The Surah Stormsong Trilogy

by H. D. Gordon

  Surah made sure to look into the red, glowing eyes of the creatures as she killed them, her face streaked with the Demons’ blood, her hands slick with it.

  After what felt like both a lifetime and an eye blink, all the Demons who had entered her Territory lie dead on the ground, their bodies still warm and twitching, their cries of agony toned down to the moans of the doomed.

  It was like music to her ears, food to her soul. Above her head, which was thrown back in exhilaration, the pregnant gray clouds burst open and rained down upon her. Lightning lit up the sky, striking with blinding force. Thunder followed, loud and angry, the sound so forceful as to rattle the earth.

  Surah let the rain wash over her, and shed her cloak with a swift movement. It floated to the blood-soaked ground beside her. Blades and weapons of all sorts were attached to her person, which was all muscles and curves. She pushed some of her lavender hair out of her face and looked toward the portal, her expression that of a woman with nothing at all to lose.

  Which was something, because there was literally everything to lose, wasn’t there?

  This question left her mind before it could settle. She stared into the portal, and in a voice not quite her own called, “Is that all?”

  Of course, silence was the only response, though she had not gone unheard. Not in the slightest.

  A laugh sounded, and it took her a minute to realize that it was she whom was laughing. It sounded off somehow, but sure enough, she felt the sensation in her own chest. And then she was laughing so hard that she was clutching her knees, wrapping an arm around her stomach.

  The sight and sound of this was very much disturbing under the circumstances. Bodies of Demons lay dead all around her. Her hands and face were streaked with blood. That black presence swirled behind her eyes.

  She had killed the Demons, yes, but who had truly won?

  “Is that all?” she called again, her laughter drying up like dead leaves in the fall. Silence came back at her. This only seemed to fuel her rage.

  “That all you got?” she all but screamed.

  CHAPTER 44

  BLACK HEART

  Is that all? That all you got?

  The question both amused and angered him. The Sorceress had clearly gone mad with her possession of the Black Stone, no doubt due to the fact that she’d never been cut out to wield such power in the first place. It had taken him years to be able to master the Dark Arts, and much like the royal she was, Surah Stormsong just assumed that she was worthy of doing the same in a day.

  What a fool she was. How arrogant. How entitled. He would see to it that he wiped that grin off her face. He would finally make her pay for all the wrong that had been done to him. To him, and to so many others. He knew the Sorcerer people were watching, knew they were hiding in their holes and staring into their cheap crystal balls, and taking a side in the match they were witnessing.

  And maybe some of them were rooting for him. Some of them had to be, because Black Heart refused to believe that the whole lot of them were fools. Also, that blackness in their queen’s eyes had to be having some sort of impact. In trying to prove that she could protect them, Surah was sacrificing her soul.

  All in all, despite her having slayed a hundred of Dagon’s Demons with disconcerting ease, things were going well. He couldn’t care less if the Sorceress painted every inch of the Territory with Demon blood (the same could be said about his feelings toward the Fae Warriors who would soon be joining the battle, though this was not something he would tell his dear Tristell) as long as he took down the last of the Stormsong line. Once she was dead, the throne to the Sorcerer Kingdom would be as open as a good book, free for the taking.

  And once the people saw Surah fall to him, who would dare stand in his way? Who would dare deny him the power he would clearly have earned?

  No one, that was who.

  She may have killed those first Demons, but that had been nothing more than a test run, a dipping of his toes in the water. In doing so, he had learned that she had indeed divided the Hunter forces, sending them to protect the Sorcerer people, rather than her and her castle. Not only had she done this, but she’d sealed all the entrances into the Territory save for the portal at which she stood. Foolish girl, she was.

  He held the box out in front of him now, staring into the depthless darkness inside. In it, he saw all the things he had worked and waited so long for, the future he would build with Tristell by his side, the new world the two of them had imagined. A world where Sorcerer and Fae intermingled, strengthening their forces by being together, and treating all as equals who lived among them.

  In theory, it was not as bad of an idea as one may expect from him, but theory and practice do not always walk hand in hand, and sometimes the worst of things came from the best of intentions.

  Also, how could one rule justly when there was nothing left but hate in their heart?

  Gritting his teeth, he sent the rest of the Demons through the portal. He would let them weaken her, draw out the last of her strength. Even with the Black Stone hanging around her neck, Surah Stormsong could not fight forever. She would tire, and when she did, he would come through the portal and deliver the death that she deserved.

  Before the eyes of Gods and men, he would slaughter her, and when he did, whomever should stand at her side—kin and stranger alike—would follow the same fate.

  Now it was his turn to laugh. It was an ugly, cackling sound that echoed in the fiery realm of the Underworld. He threw his head back and laughed much in the same manner the Sorceress had affected moments ago, his body wracking with the power of it.

  Even if she called every Sorcerer Hunter she had to her aid right now, it would not be enough to defeat what he had planned for her. The forces he had gathered were too great, the odds too heavily stacked.

  Was that all? Was that all he had?

  No, dearest Surah, he thought, the laughter still bubbling up his throat. That was not all. That was not all by a long shot.

