Throne

by Phil Tucker

  “A curse on you,” he whispered. “Your friends will die.” Then he keeled over, onto his knees and then side and lay still. Maya pressed her fingers to her mouth, horrified, stunned, and looked to Kevin, who was staring down at the dead brownie. He looked over at her, and shook his head.

  “Dude was crazy,” he said. “Loco. Come on.”

  He took her by the hand and forced her to begin running again. She looked back at where the brownie lay, and saw instead a slender girl with butterfly wings close by, struggling against three goblins who laughed and jabbed at her with spears, a net having been thrown over her shoulders and holding her to the ground. Even as she watched, a spear sank into her stomach, and the girl screamed and doubled over.

  “This is wrong,” yelled Maya, turning to Kevin, who stared at her, not understanding. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. This is horrible!”

  Kevin shrugged, swung his sword around. “This is what fights are like,” he said, close to apologizing. “People try to kill each other.”

  “But we’ll never win,” she said, the feeling sinking into her. “We can’t win this way. This is how they win, not us.” She knew it to be true. They had to resist, yes, but this? This was all wrong.

  One of the ogres crashed his club into the shoulder of an Incarnadine, and the woman screamed, fell to one knee. Before she could rise, Guillaume slid his blade up under the ogre’s arm, through his armpit and into his torso, drew it forth just as quickly and then ducked as another club came whistling in at his head. The club missed, swung on, and clocked the kneeling Incarnadine in the head, smashing it inwards and knocking her down. Before Guillaume could turn to fight this new enemy, the griffin swooped down from the darkness above, and clasped the ogre with both claws, lifting him aloft as the monster roared in terror.

  Scarlet was by her side, clasping her arm, pulling her forward. Maya fought the urge to pull back, to resist, but she couldn’t, where could she go? Instead she followed along, feet heavy and clumsy, trying not to see all the bloodshed around her. Kevin by her side, grim, only half the Incarnadines left, Guillaume gone once more. They left the park, entered the street beyond it. A great and grand building to their right, a courthouse with statues before it, a massive avenue leading up and into the heart of the city.

  “Guillaume said to fight our way north to the Central Park,” said Scarlet, pausing to assess the forces about her. Other Seelie were massing at their back. “If we gain the Central Park, we’ll be stronger for it.”

  Then a giant turned onto the avenue up ahead, something that dwarfed even the ogres, easily standing some thirty, forty feet tall, a wall of flesh and muscle, clad in chains, a huge beard growing down his chest and tucked under his broad leather belt, from which heads hung, eyes open and rolling. A gnarled, bloodied club the size of a tree hung from his hand, and with a rumble like the earth opening up it spotted them and began to lumber toward them.

  “Oh no,” said Scarlet, voice a hoarse croak. “Jack in Irons. We can’t face him. Run!”

  A hand on her wrist, dragging her, but Maya couldn’t take her eyes off the giant. A centaur charged it from the side, plunging its spear like a lance into the giant’s upper thigh, eliciting a bellow from the monster. It snapped the spear, and then brought the club down with punishing force on the centaur’s back, snapping it in half and driving it forcefully down to the ground, killing it instantly. Then it turned and started chasing them once more.

  Back to Battery Park. Jack in Iron’s appearance had thrown the Seelie force into disarray. They were falling back, knights and brownies, a unicorn and animal folk. Maya suddenly wrested her hand free of Scarlet’s grasp, and stood still. Kevin and Scarlet stumbled to a halt, but before they could start yelling at her, she turned and began to run at the giant.

  The giant’s stench preceded him, the smell of rotten meat. He swung his club up over his shoulder, and his broad mouth split into a vast smile, dull eyes locked on her like the bores of two cannons. At the last moment, she stopped, took a deep breath, and threw an acorn at the ground before him.

  A huge cracking sound, asphalt splitting, shattering like continental plates, and with writhing, unstoppable force, a great tree arose with astonishing speed right beneath the giant, catching him mid stride. The trunk twined itself sinuously up around one thigh, then wrapped around his torso, branches spearing out to trap his arms. In a matter of moments, Jack was transfixed, the tree groaning beneath his weight, a vast and impossible oak in the middle of 5th Avenue.

