The Red Winter

by Henry H. Neff

  A transfixed Varga was staring over Cooper’s shoulder. “Nothing,” he lied. “Don’t look.”

  Prusias was leaving his shelter.

  Cooper had never witnessed anything more nauseating. Seven bearded human heads emerged, each attached by a sinuous neck to a massive serpentine body. The demon slid so smoothly out of the tunnel that his scarlet scales might have been oiled. Coil after rippling coil emerged, each as swollen as a blood-gorged leech. Was Prusias a thousand feet long? Two thousand?

  The demon turned slowly about like a battleship circling a harbor. Each of the seven heads resembled Prusias in his human form—darkly handsome faces with plaited black beards—but their mouths were filled with jagged fangs while the eyes betrayed no glimmer of Prusias’s laughing, bullying persona. They were hauntingly blank and hungry, the eyes of a rabid animal.

  And those eyes were fixed upon Max, who stood weaponless and alone at the chamber’s center. Instead of simply attacking, the demon seemed to be gauging his comparatively tiny opponent, assessing him as one might a poisonous wasp. The central head was dripping black blood from ugly wounds upon its face and throat—souvenirs from its first encounter with the gae bolga. The head grinned maliciously as the Great Red Dragon reared up and used his inconceivable bulk to drive the gae bolga flush as a coffin nail in the stone floor.

  “There goes your bite, Hound,” the head chuckled. “Care to bark instead?”

  Max said nothing. The red-masked honor guard now surrounded him. His radiance was no more than a flicker, but Cooper studied him carefully. The boy’s back was straight and that grim, unblinking smile would have given him pause.

  But not Prusias. The demon’s pride and rage were kindling like wildfire. Blys’s king heaved himself up so that his crownless heads nearly scraped the soaring roof.

  “What are you smirking about, maggot?” he demanded. “You think your people have conquered me? They’ve merely taken a city. I’ll build a bigger one, raise a stronger army. And when the little Faeregine is slain, I’ll return to Rowan. I’ll raze its buildings, poison its fields, and devour its people like the sheep they are!”

  As these words echoed, the demon’s last coil finally slid free of the tunnel. A tiny figure trailed its tapering tip, no larger than a human toddler. It ran across the chamber, waving its arms. The being was an imp—a red-skinned imp in courtier’s clothes. Its voice was a squeak in the vast chamber.

  “Stop!” he cried. “My king, you must not kill him!”

  One of the seven heads whipped about, its voice a simmering growl. “Silence, Mr. Bonn. Go back to my burrow.”

  But the imp was insistent. “Milord, if you slay him, you will be cheating the Atropos.”

  “Cheating? I’m doing their job for them.”

  “Precisely,” said the imp. “The boy’s name has been written in the Grey Book. It’s the Atropos’s sacred duty to end his life. If you deprive them of that honor, they may well turn against Your Majesty!”

  “Let them!” Prusias snarled. “Let them dare raise a hand against me!”

  The imp shook his head in exasperation. “Your Majesty armed them with Set’s knife!” he hissed, before softening his tone to one of calm, pleading reason. “Spare the Hound’s life and take him captive. David Menlo is his dearest friend. We could use him to negotiate a—”

  “I DON’T NEGOTIATE!”

  Prusias lashed the far wall with his tail. The shock staggered the malakhim and knocked the imp off his feet. Surging forward, the demon crushed a dozen malakhim in his eagerness to get at the Hound. The central head shot forward, swift as a rattlesnake, its jaws opened wide.

  Max sprang to meet it.

  Evading the snapping teeth, Max caught hold of a braid in the demon’s tangled beard. Swinging under its jaws, he landed on the demon’s throat and plunged his arm straight into the festering wound—the very wound the gae bolga had made years before.

  Cooper had never heard such an anguished howl. The demon’s entire body recoiled, whipping around with such momentum that he crashed to the floor. His minions fled to escape his thrashing coils and heads, which were snarling and snapping blindly at anything they touched.

  Clinging to the demon, Max gave an unearthly scream and erupted with light. Prusias went berserk, dashing his head against the floor, trying desperately to shake his attacker off. But his attacker held fast, no longer a being of flesh and blood, but of white shimmering fire whose energies were pouring into the Great Red Dragon.

