by Eric Asher
“Your limits do not affect us, Nudd. Your word has been broken.” The dark-touched slowly crossed its arms and eyed Nudd in the torchlight. “And what if they prove more resilient than you know? The price will still be due.”
Fury rose in Nudd’s chest. Rage was something he’d spent centuries learning to master, but to be questioned by this maggot, an informant he knew would take word back to the members of his failing alliance, that he had no need to abide.
Nudd didn’t share his thoughts with the vampire. Instead, he closed his eyes and felt for the threads of magic stretched out across the country, holding the devils at bay. And with a simple tug, an unraveled ley line, the gateways ripped open. In short order, the Eldritch things of old would leave his enemies with no room to maneuver.
And if the dark-touched become an obstacle in their foolish retreat, they’d meet their end in the same blow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sometimes when things went wrong, it was easy enough to overcome them. But Hugh reflected on the fact that lately it seemed when anything went wrong, they were presented with a nearly insurmountable obstacle or threat. This was no different.
Hugh worried about his allies in these conflicts, especially those not gifted with healing, but Haka wasn’t one of them. Carter had once asked Hugh why he wasn’t more concerned about Haka when it came to some of their more violent conflicts. The answer was simple: Haka’s prowess was nearly the equal of any wolf.
Haka sprang forward, whatever exhaustion he’d felt from two changes in the clash with the flying heads forgotten. Dark fur that would have vanished in the shadows of the night gave off a rich auburn sheen as Haka wove through the Unseelie Fae.
Fighting the Unseelie was a different beast than fighting Nudd’s regular Fae. The Knights of the Seelie Court fought in a relatively straightforward fashion. Hugh might need to worry about a hidden blade or a stealthy spell, but the Unseelie Fae were deception incarnate, a fact Splitlog learned with some pain.
One of the Fae dove at Haka as if to impale him on a glowing blade, only to shift at the last moment as Splitlog tried to close the gap, instead taking the full length of the blade through the meat of his bicep. The werewolf howled as the magic seeped into his body.
Hugh had been struck by a blade like that before, and where the magic of the Seelie Fae was warmth, fire, and flame, the Unseelie were cold icy death. Harder to heal, but still possible. Hugh surged into action, from one step to the next, his form shifting, magic rippling through his muscles until it was not the man closing on the Unseelie Fae, but the old wolf with a hatchet grasped in his claws.
Another Fae scored a glancing blow against Haka, singeing fur and flesh, but it left him open, and the crack of Ashley’s nine tails sent a spear of nothingness rocketing through the fairy’s chest. The Fae collapsed without so much as a look of surprise on his face before his body erupted into a cloud of ashen glitter, the screams of his dissolution echoing as he vanished into the ley lines.
The Fae who had impaled Splitlog abandoned his sword to the werewolf’s arm and pulled another blade as he turned to face Hugh. The fairy raised a shield to block the blow from the hatchet. The old blade split the shield and severed the arm behind it. The fairy screamed, but even as he tried to backpedal, his wings going wide, Hugh’s claws found the fairy’s throat and silenced the Unseelie Fae.
Even as cartilage and bone gave a satisfying crunch beneath his grasp, Hugh felt fire erupt in his left thigh. Pain blistered across his nerve endings and his flesh grew cold before he ripped the enchanted arrow from his leg. Still the pain lingered, the muscle compromised, and he barely caught the flicker of blue light in the trees above them before the next arrow found its mark.
Alan grunted as blue fire licked at his black fur, but it didn’t stop the massive wolf. Alan continued to slowly and deliberately climb the tree. Apparently realizing it had miscalculated, the Unseelie Fae launched into the air, only to have his ankles snatched by Alan’s claws, and his inertia turned toward the ground as he slammed into one of his allies.
