A Soul of Steel

by Troy A Hill

  “Drop the blade,” it said in a guttural half-growl. “Do it or he dies here.”

  Without Soul to counter his claws, I would be at a distinct disadvantage against the beast. Cadoc, still dazed, twisted his hands around the creature’s great arm. His eyes met His mouth moved.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Behind me, footsteps sounded on the rock floor as others entered. Our guards. Perhaps Gwen. I had two choices. Do what it said and play for time, or show my true nature in front of an audience.

  “Drop it,” the guttural voice of the beast, in a strange accent, sounded again. Definitely not Ruadh’s voice. “Now!”

  I had no choice. I knew he was lying, but I wanted to buy more time and see if I could get him out of the cave before I pulled blood energy and moved faster than any human could. The guards… Cadoc… none of them knew what I was. This evening, I might have to show them.

  I dropped my blade.

  26

  Demon

  Behind me another glow began. Gwen must have conjured some light. I didn’t take my gaze off the shifter. Cadoc’s eyes were wide, but he wasn't bleeding, so I counted myself ever so slightly ahead in this face off. Unfortunately, Cadoc’s sword was on the other side of the werebear. No chance to grab it to replace my own.

  The creature laughed and lifted the young lord around so they were nose to nose. He ran his tongue along his half-formed muzzle.

  “You will all die tonight,” the creature growled in its strange accent. He twisted Cadoc’s arm until the sword clattered to the rocky floor, and the light of the goddess faded from it. The shifter raised Cadoc off the ground at arm’s length. Its other arm pulled back for a death blow.

  What had Bleddyn told me earlier? We protect our friends…

  I had a split second to figure out whether I should go for the blade or dive in without it.

  I kicked my blood demon fully awake and pulled energy from her. Blood energy to give me unnatural speed and strength. I was still in control of us, barely. I’d find some way to explain my preternatural speed later to Cadoc and the guard – IF we lived to have that discussion.

  I snatched Soul from the cave floor. My blade met the claws before they struck Cadoc’s neck. I levered with my undead strength and pushed the creature’s paw away from him. The beast threw Cadoc to the side and struck at me. Despite the pain from my wounds, I pulled more energy from my demon and spun with preternatural speed away from the blow. Recognition dawned on his face. He had seen my speed and felt my strength. Panic set into the creature’s eyes.

  “Draugr!” the beast hissed at me. His language was from the Nordic tribes. I knew the word well. It was their word for “those who walk again,” or blood witches as the Witch Hunters liked to call us.

  Behind him, Gwen edge along the wall, as she inched closer to Bleddyn and Rhys lying in the pool of blood on the floor. Blood! I smelled it. My demon wanted to lunge at the guards near Gwen, and feed from them. My fangs grew in my mouth, and my demon focused on Siors, Gerallt and Afon. Their eyes were wide with shock, and their mouths hung open. But each of them had a bare sword in hand.

  I jerked my gaze back to the creature. I was no threat with my normal blade. Cadoc’s magical blade was a step or two behind me. A growl grew in the shifter’s chest. Damn! I needed magic to take him on. Magic that could hurt him, like he could hurt me. Damn it! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

  I pushed the energy the goddess was sending me into the sword. Without it to offset the weight of the sun, still in the sky outside, I had to open the door to the cage I kept my demon in. I needed the blood energy the demon provided. But her resources were low. Those damn claws had cut me. Deep. My demon could either work on healing me, or feed me strength and speed. I had to have the latter.

  My demon screamed. Blood!

  The shifter snarled, but backed away a step.

  Great idea, shifting the magic into my blade, but a terrible time to need to use it.

  Blood! I smelled the blood. So did my demon, and she was hungry.

  I focused on Soul’s blade for a second. Dark red eyes stared back at me from my reflection. I felt my fangs as my demon took even more control of my body. Red eyes. Hunger. I lunged at the shifter and scored a hit on his left arm.

