Steel Sirens

by Maxx Whittaker

  “Fears?”

  “You found your blade in a witch’s den. Arkis is terrified of witches. Like a lion afraid of a mouse.”

  Is that so? “Curious. He seems so powerful.”

  “He is. I wouldn’t keep a weak mage or a common weapon or an ugly –” The Duke coughs. “He is. I don’t know why the dread. Maybe a witch chased him as a child.”

  Maybe a witch is going to chase him now.

  Our passage empties into a narrow receiving hall. Bold-nosed, bright haired men cut from similar cloth stare down at us from their frames. All stern, all maybe disgusted with their heir.

  Pella elbows me. It takes a moment to see what she sees: The last portrait is Carven. He looks exactly the way Oranna described him. I knew but until I saw...How does a man fall so far?

  We pass from dark to light. It’s how I imagine the Ascension, everything soft and white.

  “This was my mother’s solar,” says Carven, standing on the edge and taking it all in like he’s never seen it before. “The best chamber, at the top of the great staircase.”

  Whitewashed wood and white marble catch rainbows from the rosette window above a wood seat. A whole tree, judging by its size, carved with vines, roses, and rampaging lions.

  “It’s a lovely room,” says Pella with awe. “Your mother must have been quite something.”

  “She was a visionary. She brought Seers and arcanists and fortune tellers from all over the land to fill her with foreknowledge. She first saw the necessity of the Inquisition.”

  “What did she discover?”

  His face darkens. “The past is dead. All of this is dead. These people. They just don’t know it yet.” He still clutches Emeree’s sword. I’m afraid he might try using it.

  “Not much longer,” he mutters, weaving on bowed legs.

  He shuffles across the solar, long robe like a funeral drape on his withered frame. “Come. Come on.”

  “Wait outside the doors,” I tell Pella. “We’re close.”

  “What do I do if things go wrong?”

  “Call for the Bellagorg and run.”

  “The what?”

  “Over here,” bites Carven.

  Beside the chair is a brass box with a lever.

  “Pull it.” He pretends to make me do it; he can barely pull it himself.

  Pull the lever. I hope Pella runs when I fall into the pit.

  Gears clack together, a chain grinds. Panels in the walls slide away to reveal shallow compartments.

  Metal and jewels wink in the sunlight.

  Some are braced in filigree stands. A few are locked up entirely. Emeree vibrates with excitement.

  “My special collection,” the duke intones. “I spent my inheritance and the treasury to possess these.”

  And the tax revenue, the guildsmen’s income…

  “Incredible,” I breathe.

  “Here,” he says, stopping in front of a beautiful staff hewn from a wood I don’t recognize. Green, carved in a delicate spiral, it looks as if a single piece of material has been spun like glass. A glowing green jewel as big as my hand rests at the top, and it pulses with a soft glow. “The Staff of Adinhope. The last creation by a now-forgotten crystal master. Dray-made, if you can believe it. Hard to imagine those savages are capable.”

  Carven brings us to the next prize. He trembles and licks his lips. “The bow.”

  I might hate him, but I can’t fault his reaction. My heart races.

  It’s length of black wood, carved with tiny runes, is strung with an aquamarine cord that seems to vibrate the air.

  “This one has no name. No known maker, though consensus among masters is the bow is not of our world.”

  “How is that possible?” I ask, unable to hide my skepticism. Then I remember what Emeree told me about the Great Library, the gates to other realms. Does he know any of that? I won’t volunteer it.

  Carven smirks. “Legend has it the owner ascended to join a pantheon of gods.” He preens. “No one is sure how it came to Glaerhanig, but Alith Blacklock wielded it during the Dray War. And now, it is mine.”

  Not for much longer. “Too bad it doesn’t have arrows.”

  “Doesn’t it?” He drags a finger along its gold bowstring in a move uncomfortably reminiscent of how he touched the girl in the painting. He hooks and tugs.

  A crack of blue lightning sketches across the string. Shaft, fletching, arrowhead. Its ghostly, but the heat I feel on my face dissuades me from testing its strength.

