“There’s a space back here,” I said.
“Yeah, full of dirt,” Jordan said. “I sensed it earlier. Same stuff they spread over the floor. There’s a loading hatch on the deck. If the druids were in there, I would have felt them…” His words trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. That would only be true if the druids were still alive.
“Open it,” he said suddenly.
With his quarterstaff in attack position, Jordan backed off a pair of steps. The other two druids spread to either side, while orbs of light glimmered to life around Seay’s and the other half-faes’ hands.
Aiming my sword at where the door met the side of the ship, I shouted, “Vigore!”
The force hooked the sliding door and slung it open. In the space beyond stood a mountain of earth, small avalanches of dirt rolling down its side from the disturbance. Above its peak, lantern light from the deck outlined the hatch Jordan had described. He shouldered past me now and began digging into the pile with his hands.
“Careful, man,” I said. “We don’t know what’s in there.”
But Jordan wasn’t listening. He was clearing the dirt around something.
A bare foot.
Holy hell. Checking to ensure Seay and company were covering us, I knelt beside him, set my sword and staff to one side, and plunged my hands into the earth. I was soon holding the other leg, the skin blessedly warm. Whoever this was, they were alive.
“Pull!” Jordan shouted.
He had the other leg by the ankle. I choked down until I was gripping an ankle too, and we leaned back with our collective strength. The body emerged by degrees. The cloak-wrapped thighs told us this was a druid.
“Don’t let up,” Jordan urged.
I paused to adjust my grip, and that’s when a force pulled back. Surprised, I lost my hold. The legs disappeared into the mound. Jordan, who hadn’t released his side, fell forward, arms plunging into the earth. In the next moment, he was buried to his shoulders.
“Let go!” I shouted.
“Can’t…” he said through gritted teeth.
And not because he didn’t want to. The earth was seizing his arms like a mass of muscles. I scooped up my sword and activated the banishment rune. My first impulse was to drive the blade into the mound, but I didn’t want to skewer a druid. Instead, I aimed the blade at the heap and shouted, “Vigore!”
A bright-white force emerged and nailed the mound. The earth shuddered with a rumble that rocked the entire ship. Freed, Jordan fell onto his back. Reclaiming his staff, he sprang up, a look of wtf? on his face.
The mound was changing, morphing into the likeness of an earth elemental from the waist up. But the void told me it was demonic: our Stranger. The druids were buried underneath its body, its energy concealing them.
Chunks of dirt tumbled from the Stranger’s head as a crevice-like mouth appeared below swirling voids for eyes, a single dark flame set inside each one. He rose up, a torso with two thick arms and a large head.
“Who the hell are you?” Jordan asked.
“Call me Loam,” the Stranger said in a deep male’s voice. “Destroy me, and you destroy them.”
“Yeah, that’s not how it works,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear, especially Jordan. I wasn’t going to let the Stranger bluff his way into a stalemate. “More like, destroy you and you’ll have no more claim over them.”
With a shouted Word, I let my sword fly. I was going to run this joker through and banish him back to hell, like I’d done with the other Stranger. But Loam swung a fist around and batted my sword into a wall. His other fist reached toward the rafters with the clear intent of bringing it down on my head. No time to dive out of the way, I chanted to reinforce my shield, bracing for a trip through the ship’s floor.
But a bolt of fae light broke against Loam’s face, and then another. Seay and the half-fae were opening up on him. Loam’s fist missed me wide, the landing force sending the ship into a violent fit of rocking.
With an angry grunt, Loam thrust his other arm forward. I leapt to the side as chunks of earth blew from his hand. One piece knocked Seay to the ground, while more pelted the half-fae, prompting them to duck or scurry for cover. Energy crackled from the end of my staff as I invoked a shield over Seay and her friends. The remaining earth assault met the wall of hardened air and broke apart.
