Earth's Hope

by Ann Gimpel

  “Hurry,” Dewi’s mind voice blasted him. “At first the ground around the fortress was empty, but then it cracked open. Nothing’s come out of it yet, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” A pause and then, “Goddammit!”

  Fire flared through the dead trees, and the acrid stench of smoke etched into his throat and lungs. Fionn assumed something must have crawled out of the ground, and the dragons were doing what they could to kill it.

  Since Dewi had cut off communication, Fionn didn’t waste time pestering her for details. He turned to the row of humans behind him. “We’re under attack. Send it down the line. Full power. Magic ready. Fan out when we get there. Kill first, ask questions later.”

  Nerves thrumming with anticipation, Fionn surged forward. Despite the stink and dirt and hardship, he loved battle. It was dark and gritty and real. One of the last places a man could pit himself against his fears and find out what he was made of. And then he glanced at Aislinn’s grim, drawn face. Gods but he adored her. He tried to thrust her behind him, shield her with his body, but she moved back to his side.

  “Stop it,” she hissed. “I can’t fight if I can’t see.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, and snapped it shut. She was here; she wouldn’t let him protect her, so the best he could do would be to kill everything in sight before some stray minion of the dark harmed the woman he loved.

  The dead trees thinned out. “Form a line,” Fionn barked. “Watch your aim.”

  “Give it up, Celt,” a human muttered. “This isn’t my first battle.”

  “Christ! You’re all touchy as scalded cats.”

  “Maybe that’s because—” Aislinn began, but her words trailed to nothingness, replaced by, “Shit!”

  As the last line of trees dropped away, Fionn stared at a scene straight out of Dante.

  No, he corrected himself. Worse.

  The sky lit with fire as the dragons fought something else with wings. When Fionn funneled magic to sharpen his vision, he realized they were griffons.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Aislinn stared. When she’d been held captive by Perrikus and D’Chel, she’d never seen the outside of her prison since they’d teleported her inside, and she’d teleported out. What stood before her was a blocky, medieval-looking fortress made of gray-black rocks mortared together. It rose four floors with a substantial central building and two lateral wings jutting off to each side. Round towers marked each junction. There weren’t many windows, and those that were there looked as if they’d never been washed. A putrid moat circled the structure with water the color of old blood; its rusty drawbridge was down, or maybe it didn’t work anymore. Nothing grew between the house and the forest of dead trees they’d passed through, not so much as a weed or blade of grass.

  Someone had cut gouges in the ground with surgical precision, and two runic appliques split the dry earth. When she tried to look at them, decipher their meaning, her vision blurred and her heart pounded against her ribcage. With no warning, the runes flared bright red. Large beaver-esque animals with double rows of wicked-looking teeth poured out of one, and something that must have shared kinship with the Harpies from another. With avian hindquarters and the upper body of a grotesquely large hunting hawk, the things lacked the human faces Harpies had, but keen intelligence shone from their black eyes. Orange claws jutted from stunted arms and their back feet, digging divots into the dirt.

  Where were Dewi and Nidhogg? She heard the crackle of fire and looked around. Smoke rose from three huge mounds, twisted and burned beyond recognition. “What were those?” she yelled at Fionn.

  “Griffons. Ye’d best pray there are no more. No matter what, doona let them get close to you.”

  The stronghold’s front door thudded open, stone ringing against stone. Three more griffons lumbered down the steps on their leonine hindquarters before spreading their eagle’s wings and taking to the skies. Aislinn pushed down horror coiling through her midsection. How could things she’d only seen in fable books as a child be real? A sickly sweet smell wafted over her, making her suddenly lightheaded.

  “Their breath will put you to sleep.” Rune growled and closed his teeth over her leg biting, but not too hard.

  “How do you know?” She was too rattled to use mind speech, even though it would have been easy since he was in her head.

  “Marta and I fought them once.”

  Magic rained around her, yet she stood like a starstruck dimwit. She knew fear, had lived with it so long it was like an old, unwelcome friend, but this was the first time it had immobilized her. Rune bit harder. It helped. She stared at the fortress wondering what perversion would waltz through the door next.

