The Devil's Library: The Windhaven Chronicles

by Watson Davis

  “I see him,” Tethan bellowed back, slashing to the left with the axe in his right hand, and smashing into a soldier’s back to knock him aside. He darted forward several steps, bobbing beneath another man’s strike, sweeping out with his left-hand axe and chopping through the man’s leg just above the knee.

  An arrow struck Tethan in his thigh. He stumbled forward, dropping to one knee. Something exploded, the very air quaking, and the body of the mage who’d attacked Mitta flew backward through the air, flipping head over heels, his limp body trailing billowing black smoke.

  Tethan dropped his right-hand axe to the ground, grabbed the head of the arrow, and broke it off. Mitta ran past him, screaming, “Brightfoxes!”

  Tethan yanked the shaft of the arrow out of his wound and tossed it aside. He bounded to his feet, scooping his axe from the ground and followed Mitta, screaming, “Skybears!”

  A mage launched himself into the air, swirling winds beneath him lifting him up. He screamed, thrusting his hands together toward Tethan so that a gust of wind flowed from them, a hot wind.

  Tethan set himself, planting his feet on the stones, the fetid wind blasting into him, stinking of death and decay. Tethan choked and gagged on the stench. His slippery boots lost their traction, his back foot skidding out behind him. He landed on one knee, swiping an arrow out of the air with his axe, hurling his other axe up at the mage.

  The mage’s face shifted from glee to shock as the axe whipped through the winds. The mage watched it with wide eyes, his mouth hanging open until the blade buried itself in the man’s chest. The winds stopped. He plummeted to the ground, landing with a wet smack on the stone.

  Mitta hacked at an archer, twirling and beheading a mage, spinning once more to dodge an archer’s dagger, her axe hitting him in the groin.

  Leedy charged forward, slithering in between the archers, axe in one hand, dagger in the other, slicing and hacking archers and mages indiscriminately.

  Tethan staggered to his feet and rushed through the archers, through the mages, breaking through their lines.

  The commander stepped back, two swords in his hands—one long and thin, the other short—the blades glimmering with spells. He assumed a contorted position, his front foot raised off the stones and set against the inside of his right knee, his whole body balanced on that right leg, with the short blade pointing at Tethan and the long blade held over the commander’s helmet.

  Tethan sped toward him, raising his axe.

  The commander exploded forward, hurling himself from his back leg, moving toward Tethan faster than he’d expected a non-Onei to be capable of moving. The commander sliced down with his long blade, pulling his short blade back.

  Tethan cut upward with the axe in his left hand, attacking the long sword, his axe meeting the blade edge to edge. He expected to slice through the delicate blade, but the commander’s blade sank into the steel of Tethan’s axe.

  Tethan twisted his axe, using the angle to trap the long blade in his axe, ripping the hilt from the commander’s hands. But the commander struck with his short blade, driving it into Tethan’s ribs once, twice, three times in quick succession. Tethan’s right hand struck the bottom of the mask on the commander’s helmet, tearing the helmet from the man’s head to reveal dark blue skin, with flowing white hair and white brows, delicate features and catlike eyes, and an odd androgynous beauty. He hissed and bared his pointed fangs, stabbing his short blade into Tethan’s side once more.

  Mitta’s axe split the creature’s skull, and his body tumbled down, his hand releasing the blade in Tethan’s side.

  Tethan fell to his knees, the short blade burning into him, the agony more than Tethan could endure. He shrieked in misery, a vision before his eyes of a hell of bubbling lakes of molten lava, of devils the size of mountains stomping through fields of pitiful souls.

  The vision and the pain ended.

  “Tethan?” Mitta peered into his eyes, her hand on his shoulder. She held the short blade in her hand, his blood dripping from it. She touched his cheek with a horrified concern in her eyes. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s a devil’s blade,” Tethan said, gasping, clutching at his damaged ribs, each breath a renewed agony.

  She held it up, studying it. “Really?”

  People yelled from all around them, high-pitched ululating cries echoing through the streets.

