“Michael,” came a voice from the door. It was Stocky, the dark young man, with Lilac at his side. “Are ye ready?”
Michael and Miracle were in the barn along with the Ploughman, Nicolas, Maggie, and Huss—going through supplies and packing what all agreed they needed for the journey over the sea and then overland to Pravik. Pat had gone out with some of the other clannsmen to gather supplies of a different kind—weapons Jack told them were hidden in the mountains.
Michael brushed straw away from his shoulder. “Soon,” he said.
“Now may need to be soon enough,” Lilac said.
“What do you mean?” Michael asked, his body tensing. If he’d had a sword, Maggie knew he would have reached for it.
“We saw one of them from the hill,” Lilac said. “With a whole pack of soldiers. Jack and Archer have gone to watch them. They’ll sound the alarm if they come too close.”
“Them?” Maggie asked.
“The black-cloaked strangers,” Stocky said.
The breathless entry of Archer, the straw-haired teenager, interrupted the conversation. He threw himself through the door, panting and pale.
“They’re coming here,” he said.
As if animated by his words, Michael turned to his clannsmen in the door. “Lilac, Stocky, tell everyone to head for the mountain. Fire the homestead. You know what to do.”
“Truly, Michael?” Lilac asked. There were tears in her eyes. He nodded, but he reached out and touched her cheek. She held his hand against her cheek for a moment, and then resolve came into her face and she turned and ran out the door. Stocky was already gone.
“You’re going to burn your home down?” Maggie asked.
“We knew we wouldn’t be safe forever,” Michael said. “Our plans didn’t include protecting all the Gifted—only one, and each other. But we’re honoured to help you all. Now listen to me, all of you. Did you see the gorge through the mountains on your way here?”
“We did,” the Ploughman answered.
“Head through it,” Michael said. “It’s the only way to a beach beyond where we have boats waiting.”
“They’ll catch us,” Nicolas said. “There’s no way out of there; we’ll be slaughtered.”
“They won’t catch you,” Michael said. “Our homestead lies in their path. Its firing will slow them down enough to let you through. Once they’re in the pass, we can hold them for several hours at least.” He hesitated, as though he knew something he wasn’t saying. “We may even do them great damage,” he finished.
“You’re a handful of men and women,” the Ploughman said.
“Yes,” Michael answered, his eyes sparkling, “but we are prepared. My father was a brilliant man, Ploughman, a Gifted man. An inventor. Few know it, but it was he who designed the Iron Serpent that runs across the mainland. He invented other things too, and taught us how to use them. We’ve built an ambush in these mountains to make him proud. We only need assurance that the enemy will follow you through the path. And they will. For you—all of you—are the most important thing to them.”
“Michael,” Miracle said, and her voice choked before she could finish. He held her tightly, with so much pain between the two of them that Maggie had to turn away.
“I’ll follow you if I can,” he said. “We’ll all follow you—but you must not turn back. Get yourself out. No arguments, Miracle. You know this is how it must be. For the King.”
Miracle looked up at him. He placed his strong hands on either side of her face and kissed her gently before he looked into her eyes, frozen for a moment of good-bye.
Archer appeared back in the doorway. His voice was high-pitched with fear. “They’re close!” he said. “And Michael, I saw the leader—it’s the Nameless One! He’s alive!”
Michael’s jaw clenched. “Go, Miracle,” he said. “All of you get out now. We’ll hold him back as long as we can. The King keep you.”
“It can’t be the Nameless One,” Miracle said. “He’s dead.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Michael pulled a sword from the low rafters and buckled it on. His voice, his whole manner told them they were dismissed. Maggie felt Nicolas’s hand at her elbow. “Time to go,” he said.
Outside, a strange, foul wind was beginning to blow shadows across the slopes, and unnatural darkness fell over the hut. In the yard, Stocky and Lilac were leading the rest of their clann. They seemed to be digging something up. Maggie saw the remembrance in all their faces. And the fear. The wind was starting to rattle at the windows and doors of the homestead. A smell came with it, and a far-off skittering sound like thousands of insects running over a smooth surface.
