A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

(anywhere you dwell

in yolli / in patlantinemi . . . .”

as animals / as birds. . . .)

“in ic nauhcan

(from the four directions

niquintzatzilia ic axcan yez . . . .”

I call you to my grip. . . .)

“tla xihuallauh, Ce-Tecpatl,

(come forth, knife,

tezzohuaz titlapallohuaz—”

to be stained with blood—)

“Tla xihuallah.

(Come forth.

Tlatecuin.”

Cross my path.)

Without wondering how, she knew the words were pouring into Ed from elsewhere, and that he did not care. She felt the land beneath the salt rouse to Ed’s sacrifice with ten times the strength it had for hers—unsurprising, really; she’d spilled blood for spite and fury, to drive Chess into battle, while Ed’s had been for love and grief, out of a determination to save lives.

(Balance, granddaughter.)

The ground quaked, juddering them both painfully. Dull reports echoed, crack of dry ground, stone fracturing, snapping. With crashes like dropped clay pots, the salt cells binding the Pinkerton agents broke; to a man, they bolted, shouting as they fled.

A wall of green thrust up, vine and Weed-tangle slamming through the valley’s topsoil. It blossomed in a perfect circle, tendrils twining frantically inward but unable to cross the salt-lip, straining to reach Chess ’til its overspill latched onto Pinkerton’s hex-train—probably the largest other source handy—and began drawing fiercely on its power. It swarmed monkey-quick over the carriages, kicking up sparks and bursts of lightning like a firework show gone all askew. The train shuddered and crunched down, its enchantment-driven wheels suddenly gone the way of all spells.

All dignity forfeit, Asbury screamed like a colicky baby. In turn, Songbird let loose with a furious kettle-shriek, terror only thinly overlaid with anger. The force-grown crackle of leaves nearly drowned the Weed-flowers’ chitter, a flock of maddened birds intent on devouring whatever might be unlucky enough to lie in its path.

Yancey felt Morrow pushing harder, pouring all of his determination to save her—and Chess—into the sacrifice. The potency at work painted everything in ghost-shapes; all she could do was knit her grip with Ed’s and haul all the harder, throwing a last whisper of thought Chess’s way: God damn you, you irritating little man, get up.

No response—not audibly. But amidst the dead white glow of the salt, her spiritualist’s lens showed her Chess, bright green and red with blood, his shoulders shaking. And she knew that he was laughing.

Seconds later, the entire Weed-mess let fly a mutual blast of pollen, every seed pod rupturing at once and hurling its cargo into Bewelcome’s air. Chess sucked in a deep gasp, swallowing it down like burning whiskey. Thus sustained, he plunged his hands down, tearing into the crust of salt, rendering b

loody meat-gloves of them in moments, though the hurt of it seemed to register only briefly before he found raw soil, and buried them to the wrists.

As with the best of Chess’s black miracles, a soundless pulse went off in all directions, turning his whole skin the pulp-green of a cut stalk. Love’s remaining spear-pillars shattered under their own weight, while great gouts of crackling lightning came off the train’s locked boxcars; the wood split, heavy planks splintering like balsa, iron chains gone to rust and dust in an instant.

Yancey couldn’t quite make out the figures who spilled from the wreckage—some alive, some grievously injured, some beyond all pain—but she knew what they were: hexes, trapped in some unimaginable way, kept from feeding on one another by Asbury’s black science and forced to drive Pinkerton’s train where he would, defying geography. Those who could rabbited fast as the Pinks before ’em, stumbling toward the mouth of the valley, earth still a-rumble beneath their feet: more screams rose up, weak with despair. Beneath them, pounding thuds, growing steadily louder. Nearer.

But moments before the first of the escapees reached their goal, he came skidding to a stop, backpedalled frantically, urging those following behind off. Because of this concern for his fellows, or perhaps because he stood (all unknowing) on the edge of a sheer and sudden drop, whoever-it-was couldn’t see the monstrous shape which reared up right where his eyes had formerly rested ’til it darted its huge head down and bit him in half, snuffling him up like a dog with a bit of cheese.

“What . . . ?” Morrow breathed.

To each side of the valley’s entrance, great beasts pulled themselves free of the stone like downed birds from mud, aeons-dead bones clothed anew in flesh, albeit incomplete and rotting. Green fire outlined their eye sockets. A dozen of them? A score? Yancey felt their tremendous weight pound the earth beneath her. Reptilian, elephantine, creatures of an older sun, these thundering lizards hammered toward Bewelcome’s heart, their horns and teeth all set for Sheriff Love.

Cool-headed to the last even when set in sorcerous mayhem’s path, Love took advantage of the rout to snatch up Pinkerton’s discarded pepper-box, discharging it straight at Chess’s face. But Chess merely opened wide and swallowed the shots down whole, not even bothering to gulp.