Iron and Magic

6

Hugh lowered his hands and took a deep breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He’d pushed himself for the better part of an hour, alternating the heavy bag and weights with weapon practice. His body finally realized that food was once again plentiful, and he was starting to rebuild the muscle he’d lost. He would need it.

Next to him Lamar propped himself against the stone wall of the keep. Hugh leaned next to him and began pulling at the wraps on his fists. In front of them the western end of the bailey stretched, filled to the brim with tents. It had been three weeks, and still more than half of his people were camping out in the open. He’d left the barracks renovation to Elara. She had insisted on it, and he gave it to her to avoid having another delay on the moat. His wife was dragging her feet on renovations. At this rate, they would still be in tents at first frost.

“What did you find out?” Hugh asked.

“Pretty much what we suspected.” Lamar kept his voice quiet. “Elara is at the top of the food chain. Below her are the two advisers. Savannah oversees the covens, infrastructure, and internal administrative issues. She also heads their legal department. Dugas deals with logistics, imports, exports, trade agreements and so on. Their powers overlap somewhat, so they have oversight over each other. Elara views them both as her parents. No clue what happened to her real family.”

In a war against Elara, the witch and the druid would be priority targets.

“What about Johanna?”

“Research and development. There are other administrators. The head accountant, for example. But none of them hold the power those three do. Most major decisions are made by them and Elara. Elara has the power to overrule them, but she almost never does. There is a fifth person involved too.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Lamar said. “But some of our people have seen him. He moves very fast and seems to disappear into thin air. We don’t know what or who he is. We’re not getting anywhere with the locals. They’re all nice and friendly until we start asking leading questions about Elara and the Remaining.”

“Keep digging. There are thousands of Departed between the castle and the town. Someone will talk.”

“They’re really interested in our barrels.”

“Of course they are.”

A tent nearby collapsed. Iris crawled out of it, swore, and kicked it.

Lamar fell silent. Hugh glanced at him. “What?”

The centurion hesitated.

“Lamar?”

“None of the bulldozer operators showed up for work this morning.”

Fury began to rise in him. “Why?”

“According to the foreman, they and their bulldozers have something more important to do. They are digging on the north side.”

Hugh forced himself to sound calm. “Are we upside down on the salvage?”

“No. According to the smiths, we still have three days of work paid for.”

“Did you tell that to the bulldozer foreman?”

“I did.” Lamar nodded. “He said the orders came from Elara. He says he isn’t allowed to talk to us about it.”

Hugh tossed the hand wraps on the wall and marched to the keep.

Elara did most of her business in the small room off her bedroom, where she kept a desk, a computer she could access during tech, and paper files. Today she sat behind that desk, her head down, looking at some papers. Hugh strode through the door. A heavy-set Latino man was standing next to her, pointing at a paper in front of her. They both looked up at him.

Hugh unhinged his jaws. “Leave.”

The man grabbed his papers and took off. Hugh waited until he ran down the stairs and turned to Elara.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You pulled the bulldozers off the moat.”

She leaned back. “Yes, I did.”

His temper threatened to gallop off like a horse running for its life and Hugh made a valiant effort to hold on to it. “For what reason?”

“I felt like it.”

He stared at her. Elara stared back.

Hugh bit off words, pronouncing them with icy exactness. “Our agreement was, I get the salvage and you let us have the bulldozers. I have three days’ worth of salvage credit left.”

“Yes, but we didn’t specify when the bulldozers will be available to you. There is nothing in that agreement about any kind of timeline. You will get your bulldozers back. Just not right now.”

He couldn’t kill her. If he killed her, he would have to kill everyone else in this damn settlement. His rage was boiling over and he distilled it to a single word. “When?”

“When I feel like it,” she told him.

She was toying with him now.

Elara reached over, picked up a folder from the desk, and held it in front of her so only her eyes were visible.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for your head to explode. I don’t want to miss it, but I don’t want to be splattered with gore.”

He reached over, plucked the folder from her fingers, and dropped it on the desk. “I’ve explained the reason for the moat. It’s an urgent matter. We’ve been here for three weeks and my people are still in tents. They haven’t been paid.”

Elara crossed her arms on her chest. “Nothing you said indicates that I’m in breach of our contract. It specifies that quarters for your soldiers will be provided in a reasonable time. I can’t help that my definition of reasonable is different from yours.”

“Elara!”

“They are soldiers, Preceptor. They are used to sleeping on the ground. Now then, I have two stacks of paperwork to go through. Why don’t you go and punch that heavy bag some more? Take the edge off.”

That was it. He needed to take his people and go. “I’m done,” he told her.

“Excellent. Please go. And while you are out there venting your rage, if you’re so interested in what the bulldozer team is doing, why don’t you ask them yourself and stop wasting my time?”

Hugh walked off. A haze of fury floated around him. He walked into the bailey. The sunlight burned his eyes. He strode to the gate, flicking his fingers at a group of the nearest Iron Dogs. They fell in behind him. He marched outside the walls, turned, and headed north.

It was simple. He would remove the bulldozer crew, confiscate the bulldozers, and put his own people on them.

The heavy machinery sat unmoving on the north side of the hill. The crew, a woman and three men including Jay Lewis, the foreman, sat on the grassy slope, drinking from thermoses and eating sandwiches. At Hugh’s approach Lewis scrambled to his feet. He was about fifty, a shade under six feet tall, with a ruddy face that came from having northern European genes and spending too much time outdoors in the hot sun.

