The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (44 page)

Two legionaries materialized out of the smoke to challenge him. Alan touched the metal head of the spear against the oraculum in his brow. He felt the shockwave as the amplification of the power descended into his arm and infused the Ogham his grandfather had cut deep into the cutting edges of the blade, causing the
spearhead to blaze with power. In an explosive blur of motion the legionaries were lying dead at his feet. Finding a small mound of broken wall, he sprang up onto it, standing above the drifting smoke and flames, and he peered around him through the continuing clash of swords and armor.

An old Aides woman with a twisted spine was crouched over a dying Olhyiu, offering him healwell. A moment later she uttered a dull cry and fell like a sack of bones, half her chest destroyed. He saw how her body was already oozing the slimy glow of the Legion’s poison. Rage took possession of him, roaring through his mind and honing the speed of his thinking.

Alan held the Spear of Lug aloft, its blade effulgent like a miniature sun. Through its aura, he searched for Ainé and Qwenqwo, the two other oraculum-bearers, finding them fighting back to back in the smoking ruin at the bottom of the breach. They were trapped within a throng of legionaries, grossly outnumbered.

A pulse of force erupted from the oraculum in Alan’s brow. With a surge of his mind, he made contact, power for power, with the Kyra’s Oraculum of Bree. He used the direction of contact to lead him to her, sweeping the blazing spear through the cordon of enemies. The flame of his rage consumed them, danced in an instant from helmet to helmet, passing through shields and armor until their bodies burst into flames.

Ainé and Qwenqwo looked on in shock, unable to believe what had happened, but then they sprang to
join him, where his spear was still held high above his head, its pulsating light reflecting off the corpses.

The weariness of Alan’s limbs was forgotten as he grasped Qwenqwo’s shoulder, the dagger of Magcyn trailing from the dwarf mage’s bandaged left arm and the bloodied battle-axe trailing from his right. Qwenqwo returned Alan’s hug. Ainé stood back, staring at him in open astonishment. He felt the quick probing of her oraculum, assessing the power that must be visibly glowing on his brow. Then she did him the greatest honor, offering him the fleeting wrist and arm embrace, in the manner of an intimate Shee greeting.

“Our cause is grave. Already there are a great many injured and dead. Our scouts believe that all the southern battalions of the Death Legion are close by in the forest, and the Gargs are attacking from the opposite side of the river. Our enemies outnumber us perhaps fifty to one. But most grievous of all, our enemies are led by a Legun incarnate.”

Alan nodded, recalling Ainé’s earlier advice when they were resting close to the waterfall.
In spirit we may fight it. But if it attacks in the flesh no mortal force will prevail against it.
His voice was tense but controlled. “You were right to fear the dream journey, Ainé.” He couldn’t help but blame himself for what had happened to Kate.

Ainé shook her head. “This is not the time for recriminations. One more cannon hit and the hall will be destroyed. We must return to the plaza and organize a new defense.”

The scene, when they got there, was desperate. Alan wheeled around, taking in the brave fighting against increasingly overwhelming odds. Into his consciousness came a dreadful foreboding. Before he could see it through the green pyres and the smoke and the stench of death, he heard its obscene growl, as if the veil of light and air had been rent apart and something dreadful was willing itself into physical form nearby.

Duuuvaaalll!

A storm of malice flickered and swirled around the smoking ruin that surrounded them. Ainé began the chanting battle hymn of the Shee, calling back the survivors of her scattered army through the breach.

Duuuvaaalll! I, the humble servant of my immortal master, challenge your feeble powers in combat!

Alan turned to Qwenqwo, who was standing to his right, his feet wide apart, the battle-axe spinning in his right hand. “Go, Qwenqwo! Run! I want no foolish sacrifices here. Find Milish. Help her to protect Kate and the others.”

“My friend—I will not desert you!”

“If you truly are my friend, you will do what I ask of you.”

For just a fraction of a second the disgruntled face of the dwarf mage glared back, furious at being dismissed from the field of battle. Then he disappeared, as if the smoke had swallowed him. Ainé remained, crouched to his left, with her oraculum blazing power to her sword arm. He sensed the malevolence of the Legun nearby, probing his inadequate defenses.

Then Alan saw it—a dreadful creature, gigantic in size, with a skull-like face, sat astride a giant battle charger, horse-like in its form but with fangs for teeth and a frame as powerful as an elephant. Though its rider had the skeletal leanness of death, the spine of the charger was bent under its weight. Alan guessed it had to be the same Legun that had killed Ainé’s sister-mother and scarred her face.

He hoisted the Spear of Lug level with his shoulder, its Ogham ward pulsating strongly.

