Give the Devil His Due

by Blackwell, Rob

  His eyes were drawn to Parker, who now seemed to be rallying other spiders to him. With a start, Janus realized he was dragging a trowe’s body on the ground. He was pulling it back from the attacking line, making Janus wonder if he was retreating.

  “What the hell are you up to, mate?” Janus muttered to himself.

  Parker was shouting at another spider, and then he started doing something odd. He poised himself on top of the dead trowe and started to wrap webbing around it. It was slow at first, but then it picked up speed. In less than 30 seconds, Parker had wrapped the trowe into a tight web.

  “Please don’t eat it,” Janus said out loud. “That would be so gross.”

  Instead, Parker tossed the cocooned trowe body to one of his companions, who flung a web at it like a string and swung it around and around in the air. Janus didn’t see the point until the spider released the web, catapulting the cocoon directly into a row of attacking trowe, knocking them over.

  It was the best bowling shot Janus had ever seen.

  “Strike!” Janus yelled in triumph.

  The other spiders immediately attacked the fallen trowe, stabbing many of them before they had a chance to get up. Janus watched Parker start his bowling maneuver again, dragging a trowe body back and beginning to wrap it in a web.

  He didn’t have time to see what happened next, however, as he heard a shrill scream from another part of the battlefield. Janus turned just in time to see Kate almost overwhelmed by mortlats.

  *****

  There were easily four dozen mortlats closing in around Kate, but the banshee’s scream stopped many in their tracks and forced others to stagger away. The ones it stopped fell to the ground, their snake-like heads writhing in obvious pain.

  But as the banshee stood like a screaming statue in white, several mortlats tried to approach her from the sides and rear.

  Watch your flank, they’re regrouping, Janus thought at her, wondering if she could hear him.

  Whether she heard him or not, she stopped screaming just as the first mortlats pounced at her from the side. She suddenly turned transparent for a moment, as two mortlats jumped at her from either side, intending to tear into her. Instead, one sailed right through her now incorporeal body and slammed into the other. In less than a second, the banshee appeared solid again, and she swung her sword into the two attacking mortlats, neatly cutting off one’s snake head from its leopard body.

  The mortlats in front of Kate had recovered from the scream and were coming at her again.

  “Ready, aim.”

  Janus heard a voice shouting and turned to see Buzz standing by a line of Civil War soldiers with their guns raised to their shoulders.

  “Fire!” Buzz shouted.

  All in one moment, the banshee again turned incorporeal, while the line of soldiers fired at the mortlats pounding toward her. The volley passed right through Kate, but connected with the mortlats, bringing down several and slowing others. It didn’t stop all of them, however, and the remaining mortlats charged past Kate, nearing the Civil War line.

  “Fix bayonets,” Buzz yelled just before they crashed into them.

  Janus watched as one mortlat leapt into the air and landed in the middle of a group of soldiers. The thing hissed at a soldier and then struck like a cobra, tearing a chunk of his neck. In a movement so quick Janus could barely see it, it reared back its head and decapitated another soldier. That was as far as the creature got, however. A soldier behind the mortlat jammed his bayonet into its side before it could leap away, and another stabbed it in the back. The mortlat tried to strike back at its attackers, but shuddered and fell to the ground.

  Janus could see fierce fighting all down the Civil War line, the mortlats pouncing and running between soldiers.

  “Fire at will,” he heard Buzz shout and there were scattered gun shots. Janus watched as some mortlats were hit and others leapt over their comrades to tear into the soldiers.

  Janus lowered his camera and looked up and down the line of soldiers.

  There aren’t enough, he thought.

  When the army had been marching, there seemed like so many. Now, committed on the field, their numbers felt far fewer. Maybe he had miscounted earlier, or perhaps it was just in comparison to the enemy’s forces. Janus looked out over the field with fighting trowes, soldiers, spiders and caorthannach. Despite the vast numbers already entangled with each other, he could see more lines of enemy soldiers moving up.

