by Matt Turner
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Beside him, Vera snapped her fingers. As one, the line of soldiers weakly fainted to the ground. “Thanks, John.” She laughed.
“Always a pleasure, Vera.”
Simon spun around to see that the other Horseman, his face as speckled with bark and a few extra branches, stood beside Vera, his hand on her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the vines that had wrapped around the soldiers’ feet. Like in C District, he remembered. Death and Famine are powerful together.
“John, where in the fuck have you been?” Amaury demanded. “Last time we saw you, you were a fucking tree—”
“No time for that,” Vera snapped urgently. She pointed in the distance, where the dark whirlwind still lashed and thundered. “Seth’s still in there!”
There was a dozen stiltwalkers roaming the wreckage between the four of them and the dark cloud where Seth was—along with what looked to be at least several hundred soldiers. Even as Simon watched, one of them raised up the muzzle of his rifle at the four Horsemen. Even with all of us, it won’t be easy, he thought grimly. The temptation to just turn tail was strong. If it had been anybody else…
But this wasn’t just another damned soul. This was Seth. In a flash of insight that surprised even himself, Simon realized that he didn’t give a shit whether Seth was some important saint from Paradise or not. His friend was in trouble, and Simon was going to help him. It had been such a long time since he had experienced such an emotion that he was briefly puzzled by it.
War is won by sacrifices. He had once lived by that creed…but he had since found that there were some sacrifices not worth making.
Enough goddamn thinking, he decided. “Let’s go then,” he announced. There was no doubt on the other’s faces; they simply nodded and followed him into the fray.
16
Three. Three, three, three.
Salome had only three syringes of Zaqqum left, but ripping apart Lao’s hateful face was far more than satisfying than even the most glorious high of Hell’s greatest painkiller.
“How many times,” she demanded. “How many times until you fucking stay down?”
She stabbed her rapier so deep into Lao’s ribs that the blade bent and shattered, but she immediately tossed aside the broken handle. One of her soldiers tossed her a bayonet, and she rushed forward. Lao weakly raised a hand to ward her off; she pierced his palm with the steel tip and gouged it upward, ripping away his fingers, and then stabbed the blade deep enough in his flank that he could feel one of his lungs rupture. “Fourteen!” she snarled.
But his wounds were already beginning to heal; he could feel the ruptured palm of his hand start to stitch itself back together, and even the piece of steel she had left buried in his rib cage was being pushed away by his fiercely contracting muscles. “You bitch,” he snarled, and lunged for her.
She easily dodged his clumsy attack and stabbed his spine half a dozen times with an icepick as he lumbered past her. “Twenty! Give me something heavier, you fucks!”
By the time Lao managed to turn around, half-blind with pain and fatigue, she had a mace in her hands. Crunch went his knees, his elbows, and his skull; yet, every time, much to Salome’s fury, he managed to weakly stagger back to his feet. They brought her axes and blades and even a flail, and soon so many weapons were buried in Lao’s smoking flesh that he could hardly even move, yet the Master’s gift never failed him.
By the time they reached forty, her blows were finally beginning to lose some of their power. “Mercy,” Lao wept. “For the Master’s sake, please—”
Salome promptly blew off the top of his scalp with a double-barreled shotgun. His vision briefly turned black as his optic nerves reformed from the wet pulp of his brain, and by the time he was able to make out the gathered mass of soldiers watching his execution in awe, Salome had another weapon in her hands: a strange spike-like device.
“I saved the best for last, Lao.” She grinned.
Something crashed deep into Lao’s chest; he would have fallen backward, but there were so many blades and swords embedded in his legs and back that they completely supported his weight.
“You bitch,” he snarled, all attempts at pleading now gone. “You think you’re some sort of hero now? All you’ve ever had is your tits and your face, like a common fucking whore.”
