Master of Dragons (23 page)

Varza.

Kel was still
feeling battered and dazed from the horror of the death he'd shared with Nineva, but rest obviously wasn't an option. He roared and charged the knot of rebels. The female spun aside from his path. He heard her axe ring against Nineva's conjured shield, but before he could turn back, he had his clawed hands full with rebel Sidhe.

Even so, through the Truebond he could feel Nineva's steady determination as she went to battle with the witch.

The team of rebels circled Kel as he turned, trying to determine which one to pick off first. He could tell by the way they moved that they were veterans, skilled with the lances, axes, and swords they held. They didn't even flinch at the prospect of taking on forty feet of pissed-off dragon. And they knew how to do it, too, as they closed in on him like wolves around a bear.

But the bear in question was hardly a wimp either. Kel darted his head at a warrior who'd come too close with his spear. Clamping his jaws down on the man's thigh, he jerked him into the air and gave him a vicious terrier shake. There was a scream and a snap, and the man went limp, dead of a broken neck. Kel tossed him aside.

Before he could savor the triumph, pain sliced into his right rear leg. Kel twisted and sent his tail whipping around. It caught the warrior who'd driven the spear into his haunch, batting him skyward like a pop-fly ball.

The spear, however, did not disappear, so the bastard wasn't dead.

And neither were his friends, because they closed in on Kel with roars of rage, swinging axes and jabbing lances into any part of him they could reach. He leaped skyward and beat his wings hard enough to blow them back, catching another of their number with his tail while he was at it.

The remaining five warriors scuttled to a more respectful distance, cool-eyed and calculating.

Unfortunately, they'd done as much damage to him as he had to them. Two lances protruded from his body now, someone having caught him behind the right shoulder. Worse, he bled from half a dozen sword and axe wounds.

He breathed a fire blast at them, mostly to give himself time to think while they scattered.

Unfortunately, he was more adept at fighting battles like this in human form, where he presented his opponents with less target to hit. Too, shape-shifting would heal his injuries, one of which was bleeding too damn fast.

Kel let his magic pour through him. The next moment, he stood on two feet again, the familiar weight of a sword in his hand and armor protecting his body.

“Now,” he growled, “let's try that again.”

 

Nineva circled with
the yellow-eyed Sidhe, keeping a wary eye on the witch's axe. Despite her near-death experience, Semira had returned Nineva's body to its full strength, or maybe even better. She felt fresh and strong, her sword and shield solid and familiar in her hands.

And she was more than in the mood to kick some alien ass.

“You're the one who engineered all this,” Nineva snarled. “You stole Grim and the Egg and tried to kidnap the queen.”

“Your grasp of the obvious is stunning.” Varza lunged, swinging the axe in a hard, flat arc.

Nineva barely caught the blow on her steel shield, which bucked with the impact. She thrust her sword at the witch's gut, but her opponent danced away.

“You should have stayed dead, bitch.” Varza spun, using the momentum of her body to add force to her axe blow.

Nineva jumped back, avoiding the diagonal slice that would have cut her in two. She immediately swung her own blade, but Varza ducked and kept her head.

“Your death will only feed my magic,” the alien sneered.

“Gotta kill me first, skank.”

Just beyond her opponent, she saw Kel pivoting with that inhuman grace of his to catch one of the rebels with a vicious slash. The man went down and didn't get up. She could feel Kel's grim satisfaction as he went after the next warrior.

She just hoped she'd have as much luck with Varza.

 

Semira spread her
arms, glorying in the magic that flowed through her now that she had escaped the sword.
Ahhh, my love,
she purred,
freedom is so sweet!

Cachamwri circled her, multicolored sparks shooting from his wings. His tail curled around her thighs.
I have dreamed of your freedom.

He'd first touched Semira's glowing, trapped mind centuries before—and fallen helplessly in love. He'd wanted to free her from her sword then, but she wouldn't allow it. She had, she said, a duty to fulfill the prophecy and protect her people from the Dark Ones.

