Sword of the Tyrant Read online

  Tyranny of the Sword

  Celestine Chronicles V

  Cebelius

  Contents

  1. Best Part of Waking Up

  2. Them Bones

  3. The Best Excuse

  4. Strangers on a Plain

  5. Blue Monday

  6. Separate Ways

  7. Out Ta Get Me

  8. Freedom's Price

  9. The Number One Rule

  10. A Generous Host

  11. Hang Ups

  12. Blank Space

  13. Marion

  14. Into Darkhome

  15. Light Bearer

  16. Give In To Me

  17. Prada's Price

  18. The Oathbreaker and the Coward

  19. Gapping the Bridge

  20. And Hell Followed with Him

  21. Out of Time

  22. The Pied Viper

  23. Halfrekkr

  24. Twisted Love

  25. Hunter Gets Captured by the Game

  26. GD Genius

  27. Glory of Love

  28. It's Not What You Think

  29. Letters

  Afterword

  1

  Best Part of Waking Up

  Terrence Mack strode through an empty city. Over him, thunderheads revealed themselves with flashes of lightning that played through the roiling clouds amid a constant rumble of rolling thunder. Below, the ruined city of Florence presented the lone wanderer with an endless maze of streets.

  The dream was one he recognized, for he was lucid. He had been here many times. This, however, was different. No matter how long he wandered, nothing approached him. Nothing accosted him.

  Nothing at all.

  He was completely alone.

  His tremor sense told him that the bodies were all gone. The crowds of angry dead had vanished. The city was destroyed, but no smoke coiled from the ruins. The damage was old, ancient perhaps. Nothing had lived here in a long, long time.

  Dust hung thick in the air, billowing in clouds that tore themselves apart only to reform in the winds that blew fitfully through the desolation.

  Terry looked up at the clouds, willing the incipient storm to truly begin.

  With startling abruptness the rain came pouring down, drenching the streets in a relentless torrent and flattening the swirling dust into a thin patina of mud that coated everything for a few moments, before it too washed away.

  He tilted his face up and let the deluge pour over him as he pondered this latest twist in his nightmares.

  Isthil Corrigan was nowhere to be seen, and he wondered about that too. She had promised to ease his sleep by taking away these dark dreams, but she wasn't here. As the downpour pounded his body, it occurred to him that perhaps she didn't consider this to be a nightmare.

  Perhaps it wasn't.

  The screams were gone. The terror, the rage, and the relentless guilt were all gone.

  Only emptiness remained.

  A desire to know more formed itself in his heart, and when he turned around, he stood atop a ruined parapet on the bailey wall that separated the abandoned city below from the decrepit keep behind him.

  He set his hands on the wall and looked out over the ruin. He looked past it, and saw that the plains were just as desolate. No grass grew. Nothing moved but the rain and the lightning, which illuminated blast craters filled with a slurry of mud and ash as far as the eye could see.

  Thomas won.

  The thought crept through his mind like a snake in the garden, coiling under his heart.

  It's what he's working for. This is his world.

  Terry sat on the pitted stone and looked out with new understanding not on a ruined city, but on an empty world.

  These are the stakes. This isn't a nightmare. It's just the price of failure.

  The rain eased, then ceased. The thunderheads rolled away only to reveal a different sort of cloud. Dust sank down from the skies to bury the ruined land in shifting veils of windblown ash that hid the endless desolation.

  Terry was bone dry. He glanced down at himself and noticed that his skin was flaking away, but he felt no pain. He felt nothing at all, only emptiness.

  Robbed of all sensation, he watched with a curious detachment as his body was consumed, dissolving into particles that drifted away to join the ever-shifting dance of the endless clouds of dust that shrouded a once vibrant land.

  In the end, there was nothing left.

  Opening his eyes, Terry remained still and passively took in his circumstances. He lay on a bed of extravagant comfort. Prada cupped his body, her infinitely malleable bulk grown vast with the gifts of his bond and blood. A sanguine devil, she was more commonly known as a ruby slime, though at the moment she felt more like gel to Terry. At the moment she comfortably supported not only his body, but several others.

  Shy Willow lay at his right shoulder, her nubile form draped against his side with her head upon his chest and her right arm resting over his stomach.

  Euryale was curled in at his left, her head nestled into his armpit with his arm supporting her, hand over her hip. Her snakes were draped all around, a few resting on his chest, several more drooping over his arm while another coiled around his throat. One of her black, leathery wings lay across both his body and Shy's. The other was tucked underneath her. Her arms were curled against her modest chest; he could feel the metal of her brazen claws, warm against his side as they retained his heat.

  Above him were the beams of an intricate wooden frame that supported the fabric exterior of the yurt in which he'd spent the night. Sunlight diffused through the roof along with a single bright beam angled sharply against the wall coming in from the smoke hole. It was more than enough light to see by, but he chose not to move his head to look further.

  Instead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his tremor sense. Heartbeats and the faint stirring of breath revealed bodies beyond the two lying next to him.

