The creatures approached a brick house and pounded on the door, shattering the wood. Screams rose inside. One demon raced through the doorway, then emerged dragging a woman. A few years older than Issari, her hair disheveled and her eyes wide with terror, the woman screamed and kicked.
“Dragon? Dragon?” The demons tossed the woman onto the ground and sniffed, their snouts quivering. “We smell no dragon blood. Bride! A bride!”
Issari stared in horror. Her fear froze her; she could barely even breathe. The glistening creatures, blood seeping from their skinless bodies, tore at the woman’s clothes, ripping her tunic, revealing her nakedness.
“She will be my bride!” cried one of the demons, the largest among them. His heart thudded outside his chest, and his entrails bustled with worms. He leaned down and licked the struggling woman’s cheek. “You will spawn my offspring.”
The woman screamed, pleading for aid, trying to free herself, but the other demons held her down.
As the demon began lowering himself over the woman, Issari finally snapped out of her paralysis.
“Stop!”
She marched forward, reached into her robe, and pulled out her mother’s amulet. Shedah the crone had brought the silver charm home from the north, proof of Queen Anai’s death. Upon its round surface appeared an engraving of Taal, the god of purity—a slender man, his arms held at his sides, his palms open. It was a symbol of goodness, of light and hope. To Issari, it was also a symbol of her mother. She shook in the presence of this evil, but she held the amulet out before her.
“Stand back, demons!” she cried.
In her hand, the amulet burst into light.
The demons squealed. The inverted creatures stumbled back, covering their bulging, bloodshot eyes. One’s liver burst, showering blood.
“The light burns!” they cried, shattering, organs ripping. “How can she burn us? Who is the seraph?”
Issari took a step forward, the amulet thrumming in her hand, casting its light.
“This was the amulet of Queen Anai of Eteer!” she cried out. “She ruled the throne that rises above your underground lair. From this relic shines the light of Taal, a god greater than your mistress.” She took another step, and the light intensified, bleaching the world. “By this light and blood, I banish you!”
The demons screamed. Their bones snapped. Whimpering, they fled behind several brick houses, leaving a trail of gore and a lingering stench.
Issari breathed out in relief. She lowered the amulet, and its light dimmed. Her legs trembled and sweat dripped down her back.
Her father had traveled north a few days ago, following the crone’s map, seeking Laira in the cold hinterlands. Issari had only this amulet for protection—a guard against the demons he had freed, a shard of holiness, a gift from her mother.
“I was only a babe when you left, Mother,” she whispered. “And you’re gone now. But still you watch over me.”
Fingers shaking, she tucked the amulet back under her tunic.
“All flesh is theirs to claim,” King Raem had said before leaving. He had stroked her hair. “All but yours. Stay in your chambers. Do not tempt them. They are forbidden to enter your room.”
Yet Issari had left her sanctuary. She could not remain in her palace as her city bled. The people of Eteer needed her. How could she stay in safety while they suffered?
Still trembling, she approached the fallen woman.
“Rise, friend,” Issari said, reaching down a hand to the woman. “You are safe.”
The woman rose, clutching her tattered tunic to her nakedness. Issari wore a veil of tasseled silk and a hood hid her hair; only her eyes were visible. To all, she looked like a simple priestess, not the Princess of Eteer.
“Thank you.” The woman wiped away tears. “Bless you, daughter. Bless you.”
As the woman stepped back into her home, Issari pulled her hood lower, praying the woman did not recognize her. If Raem returned and heard of Issari’s doings, he would beat her. She took a shuddering breath, raised her chin, and kept walking.
Down a street strewn with smashed pottery, the bones of an eaten dog, and puddles of blood, she saw it. The pottery shop. The safe haven.
A demon lingered on the street. It had the body of a massive centipede—as large as a python—covered in metallic plates and lined with many clawed legs. Its torso, arms, and head were those of a human child, pale and warty, its mouth full of hooked teeth and its belly swollen and bulging with kicking, living innards. When Issari pulled out her amulet, the creature fled from the light, its many feet pattering.
