Chapter Thirty-Five

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A throne room. An actual, literal fucking throne room. Because of course he had one of those. If I’d learned anything about him, and despite having never met the Sidhe nobleman I felt I had learned far more than I wanted to at this point, it was that Cormac Goldenblade was not prone to subtlety.

I was strangely but deeply glad that my kingmaker position had been better situated to side with Ekaterina. Sure, she was a bitch who took vendettas more seriously than could possibly be healthy, and her followers were violent, impulsive, and somewhat idiotic. I still found myself feeling a sort of kinship with her just on the basis of hating this guy.

There were more than eight of them. A lot more. I wasn’t sure how many; it was hard to count heads when everyone was trying to remove each others’. At a glance, I estimated not less than twenty who were either humans or fae that looked like humans, and another twenty or so that looked like large dogs or very large cats.

It was convenient that we were so outnumbered, in a way. It made it easy to pick targets without worrying about friendly fire. I didn’t have to identify anyone. I just stepped up behind someone I didn’t recognize and blindsided him.

Thorn could cut through magic or a steel wall with little difficulty. A spine didn’t even register to its edge; it was like cutting a thin sheet of paper. I literally decapitated him, and I hadn’t even committed fully to the attack.

There was a fountain of blood at that point. I’d just severed both common carotid arteries, and that produces an enormous amount of blood, under more pressure than people often expect. He was effectively dead before he’d even started to fall, much less hit the ground. The maenad who had been fighting him grinned at me across the falling body, and then turned towards the next.

I did the same, moving on instinct now. There was no time to think about what I’d just done, and with adrenaline running high and Thorn’s ecstasy pulsing along my spine, I didn’t want to anyway. There was work to be done.

A glance around showed me that there were, essentially, four distinct fights happening right now. The initial attack had been decisive enough to take a fair amount of ground, and the fae had mostly been pressed out to the edges of the room; it was large enough that this left a lot of open space between the different groups.

To the right, the maenad whose dance partner I’d just taken care of was turning to help Lily with a clump of fae who were bunched up against the wall. There had to be ten of them, and they’d dragged one of the satyrs down already, but so far the vampire looked to be giving better than she was getting. To the left, Capinera was fighting next to another maenad, trying to keep four of the Sidhe and half a dozen hounds contained, and it wasn’t going as well. Further ahead, there was a door on the left side of the room, and a satyr keeping a group of enemies from entering through it. And finally, past them at the far end of the room, Ekaterina and one of her followers were pushing towards the actual throne, which was where Cormac would be, I was sure.

Capinera’s side of this clusterfuck was in worse shape. That wasn’t the main reason I was turning that direction, but the fact that it was also a sound tactical decision was a nice bonus. Behind me Saori had started taking shots with her carbine, which was probably smart; we had more frontline fighters than ranged, and these people might not have much practice defending against guns.

I was, in all probability, the single least skilled and experienced combatant in the room. I was faster and stronger than a human, but so was pretty much everyone else here, so that wasn’t a very useful scale to measure against. I looked scary in fur, but these people were used to fighting inhuman monsters much more disturbing than I was. With all that in mind, it was pretty understandable that the group of Sidhe I was advancing on didn’t prioritize me very highly. One turned in my direction, along with two hounds, but the rest remained focused on Capinera and the maenad.

This was not a good choice.

He was fast, and there was no chance I could hold up in an actual duel; he was obviously a far better swordsman than I was. But I was fast enough to twist aside from the first slash, not by much, but enough. And I didn’t have the position to actually counterattack, didn’t have the reach.

But when Thorn collided with his sabre, which was a silvery metal very similar to Capinera’s rapier, there was really only one way that could go. It was probably an excellent sword. I was guessing Sidhe weaponsmiths were as skilled as their chefs, and it was probably enchanted as well, reinforced with magic of its own.

But this was Thorn. It cut through metal and magic both without even slowing down.

I was off-balance after that, almost as much so as he was. One of the hounds surged forward and bit my ankle, pulling my foot out from under me. It was probably also biting into my leg, but I didn’t notice the pain through the adrenaline.

I still fell. I was okay with that. I might not be much of a duelist, but a messy, chaotic brawl? That was an environment I was much more comfortable with. I went with the fall freely rather than try to resist, and put the momentum into an elbow strike on the other canid coming after me.

