All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) (10 page)

Chapter 19: Escape from Gorias

Lani and Justin were just finishing securing the spear-head onto one of the few bronze shafts when they heard him. Megan instinctively dove out of the way as the lash of the whip, bits of iron still entangled in it, struck the stone where she'd been standing.

Justin drew the sword and reached for his badly-damaged shield. Lani fumbled with the spear, but kept hold of it as she went for the cover of the table, using her free hand to drag Sorcha with her.

The Fomoire overseer with the twisted leg grinned, displaying oversized tusks and pointed teeth, about half of them missing. Instead of worrying about Justin, he cut the non-combatants off, lashing down on the table. The whip shattered the stone noisily, just before the pair could dive under it.

Justin lunged, seeing the opening, slashing with the sword at the Fomoire's leg. There was a crunch, like hitting bone or carapace, and the cloth that burned away under the sword's strike revealed that the skin under it had a shiny black texture, and was hard enough to have cracked instead of being sliced. Grayish-red ichor oozed from the wound.

The Fomoire swung a backhand strike at the young knight. Justin got the shield up, but was still sent flying under the impact, hitting the wall hard. Lani, after a moment of fearful indecision, tossed the spear towards Megan. Then she pushed Sorcha behind one of the ruined sections of table.

Clutching her bag, Lani then stepped away from that limited cover and whistled. The giant Fomoire turned at the sound, ignoring Justin and focusing in on Lani. Trying to keep his focus, she went for the first tool in her bag, throwing her hammer at him. Though he paused for a moment as it flew, the hammer bounced off the Fomoire's chest ineffectively. He brought the whip back, lashing at her, as Lani dove aside. He brought the whip back up for a second strike, but the exchange was all the time Megan needed. She picked up the spear and charged. She plunged the spear into the Fomoire's back, surprised, given all of the injuries and attacks she'd seen Fomoire withstand before, at how easily the weapon cut into him. The reaction was immediate, and a lot more severe than she expected. He screamed and pitched forward, with the wound starting to gush more of the ichor.

She was still staring, dumbfounded, as Justin, slightly dizzy but moving, reached her. Lani was just behind him, with Sorcha in tow. "We need to go, now!" Lani called.

Megan pulled her attention away from the wounded Fomoire and scrambled after them. They managed to get out of the room and down an alley as the sounds of heavy footsteps reached the armory. Ashling led them on a twisting, turning route through the undercity, doubling back or declaring routes newly unsafe, before she finally found them a stairway.

From there, they headed on a circuitous route through the city, narrowly evading a couple of patrols before making a sprint up to the top of the wall. With the alarm spreading, they secured the rope and half climbed, half-slid down the rope. Justin just had Sorcha hold on to him as he went first and started forging a trail through the snow. Lani climbed down after him.

Megan tossed the spear down, then scrambled for the rope, hearing Fomoire coming up the stairs and shouts from the nearest guardhouses as they picked up on the commotion. She was halfway down the rope when a twisted face appeared over the edge of the wall. She was out of reach of a grab, but any relief at that turned into panic when the Fomoire instead grabbed the rope and began to draw it up. Megan looked up at the giants reeling her in, took a deep breath, and let go.

Her stomach turned as if she were weightless, but only briefly, as she soon felt very heavy indeed. The snow padded her fall, leaving her sure nothing was broken, but it hurt nonetheless.

Megan didn't have time to think of the bruises—not even of what kind of colors they would be by the time she had the leisure to think about them. She picked herself up, grabbed the spear, and dashed after the others. Ashling turned the Count around and flew back towards Megan, shouting.

It took a moment to make the words out. “Thistle! Lavender!”

Megan started singing “
Thistle, Lavender, Mulberry and Mauve
,” just as the Fomoire were getting archers to the walls. The burst of wind called up ruined shots and stirred up snowdrifts.

Gorias, City of War, got progressively noisier as they left it behind, running for the wooded area and cover.

