by Travis Bughi
“Adelpha!” Emily called out. “Where’s Fritjof? He needs to watch Nicholas!”
“Fritjof is dead,” Adelpha replied, never pausing as she drew and released an arrow. “Damn! I’m running low! Anyone have arrows?”
“Fritjof?” Emily said, not finishing.
Something told her she should stop and mourn. Fritjof had been so kind and had suffered so long aside her brother that she felt heartless letting his death pass without a thought. Reality clenched her hard and fast, though, and she swallowed the sympathetic emotions into her gut. Bow and arrow rose, and another shadowy figure dropped a moment later. Just ahead, Nicholas continued to roar and fight. Takeo appeared beside him, his katana flashing.
Keep him safe, she thought to Takeo. Protect my brother.
Then she heard a chorus of cries from behind her, back the way they were retreating, and she turned to see a second horde of scimitar wielding warriors turning the corner. The invaders saw Emily and her group and charged with glee, voices echoing off the alleyways to herald their arrival.
“Abe! Amazons!” Emily yelled and leveled her bow.
Abe and the archers turned to see the charge. As one, a storm of arrows was released into the charging men, followed shortly by several tremendous booms. The entire front row collapsed to the ground, skidding along the cobbled steps, and blood pooled into the many cracks, but those behind that row did not balk. They charged on, swords waving in the air.
“Shoot every arrow you have!” Adelpha commanded.
Emily had only four arrows left, and she made sure every shaft found a target. The other amazons did the same, and Abe reloaded his pistols.
“Emily!” he yelled. “I’m almost out!”
“Make them count!” she said, drawing her knife.
She and the other amazons stepped up side-by-side to meet the oncoming horde. Adelpha was at Emily’s right, and she and every amazon Emily saw had drawn their knives. Not a sword, spear, axe, or hammer was among them.
“Damn it!” Emily shouted. “All we have are knives?”
“We don’t carry arms for this sort of fight, you know that,” Adelpha said through gritted teeth. “Brace yourself, Emily. I think this might be the end.”
The war cries came louder and louder as the charging horde dashed down the streets. Emily braced herself, both to stay firm, but also to dodge. If luck would have it, she could dart in amongst the press of bodies, preventing them from using their huge scimitars for at least a short while. She thought to alert Valgrith, but realized they were too few as well. Just as the thought that Adelpha was right entered her mind, she heard a loud flapping noise from above.
Out of the darkened skies, armored knights on winged pegasi came soaring down between Emily’s and Jabbar’s soldiers. Their mounts skittered to a stop across the cobbled stones and neighed and snorted from the effort. Atop them, knights shouted in unison and raised longswords high to meet the coming enemy. Orange light shined and flickered across their polished armor, broken only by the stains of red blood and the dents of would-be lethal blows. The charging enemy broke unexpectedly upon this sudden formation, falling upon swords, shields, and even hooves, for the pegasi were trained warriors in their own right.
Hooves lashed out to crack bones and jaws. Shields flung out to block blows on one side while longswords stabbed straight and true on the other. The knights staggered as some swings struck their armor, but these scimitar fighters were nothing compared to the ogres and minotaurs the knights had been fighting all their lives. Atop their pegasi, the knights held the advantage of height, too, and they used it to mercilessly slaughter the invaders.
“You! You!” one knight shouted to another. “Take flight! Find the ogres!”
One armored knight and her pegasus leapt into the air and disappeared into the darkness. The one that had spoken turned to look back at Emily, his visor raised, and Emily saw sallow, dark skin and ice-blue eyes. Sir Mark O’Conner gave her a grin decorated with two fanged teeth and then went back to slaughtering.
“The alleys!” Adelpha shouted suddenly. “Get the alleys!”
Where the group had stopped, two alleys on either side, each only a couple paces wide, led into the space between the knights and the vikings. Adelpha and her amazons filled them with knives at the ready, prepared to meet the enemy that would surely find them.
“Emily!” Mark shouted.
