Gods of Rust and Ruin

by Azalea Ellis

  Zed shot at the two on the roof, but most of his bullets were stopped by the orcish Estreyan, and the others were dodged by Speedster, who nudged his comrade out of the way when necessary.

  Jacky let out a frustrated scream, crouched down, and shot herself up and at the wall, imitating speedster’s zig-zagging jumps to much greater effect.

  I slipped back to take her place protecting the kids, broadcasting out a Window to everyone. It displayed everyone’s location, and any danger I thought might go unnoticed, updating as fast as I could process the same information. I didn’t have any long-distance Skills, except Wraith, and maybe Voice, but neither of those were helpful, and I didn’t want to leave the kids or Chanelle unprotected. If only Torliam were with us, this fight would be going very differently.

  Jacky distracted Orc long enough for Blaine to get off another couple shots against Magma, but when Sam took the opportunity to try and grab Adam off the ground, it left an unprotected spot in our shield wall around the kids and Chanelle.

  Blaine was distracted by the way that the pieces of Magma he’d blown off her were inching their way back, globules burning snail-trails across the ground and walls.

  Speedster took that opportunity, shooting himself straight down off the top of the wall toward us.

  Zed clipped him in the leg, I think, but it didn’t change his trajectory.

  The kids were huddled down, heads tucked into their knees and arms up for protection, but Kris looked up, and screamed. She thrust both hands out and up, as if she could stop the falling attacker in mid-air.

  The crumbled statue from earlier slammed itself clumsily back together, rising to fill the spot Sam had left. It thrust a fist forward to meet Speedster, but when they collided, the soft sandstone-like material of the statue crumbled and broke.

  Speedster pushed off the statue to launch himself toward Sam, who was crouching over Adam. He smashed his feet into the back of Sam’s head, knocking the boy out cold.

  Adam launched an arc of lightning from underneath Sam, catching Speedster with enough force to throw him back down the alley.

  Up above, Jacky had grown to match Orc, and was using her Skill to great effect, flashing all over the place, hitting him again and again with enough force that I could feel the vibrations traveling through the walls and the ground. Even so, Orc seemed to be withstanding the onslaught, and the occasional blow he returned hit just as hard.

  Blaine ran out of the cool ammo, then, and things went to hell.

  Magma floated forward, her pieces reconstituting back into the whole, ignoring the normal rounds that impacted into her body with little ripples. She raised her hands slowly, and the temperature rose with them, as if she were calling up Hell from the depths of the earth.

  “Cover the Speedster,” I snapped, targeting him on both Zed and Blaine’s maps. I stepped around toward Magma, trading places with them as she thrust a hand forward, aiming at Adam.

  He threw up another shield, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. This had to end now.

  I lashed out toward her with my own clawed hand, feeling Chaos scraping against my insides as it bubbled up gleefully, rushing out in a wave of dark-tendrilled destruction.

  She fell apart where it touched, and launched herself backward to escape my reach, her body slagged half away in the front. That didn’t stop her, though. In fact, it seemed like it just made her angry. She flew upward, dripping little pieces of liquid heat.

  Up above, Orc reached for Jacky.

  I realized what was about to happen, and updated her Window with the coming attack and her possible escape trajectory.

  But it was too late. Orc’s hands clamped down around her shoulders with unnaturally long arms.

  She lifted up her feet, kicking him in the face, but though his head rocked back, he didn’t let go.

  And then Magma was above them, streaming fire down onto Jacky.

  Jacky screamed, first in pain, then in desperate rage. Her hair crinkled and burnt from the ends.

  Adam rolled Sam’s unconscious form off him and sprayed out the ink from a canister with a swing of his arm.

  Jacky’s body shuddered, as if trying to grow even more, but the fire streamed down on her, going from dark red to orange, to bright yellow.

  I screamed in denial.

  Jacky sagged, and her body began to shrink.

  A human-sized ink bird slammed into Magma from the side, dissolving even as it forced her over the side of the roof and slammed her into the street below.

