Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) (27 page)

“My blood and magic to slay these dwarves, until they or I am dead,” Sefwin called out. “Will you accept my bargain, Great One, or return to the Planes of Terror?”

The thing’s left and right heads turned, taking in the chaos. The middle head spoke in a hissing screech.

“Bargain accepted.”

The blood on the floor suddenly boiled away, forming a cloud of crimson smoke that the monster inhaled. Then it charged across the room at the chanting dwarves with an earsplitting hunting cry.

Three dwarves died before they could even react. The casters fell back frantically, while their guards tried to interpose themselves. It carved its way through their ranks like an ungol plowing through a group of townspeople.

“How the fuck did you summon something that powerful?” I asked.

Sefwin rested her hand on the power stone, and smiled wearily.

“Limitless power. There’s no need to assemble twenty mages to split the cost when I have this. It thinks I’ll either run out of magic to enforce the bargain, or die of blood loss and get my soul stolen. But I can hold the summoning for days with a source like this, and I know you can keep me alive. You will save my life, won’t you Daniel?”

Now that she’d turned to face me I could see that her right arm was cut open from elbow to wrist, and blood was streaming out only to evaporate on contact with the air.

I snorted. “You’re as crazy as Cerise.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and poured healing into her. The wound itself was tied to her summoning spell somehow, and didn’t want to close. But I could restore the lost blood easily enough. Good thing, too, because she’d been uncomfortably close to passing out.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed, Sefwin? The blood loss almost got you there.”

“I had more safety margin than you did when you dropped us all into this chamber,” she retorted. “I can read the tide of battle, Daniel. Don’t chide me for doing what was necessary to save my people.”

I gave her another quick shot of healing, and turned to lay down some more covering fire. Whatever that thing Sefwin had summoned was, it was wreaking havoc. Crossbows and magic had no effect on it, and the few axemen brave enough to close with the monster barely got in a blow or two before its flaming blades cut them apart. They were going to have a hell of a time stopping it.

Then the rescue party finally returned. The prisoners first, bruised and battered and still hampered by their manacles. The elves had weathered their brief imprisonment better than the humans, many of whom had to be helped along. I was relieved to see the rest of the airship crew among the group.

“Sefwin! What were you thinking?” Lashkin and Amiya embraced the clan heir, but they seemed even less thrilled with her antics than I was.

“We were in danger of being overrun,” she replied. “I had to keep them off balance long enough for us to get out of here.”

Tavrin stepped onto the disk with a scowl. “That was reckless, daughter.”

“That was awesome!” Cerise disagreed, bouncing onto the disk to clap her on the shoulder. “Way to work the angles, Sefwin. Is everyone on board?”

“Everyone who lives. We’d best depart before they get the waygate open.”

An explosion rocked the room. I looked up to see the giant demon thing climbing back to its feet, with one of its arms blown off and a smoking hole in its chest. Across the hall a team of dwarves was reloading… was that a bazooka?

Whooosh!

A trail of flame leaped across the room, and another explosion knocked the monster back down. Fuck. It really was a rocket launcher.

“Yeah, we’re done here. Hang on, everyone!”

I activated the overcharged levitation spell, and it threw the disk high into the air. High enough for my force magic to reach the ceiling, and pull us the rest of the way up. I called my earth talisman back, turning it into a floating barrier between us and that rocket team, and pulled us across the ceiling towards the breech. Then the spells on the disk engaged with the sides of the shaft, and sent us hurtling up towards the surface.

We emerged into the teeth of the storm, and once again the arctic cold hit me like a physical blow. Even with the force dome blocking the wind my face was instantly burning, and I could feel my amulet’s healing kick in. It was worse for the prisoners, especially the children.

I gave Sefwin another shot of healing, and pulled her under my warmth cloak. She kept her wounded arm on the power stone, but leaned into me gratefully.

“Fire spells!” Tavrin called, conjuring a tongue of flame in his hand. Several of the other elves did the same, and I noticed a couple of them handing out flamers to the elves we’d just rescued. Funny, I hadn’t even noticed them carrying the weapons. In a moment our group was ringed in fire, and the temperature rose to a more tolerable level.

“Sefwin, how long did you summon that Deathlord for?” Tavrin asked gravely.

“Until either it or the dwarves that were in the hall are dead,” she replied. “Please keep healing me, Daniel. The drain gets worse as it takes damage, and it draws on my life to keep its hold on this plane.”

“I’ve got you, Sefwin,” I assured her. “I can feel the blood drain, but I can keep up with it. Can you dismiss it?”

She shook her head. “I only had time for the most basic summoning. Sorry, but we’ll have to let it run its course. Are we returning to the ship, Daniel, or do you have some other way for us to leave?”

“Whatever we’re going to do, we need to move quickly,” Tavrin said. “We need to be long gone before they can organize a pursuit.”

“We’ll have to use the ship somehow,” I said. “But I’ll have to repair it first, and getting it ready to move in this kind of weather is going to take time. I think I need to get us some more breathing room.”

“Oh, boy,” Cerise said. “That’s the look you got just before you unleashed the mortars for the first time. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to kill all of the dwarves, and destroy the waygate,” I said. “Tavrin, can you get everyone back to the ship?”

“Certainly.”

“Do that, then. Sefwin, you stay here so I can keep you healed, and once we’re done you can use that tracking spell to lead us back to the ship. There’s no way I’d be able to find it in this weather. I’d probably just wander in circles until I froze solid.”

“Thawing out would suck,” Cerise commented. “Do you need me to stay here? If there’s going to be a show I don’t want to miss it, but I kind of want to check on Elin.”

