Steel Sirens Read online

  Emeree lays on her back, hip touching mine, her eyes fixed on the rough beams overhead. Her skin is cast pale gold by the firelight, tops of her breasts sheened with our sweat.

  Dampness across my thighs cools. Seconds pass while I feel her inside, flowing with a sensation I can’t read. Was it too fast? Too rough? Not rough enough?

  Fifty years is a lot of pressure.

  All of this knocks around my brain. It takes a second to realize she’s watching me.

  “I’m not going to ask you to do it again...” she whispers.

  I can’t lie; this stings.

  “...Because we need to get moving and because there’s a good chance I wore you out,” Emeree pauses, preening. “But I’m making you aware that at the very next opportunity, I want you again.”

  I look her over. “Likewise.”

  “We have a bargain.” She slides her hand into mine and makes me shake on it.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” I tell her, laughter fading.

  “Me too.” She brushes a kiss to my cheek and stands up.

  “Do you ever wonder? About your old life?” The question pops into my head for no particular reason. Maybe the closeness of what we shared or our bond.

  Emeree wriggles into her camisole. “Yes! For a long time, it was idle. In the last years though, when I was exiled and being hunted, I was almost obsessed with my past. At the end I think every living thing wants to flee home, for the sense of the familiar, of safety. Of...dying in a place where someone knows your name.” She finishes wrestling on her drawers.

  “The Orpha?” I ask.

  “Among other enemies. For decades, we went where we were needed most. After, when things calmed down, well...It was impossible not to wonder about my past.”

  “Can you remember anything?”

  Her laugh is thin. “That’s the worst part. Yes. We could each remember little things. Snatches of a song, a face. Aleska thought she’d found her home once, but so much time had passed. So much changed in the world.” Emeree stands at the iron stove, back to me. “No one there remembered her or her family name.”

  “That might not be true for you. Or some of the others. A place, a family.” I can’t imagine life without Briet and Kel. Not trying to find them even if I couldn’t remember them.

  “That’s just it. I know I had family. But how to get back to them...” She looks down at me, old sadness in her eyes. “It’s all a fog after the blessing, the curse, and half a century.”

  “Ridiculous question but did you...ask? The people involved in creating you, that is.”

  “They’d be the last to tell us anything. We weren’t supposed to know. To keep us from using our power to benefit one faction, one kingdom, bolstering one realm against another.”

  “High price to pay.”

  Emeree smiles. “Maybe. But we got to be heroes.”

  “You still are.”

  She gathers her armor without saying anything.

  I’m dressed and looking for something to do until we leave. I take up Emeree’s sword, the sword I didn’t clean when we came in, and get to work.

  She hasn’t moved from the fire, but now she’s so close her scent fills my breath.

  I run my oiled cloth the length of her blade, its obsidian glistening.

  “Oh, with an imbued blade you don’t have to –” Emeree freezes, mouth open. She shivers.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I was saying –”

  I go back to my work, starting another pass.

  “You were saying…?” I glance up; her eyes are half closed, lips parted.

  “Oh. Ohhh…”

  No... No chance.

  I watch her face and stroke again.

  Emeree bites her lip. A soft moan fills the cabin.

  “That ever happen before?”

  She swallows. “No. Before I was cursed the sword was just a sword.”

  I stare down at my hand resting on the hilt. “So…”

  “The bond with you is different. It’s still new to me.”

  One more lazy draw along the blade.

  Her knees hitch and I chuckle. “Let’s remember this for next time.”

  8

  “Ha! Almost got me that time!”

  “Damn.” I raise already stinging hands, know what’s coming next.

  We’ve cleaned up the last signs of our camp and Emeree has challenged me to a game of skill on our walk back to the horses, tethered out of sight in a grove behind the cabin.

  “Not sure why I agreed to play Cat’s Claws with a known cheater,” I grumble, standing under the dripping forest canopy with smarting hands.

  Emeree gasps. Her breasts heave. The image of her lean, nude body steals my thoughts for a second.

