Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4)

by Christopher Husberg

  “I hope you understand what you have done before it is all over,” Azael said. He indicated the Outsiders all around them. “I could have managed the destruction these would wreak, had you let us continue. But now I cannot. I leave you to reap what you have sown.” Azael hesitated, then spoke again. “They will be drawn to the largest congregations of people nearby. Protect them if you can.”

  Then, in a cloud of dark smoke, Azael, Hade, and Nadir were gone, and Jane, Knot, and Winter were left facing a field of Outsiders.

  In an instant, Cinzia’s visage flickered, then reappeared completely, as she shoved the gemstone back into the pouch at her belt.

  “What happened?” she demanded. “Where did the others go?”

  “They left,” Knot said, his voice quiet. To his side, Jane teetered, then collapsed. Knot barely caught her before she hit the ground.

  “Where? Where did they go? I have to—”

  “We have more immediate problems,” Knot said, nodding at the Outsiders.

  Whatever had kept the beasts relatively passive, whatever had kept them from grouping and overwhelming their attackers, was gone, now. They all turned to look at Knot, Cinzia, Jane, and Winter, black eyes gleaming, maws dripping rancid saliva.

  “Oh Goddess,” Cinzia whispered.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Knot said, already suspecting there was no hope. Jane was incapacitated in his arms. He looked to Winter.

  She shook her head slowly. “I cannot handle this many, even at my strongest. I’m practically burned out, Knot. Any further use, and I’m afraid… I don’t think I would make it.”

  Knot growled in frustration. There had to be something. “Cinzia, can you—”

  “There might be something else I could try,” Winter said, her eyes darting toward the Outsiders enclosing on their position. “Gather close to me, all of you…”

  * * *

  Astrid took a running leap and launched herself into the night, everything slowing around her. Snowflakes almost froze in place in the air, only disturbed as she crashed through them. The Prelates below and behind her became momentary statues, drawing bows, thrusting spears, shouting orders. And the Outsider that stood tall before her slowly turned its head to meet Astrid’s attack.

  It turned too slowly.

  Astrid collided with the side of the Outsider’s head, her claws digging in to the monster’s flesh for purchase. Prelates jabbed spears up into the monster’s ribs from below as Astrid scrambled to the top of its head. She gripped herself in place with her feet, raised both hands high, and brought them down on the top of the Outsider’s skull with as much force and strength as she could muster.

  Both fists pierced the Outsider’s flesh, then with a sickening crunch smashed through its skull, bits of bone and gore flying.

  The monster went limp beneath her, and Astrid leapt away as it fell, landing awkwardly in a roll of mud and snow and blood. When she pushed herself to her feet, she looked for Eward.

  “What’s next?” she asked, shaking filth from herself as she approached.

  Eward looked around, then met the eyes of an incoming group of Prelates.

  “No more reports, sir,” one of them said.

  No more reports. Had they killed all the Outsiders in the Odenite camp already?

  Astrid turned to look at the cliffs. The raging war of colors was gone, as was the shimmering portal that had once twisted above the cliff.

  “Did they actually win?” Astrid asked, to no one in particular. But it couldn’t be true. Hundreds of Outsiders still swarmed the clifftop, and a few, three or four at least, of the massive monsters.

  “There don’t seem to be any more Outsiders appearing in the camp,” Eward said. “I think the portals have closed.”

  But as he said the words, the air around them crackled with energy.

  “What the Goddess-damned Oblivion,” Astrid muttered, taking a step back. Something was coming.

  A cloud of black smoke billowed out of nothing. Astrid braced herself to pounce, glancing at Eward, who nodded, sword raised, signaling the remaining Prelates to form up.

  Three shadows emerged from the smoke. Three shadows, but four people, Astrid realized. Knot, carrying an unconscious Jane, Cinzia walking beside them, and behind them both, the Chaos Queen herself, Winter Cordier.

  Astrid couldn’t stop the wide grin spreading across her face.

