by Dante King
In a second, I was above the ice wastes of the Forgotten North and diving, tearing earthward at an impossible speed. I plunged like an unbreakable arrow through the ice, traveling miles downward into the frozen earth, where the old dead had lain in the sleep of Death for tens of thousands of years. Their mummified corpses, black and leathery, lay dead but unrotting in the icy earth beneath the glaciers. As I floated, suspended like an enormous ghost stretched out to blanket the land, I drew the cold out of their ancient, dead bones, sucking it from their shriveled limbs, drinking it in and filling myself to the point of saturation.
Suddenly, with a violently lurching sensation, I was yanked back into my body. I gasped and shuddered, and the icy breath that came out of me formed a puff of vapor in front of my face. Cold that could have shattered steel and stone with its intensity filled every cubic inch of my body. But it was a comforting cold. It was the cold of power. The cold of Death.
I was ready.
I glanced at Elyse, who was holding the rope of golden light, and then waved at Rami. She nodded and straightened up before starting to fling throwing stars at Nabu. I jumped up and scrambled for the shield. As Nabu was batting away the projectiles and deflecting them with his warhammer, I slipped my left arm through the shield straps and brought it up before me.
Rami threw the last star at Nabu, who swatted it away just as easily as before, before she somersaulted over a pew and took cover behind a pillar.
Nabu boomed out a mocking laugh as he aimed his warhammer at me. “Foolish necromancer. Taste my fire!”
As he blasted a torrent of white fire my way, I poured the intense cold of ancient Death into the shield, filling it to the bursting point, and as the river of flames was about to hit me, I released the power.
Crushing cold and destructive rot surged out from the shield in a powerful wall of intense black energy. In a fraction of a second, it blasted through pews, turning them into piles of rotten wood, and it churned a passage through the marble floor, reducing it to rubble and dust. It sucked all light into its inky blackness, rushing forth in a pillar of anti-light.
My horizontal tower of surging darkness met the river of blinding white fire in the center of the cathedral. When they clashed, a great shockwave rippled through the ground and air, bowling over my skeletons and knocking Elyse and Rami to the ground.
Nabu’s fire was stopped dead in its tracks, swallowed up by the cold matte blackness of my wall of death. I felt the force of his fire pushing against me, but I gritted my teeth, focused my concentration, and pushed harder. Sweat poured down my face, and the shield trembled in my hands. My vision was peppered with black, but I continued channeling ancient death.
Then, my wall of darkness began to advance. Like the momentum of a boulder rolling down a hill, it picked up speed. With a sound like a banshee’s shriek, it swallowed Nabu’s fire. Finally free of the obstruction of the white fire wall, my pillar of anti-light rushed toward Nabu. He dashed while my wall pursued him, and he paused when he reached a beam of light coming through a stained glass window in the ceiling.
He bathed himself in the light while my pillar closed in. He raised his free hand when it was a yard away from him and cried out. A fresh fiery white pillar arose, preventing my magical wall from hitting him.
It was enough to halt the progress of my river of darkness, but not enough to push it back. We struggled against each other’s power with all our might, but for the moment, we were at a stalemate. I had now learned something about Nabu and his power: it came from the moonlight. Because of all the stained glass, there were only a few patches in the cathedral the moonlight didn’t touch. I needed to draw him to one such spot.
Elyse and Rami had both taken cover behind a row of pews, and I motioned for them to stay out of the fight. I could tell from their expressions that they wanted to help, but I couldn’t risk them getting hurt; I wanted them to be with me when I took back Brakith.
I kept channeling the power of Ancient Death through my shield, but I was starting to run low, and the shield was starting to buckle. It wouldn’t be long until I couldn’t hold up this fancy new attack of mine anymore.
Peeking out from behind my shield, I saw Fang taking cover near a large marble blessing font. It looked like it weighed a good few hundred pounds. It was too big for even a huge man to carry on his own, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for a five-ton lizard. While maintaining my wall of icy darkness in my battle of wills against Nabu, I sent out a quick mental command to Fang.
