Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles

  Baen Books

  by Larry Correia

  The Monster Hunter International Series

  Monster Hunter International

  Monster Hunter Vendetta

  Monster Hunter Alpha

  Monster Hunter Legion (forthcoming)

  The Grimnoir Chronicles

  Hard Magic

  Spellbound

  Dead Six (with Mike Kupari)

  Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in

  this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents

  is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Larry Correia

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4516-3775-5

  E-ISBN: 9781451637755

  Cover art by Alan Pollack

  First printing, November 2011

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Correia, Larry.

  Spellbound / Larry Correia.

  p. cm. -- (Grimnoir chronicles ; bk. 2)

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3775-5 (hc : alk. paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3603.O7723S64 2011

  813'.6--dc23

  2011035403

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Abby

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Reader Force Alpha for the comments, advice, and corrections; Mike Kupari for brainstorming Grimnoir into existence; Justin Otis and Aura Farwell for the glossary art; Zachary Hill for the interior artwork; and the awesome staff of Baen Books for all that they do.

  Prologue

  Yesterday, I was told the most marvelous tale. If it had not been repeated by a gentleman of such strict conscience, I would scarcely have believed. Another child with magical capabilities has been discovered, and in Chelmsford of all places. The young lady I witnessed in London could change the weather and they say this Chelmsford youth can heal the sick. Two miraculous beings have appeared in England this year and there are rumors of them appearing in other lands. It seems there are more of these wizards found amongst us every day! Will their numbers continue to grow? Is this the end of days? The mind reels at the possibilities.

  —Sir John Fisher,

  Personal correspondence, 1849

  France, 1918

  DURING THE DAY the sky to the east was black, but at night it burned red. For three days straight the thunder had never stopped. At first she had cringed at every distant rumble, and the noise had left her frightened and crying, but now the bombs were just background noise. The constant rattling of their small house had become almost normal. Father had told her the thunder was called artillery, and though it sounded scary, they needed to be brave. The tears did not come so often anymore, and then only at night, when the others couldn’t see her.

  Father said that the fighting was still many miles away and that they would be safe here. Mother had wanted to flee but Father insisted there was nowhere else for them to go. They had no money. The government had confiscated all of their crops and most of their animals to feed the army. There was no food in the refugee-packed cities either. They were safer staying on the farm, for at least there, should the Germans break through, they might be overlooked as unimportant and passed by on the soldiers’ push to Paris.

  She was the youngest of five children. The older ones could recall a time before the war, but to her, it seemed as if things had always been this way. As long as she could remember, the Germans had been coming to kill them all. Father had gone away for what had seemed like forever to fight, and the older children had tended the farm in his stead. Since she was seven, she had been in charge of gathering eggs from the chickens. Father had been sent home after he had gotten really sick and nearly died from breathing the Germans’ poison gas. His voice was scratchy now and he grew tired very easily, but she was just happy to have him home.

  The war had gone on for many years but never before had it been this close. Father had spoken of how the two sides had barely moved, pushing each other back and forth, neither one giving hardly any ground, but once the Kaiser had started sending dead men to fight, things had changed. Father tried not to show it, but he was scared of the things everyone had started calling zombies, and that made her scared of them too. He had explained that there was going to be one last big fight, and whoever won it would probably win the war once and for all.

  The rest of the world would come to call these days the Second Battle of the Somme, but to her, it would always be simply the Big Fight.

  For weeks leading up to the Big Fight, soldiers had marched east on the road that meandered around their farm. It had seemed like an endless stream of men, horses pulling carts, and even hundreds of modern trucks, while overhead, fantastic airships cast huge shadows. Some of the soldiers were clean and their uniforms looked new. Others were dirty, and they seemed as tired as Father had been when he’d come home. The men wore grey, brown, and green, but their flags were colorful. Father would point at the different flags and the symbols painted on their vehicles as they went past. “Those are our countrymen from the south. Those are British. Those are Canadian. Ahh, that volunteer American brigade. I hear they all have magic,” and he had patted her on the head. “Just like you.”

  That had made her very proud. She was the youngest, but she was special, and she had waved at the passing Americans. A giant American boy wearing a metal suit and carrying a huge gun had even seen her and waved back.

  Three days after the Big Fight started, the war came to her farm and killed her entire family.

  The girl hid in the cupboard. It was all that she could do. Everyone else was gone. All her brothers and sisters, Mother and Father, everyone. Hot tears dripped down her face and her nose was running, but she tried not to make a sound. He would hear her. He would kill her.

  The man was in the kitchen. She could hear his boot soles stamping against the floorboards. There was a crash as he pulled open the pantry. Dishes broke and he cursed in a language she did not recognize. Was he looking for her? She pulled her knees up tight to her chest and tried not to breathe. He was searching for her with his terrible grey eyes.

