Fire And Steel (The Merryweather Chronicles Book 2) (35 page)

      Before Brandon could reply there was a sudden scream from up by the house. Then everything seemed to happen at once.

      Claire was running by the time she was within sight of Highgarden, Albert keeping pace beside her, his little legs pumping. He had been quiet since telling her that he was safeguarding her to Brandon's house. He followed silently, watching the dark woods surrounding them closely, as if he saw something in the trees that Claire couldn't. Something that he didn't like.

      Reaching the front porch, she banged on the locked door and tried the knob. “Locked. Shit.” Albert was beside her, strangely not out of breath, despite the run. She was about to shout when she heard the sounds coming from the back of the house. The distinctive ring of steel on steel. Moving quickly, she went around the house. She didn’t wait to see if Albert followed. She raced around the moonlit side, not trusting the thick shadows on the other side.

      She was nearly around the side of the house, watching the shadows of the looming trees out of the corner of her eye, when she heard Gerrick's voice, saying something to Brandon. She couldn't make out the words. She quickened her pace.

      Rounding the corner, she immediately saw Brandon and Gerrick. At least she thought it was Gerrick. Brandon was bare-chested and in jeans. She couldn't be sure, but he also looked like he was barefoot. Gerrick was all covered over in heavy armor, overlapping plates like the scales of a serpent, and he was holding a sword in each hand. Brandon was empty handed.

      She was about to call out when something leapt from the top of the house, snarling soundlessly as it hurtled toward her. She had a vague impression of snapping teeth and matted fur as it slammed into her. They hit the snow covered ground, rolling twice, before coming to a stop with the thing on top. In the moonlight, she saw its face for the first time. It was a boar, its curved tusks curling up from its grinning mouth and its mean little eyes filled with hate and triumph.

      It raised a wicked half moon blade, spotted with rust but sharp, and licked its pebbly lips with a sharp pink tongue. It grunted with something like delight in its tone and brought the ax down, aiming for her face.

      Before Claire could even attempt to fight back or even scream, the night came to life above them. Midnight black tentacles snared the boar, winding tight around its thrashing arms and its throat, and plucked it off of her chest. The boar screamed as it was lifted up into the darkness, a terribly human sound, full of terror and agonizing pain.

      Claire tried to shout, but her throat locked up and all that came out was something halfway between a giggle and a gasp. The axe had fallen to the ground when the thing was taken and Claire picked it up with shaking hands. She was scared to death, but that wasn’t going to stop her from fighting back. The boar's screaming stopped, dwindling down to a gurgling rasping wheeze. Rain began to fall, black against her pale hands and the falling snow. It smeared, staining her hands, when she touched it. Steam surrounded the drops as they fell, painting the ground black.

      It was raining blood.

      The dying scream jerked Brandon into motion. Forgetting his uncle, he charged the writhing mass hovering above his girlfriend. Claire crouched in the snow, staring into the darkness above her. Her face was speckled with black drops of blood, her single green eye wide with shock and fear, but also determination.

      She was holding an axe.

      He reached her in one convulsive leap, barely registering the fact that the Phoenix still lay on the ground behind him, smoldering in the snow. All around them, the night was shattered by the sound of grohlm. With shrieks and howls, they came boiling out of the night, vomiting from the forest and rushing Highgarden in a riotous wave of steel and blood. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

      Before either of them could say anything, there was a sound from the woods. The sound of bowstrings snapping. Brandon caught Claire by the arm and spun her around, holding her tight against his chest. He put himself between her and the flight of arrows, arching out from the shadows. He felt the arrows peppering his back, the shafts breaking and the heads bending out of shape as they bounced off without leaving a scratch. Claire clutched herself against him, her breath hot against his chest.

      Above them, the twisting black form resolved itself into a man shape and dropped to the ground. Sha'ha'Zel rose to his full height, red eyes glittering in the night. His long black cloak slithered around him, curling at his feet and around his arms and shoulders. He smiled, cracked black lips peeling back from his sharp yellow teeth, and said. "Hello, Brandon."