Hugh nodded, and the Iron Dogs formed a line between the crew and the four bulldozers. He fixed Lewis with his stare.

The foreman swallowed.

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, the thing is, sir, I’m not supposed to tell you.”

Hugh sank menace into his words. “Are you afraid of me, Lewis?”

The foreman nodded several times.

“Do you see my wife anywhere?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s right. She isn’t here, but I am. Do we understand each other?”

Lewis nodded again.

“Tell me why you’re here.”

Lewis opened his mouth, hesitated, and gave up. “The septic.”

“Explain.”

“We’ve doubled the personnel for the castle and the septic was never meant to handle that much volume. We had a bit of a problem, but it’s all fixed now, you see?” Lewis waved his hand at a patch of freshly turned over dirt. “It will be great. You’ll love it.”

The septic did take priority. They didn’t want to drown in sewage. She could’ve told him that. But no, the harpy took a chance to stab. He would remember that.

“Finish your lunch,” he told Lewis. “Once you’re done, I expect you back in the moat.”

“Yes, sir.”

A walk back to the gates took another five minutes. The Iron Dogs trailing him walked in silence.

Hugh walked through the gates and halted. The sea of tents had collapsed. The Iron Dogs crowded by the doors of the left wing. His gaze snagged on the pale spot of blue in the mass of black. Elara waved at him. She was holding giant scissors.

There was a blue ribbon strung across the doors of the left wing. It had a giant bow on it.

He’d been had.

“Will you do the honors, Preceptor?” Elara held the scissors out to him.

He would kill that woman.

He marched over, took the scissors from her, and cut the ribbon. The door swung open under the pressure of his hand revealing a front hall with a desk to the side. To the left and right, hallways shot out, their walls peppered with doors. In the middle of each hallway signs marked the stairways. In front of him double doors stood open, showing rows and rows of tables. She’d made them a mess hall.

“Since you’re here for the long haul,” Elara said behind him, “we felt dormitory style would be better than a single room with cots. There are twenty-eight dormitory rooms on the second floor, each containing four beds. There are two large communal bathrooms on each end of the second floor. On the first floor, you have ten more four-bed rooms downstairs and four pairs of single bed suits for officers. Each pair of suits shares a bathroom. You also have two large rooms to be used as you see fit.”

Above the mess hall doors, a black wrought iron crest hung, shaped like the head of a snarling dog.

The Iron Dogs streamed into the barracks.

Hugh stood still and stared at the crest. Elara halted next to him.

He didn’t say anything.

She leaned forward to get a look at his face. A smug smile curved her lips. It touched off something inside him, something new he couldn’t quite grapple with.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I’m picturing cutting your head off with these scissors.”

Elara laughed and walked out of the barracks.

Hugh raised his head from the purchasing agreement for the volcanic ash.

A teenage girl hovered in the doorway of his bedroom. He’d seen her before. Where was it? The stables.

“Let me guess. Bucky’s gotten out again.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“Did you chain the stall the way I told you?”

She nodded again.

“What happened?”

“The chain was on the ground.”

Hugh sighed. “Fine. Wait for me downstairs.”

He put away the paperwork. He’s spent most of yesterday getting everyone into the new barracks, then went back to the moat, and when he’d finally gotten to bed, it was past midnight. He’d woken up early and went straight back to the purchasing agreements. It was close to nine am now. His stomach growled. After he caught that damn horse, he would have to get something to eat.

No matter how hard they tried to restrain Bucky, the stallion took off during the night. If he was corralled, he jumped the fence. If he was locked up in the stables, in the morning, the stall would be open, and Bucky would be gone. He always went to the same place.

Hugh made it downstairs. The teenage girl had fetched a length of rope from the stables and was waiting by the wall.

“Let’s go,” he told her.

They walked out of the gates and curved to the left, down the path toward the nearest patch of woods. The sun shone bright. The sky was a painful blue. It would be another hot, sunny fall day. He noticed days now that he knew his were numbered. Immortality had its perks, but with Roland gone, it was out of his reach.

He cut off those thoughts before they led him into the void.

The path brought them to the edge of the woods and dove under the canopy of hemlocks. They followed it a few dozen yards to a glen. Here and there, the sun managed to punch through the leaves, dappling the forest floor in golden light. The air was clean and smelled like life.

Hugh whistled. The shrill sound cut the air. The stable girl jumped.

They waited.

A streak of blinding white appeared between the trees and accelerated toward them.

Idiot horse.

The stallion was running at a near gallop. Any normal horse would’ve broken its legs by now, but for some odd reason Bucky dashed through the woods with the agility of a deer 1 /10^th his size. He never tripped, he never put his feet wrong, he never ran into the branches. And he galloped around the woods at night, in near pitch-black darkness.

The stallion tore through the woods towards them, slid to a dramatic halt in the glen, and reared, pawing the air.

“Did you have fun?” Hugh asked.

Bucky trotted over and nudged him with his big head. Hugh slid a carrot into the stallion’s mouth, took the rope, and looped it over Bucky’s head.

“Let’s go.”

Bucky followed him, docile. The picture of obedience.

“There are dire wolves in the woods,” the stable girl said.

“He doesn’t care.”