Elbows are nasty. And even without the leverage to put much strength behind it, I had momentum on my side, and enough strength that “not much” was still plenty. I caught it on the back of the head and it went down, dazed or unconscious, I didn’t really care which right now. I didn’t pay any attention to the dog still biting me, either; it wasn’t important right now. Instead I braced my free foot against the floor and pushed, hooking an arm around the knee of the Sidhe I’d just disarmed.

He was still off-balance. Everything was happening so fast, he hadn’t had the time to recover yet. His leg was close enough to human for my understanding of anatomy to apply, and I’d caught his knee at an angle that wasn’t structurally sound. And I was stronger than I should be.

I thought I might have actually dislocated the knee. I definitely took his leg out from under him, and he fell awkwardly, landing half on my back and half on the floor. While he was trying to get his shit together, I lashed out with Thorn, catching another fighter’s thigh with the inner curve of the blade. I took her leg out from under her in a much more literal way, and I was pretty sure she was done for at that point. Femoral artery bled very nearly as much as the carotid.

I turned my attention back to the hounds at that point. The one that bit me still had its teeth in my calf, but that hadn’t worked out so great for it. I had enough lightning dancing across my body that even coming into contact with my fur would be enough to give someone a nasty electrostatic shock.

Extensive surface area like that? And with enough saliva and blood involved to make a lovely conductive medium? It was convulsing like it had been tased. I kicked it loose, grabbed the Sidhe on top of me, and did a fun little judo trick that ended with me on top of him. I’d lost my grip on Thorn at some point, but that was fine. I had a good hold, and he was disarmed, disoriented, and while I didn’t know much about Sidhe physiology, I was pretty sure the current wasn’t much fun more fun for him than for the hound. He was out of the picture for the moment.

I couldn’t see much of what was going on outside my immediate vicinity from this vantage, and I didn’t try. One of the hounds next to me was presently biting Capinera’s leg, which was a terrible idea in terms of both prioritizing targets and its impact on my mood. I lunged forward and bit it in turn, and in fur, my teeth were every bit as sharp as its own.

But I’d gotten mine in the joint between its forelegs and neck. And that was one hell of a lot better than the outside of someone’s thigh. I bit down hard, and pulled, and with the amount of blood I could taste, I couldn’t blame it for losing its grip on Capinera. I was pretty sure it was also losing its life, which does tend to reduce someone’s bite strength, present company included with the notable exception of Lily.

That bought enough breathing room for me to reach out and grab the nearest sharp object, which turned out to be the Sidhe fighter’s fallen blade. I’d cut his sword in half, and that left a nice little shard of sharp metal lying on the ground. I grabbed it, managing not to cut myself in the process, and stabbed it into its former owner’s neck.

He hadn’t even had time to get his bearings first. It had all happened so fucking fast. I was laughing. I could taste the hound’s blood, and it tasted wonderful.

The last time we’d been in a fight together, Saori and Capinera had both contributed a fair bit more than I had. I felt that I was making up for it, this time. I’d only been in the melee for about thirty seconds. I’d already killed three of the Sidhe and killed or disabled three hounds.

I pushed myself to my feet. This section of the fight was pretty much taken care of. There was only one Sidhe still fighting, and Capinera had them under control. As I was standing, she parried their sword with her own, and slipped forward, inside their effective reach. She had what looked like a stiletto in her off hand, and she stabbed it up under their jaw, twisted, and pulled it free again, in a single flowing movement. She didn’t even break stride.

The half-redcap woman was smiling. In its own way, her smile was every bit as creepy as mine or Saori’s. We tended towards wide, feral grins; Saori’s generally had more madness visible in it, but I had enough blood on my teeth to make it obvious what I’d just been using them for, so at present it more or less evened out.

Capinera didn’t look like that. Her smile was serene, tranquil. She was clearly enjoying this, but her happiness looked calm, almost peaceful. You aren’t supposed to be that kind of serene during this kind of bloodbath. The dissonance was…unsettling. The fact that her teeth resembled needles didn’t hurt that impression, either.

The maenad who had been over here was now moving up to join Ekaterina. She and her lieutenant appeared to have stalled out; they were still up and fighting, but they weren’t making any headway towards the throne. Most of the animal-shaped fae were down now, and Saori was advancing up to join Lily’s zone of action. Capinera peeled off that direction, too.

