Forged in Fire

by J. A. Pitts

  “Yeah, and Abrielle’s about fifty feet that way,” I pointed to the slope, “and another thirty down.”

  He winced, but didn’t go look. Instead, he straightened up and walked back to the troops. Jimmy was there with the police officer.

  “Okay, people,” Jimmy was saying. “We have at least six bad guys and four civilians in the general area. We anticipate a lot of bad shit.”

  Katie shook her head. “That should narrow it down,” she said, where only those closest could hear her.

  “I want a defensive position here; use the terrain, but I’d rather we were on the farside of that mess,” he pointed to the burning vehicles, “and away from that dome.”

  I pointed up the mountain, toward the burning fires. Jimmy and Stuart walked around the wreckage and up the hill. “Damn,” he said. “That’s a whole lot of people.”

  “What you reckon?” Stuart said. “Fifty? Hundred?”

  I looked over at the small group of us. Counting the deputy we had seventeen known fighters. That didn’t include Steve or Jayden. They were just MIA. Seventeen against a hundred. We were screwed.

  Stuart began barking orders, and the crew double-timed it around the wreckage and began setting up a line. Two runners moved the pickups over to the line and began unloading supplies. For getting out here as fast as they did they had a lot of stuff—boxes of crossbow bolts, pole-arms, and guns. Guns had a tendency to stop working when magic was around, but if they only worked once before the magic shut them down, then we were up on the game.

  “I want snipers here.” Stuart pointed down the road about fifty feet, where an embankment gave an elevated view of the road coming up and the rocky terrain along the north side of the dome. “And here.” He pointed over to a good size elm tree that had a decent view of the dome and the road back toward Leavenworth.

  Jillian ran to the truck, took out a sniper rifle, a crossbow, and a messenger bag full of bolts. She slung them over her shoulders and headed to the elm. She was petite but had an eye for long-range work.

  Kyle grabbed his kit, a rifle, crossbow, and sword and headed to the embankment.

  The rest of the crew got in a nice skirmish line partway into the ditch along the side of the road north of the dome. They could hold that pretty well with the pole-arms and crossbows. None of them drew their firearms, but each had a pistol at their side.

  I was impressed.

  “Guess it’s up to us now,” I said, nodding to Katie. “We have two friendlies unaccounted for, as well as the hostages.”

  “Aye,” Katie said, dropping the case from her guitar by Jimmy’s truck and slinging it over her shoulder for easy access. “And you know the folks up the hill know we’re here. We aren’t surprising anyone.”

  “There’s another wrinkle,” Jimmy growled. “They took the ring.”

  “The Valkyrie ring you boys have been studying?” Katie asked.

  Jimmy nodded. “We still don’t know what it does. But Stuart and I were discussing it. Might be some sort of dark magic. Maybe we were supposed to keep it away from evil bastards like this group.” He jerked his thumb toward the mountain. “Just keep an eye out for it.”

  “Hell, Jim,” Katie said, with grim determination, “if the brain trust hasn’t figured it out, maybe it wasn’t taken on purpose. Maybe one of ’em thought it looked cool. They did take the time to snatch the kids. That’s more likely what they were after.”

  “We gotta go,” I said, tugging at Katie.

  Jimmy nodded at me. “Scouting only,” he said. “Do not engage the enemy.”

  I pulled Gram free of her sheath. Flames erupted from the blade, but I felt no heat. “Right. Scouting.” I winked at Katie, who smiled.

  “Wabbit time,” she said, picking up a crossbow and slotting a bolt home.

  Part of me should have been more concerned, especially with the gleam in Katie’s eye as we headed off. But I was too busy with the song the sword sang in my head. We were going to battle. What could be better?

  Sixty-seven

  Trisha watched the tableau before her, eagerly awaiting her transformation. She could feel the power here, like a vibration through the soles of her feet. Justin had promised her great things—a chance to make a difference.

