A trumpet blast of sound cut through the explosions. They didn’t have much time.
Elara dropped the last undead on the floor and stared into the darkness of the doorway directly in front of her. The first two digging crews lay dead on the floor.
Something was coming.
Something different.
“Do not move,” she whispered.
The five Iron Dogs stood completely still.
A shadow moved in darkness, darker than the rest. A dry clacking sound slipped through the tunnels.
Elara swayed like a striking cobra, side to side, her magic lying in wait on the floor. It was still strong, still potent, but she was growing tired.
Clack.
Clack, clack.
Closer and closer.
Scrape.
Clack, clack.
Scrape.
Clack.
It stopped.
It waited.
She could wait too. She had all the patience in the world.
The torches flickered. Magic whispered through the chamber. She saw it, a clump of blackness trailing smoke, smothering each torch in turn. The fey lanterns blinked and went dark.
In the dark, it moved.
Elara smiled and laughed softly, magic dripping from her voice. “Do you think I fear darkness? I was born in it.”
Her magic shot up the walls. The fey lanterns sparked with pure white light.
A tall dark creature stood in the chamber. It wore a ragged robe, black and tattered, its many layers stained with rot and grease. The stench of carrion polluted the air.
Its hair was long and black. Two twisted horns, coated in old blood, curved from its head, like those of a bison, but rotated to curve upward and pointed forward. Its skin was the brown of a mummified corpse. Someone had carved its face and the scars had healed badly, twisting and slicing through the flesh. Its mouth was a wide lipless gash. A mask of yellow paint traced its eyes. They were dark and opaque, the eyes of a corpse injected with gray ink, except for the irises. Ringed in black, they were a brilliant pale blue, the pupils tiny dots in the ring of near white.
It felt old. The human had long ago died. His body was just a vessel now, for something dark and ancient.
It raised its hand, showing the long threads hanging from its skeletal fingers, each cord supporting human finger bones. It moved its clawed fingers. The bones bumped into each other.
Clack. Clack-clack.
Two beasts trotted out of the darkness, their long claws scraping the floor. They stood on all fours, gaunt like vampires, with every bone sticking out, but where undead were bald, these were covered in dark human body hair. Someone had shaved designs on their hides and traced them with the same yellow paint. Large wolf-like ears protruded from their skulls. Their heads were too long, the jaws protruding too far, as if someone had jammed the skull of a horse into a human head and tried to stretch the skin over it but didn’t quite succeed. Lipless, noseless, their nostrils two holes between the two ridges of exposed bone that ran along the center of their skulls, the creatures glared at her with white eyes.
Lessons from long ago surfaced in Elara’s memory. She had been warned about these before. Ah, yes. It made sense.
“I know of you,” Elara said. “Once you were a shaman. Once you healed the sick and spoke to spirits.”
The creature stared at her.
“But then Nez took you. He made you do evil things. Then, when you died, he used your corrupted shell to invite something over, out of the deep darkness. It took your body. You’re a skudakumooch. A ghost witch.”
The creature didn’t move.
“You’re a thing of old magic now.” Elara bared her teeth. “But this is my castle. There is room for only one ancient monster here. And you’ve overstayed your welcome.”
The twin beasts lunged at her. She lashed the left with her magic, trying to rip its power from it. The yellow symbols flashed with light. Her powers glanced off.
The beast clamped its jaws on her wrist, the other locked onto her forearm. Teeth pierced her skin, drawing blood. Agony shot up her arms, burning.
The beasts pulled her arms apart, anchoring her. Panic struck at Elara, pushing her straight to the hidden part of herself, where the iceberg of her power waited, locked away. All she had to do was reach for it.
No. She gritted her teeth. No.
The ghost witch struck at her, trying to claw her throat open with its talons. Elara pulled the magic out of herself and vomited it into the witch’s face. The skudakumooch shrieked, reeling back.
She needed her hands, but the beasts were chewing her flesh to pieces.
The skudakumooch lunged again. Elara spat another torrent of power. The skudakumooch recoiled.
