The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (56 page)

“Wait!”

Startled by the sound of a voice I
hadn’t heard in a long time, I lowered the flute and looked towards the edge of
the forest where Valory and Katriel were leading Queen Othella, Violet, Mr.
Larue, the two Master Casters and a young black man with human ears.

Nobody would have known it was
Queen Othella if she hadn’t been in the wheelchair. She wore secondhand human
clothes. Her hair was limp and matted. Her thin face looked ten years older
than when she’d left Faylinn.

“Chloe might be up there!” Othella
shouted.

I ran and met her halfway across
the drawbridge. “What do you mean? How? Did you get caught? Was she taken
prisoner?”

“No,” Othella said. “Chloe,
Bazzlejet and Garland went in on their own through a book Garland had with him.”

The others arrived on the drawbridge.
The young man that I didn’t know spoke up.

“My mother might be up there, too.”

I couldn’t help but stare. He
looked as human as me. “Who is your mother?” I asked.

“Kiros Rubedo,” Violet answered for
him. “She’s a Faylinn refugee like your father. She’s a powerful alchemist. We
think the duke had her abducted.”

There came the unmistakable rumble of
thunder. All heads turned to the flying castle.

“We can’t just sit around and do
nothing,” I said.

Mr. Larue looked past me to the row
of cannons we’d set up outside Woodman’s Hall. He nodded his approval. “Looks
like you’ve’ got some defenses in place.”

“It won’t be enough,” I said,
squeezing my flute tight. “I was thinking of something a little bigger.”

Violet trembled. “But…Chloe.”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want
to risk Chloe’s life, either.

“We could fly up there,” Valory
suggested. “You know, buzz up and have a look and see if we can spot this Chloe
person.”

Violet stared at her with a mix of
disbelief and contempt. “That
Chloe person
you speak of is the queen of
the Fay! We can’t take her safety lightly!”

Valory chuckled. “I’m a queen too,
little lady, and I wouldn’t want my allies sitting on their rumps, waiting for
their doom.”

“You have a point,” Katriel
acknowledged begrudgingly. “If we arm ourselves properly, we might be able to
fly in close enough to look.” She turned to Lev. “What say you, King Hugo?”

He nodded slowly. “It might be
possible.”

“I’ll go, too,” I said.

“But if one of us has to carry you,
we won’t be able to fly very fast,” Katriel said.

“Who said I needed anyone else’s wings?”
I asked, lifting my flute.

“I’m coming, too,” Violet said.

“Huh-uh.” I said, shaking my head.
“We’ll need Channelers on the ground. Go and wait with the others. Othella, you
go with her. You guys—” I pointed to the two Master Casters “—report to Mr.
Tulley. He’s got a garrison set up on the other side of the Hall.”

Mr. Larue watched me with some
amusement. “So long as you’re handing out orders, where do you want me?”

I could feel the suggestion in the
question. He wanted to come with us. “Don’t worry about Bazzlejet,” I said. “If
he’s with Chloe, we’ll get him out of there. Your wife is waiting for you and I
know Lord Finbarr will want to talk to you.”

That only left the half human. I
suddenly felt awkward. I didn’t even know his name, let alone where to put him.

“Um…”

“It’s Tobin,” he said, extending a
hand to me.

I shook his hand. It felt strange
to come face to face with someone like myself.

“So, um, do you have any powers?” I
asked.

He gave me a blank look. “Not that
I’m aware of, but I
do
throw a wicked curve ball.”

I managed a little laugh. Nobody
else standing near us got it. “Well, Tobin, maybe you’d be useful to the Gremlins.”

His eyes grew wide. “Gremlins?”

I pointed to the two short,
bat-eared figures by the cannons. “Joyboy and Wimbleysminch. They’re our
weapons experts. They get their orders from that Hobgoblin over there. Her name
is Sandrine.”

Looking dazed, Tobin walked towards
the cannons. “Gremlins and Hobgoblins. Got it.”

Valory shook her head as she
watched him walk away. “He looks like he’s expecting to wake up from a bad
dream.”

I grimaced at the approaching
castle. “Too bad it’s not.”

A small army of Slaugh lined up
behind me. Lev had given them some silent signal and now they were awaiting
their orders.

“You, too,” Lev said to Valory.

