Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “More than you can,” answered the elf.

  “Pity.” The baron spat a globule of bloody phlegm into the elf’s face. The elf took a step back, sweeping out with his sword to ward the baron off, but the baron deflected the swing with a wing and punched his fingers into the elf’s chest. The elf fell, gasping as his collapsed lung filled with blood. The baron picked up the blade and tested its balance, then bowed. “Thank you.”

  A wave of vertigo almost sent him to his knees. The contamination was getting worse. He hurried around the next two corners and crashed to the ground as someone swept his legs out from beneath him. He rolled and came up swinging, deflecting the blade that came for his throat. He thrust out, skewering the shoulder of another redcap, and tried to sprint around another corner but found his path blocked by one of the water carriers. The assassin smiled, held his staff forward, and launched a gleaming sphere at him. Reflexively the baron slashed the air, intercepting the sphere and causing it to explode into a cloud of iron that enveloped his upper body. Pain poured through his lungs and eyes. “Urk!”

  New pain opened in his abdomen and shoulder. He swung, felt the resistance of parting flesh, and heard a body hit the ground before his vision returned. A pixie drew her tiny bow but was struck by a bolt of lightning before she could fire. Urkjorman came up behind him and rested one massive hand on the baron’s shoulder. “Al, over here!”

  One of the assassins tumbled through the air as the centaur came into view. She turned, racing to their side, and the baron hurled his stolen blade past her and into the chest of one of the sprites following her.

  “Thanks,” said Al’rashal as she began looking around for more attackers. “But you should have probably held on to that.”

  He chuckled and pointed at a patch of darkness he knew to be a gap in the walls. “That way.”

  “How long do you think you can keep this up?” shouted Black-Hand.

  “Long enough to—” But he was cut off by the pain carving through his body. He lost control of the sky, and the last rays of moonlight faded away.

  “Ha! You have nothin’ now!”

  “I have enough,” he grumbled, but he was barely able to stand without Urkjorman’s help. He moved a fragment of his energy into his wings, and they glowed, creating a sphere of light about him and his protectors.

  “Is that wise?” asked Urk.

  “It is necessary.”

  “You must have made quite the promise ta these fools ta create this kind of loyalty,” spat Black-Hand. “Shame you were never goin’ ta honor it.”

  Urk looked down at the baron.

  “He’s lying. I have to,” said the baron.

  They rounded another corner, and before them was what was probably the last dwindling rays of moonlight falling on Black-Hand, the assassins, and the remaining Iron Guard. The baron drew on his diminishing strength and grasped the sky once more, struggling to keep the clouds from moving in completely. “You do not understand what will come of this … what comes with the darkness.”

  “Oh, I know. But do ya protectors know what you’ve been hidin’?”

  The altar was behind Black-Hand. “If we rush, maybe we can get past,” suggested the baron.

  “What’s he talking about?” asked Al’rashal.

  “Ya deaths,” shouted Black-Hand. “You were supposed ta die in the Aerie.”

  “Lies!” shouted the baron. “My blood is on the floor, same as theirs!”

  “The best lies carry a bit of truth, eh?” said Black-Hand with a smile as he prowled forward.

  “Truth, did you tell them the truth, Black-Hand? That when darkness falls, your promises will mean nothing?”

  “I promised that with darkness, the brave will be rewarded.”

  “Fine. Then have your darkness.” The baron relinquished all control of the sky, and the clouds overhead thickened into a layer of darkness that was almost solid. With it came the hiss of slithering things, and the growl of monsters oozing from the shadows.

  The warriors with Black-Hand looked around apprehensively. One of the horses came forward, approaching a water carrier, and in one fluid motion opened its mouth and closed it around the man’s head. The other two assassins pulled back even as something that looked like a cross between a bat and a wolf’s head snatched one of the glowing pixies from the air.

  The baron smiled. “How brave are your allies now?”

  He could feel more of the things coming and knew reaching the altar would be impossible. Looking about, he found what he needed and rushed to the far wall as Black-Hand laughed. Pressing his palm to the wall, he thought passage, and the wall peeled aside. “Come!”

