The Book of the Blade

by Eric Asher

  “I thought you’d be getting some sleep by now,” Ashley said.

  Zola shrugged, the magrasnetto charms in her hair clinking together briefly. “Ah’ve never been good at sleeping on a night like this. When there’s nothing to do but wait, it’s hard to quiet the mind.”

  “Have you tried tequila?” Beth raised her glass a hair.

  Zola grinned at her. “Indeed, and Ah won’t make that mistake again.”

  Ashley sat up a little straighter. “Now that sounds like a story I’d like to hear.”

  “Mmm. That’s a story Ah’ll take to my grave, thank you very much.”

  There was an explosion of motion near the front door. It swung open, and a 7-foot-tall fairy hurried inside.

  “Something’s coming,” Foster said as he drew his sword. “Stump says one of his scouts saw something moving along the roofs downtown. Too fast to be a green man, and the rest of us are all accounted for.”

  Beth looked down at her tequila, wishing she could drink the rest and not worry about how the evening might play out. But she wouldn’t abandon her friends if something was coming for them at Rivercene.

  “We need to get the coven back inside.” Beth pulled Ashley up off the couch and dragged her toward the back.

  “I’ll join you when I can, Foster,” Ashley shouted over her shoulder.

  Beth heard the innkeeper talking to Zola as they reached the back door. “Let the green men do what they can. Some of them have not fought in a very long time. They need to be tested, reminded of what it takes to defend their lives and homes.”

  “You risk too much.” Zola’s voice faded away as Beth and Ashley made their way onto the back deck and down into the yard beyond.

  Ashley led the way once they reached the grass. Beth had no way of knowing where the coven actually was, but Ashley had at least spent time with them amid the green men.

  Deep at night, with the Milky Way overhead, and the rustling of branches and leaves all around, Beth could almost have believed that she was back in the Shadowed Lands.

  And for a moment, when she saw what was coming through the underbrush, she wished she was.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Shadows raced and slithered through the starlit night. Beth could make out the cloaks of the coven now, and her heart dropped when she realized that some of those shapes in the darkness were headed straight for them.

  “Whip!” Ashley shouted.

  The willow tree beside the coven moved. There was no windup, no subtle indication of what was coming. The branches of the willow tree simply shot out, and Whip eviscerated the front line of shadows.

  Blood and gore exploded into the air with the force of the strike. And something that looked far too much like a human leg fell to the earth nearby. Another shadow surged into a brighter patch of moonlight and Beth recoiled at the vision.

  Those same humanlike legs, paired in the dozens, churned across the earth. The creature didn’t stand any higher than her knee, but Beth had little doubt the damage it could do if the pinchers protruding from its jaws caught hold of flesh.

  The coven backed away, glimpses of blades shining from beneath their cloaks. Beth unsheathed Cornelius’s dagger and plunged it into the center of the protection rune on her right arm. A crackling blue shield flashed up in front of the nearest coven members, and one of the grotesque creatures crashed into it, its face splitting apart in a shower of blue sparks.

  Beth pulled the blade away and made to stab her left arm, but a wave of exhaustion flowed over her. She’d lost too much blood recently, and that was something the fairies’ healing magic couldn’t replace entirely. Her vision swam and her knees locked in place as she tried not to fall over.

  Ashley’s cloak flew out to the side, exposing the weapons strapped to her thigh and the nine tails at her waist. The latter came into her hand as she flipped a tile at the shadows.

  The whip cracked out, cutting the rune on the back of the tile, and sending a torrent of flame to tear through the shadows. It was easy to tell which trees were only trees, and which were green men as they scattered away from the flames.

  The light of the attack revealed the horrors waiting in the darkness. The legs had a human shape, but were scaly like those of an Utukku. The core of its snakelike body, segmented like an insect, weaved back and forth in a nauseating rhythm. But the face, the face was like that of a human skull laid bare.

