“Your calculations were wrong!” Jane hissed. “Bring that cart back here!”
“Oh my! I must check my statistical circuits.” The phone chirped.
“Never mind that,” snapped Althyof. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
In a breath, I heard what had caused his concern. The army was close and racing closer with each passing moment.
I used the garage door opener switch on the cart to open one of the bay doors near us and tried the four carts we found inside. None of them powered up when I hit the switch.
“Haymtatlr!” I shouted in impotent rage.
“Never mind him,” said Veethar. “What are we going to do?”
We came up with a loose plan. To contain the battle, to choose the battlefield such that the Dark Queen could not bring her superior numbers to bear, we needed a choke point. I held up the guide. “Dead end roadway, walking distance, avoid the Dark Queen’s forces.” The thing was silent for a moment but vibrated its acceptance of the command after a heartbeat. We grabbed our gear, and Meuhlnir grabbed Sif’s bag from the roadway and ran in the direction the guide indicated.
We rounded a blind corner, and there it was, a cul-de-sac bordered on three sides by garages hidden behind roll-up doors. I pointed the guide at the garage door on the right. It was orange with a white stripe. “Open the door!” I didn’t expect the door to open, but it trundled upward, revealing one of the ubiquitous square rooms for storing carts.
“Good.” I pointed at the door set in the inside wall of the garage. “Packs in the hall, clear all but one cart out of the garage—we’ll use the last one to close the door if we can. We start the fight in the cul-de-sac, fall back to the garage if we get overwhelmed, and then through the door into the hall. If we have to defend the door, we fight, by twos, right here in the doorway, letting the others rest or do damage at range.” Everyone nodded, and I stepped into the hall and dropped my gun belt, cloak, hat, and mail shirt. Next to my gear, I put Sif’s medicine bag. “Make sure this stuff stays with us. We can lose the packs, but we must keep our arms, armor, and the medical kit.” I stepped back into the garage and began what I was calling the Kuthbyuhrn triblinkr in my mind. A dull pain slid in behind my eyes, and for a moment, I saw only purple and blue splotches, as if I’d rubbed my eyes too hard. Unlike a short time ago, the prayteenk was slow, painful.
“Hank, what do I do? Bears don’t need skyuldur vidnukona!”
“Use the ring,” Althyof said to Jane. “Fly over the battle, hit where you can, sow confusion and fear everywhere else.”
“But watch your energy,” I said, my voice growing thick and decreasing in pitch. The moment I took my full concentration away from the triblinkr, I started to revert. “Harder this time,” I gasped.
“Go slow,” said Althyof.
“Don’t overextend, Jane. We need you awake and functional. Laundry won’t do itself…”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “After this is over, I’m giving you such a beating.” Black wings sprouted from her back as if she were Azrael. She beat her wings once and took up a position in the square of road surface that was our bottleneck.
“Watch me,” Althyof said. “When I go into the garage, we all do. No exceptions.” The last he directed at me, scowling up into my shaggy face. “You will need to belly crawl, but don’t you dare change forms out here.”
I nodded my head and chuffed through my nose, applying myself to changing into a magnificent bear.
“They come,” said Veethar, pointing up the road with his sword.
Fifty-nine
The Dark Queen and Luka stayed back, sending her trolls in first to soften us up. Althyof began a trowba as the trolls thundered toward us, and the strength of it made me gasp. Jane rose above the road and hovered over my back, golden spear in one hand, her raven shield strapped to the other arm. Meuhlnir called for bolt after bolt of bluish-white lightning, targeting the troops held in reserve. Veethar’s smile was grim as he scuffed his booted foot against the surface of the road. He pointed his sword at the leading troll and yelled, “Fara kethvaykur!”
The troll shrieked as if in the throes of a maniacal fury and, without slowing, swung his huge club at the troll on his left. Blue troll blood splattered in a wide arc, and without pause, the berserk troll spun to the right and attacked the next closest troll. Jane swooped forward, nodding at Veethar, and pointed at the trolls with her spear, and other trolls threw down their weapons and fled, while yet others looked around in confusion, or attacked the trolls closest to them.