  Oh shit, he thought.

  A mass of new shapes were moving toward Buzz’s men. They ran forward on legs that looked like the hooves of a goat, but with a man’s body. Horns sprouted from their heads, curled forward and their faces were a mixture of human and beast. They carried short swords in their hairy arms. Dusios, Janus thought, though he knew these creatures had many names. The Romans had called them fauns. They came running at a sprint from the far hill, and Buzz and Kate appeared totally unaware of their existence. At their current speed, they would slam into the main line within a minute or two. Between the mortlats and the dusios, Janus didn’t think his side stood a chance.

  You’ve got a new brigade heading your way, Janus thought at Kate. At about your 3 o’clock.

  On the field, he watched as Kate gutted another mortlat and then whipped her head around to look in the direction Janus had noted. Apparently she could hear him after all. Janus heard her command even though it wasn’t meant for him.

  Elyssa, now! Kate thought.

  Janus heard a series of howls and a new creature practically ran him over as it burst past him and over the hill. It was large and black, almost the size of a bear, but it ran like a large cat. As it passed by, Janus got a glimpse of yellow eyes and rows of sharp, fanged teeth. He realized the animal that had run past him was Elyssa herself, in the form of a dobhar-chu.

  A huge pack of more dobhar-chus came right behind her, and Janus wondered where they’d come from. He didn’t think Elyssa had been given any soldiers. But the dobhar-chus behind Elyssa looked subtly different from her. While she was a mass of black fur, the others were white and made of… mist? Janus couldn’t describe it. Instead of actual dobhar-chus, they looked like ghosts of the legendary creatures.

  They’re wraiths, Janus realized.

  Quinn had mentioned that Kate had run into some and that they had even come through the portal with her. But Janus hadn’t seen any before now. There were scores of them, he realized, counting at least one hundred, then two hundred before stopping. He wasn’t sure where they’d been hidden, but they seemed to catch the enemy off guard as well. Elyssa’s pack plowed into the line of dusios without slowing down. Instead of racing toward the soldiers, the dusios were now struggling to survive against a new horde of beasts.

  Elyssa grabbed one dusio with her teeth, tearing it to shreds in a spray of blood and then tossing it back into a row of its companions. Her pack began to follow suit, ripping through the dusios as if they were made of tissue paper. Janus noticed something else about Elyssa. In addition to attacking, she periodically seemed to be herding her own pack back into the fray just as they seemed to go off track.

  She’s keeping them in line, Janus realized. Elyssa would howl and the pack would move in a new direction. He even watched as she nipped at a few who appeared to have trouble staying with the group.

  The dusios began to recover their composure even in the grip of panic. He watched as a few began to battle back using their horns and swords. Still, the ferocity of Elyssa’s initial push had already done tremendous damage. There must have been five times as many dusios and yet they seemed barely able to keep up with the pack of dobhar-chus.

  For the first time, Janus actually wondered whether they could win. He had always assumed the fight would be a tragic loss, a valiant but flawed effort. Yet now some hope kindled inside him, so much so he almost didn’t notice the fleeing Civil War soldiers running past him.

  *****

  At least two dozen soldiers sprinted by with panic and terror on the
ir faces. Many had dropped their weapons.

  Janus looked down to see the mortlats joined by new creatures that appeared silvery and fluid. They were all different shapes and sizes, and seemed able to change their shape at will. After a moment, Janus realized they were made of water. They were fuath, an evil water sprite his mum had told him about when he was a child. He remembered her telling him to stay away from a stream behind his childhood home. “If you aren’t careful, the fuath will take you and drown you,” she said.

  But like everything else in this world, the nightmare was now real and wreaking havoc along Buzz’s line. Kate was engaged among the mortlats, and Janus could still see the Headless Horseman almost single-handedly wiping out the caorthannach regiment. The fuath appeared to have taken everyone unawares. They moved among the soldiers, shooting out pillars of water and dragging men inside themselves to drown them. There weren’t many of them, maybe just two dozen, but they seemed invulnerable.

