Iron and Magic

  The rage in Nez’s eyes was delicious. If he pushed Nez far enough, he would snap and kill him, which would be the best outcome possible.

  “That’s a short leash he’s got you on,” Hugh said.

  Nez grabbed a length of pipe off his desk and swung it like a bat. The pipe connected. Bones crunched as his ribs shattered. Nez erupted into a flurry of hits. The pipe landed again and again, each blow a new burst of agony. Finally, he slumped against the desk and let go of the pipe. It clattered to the floor.

  Every breath was like sucking fire into his lungs.

  “Ow,” Hugh said.

  Nez stared at him.

  Hugh grinned. “Do you feel better, sweetheart? Do you feel like you won yet?”

  “My leash is short, but he muzzles you,” Nez ground out. “Do you get it yet? Do you know what he does to keep you in line? He cooks you like a piece of fried chicken. He fries your mind until there is nothing but a shell left. So I’m going to tell you now, because later on you won’t care. When I’m done and things quiet down, I’ll come back here, and I’ll kill every living soul in that castle. Every man, every woman, and every child. I’ll make your wife watch. She will be the last to go.”

  The scumbag would do it. Hugh saw it in Nez’s eyes. “Good speech,” he said. “I’d clap, but I’m all tied up.”

  Nez bared his teeth.

  “I feel like we’ve had a real breakthrough here, Landon,” Hugh said. “This is the most honest conversation we’ve ever had.”

  Nez reached for the pipe.

  A careful knock interrupted him in mid-move. Nez turned to the doorway. Hugh craned his neck, but it was too far behind him.

  “What?” Nez asked.

  “I’m sorry, Legatus. There is fog.”

  “What kind of fog?”

  “An unnatural fog. It’s coming from the woods.”

  Nez swore and strode out.

  The room fell silent except for the crackling of the fire. He’d have to start over when Nez returned, and he’d been doing so well. Being killed now was his best option. Facing Roland would be the end of the road. He would do anything to keep from walking it.

  Magic whispered through the room, familiar and warm.

  Fuck me.

  Hugh raised his head. Roland lowered the hood of his brown robe. His face was like no other. He had allowed himself to age to about fifty, to look more fatherly for Daniels, and it served him well. He looked like a prophet walking out of the long-forgotten magical cities of ancient Mesopotamia, a living remnant of a different time and different place, when wondrous things were possible and his name had been Nimrod, the Builder of Towers. A scholar, an inventor, a poet, a father god, wise with kind eyes that were all-knowing and slightly chiding. Hugh looked into his eyes and love washed over him. All Hugh ever needed, all he ever wanted or required, was that love. It sheltered and sustained him, it guided him, it took away all pain. It was like seeing the sunrise after a long, dark winter.

  The void tore open behind Hugh, scraping at him with its teeth.

  Roland crossed the room and looked over Hugh’s shoulder at the void. “Well, that’s not good.”

  The sound of his voice, suffused with power and magic, was so familiar it hurt.

  “Hello, Hugh,” Roland said.

  He managed a single word. “Hello.”

  They looked at each other.

  “You survived,” Roland said.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’m here because I need your help, Hugh.” Roland smiled.

  “Daniels kicked your ass,” Hugh said. The blasphemy of the words should’ve broken him, but somehow it didn’t.

  “We’ve suffered some setbacks,” Roland said. “Nothing that can’t be remedied.”

  It hit him then. The battle was never about the castle. It was about him. Nez was ordered to go and get him out of Baile.

  “You’ve proven yourself,” Roland said.

  You fucking prick. “You watched me at Aberdine.”

  “I did. It’s time to come back,” Roland said. “You’ve been gone for too long.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Hugh said.

  “Nonsense.” Roland glanced at the chains over his right arm. They fell apart and Hugh hung, suspended by one arm.

  The immortal wizard reached out to him. “Take my hand, Hugh. Take my hand and everything will be forgiven. Everything will be as it was.”

