Iron and Magic

“I know of you,” Elara said. “Once you were a shaman. Once you healed the sick and spoke to spirits.”

The creature stared at her.

“But then Nez took you. He made you do evil things. Then, when you died, he used your corrupted shell to invite something over, out of the deep darkness. It took your body. You’re a skudakumooch. A ghost witch.”

The creature didn’t move.

“You’re a thing of old magic now.” Elara bared her teeth. “But this is my castle. There is room for only one ancient monster here. And you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

The twin beasts lunged at her. She lashed the left with her magic, trying to rip its power from it. The yellow symbols flashed with light. Her powers glanced off.

The beast clamped its jaws on her wrist, the other locked onto her forearm. Teeth pierced her skin, drawing blood. Agony shot up her arms, burning.

The beasts pulled her arms apart, anchoring her. Panic struck at Elara, pushing her straight to the hidden part of herself, where the iceberg of her power waited, locked away. All she had to do was reach for it.

No. She gritted her teeth. No.

The ghost witch struck at her, trying to claw her throat open with its talons. Elara pulled the magic out of herself and vomited it into the witch’s face. The skudakumooch shrieked, reeling back.

She needed her hands, but the beasts were chewing her flesh to pieces.

The skudakumooch lunged again. Elara spat another torrent of power. The skudakumooch recoiled.

Bale bellowed like an enraged rhino and smashed his mace into the skull of the right creature. Bone cracked. Bale hit it again and again, driving the mace into it in a frenzy. The icy fangs opened. The beast spun toward Bale. Elara leaned and jammed her hand into its mouth. Her fingers closed about its putrid tongue and she punched her power down its throat. Her magic found the dark slimy seed that animated it, swallowed it, and cracked it between its teeth.

The beast sagged and collapsed, suddenly boneless. Its body fell apart, pieces of its flesh dropping.

Elara spun and jammed her fingers into the other beast’s eyes. They popped under her fingertips. Her magic pierced the beast and it fell apart, dead. The skudakumooch snarled, biting the air with blood-red fangs the size of Elara’s fingers. A cloud of darkness poured out of it, filled with ghostly teeth and claws. The smoke wrapped around Elara. Her skin came alive with pain, as if the air had turned into a whirlwind of broken glass. She tore through it and locked her hands onto the ghost witch’s throat.

The creature bucked. She felt the thing inside the once-human body writhe. It was old and powerful, but she was stronger, and she choked it, sinking her claws into the flesh, piercing it with her magic, again and again. All the magic she had flowed from the floor onto the flailing skudakumooch. The glowing white tendrils wrapped around the ghost witch, choking it. Elara opened her mouth, knowing her jaws gaped too wide as she tried to engulf the skudakumooch’s head in it.

The darkness tore out of the ghost witch’s back. The corpse deflated in Elara’s hands like an empty water skin. The darkness shuddered, fangs, teeth, horns spinning within it, and vanished.

The torches and fey lanterns came back on.

Elara’s jaw snapped back in place. She dropped the corpse and held out her hand. “My wedding ring, please.”

Bale produced the wedding ring and put it in her palm. His fingers shook. Elara slipped the ring on. There.

A deep blast of sound came from above, muffled by the stone, but still clearly recognizable, the scream of Erawan. Elara whirled and ran to the door.

Hugh stood on the wall, presenting a nice clear target. The damn elephant was so big, he blocked the light. Behind Erawan, the Cleaning Crew was trying to drag the trees he had knocked down to ford the moat. Fine time for Nez to grow a brain.

Along the wall the Iron Dogs crouched next to bags and crates, Elara’s people sandwiched between them.

“Do you think this will work?” Dugas asked next to him.

“She won’t let me kill him,” Hugh ground out. “This is all I’ve got.”

Erawan took a ponderous step forward. Lightning rolled off his sides. Only a few dozen feet separated him from the moat. The elephant’s eyes glared at Hugh, filled with pain and madness. Erawan had seen him and was heading straight for him.