Now all those millennia of lonely patience were finally at an end. Semira was free. Goddess to his god, the eternal immortal lover he'd always dreamed of…

What joy they would know.

Soon,
Semira told him.
But first, we must re-create the wards before the second wave of Dark Ones arrives.

True enough.
He cocked his head back and contemplated the planetary ley lines that crisscrossed the sky.
It should not be too difficult if we work together.

She glanced downward, absently checking on her Avatar and Kel. Death magic roiled over the battlefield like black smoke, thickening with every warrior who fell—and making the Dark Ones even stronger.
It occurs to me,
she said slowly,
perhaps we need not be content with merely rebuilding the wards.

The dragon's flaming head turned to study her.
What do you have in mind?

Semira smiled and told him.

 

Kel blocked the
sword thrust at his chest as the warrior spun by him. He disengaged his blade before the other could tear it from his hand, then drove his own point through the rebel's chest. The man grunted in pain. Kel watched his eyes widen through the slit in his visor before they rolled back. The rebel fell dead, his body falling off Kel's sword.

A blade flashed at his head, and Kel leaped back, landing nimbly as the final fighter studied him with narrow, hate-filled eyes. He grinned tightly, recognizing the man's gaudy fang-decorated horsehair crest.

It was Arralt himself.

“Freeing those gods accomplished nothing. I'm going to gut you,” Arralt snarled, “and then I'm going to hunt down that milksop Llyr Galatyn and rip out his heart.”

Kel smirked at him, sensing the rise of mystical energy far over their heads. “I beg to differ. Feel that? Semira and Cachamwri are up there now, casting new wards. Your Dark One reinforcements won't be able to get through. And then we'll pick off the leftovers. Including you.”

“You—!” Arralt broke off his snarled curse, eyes widening in surprise. “The magic! That's not just the wards—what are they doing to the death magic?”

Kel rocked back in surprise, realizing his opponent was right. The stench of alien magic was thinning like lifting fog. His eyes widened in delight. “I'll be damned. They're putting up some kind of dampening field.”

Concentrating, Kel summoned a fireball. It blazed as hot and bright as ever. “Doesn't seem to affect ours, though.” He gave Arralt a feral grin. “Oops.”

Sick realization filled the rebel's eyes before he roared in fury. “You! You did this! You've destroyed everything!”

Kel laughed in his face. “Oh, not yet. But I'm going to.”

Arralt lunged at him, his face twisted with insane rage as he swung his sword in great arcs back and forth. Kel retreated, parrying each swing, his blade jolting in his hands with each ringing contact, while he watched for the opening that would let him take the general's head.

 

Nineva was bleeding
from a dozen wounds. They burned along her thighs, arms, and hands, across her rib cage and belly. She ignored the blood and ache. After what she'd been through, they scarcely registered.

All that mattered was taking down the bitch who'd done this to her, to Kel and Semira and Cachamwri, not to mention to all the dead and wounded who littered the battlefield.

And she was close to doing it, too. Varza had switched her axe to a sword, then conjured a lighter blade to replace that. She was moving more and more slowly, as if the blows Nineva had landed were also beginning to tell on her.

“Getting a little weak, Varza?”

The witch sneered. “Not as long as there's a dying man on this…” She broke off, her eyes widening. “What?”

Nineva grinned. “Took you long enough to notice it, bitch. My goddess has been busy with the ley lines.” She'd felt the death magic fading a good fifteen minutes before. Apparently Varza had been too intent on killing her to notice. “No wonder you're getting weaker.”

“Not too weak to kill
you
!” The alien bared her teeth and swung her sword. Nineva knocked her point aside, then drove her own weapon through Varza's chest in one ruthless thrust.

The alien's gaze fell, taking in the blade that pierced her. “No…”

Nineva bared her teeth. “Oh, yeah.”

Varza darted a hand out, her gauntlet simultaneously disappearing from it. Before Nineva could flinch, the alien jammed her fingers through the eye slit of Nineva's visor to touch bare skin.

