Venom and Song (58 page)

Tommy looked away, then stared back at the burning Wisp. Flames licked all around this ghoulish version of Kiri Lee, its burning flesh beginning to dissipate even while it laughed.

“Oh no you won't!” Tommy said, his voice low and menacing.
“Vex lethdoloc vitica anis! Feithrill abysscrahl niy!
” Then he used his sword and plunged it into the Wisp's chest. The grin on its burning face suddenly vanished. Then its head rolled back and the spirit shrieked . . . even as its form dissolved into a red mist.

By this time, Autumn and Kat had helped Jett lie on his unhurt side. Johnny, his hands still smoldering, walked past Jimmy and Kiri Lee, then into the anteroom. “Hey! There's a door back here!” Johnny yelled. “He's getting away!”

“Please help me,” Jimmy wailed. “She's dying. . . . Help her.”

This can't be!
The thought railed against Tommy's mind as he looked upon his stricken friends. He sank to his knees beside Jett. Everything had been going to plan . . . but now?
Learn from history,
the Spider King had said, and Tommy had not. Decision after decision, clue after clue, Tommy had missed it.
And now?

“What are you waiting for, Tommy?” Jett growled, his words half choked. “All of you, don't let him get away.”

Tommy was visibly trembling. “But, Jett, you . . . you're—”

“Get up off your knees, Tommy!” commanded Jett, his expression weakening, but his eyes still fierce. He reached out and grabbed the top rim of Tommy's leather breastplate, pulling his face close. “You are Lord Felheart Silvertree, blood-right ruler of Berinfell, and you have . . . a mission . . . to . . . finish!” Gasping in pain, Jett fell back onto the floor.

Something changed within Tommy in that moment. He knew what he must do . . . what they all must do.
Even the prophecies had said there would be a cost
. Tommy took Jett's hand and looked into his eyes. “Thank you, friend,” he said. “For everything.” Then realizing what perhaps the others had not yet, he added, “Choose well.” Then he stood up. “Kat, Autumn,” Tommy said, “we need to go.”

“But he's dying,” cried Autumn. “And what did you mean,
choose well
? He's dying! Can't you see that?”

Jett nodded at Tommy. His smile and the peace in his eyes told the story. He understood. And then so did Kat. Jett looked up to her. “Take care of them, Kit-Kat. Do what I can't anymore.”

“Oh—don't say that—” But she knew it was true, and she covered her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. “C'mon, Autumn,” Kat said. She kissed Jett on the cheek and gently took Autumn by the arm and led her away.

“We need you, Jimmy,” Tommy said, walking to his friend and placing his hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Jimmy said. “I need to be here. I need to stay with Kiri Lee . . . or she'll die.”

Tommy didn't know why he hadn't realized before. But now he saw it. Jimmy had fallen in love with Kiri Lee. And maybe, back in the woods, Kiri Lee wasn't flirting with him . . . maybe she was asking him about Jimmy!
Of course!
“Jimmy,” he said. “Kiri Lee would want you to go. We've got to end this horror. Now.”

Jimmy let Tommy lift him from his knees. “I should have warned you,” Jimmy whimpered. “I should have figured it out.”

Tommy took Jimmy by the shoulders and by sheer force of will held his eyes. “That's poison!” Tommy growled. “Don't listen to that! We've got a job to do.”

Each of the five lords looked one last time at their friends, and then they went after the Spider King.

Kiri Lee took in a sudden deep breath, eyes snapping wide open. It all rushed back to her:
crash landing the raptor, getting caught by the Cragons, being turned over to the Spider King
. He'd poisoned her by stabbing her with a spider fang. She'd been paralyzed, forced to watch her friends walk into a trap, and then the cold. But she felt warm. Tingling. She turned her head and saw Jett lying beside her. He looked very pale. He had one hand pressed against her side, the other on her arm. “Jett,” she cried. “No . . . no . . . what are you doing? No!”

40
Strength to Rise

HOW HIGH they had come!
Tommy blinked, looking through the open archway at the breathless view of the mountainside and down into the courtyards far below. And beyond, the legions of Elves were still flooding the Lightning Fields and pouring over the main wall. Turning away, he continued to climb. Bound only to the cliff face on one side, open to midair on the other, the stairs were narrow and uneven, so the lords had to watch their footing even more. They followed a much wider spiral now, as they circled the mountain, climbing slowly toward the peak of Vesper Crag and the tower of red light.

“Yes, yes, m'lords!” came the Spider King's voice from above. “Come up. Come up if you can!”

Two more turns, and they could see him now, a small figure leaning over a balcony on the tower.

Tommy didn't look down, but he could feel the distance drop away beneath him. It pulled at him, willing him to fall backward.

“Don't think such things,”
Kat spoke into his mind.

There came a rumbling from above. “Boulders!” Jimmy cried out. “Dodge right!” They moved with no time to spare as a massive oblong stone careened past them to their left, threatening to force them over the rail-less side of the stairs.

“Get low!” Jimmy yelled. “This one will bounce over us.”

They obeyed. The stone, a large round spinning thing, hit three steps above the lords, took a wicked hop, and came down behind them. Stone after stone they evaded. “We're still coming!” Tommy bellowed.

“Archers!” yelled Jimmy.

From a ring of black pockets above, Gwar archers appeared. Their crossbows already loaded and wound tight, they fired on the lords. “My turn,” yelled Johnny. His hands erupted with a wide spread of white-hot fire. Heat washed down on the other lords.

The enemy's darts were consumed instantly, falling as harmless ash. Tommy was up in a heartbeat and put an arrow into one archer and hastily took out another.

