The Seventh Daughter (23 page)

Tania reached blindly for her sword. But she was too late—his booted foot came down on her wrist, trapping her arm. And then, even as his sword cut down toward her, a shape came darting in from the side: a small, slender shape that pushed in under his blow, standing between Tania and her impending death.

Tania saw Faerie armor. Flowing golden hair. A sword raised to fend off the falling blade. There was a clash as iron sword struck crystal. The crystal blade shattered, the iron sword plunged downward, piercing the breastplate, thrusting through to the hilt, the bloodied blade jutting from the arched back.

Tania scrambled to her knees as the weight of the collapsing body crashed against her, falling into her arms. The helmet tumbled from the golden hair, the neck strained back, the face ash white, the glazed blue eyes staring up into the sky. Tania let out a cry as she stared down at the beautiful, lifeless face of her fallen sister.

“Zara!
Zara, no!
”

Tania was half aware of figures looming and floating around her like living shadows. The sounds of the battle came into her head, booming and thundering, terribly loud but somehow distant. She stared down into the glazed sapphire eyes, remembering the first time she had met her sister, standing at her chamber door, dressed in a yellow gown and smiling like all summer. She saw Zara seated at the spinetta, her mouth open in song. Dancing with a handsome lord in the Great Hall of the palace. Playing her flute and calling up a wind to fill the sails of the
Cloud Scudder
. Standing on the shoreline of Kymry Bay, the echo of her voice suddenly clear in Tania's ears.
We shall defeat this evil, Tania—I know we shall. And you and I will dance again in the Great Hall of the palace and play duets upon the spinetta and the lute once more.

A cold rage filled Tania's mind, freezing out fear and grief as she gently put Zara's body aside and
stood up. All around her, and down the long slope into the valley and up the rise of Salisoc Heath, the fresh green grass began to brown and wither and the flowers to die. The Power of Seven was lost forever.

Drake stood poised, blood dripping from his blade, watching with hooded, taunting eyes as Tania stooped to pick up her sword, so sure that he would defeat her that he let her arm herself again before he attacked. But Tania was not alone. Sancha stood beside her, tears pouring down her face, but her sword ready. Drake lunged forward with a shout, the edge of his blade flicking Sancha's sword aside. He hammered his shoulder into the princess and threw her to the ground. Tania stepped back, fending off his flashing sword. But she stumbled, falling backward over Zara's body.

He stood over her, victory in his eyes. But before he could strike, a huge dark shape came plunging in from the side, knocking him off balance.

It was Rathina, on horseback again, her sword slicing the air. She screamed out a single word. “Murderer!”

Drake was adder quick. Even caught unawares and thrown half off his feet, he turned and brought his sword whistling upward. The two blades rang as they clashed, but Drake's blow was the more powerful. Rathina's sword spun out of her hand. Following his attack through, Drake stabbed at her horse. The stricken animal came crashing down, legs kicking, hurling Rathina from the saddle. She sprawled on the ground, gasping and weeping.

Drake gave her one contemptuous glance then turned again to Tania. Behind him Tania saw Rathina lift herself to her knees, groping for a sword. Her fingers tightened around a hilt. She picked it up, gripping it in both hands. She clambered awkwardly to her feet, coming up behind Drake and shouting aloud as she raised the shining weapon: “For Zara!” She thrust the sword into his back right up to the hilt.

For a moment Drake hung in the air, pinned to the shining blade, his face petrified at the moment of triumph. Then he slumped forward, sliding off the sword and dropping soundlessly to the ground.

Rathina stared down at him, her face as white as bone. “For Zara!” she said again. “And to be free of you! My love could have saved us! It could have redeemed us both!”

Sancha stumbled to her feet. “Rathina!” she called. “The sword—it is Isenmort! Let it go! You will be killed!”

Tania had seen the blade gleam as her sister had lifted the sword, but she had not realized that Rathina had picked up one of the Sorcerer King's Isenmort swords, dropped by a slain Gray Knight. Rathina stared at her hands in alarm and fear—she had obviously been unaware of the deadly nature of the weapon when she had picked it up.

“It does not burn,” she murmured. She looked at Sancha, lifting the bloodied sword. “It does not burn me at all!”

Sancha stared at her. “Your Gift is revealed at last!”
she said. “You have the power to touch Isenmort without harm.”

