From Under the Mountain

by Cait Spivey

  “Go on, you three take it out and tip it over in front of the entrance to the palace green!” he said. “Crush some of the corpses with it if you can. Just block as much of the opening as possible.”

  He grabbed the shoulder of the fourth guardsman and pulled him away from the carriage.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Barnet,” the man said.

  “Barnet? Excellent. You help me with the next one. We’ll get it started,” Desmond said.

  The two of them went to the next carriage, one of the empress’s eight-seaters. This time, Barnet pulled from up front and Desmond pushed from behind. This worked extremely well, since Desmond was able to brace his feet against the wall of the stable and achieve better leverage against the weighty carriage. As they heaved it down the center lane, the other three guardsmen came running back in, almost laughing.

  “Did it work?” Desmond grunted as one man joined him at the back.

  “Work! Oh aye, it worked. We crushed ten or so of the demons with that carriage when we pushed it over, and them devils actually hesitated before coming at it! They must have some instincts left to ‘em, other than to attack people,” the man said. He was practically giddy.

  Don’t get too excited. We’ll still be able to hear those on the outside screaming.

  Desmond used the anger welling up in him to power an extra thrust against the back of the carriage, which sent it rattling away down the lane and the guards running after it.

  Once the carriage made it out into the entrance yard, more guards and townspeople fell upon it and practically carried it over to the gap in the wall. Desmond glanced over toward the gate. It was closed, but the corpses were pressed against it and reaching through the bars, swiping at anyone who came too close. They gnashed their already bloody teeth and groaned menacingly. At their feet was a mound of truly dead bodies. Some were wearing armor—clearly fallen guards. Some were the townspeople who had been seized before they could get through the gate. All were missing limbs and covered in blood, of which there was a great pool at the site of the thickest slaughter.

  But the gate was closed. Desmond looked away. They would close the other entrance, and then they would find a way to stop the undead.

  Desmond left it to the crowd to move the carriage and jogged around in front of it to try and direct it to the most effective place. Evadine’s black carriage was on its side and blocked about half of the opening to the palace green. There were guardsmen at the remaining opening, hacking at the undead still coming through. Desmond turned to the people moving the carriage.

  “All right, lift it! Everyone heft it up, on my count! Three, two, one, lift!” he shouted.

  As one, the people holding on to the carriage lifted. Desmond ran to the side facing the opening and tagged the people, gesturing for them to move around to one of the other sides. He jogged ahead again and motioned for them to bring the carriage forward.

  “Fall back! Fall back!” he shouted to the guardsmen.

  They moved out of the way and the undead began to surge forward. Desmond waved at the people holding the carriage.

  “Now, now! Run forward with it!” he roared, running with them.

  The people holding it roared battle cries and ran, gaining momentum slowly as they charged the walking dead with their rather ungainly weapon. Desmond whooped and cheered them on.

  “All right, and tip it, tip it, tip it!”

  The people stopped running and pushed the carriage away. It flew forward, crashing into the horde of corpses and knocking them to the ground. It skidded across the stones and grass, slowing down only when it collided with Evadine’s carriage and the other side of the wall. The people in the entrance yard waited, heaving with exertion. They could hear the corpses banging against the other side of the carriages, but none came through. Cheers sounded from the entrance yard, and people began to jump up and down. Desmond grinned in relief and sank to his knees, as did many others.

  But their happiness was cut short as the screams from the other side of the gate intensified. Desmond looked through the bars at the fountain square. It seemed that the corpses who had been trying to get in had given up and turned to easier prey.

  Desmond got up from his knees again and ran into the center of the entrance yard. He shouted for people’s attention, and they began to crowd around him. Before he could begin to address them, though, Guerline burst through the palace doors, arms laden with bandages. Behind her was a swarm of palace attendants and ladies-in-waiting, carrying bowls and pitchers of water and bags of medicine.

  “Bring the wounded into the entrance hall!” she shouted. “This way, yes!”

