Dangerous Games (29 page)

Sunbright still had the tangle ball pinned in his armpit, for he hadn’t the necessary second to rip it loose. The thing’s arms and tentacles slapped, rasped, and sucked frantically at his arm and side and neck and thighs. The bitten off limb flailed, spraying black blood like octopus ink, and the limbs seemed to be growing, thinning and elongating. Two sucker-covered limbs wrapped around the barbarian’s knee and yanked upward to trip him. Sunbright ground his arm tighter against his ribs, making the thing squirm, and tried to ignore it. The dumpy manling with two broken arms was hot for revenge.

All this took place by the eerie light of the barbarian himself, for the green-white glow still surrounded him. Too, in the east and high up, dawn sent rose-yellow tendrils of light onto a low overcast slit as if with a knife.

Knucklebones glimpsed all this as she flopped. The zombie made to chop at her leg, but she whipped it free before the cleaver struck. It cleft instead the branch she’d tripped on, the dull steel chipping through bark to white wood. Its stinking evil had first terrified Knucklebones, but now infuriated her. This zombie had been a bastard in life, too, she would bet. Scrambling on her butt and hands like a crab, she kicked hard at its brow, avoiding the mouth of broken teeth. The sturdy blow rocked the thing, but it didn’t tumble. It was heavier than she’d guessed, as if the flesh had taken on the denseness of its tomb. Another quick kick glanced off its skull, shearing away rotten flesh and exposing fresh bone. For a moment, Knucklebones thought she’d vomit. Instead, she crabbed away from it.

Sunbright grappled with the yarn ball that flapped and flailed like a mad octopus. Snatching another limb with his free hand, he put it to his mouth and bit through that also. He spat, lips black with blood. The dumpy manling chittered at him with a high, rabbitlike keen. Sunbright had no desire to kill it, for it was obviously under the thrall of Wulgreth. But the yarn ball was becoming a problem, raking his skin raw where it touched. Sunbright feinted at the manling, a quick jab to make it fall back.

The manling did scuttle back, cradling its broken arms across its chest. With two good arms it slashed the air viciously, but long as those pipe stem limbs were, they couldn’t reach past Harvester without taking damage. Another swipe of the glowing blade made it hop back on short, stumpy legs and bare feet.

That step landed it on the stingers severed from the gas bags.

The manling yelped as if it had stepped on hot coals, then yelped again as the barbed stingers jammed into its dirty yellow feet. Screeching, it caught the saw-toothed barbs and ripped so blood flowed. But now its tiny, skinny hand was poisoned.

Sunbright grabbed another handful of arms and tentacles and branches to bite again, but the yarn ball creature was learning, and its pseudopods coiled around his hand like a bullwhip. When the tentacles retracted the barbarian’s arm was jerked back tight to his own shoulder, and more coils trussed him. So it was stalemate, Sunbright thought. He had the thing pinned, and it had him half trussed. Cursing, he whirled to see how Knucklebones fared, and where Wulgreth had gotten to.

The upshot was not good. As Knucklebones scrambled to her feet, knife in hand, and backed from the truncated zombie, Wulgreth clambered over the trunk to snatch her from the rear. She’d be a hostage, Sunbright saw. He made to shout a warning, but a coil slapped around his mouth from chin to cheek, tightening too fast for him to bite. He cast a quick glance to his left, saw the four-armed manling had toppled, screeching and rubbing its feet with dirt. No enemies behind. But hadn’t there been—

The shadeling struck.

All this time the smoky being had skulked close and low, biding its time. Now it leaped, like a shadow cast by a candle on a wall, and landed on Sunbright’s back.

The barbarian caught the flicker of it, but at first felt nothing. It had no weight, no substance.

He felt the attack in his mind.

Suddenly his head seemed empty and echoing. His thoughts were a jumble, spinning as if a tornado had infiltrated his skull. The shadeling sifted his thoughts so it could know him, intimately, down to the last squib of his life. Because—he saw the threat now—it intended to suck his mind dry, take his place, and kill him.

To Knucklebones it looked as if Sunbright had grown another head, one rasped and bloody, one clean and fresh. Behind him clung something like a shadow, initially black and dim, but now taking on color and thickness and a life of its own. The thin mass adhered to the barbarian’s back, and yet was separating from him, so that behind his bright blond horsetail, another head and neck and set of shoulders took form. The eyes of this shadow mimic were not Sunbright’s, but hard and glaring and cruel, single-minded of purpose, dedicated to death. The barbarian struggled with the yarn ball even as the shadow being gained strength. The thief could have wailed. How to defeat an insidious foe like that, especially when she had her own stump zombie to fight?

