Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series)

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Something rustled in the bushes nearby. Nilem tossed her head to the side, shouted, “Jago! Jago, help me!”

  Wodan shook his head. “That pup’s been there a long time. He heard and saw everything.” Wodan turned his head and Nilem saw the arrows in his back jutting out from him, glinting in the moonlight. “Dog warrior,” said Wodan. “Go and tell the others at the fort that their Khan lives. Tell them what’s happened.”

  “Jago!” Nilem shrieked. “Gods, Jago, help me, please!”

  The stalker in the bushes slinked away.

  * * *

  Yarek and his Reavers entered the clearing with dogmen bearing torches and a net full of fish. They saw Wodan alone, propped up with his back laid against a tree. His eyes were closed and he was covered in dark blood.

  Yarek ran to him and touched his cold skin. “Khan!” he said. “Wodan!”

  As he felt for a pulse Wodan lifted his head weakly and said, “Fish.”

  “You’re in shock,” said Yarek. “Lost too much blood.” He reached about and felt the arrows jutting out from his back.

  “Fish,” said Wodan. He laid his head against the tree, then raised his hand slowly and pointed at the heavy net full of fish.

  While Yarek protested, a young dogman pup rushed forward, dropped the heavy net on the ground, and handed his Khan a raw fish. Wodan put the thing in his mouth whole, chomped once, and swallowed it. He breathed deep and ate another just as quickly.

  Yarek and the Reavers looked on in confusion. The dogmen seemed happy enough that the Khan liked their catch so much that he would use it as his last meal. Wodan stared ahead, mechanically eating fish after fish until his hands were caked with slime and shining scales.

  “It’s the body,” Wodan said between his eighth and ninth fish. “The exertion. It needs fuel.”

  “We have to get you back to the fort,” said Yarek. “You need medical attention.”

  “The fort, yes,” said Wodan, rising suddenly. “But I’m not the one that needs healing.” As he rose to his full height, the four arrows fell from his back. The open wounds became jagged black lines. Wodan put one hand on Yarek’s shoulder and the other on one of the young dogmen, and they held him up.

  They walked over the corpses and made their way through the woods. Wodan was silent. Yarek assumed it was because he was exhausted, but when he looked at Wodan’s face, he saw that Wodan’s eyes were full of cold, freezing rage.

  * * *

  They could hear screaming and arguing within the fort even from the fields. Search teams came out from the woods and joined the Khan and his train. Men and dogmen in the field stood silent, then bowed or knelt respectfully. Wodan stared ahead. The shouting from the walls became a terrible roar. Yarek nodded and a Reaver ran ahead.

  A crowd ran to meet them at the open gate. They immediately parted when they saw Wodan approaching. Within the walls, Wodan saw Nilem stomping about, addressing the tightly-packed crowd.

  “You think any human could have fought that many dogmen?!” she shrieked. “I saw him talking to a flesh demon out there! That explains why he did nothing during the attack – no, the ambush - that he led your sons out to die in!”

  Many dogmen exchanged glances. Wodan saw Naarwulf try to shout her down, saw her whirl on him, shouting, “And you! You would serve a demon! Why do you think he led us out to this hell in the first place?!”

  So she means to follow through with it, thought Wodan. The poor fool.

  Yarek unsheathed Teufelmorder. Wodan turned to him and shook his head once.

  Wodan stepped into the middle of the courtyard. All eyes turned to him. Many were taken aback by his haggard appearance. Nilem whirled and saw him, then raised her lips in a snarl as she braced herself for battle. She locked her eyes on the ground rather than on his own.

  “Let me guess,” said Wodan, casting his eyes about. “Is this the way the story goes? Correct me if I’m wrong.” He paused, then said, “So the great Khan Wodan led his people in a war against Pontius and took hostages. He captured men who could turn iron into weapons, wood into shields. He led his people into a land of devils. He made war on them. But the great Khan lost his first battle against the devils because of their unmanly magic. So the Khan, refusing to admit defeat, finally made a sacrifice of himself so that the people could absorb his strength. Then they abandoned their new home, abandoned their fields and their mines, and lived in the hills, where they continue their war against the demons to this very day. Is that the way the story goes?”

