by Adrian Cross
“Waiting for what?” Bern asked.
A rustle of brush heralded a new figure at the clearing’s edge. It was human-shaped but massive, pale antlers spreading above its head like skeletal wings.
The cold metal of Jonathan’s sword touched the side of Clay’s throat.
“For him,” Jonathan said sadly.
5
Betrayal Battle Confusion
Bern gripped her oaken axe handles so tightly her fingers ached. Something had splashed on her cheek—saliva or blood from the hound—and the skin itched. But she kept all her attention on Jonathan and the sword he held to Clay’s neck.
“What are you doing?”
Jonathan ignored her, watching the clearing’s edge instead. Two new shapes had joined the first. Not hounds. These stood upright, one tall and lean, the other squat and bulky. All three started forward. As they did, moonlight flowed over the lead figure’s antlers. Real antlers. Bern’s stomach tightened.
Karen had lied. This was no bandit with an antlered helm. Bern looked at Clay. From the stiffness of his face, he’d realized it, too.
“Jonathan,” he grated. “What’s going on?”
“Horan is an Earth god. We cannot win.”
Jonathan was distracted, Bern realized. She leaned forward, the muscles of her arm tensing. If she was fast…
“Stop!” Jonathan’s blade shifted, and blood trickled down Clay’s neck. “Another move and he dies.”
Bern stopped.
Clay’s expression stayed calm, except for an iron gleam in his eyes. “What are you doing, Jonathan?”
“I’m sorry. I have to save Karen. Toss your weapon to the dirt.”
“You’ll regret this,” Bern said. “I won’t forget.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Unfortunately, that won’t matter soon.”
Clay tossed his pistol in a short arc, and it landed on the ash nearby.
Jonathan pulled away his sword.
Bern sprang forward, axes sliding into her hands.
Jonathan’s hilt flared blue, blinding her. She stumbled. When her sight recovered, bodyguard and horse were gone.
“Where are they?” Clay demanded. Ash dusted his arm and hair, and he swung his pistol back and forth. He must have dived for it.
She shook her head. “The stone on his sword shone and … he was gone.”
Clay growled. His glance darted to the approaching trio. “Your people are good underground, right?”
“Why?”
“If there’s fighting, run for the mine.”
“What? No!” Heat filled Bern’s face. She couldn’t run. This was her Tempering. She was supposed to protect Clay, not desert him. “I am your Shield.”
“You’re more use to me alive than dead.”
“But…”
Clay turned to face the newcomers.
The central figure was massive, looming over Clay. A pelt of hair coated his heavily muscled chest, and antlers spread out from his forehead, wide and ridged. Pink scraps fluttered from their tips, like shreds of human skin. A rope belt held up grey pants and a sword, its stone blade steaming slightly, as if yanked from the center of the earth.
“You killed my hound.” The stranger’s voice was deep and resonant.
An Earth god, Jonathan had called him. Fear squeezed Bern’s stomach.
“You might remember that,” Clay said, “before you set them on us again.” He stepped forward, angling in front of Bern. Even in the tension of the moment, Bern felt a flash of irritation.
“You don’t know whom you face. Let me correct that.” The antlered man gestured to one side. “Latine.”
Latine hissed. She looked like a cross between a heroic statue and a snow leopard, eight feet tall, wrapped in muscle and a pelt of soft white. She lowered her fire-scorched spear.
“Grok.”
On the antlered man’s other side, Grok looked as if he were related to the tree creature of the stables, but squatter, not much taller than Bern. A blend of bark and skin covered his frame, with wide swaths of blistered pink and blackened wood, as if flame had danced over him and he’d never healed. The ridged bark oozed yellow pus. Two cracks in the top of the stump burned red, as if Grok’s eyes were windows to a furnace within. Unease danced along Bern’s spine.
“I am Horan,” the antlered man finished, “sometimes called the Hunter.”
Clay touched his hat. “Clay Halloway. Sometimes called a man best left alone. Speaking of which, what do you want?”
