Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons (16 page)

“It’s not easy doing this handcuffed,” he snarled, giving her a glare.

“Then take them off!” she retorted.

“I will when Baltic says we’re done with you.” The words emerged as if he were grinding them through his teeth.

“I swear, if you two make me pull this fortress over, you’ll be sorry,” I said, giving them both a mom-look that should have scared ten years off their lives.

“Sorry,” Savian said immediately.

“He started it by handcuffing me to him,” Maura said, but subsided when I leveled another look at her.

“You’re still a little outside the main group, Savian. If you can drop one right at the foot of the gate, I bet it would get at least half of them.”

“I can’t lean out that far,” he said, on his knees before the murder hole, his body twisted to the side as he stuck his head out of it. “The hole isn’t big enough. I have to do this at an angle as is, and even then, only one shoulder will fit through it. I think I can stretch a little bit farther, but—Christ!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked as he pulled himself back onto the walkway that ran the length of the curtain wall.

“The negrets. They’re making a pyramid right beneath the murder hole.”

I clutched the stones and stuck my head out to see for myself. About six feet below me, the topmost negret grimaced as another one climbed to stand on his shoulders. “Sins of the saints!”

The negret leaped at me, its claws narrowly missing my face as Savian jerked me backward.

“Be more careful,” he scolded, turning to yell down to the inner bailey. “Baltic! We’re about to have visitors!”

“Where?” Baltic bellowed back, pausing in the middle of shoving a jeep up against the gate.

“Murder hole.” Savian turned back to me. “Ysolde, you and Brom had better get off the wall. I’ll stay here with Her Royal Highness and light up the little devils as they come in.”

“I am not a princess! Stop calling me that!” Maura said, whomping him again.

“They can’t get in the murder hole,” I told him. “It’s too small.”

As I spoke, two little hands reached through the murder hole and gripped the sides before a brown head
popped into view. The negret stared at me for a second, then bared its sharp teeth and lunged, getting its entire torso through the hole.

Savian swore and pulled me backward, pushing Brom and Maura back with his other hand. The negret cursed in what I assumed was its own language, apparently stuck, twisting and turning and struggling to get through the hole. Just as I was about to point out to Savian that even beings as small as the negrets couldn’t get through the murder hole, it managed to pull itself through, falling in a heap on the stone walkway.

“Go!” I yelled at Brom, shoving him toward the stairs before pausing to pick up one of the crates loaded with bottles. It had taken the four of us—Brom, Savian, Maura, and me—to manufacture the three dozen Molotov cocktails, and I didn’t want to leave them where the negrets could get them.

Savian, in the meantime, took advantage of the negret’s moment of inattention to pick it up and attempt to stuff it back through the murder hole. He was hampered not only by the negret’s objecting to such treatment, but also by another negret’s attempting to claw its way through the hole to us. I snatched up one of the bottles, lit the rag hanging limply out of it, and said loudly, “Drop him, Savian.”

“Get away while you can,” he answered, grunting in pain as the negret twisted on itself and bit his hand.

“Drop him!” I yelled just as Maura shifted into dragon form.

Savian glanced over his shoulder at us, and dropped the negret, sprinting toward me, one arm around my waist as he took the bottle and heaved it at the two negrets. They both shrieked as Maura’s fire and the bomb exploded around them.

“Go to Baltic,” Savian ordered, grabbing Maura when she returned to human form.

I shrugged off his arm and raced back to grab one of the two crates. “I’m not going to leave you two here with them by yourselves!”

“I’m responsible for your safety, and I say you get down!” he bellowed.

“In your dreams,” I started to say, but was suddenly lifted off the ground from behind, and set down onto the stairs. I glared up at Baltic when his voice rumbled over my head. “Do as the thief-taker says, Ysolde.”

“We agreed that the bombs were
my
job.”

“Do not even think to argue with me,” he said, then spun around as the now-metal negret that had been in the process of crawling through the murder hole hit the ground, another of its brethren in the process of wriggling into the keep. Baltic planted his feet in a battle stance, spun his sword in his hand, and ordered Savian to stand out of the way.

