Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant Book 1), Page 3

Hugh drank his beer. He wouldn’t beg, and Ryan knew better than to push him.

  Silence stretched.

  “I’ve got no stallions right now. Nothing but the breeding stock. The market’s been slow.”

  Bullshit. Ryan bred war horses, big and mean. In the post-Shift world, where tech and magic switched, a good horse was worth more than a car. It always worked. People who came to Ryan for a horse didn’t want a gelding and demand was always good.

  Ryan glanced at him and shrank away before he caught himself. A small drop of sweat formed on his temple.

  That’s right. Remember who you’re talking to.

  “I want to show you something.” Ryan turned and yelled into the house. “Charlie, bring Bucky out. And tell Sam to come here.”

  Hugh took another sip of his beer.

  Ryan’s oldest son, stocky, with the same blunt features carved out of wet mud with a shovel, trotted over to the barn to the left.

  A kid walked out onto the porch. Lean, blond. Young, eighteen or so. There was some of Ryan there, in the broad cast of his shoulders, but not much. Must’ve gone into the mother’s side of the family.

  The doors of the barn swung open, and a stallion strolled out into the small pasture.

  “What the hell is this?” Hugh set his beer down.

  “That’s Bucky. Bucephalus.”

  Bucky turned, the afternoon sun catching his coat. He was gray gone to pure white. He practically glowed. Like a damn unicorn.

  “He isn’t a Friesian,” Hugh ground out.

  “Spanish Norman horse,” Ryan said. “A Percheron and Andalusian cross. Picked him up at auction. He’s big the way you like them. Seventeen hands.”

  Hugh turned and looked at him.

  Ryan squirmed in his seat.

  “You’re trying to give me a cold-blooded horse?” Hugh asked, his voice quiet and casual.

  “He’s warm-blooded.” Ryan raised his hands. “Look at the gait. Look at the lines. That’s Andalusian lines right there. The neck is long and the legs…”

  Oh, he saw the Andalusian, all right, but he saw the Percheron, too, in the size and the big chest. Percherons ran too cold blooded for fighting under the saddle; all that bulky slow-twitch muscle dragged down their reaction time. They were difficult to anger, slow to charge, and heavy on their feet. Everything he didn’t want.

  Hugh looked at Ryan.

  Ryan swallowed. “He’s comfortable under the saddle. Trust me on this. After a Friesian, your backside will thank you. No feathers, so less grooming. He jumps like a Thoroughbred. Look at the lines of the head. That’s a beautiful head.”

  “He is white.”

  “Nobody is perfect,” Ryan said.

  In his mind, Hugh reached out and squeezed Ryan’s neck until the rancher’s face turned red and his head popped.

  Maria, Ryan’s wife, came up to the doorway and froze. The young kid held completely still, waiting and watching Hugh’s face.

  “I bought him to breed. I thought I would diversify, you know?” Ryan was babbling now. “Had a particular mare in mind, but that deal fell through. He’s a good stallion. Powerful and fast. Bad-tempered. Bit the shit out of me and the stable hands.”

  Hugh stared at him.

  Sweat broke out on Ryan’s forehead. His hands shook, his words tumbling out too fast.

  “You two will get along. He’s like you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “A big, mean sonovabitch that nobody wants.” Ryan realized what he’d blurted out. His face went white.

  A stunned silence claimed the porch.

  “I didn’t mean it…” Ryan said.

  A cold realization rolled over Hugh, smothering all anger. He would take this horse. He had no choice.

  He had no choice.

  It felt like he’d fallen off of somewhere high and smashed face-first into the stone ground. A year ago, Ryan would’ve paraded every one of his stallions in front of him and he’d have had his pick.

  Hugh rose slowly, walked down the steps into the grass, approached the pasture, and vaulted over the fence. Bucky spun in place and stared at Hugh. A scar crossed the horse’s white head. Someone had taken a blade of some sort to him.

  Bucky blew the air out of his nostrils, his amber eyes fixed on Hugh. A dominant stance. Fine.

  Hugh stared back.

  The stallion bared his teeth.

