by Adrian Cross
But he could see the black boots walking toward him, stopping. A gleaming sword hung down beside them, cruelly curved and dripping blood.
“I didn’t expect to repay my debt quite this soon,” Sendham said cheerfully. “Who would have known that the only thing harder than killing you would be trying to keep you alive?”
Clay grinned up at the Black Rider and then threw up on his boots.
53
Reunions
Clay drifted through cotton-edged nothingness. Exhaustion dragged at him, trying to pull him deeper into sleep, but he knew there were things he needed to know. Things that had happened. An urgent pull brought him up out of the haze and into the dimness of a wood-framed room. He blinked and tried to focus.
A blurry shape sat beside him, head lowered. Small. Little else was in the room. No immediate threat seemed to loom. Relief washed over him, and memory slowly came back. Bern’s loss, then reappearance. Snake and Milton’s betrayal and death. The battle with Rhino and his view of Latine, Karen, and Bern at the Tower above.
Alarm thrilled through Clay’s system.
“Bern,” he croaked. “What…”
He tried to sit up, but a stab of pain in his ribs and arm brought him back down again, gasping. Something pulled at his side, wide and rough. Bandages. And his leg was propped up on a pile of blankets, a cast around it. Pain throbbed in his forehead, shoulder, and palm, and the air stank of antiseptic. He was a mess.
The shape beside his bed shifted. Mama Brogi’s eyes wrinkled as she smiled down at Clay. “Welcome back.”
The head of the dwarven clan wasn’t unscathed either, he realized. A bruise darkened one cheek, and her leg was also straight out, a cast wrapping it. An axe leaned against the wall by her hand, though. Mama was injured but far from helpless.
“What happened? Where am I?”
“The easier question first. You’re in the tunnels under the Hairy Lady. We cleared them out after the Earth army left. You got beat up pretty bad, so Rhino brought his doctor over to patch you up again.” Despite the lightness of her tone, a tightness around her eyes suggested things had been pretty close for Clay.
Doc Tully. Huh. Clay was doubly lucky to be alive.
“They left,” Clay said, remembering the sea of attackers, the way they had lost cohesion and then been cut down by Sendham, after the shattering flash of red light. He swung his head, felt a stab of pain, and stopped. “Aagh. Why?”
“Not a question I’m best to answer, although there’s people waiting to see you that can probably help you more. I’m just the useless body that had the free time to swing by.”
Clay thought about the politics of the clan, the way Brock had pushed at Mama, and doubted that was the case. Clay felt a rush of gratitude. He suspected Mama had been lounging by his side to make sure none of Brock’s followers “accidentally” helped him over the edge between life and death.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Then, because he couldn’t put it off any more. “What about Bern? Karen?”
“Alive. Both of them.” She tried to smile, but it was brittle. “Although victory came at a cost, as you must realize.”
Clay nodded. Hundreds must have died in the battle, maybe more. Many of whom would have been part of Mama’s family. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at him, eyes blazing. “Don’t be. Life isn’t about not dying, Clay. Nobody can manage that, not even the vampires, whatever they think. They just delay it a while. Life is about being proud of how you lived and, in my mind, you did nothing wrong. You tried to help a girl in trouble, even when things got tough. You offered your life to stop a war. Bernetta got into trouble following you, but you did your best to rescue her from a dark place. I wasn’t wrong about you.”
She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I grieve the family we lost, more than you can know, but it wasn’t you that killed them. You were a sound beam when the walls came down, Clay.” She smiled and pushed herself to her feet. “I’m proud of you.”
“You’re going?”
“I told you, you have visitors. Some have been waiting for a while. You ready?”
He nodded slowly.
She moved to the door. “I’ve left you a guard; just let him know if you get tired. He’ll chase the rest of your visitors away.”
She disappeared before he could rope his thoughts into order or properly thank her for what she’d done. He slumped back on the pillow.
