The Hatter is Mad: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

“Well, if I defeat Grollshanks in front of the other orcs, maybe you won’t be associated with the victory,” Caleb said a moment later.

“That
does
mean you need to win,” I replied as I looked off into the horizon.

Grollshanks worried me plenty. I had actually fought the big orc, and I wasn’t sure if Caleb could win. Still, I’d never seen Caleb really go full out, and he was considered one of the most powerful Dioscuri. Caleb was one of those childhood prodigy types and was raised in Lot under the tutelage of a Hyas Tyee. That had to count for something. Still, if it came to it, I was going to jump in and help before I let Caleb buy the farm. Reputation or not.

To my left a giant razor-beaked bird-thing snared some squirrel-creature with flippers out of a tree with tentacles. I shook my head. “This place sucks. Why can’t someone just live in the land of grape popsicles and cotton candy?” I asked.

Caleb stiffened next to me, and I glanced at him. He gestured at the mountain range in front of us. Lightning streaked through the sky. “I hope you’re ready.”

“Ready for what?” I asked.

“To fight. There’s no other way. Grollshanks will come eventually.” Caleb knelt and scooped up a handful of the black dust. Slowly it spilled through his fingers. “We fight. We fight until we can’t fight any longer, until the blood is spilt from our bodies and the flesh is torn from our bones.” He began to laugh. “No one starts at the top, but together we will fight until we not only stand on hell but heaven as well. He will come. He will wade through the fields of slaughter to challenge us.”

The footsteps of multitudes began to echo in the basin. Above me, millions of forms, some no bigger than pinpricks, loomed from the cliffs. Even from this distance I could feel the pulsating heat of their hunger, smell the oozing decay in their breath. My hands went instinctively down to the hilts of my swords. I gulped.

This was going to be bad. We were not going to live through this. Eventually, we would run out of energy, and the horde would be upon us. I could only hope Caleb was right. I could only pray that Grollshanks decided to interrupt this madness before we died. This was the dumbest thing I’d ever done… and to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure why I let Caleb talk me into it.

All I can say is that sometimes when Caleb talks, I forget how to breathe, and the thought of not being near him actually hurts. I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but when I’m with him, it’s like finding the last piece to a puzzle. Truth be told, it isn’t something I’m exactly comfortable talking about. Who would I even go to? My insane mother? My missing ghost? My decapitated former friend?

I never talked to other girls my age, and my mom never sat me on her knee and explained the ways of the world to me. Though, in retrospect, I bet she’d have tried if I asked.

“If we survive this, Caleb, remind me to have a long talk with my mother,” I said as I readied the twin blades of Shirajirashii.

“About what?” Caleb asked as he moved to cover my back, his giant sword, Incinerator, in his hands.

“About you.”

He began to say something but shook his head. “It’s time, Lillim,” he said after a long moment. He raised his sword toward the cliffs and a gout of flame licked along the blade. “Come on you orcs! I’ve killed more than this without even breaking a sweat!”

The orcs rushed at us. Orcs from the sky, orcs from the left and the right and up and down and every which way. No matter where I turned, everything was the gnashing of teeth and the scratching of claws.

We fought for what felt like hours. The ground was stained with the blood of the fallen. I was covered in the icky green stuff… worse yet, I was getting tired. I was beginning to wonder if this is what Dirge’s last stand would have felt like if Manaka had never shown up. Would she have put her back to Joshua’s back and fought with every ounce of her being? The only difference was… Dirge did it to save her people and I was doing it, selfishly, to help Caleb.

I was here, in the recently rediscovered orcish wasteland, fighting because I thought that maybe, just maybe, we could kill an immortal swordsman, bottle up his magic amulet and use it to save Caleb. It sounded selfish on my part. But knowing I could wake up and he would just be gone because of that stupid poison was something I couldn’t deal with. It made me feel almost empty when I thought about it.

I was slaughtering orcs and standing on their corpses and slaughtering more orcs so I could save a guy who left me in the middle of the night. That was a totally reasonable thing to do. It was totally reasonable because if I didn’t, I would wake up screaming because he was dead. The thought of it twisted up my insides and brought tears to my eyes.

