by A. L. Knorr
Marcus leaned against the wall and smirked.
“We won’t live long enough for that,” he remarked dryly. “But if we somehow make it that far, I’ll start the negotiations at twelve goatskins. Exorbitant I know, but you’re worth it.”
I growled when the pack refused to close.
“So I suppose you think it’s chivalrous to go behind my back, to get your way?”
“Hardly.” He shrugged. “You get to make plans without talking to anyone; I get to make plans without talking to anyone. It’s called equality.”
The pack finally closed, and I whirled on him. Fear for his life surged around in my stomach, sloshing like too much water. “Isn’t this hard enough, already?”
Marcus’s face softened as he pushed away from the wall.
“I’m not trying to make this harder. I can’t do much to help you, but I can be there for you. So you don’t face this alone.”
Some of the frustration drained out of me, my heart softening. Marcus met me in a hug.
I closed my eyes and replayed my goodbyes to Jackie and Uncle Iry. I’d told them I was going to Otterburn to set a trap for the demigod, but I’d downplayed the danger and hadn’t told them I’d be doing it alone. They thought I’d be going with the usual TNC legion. By the time I’d kissed them goodbye, they still hadn’t known the possibility that we’d never see one another again. I couldn’t have borne the anguish of a true goodbye, so I hadn’t told them about the dreamscape, the true power of the enemy.
I held Marcus close to me. I would never get him to stay behind. He knew too much. He’d stick to me like a burr until I left the building. I’d just have to do my best to protect him. I released him and snatched up my bag. Too much time to think in circumstances like these wasn’t a good thing.
“Let’s go then.”
13
The first night at Otterburn ATE--a bleak and scruffy plain with the occasional copse of trees and knobby hill--was a sleepless one.
We’d settled in one of the small utility sheds and I tried to explain to Marcus why I wanted to draw Ninurta here.
“I want a level playing field. I’m pretty sure he could rip skyscrapers from the ground to throw at me, but out here he can only use metal on same the scale as myself.”
Marcus looked around the shed, which housed a few dusty toolboxes and a couple of small tractors that looked like they had been old when Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister.
“Assuming that he doesn’t bring his own skyscraper to throw at you.”
We lapsed into brooding silence which eventually led to a fitful sleep.
When the sun rose we emerged from the shed, our eyes bloodshot and our shoulders drooping. Birds twittered morning songs, dew glittered on the grass. All was peaceful serenity.
We splashed water on our faces and brushed our teeth using a half cup of water from our supply. I stretched at the open door of the shed, working the kinks out of my back and shoulders from sleeping on a thin mat on the hardpacked dirt floor.
“All is quiet on the western front,” I said, grabbing my foot and stretching out my quad. The rings hugged my fingers, warm and ready for when I’d need them… which appeared to be not as soon as I’d thought.
“I guess he’s not in that big of a rush,” Marcus murmured as he rummaged for a coffeemaker and the necessary sundry in the back of the shed on a makeshift desk. He made coffee using a propane hot-plate and an old-fashioned espresso maker while I wandered the grounds, making note of landscape features and watching for signs of the mad demigod. By the time I returned to the shed, Marcus was waiting with a steaming cup of very strong java. The warmth and the caffeine were both welcome.
“So, are we just going to sit around and wait for him to show up?” Marcus asked, taking a sip from his cracked mug.
I smiled and blew the steam off my own cup. “Not quite.”
I told him what I had in mind.
---
Ninurta arrived the next day, but I was certain of his arrival when I woke that morning.
Our insane scheme was ready, after much sweat and toil. He and I had spent the second night together on two thin camping rolls laid out side by side: his arms around me, my head on his powerful chest, I actually rested, feeling a peace I’d not known in months. When I woke to pale sunlight slanting in through the dusty windows, I spent a perfect moment looking at the man who loved me first and who had proved it over and over.
Until an unwelcome voice intruded on my loving thoughts.
