Rising Fire, page 24
Marcus informed him that more of his priests would join them at the circle, even though only one was needed to complete the ritual. Aislinn said little or nothing now, spending most of her time in between dreams and spell-weaving.
Insulted when Roger said the priests were worthless, worse, a burden to protect, Marcus cast a spell that took away his voice. And, he promised, there would be other spells, more powerful ones, to hide them from their enemy and to aid them in sealing the gateway forever.
One thing did give him pause—he discovered that none of them knew the actual ritual—they needed to be ready to read the signs at the circle. But it involved spilling the blood of the two on the altar stone. More than that, blank expressions were the only answers he got from them.
Part of him could still not understand this strange new world in which he now existed. The human warrior in him liked solid ground and strategic plans. That part of him liked knowing that his superior fighting skills would tip the balance of any battle. But this new world with beings of great powers and unknown abilities threatened to undermine his confidence and that of his men.
With every mile closer—to the circle, to the goddess, and to Brienne—William felt his own power growing and strengthening. When they stopped to rest the horses or to eat or take their ease, he practiced his, letting the power rise in his blood until his body changed. Pushing it further and stronger each time, until he became the weapon himself. At his command, at his will. When they stopped for the night south of Inverurie, a village of some size, and gathered for one more time to finish their plans, Roger—with his voice restored— and Marcus came to him with a plan of their own.
“You say you can sense them—Lord Hugh and Brienne?” Roger asked. At Will’s nod, he continued. “So they can tell you’re coming closer?” Roger looked at Marcus. “And the priests? The same?” Marcus nodded.
Aislinn joined the group then with word that the other group of soldiers sent by land had arrived and that the priests of Far Island were not too long off. And that Lord Hugh and Brienne were only a mile or so from the circle. She looked exhausted from seeking so much knowledge in visions. Haunted and pale. She accepted a cup of ale from him and sat by his side.
“Then it must be us who get Brienne out of there.And it must be before they reach it.”
“Us?” Will asked.
“Us, men—humans only,” Roger said. “He can’t sense us coming the way he seems to sense you. . . ”
“But he will know. He will expect such an attack.”
Any good commander would, and from what Will had witnessed, Eudes had much experience and skill.
“Aye.” Roger nodded. “So Marcus and his lads will . . . ?” He waved his hand, waiting for Marcus to fill in the correct word.
“Cast,” Marcus filled in.
“Cast one of his fog spells to cover our movements. One group goes straight in, and the other goes for the girl.”
“And Corann,” Aislinn added. “He is so weak that he prays for death so he will not betray his duty to us and to the gods.”
“Marcus? Will it work?” he asked.
“Only the gods know that, William, and they have not told me yet.” Will smiled at his attempt to lighten such a grave topic. “I think that it could. Lord Hugh will be experiencing the same thing you and Brienne and we are—a sudden change to the powers we have. So if you approach, it could draw his attention away from their”—he nodded to Roger—“attack.”
“This is something we must do soon,” Will told them. “The longer we are here, the more time he has to prepare for us. We do not know how many more he has called to his side to face us.”
They added details, each one using their own skills, talents, and experience to perfect the plan until they all agreed. They would travel the last few miles toward the circle before dawn and make their rescue at daybreak.
Something in the pit of his gut made him call his men together to outline their alternate plan if anything went wrong in the rescue. Then he walked the perimeter of their camp, watching as some of the priests set spells to keep out intruders and others prepared for the morning.
As he lay on his blankets, he tried to reach Brienne on his own, not using Aislinn’s power. He could not see her, but he sent his thoughts out to her. By this time on the morrow, their quest would reach its conclusion and, just as they’d done with the priests, the gods had not deigned to tell him if they would succeed.
Or if evil would be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brienne shivered herself awake in the cold mist of the morning. The haar was so thick she could not see more than a foot or two away from her. Corann shivered his sleep. She felt him and heard him, but he did not wake. Brisbois had given her a potion for him he said would ease the man’s pain, and it held him in sleep’s grasp now. As she tried to pull the blanket over him, the rope around her wrists kept her from doing so.
“Brisbois? Can you untie my hands?”
She peered through the heavy, moving fog and listened for his reply. Nothing. Had he moved away then, called to some duty by Lord Hugh? Then she noticed the unearthly calm that the fog seemed to cause, for she could hear no one and nothing.
Then it came. His war cry split the silence, and her blood surged at the sound.
William was coming for her!
She needed to free herself and help Corann so they were ready when he got to her. Scrambling to her knees, she tried to loosen the knots. Brienne could still not see into the fog, and it seemed to thicken around her.
“Brienne?” a soft voice whispered from a few yards away.
Before she could answer, the attack began, or attacks, for she could hear fighting in three directions. Men rushed through the camp with torches, trying to defend their lord.
“Brienne? Are you here?” It was Aislinn, the girl from Marcus’s people.
“Aye, and Corann,” she whispered back. “I need help getting free. Where is William?”
Aislinn reached her side, cutting through the rope and checking Corann. “We must hurry. His distractions will last but a short time.”
