Serpents Rising (Eve of Redemption Book 3)

by Joe Jackson

  “You are very kind,” Se’sasha replied with a bow of her head. “Unfortunately, restoring the hope and will of my people will take more than a single priestess who is free from the rule of Sekassus. To truly free them, we would have to strike some blow against Sekassus – perhaps even kill him. Such a feat is far beyond our capabilities at this point, but I will not lose hope or faith. I will help you in any way I can, and if that means we anger, hurt, or humiliate Sekassus in some way, then so much the better.”

  “I can still see those two harmauths stepping through the portal,” Danilynn said with a gesture toward the archway. “I remember thinking that was bad enough, and then Koursturaux came through. I don’t think I’ve ever had to try so hard not to wet my pants before or since.”

  “She brought harmauths with her?” Kari asked. She glanced over both shoulders and saw that Grakin was showing Little Gray around, trying to keep the boy away from the altar or any of the remains of the dead.

  “Two females,” Eli answered. “From what we’ve heard, they’re her ‘bodyguards,’ and accompany her virtually everywhere.”

  “Why would a demon king need bodyguards?” Kari mused.

  “More for show than for actual use,” Se’sasha said. “Just as Sekassus has a harmauth and many sylinths and erestram to ‘guard and protect’ him in his throne room. Frankly, anyone or anything capable of threatening Sekassus himself would not be intimidated by mere harmauths, sylinths, or erestram.”

  “What’s this say around the arch?” Ty asked. He tapped the head of his axe against the edge of the stone, but seemed to reconsider hitting the dense rock with his prized weapon.

  Danilynn and Sonja both looked to Se’sasha, and the syrinthian girl obliged; apparently, her mother’s spirit had imbued her with the knowledge of several languages. “And in those days, destruction shall come forth from the inner circle. As death consumes life, so does the darkness consume the light, bringing forth the despair of men. Look upon the face of death and cower, all you mortals.”

  “Charming,” the blonde warrior muttered.

  “It is part of an ancient prophecy,” Se’sasha said. “I believe it dates back some eleven thousand years, and is thought to have been the catalyst for the Overking’s invasion of our home world. You will note, however, that in this place, evil was defeated by evil. Prophecy is a strange creature, for whether one works for or against it, they usually force it to come to pass.”

  “You think maybe that’s the prophecy you were talking about with the Council?” Kari asked Aeligos, but the rogue shrugged.

  “Hard to say,” he replied. “Aside from Kaelariel’s birth, our people have never really had much in the way of prophecy or put much stock in it. Like Se’sasha said, when it comes to prophecy, you generally have two types of people: those who work to make it come to pass, and those who try to stop it from coming to pass. The thing of it is, if you believe that what prophecy says is real and true, then whether you work for or against it, the prophecy has to have taken that into account, right? If a prophecy is true, it will come to pass, and the work of mortals or demon kings alike won’t do a thing to stop it. The very nature of prophecy assumes it’s coming from the omniscient viewpoint of a deity, and that it considers past, present, and future events.”

  “You just completely lost me,” Kari muttered, and several of the others laughed. They weren’t laughing at her, she could tell; Aeligos’ words had apparently confused them, too.

  “Basically he’s saying that if you try to make it come to pass, you will, but if you try to stop it from coming to pass, that might be what makes it happen,” Ty explained. “It makes a certain bit of sense, and a lot more when you consider the source is an omniscient being.”

  Kari looked at Sonja. “All-knowing,” her scarlet-haired sister-in-law explained, and then it made more sense to Kari.

  “Do your people have any prophecies that you know of?” Kari asked Se’sasha.

  “No, nothing that my mother was aware of,” the syrinthian priestess answered. “Too long have we been cut off from Ashakku and Be’shatha: thousands and thousands of years. Even if there was some ancient prophecy, I doubt any of us would remember it, or have any written record of it. Frankly, I am much happier to go my own way and serve the whims of Ashakku now, rather than something that was prophesied in ancient times. To me, prophecy rather suggests the absence of free will.”

