Spellfall (29 page)

“K’tanaqui?” she whispered. “What do I do?”

The magehound sighed.
Sometimes pup must decide forrr self.

She took a deep breath, not daring to look down again. It would be so easy to throw herself off the stone, maybe knock Claudia off with her. Give the army a chance to move in and overpower the Casters. But Claudia had been kind to her in the Lodge and Lord Hawk had said she fought him – but couldn’t win. “What do you want me to do?” she heard herself say.

The Caster woman smiled. “Good girl. Stand between me and the Spell Lords. Be ready for my signal.”

As Natalie moved cautiously around the edge of the stone, Claudia chanted a soft word and the spell wrapped around the arrow burst into flame. Natalie couldn’t help a flinch as that purple fire followed her.

“Stay back!” Claudia called in a clear voice. “This child is the last of your blood. Before any of your spears can reach me, I’ll have put spellfire in her throat. Now, you do exactly what I say. I’m going to send our hawk down so our familiars can negotiate in the ancient manner. Don’t anyone move except your leader’s magehound. And don’t even think about trying to harm the hawk… or the child dies.”

Natalie’s chest tightened. How could she have been so stupid? She’d played right into Claudia’s hands.

There was a short pause. Then, at a signal from his Lord, K’veriyan padded out of the ranks into the dangerous territory between the army and the spellclave, within range of enemy arrows. Claudia looked up. After a moment, the goshawk dropped out of the clouds and glided towards the magehound, within range of the Earthaven army’s weapons. Claudia held her bow steady, the arrow aimed at Natalie’s throat, until the two familiars were perhaps an arm’s length apart, Hunter back-winging in preparation to land. Then she whispered, “Now, Natalie, duck!” and she released the arrow.

Sparks hissed through Natalie’s hair as she flattened herself to the stone. She twisted her head and watched that arrow trail death across the Earthaven sky. It seemed to move in slow motion, blurring with distance until she couldn’t see the intended target.

There was a single surprised
caaa—,
cut off and
followed by a soft thud. Absolute silence reigned for the space of three heartbeats. Then the three wounded members of the spellclave screamed and crumpled to the ground. Claudia staggered as if she herself had been hit, and the spellrope disappeared, taking K’tanaqui with it.

As she squinted round to see where her magehound had gone, Natalie made out a bundle of smoking feathers in K’veriyan’s jaws, the shaft of Claudia’s arrow buried deep. The other two magehounds bounded forwards and lost no time tearing the hawk apart, snarling and snapping at one another amidst a storm of smouldering feathers and bright drops of unnatural yellow blood.

Chapter 19

SACRIFICE

Sunday, November 1

~~*~~

After the death of their hawk, the spellclave surrendered without fuss. Willing hands helped Natalie down from the Thrallstone and dragged Claudia – rather more roughly – to the ground beside her. Under Lord Gerystar’s direction, foot soldiers seized the Casters’ bows and snapped the arrows across their knees, laying the spells in a neat pile for collection. Meanwhile, Herders rounded up the surviving Casters and held them at spear-point. The wounded three were lifted and carried away – the new woman moaning, the other two already dead.

“Why?” Natalie whispered.

“For all of us,” Claudia said. “We’re all free now.” But the blue spark had gone from her eye, replaced by a dull look that reminded Natalie of Ferret.

She shuddered and hoped fiercely that Lord Hawk, wherever he had transported himself, was suffering a similar fate.

The Herders started to escort Claudia across to the others but Lord Pveriyan stopped them. Lips tight with rage, he glared at the Caster woman. “Where is he?” he snapped.

“I don’t know—”

Pveriyan slapped her across the face. “Don’t lie to me!”

Natalie’s heart clenched. One of the Treemages had cut her bonds with his knife and was helping her away from the Casters, murmuring sympathetically. She broke free, fought a sudden wave of dizziness and tugged Lord Pveriyan’s robe. “Don’t hurt her, please don’t! She helped me.”