  She handed the bandages off to Evadine, who had cooperatively removed her silk overdress, and ran down to Desmond, tears streaming down her face. Her red-gold twists glinted in the sunlight as they bounced behind her. He opened his arms wide to her, and lifted her into his embrace just as he’d done when he arrived. He closed his arms tightly around her and spun with her momentum.

  “Put me down now, Desmond. We have work to do!” she said.

  He obliged and she ran to the nearest injured person, a little girl who had lost a chunk of her arm to a bite. Guerline hoisted the girl onto her ample hip. Desmond picked up a man lying nearby whose leg was torn off at the knee, and the two of them hurried toward the palace steps.

  “We were watching through the guard slot, Eva and I,” Guerline said. “I’d already ordered the staff to get water and bandages and everything ready. Excellent work with the carriages, Desmond, to block it off like that—although I can’t say Eva’s happy. You should have seen her face when you rolled her carriage out. I do believe it was only finished a month ago.”

  Desmond stifled a laugh as they deposited their charges into the hands of two volunteer nurses. The two of them trotted back down the stairs to help more of the wounded. Guerline paused as she stepped off the last stair and just looked around, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pressed anxiously together. Desmond put a hand on her shoulder.

  “What is it, Guerline?” he asked.

  “So many dead so quickly. So many wounded,” she said. “Why don’t we have a Gwanen witch here at the palace? We only have the most basic of medicines, the ones they send.”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Desmond said.

  Guerline shook her head a little. “Never mind.”

  She started to walk again, but stopped when a shadow passed over them. They looked up at the sky, as did the people around them.

  “What was that?” Guerline asked.

  “Dragons!” Desmond said.

  “What?”

  He pointed. “Look!”

  Indeed, there were three or four dragons circling above them in the sky. It was hard to tell exactly how many because they kept passing in front of the sun and swooping around the palace walls. One large red dragon came in low over the entrance yard, its jaws opened wide. The people in the yard began screaming and falling to the ground, but the dragon swept right over them. As it flew over the palace green, it let loose its flame, scorching the corpses still on the other side of the wall. An unearthly screeching rose up from beyond. The other dragons dove upon the green and breathed fire on it as well.

  “Dragons! Perhaps this means that all is well with Thiymen,” Guerline said, watching the dragons with wide, hopeful eyes.

  “Yes, perhaps it does,” Desmond said, feeling great relief, for he knew these dragons. The large red one was Silas, the dragon queen. Surely she would only have come if Fiona had sent her.

  “But they can’t breathe fire upon the square,” Guerline said. “We still need to find a way to deal with those undead.”

  Desmond nodded and started looking around for Josen and the guardsmen, intending to summon them to the center of the yard. He was silenced by a rising blue light on the other side of the gate.

  “Mother?” he said.

  Guerline looked at him. He looked back at her in astonishment and then jogged over to
the gate to get a better look at what was happening. She pointed to the stairs leading up to the battlements. Desmond nodded and ran up, Guerline close on his heels.

  When they reached the top, Guerline gasped in shock at the scene below them. The square was doused with blood, and from their height, it was difficult to tell who was really alive and who was walking dead. The blue light came down from one of the streets that fed into the square, though whom or what it was coming from was still hidden from view. The blue was soon joined by flashes of red and green light as well, and Desmond whooped.

  “It’s Mother and my aunts!” he said. “It must be! But there’s only three . . . where is Aunt Fiona?”

  He looked up at Silas, wheeling through the sky, and back at the lights flashing beyond the buildings. His heart sank.

  “Oh no,” he said under his breath. Guerline took his hand and squeezed tightly.

  The wind picked up suddenly, pulling at their hair and clothes. It seemed to sweep over the battlements where they stood and pour into the square below them, rushing across and funneling into the same side street from which the lights were emanating. There was a moment of lull in the air, and then the wind blasted back out into the square. It whipped around for a few seconds. Desmond and Guerline saw nothing, their arms over their eyes to protect themselves from debris.

