Chapter 13 #2
Flaming arrows zipped over Harper’s head, raining down on Beaumont and his zombies like fiery hail from the stronghold’s window slits. She turned and ran for the stronghold, stumbling a little as the radiant apricot glow of her power started to spread out in front of her like a shield.
“I’m okay,” she muttered, holding her arm to keep her shoulder from moving. “Protect the castle, why don’t you?”
The glow suddenly dispersed on either side of her, and she reached the door to the kitchens just as an arrow buried itself in the wood an inch from her cheek. The door opened and Doon dragged her inside. Three guards then rushed to close the door and brace it with their shoulders.
“Put back the barricade, lads.” The cook shoved firewood back into the only open window slit before she turned to Harper and grabbed her, careful to avoid the broken arrow in her shoulder as she hugged her tightly. “Never do such again to me, lass.”
I probably won’t get a chance to. Wait, no, I don’t have to. In that moment she solved the riddle Torra had told her, and it stunned her. Okay, so how do I make that happen?
Harper became distracted by a peachy glow outside the slats of the window.
That made her look down at her hands, where the same glow was starting to fade from her fingers.
Whatever power she’d had, she was pretty sure she’d successfully used it to shield the castle.
She also guessed that wouldn’t last forever.
The reason the arrow had found her, however, was another problem.
When she opened her fist, the shielding stone Rory had given her had crumbled into a little mound of dust.
I don’t need his druid magic to survive this. I can survive this with my own power. All I need to know is how I can free everyone.
“We must remove this arrow and bandage your shoulder,” the cook said.
“It can wait,” she told Doon. The answer to all this was hovering, just out of reach, but she had the sense that it would come to her soon. “Where are Ava and Tasgall?”
“Watch yourself, lad.” Darro jerked Sawney to one side as an arrow came flying at his chest. “The MacBren’s just arrived, and he’s sent his archers to take the inner wall. The watchers and guards, they’re barely holding back the army of slog. Shall this Gods-cursed day never end?”
The other man looked down from the outer curtain wall where the men stood and pointed at a strange river of apricot light flowing around the stronghold. “The fack is that, Chieftain?”
From the color it seemed to be magic cast by their new arrival, Darro guessed.
If that was her intent, she’d done well to protect the stronghold with her power.
If it held it would buy their defenders inside some time to barricade doors and set up some traps against the MacBren’s faceless archers and the army of the dead.
Esme would be safe inside with the castle defenders for a time; that left him to deal with either one enemy or the other.
“Hey, mi Corazón.” The small dark figure of his lady darted out from the weapons cache and dodged several arrows as she came to squeeze between him and Sawney. As she saw his face she pouted. “You forgot again during battles I don’t hide with the girls. I sneak out and fight with you.”
He pulled her close, holding her against him while he fought back the urge to shake her until her teeth chattered. “You shall end me, no’ the MacBren or the slog.”
Esme wriggled until she could pull back enough to kiss the cleft in his chin.
“Then I’ll kill myself and we’ll go together.
No, Sawney, don’t stand up or you’ll get an arrow in the face.
It’s happened like nine hundred times before now and it always grosses me out.
Don’t you think you should become a cook or something safer? ”
The clansmen chuckled and then suddenly vanished.
“Some of those the MacBren slew in the past that the enchantment returned, they’re being taken again,” Darro said as she gasped, and stroked his hand over her back.
“Poor guy. Whatever Harper did, it’s keeping them from storming the castle.” She wrinkled her nose. “I caught a whiff of Beaumont—that Bodach guy—from the window slit near the lists. He smells so bad he’s like a hundred skunks mixed with toxic waste, but he doesn’t look so good, either..”
“I saw his hideous form,” he reminded her.
“This is uglier. He’s turned pink like stomach medicine.” She gestured at her own face. “He has sores everywhere and they’re leaking crusty yellow fluid. There seem to be these big tumors on his arms and legs, too, and they’re pink. The guy is a real cochino.”
Darro suspected Bodach’s condition was the price for whatever he had done to create his army of the dead and bring them into the spell trap.
He also knew that just because their immortal enemy stank and appeared revolting that it wouldn’t kill the goblin.
He heard the sound of a dozen arrows whistling overhead and covered his lady with his big body.
Then an even bigger man crouched over them both, shielding them both and jerking as the arrows struck his back.
With a groan the armorer collapsed, and the sound he made caused the wall to shake beneath them.
“Rory, you eejit.” With Esme’s help Darro pulled him over to the door to the weapons storage and got him inside. To his lady he said, “Stay with him. Dinnae attempt to pull out the arrows.”
“That’s not going to be an issue, mi vida,” Esme said.
He looked over the armorer’s shoulder and saw the arrows dissolving into the same black viscous liquid as the faceless men had. “Their weapons dinnae hold together.”
“Does that mean the MacBren and his killers could do the same thing?” she asked, and then reached for Rory as he groaned and tried to get up. “No, no, you’ve still got arrow holes in you, manito.”
“I cannae remain here,” he whispered to her, and then grabbed hold of Darro’s arm. “’Tis the day of the final siege. The spell trap, ’tis collapsing. Like the arrows in my back, everything the enchantment does to recreate the day shallnae long last.”
“Some of those the MacBren slew in the past that returned, they’re vanishing,” Darro said, and saw him nod. “Shall they return again?”
“’Tisnae enough magic left, I reckon.” He reached out and touched the stone wall, into which his fingers sank as if it were clay instead of rock. “The stronghold, ’tis weakening as well. This world soon shall come apart, Chieftain, and I dinnae ken how to stop such.”
Darro saw fear in his eyes. “What may you do to aid us, Armorer?”
“The MacBren’s faceless men.” He struggled to stand, and swayed on his feet for a moment before he steadied. “I shall slay them all, but first I must find Harper. Help Alec and the garrison with the revenants.”
The big man lumbered down the stairs, leaving Darro alone with his woman.
“Hold this.” He pressed a dagger into her hand and then embraced her for a long moment. “I must go to the lists. ’Tis too many there for me to protect you. Can you go back to the stronghold and aid the defenders?”
She nodded and kissed him. “Stay alive, mi vida.”