by Dante King
As the Blood Giant raised his hands and took aim at me, I dived behind a broken pillar covered with thick vines. The heavy stone that made the pillar was a kind of obsidian like the rest of the ruins. A substance like this could be perfect for holding a magical charge since enchanted equipment was often made of obsidian. I channeled Death energy into the pillar until the stone could hold no more, then the Blood Giant unleashed his twin veins of lightning.
They smashed with a booming clap into the pillar and blew a crater big enough to serve as a pit grave for a village of giants. My improvised shield held fast, the Death energy absorbing the force of the Blood lightning, which was far beyond anything Rodrick had ever hurled at me.
I wasted no time in counterattacking; the Blood Giant, like all demons powered by Blood magic, was vulnerable to Death and Cold magic, and I intended to hit him with every ounce of Death magic I could summon.
“Suck on this!” I said as I jumped out from behind the pillar and flung tornados at the Blood Giant from my kusarigama.
The tornados tore into his blood body, ripping chunks of flowing blood out. They would do no real damage, but they were an effective distraction. Layna was darting between piles of rubble and broken pillars, racing to the portal, and I was preparing my next attack too.
Growling with anger, the Blood Giant swatted away the tornados and summoned another charge of Blood lightning. Again, I channeled Death energy into the pillar until the dense stone was saturated with it. This time, when the twin streams of red lightning hit the weakened pillar, it exploded in a shower of shattered fragments, and the Death energy only just managed to absorb the power of the lightning.
The crater grew, and I fell into it, hitting the ground with an acrobatic roll and thus avoiding any injury. A triumphant smile broke across the huge, ugly face of the Blood Giant, and he raised his hands to the sky, filling them with power for his most savage Blood lightning strike yet. If there had been a good supply of corpses nearby, I could have created a Death Titan, the perfect opponent to wipe the floor with this Blood Giant, but there were no bodies I could use. A Plague Storm would weaken him. Maybe enough to take him down.
“Fuck it, Plague Storm it is,” I said.
I used both Wind and Death powers to summon a raging storm that howled in a tornado of green-and-yellow-tinged black wind and bilious green torrents of rain around the Blood Giant. He howled in anguish and frustration as each drop of plague rain burned a fist-sized hole in his body.
He had to redirect his power, and instead of blasting more lightning strikes at me, he was forced to fight off the tempest I’d sent his way. His crackling fists punched holes in the whirling tornado.
Layna, meanwhile, had reached the portal and was furiously blasting webs around it, sealing it up tight.
I scrambled out of the massive crater and raced toward the Blood Gian. As I sprinted, I whirled my kusarigama’s chain in accelerating arcs above my head, preparing to beat the living shit out of this Blood Giant.
I reached him just as he finished fighting his way out of my Plague Storm, and he had no time to react to my first strike, a whipping lash across his enormous right leg.
The kusarigama chain sheared through the Blood Giant’s leg like a scythe through ripe wheat, and he roared out in pain, the thousand voices of the Blood God all screaming in agony at once as the lower half of his right leg was severed.
I jumped into the air, whipping the long kusarigama chain in an uppercut-like vertical arc. This time, it sheared off the Blood Giant’s left hand. The severed appendage crashed to the ground and exploded in a shower of blood. The Blood God’s thousand voices howled out again, but this time the monster tried to fight back, quickly shooting blood lightning at me with his remaining hand. I backflipped out of the way, and the lightning hit the ground where I’d been standing and blasted another crater in it.
He hadn’t hit me, but he had succeeded in putting a barrier between himself and me. I couldn’t smack him again, not until I got around the new crater at least. He started charging his remaining hand with Blood lightning, but before he could launch it, an arrow, glowing blue, streaked through the air and smashed into his chest. He screamed in agony and staggered backward, before another blue arrow smashed into him, and another.
This obviously wasn’t Death Magic, and the other other magic Blood creatures were vulnerable to was Cold Magic. Who was helping me? It didn’t make sense to dwell on it, not with the opportunity this gave me to defeat the thing.
