Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (47 page)

“Stand down, Shade,” Tyrell commanded her.
Must be their leader.
“We are sworn to defend the Stone-Warden.”

She laughed, still strolling toward me. “As we be sworn to slay her. Go ye ways, Redeemer. Despite ye constant interference, our quarrel is no’ wi’ you. ‘Tis these two we want.”

Sha’ira, arrow aimed at the speaker, purred, “What you want and what you’ll get are two different things, Morrigan. Haven’t I taught you that lesson before?”

“Mother always said I were slow of study,” Morrigan shrugged. I noticed she had a Caledonian Highland brogue, but with an otherworldly tone beneath it.

“And too quick to make pacts with the wrong side.” Sha’ira’s bow twanged, but not at Morrigan. With a snap left she loosed her arrow at Long Sword, who’d begun a rush while my protector spoke. It took a lightning-quick pivot for the short Shade to avoid being hit in the eye.

Before that arrow had passed its target the dreamwriter’s bow held two more. “And tell Nephthys the next time she tries that we’ll see if she can dodge a pair of shafts.”

None of the women moved. I got the feeling that they feared this one fallen member of their order more than all the rest of us put together. If they’d tracked her for months with nothing to show for it, maybe their anxiety was justified.

“What ye call the wrong side I call the winning side,” Morrigan said, twirling one of her blades. “Ye idealism will be crushed by the reality of power.”

“What marks had you in history, sister? The annals tell us that every tyranny that ever rose has fallen. All of them.”

“No other tyranny, to grant ye the term, has had such magick at its command. The Honourable Merchantry allied wi’ the Obverse? Who could bring that down? Better to be towed by the juggernaut than to stand in its path.”

“Such a flair with words,” Sha’ira said, still crouched. Now her bow had returned to pointing at Morrigan.

“Ah, ‘tis nothing compared to ye talent. I understand ye be a dreamwriter now? Isn’t that too romantic for a Shade, embracing a dead art? Or is it poetic, since ye’ll soon be dead, poor lost Manat.”

Standing up, Sha’ira placed herself in front of me. For once I welcomed a grown-up getting all protective. “Careful with your soothsaying. Dreamwriting is not all I’ve been studying.” As she spoke I saw a brief flare of the moonfire in her eyes.

Morrigan seemed not to notice that.
Her first mistake, maybe.
“So many words, so little fighting. Hand the brat over and submit to ye just execution. I swear we will bury ye bones with rosemary and send ye to ye god with honor.”

“You mistake the brat, as you call her. She isn’t mine to hand over. The Stone-Warden makes her own decisions, as foretold. And you’ll find her harder to take than you think.” She smiled. “As for my bones, I like them where they are. If you covet them so much, come and get them.”

That cued the Marines. Though Sha’ira shouted for them to stop, the rats rushed the Shades with no warning. With a unified cry of “Wong wive the Wegion!” they scurried across the beach. At the same time the troopers began firing. If they’d all shot together at a single target they might’ve brought one of the Shades down. But their uncoordinated bullets hit only sand and trees as the nimble assassins cartwheeled, leaped, and snaked out of the way. I heard every hammer snap on bare steel. Their ammunition had been spent for nothing. At that instant the Marines pounced at their foes. But unlike in their encounter with the infantry and the elephants, this was no victory. Efficient rattlesnake-quick blade flicks sliced several of my brave defenders in half while they were still in mid-air. The rest skidded to a halt at that and surrounded the Shades, staying just out of range.
Whoa! How can they manage all of this? They must have magick in their trainin’. No mortal’s that fast. Not even Stone-aided.

“Yes, dear sister,” Morrigan purred, “we’ve been studying, too. Time for ye lesson.”

All three shades shrugged off their sleeveless outer robes. Sha’ira did the same. I held it for her, keeping the cup in my right hand. If it came to it I planned to spring Morphageus as a last-minute surprise and take one of them with me. But that might not happen. In the woods behind the assassins I spied some hope, though it’d take some maneuvering to make it work.

“You see what I see?” Jasper whispered.

