Execution Read online

  I’m supposed to lead with my sword hand, but I don’t, instead keeping my left shoulder facing Callodax. Maybe I know what I’m doing. Maybe I’m just used to keeping my power hand back. Who the hell knows?

  The bridge sways back and forth.

  Delay. I’m supposed to delay him so the others can escape.

  “What do you want with my son?” I ask, stopping, and squaring off against Callodax.

  He also comes to a halt, his bald head shining with a layer of mist. His black turtleneck is torn in places where bullets and arrows have pierced it, but his body, apparently well-muscled and as pale as a man can be without going wight, is inviolate.

  The bald head cocks to one side in an inhuman way. His eyes focus on me oddly, as if he’s staring through me. I remember how Callodax could sense me looking at him, even through a one-way mirror. How much information can he glean from me? How much am I giving away?

  “You think you can win,” he states, his arrogant voice as calm as it was during his trial. “Do you know your blade can’t hurt me?”

  He better be fucking lying.

  “You don’t know that,” he says, as if reading my reaction, then jabs his spear at me.

  I slip it, batting at it with my gun hand as if it were a punch. Big mistake, as I can get my hand cut, but I luck out.

  My grip on the hilt of the gladius is tight, probably too tight. I turn sideways toward Callodax trying to keep my profile as small as possible, my left arm still facing him. Honestly, I have no idea how I’m supposed to use a short sword against a spear.

  Callodax appears cautious. He’s probably never seen anyone fight like this before, and is trying to figure out the why of it.

  In this case, the why of it is that I’m clueless.

  He tries a pair of tentative strikes. I back away quickly from the first one, and slip the second—keeping my hand away from the blade this time.

  He strikes at my leg, and I switch stances backward to dodge it. He tries again, and I execute the same move.

  My heart thunders in my chest. I wish this damn gladius was longer. How the hell am I supposed to get close enough to hit him? And why are the bullets bouncing off of him? I have a theory about that. When a bullet hits a wight, its momentum disappears completely. In this case, Callodax’s head is jerking back. The bullets are hitting him, and transferring their momentum to him, but they just aren’t doing any damage. Maybe this infidel blade is different, or maybe I just need a lot more force.

  He jabs again, and I slip it, dropping my head and torqueing my hips to throw an overhand strike with my sword. He shuffles back out of range easily, and the spear’s blade, on retraction, cuts my ear.

  His eyes narrow.

  He knows. The gig is up. It’s clear now that I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Fuck strategy.

  I raise my pistol and fire at his face. He jumps forward at that exact moment, but his thrust is foiled by the sudden whiplash my bullet imparts upon his head. It’s only a split second before he recovers, however, and he strikes twice more with measured jabs. Then he swings the spear haft around at my legs. Somehow I avoid the attacks. He tries again with a killer blow aimed at my torso, but I fire four more bullets into his face in quick succession, and that messes with his aim. I twist away, barely escaping his next strike, and I realize that my feet are about to cross. I turn my bad footwork into what would have been a spinning backfist, but with my gladius, the maneuver becomes a sword strike. My technique is perfect, and the torque of my body and the whiplike momentum of the sword at the end of my reach hits him perfectly on the cheek.

  His head jerks to one side.

  No blood. No effect.

  Oh hell.

  I run.

  When I dare a look over my shoulder, I see he’s readied his spear for a throw. And he releases. I try to dive to one side, my boot catching on a board. I fall, the spear flying over my head and burying itself into the bridge. I twist the cap of one infidel canister and jam it between the planks. I sprint, heedless of the bridge’s swaying as the whistle begins. It grows in intensity, and I don’t bother to turn around when it comes to climax. I grab a guardrail with one hand and a plank with another.

  The blast pops the shit out of my ears.

  I look back . . . and the bridge splits in two.

  Here we go again.

  The longbridge shucks boards as it swings. This time I feel elation as the sudden wind blows through my hair. We don’t fall nearly as far as I’d feared because the thing is supported by so many branches. The bridge crushes a cluster of leaves as it buries itself into the Safe Tree’s lower canopy. I make quick work of climbing up, coming to my feet easily on the Safe Tree’s platform. The women and children have completed their escape, and most of them aren’t even on the Prima Tree anymore. Fabian’s got the larger portion moved onto the tree beyond, and the last of the civilians are crossing after them.