The charger reared in front of him, half emerging from the flames and ruins. Talons sprang from the Legun’s claws, raking the sweat-streaked flesh of its steed in a brutal determination to force it under control, and now the red gleam in its eyes was wholly directed at Alan. Power glimmered and streamed about the Legun, as if a dark sun were continually reforming out of the voids of space. Splinters of loathing glinted in the red pits of its eyes.

Alan held his ground.

Through the white flare from his own brow, he searched the enemy for the vestige of a human heart. But he found none. From this close, the issuing voice was an assault upon his hearing, a harsh hiss, like red-hot lava polluting fresh water.

Put aside your pathetic probing. You cannot hope to comprehend my master through me.

Ainé took advantage of its focus on Alan to attack. Crying, “De Danaan!” she sprang high into the air, her
sword extended, every ounce of strength in her tall frame directed at the shadowy region of the Legun’s throat. But the blade, even though glowing with all of her power, made little impact. It struck the dark form with a blaze of green sparks, but there was no pause, not even a shudder in her terrible enemy. The Legun struck out with taloned claws while she was still in flight, catching her shoulder with an immense reach. Alan watched Ainé fall against the wrack of bodies. Then, with a growl of glee, the Legun reached down and picked her up by the hair, dangling her body high above Alan, as if she were no more than a figure of straw, then cut deep with an extended talon, reopening the scars on the left side of her face.

I tire of such trivial digression. Again I challenge you, Duuuvaaalll, vain hope of the Witch of Ossierel, to mortal combat.

Alan’s oraculum blazed. Assuming the First Power, he held steady against a second wave of the Legun’s malice, directing his own powers into the Spear of Lug, so that the weapon forged by his grandfather, Padraig, metamorphosed into a conduit of power beyond any that could be contained by any ordinary weapon. It became the force of his will.

“Come on then. See if you can take me!”

Moment by moment Alan felt the power expanding within him, finding consummation with his anger, ramifying to fill his entire being. If the Legun was truly an integral part of its master, then he could hurt
the master through its physical being. He clenched his teeth.

“This is for Mom and Dad!”

With all of his force he hurled the Spear of Lug into the figure of darkness. The flame of contact exploded to the right of its chest, below the shoulder that held Ainé’s battered body aloft, the point of impact shimmering in a rainbow-hued implosion, issuing wave after wave of shock into darkness. The spear burst back out of the vile flesh, returning to his arm in a matrix of aftershock, recoiling further, like a counter-blow, causing Alan to reel backward.

With a roar, the Legun dropped the Kyra. Alan could see that even though he had attacked it with all of his power, he had not destroyed it. But he had hurt it—and hopefully its master.

You dare to profane the Almighty One! You are no more than a speck of dirt in His eye.

The Legun struck back, a glancing stroke of effortless ease. Alan attempted to parry it with the spear, but he hadn’t the strength to completely deflect it. A crushing pain exploded in his chest. He was tossed backward, landing with a bone-jarring concussion on the pile of broken stone and bloodied shapes. The Legun expanded until it became a thunderhead of power, above which the red splinters of eyes gloated in triumph.

Be assured I have a relish for inflicting pain that is beyond your imagination. On your knees and pray for death to release your torment.

Alan had to find some way of buying some time. Ainé needed to recover from the concussion. He struggled back onto shaky legs yet still challenged the Legun, keeping its murderous focus upon himself.

“In your dreams!”

Is this your measure, Duuuvaaallll—insufferable True Believer. I might have extinguished your mortal existence at a stroke, but you have insulted my Liege, so I am inclined to sport with you. I shall scourge you first through those you fawn over, so my ultimate satisfaction will be all the sweeter.

So saying, the monstrous form reached out and, picking up the still unconscious Kyra, it extended two talons at her eyes.

“Stay your malice, Septemvile!”

Through a mist of pain, Alan saw the petite form of Mo insinuate herself between the Legun and himself. In her right hand she held her bog-oak talisman aloft. He heard Mo speak, although her lips were not moving. Her voice sounded an octave lower, no longer girlish in its intonation.

“Mo—get out of here! Save yourself!”

Her show of force was foolishly brave in these circumstances. Mo couldn’t hope to defeat the immense power of a Legun incarnate.

What pretty spoil are you?

Through the oraculum Alan glimpsed the triangular shadow that silhouetted Mo’s figure from behind—a figure, impenetrably dense, cowled in spiderwebs.
Granny Dew!
Against the shadow, Mo’s face glowed, spectral with light. The voice appeared to come from Mo but it was too deep and calm for the friend he knew. “Your master will know me by my true name. I am Mira,
Léanov Fashakk
—the Heralded One.”

