Forged in Fire (45 page)

I leapt back, instinctively sweeping his thrust aside, passing his blade inches from my chest, and brought the shield up, smashing him in the face. As he staggered back, I stepped forward, thrusting Gram into his throat. His eyes widened in surprise. I flicked my wrist. Gram tore through the cartilage in his throat. Blood sprayed in a wide arc.

I spun around, catching the second as he swung his blade at my back. I struck him twice, first slashing his arm with a passing slice. Then, I stepped to his right, driving Gram into his abdomen.

He stood there, rigid as the pain flooded his brain. I jerked Gram back, letting him drop to the ground.

And the hammer fell.

It struck the altar with a thunderclap, shattering it into several pieces. The red-robed cultists were blasted off their feet.

Frack landed hard, crying out; his captor, Tobin, sprawled on his back. The second cultist, Dane, didn’t lose his grip on Frick, but fell with the young troll under him. I didn’t hear a cry. That wasn’t good.

Justin staggered as the concussion rippled over him. The funneled, processed, and purified energy stored within the altar sputtered from the ruin. He ran forward, hands out in supplication, attempting to scoop up the wasted power.

I reached him, swinging the shield forward, and smashed him in the side. He stumbled, falling over a chunk of altar.

Before I could kill him, however, Tobin rolled to his hands and knees, drawing a dagger from his crimson robe. He looked from Justin to me to Frack and lunged at the baby troll. Bad choice. I sprang over Dane’s facedown form and drove Gram into the bastard. Tobin fell, kicking. Several feet away, Frack screamed like only a healthy toddler can.

Trisha stirred. The magic that fed her bonds no longer had a reserve. Justin was on his own, bleeding away his personal store.

I spun around for my next target. Justin had the second cultist, Dane, pulled back by the hair and dragged a blade across his bearded throat. The blood that splashed forth covered an unmoving Frick, but a thick pulse of energy rushed into Justin.

He rose, reaching for Frick. I darted forward, swinging Gram wildly.

Justin fell back, cursing. Several of his remaining cultists came forward at his beckon, throwing themselves at me, daggers out. I cut the first one down but realized they were beyond their own will. He was controlling them, whether literally or through coercion.

I batted the second aside, knocking the blade from her hand and kicking her feet out from under her. I turned Gram to the side and clocked her with the pommel. Maybe she’d live.

In the meantime, another of the remaining cultists scuttled forward and grabbed Frick by one leg. The cultist lurched away, carrying the child like a broken doll.

I froze. He drew a dagger as he ran. It wasn’t a bleeder like Justin’s, but it looked pointy enough to kill a wee one.

He slashed wildly as he ran. Frick screamed.

That was the tipping point. Justin vanished behind several of his people, intent on something they guarded, but the threads that bound Trisha had begun to fall away.

She rose, roaring her displeasure, and swung her mighty head around, snapping at the cultist who had Frick. The bastard flung the toddler into the air, waving his arms wildly as he tried to avoid Trisha’s bite.

He failed.

I dove, dropping Gram on one side, and swung the shield around, belly-up, catching Frick before he hit the ground. Unfortunately, I hit the ground on my arms and chest, knocking the wind out of me and jarring both sets of elbows and shoulders.

Frick was screaming even more. I couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt with all the other blood over him. I dragged him to my chest, hugging him and making soothing sounds. I stood with him, snagging the shield with my right hand.

Half of the cultist who had stabbed Frick fell to my left with a squelching plop. I looked up and Trisha was over me, her mouth inches from us, her horrid teeth grinding.

“He’s safe,” I said to her, holding the child to me.

Smoke rose from her snout and she sniffed loudly, raising the hair on Frick’s head. She twitched, pulled her head away from us, and roared into the night.

Only there was an answering roar.

This one from high above the plateau. I looked up, past Trisha’s bulk, to see a white dragon perched on the mountain’s peak, gleaming against the sky.

