Master of Swords (23 page)

Green eyes opened and met her dazed stare. Slowly, painfully, he smiled.

A tall, handsome man loomed over him, his hair a long fall of silken blue around his face. He smiled, the light catching the faint blue shimmer across his cheekbones. “You back now?”

Belatedly, Gawain recognized the face he hadn't seen in sixteen hundred years. “Kel?” His chest ached, and his voice sounded faint.

Lark, sprawled next to them in the grass, asked the question for both of them. “Why aren't you a dragon?”

Kel looked up at her with a faint smile. “I feared I might need a man's hands to help him.”

“Arthur.” Gawain remembered. He sat up with a grunt of effort. “We've got to get to him now.”

Kel lifted him easily to his feet as Bors moved to help Lark to hers. She braced her feet apart, feeling battered, and reached for the Mageverse. To her relief, she sensed it shimmering on the edge of her consciousness.

Just like Gawain. He almost glowed, strong and warm and so wonderfully alive. She wanted to kiss him, wrap herself in his body, but there wasn't time.

Instead she called the magic and clothed them all in armor.

But when she tried to call out to Morgana, she slammed into the same magical wall that had blocked them before. “Dammit!” She looked at Kel. “Should one of us go for reinforcements?”

“By the time Morgana gathers the army, Arthur would be dead.”

“What about Gwen?” Lark glanced through the trees, worried. “She's still lying under that street lamp, out cold.”

“We can't take her with us, Lark,” Gawain pointed out. “And there's nothing in Avalon that can or would hurt her.”

“Yeah, but I hate leaving her like that.” Lark flung a quick protection spell at Gwen just to be sure.

Turning, she saw Kel striding away through the trees. She started to follow him, but Gawain grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Give him room. He'll need it.”

Reaching a clearing, the dragon man stopped and threw back his head. Blue black hair flew around his face as he lifted his voice in a shout.

His voice deepened, simultaneously growing louder and louder as magic boiled out of the center of his chest, so bright Lark had to jerk her eyes away.

When she looked back again, a dragon filled the clearing, big as a passenger jet, its great wings spreading wide as its tail whipped, crashing into a small bush that ripped free of the ground and went flying.

Lark gaped at it in frozen astonishment. She'd never seen one up close before, never realized how huge they were.

The massive skull swung toward them, enormous ruby eyes narrowing. “What are you waiting for?” Kel's familiar voice demanded, though it rumbled far deeper and louder than it ever had before. “Climb on.”

“Jesu,” Bors muttered before the three of them sprinted toward the huge creature. Gawain was the first to climb on, planting a foot on the dragon's elbow and vaulting atop the broad, muscular neck. Bors caught Lark around the waist and lifted her up until Gawain could slide an arm around her and settle her into place astride Kel's neck. Bors scrambled up behind him.

“Hold on,” the dragon rumbled, coiling his massive body.

Oh, God,
Lark thought desperately, grabbing for one of the spines that protruded from his powerful neck,
I'm not ready for this!

I've got you,
Gawain told her through the Truebond. His strong arms tightened comfortingly around her waist.

And then the great beast leaped skyward with a roar.

Gritting her teeth shut against an instinctive scream, Lark clung to Gawain's arms and clamped her armored legs around the dragon's huge neck.

“Try calling Morgana now—we're beyond the range of Edge's spell,” Kel called over the heavy beat of his wings. “I've got to generate a gate to take us to the Dragon Lands.”

“Why not just gate directly there?” Bors asked.

“The wards are still blocking me. They're similar to a combination lock, and the Dragonkind changed the combination on me. But once we're close enough, I should be able to find a way to break through.”

Lark certainly hoped so. Trying to ignore the sight of the ground dropping rapidly away—taking her stomach with it—she closed her eyes and reached for Morgana.

It was not a conversation she was looking forward to.

