image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd7FNYK3nejiui88WOPIfjafe3WoG_wU_fEvor6CM1y7bZbY26Tf6kJLmO_x13CmotSOtk5xyK4kjLHmILM9rbY0ofjHj07_Ddq9pXfMHYXAEfFSbOuZ96rUfat5jSASDglsIep?key=-5d5HXcy_-Z1Dy7smZavRBlv]
“I won’t do it,” the demon said.
“You will,” I told him, keeping my voice level.
“You can’t make me,” the other one sniffed, folding his arms and turning away. “I can hold back my duplication if I wish.”
“You’re a card now,” I reminded him, my hands tightening on the stone crenellations of the wall in front of me. “You’re my card.”
image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdcKPAbEEOgVeIUqzK5KUpOwtGwZxxJIC21IORRvDkpNt5xo9RidvO9yj4Nhwys_jKmyHp09AIvmyE1ffU3RFqWP6MkoD-ylO8b8cYu7y6zPOneR3c1WmZCHPdZ5W2FHf-0fM1eFw?key=-5d5HXcy_-Z1Dy7smZavRBlv]
I looked back and forth between his two current bodies. “I can make you do it, and am in fact doing so right now.”
The one on my right flashed a snotty little smile at me and gestured to the furious fighting down below the city wall where we now stood. “Does it appear you are succeeding?”
A flash of the good old anger shot through me like lightning, and I imagined pulling his card from my Mind Home and shattering it with my Hammer. Some of my friends were out there in the fighting, and I wanted nothing more than to be with them, but I’d been held back to get this shithead’s duplication going, and now I was stuck arguing with him. “Look, you’re angry because we killed you. I understand that.”
“You understand nothing,” the demon interrupted. “Those that win have every right to command those that lose. Or perhaps you think I care that you wish to send me against my own kind? I’ve killed more of them than you could hope to in ten lifetimes.”
“Then start doubling yourself and get your ass out there,” I growled.
His smile deepened and grew nastier. “Make me.”
“That’s what I’m doing!” I shouted.
“The problem,” the one to my left said, crossing his arms and leaning against the parapet, “is you. The one who killed me handed me off to his underling who somehow thinks to command a Mythic. I’m Yveda the Endless, not some sniveling imp.”
I picked that one and got right up in his face, but he refused to meet my eye. With the hand that bore my brass knuckles I took him by the jaw and forced him to look at him. For all his rebellion, I was almost completely sure he couldn’t snap at my fingers with those sharp teeth of his or do me harm in any way – I was his Summoner, after all, whether he liked it or not. I’d have preferred to make my point with claws extended, but all that would do was weaken any copies he made. “You’ve met the Night Terror in my Mind Home.”
He sneered, ignoring my fingers tight on his face. It was the other one that spoke. “A simpering shell of a creature.”
I kept my eyes on the one I held. “He told you the things I’ve had him do.” I was guessing both at how the Souls might interact within my Mind Home, a space I’d only vaguely conceived of, and what the Night Terror might have said, but when Yveda said nothing, I knew I was right. “He told you who I am.”
The demon tsked and pulled back from my hand. “I never would have thought that particular Yveda would whelp a half-human.”
He did know my mother. My demons had told me ages ago that their kind used the same name depending on how many impressive kills they had – a confusing system, if anyone had bothered to ask me – and it was surreal to realize that the woman who’d made a hole in the center of my life and my memories had the same name as this smug asshole. I itched to ask him more about her, but I squelched the desire; there was work to be done, and my friends needed my help. She doesn’t deserve a single shred more of my time, anyway.
“The point is,” I said, backing up so I could see him both at once, “I don’t mind breaking cards if the soul inside is more trouble than it’s worth. And if you don’t start living up to the ‘endless’ part of your name, you go on that list. Understand?”
He snarled at me sullenly with both bodies. “I’ll send one of myself back to the other leaders out there and give up all your secrets.”
“You don’t know our secrets. Twins take me, I don’t know our secrets. You and me just hit things. Other people make the plans.” I stepped forward again, forcing eye contact. “And I don’t like tattlers any more than I like useless cards.”
One of him turned and looked over the edge at the chaos down below – orcs, demons, undead, and humans all swinging weapons and tearing flesh, Spells booming on all sides. “I don’t like being in the middle of a fight,” he admitted quietly.
I’d thought so. He was a hider, this one – used to making his copies do the dirty work while he stayed somewhere safer. “The worst thing that could happen to you already has. If all your copies die, the only thing that happens is that you go back in my Mind Home until you’re summoned again.”
The one still facing me chewed on that silently for a moment. “I’m not used to it.”
“Get used to it,” I told him, “or get broken forever.” I’d shown him the stick, now it was time for the honey. “I’ll let you keep a single copy up here on the wall so long as you continue to double as fast as you can and send the rest down into the fighting.”
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
With a sigh and a shrug, the one looking over the edge split into two and walked over to the post driven into the top of the crenellation. A wide chain hung down from it on the outside of the wall, allowing a defender to safely slide down to where it ended just over ten feet off the ground. “You drive a hard bargain just like your mother.” With that, he grabbed the chain with both bodies and slid down toward the fighting. By the time he’d reached the end and let go, there were four of him. It was dizzying to watch.
Turning around, I saw a cluster of four still standing there. “Get going, all of you. I said only one up top.”
“We’re going to have to have some long conversations about how you treat your Souls,” one said as it walked past me to the pole and chain.
I barked a laugh. If this demon had ever been anything less than a cruel tyrant I’d eat my boots. I joined the queue of bodies waiting to descend – there were six of him now, with another approaching me from behind – looking over my hand. Once I was on the ground I could summon my Marauders. My Plate was already donned and my Talisman in place. It was time to jump in and kill some Twins-damned bad guys.
