by Tiger Gray
Below the stone dais they stood on and the stone bridge that lead to the main cavern where the worshippers whirled with spikes in their flesh, pressed themselves to the floor, shook and spoke in tongues, the God undulated. Even though she could hear the rumbling of battle overhead, the unworthy clashing with Cultists and scores of undead, she felt no fear. Not with Gilly supporting her. Not with the God so close.
She slipped her hand into Coren's. Gilly's words about sacrifice and blood and mysteries beneath the water blurred together into a pleasant meaninglessness, like a mother's murmured assurances to her child.
She watched Gilly draw the knife that had undergone many days of blessings, plain and naked. The sacrifice groaned, but did not wake. Good. He needn't suffer at the moment of his death; he had already achieved the enlightenment that waited for those strong enough to transcend the flesh and had earned the peace of knowing Him.
An outcry intruded on her perfect moment. By the look of stark rage on Gilly's face, she'd heard it too.
"Kill him now," she begged Gilly. "The heretics are coming."
Gilly raised her arm. The knife flashed, came down, and in that moment, Coren moved.
* * *
"No!" Liu screamed as Coren broke free of her grip and flung himself at Gilly. They went down hard, grappling. The knife spun out of Gilly's hands.
Betrayal scored her emotions, the first time in a long time that she'd felt pain that simply hurt, with no promise of enlightenment to elevate it beyond the primal. If it hadn't been for the task she now needed to finish, she would have been ill.
The hateful touch of liar's magic! The energy that the paladins dared call divine! Were they here already, fouling the ritual chamber? She grabbed for the knife with one hand and drew her spirit blade with the other, the pale sword shimmering with green energy.
She saw them then, a group of White Eagle soldiers bottle-necked in the doorway. The sound of gunfire raced along her nerve endings. She recognized the man at the head. How many betrayals must she suffer? First, Coren, trying to kill the only woman who had given her any love, and now her father, come to disrupt what was to be the most glorious moment of her life.
She heard herself calling for her father's death, spurred on by the kind of fury she'd never known before. Her magic rose up in her and if it hadn't been for the sacrifice, she would have brought the cavern down on everyone's heads. It had to be done with this knife. If no one else could do it, she would.
* * *
Ashrinn concluded, in the strange way of mostly unconscious people, that he must be dead. He couldn't quite figure out why everyone got in such an uproar over what happened after one passed; really, it was quite pleasant, what had gone before notwithstanding.
Evidence to the contrary came to him in ragged, wound like fragments, bits of skin and gore ripped from the body they rightfully belonged to. Mirror-shard stimuli sliced at him, the threads of welcome nothingness unraveling.
Shouting. Boots on stone. Oh, by all that was good, the agony. Then, the healing magic, elevating, making anew. It was saffron flowers and cinnamon, eye opening salvia and the scent of roses.
Liz!
He had time for no other thought. His danger sense shrilled and he pulled his spirit blade from the astral just in time to counter the knife coming for his throat. He opened his eyes only to stare into Liu's maddened ones.
Liz dropped out of the neural web. The spot where she had been yawned open, empty. He threw Liu back with all of his newfound strength and used the brief respite to look for Liz.
He couldn't see her through all the chaos; what remained of the Storm, blocked in by Cultists, undead crawling up from the earth.
Serwin too. He jumped down from the altar, pressing Liu back when she came at him again. He was a much better swordsman than her, but she had the backing of the demon, to say nothing of fanaticism. What she lacked in precision she made up for in strength, hacking at his defenses like a butcher. Oh spirit. Mal.
No, Mal was supposed to be on the surface! What the hell was he doing here? He knew then, with awful clarity; he and the Storm had taken too long and Mal had fought his way into the compound for him.
No time. Coren and Gilly battled across the narrow dais, dancing with one another as each tried to avoid ending up in the pool. It took a moment to sink in. Coren was fighting Gilly.
"Liu..." He tried to focus on summoning his familiar, though his head swam with everything that had happened in the past few minutes.
"How could you do this to me? I thought you understood!"
"Don't listen to him, Liusidris," Gilly told her. "Our God is using the sacrifice to test you!"
Coren fell to his knees, convulsing with pain. Gilly's signature power, Ashrinn guessed. Ashrinn wanted to help, but Liu kept him pinned down. He didn't want to kill her. He could see now how she'd been corrupted and manipulated by Kir and Gilly both, Kir's demonic spells trying to twist and brainwash both him and Liu.
He leapt to the top of the altar again, scrambling to get away from her for a moment and gain some ground. Gilly likewise came at him, and he fended them both off. He knew, though, that he would tire before long. Blood from those wounds that yet remained dripped into the water, and the song of unmaking threatened to make him as barking mad as Liu and Gilly. The abyssal gateway creaked and groaned, cracked open. He saw Coren fight to stand.