I wanted to go with them. I almost did, but I was still keeping my head enough to recognize that it would be a terrible idea, tactically. Lily seemed to have been keeping that cluster locked down with only minimal assistance. Add in those two, and realistically, that part of the fight was probably well in hand without my participation.

Instead, I moved to the last of the four zones I’d identified within the fight in the first few seconds. Namely, the doorway up ahead. I wasn’t sure what was on the other side, but I was pretty damn sure I didn’t want to find out when they hit us from behind. The door was tight enough to create a lovely chokepoint, limiting how much the enemy could capitalize on the likely numerical advantage. So far, a single satyr had been enough to hold them at the door as a result.

Much like the guy who had been dumb enough to start a fight at Softened Dreams, he was the size of a very large human, and loosely resembled one. The mask was slipping at the moment, and I could see hooves, but otherwise he looked human. He also looked like he was bleeding heavily, and while he was still up, he could only hold that door for so long.

As I watched, he took another hit from a blade of some kind. He counterattacked with his axe, but there wasn’t nearly as much force behind it as when I’d first entered the room.

I was very quick. As a result, I was close enough to watch a heavy knife cut halfway through his arm. He might or might not survive; I had no real way to guess. But he definitely wasn’t going to be fighting any more today. He stumbled back, fell bleeding to the floor.

And just like that, holding the line at that door became my problem.

I had Thorn in my hand again. I was bleeding from where the hound had bitten my leg, and I thought I might have cracked a rib either in the melee or when I’d broken through the ward out front. But I couldn’t feel the pain, and I was still moving well. I licked the blood off of my teeth and stepped up to meet the creature presently stepping across the threshold.

That was the only word I had for it. I had no idea what it was. It looked like some unholy hybrid of a human, a crocodile, and a gorilla, carrying a simple blade that resembled a machete. It was also huge, enough so that it had to work to squeeze through the door.

And Cormac, predictably, was not the kind of guy who had small doors.

I stared at it for a moment. This creature had to weigh at least three or four times as much as I did, and had a considerable advantage in reach as well. I was suddenly feeling a whole lot less confident about this course of action than I was a few seconds ago.

But there was no one else close enough, so my confidence really didn’t matter.

Getting through the door took it long enough for me to meet it there. It had an ugly grin and teeth like a shark’s, closer to a sawblade than fangs. It moved closer, but didn’t immediately attack. It looked to be taking my measure, watching how I moved.

I didn’t like that, not one bit. I’d much rather it attacked me right away. This was cautious enough to suggest intelligence, and that removed one of the few advantages I might otherwise have had. Thorn was probably capable of hurting it, but it had such an advantage in reach that I wasn’t sure I’d get the chance. If I was fast enough, it was possible, but this was looking dicey at best.

I thought there was probably something else coming behind it, too, additional reinforcements of some kind. I couldn’t afford to spare any thought for that right at the moment, no more than I could spare thought for considering my own chances of backup. Things were too delicate for that.

It only spent a few moments watching me before it made its move, swiping at me with its knife. It was fast, far faster than a creature its size should be; I thought I might be able to beat it in that arena still, but not by enough for comfort.

I slid to the side and brought Thorn up, hoping I could get a strike in on its hand or weapon. But here, my inexperience showed. I didn’t realize it was a feint until too late, and I was too far out of position to dodge when it brought its other hand around.

It didn’t have a weapon. It didn’t need one with how strong it was. I was fast enough to dodge back from it, enough that caught me on the shoulder rather than the head. I was pretty sure that if I hadn’t it would have cracked my skull like an eggshell.

As it was, it just hurt like hell and sent me sprawling. I managed to fall well enough that I didn’t injure myself, but I was still a little dazed. Thorn bounced out of my hand, leaving me disarmed. And I was lying on my back on the floor.

None of those three things would take long for me to correct. Just a few moments, really. Similarly, with how fast all parties were, I was pretty sure that one or more of Saori, Capinera, and Lily would be here within moments.

But it was here now, and it was looming over me with a machete and a vicious smile. I didn’t have a few moments, and I didn’t have ideas.

I did, however, have an excellent view when Shadow stepped up behind my attacker out of nowhere with a chef’s knife and a small, self-contained smile, so it sorta evened out.

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