Drynn

by Steve Vera

  “At last,” Noah murmured.

  Embedded in the crystal column were five Quaranai, like rifles in a gun rack, and in the middle, a gigantic sapphire encased in liquid crystal. Within that sapphire was a faint, swirling glimmer of ghostly light.

  Amanda forgot her earlier promise and crowded around it with them. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “What is it?”

  What it was, in a nutshell, was magic encapsulated. Starting with the five Quaranai embedded in the crystal stalactite, each blade seeped a miniscule amount of magical energy that trickled into the stalactite the way alcohol fumes might seep into cotton. From there the magic infused slowly into the liquid crystal encircling the jewel, finally collecting within the sapphire in the form of faint ethereal iridescence. Magic on Earth.

  It was like distilling water. Only different.

  For the last five years and change, the liquid crystal had been charging the same way a cell phone charged, and now it was time to make that call.

  The magic wouldn’t be full strength, maybe thirty or forty percent of what it was on Theia, they figured, but it would be a truck full of Evian in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

  Real nice to have.

  “Now the question. Who’s going to wear it?” Gavin asked.

  “That is a foolish question, Stavengre,” Cirena said.

  “Noah could,” Gavin said, looking at the lithe little warrior.

  “Now is not the time for humility, Stavengre,” Noah said. “You’re the one who put him in the ground the first time.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Theoretically, he could do it again. Gavin was the only person in history ever to defeat Asmodeous the Pale. He took a deep breath, brushed aside the chaos in his head the way a hand might clear a cluttered desk and picked up the amulet. A hum of light rippled through his body the moment his fingers made contact, evoking a delicious shudder. He gasped.

  “Yes?” Noah asked.

  “Oh yes,” Gavin said, panting. “Oh yes, indeed.” Streams of warmth and pleasant vibrations surged through his hands, up his arms and into his chest. He shuddered.

  “So you can do magic now?” Skip asked, lifting from his wall lean to join the rest of them.

  Gavin stared at his hand, could feel it prickling with static electricity, and lifted the amulet to his face. Everybody huddled around him and stared at the miniature galaxy of light eddying within.

  “Think of it this way. Here at the Bastion, I’ve been allowed to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on a recorder,” he said, “and that’s better than no music, I guess. However, with this, I just got me some speakers, an amp and I’m about to play me some Jimmy on a Strat.” Jack would have liked that one.

  No matter how hard they tried, not one of his childhood friends could conceal the desire in their eyes, the longing to experience what he was feeling, and it made him sick enough to want to rip it off.

  Bliss spread to every capillary of his body. He fought through the guilt and with reverent deliberation slid the white-gold chain around his neck. The amulet settled on his breastplate and poured heat into the metal of his chest.

  “You gonna test it out?” Skip asked.

  Gavin reached for Cirena. “Brilliant idea. Give me your hand, Cirena.”

  “You will do no such thing,” she said, yanking her hand away from him.

  Tarsidion nodded in agreement and so did Noah.

  “You’re injured seriously, both of you. In order to—”

  “Conserve whatever magic has been stored in that jewel for the fight. For all we know just one healing might drain it.”

  “We all need to be a hundred percent.”

  “What we need is to kill him. Tarsidion and I will be fine.”

  Gavin didn’t like it, but she was right. None of them had any idea what the capacity for stored magic was within the sapphire, and healing always took up more magic than anything else. It’s always easier to kick over a sandcastle than rebuild it.

  “Then I’ll test it another way.”

  The flights of butterflies bombarding his insides finally landed. He grasped the hilt of his Quaranai from the crystal fang, held the short, inert blade rippled with glimmers of silver and cobalt out by his chest and whispered, “Efil.”

  The short blade shot up like a giant stiletto in an ominous shing!, tripling in size at a word. Cold light poured off the gleaming metal like ghostly streamers, dissipating in a crackle of vaporous light, and an angry wind filled the room as if Siberia were down the hall.