Beaming, Valory took up a spot with
the other Slaugh. Katriel rolled her eyes.

I stared at the troops in
amazement. “Do we need this many?”I asked.

“We’ll cover for you,” Lev said.

“Then you know what I’m planning?”

He gave the slightest of nods.

I held the flute to my lips and
played the familiar third note. Another peel of thunder rattled the sky, but
this time it was not the castle. Tuari shot down from the clouds. She lit up
the sky with her otherworldly glow. When she beat her wings, I felt my pulse beat
in unison. The beast was a part of me. Never before had my existence relied so
strongly upon it.

There was a collective gasp from
the rebels as Tuari landed on the drawbridge. Even the Slaugh were awestruck.
They drew back, gasping with their dark eyes wide.

Tuari’s wings stirred up gusts of
wind. My hair blew back from my face and I felt my pulse beat even faster. I
climbed over the bird’s neck and down to the soft plumage between her wings.

“Take me up to Ivywild!” I shouted.

Tuari would have obeyed even if I’d
only whispered. She beat her wings, lifting off.        

Lev gestured to the Slaugh to form
a circle around Tuari and me. The winged soldiers flew into formation. Lev took
up the front. He glanced over his shoulder as we began the ascent.

“
Thank you
,” I mouthed.

Tuari’s back heaved with the rapid
up and down movement of the climb. The floating castle was causing disturbances
in the atmosphere. As we got closer, the air felt charged with electricity.
Debris from the castle’s underside tumbled and rolled into billowing clouds,
creating a dirty fog that obscured my vision.

We broke free of the debris cloud
and came level with the sheer outer wall of Ivywild.

Katriel shouted something but it
was lost in the wind. I saw her pointing to the arched opening where the
waterfall used to spill out from the castle wall. It was a way inside.

Lev shook his head and shouted
something back. He pointed up, past the top of the wall.

So we were going up and over. I
leaned close against Tuari’s neck and urged her to go higher. I sensed her
hesitation. Maybe it was the static charge that filled the air, but Tuari
seemed to be affected by being close to the castle. Then again, I thought, it
might just be my own fear holding the bird back. I didn’t know what we’d find
in the castle. Part of me didn’t want to see.

Something whizzed by my ear. I
heard a scream of pain. Katriel floundered in midair as black blood spurted
from a bare spot on her arm that wasn’t protected by armor.

“Archers!” Lev shouted.

Five red capes lined up on the top
of the wall with bows. A volley of arrows rained down, forcing us to break
formation. I heard several plinks of arrowheads striking armor.

Bleeding badly, Katriel fell back.
Another Slaugh went to help her down. The others tried to regroup into their
circle around me.

Another volley came our way. This
time I was ready. I stopped the arrows with a barrier.

“Get behind me!” I shouted. “We’ll
press ahead!”

“Don’t waste your strength,” Lev
shouted. “We’ll swarm them next time they reload.”

I held off one more round of
arrows. We were close enough to the top of the wall to see the faces of the red
capes.

“NOW!” Lev shouted.

I dropped my barrier. Lev and the other
Slaugh burst forth like wasps out of a nest. No sooner did the red capes reach
for their quivers than the fearsome, winged warriors were upon them. They were
so fast that I never even saw them draw their weapons.

 One, two, then three red capes
went tumbling over the top of the wall. The two that were left had enough wits
to conjure their wings, but they couldn’t defend themselves any better in
flight. Two male Slaugh grappled with them. I heard the swift slash of their
blades and the guttural scream as the red capes fell out of the sky.

“FALL IN!” Lev shouted.

The Slaugh regrouped. They appeared
unshaken by the blood on their armor. It was just the first obstacle of many
they expected to face.

We flew over the wall and passed
over the outer streets, throwing winged shadows over the innocents huddled in
doorways and alleys. They looked ghostly with whitened hair and shrunken skin,
much like Commander Larue after his escape from Helm Bogvogny.

There was no time to help them. We
cut a swift path to the center part of the castle where the towers rose steeply.
We came under fire again near the central tower that housed the elevatree. A
regiment of red cape archers took aim. The Slaugh dodged the arrows and swept
wide around the tower. I urged Tuari to keep pace as the Slaugh spiraled faster
and faster around the central tower. There was no way the archers could catch
us, but I remained cautious. I was ready to cast a barrier at a second’s
notice.