Knucklebones watched as the zombie scuttled after her. Her knife couldn’t hurt it, so she needed something else. Sunbright would say to use whatever was handy. She jumped and pounced on the branch chopped by the cleaver. Wrenching it loose, she circled back to the tree trunk. The branch was long and leafy as a giant broom, and thrusting it into the brute’s face flustered it. If she reversed it quickly, perhaps she could slam the point through its chest. A stake through the heart killed vampires, legends said….

A strong, cold pair of hands clamped around her throat and lifted her, throttling, into the air. Knucklebones kicked, clawed at the hands, and raked her elven blade across the cables in the back of both hands. The razor sharp knife creased the skin but would not cut, as if she sawed on hardwood. Wulgreth gurgled by her ear, a noise of fury. He didn’t shake her, nor snap her neck, but kept her alive and still. A hostage to subdue Sunbright. Still kicking, the one-eyed thief wanted to cry with frustration. Wulgreth too used what was handy to defeat Sunbright, and successfully, for the barbarian’s gentle heart would not allow her to be harmed. Oh, to fight something living that could be hurt and bleed!

Sunbright fought for sanity as the shadeling picked his mind apart. Already he was forgetting things, unable to recall his homeland, or his mother’s face, or how he’d come to be a fugitive in the lowlands, or an outlaw in the floating city. This evil nothing monster would seize control of him, strip his mind, leave him a hulk, like the zombie that now stumped toward him to chop at his legs. Knucklebones strangled in air as Wulgreth watched the battle with stone dead eyes, and Sunbright’s spirit faded away, his mind sucked dry as an empty cocoon.

Desperately he tried to think of an escape, butting his head and slashing over his shoulder with only one hand, for the damned octopus arms wrapped tighter than ever. Nothing worked, he couldn’t touch the shadeling. But it could touch him.

Or someone else.

“Knuckle’, hang on!” he bellowed.

Through a veil of his own blood and skin raked by the yarn ball, he saw her kick in answer. But her single eye was haunted and helpless. She saw no way out. And he was weakening, losing his mind and strength as the life and soul drain grew stronger.

But Sunbright had an answer.

He dropped Harvester so the blade fell flat on the dusty, leafy ground. Giving the yarn ball another fast squeeze, he squatted, and grabbed the stumpy zombie.

The thing’s fluttery moth eyes wrinkled as Sunbright caught it by a sturdy arm and hoisted it one-handed. It was vastly heavy, and made him grunt, almost fall to his knees. The rotted stench made him gag, but he ignored the stink and furious twitching, pitched the undead tomb guardian over his shoulder to crash over his back—right into the not-Sunbright face of the shadeling.

The shadow being’s spell was interrupted as the zombie got in the way. The barbarian hadn’t been sure it would work, but the phantom claws sifting his brain were suddenly gone. As if breaking free of a spiderweb, he jumped to get clear.

A quick glance showed he’d succeeded better than planned. The zombie lay on its back, curling, twisting, kicking its bony stumps. The shadeling clung to it like morning cobwebs, like darksome mist. The image of Sunbright had shrunken to half its size. Instead of drawing life from a living man, the soul sucker tapped a dead thing, losing its corporeal existence in the process. The stolen image of Sunbright shriveled as the magic sputtered and died and curled in on itself. The barbarian had no clue what would result, but was glad to be free.

Another quick glance showed him that the dumpy, four-armed manling was dead, poisoned through feet turned black.

That left only the yarn ball, and Wulgreth.

With his right hand, the barbarian reached under his left armpit, caught a squirming clutch near the core, and wrenched savagely. Arms, tentacles, branches, and whips popped and tore, ripping his vest and shirt and skin as they were pried loose. The shredded beast seemed stunned, for it hung in his hand a moment like a fish on a hook, gathering strength to flap anew.

Sunbright didn’t give it time. Jumping up on the tree trunk, he advanced on Wulgreth, who backed away with Knucklebones dangling in front as a partial shield.

“Let’s trade,” Sunbright rasped, his voice as scarred and scraped as his mind and body. “My bundle for yours!”

“Noooo!”

