N ixie followed Morrigan to the entrance of the tent, and I stepped behind the old crone. On the ridge that led to the woods stood a lone figure, shrouded by the dying sun, but unmistakable in his horned silhouette. Slowly, the negative space around him filled with the Fae and other creatures I could not identify against the darkness of the forest.
The Smith’s Hammer rang like an enormous gong in the nearby forge. Mike had to have heard the alarm, but I wondered if he continued working with Ward simply to make his presence known. Ezekiel had once pulled trolls from the Burning Lands and Unseelie Fae to fight his battles. But he’d lost with help from the Fallen Smith. And Mike was leaving no doubt that he was with Nixie.
“Where is Lewena?” Nixie asked. “I seek only her head.”
Nudd’s antlered helmet tilted slightly to the side. “You are in no position to make demands. I come with an offer of peace. Surrender and I will—”
Surprise at Nixie’s use of the queen’s name gave way to the voices buried in my head. Millions of dead from the Gettysburg cataclysm rose in one calamitous screaming mass. They understood who Nudd was. Their cries overwhelmed me as they crawled their way up into my head, and I had to give them a release, or surrender my sanity.
The souls surged out into the world around me, calling to the mass of gravemakers that had been drawn to Ward’s barrier. I hadn’t felt them before, hidden as they had been by runic charms. But now that I understood, it was the easiest thing in the world to make the Hand of Anubis rise on either side of Nudd and slam down on him and his nearest allies, crushing them into so much mulch.
Nudd took a hesitant step backward from the nearest Hand of Anubis, righting himself and crossing his arms. If I hadn’t been watching him, I might not have seen the trepidation. His voice showed no surprise or concern.
“We are here to establish an accord,” Nudd said as the dead Fae beside him began screaming, their destroyed bodies siphoning away into the nearby ley lines. “I made no such threat.”
“You tried,” Nixie said. “And if you make another, you won’t leave this place alive.”
Nudd laughed.
“You do not understand what you have lost,” Morrigan said, stepping up beside Nixie. “No songs will be sung of the great and fallen king.”
“You go too far, Morrigan,” Nudd said, his laugh dying.
“And yet you still live,” Morrigan said, a sneer edging its way across the old crone’s face.
I adjusted my feet as my boots slipped on the grass at the edge of the tent. I glanced down, surprised to see a pool of water coalescing beside me.
A voice whispered, so quiet it could have been a distant wind. “Say nothing.”
All along the base of the hill, blades of grass moved the wrong way with the coming of the wind.
Nudd raised his right hand, and his army drew their weapons. Or so they tried.
The voice that had been no more than a whisper grew into a cry, and became a voice I recognized. The pained shout of Ward. “It is done!”
I stumbled away from Ward as his cloak caught fire. A brilliant light lanced down into the earth, exploding outward into the shadows of the forest. The Fae on the hill screamed when the light reached them. It froze them in place, and I could hear the sizzle of power cutting into flesh from where I stood.
“This was never your trap,” Nixie snarled. “Attack!”
The field around us turned inside out as water witches rose from a body of water that I couldn’t see. In the blazing light of Ward’s incantation, I could see the shock on Nudd’s face. Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it. I stared in stunned awe for a few seconds as Nixie’s army dove into the enemy lines.
I understood the price the undines were paying, then. For as their swords and daggers pierced their enemy, they became a victim of Ward’s trap just as much as the ones they had slain. It drew the attention of Nudd, who slowly lifted a leg from the earth. The power that held it in place cracked and fell away.
“You dare!” He raised his hand as the thick golden bond that had held him a moment before fell away. “You. Dare.”
Nudd raised a mighty sword to strike out at his assailants. A volley of arrows erupted from the camp, sending a dozen Fae into a crumpled heap on the ground. Another volley, another dozen. The screams grew into a roar, and Nudd’s army began to fail.
“I can’t,” Ward huffed. “I can’t hold them.”
I didn’t need to hear more. Ward’s warning jarred me out of my stunned silence, and I raced forward with the Old Man. A shield formed on his left arm, and I mimicked it. But the surge of power called out to the cacophony inside my head, and my shield became something else. The rusted flesh of a gravemaker surged out of the ground, covering my shield with damned darkness.
“Use it!” the Old Man shouted. The flesh along his right arm rippled and split, and the terrible power the Old Man kept bottled up inside rushed to cover his arm. As the nauseating, rolling tide subsided, he was left with a hand as black as onyx, and a sword formed of a gravemaker.
“Drake!” Nudd shouted. “I know this was your doing!”
Nudd snarled at me as I closed. It wasn’t me he should’ve been focused on. The earth beside him spiraled up, and the Fae king doubled over as Nixie’s sword flashed up, finding the seam in his armpit.
Nudd roared. It was not the sound of any Fae I’d ever heard. It was the sound of something primal, with the kind of power no being was ever meant to wield. Nudd reared back to strike at Nixie, and I had little doubt it would be a killing blow.
“Drop it, Ward,” I snarled. My voice twisted as the flesh of the gravemaker crawled over my face. I fought back, keeping my line of sight open. I couldn’t afford to slow down, one wrong move, one wrong move… The king had taken enough.
I reached forward my left arm, and the shield distended, expanding out like some comically large sword. Nudd’s strike sank deep into the gravemaker flesh as Ward dropped the trap. Nixie fell to the ground as my soulsword arced up through the spot she had been standing a moment before. Nudd saw the attack at the last moment and lowered his helmet. The blade erupted as it struck his antlers, a blinding flash of power and souls and death.
