The chest wasn't particularly hidden, all things considered. Beneath a mound of dark soil that smelled of moss and rainwater was a carved wooden chest wrapped in thick bands of iron and gold. The soil was loose, parting easily as the Russians dug it up with their bare hands. I towered over them as I did so, consciously ignoring Ammit as she looked at me with an expression of pointed concern.
I had used the mantle, which meant that I had risked my life. There was a talking to in my future from the Eater of Sin, but not till we could be alone. Ammit wasn't about to break the image of my unquestionable power – not in front of my head priestess. Certainly not when we were this close to victory.
"Lord Warden." Muminah asked nervously, shivering in the cool air of the arboretum as she stepped out of the pond. Her wet body dripped on the floor, dark skin purged of the later of corpse dust that marked the rest of us. I felt the mantle's quick assessment that she was beautiful, but in a clinical – appreciative way. It was as one might notice a painting or a statue rather than a breathing person.
Small mercies, my mantle didn't have much in the way of libido. It might hate Ghouls as much as I did, but it did think above the waistline. That clarity was greatly appreciated given the very human, very primal reaction my body was having to the recent carnage I'd been through. My inner caveman was not so politely reminding me that the naked woman next to me would happily let me take here there on the grass, claiming her flesh inches from the inevitable victory over koschei.
I shook away that idle thought and addressed my high priestess. "Yes Muminah. What do you need?"
"My lord - what are we digging up exactly?" She shivered, brushing gently over parts of her to get rid of lingering droplets of water that were… distracting to say the least. It probably wasn't a wise idea to tap into the mantle to kill my libido, but I needed to have this conversation at eye level if you get my drift.
"Koschei has been a fixture in the mythology of the first world for as long as anyone cares to remember." I gestured to the large chest as Kincaid and the Colonel got on either side of it, lifting the handles with obvious exertion. The other three Russians had to help the Colonel, he was not strong enough to lift his side unaided. Either that chest was very poorly balanced or the merc had a lot more muscle than I'd previously credited him with. "He put his soul in a needle, inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside that iron chest."
"I wouldn't put too much stock in the specifics of a legend." Ammit waved it off idly. "Even if all that is true, they never quite manage to tell the story right after a few generations."
"Oh, I'm not expecting wishes for grabbing the needle," I smiled. "But it's at least a starting point."
Vallarin looked up at me as he fiddled with the iron straps binding the chest shut. He stuttered nervously in Russian, addressing our conference in the Goa'uld language as one might speak with an angry dragon. "Uh - is there some special precaution we should be taking? Something to not die when I open this?"
"Good question." I waved him to the side, kneeling next to the chest as I opened my sight. "Let's see what we're dealing with."
Wizards have the ability to see things as they truly are - complete and without illusion. The Third Eye is a useful but extremely dangerous skill. Sure it lets you see enchantments or cut through illusions, but it will also show you horrors beyond human understanding or beauty so cutting that it can drive a man to despair.
That's the problem with the sight. You see things as they are but once you've seen that truth, it is with you forever. You don't forget it. It doesn't get better with time. You just have that truth, in its entirety, without any possibility for things to get better. Practitioners who use their sight incautiously end up gibbering mad men - incurably insane.
My sight didn't show me horrors or joys as I looked at the box. It just showed me wood. I was certain that this was the proper container - the ancient surface of the box was lovingly covered in the carved letters of the language of the Gate Builders. But they weren't runes or sigils or anything that one might have expected for something this portentous.
It was just a box. No runes, no spells, not enchantments of any kind. It pulsed with a subtler power to it, the sort of magic that had nothing to do with spellwork and everything to do with a parent's love. I'd seen that sort of power before, in a crib that Michael had made for his child with his bare hands. I let go of my sight and brushed the loose earth from the writing, reading the inscription aloud in English as I muddled through the gate builder's blocky letters.
"To my beloved Koschei, may you keep your dreams within." I ran a talon along the letters as I spoke, reading from left to right. "You are all that is good in my life, I love you my child."
I scratched away the last of the dirt, "Its signed Amelius. That mean anything to you Ammit?"
"No, Warden, I am not intimated into the family dynamics of Koschei the Deathless." Ammit growled. "And If I'm honest, I'm far more interested in why you know First World bedtime stories about where Koschei keeps his soul but still don't remember the gate address to your own planet without referencing your wrist device."
"A lot of the symbols look very samey." I griped standing up from the box and turning to the Colonel. I addressed him in Russian. "I need one of your men to open the box. When he does we're going to need to catch the hare that comes out of it."
"You are expecting this hare to be alive and mobile after digging it up from under a tree?" The Colonel replied acerbically.
"A crocodile the size of a small city nearly ate you while you flew in an ancient Egyptian spaceship through Hell. How about taking some of this on faith, Ivan?" I waved at the bindings. "Now, are you going to cut the bindings or what?"
