Abe stopped to gaze back down the path and gasped at what he saw. From this vantage point, the world seemed to stretch out forever. He could see Barrendale to the south, and the faint outline of Po-Po to the north. And the desert—oh, the desert! The sands, both shifting and packed, were waves of color that expanded from one horizon to the next—tan, gray, burgundy, and yellow, rippling as they stretched outward like ocean waves frozen in time. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
Meesh nodded. “Pretty cool. Almost looks like someplace I’d like to visit. Almost.”
Shade turned away from the sight, stepped off the path, and plodded over the grass, pulling his wide-brimmed hat down low. Abe caught sight of something glistening on the man’s cheeks. Was he crying?
He didn’t ask. Instead, he started to climb once more.
The sun reached its highest point, but thankfully it wasn’t nearly as hot here in the mountains as it was in the desert. Abe continued his march, now on constant lookout for the enemy. They had been hiking for two hours, and yet they hadn’t come across a single Scourger. That fact alone made him wary.
“Uh, guys,” Meesh said from behind him.
Abe stopped and faced his brother. Meesh’s hands hovered over the butts of his pistols as he stared off toward the right of the pathway. Abe followed his gaze and saw a thatch of ash trees twenty feet away, bent in opposing curves, their twisted trunks almost forming a perfect circle beneath browned leaves. For a split second, he thought he saw a flash of lightning in that circle. Abe held his breath, listened, and sure enough he heard—and felt—a vibration. It was deep and low, the kind of tremor that started in his feet, rattled his knees, and shook his heart.
“Oh shit,” he said.
“Uh, yeah,” Meesh answered.
Shade, who’d kept on walking, circled back around to join them. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.
Abe and Meesh nodded.
“There’s no gateway registered up here, is there?” asked Shade. He appeared concerned, a much better look for him than the near-constant anger he had displayed lately.
“Not that I know of,” Abe replied.
“So another fissure,” Meesh said.
“Looks to be.”
This time a very real spark of electricity flashed from the circle between the trees, followed by a low, grumbling roar.
“Something’s coming,” Abe said.
Another flash of lightning, another otherworldly bellow. Hastily, the brothers fanned out and flanked the sparking fissure. Abe stared at the now-frenetic ring. Things were becoming dangerous; fissures were holes in reality caused when a creature from any of the Nine Hells attempted to gain entrance into the world of man. According to the books in the Temple of the Crone, originally only thirteen gateways existed, portals to the darkened realms that nearly ended all of creation. They had been torn open by the Elders, a godless bunch who had no respect for the laws of the universe. No matter how many gateways the Elders made, they could never get enough, and with each one they built, the distance separating their world from the Nine Hells shrank. Hence the fissures came to be.
In the end, the Elders had been destroyed by their own misguided ambition. They left behind a world on the brink, a place where men like Abe and the Knights Eternal were a necessity.
Abe dropped to his belly behind a short stone ledge. Shade mimicked him to the left while Meesh ducked behind a tree to the right. All three quickly switched out their ammunition. Abe popped the clip filled with lead bullets out of his blitzer and replaced it with one containing silver. When it clicked into place, he put the weapon’s stock to his shoulder and waited. He grinned when he thought of how appropriate it was that this gun he now held, another of the Elders’ inventions, had been repurposed to send the evil those same men had wrought back to the hells from which they came.
Nearly an hour passed, and the fissure remained active, flickering and undulating and growling, yet still nothing had emerged. Abe tapped the trigger, impatient. “Come on,” he muttered. The sun began to set behind the mountains, its deep crimson beams flooding the sky and the promise of coming darkness lingering in the air. Abe didn’t relish the thought of facing an unknown demon under the cover of night.
Meesh whistled, drawing his attention. “I don’t think it’s coming,” the long-haired man loudly whispered.
“It will.”
Meesh screwed his face. “How about we just seal it?”
“I’d be down for that,” said Shade.
