The Fifth Dawn

by Cory Herndon

  “You don’t,” the head said, “And that’s a pretty good guess. If the world saving doesn’t work out, I think you’ve got a future in prophesying. But yeah, that’s the deal. You’re one of those honorable types whether you want to be or not, so I’m willing to take your sworn oath as a guarantee. You’re not going to get a better deal than that. But I want a body after I help you. Scrap’s sake, it doesn’t even have to be mine. I’d even take a leonin if you happened upon one later. And then, when I’ve got my body and you’ve got your future, I never want to see you again.”

  “Likewise,” Glissa agreed. She turned to Ellasha. “Call the sentries back in. We’re heading out.”

  “I cannot agree to this,” Ellasha snarled. “He as much as admitted he will attack us at the first opportunity!”

  “She’s got you there,” Geth’s head agreed.

  “Shut up, Geth,” Glissa said. “Ellasha, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. Until then, we don’t have a choice.”

  “She’s got a point,” Geth’s head added, prompting a slap from Glissa.

  “Very well,” Ellasha agreed. “But as soon as that thing puts us in danger, I’m putting it down. Permanently.”

  “Way ahead of you, lieutenant,” Glissa said, and made a grimace of distaste as she pulled Geth’s head clear of the pack and rested the morbid thing on the pommel of her saddle, where it balanced without much help from her.

  “Lead on, Geth,” Glissa said.

  The trip through the Dross to the site of the Vault of Whispers had taken an uneventful half hour when Glissa spotted the first sign of trouble. Her pteron actually gave her the first indication that something was up ahead, and she squinted into the greenish mist to see what had caused the reptile to buck suddenly.

  There. Several shapes like large, man-sized beetles scuttled through the dense foliage. Glissa waved to the others to slow their approach, and placed a hand over Geth’s mouth, the signal that told him the elf girl would gladly let him drop this instant if he didn’t keep quiet.

  The nim hadn’t given any indication it had seen them. Fighting the urge to retch at the fetid smell, she lifted Geth’s ear to her mouth and whispered, “Are they going back to Yert? Or is this the trap?”

  “That’s just a patrol,” Geth whispered. “Most of his soldiers are on the front lines. I’d say that’s why you haven’t seen any until now. Lucky you. Those fellows look to be headed back to the Vault, if you ask me.”

  “We can follow them,” Glissa said.

  “And they say I’m the one with all the brains,” Geth’s head cackled. “Just be sure you get in before the last of them. Those doors don’t dawdle.”

  “Then I’ll just make sure the last one never makes it through the door,” Glissa said.

  Glissa stuck Geth back onto the pommel and waved Ellasha, Tahk, and Darlosh into whispering range. Half of the day Yert had given them was gone, and it was time to finalize the plan.

  Ellasha argued for complete stealth, slipping in with the nim and staying in the shadows. But while Glissa had no doubt the skyhunter commandos had the agility and skill to pull off such a task, as did the elf girl herself, she still didn’t trust Geth. It would be ridiculously easy for the severed head to alert the nim they’d be hiding from. No, they’d best approach stealthily, then surprise the nim and take them out while the doors to the Vault—whatever was left of it after Glissa’s last visit—were still open. That seemed to satisfy everyone’s concerns, though it would not be easy.

  They had to set the pterons loose for now, Ellasha insisted. She could always call them back later, and if they kept flying they might overtake the nim. The team had to proceed on foot from here on out.

  After another hour of much slower travel, the lead nim finally halted. Glissa heard an alien chittering noise—was that what nim language sounded like?—and saw the wide trunk of the blackened, rust-covered swamp tree in front of the nim split open. An archway big enough for two nim to enter side-by-side took shape, glowing with the light of necrogen lamps mounted on the inner walls of a long tunnel.

  “All right,” she whispered, and the leonin turned to her as one. “Let’s go in hard and fast, but don’t take any stupid chances. The important thing is getting through that door. Remember, go for the necrogen tubes. It won’t kill them right away, but they won’t last long without that green stuff pumping into them.”

  “We know their vulnerabilities. We have been fighting nim since before you were born,” Ellasha said.