Bale bellowed like an enraged rhino and smashed his mace into the skull of the right creature. Bone cracked. Bale hit it again and again, driving the mace into it in a frenzy. The icy fangs opened. The beast spun toward Bale. Elara leaned and jammed her hand into its mouth. Her fingers closed about its putrid tongue and she punched her power down its throat. Her magic found the dark slimy seed that animated it, swallowed it, and cracked it between its teeth.
The beast sagged and collapsed, suddenly boneless. Its body fell apart, pieces of its flesh dropping.
Elara spun and jammed her fingers into the other beast’s eyes. They popped under her fingertips. Her magic pierced the beast and it fell apart, dead. The skudakumooch snarled, biting the air with blood-red fangs the size of Elara’s fingers. A cloud of darkness poured out of it, filled with ghostly teeth and claws. The smoke wrapped around Elara. Her skin came alive with pain, as if the air had turned into a whirlwind of broken glass. She tore through it and locked her hands onto the ghost witch’s throat.
The creature bucked. She felt the thing inside the once-human body writhe. It was old and powerful, but she was stronger, and she choked it, sinking her claws into the flesh, piercing it with her magic, again and again. All the magic she had flowed from the floor onto the flailing skudakumooch. The glowing white tendrils wrapped around the ghost witch, choking it. Elara opened her mouth, knowing her jaws gaped too wide as she tried to engulf the skudakumooch’s head in it.
The darkness tore out of the ghost witch’s back. The corpse deflated in Elara’s hands like an empty water skin. The darkness shuddered, fangs, teeth, horns spinning within it, and vanished.
The torches and fey lanterns came back on.
Elara’s jaw snapped back in place. She dropped the corpse and held out her hand. “My wedding ring, please.”
Bale produced the wedding ring and put it in her palm. His fingers shook. Elara slipped the ring on. There.
A deep blast of sound came from above, muffled by the stone, but still clearly recognizable, the scream of Erawan. Elara whirled and ran to the door.
Hugh stood on the wall, presenting a nice clear target. The damn elephant was so big, he blocked the light. Behind Erawan, the Cleaning Crew was trying to drag the trees he had knocked down to ford the moat. Fine time for Nez to grow a brain.
Along the wall the Iron Dogs crouched next to bags and crates, Elara’s people sandwiched between them.
“Do you think this will work?” Dugas asked next to him.
“She won’t let me kill him,” Hugh ground out. “This is all I’ve got.”
Erawan took a ponderous step forward. Lightning rolled off his sides. Only a few dozen feet separated him from the moat. The elephant’s eyes glared at Hugh, filled with pain and madness. Erawan had seen him and was heading straight for him.
“Get your people out of here,” Hugh told Dugas.
“With your permission, I think we better stay. We’re better at this sort of thing than you are.”
“If this doesn’t work, this entire wall is coming down.”
Dugas spread his arms. “Life, death. All part of existence.”
Erawan took another step. The castle shook. Waves pulsed through the moat.
Don’t step in it, Hugh prayed
silently. Don’t you fucking step in it. The concrete would never take that much weight.
Erawan bellowed. Hugh clamped his hands over his ears. The wail of the tortured elephant shook the castle. The wind of it tore at their clothes. The howl died, and Hugh screamed into the silence. “Hold it!”
The Iron Dogs held still.
The colossal elephant took another step, falling just short of the water. Hugh could see nothing now, no forest, no fields, only Erawan’s three huge heads and the armored cabin on his neck. Somewhere in there, the Beastmaster rode. Take out the Beastmaster and you take out the beast.
Wait, Halliday. Just wait.
The gem in Erawan’s head pulsed with red. The colossal elephant screamed and leaned forward. Suddenly the enraged eyes were only a few yards away. Breath caught in Hugh’s throat. Fear dashed through him. He swallowed it and called out, “Now!”
