B. Larson - Amber Magic

“Brand?” Jak whispered. “They're up here, Brand.”

Brand caught a fluttering movement in the front bedroom.

“I'm getting you out, Jak,” whispered Brand. He reached for a lamp, thinking to relight it. To his surprise he burnt his fingers on it. Looking closely, he saw that it was still lit, but that it gave only the barest glimmer of smoky, gray light. A lump of ice grew in his stomach as he realized he faced magic. The choking smoke was fogging his mind a bit, but in a flash he realized that they had lured him up here, not killing his brother, but making Jak cry out. That had succeeded in drawing two apart from the others to slaughter them in this inky smoke.

Brand began to drag his brother to the stairs, when he thought to hear a stealthy sound behind him. He looked back and saw the assassin. Visible only as a patch of deeper darkness in the hallway, the rhinog glided with an oddly inhuman, scuttling gait toward his exposed back, a long silvery knife poised low for a killing thrust. There was no time to reach his woodaxe, so Brand did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed up the hall lamp from its bracket on the wall and hurled it at the creature.

The lamp exploded into yellow flame, the glass oil-vessel shattering and soaking his attacker. A horrible keening erupted from the rhinog and it sunk down, engulfed in flames. To Brand's eyes it seemed to melt like a candle tossed into a roaring fire.

He dragged Jak past the burning creature, which soon fell silent and stopped thrashing. At the top of the stairs he got Jak to his feet and drew one of his brother's arms around his shoulders. Struggling and coughing, trying not to stumble, he headed down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs he looked back. A second, smaller shape now stooped over the smoldering remains of the rhinog. It was the lithe form of a goblin, and Brand knew in his heart he faced the dark creature's sire. He and the goblin met one another's gaze for a moment, and never had Brand felt from another such vile hatred.

Then the smoke obscured the scene and he was out in the front room again, where the others had repelled a sneak-attack through the windows. Aunt Suzenna's prized shutters, which she had painted with rosettes and curling vines of her own design, now hung down, battered and scorched. Smoking black drops of what served the creatures for blood splattered the shutters and the sill.

“Brand!” cried Telyn, hugging him. She took up Jak's other arm. “Is he all right?”

Gudrin stepped forward and examined Jak briefly. “He's breathed too much smoke, but he should make it. If any of us do, that is.”

“They've taken the upstairs,” Brand told them when he could speak. All of them were crouched in the front room, where the smoke wasn't too overpowering yet.

“They're firing the house to drive us out into the dark,” said Gudrin.

“It is best that we try to break through immediately, rather than waiting until they expect us and we are entirely blinded by smoke.”

“The manling we met in the barn said there were three goblins with their broods here, plus Voynod himself,” said Brand. “Can we hope to win through such a force?”

Gudrin looked out the window for a long moment. Her face took on a cast of great age and weight. “There is a way,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“You should leave me behind,” Jak told Brand. “I'll only slow you all down. Don't die on my account, someone must tend the isle.”

“Forget it,” said Brand.

“You could put me in the cellar, where I might live through the fire,” suggested Jak. He grimaced with pain at every step. Brand didn't even bother to reply to his brother, thinking that the cellar would never survive the fire that was coming. He felt a pang of sadness for Aunt Suzenna, wondering where she was and hoping she was okay. If the rhinogs didn't kill her outright, he thought that the sight of her beautiful home burnt to the ground would.

At the front door barricade, they held a hurried council.

“Modi, you are of the warriors, what do you suggest?” asked Gudrin.

“We must break through them,” said Modi. For the first time since they had met him, the River Folk saw him in his true element. He talked more quickly and acted with greater decisiveness. There was a light in his eyes that had not been there before. Brand thought that he perhaps was only fully alive in the heat of battle. “They are attacking at the front of the house to lead us to attempt an escape at the back, where they doubtless lie in ambush. Therefore, we will exit here, at the front door. Straight into their ranks we will charge.

“But,” he said, turning to Gudrin. The two locked eyes. “We need help. I see no alternative but to wield the axe.”

Gudrin nodded in agreement. “I will wield it. You must be my second, Modi of the warriors.”

Modi's eyebrows shot up. “But I should wield the axe. You are not of the warriors.”

“It matters not, for I'm still of the Kindred.”

“But you have lived for so many seasons,” protested Modi, but he halted at a sign from Gudrin.

“I will hear no more of it. I bear the burden, so I will wield it,” she said. While they spoke, the room had filled with a pall of black smoke and heat from fires in the back of the house washed their faces. Moving with care, Gudrin held up her rucksack, and for the first time opened it. A golden light shone forth from the rucksack, lighting up Gudrin's face. Something seemed to shift, to move inside the golden light. Reflected specks of gold glinted in her eyes. The River Folk backed away in fright.

“What sorcery is this?” demanded Jak.

“High Magic!” cried Telyn, her eyes bright and her mouth curved in a broad smile.

Gudrin made no answer. She slipped her book into the rucksack and it vanished into the golden light. “For now,” she said solemnly, “I relinquish the wisdom of the Teret and take up the fury of Ambros the Golden. Throw back the barricades!”

Modi and the others hastened to obey her. Resetting the rucksack upon her back, Gudrin reached over her shoulder. Into her hand jumped the handle of a bone-white axe with twin, curved blades of great size. As she drew the weapon from its concealment a great change overcame her. Her aspect shifted from that of a talespinner to that of a warrior, lusting for battle. Her eyes shone with a light terrible to see, and her lips parted into a snarl of fury greater than any rhinog had ever produced. The bone-white axe she lifted high, and in its center was a great yellow Jewel. All there knew it to be the Golden Eye of Ambros, one of the Jewels of Power. A mixture of fear and wonder filled Brand to know he witnessed magic of legendary power.

With an inhuman bellow, Gudrin charged into the shocked faces of the enemy. Behind her came Modi, his battleaxe also lifted high. The others followed, feeling a rage overtake them as well.

Gudrin thrust up her bone-white axe so that the enemy might see the Eye of Ambros, shouting, “Know, foul ones, that you face the wrath of the Golden Dragon! The Lord of Wind and Sunlight is upon you!”

The rhinogs fell back. A band of three stood in the yard, but melted back into the trees at their approach. With a shocking burst of speed, Gudrin charged to where they had vanished. As she reached the treeline, not three but five rhinogs appeared from the brush and treetrunks. They glided forward, springing an ambush. Brand released a cry of anguish as Gudrin, who had somehow outrun even Modi, faced the ambush alone. Stealthy dark shapes came at her from all directions in hunched postures. Their weapons, eyes and gnashed teeth gleamed in the brilliant golden light of the Jewel in the axe. Brand ran faster, sure he was about to witness the talespinner's death.