Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm) (22 page)

Sheer hypocrisy from a man who pressed tiny Lothliann - his real motive for being here. It wouldn’t serve him to have borders set that he couldn’t encroach upon without reprisal from the High King as he did now. No more would the High King send the armies of the Kingdoms against Elves for the actions of men like Arlis, thanks to the Agreement.

An agreement Arlis had signed.

With a sigh, Elon said, nearly regretfully, “I cannot.”

Borders.

Jareth had been frantically seeking a solution. Maybe there had been one before him all along.

Casually, Arlis gestured.

A bowman behind him lifted a bow as another lit it from the torch he carried.

The arrow arched into the sky, trailing smoke.

Jareth incinerated it before it reached the sky.

“Wizard,” Arlis said, furiously, “you try me. This is none of yours. Remember who and what you are.”

“You don’t know anything about me, Arlis of the High Reaches,” Jareth said, slowly gathering power. “I’m the motherless bastard who once lived on the streets of Doncerric. A beggar that men like you kicked away with their boots.”

As no Elf would ever have done.

Only his magic had saved him from a life there, that and the kindness of his foster parents, wizards both of them.

There was shock and disgust on Arlis’s face, his lip curling in a sneer.

Jareth looked at him. “You care about that. They don’t.”

He had a plan, an idea…

Why, Elon wondered, was Arlis spending so much time talking? It wasn’t just to get his people in position, although doubtless that was part of it.

And what could they do about that? Nothing.

So, there was a specific target.

Him.

Arlis would want a quick and painless - for Arlis - resolution. He’d already lost too many men to explain away easily.

Where was the danger?

Fire closed in on every side, the snap and crackle of the flames becoming louder, concealing the movements of assassins.

“Let us pass,” Elon said. “Let it go, Arliss.”

He saw the man’s eyes slide to the left even as he sensed movement there.

As did Jareth and Colath.

Slowed by his wound, Colath didn’t react as swiftly as Jareth did.

His mind and power locked up in the spell he’d been about to cast, Jareth knew he couldn’t unleash it in time, so he did the only thing he could…and threw himself into the path of the arrow aimed at Elon’s back.

The arrow punched into him high and deep, driving into his chest. Even as he fell, Jareth looked down at the arrow that pierced him to where the fletching emerged from his tunic. Then he struck the road and the arrow protruding from his back snapped.

A second later the true depths of the pain hit and his concentration shattered.

The spell he’d been conjuring was loosed even as Elon and Colath turned in their saddles in horror to see him fall. Neither could have reached him in time to stop it.

Seeing where the arrow had taken him, Elon knew Jareth’s lung was pierced at the very least. Worse still, they couldn’t help him, not with the enemy still before them.

In the self-same motion of turning, Colath released the arrow that took the assassin. The motion jarred the arrow in Colath’s own back. Pain shot through him, clearing and sharpening his mind. Shock, he knew. If there was time, he would heal.

It didn’t look as if there would be time.

His eyes went to Elon.

Elon met that steady gaze, fear and grief for Jareth, for Colath, for all that might have been, ripping through him and then he set his heels to his horse even as Colath did.

If there was to be any hope for Jareth, for any of them, they had to move swiftly and surely…and there was little chance they would succeed.

Tossing away their bows they reached for their swords - drew them even as they bore down on the men before them. More of Arlis’s archers charged out of concealment in the wheat beside him even as they did.

Jareth, lying in the dirt and the dust of the road, dying in the street as so many had once predicted he might, thought he’d never seen anything so magnificent, so incredible, as that charge.

He saw the archers turn, their bows drawn, as Elon and Colath rode down on them, and the arrows flew…

Then his spell took hold.

An arrow caught Elon high in the shoulder. At that close a range the archer could hardly miss, but he and Colath were almost on them.

To Elon’s astonishment stones rained from the sky.

Marker stones…dozens of them.

Jareth.

Horses screamed and shied. Men shouted. He and Colath rode into their midst like scythes through wheat while they were in disarray.

Arlis dodged one marker stone that nearly crushed his skull and found himself face to face with a furious Elon of Aerilann. His own paxmen charged up to defend his left as Aerilann rained a series of blows on Arlis’s sword. Even with an arrow buried in his shoulder the Elf’s strikes made Arlis’s hand go numb. Aerilann blocked Arlis’s paxman easily, nearly thoughtlessly. His horse held off the other. One fell as Arlis watched, trying to back his horse with one hand on the reins, while others rallied to his aid.

Spinning his horse around, Colath charged into the mass of those who came running through the field like a grim reaper.

A reaper of men, his beautiful face expressionless and implacable.

Elon urged his horse between Arlis and his remaining paxman, hacking and slashing with terrible accuracy, raining blows on their swords until the paxman fell away. With a scream of terror at the grim and terrible look on Elon’s impassive face, Arlis tried to turn his horse, tried to run.

Some of Jareth’s folk believed in avenging angels. In that moment - watching Elon and Colath - he knew how they’d come to believe such a thing.

Relentless even in the face of their own pain, they fought.

