Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) (32 page)

Tina beamed. “I’m so happy for you. Daniel, did you do something?”

“A little,” I replied.

“You fixed my wings!” Cerise landed in front of me, and threw herself into my arms. “Fuck, I love you! You are so getting lucky tonight. Are you going to try it?”

“I’m not eager to try growing wings,” I said. “I think I can come up with a viable alternative, but it’s going to take some work. What about you? Is the ring good, or do we need to add some refinements? Maybe a variable strength lift field instead of just an on/off switch?”

She got a thoughtful look.

“A controllable field would be better, yeah. But I don’t want to depend on a ring to be able to fly. Do you think we could put the enchantment directly on me? Or maybe just strengthen that aspect of my flight magic?”

Well, that was an interesting idea. I had to stop and think about it for a minute. I could see what needed to be done. Normally a person’s magic would resist any outside force attempting to change it, but this was Cerise.

I gave her a skeptical look. “You want me to change your personal magic? That isn’t going to be easy.”

She met my eyes, and opened herself to our coven bond. “We can do it, Daniel. I just have to open myself up completely, and then relax and let you work. Right?”

Yeah, like that was a small thing.

“What are you doing now?” Tina’s curious voice interrupted from right beside me.

“Daniel’s about to ram his massive sorcerous power deep into my soul, and reshape my magic to fix the problem with my flight magic,” Cerise purred.

Tina’s breath caught. “Oh, my! That sounds exciting. Can I watch?”

“It’s not as dramatic as she makes it sound, Tina. You really get off on that kind of thing, don’t you?”

Tina blushed. “You know I do, Daniel.

“She’s not the only one,” Cerise said. “I keep hoping you’ll get the hint.”

It was hard not to, with the coven bond wide open. Cerise’s darker desires still made me a little uncomfortable, and her fascination with power exchange was rather different than Tina’s reflexive submissiveness. But was there really any harm in giving her what she wanted?

Not that I could see. But if we were going to play that way, I should put in the effort to do it right.

“We aren’t going to do it here on the lawn,” I said firmly. “It could take some time, and I don’t want to be interrupted. I’ve been meaning to set up one of the empty labs for transformation experiments anyway.”

“Okay,” Cerise said slowly, clearly wondering where I was going with this.

“It’s going to be delicate work,” I went on. “There’s no telling what kind of phantom sensations it might cause, either. I’ll need to restrain you so you don’t thrash around too much. As strong as you are, I’ll need to build a heavy iron cross to attach the chains to.”

Her eyes lit up. “Chains?”

I nodded. “Definitely a nine-point restraint setup. Wrists and ankles wouldn’t cut for you.”

“Nine-point restraint?” Her breath was coming faster now.

“Ankles, thighs, wrists, shoulders, neck,” I explained, touching each point in turn. “I’d better do something with that naughty tail of yours, too.”

Tina looked a little confused, but also quite intrigued. “Can I help?”

I looked down at her and smiled. “Well, Tina, Cerise is going to be completely helpless for a couple of hours while I work on her magic, and it’s very important that she not resist. Do you think you can make her feel… cooperative?”

She licked her lips. “I can do that.”

“Hours?” Cerise squeaked. Her thighs pressed together, and she squirmed in place.

“Hours,” I confirmed. I waited a couple seconds, and then went on. “After lunch.”

Avilla had just stepped out the breakfast room door to call us in. She smiled when she saw I’d already noticed her, and I started in her direction.

“What? Wait, no, you can’t stop now!” Cerise whined, reluctantly trailing along behind me.

“You don’t want to miss one of Avilla’s lunches, do you?” I asked innocently.

“That would be terrible,” Tina agreed. Either she was completely oblivious to Cerise’s distress, or she was a better actress than I’d thought. “She works really hard to make everything perfect for us.”

“But-”

I gave her firm behind a light swat. “No buts, pet. Come along, now. We’ll play with you later.”

She gasped. For a second I was afraid I’d gone too far. The sharp spike of pure joy that erupted across the coven bond ended that worry, though. She molded herself against my side, and snaked an arm around my waist.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” I assured her.

I gave Avilla a kiss on the way in, and went to take my place at the head of the table. A new table, with a polished surface of dark wood and decorative carvings on the legs. The chairs were new, too, and a lot more comfortable than the crude pieces the carpenters had thrown together during our first few days in the keep.

I’d noticed a lot of subtle changes like that in the last couple of days, since Avilla had retired from her former duties as castellan. Rugs appearing in high-traffic areas. A couple of paintings on the walls. A supply of big, soft white towels in the bathing area. It was nice, watching this cavernous maze of stone I’d thrown together gradually turn into a home.