  “You don’t mean me...” she says.

  I swallow, trying to remember where we were.

  “Oh, you do mean me. Let’s settle this like men.” She turns back toward the horses, making for her sword.

  I catch her hand. “Easy there, Lord Infant Feelings. Let’s play again.”

  Her eyes narrow. “No more being a sore loser?”

  I nod. “Just frustrated because I can’t figure this out.”

  “It’ll take time. You have great reflexes. But your instincts? Our bond, and what you take from it, is new. You’ve lived with sight with hearing all your life. With this, you’re a virgin.”

  “Hm. Interesting choice of word, considering.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Focus.”

  I raise my hands, level at her chest. “Ready.”

  “No, you’re not. Eyes up here.”

  “Sorry. It’s hard.”

  “That’s the point. Ignore all this,” she says breezily. “The glade, the sounds and smells. Ignore the horses’ complaints, the wind and the earth below us. Shut it all out, even me.”

  I close my eyes and try something new. Casting my mind toward her, I flow into the channel of emotion and strength that connects us. “Ready.”

  “You can’t see it with your eyes, but in your mind picture a cord. It stretches from my soul to yours. A ribbon of blood.”

  I stretch my mind further. I can feel her, her presence, her confidence and joy and desire. But I can’t see it the way she’s describing. “I can’t find it.”

  “You will. Concentrate.”

  Falnir snuffles. Rain drops from the branches, warring for my focus.

  I want to open my eyes; I fight it. Maybe…Shut it all out.

  I focus on her entirely, on what I feel inside of her. Wait for a change, a hint.

  Emeree softens and the air between us heats. Intent, palpable; a hundredth of a heartbeat before she moves, I feel it coming. Her hand darts out, so fast that I don’t consciously realize she’s moved.

  This time, she misses.

  “Ha! I felt you!”

  Her smirk holds the barest hint of pride. “Now who’s a cheater?”

  I lunge for her and we tumble, startling the horses. We roll over wet grass. It magnifies the heat of her skin, so alive against mine.

  My body responds.

  She huffs a low laugh against my ear, and her hand works between our bodies. She traces my cock through thick fabric. “We made a bargain in the –”

  Her words break off. Her body tenses.

  I don’t have to ask; the warning sings between us.

  I still my breath and listen, extend my senses. This is an unfamiliar forest. We’ve travelled far enough for small changes. But the forest will always be a part of me.

  Something is off.

  Emeree’s eyes meet mine.

  I shake my head. I don’t know.

  She slips from me. We crouch, straining to hear over skittish horses and post-storm forest.

  Emeree radiates tension where our arms touch.

  There.

  I prod her arm and nod. At the western edge of our clearing. The forest is unnaturally silent, and though the surrounding area thrums with life, a small wedge is quiet. />
  She frowns. “I thought we’d have more time, with the distance we’ve covered.”

  Our horses whicker nervously a few yards away. Glaer looks willing to break tether after days of strain, and my bow is on his saddle. Everything is packed on their saddles, save Emeree’s sword.

  “Make a run for it?” I ask. If we spook the horses in a rush, it’ll be bad. If we wait, I’m not sure we’ll fare better.

  She shakes her head. “Either way, we kill them.” She leaps up, from utter stillness to fluid motion in an eye blink. Her blade comes with her, ripping a dark furrow through the air, and she buries the tip in the dirt. And then she’s still, once again. It’s so fast I barely have time to blink.

  I stumble up as the first man clears the tree line.

  Four, then eight, then ten. Their armor is scavenged but they bear the same pale fist painted somewhere on their kit.

  Their captain steps forward as I rush to the horses, pulling my bow and arrows free. He’s a giant of a man, at least seven feet tall, and the head of his warhammer is the size of a small boulder. He holds it loosely over his shoulder. I doubt I could lift it.

  His men array behind him. Swords sing as they clear scabbards. Axes swing, and spears with cruel barbs are readied. Two of them clutch wicked black crossbows. Wicked because they’re leveled at us.

