Iron and Magic

13

Hugh leaned on the parapet walk of the keep. Below, the concrete stretch of the moat rolled out, waiting for the water. Six pump rigs waited, ready to dump water from the lake into the moat through large pipes. The magic had flooded thirty minutes ago, setting them back, and now three teams chanted, moving from pump to pump, coaxing the water engines to life.

Every Iron Dog not on duty lined up along the shore of the moat. Most of the village was here as well, mingling. Kids ran back and forth, laughing. A pirogi seller showed up and was doing brisk business, carrying trays of pirogi through the crowd.

Like some damn festival.

Elara was down there too. If he concentrated, he could pick her out of the crowd. He chose to stare at the concrete and the pumps instead.

Stoyan leaned on the parapet next to him. “Do you want to go down there?”

“No.”

The team at the furthest pump on the left waved a rag.

“Pull the trigger,” Hugh said.

Stoyan raised a horn to his mouth and blew a loud angry note.

A spark of magic dashed through the pumps, dancing on the machinery like yellow lightning. The pumps roared.

Nothing happened.

The crowd mulled about, the noise of voices rising.

A minute passed. Another…

Another…

Water gushed out of the right-most pipe. The crowd cheered. The other pipes added their own stream one by one and a foaming current poured into the moat.

Finally.

He looked along the flow of the water and saw Elara in a white dress. Her face was tilted up. She was looking straight at him.

Hugh pushed from the parapet and turned to Stoyan. “Have them check the water level every thirty minutes once it’s filled. We need twenty-four hours of stable water level.”

“The engineers are on it,” Stoyan said. “What do you want to do about the money?”

“How far overbudget are we?”

“Thirteen thousand.”

“Anything left to salvage?”

“The scouts found ruins to the south, about thirty minutes into the woods. Looks like it was a serious distillery operation at some point. Stainless steel storage tanks, copper percolators, heating coils. We got quite a bit we can pull out of there…”

A high-pitched scream rang out below. Hugh spun to the parapet. On the grass by the moat a woman and two men convulsed in the grass. Elara’s people formed a ring around them. He swore and took off at a run.

It took him three minutes to get down to the moat. Hugh shouldered his way into the ring. Elara knelt by the older of the men, holding his head in her lap, while two other cradled the younger man and the woman.

“Let it come,” Elara intoned. “Almost there. Almost.”

There was a rhythm to the convulsions. He studied the bodies, the timing. The tremors pulsed in a distinct pattern, closer and closer to becoming synchronized.

“Here it is,” Elara murmured.

The three people jerked upright in unison, like vampires snapping out of coffins in some old movie. They stared into space, identical blank expressions on their faces, and spoke in a chorus.

“Tonight Aberdine will fall.”

Well, fan-fucking-tastic.

He left the circle. Stoyan followed.

“Double the patrols,” Hugh told him. “Keep the pumps going. I want to see everyone in my quarters in fifteen.”

Elara climbed the staircase. Hugh’d taken one look at the seers and run away to his rooms. That was fine. There was no escape. She would track him down.

She reached the hallway. His door was open. His back was to her. He was looking at something on his desk. He wore his Iron Dog uniform, and from this angle, silhouetted against the light of the window, he looked like pure darkness, cut out in the shape of a man.

Memory conjured up his hands on her shoulders and the phantom touch of his lips on her skin. She shoved the thoughts aside. Not now.

She walked into his room. He didn’t even turn. He had to have heard her.

“Hugh.”

“Busy,” he said.

Ugh. “A moment of your time.”

He turned to her and leaned against the desk, his arms crossed. “Anything for my wife.”

She almost snapped back but bit the words off before they had a chance to escape. She had to make him understand.

“Aberdine will fall tonight. The Heltons are never wrong when all three of them are synchronized.”

He didn’t say anything.

“It has to be a reference to the warriors and the mrogs. They will attack Aberdine tonight.”

“Quite possibly.”

“We have to help them.”

He gave her a long look. “Let me get this straight. You want me to take my soldiers and ride out there to defend people who threw rocks at us because three creepy assholes foamed at the mouth, swooned, and had a vision?”

Ugh. Ugh! “They are not assholes. They are very nice people. They can’t help it.”

“I’m sure they are lovely when they are not announcing imminent doom.”

“How is it that Raphael made more holes in you than in swiss cheese, but your assholeness survived?”

“Raphael doesn’t have a knife big enough to kill my assholeness.”

“There are children in Aberdine. Children didn’t throw rocks at us. Almost twenty-five hundred people live in that settlement and they’re about to be slaughtered. How can you just do nothing?”

“Very easily,” he said.

She stared at him.

“If they are truly trying to take Aberdine, they will come in large numbers,” Hugh said with methodical calm. “You want me to leave a fortified position and ride out against what will likely be a much larger force. There will be casualties. I’ll have to watch my people die.”

“Our people, Hugh. They are our people, and I’ll be sending people from the village as well. You will have support. And if they die, it will be on my head.”

His stare made her want to back away from him.

“No.”

“We can’t just do nothing.”

“Yes, we can. Every Dog who dies on that field is one less soldier to protect this castle.”

“Babies, Hugh. They will murder babies.”

“There are babies here. Do you really want to orphan them for the sake of Aberdine?”

This was a pointless conversation. “I’ll go myself.”

“And do what? Lob herbs at them until allergies bring them down?”

She wanted to punch him in the face. “I want you to be the hero, Hugh. I want you to gather our people, and ride with me to Aberdine to save innocent people. What do I have to do to make this happen?”

He pushed from the desk and took the six steps separating them. Menace rolled off him in waves, so thick, it was almost choking her.