"Coren, run!" he said, trying to keep Gilly from climbing the altar to battle him on even footing. The demon itself rose, forcing its massive head through the doorway between worlds. Ashrinn brought his sword around and channeled with a clarity inspired by desperation. If it came through they were all doomed.
His familiar leapt into being, uncoiling in a flash of blinding gold. Its red eyes burned with ferocity; the denizens of whatever holy place he had pulled it from had no love for corruption. It swelled larger than ever before. The two serpents coiled together, baring fangs, striking at one another, circling the altar in a storm of scales and deadly energies.
He saw enough to know that Coren had hesitated at the foot of the dais, looking with forlorn at the combat. Whether his look was for him or for Liu, Ashrinn didn't know.
"Do it!" he commanded with divine mandate in his voice. "Get out of here!"
Coren broke and shot towards the far tunnel. He tore the insignia from his jacket as he did so, leaving the Cult symbols to be trampled against the stone as the battle in the main chamber ebbed and flowed.
"You've fed us this whole time and you'll do it now," Gilly said, baring her teeth as she hacked at him with her blade. It was all he could do to put up a defense, still shaking as he was from such sudden healing. There was a reason they advised against that kind of thing; the body couldn't take it. The thought that Liz had most probably given her life for him revitalized him and he pushed Gilly back.
He could truly see Kir's hand in this now, how she had been perfectly happy to use his blood, spilt over time, to fuel the Cult's demonic rites if it meant she could get some of that power for herself. And if it got rid of Liu, who she had always deemed inappropriate for her son, so much the better.
It must have been a terrible shock when Coren had gone too. Ashrinn felt a particularly poisonous surge of dark pleasure. He dropped his guard as though Gilly had unsettled him enough that he'd forgotten to keep up a defense.
Gilly stepped in to gut him, and in one clean thrust he put his sword through her. She jerked and her last full breath gurgled in her throat.
There is a part of me not even Kir could touch.
He twisted the sword and she went limp, sliding off the blade and rolling bonelessly into the water. For a single moment he felt perfect exultation, the cry of the divine. It was as though he had never been injured, as though he'd never faced the dragon, never lain nigh-dead on the stone slab he stood on. He heard Liu's raw screams as though she were very far away. He could see her however, as indistinct as a ghost, hammering at the serpentine barrier to no avail.
The next few moment
s, when he thought about them later, seemed to take a million years. Sonth had fought her way to the bridge, splattered in grey matter and bone fragments, a trail of bodies both construct and human in her wake. He caught a glimpse of Serwin, shimmering with magic; Ashrinn could only imagine the healing net his friend had created and was now sustaining with so much power the air itself felt as though it had a charge.
He saw Sonth put a bullet in Liu, who dropped soundlessly and crumpled over Gilly's already still body. Not a perfect shot by any means; there was simply too much happening for her to draw a better bead.
Mal, spirit blade stark blue-white against the darkness of the cavern. Mal stood surrounded by Cultists, and the sight drew Ashrinn's attention. Dread made him try and force his way through the barrier he himself had helped create, to no avail. One of the lesser demons kept his lover from reaching him, in turn, a hideous many-headed beast that, as Ashrinn struggled against the celestial creatures keeping him penned atop the altar, ripped the spine out of one of the White Eagle soldiers.
Mal fought with otherworldly strength and skill, but Ashrinn could only stare, trapped. His connection to the divine wavered as he watched; his familiar was losing. He realized he did not want to know what would happen if his familiar died.
Mal was a consummate swordsman, but there was only so long mortal flesh, even mortal flesh blessed by the divine, could hold out. Two Cultists grabbed him from behind, twisting his arms behind his back. His spirit blade clattered to the ground, dropped from nerveless fingers.
For a moment, Ashrinn met Mal's eyes. It was that same look as in Tikrit, the disappointed, rueful look that said he knew he was going to die. The Cultists forced him to the ground, held him down with a boot to his back, and shot him twice in the back of the head.
Mal's spirit blade flickered and went dark.
Through all the tragedy of the past years, Ashrinn had managed to keep the emotional shield around his heart mostly intact. Now it shattered in a cloud of razor sharp shrapnel.
The demon would explode into the real world at any moment. He was vaguely aware of others falling, dying.
Something within him sobbed, cried, howled. Entreated.
And in that desolate place, the divine answered.
The torrent of holy power did not bend to his will so much as it crashed over him like a tsunami, poured through him like molten lava. No space for the earthly in that indescribable place, the divine burning through him in a firestorm, given passage by the power of grief.
So. This is what had happened to him, when he'd laid dead and charred on the broken Seattle street, when the white doe had come to give him gifts he didn't want. This open wound, welling up with the divine, more power than any paladin living or dead had ever channeled.