  In fact, the battle had only just begun, the blood spilled only a fraction of what was to come. Of this, he was certain.

  Black Heart was all in, had every chip in the center of the table, and there was no turning back now. No retreat, and no surrender.

  Today would be a day of death, and from the ashes, he would be the one to rise.

  CHAPTER 45

  CHARLIE

  Arrol left, bidding them farewell, opting for the door this time rather than the smashed window. Aria sighed, looking down at the shattered glass on her living room floor. “Mr. Rogers won’t be happy about that,” she said, as if to herself.

  Charlie was practically jumping out of his skin to get to Surah, even though he knew Aria would have to come with him and this would likely put her in terrible danger. Maybe it was just the whole situation, but his gut was telling him something was wrong, that he needed to return to his own land post haste.

  “I can fix that with a little Magic when we get back,” he said, nodding at the broken window, his handsome face grave, “but we gotta go, darlin’.”

  “You can fix broken glass with Magic?” she asked.

  “You can fix almost anything with Magic, trick is not to go breakin’ it further.”

  Aria nodded, switching her wooden bow to her left hand, holding her right out to Charlie. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go then. Let’s go save your world.”

  She smiled as she said this, and the sight of it tore at his heart. There was so much innocence behind it, so much blind faith—the kind of hope one can only find in the eyes of a child. For a moment, Charlie wasn’t sure he could do it. He wasn’t sure he could let her risk everything to help him. He stared at her extended hand—it was so small, given so freely—but did not take it.

  This was wrong, and the ends didn’t justify the means. Then again, how could he leave his beloved to face all that she was facing alone?

  There was no right answer here, no clear path, no black and white.

  Aria sta
red at him with green eyes brighter than any he’d ever seen, and she used the hand she’d held out to him to push some of her red-brown hair out of her face. She still held her wooden bow in the other. “Alright,” she said. “I see you’re having trouble with this, so I’m going to help you out again.”

  Charlie hardly had time to process this before Aria grabbed fast hold of his arm, and once again, he found himself falling into nothingness, as if the floor had opened up and swallowed him whole.

  Just before he had fallen into the portal, he would swear he heard the Halfling girl say, “Uh, oh,” before her voice was lost in the void.

  ***

  As soon as they landed on the other side of the portal, the reason for Aria’s utterance became clear. They hit the hard earth with an impact that rattled his teeth, jolted up his spine. His head spun for a moment before his vision cleared and he was able to take in the scene before him.

  They had landed in a field, and a look to the west told him that it was just outside the Sorcerer City. The sky was spitting cold rain, as if trying to wash away the gore that was covering the grass at their feet.

  Demons circled above their heads, screeching and screaming. Wind whipped at his face, his hair, tugged at his clothes like an insistent child. Chaos stormed, thunder rumbled. And in the midst of all this was his Surah.

  Her eyes were an awful swirling black. Her hands, her face, her clothes soaked in blood.

  All of this Charlie Redmine took in in a matter of seconds, for a moment later Aria was tugging on his arm and screaming at him to duck.

  Charlie snapped to attention just in time to avoid the talons of a swooping, screaming Demon. It came at him again out of seemingly nowhere, but Aria smacked it on the head with her wooden bow. The Demon stumbled back, wings beating wildly at the air, dazed.

  Raising her bow again, Aria shooed the creature away the way one might a fly, or an annoying pet. To Charlie’s complete and utter amazement, the Demon took off, flying in the direction of the others, whose sole focus seemed to be killing Surah.

  “Pretty sure that makes three times I’ve saved your life, Sorcerer,” Aria grinned.

  Charlie didn’t respond. In fact, he hadn’t even heard her. He was too busy staring at the scene they’d been thrust into, the horror that was unfolding before him like a bad dream. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he looked at Surah, at what had become of her in his absence.

  He hardly recognized the woman he loved. She had the same lavender hair, the same perfect figure, the same angelic face and fine clothes, but the Sorceress slaying Demon after Demon before him was not his Surah Stormsong.

  Her once-violet eyes were a writhing, inky black. Her face was set and emotionless. She moved through the air with the grace of a God and the avenging action of a Dark Angel. She blinked in and out of sight—spinning, teleporting, slicing. The black blood of the Demons sprayed and spurted. Her hair hung wet and dripping, flipping around her as if in a dance of its own.

  Charlie had never seen such a thing, had only ever heard stories. It was just as the tales had said, just as recognizable as a deformity. Surah had gone crazy with Dark Magic, had fallen under the full clutches of the Black Stone, which Charlie saw hung close around her neck.

  Surah took no note of him, only continued on in her devastating death-dance, killing Demon after Demon, using more and more Dark Magic with every second that passed by.

  The true horror of the situation struck home then. All of these thoughts and realizations came to him in a matter of only moments, so fast that his head all but spun on his shoulders.

  Surah had opened a portal right here, had decided to take on his brother on her own, and she was doing so with an amount of Black Magic that could crush the strongest of warriors into nothing.

  She was doing so at the cost of her own soul.

