A diving hawk-faery cast a spell that rattled the branches of the Oak. Rhosmari tugged on the rope that anchored her, making sure it was secure, as the archers loosed their second volley into the air.
This time the arrows flew further, but still the Empress’s army advanced, more and more shadowy figures gliding out from between the distant trees. Willowy faery women flashed in and out of visibility as they ran, while males loped along in the forms of dogs and foxes, or swooped from the treetops as birds of every size and shape. And all of them seemed heedless of their own safety, not even troubling to dodge the missiles raining down among them…
And through them.
‘It’s a glamour!’ exclaimed Linden. ‘Those soldiers – they’re not even real!’
But the faeries of the Oak had already recognised the trick, and cast a spell of their own to undo it. Even as Linden spoke, two-thirds of the dark shapes crossing the meadow wavered and blinked out, leaving only a scattered remnant behind. One of them whirled to look behind her, feathery blonde hair gleaming – but then a haze rose up around Veronica, and she disappeared again.
The birds wheeling around the Oak had also decreased in number, and the archers were no longer wasting ammunition. A jackdaw shrieked and plummeted into the hedge, and in the distance a wounded dog-faery let out a yelp. But now the Blackwings glided in from the south-west, and though Garan and his men loosed a barrage of arrows towards them, they nimbly dodged every one. Light gathered between their outstretched wings, swelling to a blinding glare—
Another explosion shook the Oak, and green light flared around them. Rhosmari stumbled, nearly dropping the loreseed, while Campion fell off the side of the branch, her rope snapping taut. ‘Campion!’ cried Wink, but the Librarian panted, ‘I’m fine,’ and flew up to join them again.
By now most of the faeries below had grown to human size, for since the Empress’s people scorned to make themselves small, it was the only way to be sure the two sides were evenly matched. It ought to have made it easier for Rhosmari to see what was going on, but there was so much mist and smoke and sparks flying about, such a confusion of fluttering wings and darting animal shapes, that she could scarcely tell allies from enemies.
‘I can’t see Rob,’ said Linden anxiously.
‘I can,’ Campion replied. ‘He and his troops have come around behind the Oak. They’re driving the enemy back towards the wood— Oh, well done!’
But Rhosmari had no chance to find out what Rob had done well, because a small animal had just darted through a gap in the hedge – an ermine with ash-white fur, even though at this time of the year it ought to have been brown. It paused to nose at a fallen faery, who lay moaning on the grass with her wings crumpled at odd angles; then it snapped its jaws around her throat, gave her a shake and let her drop again, dead.
‘Tansy,’ moaned Wink. ‘Oh, the poor silly fool, she should never have gone out there – she was supposed to stay in the kitchen with the others—’
The ermine paused in the middle of the lawn, coolly surveying the chaos. Then with a shimmer it transformed into a faery, equally lean and pale, and Rhosmari’s stomach turned over as she recognised Martin. He whipped around and flung a dagger straight into the crowd, sending a rebel tumbling. Then he took his bird form and darted away again.
‘Coward!’ Linden shouted, and for a moment Rhosmari thought she might leap off the branch and go after him. But then she put her hands over her face, and Wink hurried to comfort her.
By now the flowerbeds had been trampled into a muddy tangle, the hedges smashed in several places and one of the smaller trees splintered in two. All the work that Peri and Paul had done to make the Oakenwyld beautiful was ruined, and though Rhosmari knew it was the least of their worries, part of her ached to see it. Where were the humans, anyway? Were they biding their time for some crucial moment? Or were they already working to help the faeries of the Oak in some way that she could not see?
‘Garan’s surrounded,’ said Campion. ‘They’ve cut him off from the others – they’re closing in—’
But at that same moment came a sound: twang-hiss-thump. Someone shrieked, in pain or rage. Then a hail of black stones rained down upon the garden, scattering faeries everywhere.
Peri McCormick stood on the veranda, moonlight blazing on her white hair as she tossed her crossbow aside and grabbed her rifle. With two quick shots she winged a crow and knocked a kestrel out of the air. From the window above her Timothy fired his slingshot, zinging iron pellets at the enemy, and on the opposite side of the house, Paul was doing the same.