I sprinted around the rim of the crater and ran up a broken section of the arena stands. I leapt over multiple steps at a time, careful not to cause them to fracture beneath my boots. The Blood Giant was still being peppered by Cold arrows and howling with agony, and I managed to ascend to his shoulder height on the arena’s stands. Before I could leap from them and sever his head with a flash of my chain, he saw me coming and started hopping in the direction of the portal.
“No way, you’re not escaping this time!” I shouted as I vaulted from the stands and landed on the ground with a roll.
He half-heartedly blasted a few bolts of red lightning my way. It was clear that losing a hand and half a leg had taken the fight out of him. A steady rain of Cold-enchanted arrows continued to slam into his body, causing him to jerk and scream and twist. He got closer and closer to the portal, but I was gaining on him, even though every leap he took on his single working leg carried him dozens of yards. With every jump, his gigantic body became smaller; he was losing power, and losing his ability to remain in Blood Giant form too. As he fled he scooped up stones the size of cows and flung them at me, but I ducked and dived and rolled, dodging every one of the projectiles until he got too small to pick them up any longer.
By this stage he was only around ten feet tall, and his body was riddled with glowing blue arrows. One final lash of my kusarigama chain would certainly finish him off. I just had to hope that Layna’s webs would keep him here long enough for me to get to him. If I took down the Hooded man who’d transformed into this giant, then I could deal a serious blow to the Blood God.
The giant saw this was the only thing that mattered anymore too: he didn’t turn back, but aimed his right hand toward the portal, and blasted a potent lightning bolt at the webs surrounding the portal. It tore through the webs, and the rather small hole was big enough now he’d shrunk; he dived through, and he was saved.
“No!” I roared as I hit the ground, my chain just grazing his back as he passed successfully through the portal.
The light in the portal span into a vortex, but as it began to close and seal the way through shut, I realized what I had to do. The system of portals had to be destroyed. Wherever he was now, he would be trapped there.
In a flash, I resurrected the peasant girl he’d just killed. I filled her scrawny body with as much Death power as it could hold, and then, as the final vortex of spinning light was closing, I sent her sprinting toward the portal. She dived into the light, and at the instant she passed through the portal I detonated her body.
I timed it perfectly, and through the portal I saw the explosion again, again, and again, completely identical each time, as if viewed through a series of mirrors facing each other. In the space of a few seconds, there were over a hundred explosions. The last one exploded right in front of me, obliterating the portal and showering me with chunks of stone and a cloud of masonry dust.
I could only hope that the explosions I’d seen had been the destruction of every last portal. I wouldn’t know for sure, but at least I had put a serious dent in the Blood God’s ability to move his followers across the world at will.
Anna-Lucielle and Layna raced toward me, both women wrapping their arms around my neck and showering me in kisses.
“I can’t believe you killed the giant,” Anna-Lucielle said.
“I didn’t,” I said. “See?”
I walked over to the severed body parts and found that they had turned back into human body parts. The severed hand was liver-spotte
d and wrinkly, and the severed lower leg was skinny and pale, with long, yellow toenails. Hopefully these sinjuries would slow him down considerably. His voice rang again in my mind; where the hell did I know it from? This question was driving me crazy. I just couldn’t place that strangely familiar voice, but I knew I had heard it before, long before I’d even known the Blood God existed.
“Want a taste?” I held up the severed hand to Layna and smiled.
She shuddered. “Old man tends to taste gamey. And I imagine a follower of the Blood God has all kinds of diseases.”
I shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll leave it for the worms. I can’t imagine a zombie hand would be all that useful.”
“Are you feeling all right, Lord Vance?” Zhenwan asked me as the Blind Monks surrounded me.
“Uh, yeah, I think so.”
That was when I felt how completely the fight had drained me; it had taken all of my power to absorb the energy of the Blood Giant’s red lightning strikes, and as much to inflict damage on him.
But someone had helped me.
I recalled the Cold-infused arrows that had struck the giant and whirled around, scanning the ruins for some sign of the shooter. Standing on the edge of the ruined arena, holding a glowing blue longbow, was a familiar figure in a black enjarta catsuit.
