Down in the spike pit that had been the arena, the demon roared and batted at the League men who sliced at it. Whenever it touched their swords, large chunks disappeared from the blades, and the demon grew larger. Already, the monster was close to twelve feet tall and showed no sign of stopping. Alric sighed in frustration, shoving his own sword back into its sheath.
“Stop attacking!” he shouted. “It’s no good. We’re only wasting our swords.”
The League stopped its attack at once, forming a loose circle around the demon, who, now that it was no longer being attacked, turned and began to eat the bedrock spikes.
“Sir!” One of his lieutenants ran over. “We have to do something. If it keeps eating like this, the demon will soon be too large to contain.”
“It’s already too large to contain,” Alric said, watching the stone writhe as the monster bit into it. Rage washed over him. He’d faced hundreds of awakened seeds in his long years with the League, but this one was different. Different and familiar.
“This isn’t a normal takedown,” Alric said. “This is the seed that was in Slorn’s wife. I’d know it anywhere.”
His lieutenant grimaced. “I thought Slorn’s wife was contained.”
“Apparently even the world’s greatest Shaper couldn’t contain a demon indefinitely,” Alric said dryly. “What I want to know is what it’s doing
here
, and why it’s in Sted’s body.”
“Sted?” His lieutenant recoiled. “Berek Sted?”
“Who else?” Alric said. “Stop panicking and you can feel his soul clear as day, what’s left of it anyway.”
“But Sted was spirit deaf. How—”
“I don’t know,” Alric snapped. “But it’s thanks to his not being a wizard that this situation isn’t any worse than it is. Though his being here with Nivel’s seed nicely explains what happened to our missing swordsmith.” He sincerely hoped Slorn wasn’t dead. Artisans like him were impossible to replace.
“All right,” Alric said. “We’re dealing with a seed that spent ten years germinating inside the body of a powerful wizard, but is now trapped inside a spirit-deaf shell. That is our only advantage. The devouring force is already too strong for awakened blades or spirit commands, and because the seed is lodged in a human, directly commanding the host spirit is out of the question.”
As always
, he thought with a sigh.
“We need the Lord of Storms,” his lieutenant muttered, his face pale as he watched the demon finish the stone pillar and leap to the next one. “Where in blazes is he?”
Alric wanted to know the same thing. The Lord of Storms had left in a hurry a week ago and hadn’t been heard from since. This happened sometimes, but never for this long, and never without a message. Still, Alric kept his mouth shut. Things were bad enough without panicking his men.
“We can handle this,” he said, clapping his lieutenant on the shoulder. “We are the chosen protectors of the world, blessed by the Shepherdess herself. She would not have given us our gifts if we were not able to handle whatever situation arose.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, gripping his sword with renewed determination.
Alric smiled and released his grip, hoping he hadn’t just told the biggest lie of his career.
“Spread out,” he ordered. “We’re going to take the creature down in one strike, before it can eat our swords. I will deal the cutting blow to the chest that frees the seed. The rest of you focus on its joints. Try to take off the limbs, just like in drill.”
“Yes, sir!” the men shouted, fanning out in a circle.
Alric positioned himself at point, directly in front of
the demon, who was still feeding with little attention to its attackers.
Alric drew his sword with a crisp metallic scrape. It lay heavy and perfect in his hands, impossibly long and slender, the cutting edge glowing with its own golden light. He looked at it sadly. His beautiful Dunelle, Last Sunlight, his partner and treasure. If this strike succeeded, it would probably be her last. From the way the hilt pressed into his palm, she knew it. But she shone as brightly as ever, urging him to strike the blow. Alric tightened his grip. She had been his best sword; he owed her a valorous death.
Sensing danger, the demon stopped eating. It coiled itself on what was left of the sandy arena floor, enormous claws flexed and ready, its jaw open and drooling around its horrible, ragged teeth.
“On my mark,” Alric said, raising his glowing blade. “Three. Two. One—”
As the word left his mouth, a whistling scream drowned out his voice. He threw his head back just in time to see something white crashing through the buildings behind him. It flew screeching over his head and into the arena, striking the demon square in the chest.
