The Devil's Library: The Windhaven Chronicles

by Watson Davis

  “Nothing is ever your fault, dear.” Vellin tilted her head, seeming to peer into Gal-nya’s soul. “Don’t worry, I’ll find the perfect spot in hell for what’s left of your soul.”

  With a deafening roar, Sissola reared back and launched his spear at Vellin, lightning discharging from the spearhead as it sliced through the air.

  Vellin vanished in a cloud of tangible darkness.

  Dyuh Mon raised his hands, throwing himself to his left, falling to the ground behind a column and huddling there with his arms over his head.

  Sissola’s spear struck the unmoving Onei, exploding, blowing bits of his burned flesh into the air, slamming the Onei’s remains back against the wall, smearing him on the floor before the spear fell to the stones.

  Vellin appeared beside Gal-nya, her hand stroking Gal-nya’s cheek. “Gartan, dear, kill every being here. Except for Dyuh Mon and myself, of course.”

  The tattered and broken remains of the Onei groaned, saying something in Onei. The creature sat up, his head wobbling on his wrecked spine, the bones of his ribs coalescing out of the air, his lungs and organs appearing before a layer of white skin covered them, the bones of his arm sprouting from the nub of his shoulder, muscles and tendons wrapping around them, his forearms growing out of that, then his hand, then his pale skin wrapping around it.

  He crouched, fully healed and without a scar, growling, his lips pulling back from his teeth to reveal elongated canine fangs.

  # # #

  “Back to the docks!” Tethan bellowed, picking up an orcan spear from the ground. He dodged between the departing Onei, running back toward the camp, searching for any Onei left behind.

  Hobanya limped past, her nose broken, dried blood on her chin, carrying Leedy draped across her shoulder, with a slash across his face and one eye gone.

  One orc roared, wielding his onyx sword with both hands, hacking down at Mitta. She rolled out of his way, cradling an orcan bow, the arrows in the quiver across her back spilling onto the road. Beyond her, a Nayen priest waved his hands, summoning his magic, focusing it in front of his chest into a ball of shimmering lightning.

  Tethan slashed at the orc attacking Mitta, cutting it across its face, wheeled around, and hacked it again across the back of its neck. He skipped forward and hurled the spear, striking the cleric right between the hands, hitting him in the chest and interrupting the flow of his spell. The spell exploded in a clap of thunder, releasing the lightning down into the earth and up into the sky, and the man rose into the air screaming before falling back to the earth.

  Mitta rose to her feet, nocking her last arrow in her bow, and hopped to Tethan’s side, searching for a target and not finding any.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tethan said.

  “Yeah.” Mitta turned and ran.

  Tethan surveyed the square, now empty save for the dead. In the distance, a dark cloud moved away from Gal-nya’s capital, toward Arenghel. Tethan spun around and sprinted toward the street leading to the docks, eyes darting to the tops of the unburned buildings, searching for archers, for mages.

  The Nayen people, the people who’d stared at them as they knelt in the plaza, had joined the Onei in the streets; two of them had taken Leedy from Hobanya’s shoulder, carrying him in their arms, another helping Hobanya even though the man was only three quarters Hobanya’s size.

  Two men ran up to Tethan, their arms outstretched, speaking to him in Nayen, but he shook his head, waving them off.

  A wagon the Onei had piled high with plunder from Gal-nya’s temple creaked down the road before him, a Nayen urging the horse forward through the crowd.

  Kalo jogged up to him, touching his chest with her hand, peering up into his eyes. She said, “Hurry, the ships are waiting.”

  “The ships?” Tethan shook his head as he jogged alongside her. “I thought all the ships were destroyed on the way in.”

  She shrugged and winked, grinning. “We got more.”

  # # #

  Gartan eyed the threats before him, gauging each one, struggling to comprehend his new senses. His nose twitched at unimagined scents; his eyes squinted, trying to comprehend more colors and lights than he’d ever seen; his skin quivered with the shifting patterns of the air flowing around him.