“Are we bargaining now?”

An electric shiver of alarm dashed down her spine. Elara raised her head. “If that’s what it takes.”

He reached out and caught a strand of her hair. “What will you give me if I save Aberdine?”

“What do you want, Hugh?”

“What I want you won’t give me.”

“Try me.”

He leaned toward her, his lips only inches from hers. She felt too hot, as if her clothes had somehow grown too tight on her. Her instincts wailed in alarm.

“I want you…” his voice was intimate, each word precise. “… to stay here and guard my pumps.”

She blinked at him.

“I want that water running and the castle standing when I come back. Do we understand each other?”

Oh, you epic, epic ass. “Yes,” she said.

“Good.”

She heard footsteps in the hallway and turned. Stoyan, Lamar, Bale, and Felix were approaching.

“Run along now,” Hugh said.

She ignored him. “Why are all of you here?”

Nobody said a word.

“Answer her,” Hugh said.

“We’re here to plan the battle of Aberdine,” Stoyan said, clearly wishing to be anywhere but here.

“We have to defend it,” Lamar said. “If we lose Aberdine, we lose access to the ley line. They’ll cut us off from the rest of the state.”

She would kill him.

“Too bad it took you so long,” Hugh said. “You missed a stirring performance, complete with emotional appeals to my better nature. Apparently, my wife wants me to save Aberdine for the babies.”

She pictured him exploding into bloody mist. No. Too quick.

Stoyan looked at his feet. Lamar stared at the ceiling. Bale studied his nails. Felix turned back and checked the hallway behind them. Nobody was looking at her.

“Explaining doesn’t quite do it justice.” Hugh invited her with a sweep of his hand. “Honey, would you mind doing an encore for the guys?”

She spun on her feet and walked out.

Behind her Lamar murmured, “One day that woman will drown you in the moat and I won’t blame her.”

“Honey?” Hugh called.

She kept walking.

“Elara?”

She stopped and turned to look at him.

“Any plans on helping me with any of this? Or is it pouting time? You can walk away to beat your fists prettily on your pillow or you can tell us more about Aberdine.”

The bastard got off on goading her. “Ask nicely,” she said.

“Please join us, my lady.” He bowed with exquisite grace, sweeping his arm to the side with a flourish, as if he were some medieval knight bowing before a queen.

Bastard.

She launched her magic into the room and stepped. The centurions jerked back. One moment she was in the hallway, the next she stood next to Hugh, wisps of her white magic melting into thin air.

He stared at her, his blue eyes amused.

“Dugas,” she called, sending her voice through the castle. “I need you.”

Bale shivered, his eyes wide, looking like a freaked cat. Felix crossed himself.

She walked to Hugh’s chair and sat in it. His lips curved.

Elara rolled her eyes.

They waited.

“How many people are you leaving me?” she asked.

“Lamar and his entire century.”

“That means you’re only taking two hundred and forty people. Aberdine has almost two and a half thousand people in it. You said the mrog handlers would come in large numbers. Is that going to be enough?”

“It will have to be,” Hugh said.

“How many people can we press in Aberdine?” Stoyan asked.

Elara frowned. “Not many. These same people threw rocks at us when we tried to ward them. It will take a lot to make them trust you. Unless you do something impressive enough to cut past the fact that they’re scared of us, you won’t get much help.”

“Let’s assume I’ll do something impressive,” Hugh said.

“There are two thousand two hundred and three people in Aberdine,” she told him. “Forty-seven percent men, fifty-three percent women. About half are between the ages of twenty and sixty. They are used to fighting the forest every day, so they are armed, and they won’t have a problem defending themselves, but they’re not professional killers.”

“That’s fine,” Bale said. “We are.”

Dugas walked into the room, nodded to her, and parked himself to the side.

“Let’s cut that in half,” Lamar said. “Accounting for the infirm, parents who have to stay with children, and cowards. That gives us about four to five hundred people.”

“I’ll give you half of my archers,” Elara said. “Forty people, all very good.”

“Thank you,” Hugh said.

He stepped to the desk. The centurions and Dugas clustered around him. She got up and walked over. Stoyan and Lamar made a space for her. A map of Aberdine lay on the desk.

It was a typical post-Shift settlement. Once a small town spread out in the shadow of Coller’s Knob, Aberdine compacted under the onslaught of the magic waves. Coller Road ran through town, snaking its way ten miles to the southwest to touch Baile castle and stretching another three miles to the northeast to catch the ley line. Somewhere around the first few houses inside Aberdine’s city limits, Coller Road turned into Main Street. The forest took no prisoners, especially during the magic waves, so to keep themselves safe, the villagers walled in Main Street and the few surrounding blocks, protecting the municipal buildings, the marketplace, grocery store, the gas station and a few other essential places with a concrete wall topped with razor wire. Two gates punctured the wall, where it crossed Main Street. Each gate had a guard tower. All of that was painstakingly marked on Hugh’s map.

Most of the houses hugged the wall, with braver or stupider homeowners venturing further into the cleared land, their homesteads wrapped in fields guarded by deer fence and barbed wire. About a hundred yards or so of cleared land ringed the farms. The rest was dense forest. The woods tried to take back the land and Aberdine’s residents spent a great deal of time holding it back. Elara knew the struggle very well. They had to do the same thing to keep the land around Baile cleared.

In times of crisis, bells would ring, and the residents would run for the safety of the wall.

“You’ll have to evacuate them,” Dugas said. “The ley line seems like a natural point, but moving fifteen hundred people to it will be a nightmare.”

“I can take evacuees,” she said.

Hugh looked at her.

“We have experience in caring for refugees,” she told him. “We can keep them for a day or two.”

