Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK (22 page)

The Kindred pursued them, whooping, into the broad cavern. Surely, an enemy village must lie within. Instead of a helpless village, however, they ran into an ambush. Side tunnels ran to either side. A dozen huge elders charged from both flanks against them. They each carried a stone club, the usual weapon of larger kobolds. Those clubs, while fearsome weapons when wielded by ten foot elders, were not what caught Gudrin’s attention. The weapons that each elder held in its off-hand were far more riveting.

They were lances, silver-tipped, of a fine length and wand-like thinness as to arouse her suspicions immediately. The kobolds were, simply put, incapable of producing such elegant weaponry.

There was no time to call a retreat. The corridor was broad enough for two crawlers or ten Kindred to march abreast, but it still narrowed her regiments into a column. Then the raging elders rushed into their thin column, the results were spectacularly bloody.

Great clubs crashed down, dashing Kindred to the dusty black floor. Bones broken, the Kindred troopers struggled back up, still game, only to be dashed down again and again. Worse, much worse, were the lances. They sizzled when they struck, flashing with an unnatural shine in the dark tunnel. They sank thorough upraised shields and punched into scales, even through helms. Like dolls stuck through with hot needles, the Kindred inside their armor were pinioned, but fought on until the broken tips of the lances wended their way quickly to still each great beating heart. They bled to death inside their own newly-forged armor.

“Crawlers, charge left flank!” she screamed over the din. “Right flank, get out of my way NOW!”

Her troopers, realizing the queen herself shouted the orders, hastened to obey. She rushed to the right, and for the first time wielded Pyros in battle. The elder kobolds, thinking her a fool, came on toward her.

Like a puff of dragonflame, she opened her jaws wide and with the help of Pyros breathed a cone of pure heat into their faces. They melted to slag, then ash. Only stinking smoke, blackened stone clubs and the strange silvery lances remained when her long exhale ended. She stumped forward, unconcerned about the slaughter behind her on the left flank. She knew her crawlers would thrust their killing tines in unison and tear apart the elders. Lances and clubs were useless against them.

She kicked aside a huge kobold leg bone that ended in a steaming, broiled foot. She bent forward and grabbed up one of the lances. It was red hot in her hands, but she felt nothing. She eyed the lance suspiciously, then nodded her head, seeing the runes running up the sides. It was a Fae weapon. Of that much she was sure.

When the elders were swept from the corridors, the last of the defenders lost heart. She steeled herself for the slaughter that followed. The machines hunted down each kobold, tiny young spratlings and hunkering chieftains alike, and slew them all. As she had commanded, they were plucked from their holes mewling and slain.

She shuddered only once during the proceedings, then ordered her regiments to fall back.

“Shall we drive deeper, my queen?” asked the captain whose first mission had failed here. He had a light in his eyes she knew well, reminding her of Modi. He had blood in his teeth, and like all vengeance it tasted sweet to him.

She showed him the lance. He shrugged, admitting it to be of Fae make.

“All the more reason to destroy them now, while we have them at an advantage.”

Gudrin nodded slowly. “Wise thinking, but I am wiser still, captain.”

The other blinked at her.

“We are not fighting the kobolds here,” she told him. “The kobolds serve our greater enemies. If we hadn’t brought the machines or if I hadn’t been here to wield Pyros, the kobolds might well have won the day.”

“I don’t know if—” he began.

“Well, I do know, captain,” she said quickly. “If we press hard now, we might well slaughter a dozen more villages. But in so doing, we will meet more resistance like this. We will suffer losses and risk disaster. Worse, what if there are more surprises, deeper down? What awaits us?”

The captain frowned. “We can’t know.”

She frowned and paced. Her armor smoked from the heat of Pyros still, but she ignored the wisps rising up from her burnt gloves. “The Kindred can’t afford to lose these machines, or Pyros. We aren’t fighting kobolds here, they are sponsored by others. We don’t know who is in league with them, who we might meet down here.”

