One of the monsters lashed out at the captain, and before he could react, Kittins reached over and parried the blow.
“Thanks!” Long yelled.
Kittins turned away and kept battling his own monster.
Don’t know what I ever did to that fella, Long mused. Might have to buy him a drink to find out.
His eyes then sought out Mardine, to ensure she was still alive and in no peril. As before, she was surrounded by her fellow giants and seemed in no danger of injury. Long was ashamed to admit they could protect her better than he.
*****
Kittins
He could have let Long die, and why he hadn’t was beyond Kittins. He’d no love for the man. He’d no love for anyone, including himself. Why had he parried that monster’s blow?
Fuck it.
He kept fighting, hacking large chunks from the limbs and torsos of the ice creatures, but never quite able to hit their heads.
It was strange, fighting something with no feelings. The better part of every fight was emotional, and Kittins struck terror into most of his foes. But these things…?
He continued to hack and chop away.
*****
Spirk
He’d never admit it, o’ course, but Spirk was having the time of his life. He’d wanted to spout flame at the giant ice things, and spout flame he had! In fact, magic was coming easier and easier to him, and he started to wonder what wasn’t possible. Was there anything he couldn’t do?
Well, concentrate, if he was honest. Here he was in the biggest battle since the last biggest battle, and he was daydreaming! He refocused himself and blazed like a blacksmith’s forge. The monsters did not like that.
*****
Arune
Arune found it hard to remain hidden behind Alheria’s robes and still toss out the requested defensive spells. The Queen kept moving, and whenever Arune looked up, she felt Vykers’ eyes upon her. She was probably just imagining it, she knew, but it made her job more difficult, nevertheless.
And then, too, there was Aoife, crackling with eldritch energies and a determination that made her all the more beautiful to the Shaper. Was there anyone like Aoife in all the world? No; there was not.
And Arune had lost her. Had her and lost her.
Or maybe she’d never had her, because it was Vykers, always Vykers, whom the A’Shea was attracted to. And Arune would never be Vykers. He, too, was unique in all the world.
The End attempted to send out one of his horrible black clouds, but Alheria had explained to Arune how to counter it, and counter it she did. She watched with no little satisfaction when the End’s spell fizzled out, and he frowned in alarm.
Not this time, you bastard!
*****
Mardine
Given all she’d been through, all she had lost and regained, it made no sense that Mardine should relish such a life-threatening event. But she did. She reveled in smashing the creatures the End threw in her way. She exulted in the look of bewilderment on the wretched sorcerer’s face. They had failed to kill him last time, but this time his army had abandoned him, and Vykers and Her Majesty had caught him utterly unprepared.
*****
The End
His mother was stronger than he, and his sister, the one-time A’Shea, had become almost too much for him as well. As the accursed Reaper soared at him, the End reconciled himself to defeat. He could not win. He could not stop time.
But he could slow it down, and did so, knowing it was, at best, a temporary reprieve.
Mid-leap, the Reaper’s flight became torpid, but all the more graceful for that. His sword hand was empty, but the End recognized this to be an imposture. He knew well what was hidden there; he had wielded it himself, when time was, and he quailed at its presence. He knew why it had been created. So much knowledge and none of it helpful.
He craned his neck and studied his mother. His mother, ha! What heresy. In her selfish pursuit of victory, she had no regard for familial ties. Ask Mahnus!
Alheria, Mahnus, Eyatu…and? Where were the other bastards? How many had Eyatu himself killed? It was a question his former selves might have answered, if he had not consumed their essences to fuel his present power. And what good had that done? He was bound to die, and shortly.
With a world-weary sigh, he allowed time to resume its natural course and immediately felt an agonizing pain in his lower right abdomen. Vykers had stabbed him in the exact same area in which he’d wounded the Reaper.
But the dagger had been created to kill gods, and the End’s torso began to dissolve into itself.
