“Truly, I can only imagine the eagerness you must feel,” the wizened ghul said and offered a telltale smile that made Milo very nervous all of a sudden. “In fact, I was told you displayed some of your talents on your road to join us today.”
Milo became aware of the skull with its glowing sockets tucked under his arm.
“A trifle, I am sure.” Milo shrugged, hoping he sounded modest and not rudely dismissive. “It wouldn’t have been possible without some impromptu education by Imrah and Fazihr.”
Milo heard more whispers, many of them angrier and more urgent than before. He wondered if perhaps he had said something wrong, and he couldn’t help himself; he tried to peer into the shadows beyond the spheres of light. A low, drowning chuckle passed between Marid’s emaciated lips, snapping Milo’s attention back to the monster he could see.
“I am well pleased that those I sent offered you such assistance,” Marid said, leaning forward fractionally on his throne. “Indeed, I would love an opportunity to see your abilities, for my own edification and that of my court.”
Milo smelled something funny in the request, but it seemed clear that refusal at this stage would be unwise.
“I am at your disposal,” Milo said with a short bow and was glad for a chance to hide a wince. Given what ghuls seemed to do with humanlike creatures, he suddenly wondered to what extent these creatures might take such an offer.
“Excellent,” Marid said, though his tone had become deadly serious. “Taking the lamp in your hands, I would ask you to command it to shine brighter. Strong enough that none here may doubt that you are what you claim, my dear Magus.”
Milo drew the lamp in front of him, hands gripping the bases of the horns, feeling the trembling auras there still, though they were a touch thinner and more strained than when he'd first encountered them in the tunnel. All around him, he heard the unsettling sibilance of the court whispering, prognosticating, and simmering with suspicion. Milo was sure how it was to be done, but taking what he’d learned from Imrah moments before and the initial ritual, he guessed it was a matter of will at this point.
“BRIGHT,” he said and breathed across the dome of the skull.
The skull’s illumination flared for a second but settled back to its original level as though it was too tired to answer to his instruction.
Marid said nothing, only watched through narrowed eyes as the susurrating sea of whispers grew louder.
Command it, he told himself angrily. Predator or prey, Milo. Which is it going to be?
The words shot through him, reviving deeply buried memories−hard, ugly things. Milo drew on that anger and repugnance like a flame drawing breath from a bellows.
“BRIGHT!” he demanded, blowing over the skull, then thrusting it up over his head.
Brilliant rays of light, stabbing out in shades of emerald, lanced from the skull’s open sockets. Milo could feel the alchemical ingredients within thrumming, a trembling force caught between his hands. Turning in a slow circle for all to see, he watched, gratified, as the now-silent courtiers recoiled from the stabbing light as it played across their hunched forms.
His display done, Milo lowered the skull in front of him, noting that the light shone so bright he could see it slipping through the hairline seams in the skull, a spiderweb of illumination. It was warm in his hands too. Not uncomfortably so, but he nonetheless sensed the change.
Milo looked up at Marid, who was studying him intently; the predator was scheming and assessing. Milo could hardly guess his aims, but the consideration was enough. It seemed whatever happened, Marid could not dismiss him.
While thinking about dismissal, Milo wondered how he could still feel the magic thrumming through the skull, but he found that explainable enough. No sooner did he feel the desire growing in him than the light within began to dim. Soon it was only a faint glow, less than it had been before.
The reality of magic responding intuitively to his desires set off a distant alarm in Milo’s mind, but before he could examine it, his attention was drawn back to the throne.
“Exceptional,” Bashlek Marid declared, his tone implying both regard and what might have been warmth. “I confess I was doubtful about your leader’s message that one of your kind possessed the gift, but I see now my suspicions were unfounded. With such a display, none can doubt—”
“That he should be destroyed!”
The declaration came from the back lowest gallery to Milo’s right, and the eyes of man and ghul swung around to search for the speaker.
