The Dragon Heir (37 page)

They're after Madison, Jack
thought, his mind grappling sluggishly with the evidence before him. And the
White Rose is defending her?

Perhaps the Red Rose had been
instructed to take her alive, or maybe they were well aware of the consequences
of attacking Madison with magic. For whatever reason, they were all doing their
best to kill everyone around her while leaving her untouched.

Wizards poured onto the field
in a seeming unending supply. There were wizards behind them. Wizards on all
sides. Red and White Rose wizards. Unlabeled wizards. It was as if all the
repressed fury of the past centuries had been unleashed in this single battle.
If there hadn't been so much confusion on the field, Jack would've been dead
long before he ever got close to Ellen.

One by one, the small party of
White Rose wizards was eliminated, until it was just Ellen standing between the
Red Rose and Madison Moss. She was already bleeding from several wounds, but
she wore that familiar stubborn “Try me!” expression as she faced
down a half-dozen wizards. She reached back behind and extended a dagger to
Madison, hilt-first.

Jack's throwing star caught
one of the wizards behind the left ear, and he pitched forward. Ellen's sword
took out another. Now it was four to one, even odds where Ellen was concerned.

She looked up at Jack,
scowling through the blood and dirt on her face. “Will you tell them to
open up the bloody gate long enough to poke her through?”

Jack realized that she'd been
maneuvering closer to the Weirgate, and now it was just behind them. But the
defenders would never open it with hundreds of wizards just outside. They'd
have no idea who Madison was.

“Mick! Go tell them to
open the gate.” He jerked his head, directing the warrior that way. Then,
jostling past several wizards, Jack took his place by Ellen's left side, where
his southpaw swordplay would cover her nondominant side. He could tell she was
injured by the way she moved, and her tunic was stained dark with sweat or
blood, he couldn't tell.

“Take Madison in,”
he suggested. “You're all beat up.”

She shook her head and drew
herself up. Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned. A
wizard had somehow slipped in behind them and was closing on Madison, who was
trying to hold him off with Ellen's dagger. It was young Devereaux D'Orsay.

“Devereaux! Come away
from there!” A tall wizard sprinted toward them, trying to get between the
two warriors and the boy. Claude D'Orsay.

While Madison was distracted
by D'Orsay, Devereaux made a grab for her.

Jack took two steps, but Ellen
was there ahead of him. “Hey!” She shouldered the young wizard out of
the way. The boy turned, grinned, raised his hands. Too close to miss.

“No!” It was like
one of those dreams where you're frozen, unable to run. Only a few yards
divided them, but Jack couldn't cross the distance in time. Flame rippled from
Devereaux's hands and slammed into Ellen, lifting her off her feet before she
toppled backward onto the ground.

“That's one!” the
boy crowed, then reached toward Jack, a greedy smile on his baby face, his pale
eyes alive with delight behind round glasses. “Who would've known that
warriors die so easi…”

Shadowslayer ended it. The boy
died with a smile on his face.

Someone screamed
“Devereaux!”

Jack turned. It was Claude
D'Orsay, his face twisted in grief and rage. It was the icy Master of the Games
as Jack had never seen him.

“You killed him! You
cross-whelped barbarian, you've killed my son!” D'Orsay came grimly
forward, driving a vast wall of flame across the battlefield toward Jack,
apparently unconcerned who else he incinerated as long as Jack was numbered
among them.

Jack stepped in front of
Ellen's prone body, knowing there was no way he could stop what was coming. He
raised Shadowslayer, said a prayer.

D'Orsay was so focused on his
intended victim that he didn't see the person that materialized behind him.
Jack blinked in disbelief. It was Jason Haley, with a dagger in his manacled
hands.

Jason charged into D'Orsay,
knocking him off his feet. They rolled across the ground, trailing a wake of
flame. Jason came up on top. He gripped the hilt of the dagger with both hands
and drove it home. D'Orsay screamed, a high, keening note, then sent
flame ripping into Jason, nearly cutting him in two. D'Orsay pushed Jason's body
aside, tried to rise, then fell flat on his face and lay still.

