Not Your Average Love Spell, page 29
Soon, they all staggered, mouths open in shock before they passed out on the floor.
A yell came from behind her, but she couldn’t turn her head to see what caused it. Still, she rejoiced. A few knights were still on their feet, and they would help the others, and—
Fear froze her innards as she heard a clatter and the sound of claws on stone. Sir Robert watched calmly over her shoulder, and Camille fought the urge to shut her eyes as a dragonkin passed into view. It dragged a knight by the arm. More passed through the tables and jars, gathering the other knights, too.
Sir Robert sighed happily, and she tried to swallow her horror, wondered if she could even be sick with the state she was in.
“Now,” he said, turning to her. “You will tell me about the Hawk’s informant network, who you used to contact her, and where they might be found. You’re also going to tell me who you shared your suspicions with about me or the Kells or whatever else passed through your small, idiotic mind.”
She’d never wanted to give someone an obscene gesture so much in all her life.
* * *
Rowena led the way toward the reagents she’d detected. She’d never found so many in one spot before, so it had to be a workshop or some kind of storeroom. She walked as quickly as she could, glad to have Ember with her. She didn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder now that she had someone guarding her back.
Though she had to keep watch on her side since Sydney marched there. Her jaw was tense, her brow wrinkled as she stared forward. She cast the occasional glance Rowena’s way, too, and Rowena wondered if she was thinking of starting some pissing contest about who was leading this expedition. Not that Rowena actually cared. As far as she was concerned, they were just going in the same direction, but if Sydney started shit with her again, Rowena would have to give as good as she received.
That was just the way things were.
Ember seemed happy they were together; she’d been all smiles even with the danger, and their connection hummed with satisfaction. She’d claimed she was worried about Camille, but it was clear to Rowena whose company she preferred.
Rowena had to perform her spell again at two branching tunnels, but finally, flickering light filtered down the path in front of them, the glow of flame instead of sunlight. Sydney held up a hand to halt her column of knights, then moved back to join them. Rowena sidled that way, too. It was best if she knew what dumb things they might do.
“Put out the lanterns,” Sydney said quietly. The knights hurried to obey, and they were all plunged into gloom. “Everyone who can’t fight will wait here and keep watch for anyone coming from the other direction.”
To their credit, the knights obeyed silently except for a few rustles and thumps as they settled. Sydney gave them a few moments as she drew her sword and moved up with Rowena.
“Leading the charge?” Rowena whispered.
Sydney’s eyes glittered in the low light. “Think you should?”
Rowena fought her own sarcasm. “I’m going to be somewhere near the middle. I’ll need time to assess before I cast.”
Ember glanced between them, clearly torn. Before Rowena’s pride could make assurances that she didn’t need help, Sydney nodded to Rowena. “Stay with her. I don’t want anyone near me in case…”
Ember frowned, and Rowena leaned close. “She’s learned force magic, and she can’t quite control it.”
Sydney straightened her shoulders. “When we’re fighting, I won’t want to.”
Ember gave her a quick hug while Rowena frowned and said, “That’s a good idea.”
“I’ll keep the dragonkin away from you,” Ember said as she took Rowena’s hand. “So, you’ll be able to cast as much as you want.” She grabbed Sydney’s hand, too. “And you’ll be able to fight the dragonkin on your own, so you’ll be fine. Everyone will be fine.”
Rowena frowned just as Sydney did, both of them saying, “Dragonkin?” at the same time.
Ember grinned widely. “You’re already more alike, speaking at the same time. Dragonkin is what Camille called the dragon people, the creatures that are the size of a human but with dragon heads and wings and claws because—”
“We’ve got it,” Rowena said, knowing Ember would feel her affection.
Sydney didn’t even smile, simply moving away. Rowena sighed, supposing she should feel a little sorry for Sydney. She didn’t want to hurt her comrades, and with her force power, she could hurl them across the room or smash them to bits. After all this was over, Rowena would just have to teach her again and hope it did some good.
