by Platt, Sean
Crow’s Nest was the kind of place you came from, but not a place you stayed — unless you were stuck there. It had birthed a few reputable men who went on to better things — soldiers for The South in The Great Purge, a few scholars who went on to The Dark Islands, but most times, its sons went on to become servants of The Hand of the Seven Gods in The Citadel, and its women went on to marry The Citadel’s wealthier residents who liked a less jaded, simpler woman. A stupid woman.
Jacob and his men stood on a knoll looking down at the dark village lit only by a few lanterns in windows, but most of its denizens were sleeping. Crow’s Nest consisted of a few dozen small homes and farmlands circling a pathetic attempt at a town square.
This would be history’s easiest conquest.
Jacob turned to Sir Tomas Barron, then to their company of six knights trusted to keep this mission secret. He looked the men up and down, all of them wearing their Forgotten Kingdom knight’s black.
While Barron was a pretty boy who barely looked capable of fighting, let alone leading, his comrades were the ugliest, most violent-looking Valkoer Jacob had ever seen. The kind of monsters who wouldn’t bat an eye at such a mission.
“Are you ready?” Jacob asked.
The six men were practically salivating at the chance to feast on innocents, and gave variations of nods, grunts, and yesses.
Ever since the Treaty, Valkoer were forbidden from leaving The Forgotten Kingdom to feed. Nowadays they could only feed on criminals, both local and those sent by The Hand of the Seven Gods for punishment.
While the criminals provided a fortifying nourishment, rarely did they supply the sort of memories one could enjoy. Most criminals lived painful lives full of memories that were best forgotten, not mainlined like a drug to the brain.
As his selected soldiers, with the exception of Barron, weren’t royalty or the wealthier of the Valkoer who could partake in Esmerelda’s secret stash beneath the castle, it had been a long time since Barron’s knights had feasted on innocents.
This was like a holiday to these men, a holiday long in the waiting.
“Enjoy the feast, men,” Barron said. “And remember, this is but a taste of what’s to come in the next war.”
The men charged into the night — fast, quiet, and deadly.
Jacob looked at Barron and smiled. “You, Sir Barron, have proved yourself worthy.”
“It is my pleasure to serve you, King Jacob.”
Jacob liked the sound of that. The man was surely working him, saying what he wanted to hear, appealing to Jacob’s ego and desire to be recognized. But that didn’t make the words any less pleasing.
“Let’s feast,” Jacob said, running into the night, hoping to trigger a war that would force Father’s hand and expose his weakness.
Twenty-Six
John
“We’re close,” Emma said, stopping and raising a hand. “I can feel my brother nearby.”
They were at the bottom of a hill, the morning sun still an hour or so from making its appearance. At the top of the hill stood a walled city with a large dome and pillars at its center, flags flying on tall poles atop buildings screaming into the sky. Torches and moonlight from the two moons above lit enough of the city for John to observe.
From a distance it looked like an ancient Turkish capital, surrounded by a giant stone wall, lined with minarets and guard towers, fronted by an iron-looking gate. The Citadel Emma had mentioned?
“It’s before the city,” Emma said, pointing not to the city but toward a fork in the road. “There’s a row of burned down houses. They’re in there.”
“Are they alone?” Sanders asked.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus.
“Yes. They’re waiting for us.”
Sanders and Jenk led the way with Emma right behind, and John, Hope, and Larry in the rear.
John kept looking at the city’s tall spires, the giant dome high in its center. Something about it racked him with chills, though he couldn’t explain what. He wondered if that was where Jacob and his father, the vampire king, were. If so, he was more determined than ever to return and regroup. Next time, they’d bring a real fucking army.
Larry looked at John and whispered, “So, what do we do if they tell us they’ve got a line on Jacob, and he’s close? Are we really going to trudge all the way back to the portal?”
“Yes. We’ve got to get Emma and Logan to safety; these kids don’t belong here. Then we get you two home.”
“Nope.” Hope shook her head. “I’m going where you go. You promised I could.”
“That was before I saw how easily our troops were thinned by a pack of werewolves. Believe me, whomever they send with us next won’t be any better. Hell, maybe worse.”
“I made it through all right,” Hope reminded him with a smile.
“Yeah, we don’t know why that thing didn’t slaughter you. Next time you might not be so lucky, or we’ll run into something worse. But we are not taking a chance.”
“But —”
John shook his head. “Can we please discuss this later?”
She started to say something, but John brushed her off, picking up his pace to catch up with Sanders, Emma, and Jenk as they turned right along the fork.
Trees grew thicker and narrowed the road. It was only a few hundred yards before it ended in a row of burned down buildings that look like they’d been singed to memory ages ago. Most were destroyed, but a few two-story stone structures were still standing, and mostly untouched by the fires.
Hope sounded annoyed as he walked away from her. Larry said something to lighten the mood, but John didn’t hear what, too busy focusing on something else that was bothering him — Emma.
He walked a few feet behind her, watching. She wasn’t walking fast like someone eager to see her brother. And her body language was all wrong. Shoulders slumped, fingers fidgeting, head down, but every now and again looking up nervously.
