Song (The Manhunters Book 1)

by Jesse Teller

  “Let me take the girl, Julius. She is innocent in this. You hate me because I locked you up and separated you from your love. I understand that. I have come to give myself to you. I am willing to feed your hate with my life. You may seize me and torture me, and I will weather your abuse without a fight. All I ask is for you to return the girl to her parents, and leave her be for the rest of her life.”

  “You have nothing to bargain with, you fool. I have you surrounded by my slaves. I have the little bitch under my blade. I have Slinter poised and ready to snatch you and drag you back to our tower, where your screams will fill its walls with glee. I have everything, and you, nothing. You are finished. My ploy worked. I got you here alone. I knew you were stupid enough for this move. My men are going to grab you and whip you right in front of this little tramp. Then I am going to carve her up and eat her heart. I will carve off her darling face and show it to her mother. I will take her meat back to my tower and starve you until you beg me for her spoiled flesh. Then I will feed her to you, and you will lick up the scraps and thank me.

  “Why are you smiling, you idiot? You have lost it all.” Julius turned to his men. “Seize this damned soul, and beat him before me. I would hear him scream.”

  Rayph heard the men behind him, felt them reach for him, and felt their hands slide through him. They started, and an arm wrapped around his throat. It passed right through him with no effect, as if he were made of air. Julius stared as his men fought to bind Rayph.

  Rayph laughed until his illusion lost its shape. Julius’s screams faded away as Ivoryfist returned to his body and spirit, incorporeal and waiting, locked in the vase.

  The Dungeons of Song

  Rayph felt the vase lift into the air, winced as it crashed against the stone wall, and his form poured from the shattered ceramic. He swirled, then solidified before Kristla the Red.

  She looked scared, scared of Julius Kriss, scared of being caught with Rayph, scared of losing Shalimarie. Terror had her in its grip, and Rayph wondered if she would be able to face it all.

  He picked up Dissonance’s vase, taking no time to pause and look at its perfection. The vases the spell called for had to be of exquisite quality. He hated to do it, but he shattered it to the ground and grabbed the other. Fringe was encapsulated in the third vase, bearing the city’s skyline. Rayph shattered it to the ground and, in a breath, the man stood beside him.

  “My plan has worked. We have them divided. Follow me. We have little time.”

  Rayph waved a hand across the sealed doorway. The mortar gave way, slipping to a slick, wet substance and failing as the stones tumbled. Rayph winced at the noise and jumped the fallen stone. He spit out a command and a ball of blue flame exploded from his hand to hover before his face. He blew it gently, and it floated forward, lighting the way.

  “Dissonance on my ass, then Kristla, then Fringe with his bow. Kill anything that gets in our way.” Rayph did not wait for a response. He rushed into the dungeons, his sword dropping into his hand, his other gripping tight to Fannalis. Fannalis’s thorns extended, piercing Rayph’s hand and locking the dagger in his grip. Rayph grimaced, but soon his hand remembered the pain, and it became a distant thunder, ominous and rolling, feeding his need for urgency. It was a pain he always associated with action, a throb that told him he was working towards a virtuous goal.

  The cells still held a stench. Three generations ago, they had been stripped of all prisoners and scrubbed of all filth, but this place would never lose the horror it had once been. Darkness and misery could scar a place, make a stain that no goodwill could wash away. The patient threat of Song’s past had within its grip the life of its own daughter. Rayph just prayed it would be willing to give her back.

  They reached the far wall and found the descending stairs. The blackness here seemed a surging flood they would drown in without the small, struggling globe that hovered not far ahead. Rayph urged it down the staircase and quickly followed. As he made his way past cells, phantom wisps of movement, slight traces of some floating essence, spoke of the ghosts damned to this place after losing their lives to this atrocity. Rayph passed them without disturbing them, praying for their peace and pushing them from his mind. When he reached the third level, stinging sweat found his eyes. He brushed a hand across his brow, slick sweat pouring from his body. He raked a sopping sleeve across his forehead and continued. At the fourth level, he saw his first enemy. In open cells, armed men stood silent and horrifying, staring but not attacking them.