The Spell Lord scowled down at her. “Stay out of this, Daughter of Atanaqui.” He turned back to Claudia. “I’ll ask you once more.
Where is he?
”

Claudia shook her head. “I wish I knew. He transported when he realized the soultree wasn’t dying as it should, that’s all I know. But you needn’t worry, he’s powerless without his familiar.”

This reminded Natalie of her own loss. “What about K’tanaqui?” she said. “Ask her what happened to my magehound...” Another dizzy wave struck. She staggered and would have fallen had Pveriyan not caught her.

Immediately, Claudia was on her knees, fingers probing the blistered flesh of her arm. “I was afraid of this,” she said, resting a hand on Natalie’s forehead. “Do you feel sick? Dizzy? Are you having any trouble breathing?”

“Yes,” Natalie admitted to all three. “But I’ll feel better when K’tanaqui comes back.”

Claudia glanced at Pveriyan. “The girl’s very sick. I’m afraid the Raven splashed her. There isn’t time to explain properly, but we manufactured the Raven to attack the enchantment-gene so it would not only kill Oq but also poison the soulfruit and Spellfall and everyone of the ancient blood who ate the fruit or tried to use the spells. Hawk was willing to sacrifice his own power to see Earthaven die – and he did like his little jokes. Hence the Raven being a liquid, his very own Spellfall solution.”

No one laughed. Pveriyan was staring at Claudia. Natalie felt worse.

“I’m glad your soultree has managed to fight off the Raven,” Claudia went on. “But Natalie needs help. She has to get to a hospital immediately. I’ll go with her and—”

“You will do nothing of the sort!” Pveriyan snapped. “Think I’m stupid, do you? Trying to blind me with your human science? There was never any threat from your Raven, I knew that from the start. If the child’s sick, Oq will soon heal her. In the meantime, I want to know where Hawk is, and you’re going to tell me.” He snapped his fingers at the hovering Treemages. “Connect her to the soultree. We’ll get it out of her the hard way.”

Natalie watched uneasily as two men took Claudia’s arms and dragged her across to the trees. Lord Pveriyan and his magehound followed. Without her glasses she couldn’t see what they were doing. But when Claudia’s scream cut the Earthaven sunrise, she staggered after them, the ground swaying beneath her. “Don’t hurt her! Oh, please don’t! Claudia!”

Sweetly scented arms caught her and the Spell Lady with the golden flowers in her hair guided her back to the Thrallstone. “Shh, silly,” she said. “Sit down, that’s right. I’m Lady Fayhilia, Third Member of the Council.” She hitched up her long robes and sat on the grass beside Natalie. “Now then, what’s all this fuss? You’ve had a terrible experience, I know, but it’s over now. Pveriyan’s experienced in these matters, he’ll get results. Then we’ll find your magehound and we’ll cleanse this Caster who calls himself Lord Hawk along with the rest of his spellclave. It’ll be a complete draining, every thought, every memory. He won’t hurt you again, don’t worry.”

Natalie stared at her. “But Lord Pveriyan said they’d have a choice!”

“They’ll choose cleansing. You’ll see.”

“But... why? They won’t have their memories taken away in my world. They might go to prison, I suppose, but—” A second scream from Claudia drove the rest of what she’d been going to say from her head. “Please stop him,” she begged. “If she knew anything, she’d have told us.”

Lady Fayhilia smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. But this is the best way for everyone. If she really doesn’t know, then Oq will tell Pveriyan she doesn’t, and he’ll stop trying to get it out of her. Cover your ears if it disturbs you. It shouldn’t take too much longer.”

*

Confusing data was coming from one of Oq’s outer branches. It was a long way from the original poisoned root but Merlin shifted uncomfortably on his stool. What if he’d missed a Raven cell and it had sneaked into a healthy branch while his attention had been on the root and was even now multiplying for another attack? Then he realized. The data was coming from the vicinity of the Thrallstone where people were clearing up after the battle.

Merlin didn’t bother investigating. His head was spinning, his stomach growling with hunger, and he was stiff from sitting in one place so long. Besides, the excitement was over now. He’d missed his father’s defeat but it had been worth it. He smiled. Oq would probably lose the infected root all the way to the fifth junction. But a single root was nothing compared to the damage Raven would have inflicted had the poisoned cells been allowed to rampage through her entire system.

