by Aiden Bates
“You were never the fighter he was,” Roland hacked as he stalked toward me. “That’s why I loved him best. You were always soft.”
He clawed at my head again, and when it blocked this one, his foot came up to strike at my gut. I let it hit me, and while it staggered me slightly, it wasn’t the force he’d be capable of if he was healthy. When the next combination came, I was expecting it. It was the same one. He wasn’t even really trying, but I didn’t understand why. And I couldn’t just kill him without knowing.
“Why aren’t you fighting?” I demanded. “You wanted this. You’re better than this. Why make it easy for me?”
Instead of answer, he redoubled his efforts. His breath came hard, whistling through his teeth as he curled his stiff lips into a constant snarl. He snapped at my throat, clawed again at my middle, brought the hard scales over his knee up to my ribs, tried to sweep my ankle, smash my knee. All good, sound tactics, but slow and predictable, and the same patterns over and over again.
“Fight me,” he said when I failed to take the clear openings he gave me, “or I will have the mage killed.”
My dragon wasn’t having that, even if I wasn’t certain I believed him. “Roland, just tell me—”
He turned and raised a hand to the guards to signal them.
They started to move.
I rushed him. He turned to face me. His jaw opened slightly, a dragon grin. His claws went for my throat. I raised my arms between his and shoved them aside. The next thing I knew, my talons were through his ribs, above his heart. I could feel the muscle throbbing against the tips of them.
Blood gushed from between his teeth. I’d reached his heart through a lung. He grasped at my arm. I held my breath as I pushed deeper, felt the muscle seize around my talons, constricting and trying to keep beating, but beginning to fail.
The guards paused, waiting to see if their orders would become moot.
Roland clawed at me, weaker now, and I lowered him to the ground. If I took my claws away before he died, it was possible he would heal. Not likely, not in his state—but possible. And I had to be sure. I couldn’t let him harm Mikhail, if nothing else. Even if I took Mikhail and walked away from this cursed place, let someone else take over.
His body shifted, scales receding as his dragon weakened and fled, maybe preparing to go to whatever came next for us. His lips and teeth were stained with blood that was almost black. “Listen… to me…” he said, pausing to cough more blood, his voice thick with it. “This won’t be… won’t be the last time… you have to do something… that it kills you to do. There… there’s a darkness… coming. Another…”
I waited. His eyes glazed. His heart gave up trying to beat, and went still.
Another what? Another war, probably. That was the way he thought of things. That there was always another enemy, right around the next corner. That the world was just waiting to drop the hammer on us again.
I thought that if I had to do it, I would have last words. Something to say. Some memory would come to mind—something kind, maybe, some way to remember him well now that he was dead and could never hurt me or the ones that I loved. After all, what was the point of hating him now?
But I didn’t have anything to say. And no memory came to mind. There were none, anyway. Everything I knew of Roland was hard, and unyielding, and cold. If I remembered, in that moment, anything of softness, it was a single flash of something old, and near-forgotten.
It was him, smiling at my mother.
I withdrew my talons, disappointed with myself for being so calm about it all. That was how I had made myself when my mother died. The way he’d told me to be. Me and Pendrig both.
There was no point in trying to process all of it right this moment. It would take time. Maybe now that he was gone, and I had a mate who seemed willing to let me show and see the darkness in myself… maybe this time, I could do it right.
“Inform the council,” I told the two guards. “Any orders Roland gave to observe or interfere with Mikhail Baranov are rescinded effective immediately. See that Basri is told. And… have someone prepare a pyre, and clean Roland’s body for cremation.”
“Yes, sir,” the guards acknowledged, and took out their radios to see to it.
I looked down at Roland’s body, wishing I felt something more.
And then, a moment later, I did. Creeping horror.
As his eyes opened, and he began to push himself up.
“Hardly fair,” a voice said behind me, cold like the grave, raspy as if speaking over dried reeds, and terrifyingly familiar. “Going around ruining other people’s toys.”
