The Wolf sniffed the air. “Show me the wings,” he demanded.
Kyle tightened her grip on the spear. She had thus far kept her wings hidden. But time felt short and she may need them to survive this fight anyway. She rolled her shoulders forward. The cunningly hidden slits along the back of her shirt rustled and spread as her wings emerged. Fully extended, they stretched above her head. She gave them a single flap and suppressed a quiet sigh of relief. As always, she got a soothing feeling of completeness. Much as she liked to keep her strength hidden from assholes like this titan before her, she was never more comfortable than when she could be her full self. Wings out and spear in hand.
The Moorland Wolf stared. “Delicious.” He leaned forward. A string of drool fell from his jaw to the floor. “They say people taste like chicken. I don’t agree. More like pork. But you, though…” His gaze lingered on her wings, his long pink tongue hanging out. “I wonder.” He slowly stretched his long arms. Then he took a step forward to loom over Kyle. “You don’t talk much. Doesn’t bother me. Even the quiet ones usually start talking once I start in on them. You see, what I like is—”
“I get it. You want to eat me.” The silver spear twirled in her hands as she approached the Moorland Wolf. She flapped her wings again, testing the air and causing the torches to flutter in the soft breeze.
The Moorland Wolf tucked his tongue back in. The hair on his neck and shoulders rose to pointy spikes as he spread his arms wide and met her. He swung a meaty hand at Kyle. She dipped under it and thrust her spear towards his neck. He dodged and stamped forward into her. Kyle felt his arm encircling her, but she pushed back with the strength of her wings and held the crushing grip at bay. She slid her spear up under his arm. The Wolf howled and withdrew.
The Wolf sniffed at his armpit, inspecting the wound. Kyle gave him no respite. She jumped into the air, flapped her wings once, then twirled. The extended wings brushed against the Wolf’s face and distracted him. Her spear followed, a powerful strike to his chest, but it failed to go deep into his hard body. He shoved her with his powerful arms, and she slammed back against the wall. A gasp was forced from her as her skull cracked against the hard stone. The Wolf was right on top of her. She ducked an instant before his fist struck the wall and broke loose a cascade of gravel. She swung her spear around to gash his thigh as she spun away.
As she settled down into a crouch, she saw he was now bleeding in several places. The Wolf gave another furious howl and leapt forward. He reached out with both hands, trying to seize the spear that had caused him such pain. Kyle left him to it, lightly tossing it up into the air. As the titan grabbed it, she was already rolling behind him and drawing a silver knife from a hidden sheath. The Moorland Wolf spread his hands along the spear, ready to break the offending weapon. Kyle sliced open the back of one knee. The Wolf’s howl turned into a scream and he dropped the spear. She buried the knife in the other leg. As the Wolf fell, Kyle scrambled away. He caught her with a flailing hand. She was dragged back to the screaming, raging Nether titan.
He pulled at her with strong, crushing fingers. Kyle twisted around, fighting to keep him from catching hold. He trapped one of her wrists and tightened his grip with brutal force. He used it to throw her across his body. She could feel his other hand fumbling for hers. But she also felt the shaft of her spear on the stones under her leg. She rolled to the side and grabbed it. With a deft flip, she set the point facing downward, then threw her weight back and atop the spear. It pierced the Moorland Wolf’s side. Kyle leaned against the spear and set her feet. She pulled it out, the Moorland Wolf clutched at the wound, and Kyle lined up and drove the spear right into his open mouth.
And suddenly she was staring down at the dirty, ash-strewn floor of the chamber, alone again. She lay there, panting, for a while. Then she pulled herself to her feet. As satisfying as it had been to feed her spear to the hungry Wolf, she had no time to rest. The Nether never waited long before sending its next challenge. At least now she had a sense she was getting closer. The Wolf had been guarding something.
