Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Another attack barreled in from the right amid a chorus of demonic laughter. She batted it away, this time scattering the smoke around her. Her spider legs rang and tried to coil in defeat.

  “Is this all you can offer me? Though you may be reborn of Nayor, you possess scarcely a fragment of the sovereign’s power!”

  The roaring tempest whirled around her. A swipe came from behind and blasted through her shield of mist. Her spider legs scrambled to keep her off the ground. Fire ripped through her joints and ligaments. It took all of her will to keep moving. Skittering for the edge of the crater, her appendages wobbled as she hit a full gallop.

  The chortling smoke streamed after her. “Where are you going, Your Highness? Stay! Show me your promised vengeance!”

  She vaulted up the cobbled incline and onto the lip of the crater. Her spider legs negotiated the ledge and spun her around just in time to block another swipe of the vapor-beast’s wicked claws. The impact threw her backward, and she landed hard on her chest. The wind burst from her lungs. Her quivering spider legs struggled to take air into her spiracles.

  “Long live the coward king, and forever may your kingdom rot!”

  This time, there was no way to dodge or block. The attack swept along the ground and passed through her whole body. Every synapse in her brain erupted. The whole world began to spin, and gravity dragged her down over sharp chunks of painless stone. When she rolled to a stop at the bottom of the crater, her quivering muscles just curled her body tighter. Her eyes refused to open.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck. It was the only word she could articulate. Her muscles writhed. Her fingers were curled into fists, and she couldn’t even unbend them. How could she lose? She was the only one who could defeat the Cheshire Man and save Mark. But even she couldn’t do it. But I was born for this, she thought desperately. Fate is supposed to be on my side.

  “Fate?”

  A strange sound moved through the rolling clouds. The swirling storm descended and coalesced, and the Weeping Man emerged again. The liquid light running from its eyes splattered against the ground, and mocking wisps of steam recombined with the blasphemous creature. “What manner of Chosen are you, child king?” it asked, for the first time truly sounding angry. “You have turned your back upon Raxxinoth, and choose instead to worship the false god of destiny.”

  She growled. The left side of her head was pounding from her own magical exertion. Her spider legs clawed at the ground, too weak to push her up again.

  “Tell me: what has fate done for you? It has played a cruel joke upon you, and fed you despair disguised as hope! Know this, child king: I am the one who weaves the strands of fate. Who do you think it was that reformed the spider cult? Who do you think preserved the King’s hand, that genetic Rosetta stone that led to your birth? And yet you worship the shadow on the cavern wall, blind to reality. That is the perverted irony of fate! Very well. I will show you the final outcome of your beloved destiny!” It spread its arms wide, and a cyclone of smoke began to unfurl around it. “Perish, fractious spider spawn!”

  A whisper from beyond the veil slipped into Spinneretta’s mind, and her eyes shot open. Her legs found strength, and she sprang once more to her unsteady feet just as a wall of hot, turbid air slammed into her. Her spider legs held fast to the ground beneath her, and the whirling hiss of anti-magic enveloped her. White-hot razor blades sliced through her muscles. Do not let him reopen the gate, she thought, resolve alone keeping her standing. She recovered from the blow just in time for another spiral arm of the storm to blast over her, sending molten needles snaking through her bloodstream. The smoke vortex grew in strength, its arms cycling in a clockwise death helix.

  The volcanic pain behind her eyes blurred her senses. Each wave of smoke that struck set every muscle on the verge of a death-cramp. Even the Wine seemed to do little more than dull the searing blasts. But the trace of intellect that buzzed through the air from beyond spacetime now occupied the entirety of her mind. The pain was incredible, but as the storm walls crashed over her, grinding away the mists and sending her yellow tatters billowing behind her, she knew she could endure it. She had to. She was the only one who could end it.

  “How long can you withstand inevitability?”

