by Mike Truk
Fire burned deep in Aleksandr’s black eyes. His grinned, revealing fangs once more. “You’ve no idea what hell comes for you and your kin,” growled the demon smuggler. “What tide of infamy shall wash over Stasiek. I am but the first. A hundred more shall soon be birthed, and Stasiek’s storied past shall be lost in flame and blood. Screams will sear the night sky, and every building shall burn.”
Slowly, massive frame shaking with effort, Aleksandr sat up.
Drove Hugh back.
“You are formidable. I give you that. But you are unique. Who will stop us when you are dead, and we come for your people?”
Aleksandr rose to his feet, towered up over Hugh.
“None. The land shall groan, the sky be choked with smoke, and you will watch and weep from the Ashen Garden. Fool.”
The demon smuggler’s might was such that Hugh felt as if he were seeking to keep a cliff face from crashing down upon him. His muscles tore. His joints were screaming. His back bent, his knees gave way.
Aleksandr loomed over him, muscles writhing across his huge frame, eyes ablaze, lips writhing.
“Die,” whispered the demon smuggler. “Die!”
Jacinia, whispered Hugh to the void. The name he’d sworn to never call. The leader of the Lost Reavers, their most fell commander, the most lethal being Hugh had ever seen, before or since. Jacinia. Come to me.
Mocking laughter.
And then she was there, taking her place amidst the others, foremost and singular even in that terrible company.
Let us dance, he heard her whisper, and an intelligence, cruel and infamous, took over his own.
Hugh collapsed beneath Aleksandr, folding and bowing as he spun and ducked under the demon’s great arm. Drew his dagger with his left hand as he spun behind the sloping back and slammed the blade to the hilt into Aleksandr’s sacrum.
Blade shattered bone, dug deep.
Aleksandr roared, buffeted an arm around.
It was all Hugh could do to cross his arms before his face, take the blow, and be sent flying up against the cottage’s wooden wall, to smash through and blast inside.
Gray, morning light was swapped for the golden glow of lamp and candle. He fell across a thick carpet in a shower of massive splinters, rolled, and saw his companions chained against the back wall, eyes wide, a slender man of impossible grace and beauty staring at him in shock.
No time to react. The hole through which he’d burst exploded as Aleksandr charged right in after, arms wide, caving in the whole side of the cabin as he roared, sword abandoned, claws reaching.
“Hugh!” screamed Zarja. She was unbound. Unbound?!
No time. Hugh ducked under Aleksandr’s arm and slammed a fist into the monster’s side. Stove in ribs, embedded his arm to the wrist inside the monster.
Aleksandr didn’t seem to feel it. Raked his claws through the air, caught Hugh just off the temple, sent him spinning into the chimney.
Stones shifted, dust sifted down, Hugh felt something break in his side and shoulder. Fell limp beside the fireplace. Eyes unfocused, he reached into the fire, seized a flaming brand, and with a roar launched himself at Aleksandr, smacking away a clawed fist that reached for his throat to bury the brand deep in the demon’s left eye.
Aleksandr screamed, fell back, seized Hugh by the arm and swung him around, into the wall, the arc of his passage plowing him into and then through the planks which exploded in his path, to slam into the stone frame of the doorway and shatter that.
Hugh felt himself released, fell in a welter of stones and blood and planks, half buried as the very bones of the cabin groaned and the structure swayed.
Then Zarja stepped forth. Her tail was a dancing flame behind her, a golden light burning off her body as if she were an embodiment of the sun.
"Zarja Lythgraefen el-Abeian grasyndir fathaath!” The strange, elegant man’s voice pierced the air, even over the roaring in Hugh’s ears, but Zarja paid the man no mind.
She oriented on Aleksandr and rose into the air, her tail splitting into a flurry of copies, nine of them forming a backdrop to her body, a canvas upon which she burned, her eyes like twin stars as she extended her hand to the demon smuggler and began to sing.
Aleksandr slowed, resisting, but turned at last from Hugh to regard the lisica, chest heaving, shoulders rising and falling with each pant.
To simply stand there and gaze at Zarja, who sang on, her voice like liquid fire, the sound mesmerizing, beguiling like nothing Hugh had ever heard.