  “We have one hour before the Fourth Moon rises,” Gavin announced, his chest somehow deeper, his voice more resonate. “Bullets hurt him but won’t kill him, so use our firearms to stun him. Then move in, take his head, cut out his heart and then…” He looked at the five of them like a quarterback in a huddle. “Burn them to cinders.”

  “Simple,” Skip said. “Just not easy.”

  “Exactly,” Gavin said.

  “Will they be able to use their Quaranais without the amulet?” Amanda asked, pointing at the other blades embedded in the crystal fang.

  “They won’t light up like this, but even without magic the blade of a Quaranai could still cut into—”

  Tarsidion looked up suddenly, his eyes alert, nostrils working. A high-pitched shrieking roar reverberated through the castle walls.

  “That’s coming from outside,” Noah said.

  “Sikomi!” Tarsidion whispered, and just like that they were sprinting up stairs, Gavin in the lead with his Quaranai alight, the rest snatching their own blades from the fang a breathless second behind.

  There was another roar, much deeper this time, and once heard, never forgotten—the roar of Asmodeous the Pale. Up the stairs they dashed, out the dojo doors, through the east door of the main hall and onto the courtyard outside the back in a rustle of cloaks and jingling armor.

  “There!” Gavin yelled.

  Like a peregrine falcon against a condor, the silhouettes of Sikomi and Asmodeous thrashed and screamed from the sky. Gavin pointed up with his free hand, a pool of heat humming in his fingers, but the two aerial combatants were locked together, whipping and whirling around each other with so much speed that a bolt of electricity would hit them both—and do more damage to Sikomi.

  “Save it,” Tarsidion said, grabbing Gavin’s forearm with thick fingers long enough to meet around the armor of his forearm. “This is Sikomi’s purpose, his destiny. Just be ready.”

  Skip had his .357 out. The rest of the Shardyn had their Quaranais brandished, blades extended, and though there was no light or wind emanating from them, they glinted the waning sunlight that was just now beginning to dip behind the horizon.

  “How can he be here? It’s not even nightfall yet!”

  “It’s this place,” Cirena said, her eyes free of pain and swirling with adrenaline. “There’s magic here.”

  “Amanda, get back inside!” Gavin snapped, suddenly aware of her vulnerability. She had no weapon, no armor, was just a sitting duck waiting to get plucked. “You too, Skip. Get her inside.”

  “What?”

  “Inside!”

  Skip grit his teeth but acquiesced. He took Amanda by the arm and dragged her with him.

  The gargoyle was extraordinarily agile, especially on his home court. Deos was too, for that matter, but pound for pound in the air, the gargoyle had more acceleration and speed and had already raked the Drynnlord repeatedly with its own talons. Asmodeous got tired of it. They disengaged; Deos’s eyes rolled with ribbons of light.

  “Now!” Tarsidion yelled, and a bolt of lightning ripped out of Gavin’s hand like a fiery javelin, but not befo
re Asmodeous’s own fiery missile blew off Sikomi’s left wing in an explosion of crimson flame.

  The gargoyle screamed as he plummeted to the earth, while Asmodeous tucked into a spin, leaking silvery-blue contrails of magic into the night behind him. That was more than a little magic.

  “Go, go, go!” Gavin yelled, sprinting toward the wounded gargoyle, but Asmodeous had had already spun around, using the velocity of his roll to come dive-bombing like a Luftwaffe fighter and spitting darts of crimson flame at the four of them.

  Long-dormant reflexes spurted to the surface as Gavin leaped into a somersault, landed in a ball and sprung back up without missing a stride. The others dodged aside as well. Too late. Deos swept down from the sky and landed on top of Sikomi with a sickening crunch, smashing whatever was left alive inside the gargoyle. With a quick, mauling bite, Deos ripped out Sikomi’s throat and looked up, his amber eyes alight with glee, gargoyle blood dripping from his fangs, and then erupted into the air.