“Now,” Nudd began.
The corrupted sword in my left arm fell away to reveal the barrels of the pepperbox leveled at Nudd’s face. His eyes didn’t even widen as six rounds of hellfire detonated across his skull. He fell backward, but I raised the Hand of Anubis to catch him, wrap around him, and lock him into my mercy.
“This ends now!” Nixie snarled. Foot by foot the skirmish died away.
Morrigan stepped up beside Nixie and studied the king trapped inside the Hand of Anubis. “This is not Nudd.”
“Who is it?” Nixie asked.
Morrigan frowned and reached out to remove the helmet. What waited inside horrified me. The dripping snout of a dark-touched vampire loomed inside the shadow.
We’d fought the dark-touched enough that I knew the Hand of Anubis shouldn’t have been enough to trap it. “Why isn’t it breaking free?” I asked.
“It is bound inside the armor,” Morrigan said. “Destroy it. It is still a vessel of the king, and he can likely hear all we’ve said.”
The dark-touched shook. Laughter echoed out of the damned thing’s face, though its lips did not move. “Clever, clever Morrigan. I do not know how you realized what I intended, but I am impressed.”
“If you are done,” Morrigan said, “I will carry your creature off this field.”
Ward hobbled forward, taking several deep breaths. He studied the flickering lights around the dark-touched’s head, which had been hidden behind the helmet. “He cannot merely communicate,” Ward said. “He can feel.”
Nixie struck like lightning. Her dagger slid into the dark-touched’s eye, and Nudd’s voice boomed in agony. She slammed the dagger home until the hilt was flush with the dark-touched’s skull, and the vampire was still and silent.
“Are his people under compulsion?” Nixie asked.
“Not that I can see,” Morrigan said.
“Me either,” Ward said. He finally slid to the ground, and crossed his legs, hanging his head in exhaustion.
Nixie raised her head to the few survivors left on the hill. “Take your wounded, and those who did not brave the forest. Tell them of our mercy, and know that our doors are open. We welcome all who would stand against Nudd.”
“You should not do this,” Morrigan said. “It portrays weakness.”
“Compassion is not weakness,” Nixie said.
Nudd’s Fae didn’t move for a time. They exchanged glances, and flexed their wings, as if waiting for the ax to fall. They trailed off into the woods, leaving the armor of their fallen behind.
“I’ll take the armor,” Mike said. “You might want to change some of the imagery,” he said as he held up and studied a picture of Nudd impaling the Mad King with his antlers. “But the craftsmanship’s solid enough.”
“The queen was not here,” Nixie said.
“Neither was Nudd,” Morrigan said. She turned her gaze to me. “Tell me again what happened with the attack in Saint Charles.”
I told her once more of the wave, and how it swept out and curled around the soldiers.
“It is not like her,” Morrigan said.
“I know,” Nixie said. “She would’ve gone after more civilians, to throw the soldiers off their game.”
I smiled when Nixie used modern slang, until the harsh reality of what she was saying sank in.
“She’d draw us out by killing bystanders?” I asked.
“Of course she would,” Nixie said. “The fact that wave didn’t hit deeper into the city means she wasn’t there. And if she wasn’t there, and she wasn’t here.”
“Rivercene.”
“It will take us hours to get there,” Nixie said.
“I can carry you,” Morrigan said.
I held up a finger, silently asking the Morrigan to give me a moment. The potential consequences of that disrespect hit me a moment later, and I gave her a nervous smile. “Does anybody have a phone?” I asked, turning away from Morrigan and the last of the fairies vanishing into the woods.
“They are forbidden here,” one of the owl knights said, brushing the back of his mount’s head. “They proved too easy to detect.”
“I do,” Ward said. “It’s not as if it matters now.” He held out an old brick of a phone and slid a battery into the back. Until he’d done that, it might as well have been another piece of plastic he’d been carrying in his pocket without a signal for anyone, or anything, to detect.
I punched in Sam’s number and waited. One of the fairies started arguing with Ward about why he’d had the phone. Listening to Ward try to explain that the battery wasn’t in it, and that’s why it didn’t matter, made me want to laugh.
Sam answered. “Demon? What’s going on?” The wind howled in the background, creating a constant buzz of static.
“Are you still in Saint Charles?”
“No, we’re on Graybeard’s ship. We’re headed toward Falias.”
“Have him turn around. This entire thing has been a misdirection. They’re either targeting Rivercene or Saint Charles.”
Sam cursed. Her voice became muffled as she shouted something and I heard the rapid staccato of a crewman replying. “I told them.”
“I’m on my way,” I said, turning to Nixie. “Come through the Abyss. Gaia will help.”
“How many can she take?” Nixie asked.
“If you’re wrong,” Morrigan said. “They die.”
“She’s taken at least two before,” I said. “Come with me. The others can find their way.”
Nixie turned to Euphemia. “I charge you to protect the Obsidian Inn.”
“It shall be done,” Euphemia said. “My queen, it shall be done.”
“Morrigan,” Nixie said. “Please, aid Euphemia. Without Ward’s circle, this place is vulnerable. We cannot lose the front to Nudd’s men while we defend another from the queen.”
Morrigan stood a little straighter. “You can be a fool, undine, but I will do this thing for you. May you ride upon the blood of the slain.”
I pulled the hand of Gaia out of my backpack, not sure exactly what to make of Morrigan’s words. I put one arm around Nixie and laced the other into Gaia’s dead flesh. Both hands tightened around me, and we stepped into the Abyss.