The Hollow God (Swords and Saints Book 3)

by JA Hutson

  I’m almost to her side when the ground beside her suddenly erupts. Something long and sinuous lunges from the fountaining red dust and latches on to her back – it’s one of the snake-Shriven, but now that I can see it clearly it’s obvious it’s less of serpent and more like a centipede. Dozens of short barbed legs attach themselves to the lamias and drag her to the ground, with a lashing tail tipped with a curving stinger poised to bury itself in her flesh. I hack at the creature’s midsection, cutting it in twain and sending the two halves tumbling. Black blood pulses out to drench the lamias and her ravaged back. Deliah hisses in pain but manages to roll to her feet, her glaive somehow still in her hands. She shakes her head, blinking hard.

  The last two Scythes have drawn back and are circling us, and now that I’m watching for them I can see more of these burrowing Shriven by the bulges of dust. Deliah is barely standing, and my own battle-frenzy is now no longer enough to keep the pulsing agony away, particularly from my shoulder. I’m starting to feel light-headed, and I wonder how long I can keep upright. Where in the name of the dead gods is Talin?

  Another quarrel clatters off the shingles of overlapping chitin protecting the midsection of a Scythe, and it raises its monstrous head to roar at where Bell is perched on the wagon’s roof. It starts forward, hooks upraised, but then suddenly halts. Blunted heads with lamprey mouths emerge from the dust and turn to look back towards the front of the caravan, where several figures are now standing.

  My heart sinks. Talin is there, his bronze Zimani armor stained black, his posture unnaturally rigid. I can see veins etched in his throat, as if he’s straining with all his might.

  I know what’s happening.

  Behind him stands a Voice, its hands thrust into the long sleeves of its robe. Something like a smile curves its glistening red lips as it watches us with its milky eyes. The Prophet is also there, his face gray and slack with surprise as he stares at my brother. He almost looks . . . worried?

  Without glancing back towards us, the Scythes turn and lope in the direction of the waiting Voice. They pause beside the unmoving Talin, lowering their faces to sniff at him, ropes of saliva dripping from their jaws.

  Beside me, Deliah sways, and I have to steady her to keep her from falling. She clutches at me fiercely. “Who’s that?” she asks, jerking her head towards the others.

  “My brother,” I whisper back, and her violet eyes widen. The pain clouding them clears a bit, and her grip tightens. “He should kill them,” she says, slurring the words, and then her legs collapse beneath her and she slides to the ground.

  A patter of footsteps comes as Valyra dashes around the edge of the wagon and rushes to the sprawled Deliah. I breathe out in relief as she kneels beside her and presses her hands to the lamias’s ichor-splattered skin.

  She won’t die. She can’t die.

  Pilgrim.

  I shudder as an oily presence slips into my mind. Swallowing away the bile that suddenly is creeping up my throat, I return my attention to the Shriven. The Voice steps forward, removing its pale, long-fingered hands from its sleeves. Emerald light flashes as the creature lays the edge of the dagger Ezekal showed me earlier against my brother’s neck.

  And the Heretic, here again. It is a reunion.

  I step forward, tightening my grip on my sword’s hilt, which is sticky with the spilled ichor of the Shriven. “Don’t hurt him,” I say. “He is not the one you want.”

  The Voice makes a choked, rasping sound that after a moment I realize must be its laughter. The Heretic betrayed your people. He rejects what we offer. And you have wandered far, Pilgrim, but in our mercy we will give you another chance to take up your mantle as your tribe’s champion. Lay down your sword and lives may still be spared.

  “Never,” I say hoarsely.

  Very well. The Shriven draws the dagger across Talin’s throat. Bright red blood wells from the cut as my brother falls forward.

  “No!” I cry, my pain vanishing as I charge the Voice. I only get a few steps before my limbs stiffen, an invisible fist closing around me.

  You are a fool, Pilgrim. The Voice hisses in my mind as spots of color bloom and fade in my vision. My ribs feel like they are about to buckle and collapse.