He raced out from behind his cover. Nabu saw him but was powerless to do anything; if he broke his concentration now, my arcane wall would steamroll him and turn him into a pile of rotten flesh and brittle bones. Fang grabbed the font in his jaws and charged up the steps near Nabu. With a jerk of his powerful neck, he flung the thing at the bishop.
Being hit by something that heavy and solid would have instantly killed even the biggest and strongest of men, but Nabu, in this form, was the closest thing there was to a demigod. Still, the force and momentum was enough to send him flying. He was hurled out of the beam of golden light and flung across the room. The marble altar stopped him mid-flight, his armored body leaving a crater in the delicate stonework.
His warhammer spiraled through the air, and a golden thread whipped across the hall to seize it. The warhammer was yanked in the opposite direction, and I saw Elyse catch it in her hands.
With no torrent of fire to hold it back, my Death wall had surged on ahead, plowing a passage of rot and destruction through the cathedral, carving out a huge rut in the floor at top speed before smashing out a side wall. I called it off and threw down the shield, panting. Using such intense power had really taken it out of me, but I still had enough strength to kick Nabu’s ass.
I charged over to the altar with Elyse, Rami, and my remaining skeletons racing along behind me. Nabu was struggling to his feet, groggy but still very much capable of fighting. Even though he was shrouded in shadows and a good distance from the stained glass windows, he had maintained the form of a hulking, eight-foot-tall warrior. His light and hammer had been taken, but I wasn’t about to underestimate him.
“The Blood God will rule with the Lord of Light as his servant,” he rasped, swaying unsteadily on his feet.
“I don’t give a fuck about the Patron of Menstruation or his buddy, the Prince of Prudes,” I said. “I’ve come here to help a friend get her bishopric back.”
Elyse’s hands were glowing with light as she prepared to use her rope, and Rami had a sai in each hand, while Sarge was holding his golden greatsword in a combat stance. I heard a distant rumbling and held up my hand before any of them could attack. It was followed by the sound of splintering wood as the locked doors were cracked open.
“You should have dealt with me sooner,” Nabu said over the sound of marching boots. From the side doors, about 20 guards entered, arrayed in chainmail armor and wielding spiked poleaxes.
Still, the time we’d bought had allowed me to weaken Nabu. And his soul wasn’t going to leave this place unless it traveled through Grave Oath. All these guards had achieved by coming here was to provide more souls for my dagger.
Chapter Sixteen
“You take the guards,” I called out to Elyse and Rami. Then I sent a command to my remaining skeletons, Sarge, and Fang to protect the women at all costs while I dealt with Nabu.
As massive and as strong as he was in this form, he was still just a fat old drunkard at his core. While my companions and my undead engaged the guards, Nabu and I squared up. His hands balled into fists within his golden gauntlets and started to glow with power, but even though he towered over me by a good two feet, a glint of fear appeared in his eyes, plain as day,.
From the way he moved as we circled each other, I could tell that my assumptions about his lack of close-combat abilities were correct. Every time he attempted to move closer to the cathedral’s center and so bathe himself in the moonlight, I forced him back into the shadows. He had the advantage
of armor, but he obviously didn’t trust himself without his warhammer or his precious light. Without them, he was nervous and tentative. And those were two traits that got you killed.
“First, I will crush your puny skull,” Nabu said as the battle raged on around us, “and then, I will—”
I didn’t give him the chance to finish. I darted in for a feint, and he took a swing at me with his right fist. A powerful but clumsy blow flew past my face as I reared back. His armored fist crashed into the side of the altar in an explosive shower of marble fragments and stone dust. I made a quick mental note: if he did actually manage to hit me with those magic-enhanced fists, my head would pop like someone stomped on an arachne egg sack.
I darted in again, and he took another swing at me. This time, I predicted his attack and swept my dagger up toward his face. His other hand suddenly lashed out and gripped my wrist.
“I have you, little necromancer.” Nabu smiled and squeezed, and I felt my bones about to break under the pressure.