  There was silence.

  “You shamans,” Wodan continued. “I hear you whispering over there. You empty-headed, backstabbing sycophants. Is that the way the sacrifice is conducted? You don’t have to look away; you can correct me if I’m wrong. Or you, you proud dog warriors over there. You heartless lickspittles who can swing an axe but can’t bear the weight of your weapons in-between battles. Shake your heads all you want. I know you fed the fires of the sacrifice with your rumors. And you, you chieftains lurking about in the back. You who were too weak to take my position, but too covetous to let me handle matters beyond your reckoning. I wonder if you can deny the foreknowledge of the assassination attempt so loudly that you even believe it yourselves.”

  Wodan shook his head slowly, then laughed and said, “You’re pathetic.”

  Naarwulf stepped forward suddenly, and said, “Khan, even now we are ferreting out those who knew about the plot. I swear, none will go unpunished.”

  “Be still, Naarwulf. You are brave to speak up at this moment. But this cowardice among the people runs far, far deeper than you suspect.

  “You dogs. Do you know what separates me from you? Do you know why I’m the Khan, and why you are not? Do you know the magic that turns wood into walls and forts and bows? Do you know the spell that turns iron into swords and axes? Do you know the ritual that changes brute savages and scared individuals into a nation? Many of you are covered in battle-scars, but do you have the training and experience necessary to turn failure into victory? You’ve heard stories about me, but do any of your storytellers really know how many failures I’ve committed, how many setbacks I’ve encountered? Despite them all, I never once looked for a scapegoat for my own weaknesses. Not once, you proud, arrogant, lowly dimwits!”

  In the back of the crowd, Jarl broke into a cold sweat. He knew in his heart that Wodan was going beyond chastising them - he was utterly debasing them all. The damage he’s doing now could be irreparable! he thought. Immediately he grabbed the arm of a tall dog warrior, shook him, and whispered, “You have to stop him! He’s going too far, he’s gone mad from the fight, he doesn’t know what he’s saying!”

  Trembling, the dogman nodded, walked ahead of the crowd and knelt on one knee. “Khan,” he said, shaking his head. “We have failed you. We are... beneath you... but we need you to-”

  “Need me!” Wodan shouted. “Need me?! Fool! You don’t want a leader, you want an excuse! Be your own Khan! For once in your pathetic lives!”

  “But, Khan!” said another dogman, dropping to his knees and bowing low. “None of us can be Khan! Only you! Only you can be the Khan!”

  Wodan glared down at the dog for a long time, then said quietly, “But I do not want to be Khan to such a people.” A long sigh rippled through the crowd, then Wodan shouted, “I reject your title of Khan! And I reject you as a people! I brought us here to make a nation without scapegoats, without excuses. Return to Pontius or flee into the hills. I’m leaving to finish what I began.”

  Wodan turned and strode toward the gate. He brushed against Yarek, knocking him to the side.

  “No-o-o-o!” shouted Naarwulf. “Please! Khan!”

  Near him, Nilem laughed lightly, overcome by the unexpected victory.

  Naarwulf grabbed a fistful of her hair in his massive fist and shouted, “Khan! This was her fault! I know it!”

  Nilem squealed and Naarwulf raised a fist, ready to crush her face into the back of her skull. Wodan turned quickly and shouted, “
Do not be cruel to her!” Naarwulf froze and Nilem stared at Wodan. “She’s not worth your vengeance. She leads a small, sad life, and she doesn’t know how to live it any other way. Just... leave the poor girl alone.”

  Naarwulf released her. Nilem shrieked in agony. Wodan continued on. The crowd parted for him as he left the open gate, alone.

