The Medievals 2 Read online

  She looks to Richard on the slab, where he is still alive, although despondent. Then she turns back to Waldron, knowing that he has put this request in her head, wanting her to kill Richard.

  “I will not do it,” she declares.

  Waldron does not immediately respond. Instead, he seems to prowl with measured consideration. He moves off to one side in an arching path, keeping his same distance from Wendolyn and the others.

  Meanwhile, fear has drained Wendolyn’s legs of strength, and she wonders if she can move. Wendolyn is a deer stranded on the icy surface of a lake, and Waldron is the wolf that circles her.

  He stops. His red eye glows brightly. “Then I must kill the Prince myself.”

  Waldron raises the Sorcerer’s Staff from his side, unleashing a bolt of energy that flies at Richard. The power of the staff throws Richard’s body backward through the air. He sails over the moat bridge and then slams against the castle gate, his body crumpling to the ground.

  “Richard!” is all Wendolyn can manage.

  She turns back to Waldron, and she can see where his eyes go next: to the portcullis that hangs above the castle entrance, looming over Richard’s prostrate body.

  Waldron waves the staff at the spiked grating, and the portcullis drops. The sharp instrument of death falls through the air, heading for Richard’s chest.

  Wendolyn knows she can not reach him in time to stop the spikes from piercing his flesh. But at the last minute, Wendolyn spies an abandoned helmet near the gate and, with her mind, she stirs the wind to blast the helmet beneath the portcullis. The steel of the helmet bends under the weight of the spike, but it does not break.

  For the moment, the portcullis is stopped.

  Wendolyn, Ivanhoe and El Cid race to the castle gate, where they see that the weakened Richard is stuck, one of the spikes having punctured his skin just over his heart.

  “Ahhhh!” Richard cries in pain as he tries futilely to wriggle free of the portcullis.

  “Do not move! That spike will only deepen its cut,” Ivanhoe observes with his one good eye before turning to the Spaniard. “El Cid, grab the gate!”

  The two men grab hold of the grating and pull. El Cid and Ivanhoe’s muscles nearly tear from their arms and legs as they tap into a strength that is savage and desperate. Their faces turn red with the strain, and they grunt with effort.

  Finally, the portcullis jolts upward an inch, allowing just enough space for Richard to free himself. But the spike immediately returns to its deadly position against Richard’s chest, his chance of escape lost.

  “All of your might is no match for the staff,” the Rune says, and Wendolyn sees that he is using the staff to overpower their efforts, pushing the grating back down.

  Wendolyn knows that El Cid and Ivanhoe will not last much longer against the Rune’s invisible force. With her own mind, she attempts to add her strength to the effort, straining with her thoughts to lift the metal lattice.

  But it is no use.

  Wendolyn can not contend with the staff in Waldron’s hands.

  “Now, Prince, you will join your father,” the Rune proclaims.

  As Waldron wields the staff lower, a gesture meant to direct the portcullis, Wendolyn can feel the pressure increase against her mind, and she can see Ivanhoe and El Cid struggling with their dwindling reserves of strength. A gasp catches in her throat as she sees blood blooming on Richard’s chainmail, the spike sinking deeper into his chest.

  “Arrrrrrrghh!” Richard howls with pain, the sharp tine almost finding his heart.

  “No! No! No! No!” Wendolyn repeats over and over again, left only with her words as weapons to defend against the Rune’s assault on the man she loves.

  And then...

  “Over here, Bright Eye!” a voice suddenly taunts.

  Wendolyn turns to see a flaming arrow as it leaves a bow. The archer is dark-skinned, making him almost invisible in the dim light. But behind the fringe of the archer’s hood, Wendolyn recognizes him by his glowing emerald eyes.

  Loxley.

  “It is the thief! The thief has returned!” El Cid cries out, rejoicing even as he still strains against the grate.

  The flaming arrow sails through the air, and Loxley’s aim proves impossibly true as Waldron turns just in time to see the arrowhead plunge into his crimson eye.

  Waldron’s glowing eye goes dark, its light extinguished. And the Rune unleashes a wail of pain that reaches the edges of the grim firmament, as if the arrow has hit his very soul. His body spasms, and the darklings fly off of him, their distress for their master causing them to flap wildly in the air.