“It’s like they think that if they just keep throwing bodies at us, we will die,” Caleb spat. We stood within a crater filled with so many broken bodies that they were as numerous as the stars above us and the sand beneath our feet. “The more energy we use to fight them off, the more that sense us and come running, requiring us to release more energy. It’s an endless cycle. Why do you keep trying to fight us when you so clearly cannot win?” he screamed as he drove a fist into another creature’s apish nose, causing its face to burst apart into a pus-like substance.

“One reason,” the voice boomed across the wasteland in which we stood. The blood red moon above us was almost grinning as a shadowy form approached. “Because they think you are strong.”

Chapter 19

“Uh oh,” I said as the voice brought back very real memories of horrible, physical pain. “I think you’ve gotten your wish.”

Grollshanks was there beside us, swinging his giant sword… at the other orcs. He moved lithely, twirling like a dancer through the ranks of the oncoming horde and leaving a trail of death in his wake.

“If you wish to face me, little human, attack. You have come seeking death, and I will be more than happy to give it to you,” Grollshanks roared as he turned and almost casually slammed the back of his fist into the skull of an oncoming orc, sending it sprawling in the dirt. “Do you recognize how truly rude you are being?”

I gulped and took a step back from Caleb. The orcs around us were no longer attacking. Instead, they were circling like a pack of wolves. One would dart in here and there, and Grollshanks would defeat it so quickly, it was like he was everywhere at once.

That’s when it dawned on me. In this place, there were no rulers. Not in the traditional sense. The orcs fought and fought, and when they died, more came to join in. Battle brought them from miles away. We had kicked a goddamned hornets’ nest, and the only reason they were slowing down was because Grollshanks was stopping them.

“Do you realize how rude it was to come into our world and try to kill her?” Caleb asked, jerking his thumb toward me.

“That was a great honor. You should not have come here.” Grollshanks’ voice sounded weary. “My brethren would have continued to come for days. They would have come until there were none left or you were dead. There is no middle ground here. That is the way of the orc.” The bellows of the orcish horde resounded at his words and a chill ran down my spine.

Deep down, I knew he was right. It was probably why the orcs had been sealed away for millennia, why they had been gone so long that we thought they were extinct. If they were allowed into our world, we’d have been in real trouble.

To stop them we would have to commit genocide. We would have done it, too. The unfortunate thing wouldn’t have been the loss of lives. The unfortunate thing would have been how utterly pointless it would have been. To the orcs there was only victory. They would attack and if they were strong enough to win, we would die. If they lost, that was okay because we were stronger.

Grollshanks turned to look at the other orcs as he spoke. “You will stand down and allow us an honorable battle, friends. Do not throw your lives away on this.” Grollshanks gestured toward us.

A chorus of voices echoed around us as the orcs dropped into a kneeling position. In this place there was only one rule. Power. That was when I realized a problem. If we lost here we’d be dead, that was clear. However, unless we won with overwhelming force, we’d be dead, too. The orcs would only understand strength. It’d been bred into them for thousands of years. If they thought we cheated or won because of any reason other than unyielding force, they would resume their attack.

Shivers marched down my back, and my breath caught in my throat. It was worse because I wouldn’t run and leave him behind to die on his own. I would, if it came to it, try to save him, and that would get both of us killed.

“Who comes to fight Grollshanks, the greatest orcish swordsman of all time?” the big orc asked, turning to look at us. He tossed his sword to the ground. It was an insult, but I wasn’t sure Caleb caught that.

Caleb closed his eyes. A green glow emanated from him so brightly that it made him hard to look at. He took a defiant step forward, his face creased in concentration. His eyes opened and there were very real flames in them. They flickered down his face and danced across the surface of his skin. It was so hot that even several feet away, it was like putting my face next to a campfire.

“There was a time when I thought I was strong, when I liked fighting for the sake of fighting. That ended when my first friend died. You tried to take away someone I care about. I will not let that stand, Grollshanks,” Caleb said. He cocked his head to the side, and flame encircled the ground beneath his feet. “I hope you realize what an honor this is for me.”