Emerging from the shadows, a tall, whip-thin ghul strutted into the light, an ivory mantle upon its narrow shoulders, complete with stole. It didn’t move with the customary hunched skulk of its kind, instead stepping forth with sure strides, head held high. Upon its pointed brow was a thin band of barbed iron and bone on which an assortment of crystals hung from thin fob-like chains. With each defiant step, the crystals swung and set up a sound like shards of glass falling.
“Welcome, my Lady Ubhalla Dazk,” the Bashlek said in a tone that conveyed no hint of welcome. “I am glad to see you have returned to our court at last.”
“Not for any love of it, I can assure you,” the strident she-ghul replied, continuing to advance with slow, measured steps. “I have come only to do my part to preserve our people from this blasphemous endeavor.”
Milo was so focused on the exchange between the monarch and the noble that he hadn’t realized Ambrose had moved to his side, which turned out to be just as well. From behind Lady Dazk, a pair of ghuls with clubs made from sigil-marked femurs appeared, and behind them was one of the ogrish ghuls, wielding what looked very much like a very ornate and very filthy meat cleaver.
Milo searched the room, expecting guards, either armed ghuls, or maybe some of the animated dead in their baroque armor, to emerge, but none did. For the moment, it seemed Milo and Ambrose were lethally exposed.
“Blasphemy is a serious charge, my lady,” Marid remarked dryly, clearly unimpressed. “But if you hold it to be so, why not test this Magus and his consort? Let us see if the Powers Beneath bear out your charge.”
“Don’t play games with me, Marid,” the she-ghul snarled as she came to a stop a few strides away from where Milo and Ambrose stood. “Swear the Contest of Abjuration here and now before all if you are so confident. It should be a simple matter. Otherwise, the human should be brought to the temple for sanctification by excruciation.”
Milo only understood part of what was flying back and forth between the ghuls, but what he did understand had him drawing his pistol. Ambrose already had his rifle to his shoulder.
”One word, Magus,” he murmured, his voice icily calm. “One word and I make the front end look like the back end. Topsy-turvy, simple as that.”
Milo almost gave the order, content to go down fighting since whatever their rituals, he didn’t imagine the ghuls would take kindly to gunplay at court. Still, he wasn’t about to be handed over to some monster’s priest to be tortured for whatever mad reason the devil had. Thankfully for all involved, Marid spoke before Milo could give his answer.
“A very inhospitable way to conduct court, my lady,” he chided, stroking the length of his crimson stole thoughtfully. “But I suppose you have your rights, here most of all. However, before we commence, please let me explain the situation to the poor things since they seem terribly confused. The portly one looks ready to shoot you if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Topsy-turvy?” Ambrose muttered hopefully from the side of his mouth.
“No tricks, Marid,” Lady Dazk warned, then turned sharply and skulked back to her brutish entourage.
Milo, careful to let his pistol hang down at his side, glanced at the Bashlek.
Ambrose didn’t move a muscle.
“Some clarity?” Milo asked.
The Bashlek turned from the lady and looked down at Milo before giving a slightly distracted wave of his claws.
“A minor inconvenience.” He sighed. “She’s drawing on an
cient traditions to try to embarrass me. Dispose of the minor annoyances she’s about to throw at you, and we can get you settled into your...educational schedule.”
Milo looked at the hulking ghul looming across the hall.
Minor annoyances were apparently larger in the Underworld.
10
An Improvisation
When the violence happened, Milo was almost caught unawares.
The ceremony for the Contest of Abjuration seemed lengthy and convoluted, and it was conducted entirely in the Ghulish tongue. Several successive advances and retreats by the Lady Dazk and her retainers had seen Milo and Ambrose nearly start shooting, convinced this was when the fight began. Each time they’d barely held back, which was just as well because it was soon revealed it was just another part of the ceremony.
“When we finally get this thing started,” Ambrose had whispered to Milo, rifle still at his shoulder, “I’ll take the big one. Pretty sure that little Luger will just make him angry.”
Milo looked at the pistol and agreed with the bodyguard, though given the size of the beast they faced, he wasn’t sure the Nephilim’s rifle would do much better.
“How can you tell the males from the females?” Milo asked.