  “I doubt it,” Glissa said, stuffing Geth unceremoniously into the pack. “Everyone ready?” she whispered she drew her sword.

  Six muzzles nodded in unison, and six silver longblades flashed in the night.

  “Go,” Glissa said.

  The elf girl reached the nim first, charging in with a wide sweep of her blade that met the hideous creature’s neck just above its armored carapace, slicing neatly through and out the other side. The remaining nim whirled with supernatural speed Glissa had learned to respect and emitted a cacophony of chittering shrieks. Green necrogen tubes glowed as the nim entered the fray, reflexively attacking their attackers. It seemed like odd behavior for the nim, who would follow whatever order they had last been given until they were dead, or received new directives. Apparently, these had been given the order to patrol and retaliate.

  Green necrogen glinted on the silver blade of her Glissa’s sword. She wheeled in the tight enclosure near the entrance to the Vault and hacked off another nim head, spraying green necrogen and black ichor onto the tunnel walls.

  Ellasha slipped ahead of Glissa and nearly bisected another nim with her silver longknife. The broken nim toppled out of the entrance and slid into the muck, still twitching.

  Glissa continued her charge, catching the next nim down the line. Or trying to, anyway. Her blade came down hard on the iron carapace of the scuttling monster and bounced off with a painful clang that made her entire arm numb. The nim, swung around with a massive claw that caught Glissa full in the chest, knocking her back through the doors and into the swamp. The next thing she knew, she was tumbling head over heels through the green mist. She landed head first with an oily splash in the viscous mud.

  Something brushed her leg and Glissa scrambled to her feet before whatever it was could take a bite. She still had her sword in her hand somehow, and lashed out at the nearest nim with a cruel uppercut that slit the insectoid nim open like a fish. Greenish-black gore poured out of its open abdominal cavity before the shift in weight sent the nim tumbling onto its heavy back.

  Glissa quickly took stock. The leonin were in trouble, and this surprise attack was in danger of turning into a debacle. Ellash, Darlosh, and Tahk were still moving, but the other three skyhunters were being driven steadily back into the Dross. One of the leonin sliced through a necrogen tube with a clawed kick, sending green liquid spouting into the air. The nim attached to the tube swung its vicious arms wildly, and one clean swipe to the leonin’s torso cut the female clean in two. Bright red blood mixed with bilious necrogen as the two foes collapsed into the oily mud.

  “No!” Glissa screamed and clambered through the swamp to help her remaining allies. A nim came at her from the side, and she whirled with a low cut that should have taken the creature’s legs off at the knees. Instead, the nim raised an iron claw and effortlessly blocked the strike, then backhanded her across the face. Glissa staggered, the world spinning crazily around her as she struggled to keep her sword and her balance at the same time. She bumped hard into Ellasha, who steadied the elf with one hand without looking.

  The two remaining leonin warriors dispatched two more nim simultaneously with wicked slashes of their longknives, but were almost immediately felled under the blows of heavy nim claws. Within seconds, the two were dead, reduced to wet sacks of broken bone.

  Glissa saw Tahk and Darlosh, keeping the other nim busy at the Vault entrance, making sure the door didn’t swing shut unexpectedly. And now there were four. Glissa spared a glance
at Ellasha. The skyhunter commander nodded in return.

  “Charge!” Glissa shouted.

  Elf and leonin launched themselves at the undead horrors with all their remaining strength. Glissa found herself facing the same creature that had nearly taken off her head a few seconds earlier. Not the most innovative tactician, the nim again took a swing with one huge claw. The elf girl was ready this time and ducked while bringing her blade down hard on the soft tissue of at the arm’s joint, severing the limb. Before the nim could bring down its other claw, Glissa twirled the blade wide and jammed it upward into the nim’s torso, gratified by the scrape of metal on metal as the blade emerged from the zombie’s iron shell.

  Glissa jerked the blade free and rolled to escape the creature’s collapsing corpse, colliding violently with the armored legs of another zombie that had been trying to take her unawares. The nim tumbled forward as the elf girl bowled through its legs. Before the heavy, clumsy monster could regain its footing, Glissa had driven her blade through the back of its head.

