Cutting through that armor would be a bitch. He’d need an edge. A blood edge. Too bad he couldn’t make one anymore. Blood swords and blood wards were behind him. Hugh unsheathed his sword and swung it, warming up his wrist.
The two officers turned to him, their faces emotionless. Their mouths gaped open. Two streams of fire shot at him.
His body reacted before his mind did. Hugh sliced the back of his left arm and threw the blood in an arc in front of him, sending his magic through it.
What the fuck am I doing?
The blood sparked. The blood ward flared in front of him in an arched screen, a wall of translucent red. The fire smashed into it and glanced off, shooting at an angle to the side. The torrents died.
How the hell…
Hugh groped for the connection to Roland but it was still gone.
He didn’t have time to puzzle over it. He pulled the magic to him, building his reserve and kept moving. Darkness curled from him, pulsing from the ground with his every step. The arcane currents built within him, familiar, strong, obedient.
Without a blood edge, he would be fucked.
The blood ward worked. Why not the blood sword?
The pair of golden-shouldered assholes sucked in air. Round two. Fire tore toward him. He threw up another blood ward, let the inferno die trying to break it, and kept moving.
The magic vibrated inside him like a firehouse under the full pressure of a hydrant. Blue sparks pierced the darkness rising from him, lighting it from within.
He was only ten yards from the front line.
The commander opened his mouth. His eyes sparked with bright fiery amber. A torrent of fire shot out of his mouth, white-hot, and met the wall of Hugh’s third blood ward. The spell took the full brunt of the impact. The fire raged, pounding on the translucent wall of red. Hairline cracks formed in the ward.
If it shattered, he would never know.
The fire torrent raged.
Now or never. Hugh drew the full length of his blade over the cut, soaking the flat of his sword in his blood. He reached for the power in his blood. For a terrifying half second, nothing was there, and then he found it, a bright spark of hot magic. He fed it and it burst into an inferno. Magic dashed down Hugh’s blade, like fire along a detonation cord. A bright red edge overlaid the sword.
The fire died.
Hugh dismissed the ward with a wave of his hand.
“Is that all? My turn.” His magic saturated him to the brim, threatening to boil over. All he had to do was aim it. “Karsaran.”
Darkness shot out of him, exploding, streaked with blue lightning. It clutched at the two front lines, jerking the armored men off their feet into the air. They hung three feet above the pavement. He moved through the gap he made, as their skeletons snapped, contorting, the staccato of their breaking bones crunching like broken glass under his feet.
An officer spun into his way. Hugh sidestepped, letting the man’s momentum carry him by, and sliced across the officer’s neck. The blood sword cut through solid metal like it was butter. The officer’s head rolled off his shoulders.
Ha. It still worked.
The second officer charged at Hugh. Hugh braced himself and met the charge, driving his shoulder into the man. The officer bounced off, knocked aside.
Hugh kept the momentum and swung. The commander parried, letting the blade slide off his sword, and came back with a devastating strike from the left and down.
Fast asshole. Not fast enough though. That armor had a price.
Hugh shied back, letting the point of the sword whistle by, and cut at the man’s elbow. Sword coated in magic met metal and bit through it. Blood wet the blade. One arm down.
The bigger man reversed the blow, as if the wound never happened, slashing high from the right. Hugh dodged, surged into the opening, and buried his sword in his opponent’s armpit. The blade screeched as it cut through metal and struck home.
The commander staggered back, blood pouring over his armor.
The second officer rammed into Hugh from the left, locking his sword against Hugh’s. Hugh jerked his knife out and stabbed him in the left eye. The man fell as if cut. Behind him the commander opened his mouth. Shit.
Hugh dropped down, scooping up the fallen officer’s shield, and raised it. Fire splashed over him. The shield turned too hot. Pain scoured his arm. His left hand blistered. He sank his magic into it, trying to keep the flesh on the bone, healing it as fast as the shield cooked it. Agony tore at him. Dark stars wavered in his vision. He could barely feel the hand, bathed in blue glow.
The fire ended. Hugh surged to his feet and hurled the shield at the enemy. The big man batted it aside and stomped forward, eyes bulging.
Die, you persistent sonovabitch.
The commander swung, blows coming fast and desperate.
Cut, dodge.
Cut, dodge.
Cut.
Hugh batted the sword aside and thrust. It was a precise, lightning-fast stab. The sword caught the commander in the throat, piercing it through just above the Adam’s apple. The man’s mouth gaped. He struggled on the blade, like an impaled fish. His sword crept up.
Sonovabitch.
“Arhari arsssan tuar.”
Magic tore out of Hugh. The pain bit his gut with molten fangs, letting him know he’d overspent. The commander’s body split, his ribs thrusting up and out, through the armor, like bony blades. Gore sprayed Hugh’s face. The commander gurgled, still alive. How the hell…
Hugh reversed his grip, snarled, and drove the blade with all his weight behind it into the man’s waist. Metal and flesh gave way and the top half of the man’s body slid to the side, hanging by a narrow strip of muscle and gristle. Hugh kicked it, toppling the body, raised his sword like a hangman’s axe, and chopped the commander’s head off.
