The Borderkind v-2

by Christopher Golden

  “Let’s move on. We will circle the settlement, as planned. All of you, be wary.”

  The Borderkind began to move, continuing southward through the rain forest. The hazy sky seemed far lower suddenly, as though it were slowly collapsing in upon them. The rain fell upon each of them, hissing as it touched Li and the tiger, but merely dappling the others.

  Something watched. They had a Mazikeen among them, and creatures with remarkably acute senses. Whatever it was, they ought to have been able to sense it.

  Wings fluttered above him, and Frost glanced up to see the small bird dart above his head. Blue Jay felt safer in that form, Frost knew. Cheval moved through the trees as though dancing. Her rain-dampened hair clung to her face and coiled in wet strings upon her shoulders. Chorti stayed close to her, metal teeth bared as though every raindrop posed a threat.

  Now it was the Grindylow who hung back. Even as Frost glanced at him, Grin paused and turned slowly, backtracking with his eyes.

  A noise had been growing, distant at first but moving closer, a high-pitched flutelike whistle. Frost saw no sign of its source but knew it was only one more reason to continue forward. The alternative was unacceptable.

  First, though, they had to get past whatever Grin had seen in the trees. He wanted to see it for himself. The ground around the winter man froze, ice spreading from his feet onto the grass and leaves and the stalks of plants. His eyes narrowed. Again he spun, mist rising from his eyes, and then he saw it ahead of them, standing amidst the trees as though to block their way through the rain forest. At first glance it seemed like a man riding horseback, but it was nothing so mundane.

  “Black Devil,” Chorti grunted.

  The winter man stared at the centaur-some sort of local legend. It had the body of a stallion, but where its head ought to have been was the upper body of a man. Yet that was only illusion, it was neither one thing nor the other but a third creature that shared elements of both. Its skin was black and smooth and ridged with cords of muscle. Slick with rain, it gleamed in the haze of the Yucatazcan day.

  Frost caught scent of its musk.

  The whistling noise became louder…moving closer.

  “Either it moves,” Cheval said, gliding past him, “or we kill it.”

  Li urged his tiger forward, blocking her with its sinewy body. The little man glared at her. “Do you really think it is alone?”

  “Ah, bloody Hell!” Grin swore, as if in answer.

  As one they all glanced back at him. He ignored them, staring still into the forest they had just traveled through. Two more of the Black Devils were moving out of the trees, hooves noiseless on the wet ground.

  The winter man studied the centaur ahead of them, took a step toward it. “We don’t know they’re enemies. Even if they are, they might not be Hunters.”

  Blue Jay circled around his head, wings fluttering, and with a blur of color that seemed darker against the rain, transformed once again into the jean-clad trickster. The feathers in his hair lay flat and damp against his head. His eyes were clear and bright with danger.

  “Something else is coming.”

  The tiger growled. Li shifted anxiously upon its back. The Mazikeen appeared suddenly at the winter man’s side as though he moved between moments.

  “They are Minata-Karaia. We must leave the forest.”

  Frost heard the whistling. It grew louder still.

  The Black Devils moved through the trees in a slowly closing circle, but they were only three. Around the winter man, the rain turned to snow. He was weaker here in the tropical climate, but not entirely without power.

  “Get to the pyramid!” he snapped. “Kill anything that gets in your way!”

  As one, they turned south. Blue Jay took flight again, diminishing into a bird and darting up through the branches. Li and his tiger bounded into the trees with Grin and Chorti crashing through the forest behind them. Cheval Bayard was all green and silver streaks, shifting in an eyeblink from woman to horse. Frost could have summoned a chill wind to carry him, but he dared not exert himself so much in this weather. Instead he ran, slicing through the forest again.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the Black Devils careening through the trees to cut him off. He tensed, dagger fingers hooked, prepared to slaughter the thing if it attacked. But before he could even pause, Cheval was there. The kelpy thundered through the trees, snapping branches before her, and collided with the Black Devil, knocking the centaur off of its feet. Before it could fight back, she began to beat it with the hooves of her forelegs, breaking bones and pulping its skull. The Black Devil screamed, then fell silent.

