by Dante King
“And he no longer gives a fuck about anything but winning this battle,” I said, “at whatever cost to Prand and every living thing in this world.”
“We must resurrect the dragon, right now!” Yumo-Rezu said.
“Yes, there is no more time,” Friya added. “I’m ready, Vance, to meet my destiny and become the last dragon … the Dragon of Death!”
The Dragon Heart, still in its gigantic jar of embalming fluid, was caught in some of the lower branches of the tree. We’d need to get the heart, Yumo-Rezu, and Friya to the dragon skeleton, which was on my ship with Percy a few miles off the coast. For this, I needed my harpies, but they were still many miles away. Even though the undead creatures were flying at full speed, it would still take them a day to get here … and we no longer had days to prepare for the upcoming battle, we had hours.
Thinking fast, I shot my spirit into the actor’s body. He, along with the rest of my party, was being transported across Prand by the harpies. Speaking through him, I turned and yelled out to Rami-Xayon.
“Rami-Xayon! Call up as powerful a hurricane as you can muster! You need to get to Luminescent Spires as fast as you can, because the battle has begun! Use the hurricane to propel the harpies forward!”
“If I call up a hurricane strong enough to get us there in an hour or two, I won’t have any power left for the battle itself!” she yelled back.
“I don’t care! You are still an enjarta. And you can use those skills in the battle. If you don’t get yourself and my harpies to Luminescent Spires in the next hour, there won’t be a battle—there’ll only be a slaughter, on the part of Elandriel and his minions!”
“All right, I’ll do it!” she shouted back. “I’ll call up the strongest hurricane I’ve ever mustered, and I promise you I’ll get us to Luminescent Spires in an hour!”
I yanked my spirit back into my own body. “They’ll be here in an hour, hopefully,” I said to everyone. “That still leaves us with a little problem, though…” I pointed at the palace, which was already half demolished, and more rubble and dust than structure now. From the top of it, the spiked point of a red pyramid was starting to emerge. This earthquake wouldn’t stop until the Blood Pyramid had sloughed the entire city of Luminescent Spires off of it. If we hung around here, we would get buried under a landslide of demolished buildings, uprooted trees, and collapsing earth.
“It’s all collapsing, the entire city,” the Lord of Light said, his tone one of disbelief.
“No shit, Sun Boy,” I said. “If we hang around here on the slopes, your bald yellow head is gonna get popped like a rotten egg by a tumbling chunk of masonry. The Blood Temple is shaking this city off its back like a dog shaking off fleas. We have to get out of the city onto the safety of the plains.”
“It’s not going to be as simple a matter as climbing down from this tree and running for the city gates,” Rhuz said. “The whole city is falling apart, and our assassins’ pathways are being destroyed; we can no longer use the secret routes. We’ll have to make our way through the streets, navigating through the crowds of panicking people, and fighting a running battle against the army of Blood Demons that’s pouring out of the collapsing palace. And from what I can see, the number of fresh enemy troops is only increasing, and we’re already outnumbered by a factor of many hundreds to one.”
“We’ve got three deities here,” I said, “some super-strong warriors of Light, the best assassins in the city, and a werewolf. I don’t mind those odds too much.”
“Wait a second,” Friya said, then she cupped her hands around her mouth and let out a long, protracted wolf howl that rang out over the rumbling and crashing of the collapsing city and echoed through its streets.
Seconds later, the howl was answered by an identical howl from a few hundred yards away, and then another, and another, until werewolf howls were ringing out all over Luminescent Spires.
“Not just one werewolf,” Friya said, grinning. “Every werewolf in this city will come to our aid!”
“There’s more than one werewolf in Luminescent Spires?” I asked.
“The city has had a problem with werewolves for many years now,” the Lord of Light admitted. “All my extermination programs were for naught. They seem to thrive under my light.”
“It’s not a problem now, if they’re all coming to fight for us!” I said, chuckling. “Let’s get out of this tree and fight our way out of the city before this whole place implodes!”
