StoneDragon

by Adrian Cross

  Clay heard a soft whistling sound. Snake hesitated, distracted. Clay could see the eyes below narrow slightly, but the Fist wouldn’t look away from Clay. Not with his death this close.

  Out of the third eye burst the red-stained tip of a crossbow bolt. The projectile had punched completely through his head. The flow of power cut off like a tap.

  Clay’s muscles unlocked. He gasped a deep breath.

  “Ungh.” Snake’s head had rocked forward with the impact. It lifted slowly. The bolt protruded from his forehead, blood spattered over his face, but Clay wasn’t sure Snake even knew what had happened. He glared at Clay, hatred bubbling out of Snake like blood. “Ma–maggot.” He fell to his knees. Blood trickled from his nose. “Y–you…” He fell forward like a slaughtered bull, whose body was too big to die all at once. He landed face-first, trembled, and then was still.

  The absence of pain was bliss. Clay’s gaze traveled from the bolt in Snake’s head to a gargoyle on the Broken Tower above. A graceful leather-clad form stood high on a snarling stone bear, a large crossbow in her hands. She was far away. Much too far, for such an impossible shot.

  Gratitude bubbled up. Thank you, Rose.

  Metal rang. The fog dissipated from Clay’s mind, and he surged up. They’d been betrayed. Rhino…

  The big Fist had toppled, the iron post still piercing his body. His head swayed. Blood streaked his arms and legs.

  Horan smashed a fist into Rhino’s temple. The huge warrior toppled sideways and didn’t move, although his chest shifted slightly. He was still alive, if barely.

  Latine rushed toward Clay, a pale blur of rippling fur and power.

  “No!” Horan snapped. He pointed his stone sword upward, colorless flame coursing along its length. “That one is mine! Kill the Sea god’s whelp. She is still here. I can smell her.”

  Latine twisted and bounded away, howling in thwarted rage. She flew up the stairs, ten steps at a time.

  The Earth army poured after her, shouting joyfully, the pounding of feet like rolling thunder. The Earth gods had always intended to break the truce, Clay realized; the army had simply been awaiting the order to attack.

  “Grok!” Horan snapped. “No more help for this one.”

  Vines and thorns shot up all around Clay, snapping and cracking the stone steps as they did, blocking his view of everything except the tangled ring of vegetation. The wall enclosed Horan, Grok, and Clay; half of Milton’s body disappeared into the looped greenery, leaving only an unmoving leg.

  Rhino, terribly wounded and alone, was on the other side. In the path of an enraged and rampaging army. Of course, Clay was alone inside the ring, with a homicidal and vindictive god, bent on wreaking painful vengeance. Clay wasn’t sure which of them had drawn the worse straw.

  “Shatter their Tower,” Rhino ordered Grok. “Break their hearts. I am coming. Soon.” Grok grunted and slipped away, the green wall parting to let him pass and squeezing closed when he was gone.

  Clay was alone with Horan.

  Clay searched desperately for a weapon. His pistol lay near Milton’s foot; the dark Fist must have dropped it, but it was on the other side of Horan, as far out of reach as the moon. The only thing within reach that even resembled a weapon was Rhino’s flagpole.

  Clay reached out and lifted it but felt a sinking sensation in his stomach when he did. The shaft was wooden and light. It was almost useless. Horan laughed.

  Clay jabbed with the flimsy weapon, trying to keep Horan at a distance. The Earth god didn’t even bother reacting; he just smiled.

  “I am going to break you,” he said conversationally, “a little at a time. Your legs, then your arms, just for fun. And to keep you still. After that, I plan on peeling your skin like an orange, in nice long strips, while you scream.” He looked at Clay’s weapon. “Then I’m going to plant that piece of wood through your stomach, sink it into the ground, and call some bugs. I suspect it will be a long time before they completely eat you—at the very least, it’ll seem that way.”

  “No,” an unsteady voice said, behind him. “I don’t think so.”

  Horan spun, sword snapping back. Then he relaxed, laughing. “Speaking of bugs.” He shook his head. “You are persistent. I keep giving you chances to run away and not come back, but you’re apparently too stupid to take them.”

