Iron Master (Shifters Unbound Book 12)

by Jennifer Ashley

  The fortress was some distance from the battlefield—about thirty miles, Crispin said, if he figured correctly. They walked all the rest of the day, slept in shifts watching over Crispin that night, and continued early the next morning.

  Stuart missed teleporting. When he’d discovered his ability once he’d been exiled to the human world—and once he’d finished freaking out about it—he’d mourned that he’d had to lose his iron master powers for it.

  Now he’d happily trade. Teleportation left his feet a lot less sore, for one thing. Plus, it made it so much easier to catch cubs darting across Shiftertown before they accidentally violated a crabby Feline’s or tetchy Lupine’s territory.

  Being an iron master never had given him the joy he felt standing in the kitchen, slinging hash, watching Peigi surrounded by cubs, laughing with them, the house full of happy sounds.

  Didn’t even compare.

  He needed to find the karmsyern and shove it at Cian, then figure out how to get himself and Peigi the hell home. Stuart had been ripped out of sated slumber, Peigi’s body warm next to his, and he longed to go back to that place with everything he had.

  The activities he’d have to do to reach the sated state wouldn’t be bad either. He remembered being inside Peigi, gazing down at her beautiful face as she rose to him. The sensation of her surrounding him, holding him, hadn’t left him, no matter that he was back in a cold world, hiking up a mountain.

  She completed him, wove warmth through his heart, and excited him like no one ever had in his life. Stuart was in love with Peigi, for always, and he had no intention of denying it.

  The castle they headed toward perched on a crag that overlooked the river. They’d hiked around a big loop of that river, which then bent out of sight to flow eventually to the battlefield where Cian had parked himself.

  As with most fortifications on the borderlands, there were no doors that Stuart could see, and only tiny windows toward the top of the walls for ventilation. Crenellations lined the roof, where hoch alfar archers could hide to shoot their famous poisoned arrows down on approaching enemies.

  “How do we get in?” Peigi gazed up at the keep, wind stirring her dark hair. “Secret stairs? Long exhausting tunnels?”

  “I was thinking I’d just walk in,” Crispin answered. He rubbed his face, which was stubbled with beard, his blue eyes bloodshot with exhaustion. “The hoch alfar can believe I escaped your attack and finally made my way back. ’Course, it would be easier to do without these.” He shook the chain around his middle.

  “We’ve discussed this,” Stuart said. “No.”

  “See, this is why people are fighting you,” Crispin said sullenly. “Dokk alfar are mean. You know how hard it is to take a leak while you’re in chains?”

  “You’re managing.” Stuart squinted at the keep. “I agree that walking in would be easier than trying to find passages and fighting guards. But we do it my way.”

  Stuart handed his sword to Peigi and turned to Crispin, who took an uncertain step back.

  Stuart never needed to make sharp gestures or shout words when he worked iron. It was fun and scared the shit out of his enemies, but not necessary.

  He brought his fingers together and willed the iron in the chains to stretch. The links melded into each other and thinned at his command, becoming cords instead of thick chains.

  At first Crispin grinned, as though readying himself to shift and slip out of his shrinking bonds. Then the grin died, and his expression turned to near panic as the chain thinned to become almost invisible cords that burrowed through his clothes and clung tightly. The cords appeared delicate, but they retained the strength of the chains, holding Crispin fast.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

  “One step out of line,” Stuart said. “Like I said, I can squeeze you in half. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Crispin said, the word hoarse.

  “What do you want me to do?” Peigi had watched the process in fascination, showing no fear. She’d never have anything to fear from Stuart.

  “Do you mind going the last part your bear form?” Stuart asked. “Crispin can pretend you’re a new recruit, and I want you able to fight if we have to.”

  Peigi nodded, already unlacing her tunic. “And you?”

  Stuart grinned. He hadn’t had so much fun in a long time. “I’ll be your prisoner. A pathetic dokk alfar you captured for Crispin’s master.”

  Peigi eyed him doubtfully. “Okay, if you think you can pull that off. But I’ll need some rope.”