  “Come at me, then!” Rayph hissed. The minions of Kriss would not step forward. Rayph knew suddenly he could not fight them. Fighting them would alert Kriss to his arrival. They appeared to be trapped in a trance. Rayph knew they would be a problem on the way out, but didn’t think that could be helped. He cursed.

  “Leave them be. I think them bewitched. They will block our escape, but they might make a sound if we attack them, and we need the element of surprise. Pass by them. We will deal with them on the way back.”

  From the end of the tunnel came the crack of a whip and a grunt of agony. Rayph extinguished the flame with a thought. Darkness bit down into him, and he let his eyes adjust. For one terrible moment, he thought they had all left him alone, that behind him, his allies had fled. As if in answer to his fear, Dissonance cleared her throat. Rayph banished his fears, chiding himself for doubting them, and slipped silently forward.

  A weak, red, throbbing light lit the room beyond the end of the hall. Rayph made his way for it.

  “I will whip him again if you do not do as I say, little girl,” a demure voice chimed. It was Kriss speaking in soft, charming tones. “Alright, you have forced my hand.” The whip cracked and the young girl screamed. There was another grunt, then a scream of pain, and Rayph recognized Smear’s cry. He clenched his jaw and forced back the words to a spell. He let his eyes rove the room.

  Shalimarie wept in bonds with a tiny pup in her hands. It licked her hands and whimpered as she screamed. On the other side of the room, Smear hung from his wrists, his legs bound to the floor. His body coursed sweat and blood, and he wept and screamed as Kriss lashed him with a metal barbed whip. The whipping stopped, and Kriss turned back to the girl.

  “I will do it. I promise I will do it. Just please, stop hurting him.”

  Smear lifted his head and shook it weakly. “Don’t do it, Shalimarie. I can take it. They are coming. You don’t have to do it, sweetie.”

  Kriss punched Smear in the gut, and Smear gasped for air.

  “Yes, you do have to do it, sweetie,” Kriss said. “Do it or I will kill this weak bastard slowly. Kill the dog, or he dies.”

  Shalimarie lifted the puppy by the neck, staring into its eyes. Dissonance placed her hand on Rayph’s back and urged him forward, but Rayph could not move. He was frozen in place, staring at the little girl and the life she might take. In that instant, there was nothing in the world save Shalimarie and her attempt to keep a man alive.

  She looked up at Smear. He shook his head. She kissed the puppy’s nose and hugged it to her chest. Kriss screamed and drew his sword. As the sword pulled free of its sheath, Rayph’s trance broke. He waved his hand in Smear’s direction and breathed his command gently.

  Kriss made his thrust an instant after Smear’s skin became encased in steel. The blade fouled on Smear’s chest, and Kriss stared, dumbfounded.

  “You’re too late, Kriss,” Smear said with a giggle. “They are here.”

  Kriss screamed as Rayph burst into a run. Kriss rushed the distance to reach Shalimarie, but Fringe was faster. His bow slammed an arrow into Kriss’s knee, and he sprawled on the ground. He howled in pain and rage, and Rayph grabbed Shalimarie up in his arms. He turned toward Kristla and handed her the child. Kriss was back on his feet, and Rayph spun, blocking a blow that would have cut clean his head from his shoulders.

  The two mighty swordfighters rushed into the fray. Kriss seemed to possess some otherworldly ability to withstand pain and defy all sense of body
and structure. He moved well with an arrow in his knee, shifting his weight and turning carefully. His footwork was near perfect, and Rayph wondered for the first time if this man was strictly human.

  The steaming blade of Kriss was black. In the muted light, there was little to differentiate it from the surroundings, and Rayph had to move much by instinct instead of sight. Many attacks he knocked aside, but still more got through. Every slice of the hell-forged blade seared his body. Soon he would be unable to put up a defense.

  He turned Kriss, forcing the man to shift right, placing more weight on his wounded knee. Kriss screamed, and Rayph spiraled in, slamming an elbow into the assassin’s face and crushing his nose. Kriss stumbled back, losing his footing and dropping to a knee. Rayph saw Dissonance helping Smear to his feet, and when he turned back, Kriss was gone.