The first Fae backed toward the edge of the stone cabin’s ruins. “That is quite enough.” The Fae let out a humorless laugh, and a cold blue light came into life before it, expanding outward faster than Hugh could react. It hit like a cannon shot, hurling him backward into stones and sending him toppling over the side of the cabin ruins. A tree trunk shattered where Alan crashed through it, and another groaned as Haka bounced off it. But even as Hugh climbed back to his feet, he saw Ashley, rising from the shelter she’d taken behind the low-lying wall of the stone cabin and flicking a dragon scale into the air. The nine tails cracked and a spinning disc of bright blue flame erupted across his field of vision, cutting through one of the fairies in the canopy, and sending the tops of several trees crashing to the earth with the screams of the Fae.
The speaker flicked his wrist, and Ashley grunted, stumbling backward a step before falling down, clutching her chest. Hugh heard her curse, and he hoped that meant the wound was not mortal.
“You’ve grown soft, high-backed wolf. You don’t remember me, but I remember you. You attack us as if we were brainless dark-touched vampires. Your people have paid the price. Now surrender the Heart or die.”
But Hugh didn’t have words for the Unseelie Fae. He was too busy backpedaling, drawing away from the fairy, and the Fae released a triumphant laugh.
Hugh scooped up Ashley, blood staining her fingers, before he looked over his shoulder one more time and bellowed, “Run!”
The light of a portal opened in earnest, and through that sickly red gateway poured the tentacles of a leviathan.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They’d been injured. Badly. It had only been six or seven of the Unseelie Fae waiting to ambush them, but it had been enough. They were in trouble, and the irony of the massive leviathan pouring through that portal and crushing three of them beneath its maw was not lost on Hugh.
“Was that a leviathan?” Splitlog asked. “I’ve heard of them, but to see one … by the gods.”
“Your leg,” Haka said, studying Hugh as he limped, crashing through the woods.
“No time for that now,” Hugh said. “We can’t run from this. That thing is too close to the Heart. We can’t risk it falling into Nudd’s hands.”
“Or those Unseelie bastards,” Ashley grumbled. “This fucking hurts.”
“I’m afraid they’re on the same side,” Hugh said.
“Are you kidding?” Alan asked. “That leviathan was gobbling up fairies like they were cheese balls.”
“Nudd does not value the lives of his people,” Hugh said.
“I don’t think they are his people,” Haka said. “For all Nudd might admire the Unseelie courts, he’s not one of them. He’s a bastard, and a murderer, but he’s not Unseelie.”
Hugh grunted and gently laid Ashley down. He prodded the wound, relieved to see the blade was at an odd angle and had most likely missed her lung. Pulling it out would still be dangerous. “We need a healer.”
“Well, there were a bunch of fairies back there,” Ashley said, her voice taking on an almost violent edge. “Maybe one of them will help.”
Hugh gave her a tight smile. He pulled out his phone, frowning in frustration as his clawed fingers tried to work the screen. He finally managed to unlock it and tapped the innkeeper’s contact. She picked up after two rings.
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon,” the innkeeper said.
“So soon?” Hugh asked.
“Are Vicky and Luna already there?”
“No, but that’s not why I’m calling. Why are they…? It doesn’t matter now. We have Unseelie Fae in Quindaro, and there’s a leviathan here that came through a portal.”
“What the hell are you talking to me for? Go kill it.”
“They ambushed us,” Hugh said, his voice taking on an edge of strain that it rarely showed. “Ashley’s been hurt, and we need a healer. Can you find someone? Quickly?”
“Oh
my God, you people are going to kill me,” the innkeeper said. She kept muttering something that Hugh couldn’t make out as the line went dead.
“I think help’s on the way,” Hugh said. “In the meantime, we need to get the Heart.”
He stared down at Ashley before looking back toward the path that would lead them to the leviathan and the Unseelie Fae once more. “One of us needs to stay behind with Ashley.”
But before Hugh could speak another word, Ashley snapped, “Like fucking hell they do.”
“I will,” Haka said.
“No, you won’t,” Ashley said. “I’m not helpless here, and I’m not dead yet. The innkeeper has a healer on the way…” Ashley grimaced and clutched at her side. “I’ll wait here for the healer. You need all the help you can get with the leviathan. Now go, before it finishes off the Unseelie and heads somewhere else.”