We arrived at a suspension bridge
that connected the central building to an outer tower. There were three figures
standing on the bridge. I saw the dark purple color of their robes and
instinctively cast a shield of energy in front of Lev and the other Slaugh who
flew in front of me.

A meteor of flame collided with my
barrier and burst into a wall of fire. Through the smoldering curtain I saw the
faces of the three men standing on the bridge.

It was Kesper, Nuckelvee and
Marcellus, the judges of the Seelie Court. There was something different about
them, though. Their bodies were swollen, making them look like bulked up
versions of themselves. Even ancient old Marcellus was holding himself aloft
without any sign of his usual stooped posture. Most alarming of all was their
eyes. They glowed with otherworldly white light.

Tuari made a frightened cawing
sound and flapped her wings hard to reverse direction, away from the bridge.

It took a lot of strength to keep
up my barrier while I was on the bird’s back. “It’s okay,” I said soothingly.
“They can’t hurt us.”

“Ho, ho, is it the Flute Keeper?”
Kesper chortled. “It must be. Look at that magnificent beast!”

“I can’t wait until we get our
hands on it!” said the spidery Nuckelvee. He rubbed his hands together in
delight. “Think of the power!”

“Think of
her
power, young
brothers,” said Marcellus. “I want her youth to quicken in my blood!”

Kesper sneered. “My esteemed
Marcellus, you’d certainly put her gifts to much better use than she ever has.
Look at her! Cavorting with Slaugh!”

“What are you old fools doing up
here?” Lev shouted.

“Speak not to me, cur!” Kesper boomed.
“We have no use for the likes of you. We are blessed by divine power.”

“It is our holy mission to judge,” Nuckelvee
said. “We judge you to be blackened with sin. You can see it in your blood.
Black, black, black as the deepest pits of the Twi-Realm! That’s where you’re
headed. That’s where we’ll send you.”

“You have nothing to offer us,”
Marcellus chimed in, his voice eerily resonant. “There’s not a drop of magic in
you to bargain for your soul.”

Befuddled by all the crazy talk, I
focused on maintaining my barrier. Tuari was still trying to back away, so I
had to fight against her, too. It was putting a strain on me.

 “Why don’t you old geezers stop
your yapping and get out of our way?” Valory shouted.

Lev shot her a warning look.

Kesper raised one hand. A meteor
formed out of thin air. He hurled it at Valory. I had to react quickly to reinforce
the barrier near her. When the meteor collided with it, I felt it like
miniature earthquakes running down the length of my body.

Almost as if he felt it, too, Lev
winced and turned to look back at me.

“It’s…so…strong,” I said, gasping
for breath. The impact had knocked all the air out of me. “Their magic…how?”

Lev clenched a fist. “We have to
keep going!” he shouted. “Pull up!”

The Slaugh went to fly above the
bridge, but a turbulent whirlwind sucked them back. It tossed them around like
playthings. Lev and Valory managed to escape the cyclone by diving down to the
bridge. An unlucky few were caught. I watched helplessly from Tuari’s back as
the Slaugh spun round and round.

On the bridge, Nuckelvee twirled his
index finger and laughed. “Around you go and…bang!”

He’d singled out Wilhelmina. The
wind spell sent her reeling towards the main tower. Her wings were useless. She
smashed into the wall hard. Her body went limp and she fell down the side of
the tower, looking like a broken doll.

“Tuari, go!” I cried.

We took a dive and swept under the
falling woman. I reached out to grab her and pulled her onto Tuari’s back. Her
eyes were closed. A little trail of black blood streamed from the side of her
mouth.

The sound of laughter rang out over
the bridge. Nuckelvee was still delighting in his little trick.

Suddenly there was a gleam of
silver. One of Lev’s best throwing knives cut through the air and found its
mark just above Nuckelvee's collar.

Choking, Nuckelvee stumbled
backwards and grabbed his neck. Lev gave a signal to the remaining Slaugh. They
flew in around the judges and hurled more weapons at them. Kesper and Marcellus
fired back with meteors and blasts of wind.

I told Tuari to land in a street
below the bridge. Wilhelmina wouldn’t open her eyes. I put a finger to her neck
to feel for a pulse.