Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  Tolrep, dangling limp from Leon’s death grip, stiffened and smiled. “You are way too gullible.”

  That was when everything went ugly.

  XI

  Leon had no need to battle without powers since the age of twelve, so Tolrep’s haymaker was completely unexpected. His skull rebounded off the stone floor, and for a moment Leon staggered under a fog of nausea. He fought off the confusion just in time to see that damn ranger getting free and dueling with Simon and Trevor. A trickle of wetness oozed down his cheek. Blood. That bastard hit me. Not just any bastard. An endem bastard. Gutter trash. Use your shiisaa. But make it quick. They did not see him shift deeper into the shadows.

  Richter, his hands already wrapped in lightning, wasted no time. A simple clap rattled the chamber. Indra’s Fist, the shiisaa was named, and for good reason. A crescent of pure sound erupted from the concussion, ripping through stone and metal like kindling. The spell’s talent was instant death, yet the cripple stood, taller than before. Richter tensed for a second casting, and then twitched in frustration as he stepped aside.

  Now it was Simon’s turn. An unseen scarf flashed blue, and suddenly, all three bastards were vomiting water. Leon grinned. It was not that they were drowning in their own juices. It was all their juices being pulled out from them. Without the liquid, the rats were nothing more than dry shells. Undine’s Seduction. A poor name for such a powerful weapon; and yet those who laughed found themselves in a watery grave.

  The gambit was not yet finished. Simon took the Blue Corpse and hoisted its spell above his clawed fingers. The spell fluxed under the mystic gestures of its caster, sculpting razor-sharp fangs all along the disc’s circumference. It erupted from the celsius’ hands like a thing alive. Again, the chamber was rocked to its moorings, and again dust and dirt wafted slowly in bulbous clouds. Open rage weathered the Slayers’ faces. The cripple stood before them, unharmed.

  The Slayers attacked in tandem. Trevor lashed out with his Dragon’s Breath, a poison that shriveled all that it touched...and the damn golden khatar parted into the spell into twin halves with a single strike. Manna howled from dozens of shiisaa from thousands of spells. All in vain.

  Enough of this. White-winged boots flashed a silver-blue. Leon willed himself to the other side of the room, found his enemy, and cleaved the privateer in twain. Or would have, had not chains large enough to bar the moles of a harbor appeared out of nowhere to block the attack. A thousand flashes of revelations froze Leon stiff. I’ve been had. The privateer bastard was a Weirwynd. An esuzou. Master of the Steel element.

  In rage Leon tore his bandana free. The twisted lights illuminating the chamber gave an eerie brilliance to the Tien’s Eye bulging from the Slayer’s forehead. Richter. Simon. Trevor. Let me guide you. Give your strength to me. The mental walls between the Slayers gave way. Leon breasted the howling furor of three minds merging with his. A thunderstorm of thoughts, hates and loves. Leon drew it all in, relishing every moment. I’m going to enjoy hearing you scream, endem.

  Thanks to the Tien’s Eye, Leon saw the privateer fight through his comrades’ eyes. He sent commands and stratagems from his throne within the Slayers’ minds. The left hand. It is his weakness. The screech of steel cut the air as Simon unleashed a pair of war fans; quickly doubled by Trevor’s halberd and Richter’s sickle. They assumed the warrior’s circle, with the cripple at the center. He cannot face three at once.

  Kill them.

  They bounded forward. They never expected for the privateer to advance as well. A kick to the belly doubled Simon over, giving the bastard the chance to roll off the Slayer’s back. Magic chains whipped forth from the esuzou’s shoulders as he rolled, cinching tight around the neck like a noose, and suddenly Leon found himself being flung halfway across the chamber from the momentum. Hands that had crushed millions of monsters came to a neck still red from the contact, searing from the chains’ touch as they retreated into the privateer’s shiisaa. Fine. I’ll deal with the trash. They met with a berserker’s rage.

  Bite of Winter’s Breeze. Swoop of The Bat. Sailing on Falcon’s Wings.

  Boat Capsized by Tsunami. Standing at The Bow. Rage of The Storm.