"Alexi." The Colonel grumbled, pulling a knife from his combat webbing and kneeling next to the chest. As he did so Vallarin mirrored his action on the other side. "My name is Alexi, not Ivan. Or do you prefer that I call you Mr. Viper."
"Only if you promise to do it in your best Sean Connery impression." I aimed my staff at the chest, funneling power into my staff so that runnels of silver fire poured out the intricate carvings to sizzle along the gem encrusted surface of it. Ammit stood on my left with her hand device, nodding in approval to Kincaid who held up his automatic weapon. Whatever came out of that box was going to get a boatload of hurt.
The russians cut loose the bindings and tipped the chest forward, scurrying away from its contents as they rolled forward. I caught a glimpse of fur and beady, black eyes before Kincaid had unloaded the contents of his magazine into the thing that tumbled out. Fur, felt, and stuffing plumed out into the air as a three foot tall stuffed hare met military grade 39mm ammunition.
We all stared at the stuffed animal in befuddlement - waiting for something to happen. The stuffed animal didn't oblige. It just sat there, looking at us with betrayed shoe-button eyes that twinkled with the reflected glow of my staff as I poked it. It made a pathetic squeak as I prodded it with my staff. I briefly contemplated the series of poor decisions in my life that had lead me up to this point as I cautiously picked up the stuffed hare by its ears, turning it around and examining what of it remained.
I nearly screamed when the shoebutton eyes blinked at me.
The animated construct of a hare bit down on my gauntlet, ceramic teeth somehow managing to rip through my armor and nearly piercing the skin. Ammit tore the angry hare away from me as it's felt paws ripped at me - ensorcelled nails raking at me with blue-green motes of light that clashed against the magical protections in my armor.
The hare kicked her in the jaw hard enough to draw blood as it spun in the air, spreading out a gravity defly cloud of stuffing that it ran along to get it up into the branches of the green oak. Kincaid and the Russians opened fire on the creature as it went, bullets ripping through the constructs body with accuracy but little in the way of effectiveness. The problem with constructs was that as long as you didn't damage the underlying magics animating them, there really isn't much that you could to to "hurt" them. They weren't alive, just animated to appear so. So while it seemed like the hare was laughing at the Russians and taunting them by hopping from tree to tree, that was just the sick humor of the man who'd enchanted it.
The not-hare turned it's back on us, lifted its fluffy tail, and projectile fired a series of flaming green buttons at us from its backside. They rained down on us like mortar rounds, burning with the fire of a sun and smelling like - well, you know - what comes out of the backside of a hare. Apparently several thousand years of time to prepare one's defenses doesn't prevent an ancient evil from being juvenile.
And that was coming from me.
It wasn't dignified to jump into a lake to escape from a rain of explosive, projectile-poo but dignity hasn't ever been especially high on the Dresden to-do list. I hefted Muninah over my shoulder and jumped into the pond, using a gust of sorcerous wind to shield us from the molten spray of fecal matter. As my head burst out from under water I was greeted by the screams of Ammit.
The goddess had thrown her body over Vallarin, protecting the boy from a blast that he'd failed to dodge. The Russian boy's leg had caught in a branch when he'd tried to follow his compatriots into the water and he'd fallen to the ground. Her back sizzled with a mix of putrid flames and glowing green blood.
Kincaid had dodged the blast but managed to get a grenade up into the green oak. The fragmentation grenade did little to damage the hare but quite effectively dislodged the tree-branch it had been standing on. The animated creature squealed in imitation fear as it dropped to the ground, then burrowed its way beneath the soil in an instant. It swam through the earth towards kincaid, bursting from the ground and latching on to the man's shoulder with a blind fury.
Bood spurted from the mercenary's body as the ensorceled claws raked across the man's chest, ripping through flesh and bone with casual ease. Kincaid howled in agony as he stabbed blindly at the construct with a knife, struggling to find the creature's weak point. I blasted the creature off of Kincaid with my staff as I charged out of the lake, screaming "Forzare."
The hare spin through the air then plunged back into the ground, swimming away through the earth. I punged my staff down into the tunnel and screamed "Wabbit Season!" at the top my my lungs as I poured fire into the tunnel after the construct. There weren't a whole lot of sure-fire ways to get rid of a construct, but I was willing to wager that whatever was keeping that thing going would be flammable.
There was a loud scream from beneath the ground as the construct died, and then a sudden rush of magical energies. I groaned, clenching my teeth in anticipation as I turned to face the location of where those energies were pooling. I barked an abrupt order to the Russians as there was a sudden glow of white light from beneath the waters. "Get out! Get out of the water immediately!"
"What is that?" Ammit growled as she helped Vallarin to his feet. The man stumbled, having to balance himself against tree with Muminah's help from an apparently broken ankle.
