by S T Branton
I looked through the melee at the zombie god. He stood listlessly at the back and went through the motions of directing the remaining mob. I slashed at the final few and advanced on the corporeal specter. He was at least eight feet tall, his head stooped beneath the ceiling of the hollowed cavern.
“You can do better than that,” I said. “Come on.” My brain told me I was wasting time I didn’t have, but the god’s utter sense of defeat fascinated me. I’d never seen one beaten down and yet still alive.
“There is no use in trying,” he told me. “For the final time, I have been passed over and relegated into a position of insignificance. If I endure, I shall be forced to bear witness to Delano’s gross abuse of the power he never earned. I would rather be obliterated than exist this way, a roach in a hall of kings.”
“Damn,” I said. “You’re still an asshole, though.”
He shrugged and seemed to acknowledge the statement. “For my actions, I do not and cannot repent. Humanity is a plague to be purged. But you?” The god extended a long finger as if to touch me. “You are more than that, for a simple human cannot kill even a god such as I. Still, I have yearned to meet you again.”
I lifted the sword. “Fight me, and I’ll kill you.”
“Why should I fight?” asked the god. “It would only prolong the end which I desire.” He stared emptily into my face. “No. There is no more struggle to be had. There is only ruin.” The folds of the tattered cloak swept open to reveal the black heart I hadn’t pierced in our first fight. He was silent, motionless, and docile. I summoned the blade and stepped toward the broken god. When I was close enough, he knelt and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know where you’re going,” I said. “But I hope it sucks.”
The sword entered the heart in one swift movement. Its beat stuttered.
“Thank you,” he breathed. The heart convulsed and evaporated into nothing. The rest of the body rapidly followed suit. In a matter of seconds, all that was left was the ragged cloak.
“I think I like it better when they fight me,” I said.
Chapter Fourteen
Near the top of the mountain, the flow of cascading water became more of a torrent. I had to scramble to the side in order to circumvent most of the flood, but my arms and the front of my jacket were still soaked when I crested the final lip of the topmost plateau. I stood there for a moment to catch my breath and shake rivulets off my fingers as I gazed at the soaring spires of the temple.
Someone was clearly compensating for something.
I walked forward and scanned the vicinity for patrols. The entire plateau was deserted, except for one corner that protruded over the cliff face. A large boulder sat there, secured by chains that had been wound around the body of a fish-tailed, androgynous being. It was still alive and writhed in agony, its mouth twisted open in an everlasting scream.
The creature’s glimmering, scaled torso had been pierced by a spear, and the start of a thunderous waterfall poured from the wound. I looked down over the hundreds of feet I had climbed and realized that the water I’d seen on the way up was only runoff. The main fall dropped into the surging thread of a river far below.
This is horrific, Marcus proclaimed, and his words dripped with disgust.
I took an extra moment to examine the wretched water god with some amount of pity, but even if I’d wanted to, there was nothing I could do—not without announcing my presence. I turned away and walked toward the grand entrance to the temple’s main hall. The doors were already open and loomed above me. I felt judged as I passed between them.
Only dead silence lay on the other side. The hall was incredibly long, its vaulted ceilings painted with scores of swirling, colorful murals. The scenes burned with violent energy and depicted portrait after portrait of blood, death, and war.
I was hyperaware of the sounds created by my own body. My pulse thrummed in my ears. Each breath seemed to rush in and out of my lungs like a gale-force wind. Echoes danced from every corner of the vast chamber.
Delano’s hall was furnished with nothing besides an altar at the far end and pillars that rose to the roof, apparently with the sole purpose of enshrining another enormous door. Halfway across the creepily empty space, I noticed that each of the pillars was made of another conquered god.
I cursed under my breath. A few of them were unlike anything I’d ever seen before—or anything I could comprehend. They were ancient, ornate behemoths, frozen in the moments of their demise. One was missing its left eye.