I backed away from my father’s body as it contorted, twisted, and began to grow scales that hissed black mist as they emerged. I turned away from the undead puppet, just long enough to confirm the source of the voice.
“Hello, Nix,” Ivan Baranov said, his voice hollow, his eyes flashing an eldritch and sickly green, his body familiar in form but decayed so that his bones showed in places, and veins pumping black ichor pulsed openly in others. “My, but I’ve missed you.”
24
Mikhail
“There is nothing complicated about this request,” I nearly shouted at Basri, the weyr’s head of security, as he met my repeated insistence with flat nonchalance. “If we do not at least position people at the appropriate vectors of entry, then it is not a question of if Rav will come here, but when and what he will do when he arrives!”
“Look,” Basri said, “nothing that you’re saying changes anything about my orders. Roland has all of my staff positioned already. There’s no one left, even if I had the green light to do this for you. Take it to him.”
Rezzek was as confused as I was about it all. “Basri,” he said, incredulous, “we’re telling you there is an imminent threat to the weyr. That’s got to override Roland, or trigger some kind of protocol, or something, doesn’t it?”
“The only protocol we follow,” Basri said, spreading his hands, “is the protocol Roland sets. Again. For the tenth time. Take. It. Up. With. Him. I can’t be any clearer, Rez.”
“This is suicidal foolishness,” I growled, and took my hands from Basri’s desk. I turned to Rezzek. “They wish to die here. That is no longer my concern. I have my—”
Rezzek coughed. Loudly.
Because no one knew that Nix was my mate, and it might make Basri even less inclined to hear or aid us if he knew. “—life to think about,” I went on, hoping that it did not seem overly suspicious. “If you all wish to stay here and become slaves to an evil necromancer, that is your right as American citizens. I, however, will not.”
I started to leave. When I opened the door, however, there were two men on the other side, shoulder to shoulder. They did not move from the path of the doorway.
Rezzek put a hand on my shoulder, drew me away from them, and then kept me close to him as he turned to regard Basri. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a high security office,” Basri said.
“Can you ask your guys to move?” Rezzek asked.
Basri frowned. “Sorry, Rez. I can’t.”
“What the hell is going on?” I asked Rezzek, certain that I would get no answer from Basri, or the stoic guards outside the door.
“If I were going to wager a guess,” Rezzek said, a note of care and caution in his tone, “they have some… contingency orders.”
I watched the guards. “Contingent on?”
“What do you think?” he replied.
I took a steadying breath. “Okay,” I murmured. “So… do we wait, or…?”
“Do you have to?” he asked.
He was asking what I might accomplish to resolve this situation in another way. I had nothing at hand, and even if I did—sleeping spells and other such distractions were the domain of such mages as espers or sirens. Anything that I might employ would be lethal. Necromancy is an art—but it is a sometimes brutal art. “They are just following orders,” I murmured. “What would Nix wish us to do?”
“Wait,” he said. “Stay behind me. No matter what, yes?”
“If it comes to that,” I said, “I think that Nix’s wishes would change.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll buy you whatever time you need.”
We maneuvered into the corner of the office, so that I was covered on two sides, and Rezzek stood in front of me. He loosened the zipper of his hoodie.
Basri watched us. He must have known what would happen if he was given whatever orders he awaited. He, like us, was waiting to see the result of the coup. Which, I realized, is precisely what was happening. At the worst possible time.
“This will cost lives,” I told him. “Whether Nix successfully takes control of the weyr or not. This delay now? Each minute that bleeds away takes a life with it.”
“Is that a threat?” Basri asked, very much as if he hoped it was.
“No,” I said. “I am trying to save your people. How can you not see that?”
He didn’t answer.
A moment later, Rezzek and I both stiffened as his radio gave a chirp. He picked it up. I drew magic to me. I did not wish to kill Nix’s people for following orders. But if he had failed, and Roland was to order me executed, I would certainly regret what I was forced to do.