  Justin stood atop the outcrop, looking down on the road below. To his left, Anezka’s home, his home for a while, glowed the shade of decayed flesh. An altar stood before him, the intricate grooves cut into the stone to channel the blood to either side, where receptacles waited to catch the sticky red offering.

  To his right, a brazier burned, the coals glowing a red and yellow panorama of pain. Several utensils hung to the side, ready to be placed in the fire, to enhance their already-craven utility.

  Trisha stood behind him, naked, her face a contorted mask of jubilation. Jai Li and the troll twins were being held in the cave behind him, the entrance masked by his intricate spells. “To keep them safe,” he’d told her. “Safe from this offal who willingly serves the great beasts.”

  Mr. Philips sat on the ground before her, bound with twists of barbed wire and his head covered in a leather mask. She knew his kind, the bootlicker who served a monster rather than being a man in his own right. She knew he would die screaming like a pig. That was the thought that buoyed her. This man would die to draw out his master, and then Justin, her lover, would bring down another of the fell beasts. And she’d help. She’d be like Sarah, a hero, someone who saved her loved ones, not someone who lay wounded on the battlefield while those she cared about were savaged by giants.

  This was her moment of redemption. Her mind buzzed with possibilities. He promised her power, promised her glory. All in the name of protecting, she told herself. For the children.

  “Do you see the maggots before us?” Justin asked, pointing down to the road below them. “Our enemies gather to thwart us, to prevent you undergoing your immaculate transformation.”

  She could not see who they were, the tiny figures below, but she knew they meant to harm Justin, to prevent his actions, and that made them her enemies. If only she could go back to the children, for just a moment, to comfort them. How hard it was to think beyond Justin and his words. Those were clear as the sun. Everything else fell to shadows.

  Sixty-eight

  Katie and I slipped around the dome, ignoring the shapes that moved within. They were off radar at the moment. As long as the dome held, they were harmless. At least in theory.

  We’d covered a couple hundred yards and were coming into real rocky elevation when we caught sight of Steve and Jayden. They flagged us down, and we ran to where they hid.

  Jayden was wounded, and Steve had lost his crossbow.

  “We took out three of those bastards,” Jayden said, grimacing against the slash on her leg. It had a field dressing, but the bandage was soaked with blood.

  “They attacked the camp while we were out on patrol,” Steve said. “They didn’t know we were out here, I don’t think. Let us get the jump on a few of them.”

  “How long?” Katie asked.

  “Not too long after we got here. Eleven-thirty, maybe. They arrived in those two trucks. Loaded a bunch of crap up the mountain path there, before they set them on fire.”

  “Just blocked the road, as far as we can tell,” Jayden said. “We sniped at them a bit, but the second group caught us by surprise.”

  Steve looked over at Katie, abashed. “They had kids with them. We had to be careful. Only managed to take out a couple of them. Couldn’t get to the kids.”

  “You did your best,” Katie said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “We were checking those we killed,” he motioned to a pile of bodies about twenty feet away, behind a stand of scrub, “when one of them stabbed Jayden.”

  I glanced at Katie.

  “Not dead,” Jayden growled. “Only faking it. Steve took care of the bastard.”

  Steve shrugged. “They’ve sent a couple patrols, so we’ve been sniping at them, moving around.”

&
nbsp; “Were the kids okay?” Katie asked.

  “Seemed okay,” Jayden said. She looked away.

  “Trisha was with them,” Steve said, his voice bitter. “Just followed them up the hill here, carrying the twins like she was going to a picnic.”

  Jayden spat. “I think he’s got her under a spell or something,” she said. “That freaky dude in black.”

  I sat down on my heels. Holy crap. “Was it a blond guy, about thirty, with a scar on his face?”

  Steve shrugged, but Jayden nodded. “It was her boyfriend. I saw them once in town. She didn’t know I saw her, but they were out at dinner one night and me and Cole were picking up takeout.”

  Katie looked pale—shook her head. “Wait a minute. Trisha is dating Justin … the fucking necromancer?”

  I rubbed my temples. This was fucked up. And she voluntarily carried the kids? Was she how they got into Black Briar?

