Part 13 (1/2)

”Aeriel!” he cried. Beneath him, Avarclon wheeled sharp in the air, his great wings beating. Oriencor laughed.

”Fool,” she spat. ”If you had come back, I'd have given her to you. Now I will keep her for myself. She will die very slowly at the end of this war. As will you.”

Rage swept over Irrylath's face. The knuckles of his hand that clasped the Edge Adamantine whitened. ”Dare harm even one hair of her, Witch,” he shouted hoa.r.s.ely, ”and I'll put this dagger through your heart!”

Avarclon plunged forward as though spurred, climbing swiftly through the air. The White Witch stood unflinching, eyes fixed beyond him, her countenance betraying not the slightest fear. Softly, not to Irrylath, she spoke.

”Harry him.”

Instantly her five remaining darkangels broke away from Irrylath's brothers and veered back toward their mistress's keep.

In another moment, they were swarming about the prince: baiting, feinting, striking and darting. He kept them at bay with the Edge Adamantine. Aeriel spotted those of Irrylath's brothers who rode winged Ions hastening to him through the air. Oriencor stood at the cas.e.m.e.nt, watching intently, seeming to take no further interest in the contest of the Lady's army against her own forces below.

The pearl gleamed warm on Aeriel's brow. With a start, she realized that, led by Sabr, the allies had broken free of the Witch's vise at last and cleared a path to the Mere. Under their yellow banner, the Istern and Westron forces were surging toward the black water, dragging barges. Aeriel saw the slender Mariners of the Sea-of-Dust das.h.i.+ng ahead of the rest.

Setting small, light skiffs upon the water, the dark people began to row. If they succeeded in crossing the Mere, Aeriel realized, the Lady's forces could storm the keep. Aeriel's heart quickened-she almost dared to hope. Though badly outnumbered still, the allies were fighting forward again. The tide of battle had begun to turn.

Far to the fore, the skiffs of the dark islanders cut across the oil-smooth Mere. Just as they reached the middle of the lake, Aeriel saw something huge breaking the surface. All at once, the vast black, dull-gleaming head of one of the Witch's water dragons rose from the lake. A moment later, its companion reared beside it, breathing sulfur and smoldering flame. With a roar, the pair of them lunged at the Mariners' skiffs, swallowing half a dozen in the s.p.a.ce of a breath.

Aeriel cried out. The formerly tight, orderly fleet of the Mariners drifted, floundering. Seizing another skiff between their jaws, the two dragons tore it asunder, worrying the splinters. Its occupant fell flailing into the poisoned water and disappeared.

His fellows hurled javelins, but the mereguints scarcely flinched. Those islanders who tried to row around and on toward the keep, they snapped up and devoured.

Oriencor remained oblivious, eyes fixed above on the battle of Irrylath and his brothers against her icari. Beyond and below, on sh.o.r.e, Pendarlon charged down the beach, scattering a host of the Witch's creatures. With a bound, the lyon of the desert plunged from sh.o.r.e-and did not sink into the flat, reflectionless waters of the Mere. Aeriel swallowed her surprise.

The flighdess Ions could do that, she recalled: run across a fluid or fragile surface without breaking through. A dark rider clung to his radiant mane.

”Erin!” Aeriel cried, recognizing her friend in a rush of euphoria and fear.

Bright Burning hung, still sheathed, at the dark girl's side. Why? Aeriel cried inwardly, furious. Why hasn't she drawn it? And then the answer came to her, plain as the light of Solstar: Because the glaive is linked to me. She cannot draw it except when I will. Aeriel flushed in horrified chagrin. Pendarlon bounded over the black, smooth Mere.

”Draw the sword,” Aeriel breathed.

Upon Pendarlon's back, Erin's head snapped up. She cast about her, frowning. Aeriel slapped her own hip, where the sword had once hung. So strong was the connection now, pearl to glaive, that Aeriel half imagined she could feel the sword- belt about her own waist still.

Desperately, she whispered, ”Now!”

And a moment later, as the lyon neared the Witch's dragons, the dark girl seized Bright Burning and pulled it from its sheath. The glaive coruscated, ablaze in her hand. Aeriel felt the well-remembered sense of vertigo and, reeling, fought against being drawn into the flame of the blade as, with a savage swipe of the burning sword, Erin slashed the dark, liquid eye of the nearest mereguint as it stooped to seize another of her people's skiffs.

A moment later, Aeriel saw Marelon, the Feathered Serpent of the Sea-of-Dust, breaking the surface of the Mere beside them. Her great vermilion jaws snapping, she twined about the throat of the injured dragon. Their thras.h.i.+ng scarcely disturbed the gla.s.s-smooth surface of the Mere. Erin and Pendarlon sprang on as Marelon dragged the mereguint under. Erin brandished her glaive at the other dragon, but it recoiled, diving, and disappeared. Pendarlon roared in fury. The dark girl called out and gestured toward the halls of Winterock. Behind her, the Mariners regathered and rowed.

But how do they mean to enter? Aeriel wondered suddenly. The keep has no door. On the sh.o.r.e, the Witch's forces, now gravely disarrayed, were growing ever more ragged. Most of Syllva's people had crowded into the barges now to cross the Mere. Not far from sh.o.r.e, the mudlick, jaws gaping, reared up before the Lady's barge. Syllva shot it through the mouth with an arrow made of silver and gold. Ahead, Erin and Pendarlon had nearly reached the keep.

Without warning, the second mereguint broke the surface of the Mere before them. Its breath smoked, sulfurous yellow.