  * * *

  As Winter stepped into the Odenite camp, tendrils of black smoke wisped between her fingers, trailing along her arms.

  She glanced at Knot, but he did not return her gaze.

  At least I got us out of there. She honestly had not thought it would work, but after using the travelstone, something had itched within her, until she’d attempted weaving all three tendra—her telenic, acumenic, and voyantic tendra—together. In doing so, with some practice, she had managed to recreate whatever force the travelstone allowed her to access. The act had taken every last bit of power she had; it was all she could do to remain standing without help, but she’d be damned if she showed weakness now.

  Before Winter could process what had just happened any further, a small form rushed past her, colliding with Knot. It was Astrid. The girl pulled Knot and Cinzia close to her, hugging them both tightly.

  They looked for all the world like a pristine little family finally reunited. A stab of jealousy pierced Winter’s heart.

  “That’s the last time I let you two go anywhere without me,” the girl said.

  A young man, not far behind Astrid, hovered over Jane.

  “What happened? Is she all right?”

  “She’ll be fine, Eward,” Cinzia said woodenly. Then she seemed to notice her tone, and added with more compassion in her voice, “I think she just exhausted herself.”

  “Doing what?” A group of women had gathered around Jane, taking her from Knot toward some kind of makeshift field hospital.

  “Protecting me,” Cinzia said.

  “What happened here?” Knot asked. “Did you defeat the Outsider?”

  Only then did Winter become aware of the massive dark corpse just a few rods away.

  “Oh…”

  “That wasn’t the only one, I’m afraid,” Eward said. “We’ve killed a half-dozen of them at least. We’ve lost a lot of people. The disciples have been healing, but even still… many Odenites are dead.”

  Winter clenched her jaw. Many were dead because of the Outsiders. The Outsiders were here because of the Nine Daemons.

  And Winter had summoned them.

  “There are four Daemons left alive,” Cinzia said through gritted teeth.

  “You killed five of them?” Winter asked.

  Cinzia only nodded.

  “Wait,” Eward said, “what are you talking about? Cinzia, you killed the Nine Daemons?”

  “Five of them,” Winter said. “Perhaps.”

  Eward did a double-take, and now stood dumbstruck, staring at Winter.

  “You’re… you’re the Chaos Queen.”

  Immediately, the Prelates around them all shifted, reaching for weapons. Winter herself tensed. She had not thought about what her presence here might mean; she had only wanted to get everyone out of there as quickly as possible.

  “Put down those weapons,” Cinzia said. “She helped us defeat the five.” Then she turned to face Winter and Knot. “But we need to find the other four. We have to finish this.”

  Knot inclined his head, but Winter was not so sure.

  “Something is not right about all of this,” Winter said, wavering slightly. Bloody Oblivion, she needed to rest. “Did you hear what Azael said? He said, ‘I thought you were going to save the Sfaera.’”

  “Because you summoned them in the first place?” Cinzia asked, a sharp edge to her voice.

  “Regardless,” Winter said, her voice hard, “something was not right, even from the beginning. They seemed to think summoning them would do something good for the Sfaera, not cause its destruction.”

  “O
f course they would want you to think that,” Astrid said, “They’re the Nine Daemons.”

  “Perhaps,” Winter said, “but I think there was more to it than that. What they said, how they acted… they hardly even attacked me, even when I went after them with everything I had. They mostly just defended themselves, and one another.”

  Winter remembered Azael’s frustration, his sadness as he and the remaining three Daemons left.

  “Azael did say something about managing the destruction the Outsiders would cause,” Cinzia said, “but I do not know if that means anything.”

  “We can discuss details of the battle later,” Knot said. Winter followed his gaze to the cliffs, where the remaining Outsiders— hundreds of them, including the huge ones—were working themselves into a frenzy, moving toward the cliff’s edge. “But we have to keep in mind the war is far from over.”

  As he said the words, something changed in the Outsiders on the clifftop. Their frenzy stopped, and they all stared down at the city. An eerie silence filled the night, accented by the softly falling snow. Dawn was close.

