“Blackholm,” I said.
“Blackholm?” said one of the women, and she looked much relieved. “Well, thank the gods for that. At least it won’t be anywhere that matters.”
I swung the muzzle of my gun toward her. “One more word out of you will be your last.” She could tell from my demeanor that I was not speaking in jest. Her mouth immediately clamped shut as her eyes widened in fear.
“But my men are stationed in Blackholm!” said Droogan with rising alarm.
“Well, they won’t be for long,” said Reaver.
“Are you sure about this?” I called up to Reaver. “You’re positive they’re heading toward Blackholm?”
“Oh yes. The gem may be gone, but I can still sense them here”—and he tapped the side of his head—“like a fading echo. Blackholm is their destination, and once they’ve overrun that, they’ll start going berserk throughout the countryside. Do you see what you’ve done, gnome? Do you see what your mission has accomplished, Finn? Albion was much better off when the Half-breeds were under my control.”
“The Half-breeds exist because you created them!” I said. “Don’t make it sound like Albion owes you a debt of gratitude because you were keeping a leash on the very monsters you created!”
“At least I was keeping that leash. Now no one is.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” said Droogan.
“Me?” Reaver seemed amused at the notion. “Nothing. It’s no longer my problem. Let them run the length and width of Albion for all I care. Soldiers or suchlike will stop them over time. Since this is the place they departed, it will be the last one they would return to, and I’d imagine they will be destroyed before that should occur.” He turned to Droogan. “Warlord, you are a guest of this house. You may, of course, rush off to Blackholm to join your troops. Or you may simply wait out the unpleasantness here. That is the case for all of you, as well.”
Droogan didn’t hesitate. “I can always get more men. There’s only one of me. To hell with Blackholm; I never much liked the place anyway.”
The shaken people in the galleys were starting to calm down under Reaver’s quelling influence. Many even seemed delighted by the thought of a lengthy stay at Reaver’s domicile. “It will be,” said one woman cheerfully, “as if there were a snowstorm going on outside, and we all had to hunker down! That could be fun!”
“Are you all insane!?” I shouted up at them. “People are going to be dying out there, and you’re talking about curling up in front of fireplaces and drinking hot chocolate!”
Another woman turned to Reaver, and said, “Do you have hot chocolate? With the little white bits . . . ?”
“You mean marshmallows?”
“Yes!”
“Absolutely. Marshmallows and everything.”
I turned to Page, and said, “That wasn’t exactly the response I was expecting.”
“It was for me,” she said. “Looks like we’re going to be getting me to Blackholm after all.”
Part of me couldn’t believe she was saying it, and yet another part of me wasn’t surprised. “You mean you’re with me?”
“Yes. If anything”—and she glared up at Reaver—“to underscore just how different I am from Reaver and those other parasites.”
Then I couldn’t quite believe the next words to come out of my mouth, but there they were just the same: “Gnome! We’re leaving! Are you coming with us?”
The gnome produced a demented, chittering noise, like an oversized insect, then leaped clear of the viewing area and landed down next to us. “It’ll be a bloodbath. Wouldn’t miss it.”
We headed for the single exit from the arena, and as we did, I stopped, turned, and called up to Reaver, “So, did we teach you a thorough enough lesson, oh student of humanity?”
And Reaver, who had unleashed a horde of human/ beast hybrids upon an unsuspecting populace and was busy planning to wait out the calamity by having an extended party, shrugged, smiled, and said, “Live and learn.”
“And if you don’t live?” I said, yanked out my pistol, aimed it straight at his heart, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.
It clicked harmlessly.
Reaver’s only reaction was an amused, raised eyebrow. “I underestimated you, Finn. Apparently you are capable of shooting someone in cold blood . . . or at least trying to. And would have done so if I hadn’t taken the opportunity to switch out your pistol for one that wasn’t loaded. Yours and Page’s, I should add. So perhaps we have both lived and learned today although with your subsequent actions, you’re certainly reducing the ‘living’ part of the equation. You may want to get yourself properly armed before you head out to engage in a pointless death. I suspect the dead guardsmen down there won’t miss their weapons or ammo in the least. Come friends”—and he turned to the others in the viewing box—“let us away.”
The others started to file out, and I shouted after Reaver, “How do you know that, instead of heading off to Blackholm, I won’t decide to hunt you down through the halls of this manor and shoot you down like the dog you are?”
“Because every minute you spend doing that is one less minute you can be spending making your desperate race to help the poor, doomed souls of Blackholm. Furthermore, the last shreds of humanity for the Half-breeds are rapidly fading. By my calculations, as of sunset, they will be nothing but ravening beasts with no restraint, no mercy, no . . .” He pretended to shudder as if he were too repulsed by the idea even to continue. Then he produced a pocket watch and tapped it. “Ticktock, Finn. Time is not your friend.”
I made a growling noise that could easily have been produced from the throats of one of the Half-breeds, then I sprinted out of the arena, Page right behind me.
