Sword of Light

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Are you kidding me? Another devil?” I mean, the guy had horns and everything.

  “That’s only how mortals imagined him,” Keira explained. “But the image of a horned man may have come from his ability to shapeshift, especially into a huge, tusked boar.”

  “Boar,” I said. “Now I have to fight a pig. A pig, Keira.”

  “A boar, Gavyn,” she corrected. “And he’s no ordinary boar either. He’ll be much bigger and unbelievably fierce. Not to mention, his bristles are supposedly venomous.”

  I stared at her for a few seconds to see if she was just messing with me, because a pig with poisonous hair sounded like something that was literally out of a child’s nightmare. Or mine, for that matter. But Keira stared back at me like she hadn’t just told me we’d be fighting a poisonous-pig-monster, so I looked across the aisle to where Yngvarr and Tyr were sitting and hissed, “Did you know Berstuk turns into a poisonous pig?”

  “Yes,” they both answered, neither bothering to look up from their own tablets where they were probably watching Loki porn.

  I twisted around to glare at Agnes, who’d sat behind me, but she’d decided to travel as Hatshepsut’s mummy and her nine-thousand-year-old mouth hung open as she snored in what may have been fake sleep. Not that I blamed her. I’d ignore us, too.

  But Joachim was sitting next to her, so I hissed at him. “Dude, he’s a poisonous pig.”

  “Apparently,” he agreed.

  “Gavyn,” Keira said. “We haven’t even talked about Medeina yet.”

  I groaned and sank back in my seat. “Let me guess. She’s a poisonous bear.”

  “Nope.”

  “Deer?”

  “Why would anyone ever be a poisonous deer?”

  I shrugged, because really, why would anyone ever want to be a poisonous pig?

  “Wolf,” she said.

  I groaned again. “Not another one.”

  My shoulder still ached from my last encounter with a supernatural wolf. At least I hadn’t popped the stitches again, but at some point, I really needed not to be attacked by supernatural animals that thought I looked like a ribeye. “Any chance Frey and the rest of our allies are going to join us in Moscow?” I asked. “Because they can get off their lazy asses and help us here.”

  “They can’t,” Keira argued. “They’re still helping the CIA track down the Sumerians, who’ve set their sights on the U.S. Maybe the Sumerians figure it’s only fair to take over America now. Or maybe it’s payback for how many temples have been destroyed.”

  I waved her off because it’s not like I’d had anything to do with that decision. I mean, I hadn’t even been old enough to vote yet. And it didn’t really matter why the Sumerians wanted the United States so badly. They clearly had no intention of leaving my country. “They’ve been a little too quiet since the showdown in Baton Rouge with Ninurta,” I said. “What do you think they’re up to?”

  Keira took a deep breath and lowered her eyes. We were all exhausted, but at the same time, with so many threats all over the world and so much uncertainty hanging over our heads, none of us could really rest. Except Agnes, but that was probably because she was a witch. “I honestly don’t know, Gavyn. But I’m afraid we’re going to find out soon enough.”

  As we descended into Moscow, the pilot reminded us that the city could be dangerous and advised us to use caution. I thought it was kinda stupid to remind a plane full of people that the city he’d just flown us to was under siege and we could all die, but then again, I was one of the idiots on the plane that had just voluntarily entered that city, so what did I know? I’d expected Moscow to appear deserted, much like New Orleans when the Sumerians took over, but it was the exact opposite. As our taxis slowly headed toward the Kremlin, the streets became thicker with angry mobs that refused to accept a new religion or government.

  I guessed Russians were just used to revolutions because they had no intention of allowing Berstuk and Medeina to rule them.

  Our taxis finally stopped when the wall of protestors no longer parted to allow traffic through. In broken English, our cab driver told us, “Six blocks toward the Moskva.”

  We’d have to look for the Slavic gods on foot.

