The Lost Ones

Page 21

Weaponless, it threw itself at her. Damia raised her sword and, as the Swine attacked, she struck. Her blade sliced cleanly through the the massive beast’s throat, but its momentum was too great. Even as it died, it fell upon her. By instinct, in its dying moment, it lowered its head and tried to gore her with its tusks. One of those yellowed ivory tusks plunged into her shoulder, rending flesh.
Damia Beck screamed in fury. She ground her teeth together as she pushed upward on the Swine’s massive head. A sucking noise came from the tusk as she lifted it out of the wound in her shoulder. Her body quivered with shock and pain and she felt a terrible chill go through her.
A moist grunt came from behind her. Not far from her head came a thump upon the ground that could only be another heavy boot. She had killed a Battle Swine in hand-to-hand combat, but now as she rose to her knees, three others surrounded her.
“Bitch,” one of them snarled.
Damia nearly laughed. She didn’t think the rancid beasts capable of speech. Why the Battle Swine—legends from the Northlands of Euphrasia—had fallen in league with Atlantis, she had no idea. They were brutal, savage things fit for nothing but killing. Perhaps they simply hadn’t had much opportunity for war and bloodshed of late. No matter. They were the enemy, now.
“Traitorous pigs,” she sniffed.
The three Swine laughed, then began to move in around her. Commander Beck raised her sword and tried to figure out how to survive. From the few glimpses she had gotten, her battalion stood poised to triumph. But she would not live to see it.
One of the Battle Swine lifted its axe and started for her. Damia shifted, held her sword across her body, and shot a kick at the nearest boar. As she did, she extended her sword in the other direction, stabbing through the hand of the attacking swine. It squealed and dropped its axe.
Her heart raced. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck and trickled between her breasts as she steadied her breathing. The trio of Swine glared at her with their little piggy eyes, and she knew they saw her as a threat for the first time. They would not play with her, now. They would just kill her.
Damia smiled. She would not make it easy for them.
Both hands on the grip of her sword, she glanced back and forth between two of the Swine, keeping track of the third in her peripheral vision. A single second stretched into eternity, and she felt them move even before they began to attack.
Then a massive gust of wind blew down on top of them, staggering Damia and pushing the three Swine back a single step. A shadow blocked out the sunlight that streamed through the branches, and then a body struck the ground, driven down by the supernatural wind. Bones cracked. Green feathers danced on the breeze. Antlers snapped.
The Peryton that had scouted for the Yucatazcan battalion lay dead, separating Damia from two of the Battle Swine. The Atlantean Hunter’s green wings were folded beneath it. Arrows had been shot through its chest and neck, but it had been the strength of the wind that had slammed it to the earth and killed it. Dark ichor leaked from the broken Peryton in a spreading pool.
A low grunt and a scuffle came from behind her, and Damia spun to face the third Battle Swine only to find it already dead. Gaka, the Japanese oni who served in her Borderkind platoon, had come up behind it. The ox-headed oni held the head of the Swine by its matted hair. Gaka had twisted the beast’s head right off.
Damia nodded to him. Gaka blinked all three of his eyes as he nodded in return. The commander glanced around to see the remains of her Borderkind platoon closing in. Four ogres had survived, though one had grievous wounds on his side and face and a broken arm. Two Naga archers slithered across the ground, bowstrings drawn back, arrows aimed at the remaining two Battle Swine.
The wind spiraled down and took human form as Howlaa, an impossibly tall, impossibly thin, blond female, clad in white fur. The elemental wind spirit came from the Northlands, like the ogres and the Battle Swine. Howlaa spat at the Swine. One of the ogres, huge war hammer in one hand, cuffed a Swine with the other. They felt betrayed by these other legends from their homelands.
Damia waved off the Nagas. The archers lowered their bows.
The Battle Swine grunted and one of them laughed. Neither had dropped its axe.
“Take them,” the commander said.
She turned her back, having been witness to more than enough death for one day. As she did, Old Roger stepped from a tangle of underbrush. His flesh seemed more like knotted wood than she remembered and his ruddy cheeks were red as apples. She wondered how effective he had been in battle, but that was before she looked past him and saw the three Yucatazcan soldiers who had been impaled from the ground up, with branches growing out of their sides and faces. Apple blossoms tipped each branch.
