Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  Arturus watched as the door drifted away. It sped up as it neared the tunnel, drawn on by a quickening current.

  “Just in time,” Aaron mentioned, “rapids down that way.”

  Galen dropped some rope as he knelt to take stock of his Heckler and Koch. “Tie the priestess up.”

  The priestess spit out some water as Avery and Duncan took a hold of her.

  Avery was particularly rough. “Sorry about tying up your ribs.” He didn’t sound very sorry.

  I wish they’d take it easy on her. They might make her scream.

  Arturus moved about, stretching his legs. Water poured out of the sewn up seams Galen had previously cut into the insteps of his boots.

  “The meeting place for our guide is just ahead,” Galen said. “We’ll talk to him, see what he thinks about the priestess. Girl, it’s best you stay behind right now.”

  “I say we kill her.” Avery tied off another knot with malicious intent. “She’s too big a liability.”

  “All I want is to live.” Her voice was strained from the pain.

  Avery shrugged, unmoved.

  “