Sword Sirens

by Edmund Hughes

  Ari had never seen her like this before. In truth, he’d never seen anyone fight in the way she was currently fighting. Eva was trying to kill Bloodrose, putting all of her body into it. She was fighting like an animal, or like one of the fishers, intent on bringing about death by any means necessary.

  Jarvis let out a surprised shout and immediately summoned Bloodrose to his hand in her sword construct form. He slowly backed away, looking warily between Ari and Eva.

  “Grab their supplies,” said Jarvis. “Along with the armor. We’re leaving.”

  He looked into Ari’s eye and held his gaze for a couple of seconds. Ari was in agony from the arrow, but he kept his expression firm, knowing that he couldn’t show any weakness.

  “We’ll meet again, orphan,” said Jarvis.

  Ari didn’t say anything, not trusting himself to force words out in a steady voice. He held himself as steadily as he could, balanced down on one knee, until Jarvis and his companions disappeared past the tree line. Then he collapsed from the pain.

  CHAPTER 46

  “Aristial!” cried Kerys. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “You will have to help me carry him, Lady Kerys,” said Eva. “We will not be able to get the arrow out until he’s inside the tower.”

  “I can do that,” said Kerys. “I think.”

  “I’m—fine,” muttered Ari. “I can still…”

  He wanted to tell them that he could still walk, but trying to shift or lift himself up resulted in a sudden, overwhelming surge of pain. Eva and Kerys started dragging him, and that wasn’t much better. He felt his awareness wavering, not fading completely, but splitting him off from the pain in his body and leaving him disassociated.

  “Water,” said Eva. “From the shower. Clean leather strips. Boil them in the cooking pot. It will soften them up and prevent them from carrying rot.”

  He heard Kerys moving through the tower. He felt Eva’s hand on his forehead, along with a wet and cool strip of cloth. He sensed the tension in her thighs underneath him as she held him in place. He didn’t feel the arrow come out when she pulled in a single, resolved motion, and that was both a blessing and a curse.

  When Ari woke up, he was still in the tower’s common room. Eva and Kerys were both with him, the former borrowing his legs as a pillow while the latter cuddled with him from the side.

  “How long…” muttered Ari. “The storm—is it here yet?”

  “Almost,” said Eva. “It’s close to nightfall. We don’t have long.”

  Ari gritted his teeth and forced himself to his feet. Pain throbbed in his shoulder, and though it was almost as bad as it had been with the arrow still in, he forced himself to ignore it.

  “The wards,” said Ari. “I have to activate them.”

  “Aristial, you need to rest,” said Kerys. “If you get up and start moving around, you’ll—”

  “Mud and blood, Kerys!” shouted Ari. “I’m the only one who can do this! If I don’t get those wards activated, we’ll die. All of us.”

  “Lord Aristial,” said Eva. “She’s right. You are in no condition to walk on your own, even.”

  “Then get over here and help me!” said Ari, with a little more edge in his tone than he’d intended. “Please.”

  Her silver-blue hair was messy, and her hands were dirty with dried blood from treating his wound. Kerys’ eyes were red, and her nose was running. Eva bowed slightly and hurried to help support him under his one good arm, and Kerys followed behind, as though worried he might collapse again.

  Ari still had essence stored within him, and the first thing he did was to head up to the enchanting altar and drain it of the small amount of essence it still had left. He knew that it wouldn’t be enough, but he also knew that he had to try, anyway.

  He pressed his palm against one of the tower’s outer wards and fed essence into it through focusing his will. It activated, but it took basically everything Ari had. Three of the six wards still lay dormant. In all the time they’d been using the tower as a base, they’d only managed to get halfway to where they needed to be.

  “Can we take the essence out of the wards we activated inside?” asked Ari.

  “Unfortunately, it does not work like that,” said Eva.

  “Mud and blood,” Ari muttered. “Okay. Maybe, if we hurry, we could make it to the labyrinth.”

