DIRE:SINS (The Dire Saga Book 5)

by Andrew Seiple

  Khalid squatted down next to the trench, pulled out a knife, and slit the goat kid’s throat. He held it, kicking and thrashing, aiming the spurts into the trench. Eventually it slowed and stilled, and he tilted it up, ran a hand down it, squeezing. Every drop of blood that he could, he poured into the trench. Then he sighed, muttered a prayer, and put the carcass to the eastern end of the trench.

  Silence for a long minute. Khalid stood, stretched, and looked to Gamma. “May I have my tools, please?”

  Gamma looked around, waved, and Epsilon strode forward with an armful of bags. Khalid sat on the ground and sorted through them, eventually pulling out a costume, and changing into it without any particular shyness.

  “Is that it?” Vector asked, glancing around. “I was expecting, well, more. Black candles and Latin chants, and specters popping out of the ground and such.”

  “The sun is still setting,” Khalid told him, buckling on bandoliers of vials. “Once the last light is gone from this Earth, then we shall see them.”

  “I mean, okay, but you just killed a goat and dumped its blood in a ditch. If that’s all it takes, why don’t more people know how to do this?”

  “The placement of the trench is key, as is the time of day. Also, you will note that most religions have strict rules about how to butcher livestock. And if you go back far enough, you will find that many of the laws on the books were put there by people who knew of this ritual, and wished to avoid the risk of ordinary people calling up shades.” Khalid buckled his belt, and tucked his hood on over his head. Now attired in proper green tunic, white overcoat and trousers, he looked every part the Last Janissary that I remembered.

  “It’s a conspiracy, then?” Vector seemed annoyed.

  “It was part of the rules of the Unseen, before the Germans rendered them useless in their war. But to be honest...” Khalid turned, surveying the trees. “It is less of a conspiracy, and more part of the way humans are made. It is a disturbing thing we do, the opposite of comforting. It frightens, it tests the sanity, and for those who encounter it accidentally, it is easy enough to deny the reality. Humanity has an unparalleled ability to delude itself, and thus the old magics, the old rites are forgotten until they are needed once more. As they are now.”

  The forest was silent. Even within the armor, I could almost fancy I felt a chill.

  And then the first shade stepped out from between the trees.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

  It didn’t register at all on the nightsight, and it didn’t vibrate the ground on the geosight. But to my regular sight it was a shape, maybe as big as a human, but with no substance to it. Just a distortion in the air, like those little strands that passed over your retinas when they get tired. But black, blacker than the rest of the shadows around it, and moving purposefully and slowly, like an old man shuffling. Moving toward the trench.

  “No,” Khalid said. He got between it and the trench, and waved his hand like a man shooing a bee. Vector let out something that could have been a whimper, as the shade paused... then the thing faded back.

  About that point, I noticed more of them. They slid between the trees, peeled out of the falling night, drawn to the spilled blood like bugs.

  “KHALID?” I asked, looking around the clearing. “THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM.” I clicked off the nightsight, it was a distraction, and there was a bit of light to see by, just a bit.

  “Ah, troublesome. Get in their way, wave them off. They cannot drink unless you let them. Any contact will shred them, and they know it.”

  “Hey, question?” Alpha asked. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “YOU CAN’T SEE THEM?” I strode toward a pair, short and tall. As I got closer they bubbled, took form. I saw something that could have been a woman’s face, young and tearful. The other had no face I could tell, but thick arms and a peasant’s tunic of some sort. Both backed away as I shooed at them.

  “Nope, not a bit.” Alpha held still.

  “Okay, okay, this is happening,” Vector’s breath was coming short and sharp. He waved away a couple, drew his fingers back with a hiss as he struck one, and it came apart in streamers. “Ah! Cold. Look, look, how are we supposed to tell which one is the one we want?”

  “I have been watching the grave,” Khalid said, circling around the trench slowly. “She will come from there. But she is at rest, and these are restless, roaming, so they are the first to show.”

  The worst part about magic is that you can almost see some logic to it, now and again. But it’s a phantom, as insubstantial as these ragged things I was holding at bay. From my discussions with Dottie about it, magic seemed mainly like a collection of trivia and rules that could be overridden with different rules, often randomly or based upon variables that humans couldn’t glimpse or otherwise account for.