  Lashing waves of hot gas whipped over her. The cyclone pulled at her robe and sent ribbons of molten heat dancing across her skin. She felt something tear behind her left eye, but she just gritted her teeth and willed the mists to encircle her in a counter-vortex. She set her sights on the figure in the midst of the storm. Its glowing eyes considered her with a mad amusement. Her smoldering muscles moved her forward. One slow step, and her leg nearly folded beneath her. Her jaw was tight, her teeth straining against one another.

  Draped in the tatters, robed in the wisps of vapor, she forced herself to call upon the entirety of the King’s power. The pain splitting her head was total; there wouldn’t be a second shot if this didn’t work. An electric shock licked along her spider legs, and she thrust them outward. Streams of vapor swirled, drawn to the focus. A weak accretion disk formed.

  The thoughts streaming from the gate to A’vavel grew louder. Each trace of Wine that flowed into her outstretched legs was another nail in her temples. Dizzy, fighting to remain standing against the smoke, she took aim with the seething orb of mist. It had been enough to break the portal, so it had to be enough to break him. If she failed, she would die. Mark would die. And Mother Raxxinoth would be freed, enslaved to the demon’s devices.

  Spinneretta’s whole body tensed. She threw her legs forward with a throat-ripping cry. The singularity exploded into a roiling column of vapor that pierced through the storm. The damp shock front nearly threw her from her feet. A bright flash bored through the smoke. And as the attack struck the Weeping Man, magic and anti-magic coiled and broke against one another. Black fumes scattered, streaming off him in chaotic ribbons. Fragments of broken sparks danced like reflections off a shattering snow globe. The monster stumbled back a step, and at once the killing winds ceased their beating.

  As the vortex subsided, the spark of hope in Spinneretta’s chest roared into a jealous inferno. This was her chance. Suppressing the pain covering her from head to toe, her spider legs groped for the ground and hurled her forward. With what little magical strength remained, she called the Wine. The mists flowed along with her, wreathing her spider legs with volatile tendrils. The Weeping Man, still reeling from the attack, let out a pernicious growl that echoed off the sky. The world spun, and Spinneretta leapt toward him. Her spider legs, heavy with the mists, dove for the kill.

  Four appendages plunged through the Weeping Man’s gaseous head. As the twisting tides of unmagic penetrated the thing’s body, the smoke took on a solid, corporeal form. The Weeping Man’s head ruptured, exploding like a fragile work of glass. Shards of broken black something flew into the air and rained back down as liquid. The apparition’s pained shout swam all around in striated bands of horrific voices.

  As Spinneretta’s momentum carried her past the Weeping Man, her footing faltered. The razor wire threaded behind her eye seemed to slip, ripping at her flesh. Her vision blurred. The ground lurched upward, and she was on her knees. The scenery melted away, blobs of color running into monochrome puddles. One hand went to her eye, hoping to somehow contain the overwhelming pain. The cold metal rose to greet her, and she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 51

  Fatewoven

  “Hey, are you alright?” Spinneretta heard Mark ask. Though she couldn’t recall opening her eyes, she found he was now standing before her, hands on her shoulders.

  The world was still blurry, washed out, as though someone had turned the contrast all the way up on the TV. It was all too bright, but that didn’t matter anymore. She looked only at Mark, and her raging heart was at ease. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine. At least I think I am. What about you?” Her hands went to his out of reflex. She felt no warmth in them.

  He smiled. “I’m fine now. It was all we coul
d do to stop ourselves from looking back.” He pulled her into a tight hug.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes once more. It was a moment of comfort she hadn’t had in far too long. “I was really worried. When you got carried away by the smoke, I thought the Cheshire Man was going to kill you.”

  His lips brushed the nape of her neck, sending an electric jolt through her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll hatch in due time.”

  The remark struck her at once as out of place. She pulled away and looked up into his pale eyes. “What? What will?”

  “The others. We can still find them, can’t we?”

  “What are you talking about?” A twinge of fear made her hair stand on edge, and she took a step away from him. Her head still hurt, but somehow she didn’t feel dizzy. She couldn’t even remember getting to her feet. Even as she cast her gaze all around, their glaring surroundings surrendered no details. “Where are we? Are we still in the Web?”