“All over but the tears, eh, Commander?” Old Roger asked.
Damia glanced around. Her soldiers had begun to come together in small clusters. Some were tending to wounded, others gathering the weapons of their fallen enemies. Goblins scampered up into trees. Pixies darted off and disappeared, normally unwilling to be seen by the Lost Ones. All sorts of other Oldwood creatures had aided them in this battle, but most of them had hidden themselves away again.
“So it appears,” Damia replied.
A cavalryman cantered through the trees toward her.
“Report,” she said.
The soldier bowed his head. “From what we can tell, Commander, none of the invaders who entered the Oldwood made it out of the forest alive.”
“Excellent.” Damia glanced at the wind spirit. “Howlaa, take a look. Do not allow yourself to be seen. If there are others to the west of the Oldwood, we’ll wait until dark and attack. If they march north to try to go around, we’ll pursue them and still have the element of surprise.”
Old Roger made a small noise.
“What is it?” Damia asked.
“You don’t think either of those things is going to happen.”
“True. I believe they will retreat southward and wait for reinforcements before making any further attempt to reach Perinthia. There are too many unknowns for them here, and they have just learned their forces aren’t sufficient to overcome them.”
Howlaa smiled, and the wind whipped around her, sweeping her up into invisible nothingness. The trees rustled and she was gone, off to observe the enemy’s movements.
“Their forces aren’t sufficient,” a shrill, grating voice said, “but they will be soon.”
Damia glanced around and saw the swift-footed Charlie Grant leaning against a tree as though he had been there for hours. Behind him, Cernunnos, lord of the forest, stepped out from the daylight shadows, his antlers crusted with dripping gore. Damia held her breath. Apparently the lord of the forest had engaged in battle himself.
But it had been the boyish Charlie who had spoken.
“You can talk?” Damia said, studying him.
The little man took out his whistle and gave it a toot. “I like the sound of this and despise the screech of my own voice. Once I had a beautiful voice. You should have heard me sing. Women swooned. Men laid down their weapons. Then I bedded the daughter of a witch, and the hag punished me thusly.”
Damia understood. His voice made her skin crawl. The whistle was vastly preferable.
“If you have news, Master Grant, you’d best announce it,” Damia instructed.
Charlie nodded grimly. “Dire news, but not unexpected, Commander. The alliance has been struck between Atlantis and Yucatazca. Of course, the High Council presents it as though they are only now coming to the aid of Prince Tzajin against Hunyadi, blaming Hunyadi again for the murder of King Mahacuhta.”
Frustrated, Damia sheathed her sword with a sharp click. “Do the people of either kingdom believe that? How could anyone?”
“Some will,” Charlie replied. “Many in Yucatazca, of course, but far more in Atlantis. And the governments of Nubia and other lands are not going to get involved if they can at least pretend the war is just. The invasion force has been driven back in many places, but a single, massive battle front has formed thirty miles north of the Isthmus.”
Her infantry and cavalry had begun to gather around her. Damia forced herself to put on an air of confidence she did not feel.
“Then we have not a moment to lose. Hopefully more troops will come from the north and east. Until then, we must do all that we can.”
She studied Cernunnos. He shifted, muscles rippling under his pelt. There was grace and majesty in the lord of the forest, but grim disdain as well.
“What of you, milord? Will you and the wild of Oldwood help us to defend Euphrasia?”
Cernunnos scraped the ground with one hoof. “I have told you that we will not leave here. If the invaders pass through, we will stop them. But the Oldwood will not fight Hunyadi’s wars for him.”
“Even though your help could mean the difference between victory and defeat? If we fall, you will have no allies to defend your own land.”
Many of the wild things in Oldwood had emerged once more to hear her speak. Goblins and owls watched her closely. A hideous hag-woman with blue skin stood only a few feet from Cernunnos, shaking her head as though angry at the idea of any further alliance.
“We will survive,” Cernunnos said.