  But this, what we were doing now, seemed simple enough. It had rules, we followed the rules, and eventually we’d get what we wanted. Eventually.

  The minutes crawled by, and so did the shades. I lost count of the number we turned back. After a time, Vector calmed down, started treating it as a routine. “I never thought I’d say this, but this is actually a little boring.”

  “Most of the safer rituals are,” Khalid said. “Another reason why this is known to so few. The attention span of the modern human is much shorter than their ancestors’, generally. Ah, hold for a moment. She is up.”

  We all looked to the grave.

  It was a small shape, bent over and stooped, moving as if it had a cane. It... she shuffled forward. Others came in its wake, though.

  “I will get those. You two guard the flanks,” Khalid instructed. I took south, Vector took north, and we waved our hands in lazy arcs, taking care to avoid Khalid’s direction. It had taken long enough to get this shade, I didn’t want to risk dispelling her with an accidental strike.

  She made it to the trench, and got even smaller. I got the impression she was stooping, putting her head to the ditch like a dog or a cat licking from a bowl. Drinking the blood.

  “Now you may step away,” Khalid instructed. “A few more will feed, but she has the first taste and the advantage.”

  We moved back to the trees, and watched.

  Delta jerked her arms up to her face. “I think I see it!”

  Epsilon moved closer, squatted down to study her. “Fascinating...”

  And yes, she was definitely becoming more substantial. The writhing wisps of optical illusion that made her twisted together, and took on an opaque bulk. She rose out of flatness into a greater resolution, like a vacuum-formed prop being pushed from its mold. Flesh the blackness of night gained something like color. On impulse I clicked the night vision back on, and saw dots like hundreds of fireflies, filling a shape that looked like an old woman’s outline.

  “Your name is Hampston,” Khalid said, and the clearing seemed to throb like a heartbeat with the name. Next to her other fireflies glowed in my night vision, as the other shades drank.

  “Yes, it is,” Dottie’s grandmother said. Faint, but there. Readings on my audio sensors, which were drawing about three times their normal power from the reactor. Something was draining my circuitry like a thirsty toddler. I chalked it down to ghosty shit and adjusted to compensate.

  “YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER NEEDS HELP, MOTHER HAMPSTON,” I said. “WILL YOU HELP US HELP HER?”

  “Yes,” she said, straightening up. “But girl, you’ve made some bad enemies and they’re comin’ fast. Best look to them now.”

  “WHAT?” Around her, the other drinking shades jerked up, stared east, and ran for their unlives. I stared around the clearing, and as I did the hungry shades faded back into the trees, like tubeworms darting back down for cover.

  “I’ll just wait here, dearie. Good luck to ye.”

  Khalid yelled, pulled his blade free with a singing whine of steel, just as the first skeletal dogs burst barking from the underbrush, and bright-purple spectral horses screamed over the tre
es, galloping on thin air straight toward us. “Arm yourselves! The wyld hunt is upon us!”

  CHAPTER 15: GHOSTS, HAUNTS, AND HUNTS

  “The Wyld Hunt, servants of the Mountain King himself. Centuries untold, have they hunted man, exacting retribution for sins long forgotten. Or perhaps for sport... these are not the kindly fae of storybooks and cartoons. These are creatures of blood and hoof and horn, and dark things in ancient forests...”

  --Gilbert Hochfried, scholar and magician-for-hire

  I didn’t know much about the supernatural, but I figured certain rules and conventions would hold true. Primary among them being that when something is called ‘The’ Wyld Hunt, then it is probably a big fucking deal.

  “Do not run!” Khalid yelled, swiping at the nearest skeletal hounds. “They gain power when you run!”

  “THEN THEY CHOSE THE WRONG ADVERSARY.” I kicked a charging hound to bony pieces, backhanded a leaping dog, and ignored the few that got through and tried to drag my armor to the ground. They were up against my weight and my stabilizers, and I wished them luck with that.

  Vector, for his part, yelped and skinned up the nearest tree like a monkey. Probably some enhancements in his hands and muscles too, I reckoned. In any case, he was probably fine from the hounds, but...