I struggled to complete the prayteenk, my body twisting back and forth between bear and man. It made little sense—it had been effortless a mere half hour before. I grew and shrank, grew and shrank, but with a net gain. My bones thickened, my musculature morphed into that of a quadruped, my skull elongated and grew.
From the back of the army, a bearish scream of anger rolled toward us. Instinct demanded that I answer, and I did, at the top of my lungs, pouring as much hatred and anger into the scream as I could. With my war cry reverberating up the street, stillness blanketed the cul-de-sac for a heartbeat, and when the violence exploded again, the prayteenk finished, and I roared again.
Althyof danced a wide circle around me, his daggers glowing red, shrinking and stretching in their herky-jerky way that reminded me of Japanese horror movies. His dance flowed gracefully in perfect accord with his trowba, and the runes floated in my mind a moment before he cast them, as if by private radio signal. I began to cast the runes in time with his song, and he spared me a nod.
As the troll lines dissolved into chaos, the bearish roar sounded again, and again, I answered her at the top of my lungs. It was a challenge I offered her, but still the Black Bitch didn’t come forward, and neither did Luka. Instead, a loose group of oolfa howled and snarled their answer.
A company of Svartalfar marched forward in perfect step. Three of their strange version of runeskowlds came forward with the warriors, their songs clashing and jangling against one another, their dances arrhythmic and out of step with one another. It almost hurt to watch.
We let them come, watching as the remaining trolls slammed through the Svartalfar lines, flinging bodies this way and that. The Svartalfar didn’t seem to care—they came on anyway, never slowing, never defending themselves. As the trolls erupted out of the back of their ranks, a howl rose above the tumult, and ten oolfa came forward to deal with the marauding trolls. I counted that as a win.
The Svartalfar approached the square of roadway we called our bottleneck, and as they did, Althyof spun and leapt at them like a ballet dancer mixed with a circular saw. The three Svartalf runeskowlds turned to meet him, and Yowtgayrr appeared behind them, already mid-swing with both longsword and dagger. Meuhlnir’s hammer whistled into the head of the one closest, and the Svartalf did his best imitation of a dropped sack of potatoes.
I roared and charged, running on all fours, swinging my massive head side to side, eyes fastening on the center-most Svartalf in the front line of troops. Beside me, Keri and Fretyi bounded forward, snarling and showing their teeth. The Svartalfar warriors glared back at me, steely-eyed, and didn’t break. The varkr pups and I slammed into them, biting and slashing with our claws. I threw my shoulders into those hapless enough to get too close, and the pups ripped their legs out from under them—almost a parody of their favorite game of attacking everyone’s feet. Jane swooped back and forth above me, kicking Svartalfar in the head, bashing into others with her shield, leaving yet others dead with vicious wounds left by her spear.
“Hank!” yelled Veethar.
I whirled in a tight circle, flinging Svartalfar to the wind. One of the Svartalfar runeskowlds had turned toward me, and his black, black eyes bored into mine as he chanted discordant tones and words. Althyof and Yowtgayrr were still engaged with the other, so I charged, throwing runes in time with Althyof’s trowba. Veethar and Meuhlnir charged into the ranks of Svartalfar, while thunder boomed, and twisting devils of wind howled in t
heir midst.
I ran at the runeskowld, eyes locked on his, roaring as loud as I could, shaking my head side-to-side as my instincts demanded. He tried to keep his kaltrar going in the face of my charge, but when I was mere steps from him and showing no signs of slowing, he gave up and dove to the side, trying to roll clear. I threw out my clawed paw and snatched him out of the air, pulling him close and grinding my fangs into his skull.
Behind the Svartalfar lines, there was a mighty roar followed by the chaotic sound of Isir and Svartalfar reserve units coming to aid the destroyed company. Althyof and Yowtgayrr dispatched the Svartalf runeskowld they fought as I tossed the body of the other away. I whirled, ready to charge again, but Jane flew toward me as fast as she could, calling the pups away, and both Meuhlnir and Veethar were falling back at top speed.
Keri and Fretyi came back to stand with me but refused to go farther, no matter how much Jane scolded them. I stood glaring at the Svartalfar, challenging them to come forward again. The pups growled and yipped, seeming to taunt the enemy.
