How did you know those herbs were magical?
How indeed. She wanted to believe it came from her years with Weger where she learned to shun at all costs anything to do with finger waggling and spells muttered under the breath. She wanted to believe that such training had made her especially sensitive to anything that might resemble in the slightest that unmanly art.
She suspected, with growing horror, that it might rather have something to with something untoward perched in her family tree.
It wasn't possible, was it?
She considered that for a time. Perhaps she would, after her present task was finished, contemplate searching for the mercenaries who had taken her in as a wee girl. Nicholas had said they hadn't given him any tidings of substance in regard to her parentage, but she supposed the lads hadn't been all that interested in chitchat while they'd been trying to force a furious, spitting, snarling gel of twelve summers inside Nicholas's gates against her will.
Nay, she would have to make a search and hope that some of those lads were still alive. It was for certain that she couldn't brave another sea voyage in order to question Nicholas on the matter?
Thetwangof a bowstring broke the relative silence of the late afternoon.
Morgan heard Fletcher cry out. She hardly had the wherewithal to get the boy behind her, an arrow sticking nicely out of his upper arm, before a wave of something came crashing out from the trees. Morgan fumbled her sword as she drew it, which cost her a moment or two of consternation, but she managed to kill several things before she realized they weren't precisely men. They died like men, though, and that was enough for her.
The battle was not brief, for the enemies were numerous and she was not at her best. She fought, but not well. Added to her burden was the responsibility she felt toward Fletcher. He was not doing poorly, but it was quite obvious to her that this was his first battle that didn't involve his brothers and pretend harm. A brief glance at his face told her that he was sick with fear. She imagined he would be quite sick with his own gorge later. That he managed to keep it where it should have been for the moment was a promising sign.
She found it necessary to rest several times. At one point, she drove her sword into the ground and leaned heavily upon it, panting in a manner that made her wish that all the events around her could be frozen until she had regained her strength. She watched, gasping or breath, as Camid, Paien, and Glines went about their own work.
Camid was, as usual, an enthusiastic wielder of his very lethal axe. Paien was very vocal in his taunts, but his sword spoke just as forcefully. Glines said little but killed with a very businesslike efficiency that Morgan generally admired, but now envied.
Fletcher made little squeaks of terror, as if he hoped to do nothing more than survive. Morgan looked briefly at the arrow. Was it poisoned?
She considered that for a time, allowing herself the unheard of luxury of a bit more rest. When Fletcher began to look faint, though, she knew her respite was over. She turned him about to face her and looked at him sternly.
"This will hurt."
"What?"
She jerked the arrow out of his shoulder. Predictably, he shrieked. She slapped him smartly across the face. "Put your hand over the wound and stay behind me."
He did so. Silently.
Finding that to be something of an improvement, Morgan turned to see what was left for her to do. A brief and unfamiliar wish that all would be taken care of washed over her, but that was quickly replaced by astonishment over what she was seeing. Suddenly rising up before her were two creatures who looked as if they had been spat up from the depths of hell. Misshapen, drooling, limping but rushing toward her as if they had come for just such a purpose.
She fought the first one, because he left her no choice. Whatever he might have lacked in human conduct, he more than made up for in strength. While that might have been welcome on any normal day, today it was not. It took an alarming amount of energy to stay on her feet and continue to fight. She found that when she finally managed to get her sword thrust into the creature's chest, she simply did not have the energy to pull it back out. Either that, or it was embedded in a body that was not made of the usual stuff.
She stood there with her hands hanging down to her sides and watched, breathing hard, as Adhémar took on the other, a creature even larger and faster, if possible, than the one she'd fought. Camid, Paien, and Glines stood to one side, watching impassively, though Camid was rubbing his nose thoughtfully as if he contemplated why these creatures should find themselves anywhere but tucked safely in a nightmare where they belonged.
Adhémar did not fight poorly; even she had to admit that. He had obviously had some sort of training. He was strong, which helped him, and determined, which aided him as well. But somehow, he seemed to be counting on an extra bit of skill that simply was not there. She was almost unsurprised when the creature reached out, grasped Adhémar by his tunic, and flung him across the glade.
"Damn it," Adhémar bellowed. "Not again!"
Morgan watched him dispassionately. Well, at least he managed to hold on to his sword. Or, rather, he did until he dashed his head against a rock.
He groaned, then slumped over, senseless.
Morgan stumbled across the twenty paces that separated them. It was too late to try to rouse him. The best she could do was protect him. She grasped his sword that lay on the ground, ignored the fact that the sword did not seem to want to be in her hand, then swung it up in an arc as she spun to face the creature bearing down on her.
The world made a great rending noise as she did so.
And then the sword blazed with a bloodred light.
She would have dropped it in surprise, but she didn't have a chance. The creature behind her shrieked in rage and leaped toward her. Its eyes locked on the sword. It fell upon it as if forced.
It died with a gurgle.
Morgan wrenched the sword out of the creature's chest and looked at it in complete astonishment. It glowed with an unworldly light, a fiercy red that seemed to pulse right along with her own heartbeat. For a moment she wasn't sure what appalled her more, that the sword was magical or that she hadn't wielded it past just holding it in the right place and watching her enemy impale himself on it of his own volition.