  When the wind stopped, they lowered their arms. Guerline gasped again, and Desmond peered down into the square. Nothing had changed, except—

  “They’re all dead,” Guerline said.

  Nothing moved now in the square. All the corpses, undead or otherwise, were still and silent on the ground. Desmond and Guerline turned to look at each other slowly, eyes wide in wonderment. They quickly descended the stairs and ran around to look through the gate. As they neared it, the wind flared up again and pushed them back. The gates were flung open; Desmond could hear the metal banging against the stone wall, though he was again blinded by the force of the gust. When it died down once more, he blinked the dryness from his eyes and stared.

  “Desmond!”

  “Mother!” Desmond said.

  Olivia came into view and ran forward, arms spread. Desmond embraced his mother, and released her to find Morgana and Aradia also standing there. He embraced them as well, shocked to see them in spite of guessing their presence.

  “Thank the gods you’re here,” Guerline said. “Today has been the strangest of days.”

  “It does appear that way,” Morgana said, surveying the scene. The Adenen commander was nearly as tall as Desmond himself, with tanned skin and curly black hair plaited down her back. She wore her customary breeches and crimson tunic.

  “I tried to contact you earlier, but my mirror was malfunctioning,” Desmond said.

  “All will be explained, my son,” Olivia said gently.

  “Yes, of course. And we have time, now that you’ve taken care of the undead,” he replied. “Thank you.”

  Aradia, auburn-haired and brown-skinned, approached, her green gown flowing with each step. “Well . . . that wasn’t us, Desmond.”

  He and Guerline exchanged surprised looks.

  “Then who was it?” Desmond said warily.

  At that moment, three people walked through the gates behind the Kavanagh sisters. There was a huge mountain of a man, brown-skinned and broad with white-blonde hair and an abundant beard. With him was a short, lithe woman with white skin and two long black braids. But ahead of them strode a fierce-looking woman with almond-shaped golden eyes, ebony skin, and short, spiky grey hair.

  “The gods,” Guerline said breathlessly.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Don’t be stupid, little queen. If we were gods, we would have long since abandoned this mess,” Lisyne said.

  Not gods? The ebony woman’s voice was rough and shied away from the consonants, as if it were unused to the language she spoke. How long had it been since these three appeared in human form? Guerline looked away, looked anywhere but at Lisyne, and found Desmond’s eyes.

  “They’re shapeshifters,” he said. “Old and powerful, yes, but creatures of the earth just like any of us.”

  “Shapeshifters?” Evadine hissed. “But the—the Book of Skins—”

  “All stories. Neria fabricated it all when Arido was founded, when the shapeshifters went into hiding,” Olivia said.

  “You may continue to think of us as gods, if it’s a comfort to you,” Seryne, the short white woman, said.

  It was not a comfort to Guerline. It was just another lie. But there was no denying that the shapeshifters were the closest thing to gods they had, and the truth of their divinity was the least of her concerns. Everywhere she looked was riddled with human debris and doused in blood, even her own hands. The hem of her dress was heavy with what it had soaked up. This was the blood of her people. Four days into her reign, and hundreds had died on her doorstep.

  “I would not want gods that slaughter those who could still be saved,” Guerline said, her voice quivering like a taut bow string.

  “It was the best way,” Tirosyne said.

  Guerline shook her head. “The quickest way. The simplest way. Not the right way.”

  “There were none worth saving,” Lisyne said. “They would have all died of their wounds, slowly and painfully.”

  The shapeshifter stalked toward Guerline; her yellow eyes seemed to glow. Slowly, her mouth opened and the tip of her pink tongue ran over the inner rim of her lips. Guerline stood frozen, rooted in place by cold metal bars running through her bones and into the ground.

  “You are the one it left alive. Was it for your compassion? Your morality?” Lisyne tilted her head to the side. “What is the point of your existence?”

