by Helen Adams
“Why did you try to kill me?”
She gave me a sly, narrow-eyed look. “I don’t like your outfit. It’s so last season.”
“Wrong answer!” I said, planting one of the Shitkickers in her ribs with manic cheer. She grunted and curled up, but made no effort to flee.
“Did Mina send you?”
She made a dry tsk noise. “Foolish human, so fat and greedy in your bags of flesh.”
“Tell me or I’ll cut your head off!” Fuck it, I was going to cut her head off anyway.
A flash of colour at my shoulder told me that Chant had returned, wings flapping in agitation. He grabbed my earlobe.
“You’re wasting time,” he whispered.
The dryad was inching away, digging her shoulder blades into the leaf litter in a surreptitious attempt to escape.
“Tell me or I’ll carve my fucking initials into your face,” I snarled, stomping on her ankle.
“Hateful human!” she screamed. “The splitter you call Mina sent me!”
“Great,” I grumbled. “My favourite woods have caught dryads.”
If I got out of this alive – and I had to believe that I would – I was coming back with an axe. And a lighter.
“Daphne! Leave her and let’s go!” Chant dug his claws in my earlobe for emphasis. I winced, but I wasn’t going to let a two-inch tall ball of fluff order me around, whatever mojo he could pull.
I took my foot off the dryad’s ankle and pulled my sword back from her throat. She rolled away and scrabbled upright, long limbs flailing like a new-born foal.
My grip tightened on the falchion’s hilt. One quick swing and Baby bit into the dryad’s neck, hacking through her flesh with a dull, woody thunk. Her head dropped into the leaf litter and rolled to a stop at my feet. Her body toppled like a pile of sticks.
“Was that necessary?” Chant sighed.
“She’d have come back with reinforcements,” I grunted, stooping to grab her head. I tossed it in my hands. Thick amber sap – her blood – oozed from the stump and onto my skin. I looked around for a fallen branch and found one nearby, a long piece of deadwood thinner than my wrist. I used Baby to hack off a length about three feet long and sharpened the tip into a spike.
I rammed the branch into the oozing stump of the dryad’s neck and hoisted the lot over my shoulder. With such a gruesome totem I could guarantee that other dryads would leave me alone. Later – if there was a later – I’d come back and exterminate the rest.
“This is my job,” I said, half to myself. “This is what it really means to be a berserker.” I tittered, not a particularly steady sound. “Pest control. With a sword.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I tramped between the trees, ears straining for the slightest sound that would tell me where Raz and the others were – or Mina and Alice. I heard nothing.
“I don’t like this,” I muttered. “These woods aren’t big. I could walk across the whole thing in half an hour. I should be able to hear – something.”
“Maybe your friends are dead,” the Gloaming said.
“Not helpful!” I felt the brush of his fur against my neck as he shrugged. “I can’t even hear the trolls. Your scouts told me the place was crawling with them.”
“Can you hear that?”
“I can’t hear anything! That’s my bloody point!”
“Hush…” Chant shoved a tiny paw over my mouth. I was tempted to bite him. I still couldn’t hear anyth –
The earth rumbled.
I dumped the dryad totem and held Baby ready, looking warily around my feet. The leaf litter rose a few inches, mouldy leaves rustling and crackling as if some industrious mole was trying to break the surface.
I ran. I wasn’t fast enough.
The ground exploded behind me, clods of earth flying through the air. Sodden projectiles splattered across my back and ribs. Each one felt like a punch. I’d be black and blue before the day was out.
I dived for shelter in the nearest bush, picking up deep scratches as I wriggled deeper between the branches. I peered out between a clump of leaves.
A massive round shape was emerging from below, dislodging trees in its birth struggles. A mass of white, whip-like tentacles coiled around trunks and skittered across the ground, heaving itself free. I thought of blind worms crawling through deep, lightless caverns.
My mind flew to a particular page in Harpy’s Bestiary. The monstrosity rising from below was a rootbeast, and by my own idiocy I’d brought this attack down on myself. There was a suspicious absence of instructions in the Bestiary on how to kill them.