  The winter man kept going, grateful and impressed. He had underestimated Cheval, and vowed not to do it again.

  Another bestial cry came, off to his left, and he glanced over to see a Black Devil writhing on the ground, bucking against the earth in obvious agony. Over it stood the Mazikeen, one skeletal hand extended from beneath its robe, the air shimmering between its fingers and the centaur’s flesh.

  The last of the Black Devils galloped behind him, its hooves pounding the forest floor, but Frost was not concerned. On its own, a single Black Devil posed no challenge to the Borderkind.

  Ahead, in the trees and through the sheen of light rain, he saw Chorti and Grin rumbling through the rain forest like enormous children playing some sort of game. But the whistling sound had grown louder still, and the name the Mazikeen had used, Minata-Karaia, was echoing through the winter man’s head. What were they? The sound was unfamiliar, but if the sorcerer said they had to flee, he knew they must be terrible indeed.

  Branches whipped against him, snapping on his frozen form. All around him, snowflakes whipped in a light breeze, the rain no longer reaching him. Frost darted around trees and leaped-flowed-over fallen logs.

  Up ahead, he heard Li’s tiger roar.

  Something shifted in the forest beside him.

  A tree.

  But not a tree. He looked up and his eyes widened at the sight of the creature as tall as the tallest tree, fruit hanging from its strange branch-arms, its head a thick wooden knot that jutted up from the trunk of its body. There was a hole in its head, and even as it bent to grab at him, the air rushing through that hole screamed into that terrible whistling noise.

  With merely a thought, Frost became the winter storm. There in the rain forest it was little more than a cloud of frigid mist, but as the Minata-Karaia reached its tree-fingers into that cloud, the entire branch froze solid. When the creature moved, that whistle announcing its motion, the branch snapped off.

  Frost drifted only a dozen feet before taking form again, a sliver man, narrow ice carved like a stick figure. He could not keep up the storm for long. Now he ran again, but this time his gaze searched the trees above and he saw them moving. The whistling grew louder. The Minata-Karaia came after him through the harmless, unmoving trees.

  Li’s tiger roared again, the sound echoing through the rain forest. There came a howl that could only have been Chorti. Then Cheval thundered past, her hooves pounding the ground. Frost would have tried to swing up onto her back, but by then the Mazikeen was beside him as well, not running but rather floating along a few inches above the forest floor.

  Together, they burst from the trees out into the vast open plain around the settlement. Small huts and white-washed buildings were clustered on the far side of a narrow river, little more than a stream. On the near side was the pyramid.

  The Borderkind charged out across the open ground, leaving the trees behind. Chorti had blood matted on his furry back. The Grindylow rested on his fists like a mountain gorilla and spun to face the others. Li leaped down off of the tiger, spheres of fire bursting from his hands, ready for battle. Blue Jay danced down from the sky, spinning until he was a man again, his boots alighting upon the ground. Cheval reared back, the battle cry erupting from her throat not quite a neigh.

  Together, Frost and the Mazikeen turned to look back the way they’d come. The Minata
-Karaia shuffled to the edge of the rain forest. Only when they were moving was it obvious they were not trees, but then it was very, very obvious. They were not even tree-men, but giant, narrow creatures with dark, brittle flesh like bark and long, long legs. They were a race of giants perfectly created to camouflage themselves in a jungle or forest, save for that horrid whistling their heads made as they moved.

  But they stopped, unwilling to come into the clearing, at least for the moment, and so the whistling stopped as well. They made odd Hunters, these things who would not pursue their prey. Frost saw perhaps fifteen or twenty of them, just standing there watching as though they were the audience at some kind of bizarre Roman forum.

  A single Black Devil trotted from the woods, but it was not looking at them. Its gaze was on the sky.

  Then Frost knew.