  As Waldron struggles to rip the arrow from his eye, his hold on the portcullis ceases, and El Cid and Ivanhoe are surprised by the weightlessness of the grating as it flies upward back into its stone pocket.

  “Richard, now!” Wendolyn shouts, and she helps pull the stunned Richard from the path of the portcullis.

  For a moment, Richard stands there, regaining his footing, his hand finding the bloody spot where the spike nearly sank into his heart.

  “Well don’t everyone thank me all at once,” Loxley quips as he joins them at the castle entrance.

  “El Cid knew that the thief would return,” the giant says, patting Loxley on the back in a momentary celebration.

  “I thought there was nothing more to life than gold coins and your own neck,” Ivanhoe says sardonically.

  “Never said that, Red. I’m fully aware there’s more to life," the roguish man claims. "There are women. And women love a legend.”

  Loxley gives a salacious grin, his dimples growing. And Wendolyn can see in his eyes that it was, indeed, honor that brought him back to this fight, even if he is unwilling to admit it.

  But any levity is undercut by Richard, who is staring out at his father’s prone body on the slab. Even as Waldron howls in pain and the darklings flock noisily, even as the thinned Army of the Realm battles the remaining saurians, nothing can compete for Richard’s focus, his heart and mind only with his father’s departed soul.

  “Richard,” Wendolyn says softly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “He is gone.”

  “I am going to kill Waldron,” Richard declares, his heartbreak and anger joining together.

  “And I am going to help you,” Wendolyn says. “But I need your mind here to do that. Your people need you here.”

  With Wendolyn’s gentle prodding, Richard’s focus returns to the moment.

  “How do we defeat him?” Richard asks, looking to Wendolyn.

  “We need to wrest the Sorcerer’s Staff from his possession,” she explains.

  Wendolyn squints to see Waldron through the flapping darklings, who have created a protective screen between the Rune and Wendolyn. She looks to his right hand in search of the staff, but it is not there. Instead, Waldron is grabbing the flaming arrow with both hands, trying to pull it out of his eye. And as he jerks the arrow free, the Rune’s silver mask tears free of his face and falls to his feet.

  Even though she has seen his monstrous visage before, Wendolyn still shudders at Waldron’s rotted flesh. And this time, it is worse, with his face twisting in pain and anger.

  Wendolyn’s eyes look away, searching for anything but the horror of Waldron’s face. Her line of sight takes her to the Rune’s feet, where she sees the fallen steel mask. And then, beside the mask…

  The staff!

  Waldron must have unwittingly dropped it when the arrow struck him. And now it is just sitting there amid the rubble, waiting for Wendolyn.

  She reaches her hand out, calling to it. Beckoning the staff to come to her.

  But the staff is stubborn, refusing to move.

  Just then, Waldron regains his focus, and he sees Wendolyn’s extended hand. He looks to his feet and sees the staff.

  No!

  Waldron quickly reaches for the staff at his feet. But just as his fingers are nearly around it, the Sorcerer’s Staff flies from the ground. But instead of finding his grasp, it
sails across the battlefield and into the hands of…

  The Blind Shen.

  Mulan, having regained consciousness, has drawn the staff into her possession!

  “Raaahhhh!” Waldron boils.

  The angry Waldron tries to use his own invisible force to call the staff back to him, and both the Shen and the Rune strain against each other’s mental powers to control Merlin’s legacy.

  “Come on!” Wendolyn says to Richard, El Cid, Loxley and Ivanhoe, waving them on as she abandons the cover beneath the castle gate and races toward Mulan.

  Meanwhile, Mulan’s grip on the staff proves too great for Waldron. And so, the Rune gestures toward the belfry, ripping the bell from the church tower and directing it through the air toward Mulan. The massive bell just misses Mulan, who changes its trajectory with the wave of her hand, and the bell sails past Wendolyn and the others before crashing into a castle turret, its explosion of rock fragments sending soldiers ducking for cover.

  Just as Wendolyn reaches Mulan’s side, Waldron looks to the scarred saurian and barks an order in their guttural language that Wendolyn does not understand.

  But Wendolyn can guess the command: Retrieve the staff.