“We’ll go to the other side,” I told Savian and Maura as Pavel rushed past me on the stairs, his sword in hand, his eyes—like Baltic’s—alight with pleasure. “There’s a murder hole on the south side of the gate, too.”

“All right, but if I say stay back, you stay back.”

“Are you sure you’re not a dragon?” Maura said, puffing a little as we ran down the stairs, our arms laden with the crates. “You’re sure arrogant enough for one.”

“Ha!” Savian said.

“I agree with her. And for the record, one bossy male in my life is enough,” I said, scanning the yard for intruders. It was empty of everyone. “If you keep it up, I’m just going to hit you on the head with one of these bottles, and then you won’t want to work for me, and everything will go to hell in a handbasket. So lighten up. I’m older than you; I know what I’m doing.”

“May says you were resurrected two months ago.”

“Lovey, stay with Nico and Holland,” I called out to Brom as he emerged from the second outbuilding (evidently
used as a storage shed) with a plastic container of gasoline, and a couple of men’s shirts.

“We’re going to make more fire bombs,” he said, his expression one of excited satisfaction. Nico emerged behind him, his arms filled with cases of beer.

“Keep him inside the tower,” I told Nico as they passed. “The negrets are coming in through the murder holes.”

“They won’t get past Holland and me,” he promised. I watched them go into the tower before running across the bailey to the opposite set of stairs that led to the curtain walk.

As a rule, I dislike harming any living being, but negrets were a dangerous cross between a demon and a savage animal, and although they had a human appearance and wore clothing, one look at Savian’s still-bleeding wounds reminded me that their culture revolved around killing whatever living things crossed their path.

But that thought brought up an interesting question.

“How do you think—oh, there, on the left, that group is starting to build a pyramid—how do you think the negrets knew to come here?” I asked, handing Savian another bottle as I watched a small pile of metal negrets slide down the wall to the rocky ground.

“Someone called them up, no doubt. Probably that redheaded she-devil.”

“Thala?” Maura asked, looking thoughtful.

Horror crawled up my skin. “She’s not here, is she? I thought she was in Nepal.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Whew.” I wondered if she’d made her escape and slipped back to Spain without our knowing it, but a moment’s consideration had me shaking my head. “She can’t be here. If she was, she would have come stomping out and made all sorts of dramatic declarations and such. Not to mention probably tried to kill me.”

“I just wish she were here; there’re a few matters I’d like to settle with her,” Savian answered with a dark note in his voice.

“She hasn’t been here for a few weeks,” Maura said, prepping another bottle. “I heard a rumor she was going north toward Russia, but I am not at all privy to her plans.”

“Really…That’s interesting.” I filed away that fact for future consideration. “I wonder if Gareth called her. That rat, he probably did. I bet he told her we were here, and she did something to arrange for the negrets to attack.”

“Necromancer,” Savian said, grunting as he heaved another bomb out of the murder hole.

Maura looked vaguely startled. “What about them?”

“Necromancers can call negrets. Amongst other things, they are eaters of the dead; thus, they answer the call of anyone in the Akashic League.”

“Oh. True,” Maura said. “Makes sense, then.”

“Ruth,” I hissed to myself, wishing for a moment that I really had roasted her when I had the opportunity. “She’s a necromancer, too. Not as powerful as Thala, but I bet we have her to thank for this.”

“Probably called them up before she ran off with your ex,” Savian agreed, snarling under his breath as a fresh wave of negrets collected beneath us.

“Ruth is a necromancer, too?” Maura asked, disbelief written on her face. “Why did she never mention that?”

“No clue, but I get the feeling she doesn’t use her skills very often. Not that I remember much about our time together.” I stopped myself from adding any more. I had a few choice things I’d like to say to Ruth, and kept myself occupied with them until we ran out of ammunition.

“What now?” I asked as Savian dropped the last bomb.

“Let’s hope Brom has more made.”

We followed Savian down the stairs into the inner bailey, but there I let Maura and him head for the tower. I went in the other direction, calling after them, “I’m going to check on Baltic; then I’ll help you with the fire bombs.”

“Sounds goo—holy shit!”

I spun around at his exclamation. Flames licked out of one of the windows at the bottom of the tower, scorching the stone black.

