by Alan Baxter
He staggered backwards, pain flaring even against his protections. He smelled his hair burning, saw his clothes crisp, and turned. He ran, ducked behind the creature that had held Silhouette, still motionless and inert.
Claude’s voice called out, slurred and thick as he regained semi-consciousness. ‘Let me out! I can help you!’
Alex laughed. ‘Fuck you, Darvill. I gave you every chance you’ll ever get.’
Alex ran, let his magic flood his system and powered preternaturally enhanced legs up the shallower slope of the valley. Fey swarmed across the valley floor, Robert Hood at their head. The Lady stood, glorious, furious, surrounded by a nimbus of raw power. Alex breathed deep, desperate to control the adrenaline that surged through him. He was against ridiculous odds, facing the Lady and Hood simultaneously, the pair of them backed by hundreds of Fey. And Armour miles away. It was insane. Suicide.
He ducked into a crease of rock and grass as more of the Lady’s sizzling magefire burned past him. ‘Just kill him!’ she shouted. ‘And bring his corpse to me before he cools, or you will all pay!’
A thought flitted past Alex’s mind. Before I cool? Perhaps her magic to save the Darak was only good in the instants after his death. If he died and stayed out of her grasp for long enough, perhaps the Darak would be unrecoverable after all. Perhaps was not good enough.
He leapt from cover as the pounding, stammering Fey forms flicker-ran and drew close. Their hands raised and crackling magefire burst forth. Their long legs outpaced Hood and he heard the man howling frustration from their midst. Alex had never felt more alive, his magic never stronger. The Darak pulsed rapidly, hammering in time with his heart, and he let his magesign surround him, let his shades bulge out into a shield of pure will. The Fey attacks burst and splashed against his defences, dissipating in all directions. The sword he wielded felt alive in his hands, even deflected some of the assaults, Fey howling as the magic ricocheted into them. The tricks Emma had taught him, in conjunction with his own experience and the amazing weapon, were proving most effective. But for how long? He couldn’t maintain this level of effort indefinitely.
Alex laughed, rushing hard on adrenaline, fear, exultation. He ducked forward, drove his mind and his magic into the earth in front of him and agitated it up into a wave of soil and rock and shale, pulling the very ground from underneath the advancing Fey like a giant rug. Some of them, sharper-eyed, more fleet of foot, leapt and dodged, avoided the tsunami of substrate. As they landed and rushed Alex, he swept Darvill’s arcane blade in a wide arc, laughed maniacally as it passed through three Fey bodies with ease. They fell, gouting gore, and he had barely felt the drag of the blow. All kinds of magic hammered his shields, but for now at least, his protections held. The Fey tried to surround him, shifted into monstrous forms of tooth and claw, blasted him with arcane flames.
He moved with graceful ease, his years of training working without conscious thought. He danced left and right, shot forward and back, marvelled at the deadly power of the weapon he wielded as Fey fell before him in droves. His swordsmanship was skilled. He was never more thankful for the traditional weapons training of his ancient system of kung fu, and coupled with this sword he felt invincible. The hilt pulsed in his hands as if alive. He switched from single- to double-handed strokes and sweeps with ease, the sword a flawless partner in a sublime ballet of martial perfection.
With the more agile attackers dealt with, Alex dodged bolts of the Lady’s glittering fire and ran for the ridge top before the others could regain their footing. He heard Hood’s roar as the man pushed through to get to him. The words of Sun Tzu, eternal wisdom from The Art of War, flashed in his mind. You can and must choose the ground over which you battle. There was no question he was at war now and he needed to take active control of anything he could. This valley was the Lady’s chosen arena. He needed to establish his own.
‘Fall back,’ the Lady yelled. ‘Let the Hood creature have him!’
Even as she spoke, she threw more blistering fire at him, but Alex’s senses were alive like never before. He saw with a clarity born of absolute need and easily leapt aside, sweeping the sword in a defensive arc as he moved. The sea of Fey rolled back and he stared down the steep slope into the dark, angry eyes of Robert Hood.
Hood ground his teeth, winced and peeled back his lips with the effort of trying to retain some autonomous control. Alex could see the struggle raging behind the lunatic’s eyes.