One of the Empress’s faeries who had been skulking unseen by the hedge cried out and clutched her arm, forced into visibility again. A cat yowled and collapsed into a dazed-looking faery. Three more birds tumbled from the sky – but then one of the Empress’s soldiers hurled himself at Peri, dagger in hand. She dodged him easily, swung up the rifle and fired a shot past his shoulder before dropping the gun and drawing her hunting knife. He thrust, she ducked, and with two quick slashes and a kick she sent him reeling back into the crowd. Then she snatched up the gun and began reloading.
She was just about to fire again when a raven plunged down upon her, knocking the rifle from her hands. But it must have brushed one of the iron rings she wore, because as she stumbled back, the raven dropped to the ground and rose up again as Byrne Blackwing. He seized a discarded sword and swung it at her; she grabbed the poker from beneath the glass door and blocked the blow. They fought in a blur of flashing metal and rapid footwork, chasing each other around the veranda and out onto the lawn. Byrne had knocked Peri down – no, she had used his own momentum to throw him over, and she was up again—
‘Thorn!’ cried Wink.
‘What is it?’ Campion dashed over to her, almost tripping Rhosmari with the rope. ‘What about her? What’s happening? Where is she?’
‘She fell over there—’ Wink pointed blindly towards the southwest. ‘Someone came up behind her and hit her on the head, and she fell down. I don’t know if she’s unconscious, or…’
Anxious, Rhosmari strained to see. But there was no sign of the dark-haired faery anywhere, only her troops, who had scattered in panic and were running back towards the Oak. ‘Gardener have mercy,’ whispered Linden, and then shrieked, ‘Knife! Watch out!’
But the warning came too late. Corbin, the other Blackwing, had sneaked up behind Peri, and as she turned he thrust his dagger into her side. She crumpled to her knees, throwing up an arm to defend herself, as Corbin wrenched out the knife and stabbed it down again—
‘No!’ wailed Linden, seizing a twig with both hands and shaking it. ‘No, no, no, not Knife, not her, oh Great Gardener, no—’
A crack split the air, and the dagger in Corbin’s hand went flying. Timothy, straddling the window frame with slingshot raised, fired off another pellet that laid the raven boy flat upon the grass. Then he swung his leg back inside the house and disappeared.
A fox bolted across the garden to Peri’s side, whirled and became Rob, sword in hand. He shouted, ‘Rebels! Defend us!’
Lily was the first to reach him, her glossy black hair flying. She threw up a shield around herself, Rob and the fallen Peri – but with so much iron nearby the spell was weak, and the glow of her magic flickered like a wind-blown candle. Still, it bought them a little time, and that was enough. Timothy burst out of the glass door, seized Peri beneath the arms, and dragged her back into the safety of the house.
Wink burst into sobs, her whole body shuddering as she and Linden clung to each other. ‘Oh, Thorn,’ she moaned. ‘Oh, Knife…’
The full moon had risen above the trees now, glowing with baleful power. Something flashed out from the shadows of the wood, and Rhosmari turned just in time to see a wall of blue light sweep across the meadow, and break like a tidal wave over the Oak.
‘Great Gardener!’ exclaimed Campion as the spell enveloped the tree, covering it from root to high branches. ‘What is that?’
Dizz
iness swept through Rhosmari as the Oak’s protective wards burned away. The enormous trunk groaned and began to twist sideways, as though some invisible giant had gripped it with both hands and was ruthlessly wringing it out. The branch beneath them shuddered, and all the faeries flung their arms around the nearest twig and held on tight.
Then came a chorus of screams from inside the Oak, followed by a rumbling, splintering crash that seemed to go on and on. It sounded as though the whole inner structure of the tree was falling down. But Queen Valerian was still in there, thought Rhosmari with a stab of dread, and all the other faeries who had been helping her ward the Oak—
All at once the shaking stopped, and the tree was still. And in that moment, a voice rang out over the Oakenwyld, loud enough to bring all the fighting to a halt.
‘Rebel faeries of the Oak, you cannot win this battle. Lay down your arms and surrender, or I will tear your precious tree apart.’