By the time they reached it, Megan collapsed, gasping for breath. Neither Lani nor Sorcha looked much better off, the former for having had to help the much taller sidhe, while Sorcha was just in no condition for the chase.

"Which way?" Justin asked, moving to help with Sorcha, while Lani, after catching her breath, helped Megan to stand.

"The plan can't change," Megan said. "We need to kill Balor... re-kill Balor... something."

Justin hesitated, then nodded. "Of course, my Lady."

"What is it?" Megan asked as they started moving again, with Ashling guiding them on the swiftest path to the lake.

"We'll be cornered there," Justin said. "With no distractions or diversions."

"Then we'll have to be quick. And maybe hope the spear lives up to its billing."

"You're going to count on the whole unstoppable thing, when you have no idea how its magic works, when we're dealing with an army?" Lani asked.

"No," Megan said. "I'm counting on there not being an army we have to deal with. At least not yet."

"I'm confused. You heard the alarm," Lani said.

Despite Megan's confident statement, she glanced over her shoulder as she moved, taking up Justin's role, for a while, of breaking the snow and ice just ahead of them to ease the others' passage. "And then the intruders, who stole something from the armory and maybe killed a guard, fled into the snow,” she said. “Sure, they'll find our trail eventually, but they still can't scry on us, and with the snow blowing around, it might take them a while. They have a lot of ground to cover."

"So, you're counting on luck?"

"Nope,” Megan said, adding in a few musical notes to cause the snow to blow and cover their tracks. “I'm counting on most of them putting the lake last on their agenda. We know they'd like to avoid it.”

“But we think Cethlenn doesn't avoid it,” Lani said. “And in a sudden emergency, she might want to check on her family-tomb-tomb-slash-necromancy-experiment.”

“I'm counting on that, too.”

“What?” Lani clearly would have shouted louder if she'd had the breath.

“She won't bring an army. Just her most trusted. A lot of these people are probably more loyal to Indech, whom we've agreed might not know about the 'experiment.'”

"So she'll only bring a few people. Is
Mrs. Balor
not enough of a problem for you?”

“A necessary problem. She has to be taken down, no matter what we do to the body, or she'll keep having chances to raise him from scratch.”

“Reasonable,” Lani said.

“Well,” Justin said. “If they head straight there, they won't be far behind us."

Chapter 20: Backlash

Even with Megan doing her best counter-magic dirge, she still ended up tumbling down the stairs into Balor's tomb as green fire exploded behind her. Lani, just a couple steps ahead of Megan, barely managed to jump down of the way.

Thankfully, Justin had gotten Sorcha down the steps already. "Find her some cover!" Justin shouted to Ashling, as he turned, raising his ruin of a shield and the Claiomh Solais to defend them while Lani helped Megan to her feet.

Megan gritted her teeth against the pain of another hard fall, and forced herself to resume singing. Justin's estimate of "Not far behind them" had proven prescient. They took cover and prepared to ambush the first person down the steps. It seemed she'd been right about Cethlenn keeping the information close. Megan had only briefly gotten any kind of idea of numbers, as the Fomoire pursued them through the blowing snow, but she was pretty sure the tracking party with the sorceress was small.

Yeah, Mrs. Balor
only
brought a few of the kind of guys we've barely been handling alone
, she thought.
And if I sing really well, and Justin does all the sword's protective tricks, then maybe,
maybe
these spells won't fry us. Am I supposed to be doing something different with the spear?

When Megan realized there was no more fire raining down after them, she paused in her singing, looking up the steps.

"She doesn't want to risk hurting the body," Justin said. Lani was still guiding Sorcha to the only hiding place available, taking cover behind Balor's partially rejuvenated form.

Heavy footsteps, and the howl of a pair of beasts finally closed enough to carry over the noise outside. There were other noises as well, but nothing Megan could quite discern.

