Call of the Kings (10 page)

She looked upward. It had to be that Twilight’s doing. He and his tyro were up there somewhere watching her. She couldn’t see any trace of them; they’d found a way of disguising their auras. Judging by the immovable images planted in these idiot’s heads they’d also traced her activities back to Donnchadh O’Brain at Cill Dara. This wasn’t turning out as planned. Time to flush them out - time for a venefical declaration of war.

I know you’re up there. Show yourselves. Only cowards hide their auras in the clouds. If you don’t I’ll start acting out the images you placed in their minds . . . now. What little girl would stand by and watch her relatives subjected to something like this without trying to stop it, eh?

Twilight put his index finger to his lips, indicating to Tara not to make any reply directly to her or through mind speak to him.

The lynx hissed and followed its mistress’s eyes as she scanned the skies.

Nothing.

Twilight indicated to Tara that they were leaving. The scene had been set, doubts sown.

‘She’s welcome to them this time,’ said Tara when they reappeared under the ancient elm tree next to Feasa and Eoghan.

‘But at the very least she’ll get a bad stomach-ache.’

She giggled, completely unworried by the fact that her father, grandmother, and probable birth grandfather were being consumed alive by a flesh-eating witch venefica.

Ekki Salonen and his men crept stealthily up to the compound on the outskirts of the hamlet of Avebury. Night was falling and they could hear the sound of a woman’s voice singing inside the larger of the two hovels. With their swords drawn they rushed through the flimsy willow gate and charged into the hovel where the melodious female voice was coming from. The singing stopped suddenly to be replaced by a muffled scream. Moments later they dragged an unconscious Katre from the hovel. The watching pica, fidgety because they knew their liege lord was too far away for them to reach, decided to keep a close watch on the Viking band with a relay of birds constantly reporting their position back to the compound.

Twilight must come back soon; otherwise Katre would be lost to them, forever.

‘The combined power of the two of us should easily overcome that of Leannan Sidhe, even though she has a good, strong aura,’ said Twilight.

‘What about the lynx?’

‘If it becomes a problem we’ll let Feasa and Eoghan handle it. They’ll have to make up for my lack of pica.’

‘There are plenty of pica around here. Why don’t you use them?’

‘It’s not fair on the local birds to suddenly pitch them into a life or-death battle without any warning,’ said the alpha astounder. ‘They would, of course, give it everything they had in service to me, but it’s too sudden, too savage. I have purposefully refrained from contacting any of them here in Ireland so they don’t know

I’m here. Let’s leave them in peace.’ Tara tickled the ears of the two big wolfhounds. ‘Hear that, my gray giants? You are to stand in for the mighty pica, and there just might be a big cat for you to play with.’

The dogs whined in happy unison. Just being with their beloved little redheaded, green-eyed, freckled, impishly smiling liege lord was enough for them.

They were still sitting under the ancient old elm tree in the small clearing outside of Skellighaven.

Twilight looked at Tara carefully.

‘Tara, it’s very early in your training period to be involved in a battle against a full-grown, powerful venefica. At about the same age I was kept pretty much on the sidelines during Merlin’s fight with Elelendise, so just in case anything goes wrong with our plan I want you to stay invisible and keep out of any subsequent engagement between Leannan Sidhe and me.’

‘Okay,’ Tara said unconcernedly.

‘One thing’s for certain, sitting around under this old elm won’t get the job done. C’mon, little special one, it’s the monastery for us. Grab a hold of them big dogs; they’re about to have a ride the like of which no Irish wolfhound has ever had before.’

They quickly detected the witch queen’s aura in the monastery, and leaving Tara high in the clouds, Twilight appeared at the gates and sent a powerful mind message directly to her.

I call upon you, Leannan Sidhe, perverted venefica and disgrace to all the codes that we hold in such great reverence, to show yourself to me, Twilight, veneficus of Wessex, here outside the gates of this monastery.

In less time than it takes an eye to blink, Leannan Sidhe appeared in front of Twilight. The lynx was locked to her hip, its spitting, hissing mouth open in a display of hatred rivalling that of its mistress.

‘We meet at last,’ she sneered. ‘Where’s your drivel-nosed little redheaded tyro, skulking in the clouds as usual?’

The old astounder smiled.

