Once In a Blue Moon (80 page)

She moved slowly forward, trembling with shock. It wasn’t until she felt the wetness on her cheeks that she realised she was crying. She stood before him, and his eyes saw her. He tried to smile. Blood came out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” said Catherine. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“We all tried to warn you . . . about your temper,” said the Warrior.

She grabbed one of his hands, and held it in both of hers, but it was obvious he couldn’t feel it.

“You should have chosen someone better to give your service to,” she said. “Can you tell me your name now, sir Warrior? Please?”

But he was dead, his eyes looking past her at whatever it is only the dead can see. Catherine let go of his hand, and it dropped back to his side. She turned away. Whoever the Sombre Warrior was, or might have been, originally, that man was gone. He was a legend, now and forever.

Catherine walked on through the trees, calling out for Richard. A coldly focused anger moved along in the air ahead of her, striking out at any Unreal thing that dared draw near.

•   •   •

C
happie the dog got separated from everyone almost immediately, and he chased back and forth, taking on anything that didn’t have the sense to run away. He was still a huge and powerful animal, for all his age and grey fur, and blood dripped steadily from his powerful jaws. Until finally, somewhat to his surprise, he got so far ahead of everyone else that he found himself back in the recently cut clearing where Hawk had duelled with Prince Cameron, and he had killed General Staker. Chappie shrugged, and then stopped and looked around him, sniffing suspiciously at the air. He was not alone. In fact, he was surrounded.

Chappie growled menacingly, whipping his great head back and forth, but wherever he looked the Unreal looked back. All kinds of creatures stepped slowly out of the trees and into the clearing, watching him with all kinds of glowing, inhuman eyes. Chappie turned this way and that, showing off his great teeth, snarling continuously.

“Why do you fight us?” said one of the creatures, a silver-grey wolf thing, easily twice the size of the dog. “After all, you’re not like them. You’re one of us. An Unreal creature, fashioned from Wild Magic, that just happens to look like a dog.”

“I am a dog,” said Chappie. “And I’m nothing like you.”

“Join us.”

“Never!”

“You’re not like them, and you never will be,” said the wolf thing. “No matter how long you live, or how much you pretend.”

“Of course I’m not like them,” said Chappie. “I’m a dog! I’m better than them! That’s why I have to look after them.”

The Unreal creatures surged forward into the clearing, pressing forward from every side at once, and Chappie went happily forward to meet them, to tear and bite at them, one old dog with fire in his heart, fighting for those he loved.

•   •   •

R
aven the Necromancer found himself face-to-face with the sorcerer Van Fleet. They both looked rather ragged by now, their once impressive robes tattered and torn and stained with blood. Some of it their own. They advanced slowly on each other, like two scarecrows sent out to duel as champions, and men and monsters alike took one look at them and went somewhere else to do their fighting.

Raven and Van Fleet stopped, facing each other, a respectful distance apart. Raven like a piece of the night in his black tatters, the Infernal Device Soulripper in his hand, straining to be used. Van Fleet, in the ragged remains of his wildly coloured peacock robes, barely restrained magics spitting and crackling on the air around him. Van Fleet smiled suddenly at Raven.

“I’ve been looking for you, Necromancer. I’ve got a special spell, carefully researched and designed just to put an end to you.”

He jabbed a stubby finger at Raven, while mouthing a Word so powerful it shook the sorcerer like a rag doll, and a terrible force existed in the world. Just for a moment. And then it vanished, quite suddenly, unable to find anything to hang on to. Raven was still standing where he had been, entirely unmoved and unaffected. Van Fleet gaped at him.

“That’s not possible. That’s just not possible! That spell was specially designed to strip you of every Necromantic spell and power source you have! I spent weeks on it. It can’t have failed!”

“Well, technically speaking, it didn’t,” said Raven. “But unfortunately for you, I’m not a Necromancer, and never have been. I know nothing of the magic of murder and death. Never even dabbled in such things. It was all just an act. A performance I put on, to build up my reputation. I’m really just a High Magic sorcerer. Like you.”

“But you made the dead sit up and talk!” said Van Fleet almost hysterically. “Everyone saw you!”

