The Measure of the Magic (56 page)

Or was this something else?

As he got closer, he realized that the dead were both human and Troll, and that in all likelihood, they had killed one another. Some were still locked in death grips, weapons in hand, arms clasped about each other. The Trolls were armored and the humans were not, but there were so many more of the latter that he knew what they had lacked in arms and armor they had made up for in numbers. The struggle had been bitter and quarter had not been given. The dead included women and children, as well as men; it included young and old. Apparently, the Trolls had been waiting for this exodus and had fallen on the travelers as they started downslope from the pass entrance.

He ventured closer and peered down at the faces. Two he recognized right away. They were from Glensk Wood. The man had been a carpenter, the woman his wife. They had lived not far from him when he was growing up. He glanced about in disbelief and found more familiar faces. They were all from his village.

Then he saw the solitary figure sitting in the midst of the dead back
toward the cliff wall, still almost entirely hidden in shadow. He straightened and took a closer look, trying to make out who it was. He took a step forward, took another, and then a few more.

The figure rose suddenly and stepped toward him, coming out of the shadows and into the dawn light. It was Skeal Eile.

Right away, Pan knew the Seraphic was responsible for what had happened. He knew it instinctively, the way he knew how to read sign and sense the way a trail would go just from a single scrape of a boot on a rock. This was Skeal Eile’s doing, all these people dead, people from Glensk Wood who had followed and trusted him. The boy flushed with rage, wondering if the Seraphic had managed to find a way to kill everyone in the village. Were Prue’s parents among the dead? Was Prue herself? Aislinne? How many others he had known all his life? How many lay dead at his feet, all because of this one hateful man?

He started forward in a white-hot rage, and he might have kept going except that suddenly the runes carved into his black staff began to burn fiercely. Their light was sudden and brilliant, and he stopped where he was. It was an unmistakable warning. He knew that much from what Sider had told him. When there was extreme danger close at hand, the runes would glow. But what sort of danger was it that threatened here? Not Skeal Eile. He was treacherous and manipulative, but Pan was his match even without the staff. This was something else.

Then he remembered the demon that Prue had said was hunting him, and he cast about for some sign of it. But nothing moved on the killing field. There was only Skeal Eile and himself. He stayed where he was, thinking it through. The demon might be hiding in the pass, but why would it do that when he was close enough for it to attack? Was it counting on the Seraphic to somehow distract him?

He had too many questions and not enough answers. He had to act on what he could see.

“What’s happened here?” he called out.

Skeal Eile shook his head, coming a few steps closer. “The villagers were set upon by the Trolls when they emerged from the pass last night. They killed each other. Even Arik Siq is dead. He lies here.” He gestured at a body sprawled close by. “Would you like to see for yourself?”

“Where were these people going?” Pan asked, ignoring the offer.

“To find a new home outside the valley. To go somewhere safe. I was leading them there. I was sent a dream by the boy Hawk, telling me where to go.” He shook his head. “But I only led them to this. My own people.”

He sounded genuinely stricken, but Pan didn’t trust it. “Yet you survived while they all died?”

“A cruel trick of fate. I was knocked down early and pinned beneath the bodies. I lay there until it was over, stunned and bleeding, unable to move.”

“Your vaunted magic? Your skills with oratory? Nothing would have helped?”

“Do not mock me, boy. I did what I could. I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else.”

This was the Skeal Eile Pan knew, arrogant and dismissive. The boy began to advance on him anew, enraged. But once again the runes of his staff blazed and a fresh uneasiness washed through him.

He stopped once more, trying to decide what was wrong. The demon was here. It had to be. Close by. It felt as if it were right in front of him.

His gaze fastened on Skeal Eile.
Right in front of him
. Skeal Eile, for all intents and purposes, but yet not quite as Pan remembered him. Something was different—enough so that he realized the truth. He took a quick breath. He had almost missed it, almost given himself over to his worst enemy. This wasn’t the Seraphic he was dealing with, even if that was how it appeared. It wasn’t the Seraphic who was standing there, speaking to him.

It was the demon.

The confrontation that Prue had warned him about was happening right now, and he hadn’t even been aware of it.

He had just enough time to whip the staff around in front of him like a shield, the magic flowing through its length and into his body, his startled recognition changing to steely determination as the demon attacked. It must have seen something in his eyes or read it in his body language, but it acted quickly, arms extending in a billowing of black robes, fire lancing out in a wicked green wave. The magic slammed into Panterra and threw him backward, knocking him off his feet to sprawl among the dead. It washed over him like a blanket that would smother
him, sucking away all the air, its heat intensifying as it pressed downward. Pan fought back with his own magic, using the staff to keep the flames at bay, fighting to gain space and time.

When the attack broke off, a sudden cessation of sustained effort, Pan rolled away from the place to which he had been pinned and surged back to his feet. But at once the attack began anew, this time in a series of sharp bursts that struck with such force his bones rattled. He fought this attack off, too, but it drained his energy and left him shaking. The demon was giving him no chance to react to what was happening. He was fighting a defensive battle, and the effort he was expending kept him from mounting any sort of counteroffensive.

