The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  “Remember the heads!” Cheyenne shouted as she ducked a flung green fireball and launched an energy sphere at an oversized metal wasp.

  “As in, aim for them this time or what?” Bhandi shouted, squeezing off fell shots left and right.

  “As in, take them off!” She lifted a shield in front of her before a swarm of glinting metal beetles with needle-sharp spikes where their faces would be flew toward her.

  Spells blasted in all directions from the Bull’s Head loyalists, who roared and snarled and leaped atop stacked crates to get better shots at their targets.

  Colonel Thomas pulled his own firearm and squeezed off a few rounds at Jamal before the FRoE agents he’d brought with him formed a protective line around their commanding officer. Jamal staggered back against the force, but his bulletproof dampening vest caught the bullets instead of his chest. With a roar, he slammed the sides of both fell rifles against his chest and powered them up with high-pitched whines, then unleashed blast after green blast.

  A loyalist goblin screeched with laughter and punched another metal box she’d pulled from one of the crates. “You’re finished now, mór úcare!”

  One of the two tank machines rumbled to life, blinking red and yellow lights before the heavy metal tracks started turning and it growled across the floor. Cheyenne lifted another shield to block the burst of crimson light spewing from the war machine’s rotating head. She ducked, turned to reach out with her black lashing tendrils, and pulled a leaping skaxen out of the air with a sharp tug. The rat-faced magical yelped and hit the floor, and the spray of yellow darts the guy had meant to aim at Todd and Bhandi went wild and crashed into the high wall opposite the second-story windows.

  Todd jammed down the lever on the fell laser and screamed in excitement and effort as the column of fell energy flared across the reception hall. It seared through metal crates and the floor and the tip of the flying war machine’s wing, spraying like an out-of-control water hose. He tried to aim it at the rumbling tank coming for Cheyenne, the floor now trembling beneath the heavy machine’s movement. The fell laser nicked the edge of the tank with a squeal of shredding metal and a thick shower of sparks, then a troll loyalist darted past Jamal’s double-firing rifles and crashed into Todd.

  The human agent roared as he staggered back. The fell laser changed trajectory and moved up the back wall of the reception hall, cutting through the plaster and metal and brick and dropping huge chunks of the wall on the loyalists on the other side.

  “Get that tank!” Cheyenne shouted.

  Bhandi squeezed off fell rounds left and right, taking out two snarling goblins leaping at her before she turned and blasted both a dart of crimson light and another fell shot at the goblin grappling with Todd. The goblin shrieked and dropped.

  “I’m on it!” Todd roared and aimed the crossbow-axehead-laser back toward the ground floor. The loyalists in his constantly spewing line of fire leaped into toppling stacks of crates and over each other. An ogre who didn’t move fast enough got his left arm and most of his left leg shaved off as the laser moved toward the growling tank.

  Yurik and Tate picked off loyalists one by one from the second story, occasionally having to aim their barrels up to shoot flying, whirring war machines out of the air.

  Cheyenne lifted a second shield when the tank unloaded another spray of red light in her direction, then raised a hand to knock another oversized metal wasp from the air with telekinetic force. The thing let off a burst of metal shards, and she darted away from most of it before the tail end of the attack sent two steel barbs, each an inch long, into her thigh.

  With a roar, she spun again and slammed into an orc’s chest. Staggering back, she looked at the sneering loyalist, his tusks covered with deep engravings shaped like flames. The orc chuckled darkly, his yellow eyes glowing, and grabbed two thick black disks of metal off his belt. They were already beeping and flashing orange.

  Shit. Cheyenne summoned a black energy sphere, but before she could throw it at him, a stream of opalescent violet light hit the orc’s side and sent him flying across the room. The disks in his meaty green hands exploded into two swarms of tiny black machines that peppered the closest living thing, which happened to be the orc and the two gremlin loyalists he’d bowled over.