“You all saw what I wanted you to see. I moved the dead bodies around with my mind, and did all the voices myself. Just said what people expected to hear, backed up by some careful research . . . A little manipulation here, some throwing of the voice there, and everyone saw what my reputation made them expect to see. People can be very gullible. Come on, Van; you didn’t really think that a grandson of Prince Rupert and Princess Julia would sell his soul in return for murder magic, did you?”

“All a trick,” Van Fleet said numbly. “All an act, all this time . . .” Suddenly he glared at Raven. “I have other spells! Other magics!”

“And I have an Infernal Device,” said Raven.

The two men looked at each other for a long moment. And then Raven lowered his sword and leaned on it.

“Really, Van,” said Raven. “You’re as fed up with this as I am, aren’t you? Neither of us ever intended for things to get this far out of hand. We’re sorcerers, research scholars, not fighters. You didn’t want the Unreal back in Castle Midnight, never mind loose in the world.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because I know you’re not stupid.”

“All right, maybe I’m not happy with the way things have worked out,” said Van Fleet. “Maybe I never wanted this. But what can I do?”

“Work with me,” said Raven, “and help shut it all down.”

He grinned at Van Fleet, and after a moment the sorcerer grinned back. Raven forced the Infernal Device back into its scabbard, against its will, and then the two men walked through the Forest, striking out with their magics. And wherever they looked, the Unreal creatures dropped in their tracks, disappearing back to whatever place King William had summoned them from.

•   •   •

R
oland the Headless Axeman and Witch in Residence Lily Peck moved steadily through the trees, leading the staff and students of the Hero Academy into battle. Swords and axes and bows did their work, and all kinds of magic danced on the air, doing appalling things to appalling creatures. Some caught fire, some exploded, and some crashed to the ground so the swords and axes could chop them up like firewood.

The Alchemist walked abroad, smiling unpleasantly, throwing nasty chemical surprises this way and that, while a young man who could work miracles moved slowly and quietly among the wounded, bringing them back from the shores of death. The staff and students of the Hawk and Fisher Memorial Academy showed what they were made of, what they had been trained to do, and frightened the crap out of everything they encountered.

Roland swung his great axe with indefatigable skill, felling everything that came within reach. He cut off heads, and limbs, and hacked his way through whole packs of unnatural creatures. Blood soaked his armour, but none of it was his. Lily Peck walked calmly beside him, looking about her in a thoughtful sort of way, and the world adjusted itself according to her will, becoming a place where the Unreal could not exist. Things faded away, screaming in rage and horror.

But every time, it took a little more out of her, and moment by moment she grew steadily older and more frail. Using up the years of her life to power her magic.

Roland stopped, for a moment, to look at her. “You never told me.”

“You never asked,” said Lily Peck. “Just as I never asked about you.”

They moved on through the trees, leading the way. Because there was more than one kind of hero in the Hero Academy.

•   •   •

T
he Unreal was thrown back, defeated and destroyed, until finally what was left turned and ran, or just disappeared back to Castle Midnight. Half scared out of their wits, runner after runner reported the bad news to Prince Christof and the Champion in the Redhart command tent. Soon enough, Christof had no choice but to order his Redhart soldiers into battle, to take the place of the Unreal and fight the Forest force head-on.

It was what the soldiers had been waiting for. They charged forward, fresh and vital, waving their swords and axes and howling Redhart battle cries. They advanced in disciplined ranks, from their carefully chosen and prepared positions, and the Forest forces had no choice but to fall back. They’d come back together to destroy the last patches of the Unreal, but weakened and exhausted, they were no match for the Redhart army. They fell back to the edge of the trees, and then out into the clearing itself, and there they regrouped and made their stand. Setting up a wall of steel and magic and simple courage between Forest Castle and the army that threatened it.