Issari approached the shop. Its bricks were pale white, splotched with demon drool, and a winged bull was engraved on the door—the god Kur-Paz, a sigil to ward off evil. When Issari stepped inside, she found that the sigil—unlike her amulet—had failed at its task. Three small red demons, no larger than cats, were hopping upon the shelves, smashing clay plates, bowls, and vases. The potter, a graying man with a wide mustache, was fighting them off with a broom. His daughter was flailing, trying to rip off a demon that tugged her hair. When Issari raised her amulet, the light blazed, and the scaled creatures fled out the window, leaving trails of smoke.
“I think they smelled something this time,” said the white-haired potter, visibly shaken. “We can’t keep them here any longer.”
Issari nodded. “The ship sails out today.” She handed the old man a few coins. “For your trouble.”
He shook his head, gently pushing her hand back. “I don’t do this for reward.”
“I know, kind sir.” She kissed his bristly cheek. “But keep these coins. They’re pure gold. Rebuild your shop.”
Tears dampened his eyes as he pocketed the money. “Taal bless you, Princess Iss—“
“Hush.” She placed a finger against his lips, her heart leaping. “I’m but a nameless priestess, that is all.
She tightened her shawl around her face, knelt, and pulled back the rug, scattering pieces of broken pottery. She revealed a trapdoor. Issari gave her braid a nervous tug, squared her jaw, and climbed down a ladder into the darkness.
A dark, dusty chamber awaited her. Packs of clay wrapped in cloth lay upon a dozen shelves. The only light came from a small sliding window near the ceiling. A sunbeam fell into the chamber, gleaming with dust. They huddled behind the last shelf, wrapped in cloaks, their hair dusty and their faces pale—the weredragon family.
Issari knelt by them. She spoke softly. “It is time. A ship awaits.”
They peered up at her, lost souls, thin and pale. A mason and his wife. Their five children, their eyes huge in their gaunt faces. Cursed. Diseased. Or maybe blessed.
Weredragons, we call them, Issari thought. The name of monsters. But if they are monsters, so is my family. So are my exiled sister and my dead mother. So is my brother, imprisoned in the tower. She reached down a hand to help the family rise. To me they are simply souls to save.
“We will walk quickly,” she said. “We will head straight to the port. The ship will take you north to the cold, barbarian lands. I don’t know what awaits you there. I don’t know how or where you will live. But you will be free. You will start a new life.” Her eyes stung. “Nobody will hunt you there.”
The family stood up, shivering.
“But there are demons outside!” said the youngest child, a girl with tangled brown hair. “They can smell us. They smelled my grandmother’s magic.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “They ate her.”
Issari knelt and embraced the girl. “My amulet will protect you. I will protect you.” She kissed the girl’s forehead. “You will be brave.”
The girl nodded. Issari smiled but trembled on the inside. What if the demons spared her but slew the family? What if the amulet’s power could not overcome their lust for weredragon blood? She tightened her lips and began to climb out of the cellar. She had no choice. She had to risk this. The demons had already invaded the pottery shop’s ground floor; during the next raid they might find the
cellar.
I must lead these people to the sea, and they must sail north. This kingdom is death.
As they stepped outside the pottery shop, the family blinked in the sunlight, momentarily blinded after long days in the dark. The youngest child whimpered and clung to Issari.
“I will be brave,” the girl whispered. “I will be brave like you.”
They walked down the street, moving slowly, barely daring to breathe. White columns rose around them, and a palm tree grew from a ring of stones, swaying in the wind. The sun was bright, the sky azure. Trails of demon drool gleamed upon the street. Drawings covered houses’ walls—some depicted the sigils of the gods, wards against evil drawn by the city folk, while others were demon creations painted in blood, depicting demons devouring the heads of men, tearing off children’s limbs, and mating with women. Issari held the child’s hand, and the rest of the family walked behind her, their footfalls soft.
