Mythborn (16 page)

Gabreyl’s head tilted to one side as if he considered the giant angel’s offer. To Arek, losing them was clearly not an option. The elven commander took a look around and apparently came to a different decision. Stepping forward he said, “Our champion against yours for possession of one of our guests. I cannot return empty-handed.”

The towering being seemed to consider this, rubbing his face with a gauntleted hand. “Agreed, so long as it is the victor’s choice.”

Gabreyl narrowed his eyes then slowly nodded. “I name this man as our champion,” he said, pointing to Sorath.

He did not wait for their acknowledgement, but instead gathered Arek, Niall, and a few others, including Sorath. In a voice pitched so that only they could hear, he said, “We know they seek entry to the henge.”

“I’d thought to make our path home easier,” Sorath answered, “by allowing him a quick victory.”

“I know,” said Gabreyl with a reassuring grip on the young warrior’s arm, “but if he’s alive within the circle, he will have access to the henge. First be victorious and protect Avalyon, then do what you must to serve your highlord and family. Once you have vanquished your foe, we will fall back inside the perimeter and do what must be done.”

“Wait!” Niall exclaimed. “Why have him fight at all?” He looked around. “I mean, if there’s a chance of failure…”

The armsmark smiled and said, “Sorath will not fail, and I do not feel so confident were I to put another champion into the circle. Our only recourse here is retreat, but it must be disguised as aggression. Otherwise, it is doubtful we will have time to gather you both and make our escape through the gate his sacrifice will open.”

“What about the terms of victory?” asked Niall, looking at everyone. “What happens if their champion wins?”

“That only happens in stories,” answered Arek. He hoped to bring some pragmatism to his friend’s innocence. “Gabreyl doesn’t intend on handing either of us over, he never did.” A part of him watched the elven commander and could not help but be impressed with his thinking. The man was a tactician under the skin, despite his outward appearance of a sycophant and diplomat. There was steel in his eyes and Arek decided he would not again underestimate him or the forces he led.

“Where did you learn your battle tactics, Armsmark?” He laid the question out innocently, keeping his tone soft and without judgment, like a child suitably impressed with a warrior. Master Silbane had counseled him for years on interrogation and information gathering, instincts he could not easily forget.

Gabreyl looked at him for a moment. Then his eyes filled with mirth and he answered, “On a hundred battlefields before you were made, Lord Arek, by better men than you.” He then faced the two young men of Edyn and said, “The highlord would have my head if harm were to befall either of you.” His voice carried a note of steel behind it as he finished, “When the gate opens, do not hesitate. We will have only a moment to go through.”

Some motion caught the corner of Arek’s eye and he looked quickly over his shoulder. The elves of the inner ring had picked up their shields and begun stepping past their brothers. The wall of energy moved with them, creating a larger area within the henge.

Arek knew Gabreyl was a strategist first. His every action thus far had shown him to be cunning in speech, and in action too. It was plain that while the energy field would ‘trap’ Sorath and his opponent within the henge, it would also effectively create a barrier to all the Aeris outside. The question was, could he turn this to his own advantage if he chose to escape?

Gabreyl looked again at the group, then grasped Sorath’s forearm in a warrior’s grip and clapped him on the shoulder. Some unspoken message passed between the two, then the young warrior stepped forward and bowed, “I am Sorath of House Galadine, and I accept your challenge.”

At the name Galadine, Niall snapped a look at Arek, his eyes wide in shock, plainly asking what was going on.

Arek made a small gesture with his hand to stop any outburst. They did not have enough information to act but he hoped Niall would have the sense to remain quiet. However, the utterance of the name broke loose the last foundation of trust that had been eroding since he’d met Gabreyl. If there was a Galadine in charge of these elves, something was definitely not right.

The towering angel saluted with his spear, then said, “I am the Fury named Cainan, of the Lady’s Blades, and I accept your challenge.”