  It doesn’t matter. I need to kill what’s in front of me. Now.

  She raised her arms, called power, and blasted a line of beavers to grisly chunks of gore. Next she targeted one of the harpy-lookalikes. It proved much harder to kill. She had to dial up her power—and move closer, dodging fire blasting from its beak—before it finally exploded.

  “Leave those to Fionn and me.” Bran danced around her, light on his feet, his hands alight with power.

  She eyed him askance. What was it with the Celts and war? They came alive when they killed and got even larger than life.

  Next to her, a human male shrieked and folded to the ground when a griffon nailed him from the air with a dark, smoking spear. Where the hell had the weapon come from? She hadn’t seen the winged horrors carrying anything. Aislinn knelt next to the man, laid her hands on his chest around the spear, taking care not to touch it, and sent Healer magic inward to see if she could fix the damage. His green eyes caught hers, and he shook his head. “Save your magic,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “If I’m still alive at the end of this, you can Heal me.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Pull the thing out. It burns like there’s no tomorrow, and I’ll see what I can do to help myself from there. Maybe I can crawl back to those dead trees and they’ll shield me.” He sucked in a gurgling breath. “If we don’t win, none of us will leave this accursed place.”

  Shielding her hands with magic, she grasped the spear, lifted it easily, and tossed it aside. Red welts raised on both her palms. If she hadn’t taken precautions before touching the spelled piece of metal, it would have burned her down to bone.

  “Ye canna touch their weapons.” Fionn stood over her, his face dark as a winter storm.

  “I figured that out.”

  “Do ye need us?” Fionn asked the man, but he motioned them away from him.

  Fionn nodded tersely and hauled Aislinn to her feet. “I need you over there.” He pointed. “We’ve lost two people.”

  “Thank you,” the man called after her, but she didn’t look back.

  Aislinn filled in the space in their line and killed beavers until she could barely hold her arms up, but they still kept coming. Rune killed them too. He grabbed them, twisted their necks until they snapped, and then grabbed another one. It was like a ghoulish comic book where everything you killed recycled itself and came at you again. The rare times she took her eyes from the field and glanced up, Dewi and Nidhogg were trading blows with griffons. More streamed out of the stronghold whenever one of their brethren fell from the skies. They were beautiful in a macabre sort of way with their ten foot wingspans and bald eagle coloring. She noticed they tucked their leonine hindquarters under in the air, and then realized her mind was wandering.

  Aislinn scanned the field. They’d been fighting for hours and made zip in the way of progress. At this rate, they’d exhaust themselves for nothing. She imagined Perrikus—or D’Chel—sitting inside laughing their asses off. Because whether another fifty beavers died seemed irrelevant, she made her way to Fionn and said, “This isn’t working.”

  “Because they were ready for us.”

  “It doesn’t matter why. We should leave, or at least fall back. Figure something else out.”

  He shot an appraising glance her way. “I was just
coming around to the same conclusion. Let me talk with Nidhogg and Dewi.”

  “They’re having a grand time ducking and weaving in an aerial ballet,” she observed. “They’re welcome to stay if they want.”

  An idea caught her attention, and she stared at the runes. “Fionn! The creatures can’t move beyond a certain distance from those runes. Somehow magic from them is what’s powering them. I wondered why they weren’t chasing us, and that has to be it.”

  “Brilliant!” He sent power arcing at the hole in the ground, targeting it rather than the Harpy-things streaming out of it. The air around the rune caught fire, burning a sickly red-orange. Fionn upped the ante on his spell, and Aislinn chucked power in behind his. An explosion shook the ground beneath her feet, followed by another. Smoke and bits of grit swirled through the air, making it even harder to breathe. Gravel scored her face, stinging, burning, and she tasted blood dripping from abrasions on both cheeks.

  Bran loped over and added his magic to their mix. Time dribbled past. Her lungs were raw, her mouth painfully dry, and her legs shook with the effort of pulling still more power in this dead world where nothing worked very well.