  Jonathan faced the Earth god, face white and strained with fear, but Jonathan’s legs were wide and the blue sword was held in front of him. He must have followed Clay down, invisible.

  A contrary flash of irritation swept through Clay. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to protect Karen!”

  “So, you can risk your life, but not me?” Jonathan shot a sidelong glance at Clay. “Horan has to be stopped.”

  Horan looked back and forth between them, as if unsure whether to be amused or irritated by the exchange.

  “That’s not your responsibility. You’re Karen’s bodyguard! Your job is to defend her, not leave her in the middle of a battle!”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Why?” he spat. “Do you think she’ll be any safer in my world, once Horan returns? Even if he spares StoneDragon, which he won’t, my people will die. He’s killing us, Clay. Don’t you understand? Who will stop him, if we don’t do it here? Resh? He tried and failed. This is our last chance!”

  Clay’s throat tightened. He hadn’t thought things through far enough. He’d thought he was saving Karen by getting her out of StoneDragon, helping her by bribing the Earth gods to stop their attack, but Jonathan was right. Even if they left StoneDragon, it wouldn’t change the war on her world. It would continue, until everyone was dead, including Karen. Resh had told Clay as much; he just hadn’t listened.

  He’d messed up again.

  “You two talk too much,” Horan said. Faster than an adder, his sword lashed out and dipped into Jonathan’s side. Jonathan yelled and staggered back. The blue sword dropped out of his hand, its light dimming.

  Clay lunged forward, sweeping the flag at Horan’s face. White curtain billowed around the Earth god’s head, blinding him.

  Clay launched himself in a flat dive.

  Horan must have guessed what Clay would try because even as Horan swiped the fabric away, his sword came around in a hard horizontal motion, one that would cut Clay in half—

  If Clay had aimed for the Earth god.

  Clay rolled to his feet, Resh’s sword in his grip. It didn’t light up again, but at least it was a real weapon. Jonathan was curled on the ground, hands clutching his side. It wouldn’t take much for Horan to finish the man, if he came within reach. Clay circled away, trying to put himself in a position where the Earth god would have to give Clay his back to finish the bodyguard off.

  Horan smiled and ignored the downed warrior, for the moment.

  Even though the crash of steel and roar of battle drifted down from the Tower, it was faint and unreal. They were in a small sheltered bubble, as war raged around them.

  “Latine will shatter the body and spirits of your champions,” Horan said. “Grok will destroy the bones of your Tower, and my army will drag anybody who survives to me. They will join you in learning what I know of pain and despair. When we leave this city, tomorrow, all that will be left behind will be dead and broken things.”

  Another small hope disappeared. Horan would not be caught on StoneDragon as it Shifted away, saving Karen’s people—even if it meant trouble for others. Snake and Milton had told the Earth god too much.

  “The people of StoneDragon never did anything to you!”

  “You humans are vermin,” Horan snarled. “Worse, a plague on the land. I will cleanse every city I find, with blade and blood, until the only humans left hide in the forests, hunted and alone.”

  “You are half-human! You walk upright!”

  “I am not human and never will be. Don’t get confused. This is an extermination, not a war.” Horan looked up at the Tower, its peak a ragged slash against the red-swirled sky. “Someone started the job, long a
go. I will finish what they started.”

  Clay thought of Karen, Jonathan, Mama, JP, and Rose. They never asked for this. They didn’t deserve it. Anger flared in him. He had taken the wrong path in trying to fix his mistakes. But it wasn’t too late to change course. Clay saw another answer, created by Horan’s own actions.

  It wasn’t Clay who had to die. It was Horan.

  Clay bared his teeth. “Why not start with me?”

  Clay had always thought of himself as a gunfighter, even in StoneDragon. He’d shot his way out of many tight and desperate places, avenged his parents with a gun. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t fight without one. He’d spent the past decade under the tutelage of one of the most accomplished close-combat fighters humanity had ever produced: Rhino. He’d drilled Clay in martial arts until the sword sagged in Clay’s hand, and he’d vomited on the flagstones. Clay knew one end of a sword from the other.