  “Azael said that, when left to their own devices, they would seek the largest congregations of people,” Cinzia said.

  The moment of stillness did not last long. With a roar, one of the Outsiders leapt from the cliff. Cinzia stared, wondering whether the thing had just leapt to its death, but as she squinted into the dark, the shape sprinted down the cliff face as if it were a horizontal plane, as if the force of the Sfaera did not pull it down toward it—or did not pull it down fast enough.

  Two more followed that first Outsider, and then three, and then dozens were sprinting down the Cliffs of Litori, roaring as they went.

  Winter was vaguely aware of Knot and Eward giving orders, forming the armed men into ranks. She felt Cinzia’s gaze on her.

  “You are powerful,” Cinzia said. “You are the Chaos Queen. Can you stop that?” she asked, pointing at the charging Outsiders.

  Winter followed Cinzia’s gaze, her eyes wide. Slowly, she shook her head. “I… with a rihnemin, perhaps I could, but the humans destroyed all the rihnemin here. I have some crystals left, but I could only do so much against them before I burned myself out, or died in the process.” Even that was a generous estimate; Winter would not last more than a few minutes in her current state.

  “So burn yourself out, or die in the process,” Cinzia said quietly, her eyes uncharacteristically dark.

  But Winter recognized the pale horror on Cinzia’s face, the sense of sheer hopelessness. Hundreds of Outsiders remained, including at least five or six of the huge versions of the beasts. Now that they were charging, she did not know how they could be stopped. The entire Khalic Legion could stand in their way, and the Outsiders would slice through them like sickles through wheat.

  They did not stand a chance. None of them did. It did not matter that Cinzia had killed four of the Daemons today; the Odenites and the people of Triah would all die anyway, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

  * * *

  Cova oversaw the retreat of her soldiers with mixed feelings.

  The monsters that had previously been uninterested in the fight had changed their tune when the light-battle had ended. The portals had snapped out of existence, at least—but the remaining Outsiders had threatened to overwhelm her people, even when they managed to unite with Urstadt’s group.

  The tiellans were a spent force. They had brought a few hundred Rangers with them, all wounded, an injured, weary Urstadt the only human among them. Tiellans had been outlawed from Roden for decades, and she wondered whether her people knew how to act around them—in the aftermath of battle was one thing, but once they had recovered, how would things stand? She had ordered those taking the tiellans onto their ships to treat them as they would any ally, but she worried nevertheless. It might have been a poor decision on her part.

  But what else could she have done?

  Cova boarded her ship, watching as the last of her soldiers boarded theirs. Then, they hauled up anchor and made their way out to sea, the snow drifting all around them, melting into the waves.

  * * *

  “Grand Marshal…”

  In the courtyard of the Legion’s barracks, Carrieri inspected the body of the Outsider. The hide was like a shark’s skin: smooth to look at, but rough to the touch. He half expected his hand to be covered with dozens of tiny lacerations when he pulled it away, but he was uninjured.

  “Grand Marshal, you need to see this.”

  “Another one?” Carrieri sighed wearily. He had received no reports of new Outsiders dropping from the sky in the city for the last half hour or so. That seemed a good sign, but he was far from ready to dismiss the threat.

  Carrieri followed Ryven up the barracks’ observation tower. It was not that high up—at five stories, not even as high as the Merchant’s Tower—but enough to see over most of the buildings in the city. The lad pointed to the cliffs, where the lights of the Nine Daemons had burned only moments before. Now, Litori was dark.

  “What is it I’m supposed to be…” but then, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw it. The cliffs appeared unusually dark. But as Carrieri squinted, he saw the cliffs moving.

  The hundreds of Outsiders at the top of the cliffs poured down toward the city, sprinting vertically down the cliff face itself, packed so tightly the cliffs became a swarming waterfall of dark horror.

  The daemons were coming, and Triah stood helpless in their path.