A familiar shape filled the doorframe. Mills. The blond dwarf smiled broadly, thick and cheerful, as always. Clay felt a surge of pleasure that the young warrior had survived. Clay grinned back, not really noticing the second shape, half-hidden behind Mill’s bulk, until he stepped aside.
“Hello, Clay,” Karen said softly.
“I’ll be outside,” Mills said and disappeared.
The daughter of the Water god had the same otherworldly beauty as usual, her eyes large and blue, but with an unusual hint of uncertainty. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
Clay smiled at her. “Thank you.” A memory rushed over him, then, and the smile disappeared. “Jonathan?”
“Alive.” Her face was somber. “But badly hurt. Rhino protected him until the Desert Riders arrived. My father sent some people later, who brought him back. He will be okay.”
Clay frowned. “He left, but you’re still here? Why?”
She flushed and her head tilted, spilling golden hair over her face so he could no longer see her expression.
“The dwarves tell me there are only two hours before StoneDragon shifts again. I was hoping you would wake before that.” She hesitated. “I needed to say… I’m sorry. For everything.”
Her voice was thick with guilt and grief. Karen must know what devastation she had brought down on StoneDragon, even if she hadn’t dealt it personally. It hadn’t been malicious, but it had been deliberate. She’d put Clay in Horan’s path. He didn’t know what to say.
“I needed someone tough and fearless. I let myself hope you could help. Even as I was afraid that if I told you the truth…” She shook her head and then looked up, an expression of awe on her face. “You killed a god, Clay. I’m not sure you know how big that is. You saved me, my father, everyone in my world.” She stepped closer, her eyes wide and luminous. Her cheeks were flushed. “I can’t ever repay you. And yet…” Her fists clenched. “You probably hate me.”
He sighed. “I don’t hate you.” She’d been backed into a corner. He knew what that felt like. What hurt, though, was being fool enough to think it was something it wasn’t. She had looked so much like Sarah. He supposed that wasn’t an excuse. He shook his head. “I still don’t know what happened after I fell. How did you survive?”
“Bern saved me.” Karen wrapped arms around herself. “I didn’t think it was possible. Latine seemed unstoppable. After she killed Buckland and knocked Rose unconscious—”
“Rose is alive?” Pain and relief stabbed through Clay. Buckland was dead, but…
Karen nodded. “She got hurt in the fall, as I understand it, but nothing that won’t heal.” She shook her head. “When Bern faced Latine alone and unarmed, I was sure we were all going to die. But then a ball of fire raked over across Latine’s back. Bern took the chance to grab her axes and sliced Latine apart afterward.”
So Clay’s shot hadn’t been wasted after all. Warm satisfaction trickled through him, quickly dispelled. It had been a horrifically costly battle.
“Something flashed red?”
“Yeah. Even after the Earth gods died, their army kept attacking. I don’t know if they didn’t know their gods were dead, or didn’t care, but they were on the verge of breaking our line when the sky flared red.” Her forehead furrowed. “I’d never seen anything like it. It looked like the air itself burned, and the earth was cracking. Everyone was thrown to their knees.
“That finally broke the Earth army. Some of the warriors scrambled back toward the breach. Others dropped their weapons and hid in the city, overcome by fear. But the major
ity did neither. It seemed as if their minds were broken with the trees, and they turned on each other, rampaging. Bodies fell in the thousands. In that chaos, the Desert Riders swept in, on horse and foot. They hit the Earth army from all sides, scattering them. In almost no time at all, the Earth army was gone.”
Clay lay silent, trying to absorb it all. Sendham and Madesh had repaid their debt for his rescue, beyond what Clay could have asked for. But Clay still had a huge unanswered question. “Who burned the trees?” It had turned everything that followed. That single action had saved StoneDragon.
“I don’t know.”
He looked at Karen and sighed. She was thinner than when they’d first met, her eyes dark with exhaustion and grief. He thought of the long days she had spent with the Spartans, in darkness and fear.
“I’m sorry.”
