Master of Honor (Merlin's Legacy 5) Read online

  Shit!

  Ulf advanced, readying the pike to thrust. Smoke sizzled from the scaled flesh beneath the cord. Which made this the perfect opening. Eying the lizard’s gasping jaws, he saw he could ram the pike up through its palate and into its brain…

  Then he noticed Cheryl was furiously shaking her head, though she didn’t say a word. A signal meant for him -- Not yet.

  Centuries of combat experience howled in revolt. If you ignored an opening this good, you could end up regretting it. But Cheryl knew what she was doing. She’d fought this thing before -- or at least Gaia had. He needed to have a long talk with her about working with partners if they both survived this mess.

  Godzilla’s massive fist slammed into one arm, but she hung on, hauling back until the garrote indented the scaled throat. Harder, until the creature arched halfway off the floor, tearing at her arms with its claws. Alien blood flowed around the glowing cord as it bit deeper. Deeper. Until it abruptly blazed white-hot and jerked all the way through the thing’s neck.

  The head popped off Godzilla’s shoulders and tumbled across the floor, trailing blood as it rolled. The massive neck stump pumped, splashing the wall a deep cobalt blue.

  Before Ulf could bend to haul it off her, she grabbed its shoulders and shoved, rolling the massive corpse off herself. She fell back, gasping for air.

  How strong was she, anyway?

  Ulf started to speak, but she was shaking her head again, one hand lifted in warning even as she rolled to her feet and scrambled clear.

  Oh shit. It’s going to come to life again.

  * * *

  Are you sure the Errul doesn’t have the Destroyer? Hivemother hissed in Valac’s mind. He suppressed his irritation and alarm at the question, lest she detect it. Hivemother could invade his brain -- even take possession of his physical being -- anytime she cared to. Every member of the Hive was, after all, ultimately an extension of her consciousness.

  I feel no trace of it, he told her as he recalled his magic, dissolving the combat form the Errul had killed. If the Errul had it, she would surely have ended me by now.

  He groped through the memory of the Hive’s many victims for a template of a more suitable form. He needed one with the power to defeat the Errul. She might not possess the Destroyer at present, but power still blazed around her like a star. The conduit between her and her home universe pulsed with magic, tempting and menacing at once.

  Indeed, Hivemother said. What a feast she will be. Take her for me, Valac, and the next two matings will be yours.

  In the deepest level of his mind, where even Hivemother couldn’t hear, he thought, Assuming I live to claim it. She hadn’t felt the force of the Errul’s blows. How anyone using a human form could attack with such speed and power, he had no idea. They were such fragile, powerless creatures.

  Vengeance definitely was not.

  Strike her down, Hivemother purred, eager greed in her psychic voice. Strike her down and let me take her!

  * * *

  Grimly, Cheryl watched the black roiling magic as the scout began to reform again. She ached everywhere, and she suspected one of her ribs was broken, despite her armor. She’d thought that purple lizard was going to smash her like a cockroach. It had certainly hit her hard enough.

  But Cheryl had survived, mostly because of the raw power blazing through her. Gaia was pumping so much magic into her crystal-augmented bones and muscles, it felt like drinking from a fire hose.

  It was also more than a little terrifying, because it illustrated just how bad the spirit thought this fight was going to be.

  Pacing grimly, Cheryl watched the black cloud suck inward, revealing her newest opponent. She recoiled. The fuck is that?

  I have no idea, Gaia said. Something from another universe.

  It was even bigger than the lizard, towering two feet taller than Cheryl, with four massive arms and two legs supporting a huge, misshapen body as pallid as a slug. A ring of eyes encircled its bulbous head, and it had no nose, only a series of slits running along its barrel chest. She suspected they were gills, judging by the way they opened and closed. Looks like a good place to sink my claws.

  Assuming she dared get that close. Something she was in no hurry to do, because the thing’s mouth took up most of its head. The lipless circle was lined with serrated teeth, all pointed inward. It reminded her of the thing that tried to eat Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.

  Shit. Anything that goes into that mouth, I won’t get back.

