by Jim C. Hines
A heavy gown of deep green velvet covered her body. Smoke poured from the hem and sleeves, obscuring her hands and feet. A long gold cape hung from her shoulders, rippling like ocean waves. Skye had a knife tucked through her belt, and several pouches rested against her hip. A knucklebone hung from a black cord around her neck.
There was no sign of the boy, Ben.
“You have information about the Heroes?” The nymph’s words rasped like those of a crone though her features were youthful. Smoke trailed from her mouth when she spoke. Sterling wondered briefly what it would be like to kiss such lips.
“She’s done one better.” Sterling stepped out of hiding. Greta scurried out of the way, leaving Sterling and Skye to face one another over the fire.
“Greta told me there were four.” Skye’s fingers moved towards the bone on her necklace.
Sterling pulled Arbiter from its sheath. “Where’s the boy?”
She smiled. “What if I tell you it’s too late for him?”
He heard Greta whimper. His hand tightened on the hilt. “Then you’ll die.”
Sterling moved closer, studying the bone. It was too old and yellowed to have come from Ben.
“You’d kill me anyway,” Skye said lightly. “It’s what you do. Slaughter the people of the forests. Burn our homes to the ground.”
“Only if I must.” Sterling flashed his most charming smile. “I can think of far more pleasant ways to pass the hours. Give us the boy, and tell us why you’re plotting against Brightlodge and Grayrock, and perhaps we could discover just how hot the fire is that burns within you.”
Skye rolled her eyes. “Hot enough to burn your little sword to ash. As for Grayrock, I do what I’m ordered to do.”
That wasn’t the answer he had expected. “Ordered by whom? Who commands the nymph, the ogre, and the buffoon?”
“You’ll meet her soon enough.” She reached for one of the pouches on her belt.
Sterling levelled his sword, prepared to leap over the small fire and run her through. But the wooden doll she removed appeared harmless. Small, crudely carved limbs twitched.
“This is the child you seek. Surrender to me and I’ll let him return to his sister. Resist and poor Ben will suffer terribly.” Smoke rose from Skye’s fingers, and the movements of the doll grew more frantic.
“Give me back my brother!” Greta ran at the nymph.
Sterling stepped sideways, cutting her off. At the same time, an arrow flew silently from the shadows into Skye’s shoulder. The doll tumbled to the ground, dangerously close to the campfire.
Skye ripped the bone from around her neck and the flames grew taller, belching black smoke. Sparks swirled together, jumping into the branches beside the trail. When the smoke cleared, small creatures made of what looked like smouldering sticks jumped at Sterling.
Arctic wind rushed past him to envelop the closest of the magical constructs. Frost smothered the coals, and the thing collapsed in a pile.
“Not very sturdy, are they?” asked Winter.
Skye hurled the bone directly at Sterling. He turned to the side and swatted it away with Arbiter.
The instant steel met bone, the bone exploded. The light of the sun and the heat of a forge washed over him. He kept his sword pointed in Skye’s direction while blinking and rubbing his eyes with his free hand, trying to restore his vision.
“Mind the ledge, Sterling,” shouted Shroud.
Through smoke and the sparks still flickering in his eyes, Sterling saw the blurred shape of Skye reaching for the fallen doll. He switched Arbiter to his off hand, pulled a dagger, and sent it spinning through the air. It missed, but the blade stabbed the ground in front of the nymph’s hand, making her jerk back.
Before he could follow up with a second dagger, hot coals seized his leg. His boot protected him from the worst of it, but the thing reached two sets of flaming arms up to burn through Sterling’s pants and sear the skin beneath.
“Oh, no. You won’t slay me that easily.” He slashed Arbiter downward to cut through the construct’s body. Most of it fell away, but the arms continued to cling and burn. “Have a taste of Sterling silver!”
Glory groaned. “Your wit inflicts more pain than your blade.”
Cold washed over his leg before he could come up with a suitably cutting response. He reached down to break the blackened sticks free and nodded his thanks to Winter.