Emily turned to see Mark looking back at her. He opened his mouth to speak when a scimitar struck him across the chest. He staggered barely a hair, a testament to his vampiric strength, then stabbed the attacker and looked back at her again.
“I’ve been looking for you!” he yelled. “How fares the colossus?”
“There are hundreds of ships!” she shouted back over the clash of steel.
“Destroy as many as you can and then send the colossus into the streets!” Mark replied. “They are as thick as this all over! Trample them and the buildings alongside them if you have to! And you there, gunslinger! Save your bullets to protect her!”
Abe nodded, mouth agape, and stepped next to Emily, drawing his guns up on opposite sides of himself, prepared to fire in any direction.
“Emily!” Mark shouted. “The colossus! Reinforcements are coming!”
Emily shook her head. “Yes, sorry.”
Just before she closed her eyes, she saw enemies flooding down the alleys to meet the amazons.
Chapter 31
The colossus sowed terror into both the hearts of the invaders and the city itself that night. Emily ordered the statue into the streets where it smashed buildings to rubble and covered entire blocks with its strides. The invaders died tens at a time, unable to dive out of the way in the narrow roads. Even those that managed to hide found themselves suddenly and swiftly outnumbered by the hordes of bloodthirsty ogres and terrifying minotaurs that roamed the city in packs.
Emily did her best to direct the colossus to walk through the streets only, and it did for the most part, having walked these streets since its creation. However, some places were so narrow and full of enemies that Emily had no choice but to level both buildings and invaders as one. Their harrowing screams echoed loudly in the night before they were silenced by feet weighed down by a small mountain of solid stone. In the morning, there would be no bodies to find, only blood. Emily tried not to think about that.
Sir Mark’s promised ogres eventually came. They broke the attackers off Emily’s group, slaughtering their unprotected flanks in a horrible mimicry of the invaders’ own efforts. The enemy found themselves hopelessly outmatched. Armored lightly and armed with scimitars only, the mercenaries were paper to the ogres’ rock. The purple brutes won the games of both strength and ferocity, and it wasn’t long before what was left of Jabbar’s army began surrendering in droves. Some ran for it altogether, fleeing the city either by land or by ship, if such a ship could be found. Those that did so were allowed to run. Their retreat brought relief, but the battle did not immediately die. It raged on into the night, dwindling slowly like the fires.
Of those ships that remained, Emily used one for an unconventional purpose. She commanded the colossus to fill the ship with water and put out as many fires as it could. It took all night, but as a result, most of the city was saved from the consuming flames.
And not once did Jabbar show his face.
Sir Mark and his pegasus-mounted knights scoured the city from above all through the night, looking for the orange- and black-striped creature. They found nothing, but every warrior knew what to look for, so when morning came and the battle was over, Sir Mark retreated inside while his soldiers continued the search. Knights, ogres, minotaurs, and conscripts patrolled the streets to collect the dead, broke into homes to capture prisoners, and began the long count to estimate the destruction the battle had wrought. Emily did not envy them that task. She was exhausted, as was everyone else.
The battle ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Emily’s final command to the colossus was to sta
nd watch in the bay while she went looking for a place to sleep. As The Kraken’s Eye had burned down, the group instead broke into the next unused, yet not unfamiliar, place that came to mind: Madam Sweeney’s orphanage. There were plenty of beds, and it had been spared the flames from the night before. Madam Sweeney and her children had fled before the battle, so there was no need to explain why they were there. Emily was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
Meanwhile, Takeo waited at the doorway with katana unsheathed.
To the best of Emily’s knowledge, everyone slept except the samurai—Valgrith and what remained of his crew, the surviving amazons, Adelpha, and Abe. Even Nicholas passed into exhausted sleep eventually, his back turned to everyone to hide the tears that fell from his eyes.
Emily’s younger brother had wanted to sleep alone at first, but Takeo had insisted everyone must sleep in the same room. All were too tired to argue, and when Emily awoke, Takeo was still half awake and leaning against the wall nearest the door.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she mumbled.