  Suddenly, the pressure vanishes, and I draw in a shuddering gasp. Valyra’s slim fingers encircle my wrist, and her sorcery pulses through me in soothing waves, flushing out the Voice’s foul power. The Shriven’s sneer fades as I take a step forward, then another. Valyra maintains her hold on me, and along with keeping the Voice’s dark will at bay I feel the flesh in my shoulder start to knit together, my strength returning.

  The robed Shriven’s malformed face contorts in fear, and the two Scythes that had come to grovel before it lunge in my direction.

  “Keep touching me!” I cry to Valyra.

  A hook whistles at my head and I block it with my sword, the green glass shearing through the bone. The Scythe keens in pain as I slash its throat and turn towards the last of the hulking monsters – it must see its death in my eyes, as it takes a stumbling step backwards and raises its curving limbs, as if to protect itself. I rain blows upon it, my body infused with burning rage and the weaver’s sorcery, cutting away its limbs and burying my blade in its head. As it sinks to the ground, the dust around it erupts with flashing legs and segmented bodies. I wrench my sword from the Scythe’s skull and lay about, slashing and hacking until nothing remains of the snake-Shriven except for scattered legs and pieces of their long, centipede-like bodies. I finally stop, coated with the black ichor of the Shriven. Valyra clings to me, whimpering, as I turn back to the Voice.

  Pilgrim, the Shriven speaks into my head, but instead of the gloating confidence I felt before it sounds almost wheedling. You do not know what you—

  I cross the distance between us in a heartbeat, dragging Valyra behind me. The Voice raises the arm holding the blood-stained emerald dagger and I cut it off at the elbow. Shock shivers the Shriven’s doughy face, and then I shove my sword into its belly. Most of the length of the green glass blade explodes out its back, and the Voice shudders. Its huge, staring eyes cloud in death. I rip my sword away and it collapses.

  Valyra has already let go of me and is crouched beside my brother. She presses her fingers to the ragged wound in his neck, and I know she’s trying to weave him back together. She goes still, trembling with the effort she’s expending, and then she slumps.

  His silver eyes stare at the unnatural sky, unseeing.

  Valyra moans and turns back towards me. Her face is deathly pale and tears of blood are leaking from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she rasps, hanging her head.

  I throw back my head and scream. Then I’m moving towards where the Prophet is standing slack-limbed, his tarnished gaze fixed numbly on Talin’s corpse. I throw my sword away as I close on him, afraid I’ll lose control of myself and drive it into him. My hands grab the collar of his robes and I lift him from the ground, then toss him backwards. He lands in the dust with a pained grunt and as he struggles to sit up I stalk closer to loom over him. Ezekal is still staring at my brother, his face ashen.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and this brings me up short. Ezekal turns to me slowly, and to my surprise there are tears on his dust-smeared cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he says again, then falls silent as he hangs his head.

  I stumble away from him and bend to retrieve my sword. The rage that has been roiling my mind lifts slightly, and I remember what we should be doing.

  “Valyra,” I rasp, and the girl kneeling beside my brother’s corpse turns to me. “How is Deliah?”

  “I’m alive,” the lamias says. She’s standing only a few dozen paces away, clearly favoring one of her legs. Her face is a mask of pain. “But I could do with a bit more healing.”

  Valyra nods shakily and pushes herself stiffly to her feet. She has very little left to give, I think. Back at the wagon where my companions were imprisoned, Bell is dangling from the eaves as she tries to clamber down from the
roof. As I watch, her grip slips and she falls awkwardly, raising a cloud of dust. “And then go to see to Bell,” I tell Valyra wearily.

  The weaver regards me, bone-deep exhaustion etched into her face, then sighs and lays her hands upon the waiting lamias.

  I turn back to the Prophet Ezekal. “And you,” I say, my words sharp with hate. “I have things to discuss with you.”

