Mark Del Franco - Unfallen Dead

Vize wheeled the horse. Joe appeared and hit him on the back of the head. The dream mare shied sideways, confused by Vize’s shifting and turning in the saddle. Joe flashed in and jabbed the beast in the haunch. The mare reared with an angry neigh and bolted across the stone ring.

Joe popped in next to me. “Careful, he’s got a nixie with him.”

Reining in the horse, Vize realized I was there and cantered toward me.

“You’re too late. Maeve destroyed the Tara portal,” I said.

His eyes shifted among the portals. “That’s better than I hoped.”

Dylan’s calm voice filled my head. We can’t hold this much longer .

The Boston portal started to mist like the other doors had when Samhain ended. I pointed at it with the spear. “You’re trapped, Vize. Order your people to stand down. Surrender to the Guild authorities, and no one gets hurt.”

Vize leaned forward on his saddle, chuckling. “I appreciate your intent, but, unfortunately, that would be inconvenient.”

“They follow you. If you die, they’ll get the message where this is heading for them,” I said.

He looked down at the sword, then at me. “Since when does the Guild act as executioner?”

“I’m not Guild anymore, thanks to you. My perspective has changed.”

I brought the spear to my shoulder. I meant to use it for what it was — a spear — but something happened. Something I didn’t do. The spear shuddered in my hand, drawing in essence on its own. The air thickened with pressure, and the spear glowed white. Vize’s dream mare screamed and backed away. Vize grappled with the reins as the ground trembled. A wave of dizziness hit me, and my vision narrowed. Pain stabbed behind my eyes, the dark mass scuttling like a crab across my brain. Shouting, Vize clutched at his temples. A roaring filled my ears, a howling of wind. The light of the spear faltered, and the pain in my head subsided. The darkness swelled in my head, a dark blot driving away the light.

Vize looked dazed. Fear etched across the nixie’s face as she clutched his back. She pointed over my head. Outside the stone circle, a blank wall of darkness hung above the horizon. The nothingness from the forest had grown, stretching across the sky in a silent curtain of deepest black. It had no depth or dimension, stretching in all directions beyond sight.

They’re breaking through .

Dylan’s sending drew my attention back to the portal entrance. More winged solitaries filled the air, the Dead joining Vize’s companions. Excitement built among the fighters as Dylan’s shield barrier collapsed. Riders on horseback and the Dead on strange beasts spilled through the entrance and flooded into the field.

Fall back! Fall back! Ceridwen sent. She retreated from the entrance stones, a host of solitaries and Danann fairies pressing her back. A continuous discharge of essence-fire exploded from her hands as she drew strength from the air. I had no idea how long she could keep that up. Even Faerie queens had to have their limits.

I ducked away from a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. Too late. The nixie sailed through the air and dug her claws into my shoulder. I dropped my sword and spun in place, trying to pull her off. I yelled as she sank her teeth into the back of my neck. Joe dove in, sparks flying from his sword when it slammed against her body shield. I jabbed at her with the spear, but the angle was wrong. I stretched my arm out as far as I could for another stab when the spear yanked out of my hand. The nixie’s claws dug deeper, and she leaped away.

Joe chased her as she spun over a knot of fighters battling the Dead. With a squeal of manic joy, she caught the mane of Vize’s horse and swung herself onto its neck. The Dead and Vize’s riders swirled between us in a confusion of fighting. I lost sight of them. The air became thick with essence and war cries from across time. Strange dark animals scurried across the grass or launched themselves into the air, horned and scaled things I didn’t recognize. I grabbed my sword from the ground. Frantic, I searched for the spear.

The fight churned, the heads of the mounted riders rising and falling in the melee. Dream mares screamed as the Dead pressed the advantage of close quarters. The darkness in my head recoiled enough for me to sense essence again. I felt the spear nearby. The mob shifted, and Vize appeared lunging his way through the battle. In a raised fist, he had the spear. He had taken it from me.

I opened my mind for the spear. I pictured it in my hand, let it feel my desire for it. I had a strange double vision, the spear in my mind flaring and the one in Vize’s hand twirling away from him. But it didn’t come to me. The image in my head slipped away, its burning white essence fading. Vize had the spear, or the spear had him. The bright light in my vision dwindled while the dark mass pulsed with renewed strength. The spear was no longer bonded to me.

A shaft of essence tore through the throng. Meryl charged through in its wake, her eyes blazing yellow. She cut a path forward, swinging the sword with one hand and firing essence with the other. When she reached me, she pressed her back against mine and kept fighting. Joe returned in a whirling frenzy, the blue flame of his sword burning in the air.

Move toward the portal , Meryl sent.

“I can’t. Vize has the spear,” I shouted. There was no way I was leaving it with him. I tried not to laugh at the string of cursing Meryl let fly. Swords flailing, we pushed across the field, moving closer to Vize. He reined in the horse, managing to keep it still. Standing in the stirrups, he leaned well back. He threw the spear.

The sounds of battle faded from my awareness as I watched the spear rise, unable to stop it. It seared a streak of flaming orange essence across the air, not toward me, but up. With a concussive blast, the spear struck Ceridwen between the shoulder blades. She heaved upward with the force of the blow, and the spearhead erupted from her chest. A golden halo flared around her, bursting outward in a shock wave. The wave front knocked her airborne adversaries out of the sky and threw everyone to the ground. As we fell in a tangle, Meryl instinctively hardened her body shield around us. Heat scorched the air, and I screamed as the thing in my mind spiked.

Ceridwen fell. Her essence wave collapsed with a sonic boom, and she fell with a sickening slowness, her lifeless wings flapping and ballooning like limp sails as she twirled down on currents of essence. She hit the ground near the pillar stone in the center of the field. The circle’s essence flickered, and the ground rippled like water.

I struggled to my feet and helped Meryl up. Bodies lay around us in a blasted circle of scorched earth, the Dead as well as Vize’s own fighters. His own fighters. He didn’t care about his own people.

“Good Mother,” Meryl whispered.

Across the field, Vize’s mount churned in a mass of panicked fighters, the nixie’s body shield a shimmering halo of blue light around them. The dark thing in my head jumped, spiking again. Incredible pain fanned the rage within me. A muddy red blurred my vision as I swung my sword. Everyone and everything fell back from me, the Dead and riders alike. My sword grew hot, its plating darkening, and my arm throbbed with the heat.

As people scrambled away, Dylan appeared out of the confusion on the field. He was closer to Vize, close enough to reach him first, and he hit him with essence-fire. It crackled across the nixie’s shield. The mare shied and bucked from the scattered overflow fire. He hit them again, but the nixie deflected. Dylan gathered white-hot essence in his hands and ran at them. With an amazing leap, he became airborne for a moment, hands burning through the nixie’s shield. When his fingers tangled in her hair, he ripped her from Vize’s back. They fell grappling, arms and legs in a frenzy. He shook her off and flung her away. As she landed, she rolled hard on the ground and vanished.