  Their screams cut through the air over the explosions of fellfire, the crackling hiss of unleashed magic, and the roar of the activated tank that wobbled dangerously across the ground as Todd seared through one side of the tracks. Cheyenne looked quickly up at the second story to find Ember staring down at her with both arms outstretched, her eyes wide. Then a Bull’s Head troll launched a streak of zigzagging blue energy at the fae, and Ember returned her attention to the battle.

  Definitely not her first time. She can handle this.

  Cheyenne spun again and found Sir standing against the side wall of the reception hall, his pistol raised in both hands but not discharging as his eyes flicked back and forth across the chaos. Coward.

  The FRoE agents who’d come in with him and Colonel Thomas had formed their own tight knot a few yards from him, looking confused as they fired at any Bull’s Head magicals who headed toward them in battle rage, forgetting they were supposed to be on the same side as Colonel Thomas and his men. So far, none of the colonel’s agents had made a move on Rhynehart and his rebel team. We’ll see what happens when all these screaming loyalist idiots are on the ground.

  One of those screaming loyalist idiots barreled toward her. The goblin was skinny and haggard-looking, his turquoise skin covered in boils as he ran at Cheyenne and swung back a fist sparking green light.

  Cheyenne slipped into drow speed and met him halfway, catching his fist in her own before he knew what hit him. She summoned a black energy sphere and felt the goblin’s bones crack in her grip before she threw him across the reception hall.

  She didn’t have time to see where he landed. The steel barbs embedded in her thigh zapped her with an electric charge, and she bellowed in rage when her leg went numb from thigh to toe. It forced her out of enhanced speed, and her activator prompted her to jerk them out of her flesh without touching the barbs before disassembling them into sparking segments she tossed at the orc leveling some kind of black metal grenade launcher at Jamal. The orc screamed and dropped the weapon to clamp his thick hands over his face, now peppered with barb segments, blood, and sparking green light.

  Everyone ducked when the tank finally exploded under Todd’s fell laser. Shards of metal, sprays of small gears and whirring levers, and an eruption of dark blue flames filled the reception hall. Cheyenne raised a shield in front of herself, which gave her enough time to try to stomp some feeling back into her leg. Before the rest of the debris hit the ground, the fighting picked up again.

  “Cheyenne!” Bhandi called and cracked the butt of her fell pistol into the skull of a Bull’s Head skaxen who’d caught fire from the explosion.

  Cheyenne turned to the troll woman and caught a glimpse of Colonel Thomas running away from the melee before he disappeared through the open doors and left the hall. Wow. At least Sir has the balls to stay here.

  She slipped into drow speed and let out a sharp growl when her half-numb leg wobbled under her. But she ran across the debris-strewn floor as flashing spells and blue flames and fell shots hung suspended all around her. By the time she reached the doors, she was moving almost at full speed despite the cramp threatening to take over her thigh.

  Then she was out in the darkened hall, but Colonel Thomas was gone. I won’t find him like this.

  Falling out of enhanced speed, she stopped in the dark corridor and cocked her head. The echoing sounds of battle behind her overwhelmed everything else, but she dampened it with the activator and let her drow hearing pick up the rest.

  Hurried footsteps came toward her from the branching corridor on her right. There you are.

  Cheyenne took off running, following the sounds of the colonel’s footsteps and his slightly labored breathing. Her steps hardly m
ade a noise on the slick floor, then she skidded around the corner and saw the heel of the man’s boot disappearing into a dark room at the end of the hall. Gotcha.

  She ran after him and darted through the doorway. “Pretty sure this is a dead-end, Colonel.”

  Thomas fired two shots that cracked against the wall behind her head. The third hit the shield of dark light Cheyenne threw up in front of her and ricocheted. The bulb in the overhead light shattered and rained glass on the empty room.

  The colonel squeezed off another shot like an idiot and almost took himself out of the game when the bullet bounced off her shield and struck the wall behind him two inches from his head.

  Cheyenne grinned behind her shield. “You should probably stop.”

  Thomas fired again, but the only sound was the click of an empty chamber. The man snarled at his weapon and tossed it across the room with a clatter. Then he spread his arms and glared at her. “If you’re gonna kill me, now’s your chance.”