Elin was already at the table, wearing a fluffy house robe with her hair still damp from the bath. She had her nose buried in a book, as usual, but she looked up with a smile as we came in.

“Hey, Elin. Enjoying being home?”

“Immensely. I’ve finally caught up on healing all of our people, and today I intend to take full advantage of this decadent paradise you and Avilla have created. I shall lounge about all day without bothering to properly dress, repeatedly stuff myself with delicious food, and soak in hot baths until I wrinkle into a prune.”

“But Elin, you don’t get wrinkles in the tub,” Tina pointed out.

“Precisely,” she replied. “If I go missing for a few days you shall know where to find me.”

“Good thing we aren’t having a staff meeting today,” I observed. “What are you reading?”

Her eyes returned to the book, and I’m pretty sure she was reading again when she answered.

“Benito’s
Commentaries on the Philosophers
. The Runesage had a fascinating perspective on the insights and shortcomings of the Greek classics. I’m in the middle of his deconstruction of the Sophists, and it’s really quite devastating.”

“No doubt. I don’t remember seeing that one before, though.”

“I, ah, may have made a stop at a bookseller or two while I was out healing the other day. I hope that’s alright? I understand we’re about to become rich beyond the dreams of avarice, so I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“She had to get two guys to help carry the books in from the skimmer,” Cerise put in.

I chuckled. “Sounds like we have similar book-buying habits, Elin. No, it’s fine. I’m sure we can afford it.”

Avilla came in with a big tureen of soup, and rolled her eyes. “Really, Elin? Do I have to make a rule about no books at the table?”

“Oh, I’m sorry Avilla. I suppose that was a bit rude of me. I was just passing the time until everyone arrived, and I got a bit caught up. It shan’t happen again.”

She closed the book, and got up to carefully place it on a side table against the wall.

“‘Shan’t?’ What a funny word,” Tina said.

“Elin’s all edumacated,” Cerise said sagely.

“She’s really smart,” Tina agreed guilelessly. “What’s a Sophist, anyway?”

“A long time ago there were a bunch of really smart guys who tried to figure out all the secrets of the universe with their huge brains,” Cerise explained. “Only they disagreed on all kinds of stuff, so each of the famous ones founded his own school to teach the answers he thought were right. The Sophists were one of those schools.”

“Oh. Were they wizards?”

“That’s right. They were the guys who invented wizardry, actually. They did a bunch of really famous stuff, so smart people are always reading about them. Only, they always end up arguing about the same things the ancient schools did. A lot of their arguments were about things that no one really understands, even today.”

“Oh.” Tina seemed to pause, thinking about that. Then she beamed at Cerise. “Thank you, Cerise. You’re really good at explaining things. I think I even understood that.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Elin agreed. “Oh, this looks lovely, Avilla. Thank you for the meal.”

From what I’d seen lunch in Varmland was usually pretty basic. Cold cuts and chunks of bread, or these funny open-faced sandwich things. But Avilla was never satisfied with simple meals. Today she’d made a hearty potato soup topped with cheese and spices, and the maids were setting out baskets of fresh bread sticks and bowls of salad. The last one carried a covered platter that turned out to be full of little bite-sized cuts of steak wrapped in bacon.

I noticed the maids looked different today, too. They had new uniforms, not too different from the old ones but a lot nicer looking. Black dresses with white aprons, a bit tight across the chest and cut scandalously short by local standards. The new version was a finer cloth, with a bit of lace decorating the short sleeves and the hem of the knee-length skirt. They moved differently, too. More confident, skillfully coordinating without getting in each other’s way. That, and their smiles seemed more genuine.

“I see you’ve been putting your newfound scheduling freedom to good use,” I told Avilla. “How are things going?”

“Wonderful,” she said happily, taking her place next to me. “I know things have been awfully slapdash around here until now, but I promise it’s going to get better.”

“I don’t have any complaints,” I said.

“You haven’t lived with her while she had all her magic set up and working,” Cerise said knowingly. “She’s going to knock your socks off.”

She took a bite out of a breadstick. “Mmm, that’s my girl’s special recipe alright. What are you starting with, honeydew? This doesn’t feel like your health and healing blend.”

“We hardly need that with the amulets Daniel made us,” Avilla pointed out. “I’m focusing on might, both physical and magical, and working in protections against different kinds of hostile magic around the edges. Give it a week and you won’t have to worry about subtle curses like that magic wine the elves gave you anymore.”

“I’m just happy you cook for us,” Tina said. “Everything you make is so good! I feel guilty about not helping out with the work, but I know I can’t compete with you in the kitchen.”