The two began walking to the copse of trees and the circle of energy, which now stood even larger, like an arena—a field in which two combatants would enter but only one would leave. If Gabreyl were right, Cainan had only agreed to this so as to gain entry to wherever the henge took them.

“You two be ready.” Gabreyl said in a whisper, suddenly beside them both. The intensity of his words sounded almost as if he were shouting orders directly into their ears. “If you value your lives, you’ll follow my request.”

Arek watched the armsmark sweep them with a gaze that conveyed the expectation that his “request”
would
be followed. Niall certainly seemed more than willing to do whatever Gabreyl said, but Arek had his doubts. If these elves did not stand for Lilyth, to which Galadine were they being taken? His torture was not so far behind him as to be forgotten.

Furthermore, Gabreyl did not intend on keeping his word. As he’d outlined, Sorath would kill Cainan, then sacrifice himself to open the gate. Arek could only surmise that the circle of energy erected by the elves would protect their escape. He moved a little closer to Niall and said softly, “Don’t go through that gate.”

“Are you kidding?” Niall looked around quickly, fearing they would be overheard, and replied, “He said,
Galadine
.”

“I know, but there’s something not right. You were right, don’t trust Gabreyl.”

“If there’s a Galadine here, I need to know,” responded Niall in a hushed tone.

Just then the blue-skinned elves started to move, heading for the circle and followed by the towering figures of the armored angels that opposed them—the rest of the Lady’s Blades, by Arek’s reckoning. The flow of warriors interrupted any response Arek might have had, but he tried to convey with his eyes how important it was that Niall listen. He wasn’t convinced that the prince understood or agreed.

He’d agreed to follow Lilyth to meet his father. What if they had been intercepted? Was he being taken to his father, or instead to the Galadine that led these elves? Arek began to realize that any hope of seeing his father and Lilyth may, in fact, rest with these towering warriors calling themselves the Lady’s Blades. When the gate opened, he knew he’d have to make a choice, and dreaded Niall would choose differently.

Elves held the coruscating circle of energy, shields facing outward as the champions of each side entered. They made their way to opposite sides of the circle, raising and lowering their blades in salute.

At Gabreyl’s signal, the two remaining elves punched their shields into the ground, completing the circle. In a flash of power, it rose to create a dome of light, with only the two combatants inside. Those outside now could only watch, unable to interfere with the outcome of this contest.

Before either could move, a scream sounded from the far end, opposite Arek’s position. He squinted, unable to see through both the dome’s walls, but something
was
happening. At first, he thought it might be a quarrel, however out of place that might seem. Certainly there was a short burst of movement discernable through the walls created by the dome.

Then, pandemonium erupted. The sound of combat could be heard, screams that sounded guttural and fanatic. Arek quickly circled to a better vantage point, his peripheral vision picking up that both the combatants inside the henge had also spun to face the commotion. As he made his way around, the sight that greeted him was hard to comprehend.

There was a quarrel, it seemed, but amongst the elves. Some had climbed atop others, pulling them down with almost an animal’s ferocity. Others cut and thrust, stabbing at their brothers as if they were at war. What was going on?

Outside the ones locked in this strange wrestling match, the rest had formed three man phalanxes, two shields in front and a spearman behind. Racing around the clearing Arek heard the
whump whump
of wingblades at a full run.

The Aeris under Cainan’s command reacted instantly, drawing weapons and wading into the fray. One reached down to pull an attacker off his semi-conscious victim and Arek watched him gasp, dropping the elf as if he were made of fire. The Aeris looked at his unarmored hand, which slowly grew black, the blackness moving up his arm like a living thing. It spread quickly, and the Aeris Lord staggered to his knees, becoming a dark Aeris with eyes that burned with a cold blue fire.

Then Arek noticed that the elves, at least some of them, had turned midnight blue, and black as well. These dark versions turned on their brothers. Everything they came in contact with, whether Aeris or elf, were also infected. It was like a disease made of darkness being spread by contact. Each healthy person touched fell, turning black. Moments later they staggered up, their eyes burning cold blue fire.