  Ragged cheers from around them, and Maya was grinning, turning to look at the others as they joined her side. Members of the Unseelie Court were hesitating, drawing back, staring in helpless fury at Jack.

  “Look,” she yelled at Kevin, “Now we can press forward, that’s the way to win, to use life, to use life to stop them, not death—“

  But her words were cut short by a huge cracking that sent a surge of adrenaline through her, stopped her heart. Turning around, she saw Jack swing his arm free, snapping off the branches that held it. “No,” she whispered, as his vast hand clasped the branches around his other arm, and tore them away.

  “Get back,” yelled Scarlet, but Maya was rooted to the spot. It couldn’t be. Something had felt so right. A great leg kicked free of the tree’s roots, and then, with another horrible snap, Jack in Irons stepped away completely from the trunk, untangling himself from its embrace. He loomed over them, a mere ten yards away, and laughed, the sound booming down to where they stood.

  “Run, damn you!” screamed Scarlet, and threw herself forward, turning her charge into a dive at the last moment as the club came whistling down. Kevin grabbed Maya’s arm, but she shook him off angrily and fell back, watching with sick, curdling fear in her stomach as Scarlet rolled right between Jack’s legs and stabbed her blade deep into his calf before gaining her feet behind him.

  “We have to help her,” she yelled, but Kevin simply shook his head. Jack swung his club with terrible speed behind his legs, forcing Scarlet to throw herself aside, even as another pair of crimson armored women attacked him from the front. Roaring, Jack stepped to the side, and swung his club down and across, knocking away their attacks.

  Maya looked down at her two remaining acorns. Maybe both at once? A scream, and she saw that one of the Incarnadines had gone down, pulped by a blow from Jack’s club. The last two were fighting desperately against a mass of black furred wolves, and, beyond them, the battle raged in pockets and shifting lines.

  Frustration welled up deep within Maya’s heart. She watched as the second Incarnadine was dealt a smashing blow to the back, and knocked, face down, onto the road, bones no doubt splintered in her body. Jack stepped forward, planted his great heel in her back, crushed her beneath his weight, and then turned to face Scarlet, his legs weeping blood from her countless cuts.

  Gritting her teeth, Maya tried to run forward, but was yanked back by Kevin, who simply shook his head. Crying, she turned to watch. Scarlet was yelling her defiance, dancing and spinning away from the club, slicing and spearing her blade at Jack’s legs, but it was as if his skin was made of iron, or thick leather; the blade simply couldn’t get deep enough to really hurt him. Jack was laughing, and Maya realized with horror that the severed heads on his belt were laughing along with him, reedy, high pitched fluting sounds.

  “Come,” said a commanding voice, and she turned to see Guillaume. “It’s not safe for you out in the open. Make for those trees there.” She studied his face, searching for some sign of encouragement, but found only stony resilience. He wasn’t even looking at her. Even as he began to surge forward to help Scarlet, Jack’s club finally caught her. Swept her legs out from beneath her, so that she fell heavily down onto the road, cracking her hip against the asphalt, sword skittering from her grip. With a cry of defiance and pain, she made to get up, but Jack leaned down and wrapped his hand around her head, enclosing it in his palm, and, with a savage jerk, tore it off completely.

  Guillaume roared
a battle cry and ran forward, and Kevin grabbed her arm again, pulled her after him, away, away from it all. Fury, impotence, horror and despair were taking her by the throat, and, stumbling, it was all she could do to follow him.

  Chapter 19

  Maribel was in love. The sensation of flying was like nothing she had ever experienced outside of a dream, but now she was living her childhood fantasies, floating as she pleased through the caressing air. She ruled the winds and currents like a mistress might her abject lover. It was like floating on swells of wind, able to direct her progress with but a thought. Out over the city she floated, hanging vertical but drifting forward where she pleased, feet resting on nothing but the ether. Forward she flew, approaching the towers and warrens of the humans. The cries of her cohorts about her, circling, her vanguard, her protectors, though she needed none.