I immediately recognized those athletic legs, that firm ass, those small but perky breasts, that tawny skin and silky black hair, straight as falling rain, that delicious little rosebud of a mouth, and those sultry, dark almond eyes.
“Rami-Xayon,” I said, “you got here at just the right time, but I didn’t think I’d be running into you nearly so soon. Where’d you find that Ice bow? It’s pretty damn impressive.”
“I’m not Rami-Xayon, but you could be forgiven for thinking I am,” the beautiful Yengishwoman said. “I’m her twin sister Yumo. She didn’t tell you I was coming?”
“Oh, right. I should have remembered. The Blood Giant did a bit of a number on me.” I walked up to her and held out my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Yumo.”
To my surprise, she slipped her hand out of mine and slid it onto my crotch, grinning cheekily. She gave my package a good fondling, and nodded, pleased.
“My, my, you are as big as my sister said you are.” She smiled at me, as though this were a perfectly normal way to greet someone you’d never met before. “The pleasure, God of Death, is all mine.”
I smiled. “And you’re just as beautiful as your sister. But a little bolder, I’m guessing. Perhaps especially when it comes to men.”
“I don’t care for the vast majority of men, actually,” Yumo said. “Whether warrior, king or knave, they’re all the same when it comes down to it; boring, safe, dull. But you, you’re something else entirely. I think you and I could get on very well together.”
“As much as I’d like to take my time in getting to know you, we have a long way to go, a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it. There’s a lost Dragon Gauntlet to find, an evil warlock to defeat, and a Dragon Goddess to resurrect. And, eventually, we’ll need to destroy one of the oldest and most powerful gods ever to exist. All in a day’s work, really.”
“Yes, my sister informed me that you need some help getting into the Forbidden Palace to find the lost gauntlet. You’re sure it’s there?”
“They say it is.” I pointed to the Blind Monks, who hadn’t spoken since I’d defeated the Blood Giant. They were murmuring among themselves, all of it unintelligible to me.
“Ah, that order does know a lot about the subject,” Yumo said, “and it would make sense for it to be in the Forbidden Palace’s reliquary. It’s the oldest in the world, with relics going back to the earliest ages of Men. I don’t know if Rami ever told you, but Kemji was a distant ancestor of ours. The Dragon Gauntlet should have been passed down through the generations, to us, but the Emperor’s family robbed our ancestors of our noble status and most of our wealth five generations ago. That is why my great-great-grandfather became an enjarta; he wanted revenge against the Emperor, and that was the only way anyone outside the closed circles of the nobility to learn to become an elite warrior. Unfortunately, he never got his revenge or my family’s wealth back. Nor did any of my ancestors. But I have sworn a sacred oath that I will avenge my ancestors, and I will get our stolen wealth back from the Emperor. This is one of the reasons why I agreed to help you.”
“A noble enough reason,” I said. “I had my title and lands stolen from me, so I know exactly how you feel.”
“We’d best get back on the road, God of Death,” Ji-Ko said, approaching me. “That was a mighty impressive fight, by the way! Truly, you are a magnificent warrior.” Suddenly he sniffed at the air, then scrunched up his chubby face with distaste—he’d sensed Yumo’s presence, it seemed. “It is a pity that you were assisted by one of these creatures, though.”
“One of these creatures?” I asked.
“An enjarta.” He spit out the word as if it were a morsel of rotten food. “Warriors with no honor, who kill by stealth and trickery and accept money to murder innocent people.”
“I’ve never killed an innocent person in my life!” Yumo exclaimed. “You monks think you’re so special, with your ‘honor’ and ‘enlightenment’ bullshit, when really, you’re—”
“That’s enough, both of you,” I said sternly. “We’re all fighting a common enemy here, and while you two may have your ideological differences, you’re going to have to get over that shit and work together.”
“But he called me a—” Yumo protested.
