by Adrian Cross
Not terribly optimistic.
“You’re hiding something,” Bern accused the guard. “What is it?”
Clay kept his focus on Resh. “How can you help us? You have powers, too.”
“I can’t leave my people. And I can’t spare much in the way of soldiers. Most are needed to protect the castle. But my magic can help get you back to your city, past Horan’s forces.”
Finally, some good news. “Then what are we waiting for?”
“First I have a gift—and a condition.”
Irritation swelled. “A condition? Are you joking? You’re not exactly in the best position to bargain.”
Resh’s expression turned hard. “It’s non-negotiable. Otherwise I imprison you both here until your city Shifts again, and death comes for us all together.”
The young guard drew his sword and the older one dropped the point of his pike. Bern stared at the young guard, her forehead knotting. Resh was serious. Maybe it was worth giving ground a little.
“What condition?” Clay asked cautiously.
Resh smiled. “The gift first.” He nodded to the older guard, who collected something from the throne and offered it to Clay.
It was a small package. Clay pulled the wrapping loose, revealing a slender blue dagger. The grip was molded metal, with a slight blue sheen, joined to a translucent stone blade. A horizontal guard made the dagger look like an upside-down cross. The blade gave off the same soft blue light as the throne.
“It takes a powerful weapon to kill a god,” Resh said. “This is one of my tokens. If you end up facing Horan again, it might give you a fighting chance.”
“Thank you.” Clay slipped the dagger into the empty sheath in the back of his coat. “Now what’s the condition?”
“I know you,” Bern said suddenly, staring at the guard’s sword. A blue stone glowed on its pommel. Clay frowned, realizing he knew the sword, too. He barely heard Resh’s reply.
“Someone who has Karen’s best interests at heart needs to go with you.”
Bern shouted and jumped at the guard. He stumbled backward, her bag spilling from his hand and his hood falling back, revealing blond hair, blue eyes, and a heavy jaw slack in surprise. Jonathan.
White rage rose in Clay. He fought to keep from drawing the dagger at his back. “You can’t be serious. That double-crosser?”
“Jonathan goes with you, or none of you leave. He is my condition.”
Bern moved like quicksilver. Her leg swept Jonathan’s feet out from under him. As he landed on his back, she scooped her axe loose from the bag and swung it up.
Jonathan disappeared.
The axe crashed down, with all the strength in Bern’s frame. Wood chips flew, but no blood. He must have rolled out of the way.
Bern snarled and yanked the axe up again.
Waves thundered around them. “Hold!” Resh roared.
She hesitated.
“Stop Bern,” Clay said, although the words weren’t easy.
Bern snarled, her gaze sweeping the room, but there was no sign of Jonathan. She lowered the axe.
Jonathan appeared a prudent distance away, the pommel of his sword shining blue. Another token, Clay realized, one that granted invisibility to its owner.
“I know you’re angry,” Resh said, “but Jonathan was Karen’s bodyguard. Whatever he did, it was in an effort to help her. I want him with you. I need him with you, to make sure Karen isn’t forgotten. Besides, you might find him more useful than you think.”
Clay glared at Jonathan. “Where’s Barrel?” he asked.
Jonathan frowned. “Who?”
“My horse!”
“We have him,” Resh soothed. “We’ll take care of him, I promise, and get him back to your city when we can. So, do you agree?”
“Jonathan left us to die,” Bern cried.
Clay nodded. Jonathan had. And a lot of things could happen to a stranger in StoneDragon. For the moment, though, Clay didn’t have much choice. Karen needed them.
“Agreed.”
Bern shook her head in disgust.
“Thank you,” Resh said. “From the bottom of my heart. Come, let me show you your path back.” He headed for the far wall.
“You know she lied, right?” Bern snarled.
“What?”
She glared up at Clay. “Your girlfriend. She lied. She set us up.”
“Karen is not my girlfriend,” Clay said reflexively. “And that doesn’t change the fact that someone has her and she needs our help. I promised to get her home.”
