by C J Timms
His mate was in trouble, and he had her back.
Gale lunged forward, harpoon outstretched. Red grabbed it one-handed and pulled him close. ‘The Deep is hungry Gale. My family starve, they need to feed.’
Red kicked him back down, spinning her trident through the air. The flames through the fracture wreathed her in hellish light.
‘I know you’re in their Blush, fight it. Don’t be a dickhead. You aren’t a monster.’ Gale screamed at her.
Red snickered. ‘This from you. You who carry a harpoon for battle. Not a duelling weapon, not a shield for defence or a hammer of construction. You carry a weapon designed to hunt.’
Gale launched upwards swinging his harpoon like a quarterstaff. Red batted it away with her trident and smashed a fist into his side. His breath exploded out, his diaphragm paralysed. He fell to his knees, the Arghost burning above him.
Red cocked her head at him. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Gale. Corrosyv gave me a choice, just as she gives you one. What better way to take everything from your father than to have you give me the House Cup willingly? You are powerful. You could be nobility in the Deep.’
Gale narrowed his eyes. Blush grabbed his chin and pulled his face in close to hers.
‘What have these people ever done for you? Throw you in jail? Cripple you with debt? Spat at your family name? You would be honoured in the Deep. These people will blame you for this, they will judge you by your script. They will charge you with treason.
They will graft you.
Come with me, take the power to change the world.’
Gale stared back into her eyes, an inch away from his, her breath hot on his cheek. She was right in a twisted way. There was no way they wouldn’t suspect his involvement in this. There were no witnesses to testify, everyone bound by sirensong. He would be the only Deep user left at the University.
The Arghost burned overhead, burning timber falling from the sky. The smoke obscured Ash. Was this his chance to save her? Would it be better to take her offer, take power and change it from within? His hand wavered on the House Cup on his back. Could he save Ash by joining Red? What would his father have done?
‘Go frak yourself,’ Gale spat up at her.
‘Ah well, I do enjoy it when you play hard to get. Perhaps my friend can convince you.’ Red winked.
A fist battered into his side, smashing him across the walkway. He landed hard on his right arm, his harpoon going flying. A giant with pale skin and red eyes lurched towards him. Red curse marks radiated out from a bite on his neck.
‘Ironchurch?’ said Gale.
Ironchurch rushed him, and Gale brought up his fists. Ironchurch hammered him, blows cracking into his guard. This was nothing like their sparring. Church was a rockslide down a mountain, an avalanche, a force of nature. The curse marks had turned him into a creature of raw hunger.
Ironchurch connected with Gale’s jaw, and Gale dropped to the floor. Ironchurch picked up the harpoon and pushed a boot into his throat. Ironchurch pushed down with the harpoon shaft towards Gale’s neck. Gale’s muscles screamed, and he lost ground inch by inch. The weapon pushed against his throat, crushing his windpipe. The Arghost’s burning timbers framed Ironchurch’s silhouette. Something about that ship was crucial for finding his father. He choked out a laugh, he finally had a lead, and he was going to die here.
The wind cut through the smoke for a moment. Just for a moment, he saw the fire creeping towards Ash. He stared into her eyes, and then she turned away as smoke swallowed her.
Ironchurch was crushing his throat with the spear. Black danced at the edge of his vision. He tried to heave the harpoon way, but it was like doing an impossible barbell press.
A barbell press, something about that. What was it? Gale took in one last deep breath and made his gamble.
‘Church….can you spot me.’
Ironchurch’s face tilted to the side, he looked down at the harpoon, back at Gale. Ironchurch’s blood-red eyes flickered and flashed to normal.
‘Gale…’ Ironchurch threw the harpoon away, grabbed his head and wrenched it back and forth. Ironchurch cracked his own skull against the stone and collapsed unconscious.
Gale pushed himself to his feet. What a cluster fuck. Ironchurch unconscious before him, consumed by the curse mark. Ash burning on the Arghost. His mates scattered to the winds to buy him this chance. Red just staring, watching it all play out.
