The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [58]
Something stirred deep inside himself, in an area he had never even noticed before. Something large, and hot, and ugly, the brute cousin of what he had felt when Merlin tried to enforce his will over them earlier. “Come on, knock me over! You’re so powerful, so scary—do it!”
Unnoticed by any of the two-legged figures, the salamander crawled around in the banked fire, the activity stirring the coals back to life.
Nemesis snarled, but no further attack came, neither verbal nor physical. Clearly, the avatar wanted to strike Newt down, the same as the others…but something prevented it.
Newt grinned at it, the way a dog grins at prey just before it strikes.
“You hate this land so much? Drawing on all the frustration, the anger, whatever, of all those soldiers who called on you? Fine. Feed off that. But there’s something you didn’t think about, in your plan.
“My da’s father was one of your damned soldiers. He raised my da to be a proper Roman boy, only it didn’t work out that way. He wed a local girl, got her with a local-born son. And I’m not the only one, I bet, descended from your soldiers and living off the land you’re so intent on wiping out.”
Newt didn’t know where all this knowledge was coming from; it was as though, with the information about Nemesis, other things, other memories had been shaken loose. His father had died when he was very young, but his mother had told him stories and sung him Roman songs. She had passed along an awareness, faint and forgotten though it had been, of all the blood that ran in his veins.
Blood that ran hot and fierce now; a soldier’s blood, a warrior’s blood. He had to fight, rend, protect.
“Go on, strike me!”
The next blow rebounded off Newt’s chest and struck back at Nemesis. Newt swayed, but stayed on his feet, a barrier between Nemesis and Ailis. The girl was still trying to find some chink in the avatar’s magical armor.
The goddess had come here through Morgain’s invitation. But the basis of her strength was the blood of the soldiers who had invoked her name, generations before. Newt carried the blood of both within him, native and invader. Nemesis might strike at him, but not destroy; not without breaking the forces which allowed her access to this land, this land’s magic, in the first place.
“If you’re going to do something,” Newt said, panting, to Ailis, “do it now.”
Near the well, Gerard had rolled onto his side and fought through the pain in order to stand up.
“Ger…get away from here.” Gerard was the one with the Grail. If Newt could keep Ailis safe, and Gerard could somehow get the Grail to Arthur…
As though sensing the direction of Newt’s thoughts, Nemesis paused, then, with a snarl, leapt not at Newt, but Gerard, even as the squire tried to get to his feet to get away.
“No!” Ailis called, the sight breaking her concentration.
Newt’s blood heated to boiling. Destroy the threat. Words flowed from him, harsh, ragged-edged words that none of them, not even Newt, recognized, and his arm drew back as though to throw something.
A long beam of light, shaped like a spear topped with a dark red point, appeared in his grasp.
He repeated the phrase, his voice getting louder, and let the spear fly.
It never left his hand—it was his hand, the light coming from it somehow fused with him—but a bolt went through the air, into Nemesis’s shoulder, nonetheless.
Newt chanted another phrase and raised his left hand. In it, a straight, double-edged blade of light appeared. A gladius, a stabbing sword used by warriors in Newt’s grandfather’s day.
Newt’s face twisted into something fierce, almost inhuman, and he rushed at Nemesis, the magical gladius held low and flat, aimed directly for the avatar’s ribs.
The two met in a burst of black light; Nemesis tinged in purple, Newt in red—the color of dried blood.
Somewhere inside Newt, under the rage, a soft chime sounded again, and was swept away.
Morgain made her way to Ailis’s side, having given up on her attempts to attack the companion. “It consumes him,” the sorceress said, watching Newt. “Whatever magic