  “Can’t you see it?”

  She shook her head. “All I see is light.” It was a lie, though. She could see the grass and the trees. She could see the stars. She could see the flags and ribbons dancing in the wind like locks of a child’s hair. This was no time for logic puzzles. “Mark, am I dreaming right now?”

  He gave her a knowing smile. “What is life but a dream?”

  She thought about it a moment, turned it over in her head, and then forgot what she’d asked. And so she just fell into his arms again. Her momentary lucidity slipped away, eclipsed by the comfort of his warmth. The wind played with her hair—or was it his hand? She didn’t know, and right now, she didn’t care. There was peace all around them.

  Mark gave her a tight squeeze and brought his lips to her ear. “Spinny?”

  “Mm?”

  “Wake up.”

  She groaned. “But I don’t want to. I want to stay right here. Just a little longer.”

  “Wake up.”

  “I said just a little longer.”

  “Wake up!”

  Something hard struck her in the side. Her sleeping mind was inundated with a sharp, jarring pain. And just as suddenly as it had begun, the illusion collapsed.

  “I said wake up, child king!”

  The world rolled around Spinneretta as she went sprawling from the attack, tumbling over rough metal and cobbles. Sharp stone fragments and timeless rivets dug into her when she at last stopped. In a panicked daze, she opened her eyes. The Cheshire Man stood above her, a maniacal look on his face. Fear tore at her mind. She scrambled to get back to her feet, but her own exhaustion and the pervasive nerve pain fought her. Before she even found her knees, a second kick slammed her back to the ground.

  “Good,” the Cheshire Man said in an airy whisper. “You’re alive. I’d have been most cross with you had you died of apoplexy before I’d finished with you.” Dried blood caked his face. His empty eye socket glowered down at her, and he rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Right,” he muttered, seemingly lost. “This shall suffice.”

  He turned from her and stumbled a short distance into the mist, toward another body on the ground. “Oi, ’re ya brown bread, sunshine?” He threw a hard kick into Mark’s side. “Day’s dawnin’, govna!” A feeble groan answered as Mark rolled a few feet. The Cheshire Man breathed out a low hiss. “Great fortune. You yet live. She yet lives. Everybody’s alive. Oh, the hymns they’ll sing of it.” He turned back to Spinneretta, murder in his eye. “Here’s what’s going to happen now, Warren. You just lay there and get a spot of rest. I’m going to need you to open the gate for me again in a minute. But first, I’m going to kill your little friend.”

  Spinneretta ignored the ringing in her ribs and tried to push herself up from the ground. Fatigue made her body impossibly heavy, and the razor wire behind her left eye still carved through her mind. Before she’d made it even halfway from her sprawl, the Cheshire Man was upon her. A blow from above smashed her face into the jagged cobbles. The taste of blood came to her lips. His fingers took hold of the back of her neck and wrenched her up onto her knees. A purple blur crossed her field of vision. A fist slammed across her jaw, and a bone-deep pain ripped through her skull.

  She’d have gone down again had the Cheshire Man not jerked her back upright by the roots of her hair. The world tilted in opposite directions. Her ears were ringing. She had no sense of which way was up anymore. Airy laughter flowed from some hellish underworld.

  “You fought the good fight, child king. Perhaps I underestimated what that foul gift of yours could do, even if only a fragment of your old power yet remains. You must forgive me. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen it in action.” A harsh groan rattled his throat. “But it doesn’t matter. In the end, I don’t need magic to kill you.”

  His hand struck her across the torso, and something silver flashed alongside it. It felt like the blow tried to pull her flesh and skin all the way to one side. Her eyes drifted downward. Fresh blood stained the yellow fabric of her robe. And then the pain began. A great burning tore through the slash, echoing and blazing to her outer limbs. She clutched at the wound and shrieked, but a blow from the Cheshire Man knocked her halfway over. Cackling, he leapt upon her. Four slashes of his knife flowed into one another, slicing into her chest and splashing blood upon the ground.

