Spellfall (28 page)

“Muzzle the beast and tether its feet, Claudia,” Hawk ordered. “Someone bind the girl too. She’s done enough damage for one day.”

A black-bearded Caster stepped out of the ring. Natalie stared in horror. It was Ferret, who had been gored in the battle for the Raven and flung into the trees. He should have been dead. A unicorn’s horn had opened his back and three broken ribs showed through the glistening blood, yet he was still walking. Only his eyes betrayed his condition, chillingly blank. While she trembled, he took a rope from one of the packs and lashed her wrists together, propped her against the Thrallstone and secured the end of the rope about its base. Natalie tugged at her bonds and burst into tears. Why didn’t the Herders do anything? Why didn’t they
help
her?

Lord Hawk crouched before her and fingered a strand of her hair. “Watch and learn, little Spider,” he said. “You see Ferret?” He indicated the gored Caster. “A mere scratch from a unicorn’s horn is lethal, let alone a wound like that. But Hunter consumed Ferret’s familiar, so he can’t die. He’s bound to obey me until I decide to release him – which I shall do just as soon as you’ve replaced him.”

He chuckled at Natalie’s shudder and pointed his stick at Claudia, who was hugging herself and shaking her head, muttering, “You can’t do this, no one’s ever done this, it’ll destroy us.”

“You see my cold-eyed Fish? She fights me, oh how she fights! But she can’t win, not while Hunter lives.”

Now, the end of the stick touched Natalie’s cheek. “You’re an intelligent girl. I’m sure you can see that the more you resist, the harder this’ll be for you. Try to relax and let Hunter do his work. It’ll be painful while he feasts, I know, but afterwards you can rest as long as you need to. There’s no hurry now.”

He took the stick away and wiped her tears with a surprisingly gentle finger. Then he stepped back and motioned to his familiar. The last of Natalie’s strength flowed from her as she realized what he intended.

The goshawk glided down from the stone, perched on the helpless magehound’s shoulder and tore a chunk out of K’tanaqui’s flank with its cruel beak. It was too much. The sun, which had started to rise out of the unicorn-mist, vanished in a great roaring darkness. From a long way off, someone began to scream.

*

In the Heart of Oq, Merlin was screaming too.

Pain rushed along the infected root, destroying everything it touched, a black river of poison surging towards the Central Root Cavern.

“It burns!” he shrieked. In panic, he leapt off the stool and tugged at the tendrils attached to his head. Only when Lady Thaypari started towards him and hesitated, held back by her magehound’s teeth in the hem of her skirt, did he belatedly remember his promise.

“I’m sorry!” he gasped, still wrestling with the tendrils. “I can’t do it. Get me out of here. Please! It’s too much. I don’t know how—”

The burning came again and for a dreadful dark moment flooded Merlin’s whole body. Then Redeye’s voice cut through the pain, scathing as ever.

You do know how, you brainless nestling
.
It’s like that silly computer of yours, isn’t it? Don’t think I didn’t know what you were up to while I was surviving on mouldy fruit in the cellar. Oq’s better than the Internet... Pah! Not soon she won’t be, not if that Raven thing gets much further.

As if to reinforce his words, stars spiralled wildly around the Heart.

Merlin sat down again, something clicking in his head. “Like my computer? Infected! Oh no, poor Oq! If it’s like a virus, it’ll be multiplying every second.”

He gritted his teeth and forced his attention back to the infected root. His father had done this. But for the first time in his life, Merlin knew how to fight back. He had the ancient might of a soultree of Earthaven on his side. Plus, on the ground, a vast army of unicorns, stags and bears, all converging on the Thrallstone where his father’s spellclave had assembled. “You won’t win this time, Father,” he hissed through gritted teeth as Oq took the information from his head, digested it in milliseconds, and began to modify some of her own cells to fight the Raven. The Heart shook like a building during an earthquake, and Merlin had to grip the stool to stop himself falling off. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t afraid any more.

He caught the look of alarm on Lady Thaypari’s face and grinned. “It’s all right, Lady!” he called with a glow of pride. “I’m doing it, I’m really doing it!” Closing his eyes, he added in a fierce whisper, “Hold on, Natalie, wherever you are. I’ll come and find you soon, I promise.”

*

When Natalie next became aware of her surroundings, she and K’tanaqui were in the middle of a battle. The hawk had abandoned its feast – she could hear it screeching somewhere overhead. K’tanaqui was bleeding but still very much alive. With a great cry of, “Kill the Casters!” and a rush of hooves, unicorns charged the spellclave.