“Someone has to watch,” he said, fighting a yawn. “We all have to watch each other now. No one can be alone.”
“For Jabbar?”
Takeo nodded meekly, and his eyes fluttered closed before springing open again.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he said. “That we’d survive the battle only to have Jabbar walk free. We should be celebrating now, relaxing our guard, knowing the nightmare has ended, but it hasn’t. I can’t even be relieved that we won. That rakshasa could be any one of us, even now. It could have happened during the battle for all we know. I didn’t see everything, couldn’t watch everyone, and I can’t believe that Jabbar never fought. We have to be wary of everyone, all the time.”
“And how will we do that, love?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know,” Takeo said. “I . . . I don’t know.”
His normally placid lips grimaced and his eyes shut, hidden quickly by the hand that rose to cover his face, and his shoulders shuddered. Emily tensed, seeing the change but not believing it until she heard Takeo take a hurried breath. She leapt from her bed and dashed to him, wrapping her arms around him.
“Hey, stop,” she cooed. “We are alive, and Jabbar’s army is broken. Don’t do this.”
“How can I not?” he replied. “This is everything I was afraid of. I can’t protect you from this. You can’t even protect yourself. Damn, do I hate rakshasas! We have to find him. We have to search each and every person until we find him. We can’t rest. We can’t even sleep!”
“We’ll start with the bodies first,” Emily said and ran a hand through Takeo’s hair, “and the sea. He might be there, even now. The colossus destroyed a lot of ships.”
“Jabbar survived being buried by sand. I think he can survive water.”
“We’ll be careful,” she promised. “We’ll keep Abe with us always. Jabbar can’t be faster than a gunslinger. No one is.”
Emily felt Takeo nod into her chest, and she squeezed him tight, then she took over his watch and forced him to sleep. It didn’t take much effort to convince him, just a promise that she would never be alone nor would she let any in the room leave.
Then she went to Nicholas and touched him gently.
“Hm?” he grumbled awake.
“I just wanted to see you,” she said softly. “I’m worried about you.”
He didn’t give a second reply, and with his back still turned, Emily couldn’t see his face, though she did see his back heave as he took in a large breath.
“Leave me, please,” he whispered.
She did, despite all the reluctance in her heart.
One by one, the others awoke. Emily shared Takeo’s concerns and only allowed them to leave and return in pairs. Jabbar could kill and impersonate one, but not two people. When Valgrith roused, he immediately went to her and pulled up a seat.
“I could live a thousand years and never find a battle like that again,” he said, almost romantically. “Thank you, Emily Stout.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, words hollow. “How many of your crew survived?”
“Half,” he said with a gesture. “Gelik was not one of them—the lucky old man—I look forward to seeing him in Valhalla.”
“How can you sound so happy? Your people died.”
“Every one of us dies,” Valgrith snorted. “The only difference is how and when. I would expect a girl such as yourself to understand that. I am not happy that some of my family—and I do consider them family—died, just envious that I did not die with them. I will see them again, and I will meet them as a warrior. I will see you again, too, I think, in another life on another plane of existence.”
With no battle left to fight, he and his survivors were ready to be on their way. Those who lived had children they wanted to see. The jarl inquired about payment, and Emily instructed him on where to find the knights’ barracks and, thus, the ruler of Lucifan.
“Hopefully not every leprechaun survived the battle,” Emily said, then winced. “Ouch, that sounded cruel. Well, still, hopefully there’s a hoard of wealth that will need a new home. If Sir Mark doesn’t grant you something satisfactory, come and find me. I will help you—now, and if I see you again—because I owe you a debt not easily paid.”
“Fear not, Emily,” the jarl said. “I promise to hold you to it.”
They parted ways, and the last Emily saw of Valgrith in Lucifan was a shared smile between the two of them.
The next thing on the agenda was food and water. Everyone was parched, and hunger was a close second in need. They were not sure what Mark was doing to feed his troops, but they all wanted to remain distant from Lucifan’s conscripts for as long as possible. They ended up raiding Madam Sweeney’s food stores, but only after Abe counted out enough coins to pay for all they took.
