Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

He was not expecting a physical attack; the knife caught him in the throat. It buried itself to the hilt. Blood spurted from a severed artery, a fountain of ebony-red in the hellish white light. The envoy's face convulsed; both hands clutched at his throat. He staggered backward, across the threshold, and through the Gate itself.

The Gate collapsed as he fell through it.

The bonds holding her faded away. And now Hulda saw her.

There was no recognition in Hulda's eyes, but there was plenty of pure rage.

Elspeth readied a mage-bolt of her own, but Hulda was faster. And Hulda was trapped, with nowhere to escape to; Darkwind was between her and the balcony, Elspeth was between her and the hallway. So she fought with all the desperate strength of any cornered creature, and with the stores of energy she had drained from the land of Hardorn for all these past years....

She was an Adept, easily the equivalent of Falconsbane - and she was not handicapped by having an agent in her own mind, or by a disintegrating personality.

Within moments, Elspeth knew with rising panic that stole her breath that she was in trouble, trying to hold eroded shields against a barrage of mage winds, each of them geared to a specific energy, that began to eat their way down through her protections. They circled her in a whirlwind that caught up papers, bits of wood, shattered glass, and other debris, pelting her with physical as well as magical weapons.

But panic made her mind clearer, and a sudden memory matched the whirlwind. Firesong - the lesson -

She spun her shields until they mated with the whirlwinds; then reached through them, and began to absorb the energies of the attack into her own. But the instant Hulda realized that she had found a counter, the woman set the winds on Darkwind, and attacked Elspeth with -

Demons!

Creatures of shadow and teeth boiled up from the floor, and a hundred taloned hands reached for her. Fear sent arcs of cold down her limbs. Elspeth backpedaled and came up against the wall; for a moment, she was lost in panic. She had no counter to this -

Panicked, until in the next heartbeat, she remembered that these might be illusions. Illusions vanished if challenged! She pulled her sword, forgotten until now, and swung.

The "demons" vanished without a sound. Hulda then flung a wall of fire at her. Her confidence increased. This she could handle! Perhaps Hulda was not so formidable after all!

She countered it by absorbing it - took another step toward the woman -

And then Hulda recognized her. "You! The Brat!"

"The Adept," Elspeth screamed back defiantly. "Your better, bitch!"

Hulda's reply was drowned out by another thunderclap; there was a trace of real fear in her eyes, and her face was like a stone mask. Elspeth laughed hysterically. Hulda was afraid! Afraid of her! They could take the bitch, they could!

But Hulda evidently decided that if she was doomed, she would take her enemies with her.

Hulda reached out with her powers in a thrust that knocked Elspeth back into the wall again, and with great shudders of power that shook her body as they shook the walls, she began to tear the building down around them.

The walls and ceiling screamed with the shrieks of tortured stone and wood. Elspeth dodged a falling chandelier that brought a quarter of the ceiling down with it -

- just in time to see Darkwind falling beneath the outer wall, going down under a cascade of stone and burning wall-maps that buried him completely in an instant.

"No!" she screamed, reaching for him with mind, heart, and powers, forgetting her own peril -

Only to receive, not an answer, but a flood of energy. Energy that felt - final, as if it was all he had.

Her heart convulsed, but her body acted.

She shook her arm and felt her other knife fall into her hand. She screamed again, a wordless howl of rage and anguish; invested every last bit of power in the second knife - and threw it.

The knife cut through the air and ripped through Hulda's shields.

Hulda collapsed in a boneless heap, her howling winds collapsing at the same instant, leaving behind an echoing silence filled only by thunder, and the crunch of an occasional brick falling. A glittering knife-hilt shone from her left eye socket.

She was dead, but she had taken Darkwind with her.

Elspeth turned and stared at the heap of broken stones, her throat choked with grief so all-consuming that she could not think, could not even weep. She stumbled a step or two toward the pile -

And Vree came winging in out of the darkness, through the gaping, broken wall. He landed beside the stones, and hopped over to them - to the only part of Darkwind that she could see, his hand. He nibbled the fingers, as if to try to coax life into them, and Elspeth's grief overflowed into scalding tears that blurred her vision. Her throat closed, and she sobbed, then moaned with pain.

He was gone. She was alone. Hulda had won, after all. His loss was an ache that would never be healed.

:Damn...bird.: A whisper in her mind.

What?

:Elspeth...ashke:

Grief turned to hysterical joy, all in a heartbeat. He was alive!

She shook her head, frantically wiping at her eyes to clear them, then ran to the pile of stones and began to pull them off of him. Vree hopped excitedly beside her, making odd creaking sounds, as she managed to clear his head and shoulders of debris.

He looked terrible; bruised and bleeding from a dozen small cuts, and she trembled to think how many bones might be broken. But he was alive!

:Gods.: He opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them :I feel...awful. Like...a wall...just fell on me.:

Her heart overflowing, she resumed pulling stones from his body, ignoring splitting nails and sharp edges that cut her hands, thankful that the winds had snuffed out the earlier fires. Finally she came to a thick slab of wood - a strategic map, showing invasion plans. A map of Valdemar.

It had protected Darkwind from the heaviest of the stones, prevented his lungs and ribs from being crushed. Paint flaked from the board as she twisted it free of him, and troop-counters fell like rain from the "Losses" box she found propping up one end of it. She kept having to shake her head to clear her eyes of tears as she pulled debris away from him, trying to figure out how badly he had been hurt.

:Wait. Check Gwena....: he began, his thoughts coming to her from a haze of generalized pain.

:No need,: Gwena said weakly :I'm going to live. And there's no one down here to bother me while I decide if I still want to. No bones broken, I don't think - some burns, and bruises that go to the bone. Keep him from fading, I'll call Cymry. And you send Vree for him, in case I can't reach him!:

Although that was somewhat confused, Elspeth had no trouble figuring out which "he" Gwena meant :Vree,: she said intently, turning to the falcon, concentrating on trying to impress him with her urgency :Vree, we need Skif. Find Skif. Bring him here quickly!:

Vree bobbed his head once, then nibbled Darkwind's finger, spread his wings, and flapped heavily off into the darkness again.

:He 's...a horrible night flyer, ashke. Hope he doesn't hit anything.:

"Just stay with me," she said aloud, fiercely, starting with that hand to check for broken bones, since it was the piece of him least likely to cause problems if she accidentally moved it. Or held it. "Don't pass out on me."

:I'II try.:

"Stop that!" she snapped, still rubbing away tears. "Stay awake, stop fading! Or - or I'll tell you Hawkbrother jokes! How many Hawkbrothers does it take for a mating circle?"

:No...not that...anything but that.:

"Only one, but he has to be flexible!"