by Jason Herc
The elder scowled. "Jorry talks too much. I don't know what you're talking about."
I drew my red blade. "A pity. You Fallen Ones don't even leave cores behind." I paused, giving him one last chance.
The elder eyed my weapon, then glanced at the others. Finally, he sighed in defeat. "Our village is doomed, then. It's too late. We've left the other succubus on the altar. Mammon will have her—"
I seized the elder by the front of his robe. "Where is she?"
The elder pointed to the far side of the underground village. "Beyond the village is a labyrinth. In the center is Mammon's altar."
"What's the deal with Mammon? Who is he?"
"A Seeker, like yourself. Others bring him enslaved Seekers." He muttered under his breath. "The succubus…now it makes sense." He glanced at Allura again.
"Why?" I asked. "What does he want with Seekers?"
The elder spoke cautiously. "They only send us the weaker ones. Mammon culls them. Collects their Flame in a sacrificial ritual."
"They? Who sends them?"
"Other Seekers."
"Was Ryder there? An Imperial agent?"
The village elder shook his head. "We are Fallen Ones. They do not bother to tell us their names."
I looked back at Allura. "Have you heard of this Mammon?"
"No." Allura frowned. "Why does this Mammon need to collect Flame?" she suddenly asked.
The elder's eyes shifted back and forth from the succubus to me.
"Answer her," I growled.
"Mammon's a craftsman," the elder said. "His crafting requires a large amount of Flame."
"And what does he craft?" Allura asked.
The elder hesitated. "Obedience collars."
Helix gasped in the background. "They make obedience collars here?"
So it was somehow linked. The boviaries. Ryder. The enslaved Seekers. It was, frankly, beyond me. I could only focus on the fact that they wanted to harvest Ember's blood. Hell, it probably wouldn't work since she wasn't even a proper Seeker.
"You took Ember to this Mammon?" I wanted to cut them all down. The darkness inside me threatened to take control of me and my sword. I grimaced as I held the infernal Flames at bay, wondering if I should just release it.
"How strong is this Mammon?" I asked as I clenched my sword's hilt tightly, my hand trembling in a controlled rage.
"Too powerful for us," the elder said. "He wiped out half our village in mere seconds. We've only been able to survive by acting as his servants—"
"Take us to him." I didn't want to hear about how the weak village had helped this monster further his craven crafting. We should have been cautious, but there was no time to find out more. Ember could be at this Mammon's mercy this very second.
A small smiled formed at the corner of the elder's lips at my request. He probably thought he would get rid of us.
I should have been afraid, but I was actually somewhat eager to test the results of our training against another Seeker.
"Jorry!" the elder commanded, his voice strengthening with the familiar air of authority. "You brought this on us, so it is your task to take them to Mammon's altar."
Jorry's blue-face drained of color. "Me…me? But—"
"Go!" the elder roared.
I shrugged and pushed my way forward. I clapped a hand on Jorry's shoulder. "Today's your lucky day, isn't it?" I shoved him forward, and he scrambled across the village.
We made our way through the rocky houses and patches of underground gardens before arriving at the far side. There were four passages, and Jorry led us to the one furthest to the right.
He glanced over his shoulder as he entered. "Stay close. If you get lost, the pattern is two right and one left to enter. The reverse to leave."
Jorry disappeared into the dark tunnel. I hurried to catch up to him, unsure if he was trying to lose us on purpose. Allura and Helix followed behind, with Allura covering the rear as before.
The tunnel lacked any man-made light, but the walls glowed with a soft phosphorescence. I chased after Jorry's form but lost sight of his dim figure.
"Jorry!" I called after the Fallen One, but there was no reply.
We came to a fork.
"Two right, one left." I repeated Jorry's words. "Hurry."
We went right. I used a burst of Flame to run faster than humanly possible down the tunnel, navigating the rocky ground with preternatural agility.
Jorry was at another fork when we caught up to him. I was going to yell at him for trying to lose us, but he held a blue finger up to his lips.