  The ground shakes as four saurians land in front of Wendolyn and the others. The beasts breathe fire from their mouths and Mulan shouts, “Get behind me!” at Wendolyn.

  But instead of following the Shen’s order, adrenaline takes hold of Wendolyn just as it did in the church, and she releases a gust of wind from her lungs, returning the flames to the saurians, and they squeal with the pain of burning flesh. El Cid, Ivanhoe, Loxley and Richard seize the sudden advantage, and drive their weapons deep into the bellies of the beasts, mortally wounding them.

  Then, they all look to Wendolyn, including Mulan, and their eyebrows raise in surprise at Wendolyn’s show of her powers.

  “You have been practicing,” Mulan notes, allowing herself the smallest of smiles.

  But Wendolyn’s swell of pride remains shallow and short-lived as the saurian with the scar down his face, the largest of all the saurians, drops from the sky and quakes the earth before them.

  El Cid raises Tizona, igniting his flaming sword as he approaches the saurian with the scar. But Ivanhoe waves him off.

  “This one is mine, Spaniard,” Ivanhoe commands, his one eye looking hard and knowingly at the saurian.

  And Wendolyn remembers his words as he fought with Mulan beneath the Tree of Ten Thousand Roots: “That staff created that beast that butchered my wife.” Wendolyn realizes that it is not anger that is locked into Ivanhoe’s single eye, it is revenge.

  As Ivanhoe squares his chin, he grasps the horn hanging around his neck. He pulls it to his lips, as if whispering a prayer to a totem. Then, Ivanhoe rushes his nemesis with his axe. And as he does, four more saurians whoomp down from the sky before them, and Richard, Loxley and El Cid face off with them.

  “Quickly, you must take the staff, Wendolyn,” Mulan instructs, holding the Sorcerer’s Staff out to her.

  But Wendolyn hesitates, her mind flashing to the nightmarish visions that stabbed at her mind the last time she held it.

  “Wendolyn, let it be your magic that decides the fate of these people, and not Waldron’s,” the Blind Shen encourages.

  Reluctantly, Wendolyn takes the staff into her hand. And just as she does, the visions of death and destruction invade her mind. She slams her eyes shut, trying to squeeze the darkly alluring images from her mind. But they still come, and a malignant energy rushes through her veins.

  “Do not let it go. No matter what you see. No matter what happens.” Mulan’s voice is distant, even though she is standing right next to her.

  Pain shoots into Wendolyn’s head. Everything is suddenly louder. And she feels the fever of her powers heating her mind.

  Bring me the staff, Wendolyn.

  It is the voice of Waldron, although it is gentler than Wendolyn knows him to be. It is inviting. Warm. Caring. It is the voice of a father speaking to his daughter.

  Come, Wendolyn. Bring the staff to me. I will keep you safe.

  Her very soul seems to move toward the warmth, as if pulling her to Waldron’s voice. And just as Mulan’s beacon had a purple hue, the sound of Waldron’s voice in her mind has a color, too. But it is not black, as Wendolyn would have imagined.

  Instead, it is white. A bright white, as if a thousand candles are burning in her mind.

  Wendolyn opens her eyes and looks beyond the flock of darklings to where Waldron stands amid the ash that falls around him like a Cumbrian snow. He is waiting for her. Beckoning her mind.

  “No! I will not!” Wendolyn shouts, refusing his call.

  A sinister smile curls the Rune’s cracked lips, which have been revealed by the loss of his mask. He truly has the appearance of a vile monster.

  “Yes, you will,” Waldron challenges with certainty.

  Amid the battle going on around her, with Richard and the others fighting the saurians, all she can hear is Waldron’s words wrapped in an impossible silence, all other noises absent.

  The staff slips in her hand, tugged by an invisible force. She redoubles her grip, grabbing it with both hands.

  “The only way to rid your mind of Waldron’s rule is to find your true voice,” Mulan explains, her own distant words breaking through the silence.

  “But how?” Wendolyn’s voice echoes as she speaks.

  “Focus," the Blind Shen instructs. "Find the spaces between your thoughts. The buried memories of your ancestors. Let them guide you.”

  Wendolyn takes a centering breath, trying to focus her mind. And when she thinks she has blotted out all other distractions, she says:

  Speak to me.