  Asturial's beat was the heaviest. Her body was several times denser than it appeared, and her heart thrummed with power as it sent blood coursing through her. She lay at Prada's edge, her head pillowed on the slime as she slept on her side, her thick tail limp behind her.

  As he thought about her, it occurred to him that she shouldn't be as dense as she was. Not anymore. She had shed a proxy to do battle with Stheno ... but her body didn't seem any lighter. He made a mental note to ask her about it later.

  Also using the sanguine devil for a pillow was his minotress, Laina Lowe.

  Maybe it should be Laina Mack now. I should probably get around to telling her about that ... see if she wants the name.

  Her breathing was loud enough that even without his tremor sense he could have heard her. She didn't snore — not exactly — but her mouth was open as she slept. Her longhorns made it impossible for her to sleep on her side, and her mammoth breasts made sleeping on her stomach an equally unlikely proposition. Her body was heavy with muscle, and like her breathing, her heartbeat was slow and steady. Her hands were folded across her stomach, and her hooves were likewise crossed. Though he could not see her, his tremor sense outlined her for him with every beat of every heart.

  Behind him, he sensed another powerful double heartbeat, and the blood that flowed through that body described a being with the upper body of a woman, and the lower body of a horse. Isthil Corrigan. She had two hearts, one in her upper body, and another in her lower.

  She, like Prada, was awake and aware of him. He could sense her attention with the same sort of sixth sense that caused one to look around with the feeling of being observed. His sense was keener than that though. It not only told him that someone was looking, but who, and also that she meant him no harm.

  'Good morning, Husband,' Prada purred, her voice ent
irely inside his mind. 'Did you sleep well?'

  Well enough. His answer was pure thought. When they were in contact, neither needed to speak aloud to be understood.

  'It's almost noon,' her mental voice purred. 'You certainly know how to show your girls a good time.'

  Some of them at any rate. Where are Mila and Halla?

  'Mila is outside the range of my tremor sense. Halla went to sleep in the yurt next to this one.' She paused, then added, 'Baba Yaga slept in her hut, which hasn't moved.'

  Ignoring that last, he thought, Did Mila ever come back last night?

  'I did not sense her, no.'

  Frowning, Terry shifted his head back slowly until Isthil came into his line of sight. She tilted her head slightly as she met his gaze, her face upside down from his perspective. She spoke in a near whisper, "G'mornin'."

  "Morning ... ish. Would you do me a favor?"

  "Ask."

  "Find Mila. Let her know I'm worried, but don't press. I just want to make sure she's all right."

  "Unless she's havin' fitful dreams, I'll have to track her. Where'd ye last see her?" Isthil asked.

  "She mounted up and rode off from just outside the longhouse last night."

  "I cannae promise anythin'. I'm fair at trackin' but no more."

  "If you can't pick up her trail, just come back and let me know."

  The nightmare nodded, reared back until she stood on her four feet, and then walked silently out through a wall, simply fading out of sight.

  There'd been a time when that would have impressed Terry, but now he didn't bat an eye. All of his women had powers of one sort or another.

  Sensing his thoughts, Prada slyly pointed out, 'Isthil's not yours yet ... Husband.'

  He blinked as he thought about that. It was true. Isthil wasn't one of his. That hadn't kept him from thinking of her that way though.

  Frowning, he nodded and thought, You're right.

  'You should fix that.'

  Is she your pick?

  'Beg pardon?'

  He grinned as he thought, Your pick. I haven't forgotten our wager.

  'Oh! Hah, no. I would not waste my wager's choice on her. You'll wind up with her anyway. It's simply a matter of time.'

  So you think. Horse isn't exactly my thing.

  Prada's mental voice copied Isthil's exactly as she reminded him of one of the Nightmare's earlier comments. 'Oooh! You mean me cunts! I've got two. One in front, and one in the back.'

  Terry chuckled despite himself. His chuckle made Prada's bulk quiver, which in turn woke everyone up.

  You did that on purpose, he thought accusingly.

  'I certainly did,' Prada replied, her inner voice rife with amusement. 'Much as I love holding you, if we aren't going to have sex, you should probably get on with the day.'

  Terry's vision cut out as a black wing swept across his face and he felt one of Euryale's brazen claws cup his cheek. He tipped his head down and kissed her, and she mmm'd lazily against his lips and said, "Morning, Master."

  "Good morning love."

  Another hand cupped his opposite cheek and turned his face to the other side as Shy claimed a kiss for herself, still under cover of Euryale's wing.

  "Last night was one to remember," she murmured. "We should do things like that more often."

  "Fighting Stheno isn't really high on my list of things I wanna do twice, Shy," he said with a lopsided grin.

  She arched her eyebrow at him, her luminous green eyes fixed on his as she gave him a wry look, but didn't take the bait.

  Euryale's wing flared out as the gorgon twisted away from him, her snake uncoiling from around his neck as she leaned up and stretched. Terry took the moment to enjoy the view. Euryale's breasts were on the small side but perky. When she arched her back it made for a very appealing picture.

