Alaskan Fury (56 page)

Then a worse pang hit her,
watching his uncertain grip on the dragon, the tension in his big shoulders,
the hunch to his spine…she’d spent so long with him that she could read his
body like a book, and the djinni was terrified.  He could have gone
home
,
free amongst the dunes of the Fourth Lands, and instead he was
here
, in
the pounding rain, putting his life in jeopardy for
her
oath.  She
thought about how easy it had been to gain his surrender, at the oasis of
Tafilat, and felt a twisting in her gut, realizing that she was putting him
into such danger all over again.

And, she realized, her chest was
aching at the thought of him getting hurt.  Seeing that terror in his stance,
she had to stifle the urge to fly down, to shove him into the safety of the
Fourth Realm and tell him to wait for her.  She did
not
want to lose him. 
The mere thought left her struggling for air.  Not now.  Not after the joy. 
Not after just regaining what she had lost for so long…

The helicopter opened fire again,
and this time a few pellets of faespar pounded through her shield in a strafe
that peppered her abdomen.  Grunting, Kaashifah swung to face the machine,
which was even then twisting, being buffeted by the winds.  She watched it
return to hover, this time taking aim at her friends on the ground…

Panic buoying her, Kaashifah rushed
to meet the machine with her sword, cutting a swath through the hail, slicing
cleanly through the front skis, cockpit, and rotor blades.  In an instant, one
after another, all four of the rotors hit the light of her blade and severed
upon impact, with wings of metal sailing off into the darkness of the storm. 
Flightless, the helicopter dropped the hundred feet to the ground, hitting the
slushy earth like a stone.

Behind her, Zenaida laughed in
disdain.  “Was that supposed to
kill
them?!”

No,
Kaashifah thought,
watching a couple of black-clad forms stagger, disoriented, from the ruined
machine,
there have been too many deaths already.
  Then, she shook
herself with a frown.  The djinni’s preachings of peace, she realized, had
rubbed off
much
too well for her comfort.

But above her, Zenaida’s
attention was wandering, her gaze following the furrows that Thunderbird had
cut into the forest with his body, doubtlessly seeking the magics that hid her
friends.

Kaashifah had to get her sister
away from here.

“I heard you wore a favor of our
Lord!” Kaashifah called to her sister.  “Yet now, facing me, you do not…  How
long did it take you to craft it, little sister?”

Instantly, Zenaida’s
concentration snapped back to her, rage livening her stone-gray eyes.  At that,
she started to grow into her full Fury, gaining strength and size, scaly arms
and legs, with talons tipping the hands on her sword.  As the transformation
finished, her wings growing and expanding to the size of aircraft wings, a wash
of brilliant feathers slipped out over Zenaida’s skin in tiny shields of light,
granting a barrier against Kaashifah’s sword.

That’s good,
Kaashifah
thought, remaining in her half-form.  She never took full Fury unless she was
going up against something huge and unmaneuverable, like a dragon ancient, but
she wasn’t about to correct her sister. 
You just stay like that, little
sister.
  While stronger and harder to pierce for the feathers, the full
Fury was also slower, harder to turn, and made a
much
bigger target.

“You,” Zenaida bellowed through an
eagle’s beak, “are dead, little sister.”

Kaashifah took offense to
‘little’ sister, but merely smiled.  After all, she had tens of thousands of
years of experience in the art of battle to know exactly what her small-minded
kinswoman was about to—

Zenaida sucked in a breath,
opened her beak, and a vast jet of green flames shot forth, encasing Kaashifah
in a sudden, sticky,
burning
slime.

Shrieking, trying unsuccessfully
to fling the stuff from her body, Kaashifah lost altitude, her concentration on
her energy-pillar failing as the slime started eating into her body,
cauterizing her skin.  The rain, she found, only seemed to make it burn hotter.

Frantically, she ran a shield
down her body, squeegee-ing the greenish substance from her person like slime
off of a fish.

What in the name of War was
that
?
Kaashifah thought, watching it fall to the treetops below, where it
disintegrated the towering cottonwoods into sizzling, burning puddles of smoke.

“I’m impressed,” Zenaida called
down to her.  “I can honestly say you’re the first one to have thought of
that.  Most try to rub it off, which just rubs it
in
.”

