The Witch's Daughter (39 page)

And Thalasi’s despair only heightened in that moment, for Rhiannon and her sun ray did not let the moment pass.

A burst of light burned away the Black Warlock’s sphere of darkness completely and slammed Thalasi to the ground.

And in a flash all of the Black Warlock’s overcast was consumed, and the sky shone bright and blue once more.

Still Rhiannon continued her assault, determined, as was the magic that flowed through her, to rid Aielle of the Black Warlock once and for all.

    The stupid talons rushing across the bridges and standing in the mud of the empty riverbank could only gape at the converging doom, and when the magics of Brielle and Istaahl came together, nearly half of the evil force was simply washed away. Another group remained trapped on the eastern side, helpless in the face of the wrath of the warrior King and his minions, who were already regrouping for another assault.

But oh so many heroes, human and elf alike, went away in that watery grave.

Indeed, the world would never be the same.

T
HE SKY SHONE
a bright, crisp blue with sunshine general all across Aielle. But a more brilliant beam of the sun still held its course to the Black Warlock, pinning him to the ground mercilessly. Thalasi thought he would surely perish under its relentless heat; he could feel his insides bubbling and churning and could find no magical strength left within himself to battle back.

But up on the slopes of the Baerendels, a subtle shift in the flow of power was all the warning Rhiannon got. She felt vibrations within her form, discordant twanging that wracked her with electric shocks of pain.

Then it all broke apart.

With a vicious shudder that popped the muscles in her elbows and shoulders, Rhiannon swooned and fell.

Bryan, ever alert, was there to catch her.

    Freed of the magical assault, the Black Warlock slithered to the west. His day was ended; all the talons on this side of the river were in full flight, and those across the way would soon be exterminated by the Calvan forces. There would be
no more crossing of the river anytime soon; all four of the bridges had been washed away.

And now Thalasi had only one thought: get back to Talas-dun, where he might lick his wounds. Little optimism remained in the Black Warlock, for even if he could manage the journey to his bastion of power, he understood that Brielle had been right in her scolding: he, and the other wizards in response, had ripped at the very heart of the magic energies that gave them their powers. And that heart, Thalasi now for the first time feared, would never mend.

    Brielle leaned heavily against an ancient oak, her legs too weary to support her. “Ye stupid bastard, Morgan Thalasi,” she panted, hardly able to speak the words. Weary as she was, the Emerald Witch understood that she had to regain her strength and her resolve very soon, for though Thalasi’s storm clouds and her own enchantments had been blasted apart, the fires that now ravaged several sections of Avalon remained in full force.

Brielle would save a portion of the wood, and the rest would grow back in time. But the Emerald Witch’s enchanted reign over Avalon had reached its pinnacle. Brielle was determined that she would stubbornly hold on to a portion of what had once been; she would keep a shining light burning in the heart of the forest for many centuries to come. But the rest of vast Avalon would survive only as an ordinary forest. What the witch already knew, and what the rest of the world would soon find out, was that Avalon had put its best days behind it.

Both it and the Emerald Witch were on the wane.

    Even more disastrous was the scene in Pallendara, for Istaahl, just recently recovered from three decades as a prisoner of the Black Warlock, had fared badly in the conflict.
His tower was gone, and he knew he would never find the strength to rebuild it. Stone masons would flock to his aid, no doubt, but then the tower of Istaahl the White, like the greater part of the new Avalon that would eventually return, would be a normal work, not an enchanted one.

Istaahl showed no emotion to the many healers who tended his serious—mortal for a mortal man—wounds.

He sat silent and unblinking, his thoughts a lament for days gone by and a concern for the days ahead. For while the diminishing of the magics would also lessen the threat of the Black Warlock, the goodly people of Ynis Aielle, the men and elves, would have to stand on their own for the first time.

And with the tragedy of the battle across the bridges and the destruction of the western fields, they would begin their singular reign on a dark note indeed.

    Benador and his troops soon had the bulk of the talons on the eastern side of the river fully contained. Smaller bands of the wretched things ran loose, fleeing every which way, and would have to be hunted down, but the determined King remained confident that the battle now neared its end. He focused his thoughts on the future of his kingdom, on the rebuilding that would have to be done, beginning with the construction of a new bridge across the great river.

He watched now as the swollen river subsided to its normal flow, wondering how many of his own warriors had been washed away in the deluge. Of the Four Bridges, only the eastern and western third of the northernmost remained, but they seemed so cracked that the whole of the structure would probably have to be scrapped.

    Arien Silverleaf charged his mount up and down the northern edges of the battlefield, frantic in his search. Ryell, his
dearest friend, rode beside him, but had already accepted the grim news as true. Sylvia, Arien’s valiant daughter, had perished in the flood.

“Her death was not in vain,” the human archer had told them. “Many are alive because of her valor in getting us from the edges of the river.”

At the time, the archer’s words had rung hollow in the ears of the elven Eldar, but in years to come, Arien would use them often as a litany against his unending grief.

He would have spent the entire day riding back and forth and all about the nearby encampments in search of his daughter, but a sight he could not ignore, no matter how deep his own grief, assailed him when he ventured near the broken bridges.

There, on the very lip of the blasted eastern spur of the northernmost bridge, hung two figures: the top with one hand locked on a jutting piece of stone, the other hand grasping the limply hanging form of his companion.

Arien and Ryell charged back up the bank and swung around toward the bridge. “Survivors on the bridge!” Ryell cried to the two men nearest the structure. Bellerian and Billy Shank.