Chant flapped out of the bush and was gone. I didn’t blame him.
The bush shook and a second later it was ripped away by a massive, unnaturally white tentacle. Roots and branches scored deep scratches across any patch of exposed skin as they whipped past.
I yelped and rolled to my feet, coming up swinging, feeling resistance as Baby sliced through a thick tentacle. The severed length toppled even as the rest of the limb recoiled. It gushed a thick, pink, foul-smelling liquid that I guessed was blood.
Tentacles cracked through the air in high agitation. Those that weren’t airborne slithered through the leaf litter, narrow points moving carefully. I knew that they were attached to a massive fungal body, still mostly submerged.
Two tendrils whipped at my head. I ducked and thrust, slicing through one and nicking the other. More blood spewed from the wound. I danced to one side but couldn’t avoid a splattering. It was cold and sticky and stank of rotting fish.
I was wiping the disgusting stuff off my arms when I felt a tentacle coil around my ankles. I yelled and tried to pull away, but succeeded only in falling over.
I hit the ground hard. The impact knocked Baby from my hand and out of reach. Two of the crawlers wrapped around my boots, inching steadily higher, exuding a clear, viscous substance as they moved.
I grabbed the nearest stick and flailed at the tentacles. They showed no signs of loosening. Worse, where the clear goop touched my boots, the leather began to smoke.
“You are not having the Shitkickers!” I yelled, terror condensing into a cold, hard knot in my stomach.
I slapped out again, but I might as well have been pulling a Canute for all the effect it had. The tentacles oozed higher, over the bottom of my trousers, corrosive lubricant eating the thin leather.
My skin burned. I grunted with pain, redoubling my futile efforts to dislodge the fucking things around my legs, but it was useless. I was going to die from chemical burns… and then the rootbeast was going to eat me.
“I hope I give you indigestion!” I howled, still whacking away.
Acid seared deeper into my flesh. I groaned. The tentacles had reached my upper calves.
I dropped the useless branch and scrabbled around for a better weapon. My nose filled with the nauseating stench of burning meat. I clenched my teeth, aware that I was letting out a high-pitched whine that was trying to be a scream.
My fingers brushed against a rock the size of my head. I heaved, muscles trembling with the effort, jagged edges scraping my palms. I felt the wet stickiness of blood.
It had taken a lot to stop that damned dryad throttling me, and there wasn’t much left. The rock popped out of the ground and I hurled it with the fool’s gold strength of desperation.
The tentacles slithered aside. My rock landed on bare soil.
This time I did scream, a sound born of pain, frustration and fury. But mostly pain. Did I mention how fucking much my legs hurt?
More of the ground-crawling tentacles inched closer. I barred my teeth and growled like an animal, defenceless and raging.
That was when everything went purple.
The ever-present mist turned from pearlescent white to lavender, then darkened further to aubergine, taking the light as it went. Faerie magic? Chant!
The rootbeast’s tentacles glowed with their own inner illumination, as white and sepulchral as an underground fungus. The tentacles around my le
gs paused in their upward journey.
It became noticeably cooler. I shivered, tense with pain, trying not to make any noise. The tentacles turned from glowing white to awful mauve, clenched around my legs, then released me. I screwed my eyes shut and balled my fists to hold back another scream.
When I opened my eyes the monster was retreating, limbs flailing every which way as it fled back into the ground. The smooth white tentacles were pitted and charred.
As suddenly as it had arrived the rootbeast was gone. The ground swallowed it up, quivered once, and was still.
The colour bled out of the mist. I sat and panted with pain, using every breathing technique I knew. If I started screaming now I was never going to stop.
A flutter of wings told me that Chant was near, and after a second’s dizzy searching I found him, perched on a nearby bush.
“Thanks for the help,” I grunted. Speaking was more effort than I’d anticipated. “Gonna pass out now.”
