Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron

by Steven Harper

  “I could use my own blood,” Aisa said desperately. “I have plenty right now.”

  Danr’s voice was hoarse. “Golems need Stane blood. Small golems need a little. A golem that size needs—”

  “No!” Tears heavier than lead spilled from her eyes and her throat choked with despair. “How can the Nine ask me to make this kind of sacrifice?”

  Another step. Two more and the golem would be in striking range. The elven harbormaster whooped with laughter now, but Aisa didn’t hate him anymore. She hated the Nine and the Gardeners and their damn Tree. Danr, her Hamzu. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so much she wanted to show him. They were to spend the rest of their lives together, and now their entire remaining time could be expressed in seconds.

  Another step, and she shrank even more. Danr was larger on her shoulder now. She looked down at Kalessa’s blade. It had become a small sickle.

  Can you wield it without flinching?

  “I love you, Aisa,” Danr was saying in her ear. “I loved you from the day I first saw you in the village, and I loved you at the Battle of the Twist, and I love you now. Never forget me.”

  “I can’t, Hamzu,” she whispered through the rain.

  “You have to, Aisa. Please.”

  “YOU AREN’T … STRONG ENOUGH,” the golem barked. “YOU NEVER WERE.”

  And suddenly, Aisa was in the gray-lit garden again. The rain and thunder vanished. Chaotic rows of plants stretched in all directions around her, and the soft twilight settled around her like an autumn cloak. At Aisa’s feet grew a trio of vines: a squash, a pumpkin, and a trumpet flower.

  Pendra appeared before her, though she didn’t quite step out of thin air. It was as if she had always been there and Aisa had only now noticed her. Blood gushed down Pendra’s arms, flowing in a scarlet storm from her skin into the dry, cracked ground.

  Look into the future, she said.

  Aisa looked. The trumpet was choking the other two vines, and it had sent tendrils out to choke other plants as well. Ninety-nine blue and white flowers had just fallen victim to its snare, and the trumpet was running toward an even larger patch of the garden. Except the trumpet was bent on destruction. If it was not cut back immediately, its roots would sink too deeply into the garden, and it would never be fully removed. It had already strangled a great many plants. The trouble was, the trumpet vine had grown in such a way that the only way to kill the main vine was to cut out the squash vine first.

  “No!” Aisa said. “I cannot do such a thing!”

  Look into the present, Pendra said.

  Aisa looked. The roots of the squash and the pumpkin started at separate places, but less than halfway up, they had twined together. The pumpkin was reaching outward, trying to grow in an entirely new direction, but part of the vine was wound around the squash, holding it back. The only way to let the squash grow forward was to—

  “I cannot,” Aisa said. “I am not strong enough.”

  Look into the past.

  Once more, Aisa looked. She followed the rows backward and saw her own vine intersecting a row of algae and seaweed—the plants of her merfolk family. Ynara’s plant, dry from its time on land, had withered and died. Grandmother’s misshapen stalk lay shriveled and black beside it. A lump formed in Aisa’s throat and she wanted to look away. Before she did, she saw how her own vine skirted the row a little and pushed Ynara’s into a different path, one that carried the bit of algae to its death.

  “I really killed her?” Aisa whispered.

  Only your grandmother was fated to die. When you flinched away and asked your grandfather to take your responsibility, the garden had to make changes. Ynara died, too. Pendra sighed. If you flinch away from this new sacrifice, the garden will suffer. Millions will perish. The Tree will tip again and again and again.

  Her throat choked with guilt and fear. “Why are you doing this to me?” she demanded. “Why me? I never asked for this.”

  The best Gardener, Pendra said, is usually the one who least wants the position. Can you wield the sickle without flinching?

  Aisa noticed she was still holding the sickle. Millions of lives against one. She could not conceive of so many people.

  But she could. In this garden, she could see all of them, twisting and twining together in an orderly chaos. Husbands and wives, free people and slaves, parents and children, lovers and beloved. Every plant here pivoted around these three vines. How would she feel if someone else had this decision to make and refused to make it?

  “Damn you,” she said in a hoarse voice to Pendra.

  “You may be doing exactly that,” Pendra said.