The tree had now reached a height of over a hundred yards, and it towered above the collapsing city, an incongruous image of sturdiness and stability against the background of everything falling apart all around it. We clambered down out of the branches, with me trying to balance the massive container with the Dragon Heart on one hand. I figured it would help to have the lone harpy I’d left on my warship, just in case I needed to fly out of here fast, so I sent her a command. It would take her a few minutes to arrive in the city.
We dropped out of the tree and landed on the rubble of the vaults below us, which had completely collapsed. Only the immensely sturdy outer walls were still standing, but the entire interior was nothing but a pile of broken stone. We picked our way through the rubble, then climbed out and used the assassins’ ropes—assassins always had ultralight but immensely strong climbing ropes on them—to rappel down the outer walls.
Then we were in the streets, where chaos reigned. Blood Demons, wearing the armor of Resplendent Crusaders, Consecrated Knights, Palace Guards, and other elite Church of Light troops, were rampaging through the streets, slaughtering the panicking citizens en-masse. Some crusaders, knights, and guards were not, however, under the spell of Elandriel and the Blood God. These were valiantly attempting to defend the citizens, but were getting cut down by the much stronger Blood Demons, whose armor and weapons glowed with the red aura of Blood magic.
I resurrected a few citizens who’d been killed by falling rubble and gave the container with the embalmed Dragon Heart for them to carry, so I could free myself up to fight.
“Take out as many of the fuckers as you can!” I roared before I somersaulted over a fleeing mother and her child and cut down the Blood Demon who was pursuing them, hot on their heels. “We fight our way down that way, to the Southern Gate!”
Two more Blood Demons, attired in the armor of Consecrated Knights, charged out of an alley with a roar, coming at me with their greatswords whistling in deadly arcs. I ducked under the first demon’s slash and sliced his body in half, hacking the Dragon Sword through his waist. Then I spun and parried my second adversary’s cut before I shattered his greatsword with my magical blade and diced him into quarters with four swift strokes. Even when his chopped-up body parts hit the ground, his severed head rolled toward me, his jaws snapping at my feet. His right arm and half of his cut-up torso dragged itself toward me, the fingers reaching for me with a voracious hunger. The other demon’s legless torso was dragging itself across the cobbles toward me, undeterred by the fact that it had lost half of its body.
I booted the head away, sending the grisly thing sailing through the air like a ball, where it crashed through the window of a collapsing tavern. I spun around and slashed the crawling legless torso into even smaller pieces.
All around me, the assassins, the Lord of Light’s loyal warriors, Yumo-Rezu, and Friya in her werewolf-form were engaged in a furious battle against the hordes of Blood Demons. We fought our way through the narrow cobbled street, while buildings collapsed around us and panicking people ran screaming in terror past us.
If I was ever around for the end of the world, I imagined it would look something like this. If my forces and I lost the coming battle, this would, of course, be the actual end of the world.
“Take courage, my children!” the Lord of Light calmly called out to the fleeing citizens as they ran around in utter panic, like chickens with their heads chopped off. “The Light shall prevail, and ye whose faith remains pure shall be protected from the scourge of evil!”
/> “Why don’t you help your people out by killing some of these fucking Blood Demons instead of preaching, dumbass!” I yelled as I skewered a rabid Blood Demon on my sword.
“A wise idea, I suppose, God of Death,” he said, and raised his hands. The sun above us seemed to grow impossibly bright. Intense beams of white-hot light started blasting down from the heavens, frying every Blood Demon they hit to a crisp, leaving behind nothing but smoking piles of ash where these foul creatures had been.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you could do that?” I yelled while exchanging a flurry of blows with three Blood Demons who were all attacking me at once.
The Lord of Light shrugged. “You did not ask me, God of Death.”
“Well do it some more, asshole!” I yelled. “There are too many of these things!”
Just then, two ten-foot-tall werewolves charged out of a side alley, roaring and slavering. They pounced on two of the Blood Demons I was fighting and started tearing them to shreds, roaring and howling as they ripped the demons’ limbs off. I gave them a nod, thanking them for their assistance, then proceeded to thoroughly dismember the remaining Blood Demon in front of me.