  Our small group of gods and demigods squeezed through tightly packed bodies, all screaming and shouting in a language I didn’t understand, but I could easily imagine what they were saying. Probably a lot of what I would be saying, and maybe even with the same amount of profanity. I mean, they were Russian. And Russians know how to curse. But as we turned a corner to head toward the Kremlin, Tyr, who’d been leading the way, suddenly stopped and I bumped into him then was shoved from behind by the swell of humans pushing in the same direction. Keira grabbed my hand so we wouldn’t get separated, and it was about that time I noticed why Tyr had stopped so unexpectedly.

  Ahead of us, hanging from the trees that surrounded the Kremlin, were the disfigured bodies of what I could only assume had been the leaders of the Russian government.

  Most were missing limbs, and their faces were largely unrecognizable. Berstuk and Medeina had not only taken over this country, they’d sent their own message to its people: submit or face the same fate. “My God,” I whispered as I stared helplessly at the bloody, mangled body dangling above us.

  “The people are rising up against the gods,” Keira said. “If we don’t defeat them soon, it could be catastrophic.”

  I couldn’t even guess how many people had packed the streets surrounding the complex. Hundreds of thousands, maybe? And the gods who wanted to rule them would be just as content to wipe them out.

  “Why isn’t anyone going beyond the woods?” I asked.

  As if to answer me, a snarl erupted from the trees, and was quickly joined by a roar and something that sounded like a small child screeching at the top of their lungs. And, honestly, that was the sound that scared the shit out of me and made me want to turn and run, even though I risked being trampled by the mob that was already turning and running. Joachim groaned and swayed next to me as bodies beat against us, and his clear blue eyes swept over the crowd. “They’re going to crush people, and we can’t stop it.”

  Those noises erupted from the trees again, and this time, leaves rustled. Whatever was roaming around in there was coming for us.

  “Run into the woods,” I shouted. “Don’t let those monsters out!”

  A sword was thrust into my hand, and I didn’t even notice who put it there. We were already fighting against the panicked masses, and as soon as we broke free from the crowd, we ran. The trees shook again and that shrieking sound almost made me pivot and follow the others away from the Kremlin. But whatever was making that noise would soon emerge from the trees, and I seriously doubted it was coming for hugs.

  I reached the tree line first, and although it seemed impossible, it was like stepping into another reality, like I’d somehow crossed this veil that separated my world from the supernatural. Behind me, daylight still shone on the grass, but in front of me, the world became as dark as an abyss in the ocean. Not that I’d ever been in an abyss at the bottom of the ocean, but I imagined it was awfully dark. Agnes inhaled a slow, deep breath and quietly announced, “We’ve got company.”

  I followed her gaze and may or may not have screamed a bit when I noticed the blood-red eyes staring at me from a tree branch above us. A furry body that was vaguely humanoid leapt at me, that ear-splitting shriek echoing through the small forest. I slashed wildly at the little bastard, and may or may not have screamed again when the damn thing landed on me.

  “Gavyn,” Keira cried. Her sword impaled the psychotic monkey that was trying to eat my brain, which, of course, only made me think it must be a zombie monkey, and I wasn’t really sure how to kill a zombie monkey. But impaling its chest obviously didn’t work. Keira had managed to get it off me, but the creature immediately sprang to its feet, its fangs bared as it shrieked at us.

  And if possessed zombie monkeys weren’t bad enough, its friends burst throug
h the dense growth of trees and I found myself staring at an honest-to-God dragon and a six-legged beast with curvy, gnarled horns and breath so heinous, I swear it left a yellow, vaporous cloud around its face. So quite naturally, I pointed my sword at it and told Agnes, “Look. Your boyfriend’s here.”

  The monster seemed just as insulted as Agnes.

  The dragon roared and flapped its wings, which snapped several branches from nearby trees, and my zombie monkey flung himself at my face again. At least, I assumed it was a he, but I had no intention of checking. I slashed at the creature as it made its descent and figured decapitation often worked on zombies in the movies, so why not on zombie monkeys? And really, what could survive decapitation?