The Reaper head-butted him, to add to the indignity of his death. As the End was falling backwards, he spied Aoife. If he had to die, he would not go to it alone. He put everything he had and was into a final blast at the Umaena’s heart.
He never saw the outcome of his attack.
*****
The End’s body continued to crumble and erode, until there was nothing left, not even dust. But the imprint of a dagger in the snow gave evidence the weapon that had finished Eyatu had survived.
“I’ll take that!” Alheria proclaimed before Vykers could even register what had happened.
“Of course you will,” he sneered. He turned his attention to Aoife, who lay on the ground, gasping, and rapidly losing all color. He ran to her side, gently scooped her into his lap and felt her throat for a pulse. A terrible, terrible cold greeted his touch.
“Can none of you magic folk do anything?” he yelled, a plaintive quality to his voice that none present had heard before.
Alheria returned to her normal size and came to stand over the stricken Umaena. Before she or anyone else could speak Arune stepped forward, a look of absolute torment on her face. Though he still wanted her dead, Vykers held his breath and waited to see what she’d do.
The little goblin reached out a hand and caressed Aoife’s forehead. Tears streamed down the goblin’s face as she turned to Vykers. “For you,” she whispered.
For me? Vykers echoed. How for me?
Slowly, Arune began to expand, and a brilliant, familiar light bloomed within her. Spirk gasped, remembering all too well when he’d last seen such a thing. At last, the little Shaper exploded in a shower of white sparks, bathing all those present in a radiance both cleaner and brighter than the snow on which they all stood. Even after the light subsided, no one spoke for the longest time, and only Spirk made any sound, sobbing quietly to himself.
Vykers was contemplating how best to dispose of Aoife’s remains when he saw her looking up at him, a hesitant smile on her lips. He was not one to weep, and he’d never been generous with his praise, but he understood at once what had transpired. He gazed into the clouds as if he could see Arune’s departing spirit.
“We’re even,” he said solemnly.
*****
The ice golems had collapsed when the End perished, and, once it was clear that Aoife would be okay, the fey returned to the little grove she’d created and, from thence, to places unknown to men.
Vykers placed Aoife into Karrakan’s care and then moved to confront Alheria. “You owe me,” he challenged.
“Do I? And what, pray tell, is it this time?”
“I wanna know what all o’ this is really about. The End was your bastard; you knew that the first time I fought him, but you didn’t intervene. You killed Mahnus, but you wouldn’t…”
“I thought I killed Mahnus, yes,” Alheria responded, silencing Vykers.
Those who hadn’t heard this bit of news were equally silent, watching and waiting for more.
“But it seems he found a new host, much like Eyatu was wont to do.”
“And – what? – you just discovered this?” Vykers shot back.
“Mahnus was…is more clever than Eyatu. At the very moment I thought I’d delivered the killing stroke, he found a host that was still in the womb. He grew up as a normal child, having no memory or knowledge of his former self. And because he lacked that knowledge, he was i
nvisible to me.” Alheria paused to ensure she had everyone’s attention. “But he is amongst us today.”
Some, like Yendor, burst out laughing at the idea. Others, like Hjuest, were as sober as could be.
“You’re sayin’ that one of us is Mahnus?” Kittins asked gruffly.
“That is precisely what I am saying.”
Vykers had always wondered why his memory was so unreliable. Now, it seemed obvious. He stepped forward, willing to accept his birthright, and Alheria snickered at him.
“Not you, you big idiot!”
If Vykers was embarrassed by his own presumption, he was even more baffled. Who else could it be?
One by one, most of the group turned their attention to the Shaper, Spirk. It made perfect sense, and Long Pete actually chuckled with delight at the irony of it all.
Spirk, unused to the attention, flushed a bright red that made his port wine birthmark even more unattractive.
“Wrong again, you fools! Now perhaps you see why it was so difficult for me to identify Mahnus.”
“But if it’s neither of these men,” Eoman interjected, “then who is it?”
Alheria extended a finger and slowly swept it past each of the giants, past Vykers and Kittins, past all of Vykers’ men, past Spirk and Rem, until she finally stopped at Long Pete.
