Dandelion Fire (41 page)

Girls poured in. Girls and Richard.

Penelope hugged him before he could say anything. Anastasia joined in while Richard stood on one leg, and then the other, smiling and picking at his dirty blue cast.

Henrietta stood back with her arms crossed, clearly pleased with herself. Beside her stood two other girls, one who was taller than Penelope and had long, straight auburn hair, and the other Henrietta's size with hair like Hyacinth. They were both smiling, but looked worried.

“You've got sisters!” Anastasia yelled.

“And brothers,” Penelope said. “But you'll meet them later.”

Richard stepped in and stuck out his casted hand. Henry laughed and shook it. Then he stepped in front of the two new girls and tried to look less nervous than he felt.

“Hi,” he said.

“I'm Una,” said the tall one, and she hugged him. “I remember when you and father left.”

“I'm Isa,” the smaller one said, and hugged him around the ribs. “You look like James.”

“He looks like all of them,” Una said.

“But like James the most.”

“Who is James?” Henry asked.

“He's the youngest,” Una said, and she tucked her hair behind her ears exactly how Henrietta did. “The youngest besides you at least. He's a sailor.”

“He's small,” said Isa.

“James is?”

“You are.”

“You're smaller,” Henry said.

“I'm a girl, and I'm still older than you. I was almost two when you left.”

“Oh.” Henry didn't know what else to say. Five girls were all standing around looking at him. Plus Richard.

“Zeke's here as well,” Richard said suddenly.

“What?” Henry asked. “How?”

“And a policeman,” Anastasia said. “I don't remember his name.”

“Do you really want the whole story?” Henrietta asked.

Henry shook his head. “Sometime. But right now, I just want to go look at what's happening.”

“We're not allowed outside,” Anastasia said.

“Is Zeke outside?” Henry asked. He knew the answer,
but he still waited for his cousins to nod. “Then I'm allowed outside.”

All around them came the sound of great bells ringing.

“I wouldn't go out,” Una said. “Uncle Caleb said the bells would only ring if the wall was broken. We should stay here.”

Henry looked around at all of them. “I need to go,” he said. “I'm supposed to.” His voice wavered.

“Are you afraid?” Una asked.

Henry swallowed hard. “I haven't thrown up yet,” he said, and he left the room.

Darius's head was dipped to his chest. The seventy-seventh wizard had fallen, killed by someone outside the walls. It was a strong number. Sharp around its edges. Darius would stir the anthill.

Looking up, he stared blindly across the plain. He had no need of his eyes anymore. Hylfing had seen lightning since its birth. It had been built and strengthened and preserved by men with a loathing for wizards and wizardry. With every strike, the walls almost grew stronger, though many houses and buildings had been burned inside.

With a groan, he released strength. It trickled from his fingers, but quickly grew to a rush, and then a torrent, peeling the skin on his hand back to the bone. With a struggle, he resealed the dam inside him. His skin re-closed. The pulse ran through the ground, racing through rock and earth, and as it reached the city wall,
he called it up with strange tones, speaking an ancient earth-rape he had never before heard.

The ground split and twisted beneath the wall. It was severed, and a portion fell back into the city.

He could hear the cries and feel the shattering of bones. Bells began ringing, but his mind ignored them. Darius released another river of stolen strength across the plain, and the crack and shattering of stone marked the birth of a second breach.

Henry stood, shivering in the street. His cousins and sisters—real sisters—had followed him through the house, refusing to give directions. At the door, little Isa had given him a cloak and a pair of boots. They were too big for him.

The house was on a hill, and while the cobbled street wound its way through other houses on its way down, Henry could see over them, all the way to the river that separated the city, and to the wall. He could see the gaps and the crowd of men in dark robes pushing through them. In the other direction, from the cathedral spire, the bells were beating out an alarm, competing with the never-ending thunder.

For the second time in a single day, Henry ran toward a fight. This time, he wasn't even holding a stick.

By the time he'd crossed the bridge, he began to slow down. Archers had pushed the wizards back out of one of the gaps with swarm after swarm of arrows, but the dark-robed surge in the other was growing. Flame and
balled lightning crawled over the rubble and through the streets.