  Carven moves his hand and the arrow disappears. The light dies, leaving an afterimage on the backs of my eyes.

  “Infinite, powerful. To call this bow priceless…?” He sneers. “There’s no word to describe it.”

  Mine. That’s the word I’d use. I’ll be taking it when I leave.

  He shows me on. He boasts. I half listen, waiting for Emeree to signal me.

  “This!” Carven hobbles to an axe, the largest among its companions in the case. It’s held fast in carved gold brackets, restrained and thrust forward to be ogled.

  Every inch is perfect, from a leather wrapped handle, polished to a shine, to its haft, glittering silver and long as my arm. The blade matches the handle, a broad head equally capable of felling a tree or a man. It’s engraved with carvings of a roaring bear on each side. Like Emeree’s blade, the axe has a channel up its center, scarlet that reaches the edges of its head. Beautiful and fearsome.

  I don’t need Emeree to tell me this is the one, but she does – with a frenzy that scrambles my mind for a second.

  If she wasn’t in her sword, she’d be dancing.

  Siri.

  I reach for the axe.

  “I don’t remove my treasures, not even for Arkis.”

  Who cares what he does or doesn’t do for Arkis?

  “Stop.”

  I grip the haft. It’s cool, electric.

  “Stop! What are you doing?” Carven lunges, strangling my wrist.

  Arkis appears in the doorway, billowing.

  I twist free of Carven’s grip, rest my finger hard against the axeblade, and drag.

  16

  Siri zips my flesh. Dark blood wells and stains her surface.

  I step back and wait.

  “Guards! Arkis!” Carven writhes, clutching his gut. “You… How could – You touched it!” He collapses in a fit of coughing. “Arkis,” he hisses, sounding liquified from the inside.

  Two guards bolt in.

  Arkis stares me down. Carven doesn’t matter to him anymore. “What have you done?” Lacerated pride weights his every word. “You’re a kindling-pile, a mutton-eating clod!” Arkis flows toward us like a dark storm, hands wreathed in energy. “Don’t do anything!”

  Air around me superheats. I remember this sensation. “Too late.”

  Carven crawls away, bovine eyes lolling up at me on a backward glance.

  The axe levitates, pulling free of its clasps. My blood spreads across the surface of Siri’s blades and disappears.

  Vibrations in the air pound my eardrums. The guards freeze, swords and spears held up against something they have no hope of stopping.

  Arkis traces runes of dark fire in the air. My skin itches with each pass.

  They’re all too late. The room is so hot I shield my eyes and stumble back, crouching near the chair.

  The air warps, bends inward, tearing reality. Wind roars, pulling the Duke and his guards forward a step.

  “What did you do?” he croaks. “Why did you touch it!”

  My grin is all the answer he’ll get.

  Carven claws the rug, trying to flee.

  Light explodes from the axe, bowling them all down. The concussion is violent enough I roll across the room like a tossed ball. Pella had better be out there in the hall, beyond the doors.

  Emeree clatters nearby. I feel her wild laughter.

  Arkis throws his spell.

  Smug will be his last expression; his magic strikes the broken curse, dark lightning swallowed by wave
of coruscating power. His energy is slapped back. A shimmering line hits him. It flattens him and takes half his scalp with it.

  Carven’s guards catch the aftermath. Wet cracking sounds punctuate their cries and they fall short of fleeing out the doors.

  Reality warps back, and Siri stands before us.

  Locks of flame frame her snowfall face. Full, dark lips turn down in a snarl, and her slate blue eyes search the room, looking for a place to lay blame. An incongruous dusting of freckles shades her pert nose, at odds with the terrifying strength that radiates from her.

  Her armor, slate grey and beautifully wrought, seems more decorative, revealing more of her than it covers. Her body is muscled, feminine but powerful, soft at her thick rear and hips, the heaving swell of her generous chest, but lean in arms and legs and stomach. Taller than I am, she’s a creature built to kill, a goddess of war.

  And I’ve just bonded her.

  Emeree’s words echo in my mind. Siri's going to have so much fun with you.

  I’m not sure I’ll survive.

  That’s all right.

