The Hollow God (Swords and Saints Book 3)

by JA Hutson

  Green-glass chimes as the sword severs the tendril wrapped around Valyra’s ankle and strikes the bone below. The weaver shivers and begins to topple forward, but Bell tosses aside my sword and catches her. I feel like I’m observing this bizarre tableau from somewhere far away. My head is humming, and spots of color are blooming in my vision. I shake my head, trying to keep myself from passing out.

  Bell is hauling Valyra towards where I’m crouched. She lets go of the weaver when she reaches me, and I have to stop the girl from falling into the pile of brain.

  “Use your power, sorceress!” Bell cries, grabbing one of Valyra’s arms and shoving it into the partly-filled hole I made in the tissue.

  “And you!” she yells at me, her words piercing the fog through which I’m floating through. “Help Deliah!”

  Deliah. Yes, of course. I climb to my feet as pulsing warmth rises up from the tainted fragment of the Maker. I glance down and see something unfurling in the depths of the brain, and then I tear my attention away and stagger towards where Deliah lies.

  I gasp as I approach her. Her carapace armor is in tatters, shredded by the bone limbs of the Scythes. There are lashings of blood all over her body, both red and black. I moan when I see the gaping wounds in her flesh, glimpses of bone and shredded muscles. Her face is slack, almost peaceful. I brush my hand against her cheek, tangling my fingers in her indigo hair. I trace the shape of her perfect lips . . . and then freeze, shocked. I felt her breath, ever so faint.

  “She’s alive!” I croak, but even as I say this my eyes are drawn to her ravaged body. There’s no coming back from this. Unless . . .

  “Valyra!” I scream, pulling Deliah’s head into my lap.

  There’s something happening over where Bell and the weaver are huddled beside the chunk of brain. Buffeting waves of power are pulsing across the expanse of bone, stirring the hair of the fallen goddess. Through my watering eyes I can see golden light seeping up from within the gray mound . . . and something else. A long thin shape is thrusting upwards, already taller than Bell or Valyra. A tree. Crooked limbs extend from the growing bole, spreading outwards.

  “Help!” I cry desperately, looking around for something to stanch the blood leaking from Deliah’s wounds.

  At my cry, Bell rises and dashes towards me, leaving Valyra kneeling in front of the swelling tree. She gasps when she sees the shape Deliah is in.

  “The weaver has to heal her,” I babble, but Bell shakes her head as she looks around wildly.

  “She can’t,” she says, crouching down beside a nearby corpse of one of the Scythes. “Something is happening. I tried to pull her away but I can’t move her and she doesn’t hear me.” Bell rises from beside the dead Shriven, her hands cupped together.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as she sinks down beside us. In her palms is a puddle of the monster’s thick black blood.

  “Don’t you listen to anything anyone says?” she mutters as she pours the ichor as best she can between Deliah’s parted lips. Some of it escapes out of the side of her mouth and trickles down her neck, but most vanishes inside. “The Contessa said the blood imparts immortality –”

  “Clearly one can still die!” I cry, gesturing frantically at the body of the Prophet.

  “– and she also claimed it heals.”

  Bell returns to the Scythe and fills her hands again with the blood pooling beside its corpse. Beyond her, the kneeling Valyra is becoming increasingly dwarfed by the tree. Silvery leaves have appeared on its spreading branches, as well as a dappling of pale, ghostly blossoms.

  “Ack!”

  Deliah’s hacking cough spatters me with drops of ichor.

  “Deliah!” I cry as her eyes flutter open. She sees me leaning over her and smiles weakly. Elsewhere on her body the great wounds caused by the Scythes’ hooks are starting to close, the flow of blood stopping.

  “Talin –” she whispers hoarsely, and then she notices the canopy swiftly spreading above us. “The All-Tree,” she murmurs. “So I am dead.”

  “You’re not dead,” Bell says, appearing beside us. She lifts her hands to Deliah’s mouth, but the lamias wrinkles her nose and turns away.

  “Then that smells like it will indeed kill me.”

  “It’s what’s saving you,” Bell says. “Now open your mouth.”

  Deliah can’t hold back a wary look, but still she follows the orders of the scientist’s daughter. Disgust is clear in her face as she struggles to swallow.

  “Horrible,” she rasps when she finally does, shuddering.

  “But it’s working,” I say in wonderment. Only the most severe of her wounds haven’t fully closed. “You have more,” I tell Bell, as there is still some of the ichor in her hands.

  She gives me a lopsided smile. “I’m not about to let you two experience immortality without me,” she says, then brings her hands to her mouth and slurps loudly.

  “Oh,” she murmurs through stained lips. “That is awful.”

  Deliah struggles to sit up on her own. “What is happening?” she asks, staring at the swelling tree.

  “I’m not sure,” I reply, feeling a pang of nervousness. The tree has grown so large that it has completely enveloped where the brain fragment of the Maker once was. Its roots have crawled to where we lie, and in moments will squirm over the side of the bone plateau. The Scythes that started writhing when I thrust my arms into the brain are now still, and a few have even been swallowed by the expanding roots. Valyra is stumbling backwards, looking up at the tree as it grows ever larger. She doesn’t see Bell and bumps into her, nearly falling over.

