wonder and fear, or both. Only a few stolidly still hacked at one another. I implemented Phase II, converting sparks from an expanding starburst into myriad tiny fruit flies, implanted with a desire for salt instead of sugar.

With each explosion, another swarm of dark flies descended on the men, going for any exposed skin, attracted by the sweat on their faces and around the eyes vulnerable from the openings in their helmets. I made sure clouds of the irritating insects headed toward both cadres of colorful nobles, too.

Oops, my bad
. Just a happy coincidence that those little flies didn’t like to ascend to heights like ours.

The fireworks continued through their set, unfortunately to the same loop of country song—the only thing worse than manifesting a bad song was that you didn’t know it well enough to at least play it all the way through. Earworm syndrome.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” had to have been played, too—why wasn’t
that
booming through the valley? At least I knew all the words to that. I toyed with disconnecting the soundtrack from the spell but thought I might disrupt the whole thing.

Men scattered, pulling off their helmets and wiping their eyes. The cavalry horses were crying out, rearing and bucking—that was definitely an unintended consequence.

Apologies, horses
. Both armies began to withdraw, trumpets sounding orderly calls to retreat that only highlighted the great disorder. I laughed to see the nobles hightailing it away from the battlefield, surprised to hear Larch chortling along with me.

Both armies seemed to be closing up shop for the night, so I let the fireworks end when their half-hour cycle was up. I’d made the fruit flies all male, so they wouldn’t breed, and made them old enough that they should die off in the next few hours. Pleased with myself, I let Larch help me down from the stool and slipped my heels back on.

“What now?” I asked. “Do we send a message back? Wait for Puck to come fetch us?”

Larch opened his mouth to reply, but he clamped his mouth shut, gaze locked past me in frozen alarm. The hawk mantled and I wheeled around to see the Black Dog, like a piece of night forest with white-bladed teeth, charging at full speed toward us.

Chapter
Twenty

In Which We Celebrate the First Pyrrhic Victory

No!

The scream welled up in my throat, though it had no time to make it past my lips.

No! It wasn’t an accident this time. It was a job. I was made to do it. Not like the birds,
not
like the birds!

I glimpsed what I thought was Larch moving to throw himself in front of me, but all I saw were the slavering jaws coming for me, for my blood. The mirrored glass coat of the Dog reflected night against the crepuscular shadows.

I saw my death in it.

I braced myself, mind racing for some image, some spell to stop it, but before I formed something cohesive from the shrieking birds of my thoughts, even as the Dog leaped for me, a thudding pain dropped me to the ground.

Remnants of the fireworks sprang around the dark edges of my vision, bright pinpoints sparkling against blood red. I heard Larch screaming in thin wails, as Loden had. I couldn’t see through my eyelids. Sounds were muffled, distant.

Of their own accord it seemed, my eyelids fluttered open to show me the unnatural ultramarine of the sky, wheeling with streaks of bright sunset.

My stomach quailed and a headache throbbed between my eyes, piercing deeper with each of Larch’s cries. And someone else’s screams, too. At first I thought the hoarse shouts of battle still echoed in my head, those few that drifted up to us on the warm air currents. When I realized these were just beyond me, very immediate, their loudness penetrating the veil of my confusion, it galvanized me.

Like a cat out of bath water, I sprang up and landed curled in a crouch before I finished the thought that I should move.

It took a moment to make sense of what I saw. My visual cortex struggled to right the images, to make sense of the flailing limbs. Instead of seeing Larch convulse as the Black Dog gutted him, I saw men on the ground, Larch pinning one with a spearlike thing through the neck. The Black Dog tore the throat out of another man as I watched, the blood arcing in a violet stream against the graying sage of the mosses and white rocks. I heard the skirl of the hawk, circling above.

The Dog stood on the chest of the man he’d just killed, and I caught my breath remembering the great weight of him. That vicious dark muzzle lowered and he sniffed the man’s congealing face.

My stomach wrenched. Fear flowed through me, my blood turned to mercury, thin and hot. I tucked my feet up, ready to stand, to run, to do something. One shoe was gone. Magic—I needed a spell against the Dog.

Even as I thought it, the Dog raised his head, a hound scenting prey, and looked over his glossy shoulder.

At me.

Blood dripping from his muzzle, the Dog’s lambent amber eyes glared at me. Daring me. He licked his glossy muzzle and delicately stepped off the corpse, padding toward me like a panther.

“No magic, Lady Gwynn, please,” Larch whispered, still clutching the spear that impaled the other body. As the Dog stalked toward me, I glimpsed another bloodied corpse just beyond the others. “Trust me. No magic.”

“He’ll kill me,” I said.

“No. He’s protecting you.”

I strangled a sob as the Dog stopped in front of me. I could smell blood and meat on his hot breath as he panted gently. My breast throbbed, each healing tooth mark a pinpoint resounding with my adrenaline-fueled heartbeat. The prey in me wanted to run, to break cover, to heart-poundingly try for some safety even while I knew I couldn’t escape him.

“He attacked me once before.”

“To save you from yourself.”

Oh.