The column of knights followed Sydney from the tunnel, all of them with weapons drawn. Rowena joined their ranks about five knights in, Ember at her side. She compartmentalized her thoughts so she could remember which reagents and components she had and where they were in her bag. She flicked through the spells she might need. The knights practically ran down the tunnel, the party too large and armored for stealth.
After a deep breath, Rowena burst into a torchlit cavern and immediately peeled off to the side so she could have a clear view.
A group of dragonkin blinked up at the new arrivals. Their scaly arms were full of unconscious knights, either being carried or dragged.
Sydney’s knights had frozen, staring at Sir Robert where he stood near a table at the large cavern’s center. Camille stood in front of him, staring at nothing as if hypnotized.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sir Robert cried. “Couldn’t you have gotten here either a little sooner or a bit later? This is very awkward.” He sighed and rubbed his chin. “Oh well, can’t be helped. I don’t suppose you’d search these jars for captives, would you?”
“Sir Robert Scarborough,” Sydney cried. “Your dark deeds end now.” The tunnel they’d emerged from led onto a wide ledge that rose eight feet or so off the main floor. Sydney clambered down the slope, ruining the effect of her speech slightly, but her knights followed her anyway.
Rowena began to circle, trying to stay in shadow and count the enemies. Camille still didn’t move, and Rowena’s stomach shrank. What had that bastard done to her?
Sir Robert backed up across the workshop, moving to keep several tables between him and the approaching knights, leaving Camille frozen where she was. The dragonkin dropped their captives and moved closer to Sir Robert. “Even in dire straits, you do make a pretty speech,” he said. “And it’s nice to finally have you all in one place. Kudos to those of you who’ve survived the experiments so far. It’s been a very successful test.” He held up his hands. “Even if the two most powerful witches left in Arnvild didn’t kill each other as planned.”
Rowena frowned, almost stopping. On the floor, Sydney had pulled closer to her own knights, forming ranks against the dragonkin, but she frowned, too, maybe worried about harming her fellow knights or wondering who this second witch was.
“It’s you, dummy,” Rowena whispered, suddenly seeing Sir Robert’s plan. He’d wanted the witchstone to pull a witch and a witch-hunting knight together so they’d end each other for him. But he hadn’t planned on Ember or Camille or the fact that they would convince two stubborn people to work together.
Convinced them with cuddles and kisses and the promise of more to come. It was the strangest love spell she’d ever heard of.
“Surrender,” Sydney cried. “You can still be taken prisoner, can stand trial and tell your story—”
“Blah, blah,” Sir Robert said. “Do you want to give the command to attack, or shall I?”
“This place is large,” Ember whispered. “He could summon the dragon.”
Rowena hadn’t thought of that, but what did it matter now? Sir Robert glanced toward them as if he’d heard, and Rowena knew there was no hiding from him.
He smiled. “What a fantastic idea. It’s only fitting that you meet Nightmare since you’re all about to die.”
Rowena cursed as she hopped down to the floor. He’d have to draw a summoning circle, so maybe she had time—
Sir Robert removed something from under his shirt and dropped it on a nearby table. “It’s harder to cast in this form anyway.” A wall of force pulsed from him, rattling the nearby jars and scooting the tables away. The host of dragonkin didn’t turn, but Sydney’s knights backed up. Camille toppled where she stood between Sir Robert and the dragonkin. His form blurred and pulsed again before it stretched and grew, changing like taffy as he grew larger and scalier, his color shifting to burnished gold.
Rowena knew her mouth was open, but she couldn’t close it. An extra two limbs sprouted from the blob, solidifying into wings, while his neck grew, and his head turned sleeker, ending in a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. His ears stretched back along his oblong head, horns arcing over them and pointing back toward his ridge-covered neck. His legs twisted, the knees cracking backward like a dog’s as he sat back, digging talons as long as Rowena’s arm into the rock of the cavern. When he towered over them by forty feet or more, he spread his arms and wings as if giving them a good look at his armored skin; even the wings were covered in scales the size of armored plates.
