“Y’ohvinghr!”
Pax sighed.
Still dueling with Valia, Kurt fought through the pain in his ribs and back as he dodged, then parried another of his daughter’s viper-like attacks. He made to disengage and assist Pax once more, but Valia seemed to anticipate as much. She lunged forward, dipping her rapier into Kurt’s side.
He gasped, not missing the sympathetic scream from Pax close by.
Falling to one knee, Kurt flourished Ignis in wide arcs to prevent further harassment.
Pushing himself onto all fours, Pax could feel Kurt’s confidence waning. Seeing him struggling to keep Valia at bay, Pax picked up both sword and pistol, and leapt away from another wild swing from his asshole brother, dashing toward the throne Mastus had once occupied. He came to a stop no more than twenty paces shy of Kurt and Valia.
Ignoring the berserker charging after him, Pax flipped his unloaded pistol around to hold it by the barrel. “Little taste of iron, Sis.” He hurled it and was rewarded with the smack of a sturdy pistol against his sister’s temple. Valia stumbled, but remained standing, umbra fully intact.
That was all Pax could offer his fellow Judge. Now he had to deal with Drusus.
Kurt smiled. Pax’s attack did little to harm Valia, but it bought him precious time. Cocking Dirge’s other hammer, he jammed the shotgun in her chest and pulled the trigger. The blast sent his daughter flying down the center aisle between the pews.
Standing on shaky feet in the middle of the monastery, Kurt saw one son ducking and dodging wild swings from another of his progeny.
Kurt stabbed Ignis into the marble flooring, plucked two red cartridges from his bandolier, loaded Dirge, and slapped the barrels home. He wrenched Ignis out just in time to see Pax take a kick to the chest that sent him sprawling across the Arch-Inquisitor’s throne. Kurt gasped as the blow splintered his ribs. Pax raised his arm to chop desperately with Brimstone, but Drusus—far more astute than he looked—anticipated as much and arced his sword upward, severing Pax’s sword arm at the elbow. Brimstone clattered to the ground.
Kurt wailed, dropping Ignis as agony shot through his right arm. He collapsed to his knees, forcing himself to breathe through the torment. Judges could heal fast, but re-growing a limb took time.
Time they didn’t have.
Growling as he stood, Kurt thumbed one of Dirge’s hammers back and shot at Drusus. The blast was like that of an actual canon, and deafening inside the cloistered monastery. Kurt’s senses went numb as he opened and closed his jaw, trying to get his muffled ears to pop. He looked up to see that the former Judge had been flung over the altar, cratering the wall against which the massive links of chain hung. His umbra was a shimmering pool of midnight wreathed in smoke. Kurt holstered the shotgun and picked up Ignis.
Seeing Kurt staggering toward the throne, an equally dazed Pax pushed himself to standing with his remaining arm.
Kurt stood before his son. He could read past Pax’s anxiety. “Don’t worry,” he rasped, “it’ll grow back.” Kurt felt the Judge’s relief like a soothing balm “But this is going to hurt like hell, Pax.” Kurt grabbed him by the stump of his bleeding arm and pressed the flat of Ignis against the spurting wound.
Both men bared their teeth at one another, eyes bulging.
Kurt withdrew the blade, gasping. He looked to Pax just in time to receive an expertly delivered punch to the nose.
Pax growled, holding his own bleeding nose. “Dammit! Can’t even beat your ass without beatin’ my own! Didn’t think it was possible for you to go and piss me off more than you already have.”
Both men leaned over and spat.
Pax grumbled more obscenities as he looked around for and found Brimstone near the throne. Despite the pain of simply existing at this point, he leaned over and picked up the sacred blade with his left hand.
They looked to the wall Drusus had caved in, unsurprised to see him push himself to standing. Smoke steamed off of him, like some foggy abomination.
Pax chuckled. “Hit ‘em with an explosive round, eh?”
Drusus roared.
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Is that what that was? Appears I’ve a lot of catching up to do.”
Pax whistled through his teeth. “He looks pissed!” Pax made to speak but doubled over, something at the primal level compelling him toward Kurt. Without wishing to, he lurched toward the other Judge. “Now what?”
