by S T Branton
He was young, Marcus said quietly. He has always been the epitome of beauty and youth. This? I do not know what to say.
“It looks like the price of evil is pretty damn steep,” I remarked. “I’m surprised he’s still hanging in there.”
It is a tragic situation, said Marcus. But it is also clear to me that nothing more can be done, regardless of who he used to be. His path has been chosen, along with his fate.
I adjusted my grip on the Gladius Solis. “That sounds like you’ve given me the go-ahead to kill him. And I’m merely letting you know that I won’t argue if that’s the case.”
Wait. Let us allow this scenario to play out first. I am sure Abraxzael has engineered things this way for a reason.
I smirked. “Look at you, suddenly keeping the demon faith. I’m proud of you.” But I left my sword bladeless and kept my eyes on Brax. He showed no indication of being affected in any way by Oxylem’s words. He hadn’t even removed his glasses. “How the fuck does he still have those?” At the very least, I would’ve assumed they’d get knocked off his face by now.
The Marked work in mysterious ways.
Oxylem’s voice raised again and carried over the battered field. “Madness!” he repeated. “Do you not remember what happened the last time you tried to resist? Your accursed people died by the thousands. What makes you think they will not do so again?” The god looked at everyone assembled, his withered features fixed in a mask of stony resignation. “There is no light. There is no hope. It was the werewolves who began this futile struggle, then abandoned it in the throes of cowardice. Let them be the ones to end it, not you.”
Brax didn’t move a muscle except to open his mouth. “If you insist,” was all he said.
At that precise moment, the trees behind Oxylem’s brutish fort sent up their distinctive, chilling howl. The god fidgeted where he stood, apparently startled. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as Smitty and his forces barreled out of the woods, more of them than I’d ever seen in one place. The Weres were monstrous tanks of muscle and claw and tooth. Their raw, wild energy colored the atmosphere and churned the air. Most of the guards and soldiers drew away from them instinctually. They rose in silence behind Smitty, angry and not to be fucked with.
I loved them so much.
For the third time, Oxylem turned toward me and directed his eyes at what I assumed was a gate in the wall. He motioned with his hand, and two more guards marched out with a human strung between them. She writhed and kicked, and her hair flashed with every movement.
“That has to be Amber,” I muttered.
Yes, Marcus affirmed. And make no mistake, Oxylem is no longer the soft soul he once was. She is far from safe.
She was dropped at the god’s feet where she lay on her side, her arms and legs bound. He didn’t touch her, but he did raise a wooden spear and pointed the tip directly at her heart. “I will only say this once,” he proclaimed. His voice was heavy but firm. “Stand down immediately, or this young creature will die before your eyes.” His tone softened slightly. “Take solace in the fact that she will make a beautiful tree, a thousand-year monument to the chaos you have wrought.”
He lifted his narrow chin as his fingers tightened on the haft of the spear. Amber squirmed. The spear inched closer to her.
“Well, beasts?” Oxylem prompted. “Time runs short.”
Brax and Smitty were statues in front of the slaves they had freed. As frantic as he had been earlier, the old blacksmith’s composure remained hard as a rock. They looked at each other, and Smitty nodded. I held my breath.
The demon forced the Viking soldier to his knees and crushed his skull with one decisive blow. In response, Oxylem jerked his spear back and prepared to plunge it into Amber’s heart.
Strike now! Marcus commanded.
In a fraction of a second, I lit my blade and thrust it from me. The sword swept downward and blazed toward the back of Oxylem’s shoulder. It struck beneath the joint. His arm, relieved of its attachment to the rest of his body, spun off at an angle. The god collapsed into the anxious arms of his men, and the sword arced to return to me and severed her bonds in the process. As the ropes fell onto the charred ground, the feisty Amber clambered to her feet and dashed toward her grandfather’s fearsome ranks. The werewolves surged forward to meet her.
