26

BATTLE AT WESTWIND

The knight at last his sword lays down,
His grimace gone, no more a frown,
His helm replaced with glorious crown,
A gift from the Majestic One!

FROM “THE GALLANT LIFE AND GLORIOUS DEATH OF SIR SAMUEL GRYPHONHEART,” AN ELENIL POEM

“The girl first.” One of the Scim said it, his voice deep and full of violent intention.

Jason shuddered. Shula and Baileya’s backs were against his, and he knew Baileya would slow the vicious Scim who advanced on them. But Madeline, doubled over and coughing, would be an easy target for Break Bones.

His stomach clenched at the thought of failure. His molars ground into each other, and his jaw ached with the sudden pressure. He hadn’t left everything behind to come into this crazy place to fail. I will protect Madeline. He would fight Death himself if it came to that. Thoughts of Jenny came piling in. Not the good thoughts, not the memories of how they had cared for one another, the fun times, of making jiaozi with their mom or reading books together at night. Not the memories of how she always called him didi —the Chinese word for “little brother” —and he always called her jiejie. No, he saw her upside down and covered in blood, begging him for help. Because he hadn’t spoken up. He hadn’t spoken the truth. His lack of courage had led the way to that moment.

That cowardice a year ago had built his courage today. The pain and suffering his silence had caused were so much more than he could have ever imagined possible. He would never take the coward’s path again, especially not when the life of a friend was in danger.

Baileya’s spinning blades kept the Scim at bay, and Shula stepped away from them and lit on fire. Her magic must not have left her yet. She waded into the Scim with a grim determination, and they fell away in terror. One of the Scim dropped a sword, and Jason snatched it up. He could barely lift it, but he managed one awkward swing at the Scim in front of him. They fell back. But then, with laughs like monstrous frogs croaking, they advanced again. One of them knocked the sword from his hand with ease.

Jason yelped.

Madeline leaned against him, losing consciousness. She said his name just before her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell.

He scooped his arm around her, holding her up. He couldn’t pick up a sword again, not that it would help, and the Scim had him backed against the edge of the roof. Baileya saw them and spun in their direction, but there were at least four Scim between them now, and Break Bones was engaging her complete attention. Shula was at the far end of the roof, clearing a path for them, lighting the Scim like torches.

Jason wrapped his arms around Madeline’s waist, holding her in front of him, whispered a quick prayer, and leaned backward. The world tilted, and they fell. His body would cushion her fall, or at least he hoped so. The looks on the faces of the Scim on the roof, peering over the edge with wide black eyes and frog-like mouths agape, was almost worth it. If it was the last thing Jason saw, he would be satisfied with that. He hadn’t seen another option. He couldn’t make it to the stairs, and no way would he let Break Bones murder Madeline, not if falling to their deaths could prevent it.

The impact took his breath away.

He groaned. They were still moving.

They had landed in a hay cart pulled by a stampeding horse plowing through the crowd on the street. A quick glance at the Scim showed them even more startled. If they had been cartoons, their jaws would have hit the street.

He and Madeline were alive. “I’m alive!” he shouted up to the Scim, instantly regretting it. They disappeared from the edge, then reappeared, descending the wall feet first.

The cart bucked wildly, knocking Madeline off him. He shoved her deeper in the hay, hoping it would keep her in the cart. The cart hit a hole in the street, and he flew, for a moment, off of the pile of hay and into the air. He fell into the cart, biting his tongue in the process. An arrow zipped past his head, lodging in the wooden plank beside him.

He leapt onto the driver’s seat and grabbed hold of the flailing reins. “Yah, mule!” he shouted, because that’s what they always shouted in movies, even though this wasn’t a mule.

Or a horse.

A closer look made it clear his rampaging “horse” was actually a gigantic, furious goat.

“Yah, goat!” he yelled, and the beast came under some semblance of control. Which is to say, it stopped careening side to side on the street and ran straight ahead, scattering the crowd as Jason yelled, “Runaway goat! Make way!”

