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COMBAT

The scream reached Ben Holiday as he knelt alone in the forest beside the tiny stream, restored to himself at last, the medallion of Landover’s High Lords a brilliant silver wonder cradled gingerly, unbelievingly within the cup of his hands. The scream rose out of the trees, a thin, high wail of anguish and fear, and lingered like the whistle of the wind through canyon drops in the still mountain air.

Ben’s head jerked up, his neck craning. There was no mistaking that cry. It was Willow’s.

He leaped to his feet, hands closing possessively over the medallion, eyes searching the forest shadows as if whatever threatened the sylph might be waiting there for him as well. A mix of fear and horror raced through him. What had been done to Willow? He started forward, stopped, whirled about desperately, and realized that he could not trace the direction of the scream. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Damn! Meeks would hear that scream as surely as he—Meeks and that winged demon. Perhaps Meeks already had …

He was holding the medallion so tightly that it was cutting into his palms. Willow! A vision of the sylph blossomed in his mind, a frail and beautiful creature whose life was his special charge. He recalled again the words of the Earth Mother investing him with responsibility for seeing that she stayed safe and his promise to keep her so. His emotions tore at him and left him ragged and frantic. Truths to which he had not yet given heed flayed his soul.

The truths all reduced to one.

He loved Willow.

He experienced a warm rush of surprise and frantic relief. All this time he had denied his feelings, unable to come to terms with them. He had wanted no one close to him again, not after Annie, his dead wife. Love brought responsibility and the possibility of hurt and loss. He had wanted none of it. But the feelings had remained—as such feelings do—because they had never been his to deny in the first place. The reality of their existence had been forced upon him that first night out in the eastern wastes after fleeing Strabo and Nightshade—revealed in a dream in his dialogue with Edgewood Dirk on the reason for the urgency of his hunt for Willow.

Why do you run so? Why must you hurry so? Why must you find Willow? Dirk had asked.

Because I love her, he had answered.

And so he did—but had not allowed himself until this moment to think on it, to reason on it, and to consider what it meant.

Seconds was all it took to do so now. The thoughts, the reasonings, and the considerations all passed through his mind in a smattering of time that was barely measurable. It was as if everything that had taken so long to reach resolution was compressed down into a single instant.

But that instant was enough.

Ben never hesitated. There was a time when he would have, a time that now seemed a thousand years gone. He released the medallion with its silver-engraved image and let it fall against his chest, the sunlight sending shards of brightness into the dappled forest.

He called the Paladin to him.

Light flared and brightened at the edge of the little glade, chasing the shadows and gloom. Ben’s head lifted in recognition, and there was excitement in his eyes. He had thought never to do this again, wished it in fact, prayed it might never be necessary. Now he was anxious for it. A part of him was already beginning to break away.

The Paladin appeared out of the light. His white charger stamped and snorted. His silver armor glittered, its harness and traces creaking. His weapons hung ready. The ghost of another age and life was returned.

Ben felt the medallion begin to burn against his chest, ice and fire first, then something else altogether. He felt himself separating, drawing out of his own body.

Willow! he heard himself scream her name once in the silence of his mind.

It was his last thought. A flare of silver light burst from the medallion and streaked across the glade to where the Paladin waited. He felt himself carried with it to merge with the body of the King’s knight-errant. Armor clamped all about, fastening and tightening, closing down. An iron shell encased him, and the memory of who and what he had been was gone. The Paladin’s memory became his, a rush of images and thoughts that spanned a thousand other times and places, a thousand other lives—all of a warrior whose battle skills had never been surpassed, a champion who had never been defeated.

Ben Holiday disappeared. He had become the Paladin.

He was aware momentarily of the ragged figure that stood statuelike at the edge of the little stream, bearded and unkempt, a worn and battered shell. He knew it to be Landover’s King and dismissed the matter.

Wheeling his white charger about, he surged through the brush and scrub into the forest trees and was gone.

Willow’s scream brought Meeks almost instantly. He appeared from the shadow of Mirwouk’s crumbling walls astride his winged demon, dark robes flying against the sunlit afternoon skies. The demon plummeted to the hillside with a hiss, settling heavily within a gathering of pines at its far edge. Its leathered wings folded in against its wolf-serpent body, and its nostrils flared with small bursts of fire. Steam rose off its back.

Meeks slid slowly down the scaled neck, hard eyes fixed on the black unicorn as it stamped and snorted frantically some fifty feet away. He cradled in the grasp of his good arm the missing books of magic.

Abernathy pulled a still-shaken Willow protectively behind him. “Stay back from us, wizard!” he ordered bravely.

