“I’ll take the sword,” Eve said, and kept it by her side as the room shimmered into a forest glade where silver beams of sunlight streamed through tall trees in full leaf.
Roarke wore a brown tunic, rough trousers, knee boots. His sword was sheathed at his side, and on his back was a quiver of silver-tipped arrows and a golden bow.
She couldn’t have said why the costume suited him, but understood he looked both heroic and dangerous.
Out of the shadows and into the gilded stream of light came a white buck. “What’s the play?” she asked him. “This world is under the enchantment of a wicked sorceress who’s imprisoned the king and his beautiful and tempestuous daughter.” As he spoke, he sidestepped into the cover of trees, but didn’t approach the buck.
“I’m the apprentice of the wizard she killed to cast her evil spell. Before he died, he told me I must complete seven tasks of valor, collect seven treasures. Only then would I be ready to face the sorceress and free the king and his daughter.”
He glanced back where she stood in the observation circle. “The white hind is classic quest symbolism, and in this case how my master, the wizard is able to guide me.”
“Okay then.” The hind leaped, began to race through the trees. Roarke followed. She watched, and the sunlight died into dark and storm. The rain that pelted down was red as fire, and sizzled like flames on the ground.
And watched as the yellow eyes that peered out of the torrent became skulking black forms, and as the forms became a pack of huge wolves that circled him.
The sword hissed as he pulled it from its sheath, and whistled as he swung and struck. He battled fang and claw, spilled blood and shed it. And to her surprise, shot flames from his hand. “Fairly frosty,” she murmured, when the wolves lay smoking on the ground. “Every level you win awards you with a bit more magic,” he explained. An arrow whistled by his head. He said, “Bugger it,” and dove for cover. At the end of forty minutes, he’d completed the level and was well into the next where he was currently tasked with cros
sing a chasm to a cave guarded by a dragon.
“Okay, that’s time.”
“I’m just getting started.”
“You can slay the dragon next time. You’re past Bart’s game time.”
He gave the cave a glance of regret before ordering game end.
“No sword fights,” she commented.
“What do you call that bit with the wolves?”
“Man against dog. The fireballs were interesting. Fire burns. He had burns, but . . . I’ll take the second one. Usurper, right? What’s the story?”
“You’re the right-wise king—make that queen in your case—of Juno. When you were only a child your family was slaughtered by the machinations of your uncle, who desired the throne, and by the hand of his henchman, Lord Manx. Only you survived, and were secreted away by loyalists. You’ve been at war all your life, trained in that art. You fight to avenge your family, to regain your throne from the man who ordered their deaths and has for two decades raped the land, oppressed your people. At this level, you’ve taken back the castle, but the uncle, being a coward, of course, escaped. The castle is now under siege, and the man you love is defending it. To get to him, and bring your reinforcements, you must fight your way through, and at last meet Manx in battle.”
“I bet we’re outnumbered.”
“Naturally, you’d have already given your St. Crispin’s Day speech.”
“My what?”
“We’ll discuss Henry V later. You’d like it. Ready?”
“You bet.”
She wore light battle armor and sturdy boots. And God help her, she was on a horse.
“Shouldn’t I know how to ride this thing before I . . . ride this thing?”
Roarke grinned at her from the observation circle. “It’ll come to you.”
“Easy for you to say. Jesus, it’s big. Okay, avenging warrior queen.”
There were hills and valleys, forests and streams. She tried to see them as Bart would have. He’d think in character, she imagined, and noted the men she led were battle scarred and weary. Some carried fresh wounds. But she was the hero, the leader.
He liked playing the hero, liked being the leader. The good guy, always the good guy, fighting for a cause, searching for the answers.
The going was rough and rocky. She heard the creak of the saddle under her, the ring of the horse’s hooves on the hard ground. She saw storm clouds gathering in the west.