“You could get a different horse,” she said. “The Lady would give you whatever horse you wanted.”

“Is that so?”

The stable girl nodded. “Yes. Any horse. She told us to give you whatever you need because you’re protecting us.”

He filed that bit of information away for further reference.

“So, you could trade him for a different horse.”

“No. He’s my horse. That’s that.”

She sniffed and squinted at him. “Is it true that you can ride standing up in the saddle?”

“I don’t need a saddle.”

She squinted harder. “Prove it.”

Hugh hopped onto Bucky’s back and nudged him into a walk. The stable girl followed. He pulled his legs up and stood on Bucky’s back.

She grinned. He dropped, swung his leg over, and rode Bucky with his back to the stallion’s head, facing her.

“How did you learn to do that?”

“Practice. Lots and lots of practice. The man who raised me came from steppe country. A place with mean horses. He taught me to ride when I was little.” Voron had taught him many other things, but horses had been the first lesson.

“Can you teach me?”

“Sure.”

A piercing scream rolled through the orchard from the right. Hugh jumped off Bucky.

“Help! He’s got the dogs!” A man screamed. “Help!”

A wolf howl rose from the woods, floating above the trees.

Hugh tossed the rope to the girl and lifted her onto Bucky’s back. “Get to the castle,” he ordered. “Tell any Dog you see to send Sharif and Karen to me.”

The girl nodded.

“Don’t throw her,” Hugh warned.

Bucky snorted and took off toward the castle.

The body of the dog sprawled under a bush. Blood stained the brown and white fur. Next to the dog, Sharif crouched, leaning close to the ground, staring unblinking at the crushed bushes and red-stained leaves. Karen, the other shapeshifter, dropped to all fours on the other side and took a long whiff.

Shapeshifters had their issues, but Hugh never agreed with Roland’s disdain for them. He understood Roland’s position well enough and recited it with passion when the occasion called for it, but when it came down to it, shapeshifters made damn good soldiers and that’s all he cared about.

He braced for the uncomfortable flash of guilt that usually flared when he thought Roland was wrong. It never came. Instead the void scraped his bones with its teeth. Right.

“He got some bites in,” Karen said softly, her voice tinted with sadness. “Good boy.”

Sharif bared his teeth.

The dire wolf was big and old. One of the shepherds had snapped a polaroid of him two nights before when the beast prowled the tree line, studying the cows in the pasture. From the paw prints and the pictures, the old male stood more than three feet at the shoulder and had to weigh damn near two hundred pounds, if not more.

Wild wolves didn’t follow the strict alpha-beta pecking order people assigned to them. That structure was mostly present in big shapeshifter packs, because hierarchy was a primate invention. Instead wild wolves lived in family groups, a parent couple and their young, who followed their parents until they grew up enough to start their own packs. But this beast was solitary. Something happened to his pack or they ran him out, and now he was a lone wolf with nothing to lose. A night ago, he tried to take a cow. The dogs and guns chased him off. Then the magic hit.

The old wolf was a smart bastard, smart enough to figure out that when the magic was up, guns didn’t bark. Still, he stayed away from the pasture and went for the easier target instead, a ten-year-old girl picking pears from the ground in the orchard while her parents were on ladders harvesting the fruit.

A dog’s job was to put itself between the threat and the human. The two dogs with the harvesters did their job.

Hugh and the shapeshifters had found the first dead hound at the edge of the woods. The second was here. Now it was up to human Dogs to settle the score.

“Heartbeat,” Sharif whispered.

Hugh reached out with his magic. The dog was a mess, torn and bitten, but a faint, barely-there heartbeat shivered in his chest. Hugh concentrated. This would be complicated.

He knitted the organs together, repairing the tissue, sealing the blood vessels, mending the flesh like it was fabric, muscles, fascia, and skin. The two Dogs by his side waited quietly.

Finally, he finished. The dog raised his head, turned in the brush, and crawled toward them. Sharif scooped the hundred and twenty-pound hound up like he was a puppy. The dog licked his face.

“Blood loss,” Hugh said. “He won’t be walking for a bit.”

“I’ll carry him,” Sharif said. His eyes shone, catching the light.

“We’re only a mile in. Take him back and catch up,” Hugh told him.

The werewolf turned smoothly and ran into the woods, silent like a shadow, the huge dog resting in his arms.

Karen took the lead and they followed the scent trail deeper into the woods.

If he never saw another rhododendron bush until his next life, it would be too soon, Hugh decided. The damn brush choked the spaces between trees and getting through it wasn’t exactly a cakewalk.

They pushed their way through the latest patch. The endless rhododendron finally thinned out. Old woods stretched before them, the massive oaks and hemlocks rising like the thick columns of some ancient temple, cushioned in greenery.

A shadow flittered between the trees, trailing a smear of foul magic. An undead.

The day was looking up. Hugh grinned and pulled his sword out.

The undead dashed right and stopped.

Another smear appeared on the left. Two. If it was Nez’s standard rapid reconnaissance party, there would be a third, each piloted by a separate navigator.

Karen waited next to him, her anticipation almost a physical thing hovering in front of her.

“Happy hunting,” Hugh said.