  Among all the forlorn, wounded faces in the crowd, only Freyja glared at Wodan in rage. As he neared her, he saw her holding a strong, beautiful red longbow in her hands. Hands shaking, she lifted the bow, then brought it down on her knee and snapped it in half. Everyone cast their faces to the ground as Wodan left them. Freyja left the crowd and stared at his back, boiling with fury, tears burning down her face. She cast the pieces of the bow on the ground.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Garden Bordered by Four Walls

  Thirty-Nine Years Ago

  In the dark of night the airships from Haven descended on a wide clearing. Eyes at the windows saw trees shaking, foliage whipped free and cast far overhead. “So much for stealth,” muttered a laborer, and they waited, fearful, while the Guardians contacted other ships clustered in the mountains around the valley. Then, seeing no sign of the legendary man-killing demons, the wide doors of the ships opened and the Havenders descended onto the grassy plain.

  The armored Guardians moved out first, waving their heavy rifles at the dark woods as they shouted at the scientists and laborers, while the scientists scurried about their gear and spoke to the laborers, and the laborers carried equipment and the walls of ready-made structures and grunted and hissed at one another.

  Professor Childriss was one of the first on the field. He stared at a grounded plane until Didi limped out. Didi exchanged a word and a nod with someone. Childriss watched, and saw a tall, young Guardian with red hair and fiery mutton-chops hanging down to his mustache. The Guardian saluted casually to Didi before he joined his unit.

  Childriss approached, giving Didi a sharp smile. “And here I didn’t think you ever made friends.”

  Without pause Didi said, “He’s a young man who’s unapologetically ambitious but sensitive to the greater needs of humanity. I like him. His name’s Sevrik Clash.”

  “And do you have any other friends, any other allies up your sleeve?”

  Didi thought for a moment of his other friend back in Haven. “No. You are my only ally, Childriss.”

  “Good! That’s the Didi I know and trust.” Childriss waved angrily at a group of laborers who were busy tripping and falling over the walls of their ready-made. “Over here, idiots!” Childriss shouted.

  The scientists spread out and debated the merits of various locations while the laborers threw up the walls of the research stations and living quarters. Some laborers followed Didi and Childriss, who walked farther afield than anyone else. A Guardian saw them leaving, watched them for a while, then shouted, “Hey, you! Don’t go so far out!”

  “Fuck off!” shouted Childriss, and Didi continued on.

  “Keep together, now! I want us all close together.”

  “Hey, you know what? Fuck you!”

  The Guardian moved toward them with quick steps. Just then the youth Sevrik called out to the Guardian, then spoke to him quietly. Childriss watched until the other Guardian left after giving him one last angry glare.

  Childriss laughed, then said, “Guess your new ally has some use after all.”

  “Mm,” said Didi.

  They walked far from the lights of the camp and drew near the edge of the dark forest. The laborers became nervous. They studied the formless darkness within the woods. It was silent, and seemed vast, perhaps without end. “This is it,” Childriss quietly. “Set up here.”

  In the first hour the laborers set up the walls of the laboratory. It was larger than any other brought into the valley; Childriss had made promises, had used charm and threats, had pulled some strings and yanked others savagely. It was known that Didi and Childriss were good researchers, and so they had not been denied the use of such a large lab. The laborers ran electrical wires through the outer walls, then placed lights in the thin ceiling. Then they turned on the lights, and Didi walked through the cold gray hall, the whine of his brace accenting the clanging racket of the laborers.

  In the second hour the laborers installed water pipes, a waste-recycling system, a large cistern of water that they rolled out from one of the ships, and a sprinkler system in the ceiling. One laborer flushed their makeshift toilet and the sprinkler system came on, dousing everyone. Childriss shrieked wildly at no one in particular.

  In the third hour the laborers swept out the water from the gray open space. Guardians came to them with various plants and fruits from the valley, and Didi sorted them out on a table for study. Childriss screamed at a Guardian for tracking in a great deal of mud. One laborer whispered to another, “Man, I wish some monsters would hurry up an’ attack an’ shut this sumbitch up,” while the other nodded.

