The Ascension (18 page)

Rio looked away.

“What is it?” Sparks asked. “Rio, what’s going on?”

“She’s dead!” The other boy shouted it loud enough that his
penitent
tone could be heard across the field. “Is that what you want to hear, Sparks?

She’s dead. I was trying to kil the nephew of the Winter Queen, and she threw herself between us. I…

I saw her fal , and the wound was right by her throat.”

“You could be wrong,” Sparks said. “She could stil be…”

“She’s dead.”

The certainty of it hit Sparks like a lead weight. He stood very stil for a moment, before his weight. He stood very stil for a moment, before his hand went to his sword. Only his mother’s hand folded over his stopped him from drawing it.

“Let me go.”

“No, my son. Show
discretion
here. We need the werewolves to
counteract
Winter’s assault. I wil not let your anger get us al kil ed.” Sparks wanted to argue. No, he wanted to throw off his mother’s grip and attack Rio. The trouble was, even with al his anger, he knew that she was right. A grey-haired werewolf had stepped in front of Rio. To get to Gem’s kil er, he would have to start a war. A
divisive
move like that could see them al kil ed by the forces of the Winter Court. Defeating them was
paramount
. He glared at Rio.

“When this is over, you’re dead. I wil find you.”

The other boy gave him a look that simply didn’t seem to care. Sparks might have said more, but the forces of the Winter Queen chose that moment to arrive. They were impressive, Sparks had to admit. Huge polar bears studded lines made up of fairy men in dark armor. Spiky beings of pure ice moved in unpredictable patterns. Snow leopards and white tigers paced, held on golden leashes, while a pack of timber wolves jostled around a huge figure in furs.

At the center of their line stood the Winter Queen, wearing armor that seemed to shimmer and change as Sparks watched, a spear that was little more than a long icicle in her hands. There was no thi ng
equivocal
about the sense of power emanating from her, and for a moment it was enough to distract Sparks from the pair of figures by her side, wearing dark armor and carrying two short, stabbing swords each.

“Jack? Kat? When did they get here?”

His mother looked out over the battlefield, fol owing the line of his gaze.

“So, the Winter Queen has her children back too.” She gave Sparks a long look. “Do not hold back when you fight them, my son.”

“But-”

“Wil you
flout
my wishes in this? I want you safe. Take no risks. Whatever you think you know about them, it is untrue now. They wil not hesitate to kil you, and your
forbearance
could be your death.

Now, to arms.”

With the late arrival of the werewolves, there hadn’t been time to even
adumbrate
a battle plan, but Sparks suspected it wouldn’t have made much difference. This was not a battle that was going to be decided by clever stratagems. It would be about might, and power, and Summer crashing against its
antithesis
again and again until one side found itself forced back. Briefly, Sparks tried to
appraise
the sides in an attempt to work out which it would be, but he simply could not tel .

The battle started without warning, and apparently without signal. Vol eys of arrows came from the Summer side, only to be matched by clouds of ice shards from the Winter ranks. Sparks conjured a shield of Summer heat as a few came close, letting them melt before they hit. His mother pul ed him back to the rear of the line.

“Don’t be too eager. There wil be danger enough.”

Sparks knew that she was right, but even so, it was hard to stand
impassively
as the edges of the two armies harried one another. The arrows didn’t do much damage though, and soon the armies began to sweep towards one another, building towards that
appalling
moment when the warriors within would clash, and fight, and kil .

It came in an instant, and even near the back, Sparks could feel the violence ahead. The armies pressed and surged, struggling for advantage.

Sparks drew his sword, waiting for his moment to join the fray. A little way away, Rio and his werewolves were watching just as patiently.

The moment came, in the form of a gap through which Sparks could see the Winter Queen and her entourage. Ignoring the danger it would
entail
, Sparks threw himself forward.

“Charge!”

A Winter Court fairy got in his way, and Sparks cut him down without pausing. Another slammed a blow into his shield, and his mother blasted him aside with pure heat. Around Sparks, the werewolves joined the fight with almost berserk fury, striking at any Winter Court foe foolish enough to get near. Rio
exhorted
them to even greater efforts, not that it did anything to
expiate
his crimes in Sparks’ eyes.

In fact, just the anger that came with thinking about that made Sparks fight al the harder. He found himself almost
exulting
in the simplicity of the violence, losing himself, and his pain, in the need to fight. He stepped inside the reach of a polar bear to thrust through its heart, then spun to strike down a spear wielding fairy who had been sneaking up behind him.

He looked up from that to see his mother throwing herself at the Winter Queen. Even from where he was, he could feel the backwash of the magic they were using against one another, while the sight of the Summer Queen’s sword clashing with the icy spear of her nemesis was simply terrifying. Sparks doubted that he could have stood for long against either of them.

There were other opponents available though.

Jack and Kat came out of the chaos of the battle, fighting together with speed and almost
fastidious
precision. One would block a blow, and the other would be there, already riposting. One would tangle a foe’s blade, and the other would be there to finish them off. Their eyes locked onto Sparks almost them off. Their eyes locked onto Sparks almost simultaneously.

Except that Kat’s eyes then shifted to a spot beside Sparks. Sparks saw Rio step past him, and Kat leapt at him with a barrage of blows, forcing him back. It left Sparks facing only Jack.

“Come on, Jack,” Sparks said, searching for some sense of
affinity
between the two of them, “it doesn’t have to be like this. We’re buddies, remember?”

“Is that what you cal it?” The fury in the words hardly sounded like Jack. He paused to toss aside a fairy who ran at him. “I recal you tolerating me, treating me like a kid. Rio, you treated him like a genuine rival when it came to Gem, but I wasn’t even good enough for that.”