  The pump handle was worked and water splashed into the basin. A few seconds passed and then the killer let out a gasp of pain.

  The cupboard door was loose. There was a sliver of light leaking around the edge. She put her eye close and found that she could see a narrow slice of the kitchen. A bloody shirt lay discarded on the floor. The man was at the sink, holding one of Motherdishrags to his stomach. The cloth came away red, revealing a ragged gash. Thick rivulets of dark blood were trickling down his bronze skin and splattering about the kitchen. It was a terrible wound.

  He must have been injured before he had mysteriously appeared in the middle of the yard, for certainly none of her family had time to defend themselves. When he had appeared, seemingly out of thin air, Father had addressed him first in French and then in German. The stranger had answered by stabbing Father in the heart. Then he had been everywhere. Killing. Her brothers and sisters had run but he had chased them all down. Mother had told her to hide, but as she’d fled, she’d heard Mother screaming on the steps and then it had been quiet.

  She was all alone with the monster.

  The man’s long white hair was dirty and tangled. Th
ere were many other cuts and bleeding holes on his body besides the big one on this stomach, and she prayed that he might hurry and die soon. As she watched him trying to stop the bleeding, she realized that the man’s torso was covered in some strange design, like he’d been crisscrossed in blackened scars. Mother appreciated books, so the girl knew how to read, but she did not recognize any of the strange letters carved into the killer’s chest.

  “I know you are there, little girl.”

  She gasped and pulled back deeper into the cupboard.

  “Hiding does no good, for I can see you in my head.” His French was rough. He was a foreigner. He spoke almost like an Englishman would speak French, but he was certainly no Englishman either. “Do not be afraid. It will be over soon.”

  “Why?” she squeaked.

  “Why?” The stranger chuckled, and then it turned into a grunt of pain. “My enemies, put a hex on me and I was unable to Travel very far. How did they do that, I wonder? Please come out, girl. I am . . . better now. I do not like speaking to a door.”

  She scrunched back as far as she could. “No.”

  There was a long pause. “You have Power. You are far more valuable than the others. They were empty. You . . . You are what drew me here. I should have taken you first. Such is life.”

  Muddy boots struck the floor as he strolled over and ripped the cupboard door from its hinges. The girl screamed. He grabbed a handful of her long dark hair, dragged her out, and hurled her against the floor. She sobbed and begged for her life. She tried to use her own magic, but was too terrified and shaky to make it work.

  “I am sorry,” he said as he went over to the sink. He picked up a bloody knife and came toward her. “You don’t understand what it is like. No one does. It’s like a furnace. It demands to be fed.”

  The house began to vibrate again, but the source of this new rumble was closer than the bombs. It was a truck! The killer looked toward the window and she used the opportunity to scramble to her feet and run for her life.

  The truck engine stopped and metal doors clanged open. Someone shouted from the yard, “There’s nowhere left to run. Come out and finish this.”

  Panicked, she ran for the door and into the light. She tripped over her mother’s outstretched arm and tumbled down the steps. Her leg twisted and she cried out as a terrible pain shot through her, but she was so scared that she got back up and limped as fast as she could until she found a space to hide behind the woodpile.

  Seven men climbed off the truck. Most were wearing workers’ clothing, but two were dressed like soldiers from her country, and one was even wearing the grey uniform of the Germans. All had guns. They spread out as the one in the center walked toward the house. “Your madness ends here!”

  “So you are all that is left.” The killer tottered outside, pale and close to death. He surveyed the strangers, then leaned against the wall to stay on his feet. “What did you start with? Twenty?”

  “And you’ll pay for every last one of them!” shouted one of the others.

  “A waste! Imagine the mysteries I could learn, the answers I could find. Yet, you chased me away. The greatest expenditure of life in the shortest period of time in the history of man is happening right over there!” The killer pointed toward the east where the sky was a black wall of smoke. The gesture caused him to grimace and clutch his side. “The mysteries of the cosmos would have been laid bare.”

  “We knew this battle would attract you like a moth to the flame,” replied the leader. He looked to his men. “Kill the Spellbound.”

  When it was over, the grey-eyed man that had killed her family was dead, but so were most of the strangers that had arrived to rescue her. Even near death, the murderer had been able to disappear and reappear in different places faster than she could comprehend, and he had inflicted many wounds on her saviors before succumbing to his own. There had been crackling lightning, freezing sheets of ice, and men moving faster than was humanly possible . . . and so much death. She had been unable to look away.