Meeks ignored him. His eyes were on the unicorn. He came forward a few steps, glanced briefly at Willow and Abernathy, looked again at the unicorn, and then stopped. He seemed to be waiting for something. The unicorn danced and shuddered as if already caught, but still it did not flee.

“Willow, what is happening here?” Abernathy growled urgently.

The sylph could barely stand. She shook her head woozily, her words nearly inaudible. “I saw,” she repeated. “The images, the whole … of it. But there are … so many, I cannot …”

She was making no sense at all, still in shock, it appeared. Abernathy helped her over to a patch of flowered grass and sat her gently down. Then he turned back to Meeks.

“She cannot hurt you, wizard!” he called out, drawing the hard eyes instantly. “Why not let her go? The unicorn is yours if you wish it, although I cannot imagine why you would. Heaven knows, it has been a thing of misfortune for all who have encountered it!”

Meeks kept looking at him, but said nothing.

“The others will be here in moments, wizard!” Abernathy declared. “You had best hurry away!”

Meeks smiled coldly. “Come over to me a moment, scribe,” he invited softly. “Perhaps we can discuss it.”

Abernathy hesitated, glanced briefly back at Willow, took a deep breath, and started across the clearing. He was so frightened that he could barely make himself move. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was walk over there to the wizard and his pet demon, and yet here he was doing just exactly that. He straightened himself bravely, determined to see this thing through. He really hadn’t any choice in the matter. He had to do something to help the girl, and this appeared to be the only option open to him. The day was warm and still; it was a wonderful day for just about anything other than this. Abernathy moved as slowly as he could and prayed that the others would arrive before he was turned into the wizard’s latest burnt offering.

When he was a dozen paces from Meeks, he stopped. The wizard’s craggy face was a mask of cunning and false warmth. “Closer, please,” Meeks whispered.

Abernathy knew then that he was doomed. There wasn’t going to be any escape for him. He might be able to delay matters for a few moments, but that would be all. Still, even a few moments might help Willow.

He came forward half-a-dozen paces and stopped again. “What shall we discuss?” he demanded.

The cold smile was gone. “Why not the possibility that your friends will be here to help you in the next few moments?”

He gestured briefly with the books, and a ring of twisted little figures appeared from out of the trees surrounding the clearing. The figures were everywhere, encircling them. Ugly, piggish faces with sharp teeth and serpents’ tongues snorted and squealed anxiously in the silence. Abernathy felt the hair on the back of his spine arch. A dozen of the little monsters pushed Questor Thews, Bunion, Parsnip, and the G’home Gnomes from out of the trees. All were gagged and securely bound in chains.

Meeks turned. The smile was back. “It appears that your friends will not be much help to you after all. But it was good of you to wait until they could join us.”

Abernathy saw his last, faint hope of being rescued disappear.

“Run, Willow!” he shouted.

Then, growling savagely, he launched himself at Meeks. He did it with the somewhat vague notion of catching the wizard off-guard and knocking free those precious books of magic. He almost got away with it. Meeks was so busy orchestrating the arrival of his small army of minions that it never occurred to him the dog might decide to fight back. Abernathy was on top of him almost before he realized what was happening. But the magic Meeks commanded was as quick as thought, and he called it to his use instantly. Green fire surged up from the books of magic, and a screen of flame hammered into Abernathy. The soft-coated Wheaten Terrier tumbled backward head-over-heels and lay still, smoke rising lazily from his singed fur. The screen of fire protecting Meeks and the books of magic flared and died.

The wizard stared back across the clearing to where Willow sat slumped upon the ground and the black unicorn waited.

“At last,” he whispered, his voice a slow hiss.

He beckoned curtly to the waiting demon imps and the ring began to tighten.

Silence descended across the little clearing—almost as if nature had put a finger to her lips and said “hush” to the world. There was a moment of time in which everything slowed. Meeks waited impatiently as the circle of demon imps crept forward. His winged demon snorted, nostrils steaming. Willow sat with her head bent, still stunned, her long hair cascading down about her like a veil. The black unicorn moved close, a step at a time only, a shadow out of darkness woefully lost in daylight. Its muzzle drooped and brushed the sylph’s arm gently. The white magic of its horn had gone dark.

Then a sudden rush of wind broke over the mountain heights and whistled through the trees. The unicorn’s head jerked up, its ears perked forward, and its horn flared brighter than the sun. It heard the sounds that no one else could—sounds for which it had listened for centuries.