Even with the pain piercing him, Jareth couldn’t help but admire them and then he tried to take a breath. Pain struck in earnest. His body arched in protest as his breath bubbled in his chest. As many times as he’d been kicked, battered and beaten as a boy, he’d never suffered pain like this. Darkness crowded his vision, yet still he watched.

His jaw set, Elon battered through Arlis’s defenders as they fought to defend their Lord, but one after another they fell to his relentless blade, as  danced and darted beneath him, giving him room to fight…and then there was only Arlis.

His hands still stinging from Elon’s blows, Arlis couldn’t run, there was no place to go and he knew it.

Desperate, he fought, tried to get past Aerilann’s swords, tried to keep to the side with the wounded shoulder but it was as if the Elf didn’t feel the wound. Any more than Arlis felt Elon’s sword slip past his guard. The punch of it into his chest widened his eyes even as he knew he was done.

Arlis of the High Reaches fell, toppling from the saddle, dead.

Spinning Faer around, Elon shouted, “Your King is dead. Arlis is dead. How many of you wish to follow him to his grave?”

 A stunned silence fell over the field of wheat as they watched Arlis tumble to the road, a small puff of dust spraying up around him.

Stillness…

Not even the cry of a bird broke that terrible, pregnant silence.

Elon watched as they disappeared, turned away into the fields of grain, fading into the tall stalks that hadn’t yet begun to truly ripen, to turn silvery gold in the warm sunlight.

Impatiently, he snapped off the end of the arrow in his shoulder, fought the darkness that threatened to close around his vision before swinging a leg over the Faer’s withers to reach Colath’s side.

Colath and Jareth needed him; there was no time for his own pain.

His pale eyes stunned and weary, Colath looked down at him as Elon offered his hand.

Looking at it, Colath sighed. “This will hurt.”

“Indeed,” Elon said, his own shoulder throbbing.

Feeling the echo of pain, Colath mimicked Elon’s gesture and swung a leg over his horse’s withers to drop to the ground.

The small jar as he reached it wasn’t pleasant.

Elon was there to steady him, as always, as they always were for each other.

His vision went gray for a moment and then Colath steadied as his Elven constitution sought to heal him.

“This must go,” Elon said of the arrow, laying his hand lightly on it.

With another sigh, this of resignation, Colath nodded.

Setting himself, sensing the arrowhead buried between Colath’s ribs, Elon took a breath, knowing it would hurt Colath to do and it must be done as the arrow couldn’t stay there. With a quick twist and swift tug, Elon pulled it free.

A freshet of blood burst from the wound.

The pain was sharp, incredible. Colath nearly went to his knees as the pain and loss of blood swamped him. Already, though, his body rushed to heal him.

Carefully, Elon lowered him to the ground.

“Go,” Colath said, “see to Jareth. He still lives.”

Nodding, Elon went to kneel beside the young wizard, looking with horrified dismay at the arrow that pierced him.

The arrow that Jareth had taken for him, to save his life.

That sacrifice pained him but not nearly as much as the arrow pained Jareth, who didn’t have Elven magic to aid his healing.

He didn’t need to ask why Jareth had done it, knowing Jareth shared his vision. He understood why the street urchin from the streets of Doncerric knew justice better than those who had never known injustice.

“Jareth,” Elon said, his throat tight, sensing how tenuous Jareth’s hold on life was.

His friend drowned in his own blood.

Those deep brown eyes opened to look up at him.

So young for a man. As a wizard he would live longer than most of his folk, if he survived this day, this journey.

Carefully, Elon slid his arm beneath Jareth’s shoulders, lifted him up enough to reach the arrow.

“This will hurt,” he warned.

Jareth gave him a look. He coughed, spraying blood across Elon’s tunic and nodded.

To Elon’s amazement there was a touch of apology in the young wizard’s hazed brown eyes. For the mess. Elon went still and then took a breath.

“Hold on,” Elon said, “Trust me, my friend, and don’t let go of life. Fight for me.”

Jareth’s heart fluttered. The words stunned him.

“Friend?” he whispered.

“Yes, Jareth,” Elon said, firmly, “Friend. In the truest sense of the word. I wouldn’t lose you.”

Something within Jareth twisted even as something inside him grew stronger.

Going to one knee, his beautiful face paler than normal, Colath joined them, a hand on Jareth’s shoulder.

“Nor I, Jareth.”

Those brown eyes went from one to the other, from Elon to Colath.

Jareth wanted to weep.

And struggled to take a bubbling breath. He set himself, and nodded.

He looked at Elon as his friend’s strong hand curled around the arrow that protruded from his chest and steeled himself. Instead of sending him into oblivion though, the motion of pulling it seemed to shock him into greater clarity. The remainder of the arrow slid out of him, pain spearing through him in an agony so great his body arched and a gurgling cry tore from his drowning lungs, spraying blood everywhere.

Elon almost lost him, he felt him fade but Jareth fought and clawed for life.

Even in the face of his own injury, Colath was beside him, lending him strength.

Jareth’s pain became Elon’s as he merged with his friend, as he took the young wizard’s pain as his own. He subverted the agony, sought the rhythm that was Jareth his friend, the music of him when he was whole, the sense and sound of him deep, true and clear. He drew energy from the earth through himself until he felt incandescent, suffused with light and then he poured it into Jareth.