The muzzle twisted in something like a smile, and the turquoise eyes with their reptilian slits glinted in the light. He was shining and golden and beautiful. “How’s this?” He blinked at Rowena and leaned forward to peer at her.
Rowena shook off her awe and noticed two things besides the majesty of Sir Robert the dragon. Both Ember and Camille were gone.
* * *
Ember wanted to cheer. Finally, the dragon showed up. She hadn’t expected it to be Sir Robert, but she wasn’t disappointed, either.
As soon as she’d stepped into the room, she’d sensed something significant was happening. The heroes and the villain had finally met. One of them was being held hostage. When Sir Robert had begun to glimmer and stretch, she’d hoped for something very exciting, but she’d also known something else would happen.
Everyone was going to stop and stare.
So, she acted. The knights and Rowena were watching Sir Robert; she couldn’t see anywhere in his amorphous mass to strike. The dragonkin were watching the knights, but she didn’t want to use this opportunity to take just one out. That left one critical task.
Remove the hostage.
Camille had fallen over. She still wasn’t moving, but Ember had already spotted her breathing. Ember bent low as she ran, and when she reached Camille, she grabbed her close and rolled under the tables, over and over, getting as far away from the dragonkin as possible before she risked a peek from behind a row of jars near the wall. Sir Robert had finished being a sparkly blob and was now a magnificent golden dragon. His clothing lay in shredded piles near him as if it had simply exploded under the power of his transformation and had been hidden by his…blobbiness. Even his chain mail had become tiny metal shards. She saw his sword lying some feet away from him as well as a few other objects that had flown away rather than exploded.
He extended his wings and asked, “How’s this?” Then he peered at the place she’d been standing. Uh-oh.
Ember ducked back behind the jars and looked at Camille. Her eyes were open, moving as if frantic, but her body was as stiff as a board. Ember didn’t ask if she could speak; she would have been yelling by now if she could.
“Blink if you can hear me.”
Camille blinked once.
“Good.” Ember risked another peek. The dragonkin and the knights had come together in a rush. Dragon Sir Robert had plucked something from a nearby pile of rubble and squashed it in his large, clawed hands. A shard of light shot toward Rowena, who took cover behind a table.
Ember’s mouth dropped open. He was a knight and a dragon and a witch. It was the most marvelous thing she’d ever seen.
She shook her head. She could not get caught up in that right now. She looked back to Camille. “One blink for yes, twice for no. Did Sir Robert do something to you?”
One blink.
“Did you see what it was?”
Two.
“Hmm.” He had to have cast a spell, but the knights hated magic, which meant he shouldn’t be casting it, but she’d save that thought for later. It had to be something he could cast without anyone noticing, so nothing with a chalk circle.
The knights and the dragonkin were a clash of steel. Sir Robert stayed in one place as he threw spells at Rowena. He probably didn’t want to destroy this place, which was a point in the heroes’ favor. But now they were going to have to find a way to stab a dragon, which was a point in his. Camille was supposed to be very smart; she could no doubt help them fight a dragon, but first, Ember had to figure out what had been done to her.
She pushed away the sounds of combat and thought as hard as she could. Sir Robert wouldn’t have used a burst of magic; that would have been seen. Something he’d put on Camille?
Ember investigated as quickly as she could, ignoring Camille’s wide eyes. It would have been somewhere he could have sneaked something on her that she wouldn’t notice immediately. It wouldn’t be under her clothes or on her hands. Ember searched Camille’s neck and back but found nothing. She probably wouldn’t have let Sir Robert touch her anyway.
Something external, then. She thought faster as the sound of combat behind her grew. Rowena didn’t control people. The husks controlled themselves after she gave them a bit of life force.
But not until they were programmed.