“He killed all of these,” I said softly, unable to suppress the automatic rush of awe.
He has made them a part of his soul, Marcus said. They are dead and yet they live in him.
The thought of so many stolen souls locked up in Delano’s body made my stomach do a barrel roll. The corpse-pillars lined both sides of the center, all the way to that door. As I stared at it and wondered where it might lead, it opened. I half expected a decoy or an extended lead-up, but there was absolutely no mistaking the man—the myth, the legend.
I grimaced. “Someone’s been busy.”
Delano stepped down from the elevated threshold he had just crossed and onto the altar’s gleaming platform. The portal boomed shut behind him and its impact reverberated through the stillness. The changes in his form were apparent despite the distance. He had attained Beleza’s bronzed skin and some of his tone and height and a bright, baleful jewel glittered in the hollow between his eyes. A slender, whip-like tail curled around the backs of his legs and ended in a brutal barb. The pale eyes he’d always had now revealed slit pupils. His wings folded along the curve of his spine.
Neither of us said a word but our gazes locked. The air grew frosty, along with my mood. I already itched to be done with him.
“Game over, Delano,” I said and raised my voice to be heard at the other end of the hall. “You bought as much time as you could, and I’ll admit, it was a lot. But it’s running out now. You’re down to minutes. Soon, it’ll be seconds. And then, you’ll be finished for good. I’ve come to tie up Kronin’s last loose end.”
Delano smiled. “Brave words,” he said. “From a stupid woman.” He ambled slowly toward me and talked all the while. “I waited so long for you to understand, Vic, and still, you won’t oblige me. Allow me to enlighten you now that we’re here, face to face at last. Humans are weak. They are frail, breakable, and full of little more than blood and water. I have seen human bones ground into dust, their skin flayed off and left to dry as hide in the wind.”
“So humans are weak, which means we deserve to die?” I asked.
He laughed. “It means you’re irrelevant to my plans. I am stronger than any god who has traversed any earth. I am the sum of all that is mighty. The end of the world for many. And the sole reward for standing in defiance of such power is suffering the likes of which you cannot hope to imagine.”
His smile expanded into a grin. “But there is another way,” he said. “For I am a merciful lord and master. Follow me as you followed the coward Kronin into the futile darkness that now encompasses your planet. Fall to your knees and surrender. Offer supplication like all the others before you, and you will see that Kronin was but a speck of dust. I have become everything.”
I scowled. “Here’s something I learned a long time ago, dick-face. All gods can die. And you still don’t have this.” The Gladius Solis slipped into my hand and blazed to life. “It’s a power you’ll never be able to master.”
The god laughed as if he found me genuinely funny. “I beg to differ,” he said. “The sword of the gods is only as strong as its wielder. Why do you think it allowed Kronin to die? And now, the one who wields its blade is only human. A fitting end to Kronin’s sordid legacy. He loved your kind so much and finally, your kind will fail him. You will fail him.”
He stopped several paces away. “Come,” he said. “Let’s prove once and for all that you were never worthy to wield the Hero-King’s blade.”
He spread his arms, an
d the great black wings on his back unfurled in tandem.
Victoria, it is now or never.
I launched into the attack and a full-fledged war cry broke from my lungs. The sword traced a fiery trail in my wake. Flames danced along its edges and its power already flooded my hands and arms with glowing light.
The gap separating Delano and I disappeared in a flash—and then he was gone too. Black vapor clouded my vision to dissipate and condense ten yards to the left.
“You missed,” he said. “Now, it’s my turn.”
His wings whipped up a storm at ground level. I was shoved backward, my feet unable to find purchase on the smooth stone floor. A pillar caught my body in the stiff embrace of a dead god. High above, Delano opened his mouth wide. White-hot flames surged from his throat and rocketed toward me at breakneck speed.
“Are you kidding me with this shit?” I shouted. “When did he swallow a fucking dragon?”
