by Faith Hunter
Clearing a path with the swan wing, I looked down, assuring myself that my part of the plan was still in place—the ring of stones half buried in the earth. A spawn took a bite out of my left arm, ripping muscle, scoring bone. Lightning pain lanced up my arm. I screamed. I’d been a fool. The plan was to make them think they were winning, not to actually let them win. I impaled the beast and shook it off. My blood pulsed into the night. It had hit an artery.
With stiffening fingers, I slid the kris into my belt and activated a new amulet I had made. The blood stopped spurting as a sensation like a tourniquet tightened around my arm above the wound. Fighting with only my longsword, I scrutinized the battle and met Audric’s eyes. He nodded once, agreeing with me. “Back,” I shouted as if I was calling for retreat. “Behind me!”
The fighters drew closer together and stepped to the rear. Spawn surged in. When we were all behind the stones, I lifted my head. “Now, Audric,” I shouted, “Now!” I activated the small relay on my necklace. A narrow Shield rose from the stones in the ground—a thin band of energy ten feet high and fifty feet long, curving around us. Locking us in with a few dozen spawn, locking the rest out.
“Down!” Audric shouted, his voice bellowing over the screams of battle.
We dropped to the earth, blades cutting legs from the spawn nearest. As they fell, we stabbed and cut, killing and maiming. I held my injured arm curled into my chest, slashing with Damocles.
Above us, the big-ass guns boomed. The earth shook. The shells whistled downward and exploded—thankfully on the other side of the barrier. A wide swath of bloody ground opened up before the energy shield. Shredded flesh arced over the barrier, mostly falling behind us, although a burning mist of spawn blood filled the air. Slowly, glancing back to make certain there were no more shots ready, shaking my head to clear my concussion-damaged ears, I rose to my knees.
It was full dark, but I had been fighting with mage sight, and the carnage of dissipating energies was . . . startling. Drenching the ground, clouding the air, was black spawn blood. But the spawn were . . . gone.
The beasts at the far edges of the battle stood frozen. As one, they swiveled on four legs and took off for the Trine, the mountain north of town where they lived and bred. “Down,” Audric shouted again. “Fire!”
We dropped and the guns boomed. I covered my ears against the concussion, though I could tell it was too late to save my eardrums. I had made a fairly sophisticated amulet to regain hearing after battles, and I thumbed it on as the echo of the mortars died. We raised our heads.
Eli was propped on his elbows beside me. “Holy smoking angel crap,” he whispered, his breath billowing in a cloud. Elder Jasper ignored the mild profanity and murmured a prayer of thanksgiving to the Most High. The rest of us just stared.
The mortars had medium to high trajectories, and the six-inch shells had risen over the heads of the attacking spawn and descended sharply to explode on impact, scattering steel and salt in a wide arc, far enough out to not harm us so long as the horde between us was dense and so long as the Shield held. The incantation within each then sent a shockwave out, spreading into the mass of spawn along the street and down the alleys and into the air above. Upper Street was clean of living spawn.
Looking up, I saw my twin standing atop the rebuilt three-story town hall and library, beside the warning bell. Rose glimmered and burned with cruel might, absorbing the death energies of both spawn and humans, and directing them into the forest a mile south of town, across the Toe River, storing the power in the living trees. Her mage attributes glinted like green fire and sparkling garnets. Though it was too far for us to hear one another, I felt her attention on me, her mind touching the edges of mine. The Shield is mighty. The town will be safe when we are gone, she thought at me.
I worked to hide my fear of her, locking down on the dread. Good, I thought back, knowing it wasn’t good, not completely. Energies stolen from the dying never are. But she was right, in that it would have been impossible to collect and store enough energy to shield the entire town any other way. For that it was good. For that the sacrifice of humans was . . . worthwhile. The word was bitter in my thoughts.
You’re injured, she thought at me. Instantly heat and electricity and a burning like the sting of fire ants buzzed over my skin. I gasped and looked down. The bleeding from the spawn bite clotted over. The edges of the wound began to close together. The pain dissipated. I felt Rose smile with a cold satisfaction. Before I could disengage from her, spawn raced in from the night. And leapt over the Shield. So much for safety.
