Fury of a Demon

by Brian Naslund

  Eventually, the creatures stopped coming down the stairs. Oromir moved around the room, stabbing any survivors. Kira helped Felgor and Jolan out of their hiding place.

  Vera looked at Garret. “Does this make us even, or do you owe me again?” she asked.

  “Not sure.”

  Vera retracted her barbs and got up. For a moment, the five of them just looked at each other.

  “Where’s Ashlyn?” Felgor asked.

  “Still at the top of the tower,” said Jolan. “But she isn’t going to stay there much longer.”

  107

  ASHLYN

  Castle Malgrave, Level 60

  While the battle raged in the sky above and the city below, Osyrus had sent the orb down to be refilled and purified three times. Ashlyn had been desperately searching for a lodestone loop that was simple enough for her to slip through with only two bands, but hadn’t found one.

  She was starting to lose hope. But as Nebbin filled her bands with power and began another purification round, Ashlyn forced herself to calm down and focus. She just needed one. A single foothold. That was all.

  The first five loops were, once again, too complex. But the sixth was just a two-pronged orientation.

  Finally. This was her way in.

  Ashlyn wrapped one of her bands between each prong, then slipped the second through it in the opposite direction and pulled.

  The first lodestone was hers.

  Behind it, there was another one. Ashlyn slipped through the same way.

  Another behind that one. And another.

  She followed the trail of lodestones, which led straight down. She must be connected to some kind of pipe. The lodestones felt like they were used to control the direction of flow. That’s why they were so simple, they only moved in one of two directions.

  To take over the entire lodestone loop, all she needed to do was reach the bottom.

  Ashlyn worked as fast as she could. She’d made it through thirty-four lodestones when Nebbin throttled everything down, halting her progress.

  Shit.

  The orb rose into the ceiling again. She could hear Osyrus’s loom working overhead. The sounds were like nothing she’d ever heard before—a kind of wet stitching and bone-crunching hum that made her skin crawl.

  Ashlyn caught glimpses of the Nomad ripping skyships apart through the hole Oromir had made in the wall. She heard the screams of the wardens as they were torn apart by the ferals.

  She was running out of time. When the orb came down again, she needed to make it all the way through the loop, no matter what.

  “Engineer Nebbin?” she said, lips and mouth dry. “Could I trouble you for another round of that fluid? I feel as if I’m about to catch on fire again.”

  Nebbin glanced up at her. Then squinted at a few different dials.

  “Your temperature is high,” he said, then flipped a switch. The tube in her arm filled with the cool water. Relief flooded into her body.

  “Thank you.”

  Nebbin ignored her.

  The orb came back down a few minutes later. The copper cap shifted away, ready to be filled by Kira.

  Nebbin flipped the switch that would harvest Kira, then ramped Ashlyn’s bands up to a low hum in anticipation of the fluid arriving. Ashlyn immediately started working her way back down the pipe—moving as fast as she could without risking a mistake.

  But this time, the orb didn’t fill. There were no screams, either.

  “What the hell?” he muttered to himself, flipping the switch again.

  Still nothing.

  Nebbin snapped his fingers at two of the acolytes. “There is a problem with the Seed’s fluid production,” he said. “Go down to her chamber and confirm the specimen is properly situated in the dome.”

  “Acknowledged,” they said in unison. Then departed.

  Ashlyn continued moving down the pipe—past the forty-seventh and forty-eighth lodestone.

  Nebbin seemed lost in thought for a moment, but his focus returned when he realized that Ashlyn’s bands were still powered.

  “Might as well conserve your energy until the issue is corrected,” he said, moving to the levers that controlled her bands.

  “Engineer Nebbin, I would like to make you an offer,” she said quickly. “If you were to release me from confinement, I would be willing to give you an extremely valuable reward.”

  He stopped. Turned to her with an amused look on his face. “If you’re referring to a sexual exchange, you’re wasting your time.”

