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.God, he hated getting it in the back.“You stupid fuckers.” Henry spat a mouthful of blood at the nearest goblin.“You’ve trapped me here and now you’re all going to die with me.”Wisps of white mist drifted from Henry’s body.Despite the blaze of gilded torches, the hall darkened.Bound by the iron shackles, he couldn’t escape into the shade lands, so now they came here to enfold him.Black rafts like rotting kelp drifted from the shadows and the air turned murky, cold, and acrid.Henry stepped forward and the goblins before him broke ranks and pelted for the doors.But it was too late.The hungry dead were already descending.Choking screams suddenly filled the hall.Henry dropped the halberd and staggered to the throne, dragging the ivory spears behind him.Greine stared at him in horror as he drew closer.When Greine plunged his ivory knife into Henry’s chest, Henry hardly felt it for the numb cold spreading through him.He gripped Greine’s throat in both hands.“No,” Greine gasped.“The kingdom is yours but have mercy on your father.”Henry had neither the inclination nor the time to tell Greine that this was a mercy.He should have simply left him to the savage appetites of the hungry dead.But there was too much of Jason’s visage in Greine for Henry to bear the sight of that.Instead he strangled the life from Greine.Greine’s wide-eyed corpse fell from the throne and Henry slumped to his knees.Darkness enfolded him, but it did not end his pain or the screams surrounding him.Chapter TenJason felt the difference the moment he stepped out from the rusting shipwreck of a portal onto the ragged rocks of the Tuatha Dé Dannan Islands.A sensation like an electric hum went through his body and the wild winds seemed to sing their names to him.The crash of the waves pounded with the rhythm of his heart.He didn’t know this land, but it knew him.“That’s the citadel there.” Gunther pointed his long, taloned finger up to the towering white edifice jutting out over the crashing sea.“I told you Rake wouldn’t steer us wrong.The man knows how to travel.”Jason simply nodded.He’d grown accustomed to Gunther’s lean, jagged visage, but Gunther’s retired ex-partner had been another matter: winged, towering, and wreathed in flames.Jason had felt like he was standing on the precipice of a volcano, gazing down into molten magma each time he’d met Rake’s gaze.But the man had behaved normally enough, offering Gunther directions and wishing them good luck when they’d left him.At Jason’s feet, Princess let out an annoyed yowl and pinned her ears back against the rain.“Can you find Henry?” Jason asked her.She gave a little sniff, then leaped across the ragged rocks toward the jutting white prow of the citadel.Both Jason and Gunther sprinted to keep pace with her.As they drew closer to the huge citadel Jason thought he glimpsed a figure wearing a red jacket at the very height of the wall.Please let that be him.Let him be all right.Jason wanted to call to Falk, but he knew his voice wouldn’t carry across so vast a distance.Instead thunder boomed across the leaden sky.And then the figure was gone.Jason’s muscles burned, but his whole being called out to move faster still—to reach Falk sooner.And suddenly storm winds roared over them, lifting and throwing them ahead nearly too fast for them to keep their feet.“Are you doing this?” Gunther shouted.“I think so,” Jason called back.“Don’t kill us, okay?”Oddly, Princess appeared delighted, bounding into the gusts and all but dancing on the air.They took the stairs up the citadel wall in the same wild, terrifying manner, springing into the wind as if they could fly as easily as the flock of doves rising above them.Just as they reached the height of the wall Jason released the winds.He and Gunther staggered a few steps on the rain-slick flagstones, regaining their equilibrium.Princess set down with a hop.In the courtyard below, dozens of toothy white snow goblins stood at attention, their weapons ready.One yawned and then glanced up to the wall.It gave a shout and pointed up to where Jason and Gunther stood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]