‘I may be somewhat compromised,’ Hood spat between clenched teeth. ‘But if nothing else, I will see you dead this night, Alex fucking Caine!’ Hood staggered as some invisible bond was released and he ran forward, head low, arms pumping.
‘Bring it, you pain in my arse!’ Alex yelled, and ran for the top of the ridge. The ground levelled off a little before the top, became grassier, and Alex sprinted across it. He dived over the crest to find himself on a similar gradient slope leading down the other side, another thin river glittering at the bottom among rocky outcrops. He glanced left and smiled to see the river feeding into a huge lake in the valley floor. Narrow, constrained by the geography, it stretched maybe two kilometres in length. There was his battleground.
He gained his feet and ran down, traversing the steep side to make the descent easier and give him a chance to see the lay of the land, all the time heading for the centre of the lake’s length. The full moon rode high, illuminating the few wisps of cloud in the otherwise clear, cold sky. It limned the ground in silvery light, almost as bright as day, glittered reflections on the water below.
As he ran, movement caught his eye. He braced, raised the sword high over his right shoulder, ready to sweep it down. A smokey grey cat loped over to him, morphed into Silhouette as she reached him and gathered him into a tight hug.
‘Alex, come on. We have to run.’
‘No. I’m standing here. This is where I fight.’
Silhouette’s eyes widened. ‘Against those odds? Are you insane?’
‘I might be. No time to talk, they’re coming. I don’t believe for a second she really wants the Fey to fall back. She’ll send Hood to occupy me while they flank me.’
Hood appeared at the crest of the ridge and hollered Alex’s name. He tipped forward and barrelled straight towards them.
Silhouette dragged at Alex’s arm. ‘You can’t face an army on your own, Alex! Please!’
He finally paused, took her chin gently in one hand, kissed her. ‘I have to fight. The Lady is here and she controls Hood. Think about the implications of that!’
Silhouette nodded, shrugged. ‘Right. Then I fight with you.’ She held up a hand. ‘Fuck you, Iron Balls, together or not at all.’
He kissed her again. ‘And Jarrod?’
Her face saddened briefly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Alex Caine!’ Hood roared again as he closed the distance.
Alex caught Silhouette’s attention, his eyes intense. ‘Use your cat form, keep moving, take out fuckers from the edges. Make space for me to face him.’
Silhouette held his gaze one second more, nodded. She slipped into her graceful feline shape and melted away. In the night, even bathed in moonlight, she was better camouflaged than a shadow.
Alex turned and pounded down the slope, heading straight for the lake.
‘Face me, Caine!’ Hood yelled behind him.
Alex let momentum carry him, legs flying, hoping desperately he didn’t trip and fall. As the lake neared, he cast his will towards it, used his elemental skills to gather the water together, draw its molecules tight, thicken it as his foot hit the edge. Like wet rubber, it held his weight. He put his mind at every point his foot headed and ran from land straight across without breaking stride. ‘Like Jesus fucking Christ!’ he shouted with a laugh and sprinted across the five hundred or so metres to the other side.
Hood growled in anger and frustration, but didn’t slow. He splashed furiously into the water and kept running, got deeper and deeper, grimacing against the effort of keeping up h
is pace against the wet drag. His head went under and Alex knew the man still ran, driving his feet into the lake bed.
For a moment there was calm. Alex backed away from the lake’s far edge, the huge body of water between him and the Fey army. They would hopefully have to come around, but even if they came through it would buy him time.
With a roar and a furious splashing, Hood burst into the air on the edge right before him, still running.
Alex raised the sword and moved backwards as he called out to Hood, ‘Come on then, you useless fucking tool.’
Hood snarled, gathering speed. Alex continued back. He slipped his mind between the rocks at his feet. As Hood closed the distance, almost close enough to touch, Alex leapt up, splitting the rock he left behind. The stone crumbled, a fissure opened in the earth, and Hood found himself running on air. His momentum kept him moving and he fell and tumbled, flipping and bouncing with bone-jarring impact.