“They’re not sturdy, but they’re quick, and if you cut them apart, they just keep fighting,” complained Glory. She hurled a green orb at one of the constructs. It shattered, covering it in dark, viscous ooze that slowly smothered the thing’s flames. It fell into a pile of black, gleaming sticks.
Skye did something to the clasps on her shoulder, and her cape billowed outward like the throat of a bullfrog. Smoke filled her cape and lifted her into the air.
As the flames spread to the shrubs and brush, new creatures arose, like hellish mockeries of woodland creatures. Their movements were quick and random, almost panicked. A hunched ball of fire and thorns darted right past Sterling and vanished over the ledge.
“So be it,” Skye called out, her body all but invisible in the smoke. “Then let Grayrock’s death come not from flood but from fire!”
More of the constructs arose, baking the air like an oven. They assailed the Heroes while others scampered towards Grayrock.
“I was doubtful when the girl told me Heroes had come to Grayrock,” Skye continued. Sparks and smoke flew down like meteors, raising new creatures wherever they landed. “Perhaps she was correct. Yog will be disappointed to lose you to the fire, but there are others—”
Sterling stomped a construct into the dirt, jumped free, and hurled a dagger into the smoke.
There was a meaty thunk. “Oh, rot, that hurts!”
Skye flew higher, avoiding the next dagger. One of Shroud’s arrows disappeared into the smoke but hit nothing.
Sterling glanced about. Many of Skye’s constructs had collapsed into normal flames. “Forget the minions. Focus our assault on their mistress, and victory will be ours!”
Winter walked to the edge. The fire died as she passed. Frost spread over the ground. She raised her hands, and cold wind poured forth, clearing the worst of the smoke.
Shroud’s next arrow hit Skye in the stomach. Glory reached out, summoning two more of her green apples. But Skye fell away, gliding towards the treetops.
The remaining constructs fell apart. Sterling ground the nearest beneath his boot, while Winter used her magic to extinguish those that had fled towards Grayrock. By the time they brought the fires under control, Skye was gone.
“I don’t know where she got that cape,” Shroud said, “but I want one.”
“It’s not the cape,” said Glory. “She’s using the smoke, controlling it with her Will and using it to lift herself about.”
“I tried to extinguish it.” Winter was sweating. “There was too much. It’s a part of her, burning her up on the inside.”
“Power isn’t everything, and we’ve triumphed once again. We’ve met our foe and saved the boy. Assuming the lady of smoke and fire was telling the truth.” Sterling picked up the fallen doll. It was a simple thing, twice the length of his hand, made of hand-carved wood. Iron nails held the limbs in place. Wisps of dirty yarn were glued to the scalp for hair. The face had been painted on. The body was slightly blackened but didn’t appear seriously damaged.
“Is he all right?” Greta asked, pushing closer.
The head turned, and inky eyes looked up at them both. The painted mouth opened. “I want to go home.”
“And so you will, Ben.” Sterling tried not to let the living, moving doll in his hands disconcert him. This was a child in need of aid, and Sterling meant to help him … no matter how creepy his current form might be. “But first, what can you tell us of this Yog, and why does she plot against Brightlodge?”
“She wants to destroy Grayrock first,” said Ben. “And then she means to go to Brightlodge to hunt a
nd kill the Heroes.”
“Which Heroes?” asked Sterling.
The doll looked up at him with black, expressionless eyes. “All of them.”
There was no question anymore. Yog had watched Skye’s defeat through the nymph’s own eyes. Heroes had indeed returned to Albion.
She eased down on her stool and relit Skye’s candle, then brought the taper to the ogre skull. She far preferred communing with Skye, or even with that ridiculous redcap. Headstrong’s candle smelled like boiling sweat, and seeing the world from the ogre’s point of view always left Yog feeling fuzzy in the head, like a hangover of idiocy.
She reached out to Skye first. “You lost Grayrock. You lost the boy.”
Yog couldn’t see the nymph’s face, but the candle flame shivered with echoed fear. “Forgive me, mistress. I can sneak back into town after nightfall to—”
“By now the Heroes will have secured both entrances to the tunnels. They’ll be searching for you, and the stink of burning trees will draw them to you before you’ve stepped inside Grayrock’s walls.”