  “What did you do?” I ask, and the weaver glances at me wild-eyed. I’m almost yelling, as a strong wind has arisen out of nowhere.

  “I don’t know!” she cries. “I poured my weaving into the brain, like Bell said . . . it was rotten, infected. Insane. But there was something else as well. Something . . . pure. While the Mother or whatever that thing was fought to push me back, this . . . seed welcomed me. It drank my power and demanded more. Then it opened and out came . . . that.” She indicates the growing tree.

  “Can you tell it to stop?” Bell says, eyeing the encroaching roots with unease. “We’re going to be pushed off the ledge soon.”

  Valyra shakes her head helplessly. “It’s not listening. It’s like a child, utterly joyous and carefree. A new thing . . . but it was birthed from something very old, I think.”

  Wincing, Deliah tries to stand. She falls back, so I rise as well and help pull her to her feet.

  “We have to flee down the snake,” she says, but just as the words escape her lips a crack comes from the serpent’s skull. The roots push it free from where it rests, sending it tumbling to the distant floor.

  What do we do now?

  “There!” Bell cries excitedly, pointing to the base of the tree.

  “What is it?” I ask, but she’s already standing and rushing to investigate whatever it is she’s seen. Deliah and I share a confused glance.

  Bell is tracing something incised into the expanding trunk, walking backwards as the tree continues to grow.

  And then it strikes me: Bell has found the outline of a door.

  “Here!” she cries triumphantly, her hand hovering over a knot in the wood. There’s a hole there as well, and it looks familiar.

  “Come on!” I command Valyra, half-carrying Deliah as I fumble with my belt pouch. I pull out the silver-threaded piece of black rock, prickling coldness seeping into my hand.

  We’re nearly to the edge of the plateau. In a few more heartbeats, we’ll have to cling to the trunk of the tree or be pushed to our deaths. With fingers made clumsy with haste I shove the key into the indentation.

  Light seeps from the edges Bell has discovered. In moments, a familiar golden veil ripples and twists. The Contessa had claimed she invested this key with the power to open a Gate back to the other world, and now we would see if she had told the truth. A path back to Xela and Poz and Vesivia. To the City of Masks and th
e Twilight Empire.

  For a moment we hesitate, looking at each other. Then we throw ourselves forward into the light.

  16

  We stand on a hummock of soft earth overlooking a beach. It’s night, and the scimitar of white sand below is luminous in the moonlight. Waves murmur upon the sands, reaching towards us with hissing fingers. A warm breeze that smells of the ocean swirls briefly, and then subsides.

  Behind us, a Gate is half-sunk into the ground, the golden light that transported us here already melting away. There is barely any trace of the ruins that once enclosed this portal, just a few blocks of stone that might have been part of a foundation. Past these ancient remnants are a few more muddy mounds encrusted with tufts of beach grass, one with a small copse of stunted trees, and then the sea again. We’re on an island, and not a very large one.

  Deliah lets go of me. She wobbles for a moment, then with a pained grunt lowers herself to the ground, her legs splayed in front of her and her elbows resting on her knees. Bell and Valyra join her, and a moment later so do I. The grass is scratchy and the hummock squelches unpleasantly, but the simple feeling of having escaped alive from the madness of the Maker’s skull is intoxicating. My heart slowly settles into its normal rhythm, the tension seeping from my body.

  No one speaks for a long time, the only sound the gentle susurrus of the waves.

  We have returned to Bell and Deliah’s world. I know this because the sky holds not only the small, bright moon that is gilding the beach silver, but also a faint sliver of its much larger red brother. We are far away from Ysala, though, if the sea and the warm night are any indication.

  “Where are we?” Valyra finally asks, her head resting on Deliah’s shoulder.

  “Somewhere far to the south,” Bell replies softly.

  “Near Vel,” Deliah says. “The stars are the same as above my home. Which is good. The Moon Mistress should hear this tale.”

  “We’ll have to swim to shore,” I say.

  “I am a strong swimmer,” Deliah replies. “But do not worry.” She points towards where the star-spattered sky joins the dark sweep of the ocean. “I see the shadow of land. We shall make a raft, and set out on the morrow.”

  Her confidence is infectious, and I smile. “To Vel, then?”

  “Yes,” says the lamias. “My sister shall forge me a new glaive. And for you, Talin, a sword.”

  I feel a pang at the reminder that my sword was lost in those last few frantic moments as the tree swallowed everything. The green-glass blade of my people. But then, maybe it was for the best. That was Alesk’s sword. It belonged to the man I used to be. A new sword would be a new beginning.

  “And then?” I say, feeling as if a burden has suddenly been lifted. “After Vel?”

  “I would find my people,” Valyra says softly. “The rest of my tribe must have come through a Gate somewhere. My mother is dead. So is Valans. I do not wield the Red Sword, but they are my responsibility.”

  “A worthy quest,” Deliah murmurs. “And I would help you.”

  “As would I,” Bell says.

  I don’t bother adding my voice, but they know I am in agreement.

  Silence returns. Together we sit and watch the waves, waiting for dawn to come.

  About the Author

  JA Hutson is the pen name for the epic fantasy author Alec Hutson. He lives in Shanghai, China.