“What if the mrog dickheads burn the town down?” Bale asked.

She looked at him. “Make sure they don’t.”

“We split the evacuees,” Hugh said. “Anyone able to walk, ride, or drive ten miles will come here. Everyone else will go to the ley line. Stoyan, set up two squads to escort them.”

The dark-haired centurion nodded.

Lamar leaned over the map. “For a settlement this size, we can expect several hundred enemy troops at a minimum. They rely on surprise, armor, and their mrogs. We know they are coming, so the element of surprise is on our side, but it takes three of us to kill one of them because of that damn armor.”

“We draw them inside the walls,” Hugh said. “It will negate the number advantage.”

“If there was some way to confuse the mrogs,” Lamar thought out loud.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the standing theory says they follow visual cues from their masters?”

Hugh nodded.

“Would fog help?” Dugas asked.

“What kind of fog?” Stoyan asked.

“Magic fog.” Dugas wiggled his fingers at him.

“Can you control it?” Stoyan asked. “Will it stay inside the wall?”

“Yes,” Dugas said.

“Fog is good.” Hugh bared his teeth. A dangerous, sharp expression twisted his features, and Elara fought a shiver. No matter what kind of life Hugh d’Ambray lived, a part of him would always look for the most efficient way to kill.

He was going to Aberdine, she reminded herself. It was all that mattered.

Elara hugged herself. From the window in Hugh’s room, she could see most of the bailey. Iron Dogs and their horses swarmed, filling the entire courtyard. A mass of men and women in black on dark horses. The day was overcast, the sky choked with gray bloated clouds, and the gray light only made everything look grimmer.

The centurions had left. Hugh sat in his chair, putting on a new pair of boots. He was dressed in black from head to toe. She should’ve left, but she had stayed, and she had no idea why.

She turned to the desk where Hugh’s breastplate, solid black and reinforced with metal plates waited, and touched it. It felt hard like wood or plastic, not at all how she expected leather would feel.

“Cuir bouilli, reinforced with steel plates,” Hugh said.

“Will it stop a sword?”

“Depends on who is holding it.”

He got up, picked up the armor, and fitted it over himself, pushing his left arm through the opening between the chest and back piece.

“Since you’re here…”

She grimaced at him and buckled the leather belts on his right side, pulling the armor together. “Good?”

“Tighter.”

“Now?”

“Perfect.”

He buckled a sheath on his hip and thrust his sword into the scabbard. Hugh grabbed a length of black fabric from the chair and shook it open with a quick jerk of his hand. A cape edged with fur. He’d worn it when he first came to the castle.

He wrapped it around his shoulders. She took the leather tie away from him, reached for the other side of the cape and pressed it on the two metal studs there. Hugh picked up a helmet from the desk. It was a Roman style helmet with cheek pieces and a crest of black hair. A stylized dog snarled at her from the wide piece of the helmet that would be positioned just above Hugh’s brow. He put the helmet on his head. It didn’t hide that much of his face, but somehow altered it. Two blue eyes stared at her with a focused intensity.

She took a step back. Hugh was a big man, but the cape, the helmet, the armor, it made him look giant.

“You look like a villain in some fantasy pre-Shift movie,” she told him. “Some dread lord about to conquer.”

“Dread lord,” he said. “I like that.”

He would.

“Won’t the cape get in the way?”

“The cape and the helmet are for Aberdine. We don’t have time to play politics. Once I’ve got the town, I’ll take them off when the battle starts.”

Something had been nagging her since the strategy meeting. “What you told me about the ley point made sense at first. But the mrog soldiers don’t hold towns, Hugh. They wipe them out and disappear. Aberdine’s massacre wouldn’t affect our access to the ley point. Why are you really going there?”

“They broke into my castle. They attacked my wife. They attacked a child in our home. The point of having a castle isn’t hiding inside its walls; it’s being worthy of it. It’s being able to control everything around it. They’re growing bolder. They’re taking larger settlements. They’ve got my attention now. They will wish they didn’t.”

In her head she saw him let Raphael’s knife strike him again and again. He was riding into battle. Anything could happen in battle. All he would have to do is not try as hard. To not step out of the way of a sword. To let himself get shot.

She wanted him back.

“Preceptor?”

“Yes?”

Her voice was steady. The words rolled off her tongue. “You like making bargains. Here is one for you. Come back to me alive, and I will stay the night. The whole night.”

Outside the horns screamed and she almost jumped. There was something dark and primitive about the sound. A steady beat rose, thumping like a giant’s heart. The war drums grew louder and louder. She heard horses neighing, the clang of metal, the voices of fighters, all of it mixing with the drums into a terrifying marching hymn. Someone howled like a wolf, in tune with the horns.

She turned to Hugh. He had somehow grown darker, grimmer, scarier, as if he emanated some imperceptible magic. The darkness curled around him, like a willing pet with savage teeth.

“Done,” the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs said.

Hugh walked the line of Aberdine defenders. Men, women, some almost children, others well into retirement. Four hundred and seven people, who volunteered to defend their home. Behind him a line of the Iron Dogs waited and behind them Dugas and his druids chanted in low voices, brewing herbs and powders in their cauldrons. The air smelled of old ways and half-forgotten magic.

He’d sent Felix in first, keeping the rest of the Dogs hidden in the tree line. The scouts scaled the wall with no one the wiser, took the firehose, and rang the bell. The residents of Aberdine lived in a wood filled with magic. The firehouse bell meant running for the safety of the walls, which was exactly what they had done. Then, once they dropped everything and gathered on Main Street, Hugh had pushed the Iron Dogs into a canter.

