by J M Hamm
I began to lash out in all directions, firing arcane bolts from my human arm while the other cut through bone, like a razor-lined whip through warm butter. The Peacekeepers had already gotten over their shock and continued to shoot into the encroaching horde with heavy machine gun fire punctuated by concussive grenades.
I fought, for minutes or hours I don’t know. It all blurred together, until a lull in the attack allowed me to catch my breath. The bone golems where no longer attacking, but had instead started turning to look up at the sky.
Rather than turn to look, I immediately took advantage of the situation and picked up Catayla’s limp form. I flung her over my shoulder. She was surprisingly heavy. Even with my strength enhanced by eldritch power, she would slow me down.
“We need to get out of here,” I yelled.
Boss Lady looked at me, but only shook her head and extended a clawed finger, pointing behind me.
The second transport, still intact, was charging through the horde of bone. It was far away but moving quickly — launching into the air as it crested mounds of bone. A powerful headlight stabbed through the mist like a blade, and rapid muzzle flashes erupted as undead bone fell broken to the ground.
“Oh, thank God.” I allowed myself to relax slightly, as my fatigue finally caught up with my adrenaline-fueled strength. “We’re saved.”
I heard a sharp exhale, and a slow wheezing gasp. I turned back towards Boss Lady, but she was slumped over. Blood poured from her mouth, and a large golden spear pinned her to the roof of the destroyed transport.
The other two soldiers were firing their rifles upward but were quickly cut down as well; a beautifully crafted golden spear through each of their spines.
“No...” I meant to yell, but the word fell from my mouth in a barely audible whimper. One more thing I tried to save, destroyed in front of me.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” I directed my rage towards the heavens.
Above me hovered a great bird, with two pairs of wings. The wings on the left mere molted, with bits of bone sticking through rotting flesh. The wings on the right were black, like raven wings as large as a tractor-trailer. They beat slowly, creating a powerful squall that pushed down on me. The groan of bending metal cried out from beneath my feet.
“Ah, Gus,” the creature said in a feminine, familiar voice. “Don’t you have anything to say to an old friend?”
I looked up in shock. What I had thought was a bird, was not. It was dwarfed by the incredible size of its two sets of mighty wings, but at the center I clearly saw the body of a female human. I focused on her face and found a visage hideously deformed.
The left half of the creature’s face was twisted, burnt flesh that barely clung to exposed bone. The eye was a swirling vortex of misty black with a burning red ember at its center. But the other half …
Red lips surrounded by pristine porcelain-smooth skin, supple and flawless. A mane of untangled hair spilled out behind her, like a golden halo. She smiled, a vindictive grin, as realization dawned on my face.
“Liv…”
“I am not Liv, not anymore." Her voice was exactly as I remembered. It was deep and sultry, pleasant to listen to and with a hint of innocence mixed with new found maturity — I found it intoxicating. "Sweet boy, embrace me as you once did.”
She spread her arms wide as she began to descend, as if walking down invisible stairs — a long, green gown with golden trim trailing behind her. The Golems began to reach upwards, bones clattering together in macabre applause.
“Kneel before your queen,” a thick, raspy howl rose up around me. The bone golems were all speaking in unison. “Kneel before the Goddess, Hel.”
Chapter Fifty-six: The Darkness Before Dawn
The being that shared half its face with one of my oldest and dearest friends continued to descend, her feet finding purchase on empty air. Her wings slowly shrank and folded behind her like a feathery, mismatched cape. Apparently, they were not needed to maintain flight. Liv always had been one for dramatics.
“… But how?” I stammered.
I was horrified at the implications of her appearance, but a large part of me was relieved to see her alive. Could she finally explain what was happening? God, did she know about Troy? Did she know what he had become, and what I had done? These thoughts crashed through my head, silencing questions of much graver import.
“Hold on, Finn,” she said. Her voice was soft and seductive, with no trace of the vileness that invaded her flesh. “Our reunion can wait. We have other friends coming over to play. It would be rude not to invite them in.”