“Yep, “ I thought to him.
Here’s the plan, if we need it.
I outlined what I wanted to do, keeping my eyes on the scene around me. The Redeemers still circled the Shades, but higher this time, maybe twenty feet up, sabers drawn. Our Marines were dragging their casualties, wounded and dead, out of the way toward the trees. Romulus, Ernie on his shoulder, stood to our right about ten paces. All they had was a Bowie knife and a knitting needle. Brave as they were, I hoped they had the sense to stay out of the way.
I hope I do, too.
Far to the south the battle between the Yankees and their Merchantry-bred enemies continued, but sounded like it might be slackening. The gunboat kept firing at the shore like it had an unending supply of shells.

With no word passed between them the Shades dashed forward. Just as she’d promised, Sha’ira sent both her arrows at Nephthys, one high and one low. Long Sword kicked a leg up to avoid the low shot while deflecting the other with a snap of her blade. Averna, covering a lot of ground in a hurry with her long antelope’s legs, reached Sha’ira before Morrigan. Slashing diagonally down then straight back level as one continuous attack, she hoped to catch the dreamwriter before she could recover from the bow shot.

But her attack bit air. Sha’ira leaped up and over Averna, yanking her own sword from the sand left-handed as she went. Gaining height I would’ve thought impossible, she landed with the bow already slicing at the tall Shade’s legs. It tangled in them, but didn’t knock her down. Releasing the bow, Sha’ira tossed the scimitar into her right hand and drew her curved dagger with the other, intent on getting to Morrigan. Nephthys came in hard from the left with a cobra-quick thrust. The dreamwriter caught it in front of her face with the dagger and smacked it away with the sword. But the small Shade let the momentum take the blade around her own head to try a sneaky cut from behind her opponent. Sha’ira dropped down low in a split, making Nephthys’ edge hiss just over her head.
Hey! That’s my move.
The curved dagger slashed belly-high, forcing the assassin back. Rolling right, Sha’ira arched herself upright without using her hands, just in time to catch Morrigan’s blades, one over her head and the other at a thigh. Kneeing the Shade leader in the ribs to drive her back, my protector had to dive aside to avoid another thrust from Nephthys.

I couldn’t watch any more of the fight. While I stood dumb and amazed, Averna saw her chance. With Sha’ira farther up toward the trees engaging the other two Shades, the Stone-Warden was flat-footed and vulnerable. “Hey, wake up!” Jasper bellowed, making my head ring. Her arm whipped forward. Wrenching my attention to my left front, I managed to get the cup in front of me. By the time Averna’s small spiked ball reached my face I gripped a knight’s heater shield. The wicked throwing weapon, which resembled a sea urchin, bounced over my head toward the water. I braced myself for her attack, not having time to do anything other than to huddle behind my steel wall. But her blade never landed. Romulus rushed her with a great slash of his Bowie knife. With what looked like no effort she stepped inside the knife’s arc, spun the Marshal like a tornado, and let his own momentum throw him ten feet across the beach. Her attention turned back to me. For maybe one-half of a second I considered trying Morphageus against her, then gave that up as a childish fantasy.
There’s no way I can fence these women. Not until somebody shows me how.
Instead I swung the shield at my feet. It became a wide deep corn shovel halfway through the motion. A wall of sand, blasted toward her by sudden Stone-strength, hit her dead in the face. That forced her to stop and clear her eyes, which didn’t take her anywhere near as long as I’d hoped. But it still gave me time to melt the shovel into those good old foot springs and bound out of her range as that nasty curved sword cut where I’d stood. I landed next to Romulus, who had already stumbled to his feet. We backed away, hunting for help in the sky.
Standin’ on this beach waitin’ to get sliced up ain’t no good. Time to see if my idea will work.

Tyrell tried to catch my waving hand, but we slipped off from all the sweat. Alcibiades swooped past. Another trooper got lower, towing a spare Norn horse, and Romulus managed to climb on and get into the air.
Great. Now I’m stuck on the beach with the death ladies and no way off.
A third Reb came in to try to pick me up, but one of Averna’s lethal Christmas ornaments rocketed through the air and shredded the hand he offered. Cursing, he pulled up before she could do more damage.

I had the shield in hand again, way out in front of me to block whatever she sent my way. Averna didn’t rush this time, but walked slow and careful. Every time a trooper tried to fly low and use his saber on her, he’d get disarmed or his horse would lose wing feathers. That’s when she even let them get close. Most of the time her nimble dodging made them miss. The Marines and Ernie were nowhere to be seen.
Can’t blame you fellers for that.I’d like to be elsewhere, too.
Higher up the beach I could hear the music of steel kissing steel. The clinks, the screeches, the sighs.
Sha’ira must still be okay, then. Here’s hopin’ she lasts until I can get this crazy plan goin’.