The guard at the western gate was too focused on the bell. He didn’t see them until it was too late, which didn’t bode well for Aberdine’s chances in a real fight. They thundered inside the wall at a near gallop. Bucky reared in the market square, before an old Dollar General, pawing the ground and screaming. Hugh dropped a power word and the entire town went silent while he pulled a mrog’s head out of his bag and told them what was coming. He was there to defend their town. They had two options: leave or fight. The choice was theirs.

It took less than two hours to round up the die-hards holed up in their houses, but now finally everyone was on their way: two long caravans, one of horse-drawn wagons and enchanted water vehicles heading to the ley point and the other, mostly people on foot and horseback, to Baile Castle. They went armed.

Now he faced a ragged militia. A third of it was too old, a third too young and green, and the remaining third looked ready to bolt. He had to make them count, because Aberdine’s defenses were shit. Of the two ballistae mounted on the walls, the first had rusted through and the second fell apart when they tried to test fire it. There was no time to set up defenses. Warm bodies were all he had.

“An army is coming,” he said. “They’re armored, organized, and trained. They have monsters who serve them like dogs. They don’t want your money, your cows, or your homes. They don’t want what’s yours. They want you. Your bones. Your flesh. Your meat. And they will keep coming back until they get it.”

They listened to him, watching him with haunted eyes.

“This isn’t a fight for your town. This is a fight for survival. Some of you have fought before. Some of you have killed creatures. Some of you have killed people. This will be nothing like you’ve seen before. This will be a slaughter. It will be hard, ugly, and long.”

Directly across from Hugh, a kid about Sam’s age licked his lips nervously.

“You’re scared,” Hugh said. “Fear is good. Use it. There are few things as dangerous as a vicious coward on his home turf. Kill and show your enemy no mercy. If you get an urge to spare one of those bastards, he will kill your friend next to you and run you through with his dying breath. Kill him before he kills you. This is your town. Make them pay for every foot of ground in it.”

The line of shoulders rose slightly, as some of them straightened their backs.

“You will be broken into teams. Each of your teams will get an Iron Dog. These men and women are trained killers. They’ve fought battles like this before and they’ve survived. Obey your Iron Dog. Stay together. Don’t run. Fight dirty, do as you’re told, and you too might survive this.”

He raised his hand and flicked his fingers. The first Iron Dog, Allyson Chambers, peeled from the line. Solid, broad-shouldered, with pale skin and blond hair pulled back from her face.

“You, you, you, you, you and you!” she barked. “With me.”

The first six fighters peeled off and followed her down the street at a run.

Arend Garcia stepped into his place and pointed at a rough looking man twelve defenders down the line. “Everyone up to this man – with me.”

Hugh turned and walked to Dugas. The druid looked up from the cauldron. Sweat sheathed his face. He’d taken his eye patch off, and his bad eye sat like a chunk of moonstone in his tan face.

“How long?” Hugh asked.

“We’re ready now,” the older man said.

“Good. How long will it take to saturate the village?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“And it will stay inside the wall?”

“It will,” Dugas promised. “You’ll get about twenty minutes worth of cover.”

Twenty minutes would have to do. “Be ready to flood us.”

Dugas nodded.

Hugh walked past him to the ladder on the side of the firehouse, pulled off his helmet, and climbed the metal ladder up to the roof, where Stoyan crouched by a short bell tower next to Nick Bishop. Bishop, an athletic black man in his forties, adjusted his glasses. He was the town’s chief of police, National Guard Sergeant, and Wildlife Response Officer, all of which put him in charge of the same six people. He was quiet and held himself like he knew what he was doing, which was more than Hugh had been hoping for.

From here Hugh could see the western gate and the fields. He’d bet on the western gate. Its eastern twin faced the mountain and was better defended and fortified. It was the approach he would have chosen if he came for Aberdine.

In the field, a group of Bale’s berserkers, dressed in civilian clothes, enthusiastically poked the ground with farm tools.

“How’s the bell?” Hugh asked.

Stoyan grinned at him. The bell hanging in the faux tower on the roof looked as decorative as the tower itself. “It works,” Stoyan said. “I rang it.”

Bale sank his hoe into the dirt. It must’ve gotten stuck, because he wrenched at it. The hoe came loose, snapping up, and flung a chunk of dirt into the air. Bale ducked.

“Has your man even held a hoe before?” Bishop asked.

Stoyan grimaced. “Not that kind.”

An eerie glow appeared in the middle of the field, barely noticeable, a shimmer more than light. Here we go.

“Dugas,” Hugh called down. “Now.”

The druid raised his head to the sky. His good eye rolled back in his head, matching the dead milky one. Fog shot from the cauldron in spiraling geysers, expanding, flooding the streets, and turning around the corners to collide.

The glow snapped into a line of bright golden light.

Bale and his berserkers backed away, toward the gates.

The light flared, forming an arched gate, as if a small second sun was rising out of the dirt.

The inside of the wall was milk now, the thick fog hiding the contours of the buildings seven feet up. Across from them, on the roof of the Dollar General, archers took positions behind a wooden barricade nailed together from packing crates and plywood. By the west gate, the roof of a Wells Fargo bank had gained three feet of height from a makeshift wall built with chunks of concrete and rocks. A dark head popped up above the wall for a moment and ducked back down.

The glow snapped clear. Hugh saw sunshine through the hole in the fabric of existence, and then mrogs flooded out of the portal in a ragged horde.

Behind them a row of warriors stepped out in unison, twenty men to a line. The shoulder of the first man in the line shone with gold.

“One,” Stoyan counted.

A second line followed the first. Another leader with a gold shoulder. Officers.

“Two.”

With that many, there should be a commander.

“Three. Four.”