  Glissa turned to the leonin in time to watch in horror as one of the nim grasped Darlosh’s leg in one lobster claw and swung the commando violently into Tahk, who had been coming in for a strike from the opposite side. Darlosh’s sword impaled Tahk through the soft tissue under her chin and emerged at the top of her head, killing her instantly. A second nim grasped Darlosh, still dazed but alive, by the other leg.

  With a sickening series of loud snaps, Darlosh was ripped apart like a wishbone. Her torn corpse showered scarlet gore and leonine guts across the swamp.

  Glissa looked furtively at Ellasha, who let loose an agonized roar that shook the trees and made the elf girl’s teeth rattle. The leonin went mad, cutting into the remaining nim like a whirlwind. Glissa, fighting her rising gorge, charged in to help.

  Leonin and elf worked as one unit, slicing, tearing, kicking and clawing through the ghouls that had slaughtered their friends. The nim fought as fiercely as before, but now Glissa and Ellasha were driven by something primal, and the zombies didn’t stand a chance. After half of minute of furious fighting, Glissa stabbed the last nim standing through the gut, and kicked the body toward Ellasha, who finished it off with one sweep of her longknife through the green tubes attached to the vile monster’s neck.

  The sudden silence was made no less eerie by the green glow that suffused the mist as the dying nim spat necrogen smoke uselessly into the air. Glissa and Ellasha were covered head to toe in Dross muck and a foul mix of leonin and nim innards. Glissa staggered to the leonin and placed one hand on her shoulder. “Ellasha—”

  “Do not say anything. They made their peace with the gods long ago, as all soldiers do. They died warriors, and we should be so lucky,” the grim leonin responded. She stooped and said a short, soft prayer over Darlosh’s and Tahk’s ruined bodies, which were closest to her, then slipped something from each dead warrior’s belt. She turned and handed Glissa Tahk’s longknife, which the elf girl accepted tentatively. Ellasha slipped Darlosh’s into her own belt.

  “My sisters have gone to fight at the side of Great Dakan forever,” she said with a hint of ceremony. “I now claim the right of revenge.”

  “That makes two of us,” Glissa said. “But their deaths were in vain if we don’t get Bruenna out of here.”

  Ellasha nodded solemnly. “I can see why my Kha is fond of you, elf. You think like a leonin. There is a legend of an elf that fought at Great Dakan’s side, did you know that?”

  “Uh, no,” Glissa said.

  “His name is lost to history, but legends called him the Maneless One. He was a warrior of great skill, and ultimately gave his life saving the greatest of all leonin. You have the blood of the Maneless One in you, girl. I can smell it as surely as I can smell my own cubs. You honored them with your actions. Now don’t dishonor them with pointless mewling.”

  Without another word, Ellasha turned on one foot and stalked toward the entrance to Yert’s lair. A stunned Glissa followed, sick to her stomach.

  NOBODY’S VAULT BUT MINE

  Glissa tapped Ellasha on the shoulder and jerked her head toward a shadowed alcove they had just passed.

  “What is it?” the leonin whispered.

  Glissa didn’t say anything, but swung the heavy pack off of her shoulder and held it up meaningfully, looking from the bag and down the tunnel ahead. When the leonin just stared at her blankly, she decided to risk a few words. “This place. Too empty. It’s suspicious. Want to consult the head.”

  “Good point,” Ellasha replied softly. “I expected light resistance on the way in, but I would have thought that once we got here it would be crawling with nim. Maybe this is just a little-used passage,” she added with a shrug. “I shall stand watch in the tunnel. Let me know what you learn.” The skyhunter took a couple of steps and leaned cautiously against the corner of the alcove, well hidden from anyone who might come down the hall but with a clear line of sight in either direction. Her ears cocked forward, scanning for the heavy, clanking footsteps of nim warriors.

  Glissa could easily see why Raksha had trusted Ellasha as second-in-command on this mission. She certainly fought with a ferocity and dexterity Glissa had never seen, but the skyhunter’s composure was nothing short of heroic.

  The elf girl flipped the pack open with one hand and clamped the other over Geth’s mouth. She raised a claw to her lips, and was satisfied when the severed head did not sound any kind of alarm, when she uncovered his mouth. Geth’s head crinkled his leathery brow and whispered, “What now?”

