Shadow's Bane

by Karen Chance

  That wasn’t working so great, and wouldn’t have worked at all, except for the house. Because the latest massive hole that the Hulk-like fist had left in the stairs had just closed up around it, like a wooden maw clamping down—and clamping hard. That left me half a second to focus my bleary eyes on my attacker, only that didn’t help much.

  Because I’d never seen anything like it.

  It was roughly the size and shape of a large troll, only it wasn’t one. Not unless there was some kind I didn’t know about, made out of lava right before it hardens, with a cracked, reddish crust on top and fiery-looking stuff inside. Which would have been worth a double take or maybe two, but I didn’t have time.

  Because the damned thing had two fists, didn’t it?

  The second crashed into the wall beside me, because I’d dodged at the last second, sending shards of hardwood into the skin of my cheek and neck. I stumbled backward, halfway up the stairs now and still dizzy—because it had been all of a couple seconds since this whole thing started. And because we had wards, damn it! About a thousand of the things, many of which weren’t legal anymore, if they’d ever been, and all of them on steroids from sucking on an energy teat for much of the last century.

  So how did the damned thing get in?

  Make that damned things, I thought, looking past the huge, thrashing, rocklike beast, which now had both fists trapped by a pissed-off house.

  And saw its backup—like it needed any—spiraling up from the floor.

  That’s the best way I can describe it, although it doesn’t do it justice. More of the small things I’d mistaken for toys were running at me, a whole line of them from the direction of the door, and getting bigger and meaner with every step. And more like Pig-Pen, because it looked like all the dust in the house, even that sifting down from the ceiling, was curving, was flowing out, was joining up with the rock-hard bodies they were forming like little stairsteps—and forming them fast.

  They were cleaning the house for maybe the first time ever, which unfortunately I wasn’t going to live to see because I couldn’t take this many.

  But something else could.

  Suddenly, out of every room along the hallway—the kitchen, the dining room, the guest bath, even the living room, prompting a startled “Eep!” from Gessa—came the cavalry. I was busy trying to get back to my feet while a roaring rock monster thrashed in my face, and my ankle, which had gotten injured along with everything else, kept trying to give way on me. So for a second, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

  And then I did, and I still didn’t believe it.

  Because the huge bodies suddenly flinging themselves at our attackers looked a lot like—

  The missing chess pieces.

  They had the same mottled brown or dirty green skin tones. They had the same patched leather armor and dull iron and steel weapons. They had the same little tusks on the ogres and the same beady little eyes on the trolls, although “little” really didn’t work as a descriptor anymore.

  Because they were huge.

  For a moment, I thought I must have hit my head too hard, but then I saw it.

  Or, rather, I saw him, a troll different from all the rest, darker of color and wilder of eye, because he’d seen some shit in his short life. And I’m afraid I mean that literally. Because Stinky, who eats everything that doesn’t try to eat him first, had accidentally swallowed him along with some animated circus cookies that Olga had brought over from a troll bakery. They’d been galloping and neighing and generally stampeding around the kitchen table, and Stinky, never one to miss an opportunity, had opened his mouth and let them just fall in.

  Only something else had fallen in as well, and gone for the ride of its life.

  We’d managed to retrieve the little troll after his journey, but he’d never been quite the same again. Including his hardened leather battle gear, which was sadly acid eaten and useless by the time he, uh, popped up. So Stinky, who had been made to understand that you don’t eat little sort-of-sentient creatures even if they only got that way because of a spell, had made him a new set.

  Which was why one of the suddenly massive former chess pieces was wearing soda can armor.

  Only the house, which I guessed was what was doing this, had fiddled with that, too. The familiar red background and white curly letters of one can were now a thick, molded breastplate that Batman would have been proud of; the formerly flimsy red, white, and blue logo of another was a shield Captain America might have envied; and the bright blue and green pauldrons and orange and white shin guards could have been borrowed directly from Iron Man.

  Who I really wished would show up right about now, because we were still getting hammered.

  Maybe because our attackers didn’t feel anything. Or if they did, they gave no sign. Even when I got my shit together, grabbed a jagged piece of wood that the trapped monster was shredding as fast as the house could regrow it, and started trying my best to shove it through its eye.

  Only it didn’t have eyes, although it could obviously see. But there was nothing inside the vague indentations in the skull but darkness and more rock. And when I did finally manage to break off a chunk, it didn’t seem to care. Just kept coming at me, only now with the added horror of doing it sans a third of its face.

  I turned around and ran.

  “What is it?”

  That was Claire, pulling on a dressing gown and coming out of her room as I half ran, half limped into mine.

  “You know that learning curve you’ve been on?” I said, throwing open my closet door. “It’s been accelerated.”

  “What?” She’d come in behind me. “Dory—”

  I grabbed a duffle bag in one hand and her arm in the other. “Get to the kids. You’re the last line of defense. Anything gets past me, burn it to the ground.”