“There’s no time for that.” He was brisk, no-nonsense. “Get up and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
His tone was so like Raz’s during my early training days that I was standing without any conscious command from my brain. Then reality caught up and my knees wobbled, but I remained on my feet. My stomach roiled. I retched, but there was nothing left to come up.
“How bad?” I couldn’t look.
“About what you’d expect from a rootbeast attack. But you’ve got a tub of leighis in your back pocket.”
“How…?” Sweat soaked my clothes and dripped down my face.
“You’re a berserker and you get hurt often. Therefore you need our healing cream… often.” Did he sound smug? I thought he sounded smug. “So slather it on. Nice and thick, now.”
Woozy, light-headed and hurting, I made myself look at my legs.
The Shitkickers were pitted and scarred, but the leather was probably tough enough to survive a nuclear blast. The thinner fabric of my trousers, however, was gone, eaten away in a spiral strip. Beneath…
I looked away. Swallowed hard. Turned back.
My skin had gone the way of the leather and the flesh beneath was bloody and raw. Leaves and dirt stuck to the wounds.
I pushed out a hard breath. This was bad.
“Nice and quick,” Chant barked. “We haven’t got all day.”
Some distant, floating part of me realised that he was getting me moving. Left to my own devices I’d pass out from shock, and then the dryads would get me. Or the rootbeast would come back. Or trolls. Or whatever other fucking monstrosity Mina had planned for me.
I reached into my back pocket with trembling fingers. I pulled out the pot. Unscrewed the lid. Dipped my fingers inside, smelling the fresh, clean scent of ginger. It made my nose tingle.
I scooped out a massive glob of cream. Without pausing to think I smeared it on the spiral of raw flesh on my right calf, jaw clenched tight, picking off leaves as I went. Blessed coolness radiated out from every spot the leighis touched.
I went in for more cream and repeated the process with my left leg. There wasn’t much left now.
I replaced the lid and shoved the pot back into my pocket. The world slid sideways, but not due to any spell; my body was nearing the end of its endurance. I just wanted everything to go away.
Eventually the world came back into focus. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but Chant was tugging on my ear again, screaming obscenities. The huge, glowing ball of pain that had enveloped my legs was fading, receding, floating into the background.
I let out a ragged sigh of relief. The leighis was doing its job. I looked down and saw that the bleeding, at least, had stopped.
That was good enough for me. I’d heal as I walked.
My legs were wobbly. The muscles in my calves (some ravaged, some whole) throbbed and burned. Once this was over I could collapse into a ball and cry, but until then I had to find some lady balls and get on with things.
“Daphne!” Chant was still yelling at me.
“I’ll be fine!” I ground out. “Put a sock in it, you little ball of lint.”
He sniffed. “I’m going to forget you called me that. Pain has made your tongue coarse.”
I let out a ragged bark of laughter. “Pain. Right.”
The leighis was really going to work, turning the dial down from burning agony to a mere raw throbbing. I could deal with that. I looked around for my sword.
As soon as I grabbed the falchion’s hilt, Chant settled on my shoulder, his wings brushing my cheek as he landed. I started walking – albeit with a limp – and looking for the path. Any path.
“I owe you a debt.” I didn’t say the words lightly. Beyond the aura, debts had power.
“My queen would be annoyed if I’d let you die. I’m just sorry the spell didn’t work quickly enough to stop you getting hurt.” Chant stroked his furry head against my chin.
“This was my own stupid fault. The whole fucking thing was a set-up.” Dryads only left their trees when they’d devoured the heartwood. “If Mina persuaded that bitch to come out, it was because she knew I’d kill her.”
By killing the dryad I’d splattered myself with her blood. The rootbeast thought I was just another tasty snack.
Not so tasty, after all.
A few minutes later I heard a welcome sound – the lusty noise of trolls and faeries engaged in battle.
“Finally! Civilisation!”
‘Civilisation’ lurched through the trees and tried to chop my head off with a rusty machete. I blocked without thinking, Baby’s sturdy blade countering the troll’s clumsy attack with ease. I kicked him in the shin – the Shitkickers were getting a good workout – and pushed him as he staggered. The troll lost his balance and fell.
