by CM Raymond
“Shit,” Roman groaned.
“What did I say about your damned mouth?” Mrs. Shutov said, flicking Roman’s lips with her middle finger. “Next time, say, ‘balls in a basket’ when you’re angry.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied. “But I thought I was going to get away from dish duty.”
Gregory grinned. “Oh, you are. When you get out there, I want you to find our friend Parker. Tell him you’ve been working with me, and I’ve given you guys a promotion. He’s going to need all the help he can get!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Life in the northern part of the Archangelsk region had shaped Kir into a quiet, serious man. He had been a guard in New Romanov until the day of his daughter’s birth. A new life brought the desire for new beginnings, so he packed their things and they moved north. The village of Urai was quite old. It predated New Romanov, which had been built primarily as a military installation to protect Lilith from outside forces.
While life in the north provided time and space for him to raise his new daughter, it would have been an overstatement to say that it was easy anywhere in the days following the Madness, even in the established little town.
It was probably why his kid grew up to be such a kickass fighter.
Mika sat next to her father—the hardened warrior caringly watching over him. Although their personalities couldn’t be more different, Hannah could see precisely where her beauty came from. They shared the same high cheekbones, full mouths, and icy blue eyes. It made him look like a warrior, and her like some kind of queen.
Hannah looked across a plate of eggs and meat at the man whose serious eyes scanned the Triple-Bs, waiting for the moment when they would want to hear him talk. The rest of the team chattered around her, but she just kept looking at him, admiring his countenance.
“Irth to Hannah.” Karl waved a meaty hand in front of Hannah’s face. “Did we lose you?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t lose you if I tried. Just thinking.” She turned back to Kir. “What can you tell me about the Skrim?”
Kir smiled. “Sure, it was scary as shit. The thing was huge, red, and built to fight. But the thing is, it didn’t fight. Not really. It plowed through our town, but it was like it didn’t even care that we were here. Our weapons bounced right off it. Our houses crumbled under its weight. It was like we were ants.”
“Scheisse,” Karl said.
“What about its movements?” Olaf said. “Anything you can tell us?”
The man shifted in his seat, wincing in pain. “It moved slowly, almost lumbering. But I got the sense it could move fast in a pinch. It just had that kind of build. Like I said, it didn’t really seem too interested in us, but I’d sure as hell like to face the beast again. Especially with the likes of you and your party by my side—give him another taste of my steel.” He stood, wincing at the traces of pain still in his body, and patted the broadsword at his hip.
“Father, you must stay and get better. The Skrim wounded you beyond what Ezekiel could heal.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Some wounds take time, but you will be fine.”
“Damn it, I’m fine now, Ezekiel.”
The old wizard nodded, knowing he was not going to win the fight. But he also knew he had a companion with more relational capital than he could ever have.
Mika stepped in on cue. “Father, I love everything about you, even your stubborn nature. Everyone in Urai knows I didn’t just get your eyes, after all. But you need to stay here. It’s true that you need to regain your strength, but it’s more that Urai needs what strength you still have. The people are downtrodden now. They need you to lead.”
Kir looked at the ground and back at his daughter. “When did you get so wise?”
She smiled. “Around eight or nine, I think. But I’m glad you’re finally recognizing it. Stay with Mom. Stay with our people, and know that part of you goes with me. I will give it enough steel for the both of us.”
He nodded. “OK. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”
After shaking hands with each of them, he offered his thanks. Looking around the town, he saw smoke from smoldering fires still rising from some of the houses into the morning light. “We suffered a blow, but if it weren’t for you, all of this would be gone.”
“It’s what we do,” Hannah replied. “You would do the same.”
“I hope so, and maybe one day I will be able to return the favor.”
Hannah turned and slung her bag onto her back. The others followed her lead as she walked toward the Bezum Mesto.
****
“Son of an everlasting whoremongering bastard ass-shit,” Karl yelled into the fog, which had grown thick and now enveloped them.
