Moonshadow by Thea Harrison
Cupping her hand to his cheek, he placed the flat of his palm over her injured collarbone, gathered his Power, and spoke in his Celtic-sounding language. Warmth spread over the area, and she could feel the torn flesh knitting together. It was not an altogether comfortable sensation, but that was such a small price to pay for the healing, she gritted her teeth and stuck with it.
When he had finished, he pressed a kiss to her fingers and whispered, “You still make me. So. Crazy.”
She loved him so much it twisted her up inside. Stroking his lips with her thumb, she smiled as she whispered back, “And you’re still very much an asshole.” She shifted to lean her forehead against his. I’m so sorry about Ashe.
He took in a deep breath. It had to be one of them. I’m glad I killed him.
Another shock wave rose from the earth. This time the rumble was so long and sustained the structure over their heads groaned from strain. Nikolas’s face tightened. He said calmly, “Maybe we should step out into the courtyard.”
“No,” she told him. She patted the floor. “We need to go down.”
Gawain and Rowan shouldered their way into the cell. Coming down on one knee beside them, Gawain said, “Lass, this is most likely an oubliette. There won’t be anything but a pit down there and no way to get out if the building comes down around our ears.”
She twisted to look at Robin, who hovered at her elbow.
Down, the puck said. She had never seen him look so desperate. Robin needs to go down.
Robin isn’t going by himself, she told him. Turning to Nikolas, she said, “Going out to the courtyard is just a way to prolong death. While this isn’t a guarantee of anything, there’s a massive shift down there. Let’s at least take a look.”
Instantly Nikolas scooped her into his arms and rose to his feet. Striding to one side of the cell, he ordered, “You heard her. Get the trapdoor open.”
Once he stepped off the wooden section, he set her on her feet. Gawain and Rowan threw themselves at the task, while Rhys slid into the cell to help. The others crowded around outside, looking in. Not one of them, Sophie noted, left to go to the courtyard.
The hinges had rusted, and it took the combined strength of all three men to pry the floor up. As it creaked open, it revealed a lightless black of unknown depth. The monkey leaped into the oubliette.
“Robin!” Sophie flung herself forward, hand outstretched, but she was too late to stop the puck.
Rowan rubbed his face and swore. Nikolas said, “Get one of the lanterns down there.”
The group had two lanterns with them. Cael lit one of them, tore the edge of his T-shirt into a strip to tie around the handle, and passed it forward. Accepting it, Nikolas lowered it into the blackness.
The light touched rough-hewn rock along the sides and what looked like it might be the bottom. Sophie leaned farther to get a better look. At the very edge of the light, she caught sight of the puck. While she couldn’t tell for sure, he appeared to be digging.
“Massive shift, you say.” Nikolas rubbed his chin.
She repeated, “Massive.”
He looked around at his men. “We’re going to go down. If the shift is that big, there’s no telling how long it will take. If any of you want to go to the courtyard, go ahead and do it.”
“Sod off,” Cael said, mildly enough. “The sooner you get down there, the sooner we can follow.”
Sophie held out her hands. “Lower me down.”
She half expected Nikolas to start an argument about who got to go first, but instead, he took hold of her hands. They locked their fingers around each other’s wrists, and when she nodded that she was ready, he swung her down into the darkness. When he had lowered her as far as he could, he released her wrists and she dropped, landing in a crouch to save her ankles.
As soon as she hit bottom, she scrambled to the side, and Nikolas leaped in after her. They took hold of the lantern and moved deeper into the pit, as one by one, the men jumped down to join them. Cael and Gareth lit the second lantern.
The pit was larger than Sophie had expected. Followed by Nikolas, she scrambled over the uneven, rocky terrain to reach Robin.
As she reached the monkey’s side, he looked at her, eyes huge and frantic. He said out loud, “Home.”
It was as if Robin had doused the men with gasoline and lit a match. They blazed with so much hope it was almost unbearable to look at them.
