Squirrel raced to him. “Come on now. Up you go.” He pulled on the monk, who rose on instinct alone, allowing Squirrel to guide him to a nearby horse. The Red Paladin camp was largely empty. The sounds of battle from the Pendragon camp echoed across the Minotaur Valley. Squirrel knew that Trinity guards were still at large and would soon discover their dead brothers.
The Weeping Monk tried to mount the horse but was too weak. Squirrel fitted the monk’s boot into the stirrup and wedged his shoulders under his backside, then pushed up with his legs. The monk lay over the saddle clumsily, and Squirrel hopped up behind him. He reached over the monk for the reins and urged the horse forward, turning them toward the wood. Several times Squirrel had to throw himself against the monk to keep him from pitching over the side. The bloody night had ended and a burning pink dawn was rising.
They rode for an hour in silence across a hillside of tall pines.
“What . . .” The monk tried to speak. He took several breaths, summoning the strength. “What is your name?”
“Squirrel,” he answered.
“That . . .” Again the monk lost strength. He tried again. “That is not a name. A squirrel is an animal.”
“That’s what they call me,” Squirrel said, shrugging.
“What did your parents name you?”
“I don’t like that name,” Squirrel protested.
The Weeping Monk was quiet for several seconds. Squirrel wasn’t sure if he was about to die or not. He figured it was not the most unreasonable question.
“Fine. They called me Percy,” he said, annoyed.
The Weeping Monk grunted. “Percy?”
“It’s short for Percival, I think.” And this brought up another question. “Do you have a real name?” Squirrel asked.
“Lancelot,” he answered. “A long time ago my name was Lancelot.”
Across the valley, the Red Paladins invaded the forest to hunt the Wolf-Blood Witch, hell-bent on vengeance for the death of Father Carden.
Only a half mile ahead of their hunters, Merlin and Morgan battled with Nimue, who fought with them to cross the fields to the Vatican camp. “I can’t leave him again! They have Squirrel! You don’t understand!”
Morgan took her friend’s face in her hands. “I do. I do understand. But he’s gone, Nimue. He’s gone. They won’t leave him alive. You’re alive and your people need you!”
“They attacked the ships,” Nimue said through tears. “They never made it, they never made it, it’s my fault. I can’t lose him, too.”
She pulled away from Morgan and stumbled back down the trail.
“Nimue!” Merlin shouted.
She wavered on the lip of the rise and looked down and saw a wave of red washing through the woods. More than a hundred Red Paladins were closing in on them. Because of this, she allowed Morgan to pull her back to where Merlin studied the terrain.
“If we make it to the Rabbit Cross, we can lose them in the Narrows. This way. Hurry. It’s less than a mile.” Merlin hurried them down the hill. Several minutes later they could hear the sound of rushing water and came upon a swiftly moving river and a tilting wooden bridge, covered in moss. A hundred yards farther on, the river pitched over a deep falls, marking the start of the dark canyons of the Minotaurs. They ran to the edge of the bridge, the sounds of the falls drowning out the rumble of the paladin horses behind them.
“Hurry now! Now!” Merlin pulled Morgan onto the bridge and had taken several strides before realizing Nimue wasn’t among them. He turned back.
Nimue lingered at the end of the bridge. “I’m sorry. I’m going back for him,” she said to Merlin.
The mage heard her words, but his eyes noticed a movement near the trees, on the opposite end from where the Red Paladins were pursuing them. Nimue was turning back in that direction as a small figure emerged wearing peasant rags and holding a longbow far too tall for its tiny frame. An arrow was nocked.
“No,” Merlin whispered.
Nimue thought she recognized the child, though she wasn’t wearing her disturbing mask. “Ghost?” she asked as the first arrow struck her in the right shoulder, knocking her to one knee. Sister Iris smoothly loaded a second arrow, still marching toward the bridge, and fired again. Thud. Nimue fell onto her back and looked down at the second arrow, sticking out of her ribs on the left side. She clawed the dirt, struggling to stand, as Sister Iris nocked another arrow and fired. Thud. The third arrow caught Nimue in the center of her back as she turned toward the bridge, propelling her forward. She caught herself and stood there a moment, swaying, as Merlin and Morgan rushed back across the bridge toward her.
The Red Paladin horsemen cleared the rise, saw Nimue, Merlin, and Morgan, and thundered down the hill.
Nimue’s eyes fluttered as she drew the Sword of Power, only to have it fall limply from her hand and clatter onto the bridge. She faltered, tried to catch herself, and slid over the slick, wet moss covering the low warped wall. She tipped over and somersaulted fifty feet into the rushing river, the current swallowing her like a drop of rain.
Morgan threw herself against the bridge wall. “Nimue!”
Sister Iris slung her bow over her shoulder and watched the Red Paladins storm the bridge.
In that moment, Merlin looked down at the Sword of Power at his feet. He knelt down and wrapped his fist around its grip. It felt as easy and warm as a heartbeat, and it opened a channel that flooded Merlin with energy. It was his magic, returning to his blood with molten heat and power. His blue crackling eyes gazed up at the Red Paladins, and with the sword he drew a glowing sigil in the air. The effect was immediate: the clouds overhead turned black and roiling and tempest winds swung up through the Minotaur Narrows, colliding with such fury, they flung and spun the horsemen into the air, breaking them against the trees, hurtling some hundreds of feet into the air or dropping them onto the sharp rocks of the falls.
Sister Iris wisely retreated to the shelter of the trees as another wave of Red Paladins crested the hill only to be bludgeoned by the gale-force winds. Merlin roared and held the sword aloft as a series of lightning bolts struck the sword and the bridge in a succession of deafening blasts, culminating in a fiery explosion that uplifted a massive column of black smoke. Gradually the winds died down and the surviving paladins crept down the hillside. When the smoke finally cleared, the Rabbit’s Cross was nothing more than blackened, charred, and sparking pieces.
And there was no sign of Merlin or Morgan.
Nimue drifted in a cobalt-blue void. The gentle currents danced her arms at her sides as ribbons of blood encircled her. A tiny stream of bubbles escaped her slightly parted lips as she turned in a wide, descending spiral toward a pulling blackness.
The sword is still close.
She couldn’t touch it. She couldn’t see it. But she sensed it, and the idea warmed her cold body.
Her eyes fluttered briefly and her body convulsed as she swallowed water. She flashed to the fawn in the Iron Wood. Death is not the end.
Would the light of the Sky Folk reach her in these depths? Would Lenore be waiting for her? She hoped so. She longed to feel her mother’s arms around her. And Pym. Mad, wonderful Pym.
NIMUE DRIFTED IN A COBALT-BLUE VOID.