  11

  “There,” Ezekal says, pointing to where dark hills ripple into the horizon. His silver eyes are dulled by exhaustion, and dust clots what remains of his once-bushy beard. Heat-addled, he begged me to hack most of it away a day or so after we left the caravan behind and began our march through the wastes, and I obliged, though I wasn’t too careful, and the emerald dagger had left a jagged red scar on his cheek.

  I squint into the haze. The rumpled hills have been swelling since our last rest, and now I think I can see the pillars of white rock that Ezekal claims is our destination. I turn back to where my companions are slogging through the dust – Deliah has recovered from her wounds, but she still looks wan, more a dark pink than her usual red. Bell had escaped the fight with the Shriven without injury, but, like the Prophet, she does not have the necessary constitution to easily keep up the punishing pace I’ve set. Valyra is still showing the effects of the tremendous amount of sorcery she was forced to expend back at the wagons, her cheeks sunken and eyes hollow. If I wasn’t so worried about what must be following us I would insist we stop and give her time to recover.

  But I am worried, and I’ve spent as much time watching behind us as what lies ahead. Somewhere out there Scythes and Snakes and other horrors are converging on us, I can feel it. It is a race to see if we can reach those distant hills before they catch us.

  What if Ezekal is lying to us? The Prophet has claimed that nestled between those fingers of stone is the original Gate where the Shriven entered our world, kept eternally open so that the demons can pass back and forth. It was where he’d been taking us when the storm had hit our caravan. He’d sworn it was the only Gate that could be reached quickly, though I have no way of knowing whether this is true.

  And we need to escape these wastes. Even if the threat of the Shriven did not exist, the specters of hunger and thirst are most definitely haunting us. We salvaged what we could from the wagons, filling our packs with Zimani rations of dried goat meat and fleshy white tubers, but the food and water we have will not last us long. Thinking of that entire wagon filled with supplies I inwardly curse again those stubborn giant insects. The deaths of the other Shriven made them wild, and I had no idea how to slip their halters back on and force them to continue pulling the caravan.

  Ezekal plods through the dust in the direction of the hills. With one final scan of the rolling dunes behind us, I hurry to catch up with him.

  “Tell me again about this Gate,” I ask him again, hoping for some fresh detail he had left out before. “How it came about.”

  The bedraggled Prophet – the outline of his belly pressing against his sweat-and-dust stained robes, bruised circles under his eyes – sighs and shakes his head. “As I said, it was an experiment. Larger and more stable than the small doorways we had always used to slip between the worlds. We built it, but then it opened of its own volition, disgorging the first of the Shriven.”

  “And you think it can take us somewhere other than where the demons came from?”

  Ezekal shrugs. “In theory, I suppose. It is still a Gate. I’ve been through it only once, and that was in the company of a Voice. And you.”

  “On the other side was paradise,” I say.

  Ezekal ducks his head, ignoring my disbelieving tone. “Yes.”

  I snort and turn away from him. Paradise. I’ve learned in my earlier interrogations why Ezekal was laboring so dutifully to open the new world to the Shriven. It was because he saw their coming as inevitable – someone would eventually repair the paths. And if he was the one who ushered the Shriven through the Gate, then his tribe would be welcomed into another realm, the one where the demons originated. A place he claimed was without flaw.

  The idea that these monstrous creatures could have originated from a perfect world is ridiculous. But Ezekal insists it is true.

  And that was why my brother left his side, I’ve learned. He could not accept helping the demons that had destroyed everything we once held dear. Talin had once been known as Warmaster, but after his betrayal he became Heretic. And I, who had been Pilgrim because of my wandering ways, was elevated to take his place.

  I can’t believe that is all there is to the story. Ever since the Prophet described what had transpired I’ve grappled with the idea that I would help him commit the monstrous crime of sacrificing millions. Even if I felt the coming of the Shriven was unstoppable, I can’t conceive of doing what the Prophet claimed. Was I a different man once? Were more than just my memories lost when I passed through the Gate?

