Changeling the Lost - Lords of Summer.pdf - Changeling - The Lost - Kurea

WW70202

un , Fool , run ,

The Knights are on the ride .

The sun , it lights their lances ,

And golden crowns their pride .

Flee , Hob , Flee ,

No sanctuary here .

The noble lords are oathbound

To wrath and flame and spear .

Die , Fae , die ,

Beneath the summer sun .

By oath and Wyrd and honor ,

Your wicked ways are done .

— Song of the Brazen’s Last Stand freehold

This book includes :

• An elaboration on freeholds, their

traditions and advantages

• Detail on the four Great Courts,

from magic and practices to

political intrigues

• 16 new entitlements to spice up

a chronicle or add an entirely

new dimension

For use with the

World of Darkness Rulebook

52799

9 781588 467157

PRINTED IN CHINA

www.worldofdarkness.com

978-1-58846-715-7 WW70202 $27.99 US

By Stephen DiPesa , Jess Hartley , Malcolm Sheppard , John Snead and

Chuck Wendig

The Longest Day of Summer, Now

Wa r.

Light on my feet, I’m buoyed by the heat coming off

the sand, driven by the drum-hiss of crashing surf, and

pushed forward by a sad and angry heart.

I pirouette and bend backward. An arrow slices

through the air above me. I see its dark shape, its razor-

tip, its shaft kept aloft and swift by a graft of a dozen black

hornets. Behind me, the arrow finds a home in the chest

of Papi Chulo. He bleats in pain. The pistol spins from his

grip and into a briny tidal pool. Hornets erupt from the

wound. Then he’s gone.

Hands backward in the sand, I kick forward: the

flat top of my foot connects with the goblin’s head. His

bone spur jaw slams shut on his tongue,

biting it off. It flops to the sand. The

wretched thing is confused, even

more so when he finds me be-

hind him, sticking one knife

in his throat and another in

the small of his back.

Over his shoulder, I

see Tombs Tuttle go down

under a trio of the gib-

bering things. They stab

downward. I can’t see

Tombs, but I can see his

blood running into the

sucking tide. The water is

pink with it.

I could save him, but I

don’t. That’s not why we’re

here today. That’s not why

I’m here today. I’m here to finish

this.

ings and filling the air with acrid cordite (a smell that

mixes with the potent brine). Then there’s an explosion.

One of the parapets falls atop us -- a crashing fist of sand

and thorn. I roll forward, just out of the way, sand sting-

ing my eyes. I don’t see what happens to Sunra.

When my eyes stop watering, I see that I’ve killed two

more. I also see a goblin feasting on the body of Rooster

Petukh, tearing away great hunks of his leg flesh. He’s

dead. I dance over him, kicking the gross crustacean into

another.

Then I see the Keepers marshaling this mad army.

Always together, hand-in-hand. Cruel syzygy.

One in a white sundress with red flowers, her man-

tid face staring out, the other in the black tuxedo with the

red carnation boutonniere, his wolf head and

spider eyes looking as hungry as ever.

They are separate, but together.

I’ve known that for a long time.

Something thrusts

through the back of my calf,

but I refuse to recognize the

pain. I step forward with

my other leg. The knives

are in my hands.

I hurl them forward

with all my might.

And then I let it all

out. I open my heart. No,

I tear it apart. I rip the

ventricles open. I rend my

aorta. All the blood and fire

and anger and sorrow in-

side are now free in a single

wave, as ineluctable as the tides.

It accompanies my knives. The

sun shines bright with them. A streak

of fire. A sun flare. My heart’s dread gaze.

The dread light illuminates the third finger on my

left hand and the red bruise that rings the flesh. The light

leaps forward toward its destination.

The wolf ’s head keens, its fur charring. The mantid

face hisses and chitters before it disintegrates.

I swear they call my name as they die.

The Longest Day of Summer,

One Year Ago

“Ramona Ringfinger,” Ivan says, putting his hand on

my shoulder. His words are clumsy in that muddy Rus-

sian tongue of his. His hand is like a brick. “Grandfather

will see you now.”

With the sand castle walls tower-

ing above me, the crumbling parapets held

together by coils of thorn and whisper-thin sedge, I push

on.

A pair of goblins thinks they can flank me. They

think wrong. One ends up dead atop the other, and the

tide comes and takes them both away.

Sister Sunra is next to me; suddenly bullets are bark-

ing from her AK, stitching holes in the onrushing ranks.

Her left eye is fused shut with a crust of blood. The hand

that cradles the rifle’s stock is little more than a busted

claw. But she’s smiling. Her teeth are smeared with red.

I always liked her. I goosestep forward, and she pivots

around me.

Back to back, we take down too many to count. My

knives glint in the hot sun, leaving arcs of black blood in

their flashing wake. Her rifle chuffs, spitting brass cas-

I twist out of his grip and offer a shit-eating grin. I

can’t say what it is he offers in return: Ivan’s face is a curi-

ous thing, a cement block that could be smiling, could be

sneering.