The demon’s scream ripped through Alric’s mind as the ground rocked under his feet. The shock wave hit him a second later, knocking him over. Alric’s hands went instinctively to cover his face as he landed hard on his side, buried instantly by the wave of dirt, rocks, and broken swords that flew out from the impact. For a moment, he lay there, stunned, and then he began to thrash, kicking himself to his feet and scrubbing the dirt from his eyes just in time to see something enormous, white, and sharp-toothed running across the ruined city toward him.
“Alric, isn’t it?” said a familiar, female voice. “Are you all right?”
Alric looked up to see a ghosthound staring down at him, and on its back was a redheaded woman with a concerned expression on her face.
“Miranda Lyonette,” he said, coughing. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your neck, League man,” the ghosthound growled, nodding toward the center of the arena.
Alric turned to look. The place where the demon had been crouching seconds earlier was now nothing but an enormous crater. He stared at it for a second, not quite believing what he saw.
“What did that?”
Miranda grinned and pointed behind him. Slowly, Alric turned around and his eyes went wide. Standing on the rim of the canyon that surrounded the bandit city was Heinricht Slorn. He was crouched on one knee, holding something on his shoulder that Alric didn’t have a name for. Nearly as long as Slorn was tall, it was metal and hollow, like a tube. It had two legs in front that dug into the ground at Slorn’s feet to brace its weight, but its back was a nest of piping that hooked to an enormous wagon, which was absolutely covered with water. Even at this distance, Alric could see the blue water arcing in and out of a dozen different containers, moving against gravity and glowing with its own watery light.
Alric shook his head and sheathed his sword. Of course Slorn was here. He should have known it would all come together. At the canyon’s edge, Slorn lowered the metal tube from his shoulder and hopped into the water-filled cart. The cart began to move as soon as he was in,
climbing down into the valley on spindly spider legs. It picked its way over the wreckage and came to a stop at the arena’s edge. The cart knelt and Slorn climbed down, landing stiffly beside Miranda.
“Well,” the Shaper said, staring at the crater. “That worked rather well.”
“Quite,” Alric said. “Mind telling me what you did?”
Slorn reached into the bag slung across his chest and took out a white object. It was the size of a small melon, slightly longer than it was round, and sharpened to a rough point at one end. Its surface was smooth, like carved soap, and from the way Slorn held it, Alric could tell it must be very heavy indeed.
“What is it?”
“Bone metal,” Slorn said. “Rather amazing stuff, really.”
“And inedible by demons,” Alric finished. “Very clever. But how did you do that?” He pointed at the destroyed buildings.
Slorn gave him an astonished look. “Water pressure,” he said, like it should be obvious. “Spiritualist Lyonette was kind enough to lend me the use of her sea.”
Alric glanced at the blue water that was still flowing in great arcs from barrel to barrel and smiled. “You made a bone-metal shot for a water cannon powered by a sea?”
“Can you think of a better way to take down a demon as powerful as Sted?” Slorn said.
“Yes,” Alric said. “But in the absence of the Lord of Storms, I’ll take your solution. In the future, though, Heinricht, I’d appreciate it if you left League business to the League, or at least told us what you meant to do before you did it.”
Slorn had the good grace to look abashed at that, and Alric stood up to survey the damage. The other League men were getting up as well, many slowly, some clutching broken bones. But they obeyed instantly when Alric motioned for them to form a perimeter around the crater. Once his men were in position, Alric moved forward, keeping his hand on his sword as he crawled up the crater’s edge to peek into the hole Slorn’s cannon had left.
The demon lay sprawled at the bottom of the crater, motionless. Its long, unnatural arms were flung spread-eagle, the left one shattered below the second elbow. The demon’s head was bent backward at a hideous angle and surrounded by broken teeth while its chest was caved in completely, the shell-like skin shattered around the bone-metal slug, which had passed straight through the ribs to lodge in the creature’s spine.
Alric was still studying the damage when he heard a scrape on the dirt. He turned to see Miranda lying next to him, staring wide-eyed into the crater.