  Tethan rose to his feet, wobbling from side to side, with Mitta beside him. Leedy sat astride a slain mage’s chest. The Nayen soldiers lay on the street, all of them dead or dying. Onei stood among them, axes in their hands, crouching, turning, looking for the source of the sound, wary.

  From every door along the street, short Nayen men and women walked out, waving their hands over their heads, their mouths open, shrieking.

  “Which hell are we in now?” Mitta asked, readying her axe.

  Tethan dropped his axe to the stones of the street and raised his hands, wincing at the pain in his side. He called out, “Everyone calm down. I think they’re happy we won.”

  # # #

  The stables stank. Dyuh Mon’s nose wrinkled, making it hurt even worse with the mask mashing down on it. The close confines sweltered with heat, the buzzing of flies droning loudly; sweat tickled his neck as it trickled down from his helmet.

  Stablehands, slaves and peasants, their ranks unknown to Dyuh Mon, labored away in sweat-stained shirts and filthy pants, their feet bare, shoveling manure out of the horse pens, throwing buckets of water on the pools of piss, pushing wheelbarrows of oats and wheat to feed the army of beasts.

  “Ugh.” Gartan stepped back out through the door, shaking his head. “I stay here.”

  “Nope.” Dyuh Mon grabbed Gartan’s elbow, pulling him along, happy that he wasn’t the only one suffering this assault on his senses. “You come.”

  Dyuh Mon steered Gartan into the stable, navigating away from the wet portions of the hard-packed dirt floor. He raised his hand, signaling for one of the stablehands to stop. “Excuse me.”

  “Sir?” The stable boy edged forward, taking his cap from his head, his eyes wide, looking not at Dyuh Mon but at Gartan, cringing away from the Onei.

  “Is the veterinarian in here?” Dyuh Mon asked, touching the boy’s shoulder, trying to pull his attention away from Gartan. “I was told she was in here.”

  He pointed in a direction, to a stall. Dyuh Mon glanced that way, and his magesight, still engaged, showed him a swirl of magics. He nodded to dismiss the boy. “Thank you.”

  Dyuh Mon touched Gartan’s forearm, and the two picked their way through the mire and muck of the stable to the stall, where a woman sat on a milking stool at the hind end of a monstrous tan horse with a stripe running from its black mane down to its black tail. She sat hunching over, her legs spread wide, the horse’s back hoof raised, curled under and resting in her right hand as her left hand directed magics into its flesh and bone.

  Gartan stepped to the horse’s head, whispering in a language like one would speak to a baby; the horse’s ears pointed at him, the horse’s head reaching forward, a murmur rising from its chest.

  The woman glanced at Gartan, but quickly returned her focus to her spell, the flows of her magic shrinking to a stop. She eased up from the stool, releasing the horse’s hoof and moving into a magician’s fighting stance, murmuring, “By all the devils, what is this thing!”

  Gartan glared at her, his fists clenched. The horse danced to the side, stomping its hooves on the dirt, shaking its great head.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Dyuh Mon stepped forward, in between the healer and Gartan, his hands raised. “Everyone calm down.”

  The woman, her eyes flicking over Dyuh Mon, pointed at Gartan. Her eyes were wide and she edged back, remaining in her fighting posture. “Is that a demon come from the realms of Air loose in our temple?”

  “No, no.” Dyuh Mon looked toward Gartan, wondering if he could use the image of the man to his advantage. “Well, maybe, but that’s not important ri
ght now. We have to talk about healing. Can you heal basic injuries in people? And by people I mean not animals.”

  Her gaze turned toward Dyuh Mon, and she snorted. “You think you are so much more advanced than a horse that you should not be called an animal, soldier?”

  Behind his mask, Dyuh Mon smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes, then?”

  “Of course.” She nodded toward Gartan, her eyes drifting down his body, searching him, analyzing him. She stepped toward him. “He’s been badly injured, but he seems unconcerned.”

  “Yes, but now that we’ve cleared that up”—Dyuh Mon edged closer to her, smelling roses and sweat—“we need to talk about horses.”