The three pieces that used to be a human body lay still.
Hugh dragged his hand across his face, trying to clear blood from his nose and mouth, spat, and turned. A dozen mrog warriors stared at him. As one, they raised their weapons.
He swung his blood sword and bared his teeth. “Next.”
14
The woods looked different at night, the dark trunks and braided branches crowding the road. It was well past midnight and the forest was pitch-black. Things shifted in its depths, calling out with eerie voices. Glowing eyes tracked the long column stretching behind Hugh, filling the woods with human military noises: horses snorting, gears clanking, and muffled conversations coming from the back.
After he finished off the leader, he’d expected the warriors to run. They didn’t. They simply stood. When approached with a weapon, they fought back to the bitter end. They screamed when cut, but they didn’t speak. They didn’t fear. They didn’t speak even when overpowered, and when the Iron Dogs managed to restrain one long enough to tie him up, he burst into flames from the inside, burning the four people holding him. It cost him a good deal of his power to heal the burns.
They’d had to kill every last mrog fighter, and Hugh had walked that line, making sure the kills happened. It wasn’t fighting. It was slow, methodic butchery. Some of his people couldn’t do it. They would kill something that was fighting back if the odds were even, but hitting another person over the head with a mace until you were sure his skull was mush while four of five of your friends jumped them was beyond them.
He spared his people from it as much as he could.
It took forever. And when they were done, he worked with the wounded, while the rest of his troops fought the fires. By the time they put the flames out, it was well past midnight. Nobody wanted to sleep in Aberdine tonight. It took another half an hour to arrange the survivors into a column, load the injured onto carts, and move out to Baile. He was dragging almost half a thousand extra people with him. Elara would just love that.
He wanted to go home and wash away the blood. It clung to him, seeping into his pores and coating his tongue, and he had to fight the urge to spit every few second
s to clear it out. He’d been through hard battles before, but it never felt that raw. The void was so loud tonight, Hugh could almost see it hovering over him.
The woods parted, the trees falling back, and Bucky carried him into the clearing. A full moon shone in the sky, spilling silvery gauzy light onto the grassy slopes. On the left Baile rose. He had expected it to be quiet and dark. Bright fires burned on the side towers. Someone had set out fey lanterns along the path leading to the gates, and their pale bluish glow fought back the night. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
A lone figure stood on the battlements, her dress bright white against the darkness. She’d waited for him.
He jerked himself back from that thought before he read too much into it.
A horn sounded in the castle, triumphant. The gates swung open. Bucky raised his head and pranced.
“What are you doing, you fool?” Hugh growled.
The stallion doubled down. They pranced to the gate. A huge cistern was set by the gate, with a shower rigged to it. The air smelled of fresh bread and roasted meat.
“Oh my god,” Stoyan groaned behind him.
They went through the gate. Long tables waited in the bailey, with a buffet line against the outer wall, the cooks waiting.
“I’m going to cry,” Bale announced from somewhere down the line. “Does anybody have a hankie?”
People ran up to take their horses. Hugh turned in the saddle. Elara was still on the battlements. They looked at each other for a long moment. Then June came to take Bucky’s reins and Hugh dismounted.
Hugh stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, pulled on a pair of pants, and dropped into the chair by his desk. He’d stayed in the bailey long enough to make sure everyone would be settled, but it was quickly clear he wasn’t needed, so he’d climbed the stairs to his bedroom, took off his armor, cleaned it, then went into the shower.
He’d stood there for a good quarter of an hour, letting hot water run over his face. Alas, he couldn’t stay in the shower forever. Tomorrow he would need to review their losses. Three of his Iron Dogs had died. Twenty-one of the villagers. Twenty-four was better than two thousand, but math didn’t make the weight of the dead any lighter.
His whole body ached, but his brain was awake.
He’d made a blood ward and used a blood weapon. How? The purge hadn’t failed. He couldn’t feel Roland. He shouldn’t have been able to do it, but he did. And he could do it again. He stared at the cut on his arm. He could feel the magic humming in his blood. That was one hell of a mystery.
He needed sleep, but he knew the moment he closed his eyes, he would see fire and blood and death. If he managed to fall asleep, he would dream tonight. It was inevitable. He would relive the battle. It would cycle through his head until the morning. The void gnawed at him, taking long bites with its sharp teeth, and the void was never satiated.
Tattered memories slid across his mind, death groans, blood spray, the screech of a sword forcing its way through metal into the flesh underneath… Right now Roland would be reaching through the distance for reassurance and absolution. The voice of reason, the parental voice of God, who would tell him he had done what was necessary and what he had done was just and right and would make everything better.
He had lost the soothing certainty of Roland’s connection, but he’d traded it for a grim clarity. He had done what was necessary. It was bloody and it tore him up, but he had done it, not because Roland deemed it right, but because Hugh himself decided it was right.
The fight still simmered under his skin, a hot spattering mix of adrenaline, bloodlust, and sheer endurance.
Hugh glanced up and saw her through the open door of his bedroom. She wore white and she was walking toward him.
Elara stopped in the doorway. She was holding a thick envelope in her hands.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That’s for later.”
