by Aaron Oster
Capturing them would accomplish much of the same goals as killing would, yet Morgan wasn’t letting a single one of them get away.
He moved through their ranks with such brutal efficiency, that by the time she heard the trumpets and saw the elven reinforcements appearing, there was no one left to kill. Leaving a field of corpses in his wake, Morgan began approaching the portal, clearly intent on walking through and continuing his slaughter on the other side.
Grace opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but the portal – which had refused all previous efforts at being shut down before – closed after he’d taken just a few steps.
“Well, that’s annoying,” he said, his voice floating back up to her on the wall. “Are you alright?”
Grace jumped as Morgan was suddenly next to them, all signs of his killer intent, the monster who’d torn through the enemy without mercy, now gone.
“We’re alive,” Katherine said, turning and giving him a tight smile. “No thanks to you, I might add.”
“I had something to take care of and trusted that you could handle things on your own while I was gone.”
“Clearly, we succeeded,” Katherine said with a snort.
“I think you did quite well on your own, actually,” Morgan said, looking them all over. “You managed to escape the ambush and made it all the way here on your own.”
“And yet somehow, you still had to come bail us out,” Katherine said with an eye-roll.
“They cheated, and you didn’t,” Morgan said with a shrug.
“I’ll remember that for next time.”
“Oh, by the way,” he said, turning to Elyssa. “I’m afraid our marriage will have to be called off. Someone very dear to me is about to return, and she’ll be quite annoyed with me if I’m married to another woman.”
“Not to worry,” Elyssa said, waving off his concern. “After the shit we’ve all been through, I can safely say that an alliance between the humans and races of Faeland is quite safe without it.”
“We’re still going to have to go to war, though,” Morgan said darkly, staring into the distance as though seeing the enemy gathering there.
“I’m afraid that’s unavoidable now,” Elyssa said with a sigh. “The cult of Strangler is far more of a threat than I’d realized, and with Tork gone, Shedra will assume power of the troll tribes, especially after absorbing the power of a supermage from their chief.”
“Someone can do that?” Morgan asked, sounding surprised.
“Apparently, Shedra found a way,” Elyssa said. “With the might of the World Beast, his own forces, and those of the trolls behind him, I have a feeling this will not be an easy fight.”
“Seeing as we’re already dealing with so much bad news, I may as well just drop more,” Morgan said. “The World Beasts have risen.”
“We already know about Breaker…” Elyssa began, but Morgan shook his head.
“All of them,” he said, his expression grim. “They’re all moving, converging on a single point right now.”
Elyssa’s face went pale as a sheet, and her body began trembling.
“All four? We’re doomed then. The entire continent will fall.”
She looked to him, all hope seeming to drain from her at once.
“What are we supposed to do?”
“For now, we retreat back to your palace and rest,” Morgan said, looking around at the gathered rulers. “I doubt we’ll be seeing any more attacks today or even in the next week. This attack has stretched our enemy’s resources thin, and they’ll need time to recover. The World Beasts, while a big problem, are not an immediate threat to any of us, and we can deal with them when the time comes.”
Elyssa nodded, turning to her troops and ordering a carriage to the base of the walls to transport their wounded to the next portal over and back to her palace.
Katherine hung back for a moment, clearly wanting to talk to him, but Morgan waved her on, intending to speak with her later. Reluctantly, she left, leaving him alone with Grace and Lumia atop the walls.
“You look different,” Morgan said, once they were alone.
“So do you,” Grace replied, having to choke back the words.
Despite all she’d just witnessed, she couldn’t help but feel joy at the fact that he was still alive. Despite seeing him go down, sure that the four gods’ power had ended him for good, he was standing before her, stronger than ever.
“We have a lot to talk about,” he said, as Lumia leaped from her shoulder and landed on his, curling up next to his cheek.
He reached up a finger to scratch her head as she lie down, finally closing her eyes and relaxing.
“A lot happened since you disappeared,” Grace said. “You going to explain where you went? We really needed you. Hilda died because you weren’t there.”
It wasn’t an accusation, just a fact, and one that clearly made him uncomfortable.
“Yes. She did,” Morgan said. “But had I not done what I had, I would most likely be dead again, and all of you would be in even more danger.”
Grace nodded, feeling the truth in those words. She stood there, staring at him, unsure of what to do next.
She’d been through so much in the past couple of weeks. She’d thought Morgan was dead and had had to go chase down Nathan, who was now actually dead, having gone down defending Katherine. She’d had to run through that terrifying city to get the scrolls, save Katherine and the others, only to find out Hilda was dead. She’d spent hours filling a glass sphere to create a portal over here to warn the others, only to find themselves surrounded by the enemy.
So much had happened. So many had lost their lives, and she, of all people, had somehow survived.
Grace did the only thing she could, lunging forward and burying her face in Morgan’s chest, hugging him as tightly as she could and holding back the ocean of tears she’d been fighting against since his disappearance. When he hugged her back, his strong arms wrapping around her and pulling her close, Grace felt safe for the first time since he’d vanished, secure in the knowledge that he was still alive.