With another shout, I returned my batted-off sword to my free hand. In the meantime, Jordan and the other two druids had come together, the ends of their quarterstaffs touching in a tripartite formation aimed at Loam.
“In the name of the Raven Circle,” they shouted in unison, “we condemn thee as unnatural!”
The energy in the hull seemed to gather toward their joined staffs before detonating as a current of dark, druidic energy. Loam, who was gathering himself to launch another attack, took the magic bolt directly in the chest. A deep crater appeared there, driving straight through the demon’s middle and out the other side. With a wounded yowl, the Stranger lost all form and collapsed back into a heap. The druidic energy snapped over him for several more moments before petering out.
Except for the creaking and slapping of waves on wood, the hull fell silent.
The druids stepped apart, their staffs still braced for casting. I’d read of powerful druidic magic banishing demons, but had they succeeded? I opened my wizard’s senses to a large void. Energy seemed to be gathering along its edges, perhaps preparing to seep inside, but we would need more time to tell.
Jordan stepped forward. “We need to dig them out.”
“Wait,” I said.
Before he could begin, I leveled my blade at the mound. Starting at the top, I called one force invocation after another, removing a layer of earth at a time. When my next invocation blasted a woman into view, I stopped.
She was lying supine in a bed of earth, legs straight, arms at her sides. The hood of the long cloak she wore was bunched behind her neck to reveal a soft sleeping face nested in an afro. Even half buried, she was beautiful.
“Delphine!” Jordan cried, going to his wife.
He pressed his hands to her cheeks, then sat her up. Dirt fell from her sagging body.
“C’mon, baby,” he whispered in her ear. “I need you to hold yourself up, need you to open your eyes.” It was the most tenderness I’d ever seen from him, and it made my eyes moisten. Seay and the half-fae walked up—they appeared all right—and together with the druids, we watched to see what would happen.
“C’mon, baby,” he repeated.
Dirt spilled from her eyelids as they began to move. “Jordan?” she rasped.
He stroked her back. “That’s right, Delphine. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Her body stiffened now as one hand braced against the ground and the other held Jordan around the neck.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“That doesn’t matter right now. I’m going to get you home.” He spoke calmly, but when he turned to address us, tears streaked his face. “While I heal her, can you work on recovering the others?”
“Yeah, of course,” Seay said.
Jordan looked at me, awaiting a response. “Everson?”
“That’s not your wife,” I said.
“The hell are you talking about?”
“Loam is a shifter,” I said. “That’s why no one in your druid circle ever saw him. He posed as earth, trees, other druids. He used disguises to get to your members, possess them. Your attack here weakened him, but didn’t destroy him. Now he’s taken the form of your wife. He wants you to think you need to heal her so he can use the connection to siphon off your essence, just like he did the others.”
“What’s that man saying?” Delphine murmured.
“Shh. Nothing, baby.” He glared at me over her shoulder. “Get out of here, Croft.”
“Think about it, Jordan,” I said. “What were the odds of finding her first?”
“I said get out.”
With a whispered Word, I activated the bani
shment rune. As it pulsed to life, Jordan moved Delphine to his other side. Everyone else looked between us. Cloaked by his passage through the Harkless Rift, Loam would show no demonic energy, only a void. The problem was someone recently possessed, such as Delphine, would exhibit a similar void. There was no good way to discern demon from victim here. Except that I was tuned into my magic, and it was telling me in no uncertain terms, demon.
“Jordan,” I began.
A series of far-off thuds sounded followed by the violent splintering of wood on deck. A scream tore down into the hull.
I activated the bonding sigil. “Malachi, what’s happening?”
“Cannons firing from downriver,” he responded in a weak, wincing voice. “Something caught me in the leg. I’m down.”
Shit. Jaw tensing in concentration, I grew my shield around the entire ship, careful to keep it above the water.
“I’ll check on him and get all of our boats to the far side of the ship,” Seay said.
