The Crimson Hunted: A Dellerin Tale (The Crimson Collection Book 2)

by Robert J Power

  The crowd split as Seren stepped through. She released Natteo to the mercenary and fell against the inside wall panting. She held her stomach as though punched, and Derian could see the effort it took to breathe. No peasant came to her aid. Perhaps they feared the line of grey forming in her long black hair.

  Ageing. Ageing and weaving.

  He cursed his ignorance once more and took another step forward, but Lorgan stopped him with an outstretched arm. His eyes were cold as stone and set upon the exhausted mercenaries struggling for breath. Derian could see the questions in his leader’s mind. Could the Army of the Dead put aside their vengeance for the betterment of the town? For their own lives?

  “The beasts are charging again,” Kesta called from above.

  14

  The End

  Perhaps it was Seren’s interference; perhaps it was genius planning by Lorgan—which would have been a break from tradition; perhaps it was the desperate chase of seven lost souls; perhaps it was just simple dumb luck which caused the beasts to behave exactly as they had hoped. They congregated near the tree line and surveyed the battlefield for what it was.

  Unenticing.

  Coaxed on by their anculus masters and maybe a nasty deity desiring a quick bloody end to irritating things, they broke and charged down, avoiding the spikes and the childish needles towards the open gate. Perhaps they just wanted a fair fight, Derian thought. With no wall to hide upon, the monsters accepted the challenge.

  If they had knowledge of humanity’s penchant for violence and tactics, they might have realised just how disinterested humans were in a fair fight. Perhaps too, they might have recognised a temporary killing ground when it crept up and surrounded them. However, they didn’t know, and Derian thought it a beautiful thing as they charged through the two lines of spikes.

  Lorgan left the exhausted warriors where they lay before swiftly taking his place at the front of the line. “Lift it!” he roared, and a dozen hands grabbed the long, reinforced beam lying innocently along the entrance to the open gates, hoisting it into the air at waist height. It held for a moment so fingers could grip better, so feet could steady themselves.

  The monsters drew closer, their eyes sparkled in the night; perhaps it was a side effect of generations of darkness in the source, or perhaps it was in anticipation of the kill. Regardless, Derian could see them nearing, and adrenalin coursed through him. He wanted to fight. He wanted to bear a shield. He wanted to be there. He took a step, but Lorgan’s warning stuck in his mind like a chant. Not yet, he reminded himself. Not unless they fall.

  “Lock it!” Lorgan roared after a pulse, and the monsters’ claws clattered loudly on the worn muddy path in front of the town. So close. The reinforced beam spun and moved only a foot forward before sliding into place in the recently chipped notches on both sides of the gate.

  Lorgan had ordered the six men to practice twisting the beam all day. They spun and locked it in place as they had done a thousand times already, before leaving it standing freely in the air. The monsters charging forward took no notice of this diminutive blockade, for they could duck their heads or leap over.

  “Block it!” Lorgan roared, with the monsters only twenty feet from their prize.

  Derian stirred again and took another step forward. Not yet. Suddenly, the armour felt less exhausting, less constricting. He heard a growl nearby and realised it was his own. Death was coming, death was in the air, and he would miss all the fun. As one, in an impressive-looking spectacle, a dozen long shields were drawn, lifted, and slung over the beam to face the oncoming charge.

  “Not fair,” Derian snarled, and he thought about leaping thoughtlessly into battle.

  I can kill them all myself.

  With a piercing cry of heavy metal clinking into a satisfying position, the shields formed a wall capable of holding a charging army of monsters.

  Not yet.

  Lorgan called for strength, and the defenders dug their feet into the ground. He called for fierceness and they roared in reply. In the last few moments, he promised them the barricade would hold, and he was right.

  They held against the first wave of battering bodies. Leaning against the beam they did not move, did not fall away. They did not shatter the perfect line. A dozen men on their left side plunged long spears into the mass of fur and snarling grey.