Eli, ever at my side, killed a dozen with his shotgun and pulled me to my feet. With a yelp, he jumped back, eyes wide. He looked at his hands, only recently bleeding from a dozen small cuts, and wiped at a deep laceration. The bleeding had stopped. His mouth twisted into a frown. “Rose?” he asked. I nodded, still catching my breath. He turned away so that I wouldn’t see his disgust, but I felt it.
“Down,” Audric shouted again. We fell. The mortars boomed. Advancing spawn vanished in a cloud of acidic ichor. Two dragonets fell, mangled and dead. We jumped up and made quick work of the spawn on our side of the barrier.
I closed the Shield and the fighters around me released the brakes on the portable weapons and pulled them down the street on protesting wheels, their squeal oddly similar to the screech of spawn. We followed, protecting their rear. It was over, except for the mopping up and rooting out of any hidden pockets of spawn. Now that the Darkness knew about the guns, we couldn’t leave them out in the open. The element of surprise was gone. They’d be stored in the old firehouse, with the even older fire engine.
The townsfolk hunted Darkness and fought through the night, taking out several thousand remaining spawn and the last of the dragonets. When dawn came, pale golden light arching over green oak, maple, chestnut, and the darker greens of conifer, the last of the spawn slinked away, up the mountain. We had won. The big guns had done their job, turning the tide of battle for us, and had achieved a place of glory in the town’s arsenal. And a power sink big enough to power a Shield around the town for six months had been created. The town would hopefully be safe until I returned.
The summer air was beginning to warm. Shadows stretched along the broken asphalt. Warriors gathered close, a mismatched group, all of us wounded, all of us bleeding. Half-eaten bodies, human and spawn, were piled in small mounds around us. Blood soaked the ancient asphalt. I counted over twenty human dead just on Upper Street.
Audric, holding the two katanas he had fought with, stood tall in the dawn, like a black prince, his bald head catching the early rays of the sun. His dark flesh was slicked with sweat and blood, and blistered with second-degree burns. “Wounded?” he asked, succinct as always.
“All of us. Maybe twelve badly,” a voice called from a side street. Elder Jasper strode uphill, his brown kirk robes fluttering in tatters as he rounded the corner of the town hall. “They’re being taken to the consulate for . . .” a shadow covered him. Fell upon him. Faster than I could react. It crushed Jasper to the earth. I had a glimpse of a dragonet, scaled and horned, multiple wings fluttering, carapace barbed, with razor sharp edges.
At full speed, Audric and I raced in, me to the left, out of the way of his longer reach. Before we made five steps, the dragonet wrapped its sinuous body around Jasper and hissed.
It opened its mouth. Bit down. The crunch of bone and Jasper’s screams echoed. The kirk elder’s bloody hand rolled into the street. Blood spurted from the stump. Jasper’s scream gurgled away with shock.
The beast took the elder’s head in his mouth, speared us with four of its eyes. A clear threat. Audric and I froze. Waiting.
A glimmer of mage energies slipped by at the edge of my sight. Cheran. Watching. Doing nothing. As always.
I reversed my kris to a backhanded grip, and dropped Damocles to the street. “Stairway to heaven,” I said sotto voce, gathering my energies to me. Audric grunted once and dropped one knee toward the ground.
With a finger, I activated a new amulet and raced at my champard. His knee touched the street. I toed to his thigh, his braced arm, and raced to his shoulder.
As my body stretched from a crouch, Audric pressed an identical amulet and launched himself upward. We both appeared no more than mist, invisible. I hoped. Using the momentum of Audric’s leap, I sprang across the intervening space and landed on the dragonet.
I caught the beast’s carapace at the juncture of neck and head in one fist. Wrenched it back with force. And thrust down with the kris, into the joint. The blade lodged tight. Audric’s katana, hidden in the misted energies, sang through the air.
The beast writhed, ducked, and whipped out its tail. The barbed stinger pierced the mist. Audric exhaled, pain in the single, soft note he breathed. “Thorn?”