  The Minata-Karaia were the audience, but they had also been shepherds, herding them into a real forum, a gladiatorial ring. He turned and looked up at the top of the pyramid where those red-winged birds-blood-winged carrion birds who bathed in the lifeblood of sacrificed prisoners-had begun to land atop the temple roof, also watching, also waiting.

  The Borderkind moved nearer together, forming a tight, defensive circle.

  “I sense magic,” the Mazikeen said, glancing at Frost with black eyes.

  The winter man nodded. “Yes.”

  “It seems we did not run fast enough,” Cheval Bayard said, pushing silver hair away from her face.

  Blue Jay spread his arms, the blue shimmer of deadly, invisible wings beneath them. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, “but I’m tired of running.”

  Leicester Grindylow pounded his fists on the ground. “Too right.”

  The tiger roared.

  In the air, familiar figures soared and circled, green-feathered wings spread wide, twisted antlers dark scrawls against the hazy sky. The Perytons had arrived.

  The Manticore emerged from the temple atop the pyramid and began to prowl down the steps. Jezi-Baba followed. From this distance, they should not have been able to hear her laugh, and yet it rolled across the field of battle like distant, insidious thunder.

  CHAPTER 15

  T he British ambassador’s residence in Vienna was a late nineteenth-century structure in the classical style, though rather subdued, considering that its architect had also designed the Gothic church that stood only a stone’s throw away. The windows of the first story had an oddly bunkerlike quality that made them spectacularly unattractive, though the enclosed balcony and stone-gabled windows of the second story quite made up for this. Overall, the effect was one of proud austerity. The arched entrance doors were set off center, but so large that they must have opened into some interior garden or courtyard.

  In the dark of that Christmas Eve, after midnight, Oliver stood shivering in a shadowed doorway across the street from the embassy, stomping his feet to warm his legs and hugging himself against the cold. This was insane. Kitsune’s plan simply could not work.

  Yet if she had failed, where were the shouts? Where were the gunshots? He had to remind himself that the world had changed, that magic did indeed exist. In the political climate of the modern world, it should not have been possible for Kitsune to slip into the building undetected. But with myth, anything was possible. If Oliver had not been convinced of that before, he certainly was now.

  “Where are you?” Oliver whispered to the night.

  As a fox, Kitsune had slipped across the street and alongside the embassy. On Christmas Eve, this late at night, Vienna slept and waited for morning-for celebration, for bells and elation. No security had been visible outside, and little traffic prowled the streets. Only the lithe creature who was not at all what she seemed.

  Silently, the fox quickly scaled the outer wall of the embassy. She had leaped from one stone-gabled window frame to the next, and then the next, and then moved up again. Claws noiseless on the wall, she had climbed like a squirrel to the third floor, where a window stood open just a few inches.

  Then Kitsune had disappeared into the ambassador’s residence.

  Oliver stood watching the building now, an afterimage lingering ghostlike on his eyes. It was as though he could still see Kitsune slinking up the wall, still see her slipping through the window. The idea that this might have been his last glimpse of her settled more heavily on him with each passing moment. Most of the windows were dark, and those without light remained that way. Nothing seemed to stir within.

  His heart should not hurt so much at the thought of losing Kitsune, but it did. It did. Not only because he had grown more than fond of her, but also because without her, he would be alone.

  His breath quickened at the thought. Alone. And what then?

  Even as the question echoed in his mind, something shifted in the shadows alongside the building. Oliver narrowed his gaze, unsure, and then he saw a deeper darkness there, a figure protruding from a newly opened window. An arm stretched out and a hand beckoned.

  A soft laugh escaped Oliver’s lips. He shook his head, amazed, and darted across the street. Alongside the residence he glanced about in search of any sign of security. Only then did he spot, far along at the rear of the building in a pool of light from a streetlamp, a small object on the ground. Narrowing his gaze he saw it was a flashlight, but its owner was nowhere to be seen.