Ahead, the gorge was a dark slash through the mountains. The Ploughman lifted his voice. “Follow me!” he shouted.
The smell of smoke came after them as they headed up the slope. The clann was firing their home. Maggie looked back, tears stinging at her eyes. A grey streak of smoke was already rising, and she could see a single tongue of fire licking at the rooftop of the barn where they had just been. Stocky and Lilac were still darting around the yard; the others were scattering to the mountains.
The Ploughman’s face was grim. Trees grew thickly around the base of the mountains, and he disappeared in greenery. The strange shadows made it even harder to see than normal, swallowing everything up in gloom. Pat appeared suddenly beside Maggie, breathing hard from following them at a run.
They reached the entrance to the gorge faster than Maggie had thought possible. The Ploughman waited, ushering them in one by one: Miracle, Professor Huss, Pat, Nicolas, Maggie. She hesitated. The Ploughman was looking back toward the little valley.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
“I can’t leave them alone,” he said. His voice was ragged. Suddenly Maggie realized he had dragged himself to the mountains, every step against his will. But now his will was winning.
“You can’t fight,” Maggie said. “We have to find Virginia—we have to find the King.”
“After.” The Ploughman looked down at her. “Follow Miracle; she knows the way. Take the boat and get as far from this island as you can.”
“It’s no good if you don’t come with us,” Maggie said. “We need you.”
“They need me,” the Ploughman said. “What good is a warrior who runs away and leaves children behind to defend his back?”
Maggie tried to answer, but no sound came from her mouth. Finally she managed to say, “They’re not children. They were prepared for this. Michael is prepared for this.”
“There are three of them,” the Ploughman said. “Three men and one teenaged boy, and a handful of girls and children—against the Order and a squadron of High Police. It doesn’t matter how prepared they are. They’re going to die.”
He looked away from her again, back to the valley, and she saw his jaw set. The argument was over, she realized with a sinking heart. He was going back.
“Follow my orders,” he said. “I’ll join you before you know it.” His expression softened. “Don’t be afraid, Maggie. I’ll come back. Don’t forget who waits for me in Pravik. I would never abandon that cause.”
* * *
The huts, the barns, all that had been home in the little valley was in flames. Michael shouted to be heard over the roar of the fire. “To the mountains!” he called.
Lilac and Stocky scrambled away from the heat and smoke and followed Michael after the others, all of them armed and surefooted, knowing their way even in the gloom. The young women and children grouped together halfway up, gathering under Shannon’s leadership. Moll and Seamus clung to her waist as Michael shouted, “Head for the caves! And stay there!”
When they had gone, the young men split up and headed up the hillside, losing each other in the shadows, battling the wind as they climbed higher.
Michael had nearly reached his destination when a dark-cloaked man jumped down from somewhere and landed in front of him. Michael drew his sword to attack, but the Ploughman’s familiar voice halted him. “Hold.”
“What are you doing here?” Michael shouted. “Why aren’t you protecting them?”
“I am,” the Ploughman said. “By fighting alongside you. Where are your fortifications?”
Michael pointed to the top of the mountains on either side of the gorge. “There!” he said. “We’ve been at work for months—more than a year. We have ways to make the hills fight for us. You needn’t be here.”
Michael looked behind him as he spoke, and his eyes widened even as he went rigid. The sky beyond the mountains was swirling, and as they watched it seemed to tear, from top to bottom like a curtain opening. What was beyond was black.
The Blackness on the other side of the Veil began to seep through and then take shapes: beasts, warriors, dark figures. And they were gathering and swarming in one place, just beyond the homestead. Gathering around the Nameless One and his High Police.
Somehow the dead man had unleashed the Blackness.
We are at war, said Gwyrion’s voice in Michael’s ear.