All plans required flexibility, or they would shatter like poorly tempered steel. Her late husband had taught her that. It wasn’t the loss of the dam that made Yog want to crush Skye’s skull with a rock and extinguish the nymph’s fire forever. “You tried to send your sparklings to burn Grayrock. Do you think I would have wasted weeks sending you and Headstrong to chip away at the dam if I could have simply set it ablaze?”
“I didn’t—”
“You know what I seek,” Yog continued. “What the item is made of.”
“Wood,” Skye whispered.
“Fire devours all in its path. Had your impetuous attack succeeded …” She breathed into the skull, and the blue flame danced higher.
Skye screamed.
Yog left her to her suffering and, reluctantly, turned to check on Headstrong. She found the ogre in the midst of a shouting match with … was that a goat standing in the middle of the trail?
Headstrong raised her axe with both hands. “Nobody arse-butts an ogre!”
The goat responded with a lazy bleat, then went back to munching on the thistle growing from a crack in the rocks.
“What are you doing?” Yog demanded.
The ogre jumped and spun, slashing the axe through the air behind her before realising who was addressing her. “The goat attacked me!”
“Shut up!” whispered one of the noggins. Probably Schemer. That one was a little smarter about recognising when Yog was in a mood. They couldn’t hear her voice as clearly as Headstrong did, but they all picked up on echoes of her voice. And her wrath.
The nymph’s cries were growing tiresome. Yog waved a hand and the candle flickered down to its natural flame. “Chaos has begun to spread through Brightlodge.”
“Time for the storm?” That was Night Axe.
Another noggin, Thinker, answered before Yog could speak. “Can’t use the storm on Brightlodge, bonehead. Not ’til Grayrock falls.”
“Bloody Heroes,” muttered another.
“The ale Blue delivered to Brightlodge is potent enough for ordinary men and women, but the Heroes are proving resistant,” Yog said. Resistant, but not entirely immune. Yog adjusted both skulls to face her. “Meet me in the Boggins. Once I’ve prepared a stronger mixture, the two of you will transport it to Grayrock and prepare the storm.”
The Heroes in Grayrock would be hard-pressed to counter this assault. She had hoped to use the storm against Brightlodge, to spread panic and chaos that would make the surviving Heroes easy targets. That was before the ogre and the nymph had failed her.
“The Boggins?” asked Headstrong. “What about the humans? I wanna get my hands on them and—”
Yog picked up a slender iron hook and pressed the point onto the top of the skull. Applying gentle pressure, she scraped the tip over the bone.
Headstrong dropped her weapon and clutched her head, howling in pain. The goat trotted away.
“What of the redcap, mistress?” whispered Skye.
“Blue has been taken by the Heroes.” Not for the first time, Yog questioned her choice of a redcap as her third Rider. The creature was skilful enough, and far smarter than most of his kind. Yog had enhanced those traits, but there was only so much she could do. You couldn’t forge a blade out of dung. She had to make do with the materials she had.
Never in her youth had she settled for such flawed Riders. A clever but half-mad redcap, a powerful but tormented nymph, and that idiot of an ogre.
“We’ll retrieve him for you, mistress,” said Skye. “I will rain fire upon Brightlodge while Headstrong—”
“You’ll do as I say,” Yog snapped. “Bad enough I’ve lost my Rider of Skill. I’ll not risk the two of you.”
Oh, for the days when her body had been capable of containing her full power. The days before a desperate man’s curse had reduced her to this, forcing her to pass so much of her abilities into the bodies of her Riders.
“I will see to Blue’s return myself,” she said. “My outlaws are wiped out, so you must transport the storm’s ingredients to Grayrock so I can wipe out those pathetic rock workers myself.”
She extinguished both candles with a wave of a hand. The people of Grayrock would die, and after so many generations, her curse would at last be washed away. She would finally reclaim her power.
All it would take was the eradication of a town or two.
CHAPTER 9
INGA
What do you mean, you’re taking my ale?” Pale Pete, owner of the Hack and Cough Pub, was not a happy man. Built as solidly as one of his larger kegs, he stood with folded arms between the Heroes and his stock. A thick cudgel hung from his hip.
