Fable: Blood of Heroes (27 page)

“There’s six gold in Headstrong’s belt pouch. They’re yours if you’ll do me a favour.”

“I’ve been known to give discounts in the past,” said Shroud. “As a professional courtesy.”

“Yog took me away from a good life.” Night Axe closed her eyes. “Make sure she dies, will you?”

“It will be my pleasure,” he said, and brought the axe down.

CHAPTER 23

WINTER

T
he hut lay on its side. Bottles and herbs and half-carved dolls had fallen onto the wall. Fortunately, the table and other heavy furniture appeared to be secured to the floor. Otherwise it would have crushed them.

Winter could feel the hut trying futilely to crawl with its stilted legs. She heard Inga shouting through the broken door frame.

To either side, Sterling and Tipple tried to right themselves. Blue sat overhead, perched on the edge of the desk. Yog was struggling to open a storage compartment in the wall, a task made more difficult by the pile of knickknacks and other junk blocking the door.

“Winter!” Sterling squirmed onto his side. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve had better days,” she admitted.

“This is your final chance,” said Yog. “Serve me, and become stronger than you ever imagined. Or refuse, and die with your friends.”

Winter nodded and leaned back. “I’ll take death, thank you.”

“You’re a child,” Yog said, her words dripping with disdain. “You can’t possibly understand—”

“I understand that no matter how powerful your Riders might be, they don’t seem to have much fun.” Her arms and legs were still tied. She looked around, hoping perhaps a knife had fallen among the other clutter. “Well, aside from Skye and her cape. I wouldn’t mind being able to fly around like that.”

Something slammed into the side of the hut.

“Look at the redcap,” Winter continued. “Does he look happy to you? Your Riders don’t even get uniforms. If I ever turned to evil, I’d do it in style. Black furs trimmed in gold, a tall crown of gold and crystal, and a truly wicked-looking sceptre. The whole works.”

“Forget her,” Kas yelled, digging himself out of a pile of salt from a broken pot. “They’re attacking the hut.”

Yog scowled, her lips peeling back from her tarnished teeth. She grabbed the cabinet door with both hands and heaved it open.

The cabinet was larger than it should have been. Yog hauled an iron cauldron out as if it weighed nothing. She grabbed Kas in one hand and climbed into the cauldron. “Blue, guard the hut and watch the Heroes. If one of them tries anything, kill the others.”

The cauldron lurched into the air and hovered briefly in the middle of the hut. Yog crouched until only the tangled nest of her hair was visible. The cauldron tilted sideways and shot up like a stone from a catapult, cracking the door frame on the way out.

“Where’s she off to, do you think?” Winter asked.

“Probably to kill Ben,” said Sterling. “She turned him human while you were napping.”

“We can’t have that. Not after we worked so hard to rescue him.” Winter stretched her shoulders. “Who else is ready to get out of this dump?”

Blue jumped down and pointed a knife at Tipple’s throat. “Yog said no!”

The hut was still spinning though it had slowed somewhat when Yog left. Blue wobbled in place, and the knife’s tip came dangerously close to Tipple’s face.

“Watch it, redcap!”

A collection of glass pots spilled down on them, releasing what could have been anything from rare spices to powdered bull parts.

“Take it easy, Blue,” said Winter. “You don’t want to hurt him.”

Blue cocked his head to the side.

“Right, maybe you do,” she conceded. “The thing is, if you so much as scratch either of my friends, I’ll freeze the blood in your veins until your heart shatters like glass.” She pursed her lips and blew frost over his nose.

Blue grimaced and rubbed his face.

“You told me you wanted your freedom,” said Sterling. “You can choose to keep living in fear, a slave forced to hunt and kill your own kind. Or you can help us punish the one who did this to you.”

“Yog will never let you be free,” Winter added. “You’ll never be able to rejoin your people. Never be able to explore, to see the world and spread your mischief wherever you choose.”

Blue stared at the knife in his hand. “Free or flee or kill the three.”

She blew a puff of cold over the ropes at her wrists, turning them brittle. Her sweat turned to ice that clung to her skin. She flexed her arms, and the ropes snapped. “I can’t promise we’ll survive if we go after Yog. I can’t promise victory. But I
can
promise you something even better.”

Blue leaned closer.

Winter winked. “I give you my word that helping us will be much more fun.”

Slowly, the redcap began to giggle.

