Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

Dal.

  Claire pulled away from lips she never wanted to leave to take up the Song again. She barely had the magic in place again when a surge of malice from Dal swung across her, striking like a hammer against an anvil to pound her flat, and vanished as quickly as it came.

  Like a probe, she felt it track away across the crowded field. Voices cried out in fear, allowing her to trace its path as it blundered this way and that.

  Ramiro’s arms on her tightened as if he’d never let her go.

  Julian gasped and others did the same. “It’s looking for us,” Julian said needlessly.

  If Claire could have answered, she would have told them the illusion the Women of the Song used to hide them couldn’t last forever. Dal was a god. They did nothing to stop Dal, only fooled the god into withdrawing on its own. It’d see through them eventually, even before they dropped from exhaustion, it seemed.

  One of the Northern soldiers holding a red Diviner cried out and then suddenly split in half from top to bottom as Dal found him. Claire tried to block the horrific sight by ducking behind Ramiro’s shoulder, but it remained etched in her brain.

  Dal would discover them.

  One by one, it would remove all the obstacles holding it. The soldiers with the Diviners. Muriel. Eulalie. Jorga. Rachael. Susan. Anna. Her.

  Her throat tried to tighten and choke off the Song. She clenched her fists and refused to let it, making herself look at where the man had fallen and watching the others with Diviners for their fall. Ramiro made soothing sounds into her ear. An elderly desert person with a bald head had seized the Diviner as it toppled from the dead man’s hand. Blood splatter covered him, but he stood on creaky knees to hold the Diviner outstretched toward the sluggish mass of Dal.

  Other Northern soldiers with Diviners in the circle surrounding Dal tried to run, but the press of bodies slowed their progress to practically nonexistent—that coupled with the sluggish effect Dal produced on all of them slackened their progress. As if feeling their doom approach, several threw away their Diviners, only for the desert people to take them up and assume their place.

  “Protect them,” Beatriz shouted. Heads turned in her direction at the command in her voice. “We came here to sacrifice ourselves! The time is now! Protect them!” Beatriz made her way through the field to the closest Northern soldier and drew him into an embrace, using her body as a shield against Dal. “Protect them! Give others a chance to defeat the monster!” Julian hurried over to join his wife, adding his body, with Fronilde and some servants Claire recognized right behind him.

  All across the field, men and women stood and put their bodies between Dal and the people willingly—or unwillingly—protecting them. Embracing their enemies—the ones who had burned their cities and murdered their kin—like long-lost friends. They formed a living shield of twenty or thirty deep, offering themselves to save foes.

  Beatriz emerged from the mass of people swallowing Julian to march back to Claire. “And our allies from the swamp! Protect them as well!” It happened before Beatriz had even started to speak. People rose from the ground to layer themselves around Claire. Gingerly at first as if afraid to make contact and then perhaps taking heart from the sight of Ramiro still embracing her, they moved closer to hold her with smiles and words of encouragement. Several cried as they babbled their appreciation.

  The flood of people locking her away first terrified and then soothed as Claire tightened under their touch and gradually made herself relax. Strength reentered her limbs. The Song flowed smoother again. Her parched throat felt rejuvenated with their gratitude.

  Cries of pain shattered the silence outside the huddle surrounding her. She couldn’t see over their heads to know what was happening. It didn’t matter. She concentrated on her Song and only her Song, keeping all these people safe.

  Until the arm she needed most pulled away. Ramiro retreated. People gave him room as he drew his sword. “You know what I have to do.”

  Claire shook her head, unable to protest in any other way. Inside she was screaming. She pointed in the direction of Suero’s burnt body. Ramiro had to have seen what happened to the village man when he confronted Dal with a weapon. She put pleading into her eyes, knowing it would do no good.

  Dal couldn’t be stopped by hiding from it.

  “I love you.”

  Tears rolled down Claire’s cheeks. She felt more torn in half than that soldier.

  “I’ll find a weakness.”

  He wouldn’t. Intuition told her Dal had no weakness. It would never stop until they were all dead.

  The crowd parted to let Ramiro out. He gave her hand one last squeeze and was gone. She’d never see him again. And all she’d done was Sing at him.