  But as so often happened in these supernatural battles, I got thrown off my game by something completely unexpected. The dragon opened its mouth, a stream of fire spewing forth, and ignited the evil little bastard in mid-air. So now, I not only had a zombie hurling itself at me, but an on-fire zombie, and if you’ve never been attacked by a demonic primate, let me tell you, the blazing kind are much worse.

  And perhaps strangest of all was that the fire didn’t seem to hurt the weird monkey thing. I mean, maybe it did, but how could I tell when its normal scream sounded like Agnes had grabbed him by the balls?

  Again, not that I was checking to see if Agnes could emasculate it.

  I dove out of the fiery fur-ball’s way and rolled onto my shoulder that had just stopped throbbing from the last time I popped the stitches. Both the pain and the warm, sticky sensation told me I’d done it again, but the creature had landed and was stalking toward me, still dripping flames from its body. The brief thought that it must not be real fire vanished when the leaves caught on fire and flames spread across the ground.

  So, let me recap: we had a dragon, a demonic zombie monkey, a weird six-legged horned beast that most likely killed its victims with the world’s worst halitosis, and a fire that was quickly spreading all around us. Our odds weren’t exactly tipping in our favor.

  “Can’t one of you gods make it rain?” I shouted.

  “We’re war gods,” Yngvarr shouted back. “How the hell are we supposed to control the weather?”

  “Drekavac,” Agnes shouted, which I assumed was some Gaelic curse word for, “Goddamn zombie monkeys!”

  So I nodded in agreement and raised my sword in the air like I was William Wallace about to lead a tribe of Scots against the English and yelled, “Yeah, Drekavac!”

  Agnes squinted at me, and even though she was the smoking hot redhead again, she had the exact same look she’d once given me when she was convinced she’d kidnapped the village idiot. “No, dumbass. That,” she paused to point her sword at the possessed primate who happened to be on fire still, “is the forest demon, Drekavac.”

  I nodded again like I’d known that all along. “And the other two?”

  She gestured to the weird six-legged monster that honestly didn’t resemble anything that existed in this world. “Bukavac and the dragon is Tugarin.”

  “And knowing their names helps us how?”

  Agnes shrugged. “It doesn’t.”

  So I shot her my best impersonation of her village-idiot look. “Then why the hell do you think we needed to know that right now?”

  She shrugged again. “You didn’t.”

  “I hate you,” I sighed.

  Drekavac shrieked as if he agreed with me and crouched like he was about to leap again, and my heart threatened to burst from my chest. I’d already backed up against a tree, so I had nowhere else to go. But worse, Keira stood right next to me, and he could just as easily decide to leap on her. Before he could become airborne, something shifted within me, just like the time I’d knocked out Tyr and escaped from a room full of gods. I was only vaguely aware of what my own body was doing as I moved toward Drekavac to keep his attention on me.

  He sprang into the air and I dropped to the ground, swinging my sword upwards into the flaming belly of the monster. His hide was deceptively thick, but I forced the tip of my blade farther into its body, opening a wide gash in his abdomen. I braced myself for the inevitable downpour of blood and guts and God knows what else was inside something that could survive being set on fire, but only the same unnatural yellow light that had filled the demons in Peru emptied from this forest demon.

  Moscow filled with the unholy shrieks of the beast, and I rolled over, freeing my blade and spinning around to stab the demon again. My friends engaged the other two Russian monsters, but as the demon died or returned to whatever the Russian Hell was, I heard a new sound coming toward us from the edge of the woods where the buildings that comprised the Kremlin were. The snorting, snuffling sound seemed to alarm the two surviving monsters, because they backed away from us.

  Or so I thought.

  But as the sound became clearer and revealed itself as the snuffling of a giant boar, I realized the dragon and horned beast were smiling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Berstuk burst through a growth of trees, snapping branches as he stormed into the small clearing where we’d been battling his demonic minions. Sure, the zombie monkey was dead, or exorcised or whatever, but it had been replaced by a boar the size of a minivan that just happened to have poisonous bristles all over its body. And really, if my choices were between a flaming zombie monkey and an enormous poisonous pig, I would’ve taken an entire army of flaming zombie monkeys.