Abe let out a groan as a swirl of dark mist appeared and disappeared between the curved trunks. Sealing fissures was easy enough, as long as what was pushing its way through had already emerged. To attempt to do so beforehand was risking death, for no one knew what kind of beast was trying to gain entrance. Demons could come in myriad forms, if they had a form at all; half the time they were amorphous, like possessors, a sort of living oil that could infect a man and make him do its bidding. Abe had watched the second Meshach he’d known fall to such an oily beast. He could still see the flames that ejected from the poor man’s neck after Abe had lopped off his head.
“Not a good idea,” Abe said.
“It’s a better idea than wasting our time,” said Shade. “We don’t know when the beast will come. We have other things to do.”
“Grumpy’s right,” Meesh said. “We could be waiting here ’til morning. Or later.”
Reluctantly, Abe nodded in agreement, which made Meesh grin. “Awesome, brah. I’ll get right on it.” He went to slide out from behind the tree.
Abe stopped him with a whistle. “No, you stay there. I’ll do it.”
He gritted his teeth, swung his blitzer to his back, grabbed his satchel, and stood up. With cautious, even strides, he crossed the grassy twenty-foot span between himself and the flickering portal. Halfway across, the tiny hairs on his body began standing on end. The fissure’s vibration doubled, then tripled, shaking him so hard his back teeth ached. He reached into his shoulder sack and removed a small clay vial.
When he was a foot in front of the portal, Abe gradually uncorked the vial and lifted his hand toward a guttering, twirling ball of light. One had to move slowly when confronted with a fracture in reality; if you moved too quickly once within its scope, the energies that made such an abomination possible might trap your body and suck you into darkness.
The unseen demon must have sensed his presence, for the activity within the circle became frenzied. A snarl rose from the black, and Abe could almost feel stinking saliva coat his face. He tipped his hand to the side, mouthed the proper incantation. Tiny particles rolled out of the vial, shards of corroded metal scraped off the great statue of the Pentus in Sal Yaddo, and were caught in the portal’s centrifugal force. They spun round and round, thickening with each revolution. Abe hurried back a few steps until he was outside the gateway’s influence, then re-shouldered his blitzer and eyed the sightline. A high-pitched whine pierced the twilight air, and there came a creaking sound like rocks being ground together. The portal bulged. A black mass appeared at its center and folded over itself. More electricity tried to discharge, but it was immediately swallowed by the gelatin-like mass.
The twisted ash trees caught fire and the portal closed in a jagged upward-reaching line that was only briefly visible—the crack in reality, zipping shut. Abe reached toward the closed fissure, still seeing the afterimage when he blinked. He could feel no pressure, sense no vibration.
It was over.
Abe lowered his weapon and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Well, that was easy,” Meesh said.
Abe raised his eyes to the sky, which looked like a purple bruise. They had wasted too much time; night was almost upon them. “Damn.”
“You want to make camp?” Shade asked, his constant cold fury barely perceptible.
Abe shifted on his feet, faced the wide, dim path leading up, up, up the mountain. He sensed eyes on him, many sets of them. Leaves rustled in anot
her stand of ash trees on the other side of the path. Abe glanced this way and that, saw a momentary flicker behind one of the steaming pools of water, then reached behind him and thrust his hand into his bag.
“No,” he said sternly as he switched out his clip. It jammed into place with a click.
“Why not?”
“Because we have company.”
4
“I HAVE WASTED THE LIFE I WAS GIVEN. I NEVER STOPPED TO ADMIRE THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD SURROUNDING ME. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE OUT THERE. I WISH I HAD THE CHANCE TO SEE IT.”
—MESHACH THE 16TH
3 MINUTES BEFORE DEMISE
Whereas his brothers had been created with the innate ability to make a guitar sing, Meesh had a gift for words. Through written poetry he could weave his every emotion into a rhythmic string of phrases, bringing those feelings to vibrant life. His aptitude with verse was only exceeded by his skill with a pistol.