  "Good Morning, Terrence."

  Terry turned his attention to Asturial and smiled as he said, "Morning."

  The dragon proxy's hair was smashed to one side in a serious case of bedhead, and as she caught him grinning at the sight she glanced up, then rolled her eyes in annoyance.

  He leaned up and Prada rippled into a ruby wave that practically threw him to his feet. He reached out and ran fingers through Asturial's bright red hair before she could, then kissed her lightly and said, "Hair all messed up like that, you must have had some kinda fun last night."

  "You would know," Asturial said, her surprise at his kiss fading into a fond smile and a blush that showed up vividly against her pale face.

  He teased her hair back into some semblance of order, enjoying the fact that her blush continued to deepen at the attention as he murmured, "Why yes, I suppose I would."

  "You're making me blush," she said in an accusing tone.

  "Uh huh. It's cute."

  "It is not! You are embarrassing me!"

  "The fact that I can embarrass you with just a little honest affection is adorable," he said, his grin now so wide his cheeks were beginning to ache. By now her face was almost as red as the scale accents that lined her features, and he leaned in and kissed her again before finally relenting.

  Terry turned and couched next to Laina, who was still blearily blinking the sleep from her eyes.

  "Hey, hon," he said softly, "sleep good?"

  "Like a log," she said, her jaw practically cracking with her yawn. "You?"

  "Like I'd been fucked into a coma," he said with a grin before adding, "And I'm starvin'."

  Laina's lips split into a smile that lit up her face, brown eyes warm as they met his.

  She's so damn cute, Terry thought to himself, reaching out to touch the band of gold around her left horn that matched the one on his left ring finger.

  "Oh no, can't have that," she said, tilting her head as she leaned up, then back into Prada as the sanguine devil shifted her bulk in close behind the minotress to support her. Laina's heavy breasts were naked and taut, riding high on her chest despite their incredible size.

  He noticed her nipples hardening a bit as she watched him, and her voice was inviting as she asked, "Why don't you have breakfast before I wrap up then?"

  "You're so good to me," he said as he settled in next to her and leaned in, letting her cradle him close. Considering what the women in this room had done with and to him last night, there was no way he was going to be embarrassed about drinking straight from the tap this morning, even in company.

  "Got two a these," he heard Laina say as he felt the first liquid rush of her flavor wash over his tongue.

  "Come an' get it."

  As Shy slipped in behind him, shamelessly pressing her supple breasts into his back as she took Laina up on her offer, Terry couldn't help but think, Sometimes, having a harem is kinda awesome.

  2

  Them Bones

  "Have a seat. Would you like a cookie?"

  Yuri shook his head as he cautiously sat down on the stool Baba Yaga offered him. The two of them sat inside her hut, and it took every ounce of will he had to keep his fear from showing.

  It wasn't as though the inside of the witch's hut was in any way horrifying. It was a relatively small space and smelled strongly of spices and baking. An oven and countertop took up one corner, and behind him was a small bed overhung with shelves on which rested bottles containing things Yuri tried not to look at too closely. Herbs hung in bundles from the rafters, and bookshelves lined the open walls, though they held as many knickknacks and oddities as things to actually read. All in all, the hut was rather prosaic and homey.

  What terrified him was the woman herself.

  Baba Yaga looked at him keenly from her rocking chair, set in a corner near one of the front windows, and it seemed unfair to him that her appearance should so belie the fear that plagued him. She looked like a female template a bit younger than Prada usually appeared to be, with long raven's wing black hair and almond-shaped, dark eyes in a pretty, round face. She wore a simple yellow dress with green accents under a frilly white apron with script on the front
in a language Yuri couldn't read.

  "No. Thank you," he managed after realizing he should say something. "I am ... not hungry for food."

  "Oh? Hungry for what then?" She steepled her fingers and rolled them forward, pointing them at him as she said, "Tell Baba what's on your mind."

  Not for the first time, Yuri Kolenko questioned his own sanity. Nothing in life frightened him more than the deceptively cheerful witch rocking idly in the chair a few feet away. Stories of her curses had cost him more than a few nights sleep when he was young. Her machinations had cost him family, and almost his own sanity.

  Yet here he was.

  His words left him in a rush, before he lost what little courage remained to him.

  "I would like to ask you to cast the bones for me."

  "Ah."

  He winced as that simple sound seemed to pierce him. His ears laid back flat on his head as his tail curled under the legs of the stool on which he sat.

  "Feeling a bit lost, are we? Still unwilling to accept the destiny given to you ... even after all this?" she asked, smiling the faint smile of the knowing. In that expression he could see the accumulated knowledge of countless lifetimes, and her dark eyes drew him in like bottomless pits.

  "My people are safe," Yuri said. "Vlad is gone. If I go to them now, where would I lead them?"

  "Presumably into war. That is the only course you see, is it not? The template is going to attack the Twilight Zone eventually. He will need warriors, and your people are fearsome despite their long somnolence." Baba Yaga's smile was pleasant, as though she were talking about the weather.