  A pair of dezendyitzu rise, carrying Callodax back out of the mist amidst the ruins of the longbridge. I shoulder my M-16 and take the first one out. The second one, suddenly off balance, is thrown into a spiral. Maybe because it’s too disoriented, it doesn’t get its wings up to block me.

  Callodax falls back into the abyss, a flock of dezendyitzu and Icanitzu following after.

  Fucker.

  The bridge to the Prima Tree isn’t the kind a man should jog across, but I can’t be sure my son is going to last much longer, if he’s even alive right now.

  I better just get him and get out. I can’t think of a way to kill Callodax.

  I wonder what would happen if he fell all the way to the bottom . . . and how the hell are the devils able to fly down and catch him? That’s fucking annoying.

  There’s a trio of dezen flying in formation below me. They twist about in the air and start firing up. I stop quickly, and their fireballs collide with the vine bridge ahead. Amirani had been able to shoot them without letting them get their wings up in time. Maybe I’m getting the hang of it by accident because I drop the trio with four three shot bursts.

  But that doesn’t matter, there are dozens more flying my way. I catch sight of Callodax. They’ve set him down on the platform of the Safe Tree.

  This is not going well, and I’m on my last M-16 clip.

  I give caution the metaphorical bird and sprint the rest of the way across the bridge. The cage where we’d been held during the trial has been destroyed, and its remains still smolder. The stand where I’d once given testimony is singed and blackened by dyitzu fireballs. Some dyitzu skin-clad civilians are dead near the counterweights, their bodies scattered amidst the wreckage of ruptured bloodwater barrels. Dead white-cloaked men and devils litter the area, the largest grouping of them in a semi-circle around the Paul Bunyan wound. They might have been defending the Prima Tree’s kill switch, waiting for the Tree Lord to make it to safety before activating it.

  Only the Tree Lord never made it.

  The Tree Lord lies face down near the stand, one hand forward as if he’d been trying to crawl away when finished off by dyitzu fire. His back still smolders where the fat, acting like a candle, keeps a small flame alive.

  His Jesus beard is still untouched though.

  I see Fabian’s men on the next tree. Fabian’s there too, but he’s being careful to stay out of my line of fire. My son apparently used one of those temporary silk bridges to make it up to a burnt out nest. He’s firing arrows at the white-cloaked Dendrans but without much in the way of results. Also on that tree is Keith, Harris, Fin, and some Carrion born. Those bastards have the women and children cornered in a separate nest, though two of Fabian’s men are defending them.

  There is more gunfire.

  Well, one of Fabian’s men.

  Fuck, Fabian. Get some priorities.

  I look back. Callodax is on the bridge, coming my way at an even, slow pace. This time he’s got eleven or twelve dezen’s hovering over him. They don’t seem to be focused on me, though.

  I better
find cover, and not just from them. Fabian’s got an AK. There’s no way I’ll be able to cross the bridge to get my son. Well, maybe. I am bulletproof.

  There’s got to be a better way. I fire at one of the dezen’s, dropping it, and duck down for cover by the stand. The dezens return fire en masse. Fire peppers the tree, hitting the bridge, the platform, some of the dead bodies, and the bloodwater barrels’ counterweights.

  They must not have seen me before I ducked down.

  I know now what I have to do. So much for good Cris. So much for purity of purpose.

  “Keith!” I shout.

  I come out of my crouch like I’m going to shoot, but I don’t.

  “I won’t stop, Cris!” he calls back from behind a branch. “The kiddies are going to die.”

  “I don’t give a fuck!”

  There is a pause, and a little more gunfire rattles off in the distance.

  “Okay, I’m listening,” Keith calls back.

  Callodax isn’t rushing. Maybe I should use my last canister to take out that bridge too.

  I shout, “I can kill Callodax, Keith. Do you believe me?”