  It advanced toward her, dropping down on the knuckles of its lower set of hands to walk like a gorilla. The upper set of hands flexed, claws flashing as muscle rolled along massive arms.

  All those crimson eyes glared at her as it opened its jaws wide. Which gave her a great view down its throat, lined with yet more inward pointing teeth.

  Holy shit! It’s teeth all away down. Cheryl had never wanted to run screaming like a little girl so badly in her entire life. And never with such excellent cause.

  If you do, Gaia told her in an icy voice, that thing will kill everyone in this hospital, including Brandon and every baby in the NICU.

  Cheryl’s mind instantly flashed the horrific image of one of those massive hands picking up a preemie and…

  Don’t think! Gaia snapped. Move!

  Cheryl dragged magic from Gaia’s conduit, conjuring a pair of wakizashi. The short Japanese swords filled her hands, sparks dancing along the steel. There wasn’t enough room to swing a longer sword. With a howl of terror and fury, she sprang at the thing.

  One of those enormous hands snapped toward her face. No way to dodge -- it’s going to tear my head off…

  A wave of magic wrapped around her, flipping her toward the ceiling. Gaia, finally doing something. The huge fist missed her by half an inch. You do the attacking, Gaia snapped. I’ll navigate.

  Another magical burst sent her shooting toward the scout’s massive skull like a rebounding cue ball. With a shrieking cry, the creature jerked aside so fast, Cheryl barely saw it at all. She managed to slash the blade across thick, pallid hide even as she flew by. Sparks snapped, filling the air with ozone and the smell of burning meat. The scout screeched like nails over a blackboard.

  She bounced off the nearest wall, twisting in midair in a way that should have been impossible for any human with a spine. A massive white hand missed her face as Gaia propelled her past, and she cut with both blades, ripping them across the creature’s arm in an X shaped cut. She hit the ground behind it, spun and leaped, slamming into the thing’s back, knees bending to absorb the impact. Pain exploded in her left upper thigh as she landed badly on her twisting target. She ignored it, cutting across the massive neck, then dove backward toward the floor.

  This time she didn’t see the hand coming. One of the lower sets grabbed her by an ankle and slung her at the nearest wall. Her back whipsawed so hard, she thought it would break.

  I didn’t reinforce your spine for nothing.

  The wall shot toward her face. Instead of splattering her brain all over it, she hit what felt like an invisible mattress and rebounded.

  Gaia’s magic.

  She hit the ground, turning the fall into a tumbling roll, somehow holding onto her swords. As she sprawled on her back, her ankle blazed with pain and the side of her face felt numb. She had no idea what had hit her head. One eye was beginning to swell. Before she could somersault upright, massive feet crashed down on either side of her body as fists the size of her torso blurred toward her face.

  She curled into a ball and threw up a magical shield an instant before the thing’s punches hit. Roaring in fury, the monster bent over her, slamming blow after blow into her shield. With every impact, sparks exploded from the shield as Cheryl huddled under it. Feeding more magic into the barrier, she clutched her swords, watching for an opening. The pummeling was so savage, she could feel the floor cracking under her as the force rolled through her shield.

  We’re on the tenth floor. If it gives way, we’l
l kill whoever’s below us. Hell, the entire hospital could collapse, considering how much power that fucker’s throwing off. And since I put everybody asleep, they can’t evacuate. I’ve got to stop the bastard before he kills us all!

  She watched through her raised arms, timing the blows. In the heartbeat after one fist rebounded, and before the descent of the other, she reached into the conduit, dragged in all the magic she could, and dropped her shield, meaning to blast the creature in the face…

  Something hit her head from both sides so hard, she saw nothing but an explosion of light.

  He has four arms, Gaia reminded her.

  Above her, the creature’s huge mouth opened.

  Shield! Shield, damn it! But her dazed brain could only fumble for the power. Gaia!

  Too late. The scout breathed a magical blast that rolled over her in a searing wave of agony. She couldn’t even manage a scream.

  Everything fell away into blackness.

  * * *

  There! Hivemother shrieked in triumph. She is ours!

  But Valac had remembered the last fight with the Errul. I don’t think…

  But Hivemother had already rolled through the psychic bond between them, hunger driving her to recklessness.