  “Aye!” Bran punched the air with a fist as the runic symbols dissolved. “We got that one. How’d ye figure out we needed to target the runes and not the creatures?” he asked Fionn.

  “’Twasn’t me, but her.” He hooked a thumb toward Aislinn.

  Normally, she’d have enjoyed the glory, but she was bent over, hands on her thighs, sucking air like someone tossed out of a plane at thirty thousand feet. Her vision swam and her ears rang insistently. She didn’t have any more power to target the second rune. She’d run herself dry.

  “Aislinn?” Fionn gripped her upper arm.

  “Don’t mind me,” she panted. “Get rid of the other one.”

  She slipped her rucksack off her shoulders and gulped half of one of her water flasks, following it with handfuls of dried apricots and some almonds. If she got some sustenance into her, she’d boost her reserves. While she crouched in Fionn’s shadow, grateful to have him standing in front of her for once, she watched the second rune—the beaver one—smoke, catch fire, and fold in on itself. Maybe Bran and Fionn had gotten more proficient, because that one was much easier.

  A dark form plummeted from above. She didn’t have time to yell so she barreled into Fionn’s body from behind, targeting the backs of his knees so he’d go down. A split second later, the ground vibrated as if a bomb had gone off and a griffon landed scant inches from where she lay atop Fionn.

  “What the fuck?” he pushed her off him, saw the griffon still twitching in death throes with blood gushing from a rent in its furred abdomen, and grinned. Raising a hand, he sent a short blast of magic into the thing to stop its heart. Still, it opened its beak and issued a snarling challenge.

  Bella, who hadn’t left Fionn’s shoulder since they arrived, launched herself at the griffon and pecked out its eyes.

  Fionn snorted. “If my magic willna kill it, at least it’s blind.” He scrambled to his feet.

  Aislinn followed him. She shouldered her pack, her mind still a jumble.

  The humans drew near, milling about. Aislinn did a quick nose count. Other than the man she’d tried to help, they were short two. Not bad, considering. She shook her head to encourage rational thought. Actually, any losses were unacceptable.

  I’m not thinking straight. It’s the evil here. It perverts everything.

  The dragons dropped heavily to the ground. Aislinn wondered if they’d killed all the griffons. She didn’t see any in the sky, but that didn’t mean anything.

  “We have two choices.” Nidhogg eyed them. “The stronghold gates are open—probably on purpose. We can leave, or we can storm the fortress.”

  “What other surprises do they have in store for us?” Eve asked. Tabitha snarled low in her throat. Blood smeared her snout and whiskers, and she looked fierce.

  “Truthfully,” Dewi said, “I have no idea. I understand you’re tired and this world drains your ability. Nidhogg and I won’t make this decision for you.”

  “How about if I make it,” a clear, melodic voice cried. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

  Aislinn cringed. D’Chel. She’d know his voice anywhere. Christ! She’d listened to him enough, either seducing her, or screaming epithets when she wouldn’t cooperate. She squared her shoulders and saw him framed in the open door of his fortress. Silky dark hair flowed around well-defined muscles and bronzed skin. Copper eyes leered at her. Thank God he was dressed for once, but his buckskin top and pants fit him like a second skin.

  She girded herself for the rush of sexual energy, but it still caught her unprepared, staggering in its intensity. Damn the dark gods. They all wanted to use her for breeding stock, and her sexual response to their energy amused them. Visions of D’Chel’s huge, perfect cock danced before her eyes, and her breath quickened in her throat.

  “Human.” He smiled lazily. “I’ve missed our visits.”

  “Leave her out of this,” Fionn growled. “Last time ye wanted me to trade her for Bran’s and Gwydion’s freedom. It dinnna work then, and it willna work now. She’s not part of the equation—now or ever.”

  “Fine.” D’Chel half-bowed, his eyes alight with intensity. “She wants me, though. I can smell her…interest from here.”

  “Only because ye bespelled her.” Fionn curled his hands into fists and stepped between Aislinn and D’Chel.

  “If you’re here”—Nidhogg faced the dark god—“then where’s Perrikus?”

  “Sorry, old chap, er old dragon, but that’s classified.”