“Bern Brogi,” Bern announced, stepping to Clay’s side. She was no bluestone vase. “Clay’s Shield.”
Clay’s lips tightened.
Horan’s head tilted back, and his nostrils flared, like a predator catching a scent. “You’ve been with her. The thief. I can smell it. Where is she?”
The thief. Bern frowned. Karen had said the bandits had accused her of stealing a piece of jewelry from them. What had she called it? The Golden Rib.
“You should know.” Clay pointed at Grok. “The last time I saw her, something that looked a lot like him was carrying her away. I’ve never seen a walking tree before, so it seems a pretty safe guess they both belong to you.”
“You are wrong. Grok’s tree did not bring the thief to us. It never returned from its task.”
Never returned? Bern shot a look at Clay. His face was unusually stiff. They had gotten themselves into this mess for nothing?
Clay nodded slowly. “If she is still in StoneDragon, I will find her.”
“I don’t care what you do. She belongs to me.”
“I promised to bring her safely to her father.”
Horan’s face darkened. “She stole my Rib. She will die for it.”
“She says she didn’t.”
Horan roared, a shocking sound. Bern fought the instinct to leap back. Her heart pounded, and she squeezed her axes.
“Lies!” Horan thundered, saliva bubbling on his lower lip. “I tore that rib out of my own chest to create these other gods. I know who stole it; she snuck into my camp under the blanket of her father’s sodden magic. I smelled her then, and I smell her now.” He leaned closer, his lips drawing back. “She will regret it. And so will you.”
“A rib,” Clay repeated flatly. “A real rib. Not a piece of jewelry. And something you could fit in a boot.”
Pain filled his voice. Karen had lied to him again, Bern guessed.
He drew a breath. “You could bargain to get it back.”
Horan chuckled, like stones scraping together. “I don’t bargain with humans. I kill them. The only question is how fast.” He slid his sword free of the belt. The air around it hazed as clear flame ran up its length. “You will die slowly. Enough talking.”
“All right.” Clay drew and fired, blindingly fast.
Blood spurt from Horan’s eye socket. He bellowed and clutched his eye, staggering back. The fiery sword dropped into the ash and snuffed out.
Mist! Bern leaped forward, into Latine’s path, dropping into a defensive cross, one leg stretched back to absorb any impact.
The cat woman shouted and swung. The impact was like the charge of a Blood Bear, throwing Bern back, hands stinging and ash churning up around her. She scraped to a stop on her back, still clinging to her weapons, barely.
That strength had been inhuman. An Earth god. And there were three of them.
She scrambled to her feet.
Horan was on his knees, hands to his face, but the other two Earth gods flanked Clay. Latine slashed at his head, using her spear as a club.
Clay ducked it, and his pistol spat again. One of Latine’s furred shoulders darkened in a red splash, but she barely reacted. Clay’s evasion had brought him too close to Grok. A branch wrapped around his ankle.
Clay looked at Bern. “Run.”
Grok jerked Clay’s feet out from under him. The cowboy slammed down on his back.
Grok’s other branch lifted, preparing to smash Clay’s skull.
Bern hurled an axe, as hard as she
could. It smacked into Grok’s torso, into a patch of human flesh, so the blade went in deep. Grok staggered forward, limbs drooping.
Latine swung her spear up and over Clay. Bern wasn’t going to be in time to stop the blow.
“No!” Horan screamed. His head lifted, revealing a ruined mess where his right eye had been. “I want him alive!”
“Run!” Clay shouted at Bern, desperation in his voice. “Now!”
Grok wrapped a branch around Clay’s pistol hand, slamming it down. Latine caught his other arm, pinning him. Horan rose to his feet.
“Now!” Clay screamed.
Tears stung Bern’s eyes. She couldn’t move. If she attacked them, she would almost certainly die. She might take one down, but there were three of them. Horan had said they wouldn’t kill Clay, at least not right away. She should run. But her legs wouldn’t move. Could she really desert her charge?
