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Chapter Twenty

G awain wished he’d had a gold piece for every time he’d heard “wrong” when demons were involved. He’d have gilded armor for himself and his horse.

The fae were starting to drift toward them with slow, deliberate steps, effectively blocking the main door of the keep.

They were eerily silent, the only sound the clink of armor or squish of ruined flesh.

Worse, they looked hungry. Panic rose like a gibbering imp inside Gawain, but he slammed it down hard.

Tamsin was counting on him, and surrender was not an option.

He slipped the shield off his back and slid his forearm through the grips.

“Stay with me,” he said. “We’re going down the stairs and out the back of the keep.

Keep running no matter what and look for a water gate.

There should be another entrance to the castle grounds used to bring in supplies by boat. ”

Tamsin gave a spastic nod and clutched her backpack more securely. The dead were close enough now to see their eyes. Already, the film of death was turning them to opaque, grayish marbles. Gawain’s stomach rolled. This kind of nonsense was exactly why everyone hated demons.

“Go!” he ordered.

Tamsin dashed. The zombies lurched forward, but not before Gawain vaulted from the last steps and stuck his spear through the throat of the first one.

It barely slowed the thing down until he gave a savage twist that severed its spine.

By then, three others had rushed to fill the gap.

Gawain shoved the body, spear and all, into their path and drew his sword.

Baring their teeth, the next wave trampled the fallen.

Gawain slammed the shield into his closest foe and slashed the sword, aiming for heads.

Two fell, but the third dropped to its knees and fastened its jaws on his calf.

Gawain glanced down in disbelief. The fae was trying to gnaw through the leather of his high boot.

With a cry of disgust, Gawain chopped off its head, shook away the remains and ran after Tamsin.

She had reached what looked like a guardroom. Gawain followed, slammed the door and pushed a heavy table against it.

“What now?” Tamsin asked. Her eyes were round with shock.

“Through the window,” Gawain replied, boosting her over the wide stone sill. A body hurled itself against the door, making the table squeak on the floor. “Then run for your life.”

He had exactly enough time to crawl after her before the walking dead smashed their way through the door.

It seemed like miles across the grass to the stone wall that rimmed the edge of the moat.

More faeries streamed from the courtyard in pursuit.

Gawain saw a small gate in the distance but despaired of reaching it in time. The fae were gaining on them too fast.

They had gone halfway when Tamsin fell to her knees, gasping. Mordred had sucked away too much of her strength. “Let me carry you,” he said.

“Then how are you supposed to fight?” she panted, sitting back on her heels. Her eyes were fixed on the approaching enemy, her expression a mask of horror. “I’ll slow you down. It’s my turn to do something.”

“What?” Gawain gauged the number of seconds they had before the dead faeries were upon them. Not many.

“Help me up,” Tamsin said, struggling to her feet.

As he did, he saw a pale blue light pool in her hand. A fireball. He flinched, recognizing the same spell he’d learned as a child. The one he’d used to burn down the nursery. Memory burned in his blood.

“Stand back,” she ordered. “If I get this right, you owe me a glass of wine.”

Tamsin concentrated, digging the magic from deep inside her.

Exhaustion made her power slow to come until, at what seemed like the last possible moment, she sent a ball of pale blue light hurtling into the pack of hungry dead.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but she heard the impact like a cracking egg.

Tamsin opened her eyes to see something red raining from the air. Bile burned the back of her throat.

“Tamsin!” Gawain bellowed.

She jerked around to see one of the dead rushing at her, eyes blank as marbles.

She shrieked from pure reflex and danced out of its way.

Gawain stepped in its path, jabbing with the metal edge of the shield and following with a downward slice of his sword.

Another zombie struck, shattering his shield.

At that point, she lost every inhibition she’d ever had about using offensive magic.

By the time Gawain had downed his new opponent, pieces of dead fae scattered the field.

Tamsin waited for the next assault, but it didn’t come. Instead, the remaining fae stood still as scarecrows. “What’s wrong?”

Gawain wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

His eyes were wild. “They’re dead, not stupid.

” He was backing quickly toward the water gate, never turning away from their attackers.

Tamsin followed suit, a primitive voice screaming at her to run, run, run away!

but knowing that would just remind the zombies to chase them.

The tactic worked until they were almost at their goal, when a raven swooped down, croaking. As if the call woke up the dead, the fae sprang forward once more. But by that time, Gawain had the small gate open and they were scrambling down to a tiny boat. Gawain pushed it into the moat at a run.

“Get in!” he ordered, splashing into the water.

Tamsin balked when her boots hit the water. She’d never learned how to swim.

“Hurry!” Gawain ordered, sheathing his sword. “Their bowmen are arriving!”

Tamsin gave up trying to keep anything but her backpack dry.

After a determined bound through the water, she crawled into the boat and landed in a heap of soggy fabric.

She’d made it just in time—the current caught the vessel and sent the boat drifting into a spin, carrying it away from shore. “Help!” she cried.

Gawain was right. A fresh contingent of fae were taking up position beside their fellows. There was a thrum and a sound like giant bees. Arrows splashed into the water mere inches from the boat.

“Gawain!” Tamsin peered over the side. He was nowhere in sight. For a panicked instant, she blinked against the brilliance of the sun on the water, and then ducked again as another flight of arrows spattered around her. This time two thumped into the light frame of the spinning boat.

To her enormous relief, Gawain’s hand appeared over the edge, followed shortly by the rest of him.

He’d ducked underwater, and the mail shirt he wore glittered like scales as he climbed aboard.

He made a muffled hiss of pain as he landed, and clawed his sodden cloak out of the way.

A feathered shaft stuck out of his thigh.

“Oh, no.” Tamsin stared at the arrow. Gawain’s pain was her first thought, but underneath that was primal fear for them both.