"Quiet. Mammon will hear us."
I gritted my teeth and kept silent. I couldn't wait to unleash my anger on this Mammon guy.
We kept pace with Jorry for the rest of the labyrinth until we arrived in a large circular chamber lit by a circle of candles set in the wall. There was only one way in and one way out of the circular chamber.
I swore when I saw what was in the center of the chamber. Ember was stripped naked, her arms and legs spread apart and tied to four stone pillars. The black collar was still around her neck.
My vision turned red and before I could reel it in, my infernal Flame surged through my body. The next thing I knew, Jorry's head hit the ground. I looked at my blade. Blue blood dripped down its length.
I hadn't even remembered drawing the sword or beheading Jorry. It was as if my infernal Flame had taken control of me for a moment. Again.
Shit. Was I going crazy?
"Aidan." Helix tugged on my arm. "Ember's waiting."
I nodded. "My infernal Flame…nevermind." I flicked the blue blood from my sword before moving to Ember's side.
She was unconscious or asleep. I slashed the four bonds tying her down to the pillars, and Allura and Helix removed the remaining rope binding her ankles and wrists.
"Ember?" I brushed her blonde hair to the side and nudged her cheek gently. "You there?"
Her eyes fluttered open. Deep purple eyes lit by the candle flame stared up at me. "Master? What happened?"
"Did they do anything to you? Did this Mammon guy show up?"
"What? Mammon?" Ember shook her head in confusion.
"It doesn't matter. Let's get you out of here." I helped Ember to her feet. "You can walk?"
"Yes. I don't think I'm hurt, except…" Ember looked down at her naked body. "I failed you, master. To let them capture me."
"Nonsense," I said. "No one's to blame except the assholes who kidnapped you."
I reached for the collar around Ember's neck. A surge of infernal Flame filled my hand, and I squeezed tightly, crushing it into broken fragments. I removed the pieces from Ember's neck and hurled them to the ground.
Ember pointed past me. "Is he dead?" She was pointing at Jorry. She looked at the sword I still held in one hand.
"Yeah." I shrugged. "They kidnapped you and stripped you naked for this crazy guy. Whoever he is."
"No, they didn't do that. I remember them leaving me here…" Ember rubbed her temples. She raised her head, her eyes wide.
"He was here," she said in a hushed tone. "I remember now. He, he…we have to leave before he gets here."
Allura screamed as her body whipped past me and crashed into a wall. She had been standing closest to the way out.
Someone laughed. I looked up to find the shadow of a figure blocking the exit. The candlelight glinted off a curved piece of metal that ended in a wicked curve. A scythe.
"Too late," a low voice growled.
CHAPTER 26
"Check on Allura!" I yelled over my shoulder to Helix.
I held my sword before me in both hands, both of my feet squarely meeting the intruder in the conservative First Stance.
A swirling mass of robes and scythe cuts burst out of the passageway. In the dim light, I couldn't cleanly track the deadly edges and distinguish them from all the fluttering fabric.
I responded with a Crossblade, the direct force of my technique serving as a counter to the obscured attack.
The figure retreated half a step as if surprised by my response.
"I'm Mammon. Who do I have the pleasure of killing?"
I replied with a jab to the figure's face, which was hidden in the hood of his robes. He rotated his scythe across my sword's path, blocking my blow, then twirled the scythe blade out at me.
I changed to a one-handed grip as I withdrew my sword, winding my sword in a snaking pattern to avoid getting hooked on his curved blade. I circled my blade around his, then angled downward to slash at his hand.
He deftly twisted his scythe's blade away to redirect my attack back at myself.
And just like that, we were dancing a duet of Living Lines, my thin straight blade against his wide curved one.
I let my Flame direct the attacks, lightly guiding them to focus the organic chaos that came to life in my sword.