But Sunbright trailed out his right hand and slung the black dripping mass of wounded arms. The squishy clump slapped on Wulgreth’s shoulder and upper arms, and immediately they grabbed hold, whipping, coiling, curling and grasping, burying the lich lord’s head and smothering his upper torso. Instinctively Wulgreth let go of Knucklebones to grapple with the writhing tangle that was trapping him.

As he did, the small thief bounced light as thistledown, bunched her legs, and bounded away. A good thing too, for Sunbright had regained Harvester of Blood.

Lunging, diving over the trunk, Sunbright grabbed the pommel two-handed, slung the long glowing blade far behind, and swung.

The keen steel slammed into Wulgreth’s side just below the ribs. The blow knocked him sideways, staggering him. Hissing through his teeth, Sunbright ripped the blade loose and gave him another shot. Two more blows rained, as if the barbarian chopped a tree. There was no blood, but the meaty smacks chopped Wulgreth’s thick skin and dried organs to hash. Then Sunbright lined up to cut a leg out from under the undead tyrant.

Wulgreth had had enough. Clawing tentacles free to peek out, he whirled, and ran for the deepest stand of mutant brush and drooping trees.

Sunbright stood, chest heaving, blood dripping, and let him go. It could take him all day to chop the lich to fist sized chunks, and he wasn’t even sure those would be dead.

So he let Wulgreth go. He’d won. He and Knucklebones.

And the natural, growing, living magic that was part of this land.

Sunbright panted, even dropped Harvester’s point on bare ground. He pulled up the hem of his spattered red shirt to mop blood off his face. Sweat stung in the scrapes, but he didn’t mind, for he was glad to be alive. And to see Knucklebones with a rare smile, “So the country mouse is a timber wolf on his home ground,” she teased. She ripped loose a sucker-covered arm still stuck to his neck.

He grinned back, examining his arms and hands. The green glow was indistinct in the sunrise, but he knew it had faded.

“More like a firefly,” he said. “I’ve used up the magic.”

“So it’s gone?”

“No,” he answered, “it’s still here, an ocean of it. Down there.” Moving around the tree trunk, he walked to the fire pit, saw a crack in the earth yards long and wide enough to admit his hand. “I came up through there, somehow. The magic came with me. Feel it?” He waved a hand as if over a campfire.

Knucklebones shook her head. All she felt were the warm rays of the day’s sun slanting through the mutant trees. But she was glad Sunbright could feel the magic, for it meant he’d remain a shaman, and she wanted it so.

“No matter,” he told her. “I think—I’m sure the nature magic only needed a conduit, someone to care for it, ask its help. It’s hard to explain, but from this spot, I believe the nature magic will begin to heal the land, until the corrupt magic of Karsus has leeched away and the forest is balanced again.”

The thief turned at a scuffle and shuffle. Creeping from huts and bushes came the mutants, eyeless, limbless, warty, alligator-skinned, deformed. In the darkness, they’d tortured Sunbright to death and beyond, but by day they looked pathetic and harmless.

“And them?” she asked.

The barbarian hoisted his sword, wiped the blade clean, and marched to the mutants, who cowered before him. Even the testy raptors in their makeshift corrals were quiet, almost docile. Standing tall, arms on hips, Sunbright asked, “Who’s the eldest here?”

A withered crone with blind eyes raised a shaking hand and said, “I, sir.”

“Then you’re chief now, for Wulgreth won’t be back. This forest will no longer tolerate him. Nor will it abide torture any more, or raids on your neighbors. You are to become a people of peace from now on, at one with the land. Nurture it, care for it, and it will care for you. The elders can teach you, for they remember when this land was healthy and alive, liked the feel of human feet, and nourished its dwellers. Will you do this thing?”

The old crone bobbed her head and told him, “We shall, your highness. We shall.”

Sunbright nodded, satisfied. Knucklebones was more skeptical, but realized the mutants probably thought Sunbright a glowing god risen from the earth itself. Certainly they’d seen it, would tell one another and their children in years to come, and so they’d believe, and obey.

Sunbright took Knucklebones’s small hand with the brassy bars adorning it and led her to the far side of the camp, where a path wended into the diseased forest. Up high a bird sang, and was answered from afar. Liking the feel of his strong, gentle fist, she asked, “So they’ll heal, get better?”

“No.” The barbarian shook his head as he answered. “These scars, on people and plants, will remain, and die out slowly, naturally. But the children will be normal, and the seedlings. Nature moves slowly, like a glacier, but nothing can stand before it.”