  Rayph searched the black for any movement, seeking out any sound that might betray the assassin but heard nothing, until a crack and a stomp and the ground in the corner of the room ripped open. Fire spat up from the ground and Kriss straddled the hole. He grinned and Rayph cursed. Kriss leapt into the air and plummeted in to the hole, legs first.

  “Gotta go,” Rayph said as he grabbed the nearest person standing beside him. Dissonance did not struggle, but followed instantly as Rayph pulled her to the corner. He did not take the time to explain. He simply leapt into the hole, feet first, and prayed Dissonance would follow.

  His robe fluttered up around him as he fell, until he hit the floor and it dropped to sway around him. Intense heat slammed into him, and he stepped left, looking up. The hole in the ceiling still showed the shadows of Song’s dungeon above him. With a flutter of blue, Dissonance dropped beside him and looked around.

  “Cor-lyn-ber, guide me and give me strength. For now I stand in the ravages of Hell, prepared to face the demonic races and the darkness of man.” Dissonance looked to Rayph.

  “How long will that doorway stay open?” she asked, pointing her spear at the ceiling where Song awaited.

  Rayph had no way of knowing. He looked around the small room. The walls met at odd angles and the entire room came to a point. The floor was black, the walls the color of dung, their surfaces moving and rippling like an angry sea. A strange orange hue lit the room, which originated from everywhere and nowhere, as if the building itself wanted to be seen. The door that led from this room was all wrong, shaped like a blade, shaped like a fist, shaped like a maw. It seemed all these things and none of them. The room was devoid of furniture, but rife with shadow, as if invisible objects within the room cast a darkness, or maybe the room itself could summon up shadow. There was a smell here, a dank smell, like wet sulfur.

  The longer Rayph stared at his surroundings, the more his sanity pulled away. The dagger in his hand throbbed, the thorns sliding back into the handle and thrusting out fast and hard. The pain of it, the pain of the dagger in his hand pulled him out of his trance. He looked at Dissonance, who stood with her spear driven into the ground in front of her, her hands folded over the shaft, her eyes closed, mouth silently praying. He looked up again, at the hole leading back to Song, and he knew he had no time.

  “We had better be swift,” he said.

  She closed her eyes, muttering to herself before they popped open. They glowed with a soft blue hue. Dissonance nodded. “I can feel him, but he is not alone. He has power with him.”

  “It’s not Slinter,” Rayph said. “She is still in the tunnels. Their son, maybe?”

  “Come, Rayph, do not dally.” Dissonance turned from the room they stood in and headed for one of three doors. She moved with purpose and Rayph decided not to second-guess her. He counted himself lucky to have her. He squeezed his grip on the dagger of Fannalis and rushed behind her.

  The tower of Julius Kriss was vast, but they moved through it as if shot from a bow. They took twists and ignored passageways, until they came to a staircase, a long and winding thing. It curled like a coiled snake around the inside of the tower. They took the stairs fast, though they were wet and uneven.

  Their speed was reckless, unhindered by fear of personal harm. They seemed out of control, as if the things around them were moving too fast, as if they weren’t ready. Rayph felt he needed to go back, to plan for this, to plot for this, to ready himself, but he couldn’t. He was driven to action, beaten forward in a reckless run like a horse whipped by a madman. His need to move forward was great, his chance at ending this confrontation slowly dwindling.

  He came to a landing with a great window, many times bigger than himself, and he stopped and stared in horror at the awesome spectacle of the Sulfur Fields. He had heard of this, had read tales, but those tales were dry, like an atlas, a map, the telling of a desert, the telling of a dangerous scene. But now, he was in it. A massive storm of flying sulfur raked across the ground, and wretched souls stumbled there. Friction with the ground sparked random fires of explosion that rocked the entire area, the very air bursting into flames randomly.

  In the distance, almost completely covered by the blowing yellow wind, was a structure. Rayph did not know this structure. It had never been described to him, but all he could see, stabbing out of the flaming air, was the image of a man, a massive creature, a castle-sized man, screaming. Rayph trembled and sweat. The gravity of his situation clawed up his body, pulling him down into despair, until a cool hand touched his face. He turned, his face wet with tears or sweat or liquid panic, and he stared into the perfectly calm face of Dissonance, and she smiled.