Everywhere Henry looked, he saw men taking cover behind stones and in doorways, only to fall back again, retreating to new shelter. Still, Henry ran forward in the middle of the street, trying not to slip on the wet cobbles. One hundred yards from the wall, Henry stepped into a doorway and looked out over the shifting conflict.

Bodies, with and without dark robes, were scattered through the rubble, and four figures were running from the other breach. In the center, a tall man drew back a bow even while he ran. Beside him came two others. Both were carrying what looked like rifles. One was thick, dressed like a policeman and limping, the other was lean and hunched while he ran. The fourth was smaller and ran in front, burdened with a long, rectangular shield.

As they approached, wizards shifted to face them. Henry watched in shock as Zeke Johnson banged the long shield down across stones, and the men all ducked behind it.

The tall man stood the longest, and three wizards fell in the rubble with his arrows in them before he huddled with the others, flame curling above them.

Then they were up again, pushing forward, still with only the tall man letting fly his black arrows. Henry could see three quivers on his back.

Other men were pushing forward now, and wild
arrows rattled in the stones. Arrows that met their purpose made no sound at all.

Henry's eyes were shifting. A dozen wizards made a stand in the rubble, combining their strength. The men on the outside were lashing out with wind, sending arrows bending away useless with raised hands and knocking the city's defenders to the ground as they showed themselves. Henry could see others inside the group, calling down bundles of lightning, cracking whips of light madly at walls that hid the city's archers, or balling the power up and bowling it through the streets, searching for life. If any defenders crept too close, then balls of flame sought them out as well.

Zeke's wide shield approached the wizards slowly, shaking in the wind and thunder, shading the men behind it from rolling flames. Lightning never reached it, though the wizards tried. Henry could see the tall man with the bow forcing it away, though his strength did not match any one of the wizards. When Zeke lowered the shield, the tall man's arrows flew, and two shotguns blazed.

Two wizards fell to wounds Henry could not see. A long arrow from behind the shield found its way through the twisting wind and through a wizard's chest. The clustered group of dark blowing robes edged slowly back, leaving behind the bodies. As they did, Henry moved forward.

Three more fell, and Henry watched the wind's
strength shrink and the shield move forward. Another turned and ran for the breach, but tumbled into the rubble with a shaft between his shoulder blades.

All around Henry, dozens of archers moved into the open streets and began to let fly. Henry could hear the twang and hum of string and feather, and he watched as the last of the black robes were brought down inside the walls. The rest were through the breach and onto the plain.

Men swarmed down the streets, filling the breach with arrows while others shifted rubble and pulled away bodies.

“Uncle Frank!” Henry yelled. Frank didn't hear him. He was rolling a stone back toward the wall. Henry hit it beside him and looked up at his uncle. His forehead was red. Singed and curled white hair was plastered onto it with rain.

“Fill the breach!” the tall man shouted. “Killing barrels!”

“Henry York,” Frank said. “Brother Caleb said you were here.” He grinned. “I'm glad to see you while we're both still pullin' breath.”

“He's your brother?” Henry asked.

Frank smiled. “And brother to your father. Can't shake me. I'm still your uncle, Henry. By blood.”

Caleb strode over to them, and Henry looked from his face to Frank's. They were alike. But very different. Henry braced himself to be sent running home, back up the hill to bed.

“Can you shift stone?” Caleb asked. “Both breaches need filling.”

Henry nodded. Zeke and the policeman were too far away to be heard, but Zeke dropped a rock and waved.

“Push coming!” someone yelled.

Shouting echoed along the wall while men dropped to their knees and bellies.

Again, fire filled the breach, and lightning laid men low. But this time, the archers stood their ground at the wall, and the wind bristled with arrows.

Henry rolled and lifted and stacked stone until the sun was gone and darkness, almost as heavy as faeren light, settled on the city.

Still, with hundreds of nameless men, Henry worked by lightning light, his bones vibrating with the dwindling thunder. The storm was regathering.

The wizards had drawn back. And though no one understood it, it was welcome.

Henry stood beside Zeke, and they stared at their hands, with flapping skin where blisters had been born and died in a matter of hours. Every drop of rain stung what it touched.

