Free Mark of the Black Arrow by Debbie Viguié Page B

guardians. I can give you the strength of the earth, if you take off these blasted chains.”
    “You would give us your dominion, in return for your life?”
    “Dominion’s no good if I’m not alive to exercise it.”
    “Stay true to your nature,” the tall man said. “You were asked a question, speak the truth.”
    “I would trade my power for my life.”
    The tall man nodded. “The gray man chose well.” He lifted his hand and nodded. “Do it.”
    “Wait,
no
…”
    Leaning his weight on the arm that held the creature flat to the ground, the smaller man pushed the blade into its stomach. The knife slid in with a hiss, and he pushed it around the bottom of the creature’s stomach, twisting his wrist to keep it moving until it had carved a great furrow from the creature’s ribcage on one side, down and around the stomach, and back up again to slide out when it struck the creature’s breastbone.
    A thin liquid the color of peat moss spilled and gushed from the wound. It smelled musty like swamp water as it washed up the man’s arm, soaking his tunic sleeve.
    The creature screamed into the night like an animal.
    The tall man stepped on the creature’s throat, choking off the cries. “Pull it open. Quickly, before the power is gone,” he said.
    The smaller man lay down the knife. The creature writhed weakly, held by the hand on its chest and the boot on its throat. Each twist of its body made the cut gape and pull. The small man reached with two fingers and gingerly grasped the edge of the flap he’d carved across the creature’s midsection. He pulled and it lifted a few inches before it caught on something inside. His fingers curled around the skin and he yanked, pulling it free with a tearing sound.
    Inside the body lay organs in strange shapes and configurations. They were not like any animal or human he had seen. There was a coil of something that looked very like a long worm the thickness of his wrist. Above that lay a mass the shape of two fists twined together. Nestled inside a ribcage made of thin, curving bones that wove together in a mesh, lay what he presumed to be the creature’s heart, still beating. It looked like the nest of a seabird, a mottled clump of wet weed and broken sticks. He reached for it instinctively.
    “No, you fool!” the tall man hissed. “Take the viscera. Hurry, before the life fades.”
    The prince dug his hands into the coil. It was hard, like boiled leather, and slippery. Fingers clamped around it, he pulled it from the cavity with a sucking sound, one end still trailing back into the twitching body.
    “Drape it around your neck.”
    He did as instructed. The thing lay heavy across the back of his neck, cool where it touched his skin. The tall man held out his hands, fingers twisting into forms that looked to require more than three joints.
    “We stand in the blood of this land and lean into the embrace of its flesh,” the tall man intoned. “We sain ourselves to this place by this sacrifice and stake our claim to it.”
    Something changed in the air. The warm trickle of magic crackled along the prince’s skin. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he found himself erect and throbbing in a push-pull of pain and pleasure. His eyes rolled back in his head as the tall man continued to speak.
    “…bend to our will, bow to our desires, we invade thee. We penetrate thy defenses and lay this land bare to us. We cannot be denied. There is no protection against us, no binding of our power, no sanctuary to this land. We are free to work our will and to seek our destiny.
    “We declare it in the name of the Three Below, in accordance with the prophecy told and untold, as we speak it to power we will it to become. This sacrifice, this moment, these words, this ritual.”
    He clapped his hands and lightning from the clear night sky struck the witch stone. The smaller man jumped. The air in the circle swirled, superheated by the blast. The stone glowed, red hot, and