Something malevolent and powerful rolled from those fingers—the touch of an alien mind, an alien soul. Streaming into Nineva's being. Attempting to wipe her spirit from her body.

She's trying to possess me!
Nineva realized in horror.

I don't think so.
Kel snarled in the Truebond, sending a wave of strength and magic to reinforce hers. Varza's attack faltered.

Nineva drove one hand against the witch's chest and blew a fireball right through her. The alien mind winked out as Varza fell dead on the grass.

Nineva dropped to one knee, panting, spots dancing before her vision.

 

“Varza!” Arralt shouted
as he saw the witch fall. Anguish and despair rang in his voice.

Kel drew back his sword. For an instant, the rebel's eyes met his, and he knew the bastard would parry. Yet the blade never came up as Kel followed through with every ounce of his considerable strength.

Arralt's head spun away.

“I'll be damned,” Kel murmured, lowering his sword as he watched the general's body tumble to the ground.

“He knew he'd lost,” Nineva said.

He followed her gaze to the battlefield. From this vantage point, it was easy to see that the tide had turned. The rest of the rebels were even now going down before Llyr and his men, while the Magekind, the dragons, and the Dire Wolves were wiping out the Dark Ones.

“Without their death magic, the aliens are just big guys with swords,” Nineva said, pulling her own blade out of Varza's corpse.

Kel grinned savagely. “And Arthur knows just what to do to big guys with swords.”

 

Kel and Nineva
spent the next three hours flying back and forth over the battlefield, breathing fire and throwing spell blasts to help in the mopping up.

The Sidhe rebels started surrendering as soon as word went out Arralt was dead. Llyr and his men rounded them up and took them prisoner.

But nobody offered any quarter to the Dark Ones, who fought with the single-minded viciousness of cornered rats. Killing them all off was a bloody, exhausting business, but finally the last demon was dead.

 

Nineva walked the
battlefield at Kel's side, scanning for wounded among the fallen. Anyone she found still living, she worked to heal.

With the exception of the Dark Ones. Those, Kel took care of with a swift stroke of his sword.

Nineva and Kel weren't the only ones circulating across the battlefield. It seemed every Sidhe, Maja, and dragon was also at work, healing those they could and sorting the dead for burial.

There were far too many dead. More than three hundred Magekind had fallen, along with thirty werewolves and several thousand Sidhe, most of them rebels.

One hundred and fifty dragons had also died in the battle.

 

“Kel.” Nineva stopped
short, her gaze falling on one massive body. It lay sprawled and broken, its skin horribly burned, but she sensed a faint trace of life within it. Beside it lay a bipedal figure, too badly burned to identify, and quite dead. “Think we can save that dragon?”

“If we work fast,” Kel said grimly, breaking into a run toward the fallen dragon. Nineva sprinted after him.

But as they came around its shoulder, they found someone already kneeling by the huge head. Nineva drew up in surprise.

It was a boy. He looked no more than fifteen or so, his chin as smooth as a girl's, his body long and narrow in the plain wool robe he wore.

The dragon moaned in pain, one brilliant blue eye slitting open, startling against the burns that marred its white scales.

With a sense of horror, Nineva recognized her. It was the pretty white dragon who'd flirted with Kel. “Eithne?” She hurried over and dropped beside the boy as she cast a quick translation spell. “Oh, Eithne…”

“It hurts!” the white dragon moaned. “I can't heal…It's too bad! Tried, but…”

“Shhh.” The boy rested his hand on her neck. Nineva gave him a startled look. He spoke the Draconian language without the use of a translation spell, something she wouldn't have even believed possible to a human throat. “See? Your pain fades.”

“Oh,” Eithne said, sounding weakly surprised. “That
is
…better.”

“I can take it from here,” Nineva told the boy in Cachamwrian Sidhe. He had to be one of her people, given the spell he'd just cast. “This is no place for you. Your parents are probably…”

“Nineva,” Kel interrupted, his voice very low. “That's not a boy.”

Her mouth dropped open as he told her through the Truebond exactly who it was. She sat back on her heels and stared.