Keep your wits about you, Marcus warned. Any strike has the potential to kill.
His warning galvanized me into action, and I dropped instantly and rolled to the side. With a faint sizzle, the water still in my jacket evaporated immediately and part of the hem burned away. The exposed skin of my cheeks and chin felt seared and raw simply from the intensity of the heat.
I crouched behind the next pillar and poked my head out of cover as Delano disappeared yet again. Before I had the chance to try to pinpoint where he’d gone, his hand was on the back of my neck and long nails dug into my flesh.
Instinctively, I twisted and lashed out with the Gladius Solis. My skin tore like tissue paper, but I barely registered the pain. The sword bit deep into Delano’s side, but the wound it inflicted might as well have been a scratch. He hauled me off my feet by the back of my clothes, and in the next moment, I hurtled forward, literally in the air. When I finally landed, stars exploded in the void behind my clenched eyelids.
He had flung me around like a damn toy.
“This is how your quest ends,” Delano said. His shadow loomed over me as I struggled to stand. He reached out and caressed my face before he gripped it in iron fingers. “With humiliation, torment, and the abject ruins of your dignity.”
“I’m not dead yet.” I spat in his eye and leapt up to drive the point of my sword through his chest. Again, the edge somehow did no more than graze him.
He seized me by the sword arm and his skin hardened into shining, unbreakable rock. “You will be,” he said. My body catapulted over his shoulder with all the resistance of a ragdoll, but I managed to right myself and hit the ground running. We’d switched places during the course of the fight, and I saw the door on the altar directly ahead.
I bolted toward it.
“This isn’t working!” I told Marcus. “I need to find a better position to try to reset things more in my favor. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”
Would that I had my earthly body and could stand beside you against our common foe, he lamented. Feel no fear, Victoria. Whatever happens here, I shall see you at the end.
I vaulted up onto the grand altar and thrust headlong through the door. Delano’s mocking laughter followed me up the staircase I found behind it.
“Kronin’s sword reveals another coward,” he sang, his tone twisted by sadistic glee.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The steps seemed to ascend forever but I finally burst through the top into the cold night air that slashed instantly through my damaged coat. I was headed straight for a low wall that marked the edge of the roof and I backpedaled in an effort to give myself as much room as possible. The formerly empty temple plateau spread out before me, now crowded with Delano’s worshippers. Soundlessly, they watched. The head start I’d attempted to gain was lost in the fraction of a second during which I attempted to avoid hurtling over the edge of the roof.
He came up behind me and clamped a hand on my right bicep. “Look upon those fortunate enough to know when they are bested.”
As I tried to pull away, he spun me and slapped the back of his hand across my face. I careened helplessly into the wall. The breath expelled sharply from my chest and my teeth literally rattled in my skull.
Delano stormed at me, his pale eyes full of unadulterated rage. The hatred radiated off him like a toxic cloud. This was the end he’d planned for me, but he hadn’t killed me yet.
And I’d spotted a weakness.
The sliver had been almost invisible before, situated across the left side of his chest over his heart. It was the only flaw in his obsessively perfect form, and I had a fleeting moment to take my shot. As the mega-god approached, I let the Gladius Solis fly like an arrow, straight and true.
Bullseye.
At least, it should have been. After I released the hilt, a shell began to thicken over that single weakness. New skin obscured the sliver and grew hard and reflective. It was still thin when the blade impacted but not weak enough. The sword protruded from where it hit, stopped in its deadly assault.
Delano screamed in pain, but it was no death rattle. He didn’t disintegrate into a pile of ash but instead, grabbed the sword in both hands. He yanked it out and at first, I believed that the blade had receded, perhaps in defiance. Then I realized it had simply turned black. He thrust it aloft as his maniacal, bellowed laughter shattered the starry sky.
When he had finished gloating, he turned toward me. “The sword of the gods,” he said. “The Gladius Solis is as strong as its wielder. Consider this a demonstration.”