  Speedster was gone. He’d escaped out into the street while we’d all been distracted. He was out of my range, but I could follow the vague trail of his blood from where Zed and Blaine had gotten a few shots in. Not enough blood.

  The sandstone statue, still missing an arm, grabbed Sam, and dragged him back toward us.

  “Go save her!” Kris screamed.

  Adam, skin blistered and hands shaking, limped over to us. “I’ve got this!”

  I leapt away, my claws sinking into the stone of the wall, puncturing it with a sound almost like gunshots as I crawled up the wall like a spider, muscles straining as I pushed myself faster and faster. I threw myself over the side, leaping for Orc with my claws extended. I scratched across his face futilely, and he released his grip on one of Jacky’s arms, punching out at me.

  I was already throwing myself back, but his punch caught my leg, and my knee buckled, hyperextending backward. I screamed. I caught myself on one foot, never so grateful for my high Grace. I leapt forward, lashing out once more.

  Then I was slamming face down into the ground below, halfway down the alley.

  Up above, a sandstone statue of me impacted harmlessly against Orc. The bit of Chaos I’d managed to get out before he teleported me away wasn’t so harmless.

  He released Jacky in shock, and toppled backward off the roof, falling toward me.

  I rolled.

  He slammed into the ground next to me.

  I formed my hand into a spear, leaning over Orc, throwing my whole body into a jab toward the hollow of his throat.

  Speedster slammed into me, crushing me into the alley wall at high speed. My head slammed into the stone with a crunch that I felt as well as heard.

  Someone screamed. I couldn’t move.

  Orc got up, moving over to the group still huddled against the wall.

  Zed shot at him.

  “Adam, can you get them out of here?” Blaine screamed. “Just grab one in each arm and run for it!”

  Speedster didn’t give him a chance, jerking jaggedly around the shields Adam threw up with shaking hands before they could fully form. Adam must have been almost out of ink. And almost out of energy.

  Blaine stepped forward to meet Speedster, and was thrown out into the street, his fingers and hand breaking around his gun grotesquely.

  Adam plunged both his hands into his electricity cartridges, and stepped forward away from the kids, arcs of lighting shooting off him in a pincer movement, grasping for Speedster from every angle.

  Speedster went down, but Adam’s knees buckled along with him.

  One of the residual arcs of electricity lashed him, and Sam woke up with a dramatic gasp.

  Gregor slapped him across the face, screaming at him to “get up!”

  Orc reached Zed, unhurriedly slapping his guns aside. He smashed his forearm into Zed’s neck, pinning him against the wall, and then dragging him upward against it, so they were looking eye to eye.

  The sky above us filled with firelight, again.

  Sam stood up, standing with arms spread in front of the kids and Chanelle.

  I coughed, twitching my fingers. I had to move. I had to move.

  Kris pointed, screaming. Had she ever stopped screaming? The sandstone statue obeyed, slamming into Orc, beating on his arms, kicking at his legs, destroying itself in a futile attempt to free Zed.

  Zed, who was kicking and scratching, and turning purple.

  Another sandstone statue dropped down close to me,
its legs crumbling up to the knee when it landed. It was shaped like me, and it carried Jacky in its arms, bringing her to Sam. It dropped her on the ground in front of him, and turned to aid its counterpart in attacking the Orc.

  Sam dropped to his knees to heal Jacky.

  Kris ran toward me.

  Gregor hesitated, then followed.

  They each grabbed one of my arms, trying to help me up, or to drag me.

  I lifted my head, looking up to the bright body of flaming, molten heat above.

  It streaked down like a falling star, landing in front of us.

  Kris was blown back, landing on the ground, and scrabbling away.

  Gregor caught himself on my body, and was still within reach of Magma.

  I twitched my fingers, letting Chaos spear out of me. “No,” I whispered. “I won’t let you.”

  She threw herself out of the way, losing only a few pieces of her arm.

  Then she reached again for Gregor.