  46

  SNOW FELL ON THE trees, grass, and stones around Astrid as she sprinted toward the cliffs, a cold winter breeze in her hair. Sprinting was an understatement, not only because of her advanced speed, but because of what she knew she had to do. Jane was unconscious. Cinzia’s strange gem-weapon could do nothing against the Outsiders. Winter had nothing left to give.

  She deliberately looked down at her claws as she ran. She had always hated looking at herself, but now felt a sense of gratitude. If her friends had nothing left to give, she would give what she had to help them. She tried summoning Radiance again, expecting nothing, and again, nothing was what she got.

  She had slunk away silently, as Knot and Eward organized the Prelates, as Cinzia and Winter argued over what to do. She had wanted to squeeze Knot’s hand, to tell him thank you, to tell him so many things.

  She remembered sitting with him by the banks of the River Arden, not long after they’d met. If you’ve kept it, after all these years, you’ve managed something incredible. Never let it go. He’d said that to her, and it had changed everything.

  “All my life, I’ve run away from trouble,” Astrid whispered. There was no one but herself around to hear it, but she whispered it to Knot, across the growing distance that separated them. “Since I met you, I’ve begun to run toward it. What have you done to me, nomad?”

  The first Outsiders were just reaching the base of the cliff as Astrid approached them at full speed, her eyes glowing, claws ready. A large field separated the cliffs from the city, a few hundred meters wide. The Odenite camp lay at the easternmost edge of that field, spilling south toward the river, while the city stretched south and west.

  Astrid burst forward, her muscles tensing, and she leapt onto the back of the nearest Outsider as it scrambled down the cliff face. With a scream she tore her claws through its hide, but she did not remain long. Another monster turned with a low growl and swung its own massive claw—as large as Astrid herself— but she leapt onto a new victim. The Outsider who had turned to strike her instead gouged the monster on which she had first landed. The injured beast growled, turning on the one that had attacked it, and the two tumbled to the snow-covered grass below in a biting, clawing ball of rage.

  Astrid felt the weight of more and more Outsider eyes on her, but their momentum carried them down the cliffside too quickly for them to do much about it other than take the occasional swipe at her, more often than not injuring one of their own kind. Astrid leapt from beast to beast, zip
ping in and out and around and between them, using her nighttime power and agility. While the Outsiders were quick, they could not match her.

  Astrid ran on pure instinct, slashing and clawing here and there, but it wasn’t enough. Not even close. At best, she managed a light distraction as the Outsiders made their inexorable way toward the city, and toward the Odenites. Toward Knot and Cinzia; toward Jane, Arven, Ehram, Pascia, and Ader; toward everything in the Sfaera that Astrid cared about.

  She was almost halfway up the cliff, now, leaping and sprinting from Outsider to Outsider. Some of them tried to turn and go after her in anger or confusion, but going up the cliff was much more difficult than going down, especially with the momentum of dozens of other Outsiders pushing in the opposite direction.

  Astrid growled, the sound low and coming from her gut. A flaming sword sure would be useful right about now, Astrid thought, but she had to come to terms with life without the blade. It had been an iridescent miracle when she needed it most, and for that, she was grateful, but Eldritch had emphasized how slowly such powers grew, how difficult it was to control them. Astrid had no choice but to accept that.

  But, then again, she’d never been one to settle. She looked down at one of her hands again, willing Radiance to appear there. But as she did so, she distracted herself just enough to miss a huge Outsider’s claw snapping toward her, knocking her off the back of the one on which she stood, out into the snow falling through the night, and down toward the field below.

  * * *

  “Knot, where is Astrid?”

  Knot turned from the Prelates. He had been about to give them some kind of motivational speech, but he’d be damned if he could think of a single thing to say when it was just this Prelate force against a mass of monsters that large, racing down the cliff toward them.

  Cinzia walked toward him quickly, her hair blowing in her face, covered in flakes of snow.

  “Thought she was with you,” he grunted.

  “She is not,” Cinzia said, and the worry in her voice made his gut twist. “Nor with Winter, nor anywhere else I’ve looked.”