She was just starting to feel light-headed when the Count landed on her shoulder. "Megan, sing, now!" Ashling shouted, with the pixie launching into the opening lyrics of Megan's counter-magic. It wasn't until Megan started singing that the dizziness faded, if only slightly.

As the footsteps grew closer, she was more easily able to pick out a reverberating female voice, chanting in something very like Gaelic, though Megan didn't recognize the rhythm or cadence as anything she'd heard before. The longer it went, though, the more she tried to piece the words together, her own voice fading, as did all the sounds around her.

Ashling shouted again in her ear and tugged on her hair.

“Cut it out! Trying to hear th—” conscious realization of what she was about to say caught up with Megan. She gripped the spear tighter and focused in on Ashling's voice, picking up on the song again in the process. As she re-dedicated herself to the counter-magic, greater awareness returned. The fire had stopped, but Cethlenn had plenty of other tricks.

“
Croí folláin agus—Justin, they're coming!
” Megan sang as seamlessly as possible. She raised her voice, trying to drown out Cethlenn's further. Justin, having started to look dizzy himself, snapped back to attention at Megan calling his name.

As they prepared to hold their ground, she became aware of was a feeling of intense cold against the hand tightly gripping the spear. Surprisingly, the cold didn't actually hurt: Megan just registered that it was there. She glanced down. Ice-blue runes had started to work their way over her hand and up her arm.

Her first instinct was to drop the spear—with even the thought, the cold lessened, the runes started to fade, and Cethlenn's voice seemed louder again. Megan tightened her grip again. The chill in her arm built up once more as she sang, and her sonorous words became more piercing.
So that's how it works.

They were coming. She could vaguely make out one of the handlers past the two beasts he was loosing into the burial chamber. The one coming directly at her looked much like a cross between a rhino and a praying mantis with a lobster's exoskeleton. Smaller and faster, the second, some sort of hybrid of six-legged tiger and saber-tusked wild boar, bounded around its bigger cousin, leaping at Justin. There was a sound of tearing metal, and a muffled scream from Justin.

Megan managed to keep her eyes forward, on the bigger creature barreling down the steps. An image of the battle of Murias flashed in her mind, and she did her best imitation of the ljosalfar spearmen, setting the base of the spear against a foot and lowering the point, just as the monster got to her. Its strength and momentum drove it onto the spear, surprising her with how easily the spearhead punched through the carapace. The preying rhinolobster kept coming down the spear until it stumbled on the steps and fell. Even then, the horned nose lashed at her, ending up just short. The mantis arms nearly snapped shut on her hands, but she managed to avoid them, almost losing hold of the spear in the process. For a moment, she thought the borrowed spear-shaft might snap, but it held, and as the rhinolobster lashed, she twisted the spear until it went still.

She kept singing throughout, holding back Cethlenn's enchantment, but was starting to struggle for breath. A glance to the side revealed the boar-thing with its tusked rammed directly through Justin's shield into his arm. Though the wounds were shallow, veins along the outside of the tusks swelled red, as it drained blood like a mosquito. The creature bore a large, black mark down its side where the Sword of Light had struck, but it wasn't a fatal blow, and Justin was struggling to get in a strike with any force behind it with the monster standing mostly over him.

Megan readied to help him, only to discover the spear stuck deep in her opponent's chest. She struggled to free it, while the attackers above started trying to pull the body out of their way, threatening to pull her spear right with it.

Ashling came to Justin's rescue, using the knitting needle like a lance this time, the Count diving at the creature's eye. As the tiny weapon plunged in, the tigerboar released its hold to snap at Ashling. With a little more room, Justin managed to thrust upward, plunging the sword into its neck. The creature fell forward, pinning Justin. As he struggled to wiggle free, Megan finally pulled the spear loose, as the handlers were dragging the bigger body out of the way.

She dodged backwards from a whip, shifting to keep the attackers away from Justin until he could get himself free. It worked for a few moments, keeping the Fomoire atop the stairs, lashing at their opponents. Finally, one of the whips curled around the spear, taking advantage of Fomoire quickness and Megan's inexperience with the weapon despite its power. Before the handler could yank it free, Justin cut the whip, his shield arm still bleeding heavily.

