Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,56

would ever have done.

Only his magic had saved him from a life there, that and the kindness of his foster parents, wizards both of them.

There was shock and disgust on Arlis’s face, his lip curling in a sneer.

Jareth looked at him. “You care about that. They don’t.”

He had a plan, an idea…

Why, Elon wondered, was Arlis spending so much time talking? It wasn’t just to get his people in position, although doubtless that was part of it.

And what could they do about that? Nothing.

So, there was a specific target.

Him.

Arlis would want a quick and painless - for Arlis - resolution. He’d already lost too many men to explain away easily.

Where was the danger?

Fire closed in on every side, the snap and crackle of the flames becoming louder, concealing the movements of assassins.

“Let us pass,” Elon said. “Let it go, Arliss.”

He saw the man’s eyes slide to the left even as he sensed movement there.

As did Jareth and Colath.

Slowed by his wound, Colath didn’t react as swiftly as Jareth did.

His mind and power locked up in the spell he’d been about to cast, Jareth knew he couldn’t unleash it in time, so he did the only thing he could…and threw himself into the path of the arrow aimed at Elon’s back.

The arrow punched into him high and deep, driving into his chest. Even as he fell, Jareth looked down at the arrow that pierced him to where the fletching emerged from his tunic. Then he struck the road and the arrow protruding from his back snapped.

A second later the true depths of the pain hit and his concentration shattered.

The spell he’d been conjuring was loosed even as Elon and Colath turned in their saddles in horror to see him fall. Neither could have reached him in time to stop it.

Seeing where the arrow had taken him, Elon knew Jareth’s lung was pierced at the very least. Worse still, they couldn’t help him, not with the enemy still before them.

In the self-same motion of turning, Colath released the arrow that took the assassin. The motion jarred the arrow in Colath’s own back. Pain shot through him, clearing and sharpening his mind. Shock, he knew. If there was time, he would heal.

It didn’t look as if there would be time.

His eyes went to Elon.

Elon met that steady gaze, fear and grief for Jareth, for Colath, for all that might have been, ripping through him and then he set his heels to his horse even as Colath did.

If there was to be any hope for Jareth, for any of them, they had to move swiftly and surely…and there was little chance they would succeed.

Tossing away their bows they reached for their swords - drew them even as they bore down on the men before them. More of Arlis’s archers charged out of concealment in the wheat beside him even as they did.

Jareth, lying in the dirt and the dust of the road, dying in the street as so many had once predicted he might, thought he’d never seen anything so magnificent, so incredible, as that charge.

He saw the archers turn, their bows drawn, as Elon and Colath rode down on them, and the arrows flew…

Then his spell took hold.

An arrow caught Elon high in the shoulder. At that close a range the archer could hardly miss, but he and Colath were almost on them.

To Elon’s astonishment stones rained from the sky.

Marker stones…dozens of them.

Jareth.

Horses screamed and shied. Men shouted. He and Colath rode into their midst like scythes through wheat while they were in disarray.

Arlis dodged one marker stone that nearly crushed his skull and found himself face to face with a furious Elon of Aerilann. His own paxmen charged up to defend his left as Aerilann rained a series of blows on Arlis’s sword. Even with an arrow buried in his shoulder the Elf’s strikes made Arlis’s hand go numb. Aerilann blocked Arlis’s paxman easily, nearly thoughtlessly. His horse held off the other. One fell as Arlis watched, trying to back his horse with one hand on the reins, while others rallied to his aid.

Spinning his horse around, Colath charged into the mass of those who came running through the field like a grim reaper.

A reaper of men, his beautiful face expressionless and implacable.

Elon urged his horse between Arlis and his remaining paxman, hacking and slashing with terrible accuracy, raining blows on their swords until the paxman fell away. With a scream of terror at the grim and terrible look on Elon’s impassive