by Jack Conner
Sophia still didn’t like it, didn’t like watching a bloodbath that she felt they could stop, but she knew that, alone, she couldn’t do much about it, and the others seemed to accept this turn of events as if ...
Slowly, though, remembering the mountain of human corpses that Subaire’s Half had erected and remembering the wretched state Ruegger had been in upon his return from the Libertarians and the Balaklava ... she came to accept it, too.
“Kharker,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Can I have one of those cigars? And did anybody search those bodies for a flask? I need a drink of something. Something strong.”
* * *
As he ducked and dodged and wove through the battle, lashing out with his big saber, Capt. Raulf D’Aguila lamented the fact that missiles had run out at such an inconvenient time. Fortunately, Subaire’s Half seemed to have exhausted their supply of the things, as well—which meant the two armies had to finish the war in a sloppy close-quarters battle.
He led a platoon of soldiers into the heart of Subaire’s army, destroying the remains of the front lines. He plunged his saber into the throat of an enemy and sawed the blade back and forth until the man’s head came off, at the same time arresting the sword-arm of an attacker with his free hand and slashing at her guts with the talons on his partially-transformed feet.
He shifted all the way so as to be below the average striking range of the enemy, and on all fours raised hell. He whipped his muscular tail, knocking troops over and then biting off their heads. He hamstrung them with his claws and blinded them with his wings. Shame he couldn’t fly with his cracked wing, but he figured he was doing pretty well without it. Bullets and blades punctured him, but he did his best to ignore the pain.
It was a long, bloody battle, and not one that he particularly enjoyed. No longer was it a war of ideals or even politics, but simply of power. He couldn’t forgive Malie for becoming such a creature.
Whatever misgivings he felt didn’t stop him from fighting; his enemies were every bit as power-driven and wicked as Malie. In a way, he found release through killing them, as if each time he laid one to rest he was laying Malie to rest as well. Would that it were so.
Eventually, Subaire got the point. Her side was losing. She called a general retreat, probably hoping to find some advantageous position in the northern courtyards, which weren’t quite as ravaged as the southern.
Things didn’t go well for her there, either. Her army was dwindling more rapidly than the Libertarians. By Raulf’s estimation, she was down to about fifteen troops, while his own army held around twenty-five. Of course, on both sides, many (if not all) shades bore missing limbs and serious wounds.
“Surrender!” Subaire called. “I surrender! Maleasoel, halt your attack and we’ll lay down our arms.”
For a moment Raulf allowed himself to swell with hope: maybe Malie would—
“No quarter shall be given!” roared the Mistress. “Kill them all!”
Raulf battled on.
Subaire commanded her troops to clamber atop the massive red carcass of Montalvo. It was to be their final stand. From their perch, hiding behind the thick spinal ridges on the dragon’s back, Subaire and her Half rained their fire onto the Libertarians, and sure enough many were damaged so badly they dropped.
“Upwards!” said Maleasoel. “Root the bitch out.”
The remains of the second largest immortal army on the planet scaled the dragon (not without injury, as the Half kept pouring down their arsenal) and managed to climb onto the broad, red-scaled back, where Subaire and her troops were waiting.
For the most part, that was it.
Amidst the spinal horns atop the mountainous back, the two armies fought their final fight. Raulf leapt and snapped and swung his saber where he could, and before long the Libertarians had driven Subaire and her Half (now five troops) toward the drop-off where Montalvo’s neck had been blown off.
Raulf led several of his men around to wait below the end of the severed, bloody neck, and as soon as they took position, Subaire was teetering above them. Along the dragon’s back, Maleasoel advanced, death in her eyes.
She approached Subaire and the other four, accompanied by the ten troops still in her army (all that was left, save for the six Raulf had commandeered).
“Well, Subaire, how shall we do this?” asked Malie. “Shall I kill you, or would you prefer the honor of doing me that service yourself? If you do, I promise to let these other four ... live.”
Subaire spat on the ground (or the back) at Maleasoel’s feet. “Coward! You won’t even face me in a fair fight.”
