Swords Against Darkness

by Paula Guran

  “All right,” Skint said, “we pick us a room with one way in and one way out—”

  “Ghosts go through walls, Captain—”

  “Huggs, how’s the wound?”

  “Wither dug it out. It’ll do.”

  Skint nodded and looked around once more. “Fuck ghosts,” she said, “this ain’t ghosts.”

  “Shit,” said Huggs, and she walked back outside.

  “Stay here, Dull,” ordered Skint. “Sergeant, fire up that lantern and let’s go find us a room.”

  “Never thought you cared, Captain.”

  The first three chambers along the row in front of them were dark, stinking hovels with passages through to secondary rooms—and those rooms opened out to both sides, their facing walls revealing the keep’s heavy stones where rotted sheets of plaster had peeled away. The two mercenaries did little more than peer into those back chambers. The fourth room was an old armory, picked bare.

  Flapp lifted the lantern and said, “See that? There, far corner—a trapdoor.”

  They walked to it. The brass ring was gone and the wood looked rotted through. “Give it a prod with your sword,” Skint said.

  “You sure?”

  “Do it.”

  He handed her the lantern and withdrew his long blade of blued Aren steel. As soon as he touched the tip to the door, the planks crumpled, fell in a cloudy whoosh through the hatch. They heard sifting sounds from below.

  “That ain’t been used in a long time,” Flapp observed.

  Skint edged closer and brought the lantern over the hole. “Iron ladder, Sergeant. Looks like the looters lost their courage.”

  “I’m not surprised,” he replied.

  “Still drunk, Sergeant?”

  “No. Mostly . . . no.”

  “We might want to take a look down there.”

  He nodded.

  “I think,” she said slowly, turning to face him, “we got ourselves a demon.”

  “That’s the smell all right.”

  They heard clattering from the main hall.

  Skint led the way back to the others.

  Wither and Huggs had brought in the crossbows and dart-bags and were pulling and dividing up quarrels. Dullbreath was ratcheting tight the cords on the all-metal fist-punchers, smearing gobs of grease into the thick braids.

  “Light the rest of the lanterns, Sergeant,” said Skint, tightening the straps of her gauntlets. “Where’s my helmet, Withy?”

  “Behind Dullbreath, Captain.”

  “Everybody suit up. The night’s gonna start with a bang. Then we can get some rest.”

  “I thought we’d left crap-face demons behind us,” griped Huggs.

  “One got out and squirreled up here, that’s all.”

  “A magic-shitter, too.”

  “It’ll show, we drive it back, corner it, and kill the fucker.”

  The others nodded.

  High in the rafters, the imp stared down at the five fools. Soldiers! How exciting. They had managed well reining in their panic, but the imp could smell their acrid sweat, that pungent betrayal of terror. It watched as they assembled their weapons, went over each other’s armor—what was left of it—and then, arranging the five lanterns in a broad circle, they donned their helmets—one of those badly cracked, the one on the taller of the two men—and, slotting quarrels into the crossbows, settled into a circle well inside the ring of fitful light.

  Sound defensive positioning.

  The demon they were now discussing could come from anywhere, after all, any of the doorways, including the one leading outside. Could come from the ceiling, too, for that matter. And the imp grinned with its needle teeth.

  All very good, very impressive.

  But there wasn’t just one demon, was there?

  No. There were lots. And lots. And lots.

  The imp awoke sorcery again, sealing the keep’s doorway. One of the women caught the stench of that and she swore. That one had a nose for magic, she did. Too bad it wasn’t going to help.

  Still grinning, the imp summoned its fiends.

  In the stable, the horses, sensitive to such things, began shrilling and screaming.

  Flapp saw the captain lift her head, as if trying to hear something behind the maddened horses. A moment later, she straightened. “Collect up the lanterns. Time to retreat to our room.”

  Burdened with gear, crossbows cradled, the lanterns slung by their handles over the stirrups, the group moved in a contracting circle toward a lone gaping doorway.

  Flapp was the first through. A quick scan, and then a grunt. “Clear.”

  The others quickly filed in.