I had thought his heavier weapon would be more cumbersome, but Mammon wove his curved scythe smoothly through a snaking pattern, constantly shifting his attack between arcing strikes to quick swivel cuts and then back to hooking sweeps. My blade twisted and curved, taking on a life of its own like the technique's name.
I aimed for Mammon's upper chest, hoping the scythe's long handle would stymie his defense, but he deflected my attack instead with his scythe's shaft for the first time. I curved my sword past the initial block, but then his scythe was rolling over my blade to pierce my arm with his tip.
I dropped low to avoid his scythe, my attack continuing against his legs.
Mammon's attack changed. His scythe turned into a two-headed weapon, a staff on one end, the deadly blade on the other. My Swordsight flickered with flashes of sight lines as he unveiled the new style. I hadn't thought my Swordsight would be able to absorb any of his scythe techniques, but my stirring Flame told me that my mind and body was picking up something.
I dashed backward. The Living Lines was a persistent, probing attack that turned one strike into a continuous, extended force of pressure. It was unsuitable for the double-pronged style that Mammon used to attack me from two sides at once. While my Living Lines may have failed to penetrate his defenses, it was hardly the full extent of my techniques. Of our techniques.
I had sensed that Allura was recovered and waiting for my signal. I sent a sliver of Flame through her a moment before I stepped to the right.
A cluster of black needles sped past me.
Mammon whirled his scythe like a cyclone, creating a spinning wall of Flame and steel in front of him. Allura's needles clattered away into the stone wall. My eyes burned as my Swordsight analyzed the spinning display.
"Again!" I yelled.
This time, as Allura's needles zipped by me, I sent a sliver of infernal Flame into them before they hit Mammon's scythe.
The combined explosion knocked his scythe out of the spinning scythe technique.
I aimed the point of my sword at Mammon's center and hurled myself forward. I was a living spear, my sword serving as merely the point, as Flame infused my body to lunge forward at an impossible speed.
This was the Single Point Strike, a finishing move intended to destroy everything in one powerful blow. With training, it could become the deadliest technique in my arsenal.
But not yet. My sword buried itself in the wall behind Mammom. He had managed to roll away from my attack even as Allura sent another cluster of needles at him. I slammed my feet into the wall and flipped backwards off it, retreating while drawing my sword from the stone at the same time.
A grunt of pain told me that one of Allura's needles had struck.
I was still spinning backward, but I sent a small burst of infernal Flame into the needle I sensed in Mammon's body.
Something exploded, and I hoped that we had dismembered Mammon or at least injured him, but he held up a smoking fist when I turned to face him again. He had somehow ripped the needle free and contained the explosion within his palm, like Ember had done when training.
Helix charged from Mammon's left while throwing a continuous stream of small disks. Whirling blades of Flame swept out ahead of her. Mammon tried to stop her with his scythe, but his weapon bounced off uselessly from Helix's summoned attacks. He leaped over her at the last instant, his scythe already swinging downward to impale Helix's unprotected back as she rushed underneath him.
I lunged forward again with a Single Point Strike, but I pulled the attack at the last moment, using the sudden movement to block Mammon's attack on Helix, rather than push him backward.
Our weapons clashed, then twined around each other, each trying to twist his blade across the other's wrist or forearm, arcing suddenly one way or the other to catch an unwary neck or stomach. After three seconds of our entangled Living Lines, Mammon switched to his spinning technique to block a needle from Allura.
My eyes blazed again as I saw the technique once more. I somehow knew how to counter the move.
My sword spun in a circle of its own, moving in the opposite direction of Mammon's scythe. Flame drove our spinning circles faster than bone and muscle alone could, but our counter-spinning cyclones clashed in a shower of sparks, striking each other tens of times in a single second. Each time our blades collided, though, the speed of the cyclones slowed, my red blade slicing through the wall of Flame as quickly as Mammon created it.
I had effectively slowed Mammon's blocking technique. One of Allura's needles slid past the sluggish defense, pinning him in his shoulder. Another struck his lower leg.