Malie lifted an eyebrow. “An actual duel? Is that what you’re proposing?”
“It’s the only honorable recourse.”
“Honor?” Malie looked amused. “Captain, what do you think?”
“A duel seems sporting,” Raulf said.
“Fine,” Malie said. “A duel it is.”
The soldiers stepped back as the two women faced each other. Raulf ordered one of his men to toss Subaire a blade, which she caught and passed back and forth between her hands to judge its weight and balance.
“It’ll do,” she said. “Blade’s a bit dulled by hacking off my friends’ heads—but it’ll make it all the more painful when I do the same to you, Maleasoel, darling.”
“Let’s be at it, then.”
Subaire and Maleasoel leapt at each other, their swords flashing in the moonlight. They danced and parried and, occasionally, sank hits into the other. It was a beautiful and an awful spectacle. It seemed to last for hours. The duelists battled from one side of the courtyard to the other, while the survivors of the final battle with the last four members of Subaire’s Half joined the audience, egging their Mistress on. The morbine and the jandrow fought with such an all-consuming rage it was almost painful to watch.
The blades flashed and clanged, but the duelists weren’t above employing their free hands or feet. At one point, Subaire drove a boot into Maleasoel’s abdomen and then promptly lowered her sword to cut off the jandrow’s head. Quick as a cat, Malie caught the descending blade in her bare hand and thrust her own sword through Subaire’s breast. With a cry, the morbine threw herself backward off the blade, wrenching her own sword out from Malie’s grip, and the fight resumed.
Eventually, though, it had to end.
At the point in the northeastern wall where the statue of the woman holding the sword and the globe had been fused, Subaire proved the victor.
Maleasoel had been driving her there in a fury of destruction and had thought herself to be the clear offensive player. So it surprised her when Subaire suddenly leapt past Malie’s defenses and cut off the Mistress’s hand. The hand, and the sword gripped in it, went flying, and Subaire kicked Malie to the ground.
Maleasoel screamed. She attempted to leap to her feet, but Subaire quickly and firmly planted a boot on her chest and smashed her to the ground with such force that it stole the jandrow’s breath.
Yes, Raulf thought. It had been a fair fight. Now Maleasoel would die. But with honor.
Just as Subaire raised her sword to cut off her opponent’s head, Malie grabbed a handful of snow and radioactive dust off the ground and flung it in the morbine’s eyes. Subaire stumbled backwards, uttering colorful obscenities, and Maleasoel sprang to her feet. Blood spewing from the stump where her right hand had been, she recalled her own blade to her left and advanced on Subaire.
She struck and struck, and struck again, driving Subaire backwards. Then, with a final savage kick, Maleasoel knocked Subaire onto the point of the statue’s sword, and the morbine roared as she sank onto the stone blade. She dropped her own blade to grip the sharp edges of the lance she was descending.
Malie moved forward, grinning from bloody ear to bloody ear.
The small group of Libertarians converged on the scene, Raulf leading the way.
Subaire’s screams turned to moans as she sank lower on the bigger-than-life sword, her stren
gth vanishing with each inch she descended. At last she came to rest at the stone hilt, and that’s when Maleasoel raised her blade to catch the starlight. She brought it down, quickly, and cut off one of Subaire’s legs above the knee.
The morbine hardly had the strength to cry out, but she tried.
Malie cut off the other leg, her grin growing less human. This isn’t right, Raulf thought. Maleasoel had gone too far.
“I surrender,” Subaire moaned. “I surrender …”
Maleasoel shook her head, spraying blood from her hair. “I don’t think so, Subaire.”
“I don’t understand,” gasped the morbine. “I thought all you wanted was to avenge Ludwig’s murder.”
“I did and have. That’s irrelevant now. Besides, I’ve turned my back on Ludwig. He and the rest of his friends were always talking about the corruptive influence of power.” She snorted, then with another flash cut off one of Subaire’s arms. “They never conceded its joys! That, my friend, is what I’ve discovered. Evil doesn’t exist. Only pleasure does.” She hacked off Subaire’s last arm. By this time, the morbine could only whimper in protest. “And now, Subaire, I think it’s my time to take my rightful place, and my rightful throne. I will be Queen, and establish my own empire. The days of the Dark Lords are over!”
