The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [57]
“Nemesis.”
THIRTEEN
The name rang out in the grove like the sounding of a horn. It was filled with bloodlust, and with it came the knowledge to all of them of what they faced.
Nemesis: the Roman goddess of vengeance.
“She’s supposed to have wings,” Ailis said, reeling under the information flooding into her head. “Isn’t she?”
“She?” Gerard was having trouble with that.
“Nemesis. The bringer of balance, punishing those who were too fortunate for no cause, those who do evil.” Morgain smiled, a brittle smile that showed too many perfect teeth. “I summoned no small demon.”
“You called a god!” Gerard was shaking, aware that his sword, his muscles, were all useless, but he was overwhelmed with the desire to do something. Rage overwhelmed him. “You raised a god, made of the emotions of soldiers who hated us!” One of the many lessons crammed down the throats of all squires was that of the Romans who had come to Britain, and while the view in Camelot was different from Morgain’s opinion of Rome’s legacy, one thing that Gerard knew was that the Romans thought the natives to be little more than savages to be tamed, controlled, and absorbed into the might of their empire. Nemesis would have no desire to return Morgain’s vision of Britain to reality—she would rather destroy it all.
The goddess in question raised one gloved hand, palm open as though to strike, and a blast of power sent Ailis staggering back, bloody scrapes appearing across her cheek.
“My name will not save you now, no matter what you might once have become. You will die, and the bargain will be sealed,” Nemesis told her, advancing slowly toward the girl. “Balance will be restored. Chaos will return. This land will fall back to that as it was, as it was wished.”
“That was not my wish!” Morgain protested. “I wanted peace, not—”
“Your intent does not matter,” Nemesis said. “Only your wish. Only that which was in your mind as you called me. Hatred. Disorder. Justice.” She paused. “Revenge.” The last word was spoken with such loving tones, all four humans shivered in response.
“My name will not save you now, either, Priestess,” the shadow-figure crooned. “The bargain has been made. Revenge has a cost. All things have a cost. And it is time to pay.”
Nemesis moved again toward Ailis, only to find her way blocked by Newt and Gerard, the latter forcing his leg to hold him upright while he raised his battered, dirt-and blood-covered sword in an act of useless defiance.
Off to the side, Morgain lifted her hands and began to speak in a low voice. Ailis, still on the ground, listened for a few beats, then began speaking as well, her words not so much matching the sorceress’s as twining around them, adding to them.
“Begone, mortals!” Nemesis spat at the boys. Another wave of power knocked Gerard square in the knees, making him crumple to the ground, clutching at his leg. The stained and wrinkled bandage showed new blossoms of red underneath; the wound had reopened with the blow.
Newt felt the blow, and braced for it—only to feel it instead part and flow around him, like water around a stone.
His astonishment was matched only by Nemesis’s. The goddess stared the boy in the face, eyes flaring even brighter as she raised her hand for another blow, then checked herself.
“What’s the matter, can’t do it?” Newt taunted the figure with a sense of tempting fate. A musical hum sounded in his ears, in the layers of bone beneath, under skin, under blood, but he had no time to wonder about it, no strength to listen to it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gerard, still crumpled and pale, rocking in pain, and Ailis, her eyes scrunched closed, trying to call enough magic to defeat a god. His friends were injured; his friends, who would die, far from home, without the glory that was rightfully theirs.
The hum tried to grow, but was pressed down by another noise; the serpentine sound of Nemesis’s voice, hissing unfamiliar words Newt could almost make out. A spell, or some magic was trying to freeze his bones,