The stinger reappeared from the mist and thrashed the air. It turned toward me, Audric’s blood coating the deadly tip. I bent my elbow down, laying all my weight against the hilt, forcing the kris up at a sharp angle, and jerked the blade to the side.
Blood gushed. I ripped the kris to the other side and pulled the opposite way with my hand in the neck joint. The dragonet’s head creaked and cracked. It came free in my hand with a torrent of black blood. The gore flooded over my hand and I hissed with pain.
Battering the street with legs and tail in its death throes, it slid from Jasper. I jumped free, deactivating my amulet with a touch. The warriors rushed in, hacking the Darkness. Rose knelt beside the kirk elder, the death energies she had absorbed during the battle making her glimmer garnet and green. I clamped down on the mental shields I had learned to use, not wanting her in my mind. I drew on a Healing amulet, hiding my blistered hand from my sister’s sight.
Jasper was white-faced, his blood pooled on the street. It still dribbled weakly from his arm, the bones white and jagged. Rose took the grayed hand and the graying stump and aligned them. She closed her eyes. Power gathered in her hands, obscuring the hand and stump. Eli looked at me, seeing my reaction to her use of death energies.
I turned away, to the mist that veiled Audric. “Deactivate the amulet,” I said. When the mist persisted, I said, my tone sharp as a blade, “By your vow to me, deactivate the amulet, Audric.”
The mist transformed, revealing my senior champard. Covered in blood. I dropped beside Audric.
“Decided to make an appearance, did you, assassin?” Eli asked as he interposed himself between the mage who’d appeared out of nowhere and my exposed back. “Now that the danger is past?” Cheran didn’t answer. We all knew him to be a coward.
Vaguely aware that the warriors who had protected the town were gathering around us, I slid my kris into the opening of Audric’s shirt and slit it open. Buttons popped into the air, revealing Audric’s chest. I couldn’t help my gasp. Cheran eased himself to the street beside me and stared at the wound. The center was a puncture almost as large as my fist, looking much like a deep spear wound, bleeding steadily. Beyond the hole was a ridged ring, purpling. From the bleeding center, infection crawled, through the ring into the flesh beyond. A fast-acting toxin had been injected.
Cheran shook his head and rocked back to sit on his heels. “He’s a goner,” he said without thinking.
Eli kicked him, knocking the mage flat to the street. Cheran’s hand banged against the old road and a concealed knife bounced free. “Help him, mage,” Eli said, standing over the assassin. “Or you’ll wish you had.”
Cheran laughed, the tone mocking. A hand lifted toward his amulet necklace. There was an odd shift, as if time had undergone a sideways transition. Suddenly, Cheran was surrounded by EIH warriors, weapons unholstered, all pointing at Cheran’s head.
“I said, help him,” Eli growled. “Or I’ll kill you where you lie.” My champard’s amber eyes were no longer laughing, but were dark with purpose. Hard with intent. A dozen handguns cocked. At least two shotguns racked shut.
“Can you help him?” I asked the assassin.
Options flickered through his eyes for a long moment. I ground my teeth, resisting the impulse to skewer him. Finally, Cheran said, “Can you not take it from my thoughts?” When I didn’t answer, he shrugged and said, “Maybe I can help. Maybe not.”
“Try or die, mage,” Eli said.
Cheran sighed, sounding longsuffering, unafraid, almost bored. He rolled to his backside, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, his weight on his elbows slightly behind him. He looked relaxed, not as if he was looking down the barrels of the town’s best fighters.
“I’ll need an amulet from my necklace.” He glanced down at his shirt buttoned over the necklace, and looked up at Eli. With a lazy half-smile, he said, “The amulet shaped like a leaf, looks like steel. You want to . . . draw it out for me?” The words were a challenge, the tone something more so. And there was something almost sexual about the way he sprawled. Teasing. While Audric died.
Rage blasted through me, a volcano of fury.