“What the
hell?!
”
Kaashifah screamed, watching a swath of cottonwoods fall, eaten by the greenish
fluid.  Her skin was raw and covered in welts where the stuff had touched her. 
She turned to stare at her sister in horror.

“A babasha produces such lovely
bile,” Zenaida laughed.  “I used it to kill our sisters, in the beginning. 
Never got the hearts, though, so I looked for other ways.  This one works so
much better…”  Now that Kaashifah was paying attention, her sister was drawing
a small vial from upon her belt, popping the cap off, and tilting her head back
to swallow the contents.  Kaashifah caught the hint of a vile, undead seaborne
serpent, carried on the wind, before it was gone.

A moment later, Kaashifah saw the
first hints of something wriggling underneath Zenaida’s scalp, like tiny heads
trying to push outward, and quickly averted her eyes, her heart like hot
thunder in her chest.  Suddenly remembering where she had smelled that
putrescent stench before, she thought,
She just drank the blood…

…
of a medusa.
 

Appalled beyond words, she gagged
at the sudden overwhelming stink of rotting snakeflesh. 
Oh my God,
Kaashifah thought, revolted. 
What has she done?
  The legends were
specific.  A Fury who had served as her Lord’s Justicar and abused the power—a
servant of truth and integrity who broke the Pact of the Realms—would have no
afterlife to look forward to.  Furies were not like humans.  They did not have
a guaranteed chance to redeem themselves again and again, no matter how
horribly the short-lived little monkeys messed up.  Unlike many of the
immortals, for the most part a Fury was, for this life and every other, her
Lord’s servant.  And to deny her Lord, to break the Pact…

Zenaida was fallen. 
Truly
fallen.  Once she reached the end of her life-string, their Lord’s great Hounds
would hunt her down and rip her soul to pieces.

Kaashifah caught movement out of
the corner of her eye—the djinni trying to pry Thunderbird’s lifeless body from
the ground.  She saw her sister’s shape turn toward them, the stench of undeath
clinging to the back of her throat despite the winds. 

A pang of fear struck Kaashifah
to the core, seeing her sister’s attention sharpen.  A djinni, not being a
magus, would have no defenses against a medusa’s stare.  Kaashifah had to
distract her. 
Now
.  “So tell me about this Aimon,” Kaashifah shouted
above the wind.  “How
did
his heart taste, sister?  I’ve heard that both
fey and cowards have a sweeter blood, so it must have been
divine
.”

Zenaida’s head whipped back to
her and a hundred frenzied screams issued from desiccated lips.  An instant
later, her sister lunged for her.

Still not looking at Zenaida
directly, Kaashifah spun and started pounding her wings, shoving herself upward
with all her strength, entering the impenetrable fog of the clouds, a blinding-white
wall reflecting the glory of her wings.  She kept going, higher, through the
rain and the damp, sucking in the cold drizzle of the cloud as she panted to
force her limbs to work harder.

Please
she thought. 
Please
let her follow me…

It seemed forever that she soared
upwards through the clouds, lightning crackling all around her, blinded by the
light radiating from her wings.  When she finally broke free, several thousand
feet above, her sister was already breaking through the clouds with her,
joining her over the ocean of mist.

“If only our sisters could see us
now,” Zenaida laughed, as Kaashifah quickly put distance between them.  “The
great Blade of Morning, running and hiding like a little child.”  The stench of
rot blew across to her over the clouds, and her voice was raspy and many-tonal,
like it was being spoken by numerous mouths.

“Sister…” Kaashifah whispered,
horrified, yet carefully keeping her gaze averted.  “What you do is
forbidden
.”

“Oh really?” Zenaida laughed. 
Kaashifah could hear the smugness to her voice when she said, “To lie with a
man is forbidden, too, yet you seem willing enough to overlook that.”

Kaashifah felt her face flush
hot, but refused to let her sister divert the point.  “You are breaking
natural
law
,” she cried.  “The Pact—”

“The Pact is a lie,” Zenaida
snapped.  “It was
natural law
that a Fury could not touch a man.  It was
natural law
that all her male children were abominations.  Just how much
do you think they distorted over the years, sister?  How much of it was lies? 
Stories made up by bored scholars, enforced by our own swords?”