“Is it dead?” she whispered.
“A demon is never dead until you take its seed, Spiritualist,” Alric said. “You can watch if you like, but do not interfere.”
He could see her starting to ask what he meant, but Alric gave her no chance. He stood up and signaled to his men. They nodded, and the League members began to move slowly down into the crater. When they were in arm’s reach of the demon, Alric drew his sword. He could see the seed’s edge through the demon’s shattered chest, a black, wet, oblong shape just below the heart, wrapped in bloody tissue. Alric cursed under his breath. Most seeds were a few inches long, never more than six. If his eyes
weren’t deceiving him, this seed was over a foot. No wonder the demon had given them so much trouble. He didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if this seed had awakened in a wizard instead of a spirit-deaf lug like Sted. Seeing the reality of the situation, Alric began to regret all the times he’d championed Slorn’s research. If he’d known that something like this was living inside Nivel, he would have killed the woman himself.
He held his sword out, slipping the point deftly inside the demon’s shattered chest. But just as he was about to press his blade against the sinew connecting the seed to the host body, he heard the faint sound of a sucked-in breath.
Alric threw himself back, snatching his sword out just in time to block the enormous black claw before it landed in his head. The demon launched itself up with a earth-shaking roar, its shattered arm flopping helpless at its side as its good claw pulled on Alric’s blade. Alric tried to yank his sword free, but the creature slid its claws down the blade to grab Alric’s arm. The claws dug into his flesh, and the monster lifted him clean off the ground. He barely had time to kick before it threw him as hard as it could.
Alric tucked and rolled, landing on his feet at the edge of the crater. But even as he caught his balance, he heard a hideous crunching as the demon grabbed one of his men and shoved him, sword and all, into its mouth. The other League members cried out and charged, hacking at the demon with their screaming swords. The demon ignored them. It simply kept eating, pushing Alric’s lieutenant between its broken teeth as it devoured the man whole.
“The head!” Alric shouted, charging back down the crater. “Take off the head!”
But it was too late. The moment the lieutenant vanished down the monster’s throat, its wounds began to heal. Its broken arm snapped itself back together with a hideous cracking of bones, and the gaping hole in its chest began to knit together. The League men were still attacking, but the sword wounds closed as soon as they were made, and each new strike injured the sword more than the monster it struck.
“Fall back!” Alric shouted, grabbing the nearest soldier.
His men scrambled back, and the demon rolled to its feet, screaming as a fresh wave of demon panic washed out of the crater.
“Alric!” Slorn shouted.
Alric whirled around to see Slorn back atop his wagon with the long metal cannon on his shoulder again, and this time, Miranda was beside him.
“Hold it down!” the bear-headed man bellowed.
He didn’t need to say anything else. Alric threw out his hand and opened his spirit until the entire panicking world was roaring in his ears. He grabbed everything, every weeping spirit, every terrified spec of dust he could touch, and forced them all into one command.
DON’T MOVE.
The world froze, and the demon fell to its knees. It threw its head backward, roaring in defiance as it fought the command, but Alric held it firm. It took everything he had. He could feel the sweat pouring down his face, feel everything in the town fighting his hold in the panic to escape the demon, but he did not let go. With every second that passed, he fought to hold it just a second more, hoping it would be enough.
“Do it!” he shouted. “Do it now!”
On the edge of his vision, he saw Slorn slam the bone-metal slug into his cannon. Behind him, Miranda raised her arms. The spider-legged wagon began to shake as the impossibly blue water raced across it, picking up speed as it flowed from barrel to barrel in an endless loop. Slorn mouthed a command, and the cannon’s metal legs uncurled, anchoring the Shaper on the wagon’s top just as the Spiritualist thrust her hands forward. The second her hands moved, the water followed, blasting itself into the piping at the cannon’s back. There was an enormous crack as the water hit the bone metal, and then the sea’s triumphant roar. The bone-metal slug shot out of the cannon faster than Alric could see, nearly turning the wagon over with its force. It split the air with a whistling scream, flying right past Alric’s ear to land square in the demon’s neck.