Onward she marched, now crossing the grass blackened by Ardaz’s fire, her stride growing bolder as she grew more assured that she could resist the Black Warlock. A helpless pawn in their battle, caught in the middle between two powers far beyond him, Del held tightly to the mare’s mane with both hands and prayed that Arien or anybody would come to his aid.
Thalasi was deceived. Assuming the mare to be guided by the great will of her rider, he directed his next attack at Del. Extending one bony hand, he spoke a curse, and violently closed his fingers into a tight fist.
Del shrieked in agony as he felt an icy hand grasp and squeeze his heart. Horrified, he released his grip on the mare and clutched his chest.
He felt a lump in his shirt pocket.
Acting solely on his instinct to survive, Del tore open his shirt and pulled out the little derringer. His eyes bulged from the inner pressure, his breath would not come, and consciousness began to slip away, but he somehow managed to fumble the silver bullet into the chamber and point the pistol at Thalasi.
The sight of the weapon amazed Thalasi, and in his surprise, the Black Warlock released his deadly grip for just a moment. Del’s lungs expanded immediately, sucking in a deep breath of revitalizing oxygen, but he wasted no time enjoying the sensation. Closing his eyes in anticipation of the explosion and kick, he put his finger on the trigger.
He couldn’t do it.
Behind Thalasi, the Calvans laughed no more, instead staring curiously at Del, who had resisted their wizard and who now held this strangely shaped piece of metal. Mitchell grunted in anger at the sight of the gun, revolted by the possibility of his most hated enemy destroying his plans for conquest. Yet, certain that he would be Del’s primary target if he exposed himself, the captain made no move to rush to Thalasi’s aid.
Reinheiser, though, recognizing the danger to his master, reacted quickly and without regard for his personal safety. He broke through the line of Warders and-though he was hardly a rider, and nearly tumbled from the saddle with each stride-galloped his horse flat out across the field.
Del stared at the derringer helplessly, feeling deceived by his own conscience and disgusted at his emotional failure in this time of need. Then came again the paralyzing pain, as Thalasi, now understanding the full potential of Del’s threat, renewed his assault even more furiously. Del’s arm trembled and drooped, blackness filled the edges of his vision, and he would have dropped the weapon altogether had not one voice rung clear with reason in his ears.
“Do it!” Billy Shank cried out to him.
But Del could not bring himself to move. He looked down at his hand, trying to fight against his own revulsion and Thalasi’s insidious assaults. The very sight of his arm, veins engorged with blood from the tremendous pressure, and bruises on his forearm where smaller veins had already begun to rupture, dismayed him. He understood that he was beaten, no match for the power before him, and knew with the utmost revulsion and horror that soon he would actually explode.
Reinheiser relaxed considerably when he pulled alongside Thalasi, the master seeming fully in control.
High on the ledge, Sylvia saw it, too. The black cloud that was Morgan Thalasi would soon consume Del, and then the doom would fall upon the rest of her people. Desperately, she grasped at the one faint hope she could see and ran to the side of the fallen wizard. “Please, Ardaz,” she pleaded, cradling his head. “You must help us. Angfagdul will destroy us all!”
Ardaz opened one eye. “Nasty shot, you know,” he said with a cough-a cough that produced blood. “Really quite beyond me.” He started to drift again, but Sylvia shook him roughly. “Of course, of course,” he groaned in reply. “We must do something. Perhaps…” He silently mouthed some words, trying to remember a spell.
“Bring me an arrow,” he instructed. Quickly Sylvia handed him the finest arrow she had remaining in her quiver. Ardaz stroked its wooden shaft and chanted a spell of seeking. The effort cost him the last of his strength and he fell silent, his eyes closed once more.
Sylvia slipped the arrow from the wizard’s loose grip and fitted it to her bow as she ran back to the ledge, praying that the enchantment had been completed and that it would be enough to get the arrow through to Thalasi. With a deep breath to steady her trembling arms, she took a bead on the Black Warlock and fired.
Del would have been dead by then, except that Thalasi took his time, savoring the torment of this man who dared oppose him.
Sparks flew as the arrow’s stone tip struck the magic barrier. It deflected slightly but was not destroyed, and though it did not hit its mark, it came close enough to surprise and distract Thalasi.
For the second time, Del was free.
A furious Thalasi spun at the ledge and loosed a second white bolt of destruction.
Instead of waiting to see if her arrow found its mark, though, wise Sylvia was already moving. She dove back to the safety of the mountain wall just as the blast splintered the lip of the ledge into chunks of flying rubble.
Reinheiser, seated next to his master, hadn’t been so quick to react. The bolt crossed directly before his face and the intensity of the flash stunned and blinded him.
“Sylvia!” Del screamed in rage, and he thrust the pistol toward the Black Warlock, who countered by holding his staff horizontally in front of him with both hands and clenching down on its iron tips. Like the edged blade of a sword, waves of energy sliced viciously at Del, ripping his shirt and drawing a line of blood on his chest.
But Del would not be stopped this time. He thought of Ardaz and Sylvia, both of whom he believed killed by Thalasi’s thunderous attacks; he remembered again the image of Captain Mitchell on the beach, proclaiming himself a god. In his rage, Del found the strength to ignore the pain and resist the will of his foe.
As his sight returned, Reinheiser saw the look of undeniable determination on Del’s face and knew that his master was in mortal danger. “No!” he yelled, and leaped at Thalasi.
Too late. Del fired, and the bullet of the fourth magic, technology, sundered Thalasi’s black staff at its midpoint with a flash of brilliant green and tore into the Black Warlock with a fury heretofore unknown in Ynis Aielle. Reinheiser dove across the back of the hell-spawned stallion and fell headlong into the ground. In his hands he held an empty cloak, for there remained no sign of Thalasi, no sign that the warlock had ever been there, save a broken staff and a red cloak with a bullet hole in it.
Reinheiser pondered this turn of events for just a moment, until he felt warm blood trickling between his eyebrows and over the bridge of his nose. “Must have landed on a rock,” he mumbled as he slipped out of consciousness.
The white mare started in surprise at the gunshot, and Del, in his weakened state, tumbled off her back and to the ground. The pain in his chest had subsided, but his life’s blood flowed from numerous cuts and gashes. Del didn’t notice, too busy staring at the little pistol.
And at the blood on his hands.
Reinheiser’s horse flattened its ears and backed away as the white mare and Thalasi’s gaunt stallion squared off. Bent on destruction, the black horse reared and snorted its fire. Then, as if it suddenly realized the true nature and power of the being it faced, it dropped its head in submission, dissipated into vapors, and was gone.
In the northern end of the field, the elves’ horses stopped dancing. On the ledge, the archers reached for their remaining arrows.