  Sissola, the man encased in the armor, charged forward, each stride an eternity, his goal appearing to be the spear on the ground between them. Vellin caressed Gal-nya’s cheek. Gal-nya was frozen with fear, her fear smelling like a rich dessert to Gartan, so sweet his mouth watered, but magic flowed through Gal-nya’s lithe body, rising up from the base of her spine, rising up, cascading down her arms, swirling around her hands, the flow increasing to a torrent. Dyuh Mon hid behind a pillar, his heart racing, mumbling a prayer, motes of magic surrounding him. A dragon, sparkling with spells and the magical geases laid upon it, so fat it struggled to breathe, huffed in the courtyard. And another heartbeat, too weak to be a threat.

  Gartan darted forward, reaching down and snatching up the spear as he passed it, leaping up, swiveling his feet around toward Sissola, kicking out and striking him in the helmet. He used the force of the impact to flip over backward and land on his feet. Sissola staggered away, his hands rising to his head, fumbling at his now dented helmet sitting at an unnatural angle.

  Sissola bellowed in anger, the helmet amplifying the thunder of his rage. He flung his left arm out, pointing at Gartan and yelling a command, and a tendril of magic stretched out from Sissola to the dragon.

  This amused Gartan, and intrigued him.

  The dragon stomped forward, roaring, sucking in air, its chest growing like a smith’s bellows. Gartan rushed toward it. The dragon’s head jabbed forward, its mouth open, the fire rushing up from its throat and blasting out to the place Gartan had been. Gartan hopped away at an angle, bounding from the ground, to a pillar, to the ceiling, to the ground, to land on the dragon’s neck, just behind the skull.

  The dragon twisted around, whipping its head from side to side trying to dislodge Gartan, but he drove the spear into the rear of the beast’s skull at the base of the spine, into the creature’s brain, as he had seen Tethan do. Lightning flashed out from the spearhead, the head burst apart, and the dragon crumpled to the ground.

  Sissola took two steps backward, his eyes smoldering blue flames in his dented helmet, and then he whirled around and ran.

  Gartan pursued the man, leaping up on his back and sweeping the blade of the spear around, lightning flashing as he struck the man once more in the helmet. The helmet flew off, flipping through the air, careening off a column before clattering to the ground. Gartan jumped off, twisting in the air and landing on his feet.

  The man staggered, headless, crouching down, shuffling forward with his hands reaching out, searching for the helmet, which lay on the ground, empty.

  Gartan shook his head. “Not this again.”

  There was nothing inside the helmet, but the armor stomped forward, slamming into one of the stone columns, tripping over a vambrace, falling to its knees.

  Gartan lunged forward, swinging the spear, and knocked Sissola’s left arm off, the armor crashing against the columns, breaking apart. The pauldron flew one way, the rerebrace another, the vambrace and gauntlet in still other ways. He chopped at Sissola’s right arm, lopping it off.

  Gal-nya slithered out of Vellin’s embrace, the whorls of magic around her folding together, the lines of force dovetailing, her incantation appearing before her mouth as glowing symbols.

  Gartan ignored her, tossing the spear aside, and grabbed Sissola’s chest and back plates, yanking them apart, ripping the human skin leather straps from the steel. Gartan grimaced and stepped back, putting his arm across his face, the acrid fumes released from within the armor stinging his eyes, burning his nostrils.

  A man fell out of the armor, emaciated, his skin so pale as to be translucent.

  Gartan blinked, studying this creature, mewling, crawling away from him, its hands raised, pleading in a language Gartan
did not understand.

  Gal-nya spoke the last word of her incantation, flinging her arm around, discharging a razor-thin whip of force that caught Gartan at a diagonal from the top of his pelvis on his right to the bottom of his ribs on his left, slitting him in half. Vellin dissolved into a haze of shifting blackness, and the force continued, slicing through the columns and pillars of the temple, cutting through the buildings outside and into the massive wall.

  Gartan crumpled to the ground, his torso sliding off of his hips, and he howled from the pain, from the anger—at himself for not paying attention, at Gal-nya for causing him such agony.

  She spun around, whipping a dagger out of her sleeve, the blade bubbling with malevolent magic. Leaping forward, she stabbed that dagger into the haze where Vellin had been. Vellin reappeared beside her, snarling, and ripped the dagger out of Gal-nya’s hand, slinging Gal-nya one way and the dagger another.