  Tears filled Aisa’s eyes. She touched the pumpkin vine and she could hear his fine voice, feel his strong warmth, see his kind eyes. Memories poured through her, of seeing Danr for the first time and recoiling in fear, then gazing in curiosity; of applying a poultice to his leg where a wyrm had bitten him; of finding his fire on the mountainside after she had run away from her owner; of facing Death and her knitting needles by his side; of their clumsy, tender marriage proposal. That last flower would never bloom now. “I love you forever, my Hamzu,” she whispered, and leaned down with the cold sickle. Pendra sighed and closed her eyes.

  We will speak again. Sister.

  And then Aisa was back in the storm. The golem loomed ahead of her. Stinging rain pelted her bare skin. The harbormaster laughed. Danr sat on her shoulder, begging her to take his blood.

  Weakness threatened, but Aisa thrust it aside. She was strong, she was powerful, and she would wield the sickle. With a scream from the bottom of her soul, Aisa plucked Danr from her shoulder and, without flinching, she sliced his chest open with the sickle. A flick of lightning split the sky. The stroke laid Danr’s ribs bare to the stormy sky and his blood gushed warm over her hand. He howled his agony, and the sound tore her heart to shreds. His life ebbed away in her hands. Danr’s wide brown eyes met Aisa’s, and for a tiny moment, she thought he might have a last word for her. Then his eyes glazed over and he went limp. Her soul turned to lead and she wanted to lay down and die.

  “YOU ARE … NOTHING!” The golem raised its mountain fist, but Aisa, tears streaming from her eyes, ducked under it and with a swift motion, pressed Danr’s limp body against the golem’s forehead and forced herself to squeeze. Aisa bellowed her pain and sorrow as Danr’s bones ground together, and Stane blood rushed over the golem’s runes, filling them with scarlet rivers.

  “What—?” the harbormaster said. “What are you doing?”

  The golem instantly froze. It stood still beneath the lash of the rain. Its azure eyes flickered, and then its head turned toward Aisa.

  “MISTRESS,” it said.

  “No!” the harbormaster shouted. “Kill her!”

  The last of the power Danr had given her was fading away, and Aisa was shrinking again. Danr grew larger and heavier in her bloody hand. Righteous anger thundered over Aisa. With her last bit of breath, she boomed to the golem, “Walk to the Flor Isles with the harbormaster in your hand.”

  “You half-blood bitch!” Willem screamed. “I’m harbormaster! You will obey me! You will obey—”

  The golem plucked the harbormaster from its shoulder, turned, and walked inexorably toward the bay, with Harbormaster Willem in its firm, gentle fist. The harbormaster struggled. The harbormaster shouted. But the golem walked forward. It crushed two docks and sank a ship as it waded into the bay. Ripples and white waves rushed outward from it. When the water reached the golem’s waist, the harbormaster’s shouts turned to screams. When the water reached the golem’s chest, his screams turned to blubbering cries. And when the water reached the golem’s head, his cries faded into nothing.

  Aisa barely noticed any of it. She shrank to her normal size on the rubble-strewn ground with Danr’s naked bloody corpse in her arms. Kalessa’s blade, still a sickle, clattered to the stones beside her as the rain slowed to a mere drizzle, and the thunder grumbled to itself in the distance. A numbness overcame
Aisa. He was dead. Her Hamzu. She should be screaming, howling, crying, but his death was simply too big to encompass. She had taken the life of this strong man to save the city, to save herself. Her own blade had spilled his blood. How could she ever live past this horrible time? In that moment, she wished the ground would crack open and swallow her whole.

  “I will never become a Gardener,” she whispered, and stroked Danr’s bloody hair “They can fuck themselves with their own tools. Oh, my Hamzu.”

  Feet scuffled toward her, and she became aware of Kalessa, Talfi, and Ranadar. With them came the wolfhound, which had two ravens perched on its back. Talfi dropped beside Danr, his young face twisted with pain. “How could this happen?” he cried in a broken voice. “What did you do?”

  Black guilt rushed over Aisa, and her heart became a stone in her chest. “It was the only way. He begged me.”

  “Begged you to cut him open?” Talfi’s frantic voice raked across wounds still fresh. “I thought you loved him!”