Averna got within eight feet of me, no matter how fast I tried to back away. Behind her the Redeemers landed their horses and got them into line. They were going to charge her, try to run her down with brute force, accepting whatever horrible losses came of it. I caught Tyrell’s eye and shook my head. He cocked his head at me like he thought I was loony, but nodded agreement. Just then the night sky blew apart with noise and sparks as a shell from the Merchantry gunboat exploded in the air just above the waterline. If the Valkyrie mounts had been up there we’d have lost some of them.
Lucky call on Tyrell’s part, then.
As it was two troopers and a mount took light wounds from shrapnel. I risked a sideways glance south, down the beach. Not much firing came from the battle site. Either somebody had won or both sides had decided a long night fight was a bad idea. That meant that the Old Guard and friends might soon be back to help finish things.
Have to get this goin’ right now. No time to lose.

“Look to your front about ten feet, at two o’clock,” Jasper advised me. “Down low in the sand.”

I did, and almost smiled, which would’ve ruined the whole thing. So I grinned inside instead.

Like I had not a care in the whole blessed world,I shrank the shield back into a cup and edged right, inviting Averna to take a whack at me. She had no problem accepting that. But just when she started to dance toward me, raising her scimitar to end my great quest, she let out the kind of high girlie yelp she probably hadn’t made since she’d been four. Hopping on one foot, she raised the other up to see what she’d stepped on. It had pierced her soft black boot and savaged her instep.

Her own throwing spike clung to her bleeding foot, the weapon that’d bounced off my shield.

“Aw, does the widdle Shade have an owie?” Ernie taunted, popping up out of the sand where he’d been hiding with the errant weapon, waiting for his chance. He raised his sharpened knitting needle spear. “Here, let me take your mind off that, love.” Grunting with the effort, he plunged the lance into her other foot as if harpooning a whale.

It did my heart good to hear the terrifying assassin howl in pain again.
So you are human, after all. That’s good to know.
But it didn’t do Ernie a lot of good. Averna plucked the spike out of her foot and threw it into the water. Then she planted the same foot and kicked the needle free of her other foot, with the stout mouse still holding onto it and crowing. He landed in a pile of damp seaweed, whooping in victory.

“Looks like Shades are quick healers,” Jasper said.

“Yeah, just our luck,” I sighed. “Let’s see if she can heal from this.”

I raised a giant magick metal hand about three feet across. Before Averna could get her bearings and resume the attack on me, I reared back and slapped her silly. She rolled up the beach toward her sisters. Sitting up and shaking her head, I saw that her mask and hood were askew. The deadly assassin turned out to be a pretty blonde girl of maybe eighteen.

“Kinda thought she’d be a Cyclops with a forked tongue,” said Jasper in a disappointed tone.

“Yeah, me, too. Live and learn, I guess.”

More shells came in from the Yankee gunboat, even closer this time. Ground bursts now, spraying up water and mud.
Guess theMerchantry’s none too worried about losin’ a few expensive Shades, long as they get me.
I waved the Redeemers and Marines forward. Ernie, none the worse for his aerial journey, skittered along the beach next to me. My aim was to press the Shades into the tree line at the top of the beach. A surprise waited for them up there, if what I’d seen earlier had been real. I told Ernie to run over to Tyrell and let him in on my idea. As the little Marshal scampered off on his mission I slogged through the sand to close with the enemy. That gave me a chance to watch Sha’ira in action again, and to see something special.

Though fighting two Shades at once, the dreamwriter still held her own. Sparks flew in the dark as blades skittered off one another, looking like lighting bugs. Sha’ira never stayed still, never gave Morrigan and Nephthys any chance to coordinate strikes at her. She spun like a top, bounced like a ball, crouched, rolled, whatever it took to keep one of her opponents in the way of the other. I didn’t know if whatever she did had a name, but it resembled a blend of ballet and gymnastics. The Shades were getting frustrated, making wilder strikes than they’d been doing before. As I watched the unbelievable combat before me, I noticed something strange.