Wasteland King (24 page)

J
eremiah's bones ached. Every other part of him did, too. He glanced at Robin again, Crenn glowering behind her like a watchful guardian angel, and the sweet pain the sight of her sent through him did more than anything else to restore him.

Who knows what he would have said, then, if Summer's decay had not become irrevocable?

Robin's hands, both clasped over her mouth, flew free as the ground quaked. A deep grinding noise began, and every Summer sidhe still on the battlefield felt it, a wrenching, welling pain. Pixies streamed away from Robin; Unwinter rose and rose, his full height even blacker and more massive. The grinding subsided, but all of Summer's subjects knew what was happening.

Summer itself, the land that sustained them, was fading.

Robin bolted, her heels clattering on the concrete, after the pixies. Unwinter turned, unerringly, toward Jeremiah Gallow.

“
Gallow
,” he said, two inexorable syllables. “
You challenged me once.
”

The lance tingled, its familiar weight in his palms. It burned—the Sluagh had changed him, and the iron scorched until his mortal half could reassert itself. The struggle was brief but left him sweating, and Unwinter nodded. His helm's visor dropped, and the clawing of Summer's vitality leaching receded. Were they all free sidhe now, except Unwinter's?

He could
see
it, Summerhome crumbling, the proud towers shaking. The Dreaming Sea rising in towering, glassy waves, tearing at the white-sugar shore. Marrowdowne shrinking, Hob's End fading and Cor's Heart drying into dust, the fraying working inward, color seeping loose, the apple trees of Summer's orchard turning translucent and another image rising behind them, dark thorn-tangles and the corpseglow lamps of drow burrows and trow towns peeking through the umbrous dusk. The white mountains grew taller, sharper, dells and copses spreading and twining with vines and vile, pale flowers.

“I stand ready,” Gallow said formally. One last thing to do. “Provided you swear to Robin's health, Unwinter.”

Unwinter's head dipped in a single nod. “I swear to you on my truename, Jeremiah Gallow, that the Ragged shall enjoy the protection of me and of mine.
Forever
.”

That's a whole lot less comforting than it should be.
No time to pin him down, though. Unwinter reached for his side, and his greatsword rose, frost dripping from razor edges, the ruby in its hilt lighting with its own bloodclot glow. The lance finished its burning, yanking Jeremiah aside, and the battle unfolded before him, already narrowing to one conclusion.

Why? I'm Half, and barely standing, why does he—

Unwinter blurred forward and Jeremiah danced aside, the lance's head turning crimson and wicked-serrated. A clash and a slither, Unwinter stepping back almost mincingly to gain enough room for another strike. The lance could easily flick in, open him up under the ribs—why, in God's name, was the bastard playing?

Unwinter came at him again, with a darting rush far too quick for his blade to hope to arrive in time, a visible mistake. Jeremiah
twisted
, the lance slapping the greatsword aside…

… And again, he fought the urge to cut the other sidhe down.
He's not fighting. What is this?

“
GALLOW!
” Unwinter roared, lifting the chiming greatsword with both hands. “
KILL ME!
”

Well, if Jeremiah could want a fair price for his exit, the lord of Unwinter would want no less. With both Summer and Unwinter dead, would the Sundering heal—or would all of them bleed out through the wound?

Behind him, a shadow darted—it was Alastair Crenn, wrenching the glittering knife free of Summer's scorched outline. How many eternities had she ruled, and now nothing was left but a stain on the pavement? Alastair hopped up lithely into a crouch, grimacing as if his torn feet pained him, and gathered himself.

He was prepared to fall on Unwinter himself. For Jeremiah? Or for the Ragged?

Probably for her
, Jeremiah admitted, and faded backward, shuffling. The assembled sidhe stared, sensing something amiss, Summer knights grimacing as a high ringing sound pulled an emerald thread through the smoke-wracked battlefield.

He's trying to commit suicide by Half
, Jeremiah realized, and might have laughed—except Unwinter halted, sword still upraised.

And then, the unthinkable.