She brought her sword around in one last final arc, and cut off Subaire’s head. Blood fountained from the stump of Subaire’s neck, but only a pitiful amount of it. She had lost so much already.
Caught up in her own triumph, Maleasoel laughed over the impaled carcass. She laughed and laughed, long and loud, and every chortle was a dagger spike in Raulf’s ears. She laughed, her chest rising and falling, tears in her eyes from so much hilarity.
It was too much.
Raulf strode forward. With one sure, strong motion, he lifted his long broad saber high and cut off Maleasoel’s head.
Blood jetted from the place it used to be, while the head itself spun to the blackened floor and rolled. With a mighty heave, Raulf hefted Malie’s still-wriggling body into the air and brought it down onto the tip of the statue’s sword. Impaled, the living carcass sank along the blade until it bumped into Subaire’s remains and stopped. Raulf gave the grisly sight one last look, then marched over to Maleasoel’s head and ran it through.
Satisfied that she was dead, Raulf turned to face the eleven troops. They were stunned, as was he, but they made no move against him. After a long moment of silence, one said, “All hail Lord Raulf D’Aguila, the new leader of Liberty!”
The others echoed the words. In almost perfect unison, they bowed toward him.
“No,” Raulf said. “We’ve come a long way, you and I, but it ends here. Now. None of us is the visionary that Ludwig was, and I’ll not lead an army without a vision. I hereby declare the Army of Liberty disbanded.”
No sooner had he said this than a great green flying shape soared out of the northwest, over the crumbled battlements, then over the courtyards themselves. A dragon, Raulf thought, almost happily. Then he saw the flames.
Within a minute, the mighty Gethraul had torched them all.
Chapter 14
From atop the mountain, Kharker grunted. “That was unexpected.”
Danielle agreed, but said nothing. Neither did anyone else. For a long minute, they all just stood there staring down at the courtyards, where Gethraul was landing. The great wyrm took a few moments to examine the flaming bodies of the soldiers he’d just obliterated, then turned his grave eyes up to the mountain.
“I think he wants us to come down,” Danielle said.
The coven lifted off the mountain, through the snow and wind, and in under thirty seconds touched down on the courtyards to regard the leviathan. He spoke each of their names, and finally his gaze settled on Ruegger.
“Why the sudden appearance?” asked Lord Kharker. “I thought you’d slunk off back home with your tail between your legs.”
With a motion so fast that it surprised even the Hunter, Gethraul whipped his head around until his hard snout nearly touched Kharker’s nose. Danielle could see the dragon’s breath stir the Hunter’s hair and whiskers. The old codger only straightened his back.
“Stupid shades,” snarled the wyrm. “You mean, even with your kavasari blood, you couldn’t feel their passing?”
Kharker’ face fell. “You mean ...?”
Solemnly, the dragon nodded, then flicked his eyes toward the shadows along one wall. “It’s all right now, vampire—you may emerge.”
Cautiously, Ladrido stepped out of the darkness from the northwestern wall and approached the five kavasari and the enormous dragon. Warily, seeming overcome with grief, he gave a short bow and said, “Gethraul speaks the truth. I was there. I couldn’t stop it, but I was there.”
“Tell them,” demanded the dragon.
Danielle had an awful feeling that she knew what she was about to hear, and clapped onto Ruegger’s hand tightly. He threw off the hand and wrapped his arm about her instead, drawing her in.
Ladrido told of the deaths of the Dark Lords. After Roche Sarnova had been pulled down into the crater by the Collage, Ladrido had evacuated his ghoul-body and watched with horror as the monster and the king descended in a flaming ball. A moment later and Francois Mauchlery zipped by the cursed vampire and plunged down after them. Upon recovering his senses, Ladrido dispersed into his bat-cloud and followed the two Dark Lords down, hoping to be of some help.