Hugh had always preferred strategy to passion. To be passionate in a dire situation would often lead to the death of friends and allies. But given enough time to plan, Hugh could be a devastating tactician, applying the strengths and weaknesses of his allies where they’d be most effective. And though here, now, they didn’t have time to plan carefully, he was sure of a few things.
The innkeeper would be true to her word, and whether or not any of them stayed with Ashley likely wouldn’t have an impact on her survival. Splitlog knew the territory better than anyone else in the group. That might not have been the case if it was still the heyday of Quindaro, but it wasn’t.
Alan and Haka would be his tanks here. They were both angry, restless, and whether they encountered a group of Unseelie Fae, or the massive tentacles of the leviathan, their enemy would not fare well. But any scenario he pictured that he dragged Ashley with them did not end well. The only choice was to leave her here. She might have made that decision in the blink of an eye, but he needed a minute to ponder the situation. In the end, he knew she was right.
Hugh nodded. “Send up flames if you need our help, and we’ll return as soon as we can. You can still crack that whip?”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to make a Triwizard joke or a Devo joke,” she said through gritted teeth. “I won’t need the whip since I don’t mind singeing my fingers a bit.”
“Probably for the best,” Hugh said. “Be careful with that blade in your chest. I think it missed your lung, but if it’s plugging any damage to your arteries, you could bleed out in minutes.”
Ashley used her legs to push herself deeper into the loam of the forest floor. “Get out of here.”
Hugh nodded and gathered up the werewolves. They started back toward the ruins of the stone cabin.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You fought one of those things before?” Splitlog asked.
Hugh nodded. “The three of us have, yes.”
“And you know how to defeat them?” Splitlog asked, a small edge of hope in his words.
“Yes,” Hugh said after a moment of hesitation.
“And have you ever defeated one?”
“Not on our own,” Alan said.
“Wonderful,” Splitlog grumbled. “What do you know about these things?”
“They have three beaks,” Hugh said. “Stay away from them, or you likely won’t heal from it.”
“Won’t heal?” Splitlog asked.
“Because you’ll be mulch,” Alan said.
Hugh rubbed his thumb over the head of the axe head on his belt. “We have better weapons for this encounter. You can attack the tentacles, you can even tear them off, but they will regenerate given enough hours, or days. You must kill it. Its only real weakness is its eyes.”
“And they’re damn hard to get to,” Alan said. “So you think if we can get you into the eye, that hatchet will do the rest?”
“It must.”
“How many eyes does it have?” Splitlog asked. “Should we approach multiple sides for the best chance of getting through?”
Hugh nodded. “But that’s not the best defense if we run into more Unseelie Fae. It would be better to stay together to fight off the Fae, but best to divide our forces to battle the leviathan. We face a risk either way.”
“I can kill the Unseelie on my own easier than all of us getting pancaked at once by the leviathan,” Haka said.
“I agree,” Hugh said. “But that doesn’t mean the Fae are less dangerous. The eyes are on either side of the beaks. Pierce them.”
Splitlog shook his head. “This is insane.” He hesitated and then said, “I’ll come from the South. Alan, you’re the fastest of all of us. Why don’t you go north and circle around to attack the leviathan from behind. Haka and Hugh, you can flank from the other sides.”
There were many alpha wolves who would’ve taken umbrage with Splitlog giving orders to members of their own pack. But Hugh had always been different in that regard. He was patient where most wolves were brash, and able to focus his anger where it would be most effective, like selecting a tool for the job it was best built for. Splitlog was an old war dog himself. A good mind for strategy, with knowledge of the local land, and someone Hugh trusted in full with his life and Haka’s.
Alan looked to Hugh, and Hugh only nodded as if silently giving him permission to do whatever Splitlog suggested.
The wolves didn’t need more instruction than that. Part of that was the pack bond, and part of that was being friends for so long. And even as Hugh thought of the pack bonds, his arm flooded with power, the nerves tingled where he could usually sense Damian, but it was different, darker, and a fiery kind of electricity.