  “Do tell,” Guerline said. She’d meant to sound angry, but the words came out as a whisper.

  “Not me, silly queen. The reason we are all here,” Lisyne said. “It killed your kin and left you living. I must know why. Put this—” She waved her hand at the scene. “—from your mind and come with me. We have much to discuss.”

  “It’s here, Lisyne.”

  All heads snapped toward Seryne’s voice. She stood at the corner of Evadine’s covered carts, lifting one edge of the burlap to expose the coils beneath. Lisyne’s golden eyes widened and the corners of her lips twitched into a tight smile. She looked at Morgana and Olivia and jerked her head toward the wagons.

  “Bring those,” she said. The two witches walked over with their hands outstretched and levitated the carts.

  Lisyne brushed between Guerline and Desmond. The other two shapeshifters followed her, as did Morgana and Olivia, guiding the carts of dead magic. Aradia stopped in front of Guerline and took her shaking hands, gripping them tightly. Guerline looked down so she wouldn’t have to meet the witch’s eyes. She felt cold. All the warmth of her body was in her cheeks, and in the tears that burned in her eyes. They came unbidden, born not of any particular emotion but a tempest of all of them: rage, despair, fear.

  “Let me take the edge off for you, child,” Aradia said.

  Guerline sniffed and lifted her gaze to Aradia’s. “No.”

  Aradia glanced to the left, at Desmond; then nodded and let go of Guerline’s hands. She stepped around the empress and followed the others. Guerline stared forward, not even looking down when Desmond grasped her abandoned hand.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking you were right,” she said, addressing Evadine instead of Desmond. “We should be very, very afraid of magic.”

  Eva rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Guerline, who pulled her hand from Desmond’s and returned the other woman’s embrace. It felt so good to hold Eva; it steadied her. Feeling Eva’s body against hers enabled her to breathe. Guerline was shaken to her core by Lisyne’s display of violence and utter lack of remorse. Her words—what is the point of you?—still echoed in Guerline’s ears. She slipped out of Evadine’s arms and met the other woman’s gaze, and finally, she understood.

&n
bsp; “Magic is not always like this,” Desmond whispered behind her.

  She turned to face him, and a new wave of tears pricked her eyes as she took in his own pained, watery-eyed expression.

  “I know. But when it is, we humans have no defense,” she said.

  “The witches—”

  “Are following Lisyne’s every order! They’re terrified of her!” Eva said. “When the Kavanaghs cower, what are we to do?”

  Desmond shook his head, slowly, mouth agape, but said nothing more. Guerline’s mind spun with conflicting emotions. She still trusted the Kavanaghs, because she still trusted Desmond and the peace that had reigned since his family rose to power in the clans. But Lisyne and the shapeshifters were another matter entirely, and if the Kavanagh sisters could not fight her—

  “Come along, humans. Lisyne wants you present,” called the deep basso of Tirosyne.

  Guerline took a deep breath, then turned and entered the palace with the others behind her, following Tirosyne into her own throne room. They had moved the council chairs down from the dais and set them up in a circle in the center of the room. Guerline sat stiffly on her relocated throne, her hands folded tightly in her lap. As she looked around the room, her pulse quickened. She was surrounded by six of the most powerful beings in the entire world. And she was a girl of nineteen who had ascended to the throne five days ago.

  Wait. Six of the most . . . ?

  “Where is Aunt Fiona?” Desmond looked at his mother, who sat on his right.

  Olivia frowned and shook her head. She reached out and squeezed Desmond’s free hand. His face fell and he looked around at his aunts.

  “Fiona is dead,” Lisyne said, staring at Guerline.

  Guerline inhaled sharply, but quickly swallowed her shock. She took a deep breath and looked back at Lisyne with what she hoped was strength.

  “How?” she asked.

  “She placed a seal on the world under the mountain to stop a dark and evil thing from breaking free,” Tirosyne said. “It required all that was left of her strength.”