She extended the broken, charred flesh that was her right hand and closed her claw-like fingers into a fist. I followed her gaze to the second Peacekeeper transport, which was charging up another mound of bone. Just as the transport reached the apex, it’s front two tires beginning to gain air, the mound exploded.
“Fuck, Liv,” I screamed. “Please, you don’t have to do this. You know I’m not your enemy.”
“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Your new toys are fine, see?”
Broken bits of bone were still raining down around us, but when I looked back to the destroyed mound, I found another of the giant bonetacles reaching into the sky. It wrapped around the Peacekeeper vehicle, swallowing it into a mass of bone. Slowly, the giant limb began to move towards me — bringing the transport with it.
“Liv, I don’t know what…”
“You don’t need to say anything, Finn.” She continued her descent until she was standing before me on an invisible plane of air. “It’s enough that you stand with me.”
“I don’t … but stand with you against what?”
“Against the world, Finn. Everyone and everything.” She reached out and cupped my cheek with her unmarred hand. I placed my inhuman hand over her pale flesh, leaning into her embrace.
“This entire fucking universe would see us slaves, homogenous drones, to serve a broken system. A system that has invaded even you. We are more, don’t you see? We can be gods, Finn. It’s our birthright, given to us by the Founder, his greatness knows no bounds.”
Behind me I heard a crash and the groan of bending steel. My eyes stayed firmly locked on Liv’s. There was a strange beauty to the sharp contrast of her new form, a fierceness mixed with the pureness of her former self. The vortex of her empty eye socket drew me in, even as an eye of beautiful sapphire-blue promised me warmth and love.
“And you would what?” I asked. “Tear down the system, and kill thousands, billions — just for power? I can’t support that Liv. Don’t you know what your ambition did to Troy?”
“Troy?”
Earsplitting laughter echoed through the bone-lined hills and canyons. It was an inhuman screech, like the mocking call of a stalking predator.
“Troy was never one of us. Just a disposable tool, though it is unfortunate you had to kill my serpent. He would have been so much fun.” She sighed in annoyance, a blackened hand coming to rest on her hip.
“But then, who am I to deny my former paramour his jealousy.” She pulled her fingers across my cheek until they came to rest below my mouth. “I do hope you enjoyed the feel of his flesh coming apart in your hands. The power you hold, Finn! Isn’t it intoxicating?”
I pulled back, pushing away her hand. I found her strength to be unmovable, but she slowly drew her fingers back. Her jaw set, jutting forward slightly, and she crossed her arms over her chest. I’d seen the same expression on her face countless times, often right before she began to pout.
“I don’t want this power, Liv. You think I wanted to kill him? Troy was my best friend! Your husband, once …”
She exploded into motion, and before I could register what was happening a single hand was wrapped around my throat. She slowly raised me above her head. “Troy was nothing, Finn! It was always you — we were to rule together, until …”
She dropped me into a ball on the ground, my hands grasping at my t
hroat as I desperately sought to breathe. Liv crouched down, cradling my head in her arms. During the confusion I lost track of Catayla's unconscious form, leaving her to slide unseen into a bed of bones — slowly buried alive.
“But I had you, didn’t I?” Her smile twisted into a grin as she began to stroke my hair. “That small piece of you, I carried it. I nurtured it. You must have known. Didn’t it kill you to see another man claim your daughter as his own? You should have fought! You watched her grow, and never knew her true importance.”
“Import…” I tried to speak, each syllable was like gargling with acid. “Why didn’t you tell me? Cat … was mine?”
I sat up, ignoring the pain in my lungs. Her powerful hands made no motion to stop me, and she chose to stand. She twirled in a graceful circle and bent over, bringing her face within inches of my own. I could smell her, it was like burnt flowers and freshly spilled blood.
I met her gaze, both of us unspeaking for long seconds. I grabbed her by the throat, and jumped to my feet in a single, powerful motion. Liv’s smile only widened.