Unwinter… fell. His armor crackled, glamour folding aside, and the leprous-green sheen clustering all up and down his left side, eating through black dwarven-wrought metal.

From
inside
.

A flash of russet, of cream, and of blue—Robin Ragged skidded to a stop next to Unwinter's supine form, neatly dodging an uncoordinated blow as the lord of Unseelie convulsed.

He was plagued, too.

Robin had shed the black coat, carrying it in a wad. She dug frantically at her belt, and jerked free something strange—a small curved case, oddly familiar. Gallow straightened, the lance losing none of its solidity as every Unwinter knight started to his feet.

Pipes.
Gallow's jaw threatened to drop.
She has Puck's pipes. How…

She wrenched the biggest reed free, leaning back to dodge another of Unwinter's queerly uncoordinated thrashings.

No wonder he wanted a clean death, compared to this.

A small glass tube turned in Robin's quick, nimble fingers. Crenn glanced at Jeremiah, who shook his head slightly, and they both turned a fraction, facing Unwinter's knights, who each laid hand to blade-hilt in an oddly synchronized movement as well.

Robin cursed, a single sharp word that splintered glass, and she breathed another syllable or two in the Old Language. Realmaking sparked, and Jeremiah glanced at her again, hoping she knew what she was doing.

The glass tube had become an old-fashioned syringe, glittering in her hands. She raised her fist, and the needle stretched, long and wicked enough to pierce armor.

I have the cure, Unwinter!

“Get back,” he warned the Unwinter fullbloods, and hoped they weren't going to fight him. They might kill, where Unwinter had refused to. “She's curing him, get
back
!”

And Robin's fist flashed down, stabbing.

T
he world stopped. Her hands tingled with Realmaking, and the needle slowed, then quickened as it forced a way through the armor and into flesh beneath.

Unwinter screamed, the massive noise passing by her ear like a freight train's roar, wind stinging her eyes and yanking her hair. She hung on, grimly, and slapped her free hand over the plunger.
Hope I remembered how a syringe is made clearly enough
, she thought, and
pushed
, muscle standing out in her arms and shoulders as the thick sludge-material stirred inside the glass tube.

And,
I hope Puck didn't hide the real cure elsewhere.

Last of all,
I hope Jeremiah and Crenn are all right
.

So much hope. Unwinter's fist arrived out of nowhere, and she couldn't dodge this one in time. Stars flashed, she
flew
, but she had pushed the plunger down all the way, she was
sure
of it, hadn't she?

Hadn't she?

She hit something hard with a crunch, it gave more resiliently than she expected, and she tumbled to the ground in a heap, Alastair Crenn's limbs tangling with hers. Somehow he had his shoulder in the way, so her head bounced on
him
instead of on concrete. Stunned and breathless, she went limp, Unwinter's howl blasting a crimson streak straight up into the clouded sky.

The world turned sideways, and Robin Ragged surfaced a few moments later, her head ringing, her cheek bruised, and a long scrape up her arm from the concrete. Crenn lay crumpled underneath her, and Pepperbuckle's claws scrabbled as he reached her, his long pink tongue frantically licking the side of her face, his wet cold nose and hot breath confusing her.

Crenn's dark eyes opened. This close, she could see the fine grain of his skin, the line between his pupil and iris, the exact sheen of his hair. The moss had crumbled away; the curls were black and springy, and looked very soft.

They stared at each other, their noses a bare inch apart, and deep in his gaze, something familiar stirred.

He had no right to look so lost. No right at all to look so hopeful, so despairing. He had gagged her with shusweed and brought her to Summer. Summer had taken his scars away.

Yet he'd saved her life twice now.

Robin
. A deep, imperative voice.
You're not done yet.

She rolled aside, wishing she hadn't seen his vulnerability
or
his slight flinch as she pushed herself away. He probably thought she loathed him.

Well, she did, didn't she? Or she could have, just like she could have left Sean to his fate or Gallow to his, if only she didn't care. If only their pain or sweetness did not strike an answer in her, if only she could have refused to see.

Well, it didn't matter. She grabbed a handful of Pepperbuckle's fur, he made no noise as she hauled herself upright.