Avilla’s smile was a little smug. “Don’t worry about it, Tina. I love cooking, especially now that I’m not running around all day like a chicken with its head cut off. I’m sure you’ll find something else you can do to help out. Looking after the children, if nothing else.”

“I can do that,” Tina agreed.

I paused with a spoonful of soup halfway to my mouth. “Children? Plural?”

“Not just yet,” Avilla assured me. “Goodness, the look on your face just then was priceless.”

“I guess that was silly of me,” I admitted. “It’s not like it’s going to happen by accident.”

“Of course not. But speaking of children, I would like to start thinking about plans. Maybe once you’ve finished the Black Citadel, and we have enough men and magic weapons that we aren’t worried about being attacked?”

I swallowed. “You’re serious about this?”

She leaned towards me, putting her hand on my chest and gazing up at me through hooded eyes. “Yes, Daniel. I want children. I want your children. I want to be smart about arranging things properly, so I can take good care of them. But I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. Will you give me a child soon, Daniel?”

“I, um, wow.”

“Oh, do let the poor man eat,” Elin interrupted. “There’s no need to ambush him with the decision.”

“Thank you, Elin,” I said.

“The Yule feast would be an auspicious time,” she went on. “A new beginning amidst the destruction of the old world. I’m sure this mighty erection of stone and iron will be suitably vast by then.”

“Dibs on the spring equinox,” Cerise said. “Unless you want to share it, Elin? Actually that would be perfect. Give my little demon brat a faerie playmate the same age to grow up with?”

“Spring equinox?” Elin repeated, sounding flustered. “I’m still not sure it would be safe, Cerise.”

“Oh!” Tina said. “I completely forgot. I asked Bast about it, Elin.”

“She answers your prayers?” Elin said uncertainly. She glanced at Tina’s baby bump. “But she’s… how does that work?”

Tina shrugged, unconcerned. “She’s a goddess. She said she gave you the good kind of motherhood blessing, not the dinky one. Oh, and you shouldn’t doubt her so much, or she might get ticked off.”

“The good kind?” Elin said uncertainly.

“That’s right. The mother of victory is personally watching out for you, Elin. Nothing bad is going to happen with your babies. So stop worrying and pick a date.”

Cerise and I spent the following afternoon hunting felwolves.

With her flight magic properly adjusted she was light as a feather when she wanted to be. She flew in eager loops around me during my own test flight, trying progressively more acrobatic maneuvers as she got comfortable with her new maneuverability. I’d boosted her speed with force magic while I was working on her, and the extra thrust made her as agile as a hummingbird.

I’d spent most of the morning designing and building my own flight enchantment, which required a rather different design since I had no intention of grafting a set of wings onto my back. While I could probably make functional wings using my flesh sorcery I was sure it would take days to work out all the details, and come with all sorts of inconvenient drawbacks. Replicating the complex mix of biology and magic that Cerise’s body now ran on would be even harder, and I wasn’t eager to experiment with turning myself into a demon. She had divine magic helping her manage the side effects of her transformation, but I didn’t.

So instead I copied that weight-negation trick, and did everything else with pure force magic. That required some complex adjustments of the lift field to make it handle every situation properly. Near the ground it could just work like the hover field on a skimmer, but at any significant altitude the spell would have to grab onto air around me and push it away to create thrust. The weight negation meant it could hold me up with a stiff breeze instead of a hurricane, but I still had to arrange the field so it didn’t have any annoying side effects.

I didn’t want it throwing another flier around if they got too close to me, or pushing away people or objects I was carrying. The weight negation needed to be adjustable too, to account for the possibility of cargo. Turning my force field into an automatic windscreen seemed like a sensible measure, but then I had to worry about its aerodynamics. Not to mention mine. Most shapes will tumble or spin when you push them through the air at high speeds, and I wasn’t an aerospace engineer. Although I did have perfectly vectored thrust, which would make correcting problems a lot easier than in a plane.

There were so many details to work out. I kept my first few test flights low and slow, and stopped to make adjustments every few minutes. Even so I had cause to be thankful for my safe fall enchantment a couple of times. I spent some hours working out bugs before I felt safe enough to climb to a few hundred feet and play tag with Cerise.

She evaded me with laughing ease, of course.

“You’re too slow!” She called, pulling a wingover that somehow took her under me and back up to tap me on the shoulder before I could blink. “Tag, you’re still it.”

I spun, but she was already darting away.

“Your wings bite the air better than my levitation,” I complained. “This is like skating on ice for me, when you’ve actually got traction.”