“I’ve had worse.”

Gawain grabbed the oars from the bottom of the boat and locked them in place. Then he paused, clearly gathering himself. He was drained of color and his mouth was clamped in a tight line, as if holding the truth inside. Tamsin’s blood went icy. He was hurt.

“I can stabilize that,” she said. “That should help until we get to shore.”

“There’s no time.” Gawain plunged the oars into the water and turned the vessel toward the opposite shore. Tamsin twisted to look at the castle. The dead faeries were crowding around the water gate as if they were unsure what to do next.

“Can fae swim?” she asked tightly.

“Of course,” Gawain replied, his expression grim. “They’ll come after us soon enough.”

Tamsin summoned her power one last time.

She had enough juice for one more fireball, so she made it big.

She loaded it with all the confusion, annoyance, fear and frustration she had in her.

It sailed, a falling star of power that flared with cleansing heat as it struck.

Tamsin and Gawain ducked, shading their eyes.

When she looked up, the bank by the castle moat was empty.

She wondered if their foes were dead or merely hiding.

A long minute passed as Gawain rowed, but nothing moved.

Her thoughts skittered away as she tried to focus on what she’d just done.

Assault magic teetered on the edge of darkness.

It was something her father had taught her but nothing that the Shadowring Elders condoned.

It smacked of black spell casting, the very thing that Gawain feared.

A dark, hollow place opened up inside her, and she shivered.

Silence followed, broken only by the splash of the oars and the murmur of the water against the side of the boat.

Gawain’s movements were jerky with pain.

She didn’t attempt conversation, instead drying their clothes with what little magic she had left.

The fabric went stiff and scratchy, but Gawain’s cloak—along with a sliver of magic—worked well enough as padding to keep the arrow in Gawain’s leg immobilized and the bleeding minimal.

She offered to try the oars, but Gawain just gave her a very male look.

Rather than rowing them back to the orchard, he found the stream that fed the moat.

They didn’t get far before they passed the carcass of a horse.

By the color of its trappings, it had belonged to the army that had invaded the castle.

“It bolted from whatever killed its masters,” said Gawain in a grim voice. “But it didn’t get away.”

Tamsin turned away. Injured animals upset her deeply. “Do we know what attacked it?”

“It takes something large to bring down a warhorse.”

Later, they came across a piece of a saddle floating downstream, but no other signs of carnage.

They followed the stream until the water grew too shallow to navigate.

By then, the sun was past its peak. Tamsin helped Gawain ashore and pulled the little boat under the cover of some low bushes.

With Gawain leaning on her shoulder, they climbed up the bank to see where they were.

The land looked wilder here, with rolling moors and the silver slash of a river fading into the distance.

“The sea is that way,” Gawain pointed.

“Do you know where we are?” Tamsin asked in surprise.

“Perhaps. I know where we would be if this were Camelot. If the Forest Sauvage holds true, my castle lies ahead. It will be the best choice for us to find safety and shelter.”

His voice held a note of cautious hope. Tamsin hitched her pack higher on her shoulder. “How far is it?”

“We should reach it by nightfall if we make good time.”

“You’re not going another step on that leg.”

“It’s only a flesh wound.” But even his brave words couldn’t cover the lie.

Tamsin helped him to the ground. He did no more than grunt a protest, which meant the injury had to be bad.

Tamsin knelt and examined the wound, refusing to let her fingers tremble.

The arrow had buried itself in the muscle of his thigh.

She guessed a stubborn temper and buckets of adrenaline were all that had kept Gawain going that far.

“There is good news and bad news,” she ventured. “The good news is that the arrow didn’t sever any major blood vessels.”

“How do you know that?” He closed his eyes. A sheen of sweat covered his face.

“You’re not dead yet.” She swallowed. Her throat felt thick and swollen with panic. “The bad news is I don’t have my medicines here. I’ll have to improvise.”

His lids cracked open. “You improvised fine with those dead fae.”

A knot twisted in Tamsin’s gut. “I’ve never used my power that way before.”

She expected something from Gawain—either congratulations or revulsion, since he hated magic so completely—but he remained impassive. Whatever his thoughts, he meant to keep them to himself. After a long moment he asked, “Did Hector teach you to do that?”

“Yes.” She unfastened the knife from her belt. The first thing was to cut away the clothing from around the wound and get a better look. Nervous energy was fizzing inside her, but her mind was curiously blank. Probably the result of shock.

She began slicing at his clothes, wincing inside as he flinched. “I’m not sure if I should be proud or terrified of blowing them all up.”

“We lived.”

She nearly snapped at him. She wanted more than two words. Needed his response. But then Gawain clenched his fist, giving the ground a thump as she fully exposed the wound. Apparently, the moment of fight or flight was over and his pain receptors had caught up with events.

“I hate witch fire,” he finally said. “Gives me nightmares.”

“I’m sorry it bothered you,” Tamsin replied, keeping her voice neutral. She was being an idiot, thinking of her own needs at a moment like this.

Gawain’s mouth flattened to a line as she prodded the wound. “The walking dead bothered me more.”

She didn’t reply. Images replayed in her mind of the spell striking, exploding and tearing the enemy to pieces.

She shuddered, revolted all over again. She hadn’t killed anyone—the fae had already been dead—but it felt as if she had.

The experience had changed her—she knew that much—but she still wasn’t sure how.

She pushed that aside. Her problems were for later.

“I’m going to have to get the arrow out, and then I’m going to have to use raw magic to heal you.

The backpack got in the water and while the books are fine, my herbs and powders are spoiled.

I’m sorry. I don’t have any other way. Even if you could walk, there’s too much chance of infection. ”

She met his gaze, bracing for an argument, but his blue eyes were dull.

“Do what you must,” he said. “I trust you.”