  “Talashka,” Ranadar said.

  “He called it a small sacrifice,” she murmured. “But his was the biggest.”

  “I have no words,” Kalessa said. “My sister, you are brave and strong, and I cannot imagine my life without Danr.”

  And then Danr’s eyes flickered open and he made a tiny groaning noise. Aisa gasped. He was still alive, but only a tiny bit. He couldn’t speak, not with his chest laid open. He looked at Aisa, and she could see the last of his life draining away. She gripped his hand and summoned up enough strength to steady her voice. For him.

  “I am here, Hamzu,” she said. “You saved us.”

  “Why isn’t his arm broken?” Talfi said suddenly. “The golem in the garden broke his arm, but his splint is gone now, and his arm looks fine.”

  Aisa glanced quickly downward. Talfi was right. She hadn’t noticed before—his arm was completely healed. It must have happened when he changed shape from human to half troll. And then she remembered how her own wounds had healed when she changed from human to mermaid, how the hand bitten off by Grandfather Wyrm had regrown after Danr changed into human form. Changing shape … healed. A spark of hope flared inside her.

  “Hamzu!” she said excitedly. “You have to change shape. You have to become human again!”

  “Wait, what?” Talfi said.

  Danr only made a small gasping noise. His eyes dropped shut.

  “No, Hamzu!” she said. “Do not leave us! Change shape!” She rounded on the others. “He needs power. Magic energy!”

  “I cannot share mine,” Ranadar said. “The Fae—”

  Aisa snatched up the sickle and slashed her arm. A blood sacrifice poured over Hamzu’s gaping chest. Instantly, she felt the connection between them change. Instead of receiving power from him, she was able to give it to him. Recklessly, she fed him power, pushing harder and harder. Her hands glowed gold and black spots danced under her eyes. But the spark of life within him was too far gone. It was not enough.

  “Not now!” she cried. “Hamzu! Please! You can do it!”

  But he faded away. Aisa’s throat closed, and she wept hard. How could she bear losing him twice in one day?

  The soft padding of paws and the flutter of feathers brought her head back up. The wolfhound was there, and the ravens with it. Talfi drew back, startled. The hound licked Danr’s scarlet-spattered face, and the ravens nuzzled his hands. Aisa thought she saw another golden glow. The animals! They were the shape-shifted slaves from the market! They must have a small bit of magic left. Silently begging the Nine for aid, Aisa fed Danr her own power again, draining herself to nothing.

  “Please change!” she choked. “You are my life. My world will not turn without you.”

  “You are the bravest and most honorable of men,” Kalessa begged, and went to one knee. “I have never knelt before a man, but I kneel before you. Please do not leave us.”

  “We love you,” Ranadar pleaded. “We need you. Stay with us.”

  “You’re my best friend,” Talfi cried. “Don’t die now.”

  “Hamzu,” Aisa whispered.

  A dot of light appeared in the center of Danr’s ruined chest. Aisa gasped. The light, golden as the morning sun, grew and spread over Danr’s chest. It enveloped his body. Aisa wavered, drained of energy, and she felt a change begin under her hands. She held her breath, and Danr’s awful wounds pulled together. His bones rearranged themselves with cracks and pops. His muscles knit themselves whole. His body, arms, and legs shortened, and his body hair fell away. In a few breaths, Danr lay on the wet cobblestones, human again and utterly whole. His body shuddered once and his eyes popped open.

  “Hamzu!” Tears of utter joy stained Aisa’s cheeks. She snatched him into her arms and held him close, smelling his skin, feeling his hair. He was alive! The awful weight of guilt and grief vanished, feeling, the power of her sheer delight. Oh, he was alive!

  Talfi and Ranadar and even Kalessa joined in the embrace before the animals could scramble aside, and for several moments, they made an awkward, laughing pile of people, fur, and feathers. Talfi shouted incoherently in everyone’s ears, and Kalessa actually smiled. At last they disentangled. Exhaustion swept Aisa, and the ground swayed dizzily.

  “I need sleep,” she said. “Do you think Mrs. Farley will still take us in after all this?”