Another guard’s voice came across the radio. “Nix Emberin now leads the Emberwood weyr,” the man reported.
Rezzek relaxed somewhat. I could breathe again. But I knew that it likely meant he had slain Roland. What would that do to him?
“Nix needs a pyre prepared,” the voice went on.
“Acknowledged,” Basri said. The guards at the door moved to stand aside. “Guess you’re free to go. Have Nix okay your plan and—”
“Code black,” a voice came over the radio, more panicked—possibly the same one but it was impossible to tell. “Repeat, code black we have incursion at—”
The radio gave a shriek.
Basri picked it up. “Caskil, report,” he said as he stood. “Shit.”
“Where was he?” I demanded.
Basri looked up, his jaw tense. White scales began to sprout. Rezzek responded, golden scales shining as he tore his hoodie and track pants free.
“Burial ground,” Basri growled.
I slipped around Rezzek and dashed for the door. He followed, and quickly overtook me but paced ahead of me by a few yards.
We didn’t get far before I felt it. A tremor in the ether, as powerful magic was brought to bear. Ivan. I had guessed his plans, but not soon enough, and Roland’s maddening resistance to mages had cost us what time we might have used preparing. Or if I had not been so emotional with Nix, and focused on the task instead, or if, and if, and if—I had countless regrets in the long minutes it took us to sprint across the weyr toward the burial ground, and in each of those minutes it was possible I had lost my mate forever. If Ivan took Nix, it would be in a way that I would never get him back. Not whole, at least.
When we finally reached the burial ground, I expected to see a great battle being waged. Fire and necromantic magic, gathering dragons as they stood their ground against the evil.
Instead, I saw Nix fighting another half-formed dragon. Roland; the patterns of their scales were similar. Except…
Nix clawed at Roland’s stomach, ducking to avoid a powerful swipe. Black mist, like soot that evaporated as it peeled off of Nix’s father, sprayed into the air where the limb passed. A chunk of Roland’s mid-section broke free, throwing another spray of darkness into the air. It did not slow Roland down in the slightest. He was already dead.
And there, at the edge of the burial ground, Ivan stood with a hand outstretched, the puppeteer behind the zombie’s strings. He was decayed, his body not yet reconstituted, but in the process. Perhaps from Roland’s life force, and perhaps through other means as well. His jaw was bare of skin, still blackened in places. The artery of his neck pulsed and squirmed as blood rushed through it, like an eel trying to burrow into his skull. His eyes glowed, wild necromantic energy drawn directly from the ether filling them and spilling out in thin, smoke-like wisps as he failed to contain it; or didn’t try.
“Ivan,” I shouted. I reached with my magic at the same moment, spinning etheric energy into my words. “I release you.”
The magic rushed toward Roland’s body, striking him, sinking in, burning away at the opposing will that animated him. I let my magic flow, but Ivan’s was strong, implacable. He pushed against me, his lipless mouth opened in a skeletal grin. “Is that the best you can do, little brother?”
Rezzek chuffed beside me. “Brother?”
“Go help Nix,” I told him. “It’s like the movies. Destroy the head.”
He only hesitated a moment before he dashed toward Nix, diving to take Roland’s corpse down.
Ivan’s jaw opened wider, his eyes flaring with power, and when he crooked his hand, twitching his fingers to one side, Roland gave Nix a kick that caught him by surprise and sent him tumbling before he turned to meet Rezzek and belched green-black fire in his face.
Rezzek recoiled, swatting at the flames as they blinded him, and a moment later was sent flying as an arm powered by magic slammed into his chest.
Distractions. I needed distractions. I dipped my hand into my bag and dug for anything made of bone. I pulled out a bird skull. Well… it was a start. I whispered to it, and to the wandering spirits of its cousins who might be in the area. “Rise, take flight.”
Magic slipped through the frail bone, took my words into the ether, and spread.