I heard the growling before I realized I had moved. I was lying across Cheran’s body, my kris at his throat. The blade, still coated with the stinging blood of the dragonet, pierced his flesh. A thin, scarlet trickle ran down his neck. Cheran’s eyes widened. He hadn’t seen me move. Something told me my speed had been unusual, even for a mage, but I was too angry to care. I leaned in, so close my breath merged with his, my words emerging between clenched teeth. “If you can help him and you don’t, I swear before the High Host I’ll flay the flesh from your body one slow strip at a time and feed it to the town’s dogs.” My jaw ached with the words, my teeth grinding with purpose and the vow. I closed the remaining distance, so close our lips nearly touched. I whispered, “And then I’ll cart your bleeding body up the mountain. And leave it at the mouth of the hellhole.”
Cheran swallowed, the sound audible in the street. But his eyes were over my shoulder.
I shifted a bit and looked back. Rose stood behind me in a gap made by humans who cringed away from her. She was smiling gently, glowing with power. A prism of death energies scintillated about her, dangerous, deadly, promising much. Moving like the dancer she was, my twin knelt beside me. “I healed your prophet,” she said to me. “I did that for you. This one is much stronger.” She leaned close, breathing in, tasting the energies of his life-force. “I can take his life and give it to Audric. I can see how it could be done.” She put a trembling hand on Cheran’s chest and licked her lips, trying to control her eagerness. “Let me do it,” she whispered, the plea a breath of desire.
“I can heal him,” Cheran said, breathless, his eyes wide brown pools. “Get her off me.”
I remembered the cry of the human at the start of battle. Get it off me! “Rose.”
My sister’s face twisted with regret. She eased back, moving slowly, sliding her hand along Cheran’s body in a sensuous glide. “Someday, mage. Someday she won’t protect you. And I’ll take your life for my own.”
Cheran rolled across the street and to the far side of Audric, seeking safety in distance. Rose laughed, the sound sending chills up my spine. Cheran ripped two amulets off his necklace. He dropped them into Audric’s wound, saying, “Silver, gold, life and death; lead, tin, steel and nickel rare. Draw the poisons, heal the mule. Give him life for future use.”
I didn’t like the words “future use.” It sounded almost as if Audric would be beholden. And that was not going to happen.
Cheran put his hands on the puncture, one atop the other. He pushed. Audric gasped and gagged, his body bucking with pain. Pus and foulness spat up from the wound. Cheran’s hands began to darken. The assassin mage looked at me, fierce and vicious. “You owe me, mage,” he spat. “You owe me for this pain.” He doubled over and vomited onto the road.
“They both will live,” my twin said, mournful. Rose drifted down the street, her thin dress ruffled by the chill wind, her bare arms and legs shimmering with might, warm with the lives of the recently dead. I shuddered, watching her.
Audric took my hand in his, tu
gging once to attract my attention. His palm was clammy but his grip was sure. Almost afraid, I looked into his eyes. “You are a fierce mistrend,” he murmured, the words a compliment.
“I’m a better friend,” I said.
His eyes softened. A ghost of a smile curled his full lips. “Yes. You are. You are indeed.”
Not trusting myself to say the right words, afraid I’d screw it up by blurting out something stupid, I just squeezed his hand, my face tight. I gave him another of the Healing amulets that seemed to block pain so well. As an afterthought, I gave one to Cheran too. He clutched it tightly and his breathing smoothed.
“Don’t think this makes us even. You owe me.”
I shrugged. “Owing a coward is a small price to pay for Audric’s life.”
Ignoring the expression that crossed his face, I stood, gathered up my dropped weapons, and walked up the street. I had a train to catch. A train to New Orleans.
Our Lady of the Stones
Early Summer 105 PA / 2117 AD
Spike Y Jones
“And then Hombre Verde comes down from the sky . . .”
“No, crawls out of the ground.”
“. . . crawls out of the ground and hits him. Bam!”
“But Capitán América is stronger with his shield and stops Hombre Verde. And then he jumps on Hombre Verde. Pow!”
Maria López liked it when José came over to play with Enrique. Maria couldn’t afford to buy a lot of toys for Riqi—there was just enough money for necessities and sometimes not even that—and José always brought some of his own toys with him.
Sighing, she turned back to preparing supper, the television playing quietly on the end of the counter.
“Araña Negro and Araña Rojo fly at el Capitán and knock him down.”