Suddenly, the captain felt hollow. There was nothing inside him but echoes, anxiety and fear. He wanted to deny the claim, to offer proof that Alheria was mistaken. But he was too stunned to form anything like a coherent thought. He looked over at his friends, whose expressions of shock and disbelief were surely the cousins of his own. He noted, apropos of nothing, that his toes were freezing.
“That don’t change things between you and me!” Vykers prodded Alheria. “You’ve been pushin’ me around and manipulating me for ages, and I wanna know why.”
Again, Kittins found himself secretly cheering the Reaper.
“Talk to Mahnus,” the Queen said dismissively. “All this fighting has worn me out.” She disappeared on that last word, leaving everyone reeling in her wake.
Everyone except the Reaper, that is. “Mahnus, is it?” he said to Long. “Gotta say, I ain’t impressed.” Vykers then spoke with his men and the giants and determined the wisest immediate choice was to return to the group’s forest encampment and get some rest.
*****
Vykers & Company, In Camp
Back at camp, everyone avoided Long like the pox, even Spirk, and especially Mardine. At first, the captain was hurt, and then he became angry. He pushed his way into the circle of giants relaxing about their own fire and insisted on speaking with Mardine.
“Or what?” Beesmarch threatened.
“I’ll speak with him,” Mardine told the big giant gently. “I’ll be okay.”
Long led her out of the firelight and off near his tent. He took Mardine’s hands and looked deeply into her eyes.
“I don’t know why she said it,” Long began, meaning Alheria, “but I don’t see any evidence that it’s true.”
Mardine smiled sadly at him. “You don’t? You don’t see me?”
“What do you mean?” Long asked, but he knew: she’d been dead, and now she wasn’t. Janks had been dead, and now he wasn’t. The End – the original End – had shown an odd fascination for the captain. The End had also taken Long’s voice, and yet he’d regained it. And Long and Mardine had managed to conceive a child, against all reason. Long and his crew had fallen hundreds of feet into the ground and no one had been killed. And who could say what other coincidences had been his doing?
Long hung his head, beaten.
“I don’t think…I don’t think it’s safe to raise Esmine around you, sweet,” Mardine said.
“But Em,” Long protested, “you know me! I’d never hurt you two for the world!”
Tears drenched Mardine’s face, but her jaw was set, and her eyes were clear. “Never on purpose, no. But I can’t allow any more accidents, either.”
Mahnus’ mortal heart broke.
*****
Things were quiet in camp that night -- profoundly, soul-searchingly quiet. The group had fragmented back into its original components, more or less, with the men and giants around separate fires. Only Aoife seemed willing and able to cross between the two, and she still required assistance to move.
Vykers had almost made peace with everything that had happened that day when Hjuest brought him sad news: Igraine had hanged herself. They’d found her, half-seated, at the foot of a cedar, her belt wrapped around her neck on the lowest tree limb. Knowing he’d never be able to return to his own body, Turley had chosen to die. Vykers thought back to Arune’s sacrifice and realized it had cost more than he initially imagined. Arune may have made her choice, but it was Vykers who’d killed Turley. This brought the Frog to mind -- Tadpole. Even when violence wasn’t his intent, the Reaper still managed to get people killed. And, when he thought about it, Arune, Igraine and Turley had all died twice, while he’d never died once. Maybe it would be best for everyone if Vykers went off somewhere alone. Maybe the world didn’t really need a weapon that killed friends along with foes. After all, where was the victory in indiscriminate death?
Unexpectedly, Yendor approached him with a pot of liquor.
“Share a drink with an old man?” he asked.
Vykers drank.
*****
Out in the snow, hidden by the Svarren witch’s magic, Omeyo and his mate watched the death of the End with no little amount of satisfaction. The general had only ever suffered in the master’s service, and while Omeyo had landed on a fate unwished for and unforeseen, he was neither dead, nor in service to anyone.