No.
He was not joining her war. No more clever schemes. No more plans. This bitch had hurt Ironchurch. This bitch had hurt Ash, had hurt his family. She wanted to break him. Well tough titties, the College had already done that.
‘Pancakes, walkies!’
Pancakes surged out of him. In the Cathedral’s heart, under the gaze of kings, water tore out of Gale. A column of water speared Blush and smashed her back. Behind him the rock of the Cathedral exploded into a glyph ten metres high in the rock. A symbol in the shape of his birthmark. Glass windows shattered and the statue of Canute split down the middle.
Gale let it all out, no hiding his strength, no holding back the tide. The raging storm of the Deep combined with an unyielding instinct to hunt. This bitch had brought it all crashing down. His chance at being a fracturesmith. His hunt for his family. She’d turned Ironchurch against him. She’d scattered his friends.
She had hurt Ash.
He’d thought Ash was the blood knight. He’d given up on her when she’d only ever tried to help him. He’d judged her for the same reasons everyone judged him. He’d judged her for her family, for her blood.
Salt stained tides crashed out from Gale. Whipping tendrils of water battered Red, knocking her up into the air, smashing her back and forth. Gale clenched his fist, and they converged. A prison of crushing Deep surrounded Red. Gale tightened his grip and brought the pressure crashing down. He had failed his friends once already, he would not fail Ash.
Blood was not thicker than water.
A red blade cut through the sphere of Deep. Red flopped to the ground. Red looked wrung out, her chest heaving. Her eyes darted back and forth. She pulled a black pouch from her belt and emptied a black powder onto her hand. She hesitated, something in her eyes…fear? She downed the contents.
Red’s eyes went dark.
Sterling - Hunt
Sterling hit the water. The cold bit into his flesh. Blood spread through the water and the swarm quivered.
Sterling twisted in the water and swung out with his blade. He sliced through a pack of vampiric-squid. He diced a yeti-crab. He used script to propel his motions through the water, making his sluggish turns graceful.
He needed air. He looked above to the surface, and something was burning high above him. He stroked upwards cutting through a long fin. He reached for the surface.
A red blur knocked him down into the depths. Makos darted around him, his movements like greased lightning in the water. Sterling swam for the surface, and a blow knocked him further down.
A bubble escaped his lips.
Sterling gritted his teeth, and blows rained down. Each blow forced him deeper in the harbour, each strike carrying him away from the air he desperately needed. Makos slowed down, just enough that Sterling could see him smiling, hovering between Sterling and the air. The frakker was enjoying this.
Come on, dig up stupid.
Sterling cursed his lack of alignment. He couldn’t shoot locomotive force like Swan, he couldn’t command the waves like Gale, Sterling had no Canutian marks like Titus and he, well, he didn’t have whatever the hell it was that Yip did. All Sterling could do was be faster or stronger. No one would ever write a tale about that.
He looked down and saw a crack in the bottom of the harbour. Something showed at the base of the crack. Wait, a crack in the harbour.
Timber? Was the floor of the harbour artificial?
He channelled all the corona he could into his arms and slammed the soot blade down into the crack.
Sterling plunged down into open air, blessed air filling his lungs with a dank stale musk. The harbour fell with him. He struck something as it flew past and then crashed into a bookshelf. The bookshelf toppled to crack into the ground. Sterling dragged himself out of the water atop a massive bookshelf.
Around him was a library in a gargantuan cavern. Living books flew through the air, covers opened up as they flitted about the room, covers flapping like wings. They scuttled like a nest of ants exposed to the light. They all took flight as water cascaded into the cavern.
‘The Black Library, the Heretics rest.’ Sterling muttered.
A crimson shape exploded from the water and swung at him. Sterling dived to the side and Makos slipped back into the water. His bookshelf toppled, and he leapt onto a flying book. He staggered, trying to balance and leapt to a different one. He couldn’t steer them, and there was no reins or bridle. It was like surfing if the surfboard was alive.