  Wordlessly, Stuart pulled it out of his pack. The smile Peigi flashed him made the entire trek worth it.

  Twenty minutes later, Peigi, as her brown bear, followed Crispin, who hid his nervousness surprisingly well. Stuart lay trussed up on her back.

  The bonds were loose—Peigi had snarled warnings at Crispin, who’d tied the rope. Stuart had his sword beneath him, out of sight, and Peigi felt it hard against her back. Reassuring, though. If they had to defend themselves, Stuart could easily break free and come out swinging.

  A road led up to the keep, not as harrowing and steep as Peigi had feared. Crispin explained it was the route for farmers and suppliers who hauled in necessities. The road crossed a wooden bridge over a chasm—the bridge could be easily dismantled and thrown into the abyss, thus cutting off the castle from attackers.

  Peigi peered over the edge of the bridge as she crossed. Mist rose from where the river crashed below, the updraft cold. She shivered and quickly returned her gaze to the solid rock at the end of the bridge.

  Crispin had been correct about simply walking into the castle. The guards at the back door recognized him, eyes going wide at Peigi with Stuart on her back. They cringed from them, their trepidation toward Peigi apparent. Hopefully they’d move far enough aside that they wouldn’t sense Crispin’s iron bonds or Stuart’s sword.

  They did stare hard at the dokk alfar, seemingly unconscious, on Peigi’s back. One guard growled something and another laughed.

  Crispin joined the laughter, gesturing at Peigi. The guards stepped back even more and Crispin walked inside. No respect showed in the guards’ eyes as they let Crispin pass, but at least they didn’t stop him, or Peigi either.

  “If I had time, I’d gut them,” Stuart whispered in her ear.

  He didn’t enlighten her as to what the guards had joked, by which Peigi concluded it was something extremely derogatory about a female Shifter carrying a dokk alfar.

  Crispin had chosen the entrance well. Few were using these passages, though Peigi heard voices and banging in the distance that suggested a kitchen. Pounding down another corridor and a whiff of smoke indicated a smithy. The hoch alfar worked in silver and bronze, and were experts at it, so she’d heard.

  She followed Crispin up, and up and up, a narrow staircase, her bear almost too bulky to fit within its tight, curving walls. But she’d learned how to squeeze into small spaces when she’d been confined with Michael, and also days when she’d had to search for tiny Kevin, who’d decided hiding would be the most entertaining thing he could do.

  “Why aren’t there more guards?” Stuart whispered to Crispin. “They have to know someone will try to steal it back.”

  “Don’t know,” Crispin said. “There were more before I left.”

  Worrying. Could be the hoch alfar had already gotten rid of the karmsyern—dropped it in the chasm maybe, or sent it far, far away. If the talisman was as strong as Stuart had told her, it should have made every hoch alfar in this castle sick, but the guards had seemed perfectly healthy.

  Something wasn’t right, and her bear knew it.

  They’d climbed a hundred and twenty steps by Peigi’s counting, before they emerged without challenge to the topmost part of the keep. Cracks in the ceiling above them showed the gray afternoon sky. It was colder up here, the draft icy.

  Crispin led them down a short, dark corridor and paused before a door made of plain slabs of wood held together with bronze bolts. The door handl
e and lock were also bronze. Crispin tried the latch, but not surprisingly, the door didn’t budge.

  “Can you open that?” Crispin asked Stuart. “You know, with …” He wriggled his fingers.

  Stuart moved the ropes and slid from Peigi’s back, taking the hard sword with him. “Iron master, not bronze master.”

  Peigi shifted to her between beast. “I can break it open,” she offered.

  Crispin looked pained. “I hoped we’d get in and out without making noise and drawing attention. You know we’re in a castle full of hoch alfar with sharp weapons, right?”

  “I do.” Peigi leaned to study the lock, letting her bear claws recede. The bronze was cool beneath her human fingers, but the lock mechanism was simple. “All right then, I’ll pick it.”

  “You can pick locks?” Crispin asked in surprise.

  “Sure. Nell taught me. I just need some lock picks.”

  Stuart handed her two. Peigi threw him a startled glance and realized he’d fashioned them from a piece of his iron sword.