But he’d no time to rest. To recover. His body was itching, burning, healing itself, but still near ruined. He’d a fraction of a second. Summoning everything he had, he rose from the wreckage of the wall, planks sliding and falling off him to sway and search for a weapon.
There.
Morwyn’s own blade, half hidden under rubble.
Four steps. He seized it, twisted, flung it at Aleksandr.
Impossible flight. Yet the blade pierced the demon smuggler’s neck, sank deep, punched out the other side.
Aleksandr howled, snapped out of his trance. Backhanded Zarja with enough force to slam her into the wall, then turned, swaying, to regard Hugh.
Who spoke with a dozen voices interwoven through his own, the sound fey and strange to his own ears, resonating with supreme power: “Bring your demon army. You’ll find us waiting.”
Aleksandr staggered toward him, blood pouring from his maw, swung his claws in a bid to tear off Hugh’s face.
Hugh, guided by Jacinia, by Sweet Severin, by Evassier and a dozen others, swayed under the blow, stepped in close, seized Morwyn’s blade by the hilt and then spun, tearing it free in a cut that severed arteries, windpipe, flesh and muscle.
Blood sprayed.
Aleksandr toppled forward to crash against the floor and lie still.
Hugh reeled. About him teemed the ghosts of the dead. Yet despite his pain, he turned to his companions, to stare aghast at where Zarja lay.
And felt sweet relief when she raised her head, eyelids fluttering as she fought for focus.
“Zarja,” said the strange man, stepping forward and seemingly unconcerned for what had just transpired. Lithe, impossibly graceful, his face hauntingly beautiful, ears elongated, eyes like broken emeralds. His voice hummed with power, with command, and despite everything, despite his wounds and pain and grief, Hugh felt his attention captured and held. “Zarja Lythgraefen el-Abeian, you have broken our pact. You are declared anathema amongst our kind, enemy of our people, and your life is now forfeit.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hugh wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and allow his consciousness to melt away into the storm that burned beneath his skin. To let the pain and fatigue swallow him whole. To rest his brow against the splintered floor, if only for a second.
To let the weight of responsibility slip to another set of shoulders. Let someone else deal with this problem.
To just stop.
Instead, he gritted his teeth, pressed his hands flat against the floor, and pushed himself erect. His every muscle protesting, his joints flaring with pain, the countless lacerations and contusions screaming back into frantic life.
No time to question how his every bone wasn’t broken. His skull staved in. His life’s blood bucketed across what remained of the walls.
Hugh rose, swayed, the maddened chorus of the Lost Reavers raging within his mind, and forced his eyes to focus on the svelte, elfin man who was glaring at Zarja.
“Hey, asshole.” His voice was a rough, broken rasp, as if he’d been gargling with broken glass for a minute too long.
The elfin man glanced over his shoulder in irritation at Hugh, and the depths of his eyes were mesmerizing, a shifting kaleidoscope of metallic green and purple hues like a peacock’s feather brought to lurid life.
But Hugh was too fucking beat up and brutalized to care. He ran his hand through his hair, combing a mass of blood and splinters free, and forced his shoulders back.
“You ta
lk to Zarja like that, we’re going to have problems.”
An empty threat? Possibly. But battered and near-broken as his body was, the Lost Reavers that coursed and thrummed beneath his skin didn’t care. They’d answer his call, allow him to push himself to the point of no return. Abuse this vessel till there was nothing left to break.
The stranger turned to regard him fully. “You know not of what you speak. Of in which matters you meddle. Zarja is not your kind. Shut your mouth, human, lest I shut it for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Hugh, casting around for a weapon. “I’m past beating my chest and making threats. You want to fight, let me know. I’m sure there’s something around here I can shove so far up your ass you’ll taste it coming up the back of your throat.”
The man’s face tightened with displeasure, and suddenly Hugh couldn’t begin to guess at how old he might be. Not the thirty or forty years he’d guessed, but perhaps something vastly older, the face a disguise, a distraction, from what lay beneath his skin. Just like Hugh himself, he thought.
“Humans.” The word said like the greatest indictment, as if there could be nothing fouler. “Zarja, I will bring word of your actions to the queen. She will render judgement. Do not hope for clemency.”