“I don’t care,” I said firmly. “That’s a command. And that goes for you too, Ji-Ko. Not all enjartas are honorless killers, and you’d better speak to Yumo with a lot more respect in future. I was also an assassin once, you know, and we had our own code of honor too. I never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, and I’m sure if Yumo says she did the same, then it’s the truth.”
I hardly knew Yumo, but Rami-Xayon hadn’t told me to distrust her, so I figured I’d defend her until I learned otherwise.
Ji-Ko bowed, gripping his jade necklace with his hands clasped together. “A thousand heartfelt apologies,” he said, and there was no mockery or sarcasm in his voice. “If the Prophesied One commands it, it shall be so. I apologize, good enjarta, for insulting you.”
I was impressed; few people would admit their own wrong so quickly and readily. These monks really were an honorable and noble bunch. Yumo, however, was not so quick to forgive or forget.
“Whatever,” she hissed, her temper ignited. “Just keep these bald, self-righteous pricks away from me.” Then she spun on her heels and stormed away in a huff.
I had to chuckle; looks-wise, she was virtually indistinguishable from Rami, but the two of them were like oil and water when it came to personalities. She had the shortest fuse of anyone I could think of.
“Thanks for that,” I said to Ji-Ko. “You guys actually aren’t half bad. I’m glad none of you were killed during the fight with the Blood Giant.”
“I only wish we could have helped,” Ji-Ko said, “but such foes are beyond our ability.”
“I’m sure you can help in the coming battles,” I said. “We can’t hang around here any longer. We should make for the City of Jewels.”
“As much as I’d like to continue with you,” Zhenwan said, “I fear I am no longer needed. Yumo can translate for you, should it be needed.”
“The Blood Giant scare you, did it?” I asked with a smile. I wasn’t teasing but genuinely wondered whether Zhenwan had seen more than he could handle.
“A little, yes,” he admitted. “Nevertheless, I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
“Definitely. If you’re ever in Prand, you should pay Castle Brakith a visit.”
“I will do exactly that. But you have quite the quest to complete before then.”
“Indeed,” I said. “Good luck, friend.”
With a smile and a pat on the back, I sent Zhenwan on his way back to Gongxiong with tw
o Blind Monks to protect him, and I finally journeyed onward as planned with the rest of my party.
Chapter Twenty-Four
On the road, I asked Ji-Ko to tell me more about the Dragon Goddess.
“Ah, to have seen her when she was alive!” he said. “From everything the legends say, she was one of the most beautiful women who has ever graced this world with her presence. But also one of the fiercest, and a ferocious fighter, just like the dragons she ruled over. She was one of the most powerful of the old gods, but like most, she was killed during the Purge.”
“And the Emperor—why is it he hates you guys so much? And why has he gone out of his way to drive any remaining belief in the Dragon Goddess underground? I mean, I heard a lot about the so-called ‘Dragon Cult’ before I got to Yeng, and even from Yengish people who said they were a bunch of crazy but harmless fools, but is it even a thing?”
Ji-Ko laughed. “The Dragon Cult is real, but it is populated by gullible fools. We monks actually created the cult as a distraction, to divert attention away from us real Dragon Goddess worshipers. The cultists are a harmless bunch, and don’t really know anything about the Dragon Goddess. They do serve to keep the Emperor off our back, though. As to why he despises us so, well, it’s because of the very same prophecy that said you would come to us. He knows the prophecy too, and generations of emperors before him have known its words as well. The prophecy says that you, God of Death, will lead the Order of Blind Monks to cast the Glorious Emperor out of his Forbidden Palace. They have always taken this to mean that we will bring about the end of their dynasty, something the emperors of Yeng fear more than death itself. This is why they hate us, and why they have tried for hundreds of years to quash our order; they think we will bring about their downfall one day.”
We kept chatting as we walked, and after a few hours we were high in the mountains, which had grown larger and more spectacular, with the winding road hugging the edges of sheer cliff faces. The cliffs shot a mile up on one side of the narrow track, drops plummeted straight down a mile to rocky valleys below. One false step and you’d have a very long way to fall.