“Every keg with that hideous dead cow on it,” Inga confirmed. “You haven’t had any yourself, have you?”
“I taste test every barrel that comes through these doors.” He grimaced. “Can’t say I could stomach more than a sip of that stuff. But I got a great bargain.”
“I’m sure,” Inga said. “But like Old Mother Twostraps used to say, if you pay for rough linen drawers, you can’t expect ’em to feel like silk. Sure, outlaws and smugglers are happy to cut prices. They’re just as happy to cut throats. That ale is poisoned.”
“That’s preposterous!” Pete looked at Tipple, and his eyes narrowed. “I see what this is about. Old Jeremiah Tipple claims to be a Hero, but nothing’s really changed. He can’t pay his tab, so he’s spun a story about tainted drink as an excuse to steal my stock, is that it?”
“Tipple wouldn’t do …” Inga hesitated. “Well, maybe he would, but that’s not why we’re here.”
“Besides, if I were planning to swindle you, I’d steal the good stuff.” Tipple’s face shone with sweat, and his pallor was the yellow-green of an old bruise. He had been complaining of a sour stomach all morning. It had taken two potions and a bit of Leech’s power to get him up and about this morning.
“Look at him,” Inga said. “This is what your ale did.”
“Prove it.”
“Very well.” Inga folded her arms. “Go ahead and drink a pint of that dead-cow ale. One pint and we’ll leave you in peace.”
Pete looked past Inga to the patrons seated at their tables, many of whom were watching the exchange. “I told you, that stuff tastes like—”
“I’m sure you’ve had worse,” said Inga. “One pint. I’ll pay.” She pulled a coin from her purse and slammed it onto the bar. “You can keep the change.”
Blue chuckled softly. “Risky ale makes you pale.” He tilted his head to one side. “And dead.”
“That redcap gives me the creeps,” muttered the owner.
“You’re not alone, friend,” said Tipple.
“What’s wrong?” asked Inga. “Not thirsty anymore?”
Pete’s shoulders sagged. “Take the damn kegs, blast it all. Both of them. I was thinking about closing this place anyway. Mother always said I’d no head for business. But if a fifty-percent-off sale’s go
od for profits, shouldn’t a hundred-percent-off sale be twice as good?”
Inga patted him on the shoulder. “Always listen to your mother.”
“Can I get a bottle to go?” Tipple asked as he grabbed the nearest keg. “Wine, not that poisoned sewage.”
Inga sighed. “Are you sure you should be drinking that? You’re already sick as a dog.”
“If the dog felt like this, he’d want a drink too.” Tipple looked back longingly as they left the tavern, seemingly unbothered by the weight of the keg balanced on his shoulder.
Inga carried the second keg. To her left, Blue played idly with an earthworm he had dug up from the side of the road earlier in the day. A length of rope secured him to Inga’s wrist. “Blue, what do you know about this poison? Why would Nimble Johanna want to kill innocent people?”
“Not innocent people. Heroes.”
Inga frowned. “She wanted to kill us?”
Blue nodded so hard the tip of his cap slapped his eye, making him yelp in surprise.
“Why?” asked Tipple.
“Because Heroes are big and stupid and smelly!” Blue sniffed Tipple, then made a show of toppling over. He bounced back to his feet. “Yog will kill them all!”
“Who’s Yog?” asked Inga.
The redcap’s eyes went round. “How do you know Yog?”
With great difficulty, Inga swallowed her first retort. Blue wasn’t trying to be difficult … probably. Depending on which rumour you believed about where redcaps came from, Blue might even have been human once. With those spikes he had driven into his skull, it was a wonder he could talk at all. “Is Yog an outlaw? Another redcap?”
This triggered a bout of laughter. “Yog is bone and stone and iron chain. Flying death and deadly rain.”
Tipple looked around. “Am I the only one who can’t make a lick of sense out of that?”
“Did Yog work for Nimble Johanna?” asked Inga.
Blue hunched his shoulders and pulled out the skeletal finger he had shown them before, the one he claimed was magic.