Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (52 page)

For the first time, Janus actually wondered whether they could win. He had always assumed the fight would be a tragic loss, a valiant but flawed effort. Yet now some hope kindled inside him, so much so he almost didn’t notice the fleeing Civil War soldiers running past him.

*****

At least two dozen soldiers sprinted by with panic and terror on their faces. Many had dropped their weapons.

Janus looked down to see the mortlats joined by new creatures that appeared silvery and fluid. They were all different shapes and sizes, and seemed able to change their shape at will. After a moment, Janus realized they were made of water. They were
fuath
, an evil water sprite his mum had told him about when he was a child. He remembered her telling him to stay away from a stream behind his childhood home. “If you aren’t careful, the fuath will take you and drown you,” she said.

But like everything else in this world, the nightmare was now real and wreaking havoc along Buzz’s line. Kate was engaged among the mortlats, and Janus could still see the Headless Horseman almost single-handedly wiping out the caorthannach regiment. The fuath appeared to have taken everyone unawares. They moved among the soldiers, shooting out pillars of water and dragging men inside themselves to drown them. There weren’t many of them, maybe just two dozen, but they seemed invulnerable.

The formation was falling apart. Janus saw soldiers trying to fight off the fuath, but their bullets did nothing and their bayonets passed right through them. The soldiers who weren’t dying were starting to run, fleeing even as some of the fuath flicked a tendril of water at them and pulled them back.

The line is falling apart, Kate
, Janus thought.

Either Kate couldn’t hear him or she was too busy fighting the mortlats to respond. Meanwhile, Buzz was trying to keep his soldiers in order, retreating against an apparently unstoppable foe. The men needed to keep their wits about them or this battle would be over quickly.

Janus realized he needed to help rally the troops and figure out a way to stop the fuath. He looked across the hill to see more soldiers running, some literally stumbling over each other in their haste to get away.

Kate, I really need some help,
Janus thought.

She was tied up and he could see he was on his own. He had to do something. Bullets didn’t seem to harm the fuath, but maybe something larger would. He looked up along the hillside and saw the artillery blasting away at the caorthannach, helping Quinn. Janus ran among the panicked soldiers, some of them nearly knocking him over. He dodged between them, running as fast as he could. He arrived out of breath and grabbed the first soldier he could find.

“Redirect your fire!” he shouted.

Janus pointed to the fuath down below. The soldier nodded and waved over another soldier to help him redirect it. Janus was already moving on to the next cannon, and the one after that, until the entire artillery battery was shifting its line of fire.

“Wait for my signal,” he shouted.

I need some way to rally the troops,
he thought desperately.

It wouldn’t matter if the cannons worked if the troops were already demoralized. Janus had read enough history to know what happened when your troops broke. Many of them wouldn’t stop running until they were miles away. They might push back the fuath, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

He needed a way to inspire the ones who were fleeing and he didn’t know how to do it. Janus looked down to see Buzz still standing at the front of the line, shouting encouragement and generally appearing immovable.

Immovable.

A memory tugged at Janus of something Quinn had once told him and he ran up the hill shouting at the soldiers to stop running. He didn’t know if he had any real powers, but in that moment he had to believe. He watched as soldiers continued to run past him.

Show them their path,
Janus thought.
I can show them their path.

“Listen to me!” he shouted and was startled how well his voice carried. He saw some men stop running, others at least slow down. Many turned to face him. He pointed at Buzz on the field, looking as if he were ready to fight the fuath all by himself. He wasn’t running anywhere.

“There stands your general,” Janus shouted. “There stands Buzz like a stone wall! Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally! Rally behind the Virginians!”

Janus gestured at the artillerymen.

“Fire!” he screamed.

Just as the lead fuath moved to grab Buzz, there was a massive series of explosions in the midst of the water sprites. The cannon shells fell all around the creatures, blowing them to pieces. One minute, more than twenty fuath lumbered across the field, and the next they were destroyed. Janus felt their pieces fall from the sky like rain. When the mist and smoke cleared, Buzz stood stock still on the field, soaking wet but unharmed.

The men around Janus cheered, screaming both for him and their leader. The ones who had been running picked up their dropped weapons and began to pour back into the fight, reinforcing Buzz’s line.

I did it,
Janus thought.
I actually did it. The line held.

He was so proud of what he’d accomplished that he didn’t look up until it was too late. When he happened to see movement out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the sky. Before he could even take stock of what was happening, two sluagh had their claws into him.

Help
, he managed to think, hoping Kate could hear him.

The sluagh grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted Janus into the air, managing to support his weight between the two of them. He waited for them to drop him to his death, but instead they did something worse. The sluagh carried him high over the battlefield directly toward the castle behind it.

Chapter 41

Kate heard the call in her head — a simple
help
— only a moment before she saw the shadows on the ground. She looked up to see a flock of sluagh flying overhead, but instead of attacking anyone on the ground below, they were tossing a man back and forth.

Two of them would throw the screaming form into the air, letting him start to plunge toward earth before two others picked him up again.

Help me, damn it!

This thought was louder and more insistent, laced with unbridled terror. Kate sliced at a passing mortlat, decapitating it even while she stared at the form now rapidly being carried away from the battlefield.

Quinn, they’ve got Janus,
Kate thought.