Her heart leapt in hope. This time there
were
hundreds of the creatures. This time the Casters had no trench to hide in. They were kneeling in a circle with their backs to Natalie and the Thrallstone, firing volleys of spellfire arrows into the oncoming silver tide, while the goshawk directed their aim from above.

It was a stirring sight. The unicorns haloed in crimson, a huge Earthaven sun rising out of the mist behind them, purple smoke drifting across the battlefield. After the unicorns, lumbered huge brown bears each one bearing several riders armed with axes and clubs. Behind the bears came stags, who lowered their antlers and pawed the ground. And behind the stags, shadowy foot soldiers waving their makeshift weapons and brushing dead spells out of their hair. Last of all came the Treemages who had transported the army to the Thrallstone, their shoulders drooping wearily but a glint of triumph in their eyes. Natalie crawled as close to K’tanaqui as the rope allowed and pressed her cheek to his bleeding flank. “Hold on, my poor darling, just a little longer.” She almost felt sorry for the Casters.

The first charge was over and the unicorns wheeled round to regroup. Caster arrows had felled several of the Herders who rolled on the ground trying to quench the flames. The others seemed reluctant to charge again while their wounded comrades were in the way. A bear, however, lumbered through. With a defiant yell, one of its riders threw an axe that fell just short of Claudia’s knees. She calmly picked it out of the earth and placed it at her side. Then she fitted another flaming arrow to her bow, took careful aim, and hit the axe-thrower in the chest. The bear reared up on to its hind legs and all three of its riders fell off backwards, the wounded one screaming.

Natalie closed her eyes as the unicorns charged again. This time they must break the Caster ring. They
must
. But again they were driven back and when she opened her eyes she saw why. Two of the spellclave had been fatally wounded in the charge. One had a spear sticking out of his lung, while the other – a woman she didn’t remember seeing at the Lodge – had taken a unicorn horn in the stomach. But both were still upright, firing arrows as if nothing had happened. Like the man called Ferret, unable to die.

She turned cold all over and, beneath her, K’tanaqui trembled.
Powerrr of Thirrrteen
, he said weakly.
Hawk-man verrry strrrong now. Pup must be strrrong too. Crrry laterrr.

Natalie drew a deep breath and wiped her face with her bound hands. He was right, she was wasting an opportunity here. The Casters were paying her no attention, maybe believing her spirit broken. With numb fingers, she tugged at the spellrope that bound her magehound but it was as impossible to loosen as before. She turned her attention to the Thrallstone. If she could drag K’tanaqui to the stone, somehow work her tether up as far as the hole and open it—

But even as she struggled to grip the magehound’s ruff with her numb fingers there was a commotion at the rear of the Earthaven army. The ranks parted to allow three Spell Lords in formal Council robes to step through. She turned to watch, her heart beating faster.

Lord Pveriyan led, his white hair prickling with fresh thorns and thistles. Lord Gerystar, crowned with purple berries, strode at his right shoulder, while a Lady she didn’t know strode at his left, golden flowers glimmering in her dark hair. Behind the Council members padded their magehounds, hackles up, growling loudly. A wary escort of Treemages surrounded them, live spells glimmering in their cupped hands.

“Casters!” Lord Pveriyan called in a terrible voice. “You are surrounded and outnumbered! Surrender, and you’ll be given the choice of being returned across the Boundary to face your own world’s justice, or receiving an Earthaven memory cleansing and execution of your familiar under the terms of the Spellfall Solution. Resist, and we’ll leave you to the mercy of the unicorns.”

“And bears!” someone shouted.

“And stags!”

“And our knives!”

As the cries fell silent, Lord Hawk scrambled on top of the Thrallstone and stood facing the sun, legs spread, feathered braids fluttering down his back. The goshawk screeched
as it circled above the army. A Herder threw a spear at it but the bird was too high.

Lord Hawk laughed and pointed his stick at Natalie. “Have you forgotten I hold your thirteenth Council member? Attack us again, and I’ll kill her
and
the magehound. Leave, and I’ll let one of them live.”

Natalie’s blood chilled.

But Lord Pveriyan wasn’t standing for any nonsense. “You harm her or the hound, and we’ll have no mercy. Your deaths will be as painful and prolonged as Oq can make them. And since you can’t see so well now the Boundary’s shut, I’d better warn you Oq is as healthy as ever and itching for revenge. Your pathetic attempt to poison her failed.”