The clann chieftain swallowed back his fear. His face was pale.
“Will your traps keep that horde back?” the Ploughman asked.
“As much as anything can,” Michael answered.
“Trigger them, then,” the Ploughman said. “Anything that will delay them is a boon—even if only for a moment.”
“And what do you mean to do?” Michael asked.
The Ploughman’s eyes flashed gold. “I mean to fight.” He started forward as though he would go and meet the hordes before the burning homestead, but Michael grasped his arm and stopped him. His eyes were on the valley.
“Wait,” he said.
A moment later the valley erupted in fire and smoke as an explosion shook the sides of the hills.
* * *
“He did what?” Nicolas shouted. Wind was shrieking down the narrow gorge, rattling the stones till they were loud as hornets. A sound like a terrific explosion had momentarily thundered through the shriek, silencing it, and Nicolas had turned at the sound to see that the Ploughman was gone.
“He turned back!” Maggie said again. “He went to help them fight!”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Nicolas shouted.
“He said to keep going,” Maggie said. She shook her head, willing out the noise and confusion. She pointed at the light at the far end. It wasn’t much further.
“The sea is just beyond there,” she said. She looked at Miracle, pleading. “Isn’t it?”
Miracle nodded. Her face was stricken, and Maggie’s heart hurt to realize how much every step was costing the Healer. She and Michael had told them together that Miracle would go with them, because that was the King’s will and they would fight for it. But now—
“Move forward, all of you,” Huss said. “This is not the place to remonstrate. We must get out.”
With an expression as though he had swallowed something bitter, Nicolas turned and began to push through the gorge again. The others followed, and before long they came out on the side of a bluff, sand tumbling twenty feet below to a beach. The beach was protected, the water fairly calm though the sea beyond was choppy under the shadowy sky.
Miracle began to lead the way down, steadying herself with roots that protruded from the side of the bluff and picking her footsteps carefully. The drop had seemed almost sheer from above, but as the others followed, they recognized the presence of a pathway.
Overhead, clouds were beginning to whirl in dark shapes, ominous and black against a sky that was already much too dark.
* * *
Heat from the explosion burned the Ploughman’s face as he vaulted down the mountainside, closer to the hordes and their shrieks of anger and pain. They had been passing around the homestead when the trap had gone off—how many explosives they had buried under their own homes, the Ploughman could hardly guess.
Enough to wreak terrible damage, even on Morning Star’s army. As the Ploughman came closer, he smelled burning flesh and knew, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that many of those who had gone through the valley first had been men. High Police, commanded to be here by whom? Cratus in the guise of a mad emperor? Or by the man who now led them—a man who was supposed to be dead? For an instant the Ploughman thought he could see his own men in the High Police’s stead, and his heart ached with a compassion he had never before felt for them.
The fire spread up the hillside, where the Ploughman now saw that the clannsmen had laid a patchwork of dry grass, straw, and wood, haystacks of brush, and bundles of explosives, fuel to ensure that the spreading fire would flare and keep spreading, keep feeding, keep jumping up until the hills were ablaze. Had they planned to burn their whole island? He shook his head, amazed and saddened at once.
The Ploughman stayed behind the leaping walls of flame and smoke, keeping himself out of sight even as he watched the hordes. They had begun to swarm over the mountainside, but a series of small explosions and the almost constant building of the fire pushed them back down—back toward the gorge. He caught his breath for a moment as he saw them hesitating.
Had the clannsmen stopped the Blackness?
Was that even possible?
But something else was happening now. They were gathering in a strange formation, and a rumbling chant began to sound, growing until the flames shivered with the sound of it. The Ploughman remained riveted, his sword in his hand, his eyes glowing golden. The sound was enough to destroy courage, but his held. He had to hold it.
The Blackness began to advance. At first he thought the sound was pushing the fire back; it seemed to bow into itself as they marched forward. Then the tips of the flame changed colour, from orange to blue, down the tongues of fire, until the center of the valley was burning blue. Out of it more creatures came, released upon the world, let through the Veil.