  Kari had never really considered that, but in large part that was because, as Aeligos had said, her people had never really had much in the way of prophecy. She did know a bit about the theories of free will, though. Much of the senses of duty and responsibility that were impressed upon cadets of the Order were built upon the foundation of free will: that people were born neither good nor evil, but had to choose to act as such. They were taught that nobody was born a demonhunter, but it was a life they chose because they had a desire to do what was right and to protect others. It was true nobility, and as Kari thought of that, it brought the words of the Duke of Sutherland back to mind.

  Kari hefted one of the makeshift mauls they had brought from the village, and that drew immediate protest from most of her companions. She waved off their concern and approached the portal archway, and she swung the massive stone weapon sideways awkwardly to strike the inner part of the ring. It crashed against the granite ring with a crunch, but seemed to inflict no damage to the archway itself. The infernal lettering around its perimeter began to glow a ghastly shade of red, and Kari grunted and staggered backwards. There were calls of concern from her mate and friends, but before they could even reach her, Kari straightened out and the glowing blue symbol of Zalkar appeared through her breastplate.

  “Do not strike it again; the portal is protected,” Se’sasha warned as she moved toward Kari. “I could sense it the moment you swung the weapon.”

  “Me, too,” Sonja said. “It has some sort of arcane protection around it to keep it from being destroyed by manual means. There must be something in the temple that powers the shield, or it would’ve long since collapsed.”

  “Hang on, let me give it a try,” Ty said. He gripped the maul and swung it back and then over his shoulder, and slammed the ring with tremendous force. It struck with a resounding thud and the head of the makeshift czarikk maul shattered, though it didn’t so much as scratch the ring itself. The writing around the portal’s edge reacted the same way, though Ty showed no signs of injury or being otherwise affected like Kari. Sonja smirked at him, so Ty shrugged. “Hey, Kari swung it all wrong; I was just making sure she actually hit it hard enough.”

  “Well, excuse me, I don’t normally go around swinging big two-handed things,” Kari shot back jokingly.

  Without missing a beat, Ty turned to Grakin. “Sorry to hear that,” he ribbed his brother.

  Kari’s eyes went wide and Sonja gasped, but shockingly enough, Grakin was the first one to start laughing. Eli and Aeligos both laughed aloud too, though Sonja was surely blushing and Danilynn kept shaking her head. Se’sasha figured out what they meant after a few moments and tried to hide a smile, but she didn’t have much success. Kari simply put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot while she stared at her blonde brother-in-law.

  “Maybe we should poke around and find the source of power before I lose my tongue,” Ty laughed, turning to Eli and Danilynn to avoid Kari’s playful glare. “You two have been here before, do you know where we should start looking?”

  “I’d suggest the interior, obviously,” Danilynn said. “I believe the first level down from the top was Se’ceria’s personal quarters and study, and I know the bottom level was the prison and general quarters. I’m not sure what’s on the second and third levels. Se’sasha, any idea?”

  The syrinthian priestess shook her head. “Either my mother’s spirit did not know, or she simply did not spend enough time in those other levels to remember properly,” she said. “I think that simply doing enough damage to the pyramid itself might weaken the protection around the portal. T
here is nothing in my mother’s memories that suggests an actual source to this arcane shield you describe.”

  “Let’s try this,” Ty said, hefting one of the other unbroken mauls. He approached the altar and everyone cleared away from it so he could try smashing one of its suspended corners. He reared back and let forth with another mighty swing, but it had no more effect on the altar than his previous one had on the portal. It did, however, cause the writing around the portal to begin to glow again.

  Aeligos approached and studied the portal and then the altar, and then he went back to the writing on the portal’s ring. He didn’t give voice to whatever he was thinking, and the others left him be for the moment. Kari turned to Sonja. “Anything you can do to destroy some of this place with your magic?” she asked.

  Sonja glanced around. “Not that I’d be very comfortable with,” she said. “I’ve got to consider that I could hurt your son or anyone else with exploding bits of stone and metal. It’s probably best we do this the old-fashioned way, if everyone wants to join in. If not, and you all want to go back down by the forest, I’ll see what I can manage.”