The remaining Gwar fired again, but Johnny's flame took out three. Tommy killed another two. He and Johnny repeated the process, again and again, until the archers were slain.

“Very impressive—even with just five,” jeered the Spider King from his balcony. The red light glowed behind him. “Very impressive. Just think if your other friends were still alive.”

“I'm taking him out!” Johnny yelled, running up the stairs and launching twin streams of fire up at the tower.

Jimmy yelled, “Wait, Johnny, look out!”

Something moved on the dark stone up ahead, a long, glistening thing. Two bulbous eyes and a nest of clicking mandibles for a mouth. As large as a full-grown Warspider, but in shape more like a wingless Warfly, the creature rose up.

“JOHNNY!”
Kat screamed her thoughts into his mind, but he was too focused on the tower.

The creature unleashed an appendage, a mantislike arm that flicked out from the center of its upper chest and slammed into Johnny's left shoulder. A spray of blood, a grunt, and Johnny cartwheeled backward. He hit one step—
hard
—and went airborne.

“Johnny!” Autumn screamed. But he was beyond her reach.

Tommy couldn't watch. The creature was turning toward him, seemingly reloading its appendage. Tommy put one arrow in its left eye. Still the creature approached. He put a shaft deep into the creature's forehead. It collapsed immediately and slid harmlessly onto the steps, then flipped off, careening down the mountainside.

“No!” bellowed the Spider King looking beyond Tommy. “No!”

Tommy spun around and caught his breath. Johnny had not fallen. There in the air, slowly descending, was Kiri Lee . . . with Johnny in her arms.

“KIRI LEE!” Jimmy burst out, tears welling up in his eyes. But then he quickly composed himself and stood back.

“Kiri Lee,” Johnny mumbled to her. “I thought you were—”

“Jett,” she said.

“How did you do that?” he asked, remembering the last time she attempted such a rescue.

“I caught you,” she answered.

“Yeah, but I'm heavy. Remember?”

“Not anymore. You're light,” she said. “When I touch you.” Her gift had matured.

War horns sounded. The tide of the battle had seemed to turn. The surviving walls of Vesper Crag belonged to the Elves, and they were pushing hard toward the mountain. Johnny, Jimmy, Kiri Lee, Autumn, Kat, and Tommy—they turned as one and gazed at the Spider King.

“You're beaten,” yelled Tommy, hoping to keep the Spider King occupied so the others could act against him. “Why don't you give this up?!”

“THIS?” The Spider King momentarily lost his composure. He mastered himself and said, “Arrogant boy. Just what do you think ‘this' is?”

Tommy slowly climbed the stairs. He could feel his friends behind him. “This grudge,” Tommy exclaimed. “Your hatred of the Elves for enslaving your people . . . let it go.”

And then, the Spider King laughed . . . if laughing it could be called. The sound that came from him had not the ring of mirth to it, but rather a compound of anguish, rage, and unassailable confidence. Then he gazed down on the Elves, and it seemed the red light behind him blazed even stronger. “You are mistaken!” He spat the words. “Revenge is but one drop of blood in the cauldron of my mission. There is no giving up.”

Confused but undaunted, Tommy continued to climb. “Whatever your reason is,” Tommy said firmly, “it will stop today.” He saw a flare of orange, and Johnny, his hands alight, was at his side. “Your armies are losing,” Tommy continued. The stairs squared off now, aiming right at the Black Balcony. “You have nowhere left to go.” They had him.

“One place, I think.” And before Johnny could loose a single burst or Tommy a single arrow, the Spider King vanished from the balcony into the red light.

“It's a portal,” Tommy said, staring at the face of a radiant blood-red gem that was seven feet tall. “It has to be.”

“We've got to follow,” said Johnny.

“But we don't know where it goes,” said Autumn. Then she looked at Jimmy.

Jimmy closed his eyes and squinted. “Nothing yet.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Kiri Lee. “We've got to try.”

“What about our weapons?” Kat asked.

There was an awkward silence.

“I'll still have my fire,” said Johnny. “And Kiri Lee can still air walk—even better now.”

“What if the portal throws us back to Earth,” Jimmy asked, “in the middle of his other fortress in Canada?”

There was another awkward silence.

“Kat, Autumn, and I will lose our steel,” Tommy said. “And we may well be about to leap into a trap. But it can't be helped. Besides, we know Vexbane.
We
are weapons.”

One by one, shielding their eyes from the fierce brightness, the young lords stepped into the red light and vanished.

They emerged from the portal without their weapons and wearing only leather armor, tunics, and breeches. It was dark, but a thin band of red light shone down from somewhere high above, creating a blood-red cone made of mist some fifty yards away. The Elves felt a hollow emptiness all around them as if it was some chamber of vast proportions.

“Brave,” came the Spider King's voice out of the shadows. “I thought you'd come,” he said, stepping into the red light. It almost seemed he spoke with a grudging kind of respect. “And the strong one made the choice to let the air walker live? How strange, given that he was the greater warrior. Your Elf parents had a similar misplaced determination.”

Tommy wished, for once, that he had amplified hearing rather than sight because, as the Spider King spoke, it seemed there was another sound. Barely audible . . . a kind of high scraping noise.

“They could have saved us all a great deal of trouble,” the Spider King continued. “Had they simply taken you as babes and fled into the hidden passages to Nightwish, we would have learned its location and exterminated the Elves much, much sooner. But no. They gave up their lives . . . so that your race could live on.” The Spider King reached to his side and drew a strange dagger from his belt.