At first, Lao thought she had hit him with some sort of harpoon, judging from the great spike that protruded from his chest, and then he saw the thin hose that connected the spike to the weapon that had fired it. A thick, dark liquid pulsed through it into his body and began to gush out of his ears, nose, mouth, and the still-healing plethora of wounds that she had torn into him. “Don’t even have a face now,” he gurgled out as the foul bile spilled out of his mouth and down his chest. “Hope the Master takes your tits next.”
“Lao, do you remember that night in the Second Circle?” Salome gently asked. “On the ferry, when I told you I wanted to try it blindfolded?”
“I never loved you,” he hissed. His bare feet slipped and twisted in the puddles of blood and bile on the ground. “No one ever did. All you’ll ever be is your body—”
“That wasn’t me.” Salome smiled. “That was Legion.”
Lao’s eyes gaped open in revulsion and sheer horror, and Salome pressed a button on her weapon. Almost immediately, a trail of fire coursed down the hose, brightly setting it alight. Lao had just enough time to let out one last whimper before the heat crashed into his chest. The black liquid immediately ignited, wrapping him in a cloak of flame as the inferno coursed through his arteries and veins, swiftly delivering death to every scrap of flesh that he possessed. He did not even have a chance to scream—within a few seconds, his lungs were little more than sagging structures of ash and fire.
“Roll one of the tanks over him,” Salome barked to the gathered soldiers. “This fucker isn’t getting away again.” She paused only a moment to spit out a gob of phlegm on the burnt, gasping corpse that lay at her feet; then the crowd of awed soldiers split before her and she went on for the rest of her prey.
17
As it turned out, getting to where Seth was trapped was far easier than Vera had expected.
“I work with Salome! I work with Salome!” John cried out, over and over again, and the soldiers they passed did nothing but stare at the strange foursome who rushed past them.
“You make some new friends, John?” Vera panted. The swirling vortex was closer now, so close that she could swear she heard a thin, reedy voice screaming out over the roar of the wind. The unnerving sound sent shivers down her spine.
“Something like that.” He nodded. “Salome is, uh, persuasive.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean, Vera was going to ask, but John suddenly screeched to a stop and slammed both of his hands against the dirt.
“Close enough,” he muttered. “Just give me a minute…”
A forest slowly began to emerge from the ground around the edge of the dust cloud. Grass, shrubs, trees—they stretched upward to the skies as they began to form a makeshift wall. It seemed to Vera to be the height of stupidity—how could you possibly contain dust with trees?—and then she saw the thick expanse of leaves extending from every inch of tree bark. They spread outward, connecting with one another in a thick latticework of green that built itself like a dome over the whirlwind.
“Wait,” she interrupted. “Seth’s in there—”
“Oh ye of little faith.” John smiled. “See—”
The rest of his words were drowned out by the avalanche of rockets that suddenly whistled through the air overhead. Vera gasped in horror as they curved downward, sailing into the depths of the whirlwind. The stiltwalker launched another salvo, but it was hardly necessary, for the first rockets began to explode, and a scream forced its way up her throat—
“He’s a friend, goddammit,” Simon raged. “You idiots—”
A tiny chunk of the dome’s exterior fell away as a vine reached in and wr
enched something out. Vera’s scream died away, for she thought she recognized the figure, but somewhere within the dome, the explosive began to detonate in force. A burst of sickly orange light shone through the translucent leaves, and the makeshift canopy bulged outward as though it were about to burst. She tensed, waiting for the raging inferno that billowed beneath the dome to explode outward and consume them all. Much to her amazement, somehow the makeshift shield held, trapping the fire inside. As the clap of thunder echoed away, she thought she could make out the sound of a piercing wail.
Several meters away, one of John’s vines whipped forward, slamming Seth face-first into the ground. “Oh sweet Heaven,” his muffled moan sounded through a mouthful of dirt. “Everything hurts.”
Vera tossed aside her pistol and ran to his side. “Seth,” she called out, trying to hide the waver in her voice. “Seth, are you—” She awkwardly rolled him onto his side and winced at his bruised and bloodied face.