  “It’s too far away, Ari,” said Kerys. “Even if you weren’t injured, we wouldn’t be able to travel that fast.”

  “There must be something else!” said Ari. “Some way around this problem. Eva, I know how much this question will pain you, but can you remember anything that might help?”

  She looked away from him for a couple of seconds before slowly shaking her head.

  “I do not,” she said. “I promise you that I would tell you if I did”

  Ari thought back to his own vision and what he’d seen of Mythril’s life. Was there something there that he could use? The rune sleds. Mythril’s enchanted items, and Diya’s self-buffing mystica. The conversation with Emperor Horace.

  “The golems,” said Ari. “Of course! Come on, we have to move!”

  “Aristial…” said Kerys.

  “There’s no time!” shouted Ari. “This way. Kerys, run back in and grab the rope!”

  He gestured with his good arm, and to his relief, Kerys and Eva didn’t question him any further about what he intended. They headed west, making their way down the hill and then into the forest. It was almost the same route Ari usually took to the Saidican ruins and the labyrinth, but he veered off to the north after a minute.

  “There!” he said, spotting what he’d come to find.

  “The statues…” said Eva.

  “They aren’t statues!” snapped Ari. “That’s why they’re here. Nobody would build a statue this far from the city! They’re old golems, and they might still be of use to us! They had to have been fueled by something!”

  Both of the golems stood at least fifty feet high. Ari rested on the grass, instructing Kerys and Eva to take a closer look at each one for anything other than stone that might be recovered. Kerys let out a shout after a minute of searching.

  “This one!” she said. “There’s something in its eye, or where an eye would be on a person, at least.”

  Ari swore under his breath. He had been anticipating the possibility of having to climb up one of the golems but making it high enough to reach the head would be impossible in his current state.

  “I’ll attempt the climb,” said Eva. “If I fall, I can always shift into sword form to avoid injuring myself on impact.”

  “Good thinking,” said Ari. He briefly considered trying to throw Eva in her sword form up to within grabbing distance of the golem’s eyes, but that option still seemed challenging for him with his injury, given that the toss would need to be almost straight up fifty feet.

  Eva started climbing, carrying the rope with her just in case it became necessary. The golem’s form did not do her any favors, and she was already struggling to find handholds by the time she was up to its knee.

  “Try throwing the rope!” shouted Ari, suddenly having an idea. “If you can get it up over the shoulder, we can hold one end and you can climb the other.”

  Eva tried a couple of times and finally managed it on the third throw. Unfortunately, the rope just wasn’t long enough for the plan to be feasible. She tried to scramble up and grab onto the golem’s waist, falling in the process and only saving herself by landing in her sword form.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Ari felt his heart pounding as he realized what he’d already known. They were out of time. His plan had been solid, and with another hour, it probably would have saved them. But they had minutes, if that, and they couldn’t manage to make the climb that quickly.

  “Kerys,” said Ari. “Get back to the tower. Eva and I will keep trying.”

  “I’m not leaving your side,” said Kerys.

  “Eva!” snapped Ari. “Bring her back! Get inside and ba
rricade the door.”

  Eva shook her head. “Not without you, milord.”

  Ari punched the grass in frustration. He heard a rustling noise and immediately tensed, wondering if some of the fishers had arrived ahead of the rain.

  The sound, he soon realized, came from overhead. Half a dozen black silhouettes circled in the sky above and then descended into the clearing alongside Ari, Kerys, and Eva.

  Rin stood at the front of her cadre, smiling slightly as she crossed her arms over her breasts. She flicked a few strands of jet-black hair out of her face and raised an eyebrow at Ari.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” she said. “Hopefully I don’t have to explain why. You should—”

  “I’m calling in a favor, Rin,” said Ari. “You stole my cloak. Now, you’re going to save me and my friends.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do,” said Rin. “Though warning you of what’s on its way might still be insufficient.”

  “Look!” Ari pointed at the golem’s eye. “Do you see that? The green gem in its left eye. Bring it to me Rin, and mud and blood, I’ll let you keep my Feathercloak.”

