Dream Magic (38 page)

“Yes, milady,” said Tomkin.
He bounded away to work his magic.

Already, the winds were picking up. Morgana relished the cool breeze. She smiled in anticipation of the carnage that was soon to come.

Oberon was the last one at her side. He smiled at her and seemed to enjoy her company.

“You know,” he said, “of all the humans I’ve spent time with over a thousand years, I understand you the best of all,
Morgana.”

She
laughed at that and wondered if his words were true.

* * *

To Brand it seemed like he’d barely reached the gates when the battle started. The enemy was on the move in the fields outside. The Kindred led the charge, marching resolutely behind their crawling, clanking machines. Each of the machines was powered by a small elemental, a salamander from the magma beneath Snowdon. Their heat, when applied to a boiler, provided steam which forced the metal limbs into motion.

Behind each machine was a cloud of smoke and steam. Inside this pall of vapor marched the Kindred infantry, each
staring with glassy-eyes and odd smiles. It was as if they heard music no other could comprehend.

Brand wasn’t fearful of this army at his gates. Far from it. He relished the rush that
was to come, the battle to the finish for thousands. He held aloft the Axe and brandished it in the sun, letting it flash and shine for all to see.

His men around him pelted the oncoming Kindred with a steady storm of arrows, stones and burning pitch. The Kindred marched on, heads down, shields raised. They did not scream in agony, not even when their beards were alight. They kept marching—even those who resembled pine cones, they had so many arrow shafts sticking out of them. Only the ones that were burned to the point where their bodies no longer functioned slumped down, still burning until they guttered out and turn to ash.

They reached the walls without being halted. There, however, the stones were strong and their axes were useless. The enemy seemed to not have a coherent plan. Where were their ladders? Where were their catapults to knock down the gates? They had neither.

Brand felt a hand on his shoulder and he whirled, lifting the Axe high. Here at last an enemy had reached him and dared to forfeit his life!

How disappointed he was to recognize the face that he saw. It was Trev.

For some reason, Brand saw Trev clearly, and he heard the boy’s speech as if he were not in a fog of battle.

“Brand, the Great Tree isn’t moving! The enemy is at the gate, but Myrrdin still stands at the far wall, motionless!”

Brand blinked, and after a time managed to comprehend the words. He turned, mouth gaping, to look at the Great Tree to the west. There it was, just as the boy said. The battle had begun, and Myrrdin was sitting on the sidelines.

He cursed with savage intensity, mostly naming Myrrdin and his ancestors as the worst stripe of coward and charlatan.

“Must I rouse him again?”

“Let me go,” Trev said, daring to touch Brand again, as if holding him back.

“It’s strange,” Brand said, eyeing the boy’s hand. “Most often, in the heat of battle, I would at least attempt to sweep that hand from your wrist. But I don’t feel that way with you, Trev.”

“I guess that’s an effect of my Jewel.”

Brand’s eyes lifted to Trev’s hair, which the boy now wore openly. He grunted. “Silver hair. Odd to think it has properties like no other thing in the world.”

“I’ll get Myrrdin to march,” Trev said. “You hold the walls, Lord Rabing.”

“
You’re supposed to be flying on that dragon the other way!” Brand roared suddenly, pointing out to the distant fields where Morgana sat with Oberon and his elves. “You’re to get out there and slay that witch—no other can do it!”

“I will, milord,” Trev said confidently. “Just give me your leave to rouse Myrrdin. He must stop the Kindred from bre
aking the gates. Already, they’re laying fire upon it.”

Brand looked down and saw the boy was right. The Kindred army had reached the walls. They had no one to cut with their axes, but their machines were still operating. Only two had been stopped by direct hits from
the castle’s siege engines. The rest were breathing gushes of flame onto the wooden gates. The gates were already alight and burning steadily. The Kindred cast oil upon it and the flames rose higher. The intense heat drove back defenders and attackers alike.

“Go then,” Brand shouted. “Go and fly fast. The Great Tree must move!”

Trev raced away, and Brand looked down into the maelstrom of battle. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he found himself marching along the outer battlements toward the struggling armies.

He’d told Trev that only he could slay the witch—but that wasn’t true, of course. Brand knew he could do it as well. It would not be easy. She would work to twist his mind. She would seem pathetic and lovely to his eye. He would be the worst of devils, cutting her down.

He forced himself to remember the Shining Lady. This woman reminded him of that ghost. She could twist the minds of men, and only the strongest could evade her wiles.

Brand considered himself among the strong. As far as he knew, he was the only mortal male who’d stood up to the wishes of the Shining Lady and even struck her down. It had only been in a dream, but he’d managed it.

He told himself with certitude that if he could master the Shining Lady, he could master this witch as well. He would not suffer her to continue breathing after what she’d done here today. She’d set the Kindred at the throats of the River Folk, and he could never forgive her for that. She’d given up her right to live.

Loosing a battle cry as he drew close to the struggling men, Brand flashed the Axe into the attacking army’s eyes. The Kindred shielded themselves and staggered back in their hundreds. Brand’s own men squinted and cursed, but then howled with glee as the Axe began to cheer them. Unlike the
White, which worked to dominate the minds of people who talked to Morgana, the Axe lightened the hearts of men who were near it. The effects were much shorter, but no less dramatic. The garrison had been wavering, but now they burst into a throaty song of battle in a language none of them knew.

But even as
Brand was about to vault the wall and fall into the midst of the Kindred, slaying them with his Axe, two things happened: first, the Rainbow appeared on the horizon. It was running toward the battle, and it let out a warbling, otherworldly cry as it came.

Second
, Gudrin had reached the front lines of the Kindred forces. She stood with her machines and let fly a gush of flame from her fingertips.