“Put down the staff, Panterra!” the demon shouted at him, striking out once more, using blades of fire this time, spear points that lanced and cut like steel edges. “You can’t harm me. You can’t defeat me. Don’t be foolish. Lay down the staff, and I will let you live. The staff is all I care about.”

He kept coming toward Pan as he attacked, getting steadily closer. Pan was being wrenched about, knocked over each time he sought to gain his feet, pressed backward as if by a great wind. He managed to keep the staff between himself and the demon, fending off each punishing blow it delivered, but he could do little else.

“Are you listening?” the demon called out. “Time isn’t something you have to waste, boy. Better that you do as I say before I am forced to turn you to dust. What a shame it would be if you failed to protect that little girl who thinks so much of you.”

Pan clenched his teeth, trying to respond. But he couldn’t speak.

“Your friends are all dead, Panterra. Did you know that? The girl is all that’s left. If you want to keep her safe, lay down the staff. Don’t be a fool. Do it now.”

Whatever else he did, it would not be that. His hands tightened on the length of black wood, feeling the steady pulse of the runes against his skin, and he fought his way back to his feet once more.

P
RUE LISS WAS STILL CROUCHED
behind the rocks at the entrance to the pass when Panterra Qu appeared from out of the fading night.
She watched him approach the killing field and the waiting demon. She had thought to go to him right away when she saw him, but Aislinne had pulled her down again, shaking her head.
Wait
, she had mouthed silently.

When Pan had begun speaking with the demon, assuming it was Skeal Eile, Prue almost went to him again. But then the demon did something to give himself away, and Pan summoned the magic of the black staff just in time to save himself. From there, the battle had escalated quickly until now the mountain air was thick with smoky residue from expended magic, the smell bitter and strong in her nostrils, the taste metallic on her tongue.

I have to do something to help him
, she thought.

It was what she had been charged with by the King of the Silver River. It was what she had been given to do, and even if she wasn’t certain how to go about it, she had to try something. She had been struggling with her sense of inadequacy from the moment the King of the Silver River had told her what she must do, but there was no time left to think about it. The battle was raging back and forth in front of her, the combatants fighting their way across the killing field, the dead lying all around them, the earth bloodstained and scarred. Panterra was being pushed back, slowly and steadily, by the demon’s attack. He was still protecting himself, but she could tell that it was only a matter of time until the attack broke down his defenses and left him helpless.

She felt a wave of despair sweep through her. Pan still wasn’t experienced enough for a battle of this sort. He wasn’t trained to fight it. The black staff was still too unfamiliar and the magic too strange. He was wielding it the way he would any new weapon—tentatively, defensively, uncertainly. Though he did his best, it was already clear that his best might not be good enough to save him. If she didn’t intervene in a way that would shift the momentum in his favor, he would die.

But still something held her back, preventing her from intervening.

Do something!

Then abruptly the scarlet dove left its roost and began to soar through the skies above the fighters, spiraling blood red against the grays and blacks that colored Prue’s world. Prue’s gaze shifted instantly to track its flight. It had taken on a distinctly different look now, more fierce and warlike, more hawk than dove. She watched it bank and
straighten, gain altitude and then descend. What was it doing? She could feel its fluid movements in the beating of her heart. She could feel them tugging at her, the bond between them stretching.

She came to her feet in response, left her place of hiding and strode out through the shadows into the early-morning light. “Stay where you are,” she whispered to Aislinne as she did so. “Don’t let him see you.”

She kept walking until she was clear of the pass and standing fully exposed in a patch of sunlight. She saw Pan glance her way—a moment only, because that was all he was allowed before being forced to return his attention to the demon. But it was enough. He knew she was there. He was frightened for her, she could tell, but he was uplifted, too. It reflected in his eyes before he was forced to turn away again.

She lifted her face to the morning sky and watched the scarlet dove sweep toward her, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and the last of any real color. She wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel its soft body and silky feathers in her hands. She could almost feel them now, but it was only the morning breeze caressing her skin.

The demon had thrown Panterra down yet again, and this time the boy did not seem able to rise. Sprawled on the ground, he held the black staff protectively before him, struggling to sit up as the demon’s magic forced him back down. The demon approached in a leisurely fashion, taking his time, using a steady flow of magic to pin the boy in place. He was speaking to Pan, but Prue couldn’t hear what he was saying. Pan thrashed and fought against the bonds being layered atop him, but he could not break free.

Prue knew it was the end for him, and that almost certainly meant the end of her. She tightened her resolve. She would not allow it. She would not stand aside and watch it happen. If it were to end for them, it would not end without a fight.

“Ragpicker!” she screamed at the demon.

The demon turned at the sound of her voice, surprise reflected in its strange red eyes.

Then the scarlet dove dropped straight out of the sky and onto its face.

P
ANTERRA WAS FIGHTING
for his life, staggered by the onslaught of demon magic, when Prue appeared suddenly out of the entrance of the pass. He had only a moment to decide that it was really her, and then he was forced to turn away again as the demon’s attack intensified.