“What the fuck happened to her, Liv? Where the hell is my daughter?” I screamed. I attempted to move her, to squeeze her throat into paste; but it was like fighting a rock wall.
“Hel,” she laughed. “Happened to her. It’s your father you should blame — you were to be a king among gods. He burned the Mantle, cleansed his blood in fire. He stole your birthright and he perished for it.”
She slapped away my hand, shattering the bones in my wrist. “But the foolish son of a bitch didn’t know he had another heir. We always knew his misgivings. My mother spent hundreds of years trying to capture his seed. In the end, the task fell to me.”
I held my shattered hand and looked at her in horror. I was done speaking, I had no idea what to say. The Liv I knew was dead, or perhaps had never existed at all.
“You could say,” she said sweetly. “That this beautiful new world began the moment our lovemaking ended. What greater creation could a parent hope for?”
She approached me, twinning her fingers behind my neck. I made no attempt to stop her as she slowly pressed her lips to mine. She tasted of ash and spoiled meat. When she pulled away, she let out a soft moan of pleasure.
“I’ve missed you, Finn. I never expected to develop such fondness for you, yet here we are.” She gave a half grin and began to twirl her hair with one finger. “I’m just a goddess, standing in front of a boy…”
I plunged my right arm into her stomach. Each finger lengthened into jagged blades, twirling as they tore through flesh. “You killed her!”
My face contorted in pain, anguish I never knew existed. I stabbed her repeatedly, each time my hand coming away with thick chunks of flesh as blood stained the ground. “You fucking bitch. I will end you!”
A kick sent me flying, half burying me in fine, white powder. I stood, brushing the dust from my eyes and jacket. My legs felt rubbery, and I swayed as I walked back towards the self-proclaimed goddess. I would kill her, even if it killed me.
“You wound me, Finn.” She said, jutting out her lower lip slightly. “I mean, not really. More … metaphorically.”
My right arm had lost all feeling, and as I looked down, I found it had become a shapeless clump. I had lost control of the energy that formed the limb, and it was beginning to droop like melting wax. Liv’s midsection was a hole full of blood and ash but it was already beginning to mend.
“You don’t know what you could have been, what it means to be a God! I’d kill a thousand daughters to feel this. Mine, yours, I don’t care.” Her face contorted into a savage snarl before gentling. She walked forward and reached out to caress my cheek once more.
“You should know, before I kill you,” she said while placing a finger under my chin. She lifted my face until our eyes met.
“In the end, I couldn’t do it.” She shook her head and turned, looking over the fields of death she had created. “I felt some … sentimentality. It was Troy who slit her throat, spilled her blood upon the altar. She looked up at him afterward. Her last sight was of her murderer, the only father she ever knew. I could see the pleading in her eyes as they slowly darkened. It killed me too, Finn. She never knew why she had to die.”
“You’re a monster, Liv,” I no longer had the energy to shout or lash out. I faced her eye-to-eye, refusing to back down. “I will kill you.”
“Oh, Finn. My little Gussy Gus, you won’t be killing anyone.” She stretched out her black hand, ash falling from it in gentle wisps. A golden spear began to form in her closed fist. “You will watch me kill your friends, and then you will beg me to spare you as I carve out your heart as an offering to the Founder, may he rule once more!”
Hands made of bone reached up from below. I struggled to free myself as they slowly pulled me beneath the surface, leaving only my head uncovered. I had a perfect view of the shattered and smashed transport. Sebbit and several of his subordinates had slowly crawled from the wreckage and were lying around it, propped up against debris — rifles trained forward.
Liv laughed as bullets landed futilely around her. Sebbit held an impractically large revolver that fired grenades, but every shot exploded several feet before reaching the goddess. Her wings unfurled behind her and she rose into the sky, pillars of purple light filtering between the gaps in her feathers.
