Nightrise

poisonous. He towered over Matt. Was it Jamie's imagination or had he grown since the fighting had begun, as if feeding on so much death?
    Matt stood where he was. Jamie examined him properly for the first time. He was just a boy with square shoulders and short, dark hair, but his face was much older than his fourteen years. He had the eyes of a man, full of wisdom and experience. He was dressed, like Jamie, in a coarsely woven, gray shirt that hung down below his waist, crossed by a leather belt running diagonally across his chest. He had a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The symbol that he had chosen was a fish.
    Matt suddenly raised his hand, not attacking his opponent but pointing to the side. Two knights had been closing in but they were instantly thrown back, sent flying off their horses by an invisible force. Several humans — overlords and slaves — were hurled into the air. Matt had created a corridor in the fighting and a second boy stepped into it.
    Jamie looked across the clearing and saw what could have been a mirror image of himself. Or it could have been Scott. But he knew that it was Flint. Flint was bruised and exhausted from the battle, his clothes torn and his shield broken, but still quite obviously his identical twin.
    Flint walked forward and at the same time Scar made her appearance, bringing down a man twice her size, stabbing a second, and leaping over a third with her sword angled up in front of her, her eyes fixed on Chaos as if she planned to attack him all on her own. Now there were three of them surrounding the motionless figure, the black space at the center of the conflict.
    The King of the Old Ones was amused by the new arrivals. "Three of the Five. But not enough. Still not enough!" The words vibrated in the air. They made Jamie's head ache. He felt sick.
    He was about to step forward but before he could move, another boy ran past him, almost brushing his shoulder. It was Inti. He was soaking wet from the rainstorm and there was blood running from a wound on his cheek. He had lost his shield but he still had his sword.
    "Four of you!" The words came hissing out of the darkness, full of contempt.
    "Five," Jamie said, and joined the circle.
    Flint saw him and nodded, his face filled with delight. Inti and Scar smiled. Matt gave nothing away. He unsheathed his sword.
    And that was when the King of the Old Ones knew that he had been deceived. The boy who was dead was somehow alive again. Inti had arrived, unseen, on the battlefield.
    Chaos was surrounded by the Five who had been born for this very moment and sent to defeat him. Four boys and a girl. Each of them armed. The battle, raging all around them, was almost forgotten.
    "Go back where you came from," Matt said.
    He took a single step forward and stabbed with all his strength, burying his blade in the creature's heart.
    The others did the same. First Flint, then Inti. The King of the Old Ones writhed as each blade went into him. His shape was shimmering like ripples on a pool of water. But three blows were not enough to finish him. Scar went next, burying her own sword up to the hilt. And at last the creature cried out, feeling pain for the first time.
    Jamie was the last to step forward. Gritting his teeth, he plunged his sword into the blackness in front of him. He felt his arm freeze and wondered if the blade had shattered. At the same moment, he was deafened by the terrible death scream of the defeated king.
    The five points of the five swords had touched.

    Chaos had never been a man and at that moment he lost the pretense. He seemed to explode outward, completely losing his human shape, becoming nothing more than a huge shadow, a sort of living night that was at last being torn apart by the coming of the day. He screamed one last time and his servants knew, right then, that the battle was lost. The sound reached the farthest corners of the world and still it didn't stop. Every evil being in the universe heard it and knew that the end had come.
    Jamie was paralyzed. If Frost was still in his hand, he couldn't move it. He could feel the power of the Five now that they were finally together, and although he had never been stronger, at the same time he was overwhelmed. The power was intensifying and he was sure that it would break him apart. It was more than he could bear. He tried to look for Finn or any of the others but it was as if nothing existed outside the circle they had formed. He was aware only of four