Shadow of a Doubt

by Hunter Blain

  “Back to Lolth. They will be expecting your attack next time. Of that, you can be sure.” There was anger in Taylor’s voice, as if I had used a nuke on a small squad of insurgents rather than saving it for the capital stronghold. Now, our hand had been exposed and Lolth had more information to use against us.

  I followed Taylor, careful to keep one hand firmly on the wheel, and we eventually made it to the castle. The tree looked even worse than last time, and it made me worry that we might already be too late.

  “Get us over the wall and to the throne room,” Taylor whispered as I stopped to stand next to him.

  I nodded, and new leather wings sprang forth. I was annoyed to see some of the fuzz had come back; but I’d worry about that later.

  Taylor stuck one hand up into the air and I lifted off the ground, grabbing his wrist as I soared into the sky. I was careful not to beat my wings too hard, lest I gave away our position. They already knew we were coming, but I didn’t want them to know exactly where we were.

  In less than a minute, we had made it high enough to be level with the castle. It amazed me that the castle seemed to be closer to the front gate when walking than when flying. I chalked it up to Fae magic.

  We landed at the front entranceway and began making our way inside. Taylor slung the bow over his shoulder and opted instead for the sword for close-quarter combat.

  I willed my gladius to life, but focused on keeping the flames as low as possible. I could have extinguished them, but I didn’t know if that affected the power of the blade or not, and now was not a time for trial and error.

  We made our way to the throne room where, sitting on top of a pile of rubble that had once been the throne, sat Oberon. He rested his hands on top of the gladius, the point of the sword resting on the ground. Oberon looked up to see us and smiled, letting his hands move around in a circle while the tip of the blade pivoted on the stone floor. He was covered from head to toe in his black celestial armor etched in red. The skin I could see was healed but scarred from our last encounter. Oberon stood straight up, making a show out of stretching, before squaring his body to us.

  Taylor and I entered the room, spreading out to either side of the imposing nine-foot-tall King of Faerie. I was confident I could beat him again, but a part of me knew that last time he hadn’t been expecting my attack, and he had been injured from the dragon’s breath.

  “Keep an eye out for Lolth,” I whispered to Taylor. He didn’t respond, but I knew he had gotten the message.

  “No need,” Oberon said. “It’s just us.”

  “You know Lolth betrayed you, right?” I asked Oberon. “She knew the black hole would rush toward Earth instead of with it.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Oberon sighed, letting his shoulders slump slightly. “Then again, since TalGoid is with you, I assume you already know that I do not have a choice. I was tricked by the darkness and now must abide by its laws.”

  “That sucks,” I spoke flatly while keeping my sword up in a defensive stance.

  “Truly,” Oberon said. “But not as much as this.” He turned and looked down one of the passageways where two tiny purple eyes shone from the darkness. They were only about six inches off the ground, so I assumed they posed no threat. Oh, Lilith, how wrong I was.

  The sound of squeaking wheels reverberated in the silence, and my throat constricted at the recognition of the sound. I watched in pure horror as the glowing eyes moved slowly through the darkness and into the dimly lit throne room.

  “Here, let me help you see,” Oberon said, waving a hand toward the ceiling. The visage of a full moon appeared, bathing the room in a bluish-white light.

  A high-pitched moan of heartbreak escaped my mouth like the air from a leaking balloon as I dropped to my knees, lowering my weapon.

  “John, get up,” Taylor whispered from somewhere a thousand miles away. Everything in my world became unfocused except the tiny, handicapped puppy in the custom-made wheelchair.

  “Tiny…Ti-Ti-Tim,” I squeaked out, tears blurring my eyes. “No. Not you, little buddy. Not you…” I sobbed once, losing the battle to control my emotions as the purple-eyed puppy approached on excited front paws, his tongue hanging out as he panted. The puppy, whom I had loved more than any other creature in my long life, scrambled on the stone floor in an effort to get to his best friend. I let my gladius wink out as I extended my hands, ready to pick him up and let him attack my face with the ferocity that only puppy kisses could bring.