The remains of the Svartalfar company reformed and began another grim march down our throats. Althyof pointed at Veethar and Meuhlnir, and then at the garage, never breaking his rhythmic singing, never missing a step. He gestured at Yowtgayrr with his head, and the Alfar faded from sight. Jane hovered above me glaring at the advancing troops.
We let them come into the square this time, waiting for them to come to us rather than charging in amongst them, giving Meuhlnir and Veethar good visibility for lancing lightning bolts and hot jets of steam. For a moment, I met Veethar’s yellow-eyed stare, and he nodded and winked.
As the Svartalfar troops advanced, buoyed by the Isir and oolfa coming up the road behind them, I lashed out in great, looping arcs of brown fur and sharp claws. The noise made by the impact of my paws on armor or bare skin reminded me of massive trees slamming to the ground. Keri and Fretyi huddled beneath me, darting out to rip the legs out from under a Svartalf here, another there. They mauled anyone who fell to the ground, sinking vicious fangs into whatever soft flesh they could find.
Another bearish roar reverberated from the opposite end of the road, and this time, I reared up on my hind legs and let loose a filling-rattling roar that sent the Svartalfar scurrying away. Althyof screamed a jangling combination of notes and cadmium red walls of energy enveloped the Svartalfar in the square for a moment, freezing them in place, before it began to corral the gray-skinned troops into a progressively tighter circle. The Svartalfar shrieked, and Althyof clanged his daggers together and the red walls imploded, leaving scraps of flesh, armor, and bone where the Svartalfar had stood.
The oolfa howled and charged us, ten of the abominations. I screamed in defiance, hoping one of them was Luka, but knowing he would be in the rear with the Dark Queen. I stretched my arms wide as if to give them a welcoming hug. My varkr companions growled low in their throats as though insulted by the sight of the oolfa.
Althyof backed toward the garage doors, still singing, still dancing. I engaged the first oolfur, grabbing him with my front paws and lifting him over my head like a professional wrestler wearing a fur coat before I tossed him at the others. Jane screamed and hurled her spear, and as soon as it left her hand, it crackled and grew as bright as the sun. By the time it reached the oolfur, the shape of the spear had disappeared, and only golden lightning remained. It sizzled as it lanced through the beast’s chest. “Aftur!” Jane shouted, and the golden lightning winked out, and the spear reappeared in her hand.
A bolt of fire streaked through the air from the other end of the roadway—no doubt thrown by Luka—and beelined for Jane. She hunched behind her shield, and the fireball splashed off—deflecting harmlessly into the stone ceiling of the roadway. She shrieked her defiance and made as if she were bashing her shield into someone. With a piercing ping, a jagged black beam shot forth from the raven enameled in the center of the shield, flinging the oolfa and Isir troops to the sides of the road with significant violence as the beam shrieked past them. At the end of the road, an oolfur yelped and howled with rage.
The Dark Queen’s Isir poured into the square—a tsunami of fair-skinned men with vicious expressions—and Althyof ducked into the garage. Jane swooped in and dropped to the ground, whirling around to throw her golden spear into the ranks of the oncoming troops.
I stood my ground in the center of the square, drunk on the power of my form. Together with Keri and Fretyi, we culled the ranks of Isir trying to encircle us. The wary oolfa circled, as if unsure how to handle the three of us.
I should have known they prevaricated. I should have known they would have no fear of us, but the power, the majesty of the form, was hard to resist.
Isir, Svartalfar, and oolfa attacked in unison, moving to encircle Keri, Fretyi and me—to trap us in the center of the square. Jane screamed my name from the garage.
Althyof sang an offbeat, cacophonous jangle and a wave of red power avalanched over the Dark Queen’s troops. Meuhlnir yelled, “Ehltur ehlteenkar!” A fan of lightning wrapped in bright blue flame shot out of his hammer and speared into the men in front of me. With a massive paw, I swiped at another oolfur and, with a chuffing grunt at the puppies, took my cue to duck into the garage with the others. I had to slink in on my belly, but as I did, I started the triblinkr that would reverse my change. I didn’t want to—I liked being a bear—but it made little sense to be that big inside such a small place. As I did, I dispatched part of my consciousness toward the end of the street, this time taking the doubling of sensory input in stride.