“So you have no feelings for her at all?”
A quick flurry of memories flashed through Clay’s mind, the feeling of Karen’s soft lips on his cheek when she kissed him in the barn, the warmth of Sarah’s embrace as they hugged in what would be their final goodbye. Then finally, the memory of Bern rising from the water like a dark-haired angel.
The words stuck in his throat. Bern snorted and followed Resh.
Clay sucked in a breath. He was a mess, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was saving Karen. It didn’t matter what Bern thought of him. It didn’t.
He followed the others toward the wall.
They had gathered around a stone archway, over which a steady flow of water sheeted, forming a translucent curtain. A narrow drain collected the water and swept it away.
“Your doorway,” Resh said. “Just step through.”
Bern did just that, disappearing through the water without a word. Jonathan stepped after her. Clay took a step forward, but Resh gripped Clay’s arm, holding him back.
“Clay. Please. Bring her back. Promise me.”
God or mortal, coward or realist, at that moment, the look Clay saw in Resh’s eyes was only the look of a father, desperate to get his child back safely.
Clay grimaced and pulled his arm free. “I promise,” he said.
Would he regret those words before the end? It didn’t matter. He would see them through.
He stepped into the water.
13
Gods at the Wall
When Bern was eight, her Clan hosted a Krisling celebration. They invited the other four clans to their peak. Bern helped her mother wrap silver ribbons around the frost-dusted torch poles of the second plateau, where the visitors would first be seen. The early morning air burned her lungs. When they were done, her mother let Bern wriggle her fingers in warm red paint and press them against the paper that wrapped the welcome gifts. Bern left small red handprints and giggled. After, she had to scrub her hands, and then they waited.
Bern pulled on her mother’s hand and rose on tiptoes in restless anticipation, trying to get a better look at the mist of the lower slopes. She squealed when the first shape emerged, fingers of black mist trailing off his dark axe and shield. His helmet was down.
Her mother’s hand tightened, almost painfully.
Two more shapes emerged, then another four in a neat wedge, clad in dark steel and carrying weapons. Their faces were hidden.
Her mother let go of Bern’s hand. “Inside.”
“But—”
“Now!”
A horn blew stridently.
Bern stumbled toward the cave mouth. Behind her, her mother shouted for weapons, for reinforcement. The men drew closer.
Bern froze, unable to look away, until a hand pulled her into the caves and shoved her onward.
“To the lower chambers, child,” a voice barked.
Shapes rushed past her, spade-bearded Ribber, double axes in hand, and old Gilbrath, in slippers and holding a mace.
The dark, smoky warmth of the caves should have been reassuring, but horn calls echoed off the stone walls and confusion reigned. Another hand guided her deeper into the tunnels, and she kept going, unsure what else to do and with a hollow fear in her stomach. What was happening? Where was her mother?
She remembered only fragments of what came after. A frozen image of Beth, a white-faced teenager who herded the children into the toy room and then fell with an iro
n axe in her shoulder. The furious face of Old Gilbrath, barefoot, as he scattered the attackers, buying the children time to run. A single red handprint on the wall. Not from paint.
The Clan’s fighting retreat carried her deeper into the mountain, her limbs numb from fear. She saw the red gleam of the Wall’s reflection as it blocked the Clan’s retreat, heard Mama and Brogi argue over what to do next, and then witnessed Mama step fearlessly into the fire. Her clan followed. Old Ninanna took Bern’s hand and pulled her through, only to fall shortly after. Bern didn’t see the hole in the old woman’s back until she lay on the floor. Bern’s empty hand tingled from the loss.
She stared at her hand. It was older. Stronger. Wrapped around an axe she had spent most of her life training with. Determined to be a hero in future battles, not a victim.
She wished she knew what had happened to her mother.
“Where is he?” Jonathan growled.
They huddled in a small cave, a glimmer in its depths where Resh’s magical gate had expelled them.