She unbuckled her belt with the knife sheath on it, unzipped her boots, and gave a sharp tug to her shirt. It came open. She dropped it on the forest floor. Her pants followed. A brief flash of a nude human, then her body tore. New bones sprang up out of flesh, muscle spiraled up them, sheathing the new skeleton, skin clothed it, and dense gray fur burst from the new hair follicles. The female werewolf opened her monstrous jaws, her face neither wolf nor human, swiped her knife from her clothes, and sprinted into the woods to the left.

Hugh went in the opposite direction, toward the foul magic staining the leaves. The smear hovered still for a moment, then moved north. Run, run, little vampire.

Another vampire to the far right, closing in fast. The undead moved in silence. They didn’t breathe, they didn’t make any of the normal noises a living creature made, but they couldn’t hide their magic. The foul patina of undeath stood out against the living wood like a dark blotch.

The front bloodsucker played bait, while the one on the right would close in from the flank and try to jump him. They didn’t realize he could feel them. This wasn’t the Golden Legion. The Masters of the Dead would’ve just met him two on one. These were likely journeymen, piloting younger vampires. The undead were damn expensive, and the older they were, the higher the price tag ran.

Didn’t want to risk the budget, cheapskate? It will cost you.

Hugh ran through the forest as fast as the terrain would let him, jumping over the fallen branches. Let’s play.

The ground evened out. Hugh sped up.

The bloodsucker in front of him darted in and out of the brush, flirting.

Hugh dashed forward, pretending not to feel the undead gaining from the right.

Trees flew past. The flanking vamp was almost on him.

The first bloodsucker jumped over the trunk of a fallen tree. Hugh tossed his sword into his left hand, planted his right on the rough bark, and vaulted over it.

The undead from the right leapt at him before he landed, as he knew it would. The vamp came flying out of the bushes. Hugh braced and rammed the reinforced gauntlet on his right hand into the bloodsucker’s mouth, taking the full weight of the vamp. The fangs sank into leather and met the core of hard steel. The bloodsucker hung still for a precious half-second as the surprised navigator processed the aborted leap. A half-second was just long enough. Hugh sank his sword between the undead’s ribs, slicing through the gristle and muscle to the heart. The oversized sack of muscle met the razor-sharp point of the blade and burst, as only undead hearts did, spilling blood inside the undead’s body cavity. Hugh jerked the sword free, shook the vamp off his hand like it was a feral cat, and swung. The blade cut in a broad powerful stroke. The undead’s head rolled into the bushes. The whole thing took less than a couple of breaths.

Fun.

With any luck, the journeyman piloting the vamp didn’t break connection. When a vampire died under a navigator’s control, the pilot’s brain insisted that it was the navigator himself who had died. Most became human vegetables. A few lucky ones survived but they were never the same.

Behind him, the undead magic swelled.

Hugh spun, ready to meet the attack.

The vamp charged, red eyes blazing.

A white blur cut between him and the undead and turned into Elara, her hand locked on the bloodsucker’s throat.

What the hell was this?

The undead shuddered in her grip. It should’ve torn her in two by now.

Elara looked into its eyes and opened her mouth. “Let go.”

The vamp’s eyes flared with ruby light as the navigator bailed. Elara squeezed. He felt the faint flicker of power, a silvery veil snapping to the vamp’s hide from her fingers. Old magic licked Hugh’s senses, awakening some long-forgotten instinct buried under layers of civilization. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

The bloodsucker went limp. She released it, and it crumpled to the ground. She picked up the skirt of her green dress and stepped over it.

Exactly the same as the first time with the tikbalang. His pulse sped up. He had no idea how she did it, and he had to find out before she did it to him.

Elara tilted her head. She’d braided her hair and wrapped it into a complicated knot on the back of her head. Stray wisps escaped here and there, shining when they caught a ray of sun falling through the leaves.

Hugh straightened, resting the blade of his sword on his shoulder. “Wife.”

“Husband.”

It had been a week since their last fight. She’d been conveniently busy. Hugh had a feeling she was avoiding him. The fun question was, did she do it because she didn’t want to fight or did she do it because she looked at him a half a second too long when he stood near naked in front of her that time in the bedroom?

“You came to help me. How charming,” Hugh drawled.

“That’s me. Delightfully charming.”

A distant howl echoed through the forest. Karen had caught her prey.

“Is there something you needed?” he asked.

“We got a call from Aberdine.”

Magic was a funny thing. Sometimes it killed the phone lines, other times they worked. It mattered who made the call.

“I’m aflutter with anticipation. What did the phone call say?”

“There are sheriffs riding here from the county. I told you this would happen, and it did.”

For a second, Hugh saw red, then he wrenched himself under control with an effort of will. “What did you do?”

“I did nothing,” Elara said, her voice bitter. “Now we look guilty. They will expect us to greet them together. Try to keep up.”

She blurred and vanished. He whirled and saw her, a pale silhouette fifty yards away. A voice floated through the woods and whispered in his ear, cold and mocking. “Too slow, Preceptor.”

He sheathed his sword and took off after her. She was lying through her teeth. When he caught up to her, he would strangle her with his bare hands.

Elara waited at the edge of the forest. He should’ve been out of there by now. To the north, against the backdrop of the tall hill and the severe lines of the castle, the Waterson, Garcia, and Lincoln families were picking pears from the orchard. The pears made good wine and the way the birds had been going at them, they had to be at the peak of ripeness. A few more days and they’d get pear mush instead of fruit.

“If I chop off your head, will it grow back?”