The Black Dog’s jaws fell wider into a canine laugh. He took one more step forward and I moaned, deep in my throat, lunch acrid in my stomach. He cocked his head, touched his muzzle to my temple in a soft warm whuffing. I patted his head, feeling awkward. He licked my wrist, rubbing his head against my hand. Back to friendly Lab mode. Then he vaulted over my head and trotted into the deepening forest.

We watched him go in silence.

“Who is he?’

Larch glanced at me sideways. “Guardian. Passer of boundaries. Gatekeeper, guide and reaper.”

“Reaper?” I strangled on the word. “I’m not dead.”
Am I?

“There are many ways and worlds to cross.”

“Why is he protecting me?”

Larch grinned at me, unexpected and somewhat eerie on his stolid blue face. “I suspect that’s a question more than one person would like the answer to. Shall we return to camp, my lady sorceress?”

I nodded, blowing my breath out in one long exhale.

Riding back down the hill, navy-dark Larch following as my horse picked her way along the shadowed descent, I fingered the tender bump under my hair, where one man had struck me. They’d crept up from behind to attack. Drag me off or murder me—it mattered little which. And the Dog had likely saved my life. Again. Though the first occasion seemed considerably muddier.

“Who were those men on the hill?” I asked Larch.

“Barbarians,” he confirmed.

“Sent to kill me?”

“Or capture. We were careless.”

Okay then.

We caught up with the long train of men marching back to some camp along the river. They strung along the road, looking fierce and exhausted. A mutter ran through them as we came alongside, passing rapidly, my horse’s fresh canter far exceeding their battle-weary tread. Some looked askance, others openly stared.

I wanted to say hello, ask questions. This was clearly not the time. So I just rode alongside, soaking up the comfort of being near my own kind.

A chant sprang up from a few throats, guttural rhythm to their heavy steps. Others joined in, the song spreading up and down the column, seeping like water through the tired faces. The words made no sense—instead I received a barrage of ideas, flashes of battle scenes, the dragons, the monsters, the fireworks from below, the blinding flies. Me, a small figure in black high up on the hill, midnight hair flying.

I tried to close off the input and concentrated on the sound instead.

Ahm prohd…Tbhee…Mehrkan

Ahtleest…Ahnoh…Ahmfree

It was the soundtrack.

They couldn’t have understood the meaning behind the words, but they’d heard the awful loop enough times that the sounds had sunk in. They went on, male voices rising and falling in the cadence of the nonsense words. If only I had thought ahead, I could have given them something better. “Scotland the Brave,” with bold hearts and nodding plumes.

By the time we reached camp, full night had descended and the tents were brilliantly lit with the disco patterns of the glowing pillows. Larch’s contingent of non-page workers and Dragonfly’s idle maids had clearly been busy. Not a corner of the camp wasn’t glowing. Already music was playing, different tunes from various tent groupings, reminding me of the fraternity stereo wars in college, with each house blasting a different song from speakers propped in the windows.

“Lady Sorceress!” A brownish page I didn’t recognize bowed in front of me.

“Yes?”

“Brilliantly fought battle, Lady Sorceress.”

“Thank you.” I said it drily, but he seemed not to notice. I nudged my horse onward.

“Lady Sorceress!”

I sighed. “How can I help you?”

“I am sent to ask for Lord Darling’s services in the dancing tonight.”

“I haven’t seen Lord Darling, yet—did you look at the tent?”

“I believe he has returned from glorious battle. Just as your victorious self has done.”

Victorious? I hadn’t thought yet about whether we’d won.

“As Lord Darling’s liege, you must give your permission for him to provide services to the camp,” Larch told me.

“Oh, well, Darling is his own cat. Whatever services he wishes to provide are fine by me. Will he be helping to treat the wounded?”

“No, Lady Sorceress.” The page twitched from foot to foot with overweening impatience. “The
dancing.
”

Of course.

“Fine. Whatever. Permission granted. Knock yourselves out.”

The page dashed off happily and we resumed our trek to the tent.

Dragonfly greeted me with the delirious news that a large brass bathtub had appeared in the tribute tent, to her great amazement. I sent a silent thank you to the magic that seemed to ensure that the things I wanted managed to find their way to me, even without my direct intervention.

I was just about to strip down and sink into the enticingly steamy water of the bath Dragonfly had prepared, when a commotion out front caught my attention. I heard Larch informing someone that the lady sorceress was engaged in private study and could not be interrupted. He was still on guard duty apparently—did the guy never sleep? Actually maybe he didn’t need to. What did I know of Brownie physiology?

I pushed through the silken flaps to find Larch holding the brown page by the scruff of the neck so his toes dangled above the ground—quite the feat since they matched in height. The brown page, though, didn’t struggle, simply dangled like a recalcitrant kitten caught in its mother’s teeth. He saw me and moaned.

“If it please you, Lady Sorceress…”

“What? I said Darling could go play with you.”

“Yes, and many thanks, Great and Powerful Lady Sorceress.”

“But?”

“But, if it please you, Lady Sorceress…” Larch gave him a shake, making his eyes goggle a bit.

“Larch, set the poor thing down so he can give me his message and let me get back to my arcane magical studies.” I cocked an eyebrow at Larch, who simply sighed and set the brown guy down.

“Many thanks, many, many thanks, Gracious and Great…”

“You’re welcome. Message please?”

“Lord Darling, he—well, he’s dead, Lady Sorceress. Magically choked to death.”