Baileya was keeping pace, running along the top of the buildings to their right. Her long legs stretched to their maximum, she vaulted over Scim, dodged weapons, and cleared the spaces between roofs. She flew from a rooftop, her legs tucked beneath her, her bladed staff held under her left arm, her hair flying out behind her. She landed in the hay beside Madeline.

She slipped beside Jason, taking the reins. “A clever escape, Wu Song.”

“It was an accident,” he said, and she grinned at him.

“We should be able to get to Westwind quickly with this cart,” Baileya said.

Shula came falling like a white-hot meteor toward them, also landing in the hay and lighting it immediately on fire.

“Come on!” Jason yelled. He scrambled into the back and dragged Madeline clear.

Shula’s flames only grew brighter. “My magic is out of control!” she shouted.

“We have to stop the cart,” Jason said to Baileya.

She shook her head. “We ride as long as we can. The Scim are faster on foot than we.”

She was right. The Scim were loping in their wake, in the street and along the rooftops. If they abandoned the cart, they’d be in the same situation they had been in on the roof. The cart shuddered as Baileya steered the goat around a few runaway Scim children.

Shula was shoveling flaming bales of hay out the back, sending up jets of sparks behind them. They hit a corner hard, and a wheel on the cart wobbled, letting out a tremendous shriek. “We’re losing a wheel!”

Baileya whipped the reins harder, shouting at the goat. Jason wasn’t sure how going faster would help, and then he saw the arched rise of a narrow bridge ahead. There was no way the cart would fit. “Hold Madeline!” Baileya cried, furiously driving the goat toward the narrow passage.

Bracing his legs as well as he could against the footboard, Jason wrapped Madeline tightly in his arms and ducked his head, waiting for the impact. Just before they hit, the right-hand wheel came off, rolling alongside them as the cart crashed to the ground, sparks rising from the cobblestone streets. Shula barely managed to grab onto the cart’s rail. The terrified goat lunged for the bridge, wedging the cart between stone columns rising on either side.

His head ringing, Jason dragged Madeline over the front of the cart, weaving his way past the angry goat. Baileya motioned him forward, already beyond the animal and facing the bridge. “I will hold the Scim here. Those who refuse the bridge will be slowed by the river. Make all haste for Westwind. Do not pause, do not linger!”

“No loitering? Your advice is no loitering?”

He hoisted Madeline onto his shoulder with Baileya’s help and stumbled down the street. The crowds had thinned, whether because they were farther from the square or because the goat had flattened or blocked everything headed this way, Jason didn’t know. Smoke curled through the city now, along with the distant cries of terrified people. The city was no longer dark, because it was on fire.

Jason was sweating before he got out of earshot of Baileya. The whistling sound of her staff was often followed by the impact of metal on leather armor. He felt Shula before he heard her, the blazing heat of her flames moving alongside him.

“My flames won’t go out,” she said. “I can’t help you carry her.”

“We’re almost there.” He could, in fact, see Westwind’s gate. It wasn’t open, though, and he wasn’t sure how they would get through it. Five blocks to go, more or less.

“I’ll run a full block ahead of you,” Shula said. “Make sure it’s clear.”

“Right,” he said, gasping.

Madeline stirred. “Jason?”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re almost to Westwind.”

“I can . . . walk,” she said.

He set her down. Walking together might make them faster. He wasn’t sure. She leaned on him, and they struggled onward. Shula stood at the intersection, her head turning both ways to take in the people on the street. “Quickly,” she said.

Madeline was able to nearly trot, though her breathing came in fits. Her skin was clammy and alarmingly cold. “I can carry you,” he said, but Madeline shook her head, a determined look on her face.

When they reached the intersection, Shula immediately ran to the next. At the next intersection she did the same. They were three blocks away now. Jason shouted at the top of his lungs for someone to open the gate. Ruth Mbewe’s tiny blindfolded face appeared at the top of the wall. “We cannot open the gate,” she called. “The Scim are too close!”

Jason craned his neck to look back toward the goat cart. He couldn’t see the cart anymore, or hear the battle, but there were no Scim, either. “I don’t see any,” he said.

“Swim the moat, and we’ll throw you a rope!”