Elara spun around and almost ran into Hugh. He loomed over her, his eyes dark, his face cold. A man that large shouldn’t have moved that quietly.

“I don’t know,” she said, keeping her voice iced over. “We could do an experiment. You try chopping off my head and I’ll try to chop off yours. We’ll see who’s left standing.”

A spark flashed in the depths of his blue irises. “Tempting.”

“Isn’t it? You just have to tell me which head you want chopped off, the top one or the one you usually think with.”

“Take your pick.”

Elara narrowed her eyes. “Maybe later. We’re being watched.”

He glanced at the two girls waving at them from the orchard. Elara waved back.

“Is that supposed to stop me?”

She hated that she had to look up to meet his gaze. “You would kill me in front of the children?”

“In a minute.”

“But you healed the dog.”

“How do you know?”

“I know everything.”

“You saw Sharif running out of the woods.”

Hugh leaned toward her half an inch. Elara fought the urge to step back. The man could project menace like a raging bull.

She forced herself to stand still and glare back at him. “The point is, a man who would save a dog wouldn’t usually do something to scar small children.”

“A completely arbitrary connection.”

“Saving a dog implies a certain set of ethics.”

“I don’t care about the children.”

Elara shrugged. “In that case, we should get on with killing each other or start walking back. The sheriffs will be here soon.”

For a moment Hugh appeared to waver, then he indicated the path to the castle with an elegant sweep of his hand. She strode down the path and he walked next to her.

The girls at the orchard waved again.

“Wave back, Preceptor. Your arm won’t break.”

Hugh spun toward the orchard with a big friendly smile on his face and blew the girls a kiss. They dissolved into giggles and ran away. He turned to her and she almost shivered at his expression.

“We had an agreement. You broke it.”

The man homed in on crucial details like a shark sensing blood in the water. “I didn’t speak to the authorities. I didn’t order anyone to inform the county. You’ve made it perfectly clear that we are wearing the same straitjacket.”

“It got out, because you wanted it to get out.”

Elara sighed. “What did you want me to do? Muzzle everyone around us?”

“I expected you to stay true to the spirit of our agreement. I know you didn’t.”

“Let’s review. I came to you, because I wanted to go to the authorities. You demanded that I didn’t. I told you it was stupid. I told you things always got out. You dug your heels in.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Wait.” She held up her hand. “Let me check if I care.”

Hugh glared at her.

“No,” she said. “Apparently, I don’t. It’s good that we got that straightened out.”

She strode up the path, climbing the hill toward the castle. He had no trouble keeping up.

“By the way, Vanessa left.” She couldn’t keep a hint of sadness out of her voice. “She packed her bags and took off last night.”

“And this makes you sad why?”

“She was one of mine.”

“I suppose you’re blaming me for it?”

“No. Her decisions are her own.”

An Iron Dog emerged from the trees, on a roan horse, a cowboy hat on her head. Irina, Elara recognized. One of Felix’s scouts. That meant the sheriffs weren’t far behind. Here comes the county.

“Take my arm,” Hugh said.

“Ugh.” She rested her hand on his forearm and slowed. They strolled toward the gates.

“Why did you heal the dog?”

“Because he did his job. Loyalty must be rewarded.” There was a touch of an edge to Hugh’s voice. “And there are practical considerations.”

“Such as?”

“The other dog died in the forest. This dog didn’t turn back. He chased the wolf down alone, tried to kill it, and did a decent enough job fighting. We’ll need to breed him. He’ll make good war dogs.”

“War dogs? To fight people?”

“And undead.”

Yes, but it wasn’t about the war puppies. It was about loyalty. She knew the story as well as everyone else: Hugh d’Ambray had served as Roland’s warlord; then they had a falling out, Roland exiled Hugh and now his pet necromancer hunted the Iron Dogs. And that’s all anyone knew. Despite everything she tried, the details of what exactly happened and why eluded her.

The way he said loyalty signaled there had to be a lot more to the whole mess. Whatever had happened between them left deep scars. She’d have to work that sore spot. If she could dig deep enough, she would figure out what made him tick. Know thy enemy. That’s the ticket.

The sheriffs emerged, a small party of four people and a pack horse. The first two riders carried rifles and bows. The third had a staff strapped to his horse. Another sheriff’s deputy brought up the rear.

“Three deputies and a forensic mage,” Hugh assessed. “Happy now?”

“I didn’t invite them here. But they’re here now. They’re the law.”

“They are the law back home. Here, we are the law.”

“Is that so?”

“Sheriffs, state troopers, and cops are for normal people. I thought you would’ve learned this by now.”

He threw that ‘normal’ in there casually, but Elara knew Hugh was watching for her reaction, looking for a soft spot in her armor. He wouldn’t find one.

“Nobody wants you to be the law, Hugh. Least of all me.”

“You went behind my back, wife.”

“That’s the second time you used the ‘w’ word in the space of an hour without us being in public. You’re past your quota, Preceptor.”

“I’ll remember this. Your tab is getting longer and longer. The next time you need something from me, I’ll remind you.”

“Be still my heart.”

“I wish. Ready?”

She plastered a welcoming smile on her face. “No time like the present.”

“Happy couple in three... two...” Hugh grinned and waved at the party. She waved too, fighting the feeling of sudden dread climbing up her spine.