The hounds broke, howling from the clearing, racing at her.
With a sob, Bern turned and ran for the mine entrance. Her pulse pounded in her ears, from more than just exertion. She shouldn’t be running. But she was.
Paws thudded on the earth behind her. Too close. The mine entrance loomed dark and forbidding, like the cave she had wandered into when young. But this time the monsters were real.
She turned, sliding to a stop. The hound leaped into the air, dark body stretching out.
She hurled her last axe with all her rage and fury. The weapon cracked the great dog’s skull. The body smacked and skidded along the earth, raising a cloud of black and grey.
When it cleared, she could see the Earth gods surrounding Clay. Latine’s fist rose and fell, once, then again.
A sob wracked Bern.
Another hound raced at her, blocking her view. She was empty-handed, without time to retrieve her axe.
She fled into darkness.
6
Pain
When Clay woke, his first reaction was surprise. Surprise he was still alive.
The surface under his back and head was cold and gritty. His neck ached, and his temple felt swollen and tender. He rolled his head and got a view of blackened flagstones. Pain pounded the back of his eyes and his ribs ached. The Earth gods had worked him over.
Above him, the night glittered with stars. A crumbled wall blocked his view to the left. He was in the burnt out mine buildings, walled by rubble. A breath of wind stirred the ash around him, filling his nostrils.
Memory of everything that had happened washed over him. Karen had lied. She’d hidden who hunted her and what she’d done to deserve it. Grief clotted in his chest. She probably hadn’t intended for him to end up like this, but his ignorance hadn’t helped.
Sarah’s father had lied to Clay, too. It didn’t mean either girl deserved what came after. Or at least, what might happen to Karen if he wasn’t able to find her.
Another memory swept him, a small shape running. Had Bern made it to safety? He struggled to rise.
“You’re awake.”
A huge antlered shadow detached from the wall. Horan.
Clay’s fingers scrabbled for his pistol but touched only empty leather. He reached behind him and found the same with the scabbard at his back. His pulse picked up. This wasn’t good.
“You’re wondering why you’re still alive,” Horan said, still a formless shadow against the wall. “Why I didn’t crack your skull already. We both know you don’t have anything useful left to tell me.”
A slow step forward and the moonlight flowed over the left side of Horan’s face. His eye seemed lit with cold fire, banked hatred. Then the light reached the right side.
Horan’s right socket was a dark, ruined mess. The pistol had done its job.
Clay caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to see Grok and Latine slip into the building through a gap in the wall. If he’d thought they had hatred in their eyes before, it was nothing compared to what he saw at that moment.
“They’re not happy with you. I am their god, and you hurt me. That was a mistake.” Horan touched the cheek below the disfigured socket. “They will make sure you don’t die too soon. That you scream for a long time first.”
Horan lifted something in his big hands. Bern’s axe. Clay’s heart lurched. Had they caught her?
“A Shield, I think your friend called herself. My hounds are tracking her.” Horan ran a finger along the weapon’s shaft, a length of smooth, varnished oak. Near the blade, the oak merged into an iron collar, splashed in places with blood. Horan’s hand stopped. “Shields can be broken, though, as I expect her to be when she arrives. Hopefully not too badly. I’d like to spend some time with her as well.”
Horan twisted his hand, and the axe snapped in two, leaving a jagged edge below the collar. Horan tossed the metal head away, leaving him with a wooden bar splintered and sharp at one end. He stepped closer, the crude stake lifting.
“I plan to teach both of you what pain really means.”
Clay tried to jump up and raise his hands in a defensive pose, but a wave of weakness rolled over him. He stumbled back into the half-wall and then started to slide down.
Horan caught Clay by his shirtfront. The dragon-scale coat had fallen open to each side, exposing the thin shirt over his chest. Horan raised Clay and pushed him back against the wall until his toes barely touched the ground.
Up close, the Earth god’s eye was like a glimpse of hell.
Clay tried to pry Horan’s fingers loose, but the grip was like iron.