  Emeree shimmers into being, her blade over one shoulder. Her eyes dance as she takes in Siri. “About time.”

  “I’d say the same, félag.” Her voice is low, throaty, not masculine, but harsh, like a blade to the chest.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  Siri doesn’t respond. Her gaze rakes from Arkis clawing the ground, moaning, to Carven prone on the floor. “You.”

  “What… What!” He squints up at Siri. “Who?”

  “You,” Siri repeats, taking a long step toward him, her axe rising, an executioner’s blade held high as she delivers her sentence. “Murderer, traitor, kidnapper, scum.”

  “Guards,” Carven rasps, waving for the corpses in his foyer. “Arkis, anyone…”

  “Why not cry my name? I’m the only one who can help you.”

  “You can? Oh, thank the Father.”

  Siri takes another step and arcs her weapon. “I can cleanse you.”

  Emeree moves beside Siri, united with her. Their bond swells, chasing back the dark taint of Arkis and Carven.

  “I have watched. Years of horror. I have counted the days to this moment, forced to witness as you made them pose, had your men force them to smile. “I watched and waited as you took your wrath out on the undeserving, as your mage drained you of life and vitality in exchange for the flesh of this city.” She comes to rest before Carven.

  “I have waited.”

  “Who are you to judge me?” spits Carven. “I am chosen!” he screams. “My mother saw it; I am chosen!”

  “Act your office.”

  Age officium tuum

  So ends house Arundel.

  Siri brings her axe around in a lazy arc. It’s all the more terrifying for her lack of war cry, her slate expression.

  Carven is too broken to react. His eyes dim and his papered skeleton falls in two pieces.

  Arkis boils up from the ground in a nimbus of hissing night. He stands taller than before despite his injuries, taller than Siri.

  His eyes swallow the light. “I knew it! You were here this whole time.”

  “Not much of a mage, are you?” I’m not sure if tweaking the nose of a man covered in black lightning is a good idea. “Ah, sorry. That’s not fair,” I hold up my finger, “it’s just not in your blood.”

  “I will have power beyond blood. With the link you three share, I will feast.”

  He’s right. A tenuous cord vibrates between me and Siri. Compared to what I share with Emeree it insubstantial, but it’s there.

  His lips thin, and through the haze of darkness, his face reddens and swells. “I don’t know who, or what, you are, but I’m going to enjoy this.”

  A blast of midnight lightning lances from his fingers, exploding toward Emeree. I don’t have time to cry out before it hits her...

  And dissipates. It absorbs into her sword, sputters and dies out.

  “A Siren of Cailleach,” says Emeree before he can ask.

  “To me!” he shouts as a blade of black smoke coalesces in his hand.

  Arkis’ men charge in, and a mob of Carven’s.

  Emeree is finished waiting. I feel a vibration along our bond as she flickers from existence, moving too fast to see, attacking.

  Arkis brings his blade up as she hits, some preternatural sense warning him of her strike. His eyes widen and he staggers. “Help me! Attack!”

  Men lumber on, a wall of metal bearing down on us. Siri bellows and makes for them, axe reflecting light like molten gold. She lays into them in wide sweeps, and her strikes make a mockery of blades and armor, carving through both effortlessly. In a heartbeat, three men are dead before they hit the floor.

  I grab for the nearest weapon, a thin sword as long as my arm. “Swords; I hate swords.” It’s ornamental, with a golden cross guard and an etched blade, but it’ll have to do; the bow is out of reach.

  Two men in boiled leather charge me with curved blades. They’re close enough I can make out the smallest details when we collide; missing teeth, a mangled ear, a burned face.

  I block the first strike, a ringing blow that numbs my arms, even as I turn in place, using the first guard’s body as a shield so they can’t attack me at the same time. His attack flows into another effortlessly, a sideways strike that I barely parry, dancing back along the wall.

  No Teeth grins at my lack of skill. “Come on, boy,” he rasps, his words lisped badly. “Throw it down and we’ll make it quick. Make me work for it, and me and the boys will have to have some fun with your lady friends there when this is all over.”