One look at Deputy Armstrong and it was clear he was some sort of law enforcement, Elara reflected. He was in his thirties, short, but stocky and hard, with short blond hair, a clean-shaven square jaw, and sharp eyes. He held himself in a relaxed way that was almost casual, but she had no doubt that if a threat appeared, he would act fast and probably without thinking.

The other deputy, about fifteen years older, gray haired and white, was beginning to get thick around her middle, but had the same kind of look to her: calm but alert. The forensic mage, a black man in his mid-twenties, looked slightly bored. Veterans. The only outlier in the group was the third deputy sheriff, a man who was barely twenty and clearly out of his depth.

And Hugh worked them like they were butter.

“No, we haven’t heard from them,” he said, his face suitably concerned. “I wasn’t even aware there was a settlement that way, but I’m new to the area. Honey?”

“Sometimes people come to the woods to get away from the world,” Elara said. “You said it was a small settlement?”

“That’s what the trader said,” Deputy Armstrong confirmed. “He didn’t go in, but he could see some houses from the road. The gates stood wide open.”

She turned to Hugh, concern on her face. “Couldn’t be dire wolves. There would be bodies.”

Hugh grimaced. “I don’t like it. Those aren’t your usual woods. There is strong magic there.”

So he’d noticed. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her. Someone with the kind of power he had would sense the arcane air within the forest.

“I tell you what, Deputy,” Hugh said. “Let me reinforce you. I don’t like you riding all the way there by yourself.”

Armstrong thought about it for a whole three seconds. “If you’re offering, I won’t turn it down.”

Nicely done. “I’ll come as well,” Elara said. “We have experienced healers and a couple of good seers. If we find survivors, we can administer first aid.”

Hugh gave her a look so besotted, she almost pinched herself. “Excellent. Give us fifteen minutes, Deputy. We pack light.”

“So you’re newlyweds?” Dillard, the female deputy, asked.

“Yes.” Elara nodded.

They’d been riding for two hours now. The Old Market wasn’t far, but the terrain slowed horses to a walk. Hugh and Armstrong had pulled ahead a few yards and were talking about something. She strained to listen, but only caught random words. Something about the advantages of ballistae. Deputy Chambers, the youngest of the four, was following them and hanging on every word. Behind them twenty Iron Dogs and eight of her people rode in a column, two abreast. Sam, in his new Iron Dog uniform, rode directly behind her. He trailed Hugh like a lost puppy who finally found someone to love and she had no doubt everything he said would be related to her husband word for word.

“That’s a good man you have there.”

Elara almost choked on her own breath. “Yes, he is. A good man.”

“He looks at you like you walk on air.” Deputy Dillard smiled. “Sometimes you get lucky, and it lasts past the first year.”

“Are you married?”

“I’m on my second one. My first husband died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He was a good man. My second husband is a good man too. But he doesn’t look at me like that.”

Hugh shifted in his saddle. Bucky turned and pranced over to her. Hugh turned him again, matching her horse’s stride. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“I missed you,” he said.

Quick, say something sweet back... “I missed you too.”

“Maybe I could steal you away from Deputy Dillard for a bit?”

“Oh, go on, you two lovebirds.” Deputy Dillard waved at them.

Elara nudged Raksha, and the dark bay mare stepped out of the column and pulled ahead with an easy elegance only Arabian horses possessed. Bucky stomped the ground next to her, clearly trying to look impressive.

Hugh reached over and held out his hand. The entire column was behind them, watching. She gritted her teeth and put her hand into his.

“Oh look, my skin isn’t smoking,” Hugh murmured.

“You’re overdoing it with the PDAs.”

“We’re newlyweds. If I threw you over my shoulder and dragged you into the woods, that would be overdoing it.”

The image flashed before her. “Try it. They won’t even find your bones.”

“Oh, darling, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding my bone.”

She tried to jerk her hand out of his, but he was holding her tight and she couldn’t yank her fingers out without making a scene. “Sure thing. I think I packed a magnifying glass.”

He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.

“You’ll pay for that,” she ground out.

“Mmm, are you going to punish me? Kinky girl.”

Insufferable ass. Elara let a tendril of her magic slither from her fingers and lick his skin. He didn’t let go.

They caught up with Armstrong and Chambers. Chambers was looking at them wide-eyed.

“Don’t worry, Deputy,” Hugh winked at him. “I’m just trying my wife’s patience with public displays of affection.”

“Ignore him,” she said, smiling. “He has no boundaries.”

“I’m only human,” Hugh said.

Yes, you are.

A dark shape rushed through the woods and Sharif emerged on the road, his eyes shining with the telltale shapeshifter glow. Deputy Chambers grabbed for the vial on his belt.

“The road is clear,” Sharif reported. “Empty palisade. The scents are old.”

Chambers let go of the vial, and she glimpsed the pale-yellow substance inside. The color was almost gone. Opportunity.

“Your wolfsbane has soured, my friend,” Hugh said, letting go of her.

Ah! He saw it too.

Chambers startled.

“He’s right,” she said, holding out her hand. “Here.”

Chambers unclipped the vial from his waist and handed it over. She unscrewed the top and smelled it. Barely any scent. “Sharif, would you mind?”

The werewolf took the vial and held it to his nose. “Tingly.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the vial back.

“Potent wolfsbane should’ve sent him into a sneezing fit,” Hugh said. “A strong wolfsbane has a deep orange color.”