  Men stalk into the clearing on a ripple of silence.

  Time to think tactically. Have they caught us? Flanked us?

  Their silence is a boon. Sounds of life flutter at the edges of our clearing. They must have seen the woodsmoke. We weren’t considered much of a threat by some scout.

  The captain steps ahead of the others, and his warhammer falls heavily to the earth, digging a furrow in the soil as he drags it forward. His face is a mass of scars and hard angles, and he wears no helmet. His bald skull is laced with intricate tattoos, a complex web of characters and symbols split by a corded scar that stretches from his temple to the spot where his ear used to be.

  Emeree stands before him, unafraid. Her hair ripples gently in the breeze, and she doesn’t lift her blade from the dirt.

  I bring my bow up, slowly, arrow already knocked, ready to draw.

  A slaver notices, raises his crossbow, and fires. A bolt hurtles across the clearing, aimed for my head.

  Before I have time to move, to duck, to even realize that I need to, Emeree is there. Somehow anticipating the shot, she slides to the left, sword coming up like a scythe, and she cuts the bolt from the air. It falls sliced cleanly through the middle.

  I raise my bow and I loose without aiming, not a doubt the shot is true. My arrow mirrors the bolt’s flight, sliding inches past Emeree’s head, and takes the slaver in his eye. He gurgles and falls back in an eruption of crimson.

  “Bravo,” Emeree says, not looking at me.

  I nock another arrow in answer.

  Another crossbow comes up, aimed at me. This time, the slaver that wields it is less confident, the whites of his eyes little moons before his levelled weapon.

  Before he can fire, the massive brute swings back without looking, and his warhammer smashes into the slaver with the sickening crunch of shattered bone. The man falls, dead before he hits the ground. “No,” the hulk says, “No killing. Myranda’s orders.” He gives Emeree a mangle-toothed grin. “No spoiling.”

  Well, this takes some pressure off.

  The giant hefts his warhammer in one hand, swinging it around his head as if it were a small branch. Its cyclone sends Emeree’s hair flowing back in an inky wave. “Gruhl will take care of this.”

  The others cast quick glances at each other, then back to us. They don’t lower their weapons, but they take a step back. Unlike Gruhl, who seems not much more than a mass of muscle, and not much of a threat to someone like Emeree, the volley of hand signals the slavers send back and forth worries me.

  Gruhl spins his warhammer, trundling toward Emeree. I’m not sure what he plans to do with it if he wants us “unspoiled,” but I get the impression intelligence isn’t his strong suit.

  He’s little more than arm’s length, staring her down.

  Emeree’s still until his warhammer comes down. He brings it speeding like a cannonball toward her sword arm, aiming to disarm her.

  She’s gone before he finishes his strike, blurring and rolling around his other side, tearing a wound in his stomach and side. He roars and the hammer follows her, deceptively fast. It hums through the air with murderous intent.

  She ducks the cubed iron head. Emeree’s blade whips out, hamstringing him across both legs.

  He stumbles, too squat to fall under his own weight.

  I launch at his face, twice in quick succession. One arrow pings off his oak skull. The other buries in his mouth

  He yells and spits, spraying out bits of teeth,

  A slick pass of silver spills ropes of gut. Gruhl folds to his knees.

  Emeree dances from his shadow.

  She greets the slavers with a triumphant swing.

  On a last burst of strength, Gruhl throws his hammer as he collapses.

  It smashes Emeree’s arm, a shattering blow that staggers her.

  She crumples.

  “No!” I stumble forward.

  The slavers tense, set to rush.

  This is going to shite.

  “Hold!” Emeree gasps. She drags herself up. Her arm hangs limp at broken angles. But her skin? It should be bruised, pulped, penetrated.

  It’s unbroken. But a spiderweb of black lines webs her flesh like ink over wet parchment.

  As she inches back to Gruhl, the lines spread. She slows.

  This is bad.

  Which leaves five or six men, a wounded Siren, and me.