Trees, brush, and scrub exploded from the wall of the forest at its northern edge as if torn free by some massive fist. Wind howled through the opening left, and light burst free in a brilliant white flash. Meeks and his winged demon shrank back instinctively, and the demon imps threw themselves down upon the earth squealing.

A rumble of thunder turned to a pounding of hooves, and the Paladin rode out from his twilight existence into battle.

Meeks gave a howl of rage and disbelief. His demon imps were already scattering to the four winds, terror sweeping them away as if they were dried leaves at the end of a broom. The demon imps wanted no part of the Paladin. Meeks turned, the books of magic clutched tightly to his dark robes by the leather-gloved hand. He shrieked something unintelligible to the monster behind him, and the creature surged forward, hissing.

The Paladin swerved slightly, white charger barely slowing as it turned to meet the demon.

Fire burst from the demon’s maw, engulfing the approaching horse and rider. But the Paladin broke through the wall of flames and came on, a battle lance lowered into place. The demon breathed its fire once more, and again the flames washed over the knight-errant. Willow’s head lifted, and she saw the silver knight and horse disappear in the fire. Sudden realization rushed through her. If the Paladin was here, so was Ben!

Flames pyramided off the clearing’s grasses and scorched the sheltering trees. Everything wilted momentarily in a white-hot heat. But then the Paladin was clear of the flames once more, his charger and armor covered with ash and smoking. He was almost on top of the demon now, battle lance set. Too late the demon realized the danger as it spread its wings and tried to lift itself skyward. The Paladin’s lance ripped through scales and armored plates and pierced its massive chest. The wolf-serpent screamed and surged back, the battle lance breaking off within it. It tried to rise, a weak, fluttering effort it could not manage. Then its heart gave out, and it fell earthward. It crashed into the scorched grasses, shuddered, and lay still.

The Paladin broke off the attack while the demon was in its death throes, swerving to stay clear of the struggling monster. Then he wheeled back again, drew forth the great broadsword, and spurred his white charger toward Meeks to finish the fight.

But this time Meeks was ready for him.

The hard, craggy old face tightened down in concentration, the wizard’s thin lips drawing back until his teeth showed. Whatever magic he yet commanded, he was calling on it now.

Wicked green light flared at a point midway between the approaching knight-errant and the waiting wizard. Meeks cried out and stiffened. His head shot back and the green light exploded in shards.

From out of the fire appeared a line of armored skeletons atop fleshless steeds, half goat, half snake. Willow counted. Three, four, five—there were six altogether. The skeletons held broadswords and maces in their gloveless, bony hands. Helmetless death’s-heads smiled in frozen grimace. Riders and carriers both were as black as night.

They turned as one and came at the Paladin in a rush. The Paladin rode to meet them.

Willow watched the battle unfold from close beside the black unicorn. Her senses had returned to her now; her thoughts were clear. She saw the Paladin and the black riders come together in a clash of iron, saw the dust swirl up from the impact, and saw one of the black riders go down in a pile of shattered bones. The fighters wheeled and struck at each other, and the sounds were terrifying. She shrank from the conflict, her thoughts focused not on the Paladin, but on Ben. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? Why wasn’t Landover’s High Lord close to his champion?

Another black rider went down, the bones of its skeleton body snapping apart, crunching like deadwood beneath the hooves of the Paladin’s horse. The Paladin broke away, whirled and struck down a third rider, the great broadsword flashing silver light as it swung through its deadly arc. The remaining riders converged, weapons hammering at him, clanging and sparking off his armor, thrusting him back.

Willow pushed to her knees. The Paladin was in danger of being forced down.

Then small bursts of green fire flared over the bones of the three black riders that had fallen, and six new skeletons rose out of the smoky haze to join their fellows. Willow felt her stomach tighten with cold. They had doubled their strength. There were too many now for the Paladin.

She lurched to her feet, determination giving her strength. Questor, the kobolds, and the gnomes were still bound and helpless. Abernathy was still unconscious. Meeks had disabled them all. There was no one left to help the Paladin but her.

No other left to help Ben.

She knew what she must do. The black unicorn stood quietly next to her, emerald green eyes fixed on her own. There was intelligence there that was unmistakable. She could read in those eyes what she must do, and it mirrored what she already knew in her heart.

She took a deep breath, stretched out her arms, and embraced the unicorn once more.

The magic rushed through her instantly, quick and anxious. The unicorn’s delicate body shuddered with release, and the images began. They surged into the watershed of the sylph’s mind, jumbling together. Willow jerked back from their intensity, wanted to scream, and fought back against the urge. Her need was less this time, her desire more manageable. She struggled to master it. The images slowed then, straightened into an orderly succession, and came on anew. The mix of pain and anguish that had accompanied them lessened, and their brightness dimmed into something bearable.