  “LOOK OUT FOR THE HORSES!”

  “Forget the horses!” Khalid called. “Watch out for their riders!”

  Oh yeah, they did have hunched, spindly forms riding on their backs, tucked low with gleaming purple blades. They circled above us, but one descended toward Vector with what was probably malign intent, sword raising up—

  —night turned to day, as my particle beam ripped through him. The horse veered off, and I saw to my disbelief that he didn’t seem to be hurt in the slightest.

  “FRIGGIN’ MAGIC,” I muttered, turning my anger to the hounds that now circled me. They weren’t a threat to me, but enough of them could literally dogpile Khalid. I geared up for a defensive pattern—

  —and with a flurry of metal limbs and grinding servos, my minions leaped into the fray. Dogs flew back, yelping or breaking up into bones as the five of them executed a ruthless flanking maneuver, sweeping from one side of the clearing to the other and returning, forming a rough pentacle around Khalid and Grandma Hampston’s ghost.

  Who looked a little less solid, now that I had a chance to glance her way. Shit! The ten minute timer was still running!

  Okay, well these guys were insubstantial, time to find out if my armor coating was good enough to punch out... wait a minute.

  “THESE THINGS ARE FAE, RIGHT?”

  “Yes!” Khalid called, rummaging in his bandoliers. “What are you... wait, no!”

  I took to the sky, arrowed straight for the nearest horseman, who fell back before me. Fast suckers, no way to catch them if they didn’t want to be caught. Not with my current configuration. “COWARDS!” I called. “MORE LIKE THE MILD HUNT!”

  “Good one!” Delta called up from below.

  I crossed my arms and hovered there, blinking the pattern to let red light glare forth from my eyesockets. The nearest horsemen fell back another few paces, then formed up in ranks. “OH, A CHARGE?” I beckoned them forward. “COME AND TRY. COME AND DIE.”

  They didn’t.

  For a second I thought I had them cowed. That was fine, I could stay here and Dire at them while the Janissary got to work and figured out a solution, or got the information from Grandma.

  But no, as it turned out, they were just waiting for reinforcements. From behind them a towering figure, all horned headdress and bony mask rode up, purple lance balanced on one skeletal knee. Ancient bronze armor bled into purple light and back again, his body was both an amalgamation of energy and physical matter.

  Good, I could work with that.

  “The Huntsman himself is upon you!” Khalid called.

  “IS THIS GOOD?”

  “He is taking it as a challenge. None of his companions will dare interrupt this duel.”

  “GOOD.” I charged him.

  He hesitated a second, dipped his lance in salute, and charged me—

  —only to veer away as my flight of concussion missiles hissed free from my shoulderpads, and ripped toward him.

  “HOMING, YOU MORON.” I gestured, they followed, and thunder filled the night as they detonated...

  ...to no real effect, as he charged out of the blast wave, closing the distance. I twisted aside, gave him a particle beam to the face, but when the flash dissipated his mask was unmarred. And he was way too close for comfort, so I cut the thrusters and dropped. But I was just a second too late.

  His steed’s hoof clipped my side as I fell and I gasped, as it went straight through the armor, and thwacked into my ribs with a burst of pain. Wheezing, I kicked in the gravitics five inches from the treetops, straightened up, and checked my damage readouts.

  Nothing.

  That son of a bitch could stab me right through my armor, and I couldn’t touch him.

  Uh-oh.

  He wheeled around again, and I stretched an arm out to Khalid. “COLD IRON! SHE NEEDS SOME, NOW!”

  My minions blurred into overtime, as the skeletal hounds poured out of the trees, almost as if they knew what was coming. Khalid drew back, got some distance, drew his arm back to throw his sword to me. All the while I watched the Huntsman gain speed, charge faster, lance lowered straight for me... “THROW IT, MAN!”

  He did.

  And one of those fucking dogs leaped straight up into the air, and snatched it in its jaws.

  “FUCK.”

  The Huntsman’s lance took me straight through the mask, wisping through the decoy head and then he was gone and past... and in a heartbeat I knew what I had to do.