The wolves separated, and Splitlog vanished into the tree line. Hugh stayed on the relatively clear path that would take him directly back to the stone cabin even as Haka and Alan sprinted to the north. There were only a few times in history where Hugh had witnessed a world-changing event. But these days, in the darkness brought forward by Gwynn Ap Nudd, it felt very much like a time that had weight. As if things that had been in motion for an eternity were finally reaching their end.
He’d seen it happen, when the white men brought their genocide to the nations of the plains, and the centuries of war that followed. Fools who murdered and razed the land so they could drown it in the pollution of their own unbridled ambition. And the warmongers did what they do best after the wars ended here. They spread, until Europe and Asia were covered in a sea of corpses. Nudd’s actions felt familiar, great swaths of the world coming together to fight a common enemy, while their enemies did the same. Hugh feared the footsteps of the Mad King would leave a ruin to rival the worst of mankind.
* * *
The cries of the Unseelie Fae grew louder as Hugh closed on the ruins of the stone cabin. Splitlog had vanished into the trees, and Hugh could not hear so much as the whisper of the old wolf’s steps in the underbrush. He could track Haka and Alan for a time, Alan being far less experienced in the wilderness, but even the distant whispers of their footsteps were lost to the cries of battle and the earthshaking impact of the leviathan’s tentacles.
The leviathan’s limbs rose higher than the tree line. Fleshy gray tentacles, thick as tree trunks, whipped through the air, breaking saplings and Fae and old oak trees alike. It was the kind of thing that could kill even the best healers. It was possible for a werewolf to be crushed, smashed, and cut apart faster than their abilities could heal them. Hugh had seen it done. Had seen it happen in wars and, worse, he’d seen it happen methodically as executions.
One of the Unseelie Fae stood just on the opposite side of the wall as Hugh hurdled it. He met the eyes of the fairy, wide black pupils with only the tiniest hint of a dark gray iris. Hugh raised his hatchet, ready to strike down the Fae, but the fairy didn’t react, he only turned back to the leviathan, sword held loosely in his hand.
Hugh growled and spun the hatchet of stone. “Fight or die.”
The fairy staggered as Hugh shoved him away, barely catching himself on the edge of the wall before dodging a collapsing tree. Hugh thought the fairy must’ve been youn
g to show that much shock in the presence of his enemy. But the leviathan was an imposing form, and he could understand how if one was not ready to look into the face of madness, one might not return. Hugh thought the fairy might be the smartest of them when his wings flexed and vanished through the forest canopy.
As fast as the leviathan smashed one tree trunk to the ground, the tentacle shifted, lashing out across the width of the stone cabin until it crashed into the remnants of a brick wall. Boulders hurtled through the air at the impact. The whiplash was unthinkably quick. A smaller tentacle snapped like a bullwhip, displacing air and smoke as the fires of a Fae incantation swelled around it.
A sound like a gunshot echoed through the woods as the tentacle unfurled and reached the end of its length. Hugh vaulted onto the rubbery gray flesh, claws digging in, careful to avoid the hooks inside of those giant suction cups. He bounced from one tentacle to the next, using his claws to lever his way up, farther into the ball of wildly flailing flesh.
In his many years, he’d told more than one wolf that fighting a leviathan was a stupid way to die. And yet here he was, burying himself deeper in the knot of rancid flesh, roaring as a tentacle grazed his thigh, and the hooks latched on, dragging him closer, until at last he could see the first of the mighty beaks within. It almost looked like the beak of a giant parrot, with rows of saw-like teeth waiting inside. Hugh would have been more comfortable sticking his arm down the throat of a shark.
What was left of the Unseelie fairies continued fighting. This was not an enemy they’d expected to face. Hugh only saw glimpses of two or three of the Fae who were still alive, and there was more than one set of armor strewn across the ground, smashed flat by the leviathan, or sawed into bits by mighty beaks. Hugh could be as fast as lightning, but once a leviathan had you, it had you.