‘Of course, she doesn’t much fancy the idea of being eaten alive.’

‘And you, old man, how do you fancy it?’

Leannan Sidhe licked her lips suggestively.

‘This old venefical flesh is too tough for you, foul cannibal and disgrace to our code,’ Twilight replied softly.

Unable to disguise the hatred that flashed across her sapphire blue eyes, Leannan Sidhe suddenly twitched her right arm back as if to unleash a thunderbolt. The lynx tensed as if to spring, its long, sharp teeth dripping.

Twilight froze all her movements instantly. As the witch queen realized what he’d done she began to smile, a movement made possible against the freeze by the fact that her power was greater than his. The lynx was also straining toward him against the freeze. Her lips curled into a sneer.

‘You’ll have to do better than that, old man. My power is superior to yours.’

She began to slowly draw back her right arm to its full extension again to deliver a thunderbolt right to the middle of Twilight’s body.

It was at that precise moment that Tara added her power to that of Twilight’s and Leannan Sidhe and her big cat locked up.

Solid.

Twilight leaned in close and engaged the sapphire blue eyes that had just had time to register the terror of the situation before the complete cessation of all movement.

‘I have left your hearing channel open only in order that you can listen to me. Use of all movement and enchantments are frozen. Your vaunted power has been completely overcome by ours. This replicates what you have done to the victims of your foul perversions who were forced to remain conscious as you drew out and ate their intestines. I can only imagine such a death.’

Ignoring the heads of some of the monks who were beginning to peep and point around the doors and windows of the monastery, Twilight waved his arm and picked up the frozen image of the witch and her lynx and transported them high over the hill toward the Devil’s Pit. Tara, staying out of sight but remaining close above, came with them, keeping the full flow of her prodigious power locked into her mentor. Although there was no visible sign of movement from any part of Leannan Sidhe, Twilight could feel her giving everything in the internal fight for release. It was in vain. The combined power of Twilight and Tara was more than enough to hold the perverted witch queen solid.

Even her thought processes were locked.

At the top of the hill Feasa and Eoghan watched the airborne images coming toward them. Separating the lynx from its mistress, Twilight snapped his fingers and the lynx was unfrozen. Its first reaction was a rather surprised look of incomprehension at its suspended mistress, followed by a spitting display of fur-raising hatred at Twilight.

Then it saw Feasa and Eoghan pacing deliberately toward it with their huge mouths bared and went straight down to the floor on its back. With legs upward and claws retracted, the lynx displayed all the flat-furred characteristics of grovelling surrender. The dogs sat down, one each side of the terrified cat, and fixed their bright brown eyes on its every move. Anything more than breathing would be death.

Twilight took Leannan Sidhe out over the edge of the Devil’s Pit and, floating downward alongside her, again spoke quietly.

‘What you have done to the venefical calling in this land has been an abomination that will take generations to replace. Your perversions will remain an open wound and a disgrace to our bardic codes for all time. Each one of the great Stones of Destiny at Avebury in Wessex, a place that you have never been nor have any knowledge of, will rest a little lower in the ground as the venefical ancestors absorb the shame of your abominations. We all have to carry a part of the shame.’

They neared the water and stopped. The great rollers thundered beneath them toward their mighty collision with the jagged rocks of the shore nearby. On the skyline the blue-gray islands of the two Skelligs watched in silent approbation.

Twilight waved his hands downward, and Leannan Sidhe disappeared beneath the waves, her long black hair floating on the surface for a brief moment before it, too, disappeared in a swirl as it followed the locked body of the witch queen into the depths.

A veneficus with frozen airways and no access to the enchantments will take about five minutes to die. Twilight and Tara kept Leannan Sidhe under the water for an hour. The last thing the witch queen heard in her mind before the oblivion of death claimed her was Twilight’s voice.

The final moment of your perverted eternity has arrived. Good-bye

Flynn Deira was out hunting later that day when he caught the flash of yellow and black fur out of the corner of his eye. Shouting for his men to join him, he spurred his horse in the direction it took and, after a lengthy chase, thought he’d cornered the animal in a forest clearing. Looking back at him through tawny yellow eyes with black pupils, its flanks heaving, was the most beautiful animal he’d ever seen.

A fully grown male lynx.