 

Kel soared through
the dimensional gate. Ahead of him, for the first time in centuries, he could see the Dragon Lands lying spread under the moon.

Despite the grim situation, despite the rage burning in his heart, he couldn't help but glory in the sight. Finally, after all these years, he was free again.

Then he frowned, realizing that the thought of seeing his people again held far less pleasure for him. All his fellow dragons had done was give him pain, from his own imprisonment to the shattering loss of his mother centuries ago.

No, his true people now were those who rode his back—Gawain, Lark, and Bors, not to mention all those back in Avalon who were in such deadly danger. He was damned if he'd fail them, especially since Gawain had finally found a woman he could be happy with.

Extending his magical awareness, Kel could sense the complex energies of the Dragon Land's wards ahead of him. They'd defeated him repeatedly over the past days as he'd tried to search for Edge, but he was a hell of a lot more powerful now that he was back in dragon form again. More, he had the experience of centuries of magical combat at Gawain's side.

If Tegid expected him to have been weakened by his imprisonment, his uncle was in for a very nasty surprise.

Kel reached out his consciousness, exploring the pattern of forces, looking for the counter spell that would open them.

There. He spotted it and sent a wave of magic into the barrier. If he'd still been trapped in the sword, he wouldn't have had the power to do it. But as it was now…

The wards silently gaped wide.

With a rumble of victory, Kel flew through, arched toward his uncle's caverns and began to beat his wings harder.

Here I come, you egg-sucking son of a bitch.

 

Arthur bucked and
fought, but it did him no good as Edge's spell lowered him onto the pentagram-shaped altar the monster had created in the center of the cavern.

His armor had vanished, melted away by Edge's spell. Beneath his back, the runes cut into the stone seemed to burn his flesh. In his mind, he howled his wife's name with every ounce of his strength, trying to break through the magic that held her. If he could only reach Gwen, she could mobilize the Magekind for a rescue. Otherwise his people were lost.

The prospect of his own death had long since lost its fear for Arthur, but the destruction of his people did terrify him. Worse, if the Magekind fell, humankind would lose its most powerful protector. Protection Earth desperately needed now that the forces of hate and bigotry were coupled with the potential of planetary destruction.

Gritting his teeth, he strained to reach his wife's mind. And touched only silence.

“You're wasting your energy, Arthur,” Edge told him. “Nothing's getting through my shield spell, no matter how loudly you scream.”

“You bastard!” Arthur snarled. “Bors should have strangled you in your cradle!”

A flash of razored fangs. “Yeah, but he didn't, so I got him first. Felt good goring him, too. I just wish I could see his face when this spell kills you all.” Cruel black eyes scanned his expression. “Though yours is almost as satisfying.”

“Go to hell, coward.” He bared his teeth.

Rage flared in those inhuman eyes. “If I'd been a coward, I would have contented myself with the miserable mortal life you and my loving father consigned me to. Instead I did this.” He spread his massive arms, displaying the black runes seared into his flesh. “I could have easily burned like all the others, but I endured, and I won. Now you're the ones who'll burn.”

As Arthur watched in helpless fury, Edge gestured. Excalibur floated into the air and positioned itself point down over Arthur's bare chest.

Edge began to chant again. Growling in helpless rage, Arthur fought his bonds.

Around them, malevolent energies began to rise, swirling and stinking of death like the wind from a tomb.

Rage. A great
wave of it, headed straight for Tegid's chambers.

He jerked his head off his forelegs in horror, realizing at once what had happened. Bolting to his feet, he dove off the second level and hit the cavern floor, racing for the entrance. “Kel's free of the sword! He's coming!”

The ape didn't stop his chanting, but his mental voice rang magically.
Stop him. I need another three minutes to finish this.

For once, Tegid didn't quibble about taking orders from the ape. He galloped to the entrance and threw himself into the air, wings beating desperately toward his foe.

 

Lark gasped as
the red dragon shot out of the cavern like a cannon shell, headed straight for them.