She jerked. “For what? I’m the one who should be sorry, not you. I lied to you, I used you, dragged you into a war you never asked for. I wouldn’t blame you if you never talked to me again.”
“I’m sorry you had to face it alone,” he said softly. He smiled wryly. “I’d like to think that if you had told me the truth, I would have helped you anyway. Although I might have worn a full set of plate mail while doing it.”
She hiccupped a laugh. Without warning, she hugged Clay, soft and warm, cheek pressed against his. It was as sudden and unexpected as the kiss in the stables. And similarly, he felt an immediate physical reaction.
He pushed her away gently.
“I just want to explain something,” she said quickly, close enough that her breath was warm on his lips. “Jonathan was as close to a hero as my world has had in recent days. But you… You are something more than he could ever be. You… You could come back to my world if you wanted.” She flushed again. “My father would be grateful and … so would I.”
He swallowed. Looking at Karen made his heart ache. But it wasn’t for her. It was simply a memory from long ago. Something that he couldn’t cling to forever. He touched Karen’s cheek gently.
“I can’t.”
Her cheeks flushed red, and she drew back. “Of course not. I didn’t… It’s just… I brought Barrel back.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I left your horse at Terina’s. Apparently she managed to protect her stable during the invasion.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “She’s one tough lady.”
“Yes, she is.”
Karen backed up quickly and walked to the door. He didn’t think she was going to say anything else, but she stopped at the threshold and looked back. She had tears in her eyes, but this time the smile was real, if sad. “I’ll remember you, Clay. Thank you again.”
She was gone.
He leaned his head back and sighed, wondering if he’d just made the biggest mistake of his fairly limited dating life, when he felt something under one arm. He felt around and wrapped his fingers around something hard. He lifted a gleaming blue stone on a chain. The token that had hung at Karen’s neck. She’d paid his bill after all.
“Hey, stop!”
Clay heard a scuffle before a slight figure slipped through the door, breathing hard. Mills charged in after.
“Wait.” Clay raised a hand. “It’s okay.”
The newcomer was JP—and he was a mess. His jacket was gone, his neck gouged with scrapes, and his left arm looked burned. He stared at Clay with wide eyes, chest heaving.
“Mills, get some bandages and water,” Clay said. He tried to sit up, but a wave of pain pushed him back down again. The world fuzzed around the edges, but he fought it off. His voice scraped out. “What happened?”
JP hunched against the wall, cradling his arm, like a wounded animal.
“It wasn’t my fault, Clay. I didn’t know.”
Clay kept his voice low and soothing. “Know what, JP?”
“But the Prophet knew.” JP’s forehead furrowed, and he shook his head. “How could he know?”
“Know what?”
JP’s wide eyes met Clay’s. “I built the Tower.”
“What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I knew, as soon as I saw it that first time. The architecture, the engineering, the design. But I never built it, I swear.”
The words were about as illuminating as a bucket over the head. Clay was thoroughly confused. “You built the Tower? Or you didn’t?”
“Both!” He snapped. “I built that Tower, Clay. But I don’t remember it. Which doesn’t change anything!” Frustration bubbled in his voice, as if JP realized how far-fetched it sounded, even as he said it.
“Start from the beginning. What happened to you in the Tower?”
The story came out. The climb, the attack, the battle in the peak, leading to the flame. Burning the Earth army. Burning the old man above.
It was a lot to absorb. “You saved us all,” Clay said finally. JP was the one who had scorched the trees, setting in motion the sequence of events that finally broke the will and backbone of the Earth army. He hunched forward, his fingers spreading through his black curls and squeezing, as if he could crush out that memory.
“I killed him,” he said, “just like the Prophet said I would. I killed myself.”
“The old man told you to. You had no choice.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” JP sucked in several breaths and whispered, “There must have been another way.”
Clay wasn’t so sure. “It’s a miracle you’re alive at all. If anybody else had gone up there, the city would be Shifting tonight as an empty graveyard. You did everything anybody could have expected, and more.”