Winter jumped to grab the broken doorway. She pulled herself up onto the still-spinning hut and searched the sky until she spotted Yog swooping about in her flying cauldron, flinging enchanted bones at the remaining Heroes. She seemed to be focusing her assault on Rook, who was crouched just inside the gate. Inga stood atop the rubble by the old tower. Leech and Glory were on the wall to the south, and both looked ready to collapse. There was no sign of Shroud. She hoped he hadn’t fallen.

Winter blasted ice at the flailing legs of the hut, freezing them to the ground. Once it stopped moving, she jumped down and made her way to the edge of the river.

Crossbow bolts pinged off Yog’s cauldron with no effect. Bones and blue fire poured down. With a curse Winter could hear even from this distance, Rook wrenched open the gate. He, Greta, and a boy jumped into the water flowing out of Grayrock just before a new assault shattered the makeshift platform where they’d been resting.

It took her a moment to recognise the boy as Ben. She had only seen him as a doll, but the spiked mess of his hair was unmistakable.

They were exposed and vulnerable, but Yog didn’t seem to care. She swooped back towards the hut. “Blue! The children have fled. Grayrock is lost. Quickly, bring me the flesh of a Hero!”

The redcap poked his head out of the door. The sun silhouetted his cap as he climbed carefully out of the hut. The broken door frame was at a steep angle, and a misstep would send him tumbling into the dirt. He jumped down, arms spinning wildly.

“Bring me their flesh!” Yog shouted again.

Instead, Blue turned around, dropped his pants, and waved his naked arse in Yog’s direction, laughing maniacally the whole time.

Winter couldn’t see Yog’s face from here, but the outrage and fury in her cry echoed across the lake.

Sterling and Tipple were climbing out after Blue. Yog retreated towards the quarry. The remaining bones flew from the hut to orbit her flying cauldron.

“The hut!” Inga shouted. “That’s where she’s hidden her life.”

“We know that,” Tipple yelled back. “We’ve not found it yet.”

“Not inside the hut. The hut itself!”

Winter’s smile grew. “Hey, Blue! How would you like to help Sterling and Tipple with a little home demolition?”

Blue chortled so hard he toppled over. “Wag my butt then break the hut!”

“Rip it apart. I’m going after Yog.” Winter released her Will, freezing a path over the water. She strode up the river and through the gates of Grayrock. Fog swirled at her feet. She sucked the air through her teeth. Icicles formed in her hands, razor sharp and magically hardened.

A pair of skulls flew at her. She met them with a blast of arctic wind, and they tumbled harmlessly into the water to either side. Step by step, she strode through the gate and onto the lake, towards Yog.

“Your minions are gone or turned against you.” Winter threw one of her icicles towards Yog. It struck the cauldron, spreading a patch of ice over the metal. “Your time ended long ago.”

Her second icicle followed. Winter formed two more from the moisture in the air. Yog sent more of her bones to attack, but they tumbled into the water, their power stolen by Leech.

“You’re old and weak, Yog,” she called. “The autumn of your life has been long, but it’s time Winter brought that autumn to an end.”

Yog slumped, and for a moment Winter thought she might give up. She looked so weary, like it was taking all of her strength simply to hold her body up. Yog looked at her hut, trapped in the ice, then at the Heroes arrayed against her.

“Surrender,” shouted Sterling. He had climbed onto the wall, where he cut quite the dashing figure. Winter wondered how long he had spent finding just the right angle for that pose, so the sun would highlight his hair and gleam off his drawn sword. “You had the power of a Hero once. Find your courage. The heart of a Hero still beats within you.”

“No,” said Yog, almost too quietly to hear. “Not yet.” She grabbed Kas from within the cauldron and clenched the stone doll in her fist. “I’m sorry, my love.”

Kas seemed confused at first, but when she brought the doll towards her jaws, he began to scream.

Winter grimaced as iron teeth crunched through stone, and the screaming was abruptly cut off.

“Did she just … ?” Shroud asked. Winter hadn’t heard him walking along the path of ice behind her.

“Yes.” Winter felt ill. Despite everything, she had been sceptical of Yog’s story. The idea of literally consuming someone’s power … it was ridiculous, and that was coming from a girl who had sneezed her pet dog to a wall.

Watching Yog now removed any doubt about her claims. Her spine straightened. She spread her fingers, and even from here, Winter could see the stiffness vanish from her joints. Yog clapped her hands, and fire erupted from the skulls orbiting her cauldron. The flames resolved into manlike shapes, warriors of blue fire topped with bone. Other bones merged with the fire, forming partial skeletons.