  The world shrunk to the limits of the room. If only he reached out and took Roland’s hand, all the problems would fall away. The void would vanish, taking away the guilt and the nightmares. Life would be simple again.

  “Take my hand,” Roland said again. “You’re my son in everything but blood.”

  The word pierced Hugh. He’d waited decades to hear it and here it was, freely given.

  Roland had expected him to stay a wreck. As long as he was a drunkard trying to commit a slow suicide, Roland was content to leave him as he was. But once he had pulled himself together, he was useful again. He was a threat.

  The realization rocked him. He looked into Roland’s eyes and he saw something else, besides wisdom and approval. It hid in the corners of Roland’s soul, a quiet wariness, watching him.

  Roland was afraid of him.

  Hugh grinned. “No.”

  “Hugh,” Roland said, his voice chiding, catapulting Hugh back to when he was a skinny orphan. “Take my hand. You’ve earned it. It’s your destiny.”

  “No.”

  Roland stared at him.

  “It’s not exactly a surprise,” Hugh said. The words rolled off his tongue, amazingly easy. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

  “I took you off the street. I gave you shelter, education, and power. And this is how you repay me?”

  “You forgot the part where you turned me into a happy idiot every time I tried to do something you didn’t like.”

  “That’s what raising a child is,” Roland said. “Encouraging some aspects of their personality, suppressing the others.”

  Hugh laughed quietly.

  “I made you effective. I freed you from complications that were holding you back. Did I ever force you to do anything, Hugh? Or did you jump on every task I gave you?”

  “Explain something to me. Why did you exile me? I did everything you asked.”

  “I exiled you because you couldn’t see the bigger picture.” A note of irritation rose in Roland’s voice. “I’m beginning to think you still can’t.”

  “That explains nothing.”

  “Think about it and it will come to you.”

  The pain in his ribs was unbearable now. Hugh pushed it aside. “Here is the bigger picture for you: there are two of us, Daniels and me. Neither of us wants anything to do with you. You’re not batting a thousand. You’re o for two. You need one of your children to fight the other, because Daniels kicked your ass once and she will do it again. Think about that.”

  “There are three,” Roland said. “Almost three.”

  “She hasn’t given birth yet.”

  “No, but soon. Soon I will have a grandson.”

  “And you can’t wait to get your hands on that child. Finally, a real son, the one with the right blood. Why the hell do you think anything will be different? Even if you get him from the moment he draws his first breath, he’ll still grow up hating you. Yet here you are, so desperate to get your hands on the new toy, that you send your Legion to capture me, teleport here despite the danger, and call me your son. Take a real good look. Look at me hanging here. If I were your son, what sort of father would that make you?”

  “So the answer is no?” Roland asked.

  “We could stay in here for the next hundred years and it would still be no. You’ll never get your hands on Kate’s kid. I’ll kill you first.”

  Roland sighed. “You disappoint me, Hugh.”

  “Get used to it.”

  Roland stepped closer. Only a foot of space separated them.

  “Without me
, you’ll die and soon. Is that what you really want?”

  “We all have to die eventually.”

  “Alone, abandoned, stripped of your powers. This is the future you want?”

  “No powers?”

  “None of my blood.”

  Hugh pulled on the last thread of magic remaining inside him, a tiny sliver that remained despite the power words and all the healing he had done. He drew the fingers of his free hand across his bloody ribs and sank that magic into the crimson liquid. Magic sparked, and the dark blood snapped into a sharp blood-red needle.

  “Explain this to me,” Hugh said.

  Roland shied back.

  The needle crumbled into dust.

  Someone screamed outside the building, the shriek cut off in mid-note.

  “Last chance, Hugh!” Roland reached out to him. “Take my hand.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Mist shot through the doorway, glowing with magic, broke, and there it was, pure white and glowing, too monstrous to comprehend, emanating the kind of cold that rode comets and lived between the stars. Roland jerked back, shock on his face. Hugh just stared at it, mute. Every cell in his body was screaming. And then he saw her among the chaos of teeth, mouths, and eyes. She’d come for him.