  She drew herself up, glaring at him, and placed her forearm on his upper arm to push him away. “Your major needs to be gentler on his mount or its navicular will break again. Next time I may not be able to fuse the bone back together, and he’ll be looking for a new horse to destroy. He won’t find many as good as this sweetheart.”

  Gartan relaxed, rubbing the sides of the horse’s jowls, speaking in that baby-tongue to it, and the horse nickered back, its rear hoof pawing at the ground.

  “Yeah?” Dyuh Mon glanced behind him, noting the location of the stablehands, and slid his dagger from his belt. “Your name was Hanah, yes?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m Hanno. What are you—?”

  Reverting to Shrian, Dyuh Mon said, “Gartan. Keep her quiet.”

  Hanno furrowed her brow and said, “Wha—?”

  Gartan darted to her side, clamping his hand over her mouth, the move taking her by surprise, too quick for her to react. She screamed, but Gartan’s hand muffled her, silencing her screams.

  Dyuh Mon placed the dagger against the soft skin of her throat. “Hanno, Hanah: close enough. My name is Dyuh Mon. Have you heard of me?”

  Her eyes widened and she nodded.

  “Good.” He leaned in closer to her. “Not everything you’ve heard is true, but at the moment, we need to have six mounts. We need to saddle three of them quietly, load them up with supplies, and we need to leave this town and get to the coast as quickly as possible.”

  She stared up at him, her dark eyes hard, full of defiance.

  “I can slice your throat and use your life force to power a spell that will enable us to escape,” he said, “but that would damn you for all eternity. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Her eyes looked down, seeming to submit, but Dyuh Mon did not trust her.

  He whispered, “I am on a secret mission for the Eternal Council. Help me and this ice-demon, and you will be a hero, helping all of the kingdoms of Nayengim.”

  Her eyes darted back up, studying him, imploring him for the truth.

  He shrugged and grinned, showing off his finely chiseled teeth, a symbol of his position in the hierarchy, of the trust put in him by the Eternal Council. “And if you get captured, you can always say you fought and we overpowered you. Is that acceptable?”

  She blinked. And nodded.

  # # #

  The sun beat down on Dyuh Mon’s neck. Sweat dripped down his back, his face ached, and his whole body felt stiff and sore, and the longer he sat, the worse he felt. Hanno sat on the saddle in front of Dyuh Mon with her hands resting in her lap, bound at the wrists, her stiff body pressing against his armor.

  Her stomach growled.

  Seeing an opportunity to start a conversation, he said, “Maybe they’ll have some food ready for us when we reach the camp.”

  “Oh?” She twisted her head to look back at him, leaning to one side. “That sounds charming. Will they have tea?”

  “Well, uh…” Dyuh Mon sputtered. “Tea?”

  “This is not a picnic, Librarian,” Hanno said, glaring at him. “I have responsibilities to return to, people depending on me to take care of them.”

  “Well, good,” Dyuh Mon said, glowering back at her, irritated by the tone of her voice, the sharpness of her words. “The ice-demons don’t know much about hunting in this realm. They are much like giant children. Giant angry children.”

  Gartan trotted up beside them, riding bareback, peering at Dyuh Mon, his face tight with tension. He leaned in toward them, saying in Shrian, “Faster, please?”

  Dyuh Mon nodded, tightening his legs around the horse’s sides. The horse picked up speed, the gait getting bouncier, jostling Hanno who struggled to remain upright and in a single piece.

  She twisted in his arms, placing her feet on his to stand and minimize the jostling, wrapping an arm around his neck. He carefully kept his eyes forward so as not to stare at the plump breast a finger’s breadth from his cheek, tilting his body in the saddle so as not to press in too close and appear rude.

  “You said you were on a mission for the Council,” she said, wrinkling her brow. “But the Council have sent out bulletins and bounties for your capture and death.”

  Dyuh Mon swallowed in a mouth suddenly very dry, licking his lips. “Yes, well, sometimes the Council don’t know what’s in their own best interest.”

