Cursebreaker

by Carol A Park

  He decided to inject a little fear into those who still hesitated. “I have news for you. The only demonspawn here are those who allow this senselessness to continue. Maybe the gods will choose you next for slaughtering innocents.”

  And then, there was a split in the air. Black flames licked out, and a horrendous monstrosity of the abyss stepped through and pinned the enemy soldiers with a stare.

  That did it. The last of the soldiers standing in that street dropped their weapons and the lines began to form.

  The bloodbane vanished.

  Driskell spun to look back toward where he had been standing with Danton.

  Danton gave him a huge grin and a thumbs-up.

  A little theatrics, apparently, to help him out.

  Danton took one line, and Driskell took the other—Driskell using his charmblood aether to encourage them to keep going by any means necessary—and Danton using illusions to terrify some of them into working harder.

  The water started coming.

  Other soldiers, both friend and foe, eventually arrived in the street. Driskell expanded his bubble again, pressing silently the urgent need to put out this fire. He scattered it on the wind like chaff, sent it swirling through the city.

  Stop fighting and come and put out this fire.

  No one else who arrived questioned it.

  The corpse-thing walked slowly behind the charging army of bloodwolves, its hands behind its back.

  It passed Ivana’s position in the alley, and as it did, she burned aether and leapt.

  It spun, impossibly fast, and dodged her attack.

  She rolled, came up in a crouch, and stared at it. What?

  It cocked its head at her, as if merely curious as to what sort of creature might be attacking it.

  Ivana rose and took a few steps back, wary. Had she not stopped time?

  But no. There was no night breeze, no sound of animals. The bloodwolves she could see had drawn to a halt.

  She returned her attention to the corpse-thing, mind racing for Plan B.

  She slid her boot knife out of the sheath at her ankle, already pretreated with beastblood aether, and in one smooth motion, launched it at the corpse-thing.

  It caught the knife, then it held it up to the moonlight and turned it in the air, examining the silver sheen.

  It lowered the knife, and this time the look it gave her was less neutral, and more calculating.

  Why wasn’t it frozen? Why was everything else around her frozen, but the one thing she wanted to kill wasn’t?

  “What game do you play?” it asked.

  She stared at it. She hadn’t expected it to speak, but the one at Gan Barton’s had spoken, hadn’t it? Would talking to it work? It certainly hadn’t with the last, but this one didn’t seem the same. “Call back your bloodbane,” Ivana said. “Or at the least, let them free. Do you want to serve human masters?”

  Its eyes glimmered. “Human? My master is both human, and not. And even if I wished to do otherwise, I have no ability to act on a will contrary to that of my master’s. My orders are to break through those gates and then cause mass confusion and terror so the human soldiers may seize the palace without resistance. Therefore, that is what I shall do.”

  “That’s not a good plan,” Ivana said. Actually, it was, but…

  “Oh?” It looked her up and down. “What master do you serve?”

  “I don’t… I serve no one,” Ivana said.

  “Then why put your life in danger by helping these humans?”

  What in the abyss? It was now reasoning with her? “I am human,” she said.

  “Mmm,” it said noncommittally. “But you could be so much more, couldn’t you?” It gestured toward the dagger she still held in her right hand.

  Something about its voice was…compelling. She didn’t know why. A part of her brain said it was foolish to listen to it. And yet she found herself listening all the same. The hand holding the dagger dropped to her side unconsciously. “What do you mean?”

  “‘Banebringers,’ they call you, don’t they? Once upon a time, you were gods.” It walked toward her, and the closer it came, the more compelling she found it.

  “You could be a god again,” it whispered.

  Images floated into her brain, images of people bowing down to her, doing her bidding.

  This was wrong. These weren’t desires she had ever had. They weren’t coming from her own brain. This didn’t make sense.

  The corpse-thing stopped in front of her. “Give it to me,” it said, pointing to her dagger.

  She hesitated. Why in the abyss should she hand over her only remaining weapon to the thing she was supposed to kill? That made no sense. And yet it felt like the right thing to do.

  She stared at the corpse-thing. Its eyes had changed. They were still pupil-less, but red swirls began to twist through them.

  Wait. Something was trying to push through her clouded mind. She had seen this before. It was what had happened when that other corpse-thing had seemed to absorb any magic thrown at it and use it back against them.

  But she hadn’t done anything other than stop time, which it apparently was able to absorb? Reflect? She didn’t even know.

  Men, lounging around her, half-dressed, waiting on her every whim.

  She blinked, and the image shattered. That had been the wrong temptation to implant in her mind. Her brain rejected it soundly as false, and whatever the reason for the corpse-thing’s newfound abilities, she now felt more herself.

  “Give it to me,” the corpse-thing said again.

  Even out from under its spell, she felt as though she ought to do it. She tilted her head. What? Why?

  She looked at her dagger, and then at the corpse-thing. She felt that same sense of precognition she’d felt with the trajectory of an arrow or the swing of a club, except with no clear sense of what would happen if she did it.