  With but a change of thought, she began to rise. Up toward the blank, black sky, the light of the stars drowned out by the luminescence of the city. Snuffed out, gone. Up into the cold, sharp darkness, rising to where the air was pure, rarefied, biting and clear. The skyscrapers falling below her, the length of the Isle of Apples glowing and glittering like the sequined leg of a whore. Bounded by rivers, the boroughs extending beyond them, but for now, only one place mattered, only one locale. Her Court, her new home, her Island.

  Battle was joined below. They had come, she supposed, to wrest Caladcholg from her hand. To win the impossible, to kill her forces and, eventually, face her with nothing but their temerity.

  But there was no end to the forces at her disposal. Even as her numbers fell, others came to replace them. There was a legend, she knew, a Greek fable wherein every soldier felled was replaced by ten. So was it now. Whereas the poor Seelie could ill afford to lose a single soldier, one fighting arm. No matter. They would be crushed, they would die, they would bleed out and the Island would be hers, as it was before, as it would be for eternity.

  Laughing, Maribel extended her gleaming blade in front of her, began to spin, once, twice, revolving faster and faster for the sheer delight of vertigo, and then cut her ability to fly and let herself fall.

  Down she plummeted, turning so that she fell head first, eyes open, hair whipping and snapping about her head, a wild mane that blended with the darkness and thus became the whole sky in its entirety. Down she fell, blade by her side, loose, relaxed, waiting for terminal velocity. Upon reaching it, she closed her eyes. Utterly relaxed. Never had she felt so calm, so certain. Down she plunged, the cement and stone and hard angles and edges roaring up toward her through the tumultuous winds, seeking to crush and break her, to jelly her bones and head. Down she fell, and in that plummet, she sought peace. Sought a moment of calm before the unquenchable spilling of blood.

  At the last moment, she asserted herself, leveled off violently, and then began to spear down 5th Avenue, flying over the cars and trucks and motorcycles and courier boys working the late night shift. She turned so that she faced the sky, flew with her back to the road, her head raised so that she could see the passing buildings as they whipped by, not looking at where she went, what obstacles might obstruct her passage. There would be none. Nothing could impede her. Stop her. Nothing would ever resist her will again.

  Through the city, and then to its tip. The forces of the Seelie had been beaten back, block by bloody block, till once more they fought on the grassy lawn of Battery Park. The confluence of the rivers behind them as dark as the sky, darker, and grass grown slick with blood and spilled viscera. Spinning back out, she whipped her blade up, and landed on top of the ruined globe that had once stood in the lobby of the World Trade. Gazed out over the battleground, and surveyed the field.

  It was beautiful. No ordered fight, no ranks and squadrons, no units or tactical groups. This was an expression of chaos and idiosyncratic fighting styles. Some rode together, others strode alone, hacking and hewing whatever came their way. Muddled and mixed, foes battled until they felled their opponents, and then simply turned to find another to kill.

  Her eye was drawn to Jack in Irons. The giant was in his element, roaring a continuous, delighted battle cry, his great club swinging back and forth with the regularity of a pendulum. With each sweep figures were sent flying, some to rise once more to their feet, shaking their heads and broken limbs, others to roll and lie still. None opposed Jack, none matched him in stature or ferocity. Almost this battle could be fought by him alone.

  A wheeling mass of knights upon horses. Maribel gazed fondly as Seelie and Unseelie counterparts did battle. Horses spun, reared, plunged, fell. Knights in armor, lances discarded, longswords flashing. Gallant feints, cries of hatred, ancient rivalries. She wondered how much longer their adherence to Medieval trappings would last. When would they adopt motorcycles, guns? How much longer till their fascination with that brutal age would adapt, modernize?

  In the sky, forms flitted and dove, screeching and crying their rage. A maelstrom of bodies and wings, beaks and talons, blades and scythes. White winged owls and swans against bats and globular eyed horrors. Slender pixies on butterfly wings, screeching and digging their needle knives into the spines of a flying serpent. The moon illuminated all of them in silver and shades of black. An undulating fabric of interwoven violence, fluctuating and rippling as creatures dove, pulled away, fell.