Madeline’s face set in a grim, determined frown. She would try. Jason didn’t see how she would do it, though. And the Scim couldn’t be that close, he hadn’t seen any. Shula hadn’t seen any.

Then, a block ahead of Shula, on the street that crossed in front of the gate, a figure loomed out of the deep shadows of the street. His massive arms had gashes, his clothes were burned, and he was dripping with water. No doubt he had swum the river rather than fight his way over the goat cart. Break Bones.

Shula picked up the pace, deliberately running at him, her flames burning ever hotter.

“Quickly,” Madeline gasped, and Jason limped alongside her, moving toward the moat.

Shula danced around Break Bones. His superior strength was nothing compared to her speed. She scalded his arms badly every time he took a swing at her, and thus far he hadn’t managed to connect. Jason got Madeline to the edge of the moat. It was still a three-foot drop into the foul water around the castle. He helped Madeline to a sitting position and got ready to help her slip in, then follow.

Ruth’s face appeared again above. “The knight is opening the bridge!”

The knight? Jason squeezed Madeline’s hand. Why was the knight inside instead of at the festival? Why didn’t he open the gates as soon as he saw Madeline and Jason on their way? Wasn’t his job to fight the Scim? Why was he hiding in the castle?

They made their way toward the descending bridge. When it was nearly to the ground, Jason boosted Madeline onto it, and she hobbled inside. The Knight of the Mirror flew over the bridge on his silver stallion, Rayo.

Shula’s flame went out.

Break Bones laughed. “Your magic is extinguished for the night!” He backhanded her, sending her flying into the moat.

Then the knight was upon the Scim, barely missing him with his lance. Break Bones grabbed the knight by the waist, twisted hard, and smashed him onto the stone road. The Knight of the Mirror was no fool, and he rolled to the side just before the Scim’s fists pounded the pavement. “Go to the lady of Westwind at once,” the knight called to Jason.

Jason, flat on his belly beside the moat, was able to reach Shula’s outstretched hand. Several people ran from inside the castle and helped him pull her out of the putrid water. “What about Baileya?” he asked. The knight fought the Scim using only his sword.

“She is Kakri,” Shula said. “She won’t stop fighting.”

“Get Madeline to the knight’s solar,” Jason said to Ruth. Ruth stood close to Madeline, letting the breathless girl lean on her.

Jason had to get to the wall. He needed to get to higher ground, so he could find Baileya. If he could get his hands on a bow, maybe he could help her.

When he reached the top, he was breathless and exhausted. His heart sank as he looked over the lip of the wall. It wasn’t just Break Bones out there. There were hundreds of Scim, all converging on the castle like a swarm of ants. He scanned the crowd —or what he could see of it in the darkness —and saw, to his dismay, the three white-robed Skulls moving toward the castle as well.

“Send out the girl,” one of the Black Skulls demanded. “The one who cannot breathe. Madeline Oliver.”

A few of the castle’s residents were trying to hold the drawbridge long enough to keep it open so the knight could return. Rayo was nowhere to be seen. The knight was in the thick of battle and making a slow, tortured path back. One of the Black Skulls was moving toward the drawbridge now, and nothing stood in its way.

In the guardhouse, a small room built into the stone wall, Jason found a bow. He stood as he had been taught and put his fingers on the string, an arrow nocked between them. It felt strange without the magic to guide him. He sighted along the arrow, pointing at the heart of one of the Black Skulls. He pulled back carefully, then released the string. The arrow went sideways. The string snapped his forearm, and he dropped the bow, crying out in pain. The arrow fell awkwardly into the moat, followed by the bow.

A horn blew, a brighter, higher sound than the horns of the Scim. Rondelo bounded into the fray on Evernu, his white stag. Close behind him came some of the army of the Elenil, the men and women who were loyal to the Knight of the Mirror. Rondelo, whose battle prowess had never been a gift of magic but rather of hard-earned skill, cut through the Scim. David and Kekoa came behind him. They weren’t wearing their war gear, but they had their weapons of choice. They moved slower and with less fluidity than they had with magic, but still, they were making a difference in the battle.