JP crumpled, great sobs racking his body. “What am I going to do now?”
Mills had returned and stood at the door, holding bandages and antiseptic.
“Go with Mills,” Clay said. “He’ll take you to Mama Brogi. I’ll vouch for you. Then, when my house is rebuilt, you’ll live with me again. It’s going to be fine, JP, trust me.” Karen’s gem would buy him enough to start over.
“What about Rhino? People know who I am now.”
“We’ll deal with them, if we have to. I don’t give up on friends in trouble.”
A smile glimmered. “No, I guess you don’t.”
Clay grinned. “Yup, caused a bit of a mess as a result, didn’t I? See what happens when you’re not around to keep me out of trouble? Get fixed up, get some rest. You did something special in that Tower, JP. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
“But—”
Clay raised an eyebrow and JP stopped, smiling. Then he looked down. “Can I ask one more favor?”
“Of course.”
“When you’re better, will you go back to the Broken Tower with me?”
Clay blinked. “Why?”
“I want to make sure all the black angels are dead.”
“Oh.” Clay considered it. It would be easy to assume all the angels had died in JP’s fire, but that wasn’t a safe assumption or a smart one. They sounded like tough creatures, not easily dispatched. But they had tortured and killed JP, or someone close enough like him to be almost indistinguishable. A slow rage built in Clay’s chest. If they were alive, they should pay for what they’d done.
“I promise.”
Tension flowed out of JP’s face. He stood, smiling. “All right. I guess I could use some rest. Thank you, Clay.”
“My pleasure, partner.”
Mills led JP out of the room, leaving Clay alone again.
He lay back with a sigh. JP had been scarred again, and more than physically, but he was tough. And Clay had promised to help the teenager through it. It would just take time.
Clay suddenly realized a shadow was at the door. He tensed, looking for a weapon, but then the outline of the shape registered. Short, but curvy.
His heart jumped. “Bern!” A grin pulled at his cheeks, but then he felt it slip away again as she stepped into the light.
Bernetta’s skin was pale as porcelain. Not the sick unsettling white of most vampire
s, but rather as if someone had turned her skin translucent and dipped her in moonlight, so her body almost glowed. Her once-dark curls were white but still soft and flowing. The only darkness was in her eyes. They looked hauntingly vulnerable. She balanced her weight on her toes, like a deer poised for flight.
“My God,” Clay breathed. “You’re beautiful.”
She sagged, putting a hand against the doorframe. Tension flowed from her. “The dwarves don’t think so,” she said unsteadily. “Brock still suspects I’ve been Turned. When he first saw me, I thought he was going to kill me.”
Clay’s skin prickled. “You aren’t, though, right? Turned?” He’d never seen a vampire with skin like hers, but she looked so different.
Her lips tightened, as if his words had wounded her. “The dagger cured me. It just did it in a way we never expected.”
Clay’s body clenched as her words swept him back to that horrible moment, when flame had shot up and fear and guilt threatened to crack his sanity. He’d been so sure she was dead. Just like Sarah.
But she wasn’t Sarah. He didn’t even know if she thought of him as other than a hired gun. He suddenly remembered what he’d said when he saw her at the door.
“I’m sorry. And sorry for calling you beautiful. That probably wasn’t appropriate.” She’d once slugged him for suggesting she wasn’t an accomplished enough warrior to accompany him. It just showed how many ways he could be wrong.
Her lips quirked. “Since that’s the first compliment you’ve given me, I guess I’ll let it slide.”
Blood warmed his cheeks. “That can’t be…” She was probably right. “I’m sorry, again.” He realized he’d also never thanked Bern for everything she’d done for him. He just kept assuming she would be there. “Neither Karen nor I would be alive if it weren’t for you. Thank you.”
Her face stiffened. “Ah yes, Karen. I saw her in the hallway and ah… I wasn’t sure if I should stay, but when she left…” She flushed and turned sharply. “What am I doing? I should go.”