  “We must be swift. You are not alone. Come. Let’s make our fight,” and she rushed up the stairs. With titanic effort against fear and insanity, Rayph followed. They climbed steps until they reached a door and Dissonance stopped. “I have found him.” She stepped back, her spear pointed at the door.

  Rayph shoved the door open and walked into the throne room of Julius Kriss.

  The floor gleamed black marble with veins of red that throbbed as the two Manhunters stepped out onto it. The ceiling was high, lost in the dark, and Rayph thought he heard a flap of wings above him.

  “Ceiling,” Rayph murmured.

  “Got it,” Dissonance whispered.

  On the dais sat three thrones, two grand thrones with green wooden backs, and one to the side, smaller and angled in odd proportions that spoke of a foreign body. The two great thrones each held a pinnacle, one with a K written in demonic script. The other wore a J. On the throne with the K sat Kriss, an arrow embedded in his knee. He threw back his sweat-slick hair and grimaced.

  “Ivoryfist, you have but moments before that hole closes, and then here you will stay. Your king will be killed and you will get to watch him suffer for all eternity in this tower—a tower you will never escape,” Kriss said.

  “Rayph, behind you,” Dissonance muttered.

  “Can you keep it off me?” Rayph whispered.

  “I am weak and frightened, but Cor-lyn-ber rages within me. If I can stop it, then it is his praises that will be sung,” Dissonance said.

  “How about you give me a little time and I praise you both?” Rayph said. He loosed Fannalis, sliding him back in his sheath. He grinned at Kriss as he zipped the air open and dropped his sword into it, snapping it closed with a word. Kriss leaned forward, grabbing the arms of his chair, peering into Rayph, puzzled. Rayph stepped forward and reached behind his back. He spoke a word and the air behind him ripped open, and from within it, he pulled out his bow.

  He felt its cool handle and thought of the sacred tree that had gifted him its branch.

  Kriss chuckled. “A bow and arrow is your great design?” He threw his head back and laughed. “No mortal arrow can kill me here. No mortal blade. This tower was gifted to me by Blythe himself. It will not allow harm to come to me. The Sulfur Fields that scream beyond would scour me to death, but within these walls, I am immortal. I am the greatest assassin in the world. Draw your silly bow. Shoot your weak arrow. I will laugh as I pull it from my body and feed it to my young.” Kriss motioned behind Rayph, and Dis
sonance chanted as an ear-splitting roar sounded off behind him.

  “You, the greatest assassin the world knows?” Rayph chuckled. He pulled from the air a single arrow. It was long and carved with glyphs and symbols. The tip boasted no arrowhead at all, but a simple ivory-colored fist of porcelain. Rayph drew the arrow back and pointed it at Kriss. “You are nothing but a gimmick, a cheap parlor trick anyone could pull off if they had the resources. Ty and Cable are the greatest assassins in the world. You do not compare.”

  Kriss laughed and held his hands out wide. “Come now, Rayph. I cannot wait—”

  Rayph aimed the arrow at the wall behind the thrones and fired. As the missile flew through the air, a second arrow materialized in his hand, and he turned and fired at the door to the room.

  The first arrow slammed into the wall behind the throne and a cacophonous blast sounded through the tower. The outer wall exploded and Hell rushed into the breach.

  Kriss screamed as the furious, sulfur wind sucked him and his thrones out.

  Rayph focused on the arrow he had just fired at the door as it slammed into the frame of the door. A great ivory cord followed in its wake, bound to the bow. Rayph gripped it tight and reached out, snatching Dissonance out of the air as she flew out toward Hell.

  The sucking wind pulled them and Rayph held out against it. He watched as a massive, horned monstrosity screamed, scratching at the floors to no avail, and was sucked out into the storm. Rayph held tight to Dissonance, who whipped around behind him like a flag in the wind. He uttered a word and the cord pulled them to the door.

  He hit the doorframe and Rayph heaved Dissonance through the threshold. He jerked himself through and she kicked the door closed.

  They collapsed in a heap and Rayph laughed. The tower groaned in protest to his glee, and he heard a great crumbling from the throne room.

  “The tower is collapsing. We have to leave,” Rayph said.