Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(112)

Clack. Clack-clack.

Two beasts trotted out of the darkness, their long claws scraping the floor. They stood on all fours, gaunt like vampires, with every bone sticking out, but where undead were bald, these were covered in dark human body hair. Someone had shaved designs on their hides and traced them with the same yellow paint. Large wolf-like ears protruded from their skulls. Their heads were too long, the jaws protruding too far, as if someone had jammed the skull of a horse into a human head and tried to stretch the skin over it but didn’t quite succeed. Lipless, noseless, their nostrils two holes between the two ridges of exposed bone that ran along the center of their skulls, the creatures glared at her with white eyes.

Lessons from long ago surfaced in Elara’s memory. She had been warned about these before. Ah, yes. It made sense.

“I know of you,” Elara said. “Once you were a shaman. Once you healed the sick and spoke to spirits.”

The creature stared at her.

“But then Nez took you. He made you do evil things. Then, when you died, he used your corrupted shell to invite something over, out of the deep darkness. It took your body. You’re a skudakumooch. A ghost witch.”

The creature didn’t move.

“You’re a thing of old magic now.” Elara bared her teeth. “But this is my castle. There is room for only one ancient monster here. And you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

The twin beasts lunged at her. She lashed the left with her magic, trying to rip its power from it. The yellow symbols flashed with light. Her powers glanced off.

The beast clamped its jaws on her wrist, the other locked onto her forearm. Teeth pierced her skin, drawing blood. Agony shot up her arms, burning.

The beasts pulled her arms apart, anchoring her. Panic struck at Elara, pushing her straight to the hidden part of herself, where the iceberg of her power waited, locked away. All she had to do was reach for it.

No. She gritted her teeth. No.

The ghost witch struck at her, trying to claw her throat open with its talons. Elara pulled the magic out of herself and vomited it into the witch’s face. The skudakumooch shrieked, reeling back.

She needed her hands, but the beasts were chewing her flesh to pieces.

The skudakumooch lunged again. Elara spat another torrent of power. The skudakumooch recoiled.

Bale bellowed like an enraged rhino and smashed his mace into the skull of the right creature. Bone cracked. Bale hit it again and again, driving the mace into it in a frenzy. The icy fangs opened. The beast spun toward Bale. Elara leaned and jammed her hand into its mouth. Her fingers closed about its putrid tongue and she punched her power down its throat. Her magic found the dark slimy seed that animated it, swallowed it, and cracked it between its teeth.

The beast sagged and collapsed, suddenly boneless. Its body fell apart, pieces of its flesh dropping.

Elara spun and jammed her fingers into the other beast’s eyes. They popped under her fingertips. Her magic pierced the beast and it fell apart, dead. The skudakumooch snarled, biting the air with blood-red fangs the size of Elara’s fingers. A cloud of darkness poured out of it, filled with ghostly teeth and claws. The smoke wrapped around Elara. Her skin came alive with pain, as if the air had turned into a whirlwind of broken glass. She tore through it and locked her hands onto the ghost witch’s throat.

The creature bucked. She felt the thing inside the once-human body writhe. It was old and powerful, but she was stronger, and she choked it, sinking her claws into the flesh, piercing it with her magic, again and again. All the magic she had flowed from the floor onto the flailing skudakumooch. The glowing white tendrils wrapped around the ghost witch, choking it. Elara opened her mouth, knowing her jaws gaped too wide as she tried to engulf the skudakumooch’s head in it.

The darkness tore out of the ghost witch’s back. The corpse deflated in Elara’s hands like an empty water skin. The darkness shuddered, fangs, teeth, horns spinning within it, and vanished.

The torches and fey lanterns came back on.

Elara’s jaw snapped back in place. She dropped the corpse and held out her hand. “My wedding ring, please.”

Bale produced the wedding ring and put it in her palm. His fingers shook. Elara slipped the ring on. There.

A deep blast of sound came from above, muffled by the stone, but still clearly recognizable, the scream of Erawan. Elara whirled and ran to the door.





Hugh stood on the wall, presenting a nice clear target. The damn elephant was so big, he blocked the light. Behind Erawan, the Cleaning Crew was trying to drag the trees he had knocked down to ford the moat. Fine time for Nez to grow a brain.

Along the wall the Iron Dogs crouched next to bags and crates, Elara’s people sandwiched between them.

“Do you think this will work?” Dugas asked next to him.

“She won’t let me kill him,” Hugh ground out. “This is all I’ve got.”

Erawan took a ponderous step forward. Lightning rolled off his sides. Only a few dozen feet separated him from the moat. The elephant’s eyes glared at Hugh, filled with pain and madness. Erawan had seen him and was heading straight for him.

“Get your people out of here,” Hugh told Dugas.

“With your permission, I think we better stay. We’re better at this sort of thing than you are.”

“If this doesn’t work, this entire wall is coming down.”