A hawk’s shriek from overhead drew my gaze, and there was Edaine hanging from Halifax’s claws swooping by just overhead. The griffon deposited her on the walkway before winging skyward. Gale waved at me from his mount’s back and they circled back out toward the fighting.
“Get to it,” I told the Yveda copies. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
I thought I heard someone mutter coward, but when I looked back, they all had their focus on getting down off the wall. A few of the dozen or so standing there decided it’d be quicker to jog over to the next pole set in the stone some fifty feet away, and off they went. I’m going to have my hands full with this shithead. Mythics are a pain in the ass.
“General,” I said by way of greeting as I approached her.
“Hull,” she said. “Why aren’t there a thousand of those things by now?”
“It took a little persuasion,” I admitted. “We’re getting into it now, though, as you can see.”
She looked at the rapidly multiplying numbers crowding the chains. “That single card of yours might just make the difference for us. In a single stroke you boys killed one of the generals of the demon horde, denied them unnumbered fighting bodies, and added them to our side at the same time. Fortune smiles on us.”
I grunted. “If he wanted to smile on us with a lightning storm right over the attackers, I’d take that too.”
“I have to confer with the King, but I’ll be back to the lines within half an hour,” she promised. “One of our Kestrel advance scouts just made contact, and I have to report in. The main body of the army will be here by nightfall.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ve done it, then.”
“Not yet, we haven’t,” Edaine replied. “It’s not just enemy grunts and lieutenants out there – we may have taken out their war machines, but they surely have powerful souls out there that we have yet to encounter.” She knocked on my breastplate. “This will be the longest day of your life, Hull, but as far as I’m concerned, you’ve proven your worth. Get out there and kill some of those bastards for me.”
“Yes, sir,” I said stoutly, hiding my weariness as she walked away. Our hunting party of lieutenants had barely had time to snatch a meal before they’d hustled us into the fray – the assault had begun, and we’d been needed. You can rest when the day’s over. Nightfall. You can make it that far. The sun had not yet reached its noon peak.
Someone bumped into me rushing past, and I turned to see a soldier with his hair in a long braid over his armor hurrying away. I blinked. How had he gotten there? Had I been so caught up in talking to General Edaine that I hadn’t even noticed someone approach? If so, I needed to get my head back on straight – letting someone get that close without me seeing was a good way to get knifed.
A felt an unexpected scratchiness in my pocket and reached for it, pulling out a strip of paper that hadn’t been there a moment before. Good to see you, it said. Keep my rock with you – you’ll need it.
My heart clenched even as I turned to look for the retreating soldier. He was nowhere to be seen despite there not being a stairway off the top of the wall anywhere near here. Was that her in disguise or just some patsy she used? It hardly mattered. Mother was here somewhere, and that spelled trouble.
“General!” I yelled, turning back the other direction. She was halfway down the ramp to the inner bailey, hurrying fast. “General, wait!”
She just waved and kept going. Who knew what she’d thought I said? The chaos of noise from beyond the wall made everything hard to hear. I debated running after her, but what would I say? I got a note from Mommy that said she’s here to visit. What good would it do? The whole point was that we couldn’t see her coming. The best I could do was get out there to help Esmi, Afi, and even Gerad, damn him. If Mother was here… I’d deal with that when I had to. With a Mythic in my head, she’d find it a little harder to slip away once she showed herself.
Turning back to the pole and chain, I was surprised to see at least as many Yvedas clustered around it as I’d left a few minutes before. “What the hell?” I barked. “Didn’t I tell you to get down there?”
The group rolled their eyes in unison and pointed over the wall’s edge. Looking down, I saw an ever-expanding semi-circle of black-skinned demons tearing into a loose, disorganized phalanx of Orcs, all of them howling defiance. There had to be two hundred of the bastard down there, and for every one that fell, three more sprang into being.
“...Oh,” I said. I was only just beginning to understand how powerful this damned demon was. The fact that Gerad and I had managed to kill him still made me reel. Fate’s saggy tits, there’s no way I’m giving up this card once the battle’s over.
The demon copies had made a safe redoubt out of themselves where I could descend, and I pushed in front of the ones still waiting to go down the chain, putting myself at the front. They’d all get there eventually, and if they didn’t, well, it’d only be because they’d multiplied so much that they were no longer needed. Give me a couple of days and I might be able to take on a big chunk of this army on my own! I laughed, and despite the scare I’d taken from my mother’s note, I started to feel just the tiniest bit hopeful.
BOOM. The wall bucked and shuddered under my feet, and I clung to the chain, my heart hammering as my feet slipped off the edge and I swung free over the parapet. Yvedas to either side of me fell shrieking to the battleground far below, and some shook loose from the chain lower down. I swung wildly and gripped as hard as I could. I’d survive if I fell, but that wasn’t the way I wanted to join the fray.
“What happened?” I screamed. The noise of the battle below blended with the cries of the Yvedas and the sounds of huge hunks of stone clattering down on all sides. As I spun I saw a boulder bigger than a horse go plowing through the enemy ranks like a pebble skipping across a flat pond, leaving red ruin in its wake.
I finally got my feet back on the wall and pulled myself to safety. Looking down from the wall into the city, it looked like an anthill that someone had poked with a stick. People were running and screaming in all directions. Casting around for the source of the panic, I soon found it.
Five hundred feet to my left smoke and dust rose into the sky in a thick column. I could follow the curve of the wall from here to there, and in the midst of the smoke I saw that an entire section of the city’s wall was just… gone.
The Orcs had breached our best defense, and down below countless demons, Undead, and Orcs were streaming into the city.