  “Don’t talk unless you’re answering me,” Glissa whispered. “Where are they?”

  “Who? Your kitty cats? Beats me. They were all alive when I went in the bag. What did you do to them?”

  Glissa silenced Geth with a glare. “The nim. The last time I was here, the place was crawling with them.”

  “Yeah, funny, isn’t it?” Geth said evasively. “Strange to be in the needlebug nest and not find any needlebugs, eh?”

  “Geth, I’m going to step on you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Geth hissed more loudly than he needed to. “Fine, no fun for Geth, just stick Geth in the bag….” Glissa’s eyes narrowed, and he hurriedly added, “All right, all right. Your leonin was on the nose. Yert’s sent almost all of the nim forces to the front lines. He thinks this is the perfect time, with the Golden Scrub away and his cousin in charge. The peace offer was nothing more than nim-waste.”

  “Really,” Glissa said. “You’re sure it’s not to lure us into a sense of complacency before springing the trap?”

  “You know, you didn’t used to be so paranoid,” Geth said. “I miss that innocent little elf girl who begged me to spare Yert’s life. That sure worked out well, didn’t it?”

  “Answer the question,” Glissa said, struggling to keep her anger in check.

  “Honestly? You might be right. I wouldn’t put anything past Yert these days,” Geth’s face took on an uncharacteristically thoughtful cast. “But you know, that’s what I would have done. You’re a fool if you don’t expect that.”

  “Right,” Glissa muttered. “Great. Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Geth said. “Duck.”

  It took Geth’s warning a half-second to sink in, and if she’d waited any longer her own skull would have joined his on the floor. A nim claw slammed the rusted tunnel wall with a clang and a shower of blue sparks. Glissa dropped Geth’s head and let it roll into the corner, then spun in a crouch, drawing her sword and readying her weary muscles for another fight.

  The nim loomed over her, blocking her from the hall and Ellasha, wherever the leonin was. Since she hadn’t warned her, she feared the worst for the skyhunter.

  Glissa tried the same move that had worked before. With a yell, she jabbed upward with her sword, hoping to impale the nim through its relatively soft underbelly. The creature had taken her by surprise, however, and her strike was off. The hulking zombie caught the blade easily in one crustacean claw and wrenched it from her gri
p, then grabbed her roughly by the arm in another claw and jerked her to her feet. So much for her good shoulder.

  The nim lumbered around slowly until it faced four more of its hulking, beetle-like kin. A pair of large, gray, ghoulish-looking humans that looked like mountains of necrotic muscle held Ellasha firmly between them, one holding a massive knotted hand over her muzzle. There was something about these humans that didn’t seem quite right to Glissa. She had seen animated corpses and things like the nim that were a result of the necrogen’s effect on those same zombies. She’d seen the towering monsters that Yert had once been tasked with controlling, the reapers. However, she’d never seen humans that looked both dead and alive. There was something familiar about the feral look in their eyes, but she couldn’t put her claw tip on it.

  Whatever they were, Glissa was fed up.

  “Well?” Glissa shouted. “Is this how you welcome invited guests, Yert? Because I have to say, I like Geth’s approach better. At least he didn’t play games!”

  “A game, is it?” a cold voice called down the corridor. “I assure you, Glissa, this is very much the real thing.”

  At that, the two large gray humans holding Ellasha stepped aside and Glissa got her first look at Yert since leaving the young keeper to Geth’s not-so-tender mercies. The elf girl hardly recognized him.

  The young human’s pale skin had become the same sickly gray as his henchmen. He appeared taller, as well, perhaps an optical illusion created by the majestic black robes that hung from his wiry frame like folded insect wings. As Yert raised his hands to pull back his hood, Glissa saw the tips of two black spikes, like dewclaws, on the underside of Yert’s wrists.

  “Geth?” Glissa called back toward the alcove. “Let me guess. You fed Yert to your vampire, didn’t you?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Geth’s head called from the shadows. “I blame you, you know. If you hadn’t crippled—”

  “That thing still speaks? I guess I should not be surprised,” Yert said. “Mercy will be your downfall, Glissa.”