Dismounting with his spear in his hand he began to slowly edge toward the cornered animal. As his breathless men suddenly charged into the clearing behind him, the lynx leapt into a tree with one bound and running along the branches with the agility and speed of a squirrel was soon gone.

The old Irish hunter looked in the direction the lynx had escaped. ‘I think,’ he said to himself, ‘the sport you are going to provide was well worth the loss of those two hounds.’

Later that day Twilight and Tara were again in the clouds over Cill Dara. Twilight sent a mind message to the palace below.

Donnchadh O’Brain, High King of all Ireland, it is Twilight and Tara again. We bring you a gift and good news.

Below them the old king awoke from his doze in front of the big fire and once again warned his guards to be extra careful.

Moments later Twilight and Tara appeared carrying a body, which they laid on the ground at the king’s feet. It was Leannan Sidhe.

The old king peered at the body carefully before looking at Twilight.

‘This is true, magic maker? No tricks?’

Twilight smiled. ‘No tricks, my lord. That is Leannan Sidhe and she is truly dead.’

‘For all time?’

‘Forever.’

‘Then on behalf of my brother Tadhg and all the other poor unfortunates who suffered at this witch queen’s hands, I thank you both sincerely.’

Twilight bowed. ‘Then we take our leave happy in the fact that

we have restored a little faith in the venefical enchantments.’

The old king nodded and waved as they disappeared. ‘Let’s go back to the compound and introduce Feasa and Eoghan to their new home,’ said Tara.

‘And Katre,’ said Twilight, looking forward particularly to that

part himself. But as soon as they appeared with the dogs at the compound, it was to be greeted by an urgent flurry of pica chirruping.

Katre had been taken. By a Viking raiding party.

Chapter 6

Come soon, great champion, come soon, teacher of my gifted daughter, come very soon, my dear and precious lover.

Eric Ekki Salonen continuously urged his men on with frequent anxious glances to the heavens. That was where he would come from, out of the clouds with the speed of a lightning strike. They had a small longboat with ten rowing stations on either side. The calm water of the North Channel churned with the effort his men put into every stroke. The weather was good and they even had a following breeze, although Ekki had not taken advantage of it in case the brightly coloured sail gave their position away. He’d even put their highly coloured shields on the floor as opposed to the traditional mounting facing outward along the gunnels next to each rower. He was nervous as were his men. All of them muttered a prayer to Aegir, the Norse god of the sea, every few minutes. Knowing that a wizard with great powers was probably searching for you with catatonic death in his heart doubled the effort each man put into his rowing stroke. Every one of them had been aware of the company of the pica as they journeyed to the Wessex coast. It had been impossible to ignore the continuous flapping of black and white wings in the trees behind them.

The flapping pied poly devils were his birds, his eyes and ears.

It was a day and a half since they had left the Wessex coast. Katre was trussed up under the small rear viewing platform. Exhausted from struggling and in great pain, she had finally stopped spitting and screaming at them. It wasn’t the prize they had been sent for, but as a lure she was perfect. The old wizard would come for her alright, the mother of his tyro and, from what they had pieced together from her screaming, a little more than that. There was feeling between the veneficus and this woman. Ekki just hoped the dreaded old black-eyed veneficus wouldn’t find them before they made their home landfall, which, at this rate, was at least another two days. As darkness began to fall over the calm sea, Ekki breathed a little easier. His men needed a rest. Now he could give them one and put the sail up to maintain their progress.

Trussed up under the rear viewing platform, Katre was in a bad way. She had a large gash running across the top of her ear that had leaked a great deal of blood until it congealed down one side of her face; her side hurt from the rough, fast ride draped over a horse on which the Viking had made the journey from the Avebury compound to the coast, and she was also suffering from seasickness. Fortunately she had been unconscious for most of the ride from the sword handle blow to the head she’d received when they grabbed her; otherwise, the gallop strapped across the middle of a horse with her hands tied behind her back would have been even more unbearable. Her only plus had been the lack of time afforded the raiders.

Otherwise she would have had a multi-rape problem as well.

There was no doubt the Viking raiding party was nervous. At every stage they’d been continually casting fearful glances behind, expecting to see the mighty spectre of Twilight bearing down on them in whatever arrival incarnation he chose.