  “It’s not him, John! Do NOT fall for their tricks!” Taylor urged. When I didn’t respond and Tim inched closer to my open hands, I could hear Taylor sheathing his blade, drawing my attention. As I looked over to him, he nocked an arrow into his bow and let it loose, with it pointed directly at my puppy.

  “NO!” I screamed as I sent a whip out from my hand to knock the arrow from the air. Then I picked up Tiny Tim with my left hand and brought him to my face while I willed the manifestation in my right hand to transform. Now I could see how Oberon had been tricked so easily. Lolth knew our hot buttons. I kissed the top of Tim’s head and smiled just as he lunged for the skin on my exposed face with tiny teeth laced with the poison of darkness.

  Predicting just that, I dropped him in the leather bag I had manifested and cinched it closed while the tears I had been holding back leaped from my eyes. I could hear him struggling as I tied him to my hip. The thing I had loved unconditionally had just been used against me, and I didn’t appreciate that. Not. One. Bit.

  “Now,” I snarled with eyes pluming red and white as my chest heaved with rage, “you fucked up.” My gladius sprang to life drenched in a mixture of heavenflame and hellfire.

  Oberon’s smile vanished in an instant, replaced with a frown of disappointment.

  I heard Taylor’s bow draw back as I rushed for Oberon. From the corner of my eye, I saw a column of shadow swarm Taylor, who barely dodged out of the way as he fired into the dark tide that was Lolth. I had to trust Taylor could hold his own against Lolth while I faced Oberon.

  Our swords clanged, angel gladius on angel gladius, and my worst fears were realized; Oberon was not as weak as on our last meeting, and matched me in strength and speed. Faerie was his plane, and that should have given him the edge to beat me, but Da’s armor and my unimpeded vampirism helped close the gap.

  We pushed off, sparks flying, and began a delicate dance for the fate of the universe.

  He thrusted toward my chest, and I parried by slapping his blade with mine before throwing a counterstrike. He dodged out of the way, narrowly missing the tip of my blade, while an elephant-sized boot kicked me in the Little John. My eyes went wide as the air escaped my lungs, and I was lifted into the air about a foot before Oberon’s fist slammed into my face.

  I toppled head over feet what felt like a hundred times before my helmeted noggin smashed into stone, abruptly halting my circus act.

  I scrambled to my feet just in time to lift my free arm up and summon a shield. Metal clanged on metal, and I swiped at Oberon’s feet as he took a step back from having his momentum reversed. My sword connected and etched a line through his shin.

  Oberon screamed in rage as a tiny line of blood leaked from the cut in his armor. I sucked in the shield and extended out a whip that I used to lash out at the Faerie king’s face. The crack created a small shock wave that disoriented Oberon, and I stepped forward with my sword to stab at his torso. He recovered at the last second and twisted, but not before I gashed another line in his armor. This time, blood spilled freely as Oberon cried out, bringing his sword around as he twisted his body.

  Seeing his attack coming, I let the gladius wink out as I ducked and turned in a circle as his blade clanged off the top of my helmet. As I completed my turn, I willed the gladius back and launched myself upward, bringing the blade straight up to the ceiling.

  Oberon was still in full swing as I brought the blade up, but countered by leaning toward me while bending at the elbow, smashing it into my face.


  My body rag dolled to the ground as I was knocked silly. There were now two Oberons above me, swirling around and around each other. Both of them raised their swords with the tips pointing downward, ready to violate my flesh like a bad prom date.

  Then the two attackers coalesced back into one as my vision cleared, and I saw my doom approach in slow motion. My hands were at my sides and would not produce enough momentum to counter this direct, powerful attack.

  “Well, I tried,” was all I could think as the sword rushed to make my chest its new sheath.

  A blur of green passed overhead, followed by a wave of darkness that crashed into Oberon, knocking him off his feet.

  He cried out in surprise as I turned to see Lolth feverishly chasing the elusive Taylor, who was much more agile than anyone in the room had anticipated. In her single-mindedness, she had fallen for his maneuver and crashed into Oberon, saving my unlife.