  Huggs made to speak, but the captain silenced her with a gesture, and then, when Skint had everyone’s attention, she hand-talked, fast, precise. Nods answered her all around. Lanterns clunked softly on the floor.

  Gray-scaled, trailing cobwebs and shedding mortar dust, the demons poured like foul water down a cataract, round and round the spiral stairs of the north tower. Ten, twenty, thirty, their jaws creaking, fangs clashing, lunging on all fours, tails slithering in their wake. They spilled out onto the landing, talons screeching across the tiles as they rushed the single lit doorway two-thirds of the way down the corridor.

  Cries of rising bloodlust shrilled from their throats, a frenzied chorus that could curdle a lump of lard and set it quivering. The imp dropped down from the rafters and scurried into their wake, in time to see the first of the demons plunge through the entrance.

  It howled—but the cry was one of blunted frustration.

  The imp slipped under, over, and around the mob clamoring at the doorway, leapt through to find itself in a room with naught but demons lashing about, gouging the walls in fury.

  The lanterns had been kicked against the walls.

  The five humans were gone.

  Where?

  Ah—the imp caught sight of a gaping hole in the floor.

  With frantic screeches, it commanded the demons to pursue, and the one closest to the trapdoor slithered through, followed quickly by the others.

  Clever humans! But how fast could they run?

  Not fast enough!

  The imp awakened the rest of its children, and curdling howls erupted from countless chambers.

  The first demons swarmed down the ladder to the first subterranean level—there were a half-dozen such levels, a maze of narrow, low-ceilinged, crooked passageways bored in the hill’s enormous mound. Storerooms, cisterns, armories, cutter surgeries, and wards. It had been centuries since the demons last scoured these tunnels.

  The imp sensed their sudden confusion—the stench of the humans went off in each of the three possible directions, and then two more at a branch ten strides along the main corridor. They had panicked! Now each fool could be hunted down, dragged to the grimy, greasy cobbles in a burst of blood and entrails.

  Chittering with excitement, the imp sent demons after every one of the pathetic, wretched things.

  A demon slunk noiselessly down a cramped passage, nostrils glistening, dripping in answer to the sour smell of a human hanging like mist in the dark air. Jagged black jolts ripped through its brain in waves, a jarring hunger that trembled through its elongated torso, shivering down its gnarled limbs to softly clatter its claws and talons.

  The long sleep was an ugly, cruel place, and awakening was painful with savage need.

  It came upon a foul woolen cloak, lost in the quarry’s frantic flight. The demon crouched and breathed deep, stirring memories of centuries-old slaughter. Lifting its head, it reflexively spread wide its jaws, and crept forward.

  At a sound behind it the demon spun around.

  A studded, gauntleted fist smashed into the demon’s face, crushing its snout, sending shards of splintered fangs into the back of its throat. The fist drove home again, snapping the demon’s head against the wall. And again, and again.

  Sergeant Flapp’s fist was a blur, a rapid mallet that repeatedly pounded the pulped mess that was the dem
on’s head while his other hand held the thing up by the neck. When the meaty, crunching sounds gave way to the hard impact of a skull plate driven flat against the stone of the wall, he stepped back and let the twitching fiend slide to the floor.

  He could hear more coming up the corridor.

  Flapp collected his cloak and set off down the narrow side passage he had been hiding in—watching the demon sidle past—only moments earlier.

  Three demons skidded around at the intersection and sprinted on all fours, voicing deep growls that would shiver the hair off a pack of wolves. The lead one’s head exploded in a spray of blood and bone as Wither’s quarrel took it between the eyes. Sprawling, its limbs entangled the demons behind it and they howled in fury.

  Ten loping strides down the passageway, Wither stepped back out of sight, into the side corridor—a narrow chute barely wide enough to let her pass. Wedging the crossbow crossways at chest height just within the entrance, she took two steps back, drawing her two longswords, and waited.

  The first demon’s forelimbs wrapped claws around the corner to slow it down as it lunged into the chute.

  The iron crossbow brought it up short, clipping its lower jaw and snapping its head down.

  Wither selected that inviting bald pate as a suitable target and swung down with both blades.