The berserkers turned and ran for the gate. The mrogs gave chase, dashing across the field on two legs.

Bale hesitated.

“What is he doing?” Bishop muttered.

“Trying to get a better look at where they came from,” Hugh told him.

Behind the fourth line a man rode out atop a white horse, his armor heavy and ornate, the shoulders gleaming with gold.

There you are, asshole.

The glow vanished.

Bale turned and sprinted like a bullet aiming for the gate. The mrogs were barely a hundred yards behind.

Seventy-six warriors, four officers, one commander, and at least three hundred mrogs. The armored ranks waited, unmoving, in a precise formation. Each armed with a sword and shield. A long rectangular shield.

Fifty yards between the mrogs and Bale.

Thirty.

Twenty.

Bale shot through the gate and spun to his right, vanishing into the fog.

The mrogs poured into the main street. The fog churned as the beasts searched it.

“Not enough people,” Bishop said.

“Eight berserkers is plenty,” Stoyan said. “Bale knows what he’s doing.”

Metal clanged, and the heavy gate dropped in place. The wall on top of Wells Fargo quaked like a rotten tooth about to come out and collapsed. Boulders and chunks of old concrete, some with rebar still sticking out, tumbled into the street onto the shifting fog and the crowds of mrogs beneath. Yowls and shrieks cut the silence.

The trails in the fog split, running from the falling rocks. The main mass sprinted deeper into the town, along the main street. Arrows whistled through the air as the archers on the rooftops fired blindly into the fog. The mass of mrogs broke and split as individual beasts took to the side streets trying to escape the barrage.

The remaining mrogs turned back to the western gate. They hadn’t gone far before a bright red glow burst through the fog, blocking their escape. The fog parted, blown away in a circle, revealing Bale and a mass of snarling mrogs in front of him. The berserker stood with his feet planted, a mace in one hand, a red aura sheathing him. He stood with his back to the gate, and the street narrowed here, funneling the mrogs at him four or five at a time.

The red aura sheathing Bale flared brighter. Muscles rose on his frame, monstrous, swelling, growing larger. His arms thickened, muscles building, turning him into a hulking human monstrosity.

The beasts hesitated. They were closer to animals than to humans, and their instincts told them here was a primal force not to be fucked with. They knew a better beast when they saw him.

“What the hell is that?” Bishop whispered.

“Battle warp,” Hugh told him.

The berserker’s eyes bulged, his face contorted by rage in a grotesque mask. Bale roared.

The first mrog lunged at the berserker. Bale brained it with one swing. Blood and brains sprayed. The second mrog charged in. The first swing broke its shoulder; the second crushed its skull like an eggshell. Blood sprayed.

Bale bellowed something that didn’t belong to any language a human used.

The mrogs charged. The furry dark mass smashed into Bale and broke on his mace like a storm tide upon a wave breaker. The berserker howled, snarling like a rabid animal, and pounded them with his mace, cracking bones, crushing skulls, smashing flesh. Bodies flew and smashed against the buildings.

The fog flooded in, but Bale’s red glow fought through it like a beacon of rage. The street in front of it churned with bodies. Shrieks and yowls rose in a din. Along the periphery, flashes of weapons cut at the fog – Bale’s berserkers carving at the edges of the horde while they focused on Bale.

In the east two mrogs jumped out of the fog and climbed up Dollar General’s wall. The archers peppered them with arrows, but the mrogs kept climbing. They reached the roof. Four Iron Dogs stepped forward and drove their blades into the mrogs. Two furry bodies fell to the street. Three more jumped out of the fog, climbing up, then another two. Bishop raised his crossbow, sighted, and fired. A sorcerous bolt whined, slicing through the air, and bit into the back of the center mrog. The bolt flashed green and exploded, taking three other mrogs with it. The building quaked but stood.

Stoyan slid off the roof and down the ladder. The fog gulped him, and he vanished.

Fighting broke out here and there as individual teams saw their chance and stabbed at the passing mrogs in the fog. A human shriek sliced the fog from the left, then another, followed by eerie howling and yelps of pain. Another ragged scream, from the north this time, followed by more cries.

The four lines of fighters remained where they were.

“What are they waiting for?” Bishop asked.

“They’re used to relying on mrogs to do most of the fighting,” Hugh said. “We cut them off from their hounds, so they are waiting for them to bleed us. Once we’re injured enough, they will move in for the kill.”

The slaughter raged. Bishop kept firing, choosing his targets carefully, sometimes with sorcerous bolts, sometimes plain. Hugh smelled blood now, rising from the streets. It lashed at him, pushing him to fight, to act, to do something. Instead he waited.

Elara hugged her shoulders. She stood on the balcony in her quarters. In front of her the land stretched, the forest rolling into the distance, the isolated knobs silhouetted against the evening sky. By now the enemy would have attacked Aberdine.

By now Hugh would be fighting.

The worry gnawed on her. A part of her hated him for it. She wanted him back, alive, in one piece.

When she’d thought of her future husband, which she hadn’t done often, she’d always defaulted to this vague idea of a nice man. He would be kind, and calm, and he would treat her with respect, and their relationship would be peaceful and without any sharp edges. Instead she got this asshole, who made her see red at least once a day. Hugh d’Ambray was as far from nice as you could get and still remain human.

And if she could, she would sprout wings and fly to damn Aberdine to make sure he didn’t die some stupid death.

Ugh. UGH.

The familiar sound of light feet made her turn. Johanna walked into the room.

“What is it?”

“There is a problem with the pumps.”

“There can’t be a problem with the pumps.” Elara marched out of the room.