  Fireballs are screaming my way. I drop back down behind the stand. Flaming blasts of liquid rocket up into the sky all around me, droplets coming down like rain. I scoot quickly to one side.

  I fire again as the dezens begin to fly forward. Another drops, and that keeps the rest from advancing.

  “I do, Godslayer.” Keith’s call comes back.

  “Kill Fabian. And his men. Save my son. I’ll free you from Callodax as payment.”

  There is a moment of pause. The heat of the burning stand is making me sweat in my Icanitzu skin armor.

  Fin and Harris, Keith, and the two Carrion born all look to each other.

  Keith guns down the Carrion born. “On it,” he shouts.

  “You’d side with Keith!” Fabian yells at me. “Traitor!”

  I shrug the insult off. I’m not sure if I can muster up much guilt for that one. The gunfire on Fabian’s tree intensifies as Keith’s men start trading shots with Fabian.

  Strangely, I feel like laughing. Keith has chased me without fail through the most dangerous parts of Hell. He captured me and drug me to Tintagel. The idea that Fabian has to deal with that level of bullshit is exciting to me.

  Alright, Callodax. I’m all yours.

  I step out from my burning cover.

  Using the rest of my remaining clip, I drop a single dezendyitzu brave enough to separate from his pack.

  Callodax walks at a slasher villain’s pace across the narrow bridge, his gait not effected by the swaying. I wonder if that preternatural balance comes from his host, or if it is a result of training, or if it is a property of the soul which inhabits his body.

  The fireballs from the distant, more cowardly dezens come thick and fast, but I’m able to avoid them with some minimalistic movements. In the beginning of the battle, it was hard to keep track of all the curving dezen fireballs, but now they seem very predictable.

  I draw the Old Lady as another of their number grows bold and pepper it with some shot—enough to bother it, but not enough to kill it. The dezen whirls around in the air, loath to get closer, and moves back in line with its hovering pack.

  I make sure the Old Lady is fully loaded, sliding shells into her.

  Callodax is at the thirty foot mark. If I’m going to drop this bridge, it’s got to be now.

  I guess I’m not.

  I take aim at one of the next few approaching dezen, it shields itself, and I keep tracking it until it drops out of view. Then I point at another. It drops as well, but as quickly as I can manage, I take aim at the third and fire immediately. The blast bloodies its right shoulder and it begins a downward spiral.

  I backpedal toward the counterweights. The canopy is thick and provides me with a good amount of cover. Fireballs from both the brave and cowardly dezens impact with the branches and leaves, sending splashes of multicolored fire across my path. Some of the flaming liquid runs down the leaves even as water might, a path of burnt plant matter left in its wake.

  The smell is pungent and bitter.

  A dezen finds a gap to get a good shot at me, but my ammunition flies straighter and faster. Its face jerks back with the impact of the buckshot, and its wings lose rigidity. Like a rock, it plummets downward.

  Callodax is following me, moving along the branch.

  I bet he thinks he’ll have me cornered where the branch ends, but he won’t because I’ll jump onto one of the counterweights. I slide in another shell.

  All the remaining dezen are hesitant, now, and I hope that holds. I’ve got enough to worry about with Callodax and all the pools of fire they’ve left around me.

  Callodax doesn’t have a spear this time, thank God. He steps over a leaf’s stem as I sheath the Old Lady. It’s all about luck from this point on.

  I pick up one of the silk-ended temporary bridges.

  Come what may.

  He’s twenty feet from me. Ten feet.

  I ready my jump.

  Callodax’s bald head gleams with the green light of the leaves and the purple light of some still burning dezendyitzu fire. I leap, landing easily on the lower of the two counterweights. It shifts a little from my momentum, its supporting chain links straining as it clunks into its sister weight. I step around the chain and lean back into that second stone mass. I can climb up onto the sister weight, but it’s top lip is six feet up, so I might as well have my back to a wall.

  Callodax jumps after me.

  I toss one end of the repair bridge where I think he’ll land.

  His right foot lands in the silk. He swings at me, and I jerk back, stepping around the chain. With a quick lunge, he tries to grab me, but the silk holds him fast to the weight.