Grollshanks regarded Caleb for a long time. He knelt and picked up his sword. “Very well, Dioscuri. If it is death you seek, I shall reward you. It is the only gift I am fit to bestow.”

“Forgive me, master orc, but it is not
I
who will die this day,” Caleb said as he rose to his feet.

“Of that we shall see soon enough.” Was that appreciation in Grollshanks’ voice? They were both stupid. Of this, I was quite certain.

They charged at one another. I forgot how fast Caleb was. I could barely follow his movements. It was a good thing, too.

He ducked and weaved and danced around and, for a time, it was obvious that Grollshanks was too slow to hit him. It must have dawned on the big orc, too. That was when the battle changed. I saw it coming and tried to shout a warning but it was too late.

Grollshanks had lived for thousands of years being basically invincible. Even ancient Japanese samurai did what Grollshanks was doing, and it killed them to do it. You took a death blow to end your opponent.

The big orc took a step to the left and deliberately impaled himself on Caleb’s blade. Fire licked outward from the wound, blackening the orc’s flesh and sending tendrils of flame spiraling across his body. It didn’t matter though because the orc was invincible. Caleb forgot that. He was so used to people not wanting to be hit by Incinerator, he never thought someone would intentionally allow himself to be impaled by the weapon.

Caleb’s movement was halted as he got stuck in mid-step and nearly lost his balance as Grollshanks grabbed the hilt of Incinerator. His other hand came down like a club, smashing into Caleb’s surprised face. Caleb toppled backward, the hilt of Incinerator slipping from his grasp. He shook his head, dazed as Grollshanks’ knee flew sideways through the air and caught him on the side of the head. Caleb careened to the side, cart-wheeling hideously across the sand until he came to a stop a few feet away. The sight of him like that made me hurt inside in a way I didn’t know I could. It was like when my mother had crashed to the ground, only this time, I was letting it happen. Why was I doing that? I should be helping him, not standing here watch him get his face bashed in.

Caleb lay there dazed as the big orc tore Incinerator from his flesh and tossed it to the ground. Very slowly, Caleb crawled to his hands and knees, blood dripping from his mouth as he looked up and smiled. A couple teeth were missing and the left side of his face was turning an ugly shade of purple. Caleb began to laugh.

“I guess I’m going to have to be a little more serious,” Caleb said. With that, he snapped his fingers and Incinerator flared to life.

The giant orc was engulfed in a firestorm of flame. It was like he was at the center of a miniature sun. Beneath the orc’s feet the sand turned to glass. The heat of the inferno was so strong, it sucked the oxygen from my lungs, and I was a good twenty feet away.

“
That
is more serious?” the voice boomed from the center of the fireball. A blackened form stepped forth from the inferno. As Grollshanks moved, his flesh reformed, like clay being molded back into place. Blackened skin flecked off to reveal the pristine form beneath. “It might have worked if I was not an orc. Orcs do not fear the fire. We are one with destruction.”

I didn’t know what was going through Caleb’s mind, but I was sure it was something along the lines of
this isn’t going according to plan
. Because this was his plan. He wanted to burn the big orc to cinders and calmly walk over and pick up the Death’s Edge when it fell to the ground.

“Black Rain,” Caleb said. He was standing now and though his face churned in waves of throbbing pain, his voice was low and defiant. Above us, dark clouds gathered. A faint rumble announced the steady rainfall of a black viscous liquid, and the dry sand greedily drank up the substance. Oddly enough, the ‘rain’ was focused only on the area in which the battle was being waged. Not one drop fell onto me or the orcs spread out in a circle around us.

“In the end, we all turn into ashes. Even the invincible eventually die,” Caleb said as he reached out and Incinerator flew into his hand. A small smile creased his lips as he pointed the tip of the blade at the earth beneath Grollshanks’ feet. Their ‘arena’ was filled with so much liquid, it was almost up to the orc’s ankles. “Goodbye, master orc.”

Incinerator burst into flame and the ground beneath their feet caught on fire. The liquid burst into a horrific inferno. Even the rain, which continued to pour down, caught on fire, burning all within its vicinity. The calm sand turned alive with bright dancing flames.