  Danr, who looked as exhausted as Aisa felt, thrust out his human arms and made a face. “Death said that in the end, only I can decide to change,” he sighed. “Looks like she was right.”

  “I love you, no matter what shape you take,” Aisa said.

  “I know,” Danr said softly.

  “What do you remember?” Talfi asked, probably because it was what everyone asked him whenever he came back from the dead.

  “Death opened her door for me,” Danr said, and put his arm around Aisa. “And I was ready to walk through it. But you, all of you, pulled me back.” Then he knelt down and touched the head of the wolfhound while the ravens croaked from the cobbles. “Thank you.”

  The wolfhound whuffed once and trotted away. The ravens hopped into the sky and vanished.

  “Can they change back?” Ranadar asked, looking after them.

  “The better question is, will they?” Aisa said.

  “An even better question,” Talfi put in, “is why two people who have never shared a bed spend so much time naked.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It didn’t end there, of course. Sections of the city lay in ruins and the docks were badly damaged, and countless people lay trapped under rubble. Prince Karsten rose to the occasion. He proved tireless, rushing about the city, mobilizing the army and his private guard into cleanup and rescue. The ninety-nine warrior priests, released from their glamour by the harbormaster’s death, ordered all priests and acolytes to help as penance.

  And when the sun set, the trolls came. They tromped up from the new sewer tunnels and out of stone cellars where they had been quietly living. The dwarfs burrowed out of the ruined temple of Bosha to join them, and they set about digging. The humans who had been desperately laboring for hours accepted the help gratefully. For the first time in a thousand years, Stane and Kin worked side by side.

  Aisa and Danr and the others tried to help at first, but fatigue dragged them down.

  “I will want to hear everything that happened later,” Prince Karsten told an exhausted Danr. “For now, go home before you make a mistake and hurt someone.”

  Mrs. Farley’s rooming house was untouched by the golem’s rampage. They crept in by the back door and slipped upstairs. Without even thinking, Danr went into Aisa’s room with her. Kalessa merely nodded and took Danr’s room. They dropped into bed and into dreamless sleep.

  • • •

  Aisa woke slowly and painlessly, like a sparrow gliding in to land. The blankets made a warm cocoon and the bed was deliciously soft and comfortable. Warm sunlight spilled across the green plants on the balcony and into the room. It was so nice to lie there, drowsy and conte
nt.

  The bedclothes rustled. Danr, still human, rolled over and put his arms around her with a little sigh. Her heart felt so powerfully content, so delighted and happy, she couldn’t imagine life any other way. How had she lived before this moment? Hamzu was still asleep. She examined his face, his human face. Dark eyebrows framed large eyes. His raven hair was tousled with sleep. Stubble dusted his cheeks. His chest and stomach, the muscles flat and well defined, rose and fell with his breathing. She could watch him, in either shape, for hours, and need no other meat or drink.

  They had fallen into her bed last night and dropped into instant sleep, too tired to do more than share a good night kiss. But this morning … this morning, Aisa decided, it was time for more than a kiss. And was there any better way to wake a man?

  But first, she needed to know something. Steeling herself, she deliberately thought of the Battle of the Twist. She thought of Danr wielding the Iron Axe. She thought of fire and blood and slaughter. She deliberately courted the visions, called them to her.

  Nothing happened. The little room remained unchanged. Danr slumbered on next to her. The terrible visions were gone.

  Her burden lifted, and she felt almost giddy, as light as a soap bubble. The relief was almost as great as the relief she had felt when Danr changed his shape last night and came back to her. She leaned closer, and felt his warm breath on her cheek. He stirred then and opened his eyes. They were as warm and brown as she remembered.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” he replied with a long, slow smile, and he gathered her into his arms. “The first one of many.”

  She sighed and pressed against him, feeling his heartbeat. And she felt something else press against her as well. Danr flushed a little, but didn’t let her go.

  “I like waking up this way,” she whispered into his neck. Her hand slid downward. “And I think now is the time to explore so many new—”

  His body stiffened. He jerked away from her and sat up. For a confused moment, she thought she had hurt him or done something wrong. Then she noticed it, too—a difference in the air, a change in the light, a soft, inexplicable sound. She sat up with him.