She began to recognize what she was seeing. Her fingers caressed the silky, delicate neck of the unicorn as the magic joined them.

A voice cried out.

Fairy-kind! Set me free!

The voice belonged to the unicorn and to nothing. Something of the unicorn was real; something else was not. The images appeared and faded in Willow’s mind, and she watched them pass. The black unicorn sought freedom. It had come in search of that freedom. It believed it would find it through … why? … through Ben! The High Lord could set it free because the High Lord commanded the magic of the Paladin, and only the Paladin was strong enough to counteract the magic that bound it, the magic that Meeks wielded—but then there was no High Lord to be found and the unicorn had been left alone in this land, searching, and Willow had come instead, searching too, bearing the golden bridle the wizards had made to snare it when it first broke free long ago. The unicorn was frightened of Willow and the bridle, uncertain of her purpose, and it fled from her until it realized that she was good, that she could help, and that she could take it to the High Lord and set it free. Willow would know the High Lord even in his disguise, when the High Lord himself did not know …

The images came quicker now, and Willow fought again to slow them so their meaning would not be lost. Her breath came quickly, as if she had run a great distance, and there was a bright sheen of sweat on her face.

The voice cried out in her mind again.

The High Lord’s power was lost to him and therefore lost to me! I could not be set free!

The voice was almost frantic. The images whispered urgently. The dreams that had brought Willow in search of it were a mix of truth and lies, dreams from both wizard and fairies … Fairies! Her dreams were sent by the fairies? … All must come together so that truths could be revealed and the power needed could be summoned—so that Paladin and wizard could meet and the stronger prevail, the stronger that was also the good, and then the books of magic could be, finally and forever, could be and must be …

Something intruded, other images, other thoughts imprisoned within the black unicorn for countless centuries. Willow stiffened and her arms locked about the sleek neck. She felt the scream rising within her once more, uncontrollable this time, madness! She saw something new in the images. The black unicorn was not a single life, but many! Oh, Ben! she cried soundlessly. There were lives in the images that struggled and could not break free, that yearned for things she could not understand in worlds she could not imagine. She shook with the emotions that ripped through her. Souls imprisoned, lives held fast, magics torn away and used wrongly—Ben!

Then there was a sudden image of the missing books of magic, locked within a dark, secret place, a place filled with the smell of something evil. There was an image of fire burning outward from one of those books, burning with the intensity of life being born anew, and from out of that fire and that book leaped the black unicorn, free once more, racing from the dark into the light, searching …

The voice cried out one final time.

Destroy the books!

The cry was one of desperation. The cry was almost a shriek. It blocked away the images; it consumed everything with its urgency. The pain it released was intolerable.

Willow’s scream finally broke free, rising up against the sounds of battle. The sylph tore away from the black unicorn and stumbled back, almost blacking out with the intensity of what she had experienced. She dropped to her knees, head bent against a wave of nausea and cold. She thought she must die and knew in the same instant she would not. She could sense the black unicorn shuddering uncontrollably beside her.

The words of that final cry were a whisper on her lips.

Destroy the books!

She rose to a half-crouch and screamed them out across the battleground of the little clearing.

The words were like tiny wafers of paper caught in a windstorm. The Paladin did not hear them, consumed by the fury of the battle he fought. Meeks did not hear them, the whole of his concentration given over to directing the magic he had called upon to save himself. Questor Thews, Bunion, Parsnip, Fillip, and Sot, abandoned by their demon imp captors, were lying bound and gagged at the clearing’s far edge.

Only Abernathy heard.

The dog was semiconscious, and the words seemed to come to him from somewhere out of the darkness of his own thoughts. He blinked hazily, heard the words echo, heard then the sounds of the frightening conflict taking place about him, and forced his eyes all the way open.

The Paladin and the black riders whirled and struck out at each other at the clearing’s center, a kaleidoscope of movement and sound. Willow and the black unicorn were small, trapped figures at the clearing’s far end. He could see nothing of his other friends.

He panted, his tongue licking out at his nose, and he felt dull, aching pain working its way through his battered body. He remembered what had been done to him and where he was.

Slowly, he twisted himself about so that he could see better. Meeks stood almost next to him. Caught up in the battle between the Paladin and the black riders, the wizard had come forward the half-dozen paces that had separated him from the dog.

The words whispered once more in Abernathy’s mind. Destroy the books!

The dog tried to get to his feet and found his body would not respond. He sank back. Other thoughts intruded. Destroy the books? Destroy his one chance of ever becoming human again? How could he even consider such a thing?