The Gladius Solis returned to my hand in time to be brandished at the swarms of guards that angled directly toward me.
I smiled. The battle was officially on.
Chapter Thirty-Four
They hit me like a tidal wave as their hands grabbed and feet kicked. I planted my feet down hard and lashed out with the sword again and again. The ambient light of the blade lit their faces, and I saw more vamps among them. Fighting those guys gave me a weird sense of nostalgia for the early New York days and all the trouble I got into following Rocco Durant around the seediest parts of town. These slimeballs probably had no idea who he was.
The guards on the wall were fast and strong, but they weren’t particularly suited for hand-to-hand combat in such close quarters. I had innumerable opportunities to shove them off the edge, and I used every chance I got. The swinging arcs of my blade made short work of their fleshy bodies. One idiot actually attempted to grab its cutting edge with his gloved hand, as if the thin material would be enough to save him. He screamed when his hand was instantly vaporized by the heat.
“Really, dude?” I asked prior to running him through the gut. He died with an expression of pained confusion frozen onto his face.
As my opponents fell, I looked to the left and right and gauged the number of new challengers. The wall, which had been sparsely populated a second ago, now crawled with a zillion soldiers all after my blood. Gunfire picked up again in earnest, and I took that as my cue to reach lower ground. I dropped from the floor of the parapet, swung across the face of the wall, and landed on my feet inside, thirty yards from the gate through which Oxylem had been dragged.
“Shit,” I said. “This might not have been the best idea.”
An even greater number of enemies clogged the field and formed a seething, impenetrable barrier. The wall rattled from a hundred impacts as Smitty’s Weres leapt over the top in pursuit of screeching guards. Viking weapons battered at me from all angles except the very back, and flames seared my face.
“Yep. Bad idea,” I said. The sword parried a volley of strikes and sliced through hammers, axes, and burly Viking arms. Drops of their vital fire splashed across the ground, but it was so dead already that the flames didn’t catch.
Go toward the gate, Marcus urged. It may provide you with the most reliable means of escape.
“That’s the plan,” I said. No way could I ever fight my way out of a mess this big. With every step, more bodies crushed around me like a living tomb. When they tried to circle to my back, I thrust the sword out and spun, which spattered me with blood, Viking embers, and vamp ash. I kept my lips tightly closed lest any of that gross shit get in my mouth. The thought alone made me want to puke.
“Get her,” someone roared and injected new vigor into the bloodthirsty mob. Suddenly, it seemed like the hands that grasped for purchase on my clothes and body had doubled in number. Luckily, I had become very good at cutting them off.
For every soldier who fell away, five more appeared and charged at me in a frenzy. This army was like a thousand hydras. I could feel the nectar working overtime to push me through. “Man, this will hurt in the morning,” I said. “Is there a massage therapist on call at the church?”
My back hit something that rattled and gave and a latticework of wooden stakes pressed against my spine. Finally, the gate. I stared into the murderous faces of a dozen beasts who thought they were inches from killing me, smiled, and aimed the sword in a new direction.
The lock shattered on contact and allowed the gate panel to swing open. I stood motionless in the flood of furious Weres and freed slaves that poured through. My attackers were swept away in a stampede of rifle fire and fe
rocious mauling.
Brax brought up the rear and caught me by the shoulder. “It looked a little hairy for a minute there,” he remarked with a grin. “Good thing I came to save you.”
I rolled my eyes, even though he was more right than usual. “I still can’t believe you managed to hide all those guns on your person.” I glanced at the woodsmen shooting with wild abandon into the teeming mass of soldiers. “I think they’re enjoying them.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Brax asked. He was as close to outright cheerful as I’d ever seen him. “I’m like that Christmas demon who eats all the shitty kids.” Mid-sentence, he brought the head of his hammer down on the head of an incredibly unfortunate vamp who approached from the side. He swung the weapon under and launched the fresh corpse into the brawl forcibly enough to send more sprawling. “I don’t even have to try.” He had a satisfied smile on his face before he loped away again to prove the point by beating a path through the violence.