  Al and Urk hesitated.

  “Out here with monsters, or in there with me,” implored the baron.

  “Out here with the honest, or in there with ya executioner!” shouted Black-Hand as spiny tendrils began to crawl around the walls toward the two. One of them lashed around Al’rashal’s arm, and Urkjorman severed it with his blazing ax. “Give up ya oath and keep ya lives!”

  “He can give you your lives but not your dreams,” said the baron. “And he will not leave you with even that.”

  Someone screamed in agony, and that seemed to make up their minds. They followed him down the passage, and as it closed behind them, they could hear Black-Hand laughing.

  The tunnel filled in, sealing them in the Old Aerie’s lower levels, and the Baron of Wings allowed himself a sigh of relief.

  “We safe here?” asked Al’rashal.

  The baron nodded. “There’s thirty feet of soil and stone between us and Black-Hand now. Even if he had a mind to pursue us, he couldn’t.” He gestured to the walls about them as he allowed the light of his wings to fade, revealing the soft green-blue light of the fungus crawling over the walls. “And these ensorcelled walls should keep the things out, at least for now.”

  “Good,” said Urkjorman before one of the minotaur’s massive hands slammed into his chest, pinning the baron to the near wall.

  The might of the blow forced blood and spit from his mouth and sent darkness washing across his vision. By the time his senses had returned, the minotaur’s ax was pressed to his throat.

  “What was Black-Hand talking about?”

  He looked to Al’rashal to see the centaur had her sword aimed at him as well. “Nonsense to turn you against me. Trying to manip—”

  Urkjorman cut him off by pressing the iron ax to his throat. He could feel his flesh tingle at the cursed metal’s touch. “The truth!” roared the minotaur.

  “It is the truth! Black-Hand wants you—” He stopped when he felt the blade sink into his throat and could smell his blood sizzling on its edge. “I hired the assassins, hoping you would die defending me.”

  “Kill him,” ordered Al.

  “Wait,” he cried, grasping the ax handle before Urkjorman could push it in deeper. The minotaur’s strength was almost the equal of his own in his weakened state and would soon exceed it. “Black-Hand is no better.”

  “Maybe it’s better we take our chances with him,” said Urk, pushing the ax harder, drawing more blood.

  “I am still the only one that can grant you what you want.”

  “Can you?”

  He could feel the tight ball of warmth building in his heart even as the rest of his body was filling with a creeping cold. He looked the minotaur directly in his good eye. “Yes.”

  Urk released him, and the baron collapsed to the ground. He took a few steadying breaths and looked up at the two, his protectors-cum-judges.

  “Explain,” said Al’rashal. “Everything.”

  “Auvithia,” began the baron. “We possess the power to make pacts that change the world: protect the land and control the sky, grant eternal youth, or transform others as they desire. However, it is the act that gives us the power. I can grant your dreams because I promised to do so, and you promised to serve.”

  “So why try to kill us?”

  “I cannot touch the power or use i
t until the pact is completed, and I can only use it for what is promised … unless you break your end of the bargain.”

  “Like Borden.”

  He nodded.

  “Or die.”

  He answered with silence.

  “That’s why you didn’t fear the water carriers,” said Al. “They weren’t there for you.”

  He shrugged. “I would not have feared them even if they had been. If I had not cast off my raiment and been poisoned by iron, I could have killed them all myself. Black-Hand used the opportunity to strike at me when I was most vulnerable. And I aided him by helping him smuggle assassins into my kingdom.”

  “I still don’t know why we shouldn’t kill you,” said Al.

  “Because I still can grant your desires.”

  “I’ve lived this long without children. I can manage with just Urk to love me until I die.”

  Urkjorman looked to his wife for a moment, then to the baron, and lifted his ax.

  “You cannot escape this without me.”

  “I’m good at escaping mazes,” said Urk.