  Sixty-nine

  Originally, Justin had only hoped to draw forth a powerful spirit to bend to his will. This had exceeded his expectations. The witch’s dome just added to his available resources. Did she realize the gift she’d given him? Now he had the power he needed to do something he’d only dreamed of. Drawing Frederick Sawyer here had been child’s play. The vanity of his kind had always been easy to manipulate. He would rip out Sawyer’s still-beating heart and eat it, claiming the drake’s power as his own. But first, to take care of the riffraff.

  From a dripping sack he pulled a handful of severed fingers and cast them into the brazier. The words fell from his lips like honey. “Blood seek and bones crack.” The fingers blackened in the flames. “Spirits of pain. Cover this valley with dread and woe.”

  Gray smoke billowed from the brazier and flowed down the side of the mountain. He watched it roil out over the valley before him, obscuring the greenish glow of the tainted dome. On the road below, the enemy panicked. Their screams of anger and dismay rose to him, filling him with delight.

  “Slaughter them,” he called as the few dead that lay below rose up. “Let no one stand before us.” He turned to his cultists. “Soak the ground in their blood.”

  They screamed as they descended the side of the mountain, spirits flowed with them, drawn by the gray smoke, diverted from the quest for the dome.

  Seventy

  Gram thrummed in my hand, alerting me to danger. I stood, stepping out from the overhang where we were hidden. A wall of gray rolled down the main trail from above.

  “Uh-oh,” Katie breathed. Spirits rode in the thick fog, sucking the heat from us as they passed.

  As soon as the fog hit the cultist’s bodies, the ones Steve and Jayden had killed, they started moving, broken and twisted as they were. It was like when we’d been trapped inside the house.

  “We have to get them out of here,” I growled. “Down to the line.”

  Katie nodded, and we stood. Steve got Jayden in a fireman carry while I moved ahead, keeping the stirring dead in my sights. Katie darted out onto the path a little ways ahead, making sure the way was clear. The fog was not as thick here, but it gathered more the lower it rolled. Then, several figures came screaming from the stones around us, cultists with daggers. One jumped at me, and I stepped to the side, bringing Gram around to slash at the masked attacker.

  Katie sprinted up the next hairpin turn, swinging her guitar around and belting out a song. The fog cleared around us. The first cultist fell at my feet, his chest pulsing with rising blood. A second dodged past me, thrusting a dagger at me as she passed. I blocked the wild blow with Gram, and she performed an intricate gesture, flinging power in my direction.

  Flames erupted around us, a wall separating me from the others.

  Katie countered with a song about rain, and the fire fizzled. She stumbled and went to one knee. Too much, I thought. She’s gonna overdo it.

  I sprinted forward as the cultist began a second spell, but I cut her off, literally. Gram caught her just below her right ear, severing her neck and sending her head bouncing down the rocky slope. Never send the casters out without a tank. These people were idiots.

  The body fell forward, following the head, to land in a bloodied mess a dozen feet below. Then, as we watched, the corpse rose and began making its way down to where Black Briar had its skirmish line.

  “We can’t afford to kill them twice,” I growled to Katie as I caught up with her, pulling her to her feet. “We need a better plan.”

  Steve was in damn good shape, but Jayden was heavy, and the trail was rotten with mud and ice. We skittered our way across the uneven ground. Half a dozen walking dead were between us and our crew.

  We heard the crack of a single gunshot, and a bullet ricocheted near us.

  “Hope we don’t get shot by our own troops,” Jayden said.

  Steve just grunted and hunched a little lower, dancing down the rocky slide.

  A dozen more cultists came screaming down the hill toward us. Too many for us to handle. I fell back to give Steve a chance to make it to flat land. Katie stopped as well, sending several crossbow bolts up into the pursuing cultists. One stumbled and fell, but the others just jumped over the fallen, screeching like banshees.

  I waded into them, swinging Gram for all I was worth. Two went down as the black blade cut through muscle and bone. Several cultists fell back, giving me a wide berth, but several dodged past me, sprinting toward Katie, Steve, and Jayden.