  In the hours before, as they toiled with awkward labour, Lorgan had pledged that such weapons would devastate if cut and shaped perfectly, if slicked with grease and welded at the tip with iron, and he was right.

  Not yet.

  Derian took a step forward again as another dozen soldiers raised similar spears on each shield bearer’s right and plunged deep into the monsters crawling above the dead and dying. Each plunge knocking them back before they could frenzy, before they could form a mound and breach again. Each man became a machine of devastation, and Derian roared in frustrated triumph.

  Kill them all.

  He watched the next wave strike the wall. Once again, the shield held and the monsters began to panic, to howl, to search for a reply to this understanding.

  “Did you think we’d fall for that one again?” Lorgan roared from beneath the demonic mass of hatred.

  “Burn it!” he roared, and the world came alight with fire above his head, and Derian screamed in frustration again.

  Let me fight.

  Let me fight.

  “LET ME FIGHT!”

  Not thurken yet.

  He took an easier step than before, but still, his mind chanted to hold. At his feet, the mercenaries were gathering their wits, gathering their weapons too. He saw one blond mercenary pulling the unconscious Natteo clear of the crowd, but it meant little to him. All that mattered was killing.

  A silver-haired female collapsed against him, and he realised it was Seren. She caught his eyes behind the guard, and she looked beaten. She gasped as though something clutched at her throat, and she reached for Derian as she fell over. He could have caught her but let her fall in ruin at his feet.

  “Catch your breath,” he snarled, for the voice was not his. She might have heard him; she crawled towards a doorway to recover breath. With a tremendous effort, she sat up against the door and eyed him coldly. He should have cared, but his anger was too fierce. Yes, she had saved Natteo, but she had also taken some demons from his grasp. He wanted them all.

  What is happening to me?

  “I’m becoming fiercer,” he whispered aloud, disgusted that everything was falling into place so easily. He cursed the monsters’ stupidity that they did not flee. He cursed Lorgan’s brilliant brutality. And he cursed the cleansing fire.

  It was strange seeing fine bottles of alcohol wasted, but that was the price of victory. A few eager warriors with excited hands stood above the manmade barricade. They lit long shards of cloth attached to bottles of clear alcohol, and with a delicate pitch, they dropped them to the attackers farthest away. With their next throw, they struck those closer. They continued to throw, and this too was frustratingly beautiful.

  The real tragedy is the dry celebrations to come.

  The demons became trapped between the spikes on both sides; they could only charge forward and burn those ahead as they tried to escape. On either side of the open gate, a hundred archers let loose a hundred arrows into the night towards the anculus demons screaming their taunts, orders, and frustrations. Dozens fell to burning arrows, and a few breaths after that further volleys flew into the night. Wild with the smell of fire in their nostrils, the monsters in the killing ground charged against the wall once more and heaved. One last effort to save themselves against a burning horrible fate. Those few who had not fallen to the jagged spears died under the crush, but eventually, with a terrible creaking like a breached wall collapsing, the beam snapped and the shield collapsed with it.

  “NOW, DERIAN!”

  He knew that voice. The same voice he’d answered these past few years. The same voice who’d placed him at the rear, and placed him in c
hains, now released those chains with no warning.

  Now.

  The shield bearers fell back as dead monsters rolled through the gate like a deathly black avalanche, fed by demented, burning demons. In they scrambled, those with fight still in them, and it was Derian they met first.

  My turn.