“Yeah, yeah, boring wizard talk. I’m just a better flyer than you.”

“True,” I admitted. “You’re a natural. How fast do you think you can go?”

“I dunno. Race you to the far end of the harbor!”

She was off like a shot. I went after her immediately, dumping more power into thrust than I’d dared try so far. A slight wobble built up as my airspeed rose, but the new force field shape seemed to be working.

Cerise glanced back and saw me gaining on her. With a grin she flexed her wings, and shot forward even faster. I increased my thrust until I was gaining again.

The busy harbor flew by beneath us. Sailors looked up from their work to gawk as we flashed past. Cerise dropped a hundred feet towards the water, picking up even more speed as she wove between a pair of tall sailing ships. I stayed high, pushing more energy into my spells and keeping to a straight line. If I tried any sudden turns at this speed I’d end up tumbling into the river for sure.

I shot past the far edge of the harbor doing well over a hundred miles per hour, with Cerise hot on my heels. My flight carried me past the city wall a moment later, just as I was starting to slow.

“You’re fast, but I’m faster,” I called as I drifted to a halt.

Cerise slammed into me with a giddy shriek, wrapped her long legs around my waist and kissed me fiercely. Her lips were hungry and demanding, her lean body warm and strong and so vibrantly alive. I tangled my hands in her windblown hair, and kissed her back.

Finally, she broke away.

“That was awesome!” She crowed. “I can fly even faster than my bike. But you still outran me. How do you go so fast?”

“Try folding your wings, and just push yourself as hard as you can. The tricky part is doing it without sending yourself into a tumble. If you use your wings to stabilize yourself the drag will slow you down.”

“I get it. The push part of the magic is that strong? I guess it must be, if you can fly with just that. Let me give it a shot.”

She let go of me, and darted straight up at a pretty good clip. I followed at a more leisurely pace, keeping an eye on our surroundings. There were some enemy air cavalry on patrol a couple of miles away, but they didn’t seem eager to fly over and attack us. Probably because we were still in range of the air defense guns on the island.

Cerise did a complex roll that ended with her level again, headed out across the river. Her wings extended, and flapped a few times as she got up to a good cruising speed. Then she pulled them in, and flared the force magic that I’d woven into her last night.

I followed along a few hundred yards above and behind her, keeping half an eye on our surroundings as I watched her experiment. Once again, she displayed a supernatural talent for physical skills. She spent a few minutes experimenting, folding her wings in and angling them in various ways, but unlike my own fumbling efforts she never spun out into a crash.

We crossed both the river and the forest on the south bank, leaving Kozalin behind. Her speed rose in fits and starts as she got used to this new method of flying, but it wasn’t long before I was struggling to keep up. Then she suddenly hit her stride, and rocketed away from me at a speed I didn’t dare try to emulate. I was already pushing two hundred miles per hour, and the way she was pulling away from me she had to be well over two fifty.

I slowed down a little, and watched her go. The sky was overcast, and I was a little concerned about losing sight of her. Once again I was reminded that I really needed to come up with a magical substitute for radios. Not that I had any real concerns about her ability to take care of herself out here, but Avilla would worry herself sick if either of us returned home alone.

Fortunately Cerise realized the problem before she got more than a couple of miles away. She made a long, lazy turn above the snow-covered plains, and looped back to join me. I went into a hover as she approached.

“What’s wrong, slowpoke? Can’t keep up?” She called.

“That thing you just did where you figured out how to perfectly manage your wings at every speed in a couple of minutes? I’m going to need the rest of the day to do that.”

“What, really? But it’s easy.”

“Only for you,” I told her. “Hey, be glad I’m not a normal wizard. At least my sorcery lets me adjust my flight enchantment in a few minutes instead of days.”

“Months,” she corrected. “A normal wizard would have to use a big gold amulet with runes etched into it to shape the enchantment, and it would take months to build something that complicated with normal techniques. Then they’d have to melt it down and start all over every time they had to make a change. Having enough power to just burn magic into the metal like you do is an incredible shortcut.”

“Well, try to remember that what you do with physical skills is just as incredible. Mind playing lookout for me while I do some more test runs? I don’t have to get everything perfect today, but I want to get to where I’m confident I can outrun anything I might meet up here.”

She smiled. “Sure, I can watch your clumsy butt wander all over the sky. Just try not to crash again or I’m going to laugh at you.”

She did, too.

My safe fall enchantment made an excellent defense against crashing, so I wasn’t actually hurt by my mishaps. But I was glad Avilla wasn’t out here to see me flailing around. She’d probably have a heart attack.