“Get your people out of here,” Hugh told Dugas.

“With your permission, I think we better stay. We’re better at this sort of thing than you are.”

“If this doesn’t work, this entire wall is coming down.”

Dugas spread his arms. “Life, death. All part of existence.”

Erawan took another step. The castle shook. Waves pulsed through the moat.

Don’t step in it, Hugh prayed silently. Don’t you fucking step in it. The concrete would never take that much weight.

Erawan bellowed. Hugh clamped his hands over his ears. The wail of the tortured elephant shook the castle. The wind of it tore at their clothes. The howl died, and Hugh screamed into the silence. “Hold it!”

The Iron Dogs held still.

The colossal elephant took another step, falling just short of the water. Hugh could see nothing now, no forest, no fields, only Erawan’s three huge heads and the armored cabin on his neck. Somewhere in there, the Beastmaster rode. Take out the Beastmaster and you take out the beast.

Wait, Halliday. Just wait.

The gem in Erawan’s head pulsed with red. The colossal elephant screamed and leaned forward. Suddenly the enraged eyes were only a few yards away. Breath caught in Hugh’s throat. Fear dashed through him. He swallowed it and called out, “Now!”

The Iron Dogs and Elara’s people opened the bags and crates and hurled the contents in the direction of Erawan. Flowers rained down on the wall of Baile. The humans dropped to their knees, stretching their hands before them. Hugh scooped two handfuls of the blossoms and bowed, hands held out before him.

“Erawan!” Hugh called out. “Mount of Indra, King of All Elephants, He Who Binds Clouds, He Who Reaches to the Underworld and Brings Forth Rain. We bow before you. Please accept our offering.”

He braced himself for the lash of the enormous trunk.

Erawan held still.

Hugh held his breath.

The colossal elephant reached over with his central trunk and swept the bags of flowers up, curling his trunk around them gently as if they were priceless treasures.

The jewel sparked with red. Erawan screamed. The force of his voice nearly knocked Hugh off the wall. He grabbed onto the wall and held on to it. Above him blood poured from under the armored cabin, running over Erawan’s skull. Tears swelled in the elephant’s eyes. But Erawan didn’t move.

Hugh straightened. “Let me help you! Lord of the Clouds, let me help!”

Erawan’s eyes focused on him. The divine elephant ducked his central head, uncoiling his trunk.

Now or never. Hugh jumped onto the trunk. The earth moved underneath him and then he was running up Erawan’s lifted trunk, over his forehead, and to the cabin. Wards pulsed. The bitch had warded the cabin. Sweetheart, you’ll need more than that.

Hugh sucked in a lungful of air. “Habbassu!” Break.

The power word shattered the protective spell. The cabin split apart. Halliday jumped out, a sharp stick with a jewel in one hand and a curved sword in another. She spun like a dervish and lashed at him. He batted her blade aside and bashed at her with his sword. She blocked. She was a large woman, but he was stronger, and the impact knocked her back. Hugh drove her back, across the elephant’s spine, raining blows on her. Halliday snarled like a cornered animal, slicing in a whirlwind. He thrust between her strikes and felt the slight resistance as the black blade slid home.

Halliday froze, her mouth opened in a terrified, shocked “O”. Hugh grasped the rod out of her hand and kicked her off his blade. She crawled away from him. He chased her, step by step, until she reached the edge of Erawan’s enormous back. Halliday bared her teeth. “Fuck you, you piece of shit.”

He laughed and kicked her in the face. She slid off Erawan and crashed to the ground with a scream. The elephant’s back rolled as a colossal hind leg shifted a few yard to the right.

Hugh turned and ran back to the front of the elephant. Down the trunk and back onto the wall. The control rod flowed with red. It was a vicious thing, three feet long with a razor-sharp metal point with a hook on the blade to rip the flesh on its way out of a wound. The point was covered in blood. Magic crackled down its length, sliding from the gem at the top to the metal tip.