The Lost Queen (23 page)

As the speeding car bounced over the lawn, the four horses plunged to either side, the riders screaming in rage as they struggled to keep in their saddles and regain control of the panicking animals.

But they were adder-quick in their movements. It was only a split second before the air was shrill with the whine of hurtling spears.

Three of the spears pierced the car, two punching holes through the windshield, the third bursting through the side window, scattering glass pebbles.

Tania reacted with pure instinct, her arm moving almost before her brain had registered the danger. She flicked her sword up in front of her face and the spear that was flying directly at her head was deflected so that it passed right through the car and went crashing out of the back window.

The second spear had come to a thudding halt between the front seats, its haft still sticking out of the windshield.

Tania heard a stifled cry at her side. The last of the spears had come in at an angle, breaking in through the side window and plunging into the backseat between Tania and Cordelia. Cordelia's hand clutched her arm and Tania saw blood welling between her fingers.

Titania spun the wheel again, slamming her foot on the brake as the car swerved. Tilting dangerously, the vehicle bumped up onto the patio, skidding sideways across the stones as the back wall of the house came rushing toward them.

There was a reverberating clang as the back of the car struck the wall.

“Out!” Titania yelled.

Cordelia wrenched at the door handle and kicked the door wide. The passenger side of the car was hard up against the wall and those doors could not be opened. Cordelia stumbled out of the car. She stood spread-legged on the patio, her left arm hanging limp, but in her right she brandished her sword, shouting defiance.

Tania was right behind her, her ears still ringing from the impact of the car against the wall.

The Gray Knights had rallied. They were charging, their white swords spinning, their voices as harsh and sharp as carrion birds.

Tania ran to stand at Cordelia's side. She was vaguely aware of Sancha beside her, and of Zara scrambling up to take a vantage point on the roof of the car.

“No!” Cordelia spat, glaring at Tania. “It is for us to do the fighting. You must get into the house.”

Tania ignored her, widening her stance for balance, crouching in the low ward, her eyes fixed on the closest of the onrushing knights. She had no intention of deserting her sisters.

But someone had other ideas. She gave a furious shout as she was dragged backward.

It was Edric. “Get inside!” he shouted. “Save Faerie!”

He spun her around and almost threw her through the broken doorway. She stumbled onto her knees,
only just managing to keep her grip on her sword.

She got to her feet, intending to run back out into the garden. But Titania was in the doorway, her face frantic.

“Go!” she said, panting.

Beyond her mother Tania could see Edric and her sisters battling with the horsemen.

Tania ran across the kitchen. The floor was sticky with bloody feathers and dotted with the corpses of the birds who had died to help them.

She braced herself for more knights. There were only four in the garden—where were the rest? Was there no one inside the house? She raced along the hallway and snatched hold of the banister rail, pivoting around to face the stairs.

She could see her bedroom door now. So close. Only fifteen steps away.

She darted up the stairs.

A shadow broke free from the deeper shades of the landing.

A blade glinted.

Silver eyes flashed.

A figure stepped up to the head of the stairs.

“Well met, my bride,” Gabriel said, his voice as smooth as a sliding snake. “Long have I pined for your presence.”

Tania crashed down onto her knees on the stairs. Her arms fell limp to her sides as she stared up at him.

“Come, my lady,” he said, beckoning to her. “I have a gift for you, the gift of a loving husband.”

Tania felt herself getting to her feet. She struggled to regain control of her body, but so long as she was held by those silver eyes, she had no strength to resist. She could do nothing as her legs bent and her body carried her up the stairs toward the Faerie lord.

Gabriel stepped back from the top of the stairs, smiling as she came up and stood in front of him. Their bodies almost touched; her head tilted up slightly, her eyes fixed on his. Pools of shining silver. They were all that existed now. Everything else went spinning away into a great empty void. No other sound but his voice. No other sight but his eyes.

She was aware of the black sword falling out of her fingers and clattering as it tumbled down the stairs. She had a faint, nagging feeling that there was something she should be doing, but she had no idea what.

Nothing important.

Pools of silver light.

A warm, soft voice.

“Would you like your gift now, my lady?”

“Yes…please…”

On the edge of vision, she saw his white sword move between them. She felt the point prick against her stomach through her clothes.

She felt peaceful. Untroubled. Hanging in space. Held by his eyes. His mouth moved forward to kiss her as the blade pressed harder against her flesh.

And then the tranquillity was shattered by a scream of agony as a splinter of shooting darkness came stabbing forward past Tania's head and sank
into Gabriel's shoulder.

“Leave my daughter alone!”

Tania saw Drake fall away from her, his face twisted in pain, his hand clutching at his wounded shoulder. She reeled and might have toppled over backward if Titania hadn't been right behind her, still gripping the black sword that she had used to stab Gabriel over Tania's shoulder.

“Which is your room?”

Still groggy from Gabriel's enchantment, Tania pointed. Titania pushed her toward the door.

Gabriel had crumpled to the floor, his right arm hanging, his left hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder. Titania kicked his sword out of his limp fingers.