  But so did Horan—and his blade was twice the length of Clay’s. Sparring with the Earth god was like fighting a bear with a boot knife. The smallest mistake would go bad—fast.

  Clay feinted and cut high, at Horan’s throat level. He swayed back and then blocked the return slash with his own blade, knocking it aside.

  Clay dropped and spun, his back leg outstretched, blade a blur.

  Horan jumped back and landed awkwardly, hands spreading to keep his balance.

  Clay launched a flurry of diagonal cuts and fast stabs, grunting with the effort, determined to finish it quickly. It seemed impossible the heavier man could catch all the blows, yet he did, the stone sword spinning, twisting, always managing to just barely beat away Clay’s attack. Horan stepped back, stopped—

  And smiled.

  With a surge, Horan leaped forward, stone blade lifting. Clear flame sheeted up around it. “Enough,” he snarled and then smashed it down.

  Clay threw up Resh’s sword. Pommel and blade blazed blue.

  It snapped like dry wood.

  Clay fell to one side, twisting. The tip of Horan’s blade caught his shoulder and chest, a line of red fire blazing along his body. The scales of the coat parted under the blazing stone edge but turned the worst of the blow.

  Clay found himself pressed facedown into the gritty cobblestones. Milton’s body was beside him. He frowned, remembering something. He was on the opposite side of the clearing from where he’d started. He stretched out a hand.

  Horan’s sword swept up. Clay wouldn’t survive another strike.

  His fingers closed on the black pistol. He swept it around, squeezed the trigger.

  Horan’s sword had started to drop, but Horan had learned the danger of a pistol the hard way. He dropped his weapon and threw his arm over his face, the acid pellet burning into his furred shoulder.

  Horan howled, but the wound wasn’t close to fatal. His hand shot out and wrapped around Clay’s throat, lifting him into the air. His other hand caught the wrist of Clay’s gun hand, and ground its bones together until the pistol dropped away.

  Despair swept over Clay. He was unarmed again.

  Horan lifted Clay even higher into the air, holding him up with one hand. The same way Horan had held Raol.

  Horan grinned, blood from his ruined eye bubbling where flecks of acid had landed. His single eye danced with delight.

  “You lose, mortal.”

  His grip tightened. Air disappeared. Clay choked, kicked out, uselessly, and felt blood hammering in his ears. He remembered Raol beating at the Earth god’s arm, with all his infected strength. It hadn’t mattered. Clay arched his neck, trying to drag in air. Dark spots appeared in his vision.

  “I changed my mind. I’ve decided to kill you now, after all. Would you like to know why?”

  Clay sought desperately for some avenue of escape but came up empty. It was not easy to kill a god, which was why Resh had given Clay his dagger, a token, infused with power. Resh had said it would be important, but Clay had wasted it, killing Bern in the process. It was his own fault he was unprepared for this battle.

  Unless… A thought struck him.

  Clay stopped flailing. He let go of Horan’s wrist and reached downward instead, fingers searching.

  Horan laughed. “I’m going to do all those things to Karen instead. I think that will be even worse for you, dying knowing that. And more fun for me. Goodbye, mortal.”

  The grip tightened even more, becoming unbearable. Agony lanced through Clay’s neck, rolling down into his body and into his skull. But Clay’s hand had found what it was looking for. He lifted the object between them.

  The Golden Rib.

  Horan’s good eye widened.

  Clay smiled and sank the Rib into it.

  Blood and blue fire burst out of the socket. Horan screamed.

  Clay flew backward, bouncing off the cobblestones. His vision hazed. He sucked in air and struggled to lift his head, to see what was happening.

  Horan rasped horribly, his own token protruding from his face like a third horn, its length burning pure white again. Blue flame poured out of the wound in a brilliant torrent. Horan’s mouth opened, his head stretching back until the tendons of his neck corded. He fell forward, smashing into the ground, and didn’t move again.

  The air seemed to ripple. The sound of battle outside the ring paused. Then it redoubled. The screams of the Earth army turned wild and violent, as if losing their tether to sanity.