  “Tempting.” Cheyenne waved the shield down and cocked her head. “But not why I’m here.”

  “Well, I’m not stepping down from anything.” Colonel Thomas lifted his chin and took a deep breath. “So you either fight me and kill me, or you’re wasting both our time.”

  She gave him a mocking grimace. “I mean, if you fight anything like you aim your weapon, you don’t have a chance.”

  What came next happened all at once. Colonel Thomas’ eyes darted to the dark corner behind Cheyenne on the right. Her activator blared to life with a warning alarm and flashing lights. She felt a shift in the air behind her, the hair on the back of her neck rising and tingling even as she spun toward the corner.

  The massive war machine that had waited silently in half-activated stealth mode moved faster than any other machine she’d seen. Two segmented, whirring tentacles that looked way too much like an in-between monster swept across the room toward her. Cheyenne got off two crackling black energy spheres before the tentacles connected with her chest and knocked her against the wall.

  She roared in surprise and pain, pinned against the wall with her feet four inches off the floor. Slapping both hands on the whirring tentacle arms, Cheyenne summoned the blazing black fire across every inch of her skin before she formed the coherent thought to do so. The tentacle jerked beneath her hand, crushing her harder against the wall even as her black fire raced up the metallic appendage to the war machine’s body, which was coming to life with blinking lights and an animalistic groan.

  Before the thing fell away from her under her attack, it activated a line of opening panels against Cheyenne’s chest. A pain worse than anything she’d known, worse than Venga’s surprise potion dose, worse than the blight poison spreading through her, worse than being crushed nearly to death by an in-between monster, shot into her chest and coursed through her entire body.

  Her scream was the only thing in her awareness.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor against the wall, the war machine’s tentacle spasming and sparking beside her before falling still. The black flames racing up and down her body snuffed out. Cheyenne lay panting heavily under the spasming agony racing through her limbs and throbbing through her head. When the dart wounds in her shoulders and hip erupted in agonizing bursts under whatever the war machine had injected into her, her first reaction was to scream.

  But no sound came out.

  I can’t move. Why the fuck can’t I move?

  Her racing pulse pounded in her ears, and no matter how hard she tried to roll over, open her mouth, or lift a finger, she was useless.

  A low chuckle echoed around the dark, empty room, followed by slow footsteps drawing closer. Then two black boots streaked with the ghost of a reflection from the soft light in the hallway stopped three feet from Cheyenne’s face.

  With an overwhelming amount of effort, she managed to lift her gaze up the length of Colonel Thomas’ legs until they settled somewhere close to his face.

  Fuck you.

  She could only think it at this point. The rest of her didn’t work.

  The colonel reached back beneath the hem of his jacket and drew a second service pistol from the cross-body harness hidden there. The weapon hung at his side as he cocked his head and studied the immobilized drow halfling lying in front of him. “They told me it would be agonizing.”

  Cheyenne glared at him, refusing to blink. Her panting breath quickened only a little beneath the blazing pain coursing through her, not nearly as strong as her fury.

  “I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear I’ve been watching you for some time now, Cheyenne. Of course, I had no idea who you were in the beginning, and I didn’t really give a shit. Major Carson handles the underlings fine, or at least he did. You made a splash when you helped the agents technically under my command unravel the work my associates were so driven to complete. You caught my attention.”

  A choking sound burst from her throat as she struggled to move. As soon as this shit runs its course, I’m gonna rip his head off.

  “You won’t be able to fight this.” Colonel Thomas lifted his pistol to wave it back and forth over her body, pointing at her with the barrel of his firearm like it was a baton. “I know you probably still believe you can fight this, but the Bull’s Head made it specifically for you. Obviously, I didn’t know they worked with race-tracking explosives before this, but Welyk assured me the injection you received would take you out of the game. It’s very impressive what you can do. Even more impressive, I think, is the fact that those magicals managed to lock onto your magical signature, as they call it, to manufacture what’s most likely the only thing that can take you down.”