I come for you tonight, little one.
I felt his malignant presence roll in like a black cloud over the face of the new-born sun. A chill ran through me and my shivering woke Marcus.
“What is it?” He came wide awake almost immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s coming.” I tucked my face against his throat.
Should I thank Ninurta for having the courtesy to warn me so clearly? Was it a rule of his sick game? The fact that I knew when he’d come only filled me with dread. He wanted me to be prepared, I’d put up a better fight that way. He didn’t just want to destroy me and be done with it, he wanted a battle. Fury surged through me and I ground my teeth. I’d give him a battle alright.
Marcus’s whole body tensed and he held me tighter. “When?”
“Tonight.”
“You’re ready.” Marcus kissed my head and didn’t question how I knew, just believed me. Oh how I loved him for that. “We’re ready.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.”
---
Snow fell that afternoon and the night was bitterly cold, but the ground was bright with reflected moonlight.
Ninurta came out of the east like an ill wind of ancient texts, but instead of riding upon storm clouds, he came in a large black helicopter. I was a little disappointed given the build-up. At least he could have leaped out of the helicopter mid-air to land in some dramatic pose.
I gave my metallic wings a little flex. I’d expanded on the impromptu idea from Spain by adding a second set. All four were folded on my back, looking like an odd backpack.
The first passenger to emerge was not Ninurta, but a heavyset man wearing what looked like an electrician’s utility coveralls. After him came a petite woman in fashionable but weather-inappropriate top and slacks. Half a dozen others emerged: men and women of varying sizes, shapes, and colours. All had the same expression of rapture on their faces, zealous and terrified.
They formed a rough column by the open door of the helicopter, each one turning to stare eagerly back the way they’d come. A large shape loomed in the opening, and a tremble raced up my legs; it took everything I had to force it down.
Ninurta was immense beyond what seemed humanly possible, towering over his entourage. Like in the dream, he moved with unnatural grace, stepping onto the ground so lightly I was surprised he left prints in the snow.
But not everything was the same as the dream.
The open chested robes and silken train had been replaced by a dark suit cut to accentuate every brutal and majestic angle of his frame. His hair and beard were much shorter, still glossy and luxuriant but without gold or silver adornments; however, his two fingers still glittered solid gold. He looked ready to run a board meeting. Treading through the snow, every movement was confidence and authority.
“Took you long enough,” I shouted over the dying helicopter engines.
“You may be in a hurry to die,” Ninurta said, his voice carrying perfectly without needing to be raised. “But I am in no great rush to end your life, my child. I do this because I must, not because it gives me pleasure.”
I didn’t believe that for a second.
He advanced past his line of ogling admirers, who fell in behind him. I forced my gaze to stay locked on his face. I needed to keep him talking, keep him walking toward me.
“Why bring an entourage?”
Ninurta raised his hand, and they stopped in their tracks. He took another step forward.
I scoffed openly, shaking my head before turning my gaze to look at each moon-eyed face. Free will, my arse.
Beyond those I could see, more moved through the fringes unseen, I could sense the metal weapons they held. Those had not been delivered by a helicopter or I would have seen them. Perhaps delivered by a vehicle then, dropped off far enough away that we’d not heard the engines. My senses sharpened and my heart rate jumped but I kept an outward appearance of knowing calm.
“I don’t know what you do to them,” I crossed my arms, “but a bunch of pining groupies isn’t going to convince me that you’re anything but a dime-a-dozen cult leader. You look the part, but you’re still nothing but a conman who’s bought his own line.”
The zealots responded with a chorus of angry, indignant sounds in several languages and began to shuffle forward.
“Peace,” their idol called over his shoulder, and like he’d cast an enchantment, they went back to adoring him.
“You talk as one who is holding the moral high ground,” he observed, taking yet another step, “but who goes to train under the watchful eye of four assassins? Did you really think to lure me here so I could fall to cowards shooting from behind bushes and rocks?”