He had sunk up to his shoulders in the swamp which lay on the edges of Bezum Mesto for the third time. They had hit it only an hour and a half into their journey from Urai, and any preparation that Mika and Olaf could have given them wouldn’t have been enough.
They had walked in the swamp for hours. Olaf forged ahead, just out of sight, trying to keep track of the beast’s movements. Its oversized footprints led them straight toward this swamp, but then the trail was lost in the water.
Hannah and Mika steadied themselves to pull Karl out, and set the extracted rearick onto a tiny island of moss and roots.
Karl slapped his hands against his leathers, doing his best to wipe the noxious mud from himself. “Thank ye, lasses. And I want someone to mark this day here as the last one Karl of the Heights ever stepped a wee foot into a godforsaken swamp.”
“Done,” Hannah said. “Just like when you sank nipples-deep.”
Karl’s face was as serious as death. “This ain’t the way no rearick ‘sposed to live, lass. We were made for rock and dirt and...and...the Heights. If the gods wanted us to walk around in slop, they’d’ve given us gills, or—”
“At least made you a bit taller,” Mika interrupted with a smile.
Karl shot daggers at her with his eyes. She uncorked her wine skin and passed it over as a peace offering. He took it and nearly emptied it in one go. “Aye, that’s a bit better. Thank ye, Mika. Yer a good ‘un.” He drank again as the women dropped their bags and crouched, attempting to rest their legs without sitting on the drenched moss.
“Get a load of this one,” Hannah said. She pointed at Sal, who was creeping up from behind them.
He had lumbered through the swamp, hopping from island to island trying to stay out of the water. When he met a particularly wide divide, he would run and jump, flapping his giant wings just enough to get him to the next. He soon caught up with them and sat on his haunches by Hannah.
Reaching down to scratch him under the chin, she said, “You know you used to be a lizard, right?” He bumped her hip with his snout, nearly knocking her into the brackish water. “I’m just shitting with you, ya oversized baby!”
“Hush,” Ezekiel whispered. “Humor is good for the soul, but it is also good for drawing remnant. Stay on your guard, or else a little dirty water will be the least of your worries. Kir was right to tell us that those that live here are as good in the swamp as Karl is underground.”
They all quieted, and after they did they heard movement ahead of them on their path.
“I think you just cursed us, Z,” Hannah commented in a quiet tone.
Visibility was near zero, but they rose, weapons in hand, and waited for the worst.
A giant splash broke the eerie silence, followed by the sound of something paddling toward them in the water.
Mika exhaled. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that’s just a big-ass killer bear.”
“Never thought I’d be happy to hear someone say that,” Hannah said, still holding her dagger out in front of her.
Olaf’s enormous body cut through the water, front paws paddling and head bouncing up and down on the surface.
“Cute, right?” Mika asked.
“If you’re into that.” Hannah shrugged. “I prefer my men a bit less hairy.”<
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Mika leaned on her sword. “Hang on, is Parker—”
“Scheisse, lass, enough of the man talk,” Karl grunted.
The giant bear climbed out of the water and shook out his reddish-brown fur, throwing water all over the party. Karl cursed and wiped his face, but he didn’t take his eyes off Olaf. The transformation still fascinated him, and a mixture of amazement and revulsion swept over him as he watched Olaf twist and jerk back into human form, kneeling naked on the ground in front of them.
“Let’s just say,” Hannah said to Mika, “that my man is quite a bit less hairy than yours.”
“Whose isn’t?” she said with a smirk as she placed Olaf’s cloak over him.
He stood, grinning. “There ain’t nothing wrong with a man looking like a man.”
Mika ran her fingers through the tuft of hair on his chiseled chest. “Exactly what I’ve been telling them, dear, but it sounds like the Arcadians prefer their men to look like boys.”
“That’s not—” Hannah started before Ezekiel cut her off.
“Enough!” He tapped his staff on the soft ground, disappointed at the lack of the authoritative thunk he was used to. “Olaf, did you pick up the trail?”