  Brains splattered the walls.

  The demon suddenly crowding behind it shrieked as a quarrel tore through its neck from farther up the main corridor. Gasping red froth, it staggered back and decided on a noisy death.

  Wither kicked the virtually headless demon away and, sheathing one sword, wrenched loose her crossbow, and then set out down the chute.

  Twenty paces along the main corridor, Huggs dropped the crossbow stirrup, set her boot toe on it, and tugged the cord into lock, wincing as the wound in her shoulder flared with pain. Slotting a new quarrel, she plunged into the gloom. Of course, demons could see in the dark, and some of them could see any hot-blooded beastie, but when hungry, they preferred to follow their noses and that was a savage yank on their leashes (not that they had leashes, not these ones anyway).

  And their eyes, why, they blazed and made perfect targets.

  She could hear more coming. Some would take off after Wither. The rest would latch on to her tail. She hurried off.

  Crowded by four of its fellows, a demon crouched in an intersection. Human trails led into opposing corridors. It hesitated. The one behind it snarled and darted to the left, and then skidded to a halt as it stumbled on a discarded cloak. It grunted in confusion, and then whirled—

  The man with the jutting yellow teeth launched himself from the corridor to the right, throwing all his weight behind a sword thrust that punched through the demon in the intersection, piercing both hearts, the hilt slamming hard against ribs. Leaving the weapon there, he ducked down, twisting to drive one scale-armored elbow into the next closest demon, caving in its forehead.

  The remaining two demons collided with each other in their eagerness to reach him.

  Dullbreath stepped back, and then drove a boot into the heavy balls dangling between the legs of one of the creatures. As it sank back with a grinding groan, the last demon was suddenly unimpeded and with a shriek it flung itself at the man. He caught its throat with both hands and squeezed in a single lightning-quick clench that crushed the demon’s windpipe. Throwing the twitching thing aside, Dullbreath drew his hunting knife and sliced open the throat of the demon he’d kicked, since he was feeling merciful.

  Sheathing the knife, he tugged loose his sword, collected up his crossbow, and set off, snagging up his cloak along the way.

  One hand trailing along a wall—keeping herself straight as she ran mostly blind in the darkness—Huggs felt the sudden gap to her right. Sliding to a halt, she backed up—fighting sounds from somewhere down there. Savage-sounding stuff, maybe even desperate.

  She knew she had a few and maybe more coming up behind her. Whoever she helped out might curse Huggs if she led them down after her—trapping Huggs and whomever else between two slavering mobs.

  Oh well. She hefted her crossbow and darted down the side passage.

  She heard a solid thunk—like the world’s biggest crossbow—and that worried her, until she heard demonic shrieks of agony and rage.

  Someone’s found a new toy?

  Clattering claws behind her, closing fast, and that wasn’t good.

  Huggs halted, crouched, raised her weapon, and waited until she saw the gleam of the first demon’s eyes. Took that one down easy. Dropping the crossbow, she drew her sword into her right hand, her crack-finder into her left.

  Four more sets of blazing eyes rushed upon her.

  “Drop flat!”

  Huggs did.

  A thunderous whoosh raced over her. Sudden mayhem up the corridor, as a huge pig of a barbed quarrel ripped through three of the damned things, gouging a shoulder of the fourth one. Laughing, Huggs leapt to her feet and charged it.

  With a squeal, the demon fled as fast as three working limbs could take it.

  “Shit.” Huggs halted, jogged back, peered in the darkness. “Who?”

  “Wither—listen, found a whole storeroom of these fuckers. Siege arbalests.”

  “Lead the way, darling.”

  “Watch your step up here. Lots of bodies.”

  “Right.”

  Captain Skint shoved the faceless mess aside and pushed through the doorway, stepping clear and then turning to meet the first of the demons that lunged into view at the threshold. Her sword tip opened a wide grin in its throat. The next one, clambering over its fallen kin, lost the top of its head, bisecting its relatively small brain, which stopped working in any case.

  Three more squeezed through and Skint took a step back to clear some room and let them in.