“It should be stored in a dark container in a cold place,” Elara added. “Until you’re ready to use it.”

“Sadly, the stuff they issue us is barely yellow to begin with,” Armstrong said.

“We’re the biggest producer of wolfsbane in the region,” Elara said.

“We can cut them a deal, can’t we, honey?” Hugh asked.

“I’m sure we can.” They would take a loss on it. It didn’t matter. The contacts and good will at the county level was worth more than all their wolfsbane put together. “How much are you paying per gram now?”

“We pay five hundred per half-pound,” Armstrong said.

She waved her hand. “We can do better than that. We will supply you with premium quality wolfsbane at six hundred per pound.”

Armstrong blinked. “We don’t want to take advantage.”

“Call it law enforcement discount,” Elara said.

“Look,” Hugh said, his face somber. “One day things could happen, and I may not be here when they do. My wife might be in danger. My future children. My people. When that day comes, I’ll count on you to ride out here just as you’re doing now and uphold the law. You can’t do that if you’re dead. Let us fix this small thing for you. It’s the least we can do to help.”

Wow, he was good. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve believed every word. What a “good” man I’ve got there. Elara almost rolled her eyes.

“I’ll have to run it by the chain of command,” Armstrong said.

“The wolfsbane will be ready to go when you are,” Elara said.

The road turned. The empty palisade loomed ahead.

Hugh watched the forensic mage read the magic scanner’s printout. The m-scanners sensed the residual magic and printed them as colors: blue for humans, green for shapeshifters, purple for vampires. They were, at best, imprecise and clumsy; at worst, misleading. He’d seen printouts that made no sense, and from the faint lines on the paper, this one held very little value. The magic signatures were too old. Whatever took the people was long gone. Might as well get some druids to cut open a black chicken and study its liver.

Speaking of druids. He turned slightly to watch Elara’s magic users waiting patiently outside of the palisade. They wore the typical neo-pagan garb; light hooded robes, just generic enough to make it difficult to pin them down. They could be witches, druids, or worshippers of some Greek god.

Eight people. Not really enough for a coven.

His gaze slid to the harpy. There was something witchy about Elara. When he goaded her into letting her magic out, it felt odd, a touch witchlike, a touch female, and a whole lot of something else, sharp and cold. Daniels had felt like that, a little witchy, but mostly her magic felt like boiling blood. Elara was ice.

The void yawned at him. Thinking of Daniels always put him on the edge of the chasm. If he lingered too long on her or her father, the void would swallow him again.

The mage came out.

Here it comes, the magic signatures are too old, there is too much interference, blah blah blah.

“The magic signatures are too old and faint for a clear reading,” the mage said to Armstrong.

The deputy sighed. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

“It wasn’t an animal,” the mage said. “Animals would’ve left more evidence. It wasn’t an undead and the scene isn’t indicative of a loup attack.”

When shapeshifters failed to keep their inner beasts at bay, they turned loup. Loups weren’t playing with a full deck. When they attacked a settlement, they tore humans apart, usually while fucking them, they boiled children alive, and generally had a great time indulging in every perversion they could think of until someone put them out of their misery. The only cure for loupism was a bullet to the brain or a blade to the neck.

Armstrong sighed again. “Any idea at all?”

“No.”

“Something comes into this place, takes sixteen people out, and leaves no trace of itself.”

“In a nutshell.” The mage shrugged.

Armstrong looked at him for a long moment.

“What do you want, Will?” The mage spread his arms. “The scene is three weeks old. I don’t work miracles.”

“Perhaps we could try?” Elara asked, her tone gentle.

“Are you done with the scene?” Armstrong asked.

The mage nodded. “Can’t hurt. We’re not going to get anything more from it at this point.”

Armstrong looked to Elara. “It’s all yours.”

“Thank you.”

She walked toward the gates. When she wanted to, she moved like she was gliding. Mostly she stomped like a pissed off goat.

The eight people followed her and formed a rough semicircle.

“Come on,” Hugh said to Armstrong. “We’ll want a front row seat for this.”

They walked through the gates. The mage followed them.

Elara’s people pulled the hoods of their robes over their faces, so only their chins were visible. A low chant rose from them, insistent and suffused with power.

She stood with her back to them, seemingly oblivious to the magic gathering behind her.

The chant sped up. They poured out an awful lot of magic, but it felt inert.

Time to see what you really are. Hugh grounded himself, focusing through the prism of his own power. The world rushed at him, crystal clear, the magic a simmering lake submerging the eight chanters. Feeling magic was one of the first things he learned under Roland. Show me what you’ve got, darling.

Elara raised her arms to her sides and waited, her eyes closed.

The magic streamed toward her, as if a dam suddenly opened.

It drenched her.

She didn’t touch it. She didn’t absorb it, didn’t use it, didn’t channel it. It just sat there around her.

Elara opened her eyes. Magic whipped inside her, and to his enhanced vision she almost glowed from within.

They were treated to a show, he realized. The chanters were there to make it look as if she channeled their power. She didn’t need them. Whatever was about to happen was hers alone.

His lovely wife didn’t want anyone to know how powerful she was. Smart girl.

Elara knelt, scooped a handful of dirt, and let it crumble from her fingers, each soil particle glowing gently.

The chant rose with a new intensity, rapid and sharp.