“I don’t think so.” I’d grabbed a throwing star from my belt, and I jammed it into his right eyeball with my free hand. A spiked end plunged through, and he howled as he tore it free. Blood poured from the wound in crimson rivulets, and a network of black veins blossomed from it.
“Nabu the One-Eye,” I said. “I don’t know, I kind of like it.”
He growled through the pain and tried to lunge for me with both hands. I sidestepped his amateurish attack and darted past him. Before he could whirl around, I gripped his upper arm and used all my strength to hurl him to the floor. Marble tiles shattered beneath his weight, and the ground trembled. His magical armor went from a gleaming silver to a dull gray, then started to crack and fall off until he was wearing his old robes, ripped and torn from containing his transformed body. While he remained huge and muscular, he was no longer armored. Now, every portion of flesh was exposed to my soul-sucking dagger.
He grunted and tried to get up, but I elbow-dropped onto his face. My elbow crunched into his nose, crushing it into his face, and he screamed out as I leapt back onto my feet. I dropped onto my knees and caught his huge right arm in both of mine. He writhed within my grip, but with a quick twist of my body, I broke his arm. He howled, and I stepped calmly over to his left arm and dislocated it at the shoulder.
The sounds of battle had died down. My companions were standing among the corpses of the guards and the Crusaders we’d killed before them. I’d been so focused on Nabu that I hadn’t noticed the souls of our enemies enter my dagger. Now, Elyse and Rami held determined expressions, all compassion gone from their eyes. They’d obviously been watching as I performed Nabu’s slow death. My dagger would get its chance, but this man had been a slaver and a torturer, so I figured a little retribution was in order. And there was no harm in enjoying the process.
Rami knelt beside Nabu, who watched her with a mocking glare. She pulled out a small push dagger and slipped it over her middle finger.
“Where’s Xayon’s amulet?” she demanded.
“As if I’d tell you, you foreign slut.”
Without a moment of hesitation, Rami slipped the blade inside the right corner of Nabu’s mouth, then ripped a savage cut, slicing his cheek open from the corner of his mouth halfway up to his ear.
Nabu howled, his eyes bulging and bloody spittle flying from his mouth.
“I’ll finish that ‘smile’ on the other side if you don’t tell me what I want to know,” Rami hissed.
“Here… take it!” He tried to move his left hand but couldn’t because of his dislocated shoulder.
Rami looked down and saw the bracelet on his wrist. I realized now that this was the amulet she’d been searching for. It was likely a necklace on anyone other than Nabu. She yanked it off, causing him to yelp with pain, but the instant she held it, her face fell.
“It’s… it’s…” she murmured, staring at the amulet in disbelief.
“Nothing but a trinket now,” Nabu rasped. “There’s no power left in that piece of metal. It’s nothing… nothing but a souvenir.”
“Where’s Xayon? I know she survived the purge! Why’s this amulet powerless?”
A weak cackle dribbled out of Nabu’s mouth. “Why do you think I keep that as a souvenir, you stupid whore? I killed Xayon! I killed the Wind Goddess with my own hands!”
“Where’s her body?” Rami stuck her push dagger into the left corner of the bishop’s mouth. “What have you done with her body? Answer me now!”
“Maybe it’s in the catacombs, maybe it isn’t,” Nabu said. “But even if you do find it, it doesn’t matter. Xayon is dead, and nothing will bring her back.”
Rami stared at Nabu for a few moments with hatred in her eyes. Then she slashed a smile-cut through his cheek, stood up, and walked away, leaving Nabu howling and writhing on the floor. I could see that Rami was devastated by this revelation, but there wasn’t much I could say or do at the moment. I turned to Elyse and nodded in Nabu’s direction. Gripping her mace tightly, she stepped over to him, bristling with hatred and fury.
“You greedy, lying, thieving, murdering, slave-selling scum,” she said. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long, long time. Do you have a final confession?”
“Burn in hell, slut,” Nabu strained to say, his face a mess of blood, wounds, and purple swelling. “You won’t get an apology from me, no matter what you do.”