  Her technique for proper breathing was shattered. The words ran out.

  They couldn’t hide. They couldn’t fight.

  There had to be something else.

  If only she’d never called Dal in the first place. If only it had stayed elsewhere—asleep.

  Asleep.

  The words to her Goodnight Song popped into her head. Maybe she could lull Dal to sleep or back to wherever it had come from.

  “Rest.

  “Close your eyes.

  “All is well.

  “All is safe.

  “Task is done.

  “Fight is won.

  “Sleep.”

  Claire threw all her will into the Song and directed the magic at the great pale mass hanging in the sky. It was the only thing she could still see above the people pressing around her. She had no idea if the Song would work or not. A Song needed to be tailored to the mind it was aimed toward. There was no way to estimate what was in Dal’s mind—or if it had one. She had to guess.

  She thrust through the crowd to run after Ramiro. They let her go. Some even dropping into slumber before her eyes, lulled by her new Song. Someone handed her a water skin. She drank greedily before tossing it aside and resuming her Song.

  Was it her imagination or were there less of the coin-sized spots she thought were eyes appearing on Dal’s surface? She tried to count even as she chased Ramiro. Twenty-three eyes? No. Less? Sixteen? They opened and closed, moving to a new location on the blob too fast to keep track, and she couldn’t see the top of its body.

  “Close your eyes.

  “Return to the task another day.

  “Rest.

  “It will wait.

  “Sleep.”

  She picked up her pace, dodging over people and sometimes having to step upon them.

  Damn Ramiro and his long legs. Did he have to be in such a hurry? She couldn’t catch up. Why wouldn’t he wait for her? Her heart felt like it would explode out of her chest.

  The Elders had taken up the slack when she switched Songs. They used their power to cover her area, but already the clouds of water vapor in the air thinned. The moisture on her face dried out and was disbursed by the sun, spreading over wider distances, and its amplifying effect on their magic went with it. The people would be exposed again.

  She slowed as she stood almost directly under Dal. His body cast a wide shadow on the ground, and she hesitated to step within its darkness. All caught within it were already dead, torn apart. The Song had never reached here to hide them, or rather—its help had been too late. Something told her this was as far as she could go.

  Ramiro picked his way forward within that shadow, his sword raised cautiously. His face was clenched as if he struggled against something—Dal’s force, she knew instantly. Instinct said she would lose the Song if she fell prey to Dal. She must help Ramiro from here.

  The coin-sized black spots that were eyes moved sluggishly now as her Song poured forth. Only a handful opened and closed, and they did so more slowly than before. Whatever weakness Ramiro sought, her Song gave him the opportunity to find a flaw in Dal.

  He stopped just below one of the great branching ropes of black that she had decided were veins or arteries. This close, she could make out how the veins cut into the put
rid flesh as if cinched tight and how the flesh between the veins roiled, never quite still.

  Ramiro set the point of his sword against the thick vein, and Claire braced for the thunderclap. It didn’t come. Most of the eyes had vanished. None seemed to be aimed at them. Ramiro gave a twist and severed the vein.

  Black fluid poured out. Where it hit the ground, smoke rose like acid. Ramiro had jumped out of the way. Now he wiped his sword. As he dropped the smoking cloth, Claire saw the tip had been notched, dissolved away. He moved to another vein.

  “Rest.

  “Sleep.

  “Task will wait.”

  Another vein went, costing the entire point of Ramiro’s sword. More veins crisscrossed its surface, so many, branching like rivers. And the fluid from the first showed no signs of slacking in its flow. A god, not mortal. Could such a thing even bleed out?

  Ramiro put up his sword to attack a third vein. Three new eyes briefly opened and Dal flinched like a goat chasing off flies. The two punctured veins sealed and ceased draining. Ramiro was thrown free to strike the earth with a grinding crunch. His head bounced—hard.

  Claire shrieked and lost the Song. Lost all semblance of poise and ran into Dal’s shadow. A putrid scent of decay and recent death made her retch. The force of Dal, full of revulsion and cruelty, crashed into her, throwing her to the ground.