“I have six bullets to my name.” The gunslinger sighed, bread and water in hand. “At this rate, I might as well melt down my gold and make bullets out of that. It’s too bad gold is such a terrible metal. I’ll never understand why leprechauns put so much value into it.”
“Desire is value, I suppose.” Takeo shrugged. “But please, keep all six of those bullets loaded. Until we know what happened to Jabbar, anything with two legs and two arms could be him.”
“You know, I can’t follow you two forever.” Abe sighed. “I mean, I want to protect my sister, of course. But I need to head home. I want to head home. I’m so tired of this city. I’m so tired of this . . . this.”
He made a noise in his throat that sounded of disgust. He looked at his hands and turned them over as if looking at something that covered them. Takeo blinked, letting the confusion he felt be said with his eyes. Emily, though, was not confused. She took her brother’s hand in hers.
“You can go, Abe,” she said. “You, Adelpha, and the amazons. You don’t have to kill anymore.”
“They were human,” Abe replied, voice heavy. “I’ve killed ogres, shot vampires and behemoths, but this felt different. I . . . I didn’t like it. I just—I killed so many of them. One of them, I saw him. It was just some kid, younger than Nicholas when he ran away. He was small so he broke through Valgrith’s men, heading straight for you, Emily, carrying a dagger longer than his forearm. I willed him to stop, raised my gun, but he just kept coming. Some kid just trying to prove himself. He didn’t even understand what he was doing, and I shot him. Just some child, someone’s son, dead because of this. He probably didn’t know why he was fighting. He didn’t know any better, and I killed him.”
A tear formed and dropped from Abe’s right eye. He stared at his bread and his water, and Emily could see him picturing the kid’s face. She wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything before Adelpha descended upon him, folding him into her arms and pressing her cheek to his.
“It was him or your sister,” Adelpha whispered. “Our sister, actually. You can’t be responsible for every person in this world. Some places are just harsh
and cruel, and Savara makes people hard.”
“I don’t want to be hard,” Abe replied.
“You aren’t.” She kissed his cheek. “And that’s why I love you. Come. Let’s take you home. We’ll wait there for Emily, okay? Your parents will appreciate the company.”
Leda stayed. The other amazons went with Adelpha and Abe to spend a few nights of recovery at a home far too small to fit them. There was a barn, though, and they wanted to be rid of the city and its terrors.
“Hurry, please,” Emily begged them. “Many of Jabbar’s army ran into the plains, and I’m worried for Mother and Father. I’ll join you soon once I’m finished here. It won’t be long. I promise.”
Takeo let dissatisfaction stain his eyes, but held his tongue until they’d gone. By midday, the only people left surrounding Emily were Takeo, Leda, and Nicholas.
“Why do you do this to me?” Takeo asked. “I tell you about Jabbar, about how we need allies, people we know and trust, and the first thing you do is get all of them to leave.”
“I’d hardly say all of them,” Emily scoffed. “There are four of us. That’s more than enough eyes to keep watch on us all. We’re an even number, so we’ll always be in pairs, and we’re also a mix of male and female, just in case anyone is embarrassed about having to relieve themselves around the same or opposite gender.”
“Talking about me?” Leda said. “I think you were talking about me. Just so you know, I’ll piss in front of the town square for all I care. My mother didn’t raise a shy maiden.”
Emily smiled, remembering Leda’s mother, Hanna. She’d been a good person, motherly and dependable, though occasionally stubborn. But what amazon wasn’t? Besides archery, stubbornness seemed to be the next quality amazons held dearest, and Emily liked to think she held up to that legend well.
“All of Sir Mark’s men are looking for Jabbar,” Emily said. “They know what to look for and that he can change his appearance. We have the advantage. We don’t need our own army anymore. That just gives him more places to hide. Too many of those amazons I’ve never seen before, and I don’t even know half of Valgrith’s crew’s names. With only us four to worry about, we’re better off. I haven’t forsaken your plan, Takeo. I’ve improved it.”