  The eyes of that expressionless thing were what froze Beth’s heart. Those oily shimmering rainbows locked onto her and surged forward, eyes like the flesh of the Eldritch thing in the Shadowed Lands. Beth didn’t have to ask what the thing was. She knew it was some Eldritch spawn, and she had little doubt it was there for her.

  Whip struck out again, and the thing flew to pieces, bluish-red blood exploding across the field like some long-infected flesh.

  “They’re here for me!” Beth shouted, gritting her teeth through her exhaustion. “Stay away from me!” It was a warning for the coven, for the green men, and most especially for Ashley.

  “Like fucking hell.” Ashley spun three tiles into the air, and the nine tails cracked with a fury. Three funnels of blue lightning, cascading around storm clouds black as night, sailed into the Eldritch things, devouring them as surely as an ant in a flood.

  A green man stepped in front of them, and vines exploded from his hands, lashing out to wrap up one of the Eldritch crawlers. But he wasn’t fast enough, the mandibles siphoning from side to side, severing vines before they landed on the green man himself. Beth watched in horror as the green man’s leg came off in two brutal crunches, and a second Eldritch thing leapt from the earth, crushing the green man’s head before he could so much as scream.

  “They’re behind us!” Stump bellowed, drawing Ashley’s attention.

  She didn’t see the Eldritch thing that leapt from the shadows. Didn’t see the mandibles stretched out to strike her down. But the Eldritch thing couldn’t have known what the triangle cut with a horizontal line in blood would do.

  The giant came from the Shadowed Lands with a clap of thunder. A familiar form, a titan named Sleeper, was born into that realm with a fury few creatures could match. His fist closed around the airborne Eldritch thing, pulping its head with a nauseating pop.

  Beth shouted for him to help Stump, unsure if a giant from the Shadowed Lands could even hear her orders, but it was the last thing she could think of. And to her relief, the giant turned and flowed into action, joining the green man as another wave of the Eldritch came in from the east.

  “They’re back here too!” Vicky shouted.

  Beth glanced up to see the girl on the roof, and a moment later she saw the wings of the dragon spread out behind her and dive off the side of the house. The night exploded into blue and white fire as Jasper burned down everything that wasn’t an ally.

  The back door of Rivercene opened, the hinges squealing like a dying rabbit as the long-dead wood turned green and writhed around it. But the woman who walked out of those doors was the deathbringer in that place. The innkeeper’s eyes flared gold as the boards beneath her bare feet groaned.

  “You dare. In my home.”

  She raised her right arm as golden motes of dust drifted away from her fingertips. The innkeeper snapped her hand closed into a fist, and a tidal wave of shimmering vines exploded out from her being, erupting from the very wood of Rivercene. They snaked around green men and witches as if they had a consciousness all their own. They pierced the fires of the dragon and came out the other side unsinged.

  And as the world fell into the chaos of slithering shadows and brilliant light, those vines fell upon the Eldritch things with a fury. Twisting pillars of vines and light snatched up form after form, curling into inescapable vises.

  As quickly as it had begun, the light faded from those tendrils. Golden motes of power drifted back to the innkeeper, passing through walls and trees and allies alike until the glow of her eyes subsided, the wood of Rivercene waited dormant once more, and the c
orpses of the Eldritch things lay as ash upon the earth.

  The innkeeper looked down at Ashley. “It is not only you who has had to take up arms, child. Your blessing is my blessing, and your coven is one with me.”

  With that, the innkeeper returned to the mansion, leaving silence in her wake.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Vicky?” a familiar voice called.

  “Happy?” Vicky hopped off Jasper’s back close to the deck, letting a soulsword vanish from her hand.

  Shiawase appeared around the corner of the house a moment later. “What was that light?” He looked out across the field behind the house. The coven, huddled together, the green men, the small fires from Ashley’s incantations, and the inferno burning in the field from Jasper.

  “The goddess returns,” Stump said, crouching beside Shiawase. “The Eldritch sent their scions, and she eliminated them.”

  “They were here for me.” Beth’s voice was not much above a whisper. “Did you see how they looked at me? I saw those eyes in the Shadowed Lands.”