  “I wasn’t planning on giving it back just yet, anyway,” said Rin. “So be it.”

  She flapped her wings, flew up to the golem’s eye, and after a couple of seconds of frustrated wiggling, managed to pry it loose. She dropped it from above, and Ari caught it with the hand of his good arm.

  “We cannot stay any longer, chala,” called Rin. “I wish you and yours the best of luck.”

  She started to rejoin the rest of her flock, who were already circling and gaining altitude. Then, she seemed to think better of it, swooping low and landing right in front of Ari. Before he could stop her, she’d pressed her lips to his and stolen a quick kiss. She was in the air before he could reply, and despite the circumstances, Ari couldn’t help but chuckle at the annoyance he saw on Kerys and Eva’s faces.

  “Come on,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

  CHAPTER 47

  The first droplets of rain started falling almost immediately after they’d left the golem. By the time they’d made it to the hill, they were pushing through a deluge of falling water.

  Eva helped him up the slope, while Kerys ran ahead to open the door. Ari heard a noise off to the side, and he turned in time to bear witness to a fisher rising from the ground.

  He remembered what Jed had told him about the Weatherblight in the brief conversation they’d had about the monsters. They weren’t creatures or animals in the normal sense of the word. They were more like the mold that grew on cave walls, or the slugs that coalesced together from the slime in the dirty crevasses of the dumping pit.

  The fisher’s body seemed to inflate from a few inches underneath the dirt before it stumbled upward, breaking loose and coming to stand while still covered in soil and grass. Ari and Eva reached the door, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been just a sliver too late as he saw half a dozen other monsters rising up near the tree line, and one right on the hill next to him.

  Eva knew exactly where he needed to go, and she all but carried him up to the third floor. Ari slammed the green crystal down on the enchanting altar’s center and drained it of its essence as fast as his shaking hands would allow. Then, he took the essence into his own body, and felt despair hit him like a slap in the face.

  “It’s not enough…” he muttered. “We went through all that, and it’s not enough. Maybe I could activate two, but not three.”

  Eva’s face took on a solemn quality, and she stepped in between him and the enchanting altar.

  “There’s something you should know,” she said. “As I may have mentioned to you in the past, I have my own store of essence within me. It should be sufficient if you drain it while I’m in my sword form.”

  Ari was already shaking his head before she’d finished her sentence.

  “And what would that do to you?” he said. “Do I even need to ask?”

  “It would destroy my enchantment,” she whispered. “I would be destroyed, myself, in the process. But—”

  “Absolutely not,” said Ari.

  “Not even to save Lady Kerys?” asked Eva. “If you don’t do this, she’ll die, and so will you.”

  Eva stared at him, her blue eyes harboring a deep sadness, but with an edge of resolve along with it. Was he willing to do what she’d suggested? He’d promised Kerys that he’d protect her, no matter what. He’d told her that he’d go to whatever lengths were necessary to keep her safe. He promised her brothers that he’d die, if that’s what it took to save her.

  Would he sacrifice Eva for that same end? His heart felt hot and heavy, and it was suddenly hard for him to breathe past the lump in his throat. Eva had served him with no hesitation. He was undeserving of her, as a master, as a man, hell, probably even as a friend.

  He loved her. He loved Kerys. Could he really choose between them?

  He held his hand out. Eva flashed and turned into her sword form. Ari caught her by the hilt, and then hesitated for only a moment before spinning around and rushing back downstairs. Kerys was in the common room, watching the door.

  “Lock it behind me,” said Ari. “I’ll knock three times when it’s safe to open it and let me back in.”

  “Aristial!” shouted Kerys. “There’s too many of them! You’ll die!”

  She grabbed his hand as he started toward the door. He pulled it free, unlatched the door, and slid out into the storm.

