Elizabeth Bear - Book of Iron

His head, only, swiveled, the rest of his body as motionless as a praying insect’s. “Do not interfere,” he said.

Bijou stopped beyond his reach. She sidled one step, another. “What Dr. Liebelos said about saving the world. You have to get the book out of Maledysaunte, is that right?”

He simply regarded her. Gasping, Dr. Liebelos drew the hammer back for another effort.

“Because it will corrupt her?”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

She sidled another step. Now his back was to Salamander and the ragged Maledysaunte, who seemed now to choke on every breath. She had gone to her knees again. She clutched her throat, and with the second hammer blow fell to her side, legs kicking as if she were suffering a seizure. Perhaps she was, but Riordan and Kaulas were beside her to guide her down.

“You don’t care about saving the world,” Bijou said. Of course there was no point in explaining his own objectives to him—but she needed to keep his attention, and Prince Salih had already demonstrated that a direct assault was not the way to do it. And even constructs loved to talk about themselves…

The hammer rang again. Bijou didn’t steal a look. She knew the book—or the Book—would be taking shape on the anvil. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was keeping the guardian’s attention.

She said, “I think I understand you better than that. You don’t want the book out of Maledysaunte because it will make her some kind of witch-queen. You want it out of her because it won’t . Isn’t that the truth? She’s strong enough to live with it. And as long as it’s in her, it’s not destroying anything else.”

She was guessing, and his expressionless mask of a face gave her no advice as to whether she was guessing correctly. The hammer fell again; this time the thud was duller, as if something interposed between it and the anvil.

Maledysaunte arched against the mud, gagging on a scream. Kaulas leaned above her, holding her shoulders down. Her feet kicked brutally, leaving long gouges where the bootheels scraped.

“O Child,” said the Guardian. “You are blind.”

“Fine,” Bijou said, irritation rendering her incautious. “So tell us what you do want. Did it ever occur to you to ask for help?”

It certainly never occurred to me , a little voice mocked.

“The book must be destroyed,” he said. “That is the only way I can be free of this existence.”

“You must have had centuries to destroy it,” Bijou shot back. “Just getting around to it now?”

“I cannot wield the hammer,” he said.

“And if it can’t be destroyed?” Riordan said, rising up and leaving Maledysaunte to Kaulas.

Oh, Kaalha, she prayed. Don’t let him make the guardian turn around. If he caught sight of Salamander…

But Riordan came around a circle to confront the guardian at her side. “Then better to have it out wreaking havoc in the world than in safe containment, aye? In the witch’s head, it can sit safe forever. Where’s its mischief, in hands like hers?”

Whatever the guardian might have replied, it was lost in Salamander’s scream as she suddenly stood up and hurled her arms over her head. It wasn’t any kind of magic, just sheer stagecraft.

The guardian turned in his footprints, a hand coming up as if he meant to reach out and grab Salamander by the throat.

Something pale and swift struck from the water’s edge, hurling its long length through the mud to sink needle-fine fangs in the guardian’s calf. Bijou had a brief, confused image of hissing and a flickering tongue, a muscular writhing and then a shape like a bent bow as the amphisbaena whipped its other head out of the mud and plunged the second set of fangs into his neck.

He flailed, a hand coming up to grab at the snake’s midsection, but it was already gone—whipping itself end over end to somersault into the darkness like a hurled stick. Bijou had a moment to observe the thin trickles of black ichor that oozed from the bites—something that had not happened when the bullet passed through him—before he turned away to face Salamander over Maledysaunte’s convulsing body and Kaulas’s back.

Kaulas, Bijou realized, wasn’t just holding Maledysaunte down. His hands were inside her waistcoat, rummaging.

Bijou might not be an expert in assessing the emotional states of demigods, but she knew Kaulas. He was looking for a talisman, whatever might hold the secret to Maledysaunte’s immortality.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bijou spat. “In the middle of a battle? Kaulas! ”

She shouted that last as a warning, but the guardian wasn’t looking at the necromancers. His gaze was fixed on Salamander. One hand was raised to his throat; ichor slipped between his fingers and trickled down his arm, dripping from the point of his elbow to the floor.

The hammer rang again. Bijou thought the blows were falling farther apart. Dr. Liebelos was tiring. Prince Salih was lying somewhere in the cavern, possibly broken and bleeding. But he’d proven that without the guardian, they could physically intervene with Dr. Liebelos.

“Riordan,” she said to the bard beside her. “Get the hammer.”

He asked no questions, just stumbling away up the slight incline to the anvil. The mud dragged at his bad foot.

Across the cavern, Salamander shouted, “Natural weapons!”

Of course. The snake’s teeth hurt him. Bullets did not. Fists and feet, then—

Bijou leaned back and kicked the guardian right in the small of the back. Behind her, sounds of struggle rose as the hammering ceased. Salamander bent down, scooped up a rock, and hurled it at the guardian.

Maledysaunte’s hands came up and grasped Kaulas’s fumbling wrists. “Off me, you whoreson sorcerer!”

He didn’t move fast enough to suit her. She twisted against him, using her hips to throw him off—and directly into the path of the guardian as he leaped toward Salamander. Maledysaunte dragged herself up, a terrible figure in her mud-soaked clothing, lurching toward the anvil.

“Can’t beat the guardian,” she snarled, falling in the mud up the hill. “Got to remove his reason for fighting.”

Whatever his other failings, Kaulas reacted to his unexpected impact with the guardian by latching on—and lashing out with feet and fists. Bijou fully expected him to go flying in a moment, as the prince had.

“Mother!” Salamander cried, racing after Maledysaunte. But Maledysaunte was already at the top of the incline, where Riordan had Dr. Liebelos by the wrist. She twisted to get away from him.

Natural weapons , thought Bijou, as Ambrosias reared up out of the muck and sank its pincers into the guardian’s neck, below the base of the skull.

The shearing bite would have paralyzed a human; on the guardian, it only succeeded in connecting because his arms were encumbered by Kaulas. The guardian hurled the necromancer off into the mud, where he crumpled.

Prince Salih came limping out of the darkness, one arm dangling limply, his face a demon’s mask of blood and mud. With his good hand, he leveled a pistol at the guardian.

The guardian reached over his head to grab the articulated centipede. Ambrosias dangled from his fist, rattling like a string of beads.

“No!” Bijou shouted, crouching to scoop up a rock as big as her fist. She wound her arm back—

The guardian stopped. His fingers opened. He dropped the bone and jewel centipede in the thrashed and slimy soil.

Bijou followed the line of her gaze.

Maledysaunte and Riordan stood beside the empty anvil, the hammer slack in Maledysaunte’s hand. Dr. Liebelos was a huddle at their feet. Salamander had stopped halfway up the hill, frozen in horror, hands spread wide as if she could arrest the moment.