  How can this be? The pitiful esuzou was holding his own. Impossible. In his rage Leon ripped the minds of his fellow Slayers back under his control. Stromgald and the cripple were ignored. All that mattered was the damned privateer.

  Richter! Distract him!

  The very chamber wailed in pain. Both the privateer and Simon were caught up within the thunderbolt’s roar. Fingers clamped upon the ears in vain. It was a matter of seconds before the cripple fell to one knee.

  Now, Simon! A Frost spell!

  Leon smiled as a scream was ripped from the privateer’s lips. The balance of power had shifted once again.

  The Slayers descended upon him. Richter, with his Siren’s Wail. Trevor, with his Dragon’s Breath. And Simon, deadliest of all, the Shiva’s Fist, radiating the Frost that was anathema to enshou. The three became a dervish of eldritch might. There was no way the privateer could...Wait! No! That’s impossible!

  Simon lay prostrate on the ground, flesh flattening as gravity forced his body deeper and deeper into the stone floor. Within seconds his internal organs were crushed into paste. Trevor fared little better. All the acrobatics in the world couldn’t save him from a bullet that followed him with a lover’s intimacy. Even in the seconds proceeding the projectile’s splitting his skull, Leon saw the dull gleam in the Slayer’s eyes. The emptiness of thought through their manna-forged link confirmed Leon’s estimation. Trevor was lost.

  And Richter...one moment he was a titan towering an insect. Nothing could stop him. The next moment he screamed as the metal weapons he employed bent to pierce him instead. Then everything went cold. Numbly Leon saw a coiled mound on the ground. Yes, those were his intestines, spilled from the bloody chasm that was his stomach. Leon saw the privateer tower over him. Faintly he heard the shuffle of the cripple’s walk, disabling the fat red sticks from the cavern’s foundations. “Misjudged by an esuzou,” he laughed.

  “Yes,” Tolrep said. “Yes, you were.”

  Then blood filled Leon’s throat, and his mind disappeared into the black.

  XII

  “That was close.” Stromgald flexed the stiffness out of his shoulders. “You were supposed to attack before they figured it out.”

  “It isn’t my fault the son of a bitch thought me an en-dime.”

  “Endem. The name Weirwynd called “normal” people.”

  “Endem. Never liked that term.”

  “Good cause. Its Weirwynd speak for “endemic.” But my Weirwynd is a bit rusty. I could be translating it wrong.”

  “Okay then. Myke! You’re a librarian, right? What’s endemic mean?”

  Mykel glanced at both of them in rapid succession. “What the hell is going on?”

  “He looks pissed.” Tolrep noted. “We should have told him.”

  “Told me what?” Realization dawned on him like a sledgehammer. “You two planned this. You posted yourselves as bait to draw them out.” Brilliant plan, save for one tiny detail. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “This is not a game, Mykel. The Slayers loathed you on sight. If they had captured you, they would have tortured you without mercy. By “handling” you, Tolrep kept you out of enemy hands. Keeping you from the plan provided genuine emotion. Professionals like the Slayers can read truth like a book.”

  “Truth?” Mykel stabbed at finger at Tolrep. “And you! You’re a Weirwynd. This whole time you’ve been hiding it.”

  “From a boy I just met twelve hours ago. Your damned right I kept it a secret.”

  You still should have told us.
But was it worth holding a grudge? Better ruffled feathers than a deep-seated hatred in the days to come. John trusted me enough to guard his back. He knows what he’s doing. With a reluctant nod, Mykel rejoined the two men and plunged deeper into the nest.

  Already knowing the threats peppering the chambers made the long descent into the cavern’s bowels a quick affair; reaching the throne room, doubly so. Yet Mykel froze. Something about the light was...pale. As if warped and twisted into a shell of its former self. Yet it was enough and more to see the Versi Queen. No. Not again. It can’t be.

  Caryl. Donned in the black gown he had bought her on the anniversary of their first fucking, smiling the smile that brought her ruby lips into full prominence. Even from the distance between them the librarian could see her heavy breasts shift under the sheer black silk. My favorite. Mykel ruthlessly squashed the warmth and the peace, giving him a moment to analyze his comrade. There was no mistaking it. Stromgald’s eyes were glazed with the sight of loves once thought lost forever. A spell, Mykel thought. This isn’t real...