      "You're early." Brandon shouted. Still shielding Claire with his body, he moved up onto the deck. Most of the rock and wood was shattered, but the wrought iron table lay on its side, the chairs scattered around it. Kneeling with her beside the table, he said. "You shouldn’t be here, Claire. What were you thinking?"

      She stared up at him, her single eye wide and unblinking. The blood stood out on her cheeks. She looked terrified, but her voice was anything but. "I came to help you, jackass. I might not be some kind of magical warrior princess, like you, but I can still swing an axe." She hefted the axe and narrowed her eye at him, daring him to say anything else.

      He couldn't help but smile. “I love you.”

      Wincing as another flight of arrows rained down on their position, she leaned forward and pecked his lips. “I know. Now let’s try not to die.”

      Brandon let the emptiness have his fear for the love of his life and turned, facing the yard. Gerrick moved across the snow toward him, ignoring the arrows flying all around them and the screeching of the grohlm. The Phoenix was in his right fist. He held it tight, though it squealed as it seared his gauntleted hand, even through the heavy leather. When he saw that Brandon had noticed him, he called out. "If you won’t fight to protect yourself, perhaps you will to protect the girl?" Tossing the blade through the air, he drew both of his swords and charged forward.

      Brandon just had time to snag the Phoenix out of the air before meeting Gerrick's charge head on. Steel crashed against steel, their blades kissing long enough to throw a sheet of sparks and liquid flame into the night air, and they continued their dance. Around them, grohlm appeared, throwing themselves at the swordsmen in the hopes of catching them unawares. Neither man spared the creatures more than a glance as they fought, only killing those that were stupid enough to get within reach of their steel.

      Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon could see Sha'ha'Zel killing any grohlm who went after the shattered deck. His living cloak lashed out, spearing grohlm through the throat or chest, as he hewed them like wood. The Curse was a deadly whirlwind, all 4 blades moving as he slaughtered the grohlm.

      As fast and as deadly as the Curse was, a few grohlm still made it through. Claire dispatched those with the axe, meeting them as they came. Brandon was terrified every time one got through, but he shouldn’t have been. Claire was more than a match for those grohlm unfortunate enough to survive the demon’s blades. She fought hard, splitting skulls and cutting throats as fiercely as any soldier from Brandon’s visions.

      She was absolutely beautiful, even among the blood and screaming death.

      Sha’ha’Zel kept one eye on the girl as he spilled open the bodies of the grohlm, secretly pleased at her strength. He let a few grohlm through intentionally, to try to ratchet up the girl’s terror, to prepare her for what he would do after Brandon was dead. But she had pleasantly surprised the demon. He had promised Brandon a month and he intended to see that he got it, even if he had to kill every single grohlm in Matheson to do it.

      Sha'ha'Zel watched Brandon and Gerrick fight, his black lips twisted into a smile. The Tower Knight wouldn't actually harm Brandon, not badly, but if he made so much as a move toward the girl, Sha'ha"Zel intended to bleed him for it. He wouldn't kill the man, that was forbidden, but he would definitely cripple the bastard.

      Brandon spun and twisted, the Phoenix flashing as it met every attack Gerrick threw at him and, at the same time, cutting down any grohlm within reach. The ferocity of Gerrick's attacks died down as the man grew tired. His armor was heavy and Brandon could see the tightness around the man's eyes as he fought. Why he chose to wear the heavy steel, instead of the lighter composite armor, was no mystery to Brandon. The older man was trying to even the odds between himself and Brandon. Without the added weight holding him down, Gerrick would’ve beaten Brandon long since.

      The grohlm around them were losing their fear of the two warriors, more and more of them throwing themselves into the fight. It seemed that every sort of grohlm was ready to try their swords against the Last Son of Storms and the Last Knight of the Towers.