A gust of wind pulled at Hugh’s hair. The wind was rising. The fog below thinned. He could see faint outlines of the streets and Dugas and his druids below. Dugas had traded his staff for a spear. His apprentices, two men and two women, held blades, flanking him and the cauldron.

On the field the mrog troops split. Two front lines peeled off with the commander in the lead, moving east at a fast march. The remaining two lines swung toward the western gate, reforming as they moved.

A young brown-skinned girl came running out of the fog, her eyes wide. Three mrogs loped after her.

Stoyan stepped out of the fog and sliced at the mrogs. The beasts screeched, raking at him with their claws. The centurion carved at them with methodical precision, sinking his blade into flesh. Blood poured.

Hugh ignored the snarls, concentrating on the troop movement. The eastern force reformed into a rectangle, eight soldiers wide, five rows deep.

Stoyan climbed the ladder and landed next to him, splattered with blood.

The western formation swung north, closing in on the other gate. The eastern formation advanced. He didn’t expect the split. No matter. He could adjust.

The archers fired from the rooftops at the eastern formation. As one, the soldiers snapped their shields up and to the front, covering themselves like a turtle. A testudo.

The arrows glanced off the shields. On the Wells Fargo rooftop, Renata Rover barked out a short command. “Stop firing. Save your arrows.”

“A shield wall,” Stoyan said softly. “You were right. East or West?”

“East,” Hugh told him.

Stoyan nodded, slid down the ladder, and disappeared into the firehouse.

“They’re planning to hit us from both gates,” Bishop said. “Like pincers.”

“Yes, they are.”

The shield wall crawled forward.

In the west, the second testudo approached the gate.

The western gate exploded into flames. The wood went up instantly, as if it were tissue paper thrown into a bonfire. The metal holding the thick boards together melted. Their magic packed a hell of a wallop.

Bishop swore.

The eastern gate went up in a flash of crimson fire.

So that was the end game. Burn them from both ends, pushing the defenders toward the center of town, where they would be crushed between two walls of steel. One flaw in that plan. The mrog soldiers still thought they were facing farmers.

The remnants of the western gate collapsed onto the street, breaking apart. The testudo moved forward, through the fire, boots grinding the embers into the pavement. The shield wall crawled forward and stopped. Someone barked a guttural command and the rectangular formation split, revealing the commander and two officers flanking him. He towered over them by at least half a foot.

Big bastard.

The officers sucked in a lungful of air and spat torrents of fire at the Dollar General and the bank across the street.

They spat napalm-grade fire. Perfect. Just perfect.

“There he is,” Oscar said.

Elara took a step forward. A gaunt shape crouched atop the pump station at the edge of the lake. A vampire. She felt no others in the area.

They hadn’t warded the pump station. They should have. It was set up in a hurry, and now they paid the price for it. The undead could’ve killed Oscar. The older mechanic was supposed to keep an eye on the pump station. That was a death she could’ve prevented. She would kill the undead and correct the oversight before Hugh came back.

The undead watched her with glowing red eyes. In the twilight, its grotesque form looked even more eerie. It sat on top of the pump station, emanating magic that felt like a fetid smear, like someone had taken a rotting piece of greasy meat and rubbed it all over the station’s roof.

“You have some nerve,” she said.

The undead straightened. His mouth stretched open and a clear male voice came through. “Ms. Harper. I’ve come to discuss business.”

“You and I have no business to discuss. And it’s Mrs. Mrs. d’Ambray.”

“But I think we do. My name is Landon Nez. I have a proposition for you.”

Oscar raised his crossbow. “Would you like me to shoot him?”

Even the best navigators only had a range of several miles. That meant Nez was close. Nez came “in person.” There was no good reason for him to be here unless he was planning something. She had to find out what it was.

“Oscar,” she said. “Give us some privacy.”

Oscar backed away about fifty yards. That was as far as he would be willing to go.

“We both know that this marriage is a sham,” Nez said. “I understand why you agreed to it. At the time it must’ve seemed like the right strategic move. But now you’ve had a chance to live with d’Ambray under the same roof. The man is violent and unstable.”

Nez paused. She didn’t say anything. If you kept quiet, the other person usually kept talking to fill the silence.

“I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. D’Ambray has one purpose and one purpose only: to destroy. When Roland wanted to take over a location, he would use Hugh as a bulldozer to level the existing power structure. By the time d’Ambray was done and Roland entered, the people hailed him as a savior.”

“Does your employer know how you talk about him to outsiders?”

“I’m giving you the courtesy of frank exchange, Ms. Harper. D’Ambray cannot build; he can only wreck. He has been doing it longer than you’ve been alive.”

Hugh had built the Iron Dogs. She had watched him work with them every day. But rushing to Hugh’s defense wasn’t in her best interests. Not if she wanted to keep Nez talking.

“The man isn’t without guile,” Nez continued. “He can be shrewd and hard to kill, but in the end, he always reverts to his true nature. Do you know what he was doing before he came to you with his marriage proposal? He was drinking himself to death. He bounced from one hellhole to the next, earning just enough to get drunk. I personally have seen him stagger out of a bar reeking of urine and vomit and fall asleep in a ditch. With nothing left to demolish, he dedicated his talents to destroying himself.”

And yet, you fear him enough to personally keep an eye on him.

“D’Ambray is an animal. If you allow him to nest under your roof, he will eventually destroy everything you’ve built.”

“Is there an offer on the table or are we just discussing my husband’s finer points?”

The vampire shifted. “Abandon d’Ambray to his fate and I will leave Baile in peace.”

She laughed. “Just like that? You’ve been trying to run us off this land for months and now suddenly you changed your mind?”

“Hugh d’Ambray is a higher priority target. I’m willing to let go of your castle if it means I get d’Ambray.”