  Aislinn moved to Fionn’s side. “Since he invited us in, I think we should take him up on it.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t say that. It wasn’t me.”

  Fionn shot her an incredulous look. “So long as he’s shown himself, he can come the rest of the way out—or stand in the doorway—to talk. The only reason to risk ourselves in his lair would have been to flush him out.”

  Rune whined anxiously, and Aislinn leaned toward him. “Out of my mind. I don’t want him to hurt you.”

  The wolf developed a mulish look and drew his upper lip back in a snarl, but he obeyed.

  Something subtle altered the air around D’Chel. He was up to something, but she had no idea what.

  Rune stood by her side, hackles raised, sending a foul stare at the dark god. If looks could kill—and if D’Chel weren’t immortal—he’d be dead.

  Fionn jerked her behind him again. Aislinn bit back a string of harsh words, and Dewi shot a stream of flame at the god of illusion. It ran down D’Chel’s body and smoke roiled about his feet. Nothing burned, not even his clothes. He must have spelled them in some way.

  “He’s cooking something up,” Nidhogg said, “and we’re playing right into his hands by standing here.”

  * * * *

  Fionn shifted from foot to foot. They should move forward, all of them, and attack. D’Chel couldn’t hold them off forever, not by himself. He caught Nidhogg’s eye and jerked his chin toward D’Chel, but the dragon shook his head.

  “Why not?” Fionn asked in carefully shielded mind speech.

  “Because that’s what he wants us to do. Something’s in the fortress with him. I feel its energy, but can’t determine what it is.”

  “We canna just stand here. If we’re not moving forward, we should retreat.”

  The humans had formed a tight group, talking among themselves. Suddenly, with no warning, they broke and hurtled toward the house, magic streaming from them, while Fionn watched horrorstruck.

  “They’re not going in there alone,” Aislinn cried, and took off after them with Rune at her heels, growling and snapping.

  Fionn pelted after her. So much for a coordinated approach. This was what came of fighting with troops you hadn’t trained much with. The smile on D’Chel’s perfectly sculpted face broadened, and he didn’t lift his hands to defend himself.

  “S
top!” Fionn yelled. “’Tis a trap. Once you get close enough—”

  Sound cracked like a hundred whips snapping against one another.

  “Retreat!” he shrieked and grabbed Aislinn, throwing her behind him. “Flee,” he told her. “Back to the dragons.”

  “I will not run.”

  “We’re right behind you,” Dewi said.

  Magic flashed past Fionn and Aislinn whooshed onto the dragon’s back. At least she’d be safe there, so long as she stayed put.

  Rune ran to him. “Get her back,” the wolf demanded. “She wants to be on the ground with me.”

  “I’ve got bigger problems just now,” he told the wolf. “Stay close to me.”

  Bran and Nidhogg dove into the group of humans, pushing, pulling, yelling. Some obeyed, others ran pell-mell toward D’Chel, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat who’d just cornered an entire nest of mice.

  A wave of magic rolled past, and the front row of humans got sucked into a vortex that spun them upward. So that was why D’Chel needed them close. Something about the fortress, or where he stood, concentrated his magic. Sowing chaos and destruction was a real power hog, but the dark god looked as fresh as if he’d just wakened from a nap.

  Nidhogg flew into the vortex, interrupting its flow. His black scales gleamed golden as magic bounced off him. He caught three of the four airborne humans on his back and made a grab for the fourth with a foreleg, catching him handily. Huffing smoke and fire, Nidhogg flew back to where he’d overseen the earlier battle.

  Fionn made certain Rune was still with him and turned to follow the dragons. Once he caught up to them, he’d insist they return to Earth. No point in remaining to provide sport for D’Chel. As he ran, the air felt thick, prickly, just plain wrong. He stopped and made a grab for Rune. “Something is amiss. Until I figure it out—”

  “Nothing to figure out, human.” Another dark god with cropped red curls and brilliant green-gold eyes dropped from nowhere, blocking Fionn’s path.

  Fionn narrowed his eyes. “By a process of elimination, ye must be Adva.”