  Prusias began splitting apart, his coils swelling and cracking as the pale fire consumed him from within. The heads were pleading now, bellowing and weeping for mercy from the god that was burning them alive. Even their eyes were ablaze, the sockets vomiting smoke as the seven heads collapsed and writhed on the chamber floor.

  The demon’s bloated body began to sag and hiss like a punctured zeppelin. As it collapsed, the smoldering hide began to shrivel and contract. Once the last scarlet scraps burned away, the spirit of white fire became flesh again, its form returning to that of the black-eyed god. At his feet, Prusias’s human shape sprawled in a heap of purple silk robes. Where the Great Red Dragon’s body had lain were thousands of glittering gemstones.

  With an exultant cry, Varga started forward, picking his way among the scattered rubies and sapphires, diamonds and emeralds. He made for one in particular, identifying it instantly among the multitude. Cooper and Hazel followed after him, stepping over the jewels as though they were sacred. And indeed they were, for trapped within each was a mortal soul.

  To Cooper’s surprise, Varga was not the only seeker among the gemstones. The remaining malakhim were also approaching, walking slowly like lost and weary pilgrims. Like Varga, they were drawn to particular stones that they pressed to their breasts as though they’d been reunited with the dearest friend imaginable. And when they did so, their obsidian masks dissolved into a pearly mist, revealing translucent, ghostly faces, both male and female. Each whispered their sin aloud before swallowing their jewel and vanishing.

  “I coveted gold …”

  “I murdered my brother …”

  “I lusted for knowledge …”

  “I betrayed my child …”

  When the malakhim had all disappeared, Varga and Hazel began gathering up the remaining gemstones. The only sound in the vast chamber was Mr. Bonn’s quiet sobbing.

  The imp came to kneel by his master. Cooper did not know how Prusias remained when the Great Red Dragon had been destroyed, but the demon appeared to be alive and even conscious as he peered up at his conqueror. Gazing down at Prusias with an icy remoteness, Max pointed at the demon’s neck.

  With a shaking hand, Prusias removed the lymra torque and surrendered it to its true owner. Taking the coppery ring, Max placed it around his neck before extending his hand toward where the gae bolga had been buried. The spear rose from the floor, withdrawing smoothly from the rock until it hovered fifty yards away. Once free, it flew straight to its master’s hand.

  Prusias gave the weapon a baleful stare as Max caught it. Grimacing, he coughed blood into his fist. “I was the Great Red Dragon,” he rumbled in a gruff, bewildered voice. “But the Great Red Dragon is no more. How am I alive?”

  Max’s voice was iron. “You are only Prusias now.”

  Recalling the Director’s orders, Cooper realized the gae bolga’s blade was poised perilously close to the demon’s throat. Hazel and Varga must have noticed the same thing, for they gathered around him with wary, anxious expressions.

  “We need him alive,” said Cooper quietly.

  Max did not respond, but continued contemplating Prusias and his imp as though weighing a judgment. Several moments passed before he reached down and seized the king by his beard, dragging him up so their faces were inches apart.

  “What will it be, Hound?” the demon whispered. “Death or a train ride?”

  Releasing Prusias, Max raised the gae bolga high. When it struck the floor, they all vanished in a clap of thunder.
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  An instant later, Max appeared in Prusias’s throne room, a marble chamber fit for a Roman emperor. Another thunderclap heralded his arrival, its force sufficient to send the room’s occupants hurtling back against high walls and massive columns. As its rumble subsided, there were faint groans, the crunch of broken glass, and a heavy, rhythmic thumping somewhere outside the grand chamber. It sounded like a battering ram. Apparently Rowan’s forces had won their way into the palace and were trying to force their way within this final sanctum.

  Max glanced down at his companions. They lay sprawled about him on the dais that served as a lofty stage for the king’s throne. Cooper and Hazel were stunned and Peter Varga was retching. That was hardly unusual—queasiness was a common by-product of teleportation. Prusias was in a ball at Max’s feet, his imp clinging to his leg like a frightened child. Max surveyed the rest of the room, his black eyes sliding over hundreds of minor braymas, armored guards, bewildered imps, and semiconscious courtiers lying among broken statues and marble busts. Behind him, Prusias’s gruff voice called out.