Alex knew the fall would do Hood no damage, but it would disorient the bastard. Alex landed, drew breath to focus and let his consciousness form the shape of the Eld magic he had learned from Halliday’s grimoire. It felt stronger this time around, more natural, more contained. But it was still massively powerful, designed to be wielded by a team. It stretched and tore at the edges of Alex’s mind, pushed and ground at his muscles and bones. With a howl of pain, he let it go, tried to focus it in a tight, narrow blast, intending to blow Hood into a million tiny shards.
But the release was more shotgun blast than rifle shot. The earth exploded around the tumbling Hood, bursting up like a mine had gone off. Hood flew up with it, a rag doll and screaming. He landed heavily, rolled bonelessly across the grass and rock, yelling in pain. His flesh was split and torn, his head and face striated with damage like a cracked hardboiled egg. He staggered groggily to his feet, keening in some combination of hurt and fury, even as his body reknitted.
Alex ran at him, gathering the magic again as he moved. As Hood shook his head to clear his sight, crouched for impact, Alex let the Eld sorcery out again. Hood braced as if against a terrible wind, his expression twisting in pain as his skin split and flayed. Sheets of flesh tore from his face, fluttering back behind him like leaves in a stiff autumn breeze. He opened his mouth wide, teeth exposed, lips gone, and yelled some broken, crabbed phrase in a language Alex hoped never to hear again.
Alex closed the gap and brought his sword arcing around. Hood raised both arms to protect himself and the blade bit deep into the flesh and bone, and wedged there. The weapon that had easily carved through three Fey torsos stopped dead halfway through Hood’s skinny forearms.
Hood laughed, his visage hideous as skin and muscle grew back across his skull like fast forward film of mould spreading. He laughed and twisted, his immense strength lifting Alex by the sword, and he threw his body sideways. Alex refused to relinquish his grip on the hilt and it dragged for a fraction of a second before ripping free of Hood like an axe from stubborn hardwood.
Alex hit the ground and rolled. Hood glanced briefly at his cleaved forearms as they healed, eyes wide in shock and more than a little anger, then rushed forward. Alex had no time to get the sword up to defend himself, could only thrust out one leg. His heel caught Hood low in the gut and the thin man bent double over it, breath bursting out. Alex twisted, drove his upper back into the ground, used his power to turn his other leg steel hard and whipped a kick across Hood’s head.
Hood slammed sideways and Alex rolled with the motion of his attack, regained his feet. He drew the sword high, but Hood was fast. He sprang back and drove both fists into Alex’s chest.
Alex’s vision crossed, white sparks of pain danced through his eyes as he was lifted up and back, all breath gone. He thought his heart would burst. He hit the ground, rolled, forced himself onto hands and knees, the sword blade reflecting moonlight across the grass as he pushed his knuckles down, refused to collapse. His eyes watered, his throat wheezed as he desperately dragged air in. His muscles, jelly weak, threatened to drop him face-first onto the dirt. His ribs felt cracked from the impact of Hood’s fists and Alex focused on that pain, used it to drive himself on. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and came up onto his knees, whipped the sword wildly across in front of him. It thudded into something and jammed there and Hood yelled.
Alex blinked his vision clear, saw his blade stuck in Hood’s upper left arm even as Hood’s right arm hammered down. Alex raised his free hand and met the jarring impact as he drove his will into the limb to strengthen it. He felt his bones bend and threaten to snap, his knees dug into the earth, but he held. He wrenched the sword free, drove himself to his feet and kicked out, his heel thrusting up under Hood’s chin. The indestructible bastard lifted clean off his feet, flew backwards.
‘You might be strong and hard to kill, but you’re no fucking fighter!’ Alex shouted and ran forward. He swung the sword again, double-handed, swiping fast and continuous figure eights with the blade across Hood’s fallen form.
Hood flailed both arms in front of his face, yelled incoherently as gaps were sliced open in his flesh. He kicked out, forcing Alex to jump backwards to avoid being swept to the ground. In the moment’s reprieve, Hood leapt to his feet and backed up. They faced each other across several metres of rock-strewn, moonlit grass.