With an effort, Rhosmari pulled herself back up to her feet. Where was the Empress? She must be using a spell to project her voice, for she could not see her anywhere. It seemed impossible that any faery could wield such devastating power – but after what she had just experienced, there could be no doubt that Jasmine’s threat was real.
Yet something seemed to be wrong with the Empress’s soldiers. Some staggered about the battlefield, leaning on their weapons for support. Others stood with drooping heads and arms loose at their sides. Only a few – like Veronica and the Blackwings – remained alert, and Rhosmari caught her breath as she realised what the Empress had done.
‘She’s pulling magic out of her followers,’ said Campion, aghast. ‘Using their power to enhance her own.’
Of course. And it fit the pattern Jasmine had followed in the past, as well. When she cast the Sundering, she had used the Oakenfolk’s magic to do it, and now she was drawing on her soldiers’ magic in much the same way – making her strong enough to warp the Oak itself.
‘But that means we can’t stop her,’ Linden whispered. ‘Not unless we kill all of them first—’
‘Why do you hesitate?’ called the Empress, impatient now. ‘Surely your choice must be obvious. Do you wish the Oak to survive, or must I break it into splinters?’ And with that the trunk began to warp again, and another tremor rocked the faeries off their feet. The loreseed tumbled from Rhosmari’s hand, skidding towards the edge of the branch; she flung herself flat and grabbed it just in time.
‘Yet it would pain me to destroy such a magnificent Wyld,’ the Empress went on, her voice all honey and butter again. ‘And it is not your deaths that I desire, only your allegiance. Can we not cease this foolish quarrelling, and agree to live together in peace? I would be glad to offer you all my pardon – if you hand over to me Rhosmari daughter of Celyn as my prisoner.’
There was a terrible silence, while blood pounded through Rhosmari’s ears. This was why Jasmine had sent her army against the Oak? Not to destroy the rebels, but to recapture her?
‘If you have the power to defeat us,’ Rob called out, ‘then why not do it, and take Rhosmari for yourself? I think, Empress—’ his tone made a scathing mockery of the title— ‘that you are weaker than you wish us to believe, both in power and in numbers. If you destroy the Oak it will take all your remaining strength, and leave your followers too drained to fight. Tonight’s victory may come at a terrible cost – but it will be our victory, and not yours.’
Rhosmari’s hand clenched around the loreseed. Did Rob really mean that the way it sounded?
‘Is that so?’ said the Empress. ‘Ah, my Robin, you think yourself so clever, but you have always been short-sighted. Even if you should murder every faery in my host tonight – and I know you too well to believe that you would ever carry out such a threat – you cannot prevent me from escaping. And then I have only to raise another army, and come back. It will take time, but I am willing to be patient. Especially now that you can no longer steal away my followers…or prevent me from stealing yours.’
The faeries of the Oak exchanged wary looks. ‘What do you mean?’ Rob asked.
‘Nothing but folly and empty threats.’ Garan spoke up, confident and calm. ‘As long as we hold the Stone of Naming, we can free her slaves as quickly as she can create them.’
‘The Stone?’ asked Jasmine. ‘You mean…this Stone?’
In a flash of light, the Empress materialised in the middle of the lawn. Her hand was outstretched, and in it lay a smooth white pebble.
‘It’s just illusion,’ said Linden fervently. ‘It has to be. Garan has the Stone, she’s only trying to trick us into showing her where it is…’
‘I know you believe you have the Stone in your keeping, Garan son of Gwylan,’ the Empress continued. ‘But if you look into the pouch at your belt you will find nothing but an ordinary pebble. Did you think yourself safe this afternoon, when you lay down to rest? You forgot that Bluebell had a key to every door in the Oak – and the power to beguile your mind so that you would not remember her taking the Stone from you.’
Bluebell… Rhosmari clutched the twig beside her. All along they had thought Mallow was the traitor, the one most likely to hand them all over to the Empress. Could they really have been so deceived?
‘But how?’ asked Wink, hushed with disbelief. ‘How could Bluebell be helping the Empress? How would she even have met her? She’s never been out of the Oak!’