The onrushing flames
hesitated, piling higher and higher, like a giant breaker hitting a reef, then
collapsed and dissipated. D'Orsay was dead.

“Jason!” Madison
screamed, and tried to push past Jack to where Jason lay next to D'Orsay.

Jack threw out a gauntleted
arm, blocking her path, and thrust her behind him. “No! Please,
Madison.”

Ellen lay where she'd fallen,
but Jack could not get to her. Wizards kept coming after Madison and dying on
Jack's sword as fast as they came. Mick shouted at them from the Weirwall gate,
gesturing at them to come ahead. But there was a sea of wizards between them.
Madison stood frozen, eyes closed, fists clenched, as if to shut out the horror
all around.

Jack saw movement on the
battlefield, a kind of rippling, as if a snake were furrowing through the tall
grass of humanity.

It was Seph, all smoky-eyed
and dripping power, clearing the path to the gate. Ignoring the enemy wizards
who did their best to kill him, he gripped Madison's hands, leaning close and
speaking into her ear. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he turned her
toward the gate. He looked back at Jack. “Come on, Jack. Leave it. Bring
Ellen.”

Jack's throat was raw with
grief and smoke. “Seph. Jason's down.” He pointed.

“Jason?” Seph's head
came up and he went very still. “But he isn't even…” He turned and
handed Madison off to Mick. “Take her in for me. Now.”

Madison screamed and tried to
twist free and return to where Jason lay, but Mick picked her up and carried
her toward the gate. Seph went and stood over Jason, head bowed, like a great
black bird with drooping wings. Crossing himself, he removed his coat and
wrapped his friend in it. He squatted, rolled Jason into his arms, and stood.
He looked back at Jack, his eyes like great bruises in his pale face.
“Let's go.” And he walked toward the gate, back straight, shrugging
off a hundred flaming attacks from the Roses.

Wizards swarmed into the gap
behind him. Jack knew there was no way he could carry Ellen and keep
Shadowslayer in play. He'd be down before he went a dozen yards. But he had to
try.

Mick had just reached the gate
with Madison. Jack saw someone slip through the narrow opening and run toward
him, nimbly dodging bodies and debris. A small wizard, but powerfully lit, in a
pink sweater and blue jeans. Flame erupted from her fingertips, roaring
convincingly across the field into the phalanx of Roses that threatened to
engulf Jack. The charge faltered, slid back.

She came up beside him. It was
Alicia Anne Middleton.

She sent a concussion of air
into the oncoming wizards, bowling them back like tenpins, and put up a barrier
to turn their fire. “Jackson. Are you going to take her in or what?”
Her voice broke over the words, and she blinked back tears.

Jack thrust Shadowslayer into
his baldric. Inclined his head to Leesha. Then knelt and slid his arms under
Ellen. And stood, cradling her close, breathing her in. Her clothes still
smoked from the wizard's assault. But to him, she always smelled of flowers.

He walked toward the gate,
with Leesha covering him. This was the scene he'd seen in his mirror, all those
many times. He was the last warrior standing, carrying his fallen comrade.

They passed under the vaulted
stone ceiling of the gate, and Madison wondered why she could see it. It was a
Weirweb, and if so—it didn't make sense.

The world spun like a
kaleidoscope as Mick carried Madison through the trees. An icy mist hung
waist-deep, swirling as they passed through it. The sun was just clearing the
horizon. It was like a dream sequence in a play Madison had seen once.

A nightmare. Jason was dead,
because of her.

Mick's steel grip relaxed a
bit when she finally stopped struggling. Her entire body tingled, thrummed with
power. The source of it lay somewhere ahead, within the sanctuary. The
Dragonheart, far more powerful than she remembered.

Seph smoldered behind her and
to the right, impossibly brilliant through tear-smeared eyes. Strangely
intensified. She remembered what Jason had said. He's been using wizard
flame.