He hadn’t abandoned her or left her alone. She was safe.
Morgan had returned.
Epilogue
Never before in his entire life had Shedra experienced so much pain. The pain of his bones cracking and resetting. The pain of his muscles and tendons tearing themselves from their moorings. The pain of his core being flooded by a foreign power and shattering to a million pieces before slowly beginning to rebuild itself.
He lie on the ground, writhing and twisting in pain, inwardly cursing both himself and Tork for trying this experiment. He was a gnome, not suited to stealing the power from a troll chieftain. In his arrogance, he’d believed he could take what had been given to another race for himself, and now, he was paying for it.
Around him stood a crowd of onlookers, blurry figures loitering above, speaking in indistinguishable voices. None were moving to help him, though. What could they do, after all?
His body twisted to one side, and the crunching of bone continued. Shedra screamed as the power continued to rush through him, both forcing a change and killing him at the same time. Regret wouldn’t help him now, Shedra knew, but what else could he feel? It had been sheer idiocy to try something like this on himself.
He should have injected some other poor fool with troll blood, then gotten them to do it. If it had worked, he could have easily ended the other gnome and stolen the power for himself, and if not, he’d have avoided this horrible fate.
Yet even as his body cracked, broke, reformed, and broke again, Shedra desperately clung to life. He couldn’t die! Not now. Not after all he’d done in getting to this point. Not when he was so close to ruling this entire world!
His surroundings began to grow dim, and Shedra could feel the life draining out of him, what little vitality he had left fleeing in a rush. It was over. He was finished…
“Don’t you look out of sorts?”
Shedra bucked as the hissin
g, sibilant voice sounded in his mind, floating in the darkness that now surrounded him. He recognized that voice and knew exactly to whom it belonged.
“What do you want from me?” he shouted into the darkness.
“Why, to have you live, of course,” the hissing voice replied. “Why else would I have allowed so many of my followers to join up with you?”
“I cannot be saved,” Shedra replied, defiant even in death. “My body has all but been destroyed. There is nothing left for me!”
“On the contrary,” the voice hissed. “There is still plenty to be done. So long as you are willing to pay the price.”
“And what price would that be?” Shedra snorted. “Becoming your lackey? I’d rather die!”
He didn’t know why he felt so brave all of a sudden. This beast was one of the most terrifying in the world, one that he’d bowed and scraped to for months out of fear of retribution. Perhaps the knowledge of his imminent death chased away all those fears. After all, he couldn’t be killed if he were already dead.
“Lackey? Not at all,” the voice replied. “I will give you the power to resist and control the energy destroying your body. In exchange, you will provide me with sacrifices.”
“What kind of sacrifices?” Shedra asked, his interest piqued.
“One thousand of each race, each month, for six months,” the voice hissed, sounding eager and hungry. “Do this, and not only will you have my continued support, but you will get to live.”
Shedra pondered that, thinking over the terms carefully. He couldn’t see any real downside. All he’d have to do was sacrifice others, which he would readily do if it meant saving his own life. But when things seemed too good to be true, they usually were.
“What’s the catch?” he asked suspiciously. “It can’t be as simple as that.”
The voice hissed, a low, raspy laugh echoing in the depths of his mind.
“How astute of you. There is one additional sacrifice that will need to be made, a human girl, containing the power of a supermage. Specifically, the one who travels with the monster currently tearing our forces apart. She will need to be sacrificed last.”
Shedra started. Trapped in this world of pain, he had been unaware that his forces were being wiped out. When he’d collapsed, he’d seen the others trying to escape, only to have his own forces follow. He’d been expecting them to succeed in wiping the other rulers out, but if his forces were being destroyed, it meant they would all live.
If they lived, it would mean an all-out war, with him on one side and everyone else on the other.
“There is no point in my surviving if there is to be a war that I cannot hope to win,” Shedra said simply.
“Why so glum?” the hissing voice asked. “Do you not believe that your own power, in addition to that of my own and the troll tribes, will be enough to see you succeed?”
Shedra started at that. Would the trolls follow him? When he really thought about it, though, why wouldn’t they? If he managed to survive, he would become their leader. After all, in their culture, the one who killed their chief became the new one. Of course, it would be impossible for an outsider to inherit the chief’s power, but if he did…
“Who exactly is this monster that’s killing my soldiers?” Shedra asked. “And how can he manage to do so on his own?”
“The one your gods had supposedly killed,” the voice replied. “The one who is both the King of Beasts and Eternity.”
“And how can you expect me to steal someone from right under his nose?” Shedra asked.
Somehow, he wasn’t at all surprised that those incompetent gods had allowed that powerful fighter to live. It seemed he was now even stronger than before, which meant killing him would be all but impossible for a normal fighter. Still, he couldn’t help but notice that the voice was not overly concerned, which told him that they would likely take care of him. His suspicions were confirmed a moment later when the voice answered.