Sparks found his anger rising again at the mention of Gem.

“Jack…” he warned.

“No.” The boy flexed his muscles, spinning his two swords in a loose circle. “I’m sick of your kind.

Quarterbacks who only want to push people around.

Wel , we’l see who is the tough guy, won’t we?” He lunged at Sparks, forcing Sparks to parry frantical y. In the teeth of that much fury, Sparks wasn’t in a position to see the figure watching the whole thing from a nearby hil side…

“I should be down there,” Gem insisted, for the third time. As with the other two, her father shook his head. They had stolen horses from the Winter Queen’s castle as they fled it, arriving here before the armies, but apparently it wasn’t to aid in the war effort.

“And what could you add to the total
aggregate
of violence?” her father asked. “No, Gem. You needed to see it, but that isn’t your part in al this.”

“Then what is?” Gem demanded.

“There is another
altercation
to deal with, one that is yours to resolve.”

It came to Gem then.

“You mean the attack on Anachronia.”

Her father nodded.

“Exactly,” he said, “Devon and his men march on your castle even now. May I have your ring for a moment?”

Gem pul ed off the red-glowing ring that would Gem pul ed off the red-glowing ring that would normal y have served as her way back home. Henry Word examined it for a moment.

“Yes, this should stil work, and with any luck Percy is stil monitoring things.” He spoke into the ring like it was a smal microphone. “Percy, if you can hear me, my daughter is going to need something more than a dress when she lands. As quick as you can, please. Now…”

He gave the ring back to Gem, who put it back on her finger.

“When you get back to Anachronia, run for the castle gates.
Run
. With any luck, people in your castle wil be paying attention. Oh, and try not to kil Devon. We’l need him.”

He twisted the ring before Gem could reply, and the world shifted. The dizzying sight of her own castle lay in front of her, and looking down revealed a suit of golden armor along with a sword.

“Thank you, Dr. Brown.”

Unfortunately, looking around revealed a force of fairy knights, laying siege to the castle.

Fol owing her father’s advice, Gem ran for the gate.

She’d gone almost half way before a cry went up among the besiegers, but the castle gate stil wasn’t opening. Gem turned, drawing her sword in time to fend off a blow from a soldier.

“Evanescent.”

The brief light the ruler word provided was enough to make the man reel back. She edged away, but a half circle of them was starting to form around her, whose
culmination
would probably be an attack. Only then did the comforting sound of an opening gate come to Gem, along with the blare of horns as knights poured from it. Gem ran again then, catching the fairy men by surprise. With a ring of knights around the entrance to Anachronia’s castle, they didn’t try to fol ow. Gem barreled through the gate, coming to a halt only when she more or less crashed into a familiar, gold-robed figure.

“Goolrick! Am I glad to see you!”

Gem actual y kissed him then, catching the young wizard by surprise for a moment, though he recovered wel enough to kiss her back.

“I have missed you too, My Queen. As promised, no bouts of evil-wizarding in your absence. As you can see though, we do have a slight problem with invaders.”

“I noticed,” Gem said. “Are you managing to fight them off?”

“So far, though I’m sure your presence wil help. You see, your Dragon has
quite
refused to move for me, while the shadow folk are simply watching from the edges. They seem to think that I am
culpable
in your disappearance.” Wel , Gem could hardly blame them. After al , she had run off in a hurry. But she was back now.

“Goolrick, send a message to the Shadow King informing him that I’m back. I’l go and see the Dragon. Then get the men ready. It’s time to fight!” Chapter 20

Gem circled the battlefield below atop her dragon, which had cooed and rumbled when it saw her, buffeting her with its three heads like a kitten trying to get its ears scratched. As a result, Gem ached as each powerful beat of the creature’s wings sent them powering through the air. Gem just hoped that those bruises were the worst she would receive today.

Already, the armies were engaged at the castle gate. Gem had
allocated
most of her strongest fighters there, where they could do the most good. Even so, the press of the Winter Court knights against them had to be terrible, and Gem found herself hoping that their shadowy al ies would arrive soon, before the Winter Court’s attempts to
annex
her kingdom were too far advanced to stop.

As if the thought summoned them, a dark wave of creatures flowed from the nearby woods.

From above, it looked like a stain spreading across a tablecloth, but Gem knew that in it there would be spiders and woodland creatures. At their heart would be their
protean
King, who never seemed to settle on one form for more than a heartbeat.

The shadow creatures struck the Winter Court forces from the side, and vicious fighting began, quickly turning to
viscous
fighting as the ground around the castle gates churned into a muddy
morass
. Gem swooped low, and the Dragon let out a blast of flame that had several Winter Court knights retreating.

One figure didn’t retreat, however. Even among the chaos below, Gem could pick out Devon’s
redoubtable
figure, fighting in the middle of a line while issuing instructions to a second in command who ran with the orders where they were needed. A flash of fear shot through Gem as one of her own guards got close to him with a swinging glaive, but Devon managed to avoid it, tripping the soldier and pushing him back into his own lines.

Actual y, Gem thought as she surveyed those trapped in a more
terrestrial
existence than she was, Devon seemed to be doing a lot of that sort of thing. He hit one Anachronian with his shield, then sidestepped another’s thrust without riposting. He kicked the legs out from an attacker, but didn’t fol ow it up with a kil ing thrust. Devon seemed to be either a much greater humanitarian than his
renown
among his men would suggest, or he was fighting without any real commitment to the battle.

It made sense that Devon would be
ambivalent
, Gem supposed, since he was only there thanks to the threat to her. The trouble was, in the
fickle
heat of battle, would Devon real y be able to last long fighting only without kil ing anyone?