“I know what I did,” said Zarja, pushing herself up to sitting, tail curling around her hips. “And I’d do it again. Tell the queen I send my regrets and love.”
The man sniffed. “Don’t tell me what to do, scyeathxa.” And with that he swept out of the cabin, picking his way with delicacy over the ruins.
“Fortuna wept,” said Hugh, passing a bloody hand over his eyes. “Zarja? Everyone? You… alive?”
“Hugh,” said Morwyn, voice choked with emotion. Her face was bruised, one eye near swollen shut, her lip split.
Zarja winced as she rose to her feet and limped over to the dead Aleksandr, who was slowly shrinking, losing his monstrousness, returning to his human form. A key of rings was at his belt, and this she liberated, turning quickly to unlock the manacles which bound their friends.
“Hugh,” said Anastasia, voice aghast. “How are you… you must…” She pulled her hands free and hurried to Hugh’s side, an arm slipping around his waist, and then urged him over to a chair which had somehow survived the destruction. “Are you…?”
“Dying?” Hugh forced a grin. “No. Little sore. Need to catch my breath, is all.”
Morwyn slipped free of her manacles in turn and hurried to the cabin’s edge, to peer out over the camp. “By the Hanged God,” she whispered, voice numb. “You killed… everyone.”
“Not everyone,” said Hugh. “Some had the sense to run.”
“Aleksandr,” said Anastasia, crouching by Hugh’s side, his ruined hands cupped in her own. “Zarja, what by the Fate Maker was he?”
“I can’t say for sure,” said the lisica, lowering herself into an easy crouch. “He was invested, by the absent magus. Katharzina’s master. Speaking of which?”
“Dead,” said Hugh, fatigue darkening the edges of his vision. “Stone to the head. Leastwise, I think that was her.”
“We should get out of here,” said Morwyn. “Talk where we’re safe.”
“I don’t know,” said Anastasia, voice wondering. “Looks like the camp’s ours for now.”
“Invested,” said Hugh, forcing himself to focus. “What do you mean, Zarja? And why weren’t you bound?”
“Aleksandr was entertaining a guest,” said Zarja, voice troubled. “Apthelion, a prince of my kind, a higher fae. Old as rock and bitter as mandroga root. His voice has often been raised over the centuries in support of violence, war, revenge. It seems he has found a welcoming court in Queen Vispethia’s domain. When he recognized me, he ordered me freed. Aleksandr obliged. They were negotiating the terms of my release when you arrived.”
“Terms you weren’t accepting,” said Anastasia.
The lisica smiled. “Of course not. You think I would abandon you?”
Hugh fought the storm that whirled within him. That battered at the insides of his body, the force and untrammeled power of the sixteen or so Lost Reavers he’d summoned. He held onto their strength. Knew that the moment he released it he’d collapse. “Apthelion. Aleksandr. Allies?”
“I think. Of a kind.” Zarja frowned. “Unlikely as it sounds. There is much more going on here than we first thought, Hugh. For a prince of Apthelion’s standing to visit a smuggler’s camp - well. And Aleksandr, clearly not merely a smuggler. Invested as he was with a xaomagraather.”
Hugh raised an eyebrow.
“Demon,” said Zarja. “This magus. Arasim. It must have been his doing. Katharzina didn’t have that kind of power.”
“The missing magus,” said Morwyn, voice venomous.
“Yes,” said Zarja. “Katharzina’s mentor and the man who elevated Aleksandr to his terrible strength. Whom, I warrant, negotiated the truce between Vispathia and Aleksandr to their mutual benefit.”
Hugh lowered his head. It was growing harder by the moment to marshal his thoughts. “To what end? What were they working toward?”
Zarja sounded troubled. “I’m not sure. Apthelion was going to tell me if I agreed to his terms. But his words. Apocalyptic. He said that this truce had changed everything. That our time was come again. The dawn of a new age. That no longer would we have to skulk in the shadows of the highest peaks, but would soon be able to come down once more to claim our hallowed ground.”
“Aleksandr,” said Hugh. “He said much the same. Some rot about swamping Stasiek with blood and smoke.”