“Why do you want my castle?”

“That’s not important. I’m offering you a way to keep your people safe from me at a price you not only can afford but would welcome. I suggest you take it.”

“And I would trust you why?”

“Unlike d’Ambray, I’m a man of my word. Of course, I’m willing to formalize this arrangement via contract. A peace treaty of sorts, if you will.”

“And how do I know this peace treaty is binding? Nothing prevents you from attacking us the moment you find it convenient.”

“Fair point. In addition to the formal agreement, I’m offering an additional incentive. The town of Aberdine has overextended itself. They borrowed, quite heavily, to build their wall and clinic and they’ve put up their municipal land as collateral. I’ve bought their debt. In simple terms, I own Aberdine. I’m willing to sell it to you for a nominal sum. Let’s say, a dollar.”

What else did he buy? “What am I supposed to do with Aberdine?”

“Oh come on now, Ms. Harper. No need to demur. The town has been problematic for you and they control the only access to the ley line passable by truck. All of your shipping goes through them. You can hold the threat of bankruptcy over their heads and have the town council be your willing slaves. You can turn the town into a cash cow and collect the loan payments, which come with significant interest. You can move your people into Aberdine and expand. You can force them to move and turn the main street into a parking lot. It is entirely up to you. Whichever course you choose, Aberdine will no longer be a problem.”

She would do none of it. “It’s a tempting offer.”

“It is.”

“However, I married d’Ambray. You’re asking me to go back on my word.”

The vampire smiled. The sight was enough to give most people nightmares. “It would hardly be the first time for you.”

Bastard. “Still, there are contracts. What happens if I say no?”

“I’ll assault Baile directly and kill every living thing I find in its walls.”

He said it so casually, as if it had already happened.

“In that case, why bargain with me at all?”

Nez sighed. “Vampires are expensive, Ms. Harper. Make no mistake, I will take Baile. Water and walls are not a barrier to the undead. However, the People would sustain a significant financial loss, and nothing inside your castle is valuable enough to offset it.”

If she had nothing valuable, then why did he keep trying to force her out before Hugh showed up?

“Suppose I say yes. How exactly do you envision this happening? I can divorce d’Ambray, but there’s the small matter of three hundred trained killers who won’t like being put out on the street.”

“Three hundred trained killers who depend on you for their rations, water, and shelter.”

He wanted her to poison the Iron Dogs. Elara smiled. “I need to think about your proposal. Do you have anything in writing?”

A large envelope hit the ground next to her. She picked it up. How much time could she ask for? The more time she bought, the better prepared they would be, but asking for too much would show her hand. He would simply push the timeline forward.

“I’ll need at least two weeks,” she told him. “My legal council needs to review the documents and we’ll have to make some inquiries in Aberdine. Until then, I don’t want to see you anywhere near Baile. Do not interfere with the operation of the pumps. My husband is difficult when he’s agitated.”

“Two weeks from now,” Nez said. “Same time, same place. You’re a smart woman, Ms. Harper. Make the right choice for your people.”

The undead leapt away and took off into the night. She walked back to Oscar. The mechanic looked at her.

“Have you ever noticed, Oscar, that when people say, ‘You’re a smart woman,’ what they really mean to say is ‘But I am smarter?’”

Oscar smiled at her.

“Weren’t there some Iron Dogs guarding the station?”

“There were. Two of them fellahs. They’re sleeping under that oak over there.”

Elara sighed. “Oscar…”

“You know how I like the quiet. Evening, that’s me time.”

“They were supposed to be here for your protection.”

“I know, I know. They looked tired anyway.”

“You better wake them up. And don’t magic them back to sleep either.”

Oscar sighed. “What do I do if that undead shitweasel comes back?”

“Shoot him and let the ‘fellahs’ do the rest. These pumps must keep working, do you understand me, Oscar? Keep the water flowing.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Elara thought of fussing at him about the “my lady” bit, but she had bigger fish to fry. It was only her imagination, but the envelope in her hands was too heavy and she couldn’t wait to put it down.

The concrete wall of Dollar General began to sag. The archers on the roof shied back, trying to escape the heat.

The eastern gate collapsed.

“What do we do?” Bishop was looking at him, wild-eyed. “They’re going to burn us alive.”

The eastern shield wall crawled up Main Street. The archers from the rooftops fired a few arrows, but the missiles just glanced off the shields. As expected. Attacking them head on would do no good either.

The testudo kept moving, unstoppable behind its wall of steel. In the west, the two lieutenants spat more fire, hosing the buildings down.

“What do we do?” Bishop repeated.

“Ring the bell,” Hugh told him.

Bishop stared at him.

“We have a fire,” Hugh told him. “Ring the fire bell.”

The police chief swore, turned to the roof tower, and rang the bell. It tolled, a surprisingly high note. The doors of the firehouse snapped open. The snarl of an enchanted engine pealed like thunder. A firetruck sped out of the firehouse with Stoyan at the wheel, turned left, and hurtled down the street, picking up speed. The eastern shield wall had no place to go. The truck rammed into them at fifty miles an hour, scattering armored men like pinballs. Stoyan punched through the center of the formation, reversed, and doubled back, mowing them down.

Welcome to the 21^st century.

The Iron Dogs streamed from the side streets onto the broken formation. Fighting broke out, as they jumped the enemy three, four to one.

The western shield wall started forward.

Perfect. That’s what he’d been waiting for. He had to check them now. It needed to be quick and brutal. Take the head, and the body should run.

Hugh slid down the ladder and walked into the street. The war drums rose, followed by howling horns. Behind him the street turned black as the Iron Dogs emerged from the streets and houses.