  I didn’t wait to see if she got it or not. Because, in the short time I’d been away—and it had been fucking short—the lead creature had broken loose from the house and leapt up the stairs—

  Only to be blown all the way back down, into the line of backup headed this way. And with a new, basketball-sized burning hole in its torso, the blackened edges still on fire when it landed. And sent the others falling into what had become a battle of epic proportions and was about to get more so, because the duffle I’d grabbed wasn’t black.

  There was nothing in my usual stash that would work on these things; I wasn’t even going to try. So I’d gone straight for the red sack of special-occasion toys I rarely use since none of them are legal and all of them would normally be massive overkill. But it always helps to be prepared, I thought, ratcheting the special shotgun again.

  And cutting loose.

  The nice thing about buying magic from dark mages, I thought, is that they just don’t give a damn. There’s none of the hand-wringing, permit needing, or side-eye giving that you get from the legit places, not to mention that the selection is, oh, rather better. Because this little baby was the definition of one shot and done.

  Except when used on these guys, apparently. Because while this thing would put down a charging bull elephant—or a freakishly huge rock monster—in a single shot, the latter didn’t stay down. Like the first creature I’d hit, who had ended up sprawled on a pile of his buddies, but who was already getting up, was closing the wound, was coming for me—

  And was getting his head blown off for a chaser.

  But even that didn’t seem to matter, to him or to the others I was busy turning into Swiss cheese. Because they healed the same way they’d formed: by pulling dust and dirt through the air, or through cracks in the floorboards, or from under the front door. And there was no way to stop it, because the wards, good as they were, had been designed to keep out normal threats—spells and hexes and more mundane stuff like bullets.

  They weren’t designed for this.

  That thought connec
ted to something in my brain that had been nagging at me, like maybe it was important. Only I didn’t have time to worry about it right now. Because I was going to run out of rounds before they ran out of dirt, which meant, okay.

  No more Ms. Nice Guy.

  Which is why the next minute or so saw thirty grand’s worth of next-level, badass, lethal-as-we-wanna-be magical weapons go up in smoke. And fire. And a hail of flying steel shavings that buzzed through the rock like a drill bit through wood, leaving only dust clouds behind.

  Which immediately coalesced into more rock monsters!

  It quickly became apparent that, while my toys worked a wonder on flesh, nothing works on dirt. And that includes the ever-nasty, always-favorite, terribly expensive dislocator, the kind of pretty bauble that, once it explodes in your face, you no longer have a face. You have ears growing out of your knee and a smile on your ass and brains where your kidneys ought to be, because your entire upper body has just been dislocated—to somewhere not conducive to life, hopefully.

  Because the damage is not reversible.

  Unless you happen to be a freaking rock monster. In which case, you just turn dusty for a second, and do a little twist-and-writhe that hurts the brain of the person watching you, because torsos aren’t designed to turn into Escher-like knots. And then hey, presto!

  Good as new.

  Okay, that was . . . fairly impressive, I decided, digging furiously around my pack for something, anything, that might work on these things. But while a bunch of auto garrotes disrupted the next charge up the stairs, popping off heads that I thereafter kicked back into the fray, it was a momentary victory. Like the potion bombs that ate huge craters into the next assault. Or the cloud of fighting stars that a war mage had enchanted for me, which zipped about, glittering impressively in the gloom, since most of the lights had been shattered by now. But didn’t do much else but ricochet harmlessly off rock and I was running out of options!

  And yet another charge was forming, or trying to, because they really wanted up these stairs, didn’t they?

  But they were being opposed by our no-longer-little chess pieces, who were splitting heads and cleaving limbs much more effectively than before.

  They’d been having trouble at first due to their blade weapons shattering on the stonelike surface of the enemy. But they’d figured out that massive fists and iron maces and huge, heavy wooden shields were more effective. As a result, the hall and rooms branching off it had turned into a sea of churning rubble, spotted with flotsam in the form of lamps and pieces of furniture and Gessa, passing by like Rose after the Titanic sank, riding a piece of door while jabbing at re-forming rock monsters with a pike.

  And then yelling at me, I didn’t know why.

  Until I realized: a new monster had formed out of the pieces of his fallen brothers on the stairs. And had stayed low, until he was whole enough to make a surge upward. And grab me by the throat.

  There was no way I was breaking that hold. Not in time, and probably not at all. But there was time to make a gesture.

  And small though it was, it worked. Because, sure, you can save a few bucks here and there, on sales of ammo or two-for-one grenades at that one guy’s stand at the local gun show. But there are things you simply pay the asking price for and don’t argue.

  Because, one day, they’re going to save your life.

  Like my little stars did for me. Because all of them suddenly paused, midair, and zoomed back this way. And kamikazied the massive stone arm, like a magical jackhammer. And, while most of them got stuck in the rocky hide, or went ricocheting off, bent out of all usefulness, their combined force was enough to crack the forearm, allowing me to finish the job with a savage upward blow.

  The arm cleaved and shattered, I fell back, gasping and choking—and had the other fist come at me, almost before I could blink.

  But this time, I’d expected it, and managed to get my legs up, including the one with the possibly broken ankle, because there was no other choice. Leaving me with the giant fist in both hands, keeping it back from my face, my legs on its chest, pushing it away with everything I had, and my body shuddering in pain, because any second now—yeah, there it was. Make that a definitely broken ankle, I thought, screaming in the beast’s face, because why the hell not?