He caught up with her, closing in on her right. She was walking with her head down, hair falling over her face.
“You okay?”
She hesitated, only a second, but it was there all the same. She looked over at him, her eyes wet.
“What’s wrong?”
Emma didn’t answer, just looked back down.
John called out to Sanders and Jenk. “Wait!”
They turned.
Sanders said, “What is it?”
John looked down the road, at the buildings, then back at Emma.
“What’s down there?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “They made me.”
“Made you what? Who?” John asked, looking around.
He sensed movement to their right.
And to their left.
Emma said, “They said they’d kill him if I didn’t bring you here.”
“Who?” John repeated.
“I don’t know, I —”
Jenk fell to the ground.
John spun around to see an arrow sticking out of his head.
More were coming, dark lines against the pale moonlight above.
“Ambush!” John screamed, raising his hand and sending a blast of energy into the air, knocking the closest arrows down.
He couldn’t do that too many more times without being drained. They needed to escape.
They had no cover, so Sanders and Larry took off into the woods, firing as they went, Larry leading Hope.
John shouted at Emma, remembering her cloaking ability. “Hide yourself, and Larry and Hope!”
She looked at him, then vanished in a wisp of shadows.
John hoped that whatever was attacking them wouldn’t sense her, or Hope and Larry once she cloaked them as well. Or that Emma wouldn’t betray him, again, by delivering Hope to their attackers.
John cast a cloaking spell on himself, though his was nowhere nearly as powerful as the girl’s, then darted into the woods after Larry and Hope, rifle raised, eyes scanning the thick woodlands.
He saw a ro
ugh-looking man wearing ratty-looking leathers, with unkempt long, matted dark hair, holding a sword and looking around with another two coarse-looking men behind him.
John raised his rifle and fired.
All three fell before they knew what was coming.
That’ll teach you to bring swords and arrows to a gunfight!
John looked around for any sign of Emma, Larry, and Hope, but didn’t see, or sense, anything.
Hopefully their attackers couldn’t either.
John heard Sanders firing her rifle on the other side of the road, probably forty yards in the woods behind him.
Her gunfire stopped abruptly.
Shit.
Another three men appeared in the road, twenty yards away. One with a bow, eyes right on John in the woods, despite the shadow spell he’d cast.
The archer let loose.
John barely managed to drop to his stomach and evade the black arrow.
Another two whizzed overhead.
He looked up in time to see the archer notching another arrow.
He maneuvered his rifle out from under his body and took aim.
The gun jammed.
Shit!
The archer let loose.
The arrow hit John’s shoulder but didn’t pierce his uniform’s thick leather.
His eyes met the frightened archer’s.
John threw his stuck rifle to the ground, ripped off his gloves, and narrowed his eyes at the three men before him. He hopped to his knees, then surveyed the field.
Let’s go, fuckers.
He raced toward them at top speed, hands pulsing with electricity in anticipation of the meal.
The three men’s eyes all widened at the sight of John charging.
The archer dropped his bow and reached back to grab a blade from his belt.
Too late.
John leaped, hands finding the man’s bare chest, locking on as he dragged him to the ground.
The other two men, to his right and left, had swords. They turned to John, who was now on top of their fallen comrade, sucking his life force.
One swung at John.
Though he wasn’t even looking toward the man, John sensed him, and twisted his body to avoid the blow. He then raised a hand and shot a blast of energy into the swordsman.
The man went hurtling ten feet into the air with a scream as the ball of energy worked its way through his chest, and would soon burn through his internal organs.
The last swordsman thrust his blade at John. It wasn’t a sword so much as a long and thin dagger that looked sharp enough to cut steel like paper.
John dodged, but not in time.
The blade pierced his uniform, straight into John’s gut. But he was high on energy from the man’s comrade.
He looked up as the man hurriedly tried to pull the dagger from John. The man’s eyes were wide and white.
John bared his teeth in a growl, grabbed the man’s arm before he could release the dagger, and began to feed off of him, too.
As he drained the man’s life, and memories, he sought only one piece of information — who planned this ambush?
The man, like the one he took down, knew nothing other than the boss’s orders: to capture the people that came through the portal, and keep John and Hope alive.
You know our names?
It must be Jacob.
John let the man’s burned corpse fall to the ground, reached down and yanked the blade from his gut, then threw it to the ground.
He felt the man’s energy coursing through him, already repairing the wound.
His eyes darted around in search of more enemies, and his friends.
As if in response, he heard a man shouting from the road.
“Come out and surrender, or I kill the boy.”
John ran toward the voice. As the trees thinned he saw a hulk of a man standing beside two men with torches held up so John could see him. The man was eight feet tall at least, around five hundred pounds, and wore spiked armor over his blue skin. In his giant hand he held a crooked stone blade to the neck of a skinny young dark-haired boy in a torn-up Guardian uniform.
A boy who looked like a male version of Emma.
Logan.
“Surrender now, or Logan dies. You got until a count of five.” The man’s accent was thick and guttural, his words broken.