Veethar stepped forward to cover my retreat. He waved his sword from side to side at the men before him. “Vaykya!” he commanded, and many of the Isir in the square staggered and dropped their weapons from enervated hands.
When I’d shrunk enough to fit, I ducked through the door into the hall and grabbed my mail shirt and wriggled into it. I scooped up my cloak, flinging it around my shoulders before the change was complete. Next came the hat, and by the time I’d retrieved my gun belt and strapped it on, the prayteenk had finished, and I was myself again. The puppies bounded around me, yipping, and preening as if happy to see me in human flesh.
“You are good varkr, aren’t you boys? Good puppies!” I gave them a moment’s attention, then pointed their snouts at Jane. “Protect your mother!” Tails wagging, the two puppies ran to her and stood guard at her side, swollen with importance.
My… My whatever-it-was, my animus—the part of my awareness I could send to scout—reached the end of the street. The Black Bitch and Luka stood, watching the battle as if bored, surrounded by a troop of Isir in black armor. Behind the black-armored Isir were funny little blue men, wearing leather or cloth robes, carrying daggers or bows.
“There aren’t many of them here,” I said. “I don’t know where the rest of the army is, but it’s the group out front, a bunch of little blue men, and a troop of black-armored Isir. Plus, the Black Bitch herself and Luka.”
“Plowir Medn? Here?” exclaimed Meuhlnir with a concerned expression blooming on his face.
The words meant “blue men” so I didn’t know why they rated a fancy Gamla Toonkumowl name. “I guess. Short little blue fellows, ugly and strange.” I pushed my detached-self up toward the ceiling over the roadway tunnel and parked it there.
“That’s not good,” mumbled Althyof. “Not good at all.”
“Why not?” demanded Jane.
“The Plowir Medn are evil creatures, without a single redeeming quality. They delight in chaos for its own sake, and when they go to war, everyone suffers for it—even their so-called allies.”
“Those little guys?”
“Those ‘little guys’ use a power unique to their race—magic that magnifies the chaos inherent in the underlayment of reality.”
“Well, that sounds just nifty. How in the hell do we fight that?” demanded Jane.
Veethar shrugged with a wry smile. “Same way we fight everything.”
Outside the gara
ge, the Isir troops were forming up for a charge. Meuhlnir gestured toward them with his hammer. “Never mind the Plowir Medn, what do we do about all these Isir?”
Jane shrugged. “Put down the door.”
“The door?”
“Yeah,” she said, walking over to the single cart we’d left inside. She bent over the dash, flipped the switch, and the door clanked toward the ground. “Simple.”
Outside, the Isir yelled and began their charge. I stepped forward, squatted, and let loose with my pistols. Rounds from Kunknir swerved in midair, picking their own targets. I fired Krati as fast as I could pick a target and get a reasonable bead on it. The result was gruesome but effective, and the Isir’s charge died stillborn. The door rumbled closed, closing out the noise of battle, and bringing a sense of relief.
Meuhlnir looked at the door with a critical eye. “That may not hold long.”
“No,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. We won’t be here. Drag that cart over in front of the door, and we’ll disable it. It won’t keep them out, but it will slow them down, no matter how brief the respite is.”
We reassembled in the hall and closed the door. “Too bad these doors didn’t come with locks,” I muttered.
“Idnsikla thessa hurth,” said Meuhlnir with a shrug. “It’s not a lock, but it will seal the door until they overcome it.”
“Good enough,” I said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You can’t think of everything, Hank,” he said. “It would bore the rest of us.” His smile was broad but seemed restrained, nonetheless. “Now what?”
“Now, we go ninja.”
“Ninja?” asked Veethar.
“He means we sneak up on the Dark Queen,” said Jane.
I held up the orange guide. “Find us a path behind the Dark Queen’s location.” The device lay in my hand, inert, silent, wretched. I glanced at Jane, and she shrugged.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 93