Billy, supporting the Ranger Lord in his grief, was nearly knocked to the ground when Bellerian heard the call. They both had watched in horror only a moment before as the Silver Mage destroyed the bridge, and then as the floodwaters had surged through, apparently taking Belexus and the wizard with them.

And now Billy Shank had all he could do to hold the Ranger Lord back from the structure.

“It might not be safe!” Billy cried.

“Me son!” was all Bellerian replied.

“If you rush out there, you might cave in the whole
structure,” Billy scolded. “Then there would remain no survivors!”

Bellerian calmed as he realized the truth of Billy’s words.

King Benador noticed the commotion and charged to the base of the structure just as Arien and Ryell arrived. The two elves leaped from their saddles and tentatively started out onto the first stones of the spur, Billy and Bellerian right beside them.

“Beware the bridge!” the King warned.

Arien held out his arms to stop his companions. “I go alone,” he insisted. “We know not how much weight the structure can support.”

“Then I go,” argued Ryell. “You are the Eldar of our people. Better that I should perish if the bridge falls away.”

Arien turned a cold stare on Ryell. “I go,” he said with bitter finality. “I have lost my daughter this day. I will not risk my closest friend as well.” He turned and took a long stride out onto the bridge, and Ryell moved to stop him.

But Benador, understanding the grief on Arien’s face, agreed that the Eldar must do this, and he grabbed Ryell’s shoulder and held him back.

Arien got out to the end and dropped to his knees. Belexus—he had known all along that it could only be Belexus—hung below him, apparently unconscious. But even in that blackness the mighty ranger had not faltered. His left hand clutched the stone of the bridge with strength enough to defeat the pull of the flood. That feat alone would be the stuff of legends, but even more amazing, the ranger’s right hand held with equal strength the thick folds of Ardaz’s blue robes.

“It is your son, Ranger Lord!” Arien called back. “And the Silver Mage.” With the confirmation, it now took Billy, Benador, and Ryell to hold Bellerian back.

Arien quickly pulled a length of rope from his pack and
crept down the facing of the broken bridge to a point where he could loop an end around the wizard. Ardaz opened one eye to watch and shot a hopeful smile at his rescuer. But the wizard did not dare move, aware that his robes had started to tear away in several places.

Arien winked his reassurance, then climbed back to the top, keeping one hand tightly on Belexus in case the ranger’s grip should fail.

Bellerian, though sorely wounded and weary, scrambled out through the grasps of Billy and Ryell when he saw Arien come back up, dragging the rope.

“As I am your king,” Benador said to Billy and Ryell, “I command you to remain here!” And then Benador, despite the horrified shrieks of his entourage, sprinted out onto the bridge.

“You should not be out here,” Arien scolded Bellerian. As if to accentuate the Eldar’s words, the spur creaked ominously under the added weight.

“He is my son,” the Ranger Lord replied sternly.

Benador moved right past them both before they even realized he had come out. He dropped to his belly and immediately understood the problem at hand. “Get the wizard,” he instructed Arien and Bellerian, then grabbed Belexus by the front of the ranger’s tunic.

The other two had no choice by to comply, and when Benador was certain they had Ardaz safely in tow, he tugged with all of his considerable strength and raised Belexus to safety.

Arien nodded his approval. “Let us retire from this broken place,” he advised, and he hoisted Ardaz over his shoulder. Benador did likewise with Belexus, and Bellerian led them off the bridge, to the cheers of the now fair-sized crowd that had gathered to watch it all.

The drama was only heightened a few moments later, when
the entire section of the bridge fell into the river with a thunderous splash.

“As though it waited for us,” Benador said wistfully. “As though the bridge did not want us all to die this day.”

“Doubt it,” babbled Ardaz, spouting water with every word. “That was the northernmost bridge. Thalasi’s bridge.”

“Then thank our fortunes,” laughed Ryell.

But Arien, staring out over the meandering flow of the great river, did not partake of the mirth. He found few fortunes to thank this day.

    Rhiannon walked along in the dim fog, descending a twisting trail that led into a deeper blackness. The young witch was not alone, though—hundreds, perhaps thousands, now made the steady pilgrimage. Rhiannon continued on for many steps, but then stopped abruptly, feeling a certain kindred to another figure moving farther up the line.

“Siana!” she cried, though no sound emanated from her lips. The young girl, moving slowly and staring blankly ahead, did not even seem to see Rhiannon. Nor did Siana take any notice of Lennard and Jolsen Smithyson, walking in the line beside her.

Rhiannon was about to say something more, but an overpowering urge turned her back into the line and held her silent. She understood, then, the spectacle around her. These were the dead, walking to the nether realm, and though death somehow had a lesser hold upon her than the others, she could not but continue her descent.

There was nothing to grab on to, nothing to guide her out from the foggy land.

But once again a singular voice cut through the din of confusion and called to her.

*   *   *

“Rhiannon,” Bryan whispered over and over into the pale woman’s ear. He could not let her die. He would give his own life if it would only bring Rhiannon back. He didn’t look at her now, so fragile. He just cradled her head close and kept calling to her, begging her not to die.

The voice rang like a clarion to the lost witch. She rushed toward it, focused all of her thoughts on it. And when she opened her blue eyes once more, the first sight that greeted her was the shining sun; the second was the smile of Bryan of Corning, brighter still.

Bryan knew at once that she would recover. She had no wounds, at least none that he could see, and the deathly pall that had fallen over her fair skin had already dissipated, gone away like the gloomy overcast of Morgan Thalasi.

“You could not die,” he said to her. “Not now, not after what you did.”

But the answering smile on Rhiannon’s face was shortlived. “Yer friends,” she said, and her grim tone sobered the half-elf’s mirth. “Siana, Lennard, and Jolsen.”