  “No wonder the hoch alfar are afraid of you.” Peigi smiled and took the picks, wanting to kiss him, but she’d save that for later.

  The lock was new and clean, which meant someone wanted whatever was inside protected. A clean lock was also much easier to pick. Peigi inserted the metal wires into the hole and played around with the mechanism, as Nell had showed her. Nell had learned lock picking when she’d had to retrieve her sons from wherever they’d gotten themselves stuck as cubs. Shane and Brody had been holy terrors, according to Nell.

  Not long later, the lock made a satisfying click, and the door creaked open.

  Neither Stuart nor Crispin charged inside, instead hanging back and studying the opening with care. They expected traps—poisoned darts or a dying guard with a sword—like in every good treasure-hunting movie Peigi had watched with the cubs.

  Nothing happened. Stuart peeked around the door, then blew out his breath. “Come on.”

  Peigi motioned Crispin to follow Stuart in while she brought up the rear. The room they entered was dark, the only light coming through cracks around a worn shutter opposite the door. Peigi carefully skirted the room and pulled open the shutter to reveal a small square window, about eighteen inches on a side.

  “Fuck,” Stuart said behind her.

  Peigi jerked around, terrified Crispin had found some way to attack, but Crispin stood next to Stuart, gazing at what he did in almost as much dismay.

  A much-carved, thick-legged wooden table held court in the center of the room. On its broad top lay a pool of metal, edges cracked, most of it a collection of gray ash and red rust.

  Stuart reached out a finger to it, and the metal where he touched it crumbled to powder.

  “The karmsyern,” Stuart said in a hushed voice. “Or its remains. They’ve destroyed it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “How?” Peigi, still in her half-beast form, demanded.

  Stuart’s heart pounded in rage. If Crispin had known this, if he’d brought them here to trap them …

  He swung around, and Crispin flung up his hands in alarm. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know. It was fine when I left.”

  The karmsyern, the sacred talisman of the dokk alfar, the one thing that had kept the hoch alfar from being more of a collective pain in the ass than they already were, was a wreck. A heap of rust and slag on a table.

  “How?” Peigi repeated. “Hoch alfar can’t work iron, right? This looks like it was left out in the rain for a couple hundred years.”

  “A very, very good question.”

  Stuart understood why the hoch alfar weren’t guarding it closely, and why no one in this castle was sick and dying from it. They still wouldn’t come too close, hence the thing was alone in a locked room high in the keep, but at the same time, there was nothing more to fear from it.

  “Shit.” Stuart flung his sword to the floor. It rang as it skittered across the stone.

  “Remember when I said you should make another one?” Peigi asked. “I think you’re going to have to.”

  Stuart retrieved the sword before Crispin could snatch it up. “The technique was lost, the spells too. Damn it, this is so not good.”

  Peigi came to stand next to him. “Not necessarily. We know Ben and Jaycee, who know a Tuil Erdannan. Ben said she broke the spell that kept him out of Faerie, which means she probably likes him. We can ask Ben to find her and ask. Jaycee too if we need her. Lady Aisling might know how to create another one, or point us to someone who can.”

  “A huge risk.” Stuart let out a breath, but took comfort in Peigi’s nearness. “Lady Aisling might not have any interest, or if she asks another Tuil Erdannan to help, they might decide that destroying the dokk alfar is more fun.”

  “Listen to the iron master,” a new voice rumbled from the shadows. “Best not to involve the Tuil Erdannan. We are growing bored with your little games.”

  Crispin gasped in stark terror. “Oh, son of a bitch.”

  Peigi growled, her bear-beast exuding fury. A chill gripped Stuart as he turned, sword ready, to confront a person who was Tuil Erdannan but definitely not Lady Aisling.

  The man, tall and disdainful, had the flame-red hair of most Tuil Erdannan and dark eyes that could suck out souls. Stuart felt the press of his magic, an all-encompassing power that would crush them out of existence with the flick of his finger.