The healers had set up a
triage center in one of the pavilions in the park, where they received casualties.
Mercedes met them at the door, somehow forewarned of tragedy. There was a
hurried conference, and then Jack and Seph followed her inside, carrying Jason
and Ellen. They laid them on cots in the center of the room.

Mick finally set Madison down
just inside the door, keeping one arm around her. Madison didn't know whether
this was to prevent flight or prevent her collapsing on the stone floor. She
shuddered, her body shaking with great, silent sobs while Mick awkwardly patted
her back and soothed her in Gaelic.

Leesha stood a little way off,
pale as paper, eyes fixed on Jason's body.

“Where are the
rest?” Madison whispered, trying to collect herself, gesturing toward the
makeshift hospital. For all the bloodshed outside, there weren't many patients.

Mick shook his head.
“Either they're dead, or they've been healed and went back to fight,”
he said.

“If… if ghost warriors
are killed, can they come back?”

He shook his head again.
“Not if they're done in by wizards.”

As they watched, Mercedes bent
over Jason, laying her hands on his body. She closed her eyes and remained that
way for a long moment, her tears falling onto Seph's cloak.

“You be at peace, now,
boy,” she said. Then she straightened and turned toward Ellen.

As soon as Mercedes moved
away, Leesha crossed to Jason's bedside and freed his hands from their
bindings. Still holding his hands, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips
while tears streamed down her cheeks.

Jack and Seph came toward
Madison and Mick. “I'd better go back,” Jack said gruffly. “They'll
need me at the wall. I think we lost half our warriors in that…that…” His
voice trailed off.

“I should go, too,”
Seph said. “But…” He looked at Madison, as if he had no idea what to
do with her.

“You all stay. I'll go to
the wall.”

They all turned to look at
Leesha, who was suddenly back with them, her face streaked with mascara.
“I mean, we're so going to lose, anyway. You two can stay here long
enough to … to get some news.”

She took Mick's arm.
“Come on, Mick. Let's go fight somebody in a lost cause. I'm tired of
being on the winning side.”

Mick and Leesha set off for
the wall, back to the work that wouldn't wait. The rest of them collected
around a picnic table outside the pavilion.

Jack couldn't stay still. He
paced back and forth, looking as pale and bleak as Madison had ever seen him.

Seph stared straight ahead,
his lean, muscular body extended, his long hands clasped in front of him. His
tumbled hair softened the hard architecture of his face and shadowed his eyes.
Madison's fingers twitched. She longed to paint him like this—to somehow preserve what would soon be lost to her forever.

He'll never forgive me for
what I'm about to do.

And then, without looking at
her, Seph asked the questions Madison had been dreading. “What happened,
Madison? What are you doing here? How did you get through the Wizard
Gate?” His voice tremored slightly, reminding her that he was just
seventeen.

She'd been  working  over 
what  to  say, but  still  she stumbled. “I…Jason came to see me on Booker
Mountain. He … he said you hadn't been able to get near the Dragonheart, and
thought I might be able to help. So he brought me back up here.”

“I told him not to get
you involved,” Seph said, brushing his hand over his face as if he could
wipe away pain.

“We were caught trying to
get through the lines. He told them that if they let me go, I could bring them
the Dragonheart. So, they sent me through the gate with some wizards as escorts
and kept him behind as … as a hostage. He must've got away.”

“The Roses were fighting
each other.” Seph glanced up at her quickly, then away.

“That witch-woman—Dr. Longbranch—said I should bring the Dragonheart to
her. Some other wizards came after us. I guess they wanted it for
themselves.”

Seph nodded, swallowed hard.
“Jack. How did…What happened to Ellen and Jason?”

With a few spare words, Jack
explained what had happened to Ellen and Devereaux D'Orsay. “Then D'Orsay
went berserk. He would've killed me, but suddenly Jason was there. He nailed
D'Orsay and saved my life. But D'Orsay …” His voice trailed off.