“Is it bad?” Seth mumbled. One of his lips had been split clean down the middle, revealing the giant chunk of bone that had been torn out of his two front teeth. Both of his eyes were so swollen that he could barely even squint, and his nose looked as though it had been broken in three separate places.
He looks like he ran headfirst into a brick wall, Vera privately thought. Still, she couldn’t help but let out a nervous laugh of relief.
“Er—it could be worse,” John said tacitly. His eyes flickered to where they had last seen Salome the Prophet, hacking away at Lao. “It could be a lot…worse…” His voice feebly died away.
Vera raised her eyes to see what he was looking at, though she already suspected she knew what it was. And sure enough, Salome stood before them, a hundred soldiers at her back. A stiltwalker thudded into position just behind her and lowered its twin miniguns so that they were squarely aimed at the Horsemen. All of a sudden, John’s plan of shouting I work for Salome didn’t seem as though it were going to work.
“And what…” Salome paused to scratch at one of the bandages around her face. A piece of crusted skin came away, releasing a squirt of bloody pus from what might have once been her nose. “Is that supposed to mean?”
“Uh, I didn’t—you see…” John weakly tried. “I was just…”
Another wail suddenly echoed from the smoldering dome of vegetation that he had built to contain the blast. “Father!” Seth shouted. He instantly sprang to his feet, knocking the others back, and turned to stare in horror at the burning prison. “He’s in—John! Take it down! Take it down now!” With that, he sprinted toward the makeshift prison, his previous wounds already forgotten.
John raised one of his hands to bring down the dome.
“Don’t be stupid,” Salome snarled. “The one in there serves the Master. Let him burn.”
“John! Lower it NOW!” Seth shouted over his shoulder.
“Keep the barrier up,” Salome said in a voice as cold as ice. “That is an order, John.” As if to emphasize her point, the barrels of the stiltwalker’s minigun began to ever-so-slightly rotate.
John gazed at Salome’s bandaged face for a moment, as though deep in thought. He glanced over at the others, the silent question present in his eyes.
“Maybe,” Simon grudgingly admitted.
Amaury was uncharacteristically quiet, but he gave John the tiniest nod.
“Do not test me, Horsemen,” Salome warned. “This is a war for Hell, you fools—if we show any weakness, any sentiment at all, we are worse than dead.” She raised her hand, and the gathered soldiers took careful aim. Crossbows, machine guns, beam-cannons; it was nothing the Horsemen hadn’t faced before, but in their present condition they’d be little more than ground meat from all that firepower.
“You won’t do it,” Vera decided. “You need us, Prophet.”
“Do I now?” Salome’s eyes glowered with fury. “Test me if you wish.”
Without a word, John snapped his fingers. The top of the dome began to crumble, releasing a great cloud of smoke and heat that radiated up into the sky.
Salome let out a little gasp of anger, and for a moment the army tensed, waiting for her command—but it never came.
“I read minds, Prophet.” Vera grinned. “You need us, and we both know it.” It was a complete bluff, but one that miraculously seemed to have paid off.
The dome continued to crumble away, releasing more of Adam’s screams of pain into the sky. Seth reached the edge of it and dove through the layer of burnt leaves to where his father waited.
Next to Vera, Simon brushed something away from his eyes. He gazed down at the clear drop of moisture on his finger with something like astonishment. “We aren’t the Master,” he haltingly said.
“Then we are worse than damned,” Salome cursed. “Fools.”
The last remnants of the dome tumbled into dust, revealing the crater of scorched earth that Salome’s grenade had carved into the ground. Seth knelt over the shrunken, blackened body left in the center of it all and gently took it in his arms. A new cry echoed through the dead city: that of a son mourning his father.
18
From her perch on an outcrop of decaying wood, Podarge watched with relish as the heaven-man mourned over the First Man. Meat was good, tears were better, but tears of those from Paradise? Those were the best of all. Delicious, she thought. With every fiber of her being, the harpy wanted to swoop down and lick the salty little droplets from the heaven-man’s face, but she was already on thin ice with the heaven-man anyway. The First Man, damn him, had very nearly given the game away…
He suspects, she knew. It was best to lay low for now, follow the Horsemen, and attract as little attention as possible. More fun this way.