  As I lay flat on the ground, I brought my knees up to my chest and then kicked up toward the ceiling, bringing my whole body up to land on my feet in a super cool ninja move, like in the movies. Except this ninja also had a puppy in the leather bag attached to his hip. Must be mindful of my little buddy!

  I was aware of the taste of blood in my mouth and instantly knew that son of a bitch had broken my nose.

  Oberon recovered and continued his attack. I parried, dodged, ducked, and countered his attacks just as he did mine. I realized this was going to be death by a thousand cuts if I didn’t change my tactics.

  I was bleeding out of several wounds that matched in number to Oberon’s. He had an impressive reach on me, which meant I had to get in closer to effectively strike, whereas all he had to do was keep me just out of range.

  As he made a sweeping arc with his sword, a thought struck me, and I let my gladius wink out as I ducked under his attack. I willed two daggers with tanto tips for piercing, and was happy to see they were just as real and celestial as the rest of my manifestations lately.

  Oberon’s eyes went wide as he tried to slow his power strike, and I moved in.

  I jammed both blades into his lead leg, one directly on top of the thigh and the other in the outside of the quadricep. The blades pierced the armor, as the tips had been designed to do, and I immediately began drawing blood into myself.

  Oberon was stunned and tried to suck in air, and I began laughing—A dark bull with glowing amethysts for eyes rammed into my side, throwing me across the room with a sickening crunch. While doing my best to not crush Tim in the bag at my side, I bounced off the wall and landed on the ground, knowing several bones were broken. Not only that, I had had the blades ripped from my hands and had lost the energy I had thrown into them, stunning me.

  As I lay still, moaning, I heard the ground-shaking thumps of something massive running in my direction. I turned my head and saw Lolth—still in bull form—rushing toward me with head low and sharp horns ready.

  I sent the emergency signal from my brain to my limbs to move, move, move! But there was a problem with the connection, and I just lay there, unable to stop the train.

  Lolth was a few paces away when a volley of arrows pierced her flesh near the neck. With a scream, she veered off to the side. So instead of piercing me with her horns, all she did was lightly—gently, even—trample me beneath the tonnage of her weight. Bones cracked and joints popped out of sockets as she ran over me, tripping as she went. I was aware of the yipping in my bag, which I desperately tried to shield with my body.

  Lolth not only slammed into the wall, but through it as well. Though my body was facing the center of the room, my neck had been conveniently positioned to face behind me, so I could watch as the Shadow goddess received a few more arrows in her ass before falling over the edge of the castle.

  For some reason, in that moment, even though my body was broken and I was still in very real danger, all I could think about was that it was odd she had fallen to the ground below. I’d thought the throne room had passageways and rooms on all sides. Went to show how much I paid attention.

  “My goddess!” Oberon cried as he quickly limped to, then jumped through, the hole she had created. There was a sizable trail of blood following him.

  Closing my eyes, I focused on healing my body. Once everything had popped back into place, I grabbed my neck, took a deep breath, and twisted it back into place.

  “Owwy!!!!” I cried out like a manly man and not at all like a five-year-old child who had just skinned his knee.

  I smacked my lips as I tasted fresh blood.

  “That was new,” I said as Taylor rushed over to help me up.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. I looked him up and down and realized he had had a hell of a battle against Lolth. Blue elven blood leaked from several wounds over his body.

  “Yeah, I think so. How did you hit her without light?” I asked.

  “Arrows I personally enchanted with the power of the sun,” Taylor said, pulling an arrow free. I noticed the gold tip was not metal, but condensed sunlight that I had to squint to look at up close.

  “Neat!” I admired.

  “Well, I made them for you,” Taylor admitted, slightly ashamed.

  “Not so neat,” I unadmired.

  “It kept her from turning once you distracted her for me.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I did. Yup. Yes, sir. I sure distracted her, just like I intended. Yup.”

  “Thank you for that, John. It changed the tide in our favor. Except…”

  “Except we haven’t stopped them yet,” I finished as I stepped to and then looked out the hole. A strong wind gusted through as I peered down at the cloud cover below. “Holy long fall, Batman! That goes all the way down!”