"Duck season." I replied, putting myself between the source of the energy and my compatriots as the waters swelled and a truly massive creature was displaced from the nevernever. Birds are the sort of thing that only manage to be cute by virtue of how small they are relative to human beings. Honestly - they're actually pretty nasty animals. I'd read somewhere that the dinosaurs who managed to survive had eventually turned into what we now know as birds.
If you've ever lived on a farm, that sounds pretty plausible.
Ebeneezer had ducks on his farm. They seemed cute at first. They were certainly more agreeable than the swans had been, but the truth is that ducks are just downright ornrey. They'll murder each other for no clear reason and drown their partner midway through mating with them - just because they can. Mating season is effectively a horror movie with feathers and more quacking.
And you can never suprise a duck. They've got three hundred and sixty degree vision and they are always, always watching. Sneak up on a duck. I dare you. Hunters use duck blinds and hide their scent for a reason.
The thing that rose from the water was less daffy and a lot more doom. The three story tall murder mallard broke through the water with a thunderous hunting cry, its echoing basso thunderous in the arboretum. The water around it bubbling and boiling as it swam, lightning shimmered beneath razor sharp plumage.
I extended the wall of energy from my shield as far as I dared. An invisible dome spread out from my outstretched fingers snapping up barely in time to meet the blaring wave of light and force that came out of the mallards open maw. Serrated fangs along the bill flexed as it screamed an angry quack of fury.
Ammi pole vaulted over my shield with the branch Kincaid's grenade had knocked down. Taking advantage of the ducks momentum, she soared through the air and landed - talons first - on the ducks bill.
I let go of my shield as the duck's abrupt attack, the agonized mallard having been forced to deal with the angry demoness clawing at it's eyes. It spat out bolts of lightning seemingly at random as Ammit tore one of the orbs from its skull to dangle to the ground. Kincaid and the Russians peppered the creature's side with bullets, sending plumes of spellfire out the creature's side. It's flesh melted and warped where steel hit it, fairy flesh trying to reject the touch of iron.
I grinned maniacally at that, raising my helmet. Bullets weren't going to be big enough to kill a fairy that large, but I had a ferrous object large enough to do some damage. I straddled my wizard's staff, grabbed on firmly with both hands, and released the remaining energy stored up in my staff.
A Dresden sized hole blew out the back of the titanic mallard as the war-duck collapsed on the islands shore. I made an inelegant belly flop into the water, groaning at the sensation of every bone in my entire body breaking at once. I nearly passed out from the pain as Muminah fished my armored body out of the water, struggling with the weight of me. I indulged in a brief moment of unconsciousness as the pain of my bones forcibly healing completed with the pain of broken bones dragging along the shore.
When I woke, it was to the sight of the Russians slowly advancing on the deflating duck. It's feathers and flesh were melting away to reveal a Sidhe lady with only one eye and a massive hole in her chest, mirroring the wounds inflicted on the duck.
I struggled to my feet, shambling over to the dying fairy. She had been beautiful once - her ragged and mangled flesh was formerly attached to a black woman wearing the garlands and vines of Summer. She desperately clutched a golden egg to her breast, weeping openly as she died.
"Crap." This wasn't part of the plan. "Stand down, stand down!"
Sure, she was a villainous shape-shifting sidhe lady, but she was a girl. I put myself between her and the Russians before the could finish her off, examining her as I tried to place her in the fairy courts. Coming up blank, I asked her directly. "Who are you and why are you protecting a monster like Koschei?"
She laughed, blood running over dark green lips as her remaining gold-flecked green iris grew cloudy. "I am Marzanna. And I am Sidhe. I pay my debts."
"Koschei, he bargained with you." I looked at the egg still clutched in her death-grip. "Seems like you got the raw end of that deal dying for that prick."
"A godmother is there to guide her charge." Tears welled in her undamaged eye. "Would that I had been able to heal the child's hurts. But a godmother cannot unmake a father's will even if the mother should bargain for it."
"Mother Winter hired you?" Ok, maybe the price had been worth dying for. The Eldest Queen of Winter probably paid one hell of a boon.
"She feared that the boy's father was too cruel, too callous." Her skin was growing pale as she struggled to speak. "She was right. The things that child sacrificed - what he did - no child should have to do."
"Why are you telling me this?" I shook my head. "He had a crappy home life. Big whoop. He's a monster and I'm still going to kill him."
She laughed, a hollow, horrifying laugh. "Good luck."
And then she died.
I pried the egg from her hands, crushing its metallic shell in my gauntlet to reveal a thin needle within it. My teeth practically rattled at the sheer power within it as I handed it over to Ammit. She looked down at it in curiosity, "What is this?"
"That, Ammit, is Koschei's soul." I smiled wickedly. "That is how we beat him."