  At the window, Kitsune shot him a frustrated look and waved him closer. Oliver took a breath, scanned the windows on that side of the building-all but two of which were dark-and slipped up to the window with all the stealth an ordinary man could manage. From the darkened room Kitsune stared out at him, jade eyes preternaturally bright beneath the copper-red fur of her hood.

  Again she beckoned, stepping back into the room. Oliver undid his belt and removed his sword and scabbard, handing them up to her. Then he took one final look around and grabbed hold of the window frame with both hands. With a single swift motion, he boosted himself up and slid the upper half of his body through the open portion of the window. He paused a moment, then reached down for the floor. When his fingers touched carpet it was simple for him to slide the rest of his body into the room.

  On the Oriental rug he lay a moment, breath coming too fast, and thought about what he had just done. He’d just broken into the British ambassador’s residence. With a sword. On so many levels, this was a terrible idea. Yet he was past regret and past caution. All that remained was what was necessary.

  Oliver sat up and looked at Kitsune. She had her back to him as she slid the window shut and the light from outside lit up a fringe of fur that traced the edges of her body. He caught his breath.

  Crazy. No other word for it.

  “How the hell did you do this?” he asked.

  Part of the answer presented itself in the desk that had been moved aside and which she silently slid back into place. She had cleared the way for Oliver to enter. But he thought of the flashlight at the back of the building and had to wonder.

  Kitsune put a finger to her lips, eyes alight with mischief.

  “You didn’t…hurt anyone?”

  She raised an eyebrow and then moved up beside him. “Of course I hurt people,” the fox-woman whispered in his ear, the scent of her musk strong. “Two guards, one at the rear of the house, so we won’t have any trouble getting out of here, and one guarding the stairs that lead up from these offices to the residential quarters. And I persuaded one of them to provide the code for the alarm, while he was still conscious. I’m a trickster. Such things are not a problem for me. You, on the other hand-we needed the alarm code.

  “But I haven’t killed anyone, Oliver, and it would be nice to keep it that way. So, hush.”

  He took his sword and scabbard back and slid it onto his belt, knowing it was sheer idiocy but refusing to even consider leaving the weapon behind. It represented more than mere protection. It was a calling card from David Koenig, and from Hunyadi as well. He could not afford to lose it.

  Oliver took a long breath, stead
ying his nerves. “Do you really think this will work?”

  Kitsune went to the door of the book-lined office, but paused with one hand on the knob and the other on the polished cherrywood of a bookshelf. She glanced back, brow creased in a deep frown.

  “It feels a bit too late for that question. But it should, Oliver. Rules have power. Laws, too. Not just the power they have when they are enforced, but the power of belief. When people accept and respect the rules, that makes them real. According to the laws of your world, though entire nations separate us from the United Kingdom, we’re standing on British soil. The legend says the Dustman visits the bedchambers of British children. And here we are. The Borderkind are territorial. The Dustman will probably sense me here, and when he does, he will come.”

  Oliver paused, listening to the hissing of the heat and the shifting tick and pop of the embassy. “And what do we do then? How do we know what kind of creature he is?”

  Kitsune smiled. “That part is up to you.”

  Without giving Oliver a moment to protest further, she opened the door and poked her head out. The hood hid her face and so he could only assume she made certain the hall was clear before slipping from the room, cloak swirling around her.

  After a moment, he followed her, passing through high-ceilinged, ornate drawing rooms filled with portraits of emperors and kings.

  Kitsune had been in the ambassador’s residence long minutes before she had found the best point of entry for Oliver. During that time it was obvious she had been upstairs already. The guard was nowhere to be seen, undoubtedly put aside in some corner room where no one would discover him until morning, or until he raised an alarm upon regaining consciousness.

  The door at the top of the stairs was unlocked. Kitsune had been very busy indeed. It creaked softly upon opening and she glanced back and gestured him to silence a final time-needlessly-before entering. A light burned in the hall bathroom, perhaps to guide the way for nighttime wanderers, and another in a sitting room at the far end of the corridor. Kitsune ignored this, and so Oliver assumed it was empty.