  Her aether expenditure had to be pressing to its limit. This was the longest she’d ever kept her aether burning at a time, and though her endurance and control had increased dramatically, she had started to feel dizzy with less before.

  Even so, she pressed the feeling harder, deliberately burning a little more aether for it.

  She saw the dagger cut along her own cheek, tipped in her own blood.

  She pressed harder.

  Her dagger embedded in the corpse-thing’s stomach.

  She pressed harder.

  Spots flickered in front of her eyes, and she withdrew the extra aether. The spots disappeared.

  You can’t give your dagger to that thing. It makes no sense. But something other than sense beat against her.

  So, against all common sense, she handed the dagger to the corpse-thing.

  It took it and ran its dead finger along the flat of the blade. “It’s as I suspected,” it trilled, as if delighted. “You’ve been to visit the gods.”

  It ran the point of the dagger along her cheek and then held it up in front of her eyes, her blood turning silver on the tip before her eyes. It frowned. “But what are you? I don’t recognize you.”

  Ivana changed tactics. She let her eyes go glassy. “Your words are…tempting.”

  It lowered the dagger. “Of course they are. What human doesn’t want to be a little god, after all?”

  “None,” she said. “Not a single one of us…”

  It held out its other hand to her. She had no idea what taking its hand might do, but she doubted it would end well for her. She didn’t dare press her aether again to see.

  “I can show you how,” it whispered, its eyes almost completely red now.

  She started to reach out her hand…and at the last moment, instead grabbed its wrist—the same wrist that held her dagger—and shoved it toward its own stomach.

  The dagger plunged in about a half-inch—not far enough to kill it—before the corpse-thing resisted with its super-human strength.

  But then its eyes went wide in a human-like expression of shock. The color left them. It
staggered backward and then slumped onto the ground, motionless, its hand sliding off the dagger and flopping to the ground.

  The dagger fell out, and Ivana let go of her aether.

  She fell to her hands and knees, darkness swimming in front of her eyes. She knelt there for a moment, waiting, waiting.

  The feeling faded quickly.

  She crawled over to the corpse thing and stared down at it. That had not been a deep enough wound to kill anyone, let alone a bloodbane.

  Silver blood leaked out of the small puncture her dagger had made, and its chest continued to rise and fall. It wasn’t dead.

  Silver blood. The abyss. Danathalt’s creatures. Danathalt, Zily’s rival.

  Her aether could Sedate bloodbane. Of course it could. It made perfect sense. But she never would have imagined that a bloodbane could be Sedated until now.

  But their blood was silver, just like Banebringers, wasn’t it? That was the reason Banebringers were called demonspawn.

  She drove the dagger into the corpse-thing’s heart, just to be on the safe side, and waited until it stopped moving.

  She sat back on her heels and glanced back toward Cohoxta.

  A red glow lit the night sky from the direction of the palace, and smoke curled up against it.

  Well, damn.

  She yanked her dagger out, burned moonblood aether, and sprinted toward the city.

  The front doors of the palace thudded. The women and children in the front hall drew back.

  Aleena stood between them, holding her tiny knife in a sweaty hand.

  Realistically, there was nothing she could do. She had a small supply of aether of various kinds that she had made with her own blood before this had all started, but she had little experience in using it, and not enough to matter against the army of demons outside the door anyway.

  Still, she planted her feet and stood.

  The door cracked inward.

  A bloodgiant turned before Vaughn had a chance to react. It thundered toward the wall. Vaughn drew an arrow, but not before the creature slammed its entire body into the wall under Vaughn.

  The wall heaved, then cracked, and then disintegrated beneath his feet.

  He threw himself at the next section of wall but only succeeded in not falling off. Instead, he slipped and slid and crashed down the rubble in stages.

  The bloodgiant gave him no time to react. It picked up the nearest piece of the wall and hurled it. Vaughn rolled out of the way just in time—and turned invisible.

  The bloodgiant roared in frustration. Vaughn put an arrow through its open mouth.

  He stumbled to his feet, his chest heaving, and spun around to survey the grounds.

  His stomach fell. Despite the dent he and Thrax were making in the bloodbane, there was no way it would be enough. The two of them alone couldn’t hold off this hoard. Satisfied that a few dozen at a time could handle the two Banebringers, most of the bloodbane were now supporting enemy soldiers in fighting through the few remaining Watchmen to reach the palace. He heard the crash of a window on a lower level and screams from inside.

  His head spun—perhaps because he had hit it, possibly because of the amount of aether he was burning—or maybe because the screams and shrieks and crashes and blood were suddenly too much.

  He lifted his bow and sighted multiple possible targets, and none of it seemed enough.

  They were being overwhelmed. The Conclave would win.

  Despair choked his throat.

  He lost his invisibility. A bloodwolf caught sight of him and hurtled toward him. He lifted his bow, felt for an arrow. Only one left.

  He let it loose just as the wolf lunged at him—into the soft part of its throat.

  It yelped and landed just shy of him, and then lay still.

  A half dozen more had surrounded him.

  Well, Zily, he thought. Whatever hopes you had for using us to fix your little problem…

  Then something changed.