“Then there’s no reason to allow you to defile the title of bishop any longer.” She raised her mace high above her head and gritted her teeth as she prepared to deal him a killing blow. But I gripped her arm at the last second.
“No,” I said. “His soul is mine. That was the deal.”
With her free hand, Elyse removed Isu’s coin from her warded purse, then closed her fingers around it.
“There,” she said. “Now, you get his soul, and I get my vengeance.”
That was good enough for me. I released her arm and stepped back to allow her to get on with her dirty work.
“I will become a demigod!” Nabu spat blood. “You cannot—”
Elyse brought her mace down with all the force she could muster. It smashed the lower half of his face in, cutting him off before he could finish speaking. Nabu’s gaze rolled down, trying in vain to stare at the mess of bloody pulp and splintered bone where his nose, mouth, and jaw used to be.
Then, with a scream, Elyse smashed the mace into his head once more, this time caving in what remained of his face. Again and again, she slammed the weapon into his skull, pounding it into a mess of blood, pulverized meat, and shattered bone.
Finally, I felt a powerful jolt as Grave Oath sucked Nabu’s soul in. Immediately, a shrill cackling resounded through the entirety of the cathedral, like 10,000 phantoms all laughing at once.
“What the hell was that?” Rami looked around nervously.
A chill ran down my spine, and goosebumps prickled my flesh; Isu was nearby, and she was clearly very pleased about taking possession of Nabu’s soul. She did not show herself, but I felt an almost magnetic pull leading me in the direction of the stairs to the crypt.
I would have followed her call, but Rami drew my attention. She plopped herself down in a nearby chair that had escaped the carnage, folded her arms across her chest, and frowned. Her jaw was set.
Elyse motioned for me to go to her.
I walked over to Rami and knelt down next to her. “You’re pretty devastated about the whole Xayon thing, right?”
“I came all this way,” she said as she kept staring at the floor, “defeated all those enemies, passed through all those trials… for nothing. I’ve failed. I’ve failed my sect, and I’ve failed myself. All for nothing.”
“I know that you’re disappointed. What Nabu told you about Xayon must have felt like a kick in the guts. But you haven’t failed.”
Rami stayed still.
“You completed your quest,” I continued, unsure whether she was even listening. “You found Xayon’s amulet, even if it didn’t give
you the results you were hoping for. I mean, that’s what the leader of your sect asked you to do, right, to get the amulet? And you did that. He didn’t ask you to bring the Wind Goddess herself back with you. You’ve done everything you could do. The rest was always going to be out of your hands. Come on, Rami, don’t beat yourself up over this.”
She turned the amulet over in her fingers, staring at it dejectedly. “What you’re saying is true. I did succeed in getting this amulet, even if it’s now powerless. But I didn’t just embark on this quest because the leader of my sect asked me to. I chose to accept this mission because I hoped, I believed, that Xayon was still alive, even if she was in a greatly weakened state. I was hoping that by wearing this amulet and doing great deeds in Xayon’s name, I could restore her power, bit by bit, until she was the mighty goddess she had once been. But now… now that I know that she’s dead, well… those dreams have all died. I’m left with… with nothing but a trinket, as Nabu said. A useless piece of metal. A souvenir.”
For the longest time, I had believed that Isu was dead too, but that assumption turned out to be very wrong. I didn’t know if Nabu had been telling the truth about Xayon or not, but I suspected that being dead wasn’t quite as final a sentence for gods as it was for humans.
“I know it seems that way now,” I said. “And I get why you’re feeling how you are. But don’t give up on everything just yet. Maybe, just maybe, Xayon isn’t quite as dead as Nabu said she was.”
“Really?”
I shrugged. “Don’t get your hopes up, but maybe Isu can come up with something if we give her enough souls.”
Rami set her jaw in grim determination. “Then I’ll continue feeding the Death Goddess until her divine stomach can bear no more souls.”
“Here it is!” Elyse cried out.