I kept up the pressure while Allura peppered him with more needles, finding the openings.
Helix had been throwing her disks, which summoned Flame-based slashing attacks. She threw another one now. Mammon's cyclone blocked it, but not before leaving himself open to even more of Allura's needles.
A surge of Flame flowed between me and Ember, and I knew she was drawing upon her recovering strength for a charge. I broke my attack and stepped backward as Ember crashed into Mammon, smashing him into the wall. She bounced off, and I triggered the Shattershard.
Mammon screamed as his body jerked about with a cascade of explosions.
I crouched and prepared to deliver a Single Point Strike. The world collapsed to a single point. My target. Mammon's tattered body.
I had to be faster. Stronger. I wasn't going to give him any chance to escape.
This time, when I launched into the Single Point Strike, I redirected part of my Flame into the same pattern as when I used Mammon's spinning technique.
I shot out across the circular chamber, my body once again a spear, but now, my body spun on its axis like a bullet.
Mammon swung his scythe to deflect my attack, but his scythe's blade bounced off my spinning blade.
I found my mark. My sword cut smoothly into his chest before burying its tip in the stone wall behind him.
I didn't withdraw my sword. Instead, I let a controlled amount of infernal Flame pour into my body and blade. I ripped the blade free sideways, slashing his upper body open.
Ember grabbed the arm on the same side as the cut I had just made and swung Mammon around to slam him into the ground. His face crunched into the hard floor before she snapped his body back viciously and slammed him into a wall like a rag doll. His arm and upper body tore open at the cut I had given him, and Mammon shrieked.
Three needles buried themselves within the hood.
I spun and sliced across where his neck would have been, feeling my blade meet the resistance of soft cartilage.
The screaming stopped.
I stared at the unmoving mass of gore wrapped in robes before realizing that I was panting hard.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. The others were watching me.
"Let's see who this fucker is." I lifted the fabric of the torn hood with the tip of my sword and flung it off the head.
A needle had pierced one of the open eyes,
and two more needles pierced the side of an ordinary looking man's face.
His neck had a gaping crevice, and dark blood was seeping out of the wound.
I blinked. He looked human, more human than anyone else I had seen in the Abyss so far.
"Is he an Outsider?"
Allura knelt by the dead man. "Looks like it." Allura favored one leg as she stood back up.
"You're hurt," I said.
Allura looked down at her right leg. "When he surprised us." She shook the leg. "It will heal."
I moved to Ember. "Are you okay? Did they touch you?" A shiver of rage coursed through me at the thought of anyone hurting her.
Ember hugged me in a tight embrace, her arms, wings, and tail all wrapping around me. I had to awkwardly move my sword to the side to avoid stabbing her.
"I'm fine, master. I believe the boviaries were afraid to do anything but deliver me here, even with the obedience collar."
"Afraid?"
"We succubi do have a reputation for killing with our bodies." Ember's purple eyes met mine. She winked.
"Ember…" She had just been rescued from enslavement or sacrifice to god-knows-what, and she was as perky as ever. I looked down at her taut breasts. In every way.
It seemed like she was in good shape. We let go of each other. "What about you, Helix? You okay?"
I had wondered how Helix would take the violence, but she didn't seem particularly bothered. She looked down at Mammon's gory corpse and made a face. Jorry's headless body had been pushed to the side of the room as well during the fight.
"Serves them right," Helix said. She turned to me, her eyes wide and glimmering with excitement. Yeah, she didn't seem traumatized.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"We head back to the village—"
"No, I mean you saved Ember. Shouldn't we have a celebration?"
I raised an eyebrow and glanced over Helix's shoulder at Allura, then Ember. What's she want? I mouthed.
Helix slid one of her slim thighs between my own legs. She lifted the leg slightly to rub her thighs on my balls.
"Party time?" Helix tried.
The smell of fresh blood was still in the air. I frowned. "Doesn't any of this bother you?"