  “What’s the meaning of this?”

  Max turned to find that the king’s massive throne had toppled over, nearly pinning a second, heavily armed Prusias, who was now struggling to his feet. Gripping the golden pommel of his broadsword, this Prusias stabbed an accusing finger at the demon curled at Max’s feet.

  “Who is this imposter?” he demanded.

  Silence.

  “I am the king!” roared the body double, substituting volume for conviction. “And I demand you leave my chamber at—”

  He never finished the sentence. Under Max’s implacable gaze, the double’s eyes bulged with helpless horror as his body began to soften and collapse, sinking to the floor as though all of its bones had turned to jelly. There was no distinction between his armor and his person—all were liquefying together, blending into each other as if they were made of the same gooey dough. Within five seconds, an unusually large and terrified smee lay quaking on the inlaid floor.

  Silence reigned over the room. Every eye was fixed upon Max. His attention wandered from face to face in the vast hall, registering each. All the demons averted their eyes and bowed their heads. He expected nothing less. Their kind was profoundly hierarchical and almost always deferred to greater strength.

  Max pointed the gae bolga toward the chamber’s gilded doors, now barred with three stout beams. The beams shattered into splinters, and the vast doors swung inward so violently that one was ripped off its hinges. With startled cries, the demons and courtiers scurried away from the opening as the king’s enemies poured into the chamber.

  In they came, a roaring flood of Raszna war chiefs and Rowan soldiers, brandishing their weapons, faces alight with the prospect of victory. The demons and their servants nearest the doors retreated to alcoves and the area behind the dais.

  Max watched Rowan’s forces with indifference as they fell into silence and lowered their weapons. They shuffled forward uncertainly as their comrades crowded in behind them. Within seconds, the throne room was nearly filled with enemies and allies all gazing up at the dais where Max stood. A hushed and expectant silence settled over the room.

  With just his will and aura, Max could mold this entire throng into whatever he wished—his servants, his soldiers, even his worshippers if he was so inclined. The idea had some appeal. Max had spent years taking orders and completing missions for superiors. Those days had ended.

  At his feet, Prusias groaned. Reminded of the demon’s presence, Max heaved him up by his thick black hair and displayed the demon to the crowd as one might a hunting trophy. His voice rang out, cold and imperious.

  “The war is over. I have ended it.”

  Cries of “Sol Invictus!” and “Moschiach!” greeted this pronouncement, but Max did not acknowledge them. To do so might have made him emotional and he was having a hard enough time controlling the monstrous energies coursing through him. They radiated from his core, pulsing and surging, triggering a dangerous impulse to dominate or destroy everything around him. If he was not careful, those thoughts would consume him. He’d be as mindless as Yuga.

  Cooper; Hazel; Varga; the Raszna war chiefs Vechna and Titus; Natasha Kiraly of the Red Branch; even Ajax, a refugee who had served under him in the Trench Rats. Max knew their faces and identities, recalled relevant bits of data and history, but that was all. He felt no emotion toward them; he merely sorted them according to their relative power, hostility, and usefulness. Love and affection were intellectualized concepts, not a personal reality. Such feelings had died with Scathach.

  But some feelings remained. The strength flowing through Max thrilled and terrified him. He no longer had a truly fixed form but could shift at will between flesh and spirit, matter and energy. Releasing Prusias, he gazed at his hand and watched impassively as it changed from muscle and bone into white-hot fire and back again. No earthly weapon could harm him; nothing on earth could possibly stand against him. He was an immovable object and an irresistible force all in one.

  This is why Astaroth wanted to possess me. This is what Bram feared.

  Fear. It permeated the entire throne room. Max could sense it any number of ways, but its most obvious manifestation was visual. Auras trembled before him, their contours rippling and buckling. Each told a story. The brayma with the angry red aura would kill him if he could; a trio of kitsune were hiding something—possibly tangible, but most likely a secret allegiance. The imps were universally terrified, but Max could tell they would abandon their masters the instant he commanded their obedience. Reading auras wasn’t mind reading, but it was very close. And Max could read hundreds simultaneously. All he needed was a glance.