The two front lines of mrog soldiers dropped to their knees, revealing the commander and two officers.

The commander watched him approach from behind two lines of his troops, his face impassive. Thicker armor, long heavy sword, twenty-seven-inch blade, double edged. Simple but effective.

Cutting through that armor would be a bitch. He’d need an edge. A blood edge. Too bad he couldn’t make one anymore. Blood swords and blood wards were behind him. Hugh unsheathed his sword and swung it, warming up his wrist.

The two officers turned to him, their faces emotionless. Their mouths gaped open. Two streams of fire shot at him.

His body reacted before his mind did. Hugh sliced the back of his left arm and threw the blood in an arc in front of him, sending his magic through it.

What the fuck am I doing?

The blood sparked. The blood ward flared in front of him in an arched screen, a wall of translucent red. The fire smashed into it and glanced off, shooting at an angle to the side. The torrents died.

How the hell…

Hugh groped for the connection to Roland but it was still gone.

He didn’t have time to puzzle over it. He pulled the magic to him, building his reserve and kept moving. Darkness curled from him, pulsing from the ground with his every step. The arcane currents built within him, familiar, strong, obedient.

Without a blood edge, he would be fucked.

The blood ward worked. Why not the blood sword?

The pair of golden-shouldered assholes sucked in air. Round two. Fire tore toward him. He threw up another blood ward, let the inferno die trying to break it, and kept moving.

The magic vibrated inside him like a firehose under the full pressure of a hydrant. Blue sparks pierced the darkness rising from him, lighting it from within.

He was only ten yards from the front line.

The commander opened his mouth. His eyes sparked with bright fiery amber. A torrent of fire shot out of his mouth, white-hot, and met the wall of Hugh’s third blood ward. The spell took the full brunt of the impact. The fire raged, pounding on the translucent wall of red. Hairline cracks formed in the ward.

If it shattered, he would never know.

The fire torrent raged.

Now or never. Hugh drew the full length of his blade over the cut, soaking the flat of his sword in his blood. He reached for the power in his blood. For a terrifying half second, nothing was there, and then he found it, a bright spark of hot magic. He fed it and it burst into an inferno. Magic dashed down Hugh’s blade, like fire along a detonation cord. A bright red edge overlaid the sword.

The fire died.

Hugh dismissed the ward with a wave of his hand.

“Is that all? My turn.” His magic saturated him to the brim, threatening to boil over. All he had to do was aim it. “Karsaran.”

Darkness shot out of him, exploding, streaked with blue lightning. It clutched at the two front lines, jerking the armored men off their feet into the air. They hung three feet above the pavement. He moved through the gap he made, as their skeletons snapped, contorting, the staccato of their breaking bones crunching like broken glass under his feet.

An officer spun into his way. Hugh sidestepped, letting the man’s momentum carry him by, and sliced across the officer’s neck. The blood sword cut through solid metal like it was butter. The officer’s head rolled off his shoulders.

Ha. It still worked.

The second officer charged at Hugh. Hugh braced himself and met the charge, driving his shoulder into the man. The officer bounced off, knocked aside.

Hugh kept the momentum and swung. The commander parried, letting the blade slide off his sword, and came back with a devastating strike from the left and down.

Fast asshole. Not fast enough though. That armor had a price.

Hugh shied back, letting the point of the sword whistle by, and cut at the man’s elbow. Sword coated in magic met metal and bit through it. Blood wet the blade. One arm down.

The bigger man reversed the blow, as if the wound never happened, slashing high from the right. Hugh dodged, surged into the opening, and buried his sword in his opponent’s armpit. The blade screeched as it cut through metal and struck home.

The commander staggered back, blood pouring over his armor.

The second officer rammed into Hugh from the left, locking his sword against Hugh’s. Hugh jerked his knife out and stabbed him in the left eye. The man fell as if cut. Behind him the commander opened his mouth. Shit.

Hugh dropped down, scooping up the fallen officer’s shield, and raised it. Fire splashed over him. The shield turned too hot. Pain scoured his arm. His left hand blistered. He sank his magic into it, trying to keep the flesh on the bone, healing it as fast as the shield cooked it. Agony tore at him. Dark stars wavered in his vision. He could barely feel the hand, bathed in blue glow.

The fire ended. Hugh surged to his feet and hurled the shield at the enemy. The big man batted it aside and stomped forward, eyes bulging.

Die, you persistent sonovabitch.

The commander swung, blows coming fast and desperate.

Cut, dodge.

Cut, dodge.

Cut.

Hugh batted the sword aside and thrust. It was a precise, lightning-fast stab. The sword caught the commander in the throat, piercing it through just above the Adam’s apple. The man’s mouth gaped. He struggled on the blade, like an impaled fish. His sword crept up.

Sonovabitch.

“Arhari arsssan tuar.”

Magic tore out of Hugh. The pain bit his gut with molten fangs, letting him know he’d overspent. The commander’s body split, his ribs thrusting up and out, through the armor, like bony blades. Gore sprayed Hugh’s face. The commander gurgled, still alive. How the hell…

Hugh reversed his grip, snarled, and drove the blade with all his weight behind it into the man’s waist. Metal and flesh gave way and the top half of the man’s body slid to the side, hanging by a narrow strip of muscle and gristle. Hugh kicked it, toppling the body, raised his sword like a hangman’s axe, and chopped the commander’s head off.

The three pieces that used to be a human body lay still.

Hugh dragged his hand across his face, trying to clear blood from his nose and mouth, spat, and turned. A dozen mrog warriors stared at him. As one, they raised their weapons.

He swung his blood sword and bared his teeth. “Next.”