Another black rider went down, and there was the sound of breaking bones. The Paladin was hemmed in on all sides, armor blackened by ash and rent by sword and axe. He was losing the battle.

Abernathy knew what it would mean for all of them if he did and quit thinking about his own problems. He tried to rise again and found now that he could—but not all the way. His muzzle drew back in a grimace of frustration.

Then Meeks shifted his feet one further time, and suddenly his leg was inches from Abernathy’s head. The wizard wore soft shoes; the leg was exposed. Abernathy’s grimace turned to a snarl. He had just been given one last chance.

He launched himself headfirst at Meeks, his jaws closed over the wizard’s ankle, and he bit down hard. Meeks gave out a shriek of mingled pain and astonishment, his hands flew out, and the books of magic flew up.

Everything happened at once after that. There was a streak of black light that shot across the clearing, past the Paladin and the skeleton riders, past the clouds of dust and bursts of green fire. The black unicorn sped quicker than thought. Meeks jerked his leg frantically, trying to free himself from Abernathy’s jaws, groping at the same time for the airborne books. Abernathy would not let go. Willow cried out, and Abernathy bit down harder. Then the black unicorn had reached them. It leaped into the air, its horn flaring white with the magic, speared the tumbling books, shattered their bindings like glass, and scattered their pages everywhere.

Down fluttered the loose pages, those with the drawings of the unicorns mingling with those whose centers were charred from that inner fire. Meeks screamed and yanked free at last of Abernathy’s jaws. Green fire burst from his outstretched hands and hammered into the unicorn as it soared, knocking it askew. The unicorn twisted in midair, and white fire arced from its ridged horn into the wizard. Back flew Meeks. Green fire exploded into the unicorn, and white fire hammered into Meeks. The fires raced back and forth between unicorn and wizard, the level of intensity rising with each new burst.

The Paladin whirled swiftly at the clearing’s center, broadsword arcing in a circle that cut apart the remaining black riders and scattered their bones. It was a perfunctory task now; the black riders were already disintegrating. The magic that had sustained them had gone out of their hollow forms. They crumbled instantly and were gone.

Then the Paladin was racing toward the unicorn and the wizard. But the Paladin could not reach them in time. The fire had engulfed Meeks, the magic too strong even for him. He shrieked one final time and exploded into smoke. The black unicorn was engulfed in the same moment, the fire all about. Stricken, it arched skyward, leaped into the air and was gone.

The Paladin, too, disappeared. It rode into a sudden burst of white light, the light washing away ash and dust and healing silver armor until it shone like new—all in an instant’s time—and knight-errant and light simply faded away.

Abernathy and Willow stared at each other voicelessly across the charred, empty forest clearing.

Then it happened.

They all saw it—Willow and Abernathy as they crouched upon the scorched hillside, still stunned from the fury of the battle just completed; Questor, the kobolds, and the G’home Gnomes as they struggled futilely to sit upright, still secured by the bonds that the demon imps had used to restrain them; and even Ben Holiday as he stumbled breathlessly from the forest trees after having run all the way from the place of his transformation, not knowing what had brought him, knowing only that he must come. They saw it, and they held their collective breath in wonder.

It began as a wind that disturbed the mountain stillness, just a whisper at first, then a rush of sound like the roar of an ocean. The wind sprang up from the earth upon which the pages of the broken books of magic now lay, stirring dust and ash, whipping at the few tiny shards of green flame that still flickered in the meadow grasses. It lifted skyward in the shape of a funnel, catching up those scattered pages in a snowstorm of white. The pages that were burned became suddenly healed, their ragged edges closing, their yellowed surfaces turning pristine white once more. The pages that were filled with the drawings of the unicorns mixed and joined with them until none was distinguishable from the others. A wall of pages rose up across the skyline, crackling and snapping madly as the wind whipped them through the air.

Then the pages began to change. The drawings began to shimmer and flex, and abruptly the unicorns came alive. No longer frozen in still life, they began to race about the funnel’s edge. There were hundreds of them, all white, all in motion, a blur of power and speed. The pages and bindings of the books of magic were gone now; there were only the unicorns. They flew through the air and cried out in ecstasy against the roar of the wind.

Free they seemed to be saying! Free!

Then the funnel broke apart and the unicorns scattered, flooding the skies above the mountain clearing in a rush of graceful, delicate bodies—like fireworks exploding in an impossibly beautiful shower. The unicorns spread out across the skyline—buoyed by the magic of their transformation—then soared into the distance. Their cries lingered after them momentarily, then faded into silence.

The mountains had gone still again.