  He merely moved with the swaying of his body, and he was unrelenting. He roared and leapt upon the mound of the dead, right into the patches of fire, meeting the wretched swarm in an unfair fight. He felt their heat, but he was not drenched in alcohol. He was not burning as they were. He swung and heads rolled, and he cursed them for dying so easily as he laughed at those monsters who snarled and snapped and tried and failed as their teeth did not penetrate his armour. He charged forward with limbs belonging to a giant, and he delivered death upon all who charged upon him. Time became nothing but glorious moments of slaughter as he quenched his primal desire’s thirst. If he felt pain, he ignored it. If he suffered fatigue, he swallowed it down. Dimly, he felt the presence and sway of more fighters with him as he led the fierce counterattack. The Army of the Dead stood closest, and they delivered what killing they could, and it both inspired and enraged in the same breath. Soon, he sensed Lorgan hammering into the curs, knocking them back down the path, and he charged away into the burning death, eager to kill as many of them for himself as he could. He’d never known himself capable of such hate, and he loved it so.

  He charged out into the battlefield knowing his life had led to this moment. As though he emptied every ounce of fear he’d ever carried upon the monsters in one gushing flow. He felt his destiny take hold and wring out all his savagery, and it was the greatest moment of his pathetic life. And then he felt nothing but darkness.

  He was asleep. It felt like sleep, and he stirred but could not wake. He felt like a spirit in death and wondered if he had died. Was this it? Was this what death was? The absence of everything with a little free-thinking still intact?

  Well, that was horrible, but it could be worse, he supposed. He tried to open his eyes, but he had none, nor did he have sight. His body ached, yet still, he felt at peace. He could feel war ever so near, he could feel the wet slithering warmth of blood from a thousand miles away yet still upon him, he could feel himself charge forward, and if he desired, he could grasp the living world, but instead, he fell back towards this darkness. Something was waiting for him. Calling to him from the darkness. It was not pleasant.

  A strange voice whispered in his mind. Protect… her. He imagined himself spinning around in a darkened room to meet this voice, and to his surprise, he found a little vision of sight. Nothing spectacular, just a blur in the dimness. Something dark and golden just beyond, and he reached for it but had no hands to grasp.

  “Who speaks?” he screamed with a voice, a mouth, not actually there.

  Silence met him.

  “Protect who? Seren?” he asked and felt the coolness of mist on his skin. His body became more than fastened thoughts. Almost corporeal. He stepped forward, heard his feet echo upon nothingness, and felt something deep inside him dwindle. As though something pulled essence from him. Then something else was there with him. Something worse than the voice, and it scared him. It stirred at his thoughts, it neared, and he felt panic.

  “Take… no… more… steps.” The voice spoke more, but the words echoed, screamed, tore his mind, and he wailed. The voice silenced, and he was so scared because they were not alone. And fear turned to anger.

  “Spit on this.” He took a step forward—towards the fires with the strange voice and the creepy presence accompanying it. If he was dead, so be it. He felt his very core fade as though clawed and chewed away, so he swiftly took a step back and heard the voice, frantic and lost. Like a dream from childhood.

  “… Dellerin… In Dellerin…”

  “Dellerin is spitting massive!” he shouted back. Something near began to bray like a beast.

  “Protect… the… girl… with… the… stones…”

  “Face me!” he roared, and without warning, his head spun as though shaken by a vengeful deity, and he lost what vision he had. With it came a terrible emptiness. He felt himself fading, dying. He tried to breathe with lungs that were not there, and distantly the sounds of horrors returned. Screaming, snarling, tearing.

  Breathing.

  Pain.

  Suffering.

  Waking.

  Derian found himself in the middle of a horde of dead demonic monsters at the edge of the treeline outside Treystone. The night was dark, and he was very much alive—though he believed himself mad or possessed by a demon. Had he just encountered Fiore? Had he walked in the source world? Was he a weaver? Was he evil? What did any of this mean?

  “What did you mean?” he screamed and received no answer. Isn’t this how madness strikes? The world he’d stepped into was already fading, and he wondered if he hadn’t imagined it all. Perhaps keeping it to himself was the best plan. Though he knew he couldn’t hold his tongue. Perhaps Seren would have answers?