  Wendolyn implores anyone who will listen inside her mind, hoping the echoes of her urgent appeal will awaken her ancestors that live somewhere deep within her.

  Tell me what to do. Help me find my voice.

  She waits, hoping for a response.

  Find my voice, she urges again.

  But suddenly, Wendolyn’s focus is dashed as, out of the corner of her eye, she spots a shield flying at her, its metal reflecting the light of the eclipse. Mulan redirects the shield, which Waldron has aimed at Wendolyn, and the steel disc crashes into a saurian.

  Then, with pleasure in his smile, Waldron flings a stone slab at Wendolyn, and the Blind Shen uses her powers to send it into the nearby moat. Then again, a catapult is ripped from the ground and flies at Wendolyn; and again, Mulan redirects it.

  Waldron is using the objects to keep Wendolyn’s mind unsettled.

  “I cannot focus!” Wendolyn shouts vexingly.

  “I will handle anything that the Rune sends your way. You must concentrate only on the staff.”

  Wendolyn nods, gripping the staff tighter.

  As Waldron governs the wind and creates a storm of spears, and helmets, and corpses, and even supply wagons that all fly around Wendolyn, Mulan manages to keep up, sparing Wendolyn from them. And all the while, Wendolyn stands inside the eye of this whirlwind of objects as she attempts to clear away the nightmarish visions that Waldron relentlessly casts on the walls of her mind.

  “My fight is not with you, Wendolyn,” the Rune declares, each of his words puncturing her focus. “Leave now, and no harm will come to you.”

  This overture sends Wendolyn searching for Richard. Her refuge. Her peace in this world. Her Sanctuary Rock.

  Wendolyn strains to see through the chaos of objects flying around her, and she locates Richard with both her heart and her eyes. While his attention is preoccupied by the saurian before him, Richard’s eyes still manage to find hers, if only for a second. But even without their matched glance, Wendolyn already knows with certainty that Waldron’s bargain is one her heart would never allow her to make.

  “I will not leave.”

  “Then you have chosen your fate.”

  Waldron’s words echo the very threat that he once imposed upon Thorne just before the Rune struck he
r father-pretender down. And images of Thorne’s death flash before her eyes: the scimitar sinking into his belly; his soundless scream; his ashen face.

  The memory gives rise to a dark rage that shoots through her body and scrapes against her bones. Wendolyn can feel her anger taking control of her muscles. It is the hot, white, roiling anger that fills her body and pools behind her eyes.

  At the same time, Waldron begins approaching her, his steps measured, his intentions clear: he is going to kill her.

  “Stop!” Wendolyn shouts over the whirlwind.

  To her shock, Wendolyn’s command is joined by a bolt of energy that flies from the staff in her hands and strikes Waldron in his chest. The blastwave of colored light shreds the Rune’s black cloak, exposing the W-shaped brand, seared onto his chest by soldiers all those years ago. And the energy seems to course through his body until it reaches his left eye, which suddenly glows red again, as if his soul has been reignited.

  As Waldron continues his approach, Wendolyn shoots another blastwave at Waldron. Then another. And another.

  But the Rune does not slow. His face does not manifest pain. Instead, he seems to take pleasure in the lightning that strikes his chest.

  “Wendolyn, stop!” she hears Mulan call. Wendolyn turns to the Blind Shen, who explains, “Your anger is only making him stronger.”

  She turns back to Waldron and the sight of the Rune confirms Mulan’s words: the staff in her hands is only feeding his powers. Waldron is now a towering menace, with energy now visibly pulsing beneath his skin that is scarred by ancient burns.

  “You see, Wendolyn, we work so well together. We are meant for one another,” he says, his eye glowing.

  Waldron smiles and then gestures to something behind Wendolyn, his fingers straining against an unseen weight. She turns to see what he has captured with his invisible force. And there, beyond the smoking buildings, is a massive ship rising up out of the Royal Port, its underside dripping with water.

  Dread washes over Wendolyn.

  With a summoning motion from Waldron, the gigantic wooden ship obeys, sailing through the air. As it flies high over the rooftops, Wendolyn tries to predict the ship’s path, and she sees that it is headed straight for Richard and the others.