  Suddenly Caryl was mere inches before him, feet standing upon his to deliver a savage kiss. The librarian held her, afraid any slight motion might shatter the moment’s magic. This is what I want. Dammit! This is what I want! Tears blurred his vision as he broke the embrace. From a throat raw with lightning he whispered the most damning thing he could utter.

  “I killed you once already. Don’t make me kill you again.”

  “Caryl” gave a sad nod. Behind him Mykel heard great, heaving sobs. He turned and froze. Both Stromgald and Tolrep were bawling like babies, clawing their eyes to deny the glamour put upon him. Mykel couldn’t decipher anything in Tolrep’s rampart possession, but John’s rasp was recognizable amidst the torture, over and over. “Sylver. Sylver.” They were being tortured by the possible deaths of their beloved.

  Mykel rounded on Caryl. His thoughts were fire, building, piling together towards one inevitable conclusion. “You’re a shapeshifter, aren’t you?”

  “Caryl” smiled. “You have done what no mortal man has in all my years.”

  “You’re spell-caught.” One by one the words softened to a near-whisper. “You take the thing most precious in the heart and wear its’ clothing.” The world blurred suddenly; Mykel hadn’t even realized the tears dragging down his cheeks. “Turn off the glamour on them.”

  Caryl nodded. A casual gesture and Stromgald’s sobs were abruptly cut in half. Mykel clamped his teeth on an oath. He had seen the anger glinting John’s eyes before. They were his eyes, twisted with dark intent. The anger, spreading through his body until coiled tight, seething in his guts, demanding release.

  “Move away, Mykel.”

  “No.”

  “You do not know what she did to me.” The katana hissed from the sheath. Something in the way John held the steel reminded Mykel of an asp, tensing for the poisonous deathblow. Tolrep had enough hate in his eyes to level the room with a look.

  “Don’t do this. It will turn you into something you’re not. You know that.”

  Abruptly the ranger crossed the necessary few feet to launch a two-handed stroke that would split in twain anything upon contact. Glinting silver filled Mykel’s vision...and stopped an inch shy at the forehead, receded from sight back to the leather sheath. “She is that important?”

  “I’m not going to let you destroy yourself. Sylver would kill me.”

  A chuckle rattled from Stromgald. “She would indeed. What about her?” He pointed with his chin at the last...then blinked. Mykel turned to find Caryl’s face slack with horror. “What?”

  “Hide! He comes!”

  Before Mykel could voice the obvious question Stromgald’s hand yanked him to the safety of a side corridor, followed by the last person librarian, ranger and privateer would ever expect to walk the chamber.

  “Ah, Shann. Has Omeros finally loosened your leash?”

  Shann. Janos Shann. Right Hand of Cardinal Omeros. Sword of the Inquisitor. Upon the cloak’s heart was a sword lain against a dark storm-cloud; the symbol of a grand leader. As he doffed the hood that hid his face in shadow the librarian flinched. A long face made all the longer by sloping cheekbones, crested with a hooked nose, which in turn was crowned by eyes so dark there seemed to be no irises. Now that long face knotted at the other’s words. “Were it my decision, I would drive a sword through your black heart.”

  “How fortunate that you are not allowed to drink the sacrificial wine, then. You could never hold your liquor.”

  “Your petty games do not charm me, abomination. Have you the egg?”

  “You will not have my child.”

  “Ah. The same old words.” A blue light, brighter than the sky, deeper than the sea, flashed at the collar that banded the Inquisitor’s throat. “The same old suffering.”

  Caryl shook as though trapped in a seizure. White breath fogged an invisible barrier. He’s placed a cocoon over her. As Caryl struggled it was harder to maintain her human guise. Flashes and snatches crackled against her frame, until the shapeshifter’s will was finally spent.

  A dragon appeared in her place. A jade dragon with a thousand tubes snaking upward into the dark, carrying the precious lifeblood it pumped to unseen purposes.

  Mykel shoved the thought away. Caryl was dying. He rose to lambaste the righteous bastard, but Stromgald’s hand forced him back down. Not yet, said Stromgald’s eyes. Do not jeopardize her sacrifice.