Periodically losing consciousness, Katre wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold on. Dry retching with the motion of the longboat kept bringing her round, only for the pain in her head wound and side to force her back into unconsciousness. In the more lucid moments she mumbled a prayer to Twilight, but such moments were beginning to fade.

Come soon, great champion, come soon, teacher of my gifted daughter, come very soon, my dear and precious lover.

As the dawn rose over the calm sea of the North Channel, Ekki Salonen lowered the brightly coloured sail and set the men to the steady rhythm of rowing again. They had made good progress through the night and were well past the halfway point. His men had rested and he was beginning to relax.

Until the dawn sky opened up with a catatonic blast of such intensity it completely rattled their senses. In goggled stupefaction they watched as a vision suddenly appeared on the foredeck platform alongside Ekki Salonen.

Their worst fear had come true.

Twilight had arrived.

Transforming immediately to the rear end of the longboat, he removed the thick jute ropes holding the slumped, bloodied figure of Katre with an instant barked command and cradled her gently in his arms.

It was too late.

Of all the burials of loved ones he’d attended, this was the hardest to bear. His mentor, the alpha astounder Merlin, as with all venefici, had known precisely when his time would be up and had prepared himself and those around him accordingly. Guinevere had also reached the exulted age of one hundred, and his adored mother, Leah, although eventually struck down by leprosy, had lived to a good age knowing the big family she had bred and nurtured were all safe and happy, and she had spent her last years contributing fully to the well-being of the helpless lepers alongside Guinevere. His brothers and sisters had lived full, involved lives before dying at their allotted time with a smile on their lips, other than Meg, who was still alive and carrying on the family leper contribution on the Isle of Avalon. And, above all, his beloved Rawnie, the princess he’d fallen completely in love with at thirteen years of age and had subsequently kidnapped with one of his first full feats of living magic, the mother of his two children, and ever soothing companion to the constant challenges he’d faced in the day-to-day struggles against the foes of Wessex. She, too, had lived a full mortal term and departed knowing her contribution had been a fine example of a loving, loyal companion and wife. The only previous death that came close to it, and one marked by a proud stone in the place where his own Blue Horn sarsen would stand at Avebury, was that of the young troubadour, Desmond Kingdom Biwater, who was killed many years ago by the Viking venefica Freyja.

But Katre was different.

Here was a young lady who had struggled with many setbacks and was just beginning to see, at last, some stardust settling on her life. With everything to look forward to, including a life alongside Twilight and her gifted daughter, the future promised fulfilment and happiness.

She had also become, albeit recently, the second great love of Twilight’s life, and he was devastated at her death.

As was Tara.

The girl’s grief was palpable, her suffering raw. She retired into an introspective, tear-sodden silence and clung like a limpet to Twilight and her two wolfhounds. Twilight explained that the destiny of Kate’s soul, as one of the few who had led a blameless life, was Elysium, and therefore they would never have to contend with her aggrieved voice at the annual Equinoctial Festival of the Cowering Dead. She had gone to a happy place.

Twilight also reminded her about the very recent conversation with Katre and Tara about how he’d grown to like the big conflicts too much. ‘Leave the kings and queens to fight the big battles while we look after the local stuff,’ Tara had said.

And he’d agreed.

But that was before the brutal Viking had abducted and killed their precious Katre. So much for the local stuff, now he was at war with the entire Viking nation . . . again, and hell-bent on inflicting some heavy casualties to help assuage his own grief. And so, when she’d had a suitable amount of time to get over her mother’s death, would Tara.

The combined wrath and firepower of the two of them, driven by the loss and poignancy they held for Katre, would sweep across the savage, raiding lowlanders from the north like a roaring, white-hot swathe of death-bringing fire.

As it had been with Ekki Salonen’s raiding party, whose longboat had exploded with the force of a cataclysmic volcano into an infinity of splinters, blood spume, bone dust, and metal shards the moment he’d carried Kate’s body to the clouds where Tara was waiting.

Twilight knew the Viking, their brutality, their deities, their methods . . . and their weaknesses. He had dispatched many of them to their Valhalla in the wars against Guthrum. They only understood one method of fighting and expected a similar response.

A furious howling as an accompaniment to an ultra violent death.