  I toppled from the air, like a puppet with its strings cut, hit the ground with a mighty ‘thump’, and lay still.

  The fae host sent up an ululating cry, and the horses began to circle around their seven targets on the ground, blades raised and ready for the slaughter. The Huntsman watched, arms folded, lance held loosely. Smug and eldritch, untouchable in victory.

  Well.

  I’d see about that.

  It took twenty-two seconds to redirect the gravitic generators, to jury-rig their internal circuitry via the armor’s repair and modification sub-components. An eternity, and the circle was almost to the treetops around the clearing, the riders closing in bit by bit, a tornado of whirling ghostly blades. It took four more seconds to use the geosight, and locate what I needed.

  And then my laughter filled the clearing, as I stood. The circle hesitated, the riders veering out in shock. The Huntsman recoiled, looked to his lance, felt it with one bony hand.

  “HMHMHMHMHMHM... HAHAHAHHAHAHA!” I lowered my gauntlets to waist level, and brought them up, slowly.

  The earth shook. Trees toppled, stone groaned, and Vector shrieked as he fell from his tree. Beta caught him but I barely noticed, as a large, muddy mass wrenched itself out of the ground, caught by the gravitics I’d rewired.

  “What have you done?” Khalid whispered, in the sudden silence. The mass rose into the sky, dropping rubble and dirt and pebbles, and I laughed harder. The Earth shook a bit more, aftershocks, almost. Things settled under the forest floor, and would be a while settling. The mass was over eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and weighed so, so many tons. Not surprising, considering what it was made out of.

  “WHAT WAS IT AGAINST FAE, JANISSARY? AH YES, THAT’S RIGHT. COLD IRON!”

  I slammed my hands to the side, and the lump plowed through three horses, splattering them into screaming flickers of purple energy, sending their broken riders falling into the forest below. I twisted and jerked my hands to the other side, and the lump followed toward the next bunch, a battering ram, a torpedo of raw ore. My vengeance upon all things stupid and magical and cheaty.

  They rode flat out, and I rose up after them, gesturing like the conductor of a symphony. My moving maul of fairy-death chased them out of my sight. Still
too slow to catch them, but it was oh-so gratifying to see that Huntsman scramble for his warped life.

  “NOT SO FUN WHEN IT’S YOU ON THE OTHER END OF IT, HM?” I set it in a rotating whirl around me. Below, on the ground, my minions and allies were finishing off the last of the hounds. The tide had turned, and this battle could now only have one end.

  The hounds saw that too. The survivors made themselves scarce. The destroyed ones crumbled, their bones turning to goo and sticks. I glanced around, and lowered the heap of ore down to the ground gently, gently, wincing as more trees snapped and broke. In the distance, an emergency siren wailed. There would probably be people coming out to investigate this mess, and we needed to be gone, shortly. Fortunately I’d thought to bring the teleporter beacon.

  Grandma was very faint, and I winced to see it. Five minutes and thirty-six seconds, gone, thanks to random fae attacks.

  Well no, there was no way that could have been random. But that was a discussion for another time.

  “You ran off the Wyld Hunt,” Khalid said, eyes wide under his night vision goggles.

  “NO TIME. GRANDMA HAMPSTON?”

  “Not to you,” the shade replied.

  “YOU ARE SPEAKING TO A FRIEND OF DOTTIE.”

  The shade stirred, quivered as glittering, see-through eyes found my empty sockets. “You know Dottie?”

  “YES. SHE IS IN TROUBLE. SHE HAD TO MAKE A BARGAIN WITH THE FAE, AND IS TRAPPED IN THEIR REALM.”

  “What?” The shade straightened up even more, and a wind whipped up out of nowhere, stirring the trees, and almost drowning out the cracking grinding of the earth below.

  “Janissary?” Alpha glanced his way.

  Khalid kept his eyes on her and his hand on the hilt of his blade. “She is the ghost of a witch. Such displays are not beyond her.”

  “Dash it all, Dottie, I taught you better.” Grandma shook her head, considered her fading hands. “Well there’s no help for it, I shall need to go with you.”

  “Can she do that?” Vector whispered.

  “I’ll need a body to ride.”