Kyle grabbed a torch from the wall and headed for the dark archway. As she neared, the torchlight spread across a short tunnel. It was of black, rounded metal that echoed her footsteps back to her, like the many others she’d passed through in this foul corner of the Nether. The tunnel quickly opened up and Kyle stepped out into a long, cylindrical chamber that stretched up to a ceiling of dark, grey clouds. The light from the sky was enough to render her torch pointless. The tunnel she stepped out of was one of four that opened onto the chamber’s floor. A level above her four more led off into the maze, then four more above that, and more as far as she could see. The openings at the ascending levels were twisted and misaligned, and Kyle thought it looked like great veins feeding a heart. And at the center of it, high above her and floating unsupported in the air, was a copper urn. She quietly ran her thumb along the edge of her spear, her wings unconsciously flapping, as she studied it. She’d come down here looking for the OverLord himself, not at all sure she’d survive that encounter. But she’d settle for the urn. It looked as though the old legends had been proven right once again. Which meant there was an even greater evil at hand here.
The sound of heavy footfalls startled her from her contemplation. The Nether’s next challenge approached. She threw her torch towards one of the other openings and quickly flew up a few levels to hide in the mouth of another tunnel. It wouldn’t be long before whatever it was found her. But she needed time to look more closely at the urn.
From her closer vantage point, Kyle saw additional decoration around the urn. At the level it hovered, a set of four round ornaments adorned the walls, distributed evenly between the tunnel openings. They looked to be carved into the smooth stone façades. Two had simple images of titans. A third had the shape of a woman and the fourth was a giant eye.
Back at the ground level, a titan walked hesitantly out into the chamber. Kyle’s heart sank. It was Van. Or at least a demon made to look like Van. That they would send him as a final challenge, amongst all the weapons they had to choose from… Every time she thought she’d kept something hidden from this place, even just the way her thoughts drifted to the quiet titan in moments of weakness, the Nether showed she had no secrets down here.
This wasn’t the first time they’d sent Van. He’d nearly throttled her to death the first day she’d been down here. And he wasn’t the only one. They’d sent Owen. Larvell. Her mother tried to brain Kyle with a hammer. Other valkyrie, pleading with her to help them, then turning around with spears for her eyes. The Nether seemed lately to tire of the tricks and had simply sent monsters of all shapes and sizes. She’d fought titans like Brickhands and the Moorland Wolf, dragons, giant wasps, a banshee, a snake made of smoke, a pair of ghouls that swapped limbs as they came at her.
Kyle looked down as the demon version of Van peered around the chamber, his eyes catching on the torch burning away at one of the tunnel mouths. This one acted less sure than the others, but he gave himself away by looking directly up at her. As she’d known, hiding was pointless. They always knew where she was. She stepped out of the shadows. He gave a heart-wrenchingly genuine smile as he saw her. “Hey there,” he called out in Van’s soft voice. “Been looking everywhere for you.”
She gave a nod, then turned her attention back to the urn. The demon would try to convince her to come down. That would give her a bit of time. Once he realized she wouldn’t, he would find some way to climb up or sprout wings or simply disappear into the shadows and come back as something else from her nightmares.
“You found the urn,” the demon said.
“You know I did,” Kyle replied. She should grab it and get out of here. But something about the layout of the ornaments around the urn was bothering her.
“Are you okay?” the demon asked. When she didn’t reply, he said, “I thought you’d be a little happier to see me. I know I needed a friendly face. And you’re way prettier than Jack.”
&nbs
p; “A friendly face would be nice,” Kyle muttered. “As long as it wasn’t slapped on top of an enemy.”
There was a long silence. Kyle could see the demon thinking, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Can I help you get it?” he finally asked.
“You can stay away from me.”
“That’s the last thing I want to do. You told me to follow you here. And I did. I came down here to help you. Now I can’t help you?”
“You’ve played that card before, demon. I’m alone down here. And that’s fine.” She moved to the center of the tunnel opening to give herself space.
“Never,” the Van demon replied.
Kyle spread her wings and began beating the air. She left the tunnel mouth to hover closer to the urn, ignoring the gasp from below. She slowly circled it, then again studied the ornaments on the walls.
“I didn’t know you had wings,” the demon called up. “You have wings up there too?”