Kurt had been worried this would happen. Their connection being so new, Pax hadn’t learned how to maintain his physical form for more than a few minutes at a time. If they didn’t hurry, Pax would be pulled back inside Kurt, leaving one Judge to fight off both of his children. “We need to finish this fight, and soon, Pax.” Kurt flourished Ignis. “Shall we?”
Pax stood to his full height, seeming to have regained some control over himself. “Let’s just get this over with.”
They went to either side of the elongated altar, swords at the ready.
Flanked on either side, Drusus roared again, swinging his blade in air-cleaving swathes. Both Judges stabbed, parried, and cut the behemoth down to a ragged mess; the filmy umbra revealing flesh in a dozen places. Drusus’ assault became sluggish and unwieldy against the Judges nipping at him from either side.
Pax gouged a large section of the umbra free from the behemoth’s stomach and waited until his brother’s attention was turned toward Kurt. When it happened, Pax unceremoniously kicked Drusus onto Kurt’s flaming blade. Ignis sank into the corrupted Judge’s guts.
Roaring, Kurt dragged it across his son’s midsection, spilling steaming offal upon the chipped marble as Drusus burst into flames.
“Behind you!” Pax shouted.
Drusus collapsed, taking Ignis to the ground with his blazing body. Kurt spun just in time to lean out of the way of Valia’s attack as it sought out his throat. Kurt reached for his remaining pistol, but she whipped her rapier across his hand; the third strike grazing his throat. He reeled and dodged subsequent aggressions.
Pax tried to get at Valia, but couldn’t with Kurt blocking the way. Cursing, he stepped over Drusus and tossed Brimstone on the altar. Whipping Dirge from its sheath on Kurt's back, he cocked and aimed the shotgun over the man’s shoulder. Kurt dodged another attack, knocking Pax’s aim off just as he pulled the trigger. The explosive round went wide, blasting a section of the wall to Valia’s left and showering her umbra with searing fragments, causing her salvo to falter as she stumbled away from the smoking wall.
The concussion of Dirge howling so close to Kurt’s head felt as though a giant had clapped both his ears. He leaned against the altar, blinking slow, his hearing nothing but a skull-splitting whine.
Disoriented, Pax replaced Dirge on the altar with Brimstone, tucking the blade between his severed arm and chest. Pax stumbled up to Kurt, a sluggish hand questing for and finding his remaining pistol in Kurt’s chest holster. Pax made his way toward his errant sister, cach step requiring effort. The umbra seemed to have physically protected her from the worst of the explosive round’s effects, but she still managed to stagger toward him.
Leveling the pistol and firing, multiple shots went wide as there seemed to be more than one Valia making her way toward him. Pax shook his head, blinked a few times, and aimed once more. His next round hit home, sinking into the filmy armor coating her shoulder, but she didn’t drop her weapon. Vision clearing up, Pax saw he had one last round in the chamber. He smiled as aimed for a gap in her umbra.
Valia produced a throwing knife from her robe and hurled it at him, the blade sinking into his bicep. He wailed, dropping both his pistol and Brimstone.
The sudden stab of pain wrenched Kurt from his muddled state. He looked to see Pax hunched over, both his weapons on the ground. Valia, albeit slowly, was making her way toward the downed Judge.
Kurt turned to Drusus, who was on his side vomiting black blood, his body a charred facsimile of its former glory. He wrenched Ignis—still burning—free of his son’s guts. “I gave you a cho
ice, Drusus,” Kurt said, but the words tasted like ash on his lips, and he knew them for the lie they were. He’d left too many of his children to rot in the Conventus, and now he was reaping the grim harvest he’d sown over generations of selfish war to restore Nil.
Spitting out more blood, Drusus spoke in an accented version of the tongue common to Cre’, “Gave us life, but no choice. No life.” Cradling his entrails with one hand, he pushed himself to his knees, burnt skin cracking as he did so.
Like the pragmatic Judge he’d once been, Drusus bared his neck, imploring Kurt to be done with it. Knowing Pax had seconds to live, Kurt swung Ignis across Drusus’ neck, severing the head at his tree trunk of a neck and cauterizing exposed arteries. His son’s body collapsed in a heap of singed gore and steaming blood. Kurt turned, hoping to rescue his remaining son before it was too late.