Thundering, the dragon rose, towering over them. With a snarl, the lyon dropped to a crouch. Erin sprang to stand upon his back as, like a black bird, the mereguint's vast head swooped, jaws wide, its teeth each as long as Erin's arm. The dark girl let go of the lyon's mane, taking hold of her blade's hilt in both hands.

”Erin!” Aeriel screamed, reaching out across a hopeless distance-and yet it seemed her own voice echoed in the singing of the blade.

As the dark girl swung the burning sword, Aeriel shut her eyes, feeling a sense of motion and of draining, a sweeping rush as though she herself were circ.u.mscribing an arc. Through her own body, she felt the crunch of broken scales, cloven spine, and the waft of something dark and mighty above her collapsing in coils upon coils into the Mere-until gasping, shuddering, Aeriel pulled back, opening her eyes, willing herself away from merger with the sword.

In the lake below, the dead mereguint floated, head severed from its body, black blood iridescent upon the shadowy surface of the Mere. A haze of acrid yellow smoke drifted over it. Not far from it, the lyon, with the dark girl still crouched upon his back, bounded onto the ledge of the castle directly beneath Aeriel. The burning sword blazed in Erin's hand. Drained by even such brief contact with the glaive, Aeriel tottered.

”Erin. Oh, Erin,” she breathed.

In the sky overhead, one of Irrylath's brothers sliced a darkangel with his hooked Istern sword. Oriencor's lip curled in a snarl. Eyes fixed on the battle in the air, she seemed not to have noticed Erin vanquis.h.i.+ng her dragons below. Aeriel wondered if the White Witch had even heard her crying the dark girl's name. Above, the prince of Avaric finished off his brother's darkangel with the Edge Adamantine. In silence, like its fellow, the icarus fell.

”Irrylath fights well,” Ravenna's daughter murmured, ”with great brilliance and pa.s.sion. I will grant him that. One by one, my darkangels topple.”

On the far sh.o.r.e, her troops no longer held any semblance of order. Company by company, her minions were straying to a stop. Absorbed in the aerial battle, Oriencor remained oblivious. A rush of sudden understanding overtook Aeriel. Like an overambitious juggler unable to catch and rethrow all of her many beads, the Witch was allowing her forgotten ground forces to falter. Such numbers, Aeriel realized, must require tremendous concentration to control-and Irrylath's betrayal had clearly shaken her.

”Traitor!” the Witch muttered bitterly. ”I never thought he would desert me in the end.”

Keep her distracted! Aeriel told herself. Oriencor could regather her scattered battalions in a moment, if she chose.

Desperately, the pale girl searched her mind for something, anything to keep the other's attention from the battle below.

”Yes, my husband has deserted you,” she said, throwing into her voice a hard edge of confidence she did not feel. ”As the Ancients of Ocea.n.u.s once deserted you-as did Melkior.”

With a hiss, the White Witch turned from the cas.e.m.e.nt, her green eyes blazing. ”What do you know of Melkior, you little fool?”Aeriel's heart quailed beneath the ferociousness of that gaze, but she steeled herself to stand firm, not to flinch. ”That he is a halfling, like you,” she flung back, using the word she knew would cut. ”That he was your friend once, but he turned from you.

He served your mother in the end.”

”My mother is dead,” the White Witch snarled, ”and Melkior no more than her clockwork golam. Gears and wires! He is unimportant.”

Angrily, she made as if to turn back toward the fray. Aeriel stifled the cry of protest that would betray her as surely as would Oriencor's taking note of events below.

”The Ancients abandoned you as well,” Aeriel said quickly. ”They refused to take you with them when they left.” The Witch's gaze flicked back to Aeriel, who struggled to maintain her appearance of calm. She must let no hint of what she saw through the cas.e.m.e.nt show on her face. ”That is why you hate the world so. The Ancients' going left you prisoner here.”

Oriencor glared at Aeriel. ”Their leaving me was all my mother's doing-” she started, then stopped herself.

Contemptuously, the half-Ancient bowed her white lips in a smile. ”But I do not hate the world, little sorceress-though perhaps my mother thought so. I do not care one way or another what happens to the world when I am gone.”

Beyond the window, another darkangel fell.

”You are right about the Ancients, though,” Oriencor continued evenly. ”They broke my heart, leaving me. Soon, however, they will welcome me-they must, for I have proved myself their peer. Have I not labored these thousand years to join them?”

Frowning, Aeriel shook her head, not understanding what the other meant. The White Witch gave a derisive snort. She had turned her attention wholly away from the window now. Hurriedly, Aeriel blanked her features, lest her delight show through.

If only she could keep Oriencor occupied a little longer, then the allies had a chance.

”The Ancients will never return here, of course,” said the Witch. Her tone grew fierce. ”So if I wish to share their company again, it is up to me. Don't you see? I mean to join my peers on Ocea.n.u.s and claim my birthright there. It is to that end I have been pillaging this planet for a thousand years.”

Aeriel stared at her, more baffled than before. But they're dead, she thought. Oriencor spoke as though Ocea.n.u.s were green and blooming still, not ravaged by plagues and horrors. Unexpectedly, Ravenna's daughter smiled her cool, malevolent smile.

”My mother told you nothing of this, I see. So not even she suspected my plans.” The White Witch laughed. ”Good.”

”She said you were killing the world for vengeance-” Aeriel began.

Oriencor nodded curtly. ”Oh, I am. In part. At first, many years ago, I longed simply to ruin my mother's work, to force her and her fellows to abandon this world. I hoped they would construct new chariots and take me with them when they returned home.”