  The vines of Stump’s face pulled into a frown. “I do not believe that to be true. They have been cut off from the Seal in the Shadowed Lands. They may never be reunited with those destroyers, Beth of the blood mages. That knowledge sent them to seek the nearest Titan.”

  Whip stepped toward Stump. “We are not supposed to discuss that with outsiders.”

  “Outsiders?” Stump didn’t hide the incredulous edge in his voice as he gestured to the gathered group. “There are no outsiders here, Whip. These are our friends, and it was no doing of ours that they discovered Gaia’s identity. No outsider would offer to revive her, or risk the same fate as those Eldritch scions.”

  The willow tree sagged as Whip spoke once more. “I am drenched in blood, Stump. The blood of the Eldritch, the blood of our enemies, the blood of Fae and even humans. I tire of war.”

  “As do we all.” Stump hesitated before he turned back to Shiawase. “You bring news?”

  Beth walked over to the stairs and sat down with a yawn.

  “Not exciting enough for you?” Ashley asked.

  Beth let out a tired laugh.

  “No, they’re in the back,” Sam said as they rounded the corner. Standing beside her were two vampires Beth didn’t know exceedingly well. The large one was Dominic, an enforcer for the Pit and a ruthless combatant she’d fought with in Greenville. The leaner, shorter one was Vik. He’d taken over the Pit when Vasilli betrayed them all. To keep order in a situation like that meant Vik was a force to be reckoned with.

  Shiawase turned to Sam.

  “You found Cizin?” she asked.

  “Yes. But what happened here?”

  The innkeeper reappeared at the door with those words from Shiawase. “Eldritch things. Long an enemy of the Titans.”

  “Then what brought them here?” Vik asked.

  The innkeeper studied her hands and exchanged a glance with Zola, who nodded. The innkeeper sighed. “They came here for me. My history. I am what you may call the mind of the Titan once known as Gaia.”

  Vik blinked. “The … I’m sorry, but …”

  Beth couldn’t be sure how easily surprised the vampire normally was, but he was clearly at a loss for words here.

  “This is the only thing I hadn’t told you,” Sam said, reaching out for Vik’s shoulder. “The innkeeper is Gaia.”

  Vik’s gaze flashed between the innkeeper and Sam. “But you said you needed to gift the powers of a Titan to Damian. How do you intend to do that? She holds no such powers I can see.”

  “Should have been here five minutes ago,” Vicky muttered.

  The innkeeper walked down the short staircase to the grass. “I am not whole, and so I must be made whole once more.”

  “Fucking hell, Sam.” Vik’s gaze snapped to her. “You’re going to resurrect a Titan?”

  “I’m not dead, either,” the innkeeper said flatly. “One might say I’m far more alive than you are, vampire lord.”

  Vik blinked at the innkeeper. “All these years … I never would have thought.”

  Vicky raised her eyebrows. “Just five minutes earlier and you would have had a really good idea.”

  “Not helping,” Sam hissed.

  Zola flashed a grin at the pair as they bickered, but Beth had no idea why.

  “Enough,” Shiawase said. “I spoke with Cizin. He is in Springfield, not far from the old battlefield there. He says the trail he’s followed mirrors one of a raid that occurred across the state during the Civil War. From Pilot Knob to the west near Kansas City, before returning south.”

  Zola frowned at that. “That’s Price’s Raid. Why?” She stared off into the shadow of the woods. “That would have brought him through Boonville. What the hell is he following now?”

  “Cizin thought Vassili might be following concentrations of old ghosts to throw off any necromancers who tried to follow. But the death bats are not easily tricked.”

  “Ah wish Ah could say the same about necromancers. But if that were true, Ah doubt we’d be in the middle of this mess.”

  “Do you have any idea what he could be there for?” Shiawase asked.

  Zola shook her head. “Ah can ask some ghosts who might. But Ah don’t know. It could be anything.”

  “It does not matter,” the innkeeper said. “All that matters is retrieving the cale.” She looked to Ashley. “With the blessing of the priestess, I can gift my powers to Damian, and we will have our last hope for facing Nudd and his madness.”