Holy mother … Nidhogg.

Eighty

T
he remaining cultists fled, screaming.
E
ven
J
ustin’s charisma and power could not keep them with him. Nidhogg, the mother of all dragons, fell from the mountain, casting a swathe of fear so strong two of the cultists threw themselves off the edge of the plateau, screaming.

She unfurled her ancient wings to catch the wind, soaring toward us like something out of Revelation. Da would be wetting himself about now. I cringed as the fear rolled over me, but I could not stop, could not panic.

I rolled, holding Frick to my chest with my shield arm, and scrambled back to pick up Gram. Trisha, who’d swung her head upward at Nidhogg’s call, turned back to me, roaring. She lunged, her great jaws clacking shut a foot from me.

“Come on, Trisha. I know it’s you.”

She swung one wing forward, missing me by a mile, but it gave me an idea. I ran forward, getting inside her weapon zone. She was a lousy dragon fighter. She barely realized she had a tail. I’d have been clobbered if I’d tried that move with Jean-Paul. As it was, I was inside her extended danger zone.

Nidhogg pulled up at the last second, clipping Trisha.

Trisha roared, falling to her knees. One great wing bent, broken. She turned her long neck to bite at Nidhogg, who was already gone, circling around for another pass.

I took my chance. Even carrying Frick, I had to risk it. I figured I just had this one shot. If I screwed up, Nidhogg would kill her.

Trisha whimpered and struggled to her feet. A dragon whimpering is a pretty pathetic sight, let me tell you. I took my chance. I placed Frick on the ground and said a quick prayer. As I ran forward, Gram beat a rhythm inside my skull.
Kill, maim, destroy
.

I shuddered, willing my hand to do
my
bidding, not the blade’s.

Trisha fell, smashed to the ground by Nidhogg. I lunged forward, swinging Gram with both hands, and cut through the talon on Trisha’s paw, just above the ring.

The world exploded.

For a minute, I couldn’t hear anything but the ringing in my ears. Then I heard Frick screaming and tried to sit up. I still clutched Gram in my fist. Trisha lay a dozen feet away from me, naked and human once again. I went to her, knelt to her side, and felt for a pulse. She wasn’t breathing.

“Come on, damn it!” I yelled, shunting Gram into her sheath. “Wake up.”

I straightened her, tilting her head back, and gave her two quick breaths. Then, I slid over and placed the heel of my palms between her breasts, just above her sternum. I hated giving CPR. Thirty cartilage-crunching compressions with “Staying Alive” echoing in my head, then two more breaths. Nidhogg didn’t attack, and Justin was nowhere to be seen, bastard.

Trisha had to live.

I was on my third set when she kicked once, then vomited. I turned her head to the side, pulling her shoulder off the ground. She retched a second time, then fell back, panting.

Her eyes fluttered open, but they did not focus. “Babies,” she whispered, and I laughed out loud. “They’re alive,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “Let’s just hope we make it out of here.”

She coughed, and I rolled her onto her side, pushing one of her legs out to keep her from rolling over. Her wing had been broken. Now that she was human again, I didn’t know how that translated. Broken ribs, maybe? Her spine? Crap—and I’d moved her. Piss-poor first aider I was.

Her left hand was butchered, however. The last two fingers on that hand were gone, cut away by Gram, but in the transformation, she wasn’t bleeding. The hands looked as if the fingers had never been there.

I went to Frick, picked up the crying child, and took him to Trisha. She held him to her and wept.

Nidhogg roared from above us, and I looked over. She landed on the far side of the plateau and nosed down, pushing Frederick Sawyer’s body with her snout. He twitched. He was not dead after all. I didn’t know whether I was disappointed or relieved.

I climbed to my feet and went to get Frack. Gram screamed in my head, begging, pleading me to attack the dragons. I ground my teeth and hunched my shoulders against the pressure.

No! You’re not the boss of me.