  Peigi came right up against Stuart, a bulk of strength. “Did you do this?” She pointed at the ruined karmsyern. When the man gave her a grave nod, she demanded, “Why would you help the hoch alfar? I thought Tuil Erdannan didn’t like them.”

  “Like has nothing to do with it.” He stepped out of the shadows, his dark gray cloak the same color as the stones. “Nor does hate. In your language, Shifter-bear, I do not give a shit.”

  Stuart realized the man was speaking English—either he’d learned it somewhere or magic was translating the words for Peigi’s benefit.

  “Then why?” Peigi insisted.

  The Tuil Erdannan shrugged. “Amusement. Perhaps. Or to throw off the balance, or possibly restore it—who knows? Or to make Aisling Mac Aodha understand she can’t have everything her way.”

  The room took on an icy sharpness. “You are an enemy of Lady Aisling?” Stuart asked.

  “You could say that.” The man didn’t move, but Stuart felt the power humming inside him increasing, like a rumbling beneath the earth before a volcano spilled forth. “I am her husband.”

  He lifted his hand, and a blasting wave of magic sent Stuart, Peigi, and Crispin straight toward the open window.

  The wall blew outward, bricks exploding to widen the passage that the three flew through. There was nothing outside the window but a vertical drop, and they plunged together down into the misty abyss.

  Peigi latched on to Stuart—as though she could stop his fall, she thought hysterically. Or maybe she just wanted to die with him. Crispin flailed and cursed, his big cat snarls cutting the air. Stuart said nothing at all, only assumed an expression of grim determination.

  He flung something from his hand, and the two of them jerked to an abrupt halt. Stuart’s sword had become an iron grappling hook that found purchase in a beam jutting from the castle, the ropes they’d used to bind him to Peigi their lifeline. He’d grabbed the ropes, with great presence of mind, on their way out the window.

  Stuart brought up his hand, and the iron cords around Crispin drew outward and likewise latched themselves to the rope.

  Crispin shouted as he was brought up short, swinging on the rope’s end. After a moment of swearing, he grabbed on to the line, using his Shifter strength to hang on and find footholds on the wall.

  “Great.” Peigi gazed the long way down, water churning at the bottom of the drop. “What now?”

  Stuart grunted with effort as he held them all steady. “Now, we climb.”

  In the next hour, Peigi learned the absolute power of an iron master. Stuart not only changed the iron
in his sword and Crispin’s chains to climbing spikes but made the iron flow between minute cracks in the wall and affix themselves harder than any pounded wedge. Every few yards downward, he’d summon out the spikes and reaffix them for the next haul.

  Stuart’s physical strength was incredible. Peigi realized how much he’d been holding back as he lived among humans and Shifters, letting them believe he was no stronger, and in some cases weaker, than they were. He climbed effortlessly, steadying the ropes for Peigi and Crispin, muscles working as he clung to the spikes and willed the iron to do as he wished.

  There was no wonder the hoch alfar had feared him.

  If the three of them had been human, they would have died in that passage downward. But Shifters had strength and agility, which was matched and surpassed by Stuart. Peigi’s greatest fear was that the Tuil Erdannan would throw his terrible power down on them again, disintegrating metal and ropes to send them plummeting into the gorge.

  She peered upward from time to time in worry, but the hole in the wall the Tuil Erdannan had created remained empty. Perhaps he didn’t believe they’d survive, or he simply didn’t care.

  Lady Aisling’s husband. Hmm. Jaycee hadn’t mentioned him, nor had Dimitri or Ben. Peigi reasoned they hadn’t known about him—she didn’t imagine any of those three would have kept quiet about Lady Aisling’s dangerous spouse.

  They weren’t home free when they reached the bottom of the castle wall, because the keep had been built on the edge of the precipice. The road they’d ascended was around the other side—this side was right over the gorge. The going was slightly easier once they started descending into the canyon, as the rock walls offered more footholds, if precarious ones, but it was still tough.

  At long last, Crispin released his hold of the rope and landed on his feet in the shallows of the river. Stuart dropped after him, and Peigi shifted to bear as she let go. She splashed into the water and shook herself, very, very happy to have all four feet on the ground.