  “It is not these walls you need to worry about,” said the baron as he came to his feet at last. “It is the monsters beyond these walls. The things born of the darkness.”

  The two shared another look of consideration, and the minotaur lowered his ax. “Go on.”

  “You call this place the Fairy Realm. It is a simple way for mortals to describe it. And my kingdom is just a small piece of it. But it is really the Bounds Reverie, the border between your world and that of dreams. And some dreams are quite dark.”

  Realization seemed to wash through them, enough that they no longer seemed ready to kill him. He gestured for them to follow as he proceeded deeper into the Old Aerie. “Before my ascension, this was a land filled with the worst things to crawl from the realm of dreams. I brought light, order, and peace.”

  “Or tyranny,” said Al.

  “Better the devil you know.” He pressed his hand to a door and opened the armory. “Even if you have no consideration for me, think of all the mortal things that have come to live in my Twilight Kingdom. Only one such as I can bring light to the sky and drive away the things that have come, and the worse things to follow.”

  The armory was as he had left it, untouched by time save a thin layer of dust and glowing particulates from the luminescent fungus that had crawled across the ceiling. The minotaur and centaur were already perusing the equipment. Most of it was too small or delicate for their use: bows made for pixies; swords weighted for sprites. When he had first freed the land, there had been few things as large as a man, let alone a centaur, in his army. He found the sterling-silver gauntlet that had been used by Myphentus, his troll bodyguard, the original leader of the Iron Guard, and offered it to Urk.

  The minotaur took the gauntlet and slid it over his left hand, flexing his fingers to test the fit. “Only a left hand?”

  “Close your fist and think ‘Wall’ at it.”

  The minotaur closed his fist, and a shimmering disk of light appeared over his arm. He nodded.

  Al’rashal was admiring an iron claymore. “And these will be enough to get us through monsters so you can get your strength back?”

  The baron considered as he lifted a glaive whose golden blade shone as though under the noon sun. The centaur took it and considered its balance as he answered. “Maybe. Black-Hand will be waiting, and anyone waiting with him will be fearless and ruthless. Only things worse than nightmares can live with them.”

  He picked up his old breastplate, admiring the fine detail work but decided against it. He was too weak to fight in such a heavy thing and felt maneuverability would serve him better. Instead, he looked for the rainbow blades. “Unless …”

  “Unless what?” asked Urk, inspecting a few silver javelins.

  “Unless you release me from our pact.”

  “What?”

  “The power I have stored for your reward would be more than enough to—”

  Urkjorman’s laughter filled the room and trampled his words. “No, my lord. If you die with the power to save yourself and the inability to use it, because you tried to betray us, then so be it. Either you will live to reward us, or you will die an honest man.”

  Chapter Six

  “Forward the Light Brigade!”

  Al’rashal took a few test swings with the glaive. It was a bit shorter than her average weapon, but the balance was amazing, and it felt light as a feather. Finding equipment they could use had been difficult, but she was now wrapped in a collision of plates both gold and steel blue. She kept her sword sheathed at her hip, as there was no reason to leave it down here and would trust her shield to see her through the next battle as it had for years. Her husband traded the ax for a massive silver sword, more concerned with killing the lykin than the fairies, and wore a shimmering golden mantle. It might have been a cape for a smaller person, but on the minotaur, it barely hung to the small of his back. Only the baron was wearing a complete set of armor and equipment.

  The Baron of Wings’ armor looked more suggestive of something worn for a parade than proper armor, but the baron had ensured it would do the job. It was a sheer white material that clung to his body like a glove, with plates the hue of fuchsia protecting his chest, forearms, and shins. Gleaming blades the color of a blue sky were sheathed at his hips and affixed to the edges of his five largest wings.

  Urkjorman released a derisive snort as he examined the baron. “You going to fight in that or have sex?”

  The baron smiled as he drew both blades. “I’ve done both. I don’t see why that should change today.”

  Al rolled her eyes. “Minotaur or fairy, men are men.”