He rushed at my position against the wall. The sword’s black blade cut a cruelly familiar arc.
“You have gifted me the key to victory,” he said. His face contorted into a wild, sickening rictus. “For that, I thank you.”
I pushed myself to my feet. No way would I die sitting down and backed into a dead end. If I really had to die, I’d do it like I’d done everything else for the past half a decade—by my own fucking rules.
Remember how I taught you, Marcus said. He spoke gently, not urgently. Fists up. Protect your face.
I stepped up to Delano’s challenge and took a swing. He blocked it with his left hand and lunged and sliced with his right. I ducked back, which spared my torso but my leg was not so lucky. The Gladius Solis cut into me as if I was no more than a ghost, exactly the way it had done hundreds of times by my hand. I hit the ground before I knew for sure I’d been wounded.
It had been a long time since I last felt pain I couldn’t bear. The corrupted sword retaught me the meaning of agony. I would have severed my own limb to make it stop.
“Yes,” Delano declared. He latched onto me. “It is done.”
He hauled me over the top of the wall and shoved me into open air. Discordant jeers rose to meet me. I stared into the sea of faces and saw those of my own people, captured and herded to the front. They all wore masks of horror.
Delano hissed into my ear. “I told you the consequences of defiance. The time for enforcement has come.”
He leapt down to the temple plateau. All I heard was the rush of water and the fiery beat of the wound in my leg.
Marcus said softly, I am sorry, Victoria.
I was too.
“Do you see this?” Delano’s voice boomed at the crowd. “I have brought the final sacrifice—indeed, the ultimate sacrifice. Who better than I to receive the blood of the god-killer as tribute? Behold as the slayer of gods is slain.”
He threw me down beside the boulder and raised the Gladius Solis.
“Hell no!” The shout rang out like a gunshot and roused me to attention. A rush of adrenaline beat back my pain as Delano was knocked aside. I shoved to my feet as my head spun and I stumbled unevenly toward the crowd and away from the seething god. One of the guards stopped my progress
Clear your mind, Victoria. Stay sharp. You have not been bested yet.
I sucked in a deep breath and delivered a punch. This one landed, at least, and my captor fell onto his back. I lunged to kick, claw, and pummel him with every ounce of strength left in my body
. The whole world faded into nothing. All that existed was me in a fight for my life.
Oh, and Marcus was there too.
He shouted in my head to fill my brain with raw energy and guided my aim. Take out his eyes. Use the environment to your advantage. You can defeat him if you are clever about it.
I tried my best to follow his coaching, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that I didn’t possess the sword. The guard who fought me was fast, strong, and far too durable for me to defeat in my current condition. Once he’d wrestled the upper hand away from me, he’d backed me up to the cliff.
Five heavy knuckles straight to the jaw sent me in a not so graceful arc out and over the waterfall. As I started to plummet, I caught a glimpse of the figure who’d saved me from Delano’s clutches sprawled on the rock beneath the point of the Gladius Solis.
My heart leapt into my throat. There was no mistaking that silhouette, even in defeat.
Deacon.
Darkness enveloped my whole body. I no longer felt the cold or the pain. I knew I continued to drop toward the river, but it was a blank awareness. All I thought and all I saw was my love, ripped away before my eyes. The moments I spent in suspension above the water were each small eternities in themselves. I could have imagined Deacon forever.
But the water came up to embrace me and everything washed away.
Chapter Fifteen
A ragged cough brought me back to consciousness. I lay on the bank of the swiftly running river on my stomach and continued to hack up a delightful mixture of bile and dirty water. The back of my throat burned like hell, but the sensation paled in comparison to the angry rebuke from the wound in my leg. Rolling over to look at it was torture, and the sight didn’t exactly fill me with hope.
Black veins spidered outward from the deep gash, which throbbed in time with my pulse. I groaned and leaned forward to expel more gross water from my stomach.