  In the fourth hour the laborers installed the inner walls to the station and divided it into rooms, a hallway, work places, rooms for sleep, and a restroom. Childriss guarded their cots to make sure no laborers passed out on them.

  In the fifth hour Guardians came to them with various birds and frogs they had captured, all of them very exotic-looking to the outlanders. The laborers moved the rest of their gear into a storage room, then a laborer explained to Didi how the fire-switch worked; at a signal from Didi or Childriss, or from a high-ranking Guardian, the research station would be consumed in flames, as would all of the buildings within the temporary compound. Then Childriss shouted, “Fine job, assholes! Now, clear out! Now!” and the men left, grumbling loudly.

  In the sixth hour Didi and Childriss, alone, unpacked the equipment for their real studies: The small and large fetal-containment tanks stolen from the Makers of Mothers at the DoS. Didi set up their computers and Childriss ran water into the warming tanks, then pumped them full of the life-nurturing solution that he had stolen. Didi attached the ice-cold canister full of the thousand-and-one modified cells, then released them into the tiny incubator modules. Childriss watched the legion of cells take root, then said quietly, “Some of these beings will come to rule the world.”

  “One thousand and one genetic variations on themes we developed in Haven,” said Didi. “Chances are good that at least a few of them will be hearty stock. Most of them, however, will die.” Then Didi locked the doors to all the rooms. Only he and Childriss knew the combinations to all of the locks in that place.

  * * *

  Days passed in the heart of the valley. Fearful days while the laborers exchanged stories and rumors of demons, while the Guardians ranged out on patrols without any sighting of the enemies of their forefathers, while the scientists studied the life and land and climate of that forbidden land. Didi and Childriss made some effort at official work and at conferring with the other researchers. But mostly they stayed near their locked laboratory and studied the growth of their new post-human organisms.

  In Haven, in Didi’s dark apartment, they had spent countless hours creating new organisms in the shape of men. Most were failures, dying of cancer or a host of other ailments and dragging countless hours into the grave with them. Only a few viable organisms had survived into an unnaturally-hastened childhood. These Didi and Childriss had killed off, but kept the record of their genetic makeup so that they could modify it further, correcting mistakes and adding flourishes.

  Now they had time and space to develop their work. Their growing organisms were all unique themes, save for two shared traits: A quickened rate of growth and an increased sensitivity to light. As for other traits, some of the new organisms had their brains wired differently, their muscle-networks changed slightly, organs and nerves enhanced or dulled, their skin colored or made of different types of fibers, their senses enhanced or interconnected differently.

  One night, as they sat in the warm hum of the Maker incubators, Didi said, “It’s impossible to predict all the various per
mutations of form and plan the nature of a perfect being. We do it the same way nature does it: Make a lot of them and let the weak ones die off.”

  “We’ll burn the stolen Maker equipment as we leave,” muttered Childriss. “Even the successful organisms we’ll burn. We won’t have to worry about transporting anything back illegally. All we need is the genetic code of the few hearty ones to take with us back to Haven.”

  “Where we would be executed if we were ever found out.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” said Childriss. “Our work is possible only because of Haven’s uniquely advanced technology. But if we wanted to find anyone who could truly appreciate our work, we would have to look far, far outside of Haven.”

  “What do you mean?” said Didi. “How could we possibly conduct our work around a bunch of primitive outlanders?”

  “Haven is a land without gods, Didi. A land without ideals. None know what to make of us. They’ll put us in positions of leadership, but that’s the most they can offer. Havenders are democratic, mediocre, proud of their accidental circumstances, and utterly worthless to their species. But this place, Didi, this wasteland, this dark valley - this is where heroes are born.”

  “Or monsters,” said Didi. “But we shall see.”

  * * *

  Only a third of the batches of cells grew into fetuses, but even that number was greater than they had hoped for. They ended up using all of the larger Maker incubators that Childriss had stolen, and even most of the ones they had duplicated using those designs. They kept several of the rooms darkened for the growing lifeforms.