Standing beside the blue giant was a line of regular-looking men, most seeming like of the garden-variety mercs that John had already put down. Maybe twenty more, most on horseback, all armed.
There was also one more blue man, slightly smaller than the one holding a knife to Logan’s neck, also wearing spiked armor, and carrying a giant spiked club.
John’s eyes surveyed the situation.
It wasn’t impossible, and if he could take down the leader, he’d scare at least a few away.
But he didn’t know if he could do it without them harming Emma’s brother.
“One,” the countdown began.
John rushed out of the woods, hands raised.
“Okay, okay, I surrender.”
The big blue man eyed him.
John’s stolen memories from the soldiers already told him that Big Blue was Vashkar, the boss.
Though the men knew him as their boss, surely he wasn’t the boss. This had to be Jacob’s handiwork. And if that were true, John figured he was safe to surrender. Jacob wasn’t likely to kill him. Even if he did, John didn’t care so long as he could keep Hope, Larry, and Emma alive.
“Where are the others?”
John wasn’t sure if Vashkar was asking where his men were or where John’s friends were. John hoped that Emma wasn’t nearby hiding Hope and Larry. If so, how long could she be counted on to stay put? They had her brother at knifepoint. Anyone in her position would surrender.
John had to remove that option from the table.
John bluffed.
“Dead. Everyone’s gone but me. You got me. Now let’s go tell Jacob he won.”
“Liar!” Vashkar pointed at John. “Two!”
“Don’t do it!” Logan shouted.
John telepathically reached out to Larry.
Don’t let her surrender. Just stay hidden. I’ll figure something out and save Logan. Tell her to trust me.
“Dude, she’s not with me,” Larry’s said in his head.
What?
“Three!” Vashkar shouted.
“She’s with Hope.”
“Four!”
Where are they?
“Stop!” Emma marched out of the woods, holding Hope’s hand.
John held his breath as Emma and Hope approached the soldiers.
Are you seeing this, Larry?
“You mean Papa Smurf on steroids?”
Can you line up a shot on that big blue fucker holding Logan?
“Already on it.”
On GO, you put him down, head shot if you can, along with any of the other fuckers with bows or within swinging distance of Hope. You got that?
“Ten-four, good buddy,” Larry said.
John’s eyes were glued to Emma and Hope as they walked forward.
John was at the edge of the woods, not within distance to get there in time to intercept anything aimed at Hope, especially if any of them were Valkoer or anything else that could match his speed.
He’d have to rely on Larry’s shot.
Then he’d spring into action, try to get her out of there without touching Hope and accidentally killing her.
He wished he’d not thrown his gloves on the ground.
John started forward, slowly, since everyone was focused on Emma and Hope.
Vashkar took a step, smiling with a mouth full of sharp, ugly teeth. “Ah, you must be Emma?”
“Please let my brother go. I did as you asked. I led them here.”
“Yes, you did. Thank you,” Vashkar said, hand still on the blade at Logan’s throat.
Vashkar turned to John.
John kept walking, slowly.
“Your
brother Jacob is looking forward to seeing you, and this lovely woman, Hope, is it?” Vashkar laughed. “Funny that someone would name you the thing you’re all out of.”
John wanted to wipe the smug grin from his fat, ugly face. Make him choke on his fucked-up teeth.
Emma cried, “Please, let my brother go.”
Vashkar looked at Emma, head tilted thoughtfully as if considering her request, then sliced Logan’s neck.
Emma screamed, vanishing into dark wisps.
An arrow found her neck before she could completely disappear.
She fell forward, clutching the arrow, crying out, eyes wide on her brother as her body began to disintegrate.
Now, Larry!
A gunshot in the distance as Larry fired.
But Vashkar was gone.
There one second, then the next he was behind Hope, holding the blade to her throat.
All of his archers, at least eight of the soldiers, were aiming arrows at John.
Vashkar yelled, “Surrender, man with the gun, or she’s next!”
“What do I do, John? You didn’t tell me this fucker was a teleporter!”
John looked at Hope’s terrified eyes and trembling lips, then up to the beast holding her against her will.
Their eyes met.
John vowed to take Vashkar’s eyes out with his bare hands.
But that would have to wait. He had but one option.
Surrender, Larry.
Only after ordering Larry’s surrender did John remember the soldiers’ instructions — to kill everyone but John and Hope.
John hoped he wasn’t sending Larry to his death.
Larry emerged from the woods, his hands raised, unarmed so far as John could see.
“Okay, I surrender.”
As Larry marched toward one of Vashkar’s men, John’s heart pounded.
Just be calm. They’re not gonna kill you.
“That wishful thinking, or you got an inside track on my odds in Vegas, buddy?”
I know people like this.
“Yeah, but he just killed Emma and Logan. Clearly these fuckers like to kill more than your average army of lunatics led by a giant blue Smurf.”
John looked down at Emma’s body and wished he could’ve done something to save her, anticipated what Vashkar might do. But at the moment he had two people closer to worry about — Hope and Larry.