  She turned to Roland and he took a step back, shock draining all of the blood from his face.

  She spoke, and cracks split the walls.

  “HE IS MINE, WIZARD.”

  “Have him then.” Roland vanished.

  The creature of chaos lowered itself to him, and Hugh made his lips stretch into a grin, before his mind split open from sheer terror. His voice came out hoarse. “Hi, honey.”

  Epilogue

  Hugh opened his eyes and saw a familiar ceiling. The tech was up. Everything hurt. Daylight streamed into the room through the east window. It was morning.

  Lamar’s slow measured voice floated to him.

  “For this reason the best possible fortress is—not to be hated by the people, because, although you may hold the fortresses, yet they will not save you if the people hate you, for there will never be wanting foreigners to assist a people who have taken arms against you…”

  “Why are you reading him this boring shit?” Bale asked.

  “Unlike your half-blood prince, this is a classic.”

  “Half-Blood Prince is a great book.”

  “Of course it is. What could be better than stories of clueless teenagers sent off to… Bale, what is that?”

  “What, this?”

  Lamar’s voice took on a sharp edge. “Is that a wand?”

  “It’s a stick.”

  “Are you pointing a wand at me?”

  “Who, me?”

  “Bale, if any Latin comes out of your mouth, it better be a litany of the saints, because I will end you.”

  Hugh made his mouth move. His voice came out hoarse. “Bale’s right. It’s too early in the day for Machiavelli.”

  Bale charged the bed and gripped him in a bear hug. Hugh’s bones groaned.

  The berserker let go, punched the air, shoveled himself halfway out of the window, and bellowed, “He’s awake!”

  Lamar heaved a long sigh and took his glasses off. “Brace yourself. The parade is coming.”

  It started with Stoyan, who came running down the hallway. Unfortunately, Cedric beat him by about ten feet. The huge hound jumped on the bed, squealing, whimpering and licking his face. Hugh had barely fought him off when Elara’s people flooded the bedroom. Dugas came in at the head of a procession of apprentices and they walked around the bedroom chanting and waving bunches of wet flowers and herbs.

  “Congratulations on surviving,” Dugas told him.

  “Thanks.”

  Felix’s orphaned scouts were next, followed by the stable girl – he still didn’t remember her name. She gave him a detailed report on Bucky, who seemed to be depressed and apparently, Hugh needed to get down to the stables as soon as he could.

  Then came the Iron Dogs and the villagers. His head was swimming and he had a hard time keeping faces straight. Somewhere in there, Savannah showed up, peered into his eyes, squinted at him, and shrugged. “No worse for wear.”

  Johanna came in, hugged him, and walked out.

  Bakers, archers, smiths, druids, medical staff, bulldozer crew, they came on and on, until he was sure he would pass out from the noise alone. He smiled and made the right noises, while his mind sorted through the fragments of his memories. Nez’s camp, Elara carrying him within her body that faded in and out of existence, sliding beyond the three-dimensional reality of their space, the undead and Masters of the Dead dying as they tried to reach for her, the dark trunks of the trees, the icy presence of her magic, spinning out of control in his soul, threatening to devour… He remembered the walls of Baile and then his recollection stopped, sharp as if cut by a knife.

  Finally, Lamar had had enough. He and Stoyan kicked everyone out and shut the doors.

  “What happened to the remaining mrogs?” Hugh asked.

  “Both the mrogs and the soldiers died with the first tech shift,” Stoyan reported. “Mrogs died first. The humans lasted almost twenty-four hours, but eventually died as well. Elara’s people are dissecting them.”

  “Nez?”

  “Withdrew,” Lamar said. “He evacuated the night Elara brought you back. What the hell happened?”

  “I saw Roland,” Hugh said. “We talked.”

  The two centurions went silent. He saw alarm on their faces.