“Don't,” Jeremiah Gallow said behind her. “Don't make me kill you.”

She whirled, and saw Unwinter's convulsions had quieted. Hopefully the cure was working.

Jeremiah Gallow, the new white streak in his hair glaring in the dimness of what was only a mortal night now, stood with his glowing lance slanting slightly up, held across his body like a bar. It was a pikeman's defense, and the mass of Unwinter's fullbloods, their pale faces alight with bloodlust, pressed toward him.

Her face hurt. Her heels clattered as she lunged for the wad of black velvet. Pixies crawled over it, piping at her in the stillness, and it seemed to take forever to reach the material, yank it up—

A single green gleam fell into her palm, shrunk to the size of a marble, singing in distress. She closed her fingers gingerly over it and ran for Gallow, and her expression must have been wild, for the assembled fullbloods fell back.

They remembered her voice, and were wary of it, at least.

Behind her, Unwinter groaned. The sound wasn't cold enough to hurt, but it was unmistakably
his
voice. He would probably live. And if he did, he was Unwinter, and there had to be something else.

There had to be a Summer.

Do it, Robin. Do it now.

“Jer!” she yelled, and her voice wasn't her own for a moment. It was lighter, and laughing, a timbre and cadence she knew as well as she knew her own. “
Turn around!
”

It was Daisy's voice, and she hated herself for using it even as Jeremiah turned, the lance slipping between his fingers and winking out—

And Robin Ragged rammed Danu's Jewel against his armored chest as his arms closed around her. Realmaking sparked and oscillated around her fingers again, and Jeremiah was squeezing her hard enough to rob her of breath.

Did he think she was Daisy, come back to him? Her heart and her face both ached.

The Jewel stabbed through armor, through fine linen, and met flesh. Realmaking pierced, shone, spun, and Jeremiah Gallow stiffened. He screamed, a long trailing cry of anguish, and if he had not been slightly changed by the Sluagh he might well have died of shock in that instant alone.

She caught him as he sagged. But he was so much heavier than she, especially in armor, and they both went down in a tangle, Robin's knee barking the cold paving painfully. She bent over him, and a tremor passed through every Summer sidhe.

Forgive me
, Robin Ragged wanted to say.
I can't let all of Summer die, and you and me and Pepperbuckle with it.

But she didn't have the breath.

P
ain. The agony poured through Jeremiah Gallow, in channels still smoking-raw from the passage of the unforgiven dead. Summer trembled, and Danu's Jewel screamed. Her folk were of the moonlight and the cold spring dawn, of glamour and cruelty, of dancing and making merry, of elfhorse and elflock.

In some place beyond the Veil, did the goddess herself lift her head, sensing their cries? Did she peer into her fountain, and did her ageless brow wrinkle slightly as she saw a battlefield, blood spilled not in her honor but for vile selfishness? Did she regret, even for a moment, her creation, or the birthing of her second children, who even now swarmed the kingdom she had given them, poisoning it with filth and rubble?

None were blameless, not even a goddess.

Did Danu peer a little more closely, stirring just slightly in one direction? Did one gentle fingertip come down, touching the trembling surface of her fountain, rippling outward as one thing changed and another did not? Who could tell?

A great hush swept through the Veil, those small ripples touching each other, and did the fingertip dip again, ever so gently, just the faintest breath of a nudge?

Sooner or later, all children grow. Control is not possible.

But encouragement and aid, well… those are always possible.

Did Danu Herself smile as she regarded them, these children fighting over dropped toys, now clinging to each other and weeping? Tears of relief, or tears of pain, a green gleam on the chest of a knight…

Did Danu pause? Did she breathe across the surface of the fountain, as her garden shimmered half-wild in the folds of the Veil, a tamed wilderness echoed in light and shadow all through the real and more-than-real?

Or is she merely a fiction, and the slices of real and more-than-real, stacked in a glorious fan, nothing more than the sum of choice, of consequence?

What is known is merely this: Danu's Jewel…

… had found a new bearer.

Summer was alive.