She glanced at the big swordsman. Jonathan had betrayed her, and his master had locked her in a cage. She squeezed her axe shaft until the joints of her fingers ached, trying to stop herself from planting the weapon in his chest.
With a swirl of blue, Clay was in the cave with them, his expression grave.
She looked away. Clay confused her. Her cheeks warmed as she remembered their encounter at the pool. She’d thought he was unconscious. She’d been desperate to scrub from her body the blood of the monster she’d killed and be clean again. She’d also craved a moment’s rest from carrying Clay. She’d never expected him to wake up and see her. Shock, embarrassment, and other unfamiliar emotions had ricocheted through her, freezing her in place until he spoke. Then she backed into the tentacles that had seized her and dragged her into the water. When she woke in Resh’s cage, she’d thought Clay must have died in those deserted tunnels, by the dark pool. Then he’d shown up, tall and strong, and faced down a god to gain her release. It had roiled her feelings once again and led to her barbed comments about Karen.
She grimaced. She needed to straighten out her head. Why should it matter if Clay was fixated on Karen? Aside from seeing Bern naked—and seeing a woman naked was probably something most men would have trouble looking away from—he’d never given Bern an extra glance. It didn’t matter anyway. Her job was to be his Shield, not his romantic interest.
“Are we near the Wall?” Clay asked.
“Not the right question,” Jonathan said, from the cave’s entrance. “The question is who beat us to it?”
Bern followed Clay to the entrance. Shock washed through her.
“Sweet Stone,” she whispered.
Their vantage was near the top of a rock incline, not far from StoneDragon’s Wall. Resh had been as good as his word. But they were not the only ones there. An army washed up against the Wall.
“Meet the Earth army,” Jonathan said.
It was vast and shifting, a sea of dark and furry bodies. As far as Bern could tell, they were all some disturbing mix of animal and human. Patches of armor were strapped to furry chests and legs. Crude swords were gripped in short-fingered hands and scarred shields strapped to backs. Some warriors looked less human than others. A grizzly rose on its back legs, ten feet tall if an inch, and then dropped again, shaking the earth.
Around the bear flowed a line of supple beasts, down on all fours, with swords tied to their backs. With smooth fur, stumpy legs, and graceful bodies, they looked like mongooses, if mongooses grew as big as wolves. Every once in a while, one would rise on its haunches, eyes glittering.
The mongooses moved sideways, giving way for another creature: a towering crocodile on human legs, scaled and muscled like a tank. The size of the mace on its shoulder seemed suited to a ship’s anchor. When a careless rat man stumbled in its path, the crocodile swatted it with the same brutal indifference Bern would use to crush a redwasp. The body spun away.
Deep in the center of this swirling mass of violence and mutated flesh, Horan and Latine stood in a pocket of stillness and intensity, staring at the Wall.
“The trees,” Clay murmured.
Bern nodded. The Earth gods watched two massive tree creatures, maybe fifteen feet apart, move closer and closer to the Wall, until their heavy branches sank into its red energy. Sparks and roils of flame lashed out, as if the Wall resisted their intrusion. It didn’t look like the city wanted them inside.
The trees leaned forward and closed in, limbs bending and entwining, until they looked like a single gnarled arch. They trembled, as if supporting a crushing weight. Beneath the archway of their branches, the Wall’s red fire slowly cleared, revealing a small black patch of cobblestone.
“He did it,” she said in awe. “He pierced the Wall.”
It hadn’t come without cost. Rivulets of flame ran up the bodies of the great trees, their bodies glowing brighter as the sunlight faded. Lesser branches charred and withered, crumbling under the heat. But it didn’t stop the assault—and Bern could already see two more great trees moving ponderously alongside, ready to take the first pair’s place. Grok lurked nearby, dwarfed by their size, but smoldering with his own power.
“When Karen asked me about someone invading StoneDragon,” Clay said quietly, “I laughed.”
Bern said nothing. She had daydreamed about epic battles to defend StoneDragon. The blood and pain of the past few days and restless animosity of the army below made her a lot more aware of what that could cost.