In seconds he was covered in small, brown-furred bodies. He screamed and flailed around. Then he screamed some more, gurgled, and died.
“You’re smiling,” Chant said. He didn’t sound disapproving.
“The only good troll is a dead one. Do you eat them?”
“We eat meat,” the tiny faerie chuckled. “Doesn’t do to ask where your dinner comes from.”
I laughed. I laughed until my ribs hurt, until my throat was tight and tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
“There’s only one person I know who sounds like a mental patient when she laughs,” a familiar voice rumbled.
Raz stepped into view, clothes torn in places but otherwise unhurt. Lee followed. He’d picked up a beautiful black eye to go with the splashes of blood on his face.
“Good to see you too!” I said, leaning hard on the manic cheer.
“What happened?” Raz demanded.
“Got caught in – what did you call it?”
“Magical snare,” Chant supplied.
“What he said.”
“Who did you piss off to get those?” Raz nodded at my neck – sore and almost certainly bruised – and the ruin of my legs. Though he was playing it light, his eyes showed his fear.
“Rootbeast,” I told him. “Mina set a dryad on me and poof, I get covered in her blood.” My false good mood vanished. “I fucking hate dryads.”
“You’ve got such a way with people.”
We moved in tight formation as we searched the woods, the frenetic noise of hot troll-on-faerie action carrying on the wind. That was good – if they were fighting each other, they’d be out of our way. It was nice when a plan actually worked.
“We’ll be out of the woods soon,” I muttered. “Mina’s got to be here somewhere…”
We walked for another minute. The trees and shrubs thinned, and finally I saw an exit. I pushed through, frustrated, and we emerged into a huge field. We’d been all over these damned woods and Mina hadn’t shown her face. She wanted us here – I knew she wanted us here – so where the fuck was she?
I walked into a miasmic wall of madness so thick that I recoiled, jerking Baby up in instinctive response. Who said that the Universe doesn’t listen to your private thoughts? I shoved
a quick wish out to the Beyond for kittens and rainbows.
“Feel that?” I pushed through clenched teeth. I wanted to throw up again. “She’s here. I don’t know where, but she’s here.”
“Open your eyes and look,” Mina said.
She was in front of me. She was right in front of me. Just popped out from behind a concealment spell without so much as a by-your-leave.
I grabbed her throat and it felt so damned good. She had a delicate neck, slender, long.
“Wouldn’t – do that – if I were – you.”
I was choking her but she seemed so calm, eyes huge and dark. If I looked in them for too long she’d drag me down with her.
“Where’s Alice?” It was taking all of my willpower not to snap her neck.
“Daphne,” Raz said, urgent. “Don’t kill her!”
“Where’s Alice?”
I could squeeze harder. But I didn’t. Prison, prison, prison…
Revenge. Satisfaction. Justice.
Mina waved a hand. Her face was losing that frigid no-colour. She was turning pink. Soon she’d turn purple.
Alice appeared about ten feet behind us, standing still as a rock. Her face was etched with weary terror.
I imagined the hard snap of breaking bones. Were Mina’s eyes beginning to bulge?
“Daphne!” Raz barked.
“What?” I was going to kill her, whatever the consequences – seeing Alice’s face was reason enough.
Golems.
There were golems everywhere.
“Send them away or I break your neck.”
“Kill me – golems will be – free,” she choked. Her skin was turning red.
Between the three of us we could put down a few rampaging golems. But there were more than a few. I counted, using the numbers as incentive to pull my fingers away from her throat. They surrounded us in a tight ring, maybe thirty feet away. I’d been so focussed on Mina that I hadn’t noticed their approach. Stupid.
I stopped counting. I didn’t have the stomach to get an exact figure. I saw golems of flesh, bone and wood. Silk assassins rippled in the breeze. Water and earth shimmered and loomed. They stood between the trees and in the field, in some cases shoving trunks and branches out of their way to keep the circle tight.