A new scent wafted to the harpy—not the deliciously enticing scent of burnt flesh, but something else entirely. She shifted her gaze, searching the horizon for the origin. Whatever it was, it was big, and coming fast. Podarge cocked her head to the side, trying to understand what the strange scent was. Something about it was familiar… A demon, the harpy suddenly realized. Her feathers rustled in fear. Not just any demon, either, but one of the Old Guard, one of the Kings of Hell. In the old days, beasts like that ruled over entire kingdoms of the damned.
Warn them, Podarge thought. She opened her human-like mouth to let out a warning squawk—
No, the tiny Voice inside her whispered.
Podarge had heard the Voice exactly four times over the past two thousand years, but she knew to obey it without question. She immediately slammed her mouth shut, although her gaze remained fixed on the horizon. Her beady eyes could just barely make out the faintest dot soaring among the pillars of smoke. The humans below her remained blissfully unaware of their impending doom.
She idly wondered what the Voice intended, even though she knew it was useless to question the motives of the divine. She only hoped that, whatever happened, there would be plenty of meat.
Meat and tears, yes. Podarge licked her lips in anticipation. Delicious.
19
Salome studied the mourning Seth with cold eyes. “Keep an eye on that one,” she ordered, and a squad of soldiers rushed forward, surrounding Seth and Adam in a circle of machine guns. Seth did not pay them the slightest bit of attention; a faint moan of despair crossed his lips as he stared down at the blackened corpse in his hands.
“Let me help,” Amaury suggested. He took a step forward, eagerly rubbing the Mark on his palm. “Maybe I can—”
The stiltwalker’s miniguns immediately swiveled to face him down.
“You will all stay right there,” Salome snapped. “Until I think of what to do with you.”
Amaury shot her a rude hand gesture, but he did not dare move.
“This isn’t necessary,” John pleaded. “Look, we’re all on the same side.”
“So who exactly is she supposed to be again?” Simon asked suspiciously.
It was at that moment that Podarge swooped down from the sky and landed on the hilt of Simon’s sword. “S
alome,” the harpy squawked. “Pretty-Prophet.”
“I know that devil,” Salome muttered in surprise. “The harpy that followed Antony around… I thought it was dead.” She shook the thought away. “Either way, your devil is smarter than she looks. You gaze upon Salome the Seductress, rightful Queen of Hell. If you wish to kneel, I wouldn’t object.”
“You’re the last Prophet left,” Amaury sneered. “You fuckers have been trying to hunt us down across all of Upper Hell, and we’ve thrashed you every time. Seems pretty fucking stupid to just walk up to us like this, doesn’t it?”
A hundred rifles clicked into position as Salome’s troops took aim. “I do have an army,” she pointed out. “And in case you didn’t notice, I just saved your worthless hides. A little gratitude would take you a long way, Horseman.”
“There’s no such thing as gratitude in Hell.” Amaury’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want from us?”
Before Salome had a chance to reply, one of her soldiers ran up and whispered something in her ear. Beneath the bandages, her eyes widened—though in fear or excitement, Simon was unable to say. “Faster than I expected,” the Prophet muttered to herself. She turned to face her gathered troops.
“Sisera’s War Train just entered Dis,” she announced. “The Eighteenth is almost here. Looks like we’ve got an entire legion coming to reinforce us.”
A few of the soldiers gave a ragged cheer, but the nervous mutterings and glances among them told Simon a different story. He didn’t need Vera’s powers to put together the pieces. Another player just entered the game and this “Queen of Hell” is afraid she’s about to be overthrown. And inevitably—
“Come with me, Horsemen,” Salome announced. “You can tend to that thing”—she jerked her head over to where Seth knelt over Adam—“later. In the meantime, there’s more work to be done!”
