Father Carden twirled the sword in his hand in a mocking gesture. “Blessings be upon us, brothers. The good Lord rains gifts upon us.” He turned to Nimue. “Whatever will you do without your precious sword? Seize her,” he said to his paladins.
As Red Paladins took hold of her and Merlin, Nimue snarled, “I don’t need a sword to deal with you!”
A rat suddenly ran over Carden’s boot. He kicked it off, startled. Several more rats ran out of tents and out of the fog, darting between the Red Paladins’ legs. In the air, the torches became beacons for clouds of bats, fluttering angrily. The rats grew more aggressive, climbing up the robes of the paladin holding Nimue and biting through the cloth.
“Ah! Ah!” the Red Paladin screamed, and Nimue wriggled free of his grasp.
“Nimue!” Merlin shouted.
But she fought her way across the mud as the rats parted around her boots and hungrily swarmed the legs of the Red Brothers.
Father Carden could not see Nimue approach because a wave of biting flies had gone for his eyes. He furiously tried to wipe them clean as the flies invaded his ears and mouth and nostrils. He coughed and gagged. “Kill her! Kill her! Strike her down!”
Then Nimue locked her hands over Carden’s. She fought him for the sword.
“No! No!” Carden gagged, opening his mouth to speak and allowing another handful of flies to fill his throat. He croaked to vomit as Nimue wrenched the Sword of Power free. She screamed with primal rage, spun around and cleaved Father Carden’s head from his neck.
Merlin swung around and pulled his captor’s sword. The Red Paladin shielded his face and lost his arm to Merlin’s blow. Merlin stepped aside for another paladin lunge and drove him headfirst into the carpet of rats at their feet. Merlin fought past the other flailing monks and slashed his way to Morgan’s captors. They battled the mage despite the dozens of rats hanging on their robes and the bats fluttering in their faces but were ultimately no match as Merlin plunged the steel through their hearts and tore Morgan free. “Now! Nimue, now!” he cried.
Nimue stumbled away from the sight of Carden’s head on the floor, gradually becoming a meal to the teeming flies and rats.
But another cohort of Red Paladins thundered around the distant bend of tents. Sensing the enormity of the moment and drawn to the panicked cries of their brothers, they poured on the speed and Merlin, Morgan, and Nimue were forced to take flight.
Arthur ran out from under the shelter of sandstone and grabbed the longbow of a fallen Faun archer. Using the body as cover, he took an arrow from the dead Faun’s quiver and fired at the charging raiders, who had cleared off the cliffs and were now charging on horseback across the sands to finish them off. Pendragon sailors and Fey Kind were still washing onto the beach, bloodied and nearly drowned, easy prey for the approaching Vikings. Arthur emptied the quiver, but he was almost alone in the battle. Half his best fighters were dead or wounded on the beach. Hundreds of Fey Kind huddled in terror beneath the sandstone. Arthur knew the raiders would not be taking prisoners. They were there to annihilate. Out of arrows, Arthur drew his sword and stumbled into the path of the horsemen. He vowed to take a last few with him before he was cut down. The pounding hooves roared in his ears. The raiders were close enough for Arthur to see their bloodthirsty smiles. He tightened his grip as a strange whistle came from the east. Something flashed in the corner of his eye, and a massive fireball of burning pitch blasted into the first dozen raiders of the oncoming charge. Bodies flew everywhere. The impact threw Arthur backward. The air was filled with black smoke and swirling sparks. Burning horses stumbled about on broken legs or heaved and screamed in the sands. The confused Vikings circled around the resulting crater in the earth as another whistle cut the air and a second fireball tore through the raiders’ back end of the charge. Another ten riders wailed in a mass of broken and charred limbs.
Arthur turned to the sea and the raider ships, as one of them suddenly split in two, torn in half by a Viking longship augmented by a burning lance fused to its prow. Arthur felt caught up in a dream. “The Red Spear,” he whispered. He recalled the raiders in the dungeons of Cinder, Nimue’s healing magic, and a promise made with a handshake. A volley of fireballs exploded onto the raider ships, thanks to the ballista and customized trebuchet aboard the Spear’s fleet.
The raiders on the beach were having second thoughts about their charge as the Spear’s ships took a head-on position for the shore. Huge fighters in bearskin capes leaped into the shallow surf armed with axes and met the raiders on the wet sands in clanging fury.
Arthur could not reason through the Viking on Viking violence but was thrilled to be the beneficiary. And as the first wave of ships fled back into the deep seas or burned and sank, the Red Spear’s longship rode the surf toward the shore, ably turning the ship in the churning waves. The Vikings aboard waved to the survivors on shore and Arthur sprang into action, shouting to the Fey Kind. The Tusks gathered the refugees into columns and led them into the surf as the Red Spear’s invading force made short work of the raiders on the beach.
More of the Red Spear’s ships rode the surf near to shore to receive the Fey Kind. Arthur plunged into the waves, fighting the brutal cold to help the weak or the small or the aged. He stayed in the biting surf for more than an hour, sloshing up and down the coastline to help the Fey get aboard the longships until his arms were frozen, dead weights and his lips were blue. Before he sank under the waters, a rough hand took hold of the back of his neck and Wroth half lifted him onto one of the ships. Arthur collapsed onto the deck, vomiting seawater and racked with chills. He looked up at a pair of steel-toed boots lined with sealskin. A set of axes hung from a belt over leather breeches. A leather-and-steel-gloved hand reached out to him. Arthur saw circular dragon carvings on the gauntlet. He took the hand and noted the size of it. He stood to his full height and looked down slightly at a fierce dragon helm.
“I’m told I owe you a debt,” said the voice within.
“I’m glad to hear it. And by the gods consider us even,” Arthur gushed.
The Red Spear removed her helm and red curls spilled over her shoulders. Her green eyes flickered with mischief. “You’re an easy one, aren’t you? I’m Guinevere of the court of the Ice King—a court now under siege by traitors.”
“I’m Arthur,” he answered. “And we’ll do all in our power to help you.”
FIFTY-NINE
THE WEEPING MONK WHEEZED HEAVILY. Something was broken inside him. His left arm hung useless at his side, and his sword dragged in his right hand. The ground was thick with twitching Trinity bodies. One Trinity remained. His death mask had been knocked aside, revealing wide, fearful eyes behind it. He spun his flail. The monk walked forward, fearless of the weapon. The Trinity guard shouted and swung his flail. The monk caught the spiked balls in his ribs, grimacing through the agony, and locked his elbow down over the chains, trapping it. The Trinity yanked to no avail as the monk drew him in and stuck his sword directly through his throat. The guard coughed blood and pitched forward as the Weeping Monk jerked his sword free. The monk spun around as his legs buckled under him.