The Ploughman turned his head toward the pass where he knew three men and a boy were waiting. His lips moved in prayer.
King, keep them.
Help us.
Come to us.
And suddenly he knew he was in the wrong place. He should not have come here—he should be leaving the island even now with the others, because what mattered now was not that the Ploughman could fight but that the King could return. That he had to return. There was truly no other hope. He thought of Libuse in Pravik, his heart and his hope. Together they had resisted believing fully in the King. But now—now they had no other choice.
The wall of flame before him was burning bright orange and yellow, but as he watched, thin blue veins began to lick up it, and then the smoke turned blacker and the flames turned blue. In the rising heat he saw the air tearing itself open. He tightened his grip on his hilt.
As the first creature brought itself out of the rip in the air, taking shape as massive muscle and sinew, bull’s head and lion’s teeth, the Ploughman lifted his arm and called, “To me! Golden Riders, to me!”
* * *
Black lightning was cutting through the sky over the water as they reached the beach and raced across the sand to a longboat hidden beneath brush and driftwood. Miracle found it quickly and began pulling the trappings away, her eyes tearing themselves from the sky to focus on the work. The sound of the wind had not ceased; it was not, they were beginning to realize, wind.
Nicolas and Pat tore driftwood and branches away from the ship and began pushing it toward the water almost before Maggie and Huss had reached it. Maggie grabbed Pat’s wrist.
“What?” Pat asked.
“Should we leave without him?” Maggie asked.
“The world is coming apart!” Pat shouted. “The sooner we’re off this island, the…”
Her words were silenced by a crack of thunder that drove them all to their knees, and through a rift in the sky thousands of bat-like creatures poured into the air, all of them flying inland. Maggie turned to follow their trajectory and saw a glow rising above the island—blue and gold mingling in the air.
“What is that?” Pat asked.
“It’s the Ploughman,” Maggie said.
“He wouldn’t have called on the Golden Riders just to fight men,” Pat said.
No one answered that.
Almost as one, they turned back to the sea. Nicolas and Pat laid their shoulders to the boat and pushed it into the water, wading in nearly to the waist before Miracle, Huss, and Maggie pulled them in. There were oars, but for a moment no one took them. Thunder cracked again—over the sea.
From the island, a deep rumble sounded.
* * *
Archer and Jack pumped their fists and cheered as the man-made landslide poured into the pass, crushing all who stood in its way. Boulders and logs rumbled like thunder over the ground and pitched over the edge. Clouds above them were wreathing and intertwining, dark and threatening like eyes glaring down at them, but for the moment victory was theirs. Michael smiled grimly as he watched them, but his eyes quickly went back down to the pass under the rising dust. He could hear the screams of anger and pain, the roar that meant the Blackness was momentarily stopped.
But the moment would be short, he knew.
“Further in!” he shouted, and Jack and Archer responded, climbing up the mountainside to the very top, Stocky going with them, up and over.
Michael O’Roarke stood near the top of this hill his countrymen called a mountain, beneath the writhing sky and over the dust and smoke of battle. He watched as the Blackness was unleashed on his island and on his world. The irony did not escape him—all his life he had dreamed of standing atop a mountain and seeing there what his father had once seen, a vision of a Burning Light, of a terrifying and beautiful King who came to free and to purify. Now, on his mountain he saw only death and dust and approaching ruin. The end of his clann, perhaps. The loss of the woman he loved. But he would give her up willingly, for in her there was still hope of the King’s coming again.
Not only a hope, he reminded himself, seeing again the figure in the stars and the white light that had blazed all around him. A promise.
He looked toward the sea. The sky was raging; black lightning and crashes of thunder. There was a good chance Miracle and the others wouldn’t escape. But there was a slight chance they would—and it was that chance he fought for, as he had been fighting for his clann and their survival since the day his father had died in their defense.