  Die, it ordered over and over. Like a Death Song it invaded her mind and willed her to cease living.

  She reached for the words to her magic and couldn’t find them. Not even the Death Song or the Hornet Tune. There was only Dal in her head. No strength. No hope. No chance.

  One thing pushed back: love. It cried to her.

  Die.

  “No.” Tears streamed down her face as she lay among the viscera of its earlier victims. “Not when he needs me.” She wouldn’t die until she could do so with Ramiro. They had been in this together since the beginning, since the time he’d called her witch and she’d called him murderer. How that had changed. They’d summoned Dal together and brought him to this earth. The least they could do was die together. She couldn’t rise, so she slithered among the dead, dragging herself ever closer.

  Dal’s eyes had reappeared to watch her as a child might watch an insect struggle in a web. Calm unconcern touched with a tiny thread of curiosity. It watched her struggle, knowing it could end her in an instant. She passed Ramiro’s sword, melted as Suero’s had been. Touched his worn and scuffed boot, and dragged herself up the length of his body.

  In Dal’s shadow, his armor no longer shone like the sun. Instead it reflected her face back from a dozen angles, acting like a mirror. Her skin was pinched and drawn, ghostly pale in the half-light. Her eyes too huge. The image of a panicked child. All she felt was relief that the armor had held and not melted as Suero’s had, leaving Ramiro intact.

  But not moving.

  She could see his beard and his unburnt skin, still too far away to reach. He could have been asleep—or dead. Dal pressed down on her, but sobbing, she pulled herself farther to reach Ramiro’s face and fumbled for a pulse on his bare neck. A faint throb met her fingers—faint but there.

  In his head must be the same urge to die that Dal put into her own. And nothing to counter that.

  Or is there . . .

  A new Song came to her, born of pain, rough and uncouth. Jorga would have laughed at her attempt. Her voice sounded like a blue jay’s caw, all jagged and harsh. The horrible depression that was Dal tried to smother the sound, but she forced out her croak of a tune:

  “Love won’t die.

  “I’m here.

  “Don’t leave me alone.

  “So much yet to do.

  “Love so new.

  “Stay.”

  “Stay,” she gasped, choked by tears, as she gripped the edge of Ramiro’s breastplate, wishing so much metal wasn’t keeping them apart. “Stay.”

  Dal narrowed the distance between them. One moment floating high overhead, the next only inches away. The closeness of its putrid flesh choking more words. Her Song must have drawn the monster now that she was out of the protection of the Elders’ illusion. Claire tried to pull Ramiro away, to drag him, but he was much too heavy in armor, and she didn’t have the strength to even move herself. She closed her eyes and gripped Ramiro’s breastplate until her knuckles whitened and her fingers hurt.

  “Get it over with,” she sobbed. “Just do it.” At least they would die together.

  When nothing happened, she looked up. The putrid flesh still hung inches away. She could see a pulse beating in the black veins. Dozens of the coin-shaped eyes had appeared. More. Hundreds. Almost blotting out the pale, tallow-colored flesh.

  They tracked together as one eye, moving from above her head and down her torso, to stop in the middle. She clutched at Ramiro.

  Great Goddess let it end.

  Part of her would rather just die then take this torment anymore. Another part knew the longer Dal stared at them, the longer it wasn’t killing others.

  Dal’s eyes clustered tighter together, gathering right above her chest. No. Not her chest. Ramiro’s.

  The ones on the edges winked out. They focused downward without eyelid or lashes. Just black holes that went down, down, down like the dark water of a deep well. Empty. With no soul. Nothing in them registered as humanity.

  A vast darkness.

  Too alien. Too cruel. She focused on Ramiro.

  The armor reflected the eyes back at her from every perspective. Dal twitched as the demon had when Ramiro touched it.

  A slicing cut appeared across its putrid flesh, standing out strangely red among the paleness. Where the slice cut across black vein, fluid dripped.

  Another wound appeared on Dal, and another, and still its eyes gazed at them. Fueled by hatred. A deep hatred of life. Chunks of its flesh began to rain down with the black fluid. Whole pieces as big as goats fell with plops like wet jelly.