Running short on breath and against the Fomoire's greater reach, Megan backed away, followed by Justin, who, despite his injuries, retreated backwards to stay between her and the Fomoire.

The spear might have protected her in some fashion, but she wasn't sure what she could count on. She did discover that as she went from standing her ground into retreat, the cold against her hand lessened, and the runes started to fade. Her counter-magic continued, but she could once again feel Cethlenn's enchantment trying to worm its way into her brain.

In fact, as Megan backed away, Cethlenn's voice increased in volume. The Fomoire handlers started down the steps, followed by Cethlenn, followed by two warriors, and a dozen slaves. Megan kept backing away with Justin, staying within the sword's protection. Light-headedness swept over her, from a combination of the enemy's spell, and her own shortness of breath.

Cethlenn gestured again, and her voice took on an echoing quality. The two handlers started to advance, while the armored warriors moved to Cethlenn's side to protect her. At the change in Cethlenn's voice, two of the slaves dropped to their knees, the others visible teetered, and from the other side of the corpse, Megan thought she could hear Sorcha choking. The black lines under their skin writhed and shifted, and visible tendrils of mist leaked from their mouths, noses, and ears, flowing towards Cethlenn, feeding her magic.

Megan bumped back into Balor's body, feeling something under the skin moving, while muscle slowly filled out as the sorceress accelerated her spells with the vitality of the slaves.

Every time they tried to advance, even Ashling and the crow, they were forced back as the Fomoire advanced. The effects of the spear and the sword kept them wary, but that was it. Electing not to try to work her way around Balor's body, with Justin interposing himself between her and the Fomoire, Megan decided to make one last stand. She set her feet and readied the spear, feeling its power flooding into her again. She chanced one deep breath, making a literal last-gasp effort to stave off Cethlenn's twin spells, even as she found the Fomoire witch's power overwhelming her own.

She held, nonetheless, vaguely aware of Sorcha trying to croak out something. The Count at that point flew further from the fray and circled first to Sorcha and Lani's cover, then towards Justin, shouting something Megan could not hear.

Justin responded almost immediately, running to Megan. He pushed the sword at her, not trying to talk over her singing. Confused, she took the sword, even as Justin took hold of the spear. Trusting his judgment, she let go. Her song weakened, the runes fading, but at least the sword still helped keep her mind somewhat clear.
Whatever she told you to do, Justin, better do it quick.

Justin climbed atop Balor's rapidly recovering corpse, his right arm as covered in the icy runes as his left arm was in blood. There was a strange hiss in the air, like snow boiling, as he plunged the spear into the huge chest. Megan could almost hear blood sizzling, and she realized that the necromancy had gone so far that there had been blood in him again. The sound, the smell, and the minor spike in radiation despite the shrouds made everyone in the room cringe.

Well, not everyone. The effect on Cethlenn was more drastic: all of the mists flowing to and from her twisted back on her, the necromantic magic reversing and sucking the life from her, until she was a desiccated corpse on the floor, with black lines writhing under the skin.

Once Cethlenn was gone, Megan found herself watching a few of the scarred captives, the ones who had once been human. They did not collapse like people, fainting or killed. They collapsed like buildings under controlled demolition, crumbling to dust.

Megan backed towards Sorcha, doing her best counter-magic, though it came between wheezing breaths. She figured it couldn't hurt, and apparently it didn't. When the dust cleared, she could see that the sidhe was still breathing, her shimmering, damaged eyes opening.

Justin was also unharmed as he pulled the slightly bloodstained spear out of the somewhat-cooled corpse. His arm was still ice-runed as he looked up from the task and across the room.

The remaining Fomoire surveyed the situation. In this room of corpses and dust, they still had numbers, experience, and raw power—except for that concentrated in those two weapons. They retreated, dragging the remaining slaves with them.