He started up toward the tortured sky and the crest of the mountain. Behind him was the golden glow of the Ploughman’s fight on the mountainside, a fight Michael had only glimpsed and was grateful for. It looked as if the Ploughman was holding back a whole new contingent of the Nameless One’s hordes. Rain was beginning to fall, making the ground beneath Michael’s feet slick; he slipped and grabbed a sapling to steady himself. Archer, Jack, and Stocky had disappeared into the gloom, though he heard a shout indicating that they were getting into place.
At the top of the mountain, just below the final jutting height where the cascade flowed, was also the pinnacle of the pass: a deep gorge cutting the mountains in half, sheer sides dropping away. A rope bridge leading from one side to the other swayed in the rain, evidence that the others had just crossed it. Below, the gorge was just wide enough to allow marchers through, three abreast on their way to the sea. And just narrow enough to make an attack from above especially deadly.
It was time to unleash the Clann O’Roarke’s masterwork. Jack had nicknamed it “fire, flood, and fury.” Working together in the heat of the sun, digging trenches and building frameworks, with sweat running down their backs and camaraderie high, even Michael had sometimes forgotten how deadly serious it all was. That this intricate work of defense which would have made his father proud was not a game but a weapon meant to be used on just such a black day as this.
Michael uttered a prayer for Miracle as he followed a muddy trench just a little further, around the top to the last peak where the spring cascaded down. In a normal day it would have been beautiful, a sparkling fountain amidst green grass and white rock, but now the day was dark, and the water darker still. Michael swung himself up onto the rocks alongside the fall, careful to keep his footing, and crossed the little river on a narrow bridge of stepping stones, wet and treacherous.
The rain was falling harder now, and the drops seemed to bring darkness down with them, obscuring the mountain so he could hardly see. He could just make out the shape of the dam in the shallow river, a dam full of open trapdoors that let the river through—until one would come to shut them and force the water down the trenches toward the pass.
The machinery to close the dam was built into the small tower on the far side of the river. Michael reached it and began to climb to the top when pain jolted through him and his fingers released their hold, the strength of his arm gone in blinding pain. He held on with his other arm and twisted his head, barely able to see the arrow sticking out of his shoulder, entirely unable to see the bowman in the darkness.
He dropped to the ground and crouched, scanning through the rain for the edges of the mountain. There. He drew his dagger slowly, eyes fixed on the black thing that had moved just enough to give its position away. Pain was throbbing through his shoulder, hot and demanding, his shoulder growing heavy with blood and lost energy. His arm hung limp, and he snarled with frustration, still crouched so the bowman couldn’t get a line on him again. He gritted his teeth. The wound was bad—the arrow had nearly gone through his shoulder. But he couldn’t afford to be overcome by it now. He had to stay conscious, focused, alert.
And he had to close the dam.
Another arrow shot out of the darkness, and Michael sent his dagger spinning in its direction before the shaft embedded itself in the wood. He heard a howl of pain and drew his sword, leaping up and rushing his attacker. The creature had stationed itself in a cluster of rocks just below the clearing. It was small and spindly, its eyes glowing green in a beetle-like face, and Michael dispatched it quickly. His breath was coming in short gasps. He reached for the arrow but could only just grasp it with his fingertips. He couldn’t pull it out.
Groaning, Michael looked around him for help. The tower. He jumped back up to the clearing and ran to it, stumbling as he went. Gritting his teeth anew, he stood with his shoulder to the tower and used it to push the shaft through his flesh until he could grab the end. A cry escaped him as he pulled it out, and he fell to his knees and fought to keep vision and consciousness. The rain drenched him, gathering around his knees in puddles, mixing with blood and stinking much like it. He staggered back to his feet and climbed the tower slowly, using one hand and his feet only. He reached the wooden platform and the small door, locked and chained, which he opened with some effort.
Behind it was a wooden wheel and the whole pulley system that would close off the river and flood the pass.