      Somewhere, far away, thunder rolled, and clouds obscured the moon, throwing the yard into rich darkness. The stench of blood and wet fur burned Brandon's nose and the squeals and screams of the dying grohlm were loud in his ears. Back to back, he and Gerrick were forced to ignore each other as the grohlm desperately pushed in on them, swords and axes flashing.

      Acting on instinct, Brandon drove the Phoenix into the ground and gave the sword a wrenching twist. The grohlm had no warning as the ground erupted underneath their padded feet and hooves. Fire erupted from where the blade punctured the ground, rolling out in great flaming waves that grew in size the further they went. The earth was rent as the wall of fire and death raced toward the forest, swallowing the grohlm whole. The creatures died in fire and exploding earth, as if caught in a minefield.

      Brandon didn't have a chance to gawk at what he'd done. Using the explosion as a distraction, Gerrick spun and drove a potentially crippling attack at Brandon, raking the blade across his chest. The blow knocked Brandon back a step but left him otherwise unmarked, not so much as scratching the smooth skin of his chest.

     Gerrick only stared at him for one shocked moment, his eyes unblinking as he stared at Brandon's unbroken flesh, then spun and leapt for the deck. Claire was fighting a ram faced grohlm, using her axe to turn aside its curved short sword before planting it in its face. She didn't see Gerrick land on the deck, nor did she see him as he raised his sword, preparing to plunge the weapon into her back.

      Knocking the head off of a wolf, Brandon shouted. He was too far away to do anything except watch as the blade began to fall. He could feel his world preparing to die with the girl on the deck. When that happened, he didn't know what he would do.

      Before Gerrick's blade could finish its deadly arc, Sha'ha'Zel was there, snaring Gerrick's sword arm with a long tentacle from his cloak. Claire ducked underneath the writhing blackness of the cloak and fell back, somehow keeping a hold of the axe as it pulled free of the ram’s halved face.

      Gerrick had learned since his last run in with the demon and as soon as the cloak touched him, he spun. Slicing through the cloak with a long bladed knife pulled from somewhere beneath his cloak, Gerrick tried to twist his blade and plunge it into the Curse's chest. Batting aside the sword with ease, Sha'ha'Zel snatched Gerrick up off the ground and sneered into his upturned face. "You'll not die so easy as that, little brother."

      With a sharp toss, the Curse flung the knight away, sending him hurtling through the air. He flew impossibly far, crashing to the ground almost on top of the low stone bridge spanning the creek. He was as far from the deck as he could get, his sword lost in the flight. He'd kept his hold on the long bladed knife.

      The grohlm swarmed over him before he could get to his feet, short swords and axes stabbing and hacking. They crashed over him like a wave, the horde burying him completely.

      Brandon spared a glance for the Curse. Sha'ha'Zel stood on the deck, watching. Claire stood nearby, in much the same stance as the demon, watching Brandon closely. The axe in her hand dripped gore. She was spattered head to toe with blood and bits of dead grohlm.

      The rest of the grohlm had broken, most of them fleeing into the woods. The broken yard was littered with the dead and dying. Burnt and bloody, they were a tangled mess. Those not retreating into the woods were joining their allies at the bridge. The churning mass was a melting pot, but Brandon saw the side of the pile give a great heave as Gerrick fought his way to the surface.

      The knight's face was a crimson mask, but Gerrick laughed as he struggled to his feet. Grohlm clung to his arms and legs, trying to smash and cut through his armor. Gerrick battered them away, the long knife in one hand, a spiked mace in the other. But for every grohlm knocked loose, two took its place.

      Brandon charged across the broken yard, killing stray grohlm as he ran. Whatever his uncle believed, whatever he had done, Brandon wasn't going to let the man die. He was the only connection left to Brandon's father. His only living link to the truth about his family's past.

      Gerrick saw Brandon coming and his laughter grew louder. Throwing grohlm left and right, the knight pushed his way to the bridge, struggling against the avalanche crashing against him. He stopped In the center of the bridge, wavering in the moonlight. The grohlm surrounding him intensified their effort, clawing their way up his legs and body.