  My duffle was just a few steps away, half-buried under rubble, but I couldn’t reach it. It was taking everything I could to hold the creature back, who was freakishly strong, like a couple of vamps’ worth, only he weighed a hell of a lot more. And that was before my ankle bent in ways a bone isn’t supposed to, and gave way entirely.

  I would have screamed again, the force of the break echoing through me. But all the air had just been forced out of my lungs. The creature slammed me back against the stairs, my one good leg shoved against my chest, my body bent almost in two, while a red, amorphous face thrust into mine.

  Staring into those dark pits of eyes, I suddenly remembered what had been nagging at me earlier. Because, no, I’d never seen these things before. But I had seen something like them, only that time they’d been strangely beautiful and made out of water. A manlikan was a fey construct formed from the elements. It wasn’t human; it wasn’t fey; it wasn’t really anything except transport for the mind behind it. Because the creature didn’t pilot itself; there was no consciousness there.

  Except for the maker’s looking out through its eyes.

  And enjoying watching me die.

  “You first,” I mouthed, and spat in the thing’s face.

  And, oh yeah, there was a personality in there, wasn’t there?

  Because the ugly thing reared back in fury, to get the leverage to crush me against the stairs. But that also left me a second and a tiny bit of wiggle room. I used it to shove the great fist to the side, to twist, and to lunge for my bag. And to miss, because my head was suddenly gripped from behind and slammed against the railing.

  Repeatedly.

  I screamed, in pain and fury that this was the way I was going to go out—to the fey version of a fucking drone.

  Until I noticed that, while I hadn’t gotten a hand on the duffle, I had gotten a foot. And yes, it was that foot, but right then I didn’t care. Because in agony or not, the leg still worked. And so did my reaching arms, grabbing the bag that it sent flying through the air and slamming it against the massive chest, as I screamed the word I’d paid a dark mage five thousand dollars for.

  It was worth every penny.

  I watched the space above me wrinkle, and flatten, and bend. And then turn strangely triangular, like I was suddenly looking at everything through a piece of abstract stained glass. And then the body, so large that, towering over me like this, it was literally all I could see, folded up like a deck of cards.

  And disappeared.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was something wrong with my head.

  No, no, it was my ankle that was hurt, a bright, stabbing ache. I liked some pain in battle—gave me an edge. But this was off-putting. Nauseating. It hurt.

  But I couldn’t concentrate on it.

  There was something wrong with my head.

  It had been hit, a few times, against a very unforgiving railing, and you had to give it to those old shipbuilders who had put this place together. The captain had some of the guys from the docks work on the house, and damn, if they didn’t know how to build a railing! Nobody was falling off this ship, nope, nope.

  There might be something wrong with my head.

  I blinked and there was a tree limb in front of me, as big around as my body and covered in hoary old bark, like it had been there forever, only I didn’t think so. Because a blast of dirt and rock came with it, like somebody had just unloaded a dump truck on me. It made me cough and gag, because I’d had my mouth open, and now on top of everything else, I could barely breathe.

  And then some apples fell on my head.
<
br />   Probably not a good thing.

  There was already something wrong with it.

  But at least the limb seemed to have taken out a couple more rock creatures, like a bark-covered fist shooting out of the kitchen. Where I guess the apple logs had sprouted again, and slammed into two assailants I hadn’t noticed until what was basically a sideways tree smashed through the middle of them. And sent a crap ton of fruit bouncing down the stairs.

  I just lay there, watching it go, because I couldn’t do anything else. The limb was lying across me like it meant business, and anyway, my brain didn’t seem to be taking orders right now. But I wasn’t too concerned, and not just because of the comfortable darkness that kept trying to eat at my vision. But because of the crashes and yells and renewed clang, clang, clang of metal on stone.

  The fey had arrived, lighting up the hallway as if dawn had come in a moment. I flashed on that scene with Gandalf showing up with the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep. Because even half-dead, I am a huge fucking nerd.

  “To the king,” I whispered, laughing, and then couldn’t remember why.

  There was something wrong with my head.

  And this time, I could name it, because it was weirdly like static, only no.

  Static didn’t hurt this much.

  I think I screamed. I’m not sure, since all I could hear was that awful white noise, but I felt like screaming—and rending and tearing and stabbing whoever was repeatedly sticking an ice pick in my fucking ear. But there was no one there.

  Except for Caedmon, who was looking slightly weirded out.

  “What?” I said, as the static retreated, and watched him blink at me. It seemed to take a long time. But maybe not, because then he was gone again.

  I heard the front doors slam open, and peered over the tree limb to see everything start to get sucked out. Or blown out, because it seemed like the wind was coming from in here. I didn’t know. I just knew that pieces of wood and other debris, even some of the smaller rocks, went flying. And disintegrating, in the case of the latter, as they sailed through the air outside. I could see them through the transom, puffing away into nothingness above the streetlights, like dirty fireworks.