Another shouted, “To the rain!”
The guests laughed.
Uther chuckled. “No, friends. We do not drink to the rain”—he lifted the bucket that had been placed beside his plate—“instead we drink the rain!”
“Hail Uther!” the assembled cheered. “Hail the king!”
Uther lifted the pail to his lips and took a long, sweet gulp. His guests observed, admiring and applauding as the contents dribbled down his manicured goatee and throat, staining his ruffled white collar a bright red.
The room quieted. Uther frowned at the taste and lowered the pail. He smiled at his guests, lips slippery with blood. “I’m afraid I’ve spilled some.”
Ladies covered their eyes as Uther quickly read the faces of his guests.
“What is—?” Uther looked down at his bloody sleeves. “What is this?” He set down the pail and wiped his lips and beard, covering his hands in blood. Uther turned sharply on his butler. “What trick is this?”
Uther’s butler was white with fear. “N-no trick, Your Majesty.”
Uther tipped over the bucket, and a river of blood flowed over the table. His guests gasped; some screamed and knocked over their benches to run.
The butler cried, “That is the rain that fell upon the castle!”
“Merlin!” Uther screamed as he hurled another bucket, and another, blood rain flooding the pewter plates and spattering onto the floor. The king’s eyes were wild with fear as he shrieked to the ceiling, “Merlin!!”
At that moment, atop the battlement, in the full fury of the storm, a single bolt of lightning struck the iron rod. A cascade of energy hurtled through the iron, ending in a searing shock wave that blasted Merlin through the turret door, sending him sprawling—aflame—into the fiery circle. Merlin roared in agony as he fought to free himself from his burning robes. The footmen raced inside to assist him, but the storm followed them in. Sheets of rain met the flames and black smoke choked the air. The footmen coughed and waved their arms until they cleared the smoke away from Merlin, naked as a babe in the middle of the floor, a horrific burn sizzling and bubbling from his right shoulder, down his ribs, and across his thigh and below. Borley and Chist both took a steadying step back, blinking in disbelief, for the burn was in the unmistakable shape of a sword.
Nimue reached into the wrapped cloth and tightened her fist around the worn leather grip of an ancient sword. Its wide blade was blackened and nicked by what must have been centuries of combat. She held the mysterious weapon aloft and felt her blood surge as a beast landed cleanly on the tabletop rock. Turning with one swift stroke, she separated the wolf from its head. The body flopped backward and the other dogs scurried aside as it struck the earth.
Nimue stared at the sword. It radiated a cold light and felt feather soft in her hands. The Fingers of Airimid blossomed on her cheek, forming a connection between the sword and the Hidden. The next wolf scratched its way to the ledge, and Nimue divided its skull right down the snout, the blade lodging in the rock a good three inches deeper than the blow. Nimue fought to free the heavy blade as another monster caught her elbow and dragged her over the lip of the tabletop rock.
She flipped in midair before landing hard on her back. Her eyes rolled in her head as she wriggled her body around, and a wolf clamped its jaws on the hem of her skirts. Ripping the fabric free, Nimue lunged for the sword, which lay several feet away in the grass. She reached the hilt just as another wolf leaped at her throat. She cut through the cur’s shoulder and the creature rolled over in the dirt, whimpering, unable to climb to its paws. Nimue tasted its blood on her lips as she staggered to her feet. Two thick, bristling wolves remained, barking and snapping at her.
“Come on!” she roared, feeling a surge of power.
One went low for her ankles, and she drove the sword into its back. She wrenched the sword free and slew the last of them with a quick strike to the neck.
It was over. She stood there, panting, in a puddle of blood. She took a deep breath and shrieked at the dead animals.
She left wolf-blood footprints in the mud as she stumbled blindly across the meadow, past the moon rock where her mother had taught her lessons. Her ears buzzed. She could hear Red Paladins gathering in force behind her. Horsemen. Several on foot. She backed into the maze of thorns—a popular hiding spot for children playing “seeker.”
Nimue was quickly surrounded. She could see the bald pates of the monks just over the shoulder-high hedges, at the junction of the maze and the clearing. Red Paladins walked softly down every path toward her. She counted seven. The tip of her sword dropped limply to the dirt. Her arms felt molten with fatigue. She sank to her knees, her eyes locked on the monks’ dirty feet and simple sandals. I don’t want to go on alone, she thought. It’s better this way.
But resignation gave way to a memory of her mother’s voice from when Nimue was a child, when the demon gave her the scars: Call the Hidden, Nimue. The calm certainty of her mother’s voice poured cool water over her thoughts, and Nimue’s mind felt clean and washed. In that clarity she reached out to the dirt under her nails, the circling crows, and the wind in the grass. She called out to the stream, thick with innocent blood, and to the wood-chewing ants in the dead trunk of the Old Man—the most ancient tree in the glade. A shudder swept across the hedges of the thorn maze as though they’d been brushed with an unseen hand. The hum of the Hidden throbbed in her stomach. The sword pulsed in her fists. It was as if the two were connected somehow, like the sword was guiding the power of the Hidden through her veins.
The paladin closest to Nimue angled his sword to her head, but his ankle caught on one of the branches. Another tried to free his robes, which had become stuck in the thorns, and still another found his path to Nimue inexplicably blocked by a knot of roots jutting out from the dirt.
Emboldened, Nimue pushed her mind to open more channels of connection. The hum in her gut made hair on her arms stand up as ropy vines looped and constricted around arms, calves, biceps, and necks. The maze of thorns fed hungrily on the Red Paladins, who bleated with panic and fear, a music that sang in Nimue’s ears and gave her legs new strength. She stood tall as the Red Paladins were strangled to their knees around her. She stared into their bulging, disbelieving eyes and smiled through her tears. She thought of her mother, throwing herself in the path of the paladin to save Nimue’s life. She thought of Biette and Pym and Squirrel. Nimue’s knuckles squeezed white around the leather grip of the ancient sword. She wanted to savor the moment. She lifted the sword higher and higher, then dropped the heavy blade like a chopping ax. Blood spattered the leaves and vines around her, but she did not stop.
SHE HELD THE MYSTERIOUS WEAPON ALOFT AND FELT HER BLOOD SURGE . . .
The blade fell. And fell. And fell again. Again.
The paladins’ wet robes clung to their twitching bodies. Nimue’s eyes blazed with righteous fury as she chopped and chopped, unleashing all the loss and the rage and the pain.
NINE
FATHER CARDEN’S BOOT POKED THE nose of a wolf’s severed head. He noted small bloody footprints in the dirt. The Weeping Monk stood silently behind him. A Red Paladin had guided them across the meadow to the maze of thorns, and it had taken an hour of hacking with axes for the Red Paladins to reach their slaughtered companions.