  The Seelie were fighting ferociously. Holding their own against the superior numbers of the Unseelie Court. Their heels at the water’s edge. But this was all play, this was all a pretense. It would last only as long as she allowed. And suddenly, curious, she leapt off the top of the globe, landed on the grass, and swung her sword before her. Caladcholg. The simple act of bringing it into battle caused a flux of confidence to surge through the ranks of her beings and creatures.

  A centaur broke through the ranks ahead of her, a broken sword in his great fist. Chest heaving, his flanks slashed with myriad cuts, he sighted her, paled, screamed his defiance and charged. Maribel, who had never been in a physical fight in her life, laughed, and moved to meet him.

  It happened so slowly. His broad, shattered blade swung through the air toward her. Seeking to sever her head. But she was dissolution, she was entropy, she was the unseaming of the world. With casual ease, she ducked under the blade, did not even bother to raise her own. Instead she allowed him to charge pass her, reaching out only to run her hand across his muscled abdomen, tracing the ridges there with the caress of a lover. Then he was past her, screaming as his muscles began to froth, split, pull apart like snails sprinkled with salt. His blade fell from his hand, his legs gave out from under him. Momentum carried him forward, crashing into the ground, rolling, legs kicking. His stomach was open now, revealing a gleaming red interior, the skin curling back like singed parchment, his viscera coiling like furious snakes. He bellowed then, an unearthly sound of such pain and denial that it seemed to silence the battle about them. Then, with a shiver, his head fell back and he died.

  Maribel had studied dance when she was younger. All part of the program to make her body beautiful, to imbue her with grace, to give her an air of delicacy and control that would appeal to the fickle camera. It came back to her now, all those mornings in the studio, bending at the bar, arm arched over her head, foot to one knee, and then spinning out and out, the music leading and commanding her. So did she move now, an invisible song coursing out from her mind. Leaping from one leg to another, she dove into the heaving throngs. Moving with the same detached calm and confidence, she joined the battle.

  Three brown skinned dwarves rushed her, wielding axes in leather gloved hands. Moving forward, dancing yet, she turned at the last moment and leapt over their heads, arching up impossibly, the three passing under her. They tried to turn to face her in time, and failed. She was upon them, blade still held aside. She wanted to caress them, feel the texture of their skin, to run her fingers through their thickly braided beards. To feel their skin wattle and split and shrivel beneath her tongue. The first fell screaming as his skeleton turned fluid. Th
e second collapsed to his knees, hands at his face where she had erased and sealed all his features and orifices. Futilely, he sought to breathe, and, kicking, he died. The last she took up. His stout body thrashed in her slender arms. Pressed her black lips against his own, and fed her tongue into his mouth. Spasming, he died, his body falling apart in her embrace. Simply disconnecting from itself, bloody gobbets and limbs littering the ground. When she released him, there was nothing whole nor recognizable to be seen on the grass.

  A great roar. Turning she saw an old man with skin of bark and an air of power to him swell up into the form of a hoary, old oak, the tree growing at a remarkable rate. From sapling to young tree to great gnarled oak it grew, the passage of centuries passing in mere moments. With a wrenching crack, it uprooted itself, roots gathering into strangely contorted legs, branches pulling down and around as it engaged Jack in Irons in battle. Jack was vast, tall, bedecked in live chains and wielding a club as long as most humans were tall, but this tree was the kind once worshipped by the followers of Thor, the kind around which pagan rituals had been danced since humans first reverenced nature. With a groaning cough, it fell upon Jack in Irons, embraced him, and began to rend him limb from limb.

  Maribel threw her head back and laughed. Extending her sword she began to spin, whipping it around, sinking down into a crouch and then leaping high, faster and faster. All fell before her, friend and foe. She felt blood splatter against her, felt flesh sever like dreams dissolving as she threshed through the ranks. Cries and screams. A stampede as beings sought to distance themselves from her. On she spun, and then finally, slowed, slowed, stopped.

  Was there nobody to face her? To provide challenge? No, of course not. She looked about her. Broken bodies and severed limbs. The grass beneath their feet had withered, charred, revealing cracked earth. No, there was no sport here, only death. Only the end. With a leap she took to the sky, arose. Turned her eye on the battles still being waged below her, sought out anything of interest.