Pax tried to move his arm but it didn’t budge, and he didn’t have a spare hand to wrench the throwing knife free. He looked Valia up and down, noting the few chinks in her smoky armor. He leaned over and spat. “Family reunions,” he rasped. “Tend to git pretty nasty, eh?”
Valia flourished her blade. “I’ll see you in the Conventus, Brother.”
Pax felt an emotion ripple across his soul. A warning. Pax smirked. “Sorry, Sis, but I ain’t much for swimming.” Valia coiled, then unleashed a perfectly executed stab at Pax’s eye.
Just as Kurt had anticipated. It was her favorite attack.
Pax rolled to one side, but despite the insider knowledge, Valia’s blade still gouged his cheek in the process.
Kurt watched his son take the hit, feeling the sting of the blade across his own face. He roared, getting Valia’s attention as he charged recklessly toward his daughter, Ignis leading the way. Valia met his challenge, sauntering past Pax.
Missing half an arm, and tired of getting his ass kicked by demons and family alike, Pax pushed himself to standing. With her back turned to him, he growled as he shouldered his sister toward Kurt’s charging blade.
Ignis punched through Valia’s exposed midsection, out her back, and into Pax’s side. All three combatants screamed as waves of fire pulsed through their veins.
Half-mad from the pain, Kurt barely managed to wrench Ignis free from his flame-wreathed daughter. The blade, and all three family members collapsed.
Kurt and Pax endured the fire in their guts as the oils in the pommel of Ignis finally ran dry; the blade’s flames seethed and whipped, lowered, then extinguished themselves entirely. Both men lay in that state, healing and simply breathing through shared hardship.
Eventually Kurt dragged himself over to Valia. She was a smoking husk of her former beauty. His daughter looked into his eyes, beseeching him somehow. Kurt’s heart ached at how ruined a thing she had become. He saw none of the former playful yet intelligent mischief in her blackened eyes. None of the little girl who loved to be bounced on his knee thousands of years ago. All that remained was the daughter he’d left to rot in that hellish sea. And she was scared. His little girl was so scared.
Pax felt the fiery pains in his guts melt into soul-smothering heartache. He looked over to see Kurt cradling Valia. Reluctantly at first, Pax relaxed enough to let Kurt's sorrow in, vicariously allowing his long-lost father’s love to wash over him in the process.
“I did this to you,” Kurt rasped. “All of you.” Black tears wound their way down his daughter’s cheeks, but she didn’t speak. Only looked into Kurt’s eyes. “I just couldn’t let Nil’s light be forgotten,” Kurt said, “and I couldn’t let Her darkness take my children—take you away from me.” Valia shuddered, her body becoming frigid in his embrace. Soon she’d return to the Conventus, a place he dared not enter until it was cleansed once and for all. “I’ve been a selfish, controlling, horrible father to you. Please forgive me, Valia.”
His daughter’s lips quivered. “Hurry, Dad,” she sobbed, “we’re so cold.” Valia took a few shuddering gasps, and died; her death rattle that of a thousand accusatory whispers.
Kurt lowered his head and wept.
Pax buried his face in his hands, shoulders heaving up and down.
Both men mourned in their own way for some time before Kurt placed her daughter gently onto the ground and stood. He wiped at his face. “We need fire,” he croaked.
Pax knew what for. He rose, limped toward Kurt and fished within the Judge’s pockets until he produced two vials of the oil used to fuel Ignis.
Kurt took one, pushing the other back into Pax’s hand. “See to your brother, Pax. You would have—” Kurt stopped, taking a deep breath. “You two would have gotten along, I think.”
Pax nodded, going to Drusus’ body and applying the oils with something akin to reverence. The sorrow etched into his soul at that moment didn’t just come from Kurt.
But there was a hope, Pax realized. After what had happened in Cairn, after losing his faith in the Inquisition, something had come to fill that gaping hole in his heart. He’d found his father, and despite all the man had wrought, he’d provided Pax with something he’d always wanted, but never thought possible: a family. People he could call his own. There were hundreds of Judges, his kin, in the Conventus that could be saved.