“He’s a nature sprite,” Nikolas said. “He knows home when he senses it.” He twisted. “Get anything you can dig with!”
“Out of the way, lass.” Without asking, Gawain picked her up and passed her back to the men behind him.
Braden took hold of her and passed her back to Rowan. She didn’t protest being manhandled. In this case, it was clear she was outclassed, and there wasn’t enough room to take up space just because she was curious.
They attacked the earth with hand axes and crowbars. Watching from the rear, she caught only glimpses now and then of Nikolas. When the men at the forefront paused, at first she didn’t see what was going on, but then she felt a ripple up ahead, and she knew Nikolas was working with the land magic.
Gawain said, “That got us a good six meters. Do it again.”
There was a pause, and another wave rippled out. The men moved forward and started digging again.
Left to her own devices for the moment, Sophie found an outcrop of rock and went to sit down. Something crunched under her feet. Looking down, she realized she had stepped on a long bone, perhaps a femur. A bare skull lay nearby.
She picked it up to study it. Someone had died down here, alone in the blackness. Maybe they had been a criminal, but maybe they had just been an enemy. It was even possible the victim had been one of Nikolas’s people.
Kathryn Shaw might be wonderful, and her father sounded like he’d been a miracle to many, but those earlier Shaws…
They didn’t like to read, she thought. They didn’t like to write. They threw people into black pits. They sided with the Light Court. Those earlier Shaws had been terrible people.
Sighing, she sat, set the skull in her lap, and wrapped her arms around it while she waited.
Another wave rippled through the land magic, and a sharp, cold wind blew into the pit. A thin, pale illumination followed. Someone roared—she thought it was Braden—and then others joined in. They hacked and slashed at the ground in a frenzy until suddenly they surged forward.
Still holding the skull, Sophie stood and picked her way forward through the short tunnel they had created. Details came clearer, as one by one, they climbed out of the hole. Outside, despite the biting chill of a winter wind, they hugged one another while someone laughed. Another one sobbed.
Sophie was the last one out, staring at the heavy snowfall that weighted the limbs of nearby pine trees. Pine trees that grew in Lyonesse. It was twilight, and the thin illumination came from a moon wreathed in storm clouds.
As she climbed awkwardly up, Nikolas’s head and shoulders suddenly filled the opening. He offered a hand, and she took it. When he helped her out of the hole, the fierce exhilaration in his expression hitched as he caught sight of the skull she had tucked under one arm.
“What on earth are you doing now, my Sophie?” he asked.
“I promised him I wouldn’t leave him alone in the black pit,” she explained. “Even though I might be centuries too late.”
In the middle of the other men’s jubilation, he stood still. Then he stepped forward to put his arms around her. He said from the back of his throat, “Thank you for bringing us all home.”
In answer, she rested against the hard length of his body and put her head on his shoulder.
Then his arms loosened, and he pivoted. He said to the others, “We can’t relax. We’re not done. This is the only way we have right now to get back to Earth, and time here moves so much more slowly than it does there. We’ve got to get word to Annwyn at Raven’s Craig as quickly as we can, muster troops, and climb back through to s
“Shit,” Gawain swore. “Raven’s Craig is a good ten leagues from here. Even running as fast as we can, it will take us at least two days in this weather.”
Nikolas said, “It might take us two days, but it wouldn’t take Robin that long.”
Shivering as the wind bit through her clothes, Sophie turned to look in the same direction as the others. Several yards away, the monkey played and rolled gleefully in the snow, flinging handfuls into the air.
What did Nikolas mean, it wouldn’t take Robin that long to travel ten leagues? How long was a league? Assuming the men could run for two days, that would make it thirty miles? Forty?
And even assuming they could run that long, she couldn’t.
Gawain said, “Even if he would agree to take a message, we can’t send Robin by himself. He’s been absent for too long. Annwyn would never trust him.”