When they rounded the corner, Issari grimaced. Several beasts clustered ahead around a well. One demon, a lanky being like a strip of dried meat, was chewing on a dying dog. Two other demons, blobby creatures like dripping tallow, blinked and groaned as they copulated in the dust. A few more demons danced atop the well’s rim, skeletons draped in bits of flesh. All turned toward Issari and the family. All sniffed. All let out shrieks and leaped forward.
The family gasped. Issari winced, pulled out her amulet, and cried out, “Let me pass! Stand back, demons of the Abyss. I bear the mark of Taal. Stand back!”
They screamed. The sunlight reflected off the amulet, beaming forward in blinding rays, and the demons covered their eyes.
“Quickly!” Issari said, looking over her shoulder. “Hurry by them. Do not look at them. Stay near me.”
They walked, crossing the square. One creature tried to leap at them; the amulet’s light slammed into it, knocking it back and tearing off its legs. The other creatures cowered. Issari walked briskly, leaving the square and entering an alleyway between shops.
They kept moving through the city. They passed by a marketplace where once vendors had hawked figs, olives, dates, and freshly cooked meat from tin plates. Today demons rooted through the supplies, guzzling wine and stuffing food down their gullets. Issari and the family kept walking, passing by the old Temple of Taal, a towering building of white columns capped with gold. Priests stood outside the temple’s bronze doors, blowing ram horns and swinging incense, holding back the foul creatures who tried to leap, crawl, and slither up the stairs. Street by street, the amulet held out before them, Issari and the family made their way to the port.
The thriving boardwalk Issari had known was gone. No more jugglers, puppeteers, or buskers performed here. No more peddlers hawked dried fruits, salted nuts, or their own bodies. The booths of seers, healers, and games of chance were gone. What sailors remained moved methodically and wordlessly, loading and unloading their wares from the ships that lined the piers. Issari had once found the smell of salt, fish, and sailors unsavory. Today the place reeked of rot, and she missed the old aroma.
At every pier stood a guardian of the Abyss—some taller than three men and lanky as poles, others squat, some dripping, some dry, some hooked and bladed, some wet and soft, some hooded in rags, others naked and glistening. As every sailor walked the planks, stepping on and off the ships, the demons sniffed, groped, drooled, seeking weredragon blood.
“I will be brave,” whispered the potter’s girl, clutching Issari’s hand.
I will be brave, Issari thought, chin raised, as she walked along the wet cobblestones.
The boardwalk took them along the canal that thrust into the city. Without the usual chants of sailors, cries of peddlers, and bustle of merchants, the place seemed eerily silent. Even the gulls had fled. Issari and the family walked by a towering, tree-like creature, its many eyeballs blinking upon fleshy branches. Each of its fingers sprouted its own hand, twitching and sporting rotten claws. Issari forced herself to keep walking calmly, ignoring every demon they passed.
Finally, at the edge of the canal, the scent of open sea filled her nostrils, some relief from the stench of the Abyss. There she waited: the Silver Porpoise, a long ship of many oars, her canvas sails wide. She was a ship of traders; she had brought Eteer many fur pelts, barrels of tin ore, and salted meats from the lands across the sea. Now the Silver Porpoise sailed north again—with bronze tools, soft cotton, southern Eteerian spices . . . and hidden life.
“This ship will take you into the sea,” Issari whispered to the family around her. “She will take you to the cold north. She will take you to hope, to new life.”
A towering, demonic spider guarded the ship, human heads speared upon each of its legs, their eyes still moving, their mouths sucking in air. The creature tried to clatter toward Issari, and the severed heads opened their mouths wide, revealing metal teeth. At the sight of the amulet, the spider hissed and darted back, cowering against the ship’s hull.
“These are sailors,” Issari said. She forced herself to glare at the spiderlike demon, though her insides trembled. “You will let them pass, and you will not speak of them, or this amulet will burn you.”
The demon squirmed and hissed, and the family members began to board, walking up the plank one by one. Issari hugged the young child.
“You will be brave,” she whispered.
The girl nodded and touched Issari’s cheek. “You will be brave too. You need bravery more than I do.”
With that, the child ran onto the ship.