Ahhhhhh!

Alan found himself ignored as the gigantic shape shifted its focus to the diminutive figure of the girl.

This spectral Mo confronted the Legun and spoke calmly again. “Let him live. Let them all live and I will surrender to you.”

“No! Mo—get out of here!”

Thrusting all that remained of his faltering power between them, Alan was once more struck aside, hurled against the broken stones, the Legun barely registering his intervention, so absorbed was it with Mo’s challenge. Yet still the Legun made no attempt at a physical attack on her. Alan sensed a lightning-quick probe of the small figure, both in the Dromenon and in the flesh. And in the Legun’s consciousness he saw a new figure in place of Mo, tall even for a fully-grown woman, and hauntingly beautiful. He sensed great power within the figure. He also sensed the Legun’s desire to possess her, covetous beyond limit.

Why would I bargain with you, little sparrow? Your strength is but a sigh in the storm of my hunger. I shall take you and sport with them also.

Rage blazed in the triangle behind the girl. The Legun drew back from the challenge, as though reconsidering
the nature of this new threat. Alan heard new words invade his mind, words that seemed to come from Mo, although he knew that they were really coming from a much older and wrinkled presence. Granny Dew was speaking through Mo’s mind.

Mira is but a child. She can only distract it briefly. Yet for such an eventuality did the De Danaan sacrifice herself. There is one among you whose destiny is manifest.

The Blood Rage of a Kyra

Mark was watching over Kate’s unconscious body, with
Vengeance
unsheathed, when he heard the words of Granny Dew invade his mind. He knew that the words were directed at him. But what did they mean? He couldn’t abandon Kate. Even so, the wider implications were abundantly clear. The battle was being lost in the streets of the ruined citadel. With a sudden dread, he also sensed another presence. The succubus was nearby. Leaving Kemtuk to nurse Kate he ran up the steps to the side-alley entrance and peered inside. His heart faltered. The three Shee who had guarded the entrance lay dead, their bodies hacked to pieces.

Immediately he heard the hated whisper. “My lovely boy!”

Her voice came from the air above his head. His eyes wheeling skyward, he witnessed an incredible sight. The succubus was floating down through the tormented smoke and green lividity of attack, her hair clasped by an enormous bat creature. Mark thrust
Vengeance
aloft.

Mocking him with the tinkle of her laughter, she alighted just feet away from him. “You will not harm me, my heart. Have you forgotten your promise?”

“You tricked me. Seduced me.”

She preened in front of him, her lips pouting in the doll-like face. Her scent was in his nostrils. She was already brushing her face against his, her pink tongue nuzzling against the cold, wet skin of his ear. “You will find that the promise is binding.”

“No!”

He pushed her away from him. Though his left arm trembled, he pressed the battle-axe against her breast. Behind him he heard the sound of fluttering leathery wings. The Garg!

Her sigh enchanted him. “A promise is a promise!” Her body curled around him, her warm softness overwhelming all of his senses. Mark felt faint with the promises she was whispering into his ear. But then, as her beautiful mouth extended toward his with lips parted, he imagined her face replaced with the ugly snarl of his adoptive father. He imbued that face with the pain of every unwarranted punishment, every mocking insult that had been directed at him and the
sister he loved—the sister he had been unable to protect. His heart filled with a bitter guilt, a guilt that filled his entire being, the guilt of self-loathing. He no longer cared what happened to him. As her mouth closed on his, he thrust
Vengeance
through the heaving breast, burying the blade right to the hilt.

In death, the power of the succubus was broken, and Mark found himself in the embrace of a wizened creature centuries old, the mouth toothless except for the four fangs of needle-sharp canines. As he shook this obscenity off the blade, he felt a piercing pain in his back. He twisted his head around to see the Garg’s wing-talon withdraw, still dripping venom. Immediately he felt the poison enter his flesh and begin to spread. He wheeled through half a circle with
Vengeance
extended, severing the gargoyle head from the creature’s shoulders, a good two feet higher than his own. But in that same moment he heard the scratchy patter of more talons on stone as other Gargs descended the stairs into the cellar.

He rushed to follow them, but a blow from the hilt of a heavy weapon struck hard against the back of his head.

He turned again in falling. Three legionaries had appeared behind him, together with a smaller, evil-looking man holding a dagger with a twisted blade. It was the heavy hilt, black metal decorated with glowing silver that had struck his head. With horror, Mark recognized the sigil of Grimstone’s beloved master. As he struggled to get up off his knees, the man pressed
the dagger into his throat and Mark felt a second poison burn into his flesh. But then the small man hesitated, his attention distracted by the spectacle of Kate’s unconscious body being carried up the cellar steps over the shoulder of a Garg.