“They should pose an interesting challenge,” Shroud commented.

“What’s that?” Winter pointed to an oversized, foul-smelling sack tied to Shroud’s hip.

“Souvenir.” He leaned on a hastily cut crutch, and seemed to have lost his bow.

“I don’t suppose you have any more tricks inside that cloak of yours?”

“Let me check.” He began rooting through his pockets.

Winter hurled a blast of cold at the closest of the skeletons. The flames weakened, and a layer of ice began to form over the skull, but the instant she broke off her attack the ice turned to steam, and the flames flared up like the fur of an angry cat.

“Try this?” Shroud handed her a small pot with a fuse sticking out of the top. “Most of them got smashed to pieces when I fell.”

“Fell from where?” Winter shook her head. “Never mind. How many do you have left?”

“Four.”

How many explosives did Shroud typically carry around with him? “Take them to the others. Toss them into the hut and shut the door. I’ll take care of Yog.”

The ice at Winter’s feet crackled with new cold, the path growing wider and deeper. She was a child of the north. A creature of the dark, frigid nights. Her breath was the wind, her skin frost. Her body took on the glassy shine of new-frozen ice.

The skeleton attacked again. Fingers of blue fire reached for Winter’s throat, only to shy away at the last moment. It stepped back, and the skull tilted to one side as it studied her.

Winter smiled and reached into the flames to seize the skull. The heat seared her hands, boiling off her protective armour of ice, but that barrier of steam prevented the creature from burning her flesh.

She stepped to the edge of her ice and dragged the skull down into the frigid lake. The water erupted like a living thing, hissing and bubbling. The ice cracked beneath her, but she held on, forcing her cold into the porous bone, until finally the body of blue fire dissolved into smoke. The skull and remaining bones drifted apart, lifeless.

“That’s one down.” Winter pushed herself onto her back. Her hands were red and blistered. Sweat stung her eyes as she looked up at Yog and the swarm of burning warriors awaiting her command. “Oh, hell.”

Winter jumped to her feet and ran, sliding over the ice towards the gate. Two of the burning figures swooped to intercept her.

Cold blasted from her hands, forming a ramp of ice. She pushed herself faster, using her magic to propel her forwards. She hit the ramp and launched into the air over Yog’s minions. She landed hard and lost her balance, but continued to slide through the open gates and down the river, freezing the water as she went, until she reached solid ground.

“How’s it going with those bombs?” she yelled.

“No good.” Shroud stood atop the hut, along with Sterling and Tipple. Blue cowered behind the fallen hut. “I set off all four, and it hardly even belched. I think it got stronger when Yog did.”

Rook stood at the edge of the woods, his crossbow ready. She didn’t see Greta or Ben anywhere. Hopefully they would remain hidden. Glory and Leech were trying to bring down the remainder of the flaming skeletons, but Yog’s power was too much for them.

Inga ran at the hut, an enormous axe clutched in both hands. She slammed the blade down, and the shaft cracked in her hands. The weapon had sunk about an inch into the wood, but it wasn’t enough to do any real damage.

“The Conclave has an arsenal of barrel-sized explosives,” Shroud commented. “They’re not subtle, but they certainly make an impression. The latest design is packed with nails and scrap iron. Kills anything within a fifty-foot radius. I wish we had a few of those with us.”

“And if wishes were bacon, we’d all die fat,” said Inga. “Unless you have a barrel or two hidden away in one of those pockets?”

“Left them in my other cloak, I’m afraid.”

Winter hurried to join them as the burning skeletons closed in. Sterling lunged at the closest, jabbing Arbiter through an eye socket. He gripped the hilt with both hands, using the blade like a lever to pry the skull free.

Tipple grabbed a chair from the hut. He smashed it over another of Yog’s warriors, battering it until the bones splintered.

Inga’s shield tossed two more back, but it wasn’t enough. The air around them rippled from the heat. Tipple’s makeshift weapon burned to ash in his hands, and Sterling’s sleeve was on fire. Winter extinguished him before the flames could spread.

Yog circled overhead, laughing. A lucky throw by Shroud put a knife square in the centre of her throat, but she tore it free and tossed it aside like it was nothing. Dark clouds slowly swirled together, a maelstrom, with Yog at its heart.

So long as the hut survived, Yog was unstoppable. Winter studied the hut, still twitching on the ground. The broken door frame looked to be slowly healing, the slivers of wood knitting together. “Inga, I’ve seen your shield push enemies about like toys. Can it pull them in as well?”