  She unlocked the forty-ninth stone. Moved to the fiftieth.

  “No. I’ll tell you the one thing that Osyrus couldn’t figure out.”

  “Which is?”

  “The method I used to attach this dragon thread to my body.”

  Nebbin laughed. “You don’t understand what we’re doing here, do you? Your arm will soon become a relic of the past. A rusted, useless tool. Master Ward will restitch the very fabric of this world. There is nothing of value you can offer besides the power in your arm, which you are already doing.”

  Ashlyn unlocked the fiftieth lodestone. Instead of granting her a path to a fifty-first, the entire system shifted like the tumblers on a lock. She ripped her strand out with a hard tug, taking control of the entire loop.

  “Too bad,” Ashlyn said. “Now I’m going to have to kill you.”

  “Oh?” Nebbin smiled. “And how do you plan to do that?”

  She used the two bands in her control to rip the top lodestone out of the floor, where it hung in the air at head level.

  “With this.”

  She didn’t have much control over the lodestone with only two bands, but she had enough to push it straight through Nebbin’s forehead.

  His brain matter sprayed across the wall behind him. His body crumpled to the floor.

  The acolytes stirred at the engineer’s sudden demise. They looked between Ashlyn, Nebbin’s corpse, and the bloody lodestone hovering in the air. None of them seemed to understand what had happened, but they knew Ashlyn had done it.

  “Stop,” they rasped in unison. “Cause no harm.”

  Ashlyn nudged the lodestone to the left, then reversed her polarities, yanking the lodestone backward, severing one of the dragon threads attached to her arm and giving her access to another finger band.

  With three bands, she had three dimensions of control.

  And that made all the difference.

  She zipped the lodestone back and forth, severing the remaining threads in seconds.

  Her arm thumped against her hip.

  Finally, she was free.

  The manacles around her ankles were made of iron, so Ashlyn tore them apart like paper. She stood up, wincing at the pain of blood rushing through her legs again.

  “Directive required,” the acolytes rasped, staring at her.

  “Your master is occupied,” Ashlyn said. “You’ll need to decide my fate for yourselves.”

  They blinked in unison. Then their claws extended from their fists.

  Ashlyn smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

  She roared her bands to life. Poured their power down the length of the pipe, activating the other forty-nine lodestones in the loop. With the platinum pins Osyrus had given her, manipulating them was as easy as juggling a pair of apples.

  The lodestones swarmed out of the floor like locusts. Ashlyn set them on the acolytes, reducing them to ruined skeletons in seconds.

  When that was done, she turned the lodestones toward the ceiling, trying to break through and kill Osyrus. But there was some kind of repulsion on the ceiling that sent them skimming away, smashing against the walls and floor instead.

  Ashlyn halted the onslaught. That wasn’t going to work, so she shifted her attention back to the astrolabe and used it to access the other lodestone loops in the room. Now that she had control of all her bands, none of the loops were too complex for her to slip into.

  First, she tried to find a loop that led into the top of the tower, thin
king she could crush Osyrus Ward and his loom with the dragon-bone walls. But everything that led into the ceiling had been severed. Whatever Ward was doing up there, it was now a completely independent system, one that didn’t rely on lodestones at all.

  She didn’t know what that meant, she just knew she needed to destroy it.

  Ashlyn shifted her attention back to the room she was in, where there were still scores of lodestone loops running down the tower. She picked one at random and slipped inside. It only took her ten seconds to take control of the loop. She moved to another.

  And another.

  And another.

  Within a few minutes, she’d taken control of half the systems behind the tower walls. Thousands of lodestones were under her command.

  If she couldn’t crush the upper chamber, she would pull the whole castle down, instead.

  But before she could begin the destruction, she heard the Nomad howl in pain.

  Ashlyn ran toward the hole in the wall just in time to see the Nomad tumble to the ground with a ballista bolt through one wing. She landed in the middle of the square with a crunch. Tried to get up, but failed. The bolt was lodged in her wing, hampering her movement.