Zeke looked at Henry, and Henry looked at Zeke. Henry had thrown his cloak away to work, and now he was as wet as he had been in the harbor. Zeke had lost his baseball hat, and his face was filthy with smoke and grease. Rain beaded up on his cheeks. His eyes were as calm as they had ever been, despite the madness they'd
seen, and burn spots had welted up on his forearms where he'd leaned against the flame-heated shield.

“We're still here,” Zeke said.

Henry nodded and looked out at the darkness beyond the walls. For how long? Someone with strength beyond all the wizards stood out in the hills. He thought he could feel him pulling at the wind, though he couldn't quite see it. He wasn't even sure if the wizards he'd watched die would have been able to call down lightning on their own. Someone had handed it to them.

Two stone walls,
U-
shaped, had been erected from the rubble, quarantining the breaches. Wizards who entered the breach would be standing in a space surrounded by stone, below the bows of men on the intact walls. Killing barrels.

Uncle Frank and the policeman walked over to Henry and Zeke, carrying their shotguns. The policeman limped.

“Coupla shells left,” Frank said.

The policeman nodded. “They'll be gone by breakfast.”

“Henry.” Frank put his hand on the cop's shoulder. “This is Sergeant Ken Simmons, who thought he would come along when the house was ripped from Kansas land. He does good work with a shotgun.”

Sergeant Simmons stuck out his hand to shake, but when he saw Henry's torn fingers, he slapped him on the back.

Caleb was moving toward them. All three of his
quivers were empty, and he stooped to pick up arrows as he walked. He ran his hand over the shaft of each, muttering something to the head and breathing on the feathers before he kept them. Some he dropped back on the ground.

“The quiet will not last,” he said when he reached them. “Return to the house and rest and eat while you can.”

“And you?” Frank asked.

“I will search beyond the walls,” Caleb said. “There is one strength behind this, and I do not know why he bides. But while he bides, I may find a way to strike.”

“His name is Darius,” Henry said. “He's a seventh son.”

Caleb raised his eyebrows. “You know him?”

“He pulled me through the cupboards.” Henry shook his head, thinking Caleb wouldn't understand. “He kidnapped me and tried to make me his son.” He pulled his shirt up, and his pale, wet scars stood out in the dark. “I escaped.”

Caleb crouched and ran his fingers over the tangle of scars on Henry's belly.

“A tree?” he asked. Caleb stood up and stepped backward, toward a shadowed doorway. In a flash, he spun, grabbed something near his waist, and pulled it out of the shadow.

Surrounded by shimmering air came Frank the fat faerie, pulled by his nose, grimacing, sputtering pain, and kicking.

“Who is this?” Caleb asked, crouching.

“That's Frank Fat-Faerie,” Henry laughed. “He's alive! Can you see him?”

“I can smell him,” Caleb said. “More or less. I do not have the full gifts, but I have enough to know when a faerie is blinding vision.”

Caleb let go of the faerie's nose and gripped him by both ears. “Listen well, Frank Fat-Faerie. Faeries will not walk unseen in my city, not in these times and not with the district committees as they are. I do not trust the faeren. Make yourself seen.”

The shimmer disappeared. Uncle Frank and the others all blinked. Caleb dropped the faerie's ears.

“What business do you have in Hylfing when the wizards attack?”

“Well, sir,” the faerie said, “my busyness involved saving your nephew from wizards, sir. Saving him from faeren corruption, sir. And saving him from wizards again, sir. Bringing him to the city of his fathers, sir, and in other ways manifesting extreme faeren nobleness and loyalty.” The faerie's face was flushed with anger. He looked at Henry and nodded toward Uncle Frank.

“Is that your uncle Frank?” he asked. “I like him. Much better than some I could mention, who're eager to grab faces and accuse. But then it's hard to go wrong with a Frank.”

Caleb laughed, and the others laughed with him. “What else have you got hidden in that doorway, Fat-Faerie?”

“A young wizard, sir. But a good one. He's badly hurt in his gut.”

“Monmouth?” Henry jumped toward the doorway.

“Mushrooms,” Monmouth said quietly. “Not a tree. Darius's strength began with mushrooms. His brand is poison.”