“Can you fly?” Kel shouted.

“I don't know!” she yelled back, her heart stuffing its way into her throat. She knew it was possible, she'd even seen Morgana do it. But she wasn't Morgana. “I've never done it before.”

The red dragon opened its mouth. Lark knew whatever came out was not going to be good.

“You'd better learn!”

Flame roared toward them, only to splash off Kel's shields. Struggling to compose the spell, she watched the red dragon fly closer and closer, about to slam into them all like an eighteen wheeler hitting a school bus.

“Jump!” Gawain roared. He didn't wait for her to obey, instead tightening his grip around her waist as he threw both of them off Kel's back. Bors did the same. All three of them fell like bricks. The cliffs rushed toward them….

Lark grabbed for the Mageverse and sent a wave of energy shooting out in all directions, forming a great golden bubble around them. Their collective weight hit the bottom of it…

And she felt it give.

“Shit!” Frantically, she poured more magic into the barrier until the bubble solidified.

“Let's go!” Bors shouted. “We've got to get into that cave.”

Lark eyed its glowing green mouth and thought about casting a gate, then realized she wouldn't be able to do that and keep them airborne at the same time. Gritting her teeth with the effort, she sent the bubble soaring skyward.

Between the three of them and all their armor, they probably weighed more than eight hundred pounds.

Don't think about it,
Gawain growled in the Truebond.
Just do it.

What are you, a Nike commercial?
Clenching her teeth harder, she drove the bubble faster. Behind them, they could hear the furious sounds of the two dragons fighting—massive, meaty sounds of impact, ear-splitting roars of fury, and the hiss and boom of magic.

Through the Truebond, Lark heard Gawain say a prayer for his friend. Grimly, she concentrated on keeping the bubble moving.

 

Kel sank his
fanged jaws into his uncle's shoulder and bit down, tasting the sweet hot rush of dragon blood. Tegid's roar of pain sounded like music. The older dragon jerked away, wings beating as he retreated. Kel flew after him, lost in the hot madness of the duel.

Finally—finally, after all these centuries! Freedom and revenge, the two things he'd dreamed of endlessly, trapped in that tiny shell of metal.

Distantly, he was aware of other dragons swooping around them in a frenzy of agitation, but he didn't care.

After all, they'd never cared about him.

“What are you doing, Kel?” It was Soren, flying close as he chased Tegid over the cliffs.

Kel bared his teeth. It was all so devastatingly clear now. “Tegid trapped me in that sword, and he plotted with a spawn of one of the Dark Ones. And I'm going to kill him for it!”

A hissing murmur rose from the watching dragons.

Tegid looked around at them, his eyes going wide with fear and fury. “He's mad! Being trapped in that sword has driven him insane!”

Wheeling in the air, he flung himself at Kel. The impact tore them both from the sky, and they fell together, tearing at one anther with claws and teeth as they dropped.

 

Sweating, driven by
an increasing mental drumbeat of urgency, Lark drove her improvised bubble faster, conscious of the dragons circling above her. With Kel battling his uncle, anything magical was her responsibility.

The thought made her stomach knot.

You can do it, Lark.
It wasn't so much the words that touched her as the certainty she could feel in Gawain's mind. He believed in her.

Her eyes narrowed, and she flung the bubble forward even faster, shooting it right for the opening of the cavern.

It blasted through the hole like a cannonball. In the center of a huge central cavern, Arthur lay nude on a star-shaped altar. A huge horned creature stood over him, Excalibur hanging point down directly over his chest.

With a wordless snarl, she flung the bubble toward them.

The horned thing whirled at their entry. It had to be Edge. He flung beefy arms up in the start of a gesture, and she realized he was going to drop the sword on Arthur. A spell hung swirling around the altar, just waiting for the Magus's death to power it.

Lark dissolved the bubble. She, Gawain, and Bors crashed to the floor.

