Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [127]
"Walker?" Arya asked, reaching out to comfort him. Gylther'yel's eyes flicked to her, and she extended a clawed hand toward the knight.
Sudden tremors tore through the grove and threw Arya to the ground. A hulking claw of earth erupted from the ground and caught her between its five fingers. The knight screamed and struggled, but the fingers-each as thick as her body-were too strong. The claw closed around her and held her aloft, even as Gylther'yel closed her hand halfway and smiled.
The ghostwalker, stunned at the ghost druid's attack, had just leaped to his feet when a ring of fire surrounded him, cutting him off from Arya. He slashed at the flames with his shatterspike, and the tip of the blade glowed red with heat.
"Walker!" screamed Arya. "Don't give up! Don't give in to-" Her words were cut off in a screech of pain as Gylther'yel closed her hand tighter and the claws closed around Arya's body. The vines that bound the unconscious Amra Clearwater reached up and began whipping at the knight, tearing at her metal armor and exposed skin.
Walker instantly retreated into etherealness, meaning to leap through the flames and attack, but Gylther'yel's fire burned just as brightly there. Walker cursed himself for a fool-of course the ghost druid's magic pierced the veil between worlds. Such was the nature of the netherworld powers they shared.
Fighting the helpless rage that clawed at his heart, Walker turned back to Gylther'yel and held his sword low to the ground.
Why? he asked, and the words flowed from his mind, but, in his sinking heart, he knew the answer. She had lied. This was an attempt to delay him, not to express any real love. Gylther'yel had indeed sent Meris to kill him. Her words had startled him, and he had fallen into her trap.
Gylther'yel wove her hands in another casting, and the wall of fire began to close around Walker. Once again, and for the last time, I make your choice for you, she said in his head. You have the choice to die, the choice I denied you fifteen years ago, and I choose that you will take it now.
He had been a fool to trust in Gylther'yel, a fool to listen to her coaxing words. Meris had not been a test-he had been Gylther'yel's attempt to slay her errant guardian. It had all been a trick, a trap designed to stab at his deepest desire-the desire for another.
It was so welcoming, so easy to fall into the embrace of a mother, or a father, or even a lover, and to let his choices be determined by another. So easy…
And now he would pay the price for his dependence, his lack of self-worth, a fault that had been buried beneath years of darkness, vengeance, and hatred. All of his life was coming to an end, all of his strength was unraveling.
The ghostwalker knew himself defeated.
* * * * *
Wriggling, ignoring the crushing pain that threatened to shatter her limbs, Arya finally managed to pull her blade free. She brought the borrowed Quaervarr steel down on the earthen hand, sending sparks and shards flying. Though her arm soon went numb from the ringing vibrations her swings caused, she sent a spider web of cracks across the thumb of the hand.
Suddenly a soul-wrenching cry that broke into a high-pitched wail shattered her concentration. The scream split the boundaries of life and death and jarred her very soul.
Walker's scream.
Panicked, Arya looked over at the ghost druid and ghostwalker and her breath caught. Walker had vanished, but somehow she could feel him there. Even now, she knew he fought beyond her physical sight, but not beyond the range of her heart.
Nor, she realized, beyond the range of her voice.
Though she could not see him, his ghostsight would allow him to see-and more importantly hear-her.
"Rhyn Thardeyn!" she cried. "Rhyn Thardeyn! I believe in you, Rhyn! I believe in you!"
As she shouted those words, words that did not even break Gylther'yel's concentration, she brought her sword down on the stone finger with one last mighty blow. The blade was terribly notched and bent but it held for this one last swing.