Frack had his head buried in his hands, quivering with fear. I knelt next to him, ignoring Nidhogg. Having Nidhogg at my back was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But Frack needed me. I cooed to him, reaching out. He didn’t lower his hands, but he didn’t fight me. I picked him up and stood.

Jesus, he was heavy. Trisha must have arms like a power lifter.

My neck itched as I ignored Nidhogg, but I needed to get these kids to their momma; that was my new mission. I just hoped Frick wasn’t too badly wounded.

I took Frack to Trisha and placed him in Trisha’s arms, next to his brother. He calmed almost immediately.

Nidhogg growled, and I looked up.

Justin was backing toward the edge of the plateau with Jai Li in his arms, a dagger to her chest. He’d been going so quietly, he’d have gotten away if not for Nidhogg.

I stood, picked up the shield, and drew Gram.

“Let the girl go,” I said.

Nidhogg roared behind me.

“She dies,” he said, his hands shaking. “I have not come this far to be thwarted by you meddling fools.”

Thwarted? Seriously. Does being an evil SOB make you talk like Snidely Whiplash?

I stepped toward him, and Jai Li cried out. It hurt my heart, that guttural cry. “I cannot kill you enough,” I said.

He laughed, and I saw a line of blood appear on Jai Li’s neck. He was using a bleeder. No matter how slight the scratch, it would not clot, the wound would not close.

“I’ll cut you down,” I promised him. “I will cut you into pieces and then burn the pieces.”

Jai Li stopped struggling, but her eyes flitted from me to the dragon behind me. She was determined, that angel child.

“I love you,” I said.

“Fool,” Justin barked, his head thrown back with laughter. “She will die, and you will have nothing.”

Jai Li turned her head, the dagger pressing into her neck, and she bit him.

Justin screamed, the knife slipping from his hands, and Jai Li fell to the ground.

“No,” I yelled, rushing forward. I smashed him with the shield, and he stumbled back several steps before falling. Before I could lunge after with Gram, another form rose above him.

Trisha.

I don’t know where she picked up the fallen blade. She had murder in her eyes, and, for a moment, I thought I’d have to kill her to protect Jai Li.

Justin must’ve thought the same thing for a moment as he reached toward her, a lurid grin splitting his face.

“Bastard,” she said, swinging the blade. She took his hand off just below the wrist.

“What?” He pulled back the stump, confused. “Trisha, help me.”

“Oh, I’ll help you,” she said, kneeling onto his lap. She grabbed the back of his head and held his face upward to hers. “You lied to me; you used me.”

She pushed the blade into his abdomen, pulling him to her as if in an embrace. “You should suffer for what you’ve done,” she said, jerking the blade upward.

Justin coughed, blood flowing down the front of him.

“You made me evil, you fucker.” She spat on him and stood, letting him fall backward.

He held his remaining hand up to her. “But I gave you power!”

She stepped back, watched him slump over, watched the blood flow from him. When he stopped moving, she stepped forward and brought the sword over with both hands.

I pulled Jai Li to me, keeping her face away.

Trisha hacked him, four, five blows, until she stood with his severed head. This she carried over toward Nidhogg and tossed it at her feet.

“Fuck you and your kind,” she screamed, flinging the blade at the great white dragon. “Kill me, you bitch!” And she stepped forward.

Then, the babies wailed. I’m not sure why they’d been quiet up to this point, but the second Trisha stepped into Nidhogg’s shadow they let rip.

Nidhogg looked from Trisha to the crying twins. Trisha looked over, torn between her own anguish and suffering and the needs of the children.

“For Christ’s sake, Trisha,” I shouted. “Go get your kids.”

She looked back at Nidhogg once more, who jerked her birdlike head toward the sound of the crying babies.

Trisha stumbled to them, falling to her knees, pulling them to her chest.

Nidhogg looked back to me, ignoring Trisha and the troll toddlers.

I nodded to Nidhogg once and turned back to Jai Li, putting my body between her and Justin’s butchered form.