Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) (50 page)

“Master will be pleased with me,” she croaks.

Master? I shake my head to get the ringing out of my ears, but only manage to make myself dizzier.

I watch the banshee reach for me, when a large ball of green explodes against her, throwing the creature into the air. I hear a muffled cracking of bones as she lands in the dried grass.

“I told ya to go back!” Percy yells.

“Couldn’t…leave you…alone,” I gasp.

He pulls me to my feet. “You OK?” he asks, making one of the red orbs fly toward my face so he can examine me.

“I think so,” I say with a shaky breath. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Percy says.

A screech rends the air, and Percy drops down to a low crouch just as a large black shape barrels into him. He lands, sprawling in the tall grass, rolls onto his back, then flips himself upright again.

“Percy!” I shriek.

I try to go to him, but falter as the world around me tips. I blink in the darkness. I think I see the banshee’s misshapen form scurry toward me. I raise my hands up, but the sword’s gone. I look about my feet, searching for the weapon.

Someone pushes me roughly to the side.

“Dagaz,” Percy mutters as the banshee reaches him.

There’s a loud bang, and the sky is streaked with the white flash of lightning, followed by an agonizing shriek.

“Stupid human,” Blanchefleur says, pulling me away from the growing smell of burning flesh.

Mouth agape, I watch the scene unfold before me, Percy and the banshee wrapped in incandescent fire before the light goes out. I remember Arthur’s warning, how Dagaz’s use is like committing suicide.

There’s a rustling of clothes and metal, the sound of a body falling to the ground, then nothing.

“Percy?” I call out, my voice cracking.

I crawl toward the spot where I last saw him. Blanchefleur rushes around me, her sword once again in her hands.

“Is he…” I can’t bring myself to say it.

Blanchefleur pokes a body with her feet until it rolls away. “Stupid human,” she repeats. “Of course lightning would be drawn to him, what with all that metal he’s carrying.”

My breath rushes out of me, and my throat constricts. “Percy?”

“He’s still breathing,” Blanchefleur says, scornful, “though gravely injured.” She gets up in one graceful move and scans the area. I hear her swear.

“What is it?” I ask, taking Percy’s pulse, then feeling his burning face.

“We lost her,” she says.

“The banshee? Why was she after you?”

“I was after her,” Blanchefleur snarls. “She killed my sister; she has to pay for it.”

Coming to stand beside us, she holds her sword up so its light can shine onto Percy’s injured body.

His clothes have partly burnt away, showing pale skin beneath.

I draw in a sharp breath—covering most of his torso is a bright red Lichtenburg figure. The lightning-shaped burn goes from his shoulder all the way down his back, branching out over and over again like a leafless tree. My heart skips a beat as I realize that Percy really could have died, and all because of me.

“I need to go get help,” I say.

“You’re not going to find any,” Blanchefleur says. She sheathes her sword, throwing us back into the decreasing darkness.

“The school can’t be far. There are healers there who ca—”

“It’s too late for that now,” Blanchefleur says.

“I don’t understand.”

The Fey’s blue eyes look straight into mine, reflecting the pale dawn. “It means your school’s probably already under attack by now.”

As if to corroborate her words, I hear the faint but distinctive sound of the tocsin
³³
ringing in the distance. I rock onto my feet.

“What?”

“Fomori invasion,” she says, pointing up.

I look at the sky-lake. Streaks of light pink are bleeding into the midnight blue and, with them, strange dark clouds, the first I’ve ever seen down here. As I peer more intently at the odd-moving patterns, I realize that those aren’t clouds, but four-limbed creatures descending from the lake, crawling along the barrier that separates the lower world from the surface.

“But I thought Fey weren’t allowed to step into our school unless invited or…”

“Or enslaved?” Blanchefleur finishes for me. She shrugs. “The barrier’s been breached. And on that note, I’ve got to go.”

With dread, I realize that all those black spots are converging toward the school.

I look back down at Percy. His ordinarily smiling features are now distorted with pain, though he barely lets out a sound. Remorse gnaws at my insides; I can’t leave him like this.

“Wait!” I call after her before she disappears. “We can’t let him die!”

Blanchefleur grimaces at Percy.

“Please!” I beg her. “He saved our lives.”

After another moment’s hesitation, she lets out a deep sigh. “Help me take off his armor,” she says, “and I’ll take care of him.”

“You will?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t say so if it weren’t true,” she retorts, flashing me a look of contempt.

Right, the whole Fey-can’t-lie thing. I grab both her hands in mine. “Thank you so much! I owe you one.”

Blanchefleur pulls away, wincing. “Just get it clear in your little head. I’m not doing this for you. As you said, I owe him a favor, and so I shall repay it before it’s too late.”

“Right, right,” I say as I hurry to take Percy’s armor off—not an easy task considering all the knots and how some of the metallic plates have melded together.

“Are you sure you want to go there?” Blanchefleur asks as I pull the vambraces off Percy. “It might not be wise, especially for you, since the reaping’s nearly done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, taking Percy’s steel-toed boots off. “Do his pants have to go too?”

Blanchefleur leans over me, then points at his torso. “Just that, and it should be fine,” she says.

I place Percy’s shirt on top of the growing pile of iron items. “There, all done,” I say, dusting myself off. “Don’t forget your promise.”

“A word given cannot be taken,” Blanchefleur says, carefully kneeling down next to Percy’s unconscious body.

I watch her closely as she places his head onto her lap.

“Are you all right?” I ask, noticing for the first time the gashes in her shoulder.

“You better hurry if you hope to still find your school in one piece,” she tells me without looking up.

I don’t have to be told twice. My feet pound the ground as I run full speed across the fields, following the trail of Fomori crawling on the sky-dome above me.

“Dear God,” I pray under my breath, “please let them be OK!”