I straightened with surprise, realization sliding through my mind like a razor’s edge. Those moving through the fringes were not his, they were ours. Up until that moment I had believed that TNC had sent me and Marcus up here alone. Marks, in some desperate bid, had sent sharpshooters in hopes of ending this nightmare with a sniper’s bullet. That was annoying and not at all what we’d agreed. She’d only put more people in danger.
“I didn’t invite them,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Ninurta laughed, a rolling sound of liquid mirth. “No need to worry. As we flew in, I made certain they will not interfere.”
He took another step and raised a hand to his ear dramatically.
“Listen.” He turned left and right in mock anticipation.
A second later, there were three sharp cracks from among the hills followed by a crunching rumble like distant thunder. In the echoing stillness that followed, a single, pain-riddled shriek carried over the snow. Every hair stood on end at the sound.
“That was the sound of sniper’s rifles suffering catastrophic failures,” Ninurta declared, turning back to me with a sharkish grin. “Now, it’s just you and me, my dear.”
A hummock of earth just behind the demigod exploded with flying snow. Emerging from the eruption like a musclebound jack-in-the-box was Marcus, a loop of rope clutched in both hands. With a speed that belied his bulk, he threw himself on the giant, just managing to slip the noose around Ninurta’s neck and cinch it tight before Ninurta spun with feline agility. One hand blurred out and Marcus was spun like a top before crashing to the ground poleaxed.
“Marcus!” I screamed even as I launched a dart of will to flatten the wedge restraining a trio of man-thick logs. There was a slow, creaking groan as potential energy became kinetic energy and they rolled down the steep slope.
Ninurta was hauled backward with bone-snapping force as the rope attached to his noose followed the logs. I’d dared to hope the force would snap his neck, but I saw his fingers rake deep grooves in the snow before he vanished over the cusp of the hill.
I rushed to Marcus.
He was on his hands and knees, blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth.
“Are you alright?” I asked, kneeling in the snow next to him.
I eyed Ninurta’s followers warily: wide-eyed and motionless. Without orders, they were useless.
“I’m fine.” Marcus spat, streaking the snow with blood as he fought to climb to his feet. With one hand he gripped my arm to steady himself while the other fumbled to free the crude weapon belted to his hip. Determined to have a weapon that wouldn’t betray him, Marcus had fashioned, a primeval axe made from a sheared tongue of slate wedged and bound in place to a tree bough.
We heard the splintery crash-thump of the logs striking the bottom of the slope – where we’d strewn jagged rocks as big as beer kegs to ensure an unpleasant end to Ninurta’s little trip.
“Let’s finish this,” he snarled wetly, baring his teeth in a red grin. “Together.”
With blood smeared across his skin in dark splotches, hefting his slate bladed axe, he looked like a frenzied warrior from the dawn of man.
“Together!” The fire in his eyes was infectious. My wings opened and swung forward, feather-like tines of steel – both sword and shield – responding to my every whim.
We were halfway to the cusp of the hill when Ninurta sprang, fleet as a stag, to the top of the slope.
“A valiant attempt,” he said mildly before letting the snapped noose slip from his fingers. He brushed snow from his coat. “But I am afraid it’s not good enough.”
“I’m just getting warmed up.” I snarled the lie and almost believed it as I launched forward. Marcus, clutching his stone axe in both hands, prowled to my left looking for an opening. We’d planned this attack formation as a hail Mary. I hoped we lived long enough to see if it worked.
Two wings, one high, one low, lanced out, razored pinions ready to slice him into three pieces. The metal creations responded naturally, flowing as quickly as my mind could think. The first two strikes were almost spoiled by my shock at their alacrity.
Ninurta’s agility spared him my first assault. He danced backward, slipping away by scant centimetres. I followed him, alternating probing stabs with two wings while the other two remained bent to guard me against attack.
But no attack came.