The sharp tip of the stake settled against Clay’s left shoulder. A prick of pain, and the white shirt reddened in a small circle.
“I need you to stay here for a little while,” Horan said, “while I go collect your friend. Since I can’t trust you to wait, we need to find a different solution.”
With a single heave, he drove the shaft deep into Clay’s body, through the depression between pectoral and shoulder, through cloth, skin, and muscle, until the stake’s point jarred into the dragon scales behind him.
Shock hit first, then pain. Clay gasped. The world was suddenly fragile and full of sharp edges.
“You should have worn a softer coat,” Horan said and then heaved a second time.
Clay heard a scraping sound and a pop, as the point of the stake punched through coat and wall. Pain expanded to fill his world. He choked, the smell of blood thick in his nostrils. His head hung down, and he could see a wide swath of red spreading down his once-white shirt. He clung to consciousness by a hair.
Horan grunted. “Not bad, but not done. Right, Grok?”
The hazy shape of Grok appeared in front of Clay, eyes burning. A branch-like arm lifted and touched the axe shaft.
Like a startled porcupine, thorns burst out of the stake, ripping through Clay’s flesh.
He screamed. He couldn’t help it; the sound ripped out with the splatter of blood that hit the wall and the Earth gods, who didn’t seem to care.
Clay’s legs buckled, and the pain bloomed, as his weight dragged at the stake pinning him to the wall.
Clay slid toward unconsciousness.
Horan’s voice followed, thick with amusement. “Don’t worry. We won’t be gone long. Then we’ll talk more.”
7
Prey in the Dark
The tunnels were damp and slippery, more so than the ones Bern had grown up in, in the high cold mountains. It was as if these caves leaked dark blood, and she couldn’t quite find her footing. Or maybe it was the thoughts still spinning in her head. The roaring in her ears.
She heard a hound howl once, triumphantly, as if it had caught her scent, and then not long after, a second time, in pain or panic. It ended sharply. She wondered what shared the tunnels with her.
Some kind of luminescent moss appeared in patches along the walls, providing weak illumination. In places, it revealed scratches, like claw marks, high over her head. Bern was painfully aware of her empty hands. Her only weapon was the Dragon knuckle tucked into her belt.
Her thoughts churned. Clay had ordered her to run. But her mission wasn’t one of obedience; it was of protection. She’d faced frightening odds and taken the easy way out. She’d run. Bile burned her throat, and her stomach knotted. Clay had wanted to protect her, she knew, but she could have stayed and fought. They could have died together.
She didn’t want to die. Fear burned through her, the chill of the caves settling in her bones. If she had stayed and fought, this could have been her last day on Earth.
Shame flooded up, displacing the fear. Her face burned as if she had a fever. She had trained her entire life to be a warrior. That meant risking death. Maybe even accepting it. She couldn’t be who she wanted to be if she wasn’t prepared for that.
She stopped moving.
Was Clay alive? It was possible. Horan had ordered his companions not to kill Clay. But she remembered Horan’s earlier words, too. The antlered god didn’t leave any human alive. But maybe there was still time to find Clay.
Water dripped somewhere, then silence, then a hard scrape of something unidentifiable.
She faced back the way she’d come.
She’d left her last axe in the skull of the hound near the mine entrance. She would collect it and then find out if Clay was still alive. If she lived that long herself.
Bad things lurked that way. Maybe a hound, maybe something else. The air of the tunnels wasn’t dead. The smart move would be to keep going, find an exit. Then bring back more warriors to try to rescue Clay.
Except the iron weight on her heart told her he didn’t have that long.
She strode back toward Clay and the Earth gods, toward the hound and whatever else might wait.
She would not return a coward or leave Clay to die. She would rather not return.
8
Escape
Clay couldn’t have been out more than a couple of minutes. The stars still burned white above, the blood on his shirt was still wet. And the pain remained soul-wrenching, lapping at his mind like a lake. He fought against slipping back into unconsciousness. To stay there was to die.