She walked into his bedroom, shut the door, and slid the latch, locking them in. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“We had a deal,” she said.
“Ah.” Wee lamb come to the slaughter.
A year ago, he would’ve stayed downstairs. He’d wash the blood off, eat, drink, and when a woman came his way, he’d fuck her until he couldn’t think straight. But it was no longer simple. He didn’t want to be her Aberdine.
“Leave.”
She put the envelope on the chair by the door.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I heard,” she said.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear. I don’t want your noble sacrifice.”
She raised her hands to her hair. Her braid fell from her head. “Oh please. I gave you three gorgeous naked women, and you practically dislocated your knees chasing me around the pool instead.”
She ran her hands through her braid and it fell apart, her long white hair spilling over her shoulders, soft and silky. It framed her face, bringing something new to it, some unspoken intimate promise. He almost never saw her with her hair down. He wanted to think it was for him alone.
Elara shook her head. He watched her, because he was a raging idiot, and he noticed everything: the bend of her neck as she leaned forward to take off her sandals, the way her hair fell, the way the dress hugged the curve of her ass…
He didn’t want payment. He didn’t want obligatory sex. He wanted her to want him. To scream for him. He wouldn’t get what he wanted, and right now, he wanted her gone.
“Last chance, Elara. Leave.”
Her light eyes laughed at him. “I’m staying.”
They stared at each other across the room.
“Well?” she asked. “Or should I get an apron?”
The remnants of the fight drove him on. He would make her run from this room screaming and then he would rest.
There was something irritatingly erotic about the way he sat.
He sprawled in a chair, huge and golden, his muscular body draped over it. His shirt was nowhere to be found. Strong powerful muscle corded his shoulders. His carved chest was clean-shaven, his body slimming down to a narrow waist and flat, hard stomach. His dark hair, still wet from the shower, fell on his face. His blue eyes were cold and dark.
“Fine,” Hugh said. “Rules are simple: while you’re here, you do as I say. Any time it gets too much for you, say ‘stop,’ and everything will stop, and you can walk out that door.”
“Fine by me.”
He tilted his head and looked her over. She could almost feel his gaze sliding over her face, down, lingering over her breasts, and moving down, to her hips. He looked at her as if he were buying her and was trying to decide if she was worth his money.
Oh, it’s like that now, is it?
Elara raised her arms to the sides and turned, rolling her hips as she did. There you go, get the whole picture.
She completed her turn and winked at him. He didn’t move.
“Take off your clothes.”
She pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders, and let it fall off her chest. She wore a lacy white bra underneath. She had picked it especially for today. It cradled her breasts, lifting them up, the outline of darker nipples barely visible through the lace. It wasn’t the kind of bra a woman would wear for comfort, and she’d been stuck in it for several hours, waiting for him to come back.
He stared at her. He still hadn’t moved.
The thin fabric of the dress snagged on her hips and Elara pushed it down, revealing a pair of lacy panties, so small they were barely there. The dress fell and pooled around her feet. She stepped out of it and kicked it aside.
He looked almost bored. Arrogant prick.
Her hands went back, and she unhooked her bra. The pale straps came loose, and she pulled it off her left arm, peeled it from her breasts, and held it out to the side with her right hand.
She opened her fingers. The bra fluttered to the floor.
Elara slid hands along her hips, hooking the panties with her thumbs, pulled them down, and
kicked the tiny piece of fabric aside.
Something sparked in his eyes, a dangerous blue fire.
He wanted her naked. Fine. She would be naked for him.
Her stomach sloped, gently rounded, to the vee between her legs, dusted with white curls. Her breasts were full and heavy, and he wanted to crush her to him and brush his fingers over her nipples. In his mind he lunged from the chair, grabbed her, and dragged her to the bed.
His erection hurt.
The Ice Harpy stood naked in front of him. The Queen of the Castle.
It was a contest now. He didn’t think he had another fight in him tonight, but she goaded him, and he would not lose.
She smirked at him.
Hugh opened his mouth. “Crawl to me.”
He waited for her to grab her clothes, bolt, and slam the door.
A slow witchy smile bent her lips. She laughed softly. Her knees bent, and she went into a crouch, her hair brushing the floor.
An instinctual alarm pricked his spine with icy claws. Whatever was looking at him from the floor was not human. It looked like a human woman, it was shaped like one, but it was something else. Something ancient and cold, a thing of ice and sharp fangs, woven from eldritch magic. It looked at him through Elara’s eyes and it laughed.
She blurred and then she was right there, in front of him, crouching, her hands with long elegant fingers resting on his knees. Her hair floated around her, lifted by phantom wind. Alarm jerked his spine straight. She tilted her face up to him. Her voice caressed him, filled with magic. “Hugh…”
He stared at her. Every instinct he had screamed a warning. He had to decide now if he still wanted her if she was that. He didn’t even know what that was.
“Hugh…” She raised her head to his. Her whisper was a soft breath in his ear. “Guess what I want more than anything else in the world right now?”
Magic, no magic, human, not human, who was he to judge? He would punch this ticket here and now.