  “That sounds better than spending a week breaking stone blocks,” Ty said. “As much fun as smashing things may be, better we get it done and move on. I’ll stay here with Sonja while she works, though.”

  Kari nodded, and Sonja was agreeable to having Ty stay with her. The others all started to head back down toward the edge of the clearing to hopefully be safe from any flying debris. Down near the forest, Kari sat down and began to play with Little Gray. Soon there were the sounds of stone cracking and breaking apart, though Kari couldn’t see any obvious damage being done from where she and the others were. It reminded her of the arcane and divine magic used by the priests and wizards of Jir’tana’s brigade during the taking of Atrice.

  “Could you help with an earthquake or something?” Kari asked Danilynn.

  “Bad idea,” the priestess said with a shake of her head. “I’d thought about it myself, but then I remembered Aeligos saying that there was probably volcanic activity below. I don’t want to risk breaking through into something like that and destroying this valley, not to mention us.”

  “Oh, good point,” Kari said, but then she went quiet and looked back in the direction of the temple. The sounds of breaking stone had ceased, and she could’ve sworn she heard Sonja yell for help. She glanced at her companions and saw she wasn’t the only one. After a brief pause, the call came again, loudly and more panicked. Kari jumped to her feet and barked, “Grakin, stay here with Little Gray!”

  The priest picked up their son and stepped back under cover of the trees while Kari and the others ran for the temple. Even with the aches and soreness she’d been dealing with, Kari found her legs carried her swiftly to and up the stairway of the pyramid when she heard Sonja calling for help. Something must’ve happened to Typhonix, she thought, and though Grakin was the most skilled healer among them, she had Danilynn and Se’sasha with her, and it was best not to make any assumptions.

  Aeligos was the fastest of all of them, and he reached the top of the pyramid first. Kari heard a gasp of surprise, then a grunt and a cry of pain from her brother-in-law, and once again she heard Sonja scream for help. Eli and Danilynn reached the summit next, and Kari could clearly hear Eli let out a long, drawn-out swear, and Danilynn pulled both axes off of her belt. It had been no accident that caused Sonja to call for help.

  Kari finally reached the top, and she had her scimitars in hand before she even had a moment to take in the scene before her. Typhonix lay in a growing pool of blood, and at first glance, he looked dead. Sonja’s two-handed sword lay shattered not far away, and the scarlet-haired woman was holding her hands up to keep a sheet of arcane force before her as a shield. Aeligos hobbled around the altar to keep it between him and the other who stood now in the center of the summit grounds, while Danilynn, Eli, and Kari formed a triangle around them. The rogue’s leg was lacerated badly, but he was upright and the leg was still attached.

  It can’t be, Kari thought. “You’re supposed to be dead!” she shouted in defiance.

  Taesenus turned his head slowly and fixed Kari with a withering glare over his shoulder. “So are you,” he spat. He was five-foot-eleven, just like Kari, muscular but in such a way that he was uniformly and perfectly built. His hair was long as was traditional among rir warriors, and the black and red hellfire-like tattoo that crossed his shoulders and throat only showed on his unarmored neck. He wore a set of paluric armor, but it wasn’t a complete set: parts of his arms and legs were unprotected, as was his neck and head, rather like Kari’s suit had been before she had it completed. Most curious of all, he had no wings despite the fact that he was serilian-rir. His baleful red eyes narrowed and his black teeth showed in a terrible grin. “Don’t worry; you soon will be, and all these with you. Except, perhaps, for her.”

  Sonja growled when the Demon Prince pointed a sword at her, and she unleashed a stroke of lightning at him with a thought. He swatted it away with one of the twin katanas he held; he had to have considerable willpower to turn aside arcane power so easily. Apparently, he had taken his second katana off of Typhonix after striking down the blonde warrior, and Kari saw that now he had both swords to go along with having both arms again. Taesenus hardly seemed concerned that he faced three warriors at once now, and Kari knew why: a combination of skill and arrogance. Taesenus was probably one of the best fighters Kari had crossed swords with, but she had beat him in single combat. If he thought he could best her while she had the highly capable Danilynn and Eli with her, he was about to learn a very quick and painful lesson.