  The formation was falling apart. Janus saw soldiers trying to fight off the fuath, but their bullets did nothing and their bayonets passed right through them. The soldiers who weren’t dying were starting to run, fleeing even as some of the fuath flicked a tendril of water at them and pulled them back.

  The line is falling apart, Kate, Janus thought.

  Either Kate couldn’t hear him or she was too busy fighting the mortlats to respond. Meanwhile, Buzz was trying to keep his soldiers in order, retreating against an apparently unstoppable foe. The men needed to keep their wits about them or this battle would be over quickly.

  Janus realized he needed to help rally the troops and figure out a way to stop the fuath. He looked across the hill to see more soldiers running, some literally stumbling over each other in their haste to get away.

  Kate, I really need some help, Janus thought.

  She was tied up and he could see he was on his own. He had to do something. Bullets didn’t seem to harm the fuath, but maybe something larger would. He looked up along the hillside and saw the artillery blasting away at the caorthannach, helping Quinn. Janus ran among the panicked soldiers, some of them nearly knocking him over. He dodged between them, running as fast as he could. He arrived out of breath and grabbed the first soldier he could find.

  “Redirect your fire!” he shouted.

  Janus pointed to the fuath down below. The soldier nodded and waved over another soldier to help him redirect it. Janus was already moving on to the next cannon, and the one after that, until the entire artillery battery was shifting its line of fire.

  “Wait for my signal,” he shouted.

  I need some way to rally the troops, he thought desperately.

  It wouldn’t matter if the cannons worked if the troops were already demoralized. Janus had read enough history to know what happened when your troops broke. Many of them wouldn’t stop running until they were miles away. They might push back the fuath, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

  He needed a way to inspire the ones who were fleeing and he didn’t know how to do it. Janus looked down to see Buzz still standing at the front of the line, shouting encouragement and generally appearing immovable.

  Immovable.

  A memory tugged at Janus of something Quinn had once told him and he ran up the hill shouting at the soldiers to stop running. He didn’t know if he had any real powers, but in that moment he had to believe. He watched as soldiers continued to run past him.

  Show them their path, Janus thought. I can show them their path.

  “Listen to me!” he shouted and was startled how well his voice carried. He saw some men stop running, others at least slow down. Many turned to face him. He pointed at Buzz on the field, looking as if he were ready to fight the fuath all by himself. He wasn’t running anywhere.

  “There stands your general,” Janus shouted. “There stands Buzz like a stone wall! Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally! Rally behind the Virginians!”

  Janus gestured at the artillerymen.

  “Fire!” he screamed.

  Just as the lead fuath moved to grab Buzz, there was a massive series of explosions in the midst of the water sprites. The cannon shells fell all around the creatures, blowing them to pieces. One minute, more than twenty fuath lumbered across the field, and the next they were destroyed. Janus felt their pieces fall from the sky like rain. When the mist and smoke cleared, Buzz stood stock still on the field, soaking wet but unharmed.

  The men around Janus cheered, screaming both for him and their leader. The ones who had been running picked up their dropped weapons and began to pour back into the fight, reinforcing Buzz’s line.

  I did it, Janus thought. I actually did it. The line held.

  He was so proud of what he’d accomplished that he didn’t look up until it was too late. When he happened to see movement out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the sky. Before he could even take stock of what was happening, two sluagh had their claws into him.

  Help, he managed to think, hoping Kate could hear him.

  The sluagh grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted Janus into the air, managing to support his weight between the two of them. He waited for them to drop him to his death, but instead they did something worse. The sluagh carried him high over the battlefield directly toward the castle behind it.

  Chapter 41

  Kate heard the call in her head — a simple help — only a moment before she saw the shadows on the ground. She looked up to see a flock of sluagh flying overhead, but instead of attacking anyone on the ground below, they were tossing a man back and forth.