A frown crossed Hawk’s face. Then he laughed again. “I can see quite well enough. I used to live here, remember? And I’d say from all the litter around us that Oq is far from healthy. Besides, you can’t kill us, can you? Not while I hold the Power of Thirteen!”

It was a challenge. By exposing himself on the stone like that, Hawk both mocked the Spell Lords’ power and invited attack. Natalie shaded her eyes and squinted up at him, uneasy.

“It’s a trick,” she whispered.

K’tanaqui blinked his dull eyes.
Pup may be rrright. Take carrre.

The three Spell Lords held a muttered conference. Around them, bears fidgeted, stags rattled their antlers, and unicorns dug up the earth. The Earthaven tribes fingered their weapons, eager for Caster blood. The spellclave waited, tense and wary, arrows nocked, spellfire bathing their faces in purple light. The smoke made Natalie cough. She crouched by K’tanaqui, afraid to move as everyone else seemed afraid, even Lord Pveriyan. The air crackled with hatred and unbearable tension. Then, with a cry of anger, a lone Herder galloped his unicorn right up to the kneeling Casters and hurled his spear at Lord Hawk’s heart.

It happened so fast, the Spell Lords had no time to react, the spellclave had no time to aim their arrows, the goshawk had no time to dive, and Lord Hawk’s stick, glimmering with a single live spell, was only half raised by the time that spear was sailing over the Casters’ heads. Before it reached its target, however, the air above the Thrallstone
shimmered
and Lord Hawk vanished in a purple flash. Bitter spell smoke drifted down, and the spear rattled harmlessly against stone before falling to the ground.

*

For a full thirty seconds, no one moved. Casters and Earthaven army alike stared at the Thrallstone in stunned disbelief. Then the ranks surged forwards, muttering angrily.

“Where did he go?”

“Rush ’em now before he comes back!”

“What are we waiting for? There’s only twelve of them now!”

And, inevitably, “Kill the Casters!”

“NO!” Lord Pveriyan shouted, pushing his way through to the front. “It’s Hawk we want.” K’veriyan raced along the front line, snapping and snarling at the unicorns and bears until they retreated out of bow range again.

The spellclave backed closer together. Hunter wheeled higher into the clouds, eyeing the army and the spellclave with equal suspicion. Natalie pressed herself against K’tanaqui’s sweaty coat, keeping as far from the Casters as possible. Three of them should be dead, she thought. It’s horrible.

Lord Pveriyan called, “Casters! Your leader has abandoned you. Throw down your weapons and spells!”

The muttering of the army abated. The Casters glanced at each other. “They won’t dare touch us while we’ve got the girl,” Ferret growled, seizing Natalie’s elbow and dragging her away from K’tanaqui. He’d chosen her left arm, which had gone numb all the way to her shoulder.

“No,” she sobbed, kicking his shins.

The dead-alive Caster didn’t seem to feel her. She turned desperately to Claudia but the woman was already scrambling up the Thrallstone, using the hole as a foothold, to stand where Lord Hawk had stood only minutes before. She pulled a spell-wrapped arrow from her quiver and unslung her bow.

“Lift the girl up here so they can see her,” she ordered.

Natalie struggled wildly but the Casters were many and strong and she was weak with K’tanaqui’s pain and whatever was wrong with her arm where the Raven had splashed her. Between them, they lifted her on to the stone where she knelt in frozen disbelief as Claudia aimed the arrow at her heart.

“Do you trust me?” Claudia whispered.

Natalie blinked at the unexpected question. “Why should I?” she sniffed. “You stuck that needle in my neck! You helped make the Raven that’s killing Oq. You were there when Lord Hawk drowned Bilbo. You put sleeping pills in my food! And you put a spellrope on K’tanaqui—” She choked, unable to go on.

Claudia nodded, her eyes sad. “I did all that, yes. And now I’m going to make amends.
Please
, Natalie, do what I say! We haven’t much time.”

Natalie glanced down at her magehound. The height made her dizzy. For the first time, she was aware of the silent army staring up at her – a blurred sea of silver unicorns, shadowy bears, foot soldiers and Treemages, their spears, blades and live spells all glinting and flashing and glimmering in the sunrise. Waiting. Even as Claudia was waiting for her answer.