He shook his head. “No dice. It was here, but then the thing doubled back once, maybe twice, and I lost its scent in the marsh. Damn difficult to track myself in this watery wasteland. But I did find a shit-ton of remnant corpses one island up, so it’s been here.”
Ezekiel nodded and looked toward the sky. “Sal wouldn’t be much use,” he said, drawing a deep growl from the dragon. “I mean, with all of the fog. You wouldn’t be able to see the beast from the air. If I could only…”
His eyes flashed red, and he raised his hands, drawing on his power. A gentle breeze picked up and started to increase in velocity, swirling the fog around them. The sound of the wind was suddenly accompanied by another all-too-familiar one—the snap of a bowstring and the whir of an arrow cutting through air. Ezekiel, eyes still red, pivoted and raised his left hand.
Hannah’s eyes grew wide as she saw the arrow come into sight and slow as it approached her mentor’s face. He arced his right hand and caught the arrow in flight.
“Shit,” she muttered as Karl offered a “Scheisse.”
“Get down,” Ezekiel shouted as a flight of arrows hissed through the fog.
Hannah dropped, rolled, and shoved her hands in the direction of the archers’ attack. Sharp metal tips bounced off her brilliant blue shield, dancing away in every direction.
“How’d you do that?” she asked Ezekiel, who was grinning by her side.
“Nice one, right?” he said with a wink. “If you can throw something with Etheric energy, why can’t you slow something down?”
“We’ll have more time for theory class later.” She pointed to a group of remnant, screaming as they charged. “Right now we need to put some of those old lessons into practice.”
Ezekiel’s magic had cleared some of the fog, and they could see no fewer than ten of them charging forward on the marshy ground of the island they were standing on, while another four waded toward them through the swamp.
“I’ve got these bastards,” Hannah said. She directed her hands toward the brackish water, and a stream of energy shot from her palms. When it hit the swamp the water froze, encasing the remnant in solid ice. Their shrieks of pain and rage filled the air.
“Aye, Hannah! I could’ve used yer damned ice earlier,” Karl grunted.
“What fun would have that been? You want to shut those animals up?”
Karl cursed and shook his head. Pulling his hammer, he moved on the ice with the grace of a seasoned dancer, putting remnant out of their misery with swings of his hammer.
She turned to look at Zeke, but he had disappeared. Hearing a crack, she turned and saw him emerge in the midst of the remnant archers. Apparently he was sick of being on the defensive.
Even through the fog, she could see the fiery glow of his staff as he tore through them. She even thought she felt the ground shake at one point as he shouted.
Mika and Olaf both drew their swords and put the chaos that Karl was weaving with his hammer to good use. The precision of their attack was damn near perfect, and remnant fell before them.
Hannah smiled, deciding to go on the offensive herself. She took a step forward, but was brought up short as a sickly hand reached from the water and grabbed her ankles.
The remnant pulled itself out of the muck, clawing farther and farther up onto their little island.
She started to create a fireball, but was stopped when a splash behind her was followed by strong pair of arms wrapping around her. Another dozen splashes sounded as remnant who had crept through the water suddenly revealed themselves.
Hannah fought to break free of her attacker’s grasp, but he was too strong. A remnant in front of her pulled a broken sword and advanced.
It never reached its target.
With an earthshaking roar of his own, Sal landed on the remnant, his mighty jaws gnashing. She heard bones snap and flesh tear.
Hannah jabbed an elbow into the ribcage of the remnant restraining her from behind. His hold loosened just enough for her to reach up and grab his wrists. She pulled forward, leaning her body into it, and flipped the remnant in an arc up and over her, dumping him on his partner at her feet.
Before they could disentangle themselves Hannah shaped a spear out of ice and pinned them together, their blood mingling with the brackish water.
Sal was at her side, and together they stared down the remaining ten remnant. Their eyes glowed red, but not as red as hers.
With a smile, she pulled her knife from her belt and went to work.