“I wish for no Gift! I deserve no
Gift
!” Rathina tossed the sword aside and stumbled forward, falling onto her knees by Zara's body. “I am sorry!” she said, weeping. “I am so sorry!” Sobbing aloud, she gathered her dead sister in her arms, burying her face into Zara's neck.

Tania got to her feet. She had expected to feel glad at Drake's death, but her relief was mixed with horror and dismay and regret and a deep, bewildering sense of loss, as if some fragment of her own spirit had died with him. And Zara had fallen—Sancha's terrible prophecy had come true. But there was no time to grieve now—many of Drake's Gray Knights were still alive upon the hillside, and the princesses were far from safe.

In fact, so much had happened so quickly that Tania was surprised to see that the fight was still raging all around them. The reality of their peril was brought home to her as an unhorsed Gray Knight came lurching toward her brandishing a spear. Acting almost on instinct, she knocked the spear aside with her sword and aimed a darting thrust at the creature's chest. The undead knight's eyes still glowed with red madness as her sword pierced his heart and his body erupted into ash.

More of the Gray Knights came and for a short time Tania was forced to focus on the simple act of staying alive and of keeping her screeching enemies away from where Rathina crouched, huddled over
Zara's body. But Tania was not alone. Sancha fought at her side and more Faerie knights came galloping to their aid, led by Cordelia and Eden.

The battle against Drake's knights was hard and vicious, but suddenly Tania found herself standing among the empty gray mail of the last of the dreadful creatures while the dust of her final kill drifted on the air. The battle still raged furiously over the two withered heaths, but in this one place the gathered princesses were given the bitter gift of a few moments to mourn for their fallen sister. Hopie was the last to arrive, galloping up with Lord Brython at her side. She jumped from the saddle and stood with her sisters over Zara's body while silent tears flowed down her cheeks.

Rathina was still curled on the ground over Zara. Brython took her by the shoulders, gently lifting her away from the dead princess, scooping Zara up in his arms and getting to his feet as if she weighed no more than an infant. No one spoke a word as Brython cradled Zara against his chest and walked toward his horse.

A Faerie Knight took Zara from Brython and held her as he climbed into the saddle. Then the delicate body was lifted again into Brython's arms.

“I will bear her into the forest,” he said, his voice cracking. “She will be safe there till all is done.” He set off at a steady canter toward the dying eaves of Esgarth Forest.

Rathina got to her feet. “I would have given my own life to save her,” she said, crying. “I would render
up my very soul to have her alive again. I have brought this upon us!” She stared down at Gabriel Drake's body. “I am more monstrous far than he! I cannot bear it!”

Tania stepped forward and put her arms around Rathina's shoulders, holding her close. “You're not a monster,” she said. “You're my sister.”

“This battle is far from won,” said Eden. “The very air is full of dread and the ground trembles in trepidation.” A look of terror came over her face and she pointed down toward the palace. “Oh, sweet spirits of earth and water, look!
Look!
He comes! The Sorcerer comes!”

Tania turned, and as she did she felt a tremor in the ground and a moment later she was struck by the fierce hot breath of a furnace wind that came roaring up from the south. The Sorcerer King of Lyonesse galloped toward them on a huge bloodred creature that was like an evil mingling of horse and reptile, hairless and scaled, its body lined by rows of hooked ridges and crests, its eyes blacker than the darkest night. And where the beast's hooves fell, the ground smoked and was left blackened so that a burned path seemed to follow in its wake.

“His captain is slain!” Cordelia shouted, lifting her sword in defiance. “He comes to avenge the death. Come, sisters—stand firm.”

Tania released Rathina and the six sisters formed a line across the hillside. Tania gripped her sword, her mouth dry as she watched the King rushing toward
them. The Sorcerer was clad from head to foot in dark red armor, and his bloodred cloak cracked, streaming out behind him as he rode. From beneath a high helmet crested with a rearing snake, his terrible white face stared out, the fuming eyes filled with boiling fire. As he came closer he lifted a long red sword and the air shrieked as if wounded by the blade's edge.

Tania's knuckles whitened. She felt like a child standing on a bleak seashore as a great breaking wave curls above her.

And then the King was upon them, his red blade scything the air as the hideous beast crashed into the line of princesses. Tania was knocked back, her sword ringing on the Sorcerer King's armored leg, the jarring impact numbing her arms. She saw Cordelia strike at the misshapen beast as it thundered past, her sword stabbing at its throat. But the blade snapped halfway to the hilt as it struck against the armored scales and Cordelia was flung aside as the creature turned and reared, its huge hooves beating the air.

