Christopher Golden - The Borderkind

“You want war,” Frost said, gathering all of the moisture in the room to him and emanating a frigid power that caused ice to form on the ground beneath him and the door behind him. “You want the Two Kingdoms to break their truce and go to war against one another, to destroy each other so that you can step in and try to rule them both. But the Borderkind presented a threat. My kind are not sworn to serve either government, are not citizens of either kingdom or subjects of any king. You sent the Hunters to slaughter us to prevent us from interfering, or from fleeing to the world beyond the Veil.”

Ty’Lis clapped softly. “You have the threads of it. But you miss the largest part. The Veil…the hated Veil. With all of you filthy myths destroyed and the enchantments that hold doors open to the world of men undone, the Veil will become an impenetrable border. There will be no more Lost Ones, no more humans to breed here. Atlantis will rule all and, in time, the existence of the human world will become nothing but…well, a myth.”

Frost glanced around the room, gauging the positions of the soldiers and the Perytons. The temperature in the room continued to drop as he exerted his influence. Ty’Lis had to die first. If any of his allies was able to interfere, Frost wouldn’t have a chance.

“And the Legend-Born? You sent Hunters after them as well,” he said.

“Naturally,” Ty’Lis replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. He still did not rise from his silken chair, as though Frost presented no threat. “They are the most dangerous of all. The Bascombes are the only Legend-Born to appear in the human world for well over a century. Their rare breed have always been eradicated in the past, but it had been so long that the monarchs of our world had become lax, some even doubtful that the Legend-Born were more than myth.

“Of course, I knew better, and took their destruction upon myself. I had hoped they would be dead long before now. Their resilience has forced me to adapt.”

The winter man tensed, about to gust across the room and freeze the air in the sorcerer’s lungs. He would transform in an instant, flowing from solid to storm and then manifesting again as a sheet of ice, shearing the Atlantean’s head from his neck.

Ty’Lis stroked his braided beard, the aura of dark light around him pulsing. “Pause a moment, Frost. Your friends are about to join us. The Sandman failed to kill them, but that’s all right. It would have been convenient, but I planned well for that possibility.”

Frost blocked out the voice, suspecting the sorcerer might use magic to sway him. But there came a blow upon the door behind him that shook its frame, and then a second. With the third the frame splintered and Frost swept aside as the thick wooden door swung open.

Oliver Bascombe stepped into the room, the Sword of Hunyadi brandished before him. Kitsune followed, copper-red fur cloak flowing around her. With them were two women inexpertly wielding swords, one of whom shared enough of his features that she could only be Oliver’s sister, Collette.

“Frost,” Oliver said, and his tone had no warmth.

Ty’Lis clapped again, yet still he did not rise. “Well timed. I’m rather proud of myself.” Then he spread his arms wide, gesturing to the Perytons and the Atlantean soldiers alike.

“Now you may kill them.”

Oliver’s breath plumed in the frigid chamber. His boots slid on the icy floor but he kept his balance. On the opposite end of the sprawling room he saw the two chairs, the two men…and he knew at once that the chained man must be the king. In the other chair, the sorcerer Ty’Lis did not even rise, as though he meant to just sit and watch them die, a spectator at some garish Roman forum.

“Bastard,” Oliver hissed.

That was the instant of his entry into the room. From there, the rest unfolded with such speed that he felt lost in a staccato blast of images and strobing motion.

Frost shouted something to him, but the words were lost in the shriek of the Perytons as the creatures spread their massive wings. They could not fly within the confines of that room, but were no less dangerous. Heads bowed, they seemed to float across the chamber with their antlers down, ready to gore Oliver and Collette and Julianna.

The Atlantean soldiers moved in a sidelong run, trying to surround them, armed with a pair of strangely fashioned daggers, one in each hand.

A gust of icy wind blew past Oliver, so cold that it froze the moisture at the corners of his eyes and seared his left cheek. He stole a glance and saw the two leading Perytons freeze almost solid, ice cracking as they tried to free themselves. The light in their eyes extinguished as they died, and then the third charged through them and their bodies shattered into hideously frozen shards of wing and flesh.

Frost carved himself a shape out of the air. The last Peryton charged at him, antlers down.

The winter man let him come.

The Peryton’s antlers punched through the ice of his torso, shattering his body. Frost screamed in pain, and a burst of white, icy mist that might have been the essence of his spirit exploded around him in a cloud. Shuddering and thrashing, his upper body stuck to the Peryton’s antlers, Frost gripped the creature’s head with one hand and he raised the other. His fingers lengthened to foot-long icicles and he drove them into the side of the Peryton’s head with a final cry.

The Hunter fell dead on the floor of the chamber.

Oliver parried the dagger thrust of the nearest soldier, twisted, and drove his elbow into the Atlantean’s gut. He spun and swung the Sword of Hunyadi and the magnificently sharp blade separated the man’s head from his body with a clean, swift cut, showering greenish-black blood onto the floor, where it froze into a puddle of ice.

Across from him, a streak of copper-red darted through the air and he glimpsed Kitsune, the fox, tearing the throat out of another Atlantean.

Julianna defended herself from a soldier, but only barely. With a cry of anguish, Collette drove her stolen sword through the soldier’s back, the point erupting from his chest and spattering Julianna with his blood.

They and Kitsune would have to take care of themselves for the moment.

Ty’Lis sat grinning in his chair.

On the floor, pieces of the winter man had begun to melt, but a cold wind eddied around them and some of the largest shards disintegrated into snow and began to whip up into the air.

The black light that pulsed around the sorcerer flashed once and Ty’Lis stood. He held his hands out, palms down, and like fire the bruise-black light spread, enveloping what remained of Frost. The wind died, the snowflakes frozen in place, neither falling nor drifting.

Frost might not be dead yet, but Ty’Lis was about to put an end to his legend forever.

Oliver raised the Sword of Hunyadi. Questions of his own heritage raced through his mind as he ran toward the sorcerer. He screamed as he lunged and thrust the blade at the Atlantean’s chest. It shook in his grip as it pierced muscle and flesh and cracked bone.

Ty’Lis screamed and staggered back with the force of the attack. Oliver lifted his boot and kicked the sorcerer’s body off of his blade, then raised the Sword of Hunyadi again. Ty’Lis fell to his knees and Oliver brought the blade down with a strength and savagery he would never have guessed he possessed. As though it were an axe, he hacked downward with it and cleaved the sorcerer’s skull in two. It wedged in bone, and this time, as the corpse fell, he let the grip of the sword slip from his hands, lodged in the dead man’s head.

“Oliver!” Kitsune screamed. She had taken the form of a woman again. “What have you done?”

He blinked and stepped back.