Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(98)

A hideous shriek shattered the air, and both knights startled and turned to see the figures moving through the shadows of the trees. The first was a great white lion; the second was Nidawi, and she clutched a young redheaded maiden before her, her long claw-like nails held threateningly at the girl’s throat.

“Cren Cru!” Nidawi cried. She was old as a hag, but muscled and lithe, and her wild white hair was held back with equally white bones. “Look what I have, Cren Cru! I’ve got you, and I’ll hurt you if you don’t show your wicked face!”

Eanrin and Imraldera stared at the horrible figure. They did not know the girl captive in Nidawi’s clutches, her arm twisted behind her to the point of breaking, blood running down her neck from five thin nail cuts. They saw only that she was mortal and in great pain.

And she wore a bronze stone about her neck.

“What is this? Are you preying on mortal maidens now?” Eanrin cried, his wrath more potent than he had ever known it to be. Quite exhilarating, in fact, ready to carry him off on a tidal wave of destruction. He drew a knife from his belt and leapt forward.

Lioness moved into his way, roaring, the hair on her back bristling. Eanrin, without changing pace, sank down into cat’s form, dwarfed by the massive bulk of the lion but equally vicious. He threw himself at her head, and she was too slow to evade the slash of his claws, which left red lines down her white face. But she caught him with her second swing, the thunk of her paw sending him flying. He struck a tree and landed in the form of a man, groaning.

“Eanrin!” Imraldera cried, then turned on the Lioness and Nidawi. She strode forward shouting furiously, “Drop that girl at once!”

“Girl?” said Nidawi, gnashing her white teeth. “Is that what you think this thing is? A girl? Don’t you see the Bronze? Don’t you know it?”

But Imraldera saw only the poor mortal, sick and near to fainting, blood running down her pale white skin. Imraldera had no weapon, but she flung out her hands and spoke a sharp word like a command.

And the tree behind Nidawi rose up as though from a long sleep and swung a branch at the Faerie queen’s head. It struck her, and she dropped the girl, who fell to the ground, landing on all fours.

For a moment, Imraldera glimpsed a red, bloodstained wolf.

Mine!

A sensation of pure instinct—driven, hungry, desperate instinct—filled the Wood with a potency as hot as fire, as cold as ice, as sure as the oncoming storm. Daylily rose and looked beyond Nidawi, who was grappling with the tree, to a place in the shadows where Sun Eagle suddenly stood.

Mine!

Nidawi, pulling away from the tree—which sank back into itself and its quiet watchfulness—saw Sun Eagle as well. She sprang for him, and he, though his leg must have wrung with pain at every step, dodged her assault and swung out his stone knife, slashing one of her long, muscular arms.

Lioness screamed her fury at the scent of Nidawi’s blood. Sun Eagle turned as she sprang, and braced himself, his knife in both hands. Lioness, her eyes red, descended like lightning, her claws tearing, her mouth open and hungry for vengeance.

She fell upon his blade, which plunged deep into her huge, ancient heart.

They landed in a heap, and silence followed the thud of their bodies. Eanrin, picking himself up, and Imraldera, hastening toward Daylily, stared at that mass of white stillness. Then it moved, heaved, and the carcass of the lion fell to one side as Sun Eagle emerged from beneath.

“NO!”

Nidawi, suddenly no longer the powerful hag but a tiny child, screeching with a heartbreak that children should never know, rushed upon the body of Lioness, even her enemy forgotten as the shattering of unbearable grief broke her into sobs. “No! No, get up, Lioness!” She pulled and tore at the fallen beast’s body, screaming and gasping between screams.

Sun Eagle, moving swiftly but with a jerking and unnatural pace that betrayed the pain of his wounds, stepped to Imraldera’s side. “Come with me, Starflower?” he asked.

She stared at him, unable to speak. Then she took a step back.

His face was a mask. He reached out and took hold of Daylily’s hand. “Please,” Daylily whispered, “please, we must—”

The brightness of the Bronze flared up and hid them, and when it faded, they were gone. Nidawi cast herself upon the body of the fallen lion, still screaming, no longer able to hold herself upright.

“Go to her.” Eanrin’s voice was low in Imraldera’s ear. She turned to him, stricken, and he would not meet her gaze. “Go to her. Offer her comfort if you can. I’ll follow the other two.”

“She . . . she would have killed them . . .” Imraldera whispered as though making an excuse. But she could not go on.

Eanrin touched her face. “Go to her,” he said again. Then he too was gone, leaving Imraldera in the Wood with the inconsolable Faerie queen.

Afraid her legs would betray her, Imraldera moved to the side of the broken beast and knelt. She gently stroked Nidawi’s hair. The ancient child did not seem to notice but went on weeping noisily, casting her voice to the heavens one moment, burying her mouth deeply in the fur of her friend the next.

Then, as sudden as the fall of night, Nidawi sat up. “This is your fault!” she shouted at Imraldera, her voice trembling as though the sorrow were both terribly new and terribly old. “You should have given him to me! Now he’s killed her too! Cren Cru has taken everything!”