Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) (52 page)

Mórgana turned to the werewolf, who was hunched over to the rear of the wagon. “Take this one,” she commanded.

The werewolf howled in delight and scuffled over.

Natalenya saw the beast for the first time and screamed.

Mórgana smiled. Just as she had hoped.

The werewolf reached for her, curling his black lips and revealing fangs as long as Natalenya’s fingers.

Natalenya fell backward, screamed again, but then grabbed one of the loose ropes that had been used to tie her up. Standing quickly, she turned on Mórgana, threw the rope over her head, and tightened it around her neck.

Mórgana was taken off guard. The werewolf should have made the girl cower, twitch, and beg for mercy, but this . . . was . . . unexpected. Natalenya tightened the rope, and Mórgana suddenly found it hard to breathe. She gasped, and tried to twist away, but Natalenya was stronger than she expected.

“Call your beast off or I’ll kill you.”

Anger surged in Mórgana, and she shoved a palm into Natalenya’s chin, pushing the girl back. With her other hand, she took out her fang and cupped it in her fingers. It only took a moment for power to pulse within her arm, and then she slammed her fist into Natalenya’s shoulder.

The girl yelled and collapsed, letting go of the rope.

Mórgana pulled the rope off of her neck and sucked in a few angry breaths.

“Take her!” she screamed, her voice raw.

The werewolf loped forward and scooped Natalenya up.

The girl struggled against him, beating his chest and kicking
furiously until the werewolf opened his maw and roared, his teeth inches from her face.

Natalenya stopped struggling and began to whimper, barely breathing.

Mórgana rubbed the rope burns on her neck. “Good,” she said. “You finally see the wisdom in cooperating. And if you give any more trouble, do not expect to see your children alive again. Now take her to the shore and hold her before the eyes of our enemies.”

Merlin stood beside Arthur on the shore and watched the activity across the marsh. After a period of relative quiet, the wolf-heads had again begun to mill about as if in restless expectation. Arthur raised his arm, ready to give Tethion’s archers the order to fire on the far shore, but Merlin grabbed his elbow.

“Stop!”

Arthur turned. The flaming arrows wavered as the archers held their bowstrings taut.

“There’s a woman in the hands of the werewolf . . . Look!”

Arthur followed Merlin’s gaze.

“Is it Mórgana?”

“I don’t think so.”

Now the woman began to scream for help. Her voice floated across the marsh and pricked Merlin’s ears, swirling inside his soul until, until . . . But what his heart told him his mind contradicted. It couldn’t be, though it had to be true. He knew the voice too well. And just as recognition dawned on him in a blazing heat — he heard her call his name.

“Merlin! Arthur! They have the children!”

His wife! She and the children were alive! And that very truth shocked him more than the startling fact that she was here in Bosventor and in the clutches of the werewolf.

“Natalenya!”
he called, but the word caught in his throat and cut him so painfully that he fell to his knees.

The werewolf howled, and his massive claws lifted her up. The reality of the situation hit Merlin like a blow to the chest. He had already counted her as dead in his heart, and now to find her alive beyond all hope . . . yet in the hands of his worst nightmare!

An inner scream began in his heart — ripping, ripping — until his spirit bled and bled and he would stand it no longer.

“We’ve got to save them!” he yelled as he ran down the shore. Finding a boat left behind by the wolf-heads, he shoved off and paddled furiously out into the marsh toward his wife.

And the werewolf.

He would save her or die.

M
erlin paddled with such strength and power that the water churned and flowed as if it were time itself, each flash of wetness passing like a moment, a day, a year, a decade — until all his life slipped away and he was old, old and frail, and his wife was dying before him, now entombed, now dust, a living whisper on the wind-shaped shore.

God of Abraham
,
in Your mercy
,
take our crumbling lives and make us whole.

Save us
,
Lord Jesu!

Save my wife and children.

Please
,
don’t let them die.

Merlin was dimly aware of his fellow warriors following him across the water, and he turned once to see Arthur, Dwin, and others paddling in the forefront of all the serviceable boats and rafts, each one filled with warriors. And there was old Gogi rowing his own boat, and tucked into his white belt was a big iron mace.

But none of them made any difference. Merlin felt alone in this. And the closer he paddled, the more he saw, and the more he feared. His greatest earthly treasure in the hands of the greatest horror.

Red, thick fur and rippling muscles.

Razor, slashing claws.

Eyes aflame with the fire of hell.

A tongue ready to taste Merlin’s worthless, yellowed blood, and a throat ready to gulp it down.

As the cold coils of dread squeezed his heart, his paddle fell slack. His arms useless. How could he fight this beast? How could he save her? He wanted to scream, but his pinched lungs could let out nothing more than a thin wheeze.

Yet as Merlin looked helplessly upon Natalenya, his hearing sharpened and he heard a voice speaking his name.