Chapter 15
Into the Fray
PAGE, THE GNOME, AND I QUICKLY MADE our way down the corridor, grabbing whatever weapons we could reasonably take with us. That mostly meant pistols although Page—much to her delight—discovered that the guards were carrying grenades as well.
It’s odd. I am an absolute dead-shot marksman when it comes to firearms, but I am fairly useless when it comes to grenades. My aim when throwing always causes me to toss the grenade wide of its mark. I had actually been toying with the idea of combining the concepts of rifle and crossbow in order to create a device that would launch a grenade directly at a target. If I could make it work, I could add a devastating weapon to my repertoire. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to have that available to me anytime in the very near future, and I honestly didn’t know how much of a far future I was going to have.
“Perfect,” I heard Page say. She was grabbing what appeared to be an entire bandolier with grenades attached to it. Slinging it around her shoulders, she found a second one as well. This was an indicator to me of just how quick, vicious, and unexpected the assault on the guardsmen had been. There they were, so heavily armed, and the Half-breeds had annihilated them before a shot could be fired or a grenade thrown.
I remembered the armory upstairs, but we only had so much time to spare. Reaver had certainly been correct about that. Every minute counted.
So I ignored the temptation to take any of the other exits from the corridor that presented themselves and instead followed the direct path that the Half-breeds would have pursued. It wasn’t all that difficult; we just followed the trail of blood.
Sure enough, there was a door at the end that was hanging off its hinges, clearly having been smashed open. We raced out into the open air, emerging on what appeared to be the far side of the mansion. The sun was shining, and the sky was a cloudless blue. There was no sign of the Half-breeds. That wasn’t particularly surprising ; they had a significant lead on us. It seemed like such an astoundingly pleasant day that it was difficult to believe that a pack of monstrous half men were on their way to ravage an unprepared town.
Truth to tell, I had no idea what the status of the actual citizenry of Blackholm was. What if Droogan’s troops, upon asserting their claim upon the
town, had killed the populace or driven them from their homes? That meant that the very people who had tried to assault the town and been repulsed by the Blackholm defenders, including myself, were now being faced with poetic justice.
Were that the case, there would be sore temptation on my part simply to stand aside and let the Half-breeds have their way with them. After all, I had killed quite a few of them; why shouldn’t the Half-breeds have their opportunity?
On the other hand, what if the citizens of Blackholm were still there, even as prisoners or slaves? Then they would need as much help as we could possibly provide.
Plus there was the matter of my brother. If we didn’t manage to stop the Half-breeds at Blackholm, he would be condemned to a bestial life, a monster with a human consciousness forever trapped inside, screaming for release that would never come.
“Finn!”
It was only when Page shouted my name that I realized I had stopped moving. I looked at her, and Page, damn her, was able to look right into my eyes and see straight through into my mind. That was the only explanation. Her face softened then, and she said, not without compassion, “You’ve finally realized, haven’t you? Finally admitted it to yourself.”
“Admitted what?”
“That you’re going to have to kill your brother.”
I winced inwardly as she said that. I wanted to shout at her, or hit her, or just take out a gun and shoot her.
Instead, I turned away and started shouting, “Clash! Clash! Can you hear my voice? Clash!”
“He’s not a bloody dog! He’s a horse!”
“Horses are far smarter than dogs. Clash!”
“No, they’re not.”
“You don’t see horses going around sniffing each other’s bums, do you? Besides, when did you become an expert on animals? You don’t get along with them, remember?”
“I know, but still—”
“Clash!”
“Finn, we have to talk about the thing you don’t want to—”
There was a sudden clopping of hooves, and Clash came galloping around the corner. He let out a loud whinny upon seeing me, and I was relieved that we hadn’t tied him off. That might well have saved his life because if any of the Half-breeds had happened to see him, he would have been able to keep his distance from them. The Half-breeds had many potent qualities, but I would match Clash’s speed against any of theirs. Indeed, that speed was the only thing we had going for us right then.
I looked triumphantly at Page, who just rolled her eyes in response. Then, getting down to business, she said, “Is he going to be able to move fast enough with both of us on him?”
“You think you can run fast enough to keep up with him?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
“I’d like to see her try,” offered the gnome.
I didn’t deign to reply. Instead, I clambered astride Clash and extended my hand to Page. She grabbed it, and I hauled her on behind me.
The gnome was standing there, scowling, and I said, “Are you coming?”
He swaggered over to me and then, instead of leaping upward as I knew he could, he extended his hand, waiting for me to assist him up. I realized at that moment that at no time during our association had I actually ever come into physical contact with him. I hesitated for a split second, then reached out a hand. He snagged it, and I pulled him up, and in doing so nearly toppled backwards off the horse. I had prepared myself for some manner of weight, and instead he felt lighter than paper. An instant later, he was seated in front of me, adding nothing to the load. “I don’t understand,” I said. “I saw you knock people to the ground. You held them immobilized. But you weigh next to nothing!”
“It’s a gnome thing,” he said dismissively. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Sorry. There aren’t enough small words to explain it.”