  Yes! Now all I have to do is disconnect the weight.

  Then he reaches for his boot.

  Fuck.

  Won’t work.

  I need his actual skin to be stuck, not just his boot.

  I redraw the Old Lady and let loose three blasts of buckshot into his face. If nothing else, the muzzle flash bothers him, and it can’t be easy to see with your head jerking around like that.

  He comes at me again, and I block with the other end of the repair vine.

  Gotchya, motherfucker.

  I’d like to see one of these Icanitzu carry you now.

  I sheath the old lady and wrestle him to the side. I jump forward, trying to stick his arm to the sister counterweight, but he’s much stronger than I imagined. With his caught hand, he jerks me back toward him, and I don’t dare let go of the vine. He headbutts me in the chest. I feel my breath go out, and he might have cracked a rib. With his hand still trapped in the silk, he punches at me. I block instinctively with my left, and the silk envelops my own hand.

  Oh God no.

  My heart stops.

  I try to pull my hand away, hoping that, for some unimaginable reason, I won’t be caught in my own trap.

  But I am. My hand is buried, wrist deep, in the sticky substance.

  Callodax smiles.

  We’re now linked, myself and this invincible killer, glued together, hand to hand, both flies in the sticky spider silk—silk strong enough to support a bridge.

  It’s not fair.

  All of this. My whole plan. Everything, ruined by a single mistake.

  I throw a push kick in revulsion, trying to get some distance, but I’m beyond fucked. My effort doesn’t move him, but pushes me away, and I feel the tendons in my left shoulder straining as the silk keeps me from escaping.

  This time when he pulls me forward, I don’t fight it. He throws a punch, but my lack of resistance catches him off guard and I pass right by. I dance to the corner of the weight, and only the fact that his boot is stuck keeps him from reaching me.

  I can’t win.

  Now I’m fighting merely not to die, and the hopelessness of that settles into my soul.

  He pulls again, and again I go w
ith him, but this time I slam our stuck hands into the side of the sister weight. He’s stretched out now, his foot and hand each attached to different weights.

  I take a breath.

  He pulls back with all his might, and his freakish strength pulls the sister weight into the one we’re standing on. Stone grates on stone as he pulls harder, but the silk won’t give, and he can’t seem to get his free hand on me.

  For the moment, I’m safe . . . well from him.

  I see a dezen find its way through a gap in the trees. Damn, I thought I’d scared them all away. It launches some fire at me. I duck the fireball as best I can. It impacts with the sister weight and some of it splashes on my armor. None of the fire, for better or worse, catches on the silk. I draw my pistol with my free hand and drop the dezen out of the sky with a flurry of bullets.

  “Igraine and her people,” Callodax tells me, “I know what they did to you.”

  I freeze.

  He cocks his head. “I know about Shy. About Melvin. About how they made you play the dog.”

  Of course he would know. I let the empty pistol fall from my hand. It bounces off the stone and plummets away.

  My blood, which had previously been pounding in my ears, runs cold, and I remember that sick feeling in my lower intestines after they’d broken me.

  “And I know what they took from you, Godslayer. I know how they took it. That does something to a man, does it not?”

  Ash flakes drift in the air. The heat of the remaining dezen fire, dripping slowly down the sister weight beside me, does nothing to warm my cheek. My back shivers so strongly it nearly locks up, and my neck and teeth and ears hurt.

  “Haven’t you wondered why the soldiers follow me? Why the Carrion born are in my thrall?” he whispers. “Are you interested in experiencing what I did to them? Are you ready to have that taken from you again?”

  My breathing slows as my body begins to shut down. It’s over. I truly am trapped, now.

  You did your best, Cris.

  Had I really not known that things were going to end like this? Had I simply ignored the fact that every torture I’d ever experienced was just preparation for the next, worse thing? After Callodax finishes with me, something even more terrible will be waiting. My lot will become more and more unbearable until there is simply nothing worse in this Hell that can be done to me—and then I’ll die and go to a new Hell, a Hell so imagined that there is something worse that can be done to me.