Her sparkling green gaze lingered on mine. Beneath the glamour, I saw her trust. She believed what I was telling Jordan and was counting on me to get it done down here. Breaking eye contact, she jerked her head for her friends to follow and ran for the ladder just as another series of thuds sounded.
I grunted as my shield absorbed two cannon balls and what felt like grapeshot.
“Those are British warships firing on us,” I said to Jordan. Through some infernal connection to Loam, the final Stranger must have learned that the ship had been taken over and contacted the British fleet. “Your wife is probably underneath all of that dirt, but the thing you’re holding isn’t her. If you don’t listen to me, we’re going to lose you, her, and the rest of your circle.”
“Does someone want to hurt me?” the Stranger-as-Delphine asked.
“No, baby,” Jordan said, still keeping his body between us. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
The next series of booms was the heaviest of the three. In my effort to maintain the large shield against more cannon balls and shot, I contracted every muscle until they trembled and then cramped. When the assault ended, I relaxed just enough to recover my strength, I had to, but another attack followed on its heels.
This time I was too late pushing power into the protection.
The wall behind me exploded as a ball ripped through the hull. Planks flew everywhere. I ducked, arms wrapping my head, while Jordan covered what he thought was his wife. When I peeked out, I couldn’t see the two druids. They had either flown up onto the deck or been buried in debris. The ball left a ragged hole in two walls. The one nearer me stood a few feet above floor level, but the ship was rocking so badly now that with every violent dip, a fresh wave of salt water gushed in.
I refashioned the shield, already knowing that the assaults would only grow heavier.
Seay’s voice sounded through the bond. “Malachi and a couple of my friends were hit with what looks like shrapnel. Our enchantments are helping with the pain, and the druids are up here trying to heal them, but the British warships are getting closer. I can see their gunfire through the mist.”
“Can you enchant them?” I asked.
“Not from here. There are too many soldiers.”
“What about the druids? Can they do anything?”
“The injuries up here are bad, Everson.”
Shit.
With the next concussion of shots, I pushed every ounce of energy I could gather into the shield. Half a dozen balls must have hit this time, and I felt every blow to the deep matrices of my bones. The protection held, but my legs didn’t. I collapsed into a layer of foul water that had reached the height of my ankles. My power fizzled. I wasn’t going to be able to repel the next round.
I dug a hand into a pocket until my fingers closed around supple leather. If there was a time to open the pouch-of-last-resort Osgood had given me, it was now.
I drew it out and removed the binding string. The pouch fell open. I’d had a couple guesses as to what it might hold, but I’d been way off.
In a burst of light and giggles, two contrails rose in a twirling column of peach and meadow green. In my exhausted state, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Osgood had given me Pip and Twerk.
The two pixies circled the hull, then swooped down until they were hovering a foot in front of my face.
“Look!” Pip said in her tinny voice. “It’s Everson Croft!”
“But what’s he doing in toilet water?” Twerk asked in perfect innocence.
That struck his sister as funny, and they both fell into a fit of gut-busting laughter.
“Guys,” I panted, water dripping from my sopping robe as I pushed myself upright. “Listen to me…”
“Everson Croft doesn’t look too fit,” they sang. “And now he smells like a pile of—”
“Guys!” I shouted. “I need your help.”
I expected more song and laughter, but the pixies stopped suddenly and snapped to attention.
“We are here to carry out one duty of your choosing,” they said in unison.
That’s why Osgood had warned us to only use the pouch as needed—because we’d only get a single shot. I looked over at Jordan, who was helping the Delphine lookalike up to higher ground on the mound. He hadn’t attempted any healing magic yet, but it was only a matter of time. All the while, I was bracing for the next bombardment from the British ships. Demon-banishing wasn’t in the pixies’ purview, but they could fly fast as hell and cast powerful enchantments.
“There’s a fleet of ships coming up the river,” I said quickly, “and they’re shooting at us.”
“Shooting at Everson Croft?” Pip asked.