  One of the bloodwolves knocked into another, and the offended wolf turned on its companion, teeth at its throat.

  Another lunged at one of the enemy soldiers.

  The others seemed to forget about Vaughn and turned to join the fray.

  A hoard of bloodrats went skittering and squeaking by him, over the gap in the wall, and into the city.

  A bloodhawk in the sky circled above but didn’t land.

  He almost collapsed in relief. Ivana. She had done it. She had killed the corpse-thing.

  The bloodbane had returned to their normal, stupid—albeit dangerous—selves.

  Vaughn heard Thrax roar with satisfaction somewhere on the grounds, and the sound of yelping grew louder until Thrax burst into view, a flaming ball chasing three bloodwolves, two of which were on fire.

  The wolves, rather than turning and attacking, fled toward the nearest exit—a gap in the wall. Vaughn doused them with water as they went, lest they cause more problems.

  And for some reason, all the human soldiers—enemy and ally alike—had disappeared at some point during the fray. He couldn’t account for that, but not having to deal with humans trying to seize the palace was a relief.

  Thrax gave him a thumbs-up from across the courtyard, and, feeling energized again, Vaughn darted around, ripping any intact arrows from fallen bloodbane he could find. He didn’t need beastblood.

  But they weren’t out of danger yet. The bloodgiants never wanted anything but death and mayhem, and there were three of them left—one of which was attempting to bash down the palace’s massive front door.

  “Hey, pea-brain!” Vaughn shouted. He picked up a brick that had been dislodged from the ruined walls and hurled it at the bloodgiant. It bounced off the giant’s thick hide, and it didn’t even turn to look at him.

  The door went down.

  The door crashed to the ground, and a bloodgiant stood in the doorframe, staring at Aleena. It turned its mouth in some hideous mockery of a smile, tore off a shattered half of one door to use as a giant club, and swung it at her.

  She flung herself out of the way, and the wood crashed down just behind her.

  Screams. Shouts. Burning fire in her side. She thought it had missed!

  Blackness.

  Vaughn ran toward the bloodgiant that had just stepped into the palace after ripping half the door off. He burned aether and let one arrow loose.

  The arrow burrowed into its back, completely disappearing, and it fell forward with a crash. He loosed another, just to be on the safe side. It spasmed and didn’t move again.

  Satisfied, he turned—and was immediately disheartened. Still so many…

  They were scattering, and no longer working together—and some had fled—but there were still too many seeking to do as much chaotic damage as possible.

  He set his jaw, pressed his lips together, and held his aether ready like a pot of boiling oil.

  He wouldn’t go down without trying.

  Ivana arrived at the palace to find complete chaos—and a battlefield strewn with the bodies of humans and bloodbane alike, though there were still far too many of the latter living.

  In the distance, she saw what she could only assume was Thrax—because it looked like a flaming man.

  And then there was Vaughn.

  She blinked.

  Was he…glowing?

  She had never seen him loose arrows so fast. They flew at lightning speed, skewering one bloodbane after another, streaks of silvery mist dissipating off them as they went. And the same silvery mist clung to Vaughn’s bow—and Vaughn himself. As if the aether he was burning was steaming off him like sweat on a cold day.

  She shook her head and took stock of the rest of the grounds. Where could she help? Her dagger was also a gift from the gods, but to use it would require getting close to bloodbane.

  If she could get close to the bloodbane…she could apply her own blood to the blade and Sedate them.

  Vaughn and Thrax seemed to have the outside of the palace under some semblance of contr
ol, if there was any order to a battlefield, but she saw too many broken windows in the palace itself—and the front door had been smashed in, a bloodgiant lying motionless on top of the remains. Were there more bloodbane running amok inside?

  She took off toward the front door, burning moonblood aether to avoid any bloodbane that might notice her on the way.

  When she got there, she stepped around the hulking figure of the dead bloodgiant and—

  There was a group of women huddled around a prone figure on the floor. Ivana pushed her way through. “What’s—?”

  She drew to a halt as if she had run into a wall. Aleena lay there, a large splinter of wood run straight into her stomach.

  No. Gods, no.

  She moved her feet and fell to Aleena’s side. “Aleena!” she shouted, shaking her.

  Her eyes fluttered open. “Ivana,” she whispered, a smile touching her lips. Then her eyes closed again.

  Heart in her throat, Ivana pressed her fingers to Aleena’s neck. Her heart was still beating—for now.

  Ivana gritted her teeth and stood, rage pulsing through her. “Are there more in here?” she asked the group around her.

  One shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  But there were more out there, and if Aleena died, Ivana would be damned if it were for nothing.

  Ivana slid her dagger against her palm, wetting the blade with her own blood. And if she had to, she’d bleed herself dry trying to make sure that didn’t happen—before she ever got to damnation.

  Vaughn felt for an arrow, and his quiver was empty again. He had tried to continue collecting as he went, but there was nothing more around him.

  Too bad Tani’s magical bow didn’t come with a magical quiver that never ran out.