“Shall I order a withdrawal?” he asked her.

She smiled at him. He had passed a private test of hers. He was no coward, but no fool, either. That was the kind of warrior she needed in the war she foresaw.

“You are raised in rank, captain. You are to command the Great Gates garrison now.”

“Yes, my queen,” said the captain, looking surprised.

“Now, order your troops to withdraw in good order. We return to the Earthlight. And pray, warrior, no more surprises await us there or on the journey.”

* * *

Puck, who now made regular polite visits to Rabing Isle with Brand’s grudging approval, had never told the humans what he was looking for. But when Lanet appeared with a newborn in her arms, and he inquired politely about it, she had hesitantly told him the tale of its mysterious appearance.

Puck had made a point of presenting fine gifts on each of his visits, but he reserved his best for the babe. He gave Lanet a flower, a violet of brilliant lavender.

“If you keep it near the babe, no changeling can come near,” he told her.

Her face altered sharply when he said the word changeling. It was more of a hint than he needed. She had encountered his less scrupulous cousins before.

“Never will the flower fade,” he told her, “as long as the stem is kept moist and the petals kept dry. If a single raindrop touched the petals, it will disintegrate into the dust it truly is.”

Lanet, eyes intrigued, nodded and thanked him.

Puck took his leave and then began his search. He did not search for Piskin, who was naturally disguised. Instead, he sought the telltale hound, which Piskin would never allow to stray far.

And so it was that on the dawn of the fourth day he found the hound and took after it. He slashed it in twain, and followed it into the tiny cabin, where it crawled toward its master.

Puck stood in the doorway, his shadow casting long over the bloodhound, which dragged itself toward Piskin in his cradle. The hound left behind it a long red trail on the fresh-swept floor.

* * *

Piskin, alerted by the cries of the bloodhound, bounded out of the crib. He tried to grow a ball of blood in the air, but there was so little to work with, and the hound was spent. It had to be healed before it could be wielded. If he sated its thirst, it would become whole again.

His eyes flashed around the cabin. He went for the family cat, cutting the air with his small flashing knife, but the cat scampered away, never having trusted him. Yowling, it sprang from the window and made good its escape.

Puck cleared his throat. He still stood nonchalantly in the doorway. “We have a certain matter to discuss, changeling.”

Piskin retreated to the top of a wardrobe built of stout oak and faced the elf. He wanted to run. Desperately so. No elf had ever been born that could run down one of the Wee Folk who was bent on escape. But the problem was the hound. He had come to love it so. He could not leave it behind for the cold hands of this interloper. Nor could he carry it at full speed.

Piskin glared at the elf, who stood with a strange smile on his face. There was no warmth in that smile.

“What do you want, elf?” demanded Piskin, deciding to bluff it through. “Have a care here, I’m welcome in the Haven, and you’re not.”

“Indeed?” said the elf. He leaned nonchalantly against the doorjamb. From his fine-fingered hand a long, thin blade dangled. He looked as if he hadn’t a care, but Piskin knew better.

Piskin’s eyes went to hound, where it crawled pitifully to the bottom of the wardrobe upon which he stood. Still in the guise of the babe, he hopped down and bent to tend it. He could not help himself. He took up a knitting needle and jabbed his palm. Wincing, he let the beast lick the trickle of blood that came from his hand. But it was not enough. The hound’s eyes brightened, but it didn’t regrow its hindquarters.

The hound could not truly die, Piskin knew. Perhaps, it wasn’t even truly alive. If one were to take the thing and shave it down to a single ruby eye, plucking each strand of flesh from the Red Jewel at the heart of it, it would still grow back. With enough blood applied, the entire hound would regrow, to whimper and stare disconcertingly again.

Piskin eyed the only available source of such a large amount of blood, the elf himself. The elf, for his own part, had not moved. He still stood in the doorway, watching.

“I demand retribution!” Piskin shouted, growing in confidence. “Extend your arm, so I might achieve well-deserved satisfaction.”

