Blood and Iron (50 page)

It was a strange sensation, like being surfed along on the crest of a wave. He straightened his spine, lifted his chin, and let the reins fall slack. Petunia needed no encouragement to arch his neck and prance, even though his name made Keith bite his lip to keep a suitably stern and kingly expression.

The army peeled off to follow them, four abreast, as they rode forward. There were more Fae than Keith had expected. Arthur must have sent beaters into every hill and dale of the Daoine Sidhe's holdings.

Or perhaps they turned up for the funeral.
He stifled another smirk as Arthur fell in alongside on a chestnut even redder than Keith's bay. “You've stripped the garrison.”

“If we lose, there will be no one left to hold the fort,” Arthur answered, staring straight ahead.

“Don't worry,” Keith said, turning his head as the curve of the road offered him a good view of the train of the army stretched out behind them like a long, glittering tail. “If we lose, there won't be a fort to come back to.”

Arthur grunted. On Keith's other side, Morgan laughed low in her throat. “Just remember,” she said. “Even when the world ends, you still have to get up and plow the next morning.”

They stopped to eat and to rest the horses several times before they found themselves at the base of a down Keith remembered from his waking dream. The scent of blood and rust hung thickly on the air, almost thready, making the horses paw and sweat. Whatever magic the hart had left in Keith told him only an hour or two had passed in the mortal realm, however, and that the ritual had completed its mischief. “This won't be pretty.”

As they crested the hill, Arthur's chestnut shied, gentled only by his rider's confident hand. Petunia, though steadier, stopped stock-still on the rise and refused to move for long moments, until he had satisfied himself of the terrain.

Even the memories could not adequately prepare Keith for the reality of the massive helix of black steel that pierced the meadowland below, a blue-edged auger screwed into the earth below like God's own seed drill. He'd expected troops, mortal men, guns and soldiers, but the vast black span stood there, alone and utterly unconcerned.

It pinched his breast, pain like a racing heart. “Well,” he said, glancing from Arthur to Fyodor to Ian, and settling finally on Vanya, “it seems they've brought us the war.”

“How do we fight that, Sire?” The wolf's eyes already held the answer before Keith spoke.
We don't.

My new sense of the land showed me the place we were going: a shallow bowl of meadow bordered on one side by the flank of a rolling hill and on the other by a wood of beeches. The fabric of Annwn was worn as thin, here, as an old man's handkerchief, and the tang of iron filled the air. A trembling heartbeat shuddered my ribs. It wasn't mine; it came from the carven cinnabar box tucked into my sash, a box warmed from within to a heat like blood.

I had expected the tense-drawn waiting before battle, perhaps punctuated by cheers when I rode in with the Unseelie at my back. They were a fearsome sight: Jack-in-Irons, headless and bearing an axe, towering in clanking chains over the rest; Elf-knights on black-horned and antlered steeds that breathed flame from charred nostrils; green women and redcaps and all the varied boggarts and unkind sprites of the darkest Fae. Kadiska was back in the ranks somewhere; I'd forced Àine to release her from her binding, and provoked the Queen's second challenge doing it. The Unseelie made a looming shadow over the greensward behind me . . . and still were not so many as I could have wished.

Sobering, to see again how Faerie had fallen.

I had hoped for a cheer, but it wasn't a cheer that greeted us. Rather, the cry of steel on silver was audible even beyond the top of the rise. I leaned forward on Whiskey's neck as his long strides carried us over the gentle ridge and into sight of the war, away from the broad-shouldered figure in black armor who had ridden beside me. I'd changed my gown for trousers and a chain hauberk, and I had a silver sword I hadn't the faintest idea how to use strapped to the saddle that Whiskey had grudgingly accepted.

A strange sort of battlefield stretched before us— Whiskey, me, and the Unseelie warriors—as we crested the shallow hill and paused for a moment, reviewing the scene. The black earth looked boiled, sod torn as if harrowed. Out of it, blacker still, a twisted grapevine of gnarled iron ascended, arching back and away over the blasted beech copse. I remembered whispering green leaves—saw the memory of them in my mind—and tasted sickness. There were no Magi defenders on the iron bridge. Instead Daoine Sidhe hammered at its base, the ponderous roots sunk deep into the living soil, while the rest of the army spread out around the vale. We must have startled scouts ahead of us; a party was already riding up the hill. I pictured Keith's outriders flushing under Whiskey's hooves like a bevy of game birds and smiled. At least my lord husband was alert enough to post a rearguard. Or, more likely, Arthur had been.