  Half in shock from the pain and the horror of blood loss, Spinneretta could only grope ineffectually at her chest. She gasped for air. An iron grip seized her by the throat, choking off her breath. She lashed up at the Cheshire Man with her spider legs. Cold mist flowed into her spiracles. The world began to move. He dragged her a few heavy steps across the ground by the neck, and then lifted her aloft. With a great heave, he slammed her, back-first, upon the surface of a toppled pillar at the edge of the crater.

  Her back rattled from the impact, and her shoulders clenched. Her spine arched against the pain, pushing hot blood out of her lacerated chest. The world spun faster. She kept flailing her spider legs to feed her lungs and free herself, thoughts churning in a desperate mania. The Cheshire Man came into view above her. Her blood-covered hands pried at his fingers, trying to free her throat, but they were too slick and weak.

  The man’s eye flashed with a gleeful malice. “Struggle. It will do you no good. I will have your beating heart.” He spun his hand once, and the gleam of the silver knife reappeared. He wasted no time. With her throat tight in one hand, he drove the blade down toward her.

  Fear stoking the dregs of her exhausted strength, her spider legs reacted and tangled with his arm. The plunging attack stopped mere inches above her breast. The Instinct pushed her aching muscles to the limit. Her legs quaked as they strained against the amazing strength in his arm, but she couldn’t force the blade back any further. Her own hands couldn’t remove his grip from her throat.

  The Cheshire Man’s eye was alight with a diabolic fervor. “This the end. I must confess I will take great pleasure in killing you a second time. Let history remember this moment. Not even the oft-exalted beast called fate can defeat me. Nothing can defeat me, least of all a meddling, insipid child such as yourself!”

  The knife dipped lower, and Spinneretta fought back with all of her strength. She held her breath. Two of her spider legs coiled around the Cheshire Man’s wrist and tried to peel his hand off her. But even with the Instinct’s strength, her muscles felt like they were on the verge of tearing from the exertion. She let out an explosive breath that sent a blazing pain ripping across her body. She felt the blood running thick down her sides. Her limbs surged in desperation. The blade receded a hair-breadth, but her lungs were empty. She needed air.

  The pungent scent of her own blood enveloped her. Edges of her vision faded to black. She was becoming dizzy. Without oxygen, the Instinct would do her no good. She had only a few moments of borrowed time left.

  But she couldn’t lose now. Not after all they’d been through. Instinct and adrenaline mixing, she miraculously found the strength to force the blade ano
ther inch from her. Desperate for space, one of her spider legs left the Cheshire Man’s arm and lashed at his side. The hard tip pierced cloth and flesh. A fountain of inhuman blood began to pour from the fresh wound.

  But the man did not cringe. He did not shout. He only continued laughing, unhindered. “Did you think I would dodge the attack?” he asked in a breathy whisper. “Afraid not. I have to admit, I find this human notion of pain quite exhilarating. Perhaps not to my liking, but a thrill nonetheless. Go ahead. Do your worst. You will change nothing.”

  Choking, her whole body screaming in pain, she pulled another leg away from his arm and pierced his other side with it. Blood pooled in her spiracles. She dug her legs deeper and felt his ribs beginning to strain. The motion filled her legs and lungs with another thimble of air.

  “Is this your plan, child king? Will you break my bones? Will you rip out my organs, thinking it will buy you time? I’m not like you, Urn-ma Nayor. I cannot be stopped by such barbaric attacks. Unlike you, I will never fatigue. In the end, you will die, and Raxxinoth shall be released. Can you not see the futility of resisting? I do not need this blood, nor do I even need these bones to stand! This form is naught but a shell for my immortal soul!”

  She bared her teeth in a mocking facsimile of his smile. “That’s what I’m counting on.” She released his wrist and threw herself into a hard roll to the side. The polished sheen of his blade flashed downward, sinking into the stone pillar just beside her neck. The grip on her throat weakened, and she seized the chance. Two of her anterior legs collapsed around his wrist and peeled it off of her throat.