Mark tore himself free of the man with the dagger. He pushed himself upright, struggling to stop them from taking Kate. But the legionaries still pinioned his left arm so he was powerless to strike. The small man turned back and smiled, his red-veined eyes wide with anticipation. He wriggled the tip of the blade deeper into Mark’s throat, while relishing his anguish at the sight of the Garg taking flight with Kate’s auburn hair clasped in its feet. With a great clattering of wings it soared skyward, navigating through the smoke and missiles.

The small man continued to torment Mark, preparing to deepen the wound and twist the blade. But a sudden blow from a heavy blade clove his head in two. All of a sudden, the area was empty of Garg and legionaries. A helmeted and mailed figure stood over Mark, battle-axe twirling.

“Qwenqwo—is . . . is that you?”

The emerald-green eyes fell on him, their gaze melting from battle rage to concern. The dwarf mage fell to one knee, supporting Mark with an arm around his shoulders.

“Aides!” he roared.

Suddenly others appeared. Two Aides helped Mark to stand, though he was tottering from the poisons
spreading from the wounds in his neck and back. He couldn’t bear to face Qwenqwo, who had put him in charge of protecting Kate. His head fell. Despair was like an iron fist squeezing the air from his lungs.

“I failed you!”

“No, my friend! You did not fail me.” Qwenqwo spoke softly, taking a flask of healwell from one of the Aides and lifting it to Mark’s lips. “But there is little time—if you would claim your destiny!”

Overhead, more and more Gargs were circling. The sky was filled with the beating of their leathery wings.

Mark swallowed, feeling the healwell penetrate the membranes of his throat. He felt a little revived, although the poisons coursed through his blood. Yet he had heard Qwenqwo use that same word as Granny Dew—destiny! Was it possible that even in despair there was a last ray of hope that remained open to him?

Thunderclouds lowered over the blazing citadel as Alan gathered what strength he had to confront the Legun. Mo, with the help of Granny Dew, was somehow holding it, absorbing the greater part of its malice. But Granny Dew had already warned him that Mo couldn’t hold out for very much longer. He felt a heavy hand clamp his left shoulder and he whirled around to find the injured Ainé once more on her feet, her right arm dangling uselessly by her side. She tottered, the matrix in her oraculum pulsating weakly. He could see that she was mortally wounded.

“There is little more I can do for you,” she panted, her pallid face awash with sweat. Then her blue eyes widened and a spark of awe lit them, as if from her inner spirit. “Yet I thank the Powers that I should have lived to see the arrival of the Heralded One!”

Her left hand moved to touch his brow, and her oraculum began to pulsate more strongly, as if drawing spiritual strength from him for a final act of defiance. “Help me.”

Alan gazed into Ainé’s eyes. “How can I help you?”

“Preserve these, my memories, for my sister-daughter.”

He shook his head. “No—don’t say that!”

“Give me this comfort.”

He lowered his head, nodded.

“I would enter blood-rage but my body is too weak. For this I must draw power from you—from the First Power.”

He glanced where the Legun, high on its charger, had eyes only for the tiny figure of Mo. Alan focused all of his power on Ainé’s Oraculum of Bree. The explosive union threw them both backward. Alan’s arms rose in a reflex action, to protect his sight from the blinding cataract of light that emanated from the Kyra.

Only now did the Legun refocus on them.

A single lightning bolt erupted upward from Ainé’s soul spirit of the white tigress and struck the thunderclouds overhead, spilling out far and wide, like a tree of power, its branches dividing and cascading over the sky. Then it reversed, condensing centrally, as if to concentrate its energy, forming a twisting, spiraling
vortex of lightning that shot back downward, followed by an almighty crack of thunder, to strike the crouching tigress. So imbued, each movement of the tigress’s limbs caused arcs of lighting to spill into the adjacent ground, and its eyes radiated light, like miniature furnaces. With a roar that shook the ground, it pounced, its huge weight and energy tearing into the body of the Legun, its terrible maw aimed for the throat.

The flaring oraculum in Alan’s brow continued to supply every mote of his power to Ainé’s spirit until she retained no vestige of life. But still the Legun prevailed.

Gathering whatever strength he could as the healwell dampened the poisons in his blood, Mark broke into a staggering run, hammering the ground with his booted feet as he climbed above the ruined defenses and the burning buildings, above the fierce battle that continued over the plateau. A roar of fury from the Legun below revealed that some new struggle was distracting it. Lifting his face, Mark gazed up at the pentagonal tower, raised like a fist above the tor.