Despite the skintight garments every ghul was wearing, Milo had been unable to determine obvious indicators of sex among the creatures. It was an odd thing to be vexed about at the moment, but he had nothing better to do.
“I can’t,” Ambrose confessed, one side of his face hitching up in a lopsided smile. “But I’m hoping something that big and ugly is male. Otherwise I might have to pity her…uh, it… Damnation, see what questions get you? Him!”
Milo chuckled a little at that. He didn’t feel braver or more hopeful, but if he had to face death, he’d be glad to do it beside someone like Simon Ambrose.
The glow of camaraderie vanished the second Lady Dazk, standing clear of her chosen champions, gave a final shriek and stabbed a condemning claw in their direction. With an inhuman bellow, the huge ghul bounded forward, the smaller ghul loping along behind it, femur clubs in its knobby fists.
“Finally!” Ambrose cried, a wild, joyful sound.
His Gewehr 98 roared, the sound the very bellow of war in that stony hall.
First blood was theirs as the heavy round punched into the bulging deltoid muscles beside the brute’s head, exiting in a gout of blue-black ichor. The beast’s roar grew louder, but it did not go down or even miss a step.
Ambrose had already worked the bolt on his rifle, a thoughtlessly fluid motion that chambered another round. He corrected his aim and fired again, sending this one glancing off the creature's skull and then, as smoothly as a well-oiled machine, he sank another shot into the massive chest. The big man was chambering another when Milo realized he too was armed and should probably be shooting.
One of the ghuls was behind the bulk of the charging ogre, but the other was swinging wide, like a wolf encircling prey.
“Brighter!” Milo bellowed to the skull cupped in one hand, and a trio of intense green beams shot forth.
The ghul hissed and recoiled under the light, one hand still holding the club while the other covered its eyes. Its steps stuttered and slowed as it wilted in the lamp’s brilliance. It called out to its companions in its sinister language and pointed with its club as it staggered to almost a complete stop, pinned by the stabbing illumination.
Milo knew he wasn’t going to get a better shot, so he leveled his Luger.
The cracking pop of the weapon seemed almost effeminate next to the roar of the Gewehr, but all three rounds found their mark in the ghul’s narrow chest. Thick dark blood bubbled out of its wounds, glistening on its breast, and with a wet gasp, the ghul pitched over.
The thrill of success lasted until Milo saw that the huge ghul had reached Ambrose.
Despite nearly a half-dozen bloody wounds, the monster moved with frightening speed and power, bearing down unerringly on Milo’s bodyguard despite its lack of eyes. Its arms swept wide, it leapt forward even as Ambrose dove to the side to escape the fatal embrace. He was still bowled over by the sheer mass of the beast.
Ambrose rolled one direction across the floor and his Gewehr clattered in another, the man and his rifle separated by a roaring monster. By the time he sprang to his feet, he’d drawn a knife, a butcher-bladed Seitengewehr with a saw-edged spine. Ambrose didn’t wait for the larger opponent to come for him but leapt forward, dagger flashing.
For all his bodyguard’s ferocity, Milo wasn’t sure what a third of a meter of steel could do against something so massive, but he was spared the consideration because in the spectacle, he had forgotten about the other ghul.
He swung his pistol around a fraction of a second too late and only managed to send a round whining off the stone floor as an engraved femur smashed across his shoulder. Milo staggered sideways, reeling from the blow and desperate to keep his grip on his Luger. Spinning, he tried to bring the blinding lamp and his sidearm to bear, but the knobby pommel of the bone cudgel crashed across his jaw.
Milo was thrown back and landed hard on his rump. He tried to raise the pistol, but hard claws seized the weapon and gave a cruel twist. Milo fell back and screamed as his trigger finger gave a gristly pop, then the pistol was out of his hand and skittering across the floor. Throbbing, thought-destroying pain surged from his mangled hand, and more by instinct than artifice, Milo kicked out, planting his foot in the belly of the ghul.
Common ghuls seemed to be viciously fast, unnaturally strong, and grotesquely resilient, but for all that, they were stooped, thin creatures. With his back braced against the unyielding floor, Milo’s agony-fueled kick sent his attacker tumbling back and bought him a few precious seconds.