“Yes. Until they come and burn down the whole wood.” Damia sighed. “Whatever you wish, milord. I only hope we’re able to defeat the invasion without your help. Otherwise, by the time the war comes to you for the last time, you’ll be on your own.”
The lord of the forest studied her a moment from beneath the rank of antlers that sat heavy upon his head like a crown.
“You will want to bury your dead, I presume?”
Commander Beck nodded. “Yes. If it’s no trouble, and their remains won’t be disturbed.”
“They will be left at peace,” Cernunnos replied. “They died with courage and as our friends. But leave the corpses of the invaders to the animals. The forest has to eat.”
CHAPTER 11
Dawn had broken over Ecuador. Light rain fell, and Collette Bascombe lay her head back and let it sprinkle her face. Hidden away in the thick of a banana plantation, clad in the stale clothes she had worn for months in the dungeon, she would have given almost anything for a shower and clean clothes. And perhaps she would get them, soon. For the moment, though, she was just grateful to be back in her own world.
Your world? Really?
The words came unbidden into her mind and the voice of her conscience had an edge. She and Oliver were children of two worlds, the living embodiment of everything the Veil was not. They were human and legend together. But this ordinary world was hers. And still felt like home.
The rain fell. The wind blew. People worked and played, lived and died, and it was all completely ordinary. Little people weren’t likely to come out of the jungle. Monkeys weren’t prone to transforming into men and speaking riddles or holding grudges.
The legend said that a child of human and Borderkind—someone like her, or Oliver—was destined to tear down the Veil between the ordinary and legendary worlds. At the moment, Collette thought this was a spectacularly bad idea. She liked her world just the way it was. Boring. Ordinary. Life had enough peril and ugliness without adding all of the problems of the legendary world to it.
She wished she could stay here. Not hiding among the banana trees—although even that would be preferable—but here in the mundane world. Even a few days’ reprieve would have filled her heart with joy. But there would be no rest. No break at all. Her brother and Julianna were still there, on the other side of the Veil. Julianna would be there forever, it seemed, trapped by the magic that had created the godforsaken barrier between worlds.
Oliver and Julianna were caught in a war zone, and Collette was going back, not just for them, but because—no matter how nice it felt to be in her own world—they all had a score to settle. In life, there were some fights you could never walk away from. Not and forgive yourself.
Yet for the moment, Collette tried to let the peace and quiet of the plantation soothe her. The rain fell warm and gentle. The breeze smelled delicious and earthy. She and Frost had learned they were in Ecuador as soon as they had reached the outskirts of the city. A garbage can by the side of the road had given up a dirty, torn newspaper. They were in Machado, and just a few miles away was Puerto Bolivar, its sister city.
In the night, they had stolen along the perimeter of the city and eventually found the banana plantation.
Collette didn’t want to spend a minute longer than she had to with Frost. The winter man said little. His blue-white eyes issued a kind of cold mist and his expression was grim; a crack in the ice made up his mouth. At the moment, she enjoyed his absence.
Then the light rain turned to brittle, frozen sleet, and she swore under her breath and sat up. The banana trees rustled and a gust of wind blew snow and ice across the sky. Impossibly fast, the small blizzard built itself into a man.
“Time to go,” Frost said.
He glanced around, as though afraid they might be discovered. His hair—like dreadlocks made of ice—clinked together when he moved.
Collette climbed to her feet, feeling tiny beside the winter man. She had never been tall. With the spray of freckles across her nose and her petite stature, she had often had to fight extra hard for people to see her as something more than just “the cute girl.” Now, all of that life was in her past. Her job, her friends in New York, all done with. She tried not to think about whether she would ever be able to go back.
“You found an American Express office?”
Frost narrowed his eyes, ice cracking. “No. We haven’t time for that.”
“That’s the only way out of here,” Collette said. “I need identification. I need money. And you said it’s too dangerous to try to cross back through the Veil so close to Palenque.”
“All true. So come with me.”
The winter man turned and started along a path between two rows of banana trees. The top of the main plantation building could be seen in the other direction. Collette stared at his back a moment, then hurried to catch up.