  Hugh showed his own teeth and bit the air.

  Bucky hesitated, unsure.

  Once a horse decided to bite, there was no stopping it. Sooner or later you would get bitten, especially if the horse was a habitual biter. Some bit because they were jealous; others to show displeasure or get attention. Horses, like dogs and children, followed the principle that any attention, even negative, was still attention and therefore worth the effort.

  A war stallion would bite to dominate.

  He had to demonstrate that he wouldn’t be dominated. Once the biting started, it was difficult to stop. Yelling, hitting the horse, or biting it back, as one guy he remembered used to do, had no effect. The point was to not get bitten in the first place. You treated a war stallion with respect, and you approached it like you were first among equals.

  Bucky stared at him.

  “Come on,” Hugh said, his voice calm, reassuring. Words didn’t matter, but the sound of his voice did. When it came to humans, horses relied on their hearing more than their vision.

  Bucky pawed the ground.

  “You’re just wasting time now. Come on.”

  The stallion eyed him again. In his years Hugh had seen all sorts of horses. The Arabians who would rather die than step on a human foot; the strict, mean horses from the Russian steppes that gave all of themselves, but forgave nothing; the German Hanoverians that would just as soon walk through a man as around... With a cross like this he couldn’t tell what the hell he was going to get, but he’d ridden horses since he was ten years old, all those long decades ago.

  Their gazes locked. There was a fire inside that horse, and it shone through his eyes. A mean sonovabitch nobody wanted. You will do. You belong with me.

  “Come here. I don’t have all day.”

  Bucky sighed, raised his ears, and walked over. Hugh patted the warm neck, feeling the tight cords of muscle underneath, dug the sugar cube he’d stolen from Ryan’s kitchen out of his pocket, and let warm lips swipe it off his palm. Bucky crunched the sugar.

  “I knew it,” Ryan said from behind the fence. The kid behind him rolled his eyes.

  Bucky turned his head and showed Ryan his teeth.

  Hugh stroked the stallion’s neck. “How much do you want for him?”

  “A favor,” Ryan said.

  The man really didn’t know when to stop pushing. “What do you want?”

  Ryan nodded at his youngest son. “Take Sam with you.”

  What the bloody hell? “I just told you I couldn’t pay you for the horse, and you want me to take your son with me. You know who I am. You know what I do. He’ll be dead in a month.”

  “I can’t keep him.” Pain twisted Ryan’s face. “He isn’t right in the head.”

  Hugh squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. It was that or he really would strangle the man. He opened his eyes and looked at the kid.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” the kid said, his face flat. His eyes were dull. A liability at best, a pain in the ass at worst.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sam.”

  “Are you slow?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t mean like that.” Ryan grimaced. “He can’t act like normal people. He doesn’t know when to stop. He caught a horse thief last month. Now, you catch a horse thief, you beat the shit out of him. Everyone understands that. That’s how things are done. You don’t get a rope and try to hang the man. If I had found him, that would be one thing. The sheriff saw him getting ready to string the thief up.”

  Hugh raised his eyebrows at the boy.

  “He s
tole from us,” Sam said, his voice flat.

  “He had the rope over the tree ready to go right there by the damn road. Why hang him by the road, I ask you?”

  “A warning is only good if people see it,” Hugh said.

  Sam looked up, surprise flashing in his eyes, and looked back down. The kid wasn’t as dim as he pretended.

  “He was always like this. He fights and don’t know when to stop. The sheriff told me he would let that one go, but this idiot doesn’t think he did anything wrong.”

  “He stole from us.” A harsh note crept into Sam’s voice. “If one person steals and we don’t do anything, they will keep stealing.”

  “See?” Ryan reached over and smacked the kid upside the head. Sam’s head jerked from the blow. He righted himself.

  “Sheriff says he tries it again, he’ll end up in a cage for the rest of his life, or they’ll string him up instead and save everyone the trouble. He just isn’t made for ranch life. It’s not in him. At least this way he’s got a chance. You take him and Bucky, we’re even.”

  Hugh looked at the kid. “You want to die fast?”