  From behind, the booming of an M4 carbine shattered the night as Skip came charging out, firing from his shoulder, looking through the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight, or ACOG for short. Skip pulled the trigger so fast it was nearly automatic. When he went dry, he ejected the magazine and reloaded in a movement so liquid he must have done it a thousand times before.

  Gavin couldn’t decide whether Skip was too thickheaded to be scared or if he really was that brave. He certainly wasn’t very good at following orders. Deos’s silhouette even jerked a couple of times as he flew off but soon they were standing alone, echoes of his gloating laughter filling the approaching dusk around them.

  The four Shardyn rallied around Sikomi, swords drawn, back to back, each looking outward, but the Overlord didn’t return. Gavin closed his eyes in dread and forced himself to look at what was left of their friend and ally, at the last Gargoyle on Earth. It was worse than he thought. Sikomi’s body was broken, eyes clouded in agony, but despite missing most of his throat, somehow he was still alive. He tried to speak but all that emerged was a fizz of blood bubbles out of his neck. The dying creature strained weakly and tried again.

  “I fared no better than my rival,” he gurgled, and somehow, Gavin made sense of his growling words. Sikomi and Ainima had been rival clan chiefs hundreds of years ago. Each of them had been the last of their tribe. He stayed by Sikomi’s side, squeezing the creature’s hand as a final shudder rolled through him. And then he was gone.

  “And so ends the last line of the gargoyles,” Noah whispered in their native tongue as she closed his sightless eyes. Already, a film of frost condensed across his body; in an hour he would be dust.

  Gavin stood and faced his friends. Asmodeous’s tactics hadn’t changed at all. He was going to pick them off one by one, separate them, antagonize them, play to their weaknesses, stretch it out and savor his victory for as long as he could. Same as he ever was. They looked up at the last sunset they’d ever see on Earth.

  Asmodeous would be coming again…and soon.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It was just a matter of waiting now.

  Skip lay quietly on the upper terrace, looking through the AN/PAS-13 Thermal Weapon Sight attached to the most powerful sniper system in the world. He might not know much about their “order,” but one thing was certain—these guys knew how to come to a fight.

  What they couldn’t have possibly known was that in three different theaters of war, Skip hadn’t become merely proficient with the weapon; he’d become a specialist. Yup, Skip was well versed with the Barrett M107. It fired a tungsten carbide fifty caliber round and could blow a hole right through a concrete wall and still splatter the target behind. The only gun to have when going against the Lord of the Underworld. He took his eye away from the scope briefly to expand his field of vision. Even Tarsidion had seemed impressed with Skip’s familiarity with the weapon.

  One didn’t get to wear the maroon patch of Pararescue for pudwacking.

  After a quiet scan of the night with his naked eye, Skip put his eye back to the scope and gave the grounds another meticulous pan, looking for any black-hot movement. So far, Asmodeous was steering clear.

  Skip’s orders were to engage only on their signal. He didn’t need to be able to speak their strange language to know that getting Jack back was of primary importance. Each of them was serious, but loose, just like his guys used to be back in the 210th before a big mission. These were professionals, and Skip appreciated that. Anything else would be unacceptable. Their hope was that Asmodeous would want to get home more than he wanted to make them suffer.

  Directly below him, two stories down, Tarsidion lurked in the shadows, deep hood drawn like an agent of death. He cradled his fully automatic AK-47. He gave no appearance whatsoever that he was even uncomfortable, no indication of the agony he had to be feeling. Had to be. The giant exotic was a strange juxtaposition of twenty-first century Earth and a medieval sentry.

  Skip took his eye from the scope and looked up at the full moon making its way from the horizon. It was brighter than usual, redder. It almost seemed foreign. Below it, standing unconcealed in its luminance, were Noah and Gavin—calm and resplendent in their armor and long cloaks, hoods drawn like dark sorcerers.

  What was it about the moon anyway? Working a beat in Philly, Skip had discovered that the freaks indeed did come out on a full moon, as any big-city emergency room doctor would attest. Incidents always spiked.