But Kaashifah knew the truth. 
“Zenaida…” she said softly, “that is our
purpose
.  We’re to
stop
things like that.”

Her sister chuckled at her, and
it sounded like it came from a thousand serpents’ mouths.  The stench of rot
was horrific, and Kaashifah had to cover her face with her shirt, to keep from
retching.

“Do you see our Lord striking me
down?” Zenaida laughed at her.  “Do you see his precious Hounds climbing from
the underworld to rip me apart?”  She snorted.  “No.  Because it was
all
lies.  We’re no more Justicars than the dragons.  There is no
Lord of War
,
sister.  There is only a many-faced, unlovable
fuck
who ignores us all
equally.”

“He sends us messages!” Kaashifah
cried, her heart stuttering at the blasphemy.  “You yourself have heard them!”

Zenaida waved a dismissive hand. 
“It was a dream.  My own intuition, trying to warn me.”

“I received mine
awake
,”
Kaashifah retorted.  “He spoke to me.  Many times!”

“Then you are
insane
!”
Zenaida shrieked, and the sound came as a hiss from dozens of tiny mouths.  A
moment later, Kaashifah became aware of her sister’s approach, barreling down
on her in full Fury.

Kaashifah, knowing she could not
fight her sister without preparing some sort of barrier against the medusa’s
magic, rolled onto her stomach and bolted.

“That’s right,” Zenaida cackled
behind her, a hundred little hissing voices, “run, little Fury.  Run like your
sisters.”  Zenaida was, Kaashifah realized, with increasing dread, keeping up. 
Easily.  She heard the slice of a sword cutting the air, only a yard from her
feet.

Kaashifah, despite her small
size, had always been one of the faster of her sisters, probably
due
to
her tiny nature.  Now, though, it was all she could do to stay ahead of her
sister’s sword.  Frantically, she began weaving a mental barrier against the
power of the medusa.  Though the creature’s stare wouldn’t turn a Fury to
stone, she was pretty sure it could paralyze…

“I know what you’re doing, little
sister,” Zenaida hissed in a hundred voices behind her.  “You find a way to
counter it, I’ll just find something more interesting.  You’re going to
die
today, Morning Blade.  You no longer have your djinni to protect you.”

Fighting rising panic, Kaashifah
aimed for the southwest, over the inlet, away from her friends.  She was not,
she realized, on as equal footing as she had thought.  While Kaashifah had untold
ages of experience behind her, this sad and twisted creature was using the
magic of
others
to win her battles.

Suddenly, all the little pouches,
all the little talismans hanging from her sister’s golden belt took on another
meaning to her.  She had thought the gemmed belt to be mere decoration, but now
the dozens of little charms had other, more nefarious uses in her mind.  Energy
repositories?  Enchantments?  Soul-traps?  Just how many immortals had Zenaida
killed?  How many powers had she leeched away, for her own use?  Over how many
centuries?

“You realize I’m letting you
flee, don’t you?” Zenaida laughed, too close.  “I want to see how far the great
Blade of Morning will run from me before she turns to face her demise.”

Kaashifah pounded her wings
harder, willing the energy of the earth to propel her faster.  Behind her,
Zenaida only laughed.

She’s close
, Kaashifah
thought, afraid to look. 
Too close.

It was the winds over the
Matanuska Valley that saved her.  Like warm hands buoying her wings, they
dragged her onward, southwest, towards Anchorage, giving her the lead.  She was
hitting the outskirts of Wasilla, knowing that Zenaida would not give her the
leisure to fly around the city, when something small and sharp hit her from
behind, embedded in her left arm.

Almost immediately, Kaashifah’s
arm went numb.

Oh no
, she thought, as her
left wing suddenly gave out.  Frantic, knowing it was too late to divert her
trajectory—right into the middle of downtown Wasilla—Kaashifah tucked her right
wing, rolled awkwardly to her back, and yanked a signpost from the frozen
sidewalk as she hit the ground and tore a furrow into the concrete of the
four-lane highway.  Charging the sign with her energy, she hurled it at her
sister, then twisted to yank the poisoned dart from her shoulder as she was
still grinding to a halt amidst the metallic crash of veering traffic.