****
Mika raised her sword to put the final remnant out of his misery. The thing writhed in pain from a laceration across the gut. Blood oozed through his fingers as he tried to keep his insides in place. “Go to hell where you belong,” she cried as she thrust her sword toward him.
Olaf grabbed her wrists before the act could be completed. Her eyes cut to him, confused. “Why?”
“This one might have some value to us.” He glanced down at the remnant, whose wild eyes dared him to end it. Olaf knelt and drew a dagger from his belt, then dragged the tip across the remnant’s chest and up to his throat. “You know where the monster went, don’t you?”
A slight nod confirmed Olaf’s suspicion. The remnant attack had been no coincidence. They had danced with the devil from beyond, and only a few had made it out alive.
He pressed on the tip of the blade a drop of blood balled up and ran down the side of his neck. “Tell us which way.”
The remnant let out a horrid laugh, blood gurgling in his throat and spilling out between his brown teeth. “Fuck you!” he said between heaves.
“Hey, it can talk,” Karl remarked. “We got us a smart one.”
Ezekiel walked over. “It’s a big mistake to assume they are dumb.” He shook his head. “They can be as smart as you or me. Some smarter, especially in battle. But they are still partly mad, like the lycanthropes—leftovers from the Madness, trapped between two states.” He glanced at Olaf. “Apply some pressure so we can see exactly how smart this one is.”
Olaf dropped a knee on the remnant’s chest and pushed harder on the hilt of his blade, controlling it to make sure he didn’t go too far.
“Do I look like I will recover, magician?” the remnant said, his bloodshot eyes trained on Ezekiel. He glanced at Olaf and then back. “Tell your bitch to end it so I can taste of the Beyond.”
Hannah stepped up to Ezekiel. In a quiet voice she said, “Let me get inside his head. I can get what we need.”
Ezekiel’s eyes grew wide. “Devils no, Hannah! Never go inside the head of one of these things. The results could be disastrous.”
She nodded slowly, almost embarrassed to have asked. “What, then?”
“A game of cat and mouse.” He looked up at Olaf. “Drive the knife in, old friend.”
The remnant gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Olaf pushed his knife into the remnant’s throat, causing the bloodshot eyes to flash open in pain.
Ezekiel knelt by him and, placing his hands on the thing’s throat, he pushed energy into the remnant. The incision healed, and he gasped a gurgled lungful of air.
“Damn you, wizard,” he hissed.
“Tell us what we want to know and I will let you go. Or we could do this all day. I am not one to deal in destruction, but I will make your existence painful for as long as I need to.”
The remnant spat bloody saliva into Ezekiel’s face.
He wiped it away with his sleeve. Eyes turning red, he drew his palms up in front of him. Hannah could feel the heat coming off his palms from where she stood.
“Last chance,” he said.
“Go to hell!”
Ezekiel shook his head. “I will give you a taste of hell in Irth, you miserable soul.”
He placed his hands on the remnant’s bare chest, eliciting screams and curses from the hideous creature. He pulled away and watched the beast’s breathing quicken, but he still refused to speak. Ezekiel applied enough healing energy to keep him alive.
After several rounds of this, the remnant talked faster than Aysa on a boring day aboard the Unlawful. “Make ‘im stop,” he begged, eyes on Hannah. “I’ll give you what you want.”
She grabbed Ezekiel by the collar of his cloak and pulled him away. “Speak, or he goes back to work.”
“Yer damn fools, all of ya. That beast ain’t worth finding. Let it run. Let it kill. Let it destroy.” He looked toward the north. “It went that way. If yer mad enough to follow, yer mad enough to get eaten by it.”
“Tell me more about the monster.” She looked down at the remnant, his face as pale as the midnight moon. She almost felt bad for him, though she knew the terror this thing—this part-man—and his kind had inflicted on the people of Archangelsk and probably beyond.
He laughed again, gurgling in his own blood. “There is nothing to tell. It is unbeatable. Do what I did, and you might survive.”