  The man squatted in front of her and leaned forward with a sneer.

  “You’re too rash. Quick to fight off one of these machines in that disgusting marketplace they built underground. You sealed your fate by trying to be a hero. Your kind doesn’t deserve what you’ve taken from us. I plan to take it back.” He cocked his head and gave her a mocking frown. “What’s wrong? Can’t think of anything to say?”

  I’ll fucking kill you. What came out instead was a wheezing moan, but her lips did finally move.

  Colonel Thomas widened his eyes and nodded. “You must be fighting hard in there to even get that much out.”

  Cheyenne’s foot twitched against the floor.

  The man glanced at her foot, then shrugged. “Major Carson said you healed quickly.”

  “You…” Cheyenne swallowed, which encouraged her. Here we go. “You have…no idea…” Forcing all her willpower into it, she managed to shake her head a quarter of an inch.

  “Oh, you’re here to prove us all wrong, aren’t you?”

  Jesus. And I thought fighting Ba’rael was bad.

  Clicking his tongue, the man shook his head and let out a humorless chuckle. “I don’t think you’ll heal very quickly from a bullet to the head.”

  Fuck. Cheyenne struggled to move, but all she managed was a quick jerk of her entire body.

  Colonel Les Thomas stepped back and raised his pistol to level it at Cheyenne’s head. “You did your best, Miss Summerlin. It wasn’t enough.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The gunshot cracked through the room and brought a new level of searing pain through her head. I’m not supposed to feel this.

  Cheyenne groaned, clenching her eyes tightly against the high-pitched ringing in her ears and the pain and the fact that she still couldn’t fucking move. Through the muted echo of her ringing ears, she heard a sharp crack, and something heavy thumped to the ground. Then she opened her eyes and found herself staring at Colonel Thomas’ face on the floor next to hers.

  “What?” She looked up as Sir stepped the rest of the way into the room. “You.”

  Sir holstered his pistol and dropped into a squat beside the colonel to check the man’s pulse. His upper lip twitched when he found it, then he stood again and stepped away from both bodies on the ground. “Yeah. Me.”


  Cheyenne swallowed thickly, growling a little before she managed to say more than two words at once. “Change of heart?”

  “You could say that. And now I guess we’re on the same goddamn side, halfling. Wasn’t sure I wanted to be, but I’m pretty sure Alice would stop talking to me forever if she found out I didn’t do everything I could to grow a fucking conscience.”

  “Or a pair of balls.” Cheyenne let out a croaking laugh.

  “Fair enough.” Sir sniffed and folded his arms. “I’m trying to do what’s right, Cheyenne. Hard to figure that shit out when everyone’s got as many goddamn secrets as a fat-ass catfish has whiskers. You were right, though. Les wasn’t who I thought he was.”

  “I know I was right.” Cheyenne finally managed to move, which was only a slight roll off her side until her upper back and her head thumped into the wall. “You should listen to me more.”

  “Yeah, I said you were right, okay? You win.” Sir’s mustache bristled beneath his deepening frown. “So why the fuck are you just lying there?”

  A raw chuckle escaped her. “I know, right? ‘Cause I can’t fucking move.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  In the middle of the chaotic fight still raging through the reception hall, the doors at the back behind the Bull’s Head’s stash of war-machine parts and control panels and crates burst open.

  “The deathflame’s coming for you, fuckers!” Lumil let out a shrieking battle cry and sprinted into the room, red runes already spinning wildly around her fists. She dropped to her knees and slid beneath an orc’s launched attack of blazing darts of orange light and brought her fist up into his groin. The orc howled and dropped halfway to his knees before Lumil’s other fist cracked into the underside of his jaw. “Ha!”

  Byrd cackled, spit flying out of his mouth as he launched heavy columns of green flames at the unsuspecting magicals turning around in surprise. “Assholes don’t know what hit ‘em!”

  Up on the second-story balcony, Ember laughed in surprise and shot a stream of violet light at one of the last flying war machines trying to get close enough to attack her. “It’s about fucking time.”