He sprang and slid along the crest of the slope, his feet somehow never running afoul on the slick, snowy ground. I went after him, wings lashing up, down, and across. Marcus jogged alongside us like a dog hoping for scraps. My feet hit a frost slicked undulation in the ground, and in trying to stay upright I sent a slash so wide that Marcus had to duck beneath my wing stroke.
“Careful,” Ninurta taunted with a rich, rolling laugh. “This dance is not for the clumsy.”
My breath billowed out in gasps of steam. I looked at Ninurta and saw his chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, his breath gentle, vanishing puffs in the cold night air.
“Dance with this!” I lunged at him with all four wings arched forward.
The topmost two shot over his shoulders as he sank down just enough to avoid them creasing his suit. The lower two stopped dead when his hands clamped over the seeking blades. I felt the terrible strength of his will as much as the power of his muscles.
I tried to drive the blade plumes upward with body and mind, but nothing happened. Then, as I tried to twist the wayward upper wings for another attack, I felt his powers pushing back. Like a swallow in a windstorm, my wings flew backward. My back arched as I threw my abilities into holding them in place, even as Ninurta’s powers twisted them behind my back. I screamed in defiance, but he only smiled that deep-sea predator’s grin.
Just when I thought my mind, body, or possibly both, were about to snap in Ninurta’s psychic grip Marcus darted forward, coming in low and hard to slam the jagged edge of his axe into the back of Ninurta’s knee.
The self-styled king of kings fell to one knee in front of me, his dark eyes wide open at the temerity of the blow. The pressure on me dropped markedly.
“Dance time’s over,” Marcus roared, twisting the axe free and raising it to hack at the back of the giant’s skull. Ninurta slipped away from the stroke with his trademark agility, twisting as he did so to cock back a hand as Marcus’ momentum carried him forward.
Marcus saw the counterattack coming and threw himself backward hard enough that the blow missed him. He sailed through the air to crash and roll back, kicking up lumps of churned snow.
Dark eyes blazing, Ninurta lunged after Marcus. His huge fist pounded the earth with a thump like a mallet. Marcus kept rolling. staying just ahead of Ninurta’s furious pummelling strokes; but he had seconds before he was out-manoeuvred and flattened or driven over the edge of the slope to the rocks below.
I managed to free one wing. Fighting the oppressive power of his omnipresent metallic awareness, I could only achieve a wide slap at the demi-god. But the wings were made from industrial-grade steel, acquired from the shed’s roof. Being battered by one was like taking a series of frying pan blows in rapid succession.
Ninurta rocked back at my ringing strikes but somehow held his feet. Impacts that would have fractured another man’s face hadn’t even left a mark.
A growing sense of desperation had me ripping another wing free, and this time my anger hammered it into a lethal thrust toward his chest.
The rage driven stab ripped through the tailored suit like tissue paper, driving toward flesh. I’d expected resistance, the constriction of meat clinging to the impaling blade, but instead I heard a sharp clang. The thrusting wing slid off Ninurta’s chest and along his ribs to the squeal of metal grating on metal.
Folds of shorn fabric fell away to reveal unmarked flesh.
My stomach retreated toward the soles of my feet as I took another swipe at him. This time, looking me right in the eye, he raised an open hand. Blades that should have sliced his arm off instead sent up a burst of sparks as they bounced off his open palm, utterly impotent.
“I seem to have misjudged you, my child,” he said. “If this is the best you can manage, I vastly over-estimated your abilities.”
“You talk too much,” Marcus barked as he renewed his attack.
He feigned a swing at Ninurta’s legs and then hewed down on the demigod’s shoulder like a lumberjack splitting a log. The force of the blow required Ninurta to shuffle slightly to the side, but the blow had little effect.
Marcus pressed in, desperate to knock Ninurta off his feet. Blow after crushing blow struck against Ninurta’s shoulder, arm, and back, but he did not fall.