The Lord of Light called down more potent rays of sunshine. Yumo-Rezu continued to use her tried and tested method of rapid-firing multiple Cold arrows into a Blood Demon’s head and then shattering its frozen skull into splinters before it could counteract the magic. The assassins were fighting hard, using every weapon and dirty trick they knew on the nearly unstoppable Blood Demons. The Lord of Light’s troops, under the spell of his magic, conjured searing hot rays from their greatswords, much like Elyse shot from her mace.
It was hard going, especially since we had to avoid causing collateral harm or accidently killing the thousands of civilians who were streaming in panic through the streets. However, after around an hour of intense fighting, we made it to the gates at the bottom of the hill. They had been left wide open and abandoned by most of the terrified guards, who had fled along with the civilians. Streams of people, tens of thousands in each stream, were flowing out of the city gates as the Blood Pyramid rose from the dying city. We forced our way through them and came to a clear spot on the plains that provided a good view of Luminescent Spires.
It was a surreal sight. The entire hill, as well as the plains around it, were shaking violently, and buildings were tumbling off the slopes and collapsing into rubble. With every building and section of the city that collapsed, more of the red Blood Pyramid beneath the city was revealed. What was more, the top of the pyramid started to gradually open up. When it did, an intense pillar of red light blasted up into the heavens and started to turn the entire sky from blue to blood red.
“That’s not good,” Yumo-Rezu muttered, staring in horror at the changing sky.
“No,” I said, turning to face the western horizon. “But that is.”
She turned, followed the direction of my gaze, and saw a magnificent sight: raging hurricane winds blowing in, carrying my army of harpies, and the rest of my party.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s almost time,” I said. “We have to get to the ship. Rhuz and Sun Boy, you’re in charge here until we get back. Organize the assassins, werewolves, and whatever Church of Light troops are still loyal to Sun Boy here into a small army. Do your best to save as many civilians from the rampaging Blood Demons as you can. My party will be arriving soon; they’ll provide reinforcements for you.”
“Where are you going, God of Death?” the Lord of Light asked me.
“We’re going to resurrect a dragon,” I said with a grin. “And when you see me next, I’ll be riding it over these plains. Elandriel and the Blood God won’t know what hit them. Just keep the bastards occupied until then!”
I grabbed the Dragon Heart from the zombies who’d carried it while escaping the city. “I’ll be needing this,” I said as I took the vessel in which it was contained.
The lone harpy that had stayed with my ship and pirates now came flying from the sky above. It picked up me, Yumo-Rezu, and Friya in its claws.
The harpy whisked us off in the direction of the ship, where the dragon skeleton was. We arrived there soon enough, and Percy and his pirates were waiting on the deck. Even from many miles out at sea, they could see the ominous pillar of red light.
“Thank goodness you’re finally here, Cap’n Chauzec!” Percy said when we landed. “Looks like the bloody world’s ending, it does!”
“It will end if we don’t get this right,” I said. “Hurry, down below deck to the dragon skeleton! Friya, I hope you’re ready for this.”
“I’ve been ready for this my whole life.” She smiled with eager anticipation.
I stopped for a moment, swept her up in my arms, and we shared a passionate kiss. “Since it’s the last time I’ll ever see you in your human form,” I said, grinning.
“I’m glad we got to share that one last time,” she said, temporarily weak at the knees from the intensity of the kiss. “But no more, as amazing as it was. I have a new form to take.”
We hurried down into the hold of the warship, where the dragon bones were.
On the ship, the crew had started the process of resurrecting the dragon. Friya was sitting inside the assembled skeleton wearing nothing but the Cloak of Change, and she was chanting the incantation that would bring about the permanent shifting of forms, where her body and soul would blend with the dragon’s skeleton, its heart, and its soul. The latter I would bring down from the Sea of Stars, to become a living dragon. Yumo-Rezu was standing by the dragon skull, working her own magic on it, which would imbue the resurrected creature with the wild and potent essence of a dragon born of natural means.