“You wish to take some of my blood?”

“Of course. As payment for your abuse of my hound.”

The other took a step forward. Piskin glared at him. Something in the elf’s eye, however, gave him pause.

“Wait!” he said, backing up and hopping onto a dresser. “I wish you to simply leave. I’ll mark no debt for this, if you get out now.”

The wintery smile stayed fixed. The elf took two steps closer. The bloodhound curled its lips at the approaching feet. “Very generous of you, but you see, I must decline.”

“Who are you, elf?”

“I am known as Puck.”

Piskin’s eyes flew wide. For a second time, the urge to run almost overcame him. He hopped back to the floor, scooped up the hound and stood fast, his tiny blade in his hand. He tucked the bloodhound under his arm. The other approached, and finally Piskin recognized the look in the elf’s eye. It was the glint of murder.

In the manner of all his folk, Piskin began the fight with evasion. A wild session of bounding about commenced. He knocked over brooms, tore curtains and swung from the hanging lamps. Puck lay about him, slicing air, sheets and jars of fruit preserves with abandon.

Normally, he could have evaded the elf, but Piskin’s every leap was slow. His shorn-off hound splattered blood and weighed him down. He tried to dash in and slash the elf, going first for the calves, next for the wrist. But ever was he slowed too much by the weight of the hound.

He never even thought of dropping it. The hound had too much of a grip upon his mind for that. Instead, he only wanted to wield it. He needed blood, and he preferred the source to be the elf. Such were his only thoughts.

Then the maid, her apple-cheeks red in horror, entered the doorway and screamed. She saw the unthinkable. A nightmare from which there was no waking. Her babe bounded about the house, making impossible leaps with every step. Blood was everywhere, spraying from the stray hound she’d taken in. A tall, thin stranger in the middle of her floor moved with almost as great an impossible rapidity as the babe, slashing her house to ribbons. His sword followed each flying leap of the infant, each stroke a moment too late.

She fainted dead away at the threshold.

The elf glanced at her, giving Piskin his chance. He landed upon her soft back and thrust his blade into her neck. Blood spurted and she moaned, putting one fine hand to her throat. She coughed, but neither the hand nor her filling lungs could stop the flow of slick blood. Piskin dropped the hound there, and then went back to bounding about.

The hound lapped, rapidly. The stricken woman struggled to rise. She slipped in the growing slick pool of her own blood. Sensing its meal might end soon, the hound licked faster. Its tongue darted and lashed, taking every splatter from the floor as it fell. With each tongue-full, its body regrew.

Puck glanced at the hound. He gave a final slash at Piskin, then wheeled and thrust his fine blade toward the ghoulish hound. The tip of his weapon skewered the regrowing creature and it
popped
, as might any bladder filled with blood. A gout of dark gore splashed the woman and the floor.

This assault upon the bloodhound was more than Piskin could take. He leapt, hissing, upon the elf’s back. His blade plunged into Puck’s shoulder. To see another strike his beloved Red, that was too much. The dagger rose and fell again and again. With each stab, Piskin hissed, then howled, then screamed in frenzy.

A long-fingered hand reached over the elf’s back and dragged the manling away, despite Piskin’s desperate clawing and scrabbling. Piskin’s hand, which still slashed wildly with the dagger, was taken off with a sweep of Puck’s blade.

Piskin, who had truly lost his mind and gone feral, was one-handed again. But still he reached for the elf’s throat with snapping jaws, bulging eyes and five clawing fingers. Puck welcomed the embrace, and the two strove, choking, reaching for eyes.

Before the struggle was finally over, it became dreadful indeed.

At their feet, all the while, the bloodhound licked the floor. The woman’s blood it no longer craved, as she had already passed on and her fluids had grown stale. Following its preferences, the hound drank from the growing puddles at the feet of Piskin and Puck.

Puck, the final victor, tossed Piskin’s tiny body to the floor of the place. He checked the woman’s pulse, but there was none.