Fighting a stitch in my side, I reach the large standing stone that’s a mile west of the landing area. As I near it, I realize the boulder’s cracked in two, as if it’s been struck by a giant hammer. I crest the hill, arriving by the first longboat, and suck in my breath. From here, the breach in the barrier is obvious; it’s like an angel’s punched a hole through the sky, and now hundreds of creatures are dropping through it to land on the school below.

Using the boats for cover, I hurry toward the front of the wharf, coughing on the smoke billowing up from the burning keels. Beyond the flames awaits a nightmarish vision of chaos.

I see Laura and Diana run up the hill toward me, pursued by a Fomori—the Fey’s even uglier in reality than in the book illustrations, and, for once, I wish I’d been wrong and that they were extinct.

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m sprinting down to their aid. The creature’s long limbs quickly catch up to the two terrified girls. It smiles at them, showing two rows of jagged teeth in its brown-green face, its eyes glowing with a white-blue, feverish light.

I slide down the remaining few feet and tackle the Fomori to the ground.

“Run!” I yell to my classmates.

I don’t have time to watch them escape as the creature bounds my way. Its webbed hands whip down toward me, thin spikes out.
Rolling away, I see its sharp claws dig into the earth where I’d been standing.

I use that moment to kick the Fomori in the face, hearing its jaw crunch under my boot heel. Without waiting for it to retaliate, I scramble away and into the thick of the battle.

I skid to a stop before a group of knights fighting off a couple more Fomori, their sweaty faces lighting up with the various elementals they’re calling.

I dive behind a tree. What am I doing here? I don’t know how to fight, I don’t have a single EM to control, and I still have no weapon.

“I should’ve borrowed Blanchefleur’s sword,” I mutter as an explosion shakes the ground, so loud it momentarily overcomes the sound of the tocsin. My ears ringing, I see more and more Fomori arrive—too many for us to fight, too many for us to survive.

“Please, dear God, have mercy on us,” I pray out loud.

One of the Fomori falls down on the gravel path between me and the school, writhing beneath an iron net. But the other Fey march past him, oblivious to their comrade’s pain.

“Don’t try to capture them!” a knight yells. His dark hair looks familiar. He whirls around to stab a Fomori in the guts, and I recognize Hadrian, Bri’s older brother. He pulls out his sword, wet with dark blood, and helps a girl up. “Remember to aim for their vitals!”

“Get everyone inside the school!” someone shouts nearby, bringing me back to my senses. “They haven’t gotten through the main defenses yet!”

“Gather all those who can’t fight inside!” I hear Hadrian shout again.

I’m about to dart inside myself when I notice a squire cowering beneath a bench, his eyes wide with terror. Just two feet
from him are a couple Fomori, their slitted noses smelling the air like hunting dogs on a scent. The hairs on my arms bristle as the creatures’ big heads snap toward the boy, drool falling from their spiky teeth and onto their slick, murky brown bodies.

The boy screams as one of the monsters reaches down and grabs him by the hair, its maw gaping wide open, ready to chew his head off. I grab the first thing I can find, a large rock, and hurl myself at the creature. The stone connects with its temple, and its webbed fingers let go.

“Inside!” I yell to the kid as both Fomori turn on me.

The first one swipes at me, and my jacket rips in two. I topple backward onto the ground, hitting my elbow on the bench. Breath cut short, I remain still for a moment, and blink up at the hideous creature.

The Fomori sneers at me, if such a thing is possible from a creature that has no lips. Then something crashes into it with the force of a bull, sending it flying into the bench. Before the second creature knows what’s happening, there’s a bright flash, and its head rolls off.

“Morgan,
ma chère
,
³⁴
what you doing here?” Gareth asks me, helping me up with his gauntleted hand. “Thought you were upstairs, safe and bound.”

“No, they didn’t tie me up,” I say as we dodge under shots of fire that have sizzled astray. “Which is how I’ve found myself here.”

“What about Percy?” he asks. “Weren’t he keeping his eyes over you?”

He holds out a beefy arm to keep me back and swings his broadsword up, cleaving a Fomori in half before it can finish a knight who’s fallen down.

“He’s injured and can’t come,” I say, helping him lift the unconscious girl he’s just saved.

“Like most of us here,
hein
?”
³⁵
he says.

I sweep my eyes around the gory scene, afraid to look too closely at the bodies scattered about, afraid I may recognize anyone. Afraid one of them may be a friend… or Arthur.

“What do they want from us?” I catch myself asking. “Why are they fighting us like this?”

Gareth shrugs. “Why does any war start?” He waves at me. “Well, better get you inside before I find my poet cousin and see what trouble he’s plugged into.”

“Great idea,” I say.

We reach the main building, crack the western door open, and push the fallen knight’s body inside.

“Tell them to get the lady to scry for the Board’s help,” he tells me, wiping blood and sweat from his eyes.

“Who?” I ask as I try not to succumb under the knight’s weight.

“Vivian,” he replies. “If she hasn’t done already.”

“Help, right,” I say. “I’ll go look for her.”

“
Brave petite,
”
³⁶
Gareth says with a sparkling smile before he charges into the fray once again.

“May God protect you,” I whisper, “and the rest of the knights.”

A soft moan brings me back to the injured girl, and I shut the door behind me. If I thought the outside was chaotic, the inside halls of the school are completely topsy-turvy.

“Can anybody help here?” I call out, grabbing the knight under the arms to get her to the infirmary. But without Gareth’s help, it’s impossible to lift her. “Anybody?”

A strained-looking, but otherwise impeccably dressed Keva appears at the end of the hallway.

“Morgan? What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too,” I say, gritting my teeth as I pull on the body with all my strength to move it a couple of inches. I look over my shoulder. “A little help?”