“So D'Orsay's dead,
too,” Seph murmured. The sounds of battle came to them, carrying through
the still morning air. Flames arced up over the trees. “Not that it'll do
us much good.” He looked tired, worn down, suddenly shaky. He slid his
hand inside his shirt and pulled out a bottle, making no attempt to hide it. He
uncorked it with his teeth, took a swallow, shuddered.

Madison took a deep breath.
“Maybe—if I saw the Dragonheart—I could see if it could help us somehow.” She
intentionally kept her eyes averted.

“All right,” Seph
said, wearily. “It's worth a try, I guess. But we'd better hurry. I have
to get back.”

“If it's still at the
church, I could go on my own,” she offered, hoping he'd accept.

Will Childers burst into the
clearing, breathless from running. “Where's Ellen?” he demanded.
“I heard she was hurt.”

Jack looked up at him, then
back at his boots, pressing his lips together. Will sat beside him, put his
hand on his shoulder. “The Roses have started a full scale attack on the
wall,” Will said. “Fitch is on his way. He's coming after he blows up
some wizards.”

This brought a faint smile
from Jack.

Just then Mercedes emerged
from the pavilion, her expression grave. Everyone turned toward her. Jack
remained seated, as if he thought he should take her message sitting down.

“Ellen's alive,” she
said, and a kind of whoosh went out of them, like they'd been holding their
breath. “But she's in bad shape. I suspect a wizard graffe, like Barber
used on Jason. But it's layered over with charms, so it's hard to diagnose or
treat. I can't even find the entry point; it's like it keeps shifting.
Diabolical. She needs to be churched.”

“What?” Madison
blinked at her.

“We'll take her to St.
Catherine's. The overlay charms are superficial. Hopefully they'll fade in a
consecrated church, and we can see what's what.” She turned to Jack.
“Can you and Will bring her?”

“We'll all go,” Seph
said, glancing at Madison. “The Dragonheart is there.”

“But what about the
wall?” Madison stammered. “Don't you…shouldn't you…?” She
preferred that as few people as possible come to the church.

Seph's hand on her shoulder
directed her out of the pavilion. His green eyes were bleak. “If we can't
use the Dragonheart, we'll lose anyway. Whatever I do. Jason called it. He knew
the Dragonheart was our only chance. That's why he brought you here.”

And now Madison was going to
betray Jason, along with everyone else.

The procession to St.
Catherine's had the cadence and demeanor of a funeral march, each participant a
prisoner of his own thoughts. Jack and Will carried Ellen on a stretcher. Fitch
joined them somewhere along the way, fading in from a side street as if he were
a ghost himself.

A lot had changed since
Christmas.

Trinity was like a familiar
painting in which major features had been daubed over badly. The areas closest
to the Weirwall were the most intact—the
angle of fire made it difficult for the Roses to hit them from outside the
walls. There the streets were eerily the same—except no children played in the
yards and playgrounds; no shopkeepers swept leaves from their sidewalks; no
high schoolers flirted on street corners or waited for rides in front of
Corcoran's. No fire trucks screamed by to tend the blazes that smoked all over
town. Madison imagined the people of Trinity being led, lemminglike, under the
lake.

The town center looked like
pictures she'd seen of bombed-out European capitals from the last world war.
Although the stone buildings of the college resisted burning, they'd been
heavily damaged by smoke and explosions. The
picturesque square was scorched and
pitted with craters, the ancient oaks splintered and charred, denuded of
leaves. Sorcerer cleanup crews shoveled rubble from the street and applied
magical patches to broken water mains.

Seph had been remade, too, in
Madison's absence. People made way for him on the streets and put their heads
together, whispering, once he'd passed, like he was a celebrity or a saint.

Seph seemed oblivious to them,
as if the real business of the day was going on in his head. Sometimes he
flinched and sucked in a breath, his eyes going wide as if reacting to some
private pain.