  “I burned the bridge,” he said. “We’re on our own.”

  The relief in their eyes was so clear, it stabbed at him.

  “So this is home?” Stoyan asked.

  “It is.”

  “Good.” Stoyan smiled. “It’s good to have you back, Preceptor.”

  Hugh nodded. “It’s good to be back.”

  Stoyan walked out, closing the door behind him. It was only Hugh and Lamar now. Hugh beckoned and Lamar moved to the bed, sitting only a few inches away.

  “Did you see what she is?” Hugh asked quietly.

  “No,” Lamar said. “They made us go in before she turned. They sacrificed the cows. I think she might have fed off of them, but I’m not sure.”

  “I saw her,” Hugh said.

  “What is she?”

  He struggled for the words to describe the ancient power and chaos existing in more dimensions than a human mind could comprehend and couldn’t find any.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Find out, Lamar. If she turns on us, I need to know how I can kill her.”

  The centurion nodded and left the room.

  Hugh sat alone. Elara… The Ice Harpy. The Queen of the Castle. And something else, something that set off every primitive fear that lived deep inside.

  His mind juxtaposed that Elara and the woman gasping with pleasure as he thrust into her. She was the scariest thing he had ever seen, but he’d slept with her, and he’d liked it, and he had wanted her to stay. It was good, and he knew it could be better. The Iron Dogs used to play a stupid game by the campfire, Marry, Fuck, Kill. They were already married, and he had no idea which of the other two he needed to pick.

  They were married.

  Fuck.

  He remembered her words. “They are my people and I love them. They’ve proved their loyalty beyond anything I had a right to ask. There is no limit to how low I will sink to keep them safe.”

  He had thought it was a figure of speech. Now he knew better. He had to make sure his people never became a threat. What would constitute a threat to her? Would he have to stop her from human sacrifice? Where would he draw that line? It might be wiser to take his people out now, before it came to that. He wasn’t sure a blood sword would work. A sword he shouldn’t have been able to make. How the hell was the blood power still working? Why?

  She came for him. She threw caution to the wind, displayed her power, and came to get him away from Nez. She faced Roland for him and would’ve fought him.

  H
ugh never expected it. She should’ve left him to rot, yet she pulled him out of there and somehow dragged him to the castle. Nobody, in his entire life, would’ve done it for him, except for his Iron Dogs.

  He wished the world would make sense.

  The door swung open, and Elara walked into the room. Her hair fell on her shoulders in a long white wave. Her dress, a pale green, the color of young leaves, hugged her, cradling her breasts, tracing her waist, and skimming the curve of her hips.

  He looked into her eyes. They were laughing, but behind the humor, he saw something else, a cautious wariness.

  He finally noticed she was carrying something wrapped in towels. She set the object on his night table and looked at him.

  He looked back at her.

  “I hate you,” she told him.

  Testing the waters. “Hardly a surprise,” he told her.

  “If you ever pull a demented stunt like that again, I will make your life a living hell.”

  He bared his teeth at her. “You already do, darling.”

  He got the message loud and clear. She wanted to pretend that nothing happened. They were back to normal, sniping at each other every chance they got and stopping just short of drawing blood.

  “Do you think the mrogs will be back?”

  “Unlikely,” he said. “They went all out, and we kicked their ass. We offer too little reward for too great an effort. Most likely whoever commands them will move on, but if not, we will be ready.”

  “Leonard has a theory about the elder being behind it.”

  The Pictish scholar. Right. “He does?”

  “When you’re better, I’ll send him up. It’s a bit out there, but it makes sense in an odd way.”

  She turned around.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To the greenhouses. Our herbs keep dying. We have to figure out why.”

  “Elara,” he called.

  She turned around, walked up to the bed, and leaned over him, one knee on the covers. “You’re my husband, Hugh. We no longer walk alone. We are each other’s shelter in a storm. As long as you want to stay here, you’ll have a home. I’ll never abandon you.”