“Aislinn, what are you doing here?” A man joined them then, grabbing the girl and moving her aside. “Does Marcus know?” he asked as he uncovered Corann and knelt next to him.
“He needs me,” she answered back.
A wind began then, whipping the fog into swirling shapes.
“Get him!” Aislinn looked at her. “We must get away now.”
Brienne stood, ready to follow her to William. The man gathered Corann and put him over his shoulder. Standing, with Aislinn helping him to balance Corann, the man pointed in the direction they must go. She’d taken one step when flames of fire came for her. Moving at an incredible speed, the living fire seemed to hop from torch to torch, growing and changing until Lord Hugh stood before her, illuminating the area around her.
Aislinn was exposed, too, so she grabbed for Brienne’s hand when the fire landed at her feet around her. Shocked by Lord Hugh’s ability to move from flame to flame, Brienne screamed out in pain, for she still could not change and knew she would die. Lord Hugh shifted partly to human form, maintaining a burning grip on her. Since she could not overpower him, she watched in horror as he called out more orders to men he clearly had at the ready.
“Brisbois! Take her now!”
Brisbois stepped from the shadows and grabbed Aislinn, wrapping his huge arms around her and tightening his hold until she could not move.
“She is more valuable than the half-dead one,” Lord Hugh said. “My thanks to your warblood for providing me with one of the most powerful priests I have ever encountered.”
Brienne watched helplessly as Brisbois dragged Aislinn along with them. Lord Hugh’s men gathered behind them, protecting them as they mounted their horses and rode to the circle. The sun broke over the horizon as they reached it, and Brienne could see the field where Lord Hugh’s men already were in position to defend. He rode through the line, and they closed behind him. Reaching the lower of two circles, he dropped her to the ground and dismounted.
The same low hum she’d heard as they’d sailed past the castle on the coast was here, too. But it grew louder with every step they took up the hill. And her power flickered within her, too, unable to resist the call of the stones.
Brisbois stared at her as she allowed it to rise through her skin. Lord Hugh shifted to his fiery shape and continued to surround her, controlling her, but as she watched Brisbois, she remembered what he’d done for her. He’d stopped giving her whatever Lord Hugh was adding to the water to keep her powers from answering her command. Mayhap he hoped she would remember her promise to make his death a quick one?
“Is Paulin within the circle?” Lord Hugh called out.
“Aye, my lord,” Eudes replied, grabbing the reins of their horses. He handed a torch to Brisbois.
“Brisbois, take the priest to him. Make certain she reads the signs and is ready when the warblood arrives.” His torturer dragged Aislinn, crossing into the circle and taking her to the altar stone.
“William will not open the gateway for you,” she said. “He will sacrifice himself before he helps you bring . . . HER . . . into this world.”
“Ah, sweet Brienne.” He laughed as he dragged her closer and closer to the stones, which began to glow and hum louder. “He would not do a thing to save himself, but for you and the seer and his father, he would go to hell and back. And that is exactly what I intend for him . . . and you.”
He used little force against her, believing her still compelled by the magical potion he’d been feeding her. Brienne allowed it and did not reveal that her strength and power and ability to change were back and were even stronger because of the stones that seemed to be the source of it. She waited, giving William a chance to save Aislinn before she would take Lord Hugh through the barrier in the heart of the circle and let their fireblood seal it over them.
Brienne had seen it in the memories of the goddess when they’d merged and melded in the barrier. Her blood and his, the last living firebloods, would forever close this gateway, preventing what he was trying to do. She could bring an end to the possibility that their bloodline would rise again.
Now she peered into the circle and saw Aislinn there, at a stone altar with Brisbois at her back and another man at their side. Lord Hugh was focusing his efforts on making the perimeter of the stones a hell. He set it all on fire so that none could pass. Chanting, he walked around it, casting more fire until the stones were almost invisible among it.
“Warblood!” he called out in a voice too loud to be human. “I will destroy them both if you do not do my bidding now.”
It was a voice that combined male and female—Hugh and the goddess spoke. Brienne felt the ground trembling and knew she was attempting to force herself through the barrier that was the center of the circle. All it would take was a slight rupture and she would escape into this world. Their world.
She was held, burning and not being destroyed, against the tallest of the stones. It towered over her and seemed to grow taller by the minute. All the stones did, stretching and groaning and changing. Symbols appeared, being carved before her eyes like metal in her father’s fire pit.
Flames. War hammer. A horse. A tree. A sun. Water moving. A stick figure of a man. A bolt of lightning. Carved, glowing, and disappearing. Again and again, across all the stones.
Then she heard the clamor of fighting coming closer and saw William striding toward her. Her blood roared and her powers soared as he approached.
He was enormous, almost as tall as the stone at her back, with huge muscles. His limbs were weapons that no man could have wielded. His eyes were huge and red, and his skin was the color of the sky and ice. He was death walking, and he was aiming at Lord Hugh.
He paused before her, and his eyes were William’s for a moment, as was his voice.