  Urk and the baron looked to each other and burst into laughter. It was so stupid; Al couldn’t help but join in. Slowly they regained their composure, and Al closed the visor on her helmet. “You think Black-Hand is still there? Not that he would leave, but you don’t think he’s dead or something?”

  The baron shook his head. “No. He is there, and anyone brave enough to stand the darkness is with him. Things as evil as Black-Hand do not fear nightmares; they create them. There is only one place I can recover, so he shall be between me and it.”

  Al’rashal aimed her glaive forward at the wall of stone. Her husband did the same, the edges of the weapons touching. After a moment, the baron lifted one blade and joined the two.

  Silence.

  The baron pressed his palm to the wall, and the stone pulled away to reveal a short hall, and Al’rashal charged. The darkness was oppressive but not complete. The sprites and pixies generated light, as well as the torches scattered on the floor or lodged into sconces. It seemed Black-Hand’s mercenaries needed light to see as much as they did. A brownie rounded the corner, drawn by the sound of her stamping hooves, and she cut his head from his body.

  “They’re here!” shouted someone as a tiny arrow deflected off Al’s shoulder.

  A redcap charged the centaur, keeping low to stay beneath the sweep of her glaive. The centaur thought fire as the creature neared, and kicked him with one of her forelegs, striking him with a burning kick. The redcap crashed to the ground, clutching at his smoldering face, and Al’rashal finished the creature by crushing his skull with a burning hoof.

  Thunder boomed as Urk dragged a bolt of lightning out of the darkness and turned one of the lykin into charred bone and cooked meat.

  “Such heroic nonsense,” laughed Black-Hand from the room’s center. He seemed utterly uninterested in dealing with them personally. Instead, he just pointed, and something that looked vaguely like a snake with mouths where its eyes should have been and fingers instead of scales charged them.

  Then the Baron of Wings lifted into the air and shouted, “Light!”

  Light poured from the baron’s body, blasting away the darkness and dissolving the charging thing like a wax candle hurled into a forge. “Light!” repeated Al’rashal and Urkjorman. Their weapons seemed to reflect and magnify
the light streaming from the baron’s armor to push the darkness further away and send more of the nightmare things fleeing or receding into the shadows.

  “Fine.” Black-Hand grasped one of the fleeing nightmare things and dragged a sickle through its body, leaving it a bleeding mess on the ground. He dipped his cap into the dissolving darkness that passed for the creature’s blood and set it back on his head. Lines of shadow poured down his face and into his eyes before pouring from his hands to wreathe his weapons in smoke. “I’ll do it myself!”

  Black-Hand launched himself at the baron. The two collided in the air. The baron spun, hurled Black-Hand into a near wall, and then cut a pixie in half with one of his wings.

  Al couldn’t spare any more time to consider the baron’s fight as one of the two remaining assassins jabbed at her with his staff. She backed up, using her glaive to keep him from advancing, and blocked his next thrust with her shield. Pain washed through her lower back as something collided with it. Looking to her right, she saw the other assassin dipping his staff into the blood of some dead creature. She charged the first assassin and the two mercenaries with him, using their bodies as cover against the second assassin. One of her attackers jabbed at her with a spear, punching through the armor on her side before she cut his head in half. The other assassin tried to use the moment to stab her again, but she deflected the strike with her shield and cut his staff in two with her return stroke.

  Competing roars filled the air as Urkjorman locked into a test of strength against what looked like a grizzly bear. A panther leaped on the minotaur’s back, but before Al could do something about it, an arrow crashed into her head.

  The world spun as her ears rang. Instinctively she slashed before her to ward off any incoming attacks, but the swings were poorly aimed, and soon the assassin was hammering her with the two halves of his broken staff. Pain seared into her flank, just ahead of her rear leg, and almost brought her down. She pushed through the pain and drove her shield forward, knocking the assassin before her back, and thrust forward with her glaive but skewered a pixie instead of the assassin. She twisted and kicked, knocking the second assassin away, but he recovered quickly. A cry of pain lanced through the air, drawing all eyes to the baron.