  The Earth army had gone crazy.

  48

  Out of the Tower

  She remembered burning. She remembered screaming.

  As Bern swam back into awareness, with something cold and pitted under her back, she didn’t understand where she was or why. She should have been dead, or at the very least, have been racked in the pain and distress of the severely burnt, her skin black and brittle. But her limbs tingled only slightly, and she felt no pain as she sat up. In fact, she felt lighter and looser than usual.

  As the thin blanket that had covered her slid down, she realized she wore only charred underthings. She pulled the blanket back up again.

  It was dark, but she was pretty sure she was in a stone room, part of the lower Tower. Outside, the sound of battle was close. She lay on the floor, nothing underneath her, despite the blanket over top. Her surroundings were sparse: empty sacks, spare tools, and other random objects her Family carried while traveling but would be discarded before a battle. She lay in a storeroom, she realized. And no blanket was beneath her because her family hadn’t worried about her comfort. They’d thought her dead, too.

  Cold fear lanced through her. Had she Turned?

  No. No blood hunger tore through her, as she’d heard of. She remembered the Fledglings, the shambling gait and crazed desperation. No, she hadn’t Turned, or if she had, the dagger had burned it out of her. But she didn’t feel quite the same either.

  The room held extra armor, of assorted sizes, and simple underclothes. She dragged out items of both. She thought she would have to go without suitable axes, as hers had been custom made, when her gaze was drawn by a pale glint by the door. She uncovered two beautiful silver axes, wound with white iron and wrapped in leather. They were light and strong, fit for her as if molded.

  Her eyes burned as she realized why. These were most likely to have been a gift from Mama, to Bern on completing her Tempering. They were here to be buried with her.

  She lifted them and pushed open the door. From the sound of it, her Family could use another pair of axes, regardless of the source.

  The air was warm and laced with smoke as she came out, red light washing over the Tower’s dark stone. Rhino’s men gave her a startled glance as she passed. She assumed it was because they had heard the premature news of her death.

  Below, the ocean of Earth warriors had swept up the stairs, pushing back the human resistance. Pockets of furious fighting swirled.

  The first dwarf looked up to see her. Kapill, a fourteen-year-old spear carrier. He turned so pale she thought he might pass out, and then he sprinted in the op
posite direction. To get Brock, she realized, seeing the white armor of her uncle striding along the line of their warriors. His head snapped her way, and he ran back up the steps, heading for her.

  Bern’s stomach tightened. As surprised as she’d been to survive, he was going to be more so. And likely suspicious as to the cause.

  “Bern?”

  She turned to see Karen standing there. The daughter of a god seemed more beautiful than Bern remembered, her blonde hair glinting in the light of flame and the Wall, her blue eyes deep and sorrowful. Her hand was clenched around the stone of her necklace, blue light leaking from it.

  “I’m sorry. I–I regret involving you. All of you. All I wanted was to get back to my father. Honestly.”

  Bern felt a mix of emotions as she looked at the girl. Anger, at the upheaval she’d brought into StoneDragon. Jealousy, as she was the type of girl Bern could never be. And sympathy, as she saw the terror and despair in the girl’s eyes. She had also seen her world crack and break and had tried to do something about it.

  Bern nodded silently.

  “Are you okay? You’re … different.”

  “Back away, creature!” Brock bellowed. He charged forward, axe gripped in both hands. “How dare you.”

  Rhino’s soldiers reacted with some alarm at the sight of a supposed ally charging them. Two of them raised crossbows. Another burly figure stepped forward, holding a large hammer. “Stop,” he rumbled.

  Brock slowed, but the fire in his eyes didn’t bode well. Bern felt her hands tighten on her axes. Why would she react that way to the man who had been part of her final training in these weapons, even if reluctantly?

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “A monster,” he spat. “Blood drinker.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Settle it out later,” the large man said. “There’s enough fighting to do out there.”

  Brock snarled, staring at her.

  “Where is Mama?” Bern asked.

  “Hurt. Hurt in this mess she started. I made her rest.” He shot a cold look at Karen. “We are about to pull back into the Tower.”