The bridge of iron hurt like a knife sunk in my side, like poison spreading through the earth. I felt it as a bruise, and I wondered how long the Mebd had endured the like: the subtle taint of the Magi's influence. I imagined their bindings must lie on Mist like a prisoner's shackles. It made my bones cold to think of it.
Why doesn't she cast them off?

But I knew the answer. She wasn't ready to start over yet, and Mist's ways of doing things were either very subtle—or involved the overthrow of mountains. I scrubbed my hands together, the scarred-over gouge in my palm itching. My right arm stiffened under the bandages.

Keith rode at the head of the group coming up the hill, mounted on a blood-bay destrier with a mane and tail black as sloes. I was surprised to see, beside him, Ian sullen-browed on his true-black, and Hope on hers as well. Carel looked uncomfortable on a mahogany bay, Morgan splendid on a dappled palfrey with her raven on her pommel and her wolfhounds by the stirrup.
“First came by the black steed. Then came by the brown. . . .”
And then there was Arthur, as far from Morgan as he could ride. The old King was mounted on a red, red chestnut, a fey warhorse bright as a dragon on a banner, whose braided mane, luxuriant feathers, and high-footed gait put Arabians to shame.

Except Arthur's not Tam Lin.
I found myself looking at Ian and bit the inside of my cheeks.
Janet won.
My father's ambiguous smile swam in front of my eyes.
And the Mebd did not. Or did she?

That bridge. Like a halberd, a gaff. A boar-spear spiking my side. But with it, surrounding it, filling my heart like a song, the power and the strength of Annwn. I nudged Whiskey down the far side of the rise, and came among them like Death on my pale horse. Kadiska heeled her mount forward as well and broke from the press of the army. We left the black-armored general of the Unseelie beside his standard-bearer, who bore a blood-colored banner. Kadiska carried a standard too; the flag of the Unseelie snapped above her as she shifted her gelding into a canter, the pole braced in her stirrup, and over that bone white pennant . . .

I heard Arthur laughing first, before the rest of them realized what they were looking at. The peals of his voice rose over the ringing of the hammers and the chisels, soft silver and bronze, even ensorcelled, blunting on the iron bars. Ian roused himself enough to curse. Hope gave him a startled look, and I couldn't help the smile. I looked over my shoulder and—despite everything, despite the pain and the despair and the promise of sorrow and the beat of my son's unhomed heart against my ribs—I felt the laughter bubbling up in me, as well.

The heralds would blazon it:
Or, a dragon passant regardant gules:
On a field of saffron, gold like the gold of her hoard, gold as the gold of the sun, a dragon red as all that endless sea of blood—walking forward, and looking back.

I'd had the banner sewn in haste while the Unseelie host was arming, and the harried seamstresses had made her a bit cross-eyed. So Arthur laughed, and threw back his head, hair chopped too short to braid bouncing under his helm.

A woman's voice first took up the chant. “Pendragon!” Once, twice. The third time I heard two voices. By the fourth repetition a dozen, and by the fifth every voice on the hill was uplifted, Daoine, Unseelie and those who were not quite any of those.
“Pendragon! Pendragon! Pendragon! ”
The chant rattled the earth under the horses' hooves. Whiskey pricked up his ears, arching his neck, knowing himself displayed.

And Arthur looked at his sister, who had been the first to cry approval of the banner, and his laughter fell away. Tears shone on his cheeks and soaked his auburn beard. Morgan met his eyes and fell silent, but I saw the way her lip pinched between her teeth. I shifted in the saddle; my knee was bound tight to bear my weight in the stirrup, but it didn't help the pain.

“More a crooked dragon, brothers and sisters,” the Pendragon called, once the cheering died enough that he might be heard. “And appropriate to the cause,” he said more softly, reining his chestnut closer. The warhorse was bigger than Whiskey; he flattened his ears at my mount. Whiskey eyed him calmly, ears pricked, amused exasperation in every line.