  One of the fishers noticed him almost immediately. As Rin has mentioned when she’d spoken of the strength of the storm, the monster was at least as big as the largest fisher Ari had seen when he’d last encountered them. He hurled himself to the side as it reached out with its disgusting, wriggling tendrils, cutting a slash into one with a backswing made clumsy by his wounded shoulder.

  “It isn’t too late!” shouted Eva, through the bond. “Get back inside.”

  Ari hurried around the edge of the tower. It wasn’t far to the first inactivated ward. He slammed the hand of his wounded arm against it and willed the requisite essence forward, not bothering to slow to a complete stop. It flashed with light as he activated it, drawing the attention of two more fishers.

  He let out a wordless battle cry and hacked his way past another surging tentacle attack. The next ward was four steps away, and then three, and then he was alongside it. He slammed his hand down and willed the last of his stored essence into it.

  Except, that wasn’t all the essence that Ari had. Eva’s words had stirred an idea with him. A stupid idea, but to be fair, all of his ideas were pretty stupid. Ari had his own store of essence, separate from sharing with Eva or activating enchantments. His soul essence. And he would gladly sacrifice it for his friends.

  He had to get through a fisher to even get near enough to try it. A tentacle wrapped around his neck. Ari snarled like a madman and sank his teeth into it, taking a surprisingly large and unsurprisingly disgusting bite out of it. He spat ooze out of his mouth and swung Azurelight in a whirlwind attack that bought him space, if nothing else.

  He slid through mud as he came to the last ward and slammed his hand against it without hesitation. The fishers were closing on him. He felt the sword disappear from his hand and heard Eva grunt as she attempted to hold them off with her bare hands. She knew what he was about to do. She was loyal to the end, even when it meant aiding him in a suicidal gambit.

  He could feel his soul essence. It was there in his heart. Behind his eyes. The swirling awareness of sound and touch. Memories, and emotion. He gathered it into a distillation, and then forced it into the ward with all the will he could muster.

  Blood gushed out of Ari’s nose in thick, coppery gout. His vision swam with black dots. Strangely, even his teeth hurt, as though someone had just banged a piece of metal against him.

  The ward lit up. All of them did. And nothing else happened.

  The fishers drew back from the light, hesitating in a manner that was uncharacter
istic for the mindless monsters. It was only for an instant, but Eva moved in that time, tossing Ari over her shoulder and carrying him back toward the tower’s entrance in a desperate burst of movement.

  The reverie ended after just a few seconds, and the fishers began to close in on them again. Eva tossed Ari onto the common room table as soon as they were inside, throwing her strength into holding the door closed instead. Several tentacles had slid past the threshold and kept the door from being able to close all the way and be properly barred.

  “Milord!” shouted Eva. “There’s a ward on the table! On the center of the table!”

  There was more than one. At least twelve in total. Ari pushed back against the fugue clouding his thoughts to focus his attention on the situation. He was still alive. There were wards on the table. The tower’s defenses hadn’t turned on. They needed to be activated. Eva was shouting to him…

  He slammed his hand down on one of the wards at random, shouting as he pushed his will into it. The door flew open as the fishers finally overwhelmed Eva, but at the exact same moment, a sheath of blindingly bright white surrounded the tower. It flooded in through the door and every window. Half a dozen fisher tentacles fell to the floor in front of the doorway, where the light had apparently severed them from their previous owner.

  Then it was quiet.

  CHAPTER 48

  The storm was gone. Ari pushed himself up from the table and stared at the door, which still hung completely open. The fishers were gone, too. Perhaps most importantly, the familiar surroundings, the hill, the trees, and the grassy slope were all no longer visible outside the tower.

  Even more surprising was the fact that it was daytime again. Close to sunset, but Ari was absolutely sure that it had been at least an hour later during the storm and his desperate gambit at activating the wards.

  Kerys stared outside the door with her jaw hanging slack, her blonde hair blowing slightly in the breeze that was apparently sneaking in. Eva seemed similarly dumbstruck, but only for a moment. She hurried to close the door and bar it, and then turned her attention toward Ari.