  The white-stone spires and the hills swelling behind them grow larger as we continue our march. I’m trying to make sense of what has happened, but the image that keeps intruding on my thoughts is when the first handful of dust hit my brother’s pale, waxy face as he lay at the bottom of the hole I’d dug in the wastes. I know I should feel something about his death – we once shared a deep bond, that is obvious – but outside of a vague melancholy that I would never repair what bridges had been sundered, I didn’t feel much at all. If it had been Bell or Deliah lying in that pit my world would have been shattered. If I ever do regain my memories, will Talin’s death overwhelm me with grief? Or – and this thought chills me – will I be pleased?

  The rock formation where the Prophet claims the Gate is located does truly look like fingers emerging from the wastes, as if a giant has been buried under the dust and is now reaching up, straining for the surface. In the back of my mind has been burrowing the suspicion that Ezekal is lying, leading us to nowhere while a legion of Shriven rush to liberate him and seize Valyra again, but that is proven wrong as I catch a glimpse of the doorway. Between two of the pillars of opalescent rock a veil of golden light shimmers, wide enough that our caravan could have easily trundled through. Before when I’d found Gates they had been closed until a key was used, but as the Prophet said, this one has somehow been propped open.

  We approach the glowing portal tentatively. The other Gates were archways carved from the same iridescent stone, but this one looks like a natural rock formation, and the rippling golden energy does not extend beyond the freestanding pillars. I’m worried that there will be no place to insert the key, but to my relief it does appear that an indentation has been hollowed out of the stone. I withdraw the dark, silver-threaded key the Contessa gave me and glance at the weaver. Valyra is swaying slightly as she stares up at the soaring doorway, her face pale and drawn. Well, we did find her another tribe – they just happened to be degenerate, subterranean cannibals. Now that the Prophet is our prisoner, I believe that we can keep her safe in the other world. The Shriven will have lost their greatest ally, and they’ll have to find another way to heal the rift between the realms.

  I step forward holding the key. Ezekal sees it and his face goes slack with surprise.

  “That is mine,” he says, an edge to his voice. “I gave that key to you.”

  The coldness pulsing from the dark stone is making my hand tingle. “The Contessa changed it,” I say, holding it up to make sure it will fit in the indentation.

  The Prophet sniffs, looking annoyed. “How rude. Avelia knew that would insult me, if I ever realized what she did.”

  “I don’t think that was her main concern,” I murmur, turning the key to find the best angle to insert it into the pillar.

  Ezekal snorts. “Oh, you have no idea how petty she can be.”

  Some force seems to be pulling the key forward, as if it is yearning to be placed within the indentation. I hesitate, with some effort pulling it back, and turn to the Prophet.

  “Are you sure this key will bring us to the other world?”<
br />
  Ezekal nods. “It is still a Gate. If Avelia did not lie to you – and I can give you no assurances there – we will be drawn along the pathways she imprinted on the key.”

  I squint up at the rippling door. “Even though it’s already open.”

  “Yes. I helped build this doorway – it will eventually revert to its current state, but the key will change the destination while it is in the lock.”

  I glance back at my companions. Bell and Valyra look exhausted, barely able to stand. Deliah is holding up a bit better, though even she looks like she could sleep for days. None of them say anything, but I know they are desperate to return to their home.

  “Very well, let’s –”

  My words die in my throat. Far behind my companions something is moving. The dust in the distance is swelling larger, as if I’m standing on a beach watching a great wave slowly build on the horizon.

  That’s when we feel the first vibration. Bell and Deliah glance around in shock as the dust around their feet shivers. Valyra has gone even paler, the blood draining from her face. Her copper eyes find mine, and I can see that we’re thinking the same thing. This is something we’ve felt before, long ago when we fled her tribe’s hidden fortress.

  “Earthquake?” Bell asks, looking up in fear at the rocky pillars looming over us.