Forest Kingdom Trilogy 2 - Blood and Honor

Cord. 'I'm not Real. I'm just an idea, a whim made flesh and blood by the strength of Unreality. I came to you because you needed me so badly. But I'm also your friend, and that's why I've stayed. Just because I'm not Real, it doesn't mean I don't have feelings.'
    They shared a smile. And if it was a sad smile, they both pretended not to notice.
    'You look after Mother Donna,' said Cord. 'I'll cover your back. From a distance.'
    Taggert nodded, and walked forward to rejoin Mother Donna. The Unreal had moved no closer during her absence, held back by the Sanctuary's presence. Taggert even felt a little of her own unease fall away as she fell under Donna's calming influence again.
    'The focus for all this is a gateway not far from here,' said Mother Donna. 'We have to shut it down, while we still can. It's growing stronger all the time. Follow me, and stay close. It's going to be a bumpy ride.'
    She walked unflinchingly forward into the madness, and Catriona Taggert walked at her side, silver balefire glowing in her hand and on her arm. Cord watched them go, and waited a while before bringing up the rear. He threw his mallet away into nothingness, and took instead out of thin air a huge mace. The shaft was four feet long, and the great steel head was studded with barbed spikes. And so a man who wasn't Real went forward to battle with the Unreality that birthed him.
    The air heaved and sparkled around Mother Donna as she walked deeper into the West Wing.
    Distorted, melting creatures fell back before her, hissing and spitting, their flesh crawling and bubbling like hot wax over a flame. But the floor beneath her feet was just a floor, and the air directly around her was fresh and clear and pure, and nothing that was not Real could tarry in her presence. A few of the more stable creatures tried to block her way. Taggert cut them down with her balefire sword. Some way behind the two of them, Cord cut a bloody path through a growing crowd of horrors to keep up with them. His mace rose and fell with inhuman regularity, and the creatures from the dark places couldn't stand against him.
    And still Mother Donna strode on, more slowly now as the strain began to tell. Nightmares scuttled around her, changing and re-forming even as she looked. The range of her power grew steadily less as the pressure of Unreality weighed down upon her. Taggert swung her sword until her arm ached and sweat ran down her heaving sides, but for every creature that fell there were always more to take its place. She called upon her High Magic, and spoke a Word of Power. A blinding light flared up around her and the Sanctuary, consuming everything Unreal it touched. The creatures fell back and disappeared, and for a while they walked through an empty corridor. But the magic took its toll in pain and energy, and all too soon the light was flickering unsteadily. Taggert fought to maintain it, but it had been a long night and she'd done too much already. The light faded away, and one by one the creatures returned. Taggert still had her sword and shield, but for the first time she began to wonder if they were going to be enough.
    Mother Donna suddenly came to a halt, and Taggert stopped beside her. The gateway was somewhere up ahead, but the pressure of the Unreal was now so strong it was all Donna could do to hold her ground. Sweat ran down her straining face as creatures that could not have existed in the Real world pressed close about her and the Steward. She'd gone as far as she could, as far as her power and her courage could take her, and it hadn't been far enough. The first faint stirrings of panic tugged at her calm, and she wondered suddenly if this was what Grey Davey had felt, before the Unreal took him.
    Taggert swung her sword with desperate strength. The Sanctuary stood motionless at her side, her eyes clenched shut, despair written openly on her face. Taggert looked back for Cord, but he had disappeared beneath a horde of swarming creatures, back down the corridor. The Steward fought on, her arms and back screaming for rest, but the creatures before her wouldn't stay dead. They were Unreal, and they were strong in their own world.
    Taggert wondered what it would be like to die in the Unreal world. And if she would stay dead, or if something with her face would return to wage war against Castle Midnight in the cause of Unreality.

Chapter 6
    Wolves at the Gate
    Sir Gawaine Hellstrom, once of Tower Rouge, lay stiffly in his bed, staring up at