With the sound of a horde of unseen Scourgers advancing on them beneath a rapidly darkening sky, Meesh knew which talent he had to rely on.
“Gather together!” Abe shouted. Hurriedly, Meesh ejected the cylinders containing silver bullets from his two repeating revolvers and replaced them with the leaden ones. When the cylinders snapped into place, he spun them, the gears inside whirring, and inched backward until his left shoulder touched Abe’s. He pointed the barrel of one pistol in the direction of the rocky upward path, the other toward the thickly grown trees on the opposite side of the road. Shade joined him on Abe’s other shoulder, Rosetta directed at the trees. The three of them stood still as statues as they awaited the inevitable.
The trees rustled, rocks cascaded down the path, but Meesh still couldn’t see the enemy.
“What’re they waiting for?” Shade asked out the side of his mouth.
“Don’t know,” Abe whispered.
Meesh heard ricocheting stone and swung his second gun so they both faced the upward path. The coming darkness seeming to swirl in a way similar to the fissure Abe had just closed. Meesh glanced up and grunted. “They’re waiting for dark,” he said. “They’re gonna charge when we can’t see ’em.”
Shade huffed out a frustrated breath. “We should attack. They won’t expect it.”
“Wait,” said Abe, his speech clipped. “Something isn’t right here.”
“No shit,” Meesh said.
“Not in that way,” Abe answered.
Before Meesh could ask what he meant, the eldest knight abruptly squatted and placed his railgun on the ground. With hands up and palms out, he stepped away from the brothers’ protective triangle. “Brah, what’re you doing?” Meesh whispered.
Abe didn’t answer. He took another six steps and stopped, facing the stand of twisted ash trees.
The rustling and grunts intensified.
Meesh sidled up to Shade and frantically waved his pistols in front of him. It sounded like there were hundreds of enemies lurking about. The cylinders in his pistols each contained twelve rounds; he’d have to reload in less than a minute. He eyed Abe’s railgun, which sat a few feet in front of him. In that same minute, the railgun could fire off an entire clip of one hundred rounds without overheating. Meesh took a step forward, bent at the knees.
“Let it be,” Abe said, not turning around.
Meesh glanced up at Shade, who shrugged. He ignored the railgun, fixed his barrels on what he thought might be movement.
Not ten seconds later, the first figure emerged from the trees. It was a Scourger all right; the dimness of night made him look like a walking corpse, the diseases that marred his flesh showing in thick black lines. His eyes seemed to glow in the faint light. Abe, crazy old coot that he was, took another step forward and raised his hands higher while Meesh joined Shade in hunkering down, prepared for the worst.
“We mean no harm!” Abe shouted. His voice boomed over the mountainside like a god’s.
The lone Scourger paused and tilted his head like a child trying to grasp the world around him. He then glanced to the rear and made a series of loud clicking sounds. From within the stand of trees emerged at least thirty more Scourgers. They remained a good distance away, a column of plagued, gruesome humanity. The first who had emerged approached the knights while his brethren remained where they were, swaying like mindless reeds.
Myriad footfalls sounded from the upward path, and Meesh leapt in his skin. He faced that direction, leveled his pistols. Abe, what’re you doing?
“Brothers, put your weapons down,” Abe called out. Meesh peered behind him, to where Shade was crouched, Rosetta held firm in his hands, pointed at the advancing Scourger. The bearded man shrugged. Neither of them lowered their guns.
Even more Scourgers then appeared over the crest of the path. They marched in step like soldiers, the butts of their bone-topped staffs striking the ground with every other step. The Scourger that advanced on Abe lifted his hand, and his marching brethren abruptly stopped.
“Be calm,” Abe said. “Don’t shoot them.”
“You better have a plan,” muttered Shade.
“No kidding, brah,” Meesh said.
