Seventeen – 12

Phelan blinked away the sting of the magical explosion’s bright after-image, the bright ghost that obscured his vision.  Leinth’s fingers dug into his arm through the sleeve of his parka.

“What was that?”

“A druid’s wardings,” Phelan growled.  “A Taliesin’s wardings.”

But I’m not going to be able to do that twice.

The skinchanger stuck on the other side of the boundary of the small bubble of his wardings was the biggest he’d ever seen, its fur as black as night and catching silver highlights from the moon.  There were others behind him—there had to be, somewhere—but Phelan’s gaze was full of this one, the one staring at him with such baleful malice that it left his stomach cramping and twisting in fear.

Stay calm.  Stay focused.  This isn’t a threat that you haven’t handled before.

Of course, running had typically been an option in the past, and the wound in his side still throbbed from his last encounter with this particular flavor of nastiness.

His fingers tightened around the wood of his staff.  Cold from Leinth’s grip bled into his skin through his coat.  He stripped off one glove quickly, then the other, stuffing them into his pocket.  “Can you cut off that damned cold?” he snapped at her.  “You’re leaving frost all over my goddamned sleeve.”

“It’s the chill of the grave, Wanderer,” she fired back.  “It’s hard to turn off.”

“Well, try to or else you’ll be leading the way to the underworld.”  He sucked in a deep breath, the cold of the air shocking his lungs.  A cough threatened and he forced it back down, casting his senses—his magic—down into the frozen ground beneath is feet.

Come on, answer the call.  Come on…

Power and warmth swept up in a sudden surge and he swallowed a gasp.  The skinchangers around them snarled at the sudden flare of evergreen light that wreathed him.  He sucked in a breath and drew that power into himself through the staff, wrapping it up with the golden kernel of power nestled deep in his heart—the Taliesin’s power, the Taliesin’s gift.

Please let this work.  It’s been so long since I had to…

Leinth cursed and stumbled back, her dark eyes wide as gold and green flickers suddenly suffused his being.  She swore in Etruscan as a pair of daggers rasped free of sheaths beneath her cloak.

“What are you about to do?”

“Something stupid,” he answered, one hand wrapped around his staff in a white-knuckled grip.  His other hand stabbed out, fingers splayed with green and gold light playing over and beneath his skin.

Please let this work.

He spat a word of power.  The green and gold light leapt from his fingers, braiding itself into a whip that writhed its way through the air and past the boundaries of his wardings.  It sprouted thorns and barbs as it flew, hitting the skinchanger squarely in the chest with enough force to stagger it.

Then it started to coil around the creature like a living thing, like a snake preparing to squeeze the life out of its prey.  The skinchangers gave a cry and began to struggle.

Sweat trickled down the back of Phelan’s neck, down his spine.  He was shaking already, his teeth grinding and chattering against the power he channeled.

Hold on.  You can manage this.  It’s nothing you haven’t managed before.

Of course, the last time you did this, you blacked out and didn’t wake up for three weeks, but that’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?

“More are coming, Wanderer,” Leinth said, back at his side once more, a cold, terrifying fire wreathing her blades, black and blue and painful to look at.  “They’re creeping toward the lines.”

“Deal with them,” he said, shocked at how steady his voice was through his pain and gritted teeth.  The woman at his side was remarkably calm.  He wondered for a spilt second if Seamus had retained some of the Taliesin’s power when he’d given up the mantle, given up the burden, and Leinth had seen it then.

What a sight to behold that must have been, if that were the case.  The warrior-healer with the Taliesin’s power, even a fragment, would have been terrifying and beautiful all at once, with metallic fire and light around him.

Phelan shook himself and instantly regretted his momentary distraction as the skinchangers slammed into his wardings all at once and shattered them like paper-thin glass.  The backlash tore a curse from his lips and forced him to his knees, already feeling blood starting to slide down his face.  The power he’d poured into those wards had made them into something almost physical when they’d shattered, sharp enough to make them all bleed where the metaphysical fragments struck them.

At least they’ll be cut up worse than we are.

Leinth screamed an angry battlecry from thousands of years past and threw herself at three of the stunned skinchangers, daggers moving so fast that they were barely visible blurs against the night.

The skinchangers he’d wrapped in magical thorns went down to one knee as the wardings shattered, only to lurch to his feet again, stumbling with grim determination toward Phelan, bloodlust gleaming in his eyes.

Phelan swallowed bile.

Berserker?  Déithe agus arrachtaigh, I hope not.  That would be a disaster.

He curled his fingers into a fist and jerked back, hard, snapping the rope of magic that connected him to the skinchanger.  The writhing tail of magic whipped toward the creature, curling around its neck and tightening there.  Phelan could see blood in the moonlight as the creature howled at him, lurching forward.

Stand your ground.  You can take him down if you just stand your ground.

Someone was laughing and it made his skin crawl, the back of his neck prickling.

Oh hell.

Even the skinchanger paused for a brief moment to look toward the sound.

There was that red-white light again and the slender, dreadlocked figure floating within it, her blue eyes alight with malice and mischief.

“Well, well,” she purred, ruby lips pulling back from perfect white teeth.  “What have we here?”

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