Makos leapt from the water at him again. Sterling leapt, grabbing another book by his fingertips. He swung, his arms straining to hold as he caught a glimpse of the cavern beneath him. The water level was rising. All the books were taking flights, fleeing the tide as it swamped their homes. Dust, was flung in the air as old covers broke open. They battered at the cavern walls like a fly trying to find its way back through a window. He ascended towards the break in the ceiling by leaping from book to book. There had to be an exit. Every library had an entrance. Unless of course, it was a hidden library that wasn’t meant to exist. Then it might have just been buried and forgotten about.
Frak.
The water rose, Makos’s fin circled below, rising on the tide. The swarm of books huddled into a solid mass, forced together by the water, a platform that Sterling tumbled onto.
It wasn’t the last stand he would have chosen. He was going to die in a library. He didn’t even get a sexy librarian as a sidekick. He was going to die down here in the darkness, surrounded by history but never to be a part of it. Buried in a pile of books.
No one would see. No one would know what had happened to him. Surround by books, not one recording anything about the Secondus family. Not a relative of his in there. Not even his Grandfather Siegfried.
He was okay with that. It would buy the others time, which would change the course of history.
A flying book hit him in the chest. ‘The tales of the Wytchhunter, by Siegfried Secondus.’ A black journal with a silver burning pyre on the front. Sterling whipped it open to the first page. It couldn’t be. He stared at the first page, an incantation of only five lines.
Makos leapt from the water and crashed onto the platform of living books. The books trembled underneath him. Makos bellowed and charged swinging his blade overhead. Sterling dodged and raised his blades, tired arms protesting. Sterling deflected blows one-handed, his other hand refusing to give up the black book with the silver pyre. His arm numbed from the force of Makos’s blows. It was like a fighting a hydraulic press. All Sterling could do was keep up.
Sterlings right leg dipped into the open air, and he fell to his knees. Makos had forced him to the edge of the platform. Makos grinned and brought his blade down. Sterling caught it with his blade and his legs sunk layers deep into the books from the impact. His left hand refused to let go of the book, even as his right trembled under the onslaught. Makos bared his layers of teeth, towering over him. Though he could have easily bitten out at Sterling or punched with his free hand, he simply bore down with his sword one-handed. Makos overwhelmed Sterling slowly, savouring the moment, enjoying the hunt.
‘Give up unhatched. I am the Red will, I am her blood and blood is everything. I will not fail her.’ Makos said.
Makos slowly pushed both their blades down towards Sterling’s throat. Sterling right arm screamed at him, and he pushed all the corona he had along it, trying to keep his own blade from cutting his throat open. His own blade was level with his eyes now. Soot flaked away from the edge, a glimmer of metal revealed underneath.
A monster of the Deep in front of him, the darkness surrounding them, Sterling thought of his family. His old family, his sister, and to his new one. He could only hope he’d bought Gale and Swan the time they’d needed. Another Secondus would pass into the obscurity of history, not even enough for a cliff note.
Hah, Swan would never let him live this down.
Sterling’s strength lost out, his blade slipped, and Makos’s sword plunged towards his throat. Sterling shut his eyes as cold metal bit into his neck.
Clink.
Sterling looked down. Calumny, her lengthy fringe flicked to the side, her tiny sword held high, had planted her feet on his clavicular notch. She held back both blades at the very edge of Sterlings neck. A single drop of blood rolling down his neck to trickle down the sootblade.
Calumny spoke to him in his mind.
Sterling spoke the five lines he’d seen in the front of a book written by his grandfather.
‘Fall to rise.’
‘Action before words.’
Sterling stood, as Calumny’s blade bore the weight. Something primal flashed in Makos’s eyes. Some ancient fear deep in his lizard brain. Makos pushed harder against Calumny whose tiny metallic legs were warping under pressure.