  They stumbled onto flat land before the cultists could reach them. The Black Briar line parted to let them in. The cultists didn’t slow. The walking dead, as well as the living, crashed against the shield wall, many impaling themselves on the halberds.

  More gunshots raked the enemy, and they fell back, only to surge forward once more. Our line was anchored on the right by the burning wreckage, but that didn’t deter the dead. Several plunged into the flames and emerged as walking infernos. Black Briar scattered, breaking into squads as they’d practiced, falling back across the road to the second ditch.

  I hit the cultists from behind as a second wave rolled down the mountain and onto the road. Three cultists went down under my blade before I got to the first burning dead.

  It turned to me, a hulk of a man, with several crossbow bolts in his chest and his robes on fire. I danced back, swinging Gram at one outstretched hand. The blade cut through the burning meat, and the bastard lumbered forward, grabbing my sword.

  I reached down and pulled the hammer from my right side, slipped my hand through the loop. At that moment, another cultist swung a dagger at me. I yanked Gram back with a muscle-wrenching pull and swung the hammer, smashing the dagger aside.

  The burning dead guy clubbed my shoulder, and I staggered. I spun around, bringing Gram through the cultist’s arm, severing it above the elbow. She fell back, screaming as blood sprayed in a wide arc. I hit the flaming man with the hammer, smashing the side of his already-mutilated head. He dropped to the ground, kicked once, and did not move.

  Seventy-one

  A young woman struggled as Dane and Tobin dragged her forward. She kicked at them, shouting with a voice cracked from exhaustion. They dropped her, sobbing, at Justin’s feet.

  He knelt, cupping her panic-stricken face. “You do have a certain beauty,” he said, turning her head from one side to the other. “I should allow my compatriots a moment or two with which to entertain you, but alas.”

  He waved his hand in the air, and the brutish cultists stepped forward once more. She thrashed against them until they slammed her onto the altar before Justin. She squeaked as the breath was knocked from her.

  They lashed her feet and hands to the corners of the altar, pulling her spread-eagle against the stony surface.

  Justin glanced back toward Trisha. “What do you think, lover? Will this one bring the dragon to us? Will her life’s blood be the sacrifice we need to bring you to your glory?”

  Trisha did not answer. She stared forward, her eyes glazed and with a vapid smile on her face.

  He chuckled and turned b
ack to the altar.

  “Please,” the nameless girl begged, her tear-stained face turned to Trisha. “What have I done?”

  “Done?” he asked. “My dear, you have done nothing. It is a shame, really, that you are of no more value than the blood that flows in your veins.” Justin drew a long dagger from his belt. The blade twisted, serpentlike, to a needle-fine point. He bent, tracing the blade across her shoulder. She whimpered as a line of blood followed the tip.

  “How I wish we had time to play,” he said, lowering his face to hers. She gasped as he shoved the blade into her, kissing her open mouth while she kicked beneath him.

  When she stopped moving, he rose, holding the dagger aloft. As he began to chant, the blood that flowed from her rose in a fine mist. Within seconds she lay before him a shriveled husk. He stood back, clothed in a robe of her blood.

  “Come to me, Frederick Sawyer,” he called into the skies. Lightning flashed skyward from his outstretched hands. “We await your vengeance.”

  From the cliff wall above him, a metal scaffold reached out over the plateau. There, Mr. Philips rose, feet first by a length of chain, his body wrapped in barbed wire. Blood covered his body from dozens of cuts and the constricting bands. Below him a dozen women pulled the chain through a series of pulleys, ratcheting him upward one halting step at a time.

  “Does the bait not suit your taste?” Justin asked the sky.

  The red-robed cultists, Dane and Tobin, cut the bonds that held the corpse to the altar and tossed the remains onto the growing pile of leathery skin and bones that littered the plateau.

  “No reply yet?” he asked, shaking his head. “One more, I think.” He snapped his fingers. “Then your moment of glory will be upon us, my sweet.”

  Trisha moaned quietly, then fell silent once again.