Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(100)

“You want me to take care of that for you?” he asked.

She glanced at him. A faint blue aura coated him.

“No,” she said.

He smiled. It was a self-satisfied smile of a man pleased with himself. She rolled her eyes and collapsed on the sheets next to him, the envelope in her hands.

“Tell me about Aberdine,” she said.

“It was blood and fire,” he said. “Stay out of my dreams for a while, Elara.”

“Fire?”

“It’s an army, as we thought. The officers are marked with gold. They spit fire. High heat. One of them caught Richard Sams with it. He died almost instantly.”

She heard it in his voice. He’d tried to save Richard and failed.

“They don’t run,” he said. “They don’t beg for their lives. They fight until they die and when you try to restrain them, they burn from inside out.”

She drew a sharp breath. That kind of magic was beyond what most human magic users could do. “So, an elder being?”

“Yes. There is a benefit to taking out their officers. In normal circumstances, an officer dies and the next in line takes his place. With them, nobody stepped out. Once you cut them off from leadership, they fall out of formation and stand there until someone with a weapon approaches. Then they fight to the death as individuals. Once I took out the head guy, even the remaining officers stopped responding. That’s the only way to fracture and break them.”

“This makes no sense. How can an army function this way?”

Hugh grimaced. “It makes sense in a twisted way if you suppose something is controlling the top officer.”

“Like a possession?”

“Possibly. Even an elder being can’t control that many fighters at once. If it controls the commanding officers, and the rest are blindly obeying orders, it directs the entire army.”

An elder being. She sighed. “Did Aberdine survive?”

“Most of it. The Dollar General is a husk and a couple of other buildings are not much better. But we put the fires out. The battle cost us three Iron Dogs. Aberdine lost twenty-one people.”

He said it matter-of-factly, his voice flat. It ate at him, she realized. Every time he lost someone, it ate at him.

“Do you think they will try again?” she asked.

“They will, but they won’t target Aberdine again. We don’t know if there was any communication between the invading forces and reserves back where they came from, but it would be unlikely that there wasn’t. We have to assume that they know we were waiting for them in Aberdine. We painted a target on our chests with that move. The next strike, if it comes, will be aimed at us.”

She’d thought as much. Elara held the envelope out to him.

Hugh grabbed a pillow and pushed it behind his head to prop himself up. She liked the way the biceps rolled on his arms. Stop it, stop it, stop it… The pep talk wasn’t quite working. She had opened a can of gasoline and set the fumes on fire.

Hugh opened the flap and pulled the paperwork out. She’d reviewed it with Savannah. It laid out exactly what Nez had promised.

His expression went hard.

“Nez came to see me,” she told him. “Via a vampire.”

“When?” Hugh asked.

“While you were in Aberdine.”

“And you’re absolutely sure it was Nez?”

“Yes. I’ve met him before when he tried to negotiate the purchase of the castle. He always speaks as if he is two steps above you on the intelligence ladder.”

“He’s a stuck-up asshole.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“Thinking of taking him up on his offer?”

She arched her eyebrows at him. “Why, do you think I should?”

Hugh tapped the file. “Some years ago, Landon Nez and I were clearing the way for Roland in Nebraska. There was a small remote town on the northern edge of the state called Hayville, protected by a Winnebago shaman. Roland wanted the land the town sat on. The shaman’s family lived there for generations and once the Shift hit and their powers returned, they’d started laying wards around Hayville to protect their home. During magic, the place was a fortress. The town was well armed, so direct assault during tech was a bad idea. One day Nez showed up and laid siege to the town. Cut off the two roads leading to it and cut the power and phone lines. The state had its hands full with the Curva cult at the time, so nobody caught on for a bit.”

The hint of some emotion flickered over his face. She couldn’t quite place it. Pain? Regret? Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

“Nez didn’t want to bloody his nose against thirty years’ worth of wards, so he sat on Hayville for a week and brokered a deal. If they delivered the shaman to him, he would sign a treaty with the town swearing to leave them alone. They brought the shaman to him trussed up like a hog. Nez got the shaman and left.”

“And?” Elara asked.

“And the next morning I came through the town and burned it to the ground.”

She stared at him.

“There was an investigation,” he said. “Federal government came down. Witnesses were questioned. Reports were written about mysterious people in black burning the place down. Nobody mentioned Nez, because they sold their shaman to him, and nobody mentioned me, because they knew once the authorities left, I would be back. The town was a charred ruin and the next spring Roland bought the land for nothing.”