He grasped the wheel with his good hand and tried to turn it. It didn’t move. The pressure against him was too great, and he was losing too much blood. He could see blood splashing the wooden planks beneath his feet, not diluted by the rain. He groaned as he put his shoulder to it and tried again, but still it was no good—still he didn’t have the strength. He tried again, crying out with the effort.
And two more hands grasped the wheel on the other side and began to pull as Michael pushed. It turned—just a little. His eyes widened as he looked into green eyes much like his own.
“Push, Michael!” Shannon yelled, and he did as she said.
The chains creaked as the pulley moved. Shannon was moving the wheel with all her strength, and suddenly a small boy appeared at her feet—Seamus, working too, pulling too. He was just enough help. The wheel began to turn on its own, and they all fell away as the trapdoors slammed shut and the river was closed.
The rush of water and the pounding rain made it almost impossible to hear. “Where are the others?” Michael shouted, clasping his shoulder as it jerked in an uncontrollable spasm.
“With the boys!” Shannon answered. She tore strips away from her skirt and began to bind Michael’s shoulder, pushing his hand away.
“You were supposed to hide!” Michael shouted again.
Shannon shook her head, and there were tears in her eyes—tears of resolve. “It’s the end of the world, Michael,” she said. “Let us play our part.”
Not far below them, the men and women of Clann O’Roarke readied a new assault.
* * *
Morning Star, in the body of the Nameless One, stood in the valley before the crater that had once been the clann’s homestead. With eyes that could see far more than any man’s, he watched.
He watched the battle on the mountainside, where the Ploughman and his Golden Riders still held a contingent of late-released creatures back. They had killed—who knew? Hundreds. But there were more. Still pouring out through the flames. Still coming up from Morning Star’s ranks. The Ploughman was holding them back as no other man alive had ever done or would ever do, but he would fall.
The chief ranks, led by the men of the High Police, had pushed through the burning wreckage of the homestead and made for the pass. The clann’s man-made avalanche had crushed many, men and demon alike. But there were more.
Now he watched as the gorge was flooded from above, the footing suddenly treacherous, the water turning everything to deep mud. That had been their plan too, he realized; the ground of the gorge was soft, without stones and rocks, a manufactured ground meant to become a sinking swamp. It was clever. It would delay his forces.
Worry flickered through the Usurper’s eyes. He could see also beyond the gorge. He could see the Gifted, three of his coveted, escaping in a ship—against all odds, for his creatures kept coming, and surely they should be able to overrun every adversary and reach that ship! But the Ploughman and his Golden Riders held the side of the mountain against those who would climb it to reach the clannsmen, and the clannsmen held the pass.
The High Police were getting the worst of it, as they led the hordes through the gorge. But that was a problem in itself. They were in the way.
Morning Star raised his arm and called the creatures to him. Three came in a rush of black wings. The tallest bowed, black wings closing around it, twisted horns glinting.
“Order the hordes forward; trample the men,” said Morning Star. “Send them up the sides of the gorge.” The creature bowed again and took off, the other two flying after it, short swords in their hands. Morning Star turned to the hillside where the Ploughman and his riders battled in explosions of gold and black. His eyes narrowed.
The fires were dying down.
Morning Star closed his eyes and raised his hands, feeling the power of the covenant flame surge through him. On the mountainside, blue flame shot up again, undampened by the rain.
“Come,” Morning Star called. “Come and fight!”
And in the smoke and flame, creatures took shape and stepped through the Veil.
* * *
Above the pass, Jack O’Roarke shook his sandy head in frustration. “It won’t light!” he yelled. Lilac, rain running through her hair and down her neck, every inch of her clothing sodden, threw the fuse down in the mud. “There’s no use!” she shouted.
Stocky called back from his position on the other side of the rock. “It has to work!” he cried.
Lilac and Jack looked at each other and mutely shook their heads. There was nothing they could do. They were stationed in a carved-out shelter on the edge of the gorge, a shelter now flooding with the rain. Moments later Stocky appeared above them. “Cut it then,” he said.