  Who could blame her? In that heartbeat, as the prey lay unconscious, all the Errul’s great magic undefended, her conduit to her universe’s power was still open wide.

  And it had been too long since the Hivemother had fed. She seized Valac’s mind and body, ready to drink down the Errul’s luscious power…

  * * *

  Consciousness returned, accompanied by agonizing pain.

  Cheryl’s brain seemed to burn, as if her neurons were made of lava. She screamed in the prison of her body -- and made no sound.

  I have you, Gaia said. I will protect you.

  Against what? For a moment Cheryl had no idea why everything hurt. What the hell was going on?

  Her eyes blinked open… and she thought she was having a nightmare. The thing that hovered over her face was white, lumpy and misshapen. The ring of eyes that encircled the round head were compound, like those of a fly. And its gaping mouth revealed row after row of teeth gleaming down into the darkness of its throat. She tried to scream.

  Remember the plan!

  Oh, fuck, if this doesn’t work… She stared up into the serrated teeth and prayed as she hadn’t prayed since Ulf had walked out.

  * * *

  Ulf stared in horror, every instinct he had at war. The creature had pinned Cheryl to the floor under its massive weight. She looked like a two-year-old beneath it.

  Use the pike! The hell with Gaia’s plan -- it isn’t working! She was nowhere near that thing’s weight class, no matter what Gaia had done to her. I can’t just stand here and watch it eat her!

  Which was when the surface of the massive creature began to ripple, as if someone had thrown pebbles into a lake. The ripples spread, strengthened into waves, shooting fissures through the thing as if it were breaking apart.

  What the hell is happening?

  The creature exploded into countless black flakes that rained down over Cheryl, covering her like an onyx snowfall.

  Jesu, what now? He froze, staring down the mound of spiked black crystals that blanketed her. They resembled giant obsidian snowflakes that turned and writhed in slow waves, as if alive and breathing. Like some alien colony creature.

  Which, if Gaia was right, was exactly what they were.

  He drew back the pike, preparing to thrust it downward. Hesitated. His hands trembled, making the tip of the weapon shake. What if I’m jumping the gun?

  And then, as if from a great distance away, he heard Cheryl’s voice, strangled, emerging from the mound of colony cells. Sounding as if the flakes filled her mouth. Choked her. “Now, Ulf!”

  With a gasp of relief, he thrust the lance into the mass. And hoped to God he didn’t hit Cheryl.

  The moment the pike made contact, a wave of alien magic shot from the head’s spear point, pulsing across the colony in leaping blue sparks. The flakes stiffened for moment, glittering in the magical light.

  A second pulse flowed across the mass and flashed up the shaft of the lance, blazing and crackling. A counterattack! Pain seared his hands as the alien magic lashed him. Agony seared his jerking muscles, and he almost lost his grip on the lance.

  No, damn it! He was the only hope she had. He clung to the lance in stubborn rage, fighting not to thrust too deep and hit Cheryl. Wave after wave of alien magic blasted him, dancing over his armor in vicious crackling pops. If it hadn’t been for the suit, it would have fried him like a mosquito in a bug zapper.

  He’d failed Cheryl twenty-eight years ago. He damn well wasn’t going to fail her now. Teeth gritted, he clung to the haft, smelling his palms begin to burn even through his gauntlets as sparks tore up and down the weapon.

  This time, Cheryl, I’m not going anywhere!

  * * *

  Cheryl heard Gaia screaming. Not with her ears, but with her very bones, her muscles, her skin, until her entire body vibrated like an amplifier. The spirit seized the spell in the lance and drove it into the heart of the Hive, forcing it into Hivemother with every bit of power she’d hoarded over the past fifteen hundred years.

  Gaia had failed her people all those centuries ago, and they’d died. Nor had they been the only ones. Every planet where the Hive had committed genocide since had paid the price for Gaia’s failure. It ends here.

  Cheryl could feel the furious energies of the conduit thundering around her like Niagara Falls, channeling the death spell from the pike. And yet she herself was protected in the tight cocoon of magic Gaia had spun around her. The spirit’s last gift, Cheryl’s reward for agreeing to become both weapon -- and bait.