In her mind, she saw the Horseman launch another flurry of flaming pumpkins, then use his sword to knock back the caorthannach nearby. Several tried to grab him and pull him off his horse, but he hacked at them with renewed fury. He gave his horse a sharp kick, reared up, and launched himself out of the mob.

The Headless Horseman galloped across the battlefield toward Kate, periodically deviating to slash at an enemy creature nearby. He skewered a trowe about to smash one of Parker’s spiders, then vaulted over a group of dusios before throwing a pumpkin at them. He cut across the field, sliced three mortlats in half and then pulled up with a start in front of the banshee.

I have to go after them,
he said.

No,
she thought loudly.
You can’t.

I have to go, Kate,
Quinn thought.
I won’t leave him there.

We’ll get him when the battle’s over.

He’ll be dead by then and you know it.

The Horseman dismounted and stood by Kate in the middle of a mortlat horde. They continued fighting almost in unison, each flashing a sword in coordinated moves that left their opponents no chance of survival. The Horseman stabbed through a snake head, then used his sword to fling the dying creature at others moving behind them. The banshee sliced through the back half of one creature, then calmly raised her shield as another tried to pounce on her. Its head slammed into the shield with a thud and the banshee gutted the mortlat while it was still dazed from the impact.

It’s a trap, Quinn.

Of course it’s a trap. We knew Sanheim was going to pull something, Kate, we just didn’t know what.

He’s trying to lure you to the castle to kill you himself.

His overconfidence is his undoing. I can beat him.

A line of trowe broke free from their fight with the spiders and ran forward in an attempt to reinforce the snake-headed mortlats. A flaming pumpkin caught their leader square in the chest. The next two were sliced apart by the banshee and the Horseman.

I’m coming with you,
Kate said.

You can’t leave this army,
Quinn said.
They look to you.

I don’t care,
Kate responded.
I won’t lose you a second time.

You won’t lose me, Kate. I promise.

Not good enough. I’m coming with you. It’s not an option.

Then we’ll fail,
Quinn said.
We need you here.

I…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a blast of green flames that slammed into the ground beside them. The explosion knocked the banshee and the Horseman off their feet and blew apart several mortlats and trowes at the same time.

A woman in golden robes, carrying a spear and shield, landed on the battlefield in front of them. She pointed the spear and another jolt of green fire flew toward the banshee. The Horseman leapt into the air, grabbing the banshee and rolling with her several feet as the explosion struck where she’d been standing.

The two jumped to their feet behind Kate’s shield.

“I’ve come to bear a message,” Carman said. “My Lord Sanheim is going to publicly execute your friend unless you and your army surrender in the next ten minutes.”

Kate…

She wanted to argue, to insist they go together. But in the end, she knew there was no choice.

Go,
she said.
But come back to me. Swear that you will.

I swear on my soul,
Quinn responded.

There wasn’t even time for a goodbye. Instead, the Horseman immediately ran forward and caught his horse as it rode by, swinging himself into the saddle.

Elyssa, Quinn needs help,
Kate thought.
I need you and the wraiths to cut a path straight toward that castle.

The order given, she turned her attention back to the witch in front of her.

“We will never surrender,” the banshee said in her raspy voice.

“I’m sure Lord Sanheim doesn’t expect you to,” Carman said with a smug look. “He just wants you distracted.”

“We are going to destroy you,” the banshee replied.

“You poor fool,” Carman replied. “You’ve already lost, you just don’t know it yet.”

The banshee and Carman rushed toward each other at the same moment, closing the distance between them in a blur of movement. There would be no running or escape from this fight, Kate knew. She would either kill Carman — or be killed.

*****

The Horseman plowed into another group of creatures that looked like huge, wet horses. Their manes were entwined with seaweed and they looked partially decayed, as if they had been left to rot underwater.

Quinn tried to slice his way through, but the kelpies blocked his path. Within in a few short minutes, they had the Horseman entirely surrounded, their mouths snapping at his steed. His horse reared back and the rider lobbed a pumpkin, but the flame was quickly smothered. He was just wondering what to do when he heard howling nearby.

Elyssa’s pack of dobhar-chus attacked at full force, mowing through the kelpies. At the front of the line, Elyssa didn’t even pause to acknowledge the Horseman, but cut in front of him, her companions sweeping in behind. The pack then rode forward, tearing into anything in their way.

The Headless Horseman quickly followed in their wake, gaining ground as the castle now loomed above him.

As he rode, questions swirled around Quinn’s head. The most pressing was whether he could even get into the castle in the first place. In his dream last year, there’d been a winding path up to the front gate, but would everything be barred now?

The other questions were no less urgent. The plan so far was working. Quinn could tell that their army had taken a heavy toll on the enemy forces, far more than they had suffered themselves. But estimating numbers was almost impossible. And when he’d started toward the castle, the spiders and soldiers had been steadily giving ground. That didn’t bode well.

They needed Carol’s reinforcements, but so far they were nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, the enemy was bringing up new units from its rear lines. As the Horseman rode through their ranks, he saw many of the same creatures they were already fighting: kelpies, trowes, mortlats, dusios and fuath. But he also saw many more that he didn’t even recognize.

How long could they hold out? By the time Carol arrived, she might find no one left to reinforce. But that decision was already made and there was nothing Quinn could do about it now. He also had to hope that Clinton’s units had managed to make their rendezvous. There was simply too much that could have gone wrong.