I dove in headfirst, eager for a bigger slice of the action. The Viking weapons had torn the field up, and freezing muck coated everything from the shins down. I drew the warmth and energy of the Gladius Solis into my body and whirled through the battle. The vamps and woodsmen were cut down in droves. They mingled with the ashes already strewn across the mud.
Vikings were a slightly bigger problem, both in stature and strategy. For once, the general wetness of the day helped as it prohibited torrents of fire-blood from spreading. The brutes could pack one hell of a wallop, but it was hard for their slow asses to catch me as I literally ran circles around them. The sword’s unbreakable rope trick came in handy. I left them bundled into bales in my wake. They were easy prey for kill-hungry Weres after that.
Still, the numbers remained damn high on both sides. I’d caught my second wind, but I began to wonder how long the onslaught would continue and if it was really endless. The confusion only increased as everyone was covered in more dirt and mud. A few isolated blazes sprang up and caused a haze of smoke to descend upon us. Despite these difficult conditions, the fight continued to rage.
I worked my way back toward the outskirts and remained vigilant for any familiar faces. I’d long since lost sight of both Smitty and Brax, and there was one face I had yet to see at all. The concern pushed at me, so I climbed the wall once more. Up top, I hacked through challenger after challenger and almost didn’t notice a hand that fell on my arm. When I did, I nearly cut it off. Then I looked up and saw the man it was attached to.
“There you are,” Deacon said, slightly out of breath. “Please don’t chop off my body parts. I need them more than ever right now.” He wielded a gigantic ax lifted off one of the Vikings. It wasn’t on fire, but it made him look hot as all hell.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “On the plus side, ‘sexy lumberjack’ is a great look for you. All you’re missing is the hipster beard. And the flannel.”
“Yeah?” He stroked his chin. “I think I might have missed my calling on the west coast. Maybe I should stay. Drink a lot of artisanal coffee and get some glasses with no lenses in ʼem.”
I laughed and reveled in the feeling of having him back at my side. But the joy of our reunion was interrupted by a shrill cry of an alarm. We shared a glance and broke into a dead run toward the top of the wall. What we saw caused a stone to grow in the pit of my stomach. Hundreds more soldiers, on foot and armed, rushed into the clash from the woods outside the gate.
“That son of a bitch,” I griped. “How many troops does he have?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Deacon said calmly. “Look close. They’re all from the lumber gangs. The enemy will get stomped.”
That was the instant I noticed something else that rolled in from the trees on the heels of Oxylem’s surprise contingent. “They’re not the only ones,” I said.
Luis drove at the helm of a platoon of vehicles, each carrying a squadron of mobile gunners. The trucks split into two wings at the gate and flanked the sides of the fortification.
“Check that kid out,” I told Deacon proudly. “All those lessons have paid off.”
He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “They grow up so fast.” He turned as the first of the trucks opened fire. “I think we’ve got things covered here. I hate to see you go, but someone has to take care of Oxylem, and we all know who that will be.”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed his shoulder. “At least you’ll have the pleasure of watching me leave.”
Deacon winked. “I do love that.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I climbed down the wall and dropped the last few feet. The moment I touched down, I searched for anything that might clue me into Oxylem’s whereabouts. He had been pulled this way by his lackeys, I knew that for sure, but it was hard to pick up their trail with the dirt all chewed up from fighting. Simple shit like footprints was out of the question. I dropped low to the ground and scanned the detritus for anything I could link to the god.
At face value, it seemed like a hopeless task. The whole area surrounding Oxylem’s base had transformed into a war zone. In his current debilitated condition, how could I know which blood was his or which sticks were broken by his escape? No doubt, his crew would be gone by now—something told me he wouldn’t run for his life with an entourage.