  But to what end? Kari thought. Kaelariel had supposedly killed the Demon Prince just before the end of the Apocalypse, so how could Taesenus possibly be standing before them now? Kari supposed his retort to her was the answer: he’d been resurrected by someone, perhaps for the same reason as Kari and Sharyn. Whatever the case, she resolved to correct the situation and send the Demon Prince back to his mother.

  Kari started to move forward, and Eli and Danilynn did so as well in tandem. Taesenus spun and threatened both Danilynn and Kari with his blades, but he focused his actual attacks on Eli. His vorpal katana cut the top of Eli’s shield clean off and caught the half-corlyps warrior unprepared. Blood flew sideways from Eli’s jaw as the sword bit into his snout, and the half-corlyps stumbled away holding his shield up, not even conscious of the fact that it had already been rendered nearly useless.

  Danilynn thought to capitalize on Taesenus pursuing Eli, but the Demon Prince turned back on her. The priestess traded a couple of routines with Taesenus, and tried to move to a flanking position to give Kari the Demon Prince’s back. Taesenus was no fool, though, and he used footwork and angles to render Danilynn’s attacks harmless and keep from being pinned between the two women. Still, Danilynn was able to threaten and maneuver the Demon Prince to keep him away from Eli.

  Kari checked over her shoulder briefly, and saw that Se’sasha was tending to Typhonix. Apparently, the blonde warrior wasn’t dead, but Kari accepted that he might soon be, and she used that fire to bring her rage to a deadly boil. The symbol of Zalkar began to glow upon her breastplate once again, and that drew Taesenus’ attention. He fended off Danilynn and then chased her back a few steps with a decapitating sequence, and then the Demon Prince turned and beckoned for Kari to attack him.

  Temper, temper, Kari thought, remembering that his temper was what had let her beat the Demon Prince so many years ago. He seemed to have a much better grasp of his temper now, but Kari wasn’t about to make the same mistake. She was a defensive fighter, Suler Tumureldi’s sole student, and she wouldn’t make the error of attacking such a skilled fighter recklessly, no matter who he might’ve hurt, or how badly. Kari nodded past the Demon Prince to Danilynn, to let the priestess know to follow her lead and work in tandem. Kari didn’t know if she was truly under the effects of a Blood Oath, or why the symbol of Zalkar glowed on her breastplate, but s
he wasn’t going to take anything for granted or make any foolish mistakes.

  Eli, however, didn’t seem quite cognizant of his own actions. He approached the Demon Prince slowly and quietly, but even as he raised his hammer, Taesenus spun on him. The Demon Prince raised one blade to parry the downswing of the hammer, but without hesitation he drove the other sword neatly under Eli’s ribs on the right side. That was a different tactic for him; Kari had never heard of the Demon Prince going for anything but the head of his enemies. He ran Eli through, the vorpal sword piercing Eli’s breastplate effortlessly, and then he kicked the half-corlyps to the ground, not bothering to take his head – yet.

  Taesenus turned and began to circle Kari, paying his downed opponent no heed. “Liver shot,” he remarked, glaring at Danilynn and then turning his baleful, red-eyed gaze onto Kari. “He’ll be dead before you are, make no mistake.”

  Sonja unleashed another stroke of lightning and began trying to rain down arcane death upon the Demon Prince. Shards of metal from around the temple’s top, a hail of fiery pellets, and a great arcane force in the shape of a fist all flew with deadly intent at Taesenus, but he brushed them aside casually as if swatting flies. “I appreciate the early wedding gifts, but save your pleasantries until after I’ve killed your friends,” Taesenus commented dryly. “Matter of fact, which of your brothers’ heads would you most appreciate as my gift to you?”

  “I’d sooner marry Sekassus!” Sonja spat, but she got her wits about her and moved to pick up Ty’s greataxe after a moment.

  “That could be arranged,” the Demon Prince said evenly. After staring at Kari for a couple more seconds, he held his swords out wide. “Come now, have you completely lost your nerve since last we met? Or do you simply know in your heart that while you’ve gotten older and fattened from calving, I’ve far surpassed you or that myth of a teacher of yours?”