  Gartan reached out, pulling his legs toward his torso, pulling at his insides that had spilled onto the ground, the gap between his torso and his hips narrowing to a hand’s breadth before the two halves reached out to each other, rejoining. The relief verged on the orgasmic.

  Vellin touched her stomach and lifted her hand to stare at the black ichor oozing from her wound.

  “Is that the key, then?” Gal-nya asked, crouching, preparing for another attack, grinning.

  “You and Nof-ki crafted the spell,” Vellin said. “You tell me.” She smiled as Gartan rose behind Gal-nya.

  Gal-nya hesitated, her eyes wide, fumbling the words of a spell. Gartan hurled himself at Gal-nya’s back, landing on her, driving her to the ground, crushing her against the stone floor. He bit down on the woman’s graceful neck, piercing her throat with his fangs, feasting on her life force, feeding on her sudden terror, draining her dry. Gartan pushed himself up from the floor on shaky legs, tossing Gal-nya’s bloodless body aside.

  He stood, then wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, doing nothing more than smearing the blood across his face, but he didn’t care. He hungered. He needed more, so much more. He glared at Vellin, who smiled smugly at him. He spread his hands, sneering at her. “Well?”

  “You are not done,” she said, her face scrunching up. She pointed at Sissola crawling across the ground toward the chest plate, his body almost devoid of life, a body Gartan thought beneath his notice.

  “Really?” Gartan shook his head.

  Her eyes narrowed and Gartan’s hunger doubled. She said, “What order did I give you?”

  “Kill everybody.” Gartan growled, the hunger gnawing at every bit of his body and soul. He strode to Sissola’s side, picked the man up by his neck, and shook him. The manling whimpered and cried.

  “He’s no threat to anyone or anything,” Gartan said, glaring back at Vellin.

  Vellin grinned, leaning back against a column. “Do it.”

  Unable to touch his lips to the man’s foul skin even to assuage his gnawing hunger, Gartan slammed Sissola’s face into a column three times, pulverizing the skull, crushing the brain to a pulp, and tossed him aside. He spread his hands once more. “Well?”

  She shook her head. “You are not done.”

  Gartan turned, looking around, truly seeing the carnage for the first time with his new senses, realizing the bodies strewn about the grounds were not just Nayen priests and mages, realizing that he stood among the bodies of his friends and countrymen: Makal, Nohel, Tayna, all of them dead. His heart leapt into his throat.

  One heart still beat.

  He stumbled forward and fell to his knees by a charred body, living though it should be dead. He cradled her in his arms. “Davina?”

  Her eyes cracked opened, so white and blue against her ravaged skin burned black. Scarcely breathing, she whispered, “Gartan?”

  “I am here.” He stared at her, a tear falling down his cheek. He reached up to her forehead, unable to touch her, afraid it would hurt.

  Her lips twisted into a smile. “I knew you would come to save me.”

  “Kill her,” Vellin said, whispering in his ear.

  Gartan lowered the love of his life to the ground, gently, carefully, and then he stood, his fists at his side, his head bowed. “No.”

  Vellin pursed her lips. “You do not wish to test me, my pet.”

  Gartan launched himself at her, screaming, his hands tensed like claws, his mouth open, fangs prepared to stab into Vellin’s dainty neck, but she disappeared. He slammed into the column behind where she’d been standing, cracking it with the force of his attack, chunks of rock flying off. He bounced off of it, landing on his feet in a crouch, searching for her.

  She stood at the entrance to the temple, her hand tensed, pointing toward him, a tendril of magic stretching from her to him, connecting them.

  A pulse of energy flew through that connection from her to him.

  And then the pain started in the innermost part of him, pain like nothing he’d ever felt, as though every fiber and piece of him were exploding, and he fell to his knees, the hunger in him growing, surging in response, ravenous, pushing away any thought of restraint.

  Vellin whispered, “Finish her.”

  “No!” Gartan shrieked, lashing out, his fingers digging trenches in the stone floor, in the columns, in the wall. The pain grew even worse, even stronger, until he couldn’t think, only hunger.

  “Finish her.”

  He crawled to Davina’s side, his arms and legs quivering, barely responding to his commands.