The court of Edward the Confessor was a hotbed of scheming, blatant sucking up and the inertia of those biding their time. Banishing the three Godwine brothers to the Danish lowlands had merely opened the door for others. Like most English monarchs Edward wanted to be loved and accepted by his people. Unfortunately, having spent twenty-five years exiled in Normandy as a guest of his first cousin once removed, Duke William, and subsequently appointing a Norman priest, Robert of Jumieges, Archbishop of Canterbury - acceptance by a sceptical populace was a long way off. He further compounded any progress by promising to make Duke William of Normandy his heir by way of thanks for looking after him for all those years. Norman advisors quickly became common around the court, upsetting the entrenched Anglo-Saxons. Something had to give soon, which Edward himself recognized with a request to Twilight and Tara to join him as court venefici - a subject he had broached at the banquet - with the specific job of using their skills to root out the naysayers and bringing some much needed harmony to the running of the country.

He’d even give them the title of Senior and Junior Ambassador.

‘Ambassadors of the Enchantments,’ Tara had laughingly called it.

Twilight’s answer was specific and to the point.

No.

As the court chaos began to slide into anarchy, something happened that put an entirely different perspective on matters.

Under the command of Harold, the eldest of the three Godwines, the three brothers sailed a large, mainly Viking-crewed fleet around the coast, recruiting soldiers as they went until they had enough to challenge Edward’s rule.

Which they did by sailing up the Thames and anchoring within sight of the king’s newly built palace.

Quickly gaining the support of Londoners who, by now, believed that anyone was preferable to the Norman-loving Edward, Harold, Beorn, and Swein Godwine challenged Edward to a fight for the throne.

Again, the king sent a messenger to Twilight for assistance with specific mention that the throne of England was, once more, under threat from Viking raiders.

As Tara said when the old enchanter first received the king’s messenger at the Avebury compound,

‘After what they did to my beloved mother, I would grab my dogs and go now, regardless of how many men they have. The invaders also include that wretch Swein, who you banished from this land. He doesn’t think you’re capable of following up the threat; otherwise he wouldn’t have come back.’

Twilight smiled at his belligerent little warmongering tyro. She was getting over the death of her mother, casting off the listless, maudlin state she’d been in for the past weeks, and gradually beginning to take an interest in other matters. Perhaps a good, brutal spate of warfare against the Viking was the final thing to get her back to normal. Besides, with her first visit to the Equinoctial Festival of the Dead approaching, her mental state needed to be perfect in order to take part. Twilight remembered his own initiation into the annual ceremony alongside Merlin when he’d passed out completely. Although his collapse had been due to the deep bass voice presence of Tiresias, the Seer of Thebes, the whole ordeal required a soundness of all functioning faculties, including his own.

‘I take it from your comment that you’re in favour of joining the court of Edward?’

‘I most certainly am, although I do not want to be called a Junior Ambassador.’

‘What would you like to be called?’

‘Tara will do . . . for now.’

‘So much for keeping away from the royal battle prerogative.’ Twilight sighed. He turned to the king’s messenger, who was waiting anxiously by his horse.

‘How long did it take you to get here?’

‘A day and a half.’

The old astounder’s black eyes gleamed. ‘By the time you get back to the king we would have been there for a day and a half. But nonetheless, the answer is yes, so take your time. We’ll tell him ourselves in a couple of minutes.’

Edward could not hide the huge sigh of relief that puffed out his cheeks when Twilight and Tara appeared, completely unannounced, by his side as he paced frantically around the palace gardens. He immediately waved away the courtiers and senior soldiers scurrying around behind him and motioned toward a rose-entwined bower seat.

‘Thank goodness you’ve come,’ he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with a small square of fine silk. ‘Have you seen the boats on the Thames?’

‘We had a brief look at them on our way here,’ replied Twilight. ‘An impressive fleet; must be over a hundred vessels.’

‘They are going to attack tomorrow unless I agree to their terms. Most of London has sided with them. My battle leaders tell me we are so outnumbered that they will completely overrun us within an hour.’

Twilight looked at him closely.

‘Do you and your men have the stomach for such a fight?’

The king brushed the silk square across his brow, looked into the distance for a few moments, took a look over his shoulder, and then muttered,

‘Not really. It’s unwinnable and all my people know it. Indeed, my senior officers are deserting or joining the other side as fast as they can find a way through the gates.’