Kyle ignored him and circled the urn again. Then she called down, “You know how to spot a trap, demon? I shouldn’t tell you, because you’ll just take it back to your Master, and the next trap will be that much better.” She flew closer to the decorations, the titans, the woman, the eye. “But I’m tired, demon. And I have a feeling this might be the last trap.”
The demon was silent below.
“What do we do, demon, when we know a trap is waiting but still need what it’s guarding?”
“I’m not a demon. I’m the real Van.”
“We anticipate it. We look for the things that aren’t supposed to be there. A door, a window, some decoration. A place to hide spears and nets and poisoned needles.” She glanced down at the demon, who stared back. “So whoever makes a trap naturally tries to hide those things. They create a pattern that radiates outwards from the thing they seek to hide. It’s hard to find the center of this place. At first it seems like it’s that urn right there. But when you really look, it’s not.”
She tried to ignore her trembling hands as she flew in closer to the urn. “I’ve bested you in every shape you’ve come to me, demon. And I’m not finished. Let’s see what you’ve prepared for me next.”
“Wait,” the demon said.
Kyle reached out and grabbed the urn. The eye in the wall opened and a terrible black wind issued forth from the darkness within.
Chapter 11.
The wind blasted Van back into the tunnels. He flew helpless through the twists and turns, his long journey down here wiped away in seconds by the racing squall. He was finally thrown out of a tunnel, sent cartwheeling up into the air. He crashed back down to the ground and lay gasping a long time.
When he raised his head, he saw he was alone once more. Another endless landscape of broken rock. The trail was gone, maybe lost forever. Just like Kyle. He’d walked ages through that maze and finally found her at the center. To have been so close and to have been able to do nothing to help her… Whether it had been another illusion of this place or something more real, it pained him deeply.
The moment before the winds had taken him, he’d seen her dragged away, the wings she’d hidden from him no help to her. She needed him now more than ever. But he had no idea where she’d gone, or whether she’d accept his help if he found her again. Van picked a direction and started walking, no longer certain if he was trying to go deeper in or find a way out. He just knew he couldn’t stay here.
The ground before him began slowly rising and Van was forced to pull himself up a series of sharp ridges lined with lifeless, dead trees. Soon he found himself looking down into a wide valley. The ground was a dusty brown and grey, broken by deep, black cracks. The sky was a steel-colored flat grey.
Van stood dumbstruck. There were thousands of people packed in the valley before him. He rubbed his face and stared for a long moment before he had the sense to duck down to avoid unwanted attention.
Van crawled forward in a crouch and hid behind a boulder. He poked his head out to look down at the mass of people and struggled to make sense of what he saw. Men and women, some looking as normal as any citizen of Empire City, others looking more like the walking dead, bustled around an army camp. Towering titans mingled with tribes of goblins and orcs and long, rangy trolls, taller even than the titans. Squat dragons bearing stubby flightless wings stood side-by-side with other creatures with long, batlike wings that looked like they could take them high into the sky. Scores of stone golems shambled around with armloads of swords.
At last Van spotted the OverLord striding about in the center of the army, his white face hidden in the shadow of his black hat. Two coffins lay on the ground behind him. Next to him, Van recognized Jaygan the Dragon Reynolds, looking no worse for wear after facing the Patriot, and Bearhugger with his gut spilling out of his overalls. His ugly mug was wrapped in an ill-fitting black leather mask. Some other titans were masked, and Van couldn’t recognize them.
As Van watched, the OverLord spoke with Jaygan, then the Bearhugger. A masked group of three titans, who could have been the goons Van fought at the gate, approached. After the OverLord spoke with the titans, some goblins and orcs circled around him and then returned to their own kind. The army scurried to do the OverLord’s bidding as he gestured to and fro. He directed them with the easy authority of a general.
Van quietly spat on the stony ridge, his dry saliva barely leaving his mouth. He knew nothing of war, but the thousands of creatures and people gathered here, weapons in hand, looked daunting, especially in comparison to the Empire City’s defenses, which were basically half a dozen morons with rusty swords they could barely lift. If this army attacked Empire City, or got anywhere near the Uplands, there would be nothing left. And it occurred to Van that that was exactly what the OverLord intended. Van had to find a way to stop them.