  I laugh, a little desperately, ducking under a high blow as his partner tries to get around us, trapping me. Behind them, Emeree trades blows with Arkis so fast I can barely track them, and nearby, Siri cuts a man in half at his belly. “You are so dead.”

  He growls, rushing me, attempting to bowl me over. Burn Face comes with him, from the side, leading with his blade. I stumble back, hit a pillar that I have no time to duck around.

  Damn it. I’ve tried to avoid this. I can’t use the gifts for more than a few seconds, and there’s a lot of fighting left.

  What choice do I have?

  Emeree’s bond is there, familiar, pulsing, thick. I seize it with my mind and pull.

  Time slows. Two blades, inches from my face, hang in the air, stalled before they can deliver death. I don’t waste time and duck between the two, raking my blade along the milky expanse of No Teeth’s neck as I go. I turn, stab Burn Face in the back of the neck, and then release my hold on the bond. In all, it takes only seconds, and my heart pumps hard, once, in forewarning.

  Their bodies fall before me, gurgling as crimson lifeblood explodes from my wounds.

  Guards still concentrate on Siri, yelling and cursing while she holds them at bay. One makes the mistake of stumbling when he ducks. Siri parts his skull with barely a hitch.

  More rush her as one, and despite her strength she lacks Emeree’s nimble moves. An opponent dodges, rounds on her and stabs at Siri’s exposed back.

  One pull of the thread and I’m beside her. I cut before time slows again. My blade tears through her attacker’s neck.

  She spares me a quick, hungry glance, and for the briefest moment I feel something surge through our threadbare bond. Grudging admiration; desire; lust.

  An explosion of marble peppers us. Arkis, hand raised, releases another concussion at Emeree. He staggers her and lunges for the kill.

  She vanishes, appears beside him and flows between his shadow blade and dark lightning. Arkis leaves another furrow in the floor.

  A concussion rattles my head, separating my eyesight into to two distinct images. Clutching my head, I blink and try to block, searching for the source.

  A soldier, his mace red with blood, stalks me.

  I struggle for balance, gripping my sword like it’s the only thing tethering me to the world.

  The inertia of battle has pushed the Sirens away
from me. Siri is ten steps away that may as well be a mile, warding off five enemies. Emeree blocks a strike from Arkis, teeth grit.

  I’m on my own.

  Desperate, battered, I reach inside myself, find my bond with Siri. I don’t have time to examine it, feel its shape or strength. Seconds decide death now.

  I tug on the bond. I tear at it, greedy and grabbing.

  Violence and sudden, savage power floods me until I could scream. My head clears and pain fades as power threads each muscle. It consumes me between beats of my heart.

  My attacker steps forward, eyes wary, mace still, some animal instinct telling him that something has changed, something is wrong. I fold to my knees, sword low as if his blow put me down. The Fortingall taught me this. I look like prey, and so he attacks. A vicious blow aimed for my neck, meant to end me.

  I bellow as I bring my sword up, blocking so savagely that his forearm shatters, a reverberating crack chased by his shrieks. He stumbles back a step as his blade drops from useless fingers. He abandons his shield to grasp ruined flesh.

  Wide, panicked eyes hold mine. What? What more? He asks silently.

  He’s done; finished. Move on, move to Siri.

  Bloodlust numbs my thoughts. This is my enemy. He would have killed me, would still kill me if I turned my back, given the chance. There is no compromise.

  I bury a fist in his face; inside, beyond his brain. His flesh parts and bone collapses around my hand. His teeth shatter as his nose sprays a crimson fantail. His head snapping back like a broken shutter keeps me from smashing clear through.

  I brace for the snap of knuckles. My fingers don’t break, and my skin doesn’t lacerate on jagged bone. He falls, lifeless, and I stagger back.

  What have I done? This isn’t me, isn’t right, but thought is buried under a flood of exultation. Lust for battle flows through me, a hunger to kill, to rip my enemy apart. I want to carve eyes from skulls, taste the blood of my attackers.

  My heart pounds with murderous need.

  But it’s too much. I’m not made for this, not yet. It drowns me. This force will kill me as surely as Emeree’s gift. I must relent.