“Are you okay?” she
asked, then thought, Stupid. Really stupid.

He hesitated, as if debating
how much to share. “I feel it every time somebody dies,” he said
finally.

She shuddered. “Can't you
shield yourself somehow?”

“Not if I want to know
what's going on.”

She was glad he couldn't reach
into her mind. Glad her own thoughts were private. She had to focus on the way
ahead or lose her nerve.

They turned up Maple, heading
for the lake. She could feel the Dragonheart, dead ahead, warming her, as if
she'd turned toward the sun in some tropical place. Seph said little but
directed her mostly by the burn of his hand on her elbow.

At least the hex magic inside
her seemed totally gone. Not that it mattered anymore.

They reached St. Catherine's.
The ghost warriors who guarded the door had already heard about Ellen. They
removed their various period headgear and stood silently by as the solemn group
entered. Jack and Will carried her up through the nave and into a side chapel where they
laid her on the altar like a corpse on a bier.

Ellen lay, still and cold,
wearing the mute evidence of battle—scrapes
and smudges on her face and arms. Mercedes ran her capable hands over Ellen's
body. They stopped just above her waist. “Ah. Here we go. That's where it
went in.”

Jack stood at the head of the
altar, holding Ellen's hand and speaking to her in a low voice. Will and Fitch
lingered in the entry of the chapel so they weren't in the way as Mercedes bent
over Ellen.

“Mercedes,” Madison
said diffidently, touching her arm. “Maybe I can do something.”

The healer glanced up in
surprise, hesitated, then stepped back. “Be my guest, girl.”

Here it is, Madison thought. A
tiny gesture to set against a huge betrayal.

She slid her hands under
Ellen's jacket, pressed the tips of her fingers into Ellen's skin, and felt the
malevolent heat of the curse. Madison drew on it, sucking the dark magic into
the hollow that always existed inside of her. It was a small curse next to
Leicester's, but deadly all the same.

Ellen's body went rigid,
bucking under Madison's hands. She cried out and her eyelids fluttered. When
Madison could no longer feel the heat beneath her fingers, she drew her hands
back and shrugged.

Ellen's face was shiny with sweat,
contorted in pain. She lay restlessly now, moaning, taking quick, shallow
breaths. Her helmet of hair shone in the light from the candles that stood in
tall sconces to either side.

“She's fighting
now,” the sorcerer said, looking more hopeful than before. “That's
good.”

“Madison. Let's go
downstairs,” Seph said, turning away abruptly.

They paused at the top of the
narrow stairway so that Seph could disable the magical traps that he'd put in
place. Then they descended the uneven steps to the crypt.

Seph kindled a row of tall,
beeswax candles that had replaced the electric lights. Electricity came
fitfully from a generator, now, and it was a precious commodity. The flames
flickered in the draft from the stairwell, alternately concealing and revealing
the names on the occupied crypts.

In contrast to the dimly lit
corridor, the niche at the end of the row was brightly illuminated. A hunched
figure sat on the floor next to it, wrapped in a shawl, seeming asleep.

“Nick?” Seph
whispered.

The old man raised his head at
their approach. Madison was stunned at how much—and how badly—Nick had aged in the time she'd been gone. He'd morphed
from a vibrant old man of indeterminate age to someone who looked like he'd
outlived the most ancient of the patriarchs.

Still. Why was he here, and
not out on the battlefield?

“Ah.” Nick nodded,
as if they were expected. “You've come.”

Seph looked a little confused
himself. “Um. Ellen, Jack, and the others are upstairs. Ellen's hurt.
Madison came to see if she could do something with the Dragonheart.”

“Yes. Of course.”
Nick smiled, as if Madison were the answer to a prayer. “My dear, I'm so
glad you're here.”

But Seph still hesitated.
“Nick? You all right?”

Snowbeard closed his eyes, as
if too weary to hold them open. “Yes. I believe all will be well, now that
you've come.”