  Sam shrugged. “Everyone dies.”

  The void scoured Hugh’s soul with sharp teeth.

  “Get your shit,” Hugh said. “We’re leaving.”

  The magic was still down.

  The tall, gleaming office towers that once proudly marked Charlotte’s downtown had fallen long ago, reduced to heaps of rubble by magic. The waves would keep worrying at the refuse, grinding it to dust until nothing was left. Magic fought all technology, but it hated large structures the most, bringing them down one by one, as if trying to erase the footprint of the technological civilization off the face of the planet.

  With construction equipment functioning barely half of the time and gasoline supplies limited and pricey, clearing thousands of tons of rubble proved an impossible task, and Charlotte did what most cities decided to do in the same situation: it settled. It carved a road roughly following the old Tryon street, with hills of concrete and twisted steel beams bordering it like the walls of a canyon, and called it a day. Stalls had sprung up here and there, clustered where the road widened, selling all the fine luxuries the post-Shift world had to offer: “beef” that smelled like rat meat, old guns that jammed on the first shot, and magical potions, which followed the tried-and-true ancient recipe of ninety-nine parts tap water to one part food coloring. This early in the morning, only half an hour past sunrise, most of the vendors were still setting up. In another half hour, they would start squawking and lunging at the travelers, trying to hawk their wares, but for now, the road was blissfully quiet.

  It didn’t matter, because for once Hugh didn’t have a hangover. Yesterday, after they’d left Black Fire behind, they’d spent the night in the open, at an old campground. He’d wanted to drink himself into a stupor, but then he would be no good the next day, so he stayed sober. His mood had soured overnight, and in the morning, when he found Sam waiting with the rest, the irritation heated up to a simmering hate.

  He hated Charlotte. He hated the way it looked, the way it smelled, the rubble, the tortured skyline of the city, the white stallion under him, and the void waiting just beyond the border of awareness, ready to swallow him. He thought of getting off this damned horse, finding a hole within the rubble, laying down, and just letting it eat at his soul until there was nothing left. But he had a feeling the four men riding behind him would pull him out, set him back on the horse, and force him to keep going. There was nothing left but to stew in his own hate.

  “Friends.” Bale grinned and patted his axe.

  Hugh glanced up. An emaciated figure crouched on top of the wall of the rubble canyon on the far left. Thin, a skeleton corded with muscle, the creature hunkered down on all fours as if it had never walked upright, its hairless hide turned to a sickly bluish gray by undeath. It was too far to see much of its face, but Hugh saw the eyes, red and glowing with all-consuming hunger. No thoughts, no awareness, nothing except bloodlust, wrapped in magic that turned his stomach. A vampire.

  Not a loose one. Loose bloodsuckers slaughtered everything with a pulse, feeding until nothing alive remained. No, this one was piloted by a navigator. Somewhere, within the secure rooms of Landon Nez’s base, a necromancer sat, probably sipping his morning coffee, telepathically gripping the blank slate that was the undead’s mind. When the vampire moved, it was because the navigator willed it. When it spoke, the navigator’s voice would come out of its mouth. He never liked the breed, the undead and the navigators both.

  “A welcoming committee,” Stoyan said.

  “Nice to be recognized,” Lamar quipped.

  “Have you found a base?” Hugh asked.

  “I found several,” Lamar said. “None that would have us.”

  “What’s the problem?” Bale demanded.

  “We are the problem,” Lamar said. “We have baggage in addition to a rich and varied history.”

  “What are you on about?” Bale asked.

  “He means we’ve double-crossed people before,” Stoyan told him. “Nobody wants Nez as an enemy, and nobody wants to take a chance on us stabbing them in the back.”

  “We need to find someone desperate and willing to overlook our past sins,” Lamar said. “That takes time.”

  Hugh wished for something to happen. Some release. Someone to kill.

  Bucky raised his tail and shit on the road.

  “You gonna clean that up?” a male voice challenged.

  Thank you. Thank you so much for volunteering.

  Hugh touched the reins. Bucky turned.