Brand and a hundred men like him were forced back, shielding their faces from the looming wall of flame. She had directed her magic toward the gates, and they were rapidly burning away to nothing.

So hot was the flame now that the wood seemed to howl with released gasses. The rivets that held it together turned red, then white, then melted away in rivulets. Still, the blasting flame went on.

“It’s going down! Pull back, retreat!”

Brand cried out his frustration, but his garrison troops quailed all around him. The unleashed power of the Kindred Queen, focused upon his walls, was unstoppable. He was swept down stone steps with the rush of men.

But he did not flee like the rest. Instead, he moved to place himself in front of the tumbling gates. When the enemy did dare to enter his c
astle walls, they would meet him in person.

The gates were soon nothing but black charcoal. The Kindred axes flashed, rising and falling with heavy blows. They chopped their way through and rushed into the castle.

Rather than fear, joy split open Brand’s face and he laughed and shook Ambros at them when the Kindred outside could see him. A moment later, they rushed through the broken gates and came at him.

Brand met them alone. He did not hesitate. He asked no quarter and he gave none. He swung Ambros in great arcs, cutting away heads at his shoulder level. His reach was greater than that of any Kindred warrior. His blows were far more powerful. And his fanatical zeal for battle was greater than their deadened, fearless self-sacrifice.

In addition to the twin blades of his Axe was the Jewel itself which flashed with beams of blinding light every time it took a head. The Kindred were not only dazed by the light, their eyes burned and steamed within the sockets when they got close enough and the beams caught them directly.

Brand, for his part, sang as he worked. It was a song of valor and bravery from nine centuries past in a language no longer spoken by any living soul. He did not know the words, but found the song uplifting nonetheless.

Any other army might have broken, even a Kindred army, but these warriors did not possess minds that understood retreat. It wasn’t until a company of them lay dead that they were ordered back by their Queen.

Gudrin came forward, rippling with fire
which burned everything but her. The Orange Jewel was plain upon her neck and flames ran over her body like water.

“Brand!” she cried. “You cannot stand. You must fall back, or I will be forced to slay you!”

“Ha!” Brand shouted in return. His body was bathed in sweat and Kindred blood. His eyes were alight with the twin heat of fire and battle. “I was wondering when the Queen spider would come to me! Come here, treacherous worm. I would do battle with my real enemy this day.”

“Fall back Brand, or better yet surrender. I can burn you if I come a few paces closer. My flame will reach further than your arm. Your Axe will never touch me.”

Brand, despite his heaving sides, his wild grin of bloodlust and his rage toward Gudrin for her treacheries, realized that she was right. If they did battle, he could not win if she burned him down before he could close with her.

The Kindred troops, sensing a battle they could not hope to compete with, had fallen to the sides and watched silently. It was strange, as Brand knew that any normal mass of the Kindred would have been catcalling and chanting for their Queen. These troops
, however, were as quiet as the grave. They’d never shouted out, not even when mortally wounded—not even while burning alive.

“So, this is what you’re fighting for?” he asked, indicating the troops. “They are the living Dead. They have no souls in them. You’ve done your own people a wicked turn, O Queen.”

“You don’t understand what’s at stake. I’m trying to relieve the world of its burdens in a stroke. The process is painful, but the rewards will be great and long-lasting.”

“For who? For your beloved mistress? You disgust me!”

Gudrin took a step forward, then another. She was almost nonchalant about it, and spoke to Brand all the while.

“I repeat, you don’t understand. Trust me just this once, Brand. I won’t disappoint you. Things will be better soon, if you don’t fight it.”

Brand lifted his Axe, as if to charge. Gudrin raised her finger to shoot a jet of flame at him if he dared. He was still beyond the range of her fire.

“You make me sad, old friend,” Brand said. “But I do what I must.”

Gudrin took another step closer, and she opened her mouth to speak to him, to give him more platitudes—but he had heard enough. He was saddened, despite the grin on his face, as he caused the Axe to shoot a thin focused beam of intense light at Gudrin. The Axe was not so powerful as the Orange when it came to burning and heat, but it had greater range.

The beam, as bright as the summer sun overhead,
struck Gudrin’s face. As she was immune to heat and flame, it did not burn her—but her eyes were not immune to the fantastic light that blazed into them. Blinded, the Queen howled and spun around.

From her outstretched fingers swords of fire shot, burning down Kindred where they stood and washing over the scorched walls.

She fell in a heap, mewling. Brand drew himself up and faced the Kindred warriors, who came forward and looked stunned. Gone were their expressions of dazed pleasure. Gone was their boundless confidence.

“I leave you
to care for your Queen,” Brand said. “Tell the witch she is not welcome within these walls. Tell her I will slay all of you, or cripple them as I have your Queen, if I must!”

Brand turned
away from them and followed his retreating army toward his central keep. There the battle would be finally decided, if the enemy did not lose heart first.

* * *

From a safe distance, hateful eyes watched these proceedings. Morgana cursed when she saw the Kindred milling about at the gate. Why couldn’t anyone follow a simple order?

“
Perhaps we should send in the Rainbow, milady,” Tomkin suggested to her.

In answer,
Morgana extended a single, finely-manicured finger toward the Great Tree which stood in the distance.

“If that thing comes to life again, it might yet push us back. I want your monster to stand here with me and my elves
until the Kindred succeed or fail.”

Tomkin looked annoyed.
Much like the Axe Ambros, Morgana knew that the Blue Jewel Lavatis liked to do battle. When the Rainbow was called, it almost never stood quiescent at its master’s side. It was a creature of violence and madness. The mind of the being that controlled it yearned to release the beast upon any target that was offered.