“Hold the bridge!” Rondelo cried, and his people spread out in a semicircle, pushing the Scim away from the entrance. The fighting grew vicious along that semicircle, but the Elenil army managed to hold it. There were more Elenil warriors in the crowd than Jason had ever seen. Near Rondelo an Elenil man in a shining silver helmet repaired every break in the line, running back and forth to the places in most need. He held two swords, and when he waded into the Scim, the swords flashed with reflected firelight.

Rayo came galloping back toward the castle now, Baileya on his back. “The bridge has fallen!” she shouted. “More Scim are on their way!”

The Knight of the Mirror turned to his side, and as Baileya thundered past, he grabbed her forearm and slung himself up behind her. “Close the drawbridge!” he cried, and immediately it began to ratchet upward. Westwind’s defenders continued to fight as the drawbridge inclined. The knight’s horse jumped onto it, and as soon as they hit the ground inside, the knight slung himself down and joined the people in closing the bridge, lending his strength to turning the wheel.

Rondelo and Evernu and the Elenil with the silver helmet leapt off the drawbridge, remaining outside the castle. They guarded the closing gate, keeping the Scim off, pushing them back. The three Black Skulls shoved their way to the front of the conflict. The silver-helmeted Elenil spun and danced as his twin blades easily deflected two of the three Skulls. Rondelo joined him, leaping from Evernu’s back to engage the third Skull, allowing the stag to hold another hole in their line.

Break Bones slunk up behind Rondelo. Jason shouted a warning, and Rondelo spun, kicking Break Bones in the chest. During this momentary distraction, the third Black Skull turned his attention to the silver-helmeted Elenil and ran a sword through his heart. He fell like a puppet with cut strings. Rondelo screamed and skidded into the trio of Skulls, fighting them with a fierce passion.

Jason ran for the gate, shouting at them to hold it. The knight heard him and paused. “The silver Elenil has fallen,” Jason said, and he ran up the bridge, which was so high now he could scarcely make it to the top. He hung over the lip, swung his body twice, and just managed to jump across, landing with a bone-jarring thump.

Rondelo kept all the Scim at bay himself, with only Evernu’s help. Jason scooped up the body of the silver-helmeted Elenil. He felt lighter than he should, even though he was completely limp, as if Jason had picked up a bag that should be full of bricks but was stuffed instead with pillows. “Evernu,” he shouted, and the stag fell back to his side. He put the body over the stag’s back and, at Rondelo’s instructions, climbed on himself.

The stag leapt to the top of the bridge, skidding inside the castle walls. The Knight of the Mirror shouted for them to close the bridge, just as Rondelo vaulted through the gap. Jason slipped from the stag, pulling the Elenil man down and laying him gingerly on his back. David and Kekoa appeared beside him, helping Jason get the man’s arms and legs laid out gently.

He didn’t appear to be breathing. Jason carefully removed the silver helmet. The still, quiet face looked familiar.

“Aw, no,” Kekoa said. “It’s Vivi.”

Jason knew that name, but the terror of the last hour prevented him from remembering. But David filled in the blanks when he said, “Hanali’s dad.”

Rondelo fell to his knees beside Vivi’s body. “Ah, brave soul.” Tears sprang from Rondelo’s eyes. “On this night of all nights he fought, when his body cannot be mended with the magic of the Sunlit Lands. He is lost to us.” He closed his eyes, and his next words came slowly but surely, like a poem being quoted: “His bowl is spilt, his thread unspun. His life is past and just begun. He treads now in a clime of sun . . . in the land of the Majestic One.”

“They’re climbing the walls!”

Rondelo rose smoothly to his feet. “Come, friends. Let us avenge Vivi, son of Gelintel, father of Hanali.”

“No,” the Knight of the Mirror said. “These three young men must come with me to my solar. Rondelo, protect Vivi’s body so the Scim will not take possession of him.”

Rondelo lifted Vivi in his arms and set him gently on Evernu’s back. “When the wall is breached, I will take him to Hanali.”

The knight put his hand on Rondelo’s shoulder. “Let us pray that our people can hold the walls long enough to accomplish one more task. Come, boys. Stop staring at the walls and follow me!”