He stretched the kinks out of his shoulders and was just about to initiate a search for Natalie when the air in the Heart
shimmered
and something smashed into the delicate tendrils attached to his head. They came loose with a wrench of pain. The world jerked! Merlin found himself on his knees, clutching at his temples. A sticky mixture of blood and sap oozed through his fingers.

“What did you do that for?” he said. “We just won!” He struggled to his feet, certain the tall figure standing over him was Lord Pveriyan. “I didn’t do anything to hurt your precious tree! Ask her yourself—”

The stick crashed across his back, sending him to his knees again, knocking all the breath out of him. This time Merlin stayed down, dismay surging through him. He knew the feel of that stick. It had bruised him often enough in the past.

He raised his head and looked for Lady Thaypari, fearing the worst. But she was still at the entrance, staring open-mouthed at Hawk. “What do you think you’re doing?” she cried, recovering from her shock. “Stop that at once! How did you get in here?”

Her magehound growled at the intruder and gathered itself to spring. But Hawk pointed his stick at the Spell Lady and laughed – a terrible, cracked sound, worse than anything Merlin had heard his father utter before. “Go on, try it! I am Hawk, Lord of Thirteen! I have the power to send your hound to the fire in the bowels of the earth and you after him!”

Merlin risked a peep at his father’s face. The yellow eyes glittered. But there was something wrong with them. He wasn’t looking at Thaypari, rather staring at a point past her shoulder.

Heart thudding, Merlin slithered out of range of the stick. He willed Lady Thaypari to do the sensible thing and fetch help. But she drew herself up straight and tall and folded her orange-flowered hair around her like a cloak.

“How dare you threaten a member of the Council in the Heart of her own soultree?” she said quietly. “K’aypari! Get his familiar.”

Lord Hawk threw back his head and let out that terrible laugh again. “Oh, you don’t think I’d be stupid enough to transport Hunter in here with me, do you? I must admit the last person I expected to find here was my pathetic son. I suppose you’re letting your soultree drain him now you think you’ve neutralized the Raven? You should have remained connected, my proud Lady. Oq might have helped you. Now you die.” He opened his hand and tossed a crumpled bronze spell at Thaypari.

“No!” Merlin surged to his feet and grabbed his father’s arm. He hung his whole weight on it. The spell, only half cast, missed its target and fluttered harmlessly to the floor. Lord Hawk grunted and threw Merlin against the Heart wall. Stray orange petals swirled to the floor as Thaypari and her magehound fled.

Cursing, Lord Hawk turned. His mouth twisted as he peered down at Merlin with those fever-bright, unfocused eyes. The sight of his son cowering on the floor seemed to amuse him. “Not quite drained yet, I see. Maybe I should have looked more carefully to see who it was before I smashed those tendrils. Then again, you never did have much between those grubby ears of yours. I don’t suppose it would have made a lot of difference.”

Merlin clenched his fists. “
I
destroyed Raven,” he said.

“You?” His father laughed. “Don’t be silly! You wouldn’t have the first idea.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Merlin sat up a bit straighter. “What do you think I was doing all the time you and Claudia-the-Fish were down in that cellar? Zapping aliens on my computer? I soon got bored with that! I read every word of those magazines – forwards, backwards, and inside out. I know more about viruses in systems than you think, and Oq is a system too. She might be huge and alive but she works the same way. It wasn’t hard.”

Bighead,
Redeye muttered from inside his boot.
I was the one who pointed you in the right direction remember? Your foot stinks, by the way.

Hawk paced around the Heart, prodding the soft glowing flesh with his stick and whacking any tendril that moved. Oq sparkled in anger. Merlin shifted his foot where Redeye was wriggling like mad, tickling his toes. “Stop that,” he hissed. “I’ve got enough to worry about.” Then he had a sudden thought. “Can Father see?”

About as well as a bat
, Redeye said scornfully.
The hawk’s dead. Good riddance, if you ask me.