  And while these telltale auras were prevalent among the demons, they were just as common throughout Max’s allies. Among Rowan’s coalition, many were not merely afraid or awestruck by a divine presence; they were not even certain of what they were witnessing. Had a tyrant just been vanquished or usurped?

  Once Max beheld the Morrígan, not even he could say.

  She moved silently among the crowds, taller than the tallest men with a mane of black tangles that hung about a dusky, ageless face whose hollow eyes flickered with tiny lights like corpse candles. Her broad, almost lipless mouth was so encrusted with blood that she might have been wearing a muzzle. As before, the goddess wore a shroud of raven feathers, but now she had adorned it with garlands of entrails that swayed and dripped with each deliberate step.

  Closer and closer she came, weaving her way through the press of Raszna and Rowan soldiers, unseen and unheeded. But those ravening eyes never left Max’s. Within his head, he could hear her voice, that chilling whisper brimming with violence.

  “Our butterfly has finally spread his wings. And they are bright, and beautiful, and strong. You see now that I spoke the truth. You don’t need my blade, Hound. It needs you. And so does the world! For who else is fit to rule?”

  The goddess came closer, slipping between the oblivious soldiers.

  “Who else is there?” she pressed. “Not Bram. He’s no leader and cares little for the affairs of lesser men. His grandson is clever, but too weak, too corrupted by tainted blood.”

  “Mina,” replied Max telepathically. “Mina can rule. She would be just, and she is strong enough.”

  The Morrígan stood but ten feet away. Beyond her, no braziers smoked or flickered; no soldiers breathed or blinked. Time had either stopped or slowed to such an extent that its passage was imperceptible. The Morrígan spoke aloud now, her voice ripe with outrage. “Lugh’s son would crown a child instead of himself!”

  “She’s hardly an ordinary child.”

  The goddess laughed. “Because she banished the Great Red Dragon? You burned the Beast to ashes! Do you imagine the Faeregine could do such a thing? Nonsense! She is but a rose—a rose with thorns—but a rose nonetheless. This world needs a hammer.”

  The goddess came so close he could smell the blood on her breath. She paced about
him, walking through the frozen bodies of Prusias, Cooper, and the rest as though they were vapor.

  “A true hunter always eats his kill,” she hissed, dragging her nails across his shoulders. “And you are a hunter, my prince. You were born to hunt and slay, to rule and master. This is your nature and you can deny it no longer. It must be embraced here and now. In this world, alas, for you have forsaken the Sidh.”

  Max glowered at her, but the Morrígan jabbed an accusing finger.

  “I did not smash that brooch,” she hissed. “I did not squander Lugh Lamfhada’s gift on a mortal he exiled. Did you expect the High King to claim her dying soul again?” The Morrígan shook her head as though he were pitifully naïve. “Immortality is the greatest honor we can bestow. Such gifts are not given twice.”

  “Scathach didn’t expect any gifts,” said Max coldly. “She came to this world without any thought of herself. She came to help me.”

  “And she has. Her death unraveled the final threads of your cocoon. Her death has given you the world you are destined to rule.”

  “There is still Astaroth,” said Max darkly.

  “What of him?” she sneered. “He would never dare stand against you. Not now.”

  Max considered this a moment. “But the Book of Thoth—”

  “Has no authority over you,” said Morrígan, stroking the hand that held the gae bolga. “Your truename is not in it. But it does hold power over your kingdom. If you destroyed Astaroth and seized the Book for yourself, you would be master of all …”

  Letting go of his hand, the goddess lifted his chin and stared at him with petrifying intensity—searching, scouring, rending, judging. “But leave Astaroth for tomorrow. Today, all factions must unite under one banner. Today, a god must declare himself king!”

  And having said this, she released him and withdrew back into the crowds of speechless, staring soldiers. Time appeared to be flowing once again for braziers were smoking and Max felt Prusias stir weakly at his feet.

  Max closed his eyes, shutting out the goddess. Not even the Morrígan would rush him into such a decision. He recalled when he’d seen Elias Bram obliterate Gràvenmuir—the instant Max realized the world had changed forever. That moment had been so poignant, so grand and terrible in its implications. And yet it paled compared to this. This was not destroying an embassy; this was imposing a new age. Max McDaniels was not witnessing history; he would be shaping it for untold generations.