‘Hunt the weakness in the dark,
The heretic’s pyre lights my way.’
Blood dripped from his throat, tracking down his sword washed away the last of the soot.
‘Shine silver, Wytchhunter’
Sterling’s blade exploded with script. Silver script that was so much more than his raw form. Subtle and flickering with sharp edges like a knife. His blood burned, the last of the soot fading to reveal the blade underneath. White-hot silver flared and ran in a liquid noose around his neck to seal the cut. It didn’t burn his neck or cause pain. Then cooled into a collar.
Makos was blasted back in a burst of silver light. Makos stumbled, surprise warred with fear in his eyes.
Sterling stood, his body renewed, muscles invigorated, wounds closed. His blade blazed with silver light, the only soot remaining formed the shape of a burning pyre on the blade. His shredded black suit became a black overcoat with a hood.
He looked good. He looked frakking memorable.
Makos called forward the creatures of the Deep, vampire squids launched themselves from the water at him and burned on contact. Yeti crabs scuttled away from his presence, longfins came at him hesitantly and Sterling cleaved them in two. He pointed his blade at Makos and stepped forward, the journal of the Wytchhunter held open, outstretched in his palm.
‘This is my story heretic, this is my hunt.’ Sterling slammed the journal closed.
‘Run.’
Swan - Spark
Swan burst through the double doors of the amphitheatre, sword drawn. Sterling had fallen to give her this chance. To help her reach the fight. To help Gale defeat that absolute witch.
The amphitheatre stretched out before her, a tale written in its destruction. A fracture had cracked through the air above the harbour. In the break, a burning ship held a figure strapped to it and the sight of an ocean beyond.
Gale had Red trapped in a giant sphere of Deep. Then Red fell to her knees on the walkway and swallowed a dark powder. Everything around Red collapsed inwards. Red’s script went from the flush of fresh blood to the black of dying tissue. The reek of sulphur cut the air.
Gale hurled water at Red in violent streams. Red brushed it off, and black water shot out and encased him in a dark grip. Red took her time approaching Gale.
‘What do you think, Gale? This is Salt collected from the ninth layer of the Deep, at the greates
t pressure. In the absolute darkness of the Trench, you will find this flavour of Salt that we call…brimstone.’ Blush licked a trace of it off her palm.
Gale struggled against his bonds, but the brimstone infused water held him tight. Nearby Pancakes writhed on the floor. The House Cup was pulled from Gale’s back and given in to Red’s hands by the brimstone.
Right, time to be the hero, Swan thought. Swan charged at Red.
Red smirked and threw her hands up high, the pulpit behind her in the background. ‘Ah, my faithful. Bow your head in respect.’
Incredible weight bore down upon Swan, forcing her to her knees.
Red lowered her hands and gave her a wink. ‘Feel that, that's the pressure of the Deep at the ninth layer. The crushing weight of the abyss. I grew up with this every day, and you think you could defeat me.’ More weight hammered down. Gale collapsed, and Swan jammed her blade into the stone, holding herself on one knee.
Red looked down at them. ‘Pathetic, I don’t know how you avoided the siren song, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve wiped out all the prospective trainees, the next generation of soldiers, in one stroke even as I take the key to start the Nine Floodgates.
Of course I don’t expect you to appreciate it like I do, I was born in the blood of battle. I live for the thrill of combat but know the pain of it. I see the suffering, the loss that follows. The Worldflood will be the ultimate battle, and then no-one will suffer…because no-one will be left.’
Red slowly walked over to her. ‘Well my dainty swan, you may kiss my boot if you wish’. Swan felt the pressure double, and she remained kneeling with gritted teeth and a curse.
‘No?’ Red kicked Swan’s knee from under her, crushed her throat under her boot. Swan’s throat closed off under Blush’s heel. She tried to draw in ragged breaths. She didn’t have much power left. She couldn’t reach out to the metal statues on either side. The burning ship above though, through the fracture, the metal plating was already heated. She just had to push it a little more.