  The leader of the strangers had lived, though he was bleeding and hurt. He spent a minute at the side of his last living friend, until he passed away as well. The survivor went to each of his fallen companions and collected a ring from their fingers. Then he found her, still hiding behind the woodpile, curled into a ball and crying. Older than Father, the stranger seemed thin and tired. Kneeling, he offered her his hand. She took it, his hands were softer than expected, certainly not the hands of a farmer, and he was wearing a gold and black ring. “It is safe now.” Her answer was too quiet to hear. “Are you hurt? Do you have anywhere to go?” His eyes were filled with gentle sadness.

  She tried to answer again, but her voice didn’t want to work anymore. Sobbing, she got up and hugged him. Awkwardly, the man held her close. “They are all gone? There is no one left? I’m so sorry,” he said as he lifted her and carried her away. “I’ll find someplace safe for you, I promise.”

  A group of soldiers had been marching up the road, heard the shooting, and come running. From the way they sounded as they shouted orders, they were Americans. Rifles were pointed their way, but the man that saved her life addressed the Americans with a dignified, commanding voice. “I am a commandant in the Gendarmerie on special assignment. Here are my orders.”

  The American officer was a large and frightening man with a huge mustache and sideburns, but he understood French and seemed impressed by the papers her savior had produced. “These are signed by Foch!” The American snapped rigid and gave a salute, even though her savior wasn’t wearing a uniform. “Very well, sir. What can we do to assist?”

  The guns were turned away as her rescuer gently placed her into the passenger seat of the truck. “See to it these people are given a decent Christian burial, except for him . . .” He pointed at the body of the grey-eyed man. “Burn that corpse. Burn it to ash. Then I have a message for you to convey to General Pershing at AEF headquarters. He will understand. Tell him that the Warlock is dead.”

  Chapter 1

  I swear before my God and these witnesses that I will stay true to the right and good, that my magic will be used to protect, not to enslave, that all my strength and wisdom must always shield the innocent. I swear to fight for liberty though it cost my life. The Society will be my blood and its knights my brothers, and that I will always heed the wisdom of the elders’ council. I willingly pledge my magic, my knowledge, my resources, and my life to uphold these things.

  —Oath of the Grimnoir Society,

  original date unknown

  Miami, Florida

  1933

  FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT MUST DIE.

  The angel had said so. No matter what, the president had to be killed, but it hadn’t told him what to do about the crowd that had gathered to see the new president. Giuseppe Zangara decided he’d best murder all of them too, just to play it safe. It would be easy, since it felt like the angel had given him magic sufficient to burn the whole world. Roosevelt first, though. The last thing he wanted to do was upset the angel.

  Other than a generalized hate for all rich capitalists, Zangara didn’t know much about the man who had been elected President of the United States. Hoover, Roosevelt, they were all the same to him. Names changed, but all were filthy capitalists, these American politicians, crushing the workers underfoot. He’d come to this country and they’d stolen his health, ruined his life, and destroyed his dreams. Some said that those failings were his own fault, his health problems were just bad luck, losing his job was because he wasn’t a very good bricklayer, but he knew the truth . . . Oh no, Zangara was not to blame. The capitalists were to blame. Capitalists were always to blame.

  Florida was warm, even in winter. He’d come here because the humidity was supposed to be good for his health. Now, packed into the crowd, it was too hot. Excited, the mob waited for their false savior to arrive. Many of them had made signs, painted on cardboard or sheets. He could not read the words, but he could guess what they said. We need jobs.
We are scared. We are pathetic. Protect us from magic. When these fools had heard the new president was coming, they had painted signs. When Giuseppe Zangara had heard the new president was coming, he had begun daydreaming about how to kill the man.

  Originally, he’d planned to shoot the president with a gun. Sure, he’d been born with magic, but not enough to make a difference. His connection to the Power was weak. Zangara had just enough magic to be branded a freak, certainly not enough to kill a capitalist and the many guards he was sure to have.

  Then the angel had come to him last night, and everything had changed.

  It was as beautiful as only something that had escaped from heaven could be. The angel had heard his prayers and come to bless him because of the righteousness of his cause. Its magic touch had fixed the sickness in his guts. It had drawn a spell on him that had made his magic a hundred times stronger, and even given him a fancy piece of jewelry. All it wanted in return was for him to destroy a man whom he’d wanted to kill anyway. Only it had demanded that he do it in a spectacular fashion. It had been his lucky night.

  Giuseppe Zangara was very short. All the stupid Americans in front of him were tall, making it difficult to see past them. As the bodies shifted, he caught brief glimpses between them of the president’s big automobile arriving. He tried to push his way closer, but there were too many people shoving. There was a cheer and many began clapping as the president stood up from the back seat and waved. A group began chanting “Remember Mar Pacifica,” over and over, but others shouted for them to be silent. Someone opened the car door for the president. Time was running out. If he let the president escape, the angel would be upset with him and take the magic away, and he’d just be a sick and weak nobody again.