Effie forced herself to shamble backward. Pain lanced through her. Conall’s screams tore at her heart. “I have no need to bluff,” she said. “Your brethren won’t escape their imprisonment with the loss of the cache here. We have made enough Aerfenium to seal them away forever. It is only we who shall perish.”
The effort to speak shot fire down her throat, but she spoke with a conviction that belied her fear. The words rumbled from her like a growl. Raising her arm, she launched the slow match across the chamber.
34
Effie’s aim was true. The slow match landed in the pile of Freiherr Jörg’s black powder. As the smoldering wick hissed and caught alight, she gave herself over to the thorns and vines that ensnared her. Using all the strength of her fey blood, she sucked the Aerfenium from the chamber, driving it back into the depths beneath the warren.
The Barrow Witch wailed. She flinched backward, raising an arm before her face. Effie’s shrieks echoed the Sidhe Bhreige. But hers were born from the pain of the thorns that lanced through her, piercing from head to foot.
The pile of black powder ignited in a whoosh of flame. The heat of its harsh smoke washed over her. Her eyes stung. A racking cough collapsed her to a knee. She tensed as darkness claimed the chamber. Without the colorful spray of Aerfenium, only Conall’s torch remained to shed any illumination, and that had almost snuffed out. It lay smoldering near the man, its halo dwindled to a few paces.
The Barrow Witch’s cackling began as an uncertain trickle, as if she disbelieved what her eyes and fey senses told her. Yet it became raucous as the air of the chamber stilled. She had every reason to gloat. She had guessed correctly. Effie had bluffed.
“Pathetic,” said the Sidhe Bhreige. “I should not have wasted my efforts on you, but now that charity is at an end.” The Barrow Witch’s shadowed form stalked through the halo of torchlight. “Your friends have abandoned you. Your army is defeated. Open your senses and know that I speak the truth. I have won.”
Effie felt the vines and thorns relent. She gasped as the pain fled. Like other glamours born of Fey Craft, it vanished as if it hadn’t been there at all. She rubbed at her arms anyway. The smooth flesh pimpled as she shivered.
She had no need to reach out with her senses. She knew already that the Barrow Witch spoke the truth. Rose Brewer and Gaelyph, Warden of the Hunt, were gone. They had fled the battle along with dozens of other fey. Those of Scottish blood. Those of the Seily Court.
All save Caledon had winked from her awareness only moments before she’d thrown the slow match.
But they had not abandoned her.
She did not know how the duke’s army stood. She could sense only a mass of men and a scattering of women outside. She hoped desperately that those who remained to fight would hang on for a short while longer, until the madness of the banshee’s touch could be eradicated.
Conall cradled his head in his hands. He’d fallen and sat whimpering.
Hold on! Effie willed herself to keep from reaching out to him. It was almost time. She could not miss her chance no matter how much it tormented her to watch him suffer. But her will must be for the greater good.
“Yes, child,” said the Barrow Witch. “You realize your foolishness now. I see it on your face. But it is too late. I have tricks of my own to reveal.”
The trows began to chitter, yet as they did their timbre deepened to hoarse rasping. Their auras warped. A veil dropped, and Effie jolted in shock. Similar to obscuring auras, the Barrow Witch had tricked her into believing only trows skulked within the chamber. She sensed now a dozen grindylows.
They edged closer at a shuffling pace. Their rasping laughter echoed the cackling of their master. Effie crouched as the circle tightened. The shield of Fey Craft she’d formed before she readied once again. Waiting, she rose to the balls of her feet. Her breathing came quick and shallow.
But the assault of thorn and vine did not come. They meant not to subdue her, she realized, but to slay her.
Scouring the ground for a weapon, she caught movement in the reflection of one of the shallow pools. She dove forward. Nails like talons raked her back. A hiss of fury followed. Her momentum sent her rolling. She tucked her shoulder and felt lines of fire race across her flesh.
She smacked into the legs of a grindylow. Lashing out with a boot, she kicked herself free. Her hands found only dirt, but she grabbed handfuls and flung it, choking as a cloud ballooned over her.
She needed to find something sturdy, something strong. She cursed herself for dropping Jack Canonbie’s cane. Her gaze caught on the smoldering torch, and she scrambled for it. Anything was better than her empty hands.
Her knees scraped. Her palms bled, scratched by sharp stones. Water splashed as she clambered through the shallow pools of snowmelt.
A foot, pale and deathly, slapped the water next to her head. Her head snapped back. The grindylow held her hair in its grip. Her neck strained, throat exposed. The face staring down at her was shriveled and sickly. Its breath stunk of rot. Its eyes were filmed and weeping.
Effie sucked in a panicked breath. With balled fists, she pummeled the grindylow. The creature growled, flinching against the onslaught. It raised its free hand to strike, fingers curled to reveal thick, yellow-tinged nails.
As it did, the chamber blossomed with the auras of the Seily Court.
All the breath rushed out of Effie. Her fear vanished. It was the moment to which she had attached all her hope. Her friends had finally come.
“You were wrong,” she hollered at the Barrow Witch. “No one abandoned me.” She giggled, overcome by joy. Their gamble, her final trick conceived in the shadows of the Storr, had worked. “They did what your foul host could not. They invaded Elphame. And now, they have returned.”
Gaelyph stepped into the halo of torchlight as if summoned from mist. His sword flashed, and the grindylow holding Effie jerked. Its head splashed into the shallow pool.
Jaelyn howled with glee. Her dirk already dripped with blood. Rose Brewer and Abigail Salisbury stood shoulder to shoulder. Bursts of white light popped throughout the chamber, each explosion banging like a drum. Hogboons and pixies flooded the area, and a few Sithlings, too. They had used her as an anchor, returning to the very spot where she needed them most.
“You were meant to wait for me, Effie of Glen Coe,” said Gaelyph. “You were not meant to stall the Barrow Witch alone.” His sword did not slow, nor his feet.
“I managed,” she said, panting in relief. “And I wasn’t alone.” Pulling herself to her feet, she lumbered over to the prone form of Conall. She ran a hand along his brow and through his curls. His face was pinched. He murmured something inaudible.
“Effie!” Rose shouted in alarm. It carried over the din of the fighting. Effie whirled and saw Jaelyn and the brownies of Clan Kae surge against a pair of grindylows. Pixies, including wee Alison of Tarves, zipped about one another as hogboons swung their wild and meaty fists at it.
But it was for the Barrow Witch that Rose had shouted. The Sidhe Bhreige stalked toward Effie in a crouch. Her eyes narrowed to slits as Effie regarded her. The dead grey flesh of her brow tightened. Her lips pulled back in fury. The silver of a dagger flashed.
Effie jerked aside and fell over Conall. Kicking with her legs, she scrambled to distance herself from the blade. But the next attack did not come. The Barrow Witch darted away from her.