I realized there was no point in discussing it and no reason for expending any more time on it. I snapped the reins, shouted, “Hold on!” and drove Clash forward. We weren’t going at a trot this time, and Page had no choice but to throw both arms around me and hold on as tightly as she could.
I guided Clash down the narrow road that led to the main one and, once we were there, really opened it up. Page let out a startled yelp, having never experienced the sheer exhilaration of being astride a speeding horse. Although to her it seemed far less exhilarating than it did something to be terrified of.
But she didn’t scream or complain because that was certainly not the way Page handled herself. Having produced her initial exclamation of being startled, she then simply continued to clutch on to me and offer no complaint. Her heart was pounding so hard, though, that I could feel it thudding against my back.
As for Clash, so powerful a horse was he that, as near as I could determine, he wasn’t moving any slower now than he had been when he’d been galloping along with me as the only human astride him.
Clash pounded down the main road. I don’t know if he understood that we were heading back to Blackholm. But he was certainly able to discern my urgency and the need for speed, and he was more than able to accommodate us for that. I had assumed he’d been grazing on the grass outside Reaver’s manor, so at least we didn’t have to stop to replenish him. At one point, however, I heard him gasping heavily, and I reined up near a narrow, rushing river so that he could slake his thirst and keep going.
Page approached me as Clash slaked his thirst. “Finn,” she said, “we cannot simply rush into this without a solid plan.”
“Here’s the plan: We get there, we try to defend the people, assuming that there are any regular citizens left. And we try not to die. How’s that for a plan?”
“Those aren’t plans. Those are goals. A plan is how we attain the goal.”
“A plan,” I said impatiently, “is the thing that top army brass draw up while gathered around a map, moving about little figures that represent all their forces and all the enemy forces. And they spend weeks nattering about over the thing, then they put it all together and send it to their field officers to implement. And you know what happens?” I didn’t bother to let her respond. “The moment they’re in the field, whatever it was they failed to account for in all their planning rears its ugly head, and the entire damned strategy goes out the window. That’s what a plan is, Page. It’s the first thing to go as soon as the guns start blazing, and the bodies start falling. Now if you have some manner of plan that’s actually going to account for whatever it is we find when we get there, then I’m all too happy to hear it. But I’m not going to spend a lot of time obsessing about it. Okay? And if that’s too much of a bother for you, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to just stay here and not be a part of it. Let’s face it; you have no personal stake in this anyway.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s my brother, it’s the people of a town you’ve never been to, so I don’t see what—”
To my abrupt shock, she grabbed me by the back of the head, pulled my face toward hers, and kissed me as passionately as I’ve ever been kissed. Then she released me, looked at me in that heated way that always felt as if her gaze was boring into my soul, and said, “Yes. I do.”
“Okay, well . . . okay,” I said, which was hardly the slickest answer I was going to come up with, but there it was.
“Everything depends upon our getting there before the Half-breeds do,” she said, having gained my full attention. “If we arrive after the fact, then we might as well just bring a couple of mops and trash cans to clean up the blood and body parts. If we get there before them, on the other hand, and we can manage to convince Droogan’s people not to shoot us on sight, then we might be able to manage something.
“Something like what?”
She pointed at the twin bandoliers of grenades that she was wearing across her chest. “These can be absolutely devastating. Any one of these contains enough explosive power to blow a man to bits. I must have two dozen here. If w
e can lure the Half-breeds in, get them close enough, then detonate them . . .”
“You mean pull all the pins simultaneously?” I looked dubious.
“That won’t be necessary. If one of them goes off close to the others, they’ll detonate one after the other, in a chain reaction. The ultimate effect will be near-simultaneous.”
“All right. All right, that could actually be feasible. But how do we draw them in close enough . . . ?” My voice trailed off, then I realized. “Someone’s going to have to be wearing them. That’s your ‘plan,’ isn’t it? Someone acts as human bait to draw in the Half-breeds and, when there’s a point of no return, that person blows himself or herself up in order to destroy the Half-breeds.”
“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan.”
“It’s a terrible plan!”
“It requires a sacrifice of one life to save far more,” Page said firmly. “I’ll take a deal like that anytime. I can do this . . .”
“It’s a terrible deal, and you’re not going to do it. I sure know I’m not going to.”
“It’s the most efficient way,” she said firmly.
“To hell with efficiency and, for that matter, to hell with you,” I said. “I don’t know what sort of martyr compulsion you’ve developed as a result of all your reading and training to be a fighting monk and all that, but I’m not going to let you throw your life away like that. It’s ridiculous.”
“Do you have a better plan? I mean, you can’t even cope with the reality that you have to kill your own brother, so I don’t see where you get to—”
“I’ll find another way to save him, all right? I’ll . . . I’ll appeal to the humanity within him. They still haven’t managed to snuff that out, not entirely. I’ll get through to him, and he’ll find a way to shake off this curse through sheer willpower; and then he’ll be able to convince the others to do the same.”