A pulse of magic burst from Elara, drowning the palisade. For half a second every blade of grass within stood perfectly straight and still. She’d poured a shitload of power into that pulse.

Silver mist rose from the ground in thin tendrils, thickening in the middle of the clearing, flowing together into a human shape, translucent, tattered, but visible. A man, six feet tall, broad shoulders. Big bastard. Long blond hair braided away from his face. Pale skin. A tattoo in a geometric design marked his right cheek, a tight spiral with a sharp blade on the end. He wore dark scale armor with a spark of gold on one shoulder. Hugh rifled through his mental catalogue of scale mail, everything from Roman lorica squamata to Japanese gyorin kozane.

He’d never seen anything like it.

The dark metal scales lay close to the man’s body, not uniform, but varying in size, smaller on the waist where the body had to bend, wider on the chest. This wasn’t made with the ease of manufacture in mind. It was created from life. Whoever made this was looking at a snake for inspiration.

The man’s eyes flashed with gold fire. He thrust his left hand forward. Mist spiraled up in five different spots, melding into the outline of creatures, barely visible. They stood on two legs, hunched forward, big owl eyes unblinking, their mouths slashes across their faces.

He felt a small remnant of humanity buried deep within the brown bodies, a barely perceptible hint of the familiar. They were once human.

The beasts darted forward into the nearest house. A ghostly door swung open and the first beast dragged out a body, a woman, her head hanging down from her twisted neck.

Another beast carrying a man followed. The man was large, at least two hundred pounds. The creature had slung him over its shoulder like he was weightless.

A scuffle, then a beast emerged with an adolescent girl, her long hair sweeping the ground. Blood dripped down her hand. The owner of the torn nail.

Another beast followed, one carrying a boy of about five, another a baby. Both dead.

The beasts laid them in a row and darted into the next house. The man watched, impassive.

“Sonovabitch,” Armstrong ground out.

The neat line of corpses grew. Sixteen people lay in a row, their ghostly bodies shimmering and fading into the mist.

Hugh studied the corpses. Quick and efficient. It only took a moment to snap a human neck. He’d done it enough times to recognize the practiced skill. That’s why nobody raised the alarm. The beasts killed them almost instantly.

The man turned toward the open gates and walked out, vanishing at the edge of Elara’s spell. The beasts grabbed the corpses and scuttled after him, darting back and forth until all were gone.

“Can you bring him back?” Hugh asked.

“I can hold him still for a bit.” Elara concentrated. This time he felt the power sink into the ground in a controlled burst. The armored man returned, frozen in mid-move.

Hugh circled him. The scales of the armor lacked polished shine, and the metal wasn’t black, but blue and brown with flecks of green, like tortoiseshell. Scuffs on the armor. That’s what he’d thought.

The mage grabbed a sketchpad and frantically drew. Hugh glanced to make sure his own people were sketching. They were.

“Who is this guy?” Dillard growled, her face contorted. “Does he look familiar to anyone?”

Armstrong grunted. “The question is, is he some random nutjob, or is he a part of something larger?”

Hugh would have to explain it. They didn’t see it on their own. Hugh pulled his sword out, stepped back, and swung. The blade lined up perfectly with a barely perceptible scratch across the scales.

Armstrong crouched next to him, so his face was inches from the sword and tilted his head. “He took a swing.”

“And survived.” Bad news. The cut didn’t angle enough to be a glancing blow. No, someone had slashed across this asshole’s middle straight on and probably dulled his sword.

“How do you know he survived?” Chambers asked. “Maybe he took the armor off a dead man.”

“The armor isn’t broken,” Sam said quietly. “And it was custom made for him.”

The kid was learning.

Hugh kept his voice low. “You see the gold on the shoulder?”

Armstrong studied the gold star etched into the armor, eight rays emanating from the center with a bright gold stripe underneath.

“Insignia?” he guessed.

“There is no other reason to put it on armor.”

Armstrong glanced at him. “You think there are more of them.”

“He’s a soldier. Soldiers belong in an army.” Hugh sheathed his sword. “The insignia is a rank, an identification. He’s clean-shaven, his hair is put away, the armor isn’t ornate. This is a uniform. Put him in the woods, and he’ll be near invisible. He’s part of a unit. If we’re really lucky, it’s just a unit and not an army.”

Armstrong rose and surveyed the woods around them. “We’re done here,” he said. “Let’s go back before something else shows up.”

The mist dissolved. Elara stood on the other side. She looked … in pain. No, not pain. Worry.

That same annoying feeling that flooded him when he’d looked at her bloody wedding dress came over him. He wanted to fix it, just to make it go away.

He strode to her and said, barely above a whisper, “Do you recognize this?”

“No.” She looked at him, and a small hopeful spark lit her eyes. “Do you?”

“No.”

The spark died. Hugh felt a sudden rush of anger, as if he’d failed somehow.

If they got hit on the way back, she would jump into the fight. She had too much power to sit back. If he lost her, her nature-worshipping cabal would riot. Like it or not, everything in Baile and the town revolved around Elara.

“Stay near me on the way back.”

Surprise slapped her face. She turned it into cold arrogance. “Worried about my survival?”

“Don’t want to miss an opportunity to use you as a body shield.”

“How sweet of you.”

“Stay near me, Elara.”

He walked away before she could come back at him with something clever.