Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

Snarling they came, eyes like black hollows, mouths like gaping pits, and in an instant Laszlo’s awareness of the battle narrowed to those claws that were meant to shred his armor, those fangs that were meant to sink into his flesh. Darting and dodging, he fought the wildest duel of his career, his centuries-old steel punching through quivering vocabuvore flesh. They died, sure enough, but there were many to replace the dead, rank on writhing rank, pushing forward to grasp and tear at him.

“New words,” the creatures croaked, as he slashed at bulging throats and slammed his heavy hilt down on monstrous skulls. The things vomited fountains of reeking gore when they died, soaking his cloak and breeches, but he barely noticed as he gave ground step by step, backing away from the press of falling bodies as new combatants continually scrambled to take their places.

As Laszlo fought on, he managed to catch glimpses of what was happening around him. Molnar and Astriza fought back to back, the Master Librarian’s staff sweeping before him in powerful arcs. As for Astriza, her curved blades were broader and heavier than Laszlo’s—no stabbing and dancing for her. When she swung, limbs flew, and vocabuvores were laid open guts to groins. He admired her power, and that admiration nearly became a fatal distraction.

“NEW WORD!” screeched one of the vocabuvores, seizing him by his mantle and forcing him down to his knees. It pried and scraped at his leather neck-guard, salivating. The thing’s breath was unbelievable, like a dead animal soaked in sewage and garlic wine. Was that what the digestion of words smelled like? “NEW WORD!”

“Die,” Laszlo muttered, swatting the thing’s hands away just long enough to drive his sword up and into the orbless pit of its left eye. It demonstrated immediate comprehension of the new word by sliding down the front of his armor, claws scrabbling at him in a useless final reflex. Laszlo stumbled up, kicked the corpse away, and freed his blade to face the next one…and the next one…

Working in a similar vein was Lev Bronzeclaw, forgoing his mediocre magic in order to leap about and bring his natural weaponry into play just a few feet to Laszlo’s left. Some foes he lashed with his heavy tail, sending them sprawling. Others he seized with his upper limbs and held firmly while his blindingly fast kicks sunk claws into guts. Furious, inexorable, he scythed vocabuvores in half and spilled their steaming bowels as though the creatures were fruits in the grasp of some devilish mechanical pulping machine.

Casimir and Yvette, meanwhile, had put their backs to a bookshelf and were plying their sorceries in tandem against a chaotic, flailing press of attackers. Yvette had conjured another one of her invisible barriers and was moving it back and forth like a tower shield, absorbing vocabuvore attacks with it and then slamming them backward. Casimir, grinning wildly, was methodically unleashing his killing spells at the creatures Yvette knocked off-balance, consuming them in flashing pillars of blue flame. The oily black smoke from these fires swirled across the battle and made Laszlo gag.

Still, they seemed to be making progress—there could only be so many vocabuvores, and Laszlo began to feel a curious exaltation as the ranks of their brutish foes thinned. Just a few more for him, a few more for the Librarians, a few more for Lev, and the fight was all but—

“KILL BOY,” roared the commanding vocabuvore, the deep-voiced one that had launched the attack moments earlier. At last it joined the fight proper, bounding out of the bookcases, twice the size of any of its brethren, more like a pallid gray bear than anything else. “Kill boy with spells! Kill girl!”

Heeding the call, the surviving vocabuvores abandoned all other opponents and dove toward Casimir and Yvette, forcing the two aspirants back against the shelf under the desperate press of their new surge. Laszlo and Lev, caught off guard by the instant withdrawal of their remaining foes, stumbled clumsily into one another.

The huge vocabuvore charged across the aisle, and Astriza and Molnar moved to intercept it. Laszlo watched in disbelief as they were simply shoved over by stiff smacks from the creature’s massive forelimbs. It even carried one of Astriza’s blades away with it, embedded in a sack of oozing gristle along its right side, without visible effect. It dove into the bookcases behind the one Casimir and Yvette were standing against, and disappeared momentarily from sight.

The smaller survivors had pinned Yvette between the shelf and her shield; like an insect under glass, she was being crushed behind her own magic. Having neutralized her protection, they finally seized Casmir’s arms, interfering with his ability to cast spells. Pushing frantically past the smoldering shells of their dead comrades, they seemed to have abandoned any hope of new words in exchange for a last act of vengeance against Casimir.

But there were only a bare dozen left, and Laszlo and Lev had regained their balance. Moving in unison, they charged through the smoke and blood to fall on the rear of the pack of surviving vocabuvores. There they slew unopposed, and if only they could slay fast enough…claws and sword sang out together, ten . And again, eight , and again, six …

Yvette’s shield buckled at last, and she and Casimir slid sideways with vocabuvore claws at their throats. But now there were only half a dozen, and then there were four, then two. A triumphant moment later, Laszlo, gasping for breath, grabbed the last of the creatures by the back of its leathery neck and hauled it off his chambers-mate. Laszlo drove his sword into the vocabuvore’s back, transfixing it through whatever approximation of a heart it possessed, and flung it down to join the rest of its dead brood.

“Thanks,” coughed Casimir, reaching over to help Yvette sit up. Other than a near-total drenching with the nauseating contents of dead vocabuvores, the two of them seemed to have escaped the worst possibilities.

“Big one,” gasped Yvette. “Find the big one, kill it quickly—”

At that precise instant, the big one struck the bookcase from behind, heaving it over directly on top of them, a sudden rain of books followed by a heavy dark blur that slammed Casimir and Yvette out of sight beneath it. Laszlo stumbled back in shock as the huge vocabuvore stepped onto the tumbled bookcase, stomping its feet like a jungle predator gloating over a fresh kill.

“Casimir,” Laszlo screamed. “Yvette!”

“No,” cried Master Molnar, lurching back to his feet. “No! Proper nouns are the most powerful words of all!”

Alas, what was said could not be unsaid. The flesh of the last vocabuvore rippled as though a hundred burrowing things were about to erupt from within, but the expression on its baleful face was sheer ecstasy. New masses of flesh billowed forth, new cords of muscle and sinew wormed their way out of thin air, new rows of shark-like teeth rose gleaming in the black pit of the thing’s mouth. In a moment, it had gained several feet of height and girth, and the top of its head was now not far below the stones that floored the gallery above.

With a foot far weightier than before, the thing stomped the bookcase again, splintering the ancient wood. Lev flung his mighty scarlet-scaled bulk against the creature without hesitation, but it had already eclipsed his strength. It caught him in midair, turned, and flung him spinning head-over-tail into Molnar and Astriza. Still dull from their earlier clubbing, the two librarians failed spectacularly to duck, and four hundred pounds of whirling reptilian aspirant took them down hard.

That left Laszlo, facing the creature all alone, gore-slick sword shaking in his hand, with sorcerous powers about adequate, on his best day, to heat a cup of tea.