Even as she hit, Lark flung every bit of the Mageverse she had in a concentrated blast of force, aimed right at Edge. He tried to fling up a shield, and she poured more power into her blast.

Excalibur plunged downward.

The instant before it hit, her spell shattered Edge's shield with the full power of her desperation. The wave of force blew the sword, Edge, and Arthur across the cavern like leaves in a hurricane. Still bound and paralyzed, Arthur hit the rear wall of the cave and collapsed in a heap. The sword rattled to the floor, unbloodied.

“That's my girl!” Gawain crowed. He and Bors raced toward the demon.

Edge roared in rage and lunged to his feet, armor appearing around him, twin blades filling his hands. He charged them like a bull.

Lark took one teetering step forward before her knees gave, dumping her in a sweating, panting heap.

Through their Truebond, she felt the jar as Gawain's sword crashed into Edge's, heard guttural, snarling curses.

Get up,
she told herself grimly.
Dammit, get up!
But her body refused to obey. She'd spent everything she had in that blast.

But without her magic or Kel's, Bors and Gawain didn't have a prayer against Edge.

 

Gawain sensed Lark's
fear and helplessness through their Truebond, but he was too busy parrying Edge's teeth-rattling attack to reassure her.

“Arthur!” he shouted, sparing a glance at the still, naked figure curled on the ground behind Edge.

“Here,” Arthur grunted. “I just can't move.”

“Patience, Artie,” Edge snarled, wheeling to drive Bors back with a brutal sword swing. “I'll be with you in a minute.”

“Don't bet on it.” Gawain danced forward and swung his blade with both hands, trying to cut the sorcerer in two.

Edge parried the blow with his left hand sword. The big weapon began to blaze with magic. Before Gawain could leap away, Edge flicked the blade forward, slinging the blast into his face.

It burned!

He fell back with a shout of agony as the magic started eating through his enchanted armor like acid.

Gawain!
Lark's voice rang in his mind. He sensed her fighting to cast a spell and shield him, but her magic still wouldn't respond.

Edge laughed, the sound coldly evil, and took a step toward him.

“Get away from him!” Bors roared, swinging his sword like an axe.

Edge parried with both blades, trapping the knight's weapon between them. Rearing back on one leg, he sent a hoof slamming into Bors's gut. The kick sent the knight flying to crash into the cavern's stone wall.

“Damn, that felt good!” Edge crowed.

 

The taste of
blood flooded Kel's mouth, so hot and heady he barely felt the wounds marking his own flesh. His left rear leg screamed as his weight came down on it; he must have hurt it in that fall.

Tegid's jaws gaped wide, releasing a flaming plume of magic that forced him to release his clamping bite on his uncle's foreleg. Panting, half-blinded, he sensed the dragon scrambling away. He blinked the dazzle from his eyes and went after his foe.

He knew he was teetering on the edge of blood rage, his people's version of a berserker fury, but he didn't care.

“Why?” Kel growled, stalking Tegid. “Why trap me in that sword? Why that particular spell?”

“You weren't trapped!” Tegid scrambled over the great rocks at the base of the cliff. Snarling, Kel leaped atop one of the huge boulders and watched for an opening. “Had you not been so stubborn, you could have freed yourself at any time.”

“By killing my friend!”

“He's an ape! How could you call one of those smelly, revolting creatures a friend? Unnatural!” Tegid roared a blast of magic at Kel, but he opened his wings and leaped, shooting through the air to slam into his uncle. They hit the ground tumbling, raking and biting one another.

Tegid clamped his teeth into the base of his neck. With a roar of pain, Kel twisted and blew a plume of raw fire right in his face, forcing him to let go and leap away. Too bad his kind were virtually fireproof; it took a prolonged blast to do real damage.

Smoke curling from his nose, Kel limped after his uncle. “You're one to talk about unnatural allies—you made Edge a Dark One! You plotted with an ape to destroy the Magekind!”