Upon the End’s death, the rest of the Svarren – those who survived the cold – shook off their stupor and resumed their trek southward.
Omeyo and his witch would join them – not as followers, but as rulers. Finally, Omeyo felt, he was in charge of his own destiny.
-- Epilogue –
The air was warmer when everyone awoke the following morning, and patches of blue sky peeped through the treetops as if to announce that winter had finally come to an end. This did little to buoy anyone’s mood, however, in the aftermath of a conflict that most were still unable to comprehend.
The Queen was Alheria? The End had been her son? The other fellow was Mahnus? Madness! Even the evidence of one’s own eyes seemed impossible to credit. Were it not for the Reaper’s stoic acceptance of these revelations, the whole affair would have seemed a fever dream, the result of an illness none knew they had.
Folks gathered around the camp’s various fires, but no one spoke, or, if they did, it was only briefly and in whispers. Reality itself felt fragile, and the whole company seemed to hold its collective breath for fear of shattering the world beyond repair or reclamation.
Only the Reaper seemed unaffected, but then, he was still drunk from Yendor’s magic liquor. He attempted a conversation with Aoife, but she was still too weak to make sense of things, and Vykers found his thoughts drifting off towards Arune and Turley. Aoife was alive, and they were not. Vykers could neither celebrate nor mourn.
Around midday, both giants and men began assembling their gear. As everyone was packing to leave, a stranger appeared in camp. At least, he’d looked like a stranger when Vykers first saw him. He was so emaciated and badly scarred, he was almost unrecognizable. When he opened his mouth to speak, however, the Reaper knew him at once.
“Historian. How did you find me?”
“How else? Her Majesty told me where you could be found.”
Vykers scowled. “She can’t leave well enough alone, can’t she?”
“Reaper,” the Historian rasped, “War is coming.”
“Coming? When has it ever stopped?”
The Historian fell over, and Kittins just caught him before he hit the ground. Still, the Ahklatian was conscious. “The Emperor whose men you defeated across the sea has come to eliminate you.”
Vykers had several good qu
ips in mind, but something in the Historian’s demeanor dissuaded him from such things. “How many troops?”
“All of his legions. The largest army in the history of the world.”
Coming from a historian, this was most dire news.
“Even now,” the Historian wheezed, “there are tens of thousands of ships approaching our eastern shores.”
“Any of ‘em carrying those big steel monsters?”
“Many.”
The Reaper discovered the eyes of everyone in camp upon him. “Who’s up for a fight?” he grinned.
-- The End –
Appendix A
Cast of Characters
Tarmun Vykers, A.K.A, “the Reaper” – a legendary warrior
Arune – A spectral Burner, one-time friend of Vykers who has stolen his body
Captain Kittins, A.K.A. the “Dead ‘Un” – An officer in Her Majesty’s Army
General Omeyo – Eyatu’s mortal general
Aoife – An A’Shea or “Mender”
Too-Mai-Ten-La, A.K.A. “Toomt’-La” – a satyr, born of Aoife
Long, A.K.A, Long Pete – a former captain in Her Majesty’s Army
Mardine – His wife, a giantess
Esmine – their child
Nelby – Esmine’s nanny, a former thrall
Innoman – a slaver
Eoman Harkin Hainen – King of the Giants
Karrakan – a giant shaman
Beesmarch – a giant
Zillia – a giantess
Tinalia – a Svarra
Baris – her son
Gorivar – a half-Svarren mage
Yendor Plotz – A drunk and friend to Long
Spirk Nessno – A Shaper and friend to Long
Ron – an archer and friend to Long and Spirk
Remuel Wratch, A.K.A. “Rem,” -- a famous actor
Her Majesty, Alheria, A.K. A. “the Virgin Queen” – Ruler of the Central or Midlands Kingdoms, and Goddess of Earth, Nature and life
Cindor – Her First Shaper
Corpse Cold (Immortal Treachery Book 3) Page 44