  Claire gasped, heart in her throat. There was no other sound but the flow of Dal’s lifeblood as the demon tore itself apart. There could be no other explanation.

  There was a hiss like a sigh as Dal’s form tore in two. The two halves fell and left Claire staring at open sky.

  For a while there was silence. Silence and sunshine and no explanations.

  “Great Goddess,” she finally croaked. “It . . . it destroyed itself.”

  She’d done nothing. Ramiro’s sword work had been a mere annoyance.

  Ramiro didn’t answer. His head lolled to the side and blood came from the ear she could see. She fumbled again for a pulse and found nothing.

  Chapter 42

  Ramiro jerked awake to Sancha nibbling his hair, and not gently. She pulled, and he sat up, rubbing at his scalp. Valentía stood next to his mare. The stallion’s upper lip raised in a horse equivalent of laughter. Sancha reached for his hair again and he palmed her off.

  “I’m awake, if that’s what you want . . .” His words trailed off as he realized he sat in an empty field, surrounded by banks of gray fog. The world of dreams.

  “What . . .”

  “Happened?” A rich voice finished for him. The man with black skin who had helped him at the capstan bars to open Aveston’s gate nudged Sancha and Valentía aside. “You may go back, my friends. Thanks for your help.”

  Sancha and Valentía vanished from the dream.

  “Wha . . . what?” Ramiro sputtered. “Where?”

  “I thought things would be easier for you if you woke to familiar faces,” the man said. “I asked them to come. They are descendants of my own steed, and have served you well. This realm is for saints and their servants.”

  Saints? Ramiro cleared his throat, stumbling to find words. “Who are you?”

  “Martin.”

  Ramiro took in the thick arms and the short cloak attached to the blacksmith vest. Threads hung lose from the end as if the material had been severed. Divided. Shared with a peasant. An electric shock ran through Ramiro, jolting him all the
way awake. “San Martin? The soldier saint. My patron? I mean I always imagined you as watching over me. I don’t mean to claim you are my patron. I mean, maybe you are. You are here, right? Or maybe I’m wrong. I don’t want to presume. Um.” His hand reached for his medallion to help calm his babbling and found it missing again. “An honor, sir. If I may ask, where’s the other I usually see here? The one who looks like my brother, but isn’t.”

  “That was my brother. You would call him the founder of cities. He isn’t here. He rests now that the task is done.” San Martin knelt down to casually lay one arm across his knees.

  “Founder of ci—Santiago? I spoke with Santiago?” The most holy of saints. The world of fog spun as Ramiro felt dizzy. “Wait. The task is over? Claire!” Shock turned to alarm.

  “The Earth Child is well. Be at ease. This piece of Leviathan is destroyed and will trouble humankind no more. It attacked all it sees, determined to destroy all life. Yet it also lives, in its own way. So it turned on itself. You found and used the armor as we hoped, with help from the Earth Children.”

  “You mean Claire?”

  San Martin smiled in a flash of white teeth. “Yes, that one, dreamer. She may not pray to us, but she is of us all the same. She completed a piece of the task, as did others—as you did. Some brought Dal to the spot. Another primed your enemy to work with you. And the Earth Child made Dal see.”

  “She’s alive?”

  “And in the world. She waits for you. Do you hear her?” A window opened in the fog, showing Claire sobbing over a body. A body in armor. He didn’t need to see a face.

  “I’m dead!” Then in a whisper, “I’m dead.” The window closed.

  “Aye, dreamer. Yet your miracles were real.” A wooden dinner tray suddenly appeared next to Ramiro, whole and repaired as if never broken into splinters. “We helped with some, but others were your own doing. You belong to this realm if you choose to stay.”

  “A saint. I’m to be a saint?”

  “What is in a word? That is what my brother Santiago would say. It is just a name. You and I are more simple folk, however. More grounded. Doers, not thinkers. Prisoners of duty.” San Martin shifted and came out of his abstraction. “A saint. Such you will become if you stay dead. You can work much good as one of us. Or you may choose not to at this time and your deeds will be lost to history.”