The Redhart soldiers burst out of the last trees, saw what was waiting for them, and stopped to consider. And wait for fresh orders. They hesitated, holding their position in the last few trees at the edge of the clearing. And that was when the dragon appeared in the sky overhead, flying swiftly and strongly under the Blue Moon. A magical creature, at home in the magical night. He cupped his great membranous wings to bring himself to a halt, and then he plunged down, heading straight for the Redhart positions. The soldiers cried out in shock and alarm, and some of them turned to flee, but it was already too late. The dragon opened his great jaws, and a sea of flames struck the Redhart soldiers. The flames burned them all up as the dragon flew over the massed ranks, incinerating them in a moment, washed over by flames more fierce and more terrible than any natural fire. The whole of the Redhart army went up in flames, and fell, and burned. Hundreds, thousands, of bodies, blackened and shrivelled.

The dragon soared up into the sky again, and the flames sank down and disappeared, unable to exist without his presence. The trees at the edge of the clearing were scorched and half consumed, with dark smoke rising up into the blue moonlight, but the flames did not spread, and the Forest did not burn.

The dragon banked around, and then dropped out of the sky to land softly and carefully in the clearing, not far from the Forest force. Who, to their credit, did not flinch. Hawk and Fisher went forward to meet the dragon. No one else felt like going with them. The stench of burned meat was heavy on the night air.

“What took you so long?” said Hawk.

“It’s all in the timing,” said the dragon. “I may have allowed myself to become . . . a little preoccupied.”

“I won’t ask,” said Fisher,

“Best not to,” agreed the dragon.

“Did you really have to . . . ?” said Hawk.

“Yes,” said the dragon. “So you wouldn’t have to. This war is over now. That’s all that matters.”

Prince Christof and the Champion Malcolm Barrett stepped out of the trees, some way farther down from all the dead bodies, and walked out across the clearing. They kept their hands carefully away from the swords at their sides. Prince Richard and Princess Catherine went forward to meet them. They were all equally grim-faced.

And that was when King Rufus appeared. He came striding across the drawbridge over the moat and into the clearing, and everyone stopped and turned to look. They knew he was there before he appeared, because they could feel the presence on the night of the great and awful thing he carried in his hand. He held it out before him, blazing bloodred in the gloom, beating on the night like some awful ancient heart. The Crimson Pursuant. The Jewel of Compulsion. Everyone there could feel its influence, the sheer naked power just waiting to be used.

King Rufus stopped, and called Prince Richard and Princess Catherine, Prince Christof and the Champion, forward to stand before him. They did so. They had no choice. Hawk and Fisher went too; not because they had to, but because they weren’t going to be left out of anything. The dragon lay curled in a great circle, watching it all with marvellous disdain. Some of those watching stirred restlessly, and looked like they wanted to do . . . something. But this was an old power, power out of legend, and no one wanted to mess with it. King Rufus smiled slowly on those he had called before him.

“In the presence of the Crimson Pursuant, you can speak only truth,” he said. “Catherine, do you love my son, Richard? Do you stay here by your own choice, of your own free will?”

“Yes,” said Catherine, looking at Malcolm.

The Champion nodded, slowly. He looked like he’d been hit. He knew that what he was hearing had to be the truth.

“Take her,” he said to Richard. “She’s yours.”
I don’t want her anymore,
he wanted to say, but he couldn’t.

King Rufus lowered his hand and put the glowing jewel into his pocket. The crimson light disappeared, and in that moment all compulsion disappeared. Everyone could feel it. The two princes stirred slowly, as though waking from a dream.

“This war should never have happened,” Rufus said steadily to Christof. “No one wanted it. Except your father, for reasons none of us have ever understood. I see no reason to continue fighting just to serve an old fool’s will.”

Christof nodded jerkily. He didn’t look back at all his Redhart dead, most of them burned beyond recognition. He didn’t need to; the night was still full of the stench of burned meat. He felt sick, and shaken to his core.

“This isn’t what I signed on for,” he said. “To hell with it all. Let’s give the Peace agreement another chance.” He looked abruptly at Catherine. “Stay here, Sister. If this is what you really want.”

“What about Redhart’s honour?” said Malcolm Barrett.

“It isn’t worth this much slaughter,” said Christof.

“There are as many Forest dead in those trees as Redhart soldiers,” Richard said. “Let it go. It’s over.”