Half a dozen crashes later I’d worked out a scheme involving vectored thrust and little fins on my force field that seemed to work well. Unlike my first try, which had sent me spinning violently. Or my second, which had seemed perfect until I tried to turn and suddenly spun out of control. Or my third, or fourth, or… ugh. At least I was getting better at handling vertigo. Sometimes I even managed to recover from a tumble before I hit the ground.

I wearily pulled myself out of the smashed remains of a tree, and realized I’d actually gotten a couple of bruises this time. I’d been steadily edging up to progressively higher speeds, but if I was reaching the limits of my crash protection it was probably time to call it quits for the day.

Cerise flitted down to hover over me with a huge smile on her face. “You alright there, old man? Ready for a break?”

“Yeah, I think I’m about done with flight experiments for the day. I’ll just have to concede the aerial speed demon title to you.”

“Well, I am the only demon here. But if you’re up for a little hunting, I saw some tracks a minute ago that might be felwolves.”

That surprised me. “Really? I wasn’t expecting to find one this close to Kozalin.”

She rolled her eyes. “Daniel, we’ve been working our way south this whole time. Kozalin is probably a hundred miles behind us. Didn’t you notice that we’re getting into hill country here?”

“I was a little preoccupied,” I admitted. I rose into the air, and looked around. Sure enough, we’d made our way into a region of rolling hills quite different from the flat plains around Kozalin. I was going to have to be more careful about that. Fast flight was a convenient way to travel, but it would be easy to get completely lost if I didn’t pay attention.

“Have you had a chance to enchant that tool you were talking about?” I asked.

Cerise pulled a long, pointed blade from behind her back. “My little sample sticker? Got it right here. Thanks for sharing those secrets of fast enchanting, by the way. Even with unlimited power it would have taken me a week to make this the old way.”

“How long did it actually take you?” I asked, curious.

“Oh, I just whipped it up this morning while you were making your flight ring,” she replied, trying to sound casual. The gleam in her eye gave her away, though, and she couldn’t hold up the facade. “It’s so fucking cool to be able to do shit like that. I’ve got all kinds of neat implements in the works now. I’m getting so strong it’s scary.”

“Our enemies should be scared,” I agreed. “I’m glad things are coming together for you, love. Well, sure, let’s see if we can find ourselves a felwolf. I’ve heard that spotting things from the air can be surprisingly hard, but considering how big those things are you’d think they’d be bad at hiding.”

“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll find them.”

We kept our altitude down to a few hundred feet as we backtracked to where Cerise had spotted the tracks, moving slowly and pausing now and then to look over each valley we crossed. There were a lot of wooded patches on the slopes of the hills, but it looked to me like most of the flatter areas had been farmland.

Had been.

There were little villages everywhere, but they were just ruins now. The burned-out husks of wooden buildings, blanketed in deep snow. Rows of broken wagons along the roads. A country inn at a crossroads, with one whole side of the main building caved in. Everywhere we went we found nothing but devastation. There was no sign of any surviving humans, just one destroyed settlement after another.

Cerise stopped over the remains of a small castle built atop a hill, and studied it thoughtfully.

“Looks like a giant attack,” she said. “See how that whole tower is collapsed, and the wall around it? Trolls couldn’t do that, and a dragon would have burned everything.”

I nodded. “I think you’re right. This is recent, too. The snow in the courtyard is only a few inches deep.”

The courtyard must have been crammed with refugees. Now there was only a tangle of ripped canvas and broken tent poles covered in a thin layer of snow. And bodies. Dozens of lumps that were obviously bodies, lying still beneath the snow.

There should have been hundreds, for a place this size. But the felwolves would have been hungry.

“I’m really starting to hate monsters,” I said quietly.

“Yeah. Daniel? Can I borrow Grinder?”

“Sure.” I took the weapon from my belt, and handed it to her. “What for?”

She pointed, across the hill and down the valley on the other side. There was a rocky slope there, between two stands of trees.

“I think I see their camp.”

I looked again, and realized that what I’d mistaken for boulders were actually tents. Huge, round things that stood almost as tall as the trees.

I looked again at the ruined castle, and felt a grim smile settle onto my face.

“Let’s go pay them a visit, shall we?”

The first time I’d fought a giant in this world I’d almost died, and Cerise had barely been able to distract one of the felwolves it had been using like hunting dogs. But we’d come a long way since then. I drew my revolver as we flew towards the camp, counting tents. Nine of them, it looked like, and a half-dozen shaggy lumps that were definitely felwolves lying around them. Only one giant was visible, standing motionless near the top of a steep slope where he’d have a clear view of the valley below.