Page 39 of Devil’s Doom (Jaga and the Devil #2)

Chapter thirty-nine

Flames

“You have fought valiantly. You have suffered, you have lost, you have pushed through challenges that shouldn’t be required of anyone, and yet, you are still here. And tonight, you shall triumph.”

Woland stands on a stone dais in the entrance cavern. He towers over us, and for once, he’s clothed in a pair of tight, black trousers and a leather vest, also black. He has no belt or weapons, but he looks dangerous, his eyes shining, teeth bared. I feel an inkling of respect. He looks like a true leader, fierce and unafraid.

I feel vindicated for that unpleasant conversation about his nudity we had long ago, because I was right. Wearing clothes as adornment makes sense.

A crowd of rebels fills every inch of the enormous space. It’s nighttime, and Lech, who stands by my side, whispers in my ear that it’s the coldest night of the year yet. Winter solstice is only eight days away.

I am surrounded by other healers, but Nienad isn’t here. He’s part of Woland’s secret team that will work on contaminating the fence’s magic while we draw the dragons’ attention away. I feel the excitement around me, making the air taut with possibility. Woland speaks with charisma, his confident voice carrying to the farthest nooks of the cavern.

“Tonight, all the work we did will finally pay off. This is the moment we’ve waited for. This is the reckoning.”

The rebels raise their weapons with a cry, and I bite the inside of my cheek, a tiny, suspicious voice in my head wondering whether Woland always makes promises like this before a battle. Maybe it’s a part of his war strategy, and people having unrealistic expectations are more likely to fight better—I don’t know. All I know is, I still don’t trust him. Not as my lover, and not as my leader.

But I hope it will change tonight. I’m tired of being the fulcrum of this conflict between love and distrust. I want to finally go one way or another, and the possibility of a resolution is what makes me excited for this fight.

I’ll be there to see the outcome. I’ll know what Woland’s word is worth.

And maybe I’ll give him my soul in the end.

“Some of you will die and be forced to serve Perun, but fear not! After Slawa, we will take Wyraj to end his tyranny once and for all. No death shall go unpunished, no sacrifice—unrewarded. Tonight, we end the tolls. Tomorrow, we end death!”

The cheers are deafening. Lech screams by my side, his eyes hot with zealous fire, body tight with anticipation. I look around, realizing that these aren’t people who’ve heard the same speech hundreds of times. There is fire around me, passion lit and ready to explode, and I shiver, wanting to scream with the crowd, yet unable to let go of the cynical voice in the back of my head.

Because ending death? That’s the first time I hear of this. Is that even possible?

I know the people of Slawa go to roost in the Great Oak as birds after death. And I know after they serve their sentence in Perun’s land, they are sent back to be reborn as bieses in Slawa. Meanwhile, mortal souls go to Nawie, where they stay forever.

Is Woland planning to end only bies death or mortal death, too? My head spins, and the shouts of excitement around me only grow louder, muddling my thoughts.

“Are you ready to end slavery and terror?”

I fight the instinct to cover my ears as the crowd erupts with a unanimous roar. No, he definitely didn’t make these promises before today, or their enthusiasm wouldn’t be as enormous. I wonder why he’s so confident about this victory.

“Let’s go, then.”

Shadows wrap around Woland, and he disappears from the dais, suddenly appearing at my side. He lays a heavy hand on my shoulder as shadowy tendrils erupt from his body, shooting into the crowd. The cavern grows dark, filling with his black magic until all I see is darkness, and all I smell is him.

There’s a sensation of falling, and then we land, my feet touching frost-crunched grass. I’m still surrounded by the crowd, and Woland’s at my side, warm and reassuring. The first breath of cold air freezes my nostrils, and I look around as the shadows disperse. We’re on top of a grassy hill, everyone who was in that cavern transported here as one.

Woland doesn’t seem winded after such a feat. If I didn’t know how powerful he is, this would drive it home. Transporting over two hundred people over a significant distance is likely impossible for anyone but a god.

Below us, the first row of rebels stand just three steps away from the glittering, enormously high wall of Perun’s fence. It’s roughly twice as tall as Woland, and that’s including his antlers. It’s half-transparent, not built of bricks or stones, but of a gossamer-like, bluish shimmer that I know is pure magic.

I’ve never seen the fence, and it comes as a shock that it isn’t a physical barrier with how insurmountable everyone makes it sound. I knew it was magical, of course, but now I see it’s made of only magic, and thus, impossible to topple.

The key to destroying the fence lies underneath.

The magic is anchored to charged, runic stones that are buried underground, and those are the true targets. At the front line, Wera gives a call, rousing a large team of kobolds, strzygas, upirs, and chochols bearing shovels.

“Spread! Five paces between diggers! Stop! Dig!”

By my side, Woland scans the sky, his shadows hovering around his shoulders like a mantle. Warriors bearing weapons spread down the line of diggers, looking up with tension. We healers stand together, not yet needed. Lech gnashes his teeth, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he, too, looks at the sky.