The Iron Dogs and Elara’s people opened the bags and crates and hurled the contents in the direction of Erawan. Flowers rained down on the wall of Baile. The humans dropped to their knees, stretching their hands before them. Hugh scooped two handfuls of the blossoms and bowed, hands held out before him.
“Erawan!” Hugh called out. “Mount of Indra, King of All Elephants, He Who Binds Clouds, He Who Reaches to the Underworld and Brings Forth Rain. We bow before you. Please accept our offering.”
He braced himself for the lash of the enormous trunk.
Erawan held still.
Hugh held his breath.
The colossal elephant reached over with his central trunk and swept the bags of flowers up, curling his trunk around them gently as if they were priceless treasures.
The jewel sparked with red. Erawan screamed. The force of his voice nearly knocked Hugh off the wall. He grabbed onto the wall and held on to it. Above him blood poured from under the armored cabin, running over Erawan’s skull. Tears swelled in the elephant’s eyes. But Erawan didn’t move.
Hugh straightened. “Let me help you! Lord of the Clouds, let me help!”
Erawan’s eyes focused on him. The divine elephant ducked his central head, uncoiling his trunk.
Now or never. Hugh jumped onto the trunk. The earth moved underneath him and then he was running up Erawan’s lifted trunk, over his forehead, and to the cabin. Wards pulsed. The bitch had warded the cabin. Sweetheart, you’ll need more than that.
Hugh sucked in a lungful of air. “Habbassu!” Break.
The power word shattered the protective spell. The cabin split apart. Halliday jumped out, a sharp stick with a jewel in one hand and a curved sword in another. She spun like a dervish and lashed at him. He batted her blade aside and bashed at her with his sword. She blocked. She was a large woman, but he was stronger, and the impact knocked her back. Hugh drove her back, across the elephant’s spine, raining blows on her. Halliday snarled like a cornered animal, slicing in a whirlwind. He thrust between her strikes and felt the slight resistance as the black blade slid home.
Halliday froze, her mouth opened in a terrified, shocked “O”. Hugh grasped the rod out of her hand and kicked her off his blade. She crawled away from him. He chased her, step by step, until she reached the edge of Erawan’s enormous back. Halliday bared her teeth. “Fuck you, you piece of shit.”
He laughed and kicked her in the face. She slid off Erawan and crashed to the ground with a scream. The elephant’s back rolled as a colossal hind leg shifted a few yard to the right.
Hugh turned and ran back to the front of the elephant. Down the trunk and back onto the wall. The control rod flowed with red. It was a vicious thing, three feet long with a razor-sharp metal point with a hook on the blade to rip the flesh on its way out of a wound. The point was covered in blood. Magic crackled down its length, sliding from the gem at the top to the metal tip.
He who controlled the rod controlled Erawan. The thought occurred to him almost as if it came from someone else. He looked up and saw the tears in the elephant’s eyes.
He wasn’t that much of a bastard.
“Mace!” Hugh roared.
One of the Iron Dogs thrust a mace at him. Hugh put the control rod on the parapet and swung. The mace head crushed the jewel. He lifted the control rod up and broke it over his knee.
The huge gem in Erawan’s head cracked. Pieces of it tumbled out, crashing to the ground. The elephant raised his trunks and let out a triumphant bellow.
The chains binding his feet snapped.
Next to Hugh Dugas stared, open-mouthed.
Erawan spread his ears. Above him clouds burst with rain. It poured over his body, washing away the dark pigment from its hide. Rivulets of stained rain dripped to the ground, and where they touched the grass, flowers bloomed.
The humans on the wall stared, mute.
Erawan bellowed again, his voice filled with joy. His scars faded, the last of the darkness slid off, and he stood revealed and glowing white.
The elephant waved his trunks, shook his ears, flinging the rain drops, and vanished. Only a patch of bright flowers remained where he had stood.
“It worked,” Dugas said. “How did you know to bring flowers?”
“He’s worshipped in Thailand with offerings of flowers and garlands. A god will do almost anything to keep his worshippers safe. They’re the source of his power and existence.”
Dugas smiled, wiping the rain from his face.