That was worth fighting for.
Pax removed one of the torches from the wall and limped back toward Drusus. He spared his brother a moment, a promise to make right what had happened to the family he’d never known, then set the former Judge ablaze.
He made his way over to Kurt, passing him the torch.
Kurt proceeded to coat Valia in the viscous oils, giving her all the rights and respect deserving of a Judge who had sacrificed herself to protect Cre’ time and again. He took a moment to remember her as the beautiful, beaming child who had made those early years in the former light of Nil so glorious to behold. That was how Kurt would remember his daughter.
Feeling every century of his pained existence, Kurt groaned as he knelt, and touched off the oils covering his daughter. The flames consumed her body in a matter of moments. Once the conflagration had passed, all that remained was the shadow of a body etched into the marble and scant ashes to mark her passing.
Pax watched as those ashes were swept away by the same cold wind that had ushered him into this terrible, yet hopeful world.
Kurt dropped the torch to the ground, his breath interlaced with sniffling as he shook his head to some memory he’d thought long forgotten. “Her mother,” he said. “I was thinking of her mother.” Kurt bit his lip. “Promised her I’d always. . . . Promised I’d . . .”
Pax closed his eyes and inhaled Kurt’s memories. He saw her—the man’s wife, Valia’s mother. She was beaming, laughing. He saw a small, happy family bathed in a light so pure it felt as though the warmth transcended time itself, warming his skin through memory alone. Pax exhaled, opening his eyes, and as much as he still wanted to sock Kurt, he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You promised you’d always protect Valia. I know . . . Dad.”
Kurt let the tears flow unbidden, embracing Pax just as he had in the Conventus. “Thank you, Son.”
Pax didn’t fight the gesture, and for the first time in a life full of hardship, he hugged his father.
It wasn’t long before D’Nai and her acolytes emerged from where they’d taken refuge. The two men collected their weapons, then allowed the acolytes to tend to their wounds. Pax ordered one of them to go get his arm and his hat, but Kurt said only one of those things would be necessary.
So Pax put his hat on with one hand.
Another acolyte opened the grand doors leading to the outside world. The morning sun had just begun to rise, bathing the monastery in its weak light.
Walking toward the dawn, Pax felt amusement tickle his senses. “What’s so funny?”
Kurt gave him a weak smile. “How’s that for some father-son bonding?”
Pax laughed before wincing at the pain flaring through his body. “Tell you what, Pops. Next time you wanna spend some quality time together, let's just p
lay a game of horseshoes.” Pax held up his stump of an arm. “Once my throwing arm grows back, that is.”
Kurt smiled, looking at how the sunlight highlighted the creases across Pax’s scarred face. “I think I’d like that very much, Son. Reckon we’ve a lot of catching up to do.”
“Reckon so.” Pax smiled back, slapping his dad on the back. Both men yelped, which caused them to laugh some more.
But their laughter died down. Kurt considered the future as he and his last child approached the threshold. There was work to be done. His children had strayed into Nil’s clutches—children he would save. And he hadn’t forgotten the light Nil was capable of. He’d be damned if he was going to let the world forget what She once was, and could be once more. He just had to trust in others like Pax to help him this time around. This wasn’t a war he could win alone. It never had been.
Pax considered the family he’d never known, yet had existed all this time. It was bitter-sweet, but most things in life were. You just had to suck it up and shoulder through. But he’d broken the chain shackling him to the Inquisition; no longer accepting their scraps of hope as good enough. He was done with just surviving. It was high time he took his life by the reins and trod a new path. But not alone.
Father and son walked into the light, took one another by the hand, and became one.
It was peaceful.
Samuel Hale
About the author
Samuel Hale is the author of numerous short stories such as Krov and The Chain. Sam enjoys writing Historical Fantasy which utilizes his degrees in Anthropology and Education to bring history to life with intricate magic systems and hard-hitting action. When he isn’t writing about mechs and shieldwalls, Sam serves as an editor for the independent publisher Inked in Gray, as well as the host of the podcast Distropia where he and his co-host, Del Washington, examine tropes alongside various (un)related tangents. Sam thoroughly enjoys cats, tats, and yoga mats.
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