“Brom!” I screamed, and ran for the tower door. I didn’t make it into the tower—just as I approached it, I saw a familiar green tail lashing the air before disappearing around the side of the tower, and I raced after it.

Nico was covered with negrets, his dragon form more red than green as the little monsters tried to shred the flesh from his bones.

Holland lay unconscious or dead—I didn’t know which—and was being dragged through the bloody dirt by six negrets, their faces covered in blood as they took periodic bites from his body.

“Unlock me so I can fight them!” Maura demanded as she shifted into dragon form.

“Can’t! Lost the key somewhere,” Savian answered before grabbing Maura’s arm with one hand, and rushing past me with a fierce battle cry that attracted the attention of the nearest negrets. Dragon fire was everywhere, turning some of the negrets to metal, but there were just too many of them for Maura and Nico to toast.

Behind Nico, Brom was pressed against the wall, his face smeared with blood and his eyes huge. Nico was using his own body to shield him, but, judging by the number of negrets that poured out of the chapel and swarmed over Nico, I knew that even in his dragon form, he wouldn’t last but for a few more seconds.

“Nooo!” I screamed when one negret climbed over the top of another, and reached down to grab Brom by his hair.

I yanked hard on Baltic’s fire, intending to blast the negrets with it, but got only a thin trickle of fire. Baltic, I knew, was using it himself to stem the flow of negrets into the keep, leaving me without access to his fire. There was nothing for it—I had to summon my own fire, weak though it was.

“Sullivan!” Brom’s cry reached my ears as I dug deep within myself, desperately trying to rouse my fire.

Savian went down, covered in negrets. Maura screamed as some of them, slashing and biting her, climbed onto her body, keeping just out of reach of her fire.

Holland was literally being torn limb from limb before our eyes.

Nico’s fire occurred in shorter and shorter blasts, his body staggering as the massive swarm of negrets was taking its toll on him.

I spun around, desperately needing Baltic, but he and Pavel were too far away to help.

“Sullivaaan,” Brom wailed, the negrets viciously yanking him from behind Nico.

Fury, fear, anger, hate…it all spun around inside me, my soul screaming with agony and impotent rage and desperation, building to such a crescendo, I thought it would explode out of my skin.

“Brom!” I screamed, leaping forward to attack the negrets that dared touch my child. I literally saw red when my dragon fire finally answered my summons, bathing the area in a scarlet tidal wave of flame that swept across half the bailey, from the towers to the other side, where the chapel and outbuildings stood. Negrets screamed in a chorus that lightened my heart almost as much as the sight of the little metal bodies hitting the ground. “Brommy! Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Stand still and let me see if you’re injured. Oh, lovey, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. Is that your blood or Nico’s? By the rood, if any of them harmed you—”

“Sullivan?” Brom struggled in my arms as I tried to simultaneously kiss, hug, and check him for injuries. “You’re…uh…white.”

“White? What on earth are you talking about? Oh my god, they hit your head, didn’t they? My poor, poor darling—” I stopped stroking the hair back off his face, staring in surprise at the white-scaled fingers tangled in his brown hair. I lifted the hand, startled even more to see black claws tipping each finger.

“Good lord,” a weak voice said behind me. “Ysolde?”

I looked over my shoulder to where Nico was getting to his feet, his dragon body battered and bloody. Beyond him, Savian groaned and moved one arm. Unfortunately, it was Holland’s arm that one of the negrets had ripped off and had been using to beat Savian, but the fact that Savian was alive gave me hope for Holland. Maura, now in human form, was covered in blood as she staggered to her feet, looking dazed.

I spun around and stared at the chapel, but Holland lay halfway in the door, with no negrets coming from within. Either we’d reached the end of that particular attack force, or they were wisely hiding from my wrath. “We have to close up the bolt-hole again. But first…Brom, can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk.” He rubbed his head, his gaze locked on my body. “They just pulled on my hair.”

“I have to show Baltic this. He won’t believe me otherwise,” I said, taking my child by the hand and marching around the tower to the far side of the bailey.

“You’re a lot bigger than I thought you would be,” Brom said as he bounced against my side a couple of times.