  The dragon let loose a scream so agonizing that it melted bones to water. Threads of rock-dust twisted from the chamber’s moaning with the skittering rush of sand through an hourglass. Another scream, and walls and ceiling cracked spider-webs and jagged lightning. There was a final scream, and where there was once one dragon, now there were two, the second a small pathetic thing, with only the teasing of form and life. A fetus ejected from the womb too early. A babe not yet ready to live.

  Shann smiled as he plucked the babe from its mother’s grasp. “A pleasure as always.” A hidden table rose from the floor, carrying an ash-dark skeleton, the manacles that had bound it long gone to rust. With infinite care Shann placed the newborn dragon in the skeleton’s breast, his lips tugging upward as tendrils shot forth from the newborn with a slippery, meaty sound, spearing the black bone at the marrow.

  The strangeness was not yet done. The bone-piercing filaments that pushed new blood into it. The more it pulsed the brighter the dragon became, and the brighter it became the more it pulsed. Soon the bones glowed like the embers of a furnace. Then the bones began to curve, quickening like fingers twitching with the pretense of life. Mykel watched, mesmerized, as the bones dissipated into dust, dust that howled like a thousand hurricanes, blurred into a vapor that slowly overtook the heart, a vapor that raged against invisible boundaries, swirling upward and upward, still blurring, still howling. With a thunder crack the vapor solidified into...into...

  An egg? Mykel’s breath caught in his throat. More than just a versi egg. Something darker, something blacker. Something infinitely deadlier. A Myrrh. The evil that radiated from the egg had too much familiarity to be false now. A Myrrh egg. They are grown from a dragon’s womb. And the librarian could do nothing but watch Shann take the egg and glide from the chamber. Even as he burned to go after the priest, the mewling of the dragon was precedent.

  “Look at me, mortals.” The mother dragon looked drained, weak. “They spelled me. Twisted me so they would have the channel from which their wretched kin would spring. They remade my children. Made them evil.”

  A silence begging to be shattered. “What do you want us to do?”

  Again, the dragon wheezed. “Kill me.”

  Mykel was poleaxed. “What?”

  “Kill me. It is the onl
y way to stop them. My children...it is the only way.”

  John took steps toward the dragon, then paused as the dead arm suddenly blocked his way. The two traded glances, understanding what the other was thinking, completing a pattern of deeds leading to the necessity of sacrifice. “I’m ready, Caryl.”

  The dragon shifted to take Caryl’s form. “I am not your Caryl. Listen to me boy. Just listen. From one who has loved to another. Let her go. She would not want your heart stunted with her shadow. Promise me that.”

  “I promise.” Barely a whisper.

  There was no resistance. Ifirit’s needled fingers spiked into the dragon’s heart, crushing it. Pain hissed from Ifirit, but Mykel did not feel it. He forced to meet Caryl’s eyes, too late. Death already froze the dragon. She was at peace.

  The versi’s numbers were finally dwindling. Orson could see the hesitation heavy in their bloodlust. They knew only the savagery of nature red in tooth and claw, yet their eyes of scarlet flame widened at the steel transfixing and then exploding a foot from the back. They died seeing their own intestines wrapped around the mortal steel that cut them down. There was no retreat, no prisoners, no mercy. Mortal blades hunted the versi down until the last lay in a pool of slow-spreading blood beneath them. A bubble of blood broke from the lipless mouth, and then...silence.

  A chorus of cheers erupted from the battlefield. The three rangers joined in the festivities, slapping backs, exchanging praise and congratulations. Orson finally allowed himself a sigh. Now he could get back to a cot and resume sleeping. For a week. Maybe a month. He certainly deserved such a prize.

  There was a tugging at his sleeve. “Orson.” Raptor tugged and tugged until the Northman ranger rounded on him. Anger melted into shock as Orson followed Raptor’s finger to the horizon. The celebration paled and faded as the soldiers’ eyes were arrested upon one single black dot. The doubt extended to lace the horizon at either side. Once again, the bloodthirsty scream pierced the air, freezing men’s bowels at the abrupt savagery of their call. The Northman ranger kept his features tight in disdain. He fought back the terror that would power his flight from the battlefield. For the first time, Orson knew fear.