He looked beyond, into that place where cleansing, holy fire lived, and lifted his sword.
The blade crackled and twisted in his hands. Ashrinn brought the sword down on the center of the altar as images from the ancient world pounded in his brain, worship and flame and sacrifice.
The altar cracked, then broke apart. He lost his footing and hit the water hard. The demon thrashed and then disappeared as the abyssal gates slammed shut.
He came to choking, the pool as still and pure as if it had never been used as a conduit for something so foul. He dragged himself free and collapsed on the dais, psyche and body both so bruised and bloodied he could scarcely believe he was alive.
Whatever peace the rush of the divine had bought him lasted for only a few breaths.
"Mal!" He found it in him to get up and run down the short bridge to the main floor. He had to be wrong about what he had seen. Had to. So intent was he on believing this that he missed the ground rolling beneath him, at first.
He thought he could see Mal, just there, wounded probably but...
He wasn't at all prepared for Gerolt, dragging him back before he could get even halfway across the chamber. He couldn't make sense of what was happening and he fought Gerolt's grip, though he couldn't summon any of his training to aid him.
"Let me go." He tried to yank himself free, but he didn't have the strength.
Sonth jogged up, rifle in her hands. She looked so very serious, and he knew. He denied the knowledge instantly. No. It had been a dream, a terrible dream, a hallucination brought on by the demon's powers.
"Commander! Without Lizbet there's nothing to stop the cave in! We have to leave now." Suddenly he hated her for trying to take him away from Mal. He tried to twist free of Gerolt's grip once more. "You will bury us all, Commander," she said, with the weight of an invocation. "Come with us."
***
Cheering greeted them as they emerged into the early morning.
Gerolt let him go. He had no will to fight any more and perhaps his friend knew it.
He stared dumbly at the sky, then at his White Eagle fellows, arrayed on the battlefield. Cultists prisoners stood in a subdued line nearby.
Cheering. They're cheering.
He felt that unreasoning blind hatred again. How could they cheer?
A collective moment of welcome silence presaged a group of indistinct shapes, gliding towards him. He didn't care whether these strangers were friend or foe, though his remaining team members lifted weapons and took defensive stances.
Werewolves.
The leader approached, its fellows arrayed behind him. The creature wore a cloak and hood, but as Ashrinn watched he took the hood down to reveal a scarred gray muzzle.
"Redeemer." A female voice, coming out of a werewolf muzzle. Ashrinn's head spun and he had to focus all of his energy to keep from crumpling to the ground. "I am Brenna, leader of the Free Wolfen. It is my great shame that I did not listen to my sister."
By the sound, Gerolt was readying his shotgun. "Jericho? What the fuck are you talking about, dog?"
Oh, Kassie. The place in his mind that had so recently belonged to her ached. Lizbet.
Brenna seemed unmoved by Gerolt's ire. She only furrowed her brows and bowed her head, as if grieving. "When our sister told us she planned to join your team, Redeemer, we did not believe you could change anything for our kind. We were wrong. The hive mind told us she was in danger, and we ran to the ends of our strength. We were too late."
The wolfmen behind her shifted from huge paw to huge paw, whining and barking as though in agreement.
"It is our great shame that we were not here to help you." Brenna crouched down on her haunches and prostrated herself. He watched with silent tears pouring down his face, unable to speak. "We are here to give our blood-debt to you, and follow the Order of the White Eagle."
"I accept," he heard himself say, though he was breathless with grief, sick with pain and exhaustion. He felt ripped open by the remains of the neural web still flickering between him, Gerolt, and Sonth, a neural web that would never be complete again.
Brenna rose again and as one, she and her brethren lifted their heads and keened. The black mourning howl of the wolfmen rose to drown out the cheering, and above them all the white eagle rose high in the clear sky, victorious.
Tiger Gray is a Pacific Northwest urban fantasy author who spends his/zir time being a giant Seattle stereotype. That is, reading poetry and walking in the rain, always with a cup of fantastic coffee in hand. Tiger is a shameless clothes whore, obsessive food nerd, and reluctant activist. Tiger has been an avid role-player and gamer zir whole adult life, which has influenced zir fiction for the better.
As a transgendered and disabled author, Tiger finds zirself writing about identity as a core theme, as well as survival and the limits of both morality and the human spirit. Tiger draws on zir interest in and knowledge of forensic and criminal psychology to fuel zir works, often delving into dark and challenging subjects within the speculative fiction framework. Tiger uses a cinematic and lyrical style to tell tales about the outcasts, misfits, psychopaths, and survivors that populate zir pages.
Twitter: @tiger_gray
Blog: http://tigergray.blogspot.com
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Online home: http://www.hardlimitspress.com/author/tigergray