One hoof struck Sancha, sending her spinning to the ground. Eden came in under the beast, shouting in a high voice with her hands raised, palms upward. Blue lightning sparked from her fingers, cracking in the air and wrapping around the head of the monster so that its bellowing changed to a scream of agony and rage. The Sorcerer King's sword slashed downward, slicing through Eden's lightning, gathering it and rising again, drawing the power with it so that the whole blade was alive with writhing blue light. Then he
pointed the blade at Eden and the crackling energy struck her forehead and drove her to the ground.

Only Tania, Rathina, and Hopie were still on their feet. The King lunged toward Tania, his sword ripping the air wide open. She lifted her blade and found Rathina suddenly at her side, her sword also raised against the crashing blow. Together they managed to deflect the great red sword, fending it off as the beast thundered past. The King gave a shout of rage. Tania saw that Hopie was in the creature's path, her face bold and brave as she swung her sword and flung it at the King's head. It glanced off his helmet and Hopie was only just quick enough to hurl herself aside as the creature's pounding hooves bore down on her.

Rathina leaped recklessly after the beast, shouting defiance. The king pulled on the reins and the monster turned, its mouth wide as it bellowed its anger. Tania saw Rathina standing in its path, her sword above her head, gripped in both hands, the level blade pointing forward. And even as Tania shrank from the sight of her sister being trampled Rathina thrust the sword into the gaping mouth of the beast, forcing the blade down the open throat and leaping to one side as the dying monster stumbled and fell.

But the King didn't share in its crashing fall. As the beast died under him he lifted out of the saddle and hung in the air, the billows of his bloodred cloak opening and spreading wide behind him. And it was only in that moment that Tania realized with a shock of intense horror that the cloak was a pair of red,
leathery wings: thin-veined membranes stretched between curved skeletal fingers of bone.

He hurtled down, his eyes blazing, his huge sword aimed at her heart. Again, Rathina came to her aid, bounding in as the King swooped, beating his sword aside. His arm swung and his armored fist struck her on the back, driving her onto her hands and knees. He came pounding down to the ground in front of Tania, the hideous wings lifted high over his back. She stepped back, her eyes on his face, her sword held out to parry his next blow.

“Your sisters lie vanquished at my feet,” the King intoned. “Your mother has no power and your father is my captive.” He smiled, and it was the same smile that Tania had seen so often on Gabriel Drake's face: evil and cruel and bitter cold. “Would you face me alone, half-thing? Would you die alone?”

“Not alone!” shouted a voice.

Tania turned to see Edric galloping up the hill on Drazin's back. Behind him Bryn and a whole herd of wild unicorns were racing toward them.

The Sorcerer King hissed like a snake, his wings curling as they lifted him into the air again. His sword sliced down, cracking against Edric's raised blade and almost tipping him from Drazin's back. Howling with rage, the King lunged at Tania, raining blows down on her sword so that she was beaten to her knees. Her foot slithered under her and she fell sideways, but the king's death-blow was warded off by Edric; he had thrown himself from Drazin's back and
had forced his sword between them.

As she scrambled to her feet, Tania was aware that a strange, expectant hush had come over the battlefield. Even in the turmoil of her battle with the Sorcerer King, she saw that many faces were looking northward. She turned her head. At the edge of the forest a golden light was growing, bright as the dawning sun. As she watched, the light became stronger, shining out brilliantly. She stared into the light, her heart lifting as she saw Oberon and Titania step out from among the trees.

At last the King had come. At
last
! But even from that distance, Tania could see how heavily Oberon leaned on the Queen. Was he strong enough to fight the Sorcerer King?

Tania heard a gasp of pain; she turned and saw that the Sorcerer King had beaten Edric to the ground. One heavy armored foot was upon Edric's back and his sword was poised for the kill.

“No!” Tania leaped forward. Her sword was deflected by a side sweep of the Sorcerer King's arm. It fell out of her hands as his armored fingers caught her around her throat, almost choking her as he brought her attack to a sudden wrenching halt. He lifted her into the air, her feet kicking. She clutched at his arm with both hands, unable to breathe. Red and black lights exploded in her eyes.

But even as the darkness grew in her mind and the light of Faerie began to fade from her eyes, Tania felt something strike her from the north, something that
poured over her like the warmth of the summer sun. Something that seemed to fill her with golden light, running through her veins, filling her limbs with new energy and tingling over her skin.