  The creature snarled in pain and took a step back. The scent of his blood was what I needed to focus my demon it, and not on my friends in the cave. Rhys’s blood, and Bleddyn’s had drawn my demon’s attention. But my score on the shifter gave my demon blood of power to consider. Shifter blood. She turned her attention to werebear. Now all I had to do was keep enough control of us until we got out of the cave and away from the eyes of my friends. They wouldn’t understand my diet, and didn’t need to see my fangs sink into the creature’s neck.

  The werebear took a step toward the cave entrance. Its eyes locked on me and watched my glowing blade. Five more steps and he’d be out of the cave. Five more steps…

  The werebear’s claws darted at me from my left. I moved Soul to block. His other hand darted in. I spun out of the way, but the claws on his half-bear hand passed a hair’s breadth away from my face. They still reeked of Bleddyn's blood. My demon screamed again and clawed at her cage. She wanted control NOW!

  The shifter took advantage of my defensive move and stepped back. I let him have the step, but I pressed in again. I had to stay focused on the creature. I slashed Soul in from a high guard position. The downward stroke pushed the creature another step back, toward the cleft out into the countryside.

  Caution had taken over. I saw it in his eyes. The creature didn’t want to turn and run while I had a magical blade. He knew I’d be on his unprotected back.

  Another swipe from the creature shot toward me which I blocked with my blade. The creature had feinted to gain another step. My demon wanted to make us leap in. But I kept us back. The creature gained another step back. Good.

  The gashes in my chest and side hurt with every movement. My demon screamed with my pain. The wounds and the energy I drew had pushed her too far. I had to feed. Now! But the beast had a few more yards to go.

  I launched another strike. I had room to swing, but the creature had entered the slit at the opening. Just one more step and it could run. The werebear growled and snapped with its fangs, but gained another step toward the entry.

  My demon tried to lunge us forward. I blinked and fought to maintain control. That was the break the shifter needed. It stepped back and turned to flee.

  Another beast dove onto the shifter. Two great bears, half-beasts, half-men, rolled and raked each other with claws. One shifter was light brown, the other red-brown. My demon tried to push me to dart in and grab either one. She had to feed NOW!

  The creature got its legs under Ruadh and kicked him off, then rolled in a flash of fur and claws, and took off. Ruadh took off in pursuit.

  My demon wailed and tried to turn us back toward the cave. The pain in my side from the gashes, the need for blood. My vision swam. My demon didn’t want to chase. She smelled blood behind us. Blood that wouldn’t fight back like the shifter.

  Damn it to all the hells! I was dangerously close to losing all control again. I couldn’t let the demon win again. Not when my friends would be the demon’s victims

  My blood-demon wailed. She fought hard to turn us back. Toward the blood in the cave.

  I couldn’t let her. Not my friends. NO!

  We stayed frozen. I wanted to pursue the werebear. She wanted to turn and feed from those behind me. Gwen, Cadoc, Bleddyn if he were still alive, and the others. My off hand pressed against my wounds. The wounds in my side made my demon wail and shriek in pain.

  If only she would let me chase the bears. A werebear with blood of power could cure me. With Ruadh and I both at his heels, the creature wouldn’t survive. But my damn demon wanted living blood NOW.

  I wanted to cry. I needed to run. Run away to not attack and feed on those behind me. If she wouldn’t let me have our legs to chase, I would n
ot let her use them to turn toward my friends. A long wail of despair sounded in my mind.

  She surged forth, twisting and beating against my slim control over our body. Soul was in front of me. The glow long since faded, but the energy from the goddess couldn’t heal me. My demon needed blood for that.

  My eyes focused again on Soul. For the first time I saw her real face. My face, twisted into rage. Desperate with hunger. She/I/We screamed at each other.

  I pushed hard. With all of my will and locked our legs. We staggered, but stayed upright. I stopped us from turning back to the cave. I won. We wouldn’t move.

  A gentle singing intruded on my mind… The land itself was singing a melody. The song of The Lady, Goddess of Britannia was a counterpoint to the screams of my demon. I stared at my blade. Soul once again glowed with The Lady’s light.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I dropped to my knees. I held Soul in front of me.