“Do not concern yourself with him. He is my problem. So, I ask again, do we have a deal?”
Shedra wanted to know what this beast’s interest with a specific human girl could be but decided that he couldn’t care less right then. He was on the brink of death and had an easy way to save himself. All it would cost were the lives of thirty-thousand strangers and a single human girl, a price he could easily pay.
“Very well, we have a deal,” Shedra said.
There was a pleased hiss that echoed in his mind, then the blackness faded, and Shedra’s eyes snapped open.
The pain was gone, all except for a burning, tingling feeling on his left shoulder. Twisting his head, he saw a blood-red tattoo of a twining serpent flowing across his skin, marking him as one of Strangler’s minions. At the same time, he could feel his core stabilizing, the bright, violet reiki forming into a solid mass, no longer rampaging through him.
He sat up, ignoring the alarmed shouts from the soldiers who’d been surrounding him, and took a good look at himself. His deal had not come without a price. His lower body, from the waist down, was now completely covered with dark, violet scales. He could feel them beneath his clothes and see them peeking through where he’d torn out of them.
As a gnome, he’d been relatively short, but he’d grown – apparently, injecting troll blood and flooding oneself with the reiki of their chieftain would do that. His arms were now bulky and muscular, his skin tone somewhere between his own natural pale white and the trolls’ green-gray.
Short, blunted claws sat at the tips of his fingers, and when he felt at his face, he could feel that the beard that was so common to his race was all but gone. He stood quickly, swaying on his feet as he found himself towering some foot and a half above the gnomes who stood around him.
His eyes flicked to the portal, and he suddenly remembered what was happening on the other side.
“Move!” he roared, his voice coming out much deeper than before, then charged straight through his forces for the portal.
He dove, wrapping his large hands around the lever and hauling back, snapping the construct like a dry twig and shattering the scripts within. The light inside the portal buzzed a few times, then went dark, leaving a dark arch in its place.
Shedra dropped the lever, flexing his fingers and marveling at his new strength. Still ignoring the muttering of the soldiers around him, he walked back toward the center of the clearing, testing his footing. His run, while quick, had been quite mad and ungraceful. It was going to take him time to become used to this bulky body, but he was confident he’d manage it soon.
A loud thunderclap made everyone jump, and Shedra looked up to see a massive glittering shape flapping overhead, winging to the west and completely ignoring all of them. The World Beast was leaving for some unknowable reason, but Shedra felt a huge sense of relief as he saw it leaving.
Dealing with one World Beast was bad enough. Having to deal with another, especially without the presence of the first, could have been disastrous.
“Um, sir, are you okay?”
Shedra started, then looked down at one of the commanders in his army, a gnome named Shiv. He debated grabbing the man and crushing his skull just to make a point, but in the end, he decided he would be merciful. He wasn’t a total monster, and now that he’d all but declared war on the other races, he needed all the allies he could get.
“Yes,” Shedra replied with a grin, then more loudly said, “We return to the Arcane Kingdom! War is upon us, and by its end, we will rule not only Faeland but the entire world!”
The soldiers hesitated for a moment, then slowly began cheering. It built, growing from a few echoing shouts to a full-on roar.
Shedra crossed his arms and felt his grin widen, watching the collection of Cultists and gnomish soldiers roaring his name. The world would tremble before him, and by the time this war was over, they would all kneel at his feet!
***
Breaker could sense the others approaching the battlefield where the slain god lie, her remaining Essence
trapped within her lifeblood. The very same blood which was quickly fading away, being drawn into the ground to feed the world’s constant and ever-growing appetite.
For once, he felt he was the closest, and as he beat his powerful wings, he scented the air. The Convergence had not arrived as he’d expected, and although he’d waited for nearly an hour, nothing had occurred.
The battle between the odd human-beast and the god had been one that he would have liked to stick around for, but he’d been quite certain the god would come out on top. The Convergence would have given him power, and staying around for only the chance of divine blood was something Breaker would never do.
But now that he could smell it, feel the Essence floating up into the air and sinking into the ground below, he made with all haste to the area where the god lie.
Saliva, hot and wet, dripped from his partially opened mouth, falling to the forest below and setting trees ablaze. He was incredibly excited, his stomach rumbling audibly as he imagined the sweet taste of divine blood on his tongue, infusing him with its power and elevating him beyond the others.
His powerful wings beat the air furiously, and soon, he found himself soaring above the wreckage of that battle. It was just as devastating as he’d imagined a fight with a god would be. Gigantic craters, some miles wide, pockmarked the ground. The massive wall that marked the border to the dwarven lands had been partially destroyed, over four miles of the thousand-foot-tall wall collapsed into rubble.
Vast swaths of trees had been overturned, and huge furrows in the ground showed where they’d clashed. More than that, he could still feel the charged air, the power that had been summoned there, and most of all, the sweet, sweet scent of blood.
His eyelids clicked as he blinked, his eyes zooming in on the corpse of the god lying below. Golden power floated off her body, and Breaker dove, all too eager to get a taste.
