C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

That was harder than it looked, given how many spikes decorated the armor. Ankles, knees, hips, for heaven’s sake, who needed hip spikes? Or a spiky belt, for that matter, or shoulder and elbow spikes? If it tilted its head more than two degrees left or right it would pierce its own brain with the spikes. On the other hand, all the pointy bits made a pretty good ladder, and I climbed its eleven-foot self in a couple of long strides. I’d dropped my own sword, but that was okay, because it was magic and I just had to call it again for it to appear. I bet the Executioner was going to have to bend over and pick his up, and I bet if I kicked its heiny it would fall flat on its face and stick in the ground thanks to all those spikes.

That actually sounded like a better game plan than the one I was trying. I filed it away for future reference, planted my feet on the Executioner’s spiny belt, grabbed hold of one shoulder spike for balance, and hauled its pointy helmet off. I expected to see Aidan in there, all big-eyed and alarmed-looking, like a tiny goblin in a great big mech suit.

Instead a black slash of nothing erupted from the armor and tried to suck my head off.

I yelled and let go and fell six feet to the ground, landing with a splat and a grunt. The Executioner’s armor collapsed around me, pointy bits offering considerably more danger than its big flaming sword had. It reformed without the armor, looking far more like the ax-wielding thing it had been in the mountain holler, and I realized belatedly that the Frazetta suit had perhaps been Aidan’s way of trying to protect me. His way of slowing the Executioner down, so I could fight it more easily. And I’d blown it.

I would have to make time for recriminations later. In the meantime, if Aidan wasn’t at the heart of the Executioner’s armor, that meant he was around here somewhere else, maybe holding out as a separate entity of his own, deep in the sanctuary of his own garden. That meant I could fight this thing without worrying about hurting the kid, and that made everything a lot easier. I bounced to my feet, drew my sword and called my shield. We were in a sacred place, in the heart of somebody’s soul, and I figured my psychic weaponry should be stronger here than anywhere else. Nerved up by this belief, I didn’t try to dodge when the Executioner swung his ax.

It slammed into my shield so hard my eyeballs wobbled. I tipped over and reconsidered my game plan on my way to hitting the ground. By the time the impact knocked the breath out of me, I’d decided that running away was the only smart choice. It wasn’t a viable choice, of course. But it was the smart one. The Executioner’s ax smashed down. I rolled sideways, swallowing a squeak of relief as it buried the ax so deeply in the earth that for a few seconds it couldn’t get it free. While it struggled, I unwound a single strand of magic from the idea of a net, and flung the rope at the Executioner’s ankles.

It wrapped around them, whiplike, and I hauled back with all my strength.

Its feet went out from under it. I leapt to mine and gave a blood-curdling shriek as I went for a killing blow, which would have worked except the Executioner dissipated and left me with my sword stuck in the ground next to its ax. That was absolutely not fair. I yanked the sword out and the Executioner reappeared on the ax’s far side, where it got a better grip and hauled it free, too. We stood there a couple seconds, sizing one another up. It wasn’t eleven feet tall anymore, but it thrummed with magic, still drawing in new strength from Aidan, from the wights, from the fight that was promising to shape up back in the Middle World. It was made from what seemed like a nearly endless source of power, and I’d only just barely been jump-started. If I thought about it, I was doomed.

Fortunately, it didn’t give me much time to think. It swung, I parried, and for a minute or so, it was epic. My teeth rattled when it clobbered me, its skin glowed and broke apart in blue chunks where I slashed it, lightning fell from the sky in vast sheets, thunder rolled across the landscape. I couldn’t for the life of me count the number of blows, or track how fast we struck at one another.

Rattler was alive in the back of my head, pouring speed into my body, and Raven soared around the Executioner’s head, pulling at its barely present hair and plucking at its eyes. I wouldn’t have expected Raven to be able to affect it, but it was a creature made up of death magic, and Raven was my guide between the living and the dead. Renee lent the same clarity of sight I’d had driving Petite: time slowed as I fought, until the play of the Executioner’s misty muscles triggered an awareness in me of where it would strike next. I started being there before it finished the blow, getting inside its guard and smashing not just with sword but with shield, every hit driving healing power into it. I started feeling like the fantasy hero who would have fought the armored monstrosity the Execsity theutioner had first appeared as. It was fantastic, confidence and assurance building in me. The Executioner finally retreated, then ran, trying to escape me. I yelled and gave chase, crashing around the remains of Aidan’s garden.

Earth crumbled under my feet with each step. Under the Executioner’s, too, falling away faster and faster until I realized we were on an island in the midst of a boiling blackness. All that remained of the garden was a single broken oak tree, its roots dangling raggedly through shallow earth. There was suddenly nowhere left for either of us to go. Huge chunks of bark fell from the tree as I chased the Executioner around it, both of us slamming against the rotting wood in our haste. Then a root gave way beneath it and it fell, silent in the storm’s roar.

I flung myself after him with both hands wrapped around the rapier’s hilt. It felt very cinematic, the earth collapsing behind me, my body arched dramatically and the sword raised above my head for a downward blow. The Executioner was unprotected, its chest open to me, vulnerable.

It grinned.

After I’d thrown myself from the bridge was not a good time to realize I’d made a mistake. Cold coursed through me, stuttering my heart. The Executioner wasn’t even trying to save itself, just leering as it fell. I twisted to look at what we’d fallen from: a lonesome dying tree, all that remained of Aidan’s garden.

All that remained of Aidan’s garden.

The Executioner was a distraction. A distraction, and I was a moron for allowing myself to be distracted. Yes, of course it was something that needed to be dealt with, but I had been taught time and again that fighting wasn’t the only way to deal with something. Aidan hadn’t needed me to come stomping in here and slay the monster with a sword. He’d needed healing, a lifeline to which he could cling and draw himself back out of the dark.

I screamed and pitched the sword downward. Threw it with all my strength, like it was a spear. It slammed into the Executioner’s chest, blue healing magic cracking the monster apart. In that same moment I let myself forget about it, and twisted in the air, gathering magic. For the second time I threw not a net, but just a strand, trying to reach the dying oak that now seemed an impossible distance away. It fell short, terribly short, my imagination failing me: I couldn’t throw that far.

Raven caught the rope in his claws and showed me what wings were for.

He flew against the storm, through lightning and falling earth, against driving rain that would pound any lesser bird out of the sky, and he swung the rope around the tree’s thick trunk. Gunmetal light flared against the tree, showing me its scars as the rope sealed to itself, making a sturdy loop that would hold my weight. I drew myself up the magic fist by fist, hands stinging with the remembered feel of rope burns.