“What?” one of the dragons overhead called. “What is this, Tegid?”

“He lies!” Tegid lowered his head, growling viciously. “He's just like his mother—always questioning me, showing me up, exposing me to ridicule since the day we were hatched. She changed her tune once you were in that sword, though, didn't she?” A vicious smile curved his mouth. “She wanted me to help her prove Evar had trapped you, so I told her she had to keep to her place. That was all it took.”

Kel stopped in his tracks as a great deal became clear. “It wasn't only about me, was it? It was her. You kept me in the sword to control and punish her.”

“She had too much influence on the Bloodstone females!” Tegid drew his neck to its full, towering extension. “She was always making trouble. Maneuvering, trying to make you a Dragon Lord. Boasting that you'd unseat me. But I ruined her plan, didn't I?” He laughed. “And she thought it was Evar! Evar didn't have the brains!”

A curious calm rolled over Kel, cold and still, replacing his rage. “You're the one who told her Evar trapped me. That's why she challenged him, even knowing he was bigger and more powerful than she was. And he killed her.”

Tegid lowered his head. “All you had to do was kill the ape, and none of this would have been necessary.”

Kel showed every tooth he had. “You're dead, Uncle. I'm going to eat the heart out of your chest.”

And he charged.

 

She had it
! The Mageverse was back! Lark felt the warm wash of magic respond to her desperation. Just in time, because Gawain was on the ground now, writhing in the grip of Edge's spell. It had eaten its way through his armor and was beginning to sear his skin. His pain flayed her through their Truebond like a whip.

Gathering the magic, she sent it pouring into him, stopping the spell in its tracks and healing his injuries before repairing his damaged armor. They both gasped in relief.

Scrambling to her feet, she hurried over to join him as he rose, picking up his sword.

Edge was circling his father, taunting him. Lark and Gawain moved in, looking for an opening.

“There's something I've always wanted to tell you, Dad.” He watched Bors through glittering eyes, a smile curling his mouth. “Looks like this is my last chance.”

Bors swung his sword in a powerful, two-handed blow that by rights should have taken his foe's head off his shoulders. Instead, the sorcerer easily parried with one sword and struck at him with the other.

The knight leaped clear, panting. “You think I care what you have to say?”

Edge ignored that, stalking him. “Ever since I can remember, you kept trying to fill my head with honor and duty and the importance of protecting mortals. And it was all just bullshit.” He grinned. “I've been dying to tell you that since I was five.” The two circled, hooves and armored boots clicking on the stone floor. “You'd talk and talk and talk, and I'd think how stupid you were.”

Edge pounced, swinging both swords like scythes. Bors leaped over them in a move only possible for a vampire. Landing in a crouch, he slashed at Edge's thighs. The monster dodged away with a low, ugly laugh. “But you probably know that now, right? I mean, where's your honor got you? You think any of the mortals will care when you're dead? Fuck no. They'll be too busy trying to blow themselves to hell. Because they're like me. None of them really cares about anything but eating and sleeping and pussy. The rest is just noise.”

“Yeah, you're good at noise.” Lark hurled a spell blast, catching him right in the head. Edge staggered. “And we're sick of listening to you.”

Taking advantage of their foe's distraction, Gawain raced up and swung hard, catching the sorcerer across the chest. His blade sliced into Edge's cuirass.

The monster roared in pain and struck out at him, but he ducked as Bors darted in. Catching his son's left-hand sword with his blade, the knight twisted it with a skillful flick of the wrist and sent it flying. Edge snarled and swung at him with the right blade, but Bors parried and danced back.

Lark powered another spell into Edge's chest, knocking him back a pace. Gawain circled behind him and chopped viciously across his thighs. With a roar, Edge fell to one knee and turned to hack at Gawain. Nimbly, the knight retreated even as Lark shot yet another volley of spells at him. Edge threw up a shield and lunged to his feet again.