Focusing my mind and spirit on the skeleton before me, I gripped one of the dragon’s huge ribs in my left hand, feeling a jolt of Death energy ripping through me as I did. I let Grave Oath lie flat on the palm of my right hand. The Death dagger sought out the soul connected to this massive skeleton, spinning madly around on my palm as it searched the Sea of Stars. Grave Oath soon found it, pointing up at the exact location of the dragon’s soul.
I launched my spirit upward, rocketing through the sky and into the stars beyond. I tore through the billions of souls drifting peacefully through the Sea of Stars, following the arrow-straight line coming from Grave Oath’s tip, until I reached the soul of the dragon. It was barely visible, a mere hint of a ghost, about to vanish forever. I grabbed it and held it tight before it could disappear.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “Your time down there isn’t done just yet. You’ve got one more battle to fight before you can have your eternal peace.”
Then, gripping the dragon’s soul tightly with my ethereal hands, I plummeted back down through the stars, tumbling through the dome of the sky and hurtling downward until I slammed back into my body. Still gripping the dragon’s soul with my spirit hands, I shoved it into the skeleton before me, melding it with the dry bones like a metallurgist blending metals.
When I did this, both Yumo-Rezu and Friya gasped and shuddered as a jolt of intense energy tore through both of them. Now that the dragon’s soul was here, Yumo-Rezu took over, weaving the spell that would bind Friya’s soul to the dragon’s. Friya began to cry out and writhe inside the dragon skeleton, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether her cries were of agony, ecstasy, or both.
“Are you ready for the Dragon Heart?” I asked.
Yumo-Rezu shook her head. “The process. . . will take some more time.” It sounded like she was in the middle of an intimate moment, with her searching for a climax.
“All right,” I said. “I guess I better make myself busy then.”
I figured I could be participating in the battle while this ritual went on. So, I cast my soul into the actor’s body, to lead the fight now that he and the rest of my party had landed on the plains near the Lord of Light and Rhuz. Through my doppelganger’s eyes, I saw the awesome yet horrifying sight of the Blood Pyramid revealed in its entirety. It had
shaken off the whole city, which lay around its base in ruins and rubble. The only thing still standing was the enchanted tree I’d “planted” there earlier, which was still clinging tenaciously to the side of the pyramid. Boiling red storm clouds were gathering, blasting veins of red lighting across the darkening sky.
Tens of thousands of Blood Demons had formed up in an army on the plains, and the entire population of Luminescent Spires was fleeing in terror before it. Those who could not escape were not killed. Instead, they were captured. Through a horrifying Blood ritual cast by Blood Priests in red hooded robes, their souls were destroyed, and they were turned into Blood Demons themselves, swelling the ranks of the ever-growing army.
“You returned quickly, God of Death, yet you are arriving with those who rode the hurricane!” the Lord of Light exclaimed with an astonished expression.
“It’s me, but it’s not actually me,” I said, speaking via the actor. “It’s too complicated to explain right now, so turn your bald head back toward the enemy and keep blasting ‘em with that concentrated sunlight!”
“As you command, God of Death.” He gave me a bow and turned back to face the Blood Army, which he started blasting with beams of light from the sun.
“Is that … the Lord of Light?” Rollar’s jaw hung open with surprise.
“It is,” Isu answered sourly, before I could say anything. “And for some reason the twit is fighting for us … for now. We should slit his yellow throat before he has the chance to betray us.”
“Trust me, he’s on our side,” I said, “and he’s not going to be double-crossing us. He’s got at much at stake as any of us do, and he’ll suffer just as much as the rest of us if the Blood God wins.”
“What are your orders for us, Vance?” Elyse asked. Although she had clearly seen the Lord of Light, the god she had formerly served with such devotion, she was acting with haughty aloofness toward him and deliberately ignoring him.
“Yes, tell Drok who Drok kill first!” Drok added enthusiastically.