Issari climbed the city wall, and she stood between the battlements for a long time, watching the ship sail away. The family stood at the stern, looking at her, and the little girl raised a hand in farewell. The distance swallowed them until the ship was just a speck . . . and then was gone.
Issari lowered her head. The stench and laughter of demons wafted from below, and she wished that she too could sail away, she too could leave this kingdom behind. But she must stay. She had more to save. She must save whatever weredragons she could, whatever brides the demons wanted to claim, and whatever remained of her kingdom’s light.
She turned around and faced the city again. Across hills of homes and shops and winding streets, Issari saw it rising—Aerhein Tower. In that cell he languished—her brother.
“And I must save you too.”
Wind blew, scented of rot and blood. A distant scream rose—the demons claiming another bride or perhaps slaying another weredragon. So much death, so much pain; how could she stop this?
“My father is in the north now, hunting Laira,” she whispered to herself. “Taal . . . please. Please let Laira kill him.” She found herself clenching her fists. “Let my father, King Raem Seran, die in dragonfire.”
The thought horrified her, and she gasped and covered her mouth. She was his daughter! She was Princess Issari Seran, heiress to the throne!
She tightened her jaw. Her knees shook. She reached into her robes and clutched the hilt of her dagger. She pulled her hood low, climbed off the wall, and walked home in silence.
LAIRA
WHEN DAWN BROKE, LAIRA FELT so cold, hurt, and weak that she wasn’t sure she could rise.
She lay under the pile of leaves, her breath frosted. When she touched her hair—short, ragged strands Zerra had cut himself—she found it frosted into hard spikes. Fingers numb, she parted the blanket of dry leaves covering her and gazed up at the forest. Mist floated, and the boles of maples and birches seemed black in the dawn, rising to an orange canopy. A murder of crows sat upon the branches, staring down at her with beady eyes.
They’re waiting for me to die, she thought. But I won’t.
She rose. Naked and trembling, she approached the branch where she had hung her patchwork fur cloak to dry. It was still wet. Laira hugged herself, shivering, teeth chattering. She should never have washed the garments in the river; she should have let the dung dry, then shaken off the flecks. Now the cold would kill her just as readily as the rocs or her wounds. She examined th
ose wounds and winced. The welts on her feet were swollen, and one seemed full of pus.
“It’s infected,” she whispered, every word sending out puffs of frost. “I need healing herbs or the rot will crawl up my leg.”
She wondered if she could find another tribe; others wandered the plains and forests, hunting and gathering and sometimes battling one another, and they had shamans of their own, perhaps less cruel than Shedah who would only scorn, strike, and spit upon Laira whenever she asked for a poultice. Yet Laira remembered the few times she had seen the other tribes, nomadic groups bearing their own totems—bronzed skulls of beasts, gilded buffalo horns, and even one tribe that bore the mummified body of a goddess child. Whenever Goldtusk would come across another tribe, arrows flew, spears thrust, and often lives were lost.
“If they find me, they’ll know I’m a stranger,” Laira said through chattering teeth. “They’ll kill me or worse—capture me to be their slave. They will not heal me.”
But . . . they could heal her.
The thought filled her with both hope and fear—hope for finding others like her, fear that others were only a myth. Perhaps in all the world, Mother had been the only other weredragon. Perhaps Laira was the last.
“But if that’s true, let me die in the wilderness.”
She shoved her frozen hands under her armpits and hopped around for warmth. She considered donning her wet cloak but decided it would only chill her further. After a moment’s hesitation, she lay down and rolled around in the mud along the riverbank, then in piles of dry leaves. When she rose again, she wore a garment of the forest. It was an ugly thing, but it would keep her warm and provide some camouflage. She lifted a fallen branch, slung her wet fur upon it, and carried the bundle over her shoulder. She kept limping through the forest, heading north, her burnt feet aching with every step. Despite the pain, she dared not fly. Here under the canopy she was hidden; in the open air, she would be seen for marks around.
Today she heard no rocs; perhaps they had abandoned the search or were searching too far away. As she walked and the sun rose, some of her chill left her, and a new discomfort arose—hunger.
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 134