M
ERLIN
. . .

The world stopped. Nothing moved. A flaming arrow shot from behind hung in the air to Merlin’s left, its flame frozen. The drool from the werewolf hung, floating idly from his teeth.

The words came again.
M
ERLIN, WHO ARE YOU?

“I am a warrior,” he said, holding up his dirk. Blood covered the tip, and the wooden handle was cracked, but the short blade felt good in his hands. His father had made it.

M
ERLIN, WHO ARE YOU?

He was confused. “I am a . . . a bard.”

With persistence, the voice spoke once more.
M
ERLIN, WHO ARE YOU?

“I am . . . a servant of Arthur, my king.”

A wind swirled, and when the words came again, they vibrated all around him.
M
ERLIN, WHO IS YOUR KING?

“Arthur . . . Arthur is my king.”

The wind became furious, buffeting him, and he hunkered down lest he be blown off the boat and into the water.

The words came next like a whisper, a still, small voice speaking through the raging winds.
M
ERLIN, WHO IS YOUR KING?

Merlin closed his eyes. Then he knew. Not only
who
was speaking to him, but why. He had forgotten, hadn’t he? He had prayed for his family, yes, but it was a cornered kind of prayer, the type you say when you have no hope.

Certainly all the events before his eyes screamed for him
not
to hope. Justified him. So few warriors left alive. The powerful and numerous wolf-heads ready to attack. Very few weapons. His wife and his children half a breath away from dying.

M
ERLIN, WHO ARE YOU?

He hesitated, but when he spoke he knew it was true. It had always been true, for he had been chosen. Picked out.

“I am . . . a servant of the Most High.”

A
ND WHO IS YOUR KING?

“You . . . You are my King. My Emperor. My Sovereign. My Suzerain.”

A
ND WHAT DOES YOUR KING REQUIRE OF YOU?

Merlin knew the answer but could hardly say it, and the words escaped from his throat like jagged fish bones. “It is required that I follow You. Through suffering, to death . . . and beyond to Your feasting hall . . . to Your very throne.”

B
E STRONG AND COURAGEOUS
, M
ERLIN
. D
O NOT FEAR THE ONE WHO CAN ONLY SLAY YOUR BODY, FOR HE CANNOT SLAY YOUR SOUL
. F
EAR
M
E, FOR
I
HOLD BOTH YOUR SOUL AND YOUR BODY, AND NO ONE CAN STEAL YOU FROM
M
Y HAND
.

The world around him lurched. The arrow hissed, speeding toward a watery grave, the wolf-heads howled, and the water rolled under his boat once more. Merlin paddled then, new strength in his limbs and his dirk ready at his belt.

As he closed in, he saw more clearly Natalenya’s peril. Her screams had faded now and were replaced by fearful moans as the beast sniffed near her face and licked his dagger-like teeth.

The wolf-heads had arrayed themselves behind the werewolf, and farther up the bank stood a lone wagon. A light breeze blew at
his back, and above him hovered a silent raven that was soon lost in the darkness.

Merlin propelled himself to the shoreline and leapt on a rock. His dirk was in his right hand and he kept the short paddle in his left for a shield. He breathed heavily and clenched his jaw in seething fury.

“Let her go!” he yelled at the beast, who stood not five paces away.

The creature howled, and all the wolf-heads joined him in a barking cacophony. Merlin covered his ears to block it out as the sound fairly shook the air.

“Merlin!” Natalenya cried, fighting and kicking to get free from the clawed hand. The beast tossed her into his left hand and held her kicking limbs away from his face. With his right hand he extended his claws toward Merlin and roared.

Merlin ran at him.

The beast lunged forward, making a swipe at Merlin’s face.

Merlin dodged to the left side, jabbing into the palm of the clawed hand with his dirk. The blow had come at him so hard, however, that it knocked away his dirk and jammed his wrist.

The werewolf pulled his hand away and yowled.

Merlin threw himself toward where his dirk had landed but fell short.

The werewolf’s razor-sharp nails came down.

He rolled and tried to block the attack with his paddle as a shield, yet the beast’s claw ripped the wood out of his hand and cut through the scale armor, slicing him. He grabbed the dirk, slashed out at the beast, and rolled up onto his feet. His whole arm hurt now, and even his shoulder felt weak.

The wolf-head minions advanced now, and three crouched, ready to pounce on him.

Flaming arrows came hurtling in from the marsh.

All three beasts barked and screamed, pulling on the arrows that had lodged in their flesh.

Merlin attacked the beast holding Natalenya just as another volley of arrows flew past. Many wolf-heads went down, and one arrow struck the giant werewolf in the leg.

“Ready!” Arthur yelled from behind him, and Merlin saw that they had kept their boats just offshore and were using them as platforms for the archers.

Merlin took his chance and dove, trying to strike a blow to the fur-covered body.