“Three coming from the east,” Woland says, his voice cool.

The rebels around us pick up his words and shout the message down the quickly spreading lines. More diggers run to the far sides of the front line, spreading farther and farther to cover as much ground as possible. Warriors stand, tense and grim, watching the sky.

“Nine from the north,” Woland says, his shadows thickening and rising like a cloud above us. “Twelve from the south. There will be more.”

We are somewhere on the border between Slawa and Wyraj. That means the city is in the north, and Wyraj lies to the south. The largest forces will come from beyond the fence.

A fire blazes across the sky in the south. Woland’s lieutenants direct the warriors to form half circles around the diggers, some more heavily protected, some less.

“Take positions,” Woland tells the healers. When I try to move, his hold on my shoulder tightens. “Not you. I’ll let you go in a moment, but for this part, you’ll stay close.”

I don’t know what “this part” means, and nobody else does, either. Woland’s people follow his orders with reckless devotion, which allows him to keep them in the dark. From the stories I’ve heard about past attacks, I know he always uses some kind of strategy that doesn’t allow the dragons to simply burn us to a crisp from the sky.

But which strategy he’ll use is always a secret. It makes sense if Woland thinks there are spies in rebel ranks.

“The three from the east will get here first,” Lech says, standing too close to me, his blue eyes glowing faintly in the light of the half-moon shining cold and bright in the sky.

“They want to see what I’ll do,” Woland says, sounding almost bored. “Sacrificial lambs. Biedas! Target the dragons coming from the east.”

To my left, a small group of biedas, Lutowa among them, climbs higher up the grassy hill. They look strange, eight skeletally thin women with long hair and pale skin, malnourished and shaking in their tattered clothes. But their faces are tight with determination. I know from Lutowa’s boasting their magic has an impressive reach and can desiccate a dragon in the time it takes for one to fall.

Wisps of pale, foggy spells shoot into the sky. The dragons roll and evade, clearly prepared, and I glance south, not yet seeing the group of twelve Woland called in. In the north, above the lights of Slawa blinking just beyond the curve of the forest, something glitters in the sky. Scales.

“Again,” Woland says calmly. “Now.”

Suddenly, a wall of black smoke erupts in front of the three dragons, barring their way. They scatter, two flying left, one right. The biedas cry out, more magic shooting into the sky. Two dragons are hit, roaring in pain as their wings flap faster, their movements growing chaotic. The dragon that escaped roars, too, diving for the biedas. They are utterly exposed, seemingly defenseless, and so frail.

He opens his maw, and I fancy I see a spark brightening the back of his throat.

Woland snaps his hand, as if swatting away a fly. The dragon yelps and turns. One of his wings slides off his body with the movement, cleanly cut away, and the beast plummets.

“Sixteen more from the south.”

Lech repeats Woland’s words. The rebels stopped spreading, and everyone has their spot now. Diggers are hard at work, shoveling more earth than should be possible with the ground frozen, but their shovels gleam with heat, strzygas walking tensely down the front line and muttering spells to make them more efficient.

I count quickly. With the first three dragons defeated, there will be thirty-seven to fight. I know all rebel attacks go roughly the same way: Woland somehow gets the dragons to fight on the ground, and a true battle begins. But if he fails, we’ll be cooked. Literally. Dragon fire is hotter than the magical kind Wera blasted me with.

Dragons can only spit lethal fire in their fully transformed forms. If they are forced to fight on the ground, they will shift partly into their half-human shapes, because fighting on the ground requires more speed and agility, especially in tight quarters.

The rebel attack is set up to give the rebels as big a fighting chance as possible.

There is a cry among the biedas on the hill, and three of them race down the other side, disappearing from sight. Woland’s shadows wrap around a chochol standing nearby, raising him high enough to see. When Woland brings him back down, the chochol reports.

“The dragon without a wing transformed. They got him.”

I glance into the darkness where the other two dragons the biedas attacked landed. Nothing moves there. I suspect they are dead.

“The nine from the city will be here soon,” Lech says, pointing to a few shadows moving across the starry sky above the forest.

Woland grins. “I’m in the mood for some fun tonight.”

“What does it mean?” I ask, breathless from excitement.

“You’ll see.”

I know this is only the beginning, but the ease with which the biedas dispatched the first three dragons makes this battle look like child’s play. Maybe the victory will be fast and easy. Maybe none of my friends will be hurt.

Just as I think that, a blinding stream of white fire blazes down from the sky. It doesn’t reach people, but the fire impossibly catches the frozen ground just beyond the hill where the biedas stand, eying the incoming cloud of dragons. A wall of flames rages, cutting us off from the city.

“Naughty,” is all Woland says.

He raises one arm high above his head. Lech’s breath is fast and excited next to me, and I stare, too, mesmerized. Ropes of glittering darkness shoot out of Woland’s palm, racing into the sky. They go even higher than the biedas’ spells, reaching across a distance that should make controlling his aim impossible, and yet, Woland does it with barely a frown. He’s focused, his muscular arm taut from effort.