Van felt a firm hand clasp his shoulder. He shrieked and flung a fist backwards. It was smoothly caught and twisted away.
“Easy, brother,” the Patriot Jack Hammer whispered. After a glance in the direction of the army, he shushed Van with a finger to his lips and released Van’s hand. “It’s good to see you. Thought you might be halfway down a dragon’s gullet.” His eyes were dark and haunted, like he’d aged a decade since Van saw him last. He still held the long board in his other hand.
“Good to see you, too,” Van said, making room for Jack to crouch next to him. “No. She smashed me on the rocks real good, knocked me out. But when I woke up, she was gone.” He looked Jack over, no obvious injuries. “What happened with Jaygan?”
“He squirreled away in the storm. Jaygan always was a slippery one. Now he’s down there with that OverLord fella, the traitor. I’ve been wandering around lost since the fight. No more of those vision things. But”—he looked up at the unnaturally dour sky—“this ain’t no place to wander alone. Feels like I’ve been here for ages.” He tightened his grip on the board until the wood creaked in protest. “I want to go home.”
Van nodded. “Me too. But it looks like we’ve got things to do here. Not much mystery about what’s going on down there.” He pointed down the valley. “We need to get word to somebody above.”
Jack nodded. “I need to warn Peakfall and the other Open Nations. This just got bigger than a couple titans turning traitor and running out of control.”
Van grunted and peered out over the army. The OverLord had turned his attention to the coffins on the ground. He gestured at them and his minions ripped them open. Creature, looking small without his armored shoulder plates, climbed out of one, his pink face flushed around the black lines of his tattoo. King Thad’s titan servant Donovan tumbled from the other. Both were gripped roughly by masked titans and forced to kneel before the OverLord. Even from this distance, Van could see the fear in Creature’s eyes as they darted all around. Donovan, on the other hand, gazed at something straight ahead. He flexed his muscular shoulders then fell still, his back straight. The OverLord studied each in turn, walking slowly between them.
“Some good news for you, Beer Man,” Jack whisp
ered. “I hung onto your talking barrel.” He gestured behind them. “I had to leave it back there, though, it wouldn’t shut up.”
Van glanced back at the barrel. It was parked against a rocky outcropping. He shuddered at the faint sound of Saint singing. Then the OverLord’s voice broke over the rocks, just as loud and near as if he stood on the other side of the ridge of stone they hid behind. Van and Jack flinched and ducked as the valley echoed with his powerful voice, some trick of his or of the valley.
“You have a choice,” the OverLord said. Van and Jack carefully poked their heads up. They saw the titan remained far below, speaking to Creature and Donovan, who were still on their knees before him. “Don the mask.” He threw a black mask on the gravel at their knees. Creature looked down at his. Donovan kept his eyes ahead. “And accept me as your Master. Join us. I offer you truth, not the lies of the world above. I will not pretend fame and glory exist for you. They do not. They are a lie, a wheel to which the titans are yoked. A knife to divide us. Our dreams of glory are dead. Yet our strength grows. That is the only truth. We shall break the wheel. Remove the knife. All will see what the world offers, when the dust blows away. Toil and death. Obscurity. Obliteration.” He removed his hat and held it in his hands. Without looking back at the kneeling titans, he said again, “Toil and death.” And then a whisper, lost in the wind.
The OverLord’s words hung in the air. Bearhugger loomed threateningly over the titans, leaning in, his enormous hands dangling at his sides. The OverLord had turned away. After a pause, Creature reached down and took the mask. He pulled it over his head, then looked up at the OverLord. Bearhugger and the OverLord ignored him and turned to Donovan, waiting for him to respond.
Van leaned forward, tightly gripping the rock that shielded him and Jack from view. At last, Donovan said something, but his voice didn’t carry as the OverLord’s had. Then he firmly shook his head. The OverLord bent down to pick up the mask and threw it into Donovan’s face. The half-orc titan didn’t flinch, simply shook his head again as the mask fell to the ground.
The Piledriver of Fate (Titan Wars Book 2) Page 8