  Ten skyships were closing in on the square. Feral acolytes were everywhere. Ashlyn couldn’t see Silas, but she knew he was down there with the dragon and the Jaguar Army. Unless she helped them, they would all be dead in seconds.

  Osyrus would have to wait.

  Ashlyn jumped out of the tower.

  108

  CABBAGE

  Foggy Side Square, Coffee Shop

  Cabbage couldn’t bring himself to look at Simeon after he died. And he couldn’t stay in that coffee shop with his corpse. He didn’t care what he’d promised Simeon about surviving. He’d been a coward his whole life. All he wanted to do now was die fighting alongside the only friends he had left.

  So he limped back outside.

  The fight was still raging. The monsters were winning. Smokey had finally take a ballista bolt and crashed into the square. She was trying and failing to get up. Bershad was nowhere in sight.

  Cabbage only made it a few dozen strides before something jumped onto his back. Bit into the meat of his shoulder.

  He fell over. Bashed the creature in the face with Simeon’s helmet, which he hadn’t even realized he was still holding. The helmet broke three of the creature’s teeth. He hit it again. Broke its jaw, which sent it hopping backward with a snarl. Black goo dripped down its mouth.

  The creature crouched. Got ready to pounce.

  Cabbage got ready to die.

  There was a sharp crack from the big castle tower, loud enough to snatch everyone’s attention, even the monster’s. Cabbage squinted at the castle and saw something that didn’t make sense.

  A long seam of broken pipes and hissing steam was cutting down the side of the tower and leaving a streak of ruination in its wake.

  The surge of shrapnel neared the ground, but didn’t hit it. Instead, everything gathered in a cloud at the base of the castle. There was a strange moment of confused peace, where all the wardens and monsters were equally transfixed at the sight.

  Then the cloud rushed toward them, skimming across the rooftops of Floodhaven. As it got closer, Cabbage saw that there was a person in the middle of it.

  Ashlyn Malgrave.

  The skyships had tightened their perimeter around the city. Ashlyn rose to their level and flew a tight loop around them. The shrapnel in her wake shredded their levitation sacks in a series of gaseous pops. Cabbage could smell the chemicals and he could see the ships falling to the ground. All of them.

  After the armada was destroyed, Ashlyn flew to the square. Hovered in the air above, her bands spinning.

  Every acolyte in the square went rigid, backs arched and limbs frozen in twisted postures of pain.

  “Awaiting command,” the ferals said in unison.

  Her bands spun faster, turning into a wild, roaring blur. The windows of the shops ringing the square shattered. Cabbage pressed his hands against the sides of his head, glad for once that he didn’t have ears.

  Ashlyn’s bands stopped. The square went quiet. When Ashlyn spoke, it sounded like a whisper.

  “Execute annihilation protocol.”

  “Confirmed,” said the chorus of monsters.

  A moment later, their heads collapsed into themselves—skin and bone and eyes pressed into a red ball the size of an apple. Their bodies twitched, then slumped over. Dead.

  Cabbage couldn’t believe it. She’d killed them all.

  Ashlyn dropped to the ground. The lodestones around her hovered for a moment above her, then fell around her like hailstones.

  She ran toward the fallen dragon. Cabbage followed her.

  Silas was already crawling out from beneath her damaged wing when he got there. He was covered in his own blood, but whatever wounds had caused the injuries were already gone.

  “Hey, Ashe,” he said, standing up and cracking his neck. “We came to rescue you.”

  Ashlyn gave him a look. Smiled.

  “I thought you said you’d never ride her.”

  “Yeah, well. Alternative options weren’t exactly jumping up and down, waiting to be chosen.” He turned his attention to the dragon’s wing. “Think you can help her out?” he asked Ashlyn.

  “If she’ll let me.”

  The dragon begrudgingly extended her wing.