  My arm moved, pushing me upward. But not fast enough.

  Gregor screamed, but there was nowhere for him to escape.

  Her molten hand sizzled through his shirt, and then sank all the way forward.

  I screamed.

  But Gregor didn’t. He didn’t make a sound. The pitch-black form of darkness that lay where he had was unharmed. It stood up, moving around Magma’s arm like she didn’t exist. Or like it didn’t.

  Her head turned to stare in astonishment, and then snapped around, as a rip opened up in the world.

  Zed fell backward into the void, and Orc slipped through it with him, my brother’s hands still clawing at his wrist.

  The rip in the face of the world closed up behind them, as if it had never been. One second passed, and then two.

  The world ripped again, and Zed crawled out through the crack headfirst, flopping onto the ground. His clothes were frosted over. His lips were blue and chattering. He was alive.

  Orc didn’t come with him.

  Magma spared another glance for Gregor’s black form, and then turned toward Chanelle.

  Jacky was awake, after Sam’s ministrations, but she couldn’t stand.

  Sam had propped her up next to Chanelle, muttering “oh god no” over and over to himself.

  Magma shot herself toward them, spewing flames from an outstretched hand.

  Sam stepped straight forward into it, screaming like a broken thing. Screaming defiance, and hatred, and death. He was burning, and healing himself, and burning some more. Then he changed, power pulsing from him under the sight of Wraith.

  Magma stopped. Her feet touched the ground. She tried to backpedal.

  Sam stepped forward, his hand grasping her forehead.

  The magma turned to flesh.

  He grasped her head between both hands, pressing down.

  I could see her fire-bright eyes reflected in his own. But his were just black mirrors. No white, no blue. All pupil. All sucking devouring apathy.

  She burst and crumbled and melted and was eaten away.

  When he rose, he stood over half-melted stone, and a pile of pieces that didn’t seem as if they had ever resembled a human form. He looked at his hands, then up to me. “I don’t feel . . . anything,” he said, his voice echoing as if it had come from a deep place.

  Behind him, Jacky called softly. “Sam? Are you okay?” Her voice was small with fear.

  He turned to her. “Of course. I can heal you better now. But before I do that . . .” he turned to Speedster. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Chapter 31

  All is not lost, the unconquerable will,

  and study of revenge, immortal hate,

  and the courage never to submit or yield.

  — John Milton

  Sam did indeed kill Speedster, reducing him to another small pile. Then he healed the rest of us, easier than he’d ever done it, even when I had first met him. “Should we go after the betrayer?” he asked, directing those black holes that his eyes had become toward me.

  I resisted the urge to shudder. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I think I’ll be able to get her to talk. We need to make sure she didn’t alert anyone else. And that she won’t have a chance to do so again.”

  Gregor slipped out of his shadow state back into normal flesh and blood, and promptly passed out. Kris did the same, as soon as gave up control over her two mostly destroyed golems.

  Chanelle had a brief moment of lucidity just before we left the alley, and looked around in shocked confusion. “What happened?”

  “We got in a fight,” I said simply. It probably hadn’t been more than ten minutes since the fight started. Fifteen at the max, still . . . “We need to hurry,” I said. “Estreyan enforcers might be coming. People had to have heard the noise, or seen the lights.”

  I dug the Oracle’s third gift out of the charred remains of my ruined pack, and then we gathered together any obvious evidence we could find.

  Zed opened up another rip in the world and tossed everything through.

  I stumbled back from the feeling of cold death, and he closed the rip.

  I took only Sam and Jacky with me when we returned to Ifkana’s house, leaving the others hidden a few streets away. A short exploration with Wraith found her in an upstairs bedroom, pacing back and forth.

  Jacky jumped up with Sam, and then with me, and we entered through the balcony.

  Ifkana didn’t have time to let out more than a yelp before Jacky clenched her hand around the healer’s throat.

  Ifkana waved her hands, dark green ribbon coming out, and Jacky spasmed.