  Two of them would throw the screaming form into the air, letting him start to plunge toward earth before two others picked him up again.

  Help me, damn it!

  This thought was louder and more insistent, laced with unbridled terror. Kate sliced at a passing mortlat, decapitating it even while she stared at the form now rapidly being carried away from the battlefield.

  Quinn, they’ve got Janus, Kate thought.

  In her mind, she saw the Horseman launch another flurry of flaming pumpkins, then use his sword to knock back the caorthannach nearby. Several tried to grab him and pull him off his horse, but he hacked at them with renewed fury. He gave his horse a sharp kick, reared up, and launched himself out of the mob.

  The Headless Horseman galloped across the battlefield toward Kate, periodically deviating to slash at an enemy creature nearby. He skewered a trowe about to smash one of Parker’s spiders, then vaulted over a group of dusios before throwing a pumpkin at them. He cut across the field, sliced three mortlats in half and then pulled up with a start in front of the banshee.

  I have to go after them, he said.

  No, she thought loudly. You can’t.

  I have to go, Kate, Quinn thought. I won’t leave him there.

  We’ll get him when the battle’s over.

  He’ll be dead by then and you know it.

  The Horseman dismounted and stood by Kate in the middle of a mortlat horde. They continued fighting almost in unison, each flashing a sword in coordinated moves that left their opponents no chance of survival. The Horseman stabbed through a snake head, then used his sword to fling the dying creature at others moving behind them. The banshee sliced through the back half of one creature, then calmly raised her shield as another tried to pounce on her. Its head slammed into the shield with a thud and the banshee gutted the mortlat while it was still dazed from the impact.

  It’s a trap, Quinn.

  Of course it’s a trap. We knew Sanheim was going to pull something, Kate, we just didn’t know what.

  He’s trying to lure you to the castle to kill you himself.

  His overconfidence is his undoing. I can beat him.

  A line of trowe broke free from their fight with the spiders and ran forward in an attempt to reinforce the snake-headed mortlats. A flaming pumpkin caught their leader square in the chest. The next two were sliced apart by the banshee and the Horseman.

  I’m coming wi
th you, Kate said.

  You can’t leave this army, Quinn said. They look to you.

  I don’t care, Kate responded. I won’t lose you a second time.

  You won’t lose me, Kate. I promise.

  Not good enough. I’m coming with you. It’s not an option.

  Then we’ll fail, Quinn said. We need you here.

  I…

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a blast of green flames that slammed into the ground beside them. The explosion knocked the banshee and the Horseman off their feet and blew apart several mortlats and trowes at the same time.

  A woman in golden robes, carrying a spear and shield, landed on the battlefield in front of them. She pointed the spear and another jolt of green fire flew toward the banshee. The Horseman leapt into the air, grabbing the banshee and rolling with her several feet as the explosion struck where she’d been standing.

  The two jumped to their feet behind Kate’s shield.

  “I’ve come to bear a message,” Carman said. “My Lord Sanheim is going to publicly execute your friend unless you and your army surrender in the next ten minutes.”

  Kate…

  She wanted to argue, to insist they go together. But in the end, she knew there was no choice.

  Go, she said. But come back to me. Swear that you will.

  I swear on my soul, Quinn responded.

  There wasn’t even time for a goodbye. Instead, the Horseman immediately ran forward and caught his horse as it rode by, swinging himself into the saddle.

  Elyssa, Quinn needs help, Kate thought. I need you and the wraiths to cut a path straight toward that castle.

  The order given, she turned her attention back to the witch in front of her.

  “We will never surrender,” the banshee said in her raspy voice.

  “I’m sure Lord Sanheim doesn’t expect you to,” Carman said with a smug look. “He just wants you distracted.”

  “We are going to destroy you,” the banshee replied.

  “You poor fool,” Carman replied. “You’ve already lost, you just don’t know it yet.”