  “Drink her soul,” Vellin whispered, digging her nails into Gartan’s back, starting at his neck and dragging them down his spine, slicing the flesh.

  “I love you,” Davina whispered. “I will see you on the other side.”

  Gartan drove his fangs into her neck, draining the last of her life. The pain receded, leaving only a lingering trace of the hunger. He wrapped his arms around her corpse and bowed his head, sobbing, “I love you.”

  “One day,” Vellin said, stroking his hair, “you’ll learn not to fight back. And that will be the day I put you down forever.”

  # # #

  Tethan leaned on the back railing of the ship, his wounds bandaged. The Nayengim coast disappeared beneath the horizon, into the clouds, not even the smoke rising into the sky visible anymore, and a light drizzle began to fall from the puffy dark clouds above him.

  “There you are,” Mitta said, limping up beside Tethan, patting him on the back, then leaning against his side. She peeked up at his face, her own smudged with soot and grease and blood. “I was hoping you were on this ship. Hard to tell who was where.”

  “How’s Leedy?” Tethan asked.

  “He’s down to one eye,” she said. “And your parents? Are you going to go to Arenghel to try to find them? I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “They are gone,” Tethan said, a tear forming in the corner of his eye, blurring his vision. He touched his fist to his chest. “I could always feel them here, and I can’t anymore. They are not there.”

  She reached up and tapped her forefinger against Tethan’s temple, saying, “They will always be here, and you know they died fighting, so their souls are safe.”

  “Better to be in the Halls of Battle than here?” Tethan peered into Mitta’s eyes, arching his eyebrows, challenging her. The raindrops were growing fatter, bolder.

  “A glorious death.” Mitta turned her eyes back the way they’d come, back toward Nayengim, with a smile on her lips. Her platinum hair was back in a ponytail except for a strand hanging down her cheek, plastered there by the rain. “You should be happy for them, instead of thinking only of yourself like a brat.”

  “I will miss them.” Tethan bowed his head, shaking it, not feeling happy, feeling lost, feeling wrong, a failure. “There had to be another way. I made some mistake.”

  “There are always other ways,” Mitta said, “but once you’ve chosen your course, commit to it. This is the course and it’s time for you to grow up and commit to it. You will be clan leader
now.”

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “The Skybears below deck have already voted you in,” she said, chuckling.

  Tethan stood up straight and pulled his axe from his belt. He offered the hilt of it to Mitta. “Will you guard my axe with your soul, as I will yours?”

  She stared down at the hilt, stepping back away from him, her eyes wide, her mouth dropping open even as her face flushed.

  He cleared his throat and lowered himself to his knee, holding the hilt up to her. “Will you?”

  She looked into his eyes. “Have two clan leaders ever married before?”

  “Who better to marry,” he said, “than equals?”

  Epilogue

  Tethan, King of Windhaven, stepped out of the Tower of Tears onto the inner yard of the ruins of Thrune’s Keep, advisors and squires following him. Masons worked on new walls, hammering stones into place while earth mages infused those walls with magic, making them strong and resistant to the elements. Shamans chanted prayers asking the gods for their favor.

  A line of giant rocks—the Icefangs—jutted out of Windhaven Bay, reaching like steps to the Shrall Cliffs, protecting the bay from the worst of the raging sea beyond. The clouds churned. A storm approached from the north, and a wicked wind picked at Tethan’s thinning hair.

  “Tethan!” Mitta sprinted up the steps to him, their youngest daughter in her arms, holding onto her neck.

  He dropped the scroll in his hands and ran down to her, meeting them, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her off her feet, kissing her as he swung the two of them around.

  “I’ve missed you.” He set her on the ground and kissed his daughter on the forehead.

  She placed her hand on his cheek. “You too.”

  “And the Far Waste clan?” Tethan asked.

  “Straight to matters of state?” Mitta sighed and pursed her lips, turning to walk with him. “Screw the Far Waste clan.”

  “Oh?” Tethan settled his arm around her, leaning down to kiss her neck.

  “Morrin’s proving to be more difficult to take than Silmon expected,” Mitta said, shifting their daughter to her other hip. “He’s going to need reinforcements, or a new plan of attack.”