“Waste the fuse?” Jack said.
“It’s no good regardless,” Stocky argued. “We can climb down—light the individual fuses. They won’t have flooded like this.”
Lilac peered wide-eyed over the edge. Far below, she could see the soldiers swimming in the muck of the pass, water still pouring down over their heads. They were pushing logs and wreckage into the pass, making a way through—as the clann had known they would. Strapped to the sides of the pass where the soldiers could not see them were clusters of rockets, fire ready to rain down upon the invaders as soon as they had conquered the flooding.
“It’s too treacherous,” she said. But Jack had already crawled out of the hollow and was lowering himself over the side, grasping the soaked ropes that formed netted ladders down to the rockets. “Good man!” Stocky said. “Where are the—”
He was cut off when Jack loosed a surprised yell and lost one handhold. He was dangling from the netting. A creature clung to his ankle, raising a dagger. Stocky aimed and threw his own sword into the gorge, piercing the creature through the shoulder. It shrieked and let go, falling back. Jack swung himself back to the netting and grabbed ahold again, but now they could all see them, black creatures swarming up the sides of the pass.
Lilac and Stocky grabbed Jack’s arms and hauled him back up, but before he was fully on land again, a slender shape shot past them all and jumped down to the netting. Straw-coloured hair was dark with rain.
Archer.
Nimble and fearless as a mountain goat, the boy leaped from handhold to handhold, lowering himself faster than seemed humanly possible. He held the netting with one hand only; there was a torch in the other hand, light bobbing through the damp as he jumped, and before they could gather their wits the fire had lit a fuse, and three rockets burst from the side of the pass. Two ricocheted off the lower rocks, knocking a handful of shrieking creatures loose to fall back to the bottom. Jack cheered, and they heard an answering whoop from Archer.
Lilac shook her head. “Gifted boy,” she said with a smile.
Stocky turned just as Lilac shoved a lit torch into his hand and pushed him lightly in the shoulder. Without a word he dropped over the side, following Archer’s example, if more slowly. Jack went next, and then Lilac herself, crossing the rope bridge over the chasm first to let herself down the other side. Archer lit another set of rockets, and they shrieked away from the walls and blasted another contingent of wall-climbers loose.
Jack reached a cluster of rockets, and holding tightly to the netting with his knees, he used his other hand to jerk them free from their previous positions and aim them more advantageously at the enemy climbing the walls. His heart went into his throat when he looked down into huge black eyes so close he could see his reflection in them. He grabbed the netting and swung the torch down, wielding it like a sword. The creature screamed and covered its eyes, falling, but more were beneath it.
Jack scrambled up higher, out of their reach, and lit the fuses as fast as he could. They were almost upon him—and then a volley of rocks showered down, hitting the creatures in the heads, in the shoulders, knocking them back, jarring them loose and sending them hurtling down. Jack looked up. Silhouetted against the sky, Cali and Jenna, his sisters, aimed and threw more rocks.
Across the chasm, Jack could see Lilac struggling to light the fuses on a cluster of rockets that hadn’t been shielded as effectively from the rain. She cheered as they caught fire and launched themselves—and then the netting where she clung came loose, tearing away from the chasm wall and dropping her six feet down. She clung to the netting, struggling to pull herself back up, desperate to keep from slipping…
And in the next instant the black creatures had reached her. Jack watched in unbelief as they tore her grip loose and she fell to the flooded, fiery chasm below.
He heard himself crying out in grief and rage, felt himself climbing the netting to another rocket cluster, felt the power and the fire that loosed into the army below, bringing death and devastation. And then they were on him too, hands grabbing at his ankles and his legs and then his back and arms and neck, and Jack was torn off the side of the pass and flung into the open air.