He began the ascent.

As he climbed the first dozen steps of fissured stone, the malevolent reek followed him. He sensed that the monstrous enemy had become aware of him. While confronting others it could still cast its malice in a second direction. He felt it invade his mind, looking for weaknesses. It was attempting to control him. Almost
immediately, the shadow of a Garg fell over him. The Legun had summoned it to attack.

Grimstone’s torments came unbidden into his memory: the earliest recollections, when he was no more than three years old, of the mocking jibes about his true parents and origins—the first wounds.

Your father was a drunk and your mother was a whore. What does that make you?

He couldn’t hide the hurt deep inside him, no matter how hard he tried to dismiss it.

It had taken the Legun mere seconds to discover his weakness.

At once, into his consciousness came wounding images, memories of other hurts, failures on his part. Mark shook his head from side to side in a determined effort to keep to his purpose.

Still he continued to climb.

A screech cut through the air and a shadow loomed. Mark whirled, with
Vengeance
raised to strike out at the attacking Garg, whose talons almost raked his hair. The rasping voice of the Legun echoed inside his mind.
Deny, then, that darkness rules you, Mark Grimstone!

He ignored its taunts, pressing higher, playing for time, all the while wondering why the monster did not tear him bodily from the rock.

Suddenly the Garg attacked again. It was more cunning this time. Its talons raked his scalp, and blood ran down over his forehead and into his eyes. Mark couldn’t see the rock in front of him. He was forced to stop on
the dizzying height of the staircase to wipe clear his eyes with the back of his hand. Even then he could barely feel the steps under his flagging limbs, though they continued to climb.

He turned around. The valley already seemed so far away, so distant. The entire world appeared to wheel around his dizzy head as he drew back his arm, hurling
Vengeance
at the descending Garg. He buttressed himself against the stone with his right hand, watching the twist and arc of the glittering battle-axe discover its mark, cutting through the main wing bone like butter, causing the Garg to flutter desperately as it plummeted down a thousand feet. With his left hand upheld, he waited. The central hilt struck his wide-open palm and he closed his fist tight around it.

Weapon and warrior were one.

Blinking the continuing trickle of blood from his eyes, he found a new strength to attack the stone steps.

My master need teach you nothing. The darkness is there in you already, Mark Grimstone!

“Not true!” he muttered.

The answering stench of wickedness, of the putrefaction of its hate, almost threw him into the abyss.

As its malice wore at him, the Legun diverted more of its concentration to the lonely figure climbing the steps. Still he opposed it, keeping his face turned into the mountain, his legs climbing, climbing. Against the fury of its spite, he was horribly exposed. But he thought about his love for his sister, Mo, and his friendship for
Kate—even Alan. In love and friendship he found the strength to endure the torment that clawed at every lift of his agonized ankles and the scorn that tried to weaken his resolve.

What do these wretches mean to you, fighting their miserable skirmishes in this alien world? Reflect! How easy it would be to relieve your pain!

Mark wrenched his head up to stare up at the looming pinnacle. It was closer now. A couple of hundred feet. But that small distance seemed huge in front of him. And the light was ebbing from the afternoon, as if a terrible darkness beckoned.

The flailing wind numbed his fingers, and he began to lose his footing on the stairs. Still he forced his exhausted limbs upward, fighting each individual step at a time, while a tormenting giddiness made his senses spin, and in his mind the malignant probe dissected and pried, hunting for the secret places, reaching back into the memories of the maturing boy, discovering the pain.

Grimstone’s voice:
You failed again!

“No!”

A weakness invaded his heart and he fell against the cold stone, feeling its edges bite into his body, tearing at the flesh of his hands and his knees.
What else are you cut out for but failure! Your father was a drunk—your mother a whore!
The belt rose, hesitated at the top of its arc, before coming down with a hard crack over his naked skin.

“No!” Every breath was a groan. “My real father cared about me. He tried to show me he cared . . . when he gave me the harmonica.”

He stopped, striking his forehead against the rock. He couldn’t climb another step. He had to cling dizzily to where he had stopped. Staring back over his shoulder, unable to resist the impulse that was invading his mind, there was no doubting the allure of letting go, of allowing his pain that final release in the tumble, that sheer fall through crackling wind and howling abyss, to end his life on the rocks below.

The Legun was expanding its power over him. In his mind it cackled with increasing confidence.

You were weak. You sold yourself body and soul to the succubus. You betrayed Kate.

“I was stupid. The succubus tricked me.”