Ember looked to Dragon Sir Robert’s discarded possessions again. Until husks could perform tasks on their own, they had to be steered, and that required an idol, a little representation of the husks that a witch used to drive them.
Sir Robert had managed to hook one to a living person.
And it had to be among his things.
“Just wait,” Ember said to Camille’s glaring form. “I’m going to help you, and I hope it’ll turn out okay.” She left Camille there and ran, trying to stay out of Dragon Sir Robert’s sight. She glanced over the ground, but so many things had fallen onto the floor. Rowena used a person shaped hunk of stone for husk idols, so maybe Ember could find something like that?
Dragon Sir Robert’s tail flicked slightly, and she looked toward his head, but his eyes were fixed on Rowena. Good, that was good. She had another stray thought. Instead of helping Camille, maybe she could slay the dragon on her own.
Interesting. Exhilarating. She could run up his back to get at his head, but then what? His eyes? Even if she jammed her sword to the hilt, she’d only blind him, and she didn’t think he’d just let her put out one of his eyes.
A bit of table flew her way. She ducked. The knights had spread out a bit, knocking tables out of their path, and the dragonkin were using pieces of wood as weapons when they didn’t use their claws.
Ember shook her head. Back to Dragon Sir Robert’s stuff. He’d taken something off before going shimmery blobby, so maybe that was it? She ran around him, trying to stay out of sight, but he almost reached the cavern wall. She leaped over the end of his flicking tail and saw a glimmer of shininess from one of the nearby tables.
If she rushed to get it, he’d see her.
She kind of wanted him to.
She sprinted for the table, calling on every bit of her speed. When she grabbed the glimmering object, she kept running; the force of her rush pulled the table after her a few inches, but it exploded to splinters as Dragon Sir Robert’s scaly fist smashed down where she’d been. Surprise nearly made her stop and turn.
He was almost as fast as she was.
She kept going, streaking toward where she’d last seen Rowena. A sizzling noise behind her made her turn again. Rowena leaped out from behind an overturned table, got between Ember and Dragon Sir Robert, and raised a hand in the air.
Ember turned as something flashed into Rowena, sending her tumbling backward. Ember grabbed Rowena and scooped her up to hide them both behind an overturned table.
Rowena clutched her arm, cursing. She was wearing an anti-spell strap, but it was smoking gently. “Bastard’s spells pack a punch,” Rowena said with a snarl. “I can’t block many of them this way.”
“I have the idol controlling Camille,” Ember said. Without looking, she bent low and carried Rowena behind a row of jars. “We have to keep moving.”
“That’s not an idol,” Rowena said. “Let me go. I can still run.”
Ember did as she was told and looked at the object in her hands. It was a silver chain and medallion, not the idol she’d hoped for. Sir Robert must have just wanted to keep the chain from exploding into tiny links. Ember cast it aside.
“He’s got her with an idol, huh?” Rowena dug in her bag while peeking around the jars. “He probably has her tied to it with a strand of her hair or something.” She squished a few things together. “Here, put this in her mouth. It should sever her from any parts of her that…aren’t part of her any longer.”
Ember took it with a sigh. Now she had to run all the way back around the cavern without getting squished or melted. She really wanted to fight the dragon, but she supposed she could evade it for a little longer.
* * *
Camille blinked, wishing she could see what was going on. Her anger and despair had grown by the minute as she’d fallen, been carried, been searched, and been abandoned. The moments seemed to stretch on like hours, and all she could see was one of the dragonkin floating in its jar, the fluid gently sloshing as the cavern shook with the sounds of battle.
She blinked, and Ember appeared above her as if by magic. Camille would have yelped in surprise if she could.
“This probably isn’t going to taste very nice.”
Camille felt her jaw moving, and then something dropped into her mouth. She tasted grass or some other kind of plants and the tang of iron. She tried to cough or spit it out but couldn’t. The iron settled on her tongue as the other stuff seemed to melt, and she squeezed her eyes shut and felt her face draw up as she grimaced.