Refusing to be defeated in my search for the tree god, I headed in the same direction in which Luis had sent a faction of his vehicles—around the side. I had a hunch that a wall this rushed couldn’t possibly enclose the entire area, and about fifty yards into the thick woods off to the right, I found what I was looking for. In their mad rush to fend off the army they knew was coming, Oxylem’s men hadn’t built a complete circle.
That or the trucks had busted through a weak point. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. The important thing was that I could now wind back across the battlefield toward the second thatch of forest behind the building. I was willing to stake my life that he hid there among the last tragic dregs of all he hadn’t been able to save.
The trees weren’t as dense alongside the battlefield as they had been elsewhere. The rampant clearcutting had extended into these tracts of forest and left sizable gaps. I had a good view of the ongoing fight on my way past. The tide seemed to turn in our favor. Oxylem’s men, severely weakened, were falling back.
But his men didn’t matter to me as much as the god himself. I couldn’t let that half-wilted bastard slip through my fingers. I did my best to keep a low profile and avoid being drawn into the battle that still raged and increased my pace. Focused now, I raced toward the back of the hideous fortress. A lapse in tree coverage forced me to dart through the open, the sword hilt tucked safely out of sight, but I was soon immersed in the trees once more. The sounds of war grew muffled behind me.
After a moment, I slowed. It was easy to be surprised while running, and it was as easy for tunnel vision to set in. The god could be anywhere, so I had to stay vigilant.
I wound around a bend and reached the edge of a small clearing in which pale, blurred figures moved about. The noises that reached my ears weren’t even close to human, merely growls and screams. I drew the Gladius Solis and stole up to the edge of the trees for a better look. As I did, a different scream pierced the hush of the woods. This one was much, much closer to what I was used to. Someone was trapped.
I ran in, poised to strike, and stopped dead in my tracks. Oxylem cowered amid a pack of creatures I’d never seen before and attempted weakly to fend them off. His clothes were tattered, and shreds of material lay where the beasts had torn them and let them fall. Bruises bloomed on his grayish skin. His eyes locked on to mine, filled to the brim with panic. The creatures noticed his gaze and turned curiously to see what had barged in on their little party.
“What the fuck is this nonsense?” I asked.
The translucent, waxy skin, the bloodshot eyes, and the protruding fangs told me these things were vampires, but they had virtually nothing in common with the vamps back east or the ones in the rest of the
compound. They were beefier, although they moved with a grace that implied speed, and the gnashing teeth in their mouths were huge and fearsome—the kind of mandibles that would rip out an entire esophagus, no problem. Their heavy lower jaws protruded, which might have been a little funny if I wasn’t so sure they could kill the shit out of me.
The closest one faced me and hissed through its teeth. Flecks of foamy saliva flung from its mouth. Its shoulders raised, and a pair of disturbingly muscular, flesh-toned wings unfurled. Each of the five long fingers on its hands ended in a ragged claw.
To top it all off, they had tails. Pointy, barbed tails lashed around their feet like snakes.
“This is wrong,” I said. “Everything about this is wrong. What the hell happened to them?”
Your guess is as good as mine, Marcus said. His voice carried a hint of revulsion. For now, I suggest you save your concern for what is about to happen to you.
The freak vamps circled like vultures closing in on a carcass. Nothing remotely resembling language passed through their throats, but they watched me with sharp, unsettling intelligence.
I did a quick headcount. “Eight,” I said. “Cool. This is gonna be interesting.”
The vamps I had gotten to know and love were fond of mobbing and overwhelmed through numbers. It was a technique I learned to embrace because their enthusiasm only served to make my job easier. In stark contrast, these new guys were in no hurry to attack. They remained at a distance, observing and calculating. I could sense the gears turning in their heads.
What they were thinking, I could only guess.
My knowledge of these monstrosities is nonexistent, Marcus warned. I will do my best to be of technical assistance, but we have ventured into truly unknown territory, perhaps for the first time.
I shrugged. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