As he forced himself to breathe, Milo knew he couldn’t even form a fist to punch with his right hand, and the ripples of pain were making it hard to think. Beneath them, he felt a bone-deep lethargy almost like a sickness threatening to well up and drag him into unconsciousness. Milo raged against the unnatural stupor, feeling a malign will press against his own before he finally shook it off like a clinging parasite.
Gritting his teeth as he drew and expelled hissing breaths, Milo hefted the only thing left to him: the skull lamp. Unsure if he would try to blind his enemy like the last ghul or just smash it into the thing’s face, Milo gingerly gripped the horns with both hands.
Milo’s gaze swung up, and he saw that the ghul was on its feet again and coming for him. He was doomed. He was a few bludgeoning strikes from that unholy bone smashing his face in.
Then he felt the trembling powers within the skull and remembered another element of Imrah’s demonstration.
“There are variations and improvisations available. What should heal could turn to poison in an instant.”
Marshaling himself despite the pain of his broken finger, Milo called out to what lay within the skull.
“BURN!” he commanded.
The light vanished for a single heartbeat and the ghul sprang forward, club ready to deal the fatal blow.
With a snarling rush, venomous jade flames rushed out of the outstretched skull. They struck the ghul in the chest and enfolded it like the tentacles of a hungry sea demon. The ghul staggered back, weaponized femur falling from its fingers, and threw its head back to scream. The greedy tentacles of flame enclosed its head and swam down its throat, drowning its shrieking in their crackle. Milo’s attacker staggered back one more step before sinking to its knees and pitching onto its side. The witchfire quickly lapped across the body, eagerly devouring it.
Milo turned, skull still clutched in his throbbing grip, as he heard a bullish bellow behind him.
Like an enraged bovine, the huge ghul twisted and bucked, sometimes on all fours, sometimes standing. Gelatinous strands of ichor flew, and for a second, Milo couldn’t tell what had possessed the brute. Then with a great crashing heave, the creature threw itself to the floor, and Ambrose flew off the monster’s back just in time to avoid
being rolled on.
The big man tumbled across the stone floor toward Milo and was on his feet in an instant. His bayonet blade was still in his hand, slick with the dark, stringy blood that also covered his hands and the sleeves of his coat up to the elbows. The strained buttons of the coat had finally failed, and it flapped open to reveal an undershirt smeared with ghul blood. The tectonic slabs of his powerful chest flexed as the coils of muscle banding his wide stomach rippled under the filthy, clinging cotton.
“Where’s your pistol?” Ambrose huffed, keeping one eye on the floundering beast that had just realized Ambrose was not on its back.
Milo shrugged, then held up the skull lamp.
“And?” Ambrose asked, cocking an eyebrow as he started to tug off the coat. “What’s that going to do?”
Milo smiled hungrily, and the big man gave him a sidelong glance before nodding at the huge ghul that was struggling to its feet.
“Watch and learn,” Milo instructed. He stepped toward the ogre ghul, quietly and desperately hoping he wasn’t being fatally arrogant.
The vibrations within the skull were even more strained than before, but Milo believed, or at least very badly wanted to, that it would be enough. Besides, the creature was bleeding profusely, and supporting itself on tree-trunk legs, its whole body trembled.
“Surrender or die,” Milo called as he stood his ground, the horned lamp held out before him.
The ghul growled something deep in its chest, punching down with one huge fist to shiver the floor in front of it. As chips of stone flew out, Milo suddenly felt far less confident. One blow like that could take his head clean off or ram his sternum into his spine. The skull suddenly felt heavy and yet was so small, a lead weight that he’d been foolish enough to jump into deep waters with. Now he was in over his head.
Command! Milo screamed inside his head. Will it so, or you will be dead!
He saw the immense muscles bunching across the ghul’s legs, back, and shoulders and knew this was it. Digging deep into every pain, injustice, and fear that had shaped him, Milo gripped the skull tight, snarling through the pain from his broken finger. Teeth bared, he gathered breath along with his will as the brute launched its charge.
Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) Page 11