  Joachim unleashed a volley of arrows at Berstuk, but that only seemed to piss him off. He pawed the ground before lunging toward us, which seemed to snap Bukavac and Tugarin out of their happy daze because they lunged at us, too. And of course I was closest to the poisonous pig, which was actually worse than a regular poisonous pig since he was a godly poisonous pig, so I braced myself for the impact of getting hit by a bus with bristles that would probably turn me into a flaming zombie monkey.

  Just as my body reacted to defend Keira, it reacted to the threat of Berstuk barreling toward me. I jumped out of his path and landed on my shoulder again, and at this point, I wasn’t really sure if the damn thing was going to stay attached. But as it turned out, Berstuk’s size had one distinct disadvantage: he couldn’t pivot quickly, which gave me a chance to injure him from behind.

  Wait: that sounded totally pervy. Let me try again.

  Berstuk couldn’t pivot quickly, which gave me a chance to slice the blade of my sword across his hind leg. He made this awful squealing sound as he turned on me, those bristles along his neck and back standing upright. His eyes still looked completely human, which was worse than the tusks or bristles or his size, and they narrowed slightly as he fixed me in his gaze. I rose to my feet, vaguely aware that my shoulder seemed to be gushing like a burst water pipe, and yelled, “Come on, asshole!”

  Not exactly clever, but give me a break: I was in pain and bleeding and squaring off with an evil pig that would have given the Erymanthian boar a run for his money. I had a brief moment of surprise that I even knew what the Erymanthian boar was before remembering I actually didn’t know—Havard had known all about Heracles and his Labors. But Berstuk charged me, and I did the only thing I could: I ran.

  Ahead of me was the wall that surrounded the Kremlin, and even if I’d been near one of the lower sections of the wall, I wouldn’t have been able to scale it. But Berstuk was gaining on me, and I had nowhere else to go. I could try to evade him in the trees all around us, but with his size and strength, he easily broke limbs and trampled any bushes in his path. I had only one idea, and it was either a crazy one or a stupid one or maybe both.

  I spilled into the open space between the trees and wall, but didn’t stop until I stood directly beneath one of the towers, a closed gate to one side and a long expanse of wall to the other. The pounding of Berstuk’s hooves against the hard ground matched the pounding of my heart as I spun around to face him, holding the hilt of my sword with both hands. He made that angry squealing noise and lowered his head just as I dove out of his way.


  I never expected the impact to kill him, and being a supernatural pig, it didn’t. But running headfirst into a dense brick wall did daze him, and as he stumbled backward, shaking his head as if literally trying to chase away the stars, I drove my blade deep into his neck, slashing downward as best as I could, hoping to find the jugular and bleed this bastard to death.

  But I hadn’t stopped bleeding either, and by now, the exertion of running and the adrenaline of the battle had caught up to me. As I pulled my sword free, I tripped, falling onto the ground but I couldn’t stand again. Moscow grew dark and quiet, and when I closed my eyes, it disappeared.

  I once again awoke in a hospital and sighed loudly when I heard the television, because it sounded like they were speaking Russian and I really wanted out of Russia. Keira touched my hand and I smiled up at her, asking, “Here to give me a sponge bath?”

  She rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. “You needed a blood transfusion. They want to keep you overnight.”

  “Why? To make sure I’m not allergic to someone else’s blood?”

  Keira shrugged. “It’s one night. I’m pretty sure the world won’t burn before then.”

  “Have you been paying attention to what’s going on?” I shot back.

  “Yeah, about that…” she said carefully, so I groaned and told her I didn’t have enough Demerol in me for this conversation. She just shrugged again and said that had to be true because they hadn’t given me any Demerol. Given that I was in Russia and all, I thought there was a fairly good chance of at least scoring some vodka, but Keira told me what I’d missed even though I was still completely sober. “Forgotten gods are emerging all over the world, Gavyn. We can’t possibly fight them all. We’ve tried recruiting help, but the Olympians are still refusing to leave Olympus, and almost every other pantheon in the world has these gods trying to reassert their control over pieces of Earth.”