At the top of the gorge, Cali screamed. Her hands shook and dropped a rocky missile; she dropped to her knees and scrambled for it in the mud. Jenna was still throwing them, still fighting. Cali’s fingers closed around the rock, and she struggled to her feet, just in time to see the black shapes cresting the top of the chasm—many of them now, swarming over the sides, over their last hopes.
* * *
Over the sea, a storm was in full force. Pat, Nicolas, Maggie, and Miracle bailed with all their might, clinging to the boat. They could see nothing but swelling waves and a dark sky. Huss’s beard and eyes ran with rain, shadowy rain that seemed to enrage the water. The wind shrieked around them, whipping his wet hair into his face. Black clouds swirled overhead.
“It’s no use!” he shouted. “This is no natural storm!”
Pat bailed an armload of water over the side and coughed as another wave poured in, undoing all of her work and knocking her momentarily off her feet. She looked into Huss’s face. He had stopped working and was simply standing in the ship.
“Well, then, what do you suggest we do?” she shouted.
For a single moment the storm stilled to a duller roar, and Huss said, “I suggest we pray!”
His eyes widened. Pat whipped her head around just in time to see the wave. It knocked the breath from her lungs even as the ship splintered beneath them, and in the next instant the world had dissolved beneath her feet and she was underwater, bone-cold, black.
She kicked and beat the water with her arms, and a moment later her head was above the waves again, and she whipped dark hair out of her eyes and cried, “Maggie!”
A wave wiped out the world once more, and when she came up again, coughing and spluttering, she could see Maggie only feet away. She struck out toward her. Maggie was bleeding from a cut over her eye, but her eyes were bright, and she was treading water as she looked around frantically.
“Huss! Nicolas!” Maggie called.
Pat grabbed a floating piece of the boat and shoved it in Maggie’s direction, reaching for another to buoy herself up.
The storm would kill them.
If the storm didn’t kill them, Morning Star was still waiting.
And if the Gifted drowned, all hope of bringing the King back was gone.
“Help us!” Pat screamed. Her eyes to the sky, she swept the black clouds and tried desperately to see beyond them. “Help us! King, power of good, power of right! Help us now! Hear us!”
She heard Maggie’s voice under hers, singing, somehow giving Pat’s voice greater power and carrying it up to the clouds.
And suddenly, a break came in the clouds and sunlight poured through, striking the water just beyond them where Miracle and Nicolas were, clinging to a single plank and holding Huss by the collar of his robe.
Maggie stopped singing. “There is something…” she said.
Something in the water. Something making the sea itself tremble.
The gap in the clouds widened, and the waves shot up in a whirling cone to meet the sunlight, a cyclone of water and light bursting up from below.
Pat and Maggie had drifted just close enough to hear Huss’s awed words.
“The Sea-Father!”
And then came the rush of wings and the howling cries of the Blackness, and a swarm was flying toward them from the shore. The cyclone broke apart in the middle to reveal the shape of a great man, aged but strong, bearing a trident in his hand. He lifted it to meet the assault of Morning Star’s hordes, but even as he fought, Pat saw one of the winged creatures taking Miracle against her struggles, and another taking Maggie, and another wrestling with Nicolas, and the gap in the clouds closed as bone-shattering thunder sounded. Huss disappeared beneath the waves, and Pat struck out after him.
* * *
The Ploughman stood surrounded on a smoldering mountainside, the fire still battling to hold its own against the rain, smoke rising in pillars all around. The bodies of slain enemies lay at his feet, a hundred or more, heaped and broken, and sand blew around him—all that was left of his Golden Riders. He was wounded and bleeding, but still he stood, swords in both hands, daring one more enemy to come near.
But they were hundreds strong, and they were all around him. He could not see beyond their ranks. Overhead the sky had turned black with clouds; the air was thick with rain; the world had closed in on every side and it was over now.
Much of the blood soaking the ground beneath him was his own.
The hordes broke ranks, and Morning Star stepped forward. The Ploughman lifted one sword. Morning Star lifted his hand as if in greeting. And the warrior collapsed.
* * *