‘Yes, she has,’ said Campion heavily. ‘Remember those three days right after Queen Valerian was crowned, when we all thought Bluebell was hiding in her—’
But she never finished the sentence, for the Empress had lifted the Stone idly between finger and thumb, as though appraising it. ‘Such a small thing,’ she mused aloud. ‘I wonder how easily it will crumble?’ Then with sudden savagery she let it drop back into her palm, and closed her hand around it. Light flared between her fingers, and even from high up in the Oak, Rhosmari heard the terrible crack as the Stone shattered.
‘No!’ shouted Garan, leaping forward – but the moment his hand touched the Empress’s image, white lightning exploded through him. In horror Rhosmari watched him fall backwards, mouth open in a soundless cry. Then he crumpled to the grass, and the light around him faded as the Empress brushed the gravel from her hands.
Rhosmari’s legs folded beneath her. She did not even feel her knees hit the branch, or the loreseed fall from her hand. Someone caught it, and tried to help her up again, but she neither knew nor cared which of the faeries it was. Her world had narrowed to a dark tunnel, with the Empress at one end and herself at the other, and Garan lying dead between them.
Slow heat spread through her body, engulfing her like a boiling tide. Her muscles became steel, her heart a furnace. Rhosmari yanked the rope off her waist, twisted away from the hands that held her, and leaped over the edge of the branch.
Wings outspread, she dropped to a landing just outside the window of the Queen’s audience chamber. Valerian sat motionless on her throne, hands braced along its carved arms. The walls of the room were cracked and the air thick with dust, but she stared straight ahead, as though gripped by some dark vision that she alone could see.
‘Is it true?’ she asked, as Rhosmari climbed in. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes.’
The Queen closed her eyes. ‘Gardener tend you, Garan son of Gwylan,’ she whispered. ‘May you be planted in a place of rich soil and good water, never to be uprooted again.’
Rhosmari barely heard her. She pushed past a knot of sobbing Oakenfolk – the faeries who had stayed with the Queen to maintain the Oak’s wards, but who had proved no match for Jasmine’s power – and out into the passage, heading for the Spiral Stair.
Curtains draped the end of the corridor, blotting out all light from the landing beyond. Rhosmari swept them aside, took two determined steps – and reeled back, gripping the bannister as her foot skidded into empty air.
The Stair was gone.
‘Rhosmari!’ called Linden’s voice behind her. ‘Wai
t!’ She plunged through the archway, and Rhosmari had to grab her arm to keep her from pitching right over into the void.
‘What— Oh,’ Linden gasped, staring down at the splintered wreckage far below. ‘Oh no.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it now,’ said Rhosmari. She knew she sounded harsh, but she could not afford to let herself care. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Rob made a bargain with the Empress,’ Linden said.
‘A temporary truce, for one hour. So we can look after our wounded, and decide what we’re going to do.’
Only an hour. So little time – and yet it would be enough. It would have to be. ‘All right,’ said Rhosmari, her eyes on the shadowy hole where the Stair had once been. ‘You’ve told me. Now you can go back to the others.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Linden.
‘What I have to,’ Rhosmari said, and stepped off the edge into nothingness.
eighteen
Her wings opened instinctively to slow her fall, catching the updraught and shaping it into flight. Rhosmari glided downwards, past the dangling walkways and shattered landings that were all that remained of the Stair, circling over the debris that littered the Oak’s ground floor until she found a place to land.
The dust was thick enough to choke her; she coughed until her eyes watered. Then, holding her sleeve across her face, she began picking her way through the wreckage towards the East Root corridor. In one of the storerooms, perhaps, she would find what she needed; or if not, she would have to make herself invisible again and search the garden…
‘Help!’ cried a muffled voice. ‘Someone help us!’
For a moment Rhosmari thought that the sound was coming from beneath her, and that a whole group of faeries lay trapped beneath the ruins of the Stair. But as she clambered over smashed treads and risers and ducked a fallen beam, she realised that the cries came from further ahead. She teetered her way towards them, stumbling as a panel rocked beneath her feet, and stopped at last before the kitchen door.