A moment later, a great chorus of chirps and caws rose up as the ether gave forth spirits of dead birds. They flapped wings that were still whole or bare of feathers, all of them in various states of progress through their own journey to the underworld. As a flock, they followed my will and dove at Ivan, some passing through him harmlessly, others striking his body such that he was briefly moved.
Roland’s body jerked wildly, uncoordinated. He let out a wail of frustration matched by Ivan’s furious shout.
It was enough time to buy Rezzek and Nix an opening. Rezzek went high while Nix tackled the zombie’s legs. The creature toppled, still flailing limbs with no target, no precision, right up until Rezzek took my advice and tore the head of the corpse off.
Like a puppet with cut strings, the zombie dropped. Without a nervous system to command, no amount of magic would keep it moving reliably. It continued to twitch until Ivan became frustrated enough with the onslaught of birds to drop his control entirely. He brought his hands together, barking a word I did not recognize as he unleashed a thunderclap and a flash of green-black light that swept through the swarm of birds.
They burst into ectoplasm that began to evaporate before it hit the ground.
And before it even got that far, Ivan raised a hand, and waved toward himself as if testing a sweet fragrance. His bony jaw widened, and the fading black mist of those birds rushed toward him, swirling as it descended past his teeth and into his gut.
Ah. That was how he was accomplishing all of this. He was eating souls. How many, I could not imagine. His body was in no shape to move around, though it was generally in one piece. A living person inhabiting that vessel, however, would have died from the pain alone, if not from the exposure. He was keeping his body moving by sheer force of will and magic, powering it with the consumed souls of whatever he could get his spectral hands on.
It gave him an advantage that I was not willing to match.
His head jerked to one side, as if cracking his neck. The light in his eyes briefly dimmed before blazing to life again as I moved to stand between Rezzek and Nix.
“Mages?” Nix asked.
I shook my head. “Not in time.”
“Basri had orders,” Rezzek said.
Ivan extended his fingers toward the earth, and slowly curled them, twisting his hands as though tearing the guts from the earth. “I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect arrangement,” he said, his voice somehow emerging from his lipless mouth without t
he aid of a tongue or most of a throat. He was burning etheric energy like it cost him nothing. Perhaps, I thought, he no longer felt the sting of its cold. “Three birds with one stone.”
I had only seconds to ponder what that might mean, before the earth gave up a plume of ashes.
“The fuck?” Rezzek grunted.
“He can’t,” Nix breathed. “Can he?”
The ashes began to coalesce into half-formed creatures with the requisite parts, though they were incomplete and disproportional. Heads, arms, legs, all there in roughly the right places, but wrong.
“He can,” I muttered, and dug in my bag for another fetish. Something to disrupt the energies, to return the bodies to inert ash before—
One of them charged out of the cloud, then another, each of them targeting my mate and his friend.
Rezzek and Nix did not risk the creatures coming for me. They charged, opened jaws first to spew fire, and then leaping on top of them to tear at bodies which burst into puffs of ash before they began to reform.
Not true resurrection. I looked down at the fetish I had pulled free. Protection against violent ghosts. Not useful. I crushed it in my hand, releasing the bit of magic stored in it, and brought it to my lips. If one cannot match in power, one must match with wit. “Let the earth tremble, and swallow up what is given forth, that the fruit of the tree should wither away to dust.”
I cast the remains of the fetish into the ash cloud, and closed my hand to a fist before I knelt and plunged it into the soil.
The etheric plane gave a shudder that rippled out and passed through the earth. The ash grew heavy, sank into the soil, and the patterns that maintained Ivan’s construct withered as the underpinnings of order and form decayed and melted away.
Ivan stared at me across the burial ground as the ash fell, and I thought that he was still smiling.
“Now!” Rezzek barked.
He and Nix bounded across the burial field, headed for Ivan, thinking perhaps that I had disrupted his magic.
“No,” I rasped, and then shouted. “No, do not touch—”