  Skip shook his head. Focus, damn you, he thought. Focus.

  Amanda was safely inside with Cirena. In addition to second-degree burns, Cirena also had a severe concussion. She was being held in reserve, conscious, but in a lot of pain. And still she managed to make Skip feel like a bug.

  Something in the yard caught his eye.

  “I’ve got movement,” Skip said lowly into the radio transmitter attached to his skull.

  Gavin’s head cocked slightly, and then both he and Noah were scanning down range, Noah with an MP5, Gavin weaponless, though an MP5 just like Noah’s was slung across his back, waiting to be summoned. And of course they had their Quaranais. Skip centered the crosshairs on the approaching form.

  It was Jack. He was alive! Barely. He stumbled forward in halting, staggering steps. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, and his right hand was over his mouth. Something glistened between his fingers.

  Even from four hundred feet back, Skip could hear the shiiiing the Quaranai made when it sprang to life, could see that ethereal light billowing from the blade, illuminating Gavin’s face. Gavin and Noah saw Jack and ran to him, Gavin in the lead, Noah scanning all direction with her submachine gun. Moonlight glinted off their armor like sapphires on a beach. Skip could practically smell the tension radiating from below him, could feel Tarsidion’s muscles twitch as he fought the urge to join them. He didn’t though. Tarsidion remained in the dark. Watching.

  Color was impossible to decipher by the background white of the thermal scope, but Skip had the horrible feeling that the black liquid running down Jack’s fingers was blood.

  Jack seemed to be trying to say something. Skip adjusted the magnification of the scope and panned beyond him, looking for movement, but there was none. He could hear Jack’s voice but could distinguish nothing. It was more like grunts. Skip focused on the trio with just his naked vision and watched a bucket of black liquid stream out of Jack’s mouth as he opened his mouth.

  Jack had no tongue.

  Both Noah and Gavin flinched. Unable to speak, Jack tried
several times to raise his arms to point or gesture, but from their odd angles, Skip suspected his arms were broken. Or worse.

  Jack ignored their reaction and kept walking—a shuffling, exhausted, pain-filled stagger—and pointed at the base of the Bastion, then to the ground.

  Skip felt it, a shudder in the earth.

  *

  Amanda tried not to stare. Even though Cirena’s eyes were closed, Amanda knew the woman was lucid. She’d gotten used to the smell; most of it was covered by the incense and candles anyway, but not all of it.

  “Tell me how you met Stavengre,” Cirena said without opening her eyes.

  Surprised at the sudden question, Amanda chose her words. “It was uh, an…unconventional introduction.”

  “Tell me,” Cirena said, and though her eyes didn’t open, they fluttered in interest.

  Amanda adjusted the shotgun in her hands. It was a nasty-looking thing, a semiautomatic instead of pump-action, and heavy, but it made her feel good, less helpless. She knew how to use it too. When she’d been thirteen, she’d spent a summer with Uncle Billy up in Maine, who was an avid hunter and had an arsenal. By the time that summer was over, she’d fired every gun he had (except the AR15—he never let anybody touch that one), shotguns included. She’d never been any good with any of them, never really saw the allure, to tell the truth, but at least she didn’t yelp every time they fired.

  “I flipped him off,” Amanda began, remembering the incident clearly. “It was about two years ago, around this time, and I was over an hour late for girl’s night out. I was tailgating and this Audi suddenly stopped in front of me. Right in the middle of the road. I came this close to rear-ending him,” Amanda said, holding her thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart, but then realized it was a moot point, since Cirena’s eyes were closed. “I swerved around him, blasted my horn and flipped him the bird, but as I sped past I got a glimpse of this guy slumped in his seat. It was just a second but…” She shrugged. “Something about him just called to me. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt, didn’t think he was, and then I saw the reason. He’d hit a dog.” Amanda swallowed. “Talk about feeling like a heel.”