Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

Then a third bolt struck the doors behind the King. The bolt's thinnest tendrils - enough to split huge trees - licked Ancar's shields, then the charred, exploding doors knocked Ancar to the courtyard itself. It left his clothes singed, but it didn't seem to affect his concentration; he came to his feet immediately and resumed his attack, even as Darkwind was still trying to clear his vision from the flash. Vree and Gwena were nowhere to be seen.

He could not imagine where Ancar was getting all this power! The man couldn't be more than a Master - how was he holding off two Adepts?

"He's mad!" Elspeth cried out, as another bolt of lightning struck and exploded the wall above the metal gates, scattering bricks and bodies down onto the pavement below. Another bolt followed it, and by its light, Darkwind caught a good look at Ancar's face.

He realized that she was, literally, right. Ancar had bitten through his own lip and hadn't even noticed. He was mad; mad enough to burn himself out, crazed enough not to care, using himself up in a prolonged version of a mage's final strike. What was more, the King was insane enough to use the lightning-power. Darkwind felt his skin prickle, his only warning of a bolt coming in the next instant. He leapt to catch Elspeth's wrist, and jerked her aside only to see a bolt of lightning sear the stones where they had just been.

And Ancar laughed, a high-pitched cackle that held nothing of sanity in it, his eyes so wide that the white showed all around, reflecting hellish-red from the blazing mage-energy of his hands. He pointed his finger at them; this time it was Elspeth who shoved Darkwind, and once again they evaded a lightning-strike by no more than a few arms' lengths.

Ancar pointed again - in the flash of a secondary strike behind him, Darkwind saw all of Ancar's hair standing on end as he absorbed the chaotic power of the storm. His aim was improving with every strike, and this time they were both flat on the ground. They would never get out of the way in time!

Two ghostly shapes moved on the scene. One fell from the sky, pale compared to the lightning, but almost as swift.

Vree!

Gwena reared up out of the shadows of the staircase where she had been hidden. Vree dove at Ancar and struck, clawing the King's face to distract him, tearing huge furrows in his scalp and forehead to keep him from seeing the Companion.

Ancar shrieked with pain and his blazing hands rose to engulf the bird.

Gwena came down on Ancar with all the force of her powerful body behind her forehooves and knocked him to the ground. The bones of his shoulders shattered audibly even above the thunder.

Ancar screamed again, first in pain and anger, then in sheer terror, as he saw the hooves coming down on him where he lay.

A single blow of those silver hooves to his head would have killed him instantly, and with a malicious intent

Darkwind would never have credited if he had not seen it himself, she deliberately avoided such a blow. No - perhaps it was to avoid striking Vree, who struggled from where he'd bound to Ancar's scalp and flapped away, wing-wrenched and upset, but alive. In a frenzy of rage nearly as mad as Ancar's, Gwena trampled him, dancing on him with all four hooves until the screaming stopped, and he was nothing more than red pulp seeping into flagstones.

:That!: Her mind-voice was a scream, and she was still pounding the inert meat with her wet, red hooves :That! That's for Talia! That's for Kris! That's for - :

"Laugh now, horse!" came a shout from the palace, and a mage-bolt took Gwena in the side, lifting her right off the ground with the force. Gwena hit the ground, hooves slipping beneath her, and landed on her side with a thud.

Darkwind's gaze snapped up, to the balcony above the doors.

Hulda!

That was the only person it could be, even though the woman was dressed in servants' livery, and was as wild-eyed as Ancar had been.

"Go ahead and laugh at this - " the woman cried, raising her hands for another blow. Darkwind erected hasty shields over Gwena, who moved her legs feebly and flailed her head as she tried to rise.

Behind Hulda, a man grabbed her arm, distracting her for a moment. "Don't be a fool!" he shouted in oddly-accented Hardornen over the roar of the thunder. "We have to get out of here! Leave these idiots!"

She pulled away from him and started to build power for another attack - but once again he pulled her away, this time succeeding in drawing her back inside.

Darkwind was not going to let her escape - and there was no sign that anyone was going to interfere at this point. The mage-storms and lightning had driven everyone out of the courtyard and off the walls.

He scrambled to his feet and ran up to the sundered stairs, then hooked his fingers around stonework, climbing to reach the balcony :Go!: he shouted at Elspeth, :Get inside and cut them off from below!:

This kind of climb was nothing to a Tayledras. As Elspeth dashed into the doors below him, his hand reached the balcony itself, and he pulled himself up and over the railing.

And just as he burst into the ravaged room, he felt the unmistakable shivering in the power-currents of someone building a Gate nearby....

They had all studied the plans of Ancar's palace until they could have walked the place blindfolded. Elspeth remembered a stair going right up into the hallway above, just inside the main doors. The place was deserted; everyone had either gone off to fight the fires or fled in terror when the mage-battle began. She ran up the stairs two at a time, and as she reached the top and the corridor that it led to, she heard the sound of a fight on the other side of the second door along the corridor.

She didn't stop to think; she just gathered power and blasted, disintegrating the door and running through the hole while the dust was still raining down.

And she stumbled to a halt as she hit something that felt like a web, a net that closed around her in a heartbeat and held her immobile.

But her eyes still worked, and the very first thing she saw, by the white light of pure power, was the man that had pulled Hulda inside.

The man, who bore a distinctive device on his tunic - Dear gods - the Emperor's envoy! -

- was building a Gate! He already had the framework up. He wasn't even using a real door as his anchor, he was simply building the thing in midair!

How much of what's happened has been his doing?

Darkwind knelt on the floor, beside the shattered doors to the balcony, cringing beneath his shields as Hulda rained blow after fiery blow down on him. So far, Hulda hadn't even noticed her. The hinged splinters of the balcony doors slammed against the wall, as the rainless mage-storm raged outside, whitening the room in flashes from the lightning. Thunder roared, drowning out any other sounds, and smoke crept in the window from the fires outside.

Elspeth fought the bonds that held her, frantically seeking a weak spot.

Suddenly, the darkness in the Gate brightened - and became a hole in the air, a hole leading to a brightly-lit room somewhere, filled with furnishings in a sinuous style Elspeth had never seen before.

The man turned toward Hulda. "Are you coming?" he snarled. "Or are you enjoying yourself too much to leave?"

Elspeth realized his lips had not moved with his words. He had projected them in open Mindspeech so strong that anyone, Gifted or not, would have Heard him. As his attention wavered for a moment, split between the Gate and Hulda, so did the bonds holding her. She freed one hand, and shook a knife from her sleeve down into it - her old, reliable, predictable, material knives. No pottery to hurl this time....

As Hulda turned to answer him, Elspeth cast the knife, knowing that if the envoy went down, the Gate would go with him.