  Sam pulled Jacky back to safety, and Ifkana’s eyes met his, the woman’s knees buckled under her, bringing her height to just below his. “Those three you sent after us are dead. Did you tell anyone else?” he said, staring down at her.

  She shook her head slowly, face going slack. “My personal guard. I thought . . . they would kill you,” she said.

  Sam killed her. She didn’t scream.

  Jacky flinched, but I couldn’t look away.

  Zed slipped through a crack in the air above Sam. “Got a Window. You called?”

  Sam pointed to the ground. “Cleanup.” He turned to me. “Should we kill the servants, too? One of them might have heard something.”

  I hesitated, then shook my head. “It’s not worth it. If one of them escapes, we’ll be caught. The longer we stay here, the greater the chance. And we need to get the others back to the castle where it’s safe. As it is now, it would only be our word against a servant’s.”

  He nodded, and we left. It wasn’t till we’d gotten back to our rooms at the castle that the black faded from his eyes. He stumbled, and passed out, too.

  Jacky tucked him into bed. Unlike the night before, we all packed into three adjacent rooms instead of all along the hallway. We’d been shown how little time there might be to react if an Estreyan attacked us. Not enough time to make it all the way down the hall.

  When I opened my door, Torliam was sitting on my bed with Birch, scowling. “Where have you been?”

  “We had to kill some people,” Jacky said. “Hope we’re not gonna get in trouble for that.”

  He eyed her hair, which had been burnt short, then turned to me and sighed deeply, rubbing his face. “Explain.”

  Chapter 32

  We are born only with the adored knowledge of self-destruction.

  — Kaiser Fell

  I was hesitant to tell Torliam that Chanelle, Kris, and Gregor had the Sickness, but he didn’t react like Ifkana. He paled, but the next words out of his mouth were, “We have to save them before it’s too late. The Oracle must have known this would happen. It does not mean hope is lost.”

  I wondered if that were true.

  Torliam told me that after what had happened with his sister, his mother no longer had the authority to pardon someone from death if it was revealed that they had the Sickness. Ifkana had lied to us. It was hard to feel any remorse for her death, so I didn’t try.


  “Is it going to be a problem? We killed the most powerful healer this side of the seven seas, by her own words. Along with three other Estreyans. There’s a good amount of property damage.”

  He leaned back. “Some will try to use this to their advantage. We will just have to move first, and set the tone of the situation. You were attacked by enemies of my mother when going to see Ifkana the healer to make sure the children were able to withstand their new powers. These enemies killed Ifkana before coming after you, but you were able to defeat them. Perhaps these people had the Sickness, or had been affected by it in some way.”

  I frowned. “Will people believe that?”

  “No, not all of them. The ones who don’t will notice that a powerful rival of my mother’s was killed the day after we returned. They will likely see it as a statement. A power play.”

  “What about the servants? We didn’t kill them. What if one of them heard something? Does your city have surveillance cameras? There have got to be investigative forces that will be assigned to something like this.”

  “Queen Mardinest is powerful. We will give her a modified version of what happened. One of her people will make sure that nothing sure ever makes it out.”

  I sat back, feeling somewhat mollified, but not completely satisfied. I never liked letting other people handle important things in my stead. But I didn’t really have a choice here, since I had no idea how to fix the problem myself.

  “Once the people believe in us,” he said, “something like this will not sway them. You . . . we are going to save this world. Anyone who stands against us stands against our salvation. There is no one who would excuse that, for any reason. Once they believe.”

  “So how do we get them to believe?” I asked.

  “Give them hope. If we can make them truly hope, they will believe as a function of that, rather than the other way around. It will be too painful for them to doubt.”

  Like Egon the patrol leader, and the old healer who had helped us escape. I nodded. “Before we can proceed, we need to enter that Fear Trial you mentioned before. It may all be for naught, if we can’t remove the God of Knowledge’s influence from our minds. I, for one, cannot continue to function with his maggots—” The very thought it made them wiggle a bit. I clenched my jaw so hard my molars creaked.