When he found that he couldn’t—and, that further, Roche had been assimilated into the Collage and was carrying on a very personal conversation with the Ambassador—Ladrido had felt uncomfortable hanging around when he could be of no obvious help and had arisen to the courtyards above. By this time, the Libertarians had been blowing the southeast wall into the chasm and, again, Ladrido failed to realize how he could be of any assistance.
So he’d hidden in an area of minimal activity, where he’d waited and recorded events. It was these events which he told the coven, haltingly and emotionally. He finished by accusing Gethraul of needless slaughter, as D’Aguila had apparently not only killed Maleasoel but disbanded the Libertarian Army despite the fact that he would be its new leader. Gethraul didn’t apologize as such, though he did allow as how he could’ve been hasty. Nevertheless, maintained the dragon, the Libertarians had killed the only two people that had ever come to visit him and for whom he cared and—such being the case—he didn’t mourn being the instrument of their destruction.
The coven barely paid attention to this last part: they were too busy pondering the deaths of Roche Sarnova and Francois Mauchlery.
“I don’t understand,” said Kharker. “Why did Francois allow himself to be killed?”
Ladrido shrugged. “He was good,” he said simply. “He abhorred what he’d done to the Libertarians, and just ... stopped. From what I overheard, when he and Roche were talking, I think he was just tired of life. And hoped to see his friend in the life to come, if there is one.”
“Sentimental drivel,” murmured Kharker, but said no more.
“I understand,” said Sophia. “Maleasoel, from what I understand, would kill anything in her way to quench her thirst for vengeance. Along the way, she lost her heart and humanity. Francois, with the same motivation ... did not.”
“Although he was a mass-murderer,” Danielle couldn’t help but throw in. “I mean, the Scouring ...”
Ruegger nodded. “Crime and religion.”
Jean-Pierre cast a glance at Ruegger over Danielle’s head, but she caught the message just the same: And now ...
Ruegger, still with his arm around her shoulder, cleared his throat, demanding everyone’s attention:
“We’d better finish this. Maybe we’ll get some help, if what Ladrido overheard was true, if Amelia is already down there ... Maybe by the time we get there, it will be done. But don’t count on it. If any of you need time to recuperate, let me know. We’ll all need to be at peak strength for this last part.”
Gethraul bowed his hea
d. At once, Danielle understood why the dragon had fixed his eyes on Ruegger. She didn’t know what to think about it, but she was sure Ruegger wouldn’t like it, not one bit. Strangely, he acted as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him, as if he were deliberately blocking it out of his mind. And maybe he was.
No one needed to rest.
“Good,” Ruegger said. “Then let’s go kill Junger and Jagoda, and find out once and for all who killed Ludwig. They were likely waiting for Subaire and Malie to turn on each other before they came up and assumed command of the empire, but now Amelia’s distracted them. We’ll never have another chance to catch them off guard like this again. We must strike sure and fast.”
* * *
As the coven, accompanied by the bat-cloud of Ladrido, flew down the massive nuclear crater, examining the ruins of the Castle on their way, Ruegger thought of Amelia. The prospect of seeing her again after so many years ... She had been his one true love since the French Insurrection up to the American Civil War. A long time. After her “death”, he’d become an evil, self-absorbed and alienated creature. Kharker had altered that, had driven home the message that he should rise out of his mental quagmire and see the greater picture: that immortals should enjoy and utilize their gifts to the fullest extent desired.
Eventually, Ruegger had come to realize that he desired to be shed of his murderous existence and had given himself up to the sun. There, Amelia had stepped in to urge Hauswell to bring him back to his former self. Hauswell hadn’t quite succeeded, but Ruegger’s time with the benevolent crime lord had eradicated thoughts of suicide. Life had still been miserable, and he took little satisfaction in creeping about the earth in shadows, a hollow shell except for his grief and self-hatred, alone for the most part.
Then he’d found Danielle, who had renewed his love and respect for life, including his own.
Now the two would meet. His first true love, and his second. That is, if the fucking Balaklava hadn’t killed Amelia. On that, Ruegger could place no wager. If Amelia were half as strong as Mauchlery had been, she should be able to defeat the assassins. Ruegger hoped for this desperately.