  Ashlyn’s bands whirred. She guided one cluster of lodestones near the ballista tip, and another to the metal nock. Her bands increased speed with a high-pitched whine, and then the bolt was ripped in half and pulled free from the wing without causing further damage.

  The dragon stretched her wing experimentally, seemed satisfied, then started licking her wound.

  To the east, the sound of a skyship’s engines boomed.

  They all turned to see the final skyship in the armada burning hard to the east.

  “Looks like you missed one,” Bershad said.

  “Forget the skyship,” Ashlyn said, turning back to the tower. “Osy- rus Ward is still alive, and he’s doing something very problematic. I can destroy the tower, but Kira and the others are still in there.”

  “So what do we do?” Silas asked.

  Ashlyn looked to the tower.

  “I’m not sure.”

  109

  GARRET

  Castle Malgrave, Level 39

  Ashlyn Malgrave tore a section of wall off the side of the castle when she came down, giving them a clear view of the ruination she then brought upon the armada.

  “I knew she could do it,” Jolan whispered.

  There were hundreds of broken pipes pouring different kinds of liquid all over the floor. Garret’s nostrils filled with harsh chemicals and acrid smoke. His eyes blurred. Everyone started coughing and choking.

  “Can’t stay here,” Garret rasped.

  “I’m not leaving until Osyrus Ward is dead,” the empress said.

  Vera grabbed her. “All of us will die if we stay here, Ki.”

  The empress continued to seethe. She alone seemed unharmed by the chemicals in the air.

  From above and below, the grunts and howls of more acolytes surged through the tower. Oromir moved to the massive spiral staircase and looked down it. There were scores of acolytes moving upward, trying to reach their master.

  “Not getting out that way,” said Oromir.

  “The Blue Sparrow is still docked on the far side of the Queen’s Tower,” said Garret.

  “Can anyone fly it?” Jolan asked.

  Vera looked at Kira, who took a large breath in and out, quieting her rage.

  “I can.”

  * * *

  One of those miniature monsters had chewed through Garret’s left boot and made a mess of his toes. Each sprinting step that he took across the massive skyship platform sent shocks of pain through his foot and up his leg. Halfway across the platform, Jolan fell down. He was winded and exhausted. Oromir and Garret hauled him bac
k to his feet. By the time they reached the Blue Sparrow, they were essentially carrying him.

  As soon as they were on deck, Kira hopped into the pilot’s cockpit and started flipping switches and cranks.

  “Drop the aft and port levitation lines!” she shouted at Felgor.

  “The what?”

  “Cut those fucking ropes there, there, and there!”

  Felgor rushed to follow the orders. Above them, the levitation sack began to inflate.

  “As soon as the sack is filled, I can get us out of here,” Kira said.

  Everyone relaxed for a moment. Jolan and Oromir embraced each other. Felgor threw up over the side of the ship. Garret pulled his boot off and looked at the ruination of his foot. Tied his sock around the worst cut and pulled the boot back on.

  When that was done, he saw that Oromir was staring at him. Hand wrapped tight around the grip of his sword.

  “Guess we got that done,” Oromir said.

  “We did,” Garret agreed.

  “Means you and I have unfinished business to clear up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait,” Vera said. “You can’t still … after everything he’s done for us?”

  “Doing something good in the present doesn’t change the past, does it, Garret?”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  For the longest time, Garret had believed that nothing anyone ever did mattered. Not when you looked at the big picture. The greater motions. But there on that skyship deck, with the skies full of chaos and the few people in this world he cared for all huddled together, wounded and bleeding and desperate, he realized that he’d been wrong. All this time, he’d been wrong.

  “The man that I killed. What was his name?”

  “Jon Cumberland.”

  Garret nodded. He dropped the whip on the deck.

  “If you want your revenge, take it. I won’t stop you.”

  Oromir drew his sword halfway from its sheath. Squeezed the grip even tighter. Then he shoved it home with a growl and a curse. “Keep your life, asshole. I don’t want it.”