  The power of The Lady, the power of the land ran through my connection to the blade. Its white glow swallowed my vision. The song continued and swelled. It drowned out the cries of my demon. All I heard was the song, as I crumpled to my side. I was tired of the fight with my demon. So tired…

  The mists swirled and danced around me. My demon gave one last wail that I could barely hear over the song, then faded off into silence as the mists swallowed me.

  27

  The Mists

  A familiar figure walked toward me. She wasn’t surrounded by the light. She was the light. Her black dress and cloak glowed as her soft steps brought her toward me.

  “Daughter,” the angelic voice said, “Why do you cry?”

  “I love them and don’t want to hurt them…” I whispered. I couldn’t shed a tear, no matter how much I wanted to sob. My demon had used every last drop of blood as it tried to heal me.

  I struggled to right myself, onto my knees. My eyes level with the sword belted around her waist. A large, round gem glowed on the end of the pommel. Within it, a flash of red. There was a dragon inside the gem that swirled and danced within the mists.

  “What would you do, my child?”

  “Protect them, Milady.” I said. “Love them and shield them from harm. The harm of others, and the harm I would cause them myself. I need blood, but I will not hurt my friends to take it.”

  “If you could live only by releasing this demon within you, what would you do?”

  I gazed at her face. She and Gwen could be sisters, if not twins. The same blue eyes and golden-white hair.

  “I would rather die myself, find the true-death, than harm those I love,” I said.

  “You love my people?”

  I nodded.

  Her left hand dropped to the pommel stone of the sword. Before her hand closed around it, I swear the dragon inside pressed its snout up to the surface to stare at me. It nodded at me and twisted like a swirl in the ocean, to resume its dance in the mists.

  The goddess raised the blade only a little from its scabbard. One of her fingers touched the naked edge of the blade. A thin red line of blood oozed from the cut on her finger. Could gods bleed?

  “Only when we need to,” her mind whispered in mine.

  Her hand reached out. I could smell the odour of blood, faint, but yet strong. Blood of power. Blood of Great and Immense power.

  The goddess brushed the small wound on her finger across my lips. I could feel the slick, divine blood on my lip.

  “You are my daughter, Maria,” she said. “Let my blood, my power aid you to protect our people.”

  I licked my lips. One, perhaps two drops of the sweet nectar coated my tongue. My demon stopped her screaming as we felt the living power of the land of Britannia all around me. The Lady, the goddess before me, was all around me. She was the land, and the land was her. With the blood of the goddess on my tongue, the taste of her power, for a brief second, I could sense everywhere on the island, every insect, every animal, every person. The noise of their lives was deafening for that second.

  Then the sense receded as the energy coursed through me. The Lady’s power didn’t diminish so much as settle into my undead magic. Something in that power shifted. Like adding dye to a vat of water. The liquid becomes more than it was. Power flowed into my thirst. There it quieted the screaming of my demon.

  A tiny morsel of the power remained and tied itself to my soul. It opened my connection to the goddess wider. I understood what Gwen's connection was like. Up til now, I only had to deal with my demon’s voice and desire. But she had the entire island, and all the creatures on it in her sphere. If she had as great of a connection as I had just glimpsed, I was unsure how she kept her sanity amidst all of that information.

  “Do you accept my gift?” The Lady asked. “You have said you would protect the land and her people.”

  “I will, mistress,” I said.

  “Know that I cannot take the curse of your demon from you,” she said. “It is of blood and death, and I am powered by life and the land. But I can aid you as you battle its thirst.”

  “Thank you.” I said. The cell door on my demon clanged shut. Instead of a flimsy cage, I could feel her locked inside me, away from control of my body. I wanted to sing in joy and cry out. But, damn it, not in front of a goddess. What would she think of me then?

  “Go with my love, my daughter,” she said, and stroked my hair back behind my ear. Just like Gwen often did.