  Suddenly, he felt the full weight of his armour upon him, and he wilted like a flower beneath a drift. Around him, a few monsters who hadn’t died were fleeing into the forest. Visions of the journey from killing ground to treeline struck him like a hazy dream, and he felt oddly satisfied as though sated by a fine meal. He looked across the battlefield and several comrades still stood out among the spikes with vengeance on their minds. They were slaying the other few remaining monsters. Among them a deeply peaceful-looking Kesta. After a time, when none remained, she came to him.

  “You did well, little one.” She pulled the helmet from his head, before unwrapping his sword and sheathing it at his waist. Every movement almost felled him.

  “We all did,” he replied, and she allowed him to lean on her as she led him from the forest.

  “Apart from Natteo. What an idiot!” She laughed, and tears spilled down her cheeks. He had the good grace not to ask why she cried yet smiled so openly. They walked to the gates and stood watch. He stripped the rest of the armour free, for his exhausted body could take no more. Halfway through the ordeal, Lorgan appeared and assisted as though he was a lowly apprentice assisting a master.

  “How do you feel?” Lorgan asked and strangely enough leant close and placed his ear to Derian’s chest. “Not too quick,” he muttered to himself.

  “You took me from the battle?” Derian asked, and Lorgan smiled uneasily. Derian knew that smile. Nothing good ever came from it.

  “When things are quiet, I think we need to speak of your new… abilities,” he said and patted him on the shoulder. His eyes were sad, his body shook, but still, in a few words, Derian felt reassured that he was not losing his mind or soul.

  Seren had left her place at the door, and Derian wasn’t too disappointed to delay speaking with her. Around them, the crowd of victorious defenders were sombre in their celebrations. Perhaps they were right. The attack wiped out most demons, but they feared more returning the following night. Was Lorgan capable of springing another tactical master plan on them? Derian didn’t want to ask him yet. He was happy to stand watch at the open gate until dawn.

  The three mercenaries weren’t alone in their vigil. The Army of the Dead stood with them. For now, they’d silently brokered an uneasy truce between the factions. Conversation was occasional, but oddly, Derian noticed Mowg of the Day answer to Lorgan as though he was his commander. Perhaps until they understood the situation, the mercenaries would answer a new master—at least, until other matters raised their heads.

  When dawn arrived, most of the fighters still stood ready. Children emerged from their keeping to the joy of absent tragedy; there was a levity to the air that hadn’t been there before, and with sleep calling, Derian finally surrendered his watch just as a low rumbling began to emerge from somewhere deep in the forest.

  “Look lively, comrades!” Blair shouted from the gate. He took up the long shield which had served him well and drew his sword. He looked less the slitheri
ng weasel Derian had first met, and more a grizzled mercenary like the rest of them. He’d stood beside Lorgan at the end, he’d held his shield, and he’d roared resolute defiance. In his own way, he had led the town to safety as much as any of the Crimson had.

  “Monsters won’t be out in this light. It's not even raining,” Derian suggested, but he still reached for his long-dagger. Beside him, Lorgan cracked his neck loudly, then his shoulders, and stood ready for violence as the rumble become the welcomed vision of cavalry emerging from the northern path. Those still standing watch gave out hearty cheers, loud enough that even Natteo might have heard them from his self-induced coma.

  Blair grabbed Lorgan’s shoulders and shook them in excitement. “Gold Haven received the message.” He turned to the battalion of riders making their way through the ruined path of demon mulch and waved wildly at them, receiving hearty waves back.

  Derian could swear that their banners shimmered in the dawn’s breaking sun. The golden vigil of the sun emblazoned upon their city’s crest waved triumphantly in their saddles, and they were impressive.

  Blair dropped to a knee. “Thank you, Lorgan of the Crimson Hunters. You have done us a great service. You have earned yourself a great debt from this town.” Through a devilish grin, Lorgan bade him stand.

  “Do not kneel in my presence, friend. We have shed blood together. Now then, I believe there was talk of payment… something about swimming in gold.”

  THE END

  The Crimson Hunters story is not done…

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