“Someone would have to go with him.” Nikolas raised his voice. “Robin, we have a favor we need to ask of you! Will you carry one of us to Raven’s Craig?”
As she listened, her questions kept coming. How would a monkey carry one of them thirty or forty miles?
But Robin wasn’t really a monkey.
As Nikolas called out his question, the puck’s head lifted, and he turned to look back at the group.
The puck said, “No.”
Nikolas strode toward the puck. “I wouldn’t ask it of you, except our need is so urgent. You can bargain for anything you like, and if it’s in my Power to give it to you, I will.”
Lifting one hairy arm, the monkey pointed around the group. “Not a single one of you looked for Robin. Not a single one of you asked if a puck might be all right, what might have happened to him, or how you might help.”
“Robin,” Gawain said, stepping forward too. “We didn’t know any better, and I, for one, am so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Nikolas said. “Deeply sorry. You deserved to have someone ask those things.”
Sophie could hear the sincerity in both men’s voices. She held her breath. Could Robin?
The monkey shook his head. “Still, I say no. What I would have bargained for, what I would have given my entire soul for, you already refused to give. I will consent to carry only one of you—for she is the only one who carried me and asked nothing in return.”
Sophie was so wrapped up in the conversation, and also so tired, it was only when everyone turned to look at her that she realized who the puck was talking about. “Who, me?” she said. “I can’t go to that place and talk to your people. They won’t trust me any more than they would Robin.”
Nikolas strode rapidly over to her.
He said, “Sophie, you have to. You’re dressed in Earth clothes. You speak in a strange accent. Annwyn will listen to what you say, especially if you take her this.” He twisted his signet ring off and offered it to her. “The only way you could be carrying the ring of the Dark Court commander is if you had traveled from Earth. Trust me—she will believe you.”
Every taut line of his body was an intense plea. It was impossible to come this far only to refuse him.
She sighed. “Oh God, fine. I’ll go.”
She held out her hand, and he slipped the ring on her thumb. In return, she handed him the skull. Power shimmered in the air. When she looked in the puck’s direction, the monkey had disappeared and a tall black stallion stood in its place.
He was magnificent, with fiery eyes and a mane and tail that flowed with magic. The pale moonlight shone on the muscled bulk of his shoulders and haunches. With a regal toss of his head, the puck sidestepped over to her.
She put a hand on his velvet nose and murmured, “I’ve never ridden a horse before.”
“I will not let you fall,” the puck told her.
When she turned back to Nikolas, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. “None of us will be able to thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”
“Shut up,” she said. Of everything she might want to hear from him, gratitude didn’t play any part of it. This is why you don’t kiss assholes, Soph—yet still you keep kissing him and kissing him. The wind gusted, and she shivered harder. “Help me get up on his back before I change my mind.”
Setting the skull on the ground, Nikolas put his hands around her waist and lifted her effortlessly onto the stallion’s wide back. Thankfully, the puck radiated heat, so she had some hope of not freezing solid within the first ten yards.
As she glanced around at the men, they all looked so solemn it was beginning to scare her.
She sank her hands into the stallion’s mane. “Run your heart out, Robin.”
The stallion reared. When he came down, his huge hooves struck fiery sparks.
Robin said, “We will run our hearts out together, dear love.”
Chapter Twenty
Afterward, she was never able to fully describe the experience of that ride.
There was a wild speed and so much magic, and the land sped past impossibly fast. Sparks from the stallion’s hooves lit up the night, and something in the wind laughed in response.
Terrified and freezing, she lay along the stallion’s back and clung with her knees while clenching her hands so tightly in his mane she couldn’t feel her fingers. She tried to look out at the landscape, but the air was too frigid, and tears streamed down her face. Eventually she gave up and hid her face in the puck’s mane while he raced along precipices and leaped over ravines.
Just when she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer and she might fall off despite Robin’s help, he surged up a long incline, past torchlit sentries, tents, campfires, and makeshift houses. Shouts rose behind them, far too late to stop the puck’s forward movement.