The lone Scourger came to a halt a mere foot in front of the eldest knight. Meesh kept his pistols trained on the diseased men with staffs, but peeked over his shoulder and saw the Scourger lift his right hand. Meesh veered his left pistol toward the hunched man and almost fired on instinct. He didn’t, but he kept the withered nose in his crosshairs just in case.
The Scourger didn’t attack. Instead, he placed his hand over his heart. “You closed the mouth of Hell. Would you be the Dark Angel? The Unburned?” he asked in a thick accent.
Abe nodded.
The diseased man glanced at Shade. “And what of the other? A second of the Angels has joined you?”
“Yes,” Abe replied.
“God is good,” the Scourger said, and a smile stretched across his emaciated face. Faint early moonlight reflected off cracked teeth. “God is very good indeed.”
Just then, the Scourger bowed his head, dropped to one knee in front of Abe, and whispered incomprehensible words. Meesh looked on in amazement as the other Scourgers fell to their knees as well. The air was soon filled with their mumbled prayers. Meesh lowered his guns and glanced at Shade, who looked just as bewildered as he felt.
“We have been waiting for you,” the kneeling Scourger said. “I am Baahir. Come, His Holiness awaits you.”
The Scourger rose to his feet with the ease of a dancer and cast a disapproving glance at Meesh. He then made his way up the path toward his awaiting brethren. The army of Scourgers swiveled on their heels without a word and disappeared over the rise. Those who had emerged from the trees made their way to the road and followed.
“Come on,” Abe said. He scooped up his railgun and slung it over his shoulder before marching up the rise.
Meesh sheathed his pistols and hurried to his side. “What the hell’s happening?”
“They want to talk.”
“Why would they invite us without question?” asked Shade. “We’ve killed their people before.”
Abe bobbed his head. “We have. And we left no survivors, so they have no way of knowing it was us.”
“But that dude talked like he knows you,” Meesh said. “Or at least knows of you.”
“Yeah,” said Shade, “that seems odd.”
Abe shook his head as the slightest of grins appeared on his face. “I told you I’d visited here before. It was… a good meeting.”
“You sly devil,” Meesh said, and clapped him on the back. “You knew this’d happen, didn’t you?”
Abe shook his head. “Not entirely. I didn’t even know Azzar was still alive. They could’ve just as soon tried slicing us to ribbons.”
Meesh chuckled at the thought.
“But what was that about Dark Angels?” asked Shade.
“Long story.”
Meesh cut in: “Why’d he say only two? What, I don’t rate as angelic?”
Abe’s grin widened.
“No, you don’t. They like Dark Angels here, brother, and even after six years in the desert, you’re not dark. They likely won’t be fond of you. Best to practice that restraint you told me you had tonight. Otherwise, I just might have to sacrifice you in the name of keeping the peace.”
“Oh,” Meesh replied. For once, he felt at a loss for words.
The Scourgers climbed higher and higher until the breeze blew with such cold bluster that Meesh found himself shivering and sweating at the same time. The phalanx then followed a ridge of elevated, jagged stone. Above that rose a narrow crest, and Meesh noticed the swirling, glowing yellow mists that obscured its peak. A strong, noxious odor reached his nose, and he almost gagged.
“Oh, I should tell you not to breathe too deeply,” Abe said. “I don’t think inhaling those mists is good for you.”
“Gee, thanks for the tip, brah. Awesome,” Meesh said.
The brothers trailed the Scourgers around another bend, and at a gap in the stone entered a path leading down. Meesh stopped alongside his brothers at the top of the rise; his jaw dropped open.
The high ridgeline they’d followed was in fact the rim of a great bowl cut into the mountain. It must have been miles wide and hundreds of feet deep, lit up in the night by the combination of the radiance given off by the mists above and countless sparkling lights below. It looked like there were buildings down there, organized in a grid-like pattern spreading outward from the slender central peak. More lights snaked along the sides of that immensely tall, spear-like peak.
“Wow,” Shade said. He sounded awed.
“What is this place?” asked Meesh.
Soultaker Page 5