  “I might be able to take Nudd down,” Beth said. “Like Cornelius defeated the Eldritch god in the Shadowed Lands. I could—”

  Ashley grabbed Beth’s shoulders and spun her around. “No. Don’t you ever so much as think that way! We’ve lost too much. I’ve lost … I can’t …”

  “I’m sorry.” Words escaped Beth as she tried to come up with a way to explain that the situation was bigger than them both. But Ashley already knew the stakes, already knew what they could lose, and how humanity itself could be lost if they failed to win the war.

  “I know you mean well, but please. Please don’t talk like that.” Ashley closed her eyes and leaned into Beth.

  “We aren’t dead yet, girl.” Zola’s grip on her shoulder was strong as a vise. “We minimize casualties as much as we can. It’s often the only way you win a war. Every one of us, even Ashley, is willing to sacrifice to end this ugliness. But last resorts are last resorts. Don’t go looking to die.”

  Zola squeezed her arm again before letting go and walking away.

  Beth closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Ashley, the vision of Cornelius cutting his own throat playing through her mind again and again until it became nothing but nightmarish white noise.

  And she wouldn’t wish that on any of her friends, her family. She’d fight to the last fiber of her being to make sure none of them would have to witness something like that. Because she knew, deep in her soul, it was a vision she’d never truly escape.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sam sat on one side of the reading nook on the third floor of Rivercene. Dominic settled in beside her, but Vik took a chair opposite of them both. He steepled his fingers and leaned toward the empty space between them.

  “Samantha. The innkeeper is Gaia. That is … that is significant. You seek to reunite the fractured pieces of a Titan.”

  Sam crossed her arms and leaned back on the loveseat. “I seek to save Damian. He did the same to save me. Sacrificed a piece of himself to save my life.”

  “You’re talking about awakening a power that once drove this world to the brink of destruction.”

  “Bullshit,” Sam said. “If you spent more time with the green men, listened to Stump’s stories about their history, you’d know that Gaia fought to preserve the natural order. We wouldn’t have a world to live on without her.”

  Vik grimaced. “Samantha. I do not doubt she fought for what she believed to be right, but times have changed. The world has changed.
Bringing an elemental force like Gaia back into power could have consequences we cannot imagine.”

  Sam squeezed her fists tight enough that her claws started to draw blood from her palms. “I won’t leave Damian to die.” She narrowed her eyes and almost snarled. “You can’t stop me.”

  Vik sat up straighter. “You will listen to your lord, Samantha.”

  Dominic held up a hand. “Stop it—both of you. Vik, you know damn well you can’t stop what’s coming. You failed to kill Vassili, and you certainly don’t have the power to fight Nudd on your own.”

  Vik started to protest.

  “Let me finish, Lord. I ask you this favor.”

  Vik frowned but said no more.

  “This is the endgame. Nudd is the last great threat upon our world. Damian is the best chance we have to fight him. A power with a foot in more than one world. And one of those world’s is Nudd’s, the realm of death. That is not something we can match either one of them on.”

  Sam reached down and picked up a gray furball. Jasper purred and nestled into her lap. “I meant what I said. You can’t stop me. Vassili is going to die, and I’m going to be the one to kill him.”

  The furball in her lap distended, flashing a gleaming row of silver dagger teeth.

  Dominic smiled, a predator’s smile to match Jasper’s own. “I feel it would be wise to give your consent for this pursuit.”

  Vik sighed and sagged into his chair. “If Samantha didn’t have my consent, I wouldn’t be here. She’s been one of my staunchest allies in the Pit, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

  Dominic gave one sharp nod. “Good. Then it’s settled. We set out after Vassili tomorrow.”

  “Why wait?” Sam asked.

  “We wait for Zola,” Vik said. “She’s making inquiries that may simplify our hunt.”

  Sam scratched Jasper between the eyes. “You have a weird way of saying she’s talking to ghosts. Tomorrow, then. Not a moment later. Damian is running out of time, which means we all are.”