Below, the Cleaning Crew halted its advance, confused, the lines in disarray as Nez tried to regroup.
Hugh grinned. “You’re my witness,” he said to Dugas. “She owes me one.”
“Tell her yourself,” the druid said.
Hugh turned. Elara was standing on the steps. In his head, she took the three steps that separated them and kissed him. But she stayed where she was and then she smiled, her whole face lighting up. “Thank you.”
Worth it.
“Did you see me free the elephant?” he asked.
“I saw.”
He noticed blood caked on her arms.
“They will heal. I won too,” she said. “I’m afraid Bale might never be the same.”
Hugh saw Bale behind her. The berserker looked white as a sheet.
“He’s resilient,” Hugh said. “He’ll get over it.”
Magic cracked like a whip across the battlefield. They spun around to face it.
A portal opened in the middle of the field and mrogs poured onto the grass.
16
Elara stared at the armored column. It kept coming and coming, twenty men to a line, more and more, never ending. They split as they stepped out onto the grass, one line moving left, the next right, forming into two rectangles. There had to be over a thousand soldiers on the field now. The rain drenched them, and still they came, line after line. The mrogs wrapped around the two columns like a shifting dark sea, too numerous to count.
She chanced a look at Hugh. He was watching them with a grim look. He glanced at her, and she saw a savage determination in his eyes, the kind a trapped animal got when he knew he was cornered and escape was unlikely.
Maybe they aren’t here for us. Maybe they are here for Nez. She knew this slender hope was absurd, but she clung to it anyway.
The next line of soldiers emerged, carrying wooden planks nailed together. Another line. Another. A third one, carrying wooden poles. Parts of a bridge, Elara realized. They were going to try to bridge the moat.
On the other side of the field, the Cleaning Crew fell back, taking a defensive position on the edge of the woods.
A man emerged, riding on a large dark horse and wearing ornate golden armor. Another man in regular armor rode behind him, holding a standard and a horn.
The portal snapped closed.
“There you are,” Hugh muttered.
The horn blower blew a sharp note. As one, the warriors in the two columns turned, those in the first to face the castle and the right toward Nez’s forces. The mrogs split in half and charged to the walls and to the tree line, screeching and shrieking. The faint hope
inside Elara died. The mrog army was here for Baile. They didn’t expect another army on the field, but they didn’t have capacity to make quick decisions or negotiate, so now they would fight both.
“Artillery!” Hugh called out. “Fire at will.”
Sam blew his horn. The sorcerous siege engines spat bolts at the approaching mrogs. Green explosions tore ragged holes at the advancing mass. The mrogs screeched and kept running.
“To the wall!” Hugh roared. “Defend the perimeter!”
The horn blared.
Hugh turned to her. “Get everyone into the keep.”
“What?”
“We can’t hold the wall. We’re buying you time. Get our people into the keep, Elara, into the tunnels.”
The first mrogs dashed into the moat, swimming across it.
She called out commands, throwing her voice around the castle.
The first furry arm clutched onto the parapet. A mrog pulled itself up onto the wall and crouched. He got halfway through the first scream before Hugh beheaded him.
Elara dragged a bloody hand across her face. The bailey floor was covered with blood and mrog bodies. On the wall, battle raged. Next to her Savannah was breathing hard. All of her people already made it to the keep. The Iron Dogs were withdrawing from the wall, fighting in small groups. Only one section of the wall still held, the one directly above them.
Another six people in black uniforms came running around the corner. A clump of mrogs chased them.
Savannah spat a curse. Magic snapped out of her like a striking whip. The leading mrog fell, covered in boils. Savannah swayed. She won’t last much longer.
The Iron Dogs dashed past them.
Elara thrust herself between the witch and the incoming mrogs. They clawed at her and died at her feet, joining the semicircle of furry bodies.
Savannah stumbled.
More mrogs came over the wall, coming from all directions now.
“Into the keep,” Elara snapped at her. “Now!”
“I…”
“Now!”
Savannah retreated into the keep.