I couldn’t move my body, but I was not entirely powerless. As golden spears began to rain over the injured Peacekeepers, I created a shimmering black-red dome to shield them. The spears broke by the dozens, each time creating long, winding cracks in my barrier. I filled the weaknesses as quickly as possible, but the barrage continued, and the mental fatigue was beginning to slow my reactions.
I bought Sebbit and his women a few final moments, but eventually my shield broke under the relentless onslaught. Black armor was rent by golden spear, and flesh was torn and perforated. Screams filled the air as soldiers died under that misty sky.
A weak, gurgling laugh pulled me from my remorse. Sebbit was still alive, though multiple spears pinned him to the ground. He pulled one from his leg and tossed it aside. The ones piercing his stomach and shoulder remained.
“May I request some final words?” Sebbit’s usually reserved voice rang out with power and conviction. Hope filled me, and I used the distraction to begin working my arm free of its restraints.
“The goddess Hel will grant your request,” her voice was deep and resounding, as if it came from the heavens themselves. “Give me your final words and I shall carry them into the halls of Valhalla.”
“That will not be necessary, but thank you,” the captain’s voice was beginning to waver. “I just wanted to express my gratitude at having served my queen, the Resplendent Wave, for over a hundred cycles. May she someday know peace.”
Sebbit coughed, blood flowing over his chin. He paused to pull a white cloth from a small chest pocket, dabbing carefully at the corners of his mouth.
“Is that all?” Hel boomed.
“Not quite, thank you.” Sebbit dropped the cloth to the ground, his administration having done nothing to lessen the blood that covered his face. “I also wanted to thank Mr. Finn for buying my people the time they needed. He will know glory in his time, but yours is up.”
A golden spear pierced the heart of Captain Sebbit’Task Orvillio Xern. As he took his final breath, a golden sun rose in the east.
Chapter Fifty-seven: Hubris, Slayer of Gods
I watched Sebbit’s lifeblood seep into bone, adding to the carnage that lay beneath him. He met his death with the same quiet dignity and staunch professionalism that he showed in life. I imagine he followed protocol even in the end.
As the captain’s eyes closed a brilliant golden light filled the sky. The intensity continued to increase until everything was awash in brilliant hues of white and gold, as if the sky had been consumed in fire. The air began to shimmer, and scattered bone cracked under the growing heat.
A defiant shriek descended from ab
ove. Liv still hovered above me, but her face had contorted in horror. Her wings beat frantically, yet she seemed unable to make headway against whatever force restricted her. The demigoddess’ cries and struggle became more desperate as the light and heat continued to increase.
The world itself seemed to answer her call; the earth and bones that trapped me began to shake, producing a chattering rattle that I felt before I heard. The small fragments of bone vibrated as they began to move around me like a liquid, slowly drawing me beneath their pale white surface. As my face was covered by bony quicksand, a powerful flash became visible even through the growing layer above me.
A thunderous boom split open the sky, soon followed by a powerful shockwave that pulled me into its grasp. The wave of force carried me backward, a cloud of dust billowing around me. The force of the impact had blown through my shields, depleting the last of my mana. I was unable to gain enough orientation or focus to bring to bear the enormous amount of eldritch energy surrounding me. Every attempt I made to create a shield formed too late, protecting an empty pocket of air I had already long passed.
I tried growing a cocoon of eldritch energy around myself to act as a cushion, but it was forming too slowly. I could already see the ground growing large beneath me. In the fraction of a second before I landed, I did the only thing I could think of, using eldritch mimicry to create a partially-real copy of the arcane shield spell. It would stop a large percentage of the damage, and unlike mana, eldritch energy was an almost unlimited resource.
Hopefully it would be enough.
As I landed, the shockwave continued outward. The circle of force pushed through mounds of bone, clearing the ground as shards of brittle white dust joined the expanding cloud. My hand shot up to my ribs, I could tell I had cracked at least a few. Multiple status screens appeared to highlight my injuries in more detail — I had fractures and bruises throughout my body and my stamina was under twenty percent and still dropping.