Finally Robin galloped up to a stone building at the top of a bluff. As guards ran up, one made as if to put his hand on Robin, and the stallion screamed a warning and reared in response, kicking out so violently the guards scrambled back.
Someone ran into the building, while Robin whirled to threaten off the guards that circled them.
“Stop doing that or I might be sick!” Sophie called out hoarsely as the world spun.
Baring his teeth at the guards, Robin stopped spinning.
Soon several more guards poured out of the building, along with a tall, auburn-haired woman in armor. “What is going on? Robin! Where have you been?”
“Away,” said Robin. “I have been away and trapped by evil.”
“I need to speak to Annwyn.” Sophie’s teeth chattered. “We came from Earth, and it’s urgent.”
“I’m Annwyn,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “Get down and say what you’ve come to say.”
That was easier said than done. The ground was so far away, and her fists had stiffened in Robin’s mane. “Robin,” she muttered. “Help me.”
Bowing his head, the stallion went down on his front knees. Sophie slid off his back in an ungainly sprawl. When she yanked her hands free, she tore long black strands out of his mane, but he didn’t complain.
She didn’t trust herself to get to her feet. Instead, she turned on her knees to face Annwyn and the circle of suspicious guards staring down at her. Holding out her shaking hand, she showed them the gold commander’s ring on her thumb. For the first time, she noticed the lion rampant on the head of the ring.
“Nikolas,” Annwyn whispered. Lunging forward, she knelt in front of Sophie. “Bring a cloak and a hot drink!” Annwyn turned back to Sophie. “Are you wounded? You have blood all over you. You’re insane to ride out in this weather dressed like that. How did you come here—and where is Nikolas?”
“I was wounded, but I’m healed now. We don’t have time for niceties. Listen.” Sophie grabbed her hands, and while Annwyn froze at her presumptuous touch, the other woman did not shake her off.
Words tumbled out of Sophie. Earth. A stray dog. The house. Broken passageway. Nikolas and the other men. The pub attack. Lycanthropes. Morgan.
S
“Wait!” This time it was Annwyn who grabbed hold of her. “They’re here, in Lyonesse? You’re saying you found a way through?”
“Yes, but we might l-l-lose it,” she stuttered. Someone settled a fur-lined cloak around her shoulders, and someone else thrust a tankard of mulled wine into her hands. It was too hot for her frigid skin, and the tankard slipped through her clumsy, cold-numbed fingers to spill on the frozen ground. “Time moves faster on Earth than it does here, and when we left, Morgan was trying to tear down the house. He might destroy the way back if we don’t stop him.”
Annwyn swore, then said behind her shoulder, “Muster a force of five hundred. We ride within the next half hour.” As guards raced to do her bidding, she said sharply, “Puck! Your master is in an enchanted sleep, and we need to search for help from Earth. If we don’t get Oberon the medical attention he needs, he’ll die, and the idea of Lyonesse will die with him. Will you let us ride in your wind? I fear if we ride on our own, we will be too slow—and we will arrive too late again.”
The puck stood protectively at Sophie’s back. He blew in her hair. Robin owes them nothing, he said in her head. Because nothing is what they did for him.
She looked over her shoulder, into the stallion’s fiery eyes. Robin, you were hurt in your heart as well as in your body, and I understand how terrible that was. But sweetheart, not everybody could have known to look for you or send help. Not everybody abandoned you. The people in Lyonesse have been as caged as you were. Don’t let your hurt blind you to what is true and right, because if you do, Isabeau will have destroyed you. She will have won. Please don’t give that victory to her. You don’t belong in the cage of your abuser any longer. Choose to be stronger than that. Choose to be free.
The fire in the stallion’s eyes grew hotter, brighter. He said, And if we cannot get back to Earth, we can’t defeat her.
“Yes,” she said out loud.
The puck said to Annwyn, “You may ride in my wind, this once.”