The ropes hit, splashes of brightness painting the sky above the forest. Scales glitter. The dragons roar, and there seems to be a moment of scuffle and uncertainty, before fire erupts in the sky.

Except, none of it is aimed at us. I squint, trying to understand what’s happening, when an enormous, flaming shape falls, hitting the ground so hard, it vibrates under my feet.

A dragon. A burning one.

Another one falls, and the remaining seven dragons resume their flight, but their aim is off. They aren’t going toward us but… But toward the cloud of twelve dragons coming in from Wyraj.

“What’s happening?” I whisper to Lech, who pounds his fist in the air with a raw cheer.

“He’s controlling them!” he says with delight, the maniacal glint in his eyes bright. “Dragons aren’t immune to dragon fire, nothing is. They burned those two, and now they fly to meet their forces from Wyraj. It’s genius!”

“You’ll still have to fight,” Woland says.

I look up. His face is tense, sweat wetting his temples. His eyes are ablaze, wide open and gold, and his jaw is clenched tight. Maintaining control over those seven dragons is an incredible, powerful feat, but it costs him.

“How long can you hold them?” I ask quietly.

“Long enough.”

There’s a strain in his voice, and his hand gripping my shoulder spasms once, right until the point of pain when his claws dig into my skin. A thrill runs up my spine. This, then, is one of Woland’s limits. It’s insurmountable—holding the will of seven dragons at once is something I wouldn’t even know how to approach, let alone perform with any sort of success—but it’s a limit, nonetheless. Now I know he can hold seven, but not more. Soon, I’ll know how long he can hold them.

Somehow, delineating the boundaries of Woland’s massive power makes me feel like I know him better. It makes him seem more real. This is just like when I saw him eat for the first time. The devil struggling, stretched to his limit, is a new facet of him, and I greedily take it in. He’s utterly breathtaking.

He pants, his face tightening, but the snarl of effort turns into a vicious, sharp laugh.

“Watch,” he grunts out, his entire body shaking from the strain.

The dragons coming from Wyraj see what happened and try to evade their controlled brethren, but Woland pushes the dragons in his command faster, gaining higher ground.

Fire razes the sky.

The Wyraj dragons scatter and roar, but I count three—no, four—catching fire. They plummet to the ground, not yet dead, but burning. The other dragons pivot and attack the controlled ones, and Woland relaxes, exhaling as he wobbles next to me. For a moment, my shoulder becomes his support before he gains his balance.

In the sky, the Wyraj dragons chase and burn the other ones, even though Woland no longer controls them. Our enemies kill each other, meanwhile, Woland’s diggers work undisturbed, and somewhere else, where no one sees, Nienad performs the actual goal of this mission.

“Amazing,” I whisper. “How come you haven’t triumphed until now?”

He releases a long, weary breath. “This is but a battle. We can’t do any lasting damage to the fence. And I am not limitless. Once my power dwindles, the tide will turn. For now, though, we can have some fun.”

Another cloud of scales glitters on the horizon, and Woland takes a deep breath, squeezing my shoulder. “I’ll let them land. Get ready.”

“Yes,” Lech bites out through his teeth bared in a rabid grin.

Among the warrior ranks below, Draga’s head of braids flashes in the moonlight. I turn to look for Lutowa, locating her in the group of biedas. They all eat eggs, swallowing them whole without chewing. Their thin necks stretch and work in a way that makes my gorge rise.

The fresh wave of dragons is almost close enough to send streams of fire at the fence. Woland straightens, raising both arms high. A cloud of shadow stretches like a canopy above us, hiding the sky.

“They will be forced to land,” he grits out, his bare arms gleaming with sweat as he holds them high, his clawed fingers stretched, palms upward. He looks like a warrior holding up the weight of the world.

A muffled roar comes from the darkness, then another. Wera shouts at the diggers, and the shovels work fast, the holes under the fence so big, some of the digging chochols completely disappear from view. Lutowa jogs around us, heading for the fence. She doesn’t spare me a glance. Lech laughs under his breath, dark and reckless.

With a sudden jolt, I realize almost all my friends are here. Rada and Dar stayed behind, but all the other people I hold dear in Slawa are on this field. Dragons will fall from the sky any moment.

Woland grunts with effort, and when the cover of smoke above us blazes red for a moment, he hisses, as if from pain. The fire doesn’t penetrate the shadows.

“Are you all right?” I ask, casting a worried look at his straining face.

“Fine,” he bites out. “Just… a bit… longer.”

“Can I do anything?”

His bark of laughter is loud and harsh as his tail lashes the backs of my thighs.

“There is always one thing… you can do… to make sure we’ll win.”

Another part of the shadowy canopy lights up with fire, then another. Distant explosions rumble like thunder. Woland roars, throwing his head back, and a gale of black smoke tears from his open mouth, rushing into the sky. Roars of pain answer, and he drops his arms, falling to his knees. When the darkness falls away, the sky is clear.

And half-dragon forms attack the rebels by the fence.