Darkwind had taken the brunt of the blast on their side, as had Treyvan on the gryphons'. Treyvan crouched with head hanging, panting; Darkwind was on his knees beside her, shaking his own head, dazed and unable to speak.
Falconsbane ignored the rest and concentrated his cold gaze on her.
Her stomach turned into a cold ball of ice. He smiled, and she stepped back another pace, her hand reaching for a sword she no longer wore, palms sweating, feeling the blood drain from her face.
"Well," he said, his voice full of amusement. "So you have some fight still. I will enjoy breaking you, Outlander." His eyes narrowed, and his voice lowered to a seductive purr. "I will enjoy taking both your mind and your body-"
"Not this day," called a high voice, in pure Shin'a'in, from the ruins behind Falconsbane.
Falconsbane's head snapped around; Elspeth gathered her primitive, clumsy power just in case this was nothing more than a ruse.
But there were people behind the Adept; perched atop rocks, peering from behind walls, an entire line of people. Black-clad, one and all, some veiled, some not, but all with the same cold, implacable purpose in their ice-blue eyes. And one and all with drawn bows pointed at Falconsbane's heart.
"Not this day, nor any other," Darkwind coughed, struggling to his feet. Elspeth gave him a hand, and stood beside him, helping him balance.
He did not look to be in any shape to enforce those brave words; he swayed as he stood, even with Elspeth's unobtrusive support, and his face was drawn with pain.
But there were all those arrows pointed at Falconsbane; surely they had him now-didn't they?
Or did they?
After the first flash of surprise, Falconsbane straightened again and laughed, sending a chill down Elspeth's back. "Do you think me so poor a player, then, to show all my counters before the game is over?" Elspeth did not even have a chance to wonder what he meant.
She had no idea of where the thing came from, but suddenly it was dropping down out of the clouds-a huge, black, bat-winged creature that seemed big enough to swallow her whole and have room for Gwena afterward. It buffeted her with its wings, knocking her off her feet with a single blow, then slammed her into a rock-all the breath was driven out of her by the impact; her head snapped back against the stone, and she slid down it, seeing stars.
She blacked out for a moment, but fought back from the dark abyss that threatened to swallow her consciousness. As she struggled back, shaking her head and swallowing the bile of nausea, Falconsbane laughed again.
Her eyes cleared. That was when she saw that there were two of the things. One of them had Hydona trapped beneath it, its talons on her throat, ready to rip it out if she struggled. She looked out helplessly as the creature drew blood and looked expectantly at its master. Then Elspeth could only stare in horror-The other had Gwena in the same position.
Darkwind lay in a heap just beyond her; eyes closed, unmoving.
Treyvan faced the beast that had his mate with every feather and hair standing on end, kill-lust making him tremble. Muscles rippled as he restrained himself from attacking, and the stone beneath his talons flaked away in little chips from the pressure of his claws.
"Gwena-: she Sent.
"Don't!" the Companion shot back. "Don't move, don't anger it!.. Her mind-voice died to a whisper as the beast tightened its grip on her, and little beads of blood stained her white coat under its talons. "Don't do anything. Please."
"Stalemate, I think?" Falconsbane said genially. The arrows of the Shin'a'in did not waver, but neither did the archers loose them.
"Well, then. In that case, I think I shall fetch what I came for." Hydona uttered a wail that was choked off by the brutal grip of the beast prisoning her. Treyvan seethed with rage, eyes burning with fury.
"It is not yours, Changechild," said one of the Shin'a'in, in a hollow voice that sounded as if it came up from the depths of a well. "It was not made by you, it does not obey you; it is not yours." Falconsbane lifted an eyebrow. And half-turned to lash out with yet another bolt of power; this one aimed at the young gryphons, a flood of poisonous red.
"no!
The cry was torn from Elspeth's throat-but from others as well. One of those others was free to act.
Nyara leapt to her feet, her hands full of Need's hilt, holding it between herself and her father. The bolt of power struck the blade instead of the young gryphons, and built with an ear-shattering wail as Need, collected the blast And changed it; from sickly red to burnished gold. Elspeth's hea~. stopped as she watched, not fully understanding what was happening . but fearing the worst. She heard Darkwind utter something about "transmuting," and then he trailed off into a stream of what she guessed to be incredulous Tayledras curses.
Need split the sphere of power in two, one half enveloping each young gryphon, filling them with light. Falconsbane's scream of rage drowned
Elspeth's gasp of joy, but it could not stop what was happening. The golden light burned away at a kind of shadow within the two youngstersthe shadows melted even as she watched, melted and evaporated, leaving them clean of its taint.
Distracted by the light and their master's cry of outrage, Mornelithe's dark beasts loosed their grip a little.
Darkwind moved.
Faster than a striking viper, he whipped the climbing-stick that never left him from the sheath on his back, and hooked it into the beast's throat. He never gave the creature a chance to realize what had happened; he yanked the hook toward himself, giving Gwena the opening to kick and buck herself free of it as the creature tried to both right itself and disengage the hook that was tearing its flesh from inside. The Companion scrambled out of the way, sides heaving, legs trembling, blood pouring from a dozen puncture wounds, to collapse at Elspeth's feet.
The creature paid her no heed; all of its attention was taken up with Darkwind.
Elspeth hovered protectively over Gwena; the Companion was shaking like an aspen leaf in the wind, but her wounds were already closing. She leapt up to stand between Gwena and the beast, but there was no need for her protection. She had wondered about Darkwind's peculiar weapontool; now she saw how an expert used it.
Darkwind's face was contorted into a snarl of rage as he attacked the creature, forcing it to go on the defensive; the spiked end of the tool drove into an eye, blinding the beast, as Darkwind backed it into a rock and it staggered. He slashed in a broad flat stroke, laying the beast's belly open, and it fell forward to protect itself. It screamed, and Darkwind reversed the stick, hooking the beast's mouth and tearing at the tongue and lips. It tried to buffet him with its wings, screaming as its eye and mouth dripped thick, brownish blood; he simply hooked the membrane of the wings and tore them, while he ducked under clawstrikes, or fended them off with the spike. Every time there was an opening, he darted in and stabbed again with the spike; he wasn't yet doing the beast lethal damage, but he had to be causing it a lot of pain.
It bled from a dozen wounds now, and Darkwind showed no signs of tiring.
Screams of bestial pain from across the court made her dare a glance in that direction. Hydona, bleeding, but still full of fight, stood defiantly between Falconsbane and her children. Her wings were at full spread, mantling over her young, every feather on end. Treyvan clung to the back of the other beast, trying to sever its spine, each strike succeeding in removing a foot-long strip of meat from its neck. The creature screamed and tried in vain to throw him off, leathery wings flailing. No matter the gryphon was half this beast's size; he was going to win. Treyvan was astride the beast's back even if it tried to roll, his claws gouging deep and holding fast with its every swift move, then moving upward as if he was walking up the thing's back like it was a rock, driving deep holes in with every step, and taking a clump of meat with him at every opportunity. Elspeth swallowed in surprise; she had imagined what the gryphons' fearsome natural weaponry could do, but actually seeing it was another matter.