The energy wall collapsed as the elves turned to reinforce their companions, stabbing with blade and interlocking shields to hold back the dark creatures. The idea of sides had degenerated into a general melee, as the dark elves and dark Aeris attacked indiscriminately, slowly turning everyone into one of them.

Gabreyl shouted, “Fall back! Form on me!”

The untouched elves instantly obeyed, falling back with shields held before them. They moved with a precision that spoke of countless hours of drilling, forming a turtle shape with shields on all ends and overhead. Gabreyl shouted more orders from the middle. He’d moved to get a better view, and now realized with a sickening feeling that Niall was in the middle of that shell. There was no way to get to him.

Just then, a hand grasped him by the throat. Cold penetrated his skin, a cold so deep it numbed him to his very core. He twisted his arm up and around the other, locking the elbow, and spun, only to be greeted by the face of an elf he did not know. It had skin so dark it almost looked black. Eyes burned with blue fire, and its mouth opened in a silent scream of hunger.

There was no fear. Instead, anger welled up, an insatiable fury at this thing. He could feel his eyes change, the darkness consuming him as well, but it was not the diseased touch of whatever this thing was. It was the blackfire that burned within him, a hunger so deep he could feel the sustenance of the thing that dared touch him. He breathed in and let the hunger have its way. In the blink of an eye the dark elf dissolved into nothing, obliterated by Arek’s thoughts as if it never existed and a wash of energy flooded into him. He’d never felt so alive.

A clarion call sounded and into their clearing burst forth two winged beings, similar to Cainan and his Aeris, but somehow more deadly. They wore full battle armor and had wings with blades for feathers. One was outfit in flashing silver armor, the other in fiery gold.

“Behind us!” shouted the one in silver armor edged in aquamarine. “Our armor is proof against the
nephilim
!”

The Aeris who heard fled for the safety these new angels offered. The two made their way into battle. They marched forward, one wing bent in front as a shield, the other raised behind as if caught in an unfelt breeze. Arek had no idea what they intended but they looked magnificent and deadly.

Just then a brace of mounted wingblade riders ran past the shield wall made by the wings of these armored archangels, as Arek had come to think of them. The birds cut into the line of dark elves, slashing with feet meant to disembowel. Had the people they attacked been anyone else, it might have worked. Instead the warbirds were brought down in a heap of dust, their feathers flashing in the sun.

A few moments passed, the heap a feeding frenzy of bodies squirming in and under each other to get to the fallen wingblades and their riders. Then the gathered creatures dispersed and black wingblades slowly emerged, their beautiful iridescence eaten away by the darkness. They turned, their ranks added to the line of dark creatures who faced the two armored angels and those few Aeris who still stood behind them. They stood, silently regarding their opponents through slavering jaws. At some unheard signal, the nephilim horde rushed forward en masse, clearly expecting to overrun the small and fragile looking bastion of survivors.

The archangels, despite what seemed to be overwhelming odds, did not falter. They braced, then raised and flicked their wings forward with lightning speed. A storm of feather blades flew, slicing through the line of nephilim like sheets of rain. Where each blade struck, the dark elf or dark Aeris disappeared in a flash of black smoke.

A sudden
whump
sounded and Arek’s ears popped with the displacement of air. He spun just in time to see the turtle made of shields disappear in a flash from the center of the henge. Chaos ensued and another rush of nephilim slammed against the archangel shield wall, drawing his attention back to the main fray.

Arek got a hold of himself, bringing his flameskin under control. It seemed no one had noticed him, then Cainan was there. He grabbed Arek’s sleeve and pointed. The archangels had once again thrown themselves into the fray, cutting and slashing with wing and blade. Their attacks were economical and brutal, offering no chance for any infected to survive. At first he’d thought them overwhelmed by these dark creatures. Now it was clear they were fighting in their element.