“Go ahead. There won’t be anything interesting to see up here.”

Tavrin got the party moving. He turned back as he stepped off the disk.

“Take good care of my daughter, Daniel.”

“I will,” I told him. “I promise.”

“Father! You sound like you’re giving me away as a bride,” Sefwin complained.

“Well, depending on how you read the portents…”

“Don’t be absurd! How would that even work? Besides, I’ve only saved him once and even that was arguable. He’s clearly my Destined Mentor.”

“The Norns delight in confounding those who presume to read the threads of fate,” Tavrin replied serenely.

He turned, and vanished into the blowing snow without another word. I tried to focus on healing the slender elf-girl in my arms, and ignore how good she felt there. Why the heck was Tavrin suddenly joking about something like that, anyway?

“He can be so difficult,” Sefwin said. “I’m sure he’s only teasing me as revenge for making him worry, but it’s impossible to read him when he gets like that.”

“I figured,” I told her. “But I have to ask, what do you mean, ‘how would that work?’”

“Oh. Um. That’s a bit embarrassing. I have an obligation to produce at least two children, to continue the clan. Preferably more. It’s so hard for us to have children in this world, and our lives are a lot more dangerous than we’d prefer.”

“Oh? I suppose that makes sense, but I still don’t get it.”

She huffed. “I don’t know what fanciful tales you’ve been reading, Daniel, but there’s no such thing as a half-elf. I need to marry a proper elven man someday if I’m ever to have children. Most women of my clan marry early in their second century, just so they can start trying for a family as soon as possible. Although now that I think about it, I suppose humans don’t live long enough for that to be an issue.”

“I will,” I said hurriedly, before she could talk herself into anything. “I can heal old age as easily as anything else.”

“Oh? Well, good. We can’t have you dying on us before the clan is properly reestablished.”

We stood there in silence for a moment.

“You know, I’m pretty sure I can fix that fertility problem,” I said.

Her breath caught. “You can get an elf with child?”

“What? No, I… well, yeah, I could probably do that too. But what I meant was, I could make it easier for all the women in your clan to have children, so you wouldn’t have to worry about it so much.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t just a matter of fertility magic. The ambient mana in this world is so weak we can barely survive here, and…”

She stopped.

“And?” I prompted.

“This stone has enough power to create a place that’s like Svartalfheim,” she breathed. “You’re right, that could change everything. But can it maintain such a taxing spell? And if it can, would you really gift us such a priceless treasure?”

“Yes, to both. It’ll last a couple of centuries under that kind of load, and I can make another one in an hour. I’d be a pretty shitty lord if I didn’t do something that important for you, when it’s so easy for me.”

She didn’t reply at first. I went back to healing her, and waiting for her summoning to run its course. At least, until my body sense informed me that there were tears running down her cheeks.

“Sefwin?”

“T-thank you!”

“Hey, thank me when it’s actually done and we know it works.”

She shook her head. “I know better than to doubt. You’ll do it, and it will work, and my people will finally have a home again after two thousand years of exile. Thank you, my lord. I swear to you, you will not have cause to regret taking us in.”

“Well, that’s good-”

“Oh!” Her sudden cry interrupted me. Something about her felt different, suddenly. What? Wait, her arm was healing now.

“The fight ended?” I asked.

“Yes. Finally. I was starting to wonder if I’d have the strength to keep the mana tap going. I’ve never channeled such power before.”

I healed her arm, and restored the last of her lost blood.

“I’m sure it won’t be the last time. But let’s try to make sure you don’t need to take so many chances from now on, okay? Now, keep watch for a few minutes while I work.”

My final present to the dwarves was a chunk of solid nickel-iron the size of a bowling ball, with another set of quick and dirty enchantments. A link to the power stone. A solid force field protecting the ball, with a power reserve backing it up to ensure sudden blows wouldn’t collapse it easily. A familiar conjuration spell, on a somewhat larger scale than normal. The whole assembly wouldn’t run for more than a few hours before the spells broke down, but it wasn’t going to survive that long anyway.

I set the conjuration to start on a five-second delay, and dropped it into the hole.

“That should take care of those assholes,” I said. “Come on, let’s get back to the ship.”

A deep roar echoed up the hole, along with a bright flash of light. Sefwin stepped away from the opening, her eyes going wide.

“Daniel? What does that thing do?”

“It conjures lava. Well, molten metal from the core of the Earth, if you want to get technical. A few hundred pounds a second will generate a standing explosion powerful enough to kill anything that tries to get close, and the force field on the device will keep it from being destroyed. At least, it should survive until it ends up submerged in liquid iron and melts itself.”

She stared at me for a long moment.

“Come on, Sefwin. Let’s get back to the ship. I don’t think we have to worry about the dwarves attacking us again anytime soon.”

“No, I think they’ll be too busy dying for that. You don’t believe in half measures, do you?”

“Nope.”

I picked up the power stone, and set off into the storm. It was a miserable walk, although at least I didn’t have to worry about getting lost with Sefwin pointing the way.

My weary mind was already on the next step. Conjure more aluminum, and repair the
Intrepid
. Maybe use some iron here and there to speed things up, since conjuring aluminum is a slow process. Repair the controls, and make sure the dwarves didn’t sabotage anything else. Make another round of the wounded to make sure no one else was going to die.

Then what?

Flying in a blizzard was still a stupid idea, but I could modify the levitation spell so it would hold the ship at a fixed altitude and keep the wind from blowing it away. Headlights so we could see where we were driving. Maybe put a force field projecting forward to block the falling snow, so it wouldn’t obstruct our view? Something to get us through forested terrain, too, unless we could find a waterway to follow.