A line of Earth warriors approached the archway and then passed through, ignoring the drifting embers and flames that danced overhead.
“We’re too late,” Jonathan moaned.
“No,” Clay said. “But we need to find Karen soon.”
The army bunched around the archway, opening a gap between the cave and the Wall. But the ground between looked terribly exposed.
“Can you make us invisible?” Bern asked.
“It doesn’t work like that.” Jonathan growled. “It’s tied to one person. A horse is about as far as I can stretch it, and even then, it’s not reliable. I could sneak to the Wall, but you two would be on your own.”
“How surprising,” Bern said.
He glared at her. “If you—”
“Stop,” Clay said. “Look.”
Bern followed his gaze, trying to see what he’d noticed. Then she caught it, a ripple in the fire of the Wall beyond the archway, from which three figures had emerged, silhouetted by its light. They walked calmly to a small rise.
“Who is that?” Jonathan asked.
Bern wondered the same thing. For all that she’d grown up in StoneDragon, she rarely left the tunnels under the Lady. If someone from StoneDragon hadn’t visited the Lady, it was unlikely she knew them. And she didn’t know these three.
The smallest was a slender woman in black half-armor, a short cape at her back and a crossbow hanging from one hand. Hulking over her was a fur-wrapped blond man, to his side a figure as inhuman as anything in the army he watched. Pale and slender with a black cape, he paused and became unnaturally still.
“A vampire,” she guessed. “A Viking, and … not sure about the third.”
“Black Rose,” Clay said. “This should be interesting.”
The vampire said something to the Viking and then disappeared. A shadow flashed against the clouds. He’d jumped so fast and high he seemed to be flying.
“An old one,” Clay murmured.
The Viking loped down the hill, moving with long effortless strides. A black axe shuddered on his back. The last figure, slender and graceful, just watched.
“Are they crazy?” Jonathan asked.
The vampire landed in a crowd of Earth warriors near the army’s fringe, about fifty warriors strong, a mix of rat men, half boars, and a scattering of wolves. In the first second of surprise, blood sprayed in whips of color along with the spinning of the vampire’s sword.
Four rat men slumped. A boar lunged
forward, then staggered back, wrists ending in stumps. Two more warriors crumpled before the wolves hit with a coordinated attack. The vampire stepped back a pace, sword spinning as he held off the blades of his attackers.
The Viking hit then, ripping through the group’s perimeter, not slowing, brutal as an avalanche. His black axe, nearly as big as one of the rat men, flipped around as if it weighed nothing. It tore out the spine of a wolf, crushed the skull of a grizzly on its backswing, and then sheared through two rats as if in afterthought.
A whisper of sound came from the sky, like a flicker of dark rain. The survivors looked up.
Black bolts flashed down, almost invisible in the fading light, and sprouted from throats and eyes. The remaining Earth warriors melted away, leaving only the Viking and vampire upright. Farther away, on the top of the rise, the girl in black slung her crossbow over her shoulder.
Bern felt a thrill of admiration. In less than a minute, the three warriors had taken out many times their own number.
A roar rose from the Earth army, a swell of rage and fury. Bodies heaved forward as hundreds, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of monsters streamed toward the newcomers.
“This is our chance,” Clay said. “Time to go.”
They ran for the Wall. No one seemed to notice. Bern kept glancing sideways as she ran, to follow what happened next.
The Viking turned and loped back toward the Wall. The dark girl joined him, moving like a lithe shadow across the ground. The vampire waited, his arms crossed and head tilted theatrically. At the last second before the line of warriors could reach him, he crouched and leaped, straight up.
Or at least, he tried to. A lean shape shot out of the pack and latched onto his leg. A mongoose, eyes gleaming. The vampire’s fist flashed down, and the mongoose shuddered, but the damage had been done. Momentum broken, the vampire fell back to earth. A wave of Earth warriors rolled over him.
