Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,38
a leader. I damn sure didn’t want to be one. There had been more than fifty of us at Tintagel. Now there was twenty nine. No matter how many times Matherson said it wasn’t my fault, I knew better. It was my fault. It was all my fault.
That was what being a leader meant; you got the glory but you also got the responsibility. Some could let such losses wash off them, but I knew when I tried to sleep tonight, it would be with the faces of the lost before my eyes, and their names on my tongue.
“Is it really worth it?” I growled, half to myself.
Matherson looked up sharply. “Say that again and I’ll box your ears.”
“You’re telling me those people’s lives were worth losing…”
“They thought so,” Matherson didn’t even let me finish. “They thought it was worth the sacrifice. And if you start saying it wasn’t worth it, then you’re insulting their memory.” He leaned towards me. “You know what Duine is. You know what he’s doing and you know how it’ll end up if we don’t stop fighting him. Maybe we can’t win, but if we don’t try then what use are we? We mourn our dead, but we can take whatever comfort there is to be had from the knowledge they died for something.”
“We’d better be right.”
Leaning back, Matherson unzipped the tent and held his hand out into the night. When he brought it back in, moths flapped about his appendage as if it were a brilliant light.
“This is what we believe, Pagan. In nature. In the wild magic. It may not look like much to you now, but it’s worth something. Do you want to see all this,” he twisted his hand and the moths circled, dancing between his fingers, “corrupted? Do you want to see this same power used to subjugate people to the will of a dictator? Duine won’t stop with the King’s Alliance, he won’t stop with the warlocks and witches. He’s got his sights set on all the factions. All that used to be good in the Underworld he’ll turn to evil in his own selfish quest for power. He’ll drain the wild places of what magic they have and turn that magic on those who can’t defend themselves. And we are pledged to stop him.”
I took a deep breath. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m fuckin’ right!” he bellowed at me. “Now, off you go,” he spoke this last sentence to the moths, who flew out of the tent.
“There’s twenty-nine of us,” I pointed out. “The odds were against us before. Now…”
Matherson shrugged. “Then you’d better have a very good plan. And some very good speeches because the people out there lost friends today and they want blood.”
More by luck than judgment, in our headlong flight from Tintagel, we’d taken a few prisoners of our own, soldiers of the King’s Alliance. I knew there were those in my camp who wanted to kill them and send their bodies to Duine as a message that we weren’t going anywhere. Still others wanted to torture the prisoners, to extract information that might help us in another assassination attempt on the High Mage (as Duine arrogantly called himself). I had forbidden such behavior. How much longer would they keep following me if I kept forbidding things?
“We can use the prisoners,” I said, hopefully. “An exchange. I’m going to send one of the King’s Alliance back to Duine as a gesture of good faith and ask that he release our people in return for his own.”
I didn’t know how many of my Templars Duine had captured, but any who could be returned felt like a victory.
Matherson nodded. “None of the prisoners know where we are. We made sure of that.”
“Alright. Get Eirin to blindfold one of Duine’s and take him into the Gower, then let him loose and give him his instructions. She’s to tell him that if he doesn’t do as we ask, she will come for him.”
Matherson nodded. “That’s enough to put the fear of God into any man. Should she wait for him to return?”
“Yes. Shouldn’t be more than a few days.”
“You don’t want anyone else to go with her?”
I shook my head and smiled. “Eirin can take care of herself.”
Matherson smiled broadly. “That she can.”
###
It was a few days later than Eirin returned. But she did so alone.
“He didn’t come back?” I asked, frowning.
Eirin nodded. “He came back. In a manner of speaking. But I wasn’t about to carry a corpse