  Gaia had known the Hivemother would not be able to resist all that seductive power in such an apparently vulnerable package. Now Gaia could finally do what her people had created her for -- feeding all the conduit’s thundering magic into the spell she’d stored in the lance.

  The Hivemother’s dying shrieks stabbed into Cheryl’s skull like an ice pick. The rest of the Hive screeched in echo as the spell ripped them all apart, as it should have done fifteen centuries ago -- avenging Gaia’s people and all the others who’d fed the Hive since.

  And as they died, it seemed to Cheryl she heard a great, psychic roar she somehow recognized. The ghosts of the Errul.

  There were others, too. She felt their names vibrating in that cry -- the Ji, the Ki’c, the People of the Sun, the Gibwr, the CoeoItchir and the Utilivis -- all the inhabitants of murdered worlds without number. The triumphant chorus of the avenged built, drowning out even the Hive’s screams. Then, as if cut with a knife, the song of Vengeance stopped.

  Silence.

  Cheryl’s skull seemed to throb with the psychic echoes of the Destroyer. But there was no more sense of the Hive’s endless, vicious hunger. Hardly daring to hope, Cheryl breathed, Gaia? Are you there?

  Yes… It was the spirit’s voice, but it sounded so faint. Barely audible instead of its usual psychic thunder.

  Are you all right?

  I have never been better. They are gone.

  Completely? It worked?

  Oh yes. You were magnificent. So brave.

  You don’t… you don’t sound right. Fear pierced Cheryl, fear she’d never expected to feel for the spirit who’d invaded her life. Are you hurt?

  Dear girl, I’m dying. I had to feed all my power to the spell. Exterminating an entire race of psychic parasites takes a great deal of magic. I held back only enough to protect you.

  Oh no! Cheryl opened the conduit, drew on it as Gaia had taught her to do. To her relief, the magic leapt to her will. She’d feared she’d lost access to it, considering how feeble Gaia sounded. Now all she had to do was feed that magic to the spirit. Recharge her.

  Cheryl, I’m not an iPhone. My task is finished. My battle is won. I can rest.

  No! Don’t let go. I can save you, you d
on’t have to die… Cheryl began to pour magic into the spirit, driven by her nurse’s instinct to heal.

  It didn’t work. Gaia simply… rejected the magic. You need that power, child. You’re your people’s guardian now, as I once was mine, Gaia whispered, faint as the distant rustle of dead leaves. Thank you for helping me avenge my dead. Because of you, I do not die a failure.

  And then she was gone, melting away into the dark.

  * * *

  Ulf stared down at Cheryl in warring dread and hope. She lay in a halo of ash.

  It had happened in a heartbeat. One minute he’d been fighting lashing waves of magic. The next, the obsidian flakes had blazed white and burned away. “Cheryl? Cheryl, baby, are you all right?” He tossed the lance aside and dropped to his knees as it clattered across the floor.

  Hesitating, he eyed her. She could have injuries that didn’t show through her feathered armor, so he repressed his instinct to haul her into his lap. Grinding his teeth, he muttered, “There’s never a witch around when you need one. When you don’t, they’re all over you.”

  Carefully, he reached out to cup her cheek. At the contact, something popped, and the world around him went crystal clear. The invisibility spell had broken. But Cheryl still lay limp in her feathered armor. Which at least meant she was still alive -- the armor would have disappeared otherwise.

  “Cheryl?” He stroked the slick, cool feathers over her cheek with his thumb. They felt so delicate, considering the raw power of the attacks they’d absorbed. “Cheryl, please -- open those beautiful eyes…”

  Abruptly, she sucked in a whooping gust of air and began to cough. As he watched, the feathers vanished from her face, sinking into her body, leaving pale skin and nurse’s scrubs behind.

  He felt the same happening to his own, leaving him in the same T-shirt and jeans he’d been wearing at the start. “Come on, honey, you’re scaring the hell out of me.”

  Her eyes flashed opened and she stared up at him, blinking, disoriented. Sudden tears spilled down her cheeks. “Ulf!” Jacking into a sitting position, she threw her arms around him with a strangled cry.