  A tall, dark-haired man stood on the side of the road. In shape. Clothes loose enough to move, but not to grab, light stance, plain sword, no frills. Flat eyes. There was emotion in the voice, but none in the eyes. He wasn’t angry or riled up.

  Behind him another man and a woman waited, the man shorter and stockier, holding a light mace, the woman armed with another plain sword. Long blond hair.

  Professionals.

  This was a test. Nez wanted to see if the months of drinking had taken their toll. Disappointment slashed through Hugh. He couldn’t take his time. He would have to do this fast.

  Hugh dismounted and held out his hand. Stoyan pulled his sword out and put it in Hugh’s palm. Hugh started toward the three fighters.

  “Should we--” Sam started.

  “Shut it,” Bale told him.

  The leading fighter stepped forward. The man moved well, light on his feet despite his size. Hugh swung the sword in a lazy circle, warming up his wrist.

  The shorter man stalked to his right; the woman moved to his left with catlike grace.

  He waited until they positioned themselves. “All set?”

  The leader attacked, his sword striking so fast, it was a blur. Hugh moved, letting the blade slice through the air half an inch from his cheek, and slashed, turning into the blow. The blade of Stoyan’s sword met the mercenary’s neck and sliced clean through in a diagonal cut. The man’s head rolled off his shoulders, but Hugh was already turning. He batted the woman’s sword aside, dodged the mace, and brought the sword down in a devastating cut. The blade caught her shoulder and carved through one breast. She stumbled back, her arms hanging by her side. Hugh stabbed, sliding the sword between her 5th and 6th ribs on the left side, withdrew, and spun. The mace wielder had already started his swing. Hugh leaned out of the way, caught the mace’s handle on the upswing, throwing his strength and weight against the man and driving his blade up through the attacker’s liver into his heart. The mace wielder was the only one to realize what was coming. His eyes widened as the sword pierced his gut. The lights went out. Hugh shoved him back, freeing the blade with a sharp tug, and turned.

  The woman was still alive, but barely. She would bleed out in another thirty seconds or so. Death from blood loss was relatively painless. She’d close her eyes and go to sleep.

  Hugh crouched by her. Her breath was coming in shallow rapid gulps.
He wiped the sword with her pretty blond hair, got up, and handed the blade back to Stoyan. Sam stared at him, his face slack.

  Hugh mounted.

  “I think you didn’t look hard enough for a base,” Bale said.

  “I wouldn’t do so much of that if I were you,” Lamar said.

  Hugh nudged Bucky, and the white stallion started down the road.

  “Do what?”

  “Thinking. It’s not your strong suit.”

  “One day, Lamar,” Bale growled.

  The void ate at Hugh. He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to shut it out. When he opened them, he was still in Charlotte, still riding, and the air around him smelled like blood.

  The canyon of debris widened. Shops and eateries popped up here and there, evidence of the city fighting back against the rubble. All were post-Shift, new construction: thick walls, simple shapes, and bars on the windows.

  “Was that vampire from the People?” Sam asked.

  “The Golden Legion,” Stoyan said.

  “Is that like the People?”

  “The necromancers who work for Roland call themselves the People,” Stoyan explained.

  “They call themselves that because they feel they are the only people. The rest of us are lesser mortals,” Lamar said.

  “The People have ranks,” Stoyan said. “They start as apprentices, then become journeymen, then finally they get to be Masters of the Dead. The best one hundred Masters make up the Golden Legion. The Legion is led by the Legatus, the prick we’re riding to meet. Each Master of the Dead in the Legion can pilot more than one vampire. A Master of the Dead can wipe out a US Army platoon with one undead.”

  “Depending on how big the platoon is,” Lamar said. “Regulation size for a platoon is between sixteen and forty soldiers. Forty would be pushing it for one bloodsucker. The Legion would need at least two, maybe three if the platoon is well trained.”

  “The point is,” Bale said, “when we meet the Legatus, you’ll be deaf and dumb, Sam, you get me? If I hear one squeak out of you, you’ll wish you were back on the ranch getting strung up by that sheriff your daddy is so afraid of.”

  “How will I know if he’s the Legatus?” Sam asked.