  Talons slashed with murderous intent, but caught empty air. Jaws snapped on nothing. Surges to close and grapple missed again and again. The woman was a blur of motion to their eyes. A demon’s head jumped free of the rest of it, and the stumpy neck poured blood everywhere. Another shrieked as something kissed its belly and it looked down to see its intestines tumbling out—withered, empty things, like starving worms. Collecting them up, it waddled to the doorway—but that was blocked as dozens of demons struggled to press through the doorway. The disemboweled demon snarled and took two fatal talons to its eyes for its ill manners.

  Skint helped a demon leap into a wall, and when it fell to the floor, she stamped her heel into its throat, then jumped away to avoid its thrashing.

  She cast a gauging regard upon the swarm of gleaming eyes jammed in the doorway, and then stepped forward and began hacking with her sword. Sometimes, finesse was just stupid.

  Flapp balanced on the crossbeam and watched as the third and last demon passed underneath. His quarrel buried itself in the back of the thing’s head, and as it fell, the sergeant flung the crossbow at the nearest beast—which had twisted around, eye flaring like coals—and saw it bounce from the demon’s flat fore-head even as Flapp plunged off the edge to land on the floor, two short swords snapping out but held points-down.

  He rushed the demons. Blades slashed, intersecting wrists and forearms, slashed some more, cutting through hamstrings and other assorted, necessary tendons. He drove his head forward. Helmed bridge guard slammed with a happy crunch into a forehead, and then Flapp was past them both—they flopped and writhed behind him all messy with blood. He spun around and made quick work of them, and then retrieved his crossbow, only to snarl when discovering its bent arm. Flinging it away, he trundled down the corridor.

  He could hear fighting.

  He went to find it.

  They could make out a mob of the bastards swarming a doorway, which meant someone was cornered, or, rather, had let themselves get cornered, which meant it was the captain. Grunting beneath the weight of the arbalests both women held, they sent two bolts tearing into the crowd. Torn bodies and pieces of meat flew.

  And then, with a scream, Hugg
s charged the rest. Cursing, Wither dropped her arbalest and unsheathed her swords, setting off after her. By the time she reached the writhing mound, Huggs was buried somewhere beneath the heaving press of snarling demons.

  Wither started chopping off limbs, heads.

  She saw the captain’s sword tip lunge from the doorway, driving deep between two widening eyes, and a moment later Skint kicked her way into view.

  The demons broke, a half dozen bolting with shrieks up the corridor.

  Where someone else hit them.

  Wither started dragging bodies off Huggs, and found her pounding on a knife she’d driven through the top of a demon’s head, but its jaws were still clamped tight around her left thigh.

  “You idiot!” snapped Wither, “get your hands away so I can pry it loose. Gods below, we could have stood back and cleared the whole mess with a couple more bolts!”

  Huggs spat blood. “Why should Skint get all the fun? Get this fucking thing off my leg!”

  “I’m trying—sit still!”

  Sergeant Flapp arrived. “Three got away!”

  “There’s more,” said Skint.

  “You said one!” Wither hissed, finally loosening the demon’s death-bite.

  “So I was off by a few. Where’s Dullbreath? Anyone see him?”

  “Not since we split,” said Flapp.

  “Same here,” added Wither, and Huggs nodded as she sat up.

  Skint swung her sword to shed gore and blood from the blade. “They’re on the run now. So we hunt.”

  Her soldiers checked their weapons.

  Flapp saw one of the arbalest bolts and kicked at it. “Nice.”

  “Got a whole room of the damned things.”

  “I need me a replacement.”

  “We’ll take you there, Sergeant—”

  “Take us all there,” said Skint. “Then we split up again. Rendezvous in the main hall up top, and don’t dally. Someone’s running this army, and I want it skewered.”

  “Follow me,” said Wither.

  Whimpering, the imp picked its way around yet another heap of demon corpses. Poor children! This was a slaughter, a terrible, grievous, dreadful slaughter!

  And now they were hunting the survivors down—nowhere to hide!

  Human stench everywhere, down every passage, every twisting, turning corridor, every cursed chamber and rank room. There was no telling where they were now, no telling what vicious ambushes they’d set up.