“Fae and smuggler, leading an attack on Stasiek?” Morwyn sounded too tired to sneer.
“No mere smuggler,” said Anastasia. “What a horrible, fascinating man.” She was staring fixedly at Aleksandr’s corpse. “No denying his power and authority. He was running a truly sophisticated operation, but it wasn’t the gold he was after. To have forged an alliance with the fae… what could he have offered them? Not gold. He didn’t have political power or an army.”
Zarja sighed. “It had to have been something truly unique for Vispathia to deal with a human. If Apthelion is a poisonous spider, then she’s an asp. But we’ve stalled them, for now. Aleksandr is dead, Katharzina dead, and the smuggling operation has been dealt a mortal blow. Whatever they were planning is finished.”
“Not so,” said Anastasia. “The magus is still out there.”
Morwyn nodded somberly. “The one who ‘invested’ Aleksandr.”
“Then we should force an audience,” said Hugh, rising with a grunt. “I’d have a word with him.”
“You aren’t having a word with anybody,” said Zarja, rising and hurrying to his side. “We’re getting you into a bed. You should be…” She trailed off, shook her head.
“Dead,” said Morwyn, voice muted. She’d turned back to stare at him, eyes glittering. “Your coming here. Madness.”
“I was never accused of having much common sense,” said Hugh.
“But to take on a fully armed camp, a powerful rogue mage in Katharzina, and that without even knowing what Aleksandr truly was?” Morwyn shook her head in wonder. “That isn’t gallantry. That’s suicide.”
“Apparently not,” said Anastasia.
“I had to come.” The walls were closing in on Hugh. He took a step toward Morwyn. “Had to come for you. Couldn’t leave you here. The thought of your suffering. Drove me mad. I’d have done… anything.”
“You fool,” said Morwyn, but tears were standing in her eyes, and her voice trembled. “You stupid, stupid man.”
“Aye,” he said, the dark waters of oblivion flooding in. “Sounds about right.”
“Catch him!” Zarja’s voice, rising in alarm.
Arms under his own. His legs giving out. The world spinning. Hugh fell, and darkness rushed into his eyes and swept him away.
* * *
Silence. Hugh opened his eyes. He lay in a cot, the world hushed outside the narrow tent in a manner that convinced him immed
iately it was night. Thick blankets were piled over him, and he felt cocooned in heat, his whole body throbbing with pain.
But he was alive.
Flickers of memory came to him. His body being swung through a wall. The blows he’d taken from the Aleksandr demon. The men he’d killed.
How was he still alive?
Evening, sunshine.
A jolt of fire raced through him at the sound of Jacinia’s voice, and he sat up, only to sink back with a groan as muscles spasmed and wounds tore open. She was there, seated on a stool at the foot of his cot, one leg crossed over the other, hands around her knee. Sitting upright, a wry smile on her lips, perilous and beautiful as ever.
Fortuna wept, but to be haunted by such a lethally gorgeous woman was monstrously unfair.
“Jacinia,” he whispered, fighting to calm his breathing.
I must admit to being impressed. It’s invigorating to see what a Lost Reaver can do with the help of his fellows.
“You’ve come for my oath,” said Hugh, voice a low rasp.
That was my intention. Her voice of flint, her features expressionless. But.
Hugh’s heart leaped. “But?”
We heard what your fox friend said. A fae court. What I wouldn’t have given to lead a strike against such while I yet drew breath.
Hope flourished in Hugh’s breast. “You’re going to let me live.”
On the condition that you move against this court. That you exert yourself to bring it down and slay every inhuman member of it. We’re Lost Reavers still, my fallen brethren and I. We yearn even now for the death of the fae, and if we can help protect the emperor and his empire from the shadows, then we shall do so.
Hugh shivered at the intensity of her words. “Vispathia was allied with Aleksandr. With this mysterious magus. I aim to learn more and destroy them.”
Good. Then I shall hold your oath in abeyance. We shall watch from the shadows. Lend you our strength as your move against this queen. And once her court is destroyed, her domain reduced to ashes, and her blood smeared across the ground, then shall I collect on your life. Am I understood, Hugh of Stasiek?