“I wish I had the time to thank you properly for what you've done,” she spat. “Just remember this: I'll do everything in my power to bring Rathina back to us and to rid her of your influence.”

Drake stared up at her, his handsome features contorted with pain. “Make no such vain promises, Your Grace,” he hissed between gritted teeth. “Not while your husband lies in bonds of Isenmort and the King of Lyonesse sits upon his throne.”

Titania smiled coldly. “With your leave, my lord, my daughter and I are about to do something about that.”

Tania opened the door. The curtains were open and the first pale gleam of morning was filtering into the room. Far away, the sun was climbing over the horizon and the sky was flooding with a wash of fresh blue light.

Tania turned, looking at her Faerie mother.

“What do I do?”

Titania handed her the sword. “Walking between the worlds is your gift, Tania,” she said. “I can't tell you how to do it.”

“What about the others?”

Almost as the words left her lips she heard the commotion of feet coming rapidly up the stairs. Zara burst into the room first, a wild, exultant light in her eyes.

“Two are slain!” she said, panting. “Cordelia is hurt—Edric holds the rear!”

A moment later the two other princesses appeared, Sancha supporting Cordelia, whose clothes were laced with cuts and spattered with blood. There was a cut along her cheek and blood trickled down to her chin, but her eyes still blazed defiance.

Edric came last, bounding into the room and snatching the door closed in the face of a pursuing knight.

“Quickly, Tania!” Titania said.

Edric put his back to the door, digging his heels into the carpet to hold it shut as it shivered with repeated blows.

“I saw…two more of them….” he said. “Coming in from…the front…. We won't…be able to hold them off…for long….”

Tania turned toward the window, trying to clear her mind of fear and panic—trying to lock out the screeches of the Gray Knights and the hammering of fists and sword hilts on the door.

She lifted the black sword in both hands, picturing in her mind the curved stone walls of that small circular room in the brown tower in Faerie.

She walked forward, the sword held up in front of her.

She took a side step.

Her mouth filled with the foul taste of iron. She felt a swarm of unseen creatures beating at her with leathery wings, raking her skin with needle-sharp claws, screaming demonically in her ears.

She swung the sword, and the creatures fled.

But a blistering pain was growing in her forehead. Burning pincers of agony gripped tight around her chest and her waist and her hips, as if bands of hot iron were being bent around her body, holding her fast, imprisoning her in rings of smoldering metal.

She heard Edric's voice calling as if from a million miles away.

“The sword! Use the sword!”

But the sword seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, the point dragging her arms downward as she struggled to raise it above her head. Using every ounce of strength in her body, she fought to lift the blade through the unyielding air.

At last she held it poised above her head, gripping the hilt in both hands. Straining forward, as though walking into a hurricane, she brought the blade slashing down.

A sparkling white cut opened up in front of her.

The slash widened and through it she could see the arched window of Bonwn Tyr and the tops of the aspen trees and the clear blue Faerie sky beyond.

A sweet waft of Faerie air came through the gap, filling her head with its enchanted scent, taking away the taste of iron from her mouth.

She stepped over the V-shaped threshold of the shimmering rift, one foot in Faerie, one foot in the Mortal World. The black sword had evaporated from her hand—utterly destroyed in the opening of the portal. Straddling the worlds, she turned back, reaching out urgently.

Speechless, and with wonder-filled eyes, her mother took her hand and stepped through into Faerie. Cordelia came next, her arm over Sancha's shoulders as they crossed the sparkling threshold between the worlds.

Zara followed. She looked into Tania's face, her hand coming up to caress her cheek. “My wondrous sister!”

“Edric, quickly!” Tania called. The door was being slowly beaten open from the outside. Another second or two and the Gray Knights of Lyonesse would be in the room.

Edric sprang forward. The door burst open, the swords of the howling Knights hacking the air at his heels as he sprinted toward Tania.

A sword flashed through the air, turning end over end—aimed at her head.

She flinched away from it, losing her footing and
falling heavily onto her back on the bare wood boards of Bonwn Tyr.

Now that she was no longer bridging the gap, the sizzling gash between the worlds began to close.

“No!” she screamed.

Edric was still in the Mortal World.

The white heart of energy shrank and dwindled—but at the last possible moment, when she thought the circle of light was already too small, Edric came diving through headfirst into Faerie.

A crystal sword-point followed him. But while it was still only halfway through, the ball of white light shriveled to a pinpoint and vanished. The blade hung for a split second in the air, cut clean through halfway to the hilt. Then it fell to the floor and shattered into white powder.

Tania scrambled across the floor to where Edric lay, panting and dazed.

“Are you okay?”

He blinked at her and smiled. “I'm fine. I think.”

They helped each other up, clinging tightly, as Titania and the three princesses crowded joyfully around them.

Outside the window the Faerie sun was rising on a new day. Birds sang in the aspen branches. The scented breeze blew warm air in from the northern downs. For the first time in five hundred years Titania, Queen of Faerie, was home.

Cover art © 2007 by Ali Smith

Cover design by R. Hult