Alex kept his eyes focused on Hood, but in his peripheral vision he saw movement, above to the right, and further along the ridge. He circled, tried to see back the other way and saw movement there too. The Fey horde was advancing from all along the crest, splitting in two groups as they headed for either end of the lake to come around and pincer him. Any moment they would surely start to unleash magical attacks across the water. His battleground was quickly becoming compromised, but he had some time. He redoubled the concentration of his shields.
A flash of grey shot along the ridge high to one side and a flurry of movement burst out. He smiled inwardly — Silhouette running interference for him. But it was small consolation. There was little she could really do against the hundreds of Fey out there. He dodged as Hood bullrushed him, spun on his heel and dropped to one knee, brought the sword blade whistling around at the back of Hood’s knee.
Hood howled and collapsed, the blade wedged more than halfway through the limb. Alex wrenched it free. Hood stumbled to his feet, staggered and tripped on his useless leg before it closed over and was whole once more. He grinned. ‘You may be able to nip at me like a little dog, Caine, but you are no real threat.’
Alex knew his strength was waning. Fatigue started to bite deep at his bones. He drew on the Darak, focused the Eld magic, hefted the reassuring weight of the powerful sword. ‘I’m more of a threat … than you realise,’ he said, his voice a breathless hiss. But his focus was still sharp.
All things are duality, Alex, all things yin and yang. From the purely physical, hand and foot working in unison, to the spiritual, body and mind united, acting as one. All things are more powerful when combined, all things weak in isolation. His Sifu’s words echoed across the years. Alex had things he needed to combine.
He ran forward, let the blast of Eld magic go. It slammed into Hood, drove him backwards, and Alex ran with it. He tried to focus the mental attack on Hood’s limbs and grinned as the suit shredded away, the flesh splitting and fracturing beneath like snapped wood. Hood roared, drove his heels into the ground to return the attack and Alex swung the sword, aimed for a point on Hood’s arm where it seemed the magic had done the most damage. Where Hood’s flesh was broken, Alex sliced, and he yelled in triumph as Hood’s left arm severed just below the elbow.
The limb spun away, hit the dirt still twitching, the fingers grabbing at air. Hood stopped, stared dumbfounded at the stump. ‘No!’
Alex gathered and released the magic again, ducked low with it as Hood struck out wildly with his right arm. The Eld incantation blistered into Hood’s legs and Alex concentrated on a point just above the knee where the magic damaged most deeply, and swept the sword into the gap. The
blade passed through and Hood fell screaming. Alex rolled up onto his feet, kicked the heavy limb away.
Hood pushed his remaining hand into the ground, rose up on knee and leg stump, his face a mask of disbelief and horror. Alex heard some deep, throbbing sound, imagined the hordes of Fey hammering around either end of the lake at him and knew he had to finish this. He drew everything he had and blasted out the Eld magic once more, hit Hood full in the face and chest with the wide, devastating blast of it. He focused on the man’s neck, watched the flesh strip away at the throat and brought his blade whistling around. Hood’s head spun up and away, howling his defiance and pain as he went. Alex kept the blade moving, kept his magic flowing out and hacked again, and again, divided Hood’s body into pieces. The right arm went one way, the torso cleaved in two, then three parts and Alex kicked them all away from each other.
As he gasped for breath, prepared to turn and face whatever came next, the throbbing became a deafening staccato barrage and he realised choppers were sweeping low over the valley. Mounted weapons flashed as ordnance exploded into the ground. Fifty calibre rounds tore up earth, water and Fey alike, air to ground missiles burst in concussive explosions of sound and light. Blasts of magic jetted from the Fey on the ground, wrapped the helicopters in wreaths of flickering blue and green flame. One aircraft went down, its rotors decimating a dozen Fey even as it hit the earth and crumpled in a burst of metal and glass. The others passed over, banked, came around for another pass. More blasts of magic arced from their open doors as Armour battlemages cast their attacks from the air.
Alex staggered away from the turmoil, dragged breath into his lungs.
‘Cavalry’s here,’ said a voice behind him. ‘Your tracking devices are obviously working.’
Alex spun around, sword rising, and grinned to see Jarrod. The big man was soaked through. ‘You made it.’
‘Yeah. You gave me enough room to wiggle free. Fortunately the dumb robot bug flew over a lake and I took the chance it was deep enough to catch me.’