  Charlie Redmine had never loved her more than he did in that moment, and his heart had never ached so terribly as well, because even if Surah could kill every Demon and Fae that came at her, she would still be lost, drowned in the darkness of the Black Stone.

  He could only pray that it was not too late, that there was still a part of her that could be reached. If he had a chance at doin that, he needed to remove the Black Stone from her, to finish the killing on his own. Just by looking at her now, he could see that this would be nearly impossible. He’d have a better shot at stealing a steak from a tiger.

  In the small moments he took to conclude this, Demons continued to spill out of the wound in the sky, the rain continued to fall, and the blood continued to spill.

  Charlie turned to Aria, told her to get somewhere safe, and barely heard his own words for all the chaos around him and the numbness in his chest.

  “I’m comin’, Surah,” he said to himself, and moved into the fray.

  CHAPTER 46

  SURAH

  She did not have the time or the mind to pause and contemplate it, but she could feel herself tiring. It was an odd sensation, not like the fatigue one may feel after a long day of physical activity, but a kind of draining at her core, as if something more than just energy was slowly being sucked away from her.

  This was a very background concern at the moment, however. Her battery would run out when it ran out, but up until it did, she would continue what she’d started… but some part of her knew that she was approaching depletion. How many Demons had she killed already? The number was too great to know, the bits of their rotten bodies too disfigured to count.

  And more just kept on coming. Watching them spill from the portal she’d created in a seemingly endless supply should have terrified her, but there was an emptiness in her gut she’d never experienced before, as if an auto-pilot button had flipped on inside her, but rather than driving her, it was driving her to kill.

  From somewhere too close, a familiar voice cut into her battle-induced haze, and she took her eyes away from the attacking Demons for only a moment to see that Charlie was here. The sight of him stirred nothing at all within her, and she continued on in her rampage as though he were not even there.

  A thought bubbled up in her mind that she was not entirely sure was her own: Better stay out of my way.

  CHAPTER 47

  BLACK HEART

  For the first time since he could ever remember, the sight of his brother did nothing to stir his emotions.

  Charlie appeared on the battlefield in the same fashion as the Demons (the lot of which were diminishing just a touch sooner than he’d anticipated, but this was of no concern just yet) falling out of the portal and hitting the ground with a jar.

  Black Heart viewed this through the eyes of the Demons, and his physical form, which was still in the Underworld and still clutching the Demon-controlling box, was sweaty with exertion. He was ready to jump into the game.

  Charlie had made his choice, and Michael had made his. He’d given his little brother ample opportunity to join him, to make the right move, and Charlie had spat in his face for it.

  The Sorceress was getting tired, this he could also see through the eyes of the Demons, and the time to make the final strikes was at hand. Tucking the box into the folds of his cloak, Black Heart followed the last of his Demons through the portal, out of the Underworld, and into the Territory that he would soon call his own.

  And since it had to be done, he felt he should be the one to take out Charlie. He felt he owed his little brother that.

  CHAPTER 48

  CHARLIE

  The thing that became apparent very quickly was that they were outmatched. There was no way Charlie was going to get close enough to Surah to take the Black Stone from her because he could barely move two feet in her direction without having to fight off a Demon.

  There were just so many of them, hundreds, and they blotted out the gray sky, which had only grown darker. It lit up at varying intervals with tremendous strikes of lightning, as if the Gods themselves were displeased.

  Charlie was no stranger to fighting, and Surah was the best of warr
iors he’d ever personally met, but it was obvious that even she was tiring. Even with all the power of the Black Stone—and perhaps, because of the power of the Black Stone—she could not destroy this army on her own. Sooner or later, her body would give into exhaustion. And then… Well, then his brother would come through the portal and try to kill her.

  As if the thought had summoned him, Black Heart appeared out of the gaping hole in the sky on the heels of what Charlie could only pray was the last of the Demons he commanded. He landed in front of Charlie with a grimace, a Fireball forming between his hands.

  Before Charlie could say a word, Black Heart launched the Fireball at him. He moved just quickly enough to avoid a direct hit, and the ball of flames skimmed his shoulder, instantly scorching through the fabric and burning the skin there before dying out in the driving rain.

  Another Fireball was already forming in Black Heart’s hands, and he met Charlie’s eyes now with what might have been regret, if Charlie hadn’t know better. “You always did love the Fire Magic best, Charlie-Boy,” his brother called, yelling as to be heard over the thunder and the rain, the chaos and the death cries. “It used to make you smile when we were kids. You remember that?”

  He launched the Fireball at Charlie, who was ready this time, and moved out of the way before it could touch him. “I remember,” Charlie said. “That was back before you went insane. I can’t let you hurt her, Michael.”

  Black Heart’s eyes flicked toward Surah, who was more than busy taking out the Demons. He shook his head, electric blue sparks sizzling at the ends of his fingertips. “And you can’t save her either. Even if you were able to beat me.” An awful grin spread over his face. “She’s too far gone now.”

  The words were like a fist to Charlie’s gut. He’d thought of this, of course, but hearing it spoken aloud was somehow infinitely more powerful. He wasn’t aware of it, but his hand was clenched tight around the dagger Aria had given him, his teeth gritted, shoulders tense.