“Brienne, my love,” he said. He reached through the flames that surrounded her and stroked her cheek. She watched the skin on his blue hands begin to burn and still he did not pull away.
“Save Aislinn. She cannot survive the fire,” she urged him.
He stepped back, the warblood once more, and faced Hugh.
“’Tis not just the one, Warblood,” Hugh called out to him, and he pointed to the other side of the circle. Marcus’s priests were surrounded by the flames. “I will kill all of them now or feed them to my goddess later,” he threatened, “unless you open the gateway.”
Hugh set one of the priests aflame to demonstrate his power and his determination. But William understood that Hugh would kill every last one of them if the warblood became his pawn. He watched every second of the priest’s torment, honoring his sacrifice as others would honor his, for he could not allow the gateway to be opened.
He pulled the power into his blood, urging it on, forcing his body to push to a new size and strength. Then he turned his hands into flat hammers. With one last look at Brienne, the woman he loved, the fireblood he would never claim, he ran, aiming at the stone next to where Hugh held her. The pain of the impact of his body against the stone was immeasurable, but so was the pleasure at feeling it move.
Hugh did not realize his intent until he did it a second time . . . and a third. The warblood’s bones crushed and healed, crushed and healed with each impact. If he could bring down this stone and destroy the altar stone behind it, the integrity of the circle would break and no spell could be cast there.
The stone began to wobble. The warblood smiled and prepared to hit it for the last time.
And Hugh screamed and attacked him.
The fire swarmed him, burning his skin, burning his lungs, and driving him away. All it would take was one more blow to knock it over, but the heat and torment of the flames directed at him forced him to stop just a few paces from the stone. He laughed then, for Hugh had forgotten he needed the warblood for the spell and was destroying him on his own. Either way, it would end here.
And Brienne would survive.
I love you, Brienne.
If he died saving her and the rest of his world, so be it. The warblood closed his eyes.
She was there before him, a shield against the flames her father aimed at him. He felt Brienne but saw the fireblood around him.
I love you, William, she whispered in his thoughts and in his heart.
Hugh screamed again, and it sounded like a roar around and in him. Brienne did not relent, surrounding him so that nothing touched him.
Go, get Aislinn. Save them. Trust me.
And he did.
As she spread herself into a wall of flames, wider and longer over him, a path opened for him into the circle. He ran to get the priest but found her waiting for him. The warblood looked back and saw that the flames battled each other now, Brienne trying to keep her father out of the circle while he was in there.
“Hold up the torch,” Aislinn said to the soldier who had carried her there. He was one of Hugh’s men and yet he followed her orders without hesitation. The other lay dead on the ground. “Your hand, Warblood!”
He rushed to the altar stone and held his hand over it. Aislinn cut across his wrist, and his blood, blue now and glowing, flowed onto its surface. Then she held her breath, grabbed his hand, and did the same to her wrist. He watched as her human blood, rich and red, mixed with his.
“Call her now, William! Now!”
BRIENNE! He shouted it with his voice and his thoughts and his heart and his soul.
In horror, he watched the firefight outside the circle between Brienne and her father end in a flash—one second she held him back and in the next she disappeared. He heard Hugh’s victorious laugh ring out. If Hugh entered the circle now and completed the other ritual with his blood, the world would end in fire and destruction.
In the next instant, before he could breathe or move or think, Brienne materialized from the torch that Hugh’s man held. Still fire, she held out part of her and it became her hand and arm. Aislinn grabbed her, joined the three, and cut her wrist over the pool of their blood, adding the molten-gold colored blood to theirs. The marks of their bloodlines lit up on their skin, and suddenly the stones vibrated, sending out a sound unlike any he’d ever heard before. Chiming bells or singing stones? A barrier formed between the stones, keeping them inside.
And Hugh was outside.
“We are not finished yet, and he still has the power to destroy those outside,” Aislinn said. “The stones must be marked and sealed.”
The warblood turned and saw a great chasm form in the center of the circle. A roar emanated from deep within it.
“The goddess will try to escape now. Find the stone carved with your symbol and”—she smeared some of the gathered blood onto her mark—“and place yours on it.”
He dipped his hands into the blood and smeared it on his arm, covering the mark in blood that boiled and swirled with the mixed colors and powers of the three of them. Brienne did the same, and they ran into the circle to the stone carrying their symbol.
The roar from the center of the circle increased, and the warblood saw talons and glowing eyes there. And fire, long bursts of fire and molten streams against whatever held it captive. The ground shook and the stones’ song grew louder and louder.
He found his stone and waited for the fireblood and priest to take their places. When they did, they raised their marks and placed them in the carvings at the same moment.
The sky above them glowed and swirled, creatures or beings appeared over them, and the stones melted and reached for that sky before bending over to touch in the middle, over the abyss. The altar stone cracked in two, and the pool of blood flowed onto the ground and dripped into the void. Screams of rage and agony erupted as the pit sealed from the edges into the center. Then it was gone, all of it, leaving them in the middle of an empty field, the stones buried once more deep in the earth.
