Guardians Book One - Magic Rising

Chapter Forty Nine

Kath felt Lady's hands on her shoulders, saw the panic in her eyes and heard her screams, but far, far away, through a fog, through a million miles. She battered and screamed in her own mind, railed against the presence there but someone else – something else – had control over her vocal chords, pushing her will down into nothing.

She felt her hijacked hands grab Lady's arms, twist them around and throw her friend backwards to the floor. Lady crashed into the ground, and scrambled up with difficulty and pain – there was no way to break a fall like that. Pestilence caught her as she stumbled backwards, holding her against him as they stared together in awful realisation at Kath.

"Get out of her!" Lady screamed, her hand pausing as she reached for her sword, even as Kath felt her mind pushed away even further. No! she begged Lady. Use it, kill this thing! Get it out of me! The whole world exploded in pain as the alien mind clawed at hers, laughing at her gibbering terror and pushing her consciousness into a corner of her own head, searing through her thoughts as if they were nothing.

Weak, so weak, the Lord of Darkness laughed in her skull. My brother prefers you vermin to me? For a moment the agony and rage that tore through her was not her own, but his, bitter jealousy and loneliness that burned her like acid, and she heard her own voice whimper in the corner of her thoughts. Fitting that your body shall strike him down, and your pathetic friends, and then...the world. I just want him to know that it is destroyed and it was his choice that led us here.

Get out, she whispered, a tiny little sound, feeble even to herself. She couldn't fight the throbbing soul, blackened and strengthened by ancient fury and hate; her tiny life was nothing in comparison. Is that my thought or his? I'm...worth more than that...?

Don't you give in? Fine. It doesn't matter. The end result is the same, sneered the second mind in her head, and she felt her hands lifted against her will again and raise the sword once more.

One of a pair, as I know you can see, the Lord of Darkness told her, and lifted his sword high. The blade was dark, notched, worn, but he – her eyes, his thoughts – admired it as a lover. Yet only one remains for its original purpose. For protecting that which is right. Not any vile beast that crosses its path...

The thoughts paused. And what is this? The voice sounded almost surprised as her hand touched the faint traces of Day's gift of magic, shimmering on her skin, and then down to the stone in the pommel of Lady's dirk. There is power in you, just a touch of the pure magic...almost as much as I took for myself. A warrior's strength...and honour, to purify your heart...they were given to you? The last word was a shriek. You, who are nothing? Kath shrunk away from the lash of white-hot anger directed at her, the worse because even as it ripped through her mind like knives, she knew he was holding back because he needed her body. Otherwise he could have torn her apart without a thought...You do not deserve this! He howled in her head, and she curled her mind up as tiny and tight as she could. She would go mad from the pain. She would lose herself completely...

Not for this, whispered the tiny, sweet voice of Day in the very vestiges of her soul, and she paused. You can do it, Lady smiled in her memory, and Pestilence was nodding. Hold on... She squashed the thoughts, lest he hear them, and the pain subsided.

Your strengths are mine now. Your trinkets will only serve to help me. And I have more important things to deal with than you, snarled the Lord of Darkness, and hefted his sword. Her arms didn't ache at all with the weight of it, or perhaps she simply couldn't feel it any more. She braced herself.

"You die first," her voice shrilled aloud to Lady, and it her voice and not – there was compulsion in that voice.

No! she screamed, but the Lord had lunged forward and Lady met his sword just in time with her own, with a crash of steel.

"Kath..." she cried, parrying as he pressed forward, but not attacking. Oh, Lady, attack! Stop this... "Kath!" I can hear you! But I can't...

"Your friend will die," the Lord taunted, and with inhuman grace Vicky was there between them, catching the dark sword against hers, the Lord of Light's. Kath noticed in her movement a harmony that her own body did not possess – because she was fighting the intruder in her mind and Vicky and the Lord of Light were in tandem. Nevertheless the Lord of Darkness was a master swordsman and she alone knew the completeness of his fury and will as he attacked on and on, hacking at his brother's borrowed form relentlessly. Lady had stepped back, dancing along beside them with Pestilence but unable to attack her friend, perhaps, or maybe just afraid to get in her mother's way as they swept and turned, matched blow for blow. Half-dizzy with the speed of their duel, they ploughed on. Vicky glanced around, and pressed back forward, turning to avoid falling and hooking the dark sword around her own, leaning in to trap the Lord of Darkness' weapon against him.

"Let her go," Vicky said, and, snarling, the Dark Lord pulled back wrenched the sword away from his brother's. Kath felt a flash of the ache in her muscles and realised how tensed her body was, how desperately she'd been fighting for control of herself, even unconsciously.

"No! No..." her stolen voice screamed, hands clutching at her temples. "This body is mine to use! Silence!" The last was directed at her and the crashing, blinding stab of willpower that flowed over her crushed her. She felt her strength to fight fade, and the victorious joy of the Lord of Darkness as she sank away. As he thrust forward she was too powerless to do a thing; she couldn't stop him as he smashed his sword against Vicky's and kicked out at her legs simultaneously, making the older woman stumble. She couldn't cry out to Lady as she ran forward to support her mother, nor to Pestilence as, in slow, slow motion, the Lord of Darkness' sword swung at Lady's neck and Pestilence – too quick! – ducked in front of her and took the sweeping blow up his chest, the force throwing him past the other two women and down into the heather, and then she heard nothing but Lady's screams.