  “Yes. It was exceedingly difficult to position her in such a way that she noticed, and then charged you, from the angle I had drawn her to.”

  “Um, good job…?” I said, not really knowing what to respond to something so badass that I couldn’t fully wrap my head around it. I had always been bad at geometry…and physics…and most things.

  I sprouted wings before motioning to Taylor, who nodded as he stepped forward. Another step, and he was falling through the air with me close behind him, my wings tucked in close as I flew like a missile.

  As we passed through the cloud cover, I grabbed Taylor’s ankle as we searched for any signs of Lolth and Oberon. We were around a hundred feet off the ground when I unfolded my wings to their full width and began soaring.

  “There!” Taylor called out as he grabbed his bow and took an arrow from the quiver on his back. I was impressed that, even upside down, the arrows didn’t fall out. He nocked the sunlight-tipped arrow, aimed, and let loose one arrow that separated in midflight into several, almost like watching buckshot.

  Oberon was pulling the last arrow from Lolth when the volley whistled through the air. The King of Darkness took note and stood with his back to us and arms out to either side as Lolth shrunk down to the size of a cat. Arrows bounced off Oberon’s armor, completely missing the now much smaller Lolth. A few found a home in between Oberon’s armor, and he dropped to the ground as one of his knees exploded from the strike.

  “Note to self: no armor on the back of the knees,” I whispered to no one before glancing at my arm, “or front of the elbow.”

  A few yards above the ground, I let Taylor go, who expertly flipped in the air and landed on his feet with ease like a damn cat. He nocked another arrow while keeping it trained on Oberon, who still tried to shield Lolth.

  “Wait,” I said gently as I landed and let my wings retract. I made my way over to where Oberon was breathing heavily and trembling with pain. Giving him a wide berth, I walked around to try and spot Lolth, but it appeared as if she had disappeared under Oberon’s shadow.

  “Fuck,” I barked in frustration.

  Lolth must have known I was looking for her, because the Shadow goddess appeared in the open field in front of me, rising from the ground like a specter.

  I smiled, ready to finish this, when
my lips began to tug downward at the corners as what had to be thousands of various Shadow faeries began to emerge from the ground alongside their master.

  Incorporeal, featureless monsters stood with stone-faced drow. Supes that had been infected with darkness spilled out from the tree line behind, apparently unable to shadow walk.

  Tiny Tim began moving in my leather sack, struggling to get free and join his infected brothers and sisters.

  Taylor joined me where I stood, gazing at the hopeless battle in front of us. I was cocky enough to know we could kill hundreds of the Shadow bastards with relative ease, but thousands? Even I knew when to set the measuring tape down and zip up the front of my pants.

  “Ready to die?” I asked gravely.

  Taylor looked at me and did something I’d never forget: he backhanded the fuck out of my face, to the point where my head was almost facing directly behind us.

  My hand went to my face, where the armor had mitigated some of the pain, but I was still very much aware that a truck had just smashed into the side of my head.

  Rubbing my cheek, I turned to face the elf, who was freaking smiling at me.

  “What do we say to the god of death?” Taylor asked.

  “Eat my ass? Because, seriously, I’m not going to finish that possibly copyrighted statement. Though I get the meaning,” I finished with a wink and smile of my own.

  We both looked forward, drawing our respective weapons: Taylor with his bow and sunlight-tipped arrows. Me with my angelic gladius and circular shield, kind of like Captain America’s but with a Batman symbol in the middle.

  I leaned a little toward my companion and whispered, “I totes didn’t know you liked Game of Thrones. I would have invited you over for watch parties.”

  Chuckling, Taylor responded with, “You haven’t even seen the spin-off series yet, have you?”

  “Oh shit! I forgot all about that. It’s been out for, what, eight years? I’m going to have to binge-watch the entire series when I get home.”

  Taylor’s forced smile fell flat as the infected supes made it to the Shadow army. My own mouth mirrored his as the situation became both real and unavoidable.