"Look at the other side,” I answered in as low a tone, and gestured Kadiska to rein her mount around. A renewed roar burst from the armies below, for on the left side of the banner was the stylized silhouette of a wolf, its pose identical to the dragon's. Arthur cheered with the rest, and then he reached out and grasped my forearm, curbing his restless stallion. I winced as his grip pressed blood into my bandages. Whiskey stood like a rock. “What is this army you've brought us, Elaine? Things out of Hell?”

“Only one,” I answered. “And he's here on his own reconnaissance. The rest are Dark Fae and suchlike.”

“Only . . . what are you talking about?”

“You'll want to meet him,” I said, tugging my arm away, and gesturing to the visored paladin in lacquered black who rode at the head of the army.

“A black knight.”

“Lancelot's and Morgan's son,” I answered, and kicked Whiskey harder than I had to, riding toward my husband, my Merlin, and my son, leaving Arthur wondering behind me on a horse sidling and dancing at his rider's sudden tension.

“Take your soul back,” Whiskey muttered for only me to hear as we crossed the space between groups of Faerie and Kings. “I cannot bear what you burden me with.”

“Maybe after the war,” I said.
Isn't Whiskey more worthy of protection than Ian is?
The thought shamed me, because I knew it was true. I liked Uisgebaugh better than I did my own son. Meanwhile, Kadiska reined in her mare a discreet distance away and planted the standards.

Keith greeted me with open arms, although Whiskey flinched away from the contact, skittish as a Thorough-bred. He forgave me for the thump to his ribs; I felt him forcing himself to stand when Keith reined his stallion over and squeezed my shoulders. Carel glanced over and glanced away, braids swinging and clinking. She sat her bay mare as if a rod had been sewn up the spine of her coat, watching Morgan ride up the hill to where Arthur faced Murchaud, and Murchaud slowly lifted the visor of his helm. Ian wouldn't look at me, but Hope slid me a smile that the Prince didn't see.

“No luck bringing it down?”

“Nothing,” Keith said. “We try sorcery next.”

“Their magic is more rooted in the world than ours is. Ours is glamourie and illusion. It's cold and deceptive. Theirs has . . . death and life and all that human passion behind it.”

“We have Carel.”

My gaze turned to her. She still looked away, watching as Morgan slid down from her horse and drew her black-haired son out of his saddle and into her arms. Watching them, I wondered what Mordred had looked like. He must have had red hair, or fair at any rate, and those striking pale eyes. I glanced at Ian and caught him staring at me.

“That's your grandfather Murchaud,” I told my son. “You won't have met him before.”

Ian's mouth opened, his tongue very red behind lips that seemed bloodless. He closed it again and drew harder on the reins than I liked to see, urging the horse uphill after Morgan and Arthur. Hope glanced at me again. I jerked my head after Ian, and she nodded and went, riding like her ribs hurt.

I didn't feel too bad about it.

“I bound the Cat Anna,” I said to Keith when we were more or less alone; Carel remained carefully out of earshot. “There's been no resistance?”

“None,” he answered. “But if we can't break this thing loose, it will . . .” His face twisted. “I can feel it, Elaine.”

“Like a spreading bruise.”

He shoved sweat-stiff curls off his forehead, and I touched his other hand where it rested on the pommel, easy on the reins. I felt Whiskey tense, but he hid it well, lowering his head to crop the grass. Keith sighed and shifted, but didn't pull away. “How do you know?”

The pain in him might have been my own. “We're King and Queen,” I answered. “I'm going to talk to Carel. Be good.”

“If you can't be good, be careful.” An old, old joke. I was surprised he remembered it.

Whiskey raised his head and shook his mane out. It was a mess of tangles and snarled seaweed, bladder wrack and kelp and less identifiable things. I wondered if he'd let me curry it again. He struck the earth with a hoof and water bubbled from the perfect imprint of his shoe in the turf, cold and clear as if from a fountain. Keith's blood-bay stallion watched suspiciously, then lowered his head on slack reins and drank.

The water-horse whickered and something clicked in my head.
Uisgebaugh, bless you for trying to make me look smart.