  I raise my bow, arrow nocked, ready to fight, but my breath comes in short gasps and fear threatens to swallow my resolve.

  Emeree reaches Gruhl, who’s stilled. His breath is ragged, and little sprays of blood mist the air. His eyes roll back, so far that only the whites are visible. His fingers spasm on the haft of his warhammer, and the smell of fresh shit is acrid in the small clearing.

  A black and silver blade rests on his forehead. Slowly, deliberately, never taking her eyes from the remaining slavers, Emeree pierces her sword down, into his brain.

  Gruhl thrashes once.

  Emeree climbs atop his body and raises her sword. She’s blood spattered, sword raised, a blackened arm useless at her side. And she cries out, a battle cry that sets the wood into frenzy. Long, ringing, as if there’s nothing she fears.

  One of the slavers pisses himself, leaving a trickle in the mud when he turns to run.

  I actually empathize with him.

  But I can’t let him escape. There are more of him. Many more. I draw and loose and it’s over. My arrow shatters the back of his skull, and he disappears between uncaring trees.

  The others don’t wait. Unlike their fallen companion, they know their only hope now is to kill us. They surge in a wave, intent on Emeree.

  She rips her blade forward, taking off the top of Gruhl’s skull. A welter of brain and blood spatters the leading two slavers, and as they shy from it, she follows, her sword taking the arm from one in three beats of my heart. He wails, but swings wildly, a clumsy blow that she ducks easily.

  Three split off and rush me. I don’t quail, don’t waver. I’ve lost my fear, somewhere, the terror that threatened to drown me.

  It’s Emeree. She charges the rest, injured and unafraid. Godsdamn if her wild abandon doesn’t pull me along.

  I draw, loose, and one spins in a ruby arterial spray, my arrow through his neck, and in that moment, I know I can survive this with a Siren at my side.

  I chase my shot with another that takes a slaver in his shoulder, in the gap between two plates in his pauldron. He stumbles, drops his blade to clutch his bleeding shoulder, but he still comes on, a battering ram.

  They’re too close for arrows, now. I drop my bow, scramble toward my sword, near where Emeree and I played a child’s
game only moments earlier. I beat the slavers and scoop up the blade, spinning in place to slip into the combat stance she’s drilled into me over the last few days.

  One of the slavers, a rail thin snake with a cruelly barbed blade and shield, eyes me. He takes in my blade, my stance, and smiles. “Put away your ladle, goodwife. You really think you can take us with that old piece of shite?”

  I breathe deep, calm my rampaging heart. “Come find out.”

  With a snarl, he heaves, two quick slashes of his axe. They cut the air between us. His moves are those of a seasoned soldier, but he hasn’t been training with a Siren.

  I bring my blade up, with every bit of my wiry strength, into a block. Even as our weapons smash into each other, I roll inside his guard, hammer my forehead into his nose, and then dance backward.

  It’s a move Emeree taught me, and even though she pulled punches, it was still a painful lesson. A trick that only works now because they think I’m green.

  The slaver howls, choking on blood. He stumbles away, head swinging like a wounded animal. It buys me some time.

  Emeree’s painted in the blood of two men lying still behind her. This doesn’t dissuade the man in front of her. He wields two curved blades that move like serpents, an extension of his arms.

  Agile as she is, Emeree can’t get inside his guard. She slows but keeps him at bay. Her arm is worse, dark and rotten where her sleeve is torn away.

  Two left. They advance on me with less enthusiasm than before, but they aren’t surrendering.

  Emeree falls back, step by step. My mind races, and I have only heartbeats before they come at me. I won’t fool them again.

  It’s difficult and dangerous if you’re not ready.

  Emeree’s power. My power.

  I cast into my soul, into the new place where Emeree lives. I have to find whatever waits there.

  The first slaver attacks again, and the one I shot bowls around him like a bull. Their coordination is terrifying, that of soldiers who’ve fought together for years. I dart to the side, not counterattacking, diving over a fallen log.

  And all the while, I search, panic choking my breath. How do I find it?

  The bond.