  The mists swirled around me, and The Lady of Britannia began to fade from

  “Let love win, daughter.”

  28

  The Fallen

  I blinked. The light was gone. The woods were black, except for the pale glow of the moon, a mere firefly compared to the glory of the goddess. The taste of her blood lingered on my tongue. I still sensed her power. Enough of it that my demon roared like a hungry kitten from her cage in my mind. I needed to feed, but I could wait.

  I pressed up from my knees. Good. My legs held. But the gashes in my side screamed in pain. Damn that shifter! If I was this hurt, what about Bleddyn? Please not him, I sent a prayer to the goddess. I had tried to get there in time. My gut tightened, and I took a step toward the cave.

  I was relieved to see the white magical light leak from between Gwen’s fingers as she pressed on Bleddyn’s wounds. The guards held a perimeter around the two fallen men. Cadoc rolled to his knees, still coming to his senses after being tossed about by the creature.

  “Lady Gwen says Lord Penllyn will live,” Afon said. His voice had a tremble in it, but his sword hand held his blade steady. “What of the creature?”

  “The beast is running,” I said. But the breath I took to use my voice brought the smell of the spilled blood back to me. My knees shook, and my demon wailed from her cage. The thought of sinking my fangs into Cadoc’s bare neck where he kneeled. Evidently there was a limit to what the blood of a goddess could do for me. I had to leave. Fast.

  “I’ll wait outside, just in case,” I mumbled and spun for the entry. My demon envisioned our fangs sinking into Cadoc’s neck. I could almost taste his blood as I stumbled forward and out of the cave. Three more steps, well beyond the entry to the cave and I pulled in deep, noisy breaths to clear my nose of the smell.

  As the forest odours settled in to replace the sweet tang of the spilled blood, I leaned back against the rocks. I still had Soul in my hand. Once my blood lust seemed to be under control for the moment, I opened my connection to the goddess. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and I felt my undead abilities awakening.

  I took a few more breaths, then tentatively sent some energy from my black and gold cord, the one that tied me to The Lady, into Soul. My blade came alight with power. I held my other hand next to the flat side and sensed the power of the Goddess crackle between my flesh and the cold steel.

  Footsteps crunched on the loose gravel inside the cave entrance. I broke the connection with the sword and let the magic light blink out.

  Gwen stumbled out a moment later. She took a few steps towar
d me, her hand on the rock wall for support. She smiled a thin, worried smile. I pushed myself away from the wall. The movement caused my own wounds to stretch, I grabbed my injured torso.

  “You’re injured too,” Gwen said. I couldn’t read her emotions. She paused for breath and leaned on the rocks I had just stepped away from.

  “I’m...” She sounded winded. “I’ve never channelled that much healing magic at once.” She wobbled, unsteady, like she was close to collapse. She shivered and fell to her knees.

  “Don’t you go dying on me, love,” I sent as I reached out to steady her.

  I opened our link and pushed The Lady’s energy into Gwen. I didn’t know how to heal. Was this helping or hurting? Crap! I didn’t know how to do any of this. I’d rather fight the shifter than try to figure out magic.

  Gwen took a deep breath. Then another. She raised her hand to cut off the flow of magic from me.

  “You need your strength,” she said. “How bad are you injured?”

  “The Lady is helping.” I wanted to tell her of my vision of the goddess. But now wasn’t the time, and this wasn’t the place. First, I wanted to hear about our friends.

  “Rhys was beyond my ability to help,” she sent. A sad note hung in her thought.

  “What about Bleddyn? And the werebear’s poison?” I asked. Their claws and bites would pass on the curse to humans. I didn’t want to see that happen to any of my friends. To be ruled by the moon and forced to shift forms. Only those of strong character, like Ruadh, might live with that curse, and stay sane.

  “I cleaned that first,” she sent. Her hands were up, massaging her temples. “Which is why I am so tired now.” She sounded exhausted, even on our mental link. “His wounds were deep, and his system is shocked, from the loss of blood. But, I believe he’ll survive.”