“That’s right. I need you to put them to sleep.”
Twerk’s face lit up. “Ooh, that will be fun.”
“Can we play with their dreams?” Pip asked.
“You can play with them all you want, but it has to be now.”
“We are honored to serve Everson Croft,” they said and bowed deeply.
And then they were shooting through the ragged hole in the ship’s hull, glittering contrails fading behind them. I climbed onto an island of torn planks to get out of the salt water and focused on gathering my sputtering energy. I wouldn’t be able to deflect another bombardment, but I had enough for a banishment.
“Jordan!” I called.
He had set down his “wife” and was kneeling over her, one hand covering her eyes, the other holding his staff above her. Dammit, he was preparing to perform a healing. I leapt from plank to plank on the drowning ship until I was on the mound. Sword in hand, I climbed toward them.
“Back off, Croft,” Jordan warned.
“Don’t do it, man,” I said. “It’s what the Stranger wants.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You never did.”
Great, we were back to this.
“Then let’s see how she reacts to the glow of banishment,” I said, pushing more power into the rune. White light grew over the mound. Delphine’s mouth drew into a tight grimace, but Jordan apparently missed it.
“Get back!” he shouted.
Energy detonated from his staff, and dirt burst up beside me.
“That was a warning,” he said, still glaring at me. “The next time I won’t miss.”
When I looked down at Delphine, her grimace broke into a smile.
“Jordan—”
“Back,” he repeated, his hand still covering her eyes.
But he was doing something with his own eyes, cutting them toward the right. Now he gave me a small nod. When I followed his gaze, I saw what he’d done. At some point he’d spilled a handful of vine seeds over the dirt.
A life force he could animate.
“If you don’t want this to end very badly for you,” he said, affecting a seething voice, “you’re going to go up on deck with the others. Now.” But I only half heard him. I was rehearsing the steps in my head.
Backing away, I said, “Damn you, Jordan.”
>
When I was in front of the seeds, I nodded my head. He returned a final nod, shifted into his raven form, and lifted away. The Stranger-as-Delphine swiped at him but only caught a falling tail feather.
“Vigore!” I shouted.
The shaped force seized Loam. Caught by surprise, he couldn’t have realized what was happening until he was being slammed onto the seeds. The seeds exploded into green shoots, then thick woody tendrils that wrapped Loam’s arms and legs, binding them. I sensed powerful magic in the animation, magic that was frustrating Loam’s ability to shift into another form. As the Stranger squirmed and hissed, Jordan opened his animation so that I had a clean shot at the demon’s gut.
I drew back the glowing blade, channeling more and more power into the banishment rune. The Stranger stopped writhing suddenly. Still in Delphine’s form, he screamed, “Jordan! Don’t let him kill me!”
“Do it,” Jordan said calmly.
My blade crunched through Loam’s stomach.
“Liberare!” I shouted.
Holy light exploded from the blade and into the demon. The Stranger-as-Delphine released a piercing scream. He began to shift then, back into an earth being, then into a tree, then various men and women I assumed were members of Jordan’s circle, then into a horrifying amalgam of all of them.
With the blade’s final pulse, Loam blew into dust.
I stood there panting in the dim hull, sword still thrust forward, the vine animation falling to pieces around it. A chorus of muffled cries brought me back. They seemed to be coming from chambers under the mound. As I staggered back, a hand clasped my shoulder and steadied me.
“Let’s rescue the druids and get them on the boats,” Jordan said.
I patted his hand and nodded.
The others came down and helped us excavate the buried. The druids were all there, chambered deep in the earth. Some were awake, others unconscious, but with the possessing force destroyed, they were themselves again. We passed them in a line from the sinking ship, the cold water almost waist deep now, to the boats being manned by the half-fae and Gorgantha. Malachi and the fae who had been injured by cannon shot were already on board our small fleet, bodies veiled in healing energy.
Druid Bond Page 26