Inside his office, Thunder sits pensive at a glass-top

desk. The windows behind him are open. A balmy breeze

blows in, growing hotter as it drifts over his shoulder.

Something about the room smells like… I dunno, maybe

burning plastic.

Standing off to the side is Tombs Tuttle. He has a

corpse grin below a nose-less face and a pair of too-big

sunglasses like you might see some drug-addled celeb-

rity starlet wear (hobo chic, I’ve heard it called). He gives

a little wave. I wave back.

Sitting next to Tombs is a court-less girl I’ve only seen

in passing. Black Betty? Black Bonita? Who can remem-

ber? She’s a frail slip of a girl with too-long arms and

double-long legs. She has a sketchpad in front of her and

a lap full of colored pencils.

Ah, the artist.

“So,” Thunder says. “You’re sure about this?”

He motions for Betty or Bonita. She holds up her

sketchpad. On it, the face of a mantis stares out, looming

large. My heart leaps. I say nothing. The girl flips to the

next page, and there it is: the savage wolf ’s face open in a

permanent snarl. She even got the drool-soaked muzzle

right. I clench my fists behind my back and hope nobody

can see.

“Sure as anything,” I say.

His eyes flicker with lightning.

“Let’s go over it again. You say these two—”

“Mother and Father,” I interrupt (never a good idea,

but it’s a habit I can’t be rid of). “That’s what they call

themselves, at least.”

“This… Mother and Father, they’re the ones respon-

sible for the sudden incursion of the Gentry into my city?

They’re the ones fucking with the sanctity of this free-

hold?”

Behind my back, I gently rub the ringfinger bruise.

“Give the man a kewpie.”

“Shit’s pretty trippy,” Tombs felt compelled to open

his mouth and say. A cancerous tongue picks something

out of his eerily perfect teeth. He looks to me. “Those bas-

tards ain’t usually into that kind of unity, you know?”

“That’s why it should terrify you.”

“I’m still not convinced,” Grandfather starts to say,

and by the time I decide to bite my tongue it’s already

f lapping.

“Listen. This city’s on the verge of going shithouse.

You know it, I know it. We’ve all heard the whispers.

We’re supposed to be the first and last line of defense,

and still everybody’s seeing the cracks in that façade.

Keeper sightings are through the roof. People are seeing

them through broken mirrors. Down in the dark of sewer

grates and watching from distant boats offshore. Every-

body’s shaken. Nobody feels safe anymore. You’re about

to lose everything.”

His mouth forms into a tight line. A halo of momen-

tary celestial fire shudders above his head before wink-

ing out. I have his attention.

“This is a concerted effort on their part. We’ve inter-

cepted loyalist messages. We’ve heard the crustaceans

whispering in the Hedge. These two—” I give the finger

to first the mantis face and then the wolf face. “—are the

dirty birds who run the whole show.”

Ivan looms over me. Even his shadow has weight. I

know how this could go. I know what Thunder does these

days to those who displease him. I watch his eyes for the

command, the one that tells Ivan to crush my windpipe. I

think about how I could move to dance out of the way, to

foxtrot right out that window, but I don’t have to.

“Done,” Thunder says. “This will take time to mount

an offensive on these monsters. Get with the others and

plan it. I’ll make sure everyone’s on board. Use this year

to train, Ramona. I’ve seen you spar. You’re already good,

but you need to be the best.”

“Will do,” I say. The anger in me is an arrow, one that

has found its home. Success.

Tombs gives me a thumbs-up.

Ivan escorts me out.

They believed the lies, I think. I feel bad about this,

but comfort myself that maybe, just maybe, they weren’t

really lies at all, that maybe, just maybe, a kernel of truth

lies hidden under that pile of bullshit.

The Longest Day of Summer,

Five Years Ago

The hit splits my lip. I see stars. The ropes of the ring

are suddenly at my back, and, being dizzy, I imagine for

a moment that they’re grabbing me and holding me and

won’t let me go.

Papi Chulo moves in. The guy’s a fat-gutted goat, but

he moves like a little moth, flitting this way and that.

“Bitch, look up,” he says with a wicked grin. His one

hand makes a goofy gesticulation and I watch it, won-

dering what kind of magic he’s up to.

The only magic is misdirection. As my dizzy eyes

follow his hand, he sucker punches me. A line of drool

escapes around my mouth guard. Gasping, I spit it out.

Outside the ring on the other side, Sister Sunra — my

only friend in this Court right now — watches me with

a little cigarillo clenched between her teeth. She winks.

Chulo hits me again.

“You gotta get mad,” he says. I swing at nothing. “You

gotta grab onto something inside you, ride it like a horse

that’s on fucking fire.”

Changeling the Lost - Lords of Summer.pdf

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