Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) Read Free

feel comfortable. He didn’t trust her either — she could see it in his twitching cheeks whenever he turned his gaze her direction. Ah, but he would pay dearly if he intervened. And if the worst happened, she could always call upon the ranks of the druidow, hidden with her grandfather, Mórganthu, in the woods to their left.
    As well, her thirteen-year-old son, Mórdred, was hiding on the right, though she didn’t want to chance his precious life so soon.There were plans for him, and his life must be preserved for the day of victory.
    “Dig, Gorlas,” she said, and he did, furiously. Heaps of dirt soon bulged at the edge of his pit, each one threatening to collapse back into the hole.
    Then he stopped.
    “What’s this?” He picked up something long and gray. “It’s a bone . . . I . . . I . . .”
    “Keep digging. You must find them all.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Dig a little farther . . . trust me.” It will be released once he finds the skull . . . The Voice has promised.
    “I won’t. Not till you explain. My love . . . my love isn’t dead . . . I see my love . . . she stands before me!”
    Mórgana glanced up but saw nothing. The fool was delirious.
    “She’s warning me.” Gorlas stared at nothing, one hand raised as if to touch someone’s face. All at once he turned a fiery gaze on Mórgana. “Telling me not to trust you. Why should I trust you?”
    Mórgana smiled.
    He yelped while his eyes wildly searched the air. “She’s gone. She’s g-gone! I can’t see her . . . I must have her. I must find her!” He thrust the shovel back into the earth and began digging deeper and deeper.
    Mórgana pushed a wisp of black hair away from her eyes, pouted at his irritating manner, and slipped her hand down to her belt. There she found her special fang hidden in a thin leather sheath. Plucking it out, she wrapped her fingers around its length. Years had passed since she’d found it beneath the Druid Stone, and now it ached to be used for this very special purpose. Her plans were finally coming to fruition, and she almost laughed to think of it. She had waited so long. The Voice, who had given her this fang, had waited also, and he had taught her patience, yes. Patience for such a vast revenge that all the world would be stunned into silence.
    And it begins . . . now.
    A thrill of power wiggled up the inside of her arm like a worm, ate its way into her chest, and spun there: increasing, pulsing . . . power!
    Gorlas dug deeper until his knees could no longer be seen. At the sound of crunching bones, he closed his eyes, snapped his head back and forth, and looked back down. Myriad gray bones lay at his feet. And a skull. But not a human skull.
    Gorlas growled; the sound rattled deep from within his throat as he stared at the skull of the creature — her friend — she had buried here all those years ago.
    Morgana worked to hold back a laugh at the confusion on the man’s face. But it would not last long. Lifting forth the fang, she felt its green fire curling around her hand. She jabbed its curved spike into the nape of his neck.
    He screamed, arched his back, and swore at her. He lifted the shovel, off-balance, and threatened to cleave her head in two.
    Behind her, she heard Dyslan draw his sword, but she refused to take her eyes from the delicious scene before her.
    Smoke began to pour from the hole in Gorlas’s neck, and blood dribbled onto his finely woven plaid of indigo, white, and teal. His arms began to shake, and his face contorted.
    The shovel fell, clanking upon a rock.
    Gorlas tipped sideways and dropped into the hole, dead.
    Dyslan yelled and ran at her.
    She jumped over the hole, leaving Gorlas’s body between her and the guard. Landing in a crouch, she spun to face Dyslan as the ground began to tremble. A muffled roaring sounded from the open grave, and dirt and rocks shot upward in stinging plumes.
    Dyslan staggered, his sword limp. The other guard awoke and fell to his knees in