  “But you think you know better than them? They have lived for centuries and brought Nayengim to the heights of glory, creating the greatest civilization in the world—as foul as it may be—but you know better than they do?”

  “Come,” Gartan cried out, pointing out a piece of wreckage from the ship. “Around this bend here.”

  “What language is that?” she asked, eyes squinting. “I take it that it’s not ice-demonish?”

  “Shrian, actually, but close enough.” Dyuh Mon shrugged, tilting his head as he planned how to salvage this mess of a relationship, all with his face mashing into her breast. He pulled back, surprised. “Oh… I… Listen, I’m sorry about that.”

  Her face flushed, and she turned her face from him, her jaw set in a hard, grim line. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Listen,” he said, “There is much I cannot tell you, but I have had access to sources of information and power of which you cannot conceive; I have learned things.”

  She snorted. “You sound like an addict speaking about his drug.”

  “The gods have given me a quest.” He took a deep breath, feeling better now that the truth was out. “They led me to Shria where I encountered these northern barbarians. They gave me an order to take these barbarians to a holy place. Our ship was attacked by a sea monster, no doubt sent by the gods of chaos to stop us.”

  “A sea monster?” she said, her tone glib. She was mocking him. She raised her left hand to her face, her eyes wide, as though she were beside herself with fear. “Oh no. How frightening. Do you have any other tales to tell me?”

  “Really.” He pointed at a section of the hull on the beach, the sand already accumulating around the base of it, barnacles glistening in the sunlight, the wood still wet but drying fast in the sun. “There’s part of our ship.”

  “Uh huh.” She crossed her arms over her chest, turning away from him once more, her shoulder pressing against his temple.

  “We barely escaped with our lives,” he said, pleading.

  “Ooh,” she said, her eyes wide with feigned fright, her head wobbling left and right. “Such a grand adventure you’ve had.”

  “But some of us are injured. Before we can go and finish our quest, we need to heal our wounded and get them in shape so we can move them.” He shrugged. “We needed a healer. I had to do something to get you to come with us.”

  “You mean in addition to putting a knife to my throat and threatening my life,” she said without turning to him.

  “Well, that didn’t seem to be working,” he muttered.

  Gartan disappeared around the bend in the beach, hidden by the treeline.

  “So what will you do with me once I help you?” she asked.

  “You’re going to help us?” Dyuh Mon said, fighting back the relief, trying not to smile even though she couldn’t see his face.

  “Us?” She shook her head, snorting. “Are you going to kill me once you’re done with me or are you going t
o let me go?”

  “First town we come to, I promise we’ll set you free,” he said. He pulled the horse around the bend to see Gartan and the other horses galloping away toward a torn-up part of the beach, the place where the sea monster had dug into the sand, flailing its tentacles, carving big trenches between large mounds of sand in its fury.

  Dyuh Mon pointed at those mounds, increasing the speed of the horse, saying, “See there, all that sand! That’s where we fought the sea creature.”

  “I thought you said you were out at sea,” she said, huffing, almost laughing, shaking her head. “Now you fought it on land? How many twists and turns is your story going to take?”

  “Fine,” he said, frustrated and angry, urging the horse ever faster toward where Gartan led his horses into the trees, “I’m not even going to bother explaining. You just help our wounded, and you have my word that we’ll drop you off in the first safe place we find for you.”

  The horse skidded to a stop.

  “Sure, first you tell me you’re going to leave me at the first town, then you change your story to leaving me in the first safe place.” She glared down at Dyuh Mon. “Does that mean you’re going to force me to go even further than the next town, which is only over that rise there?” She pointed to an outcropping in the distance. “Or does that mean you’re going to abandon me in the jungle for the leopards?”

  “Go.” Dyuh Mon squeezed his thighs as hard as he could, but the horse would not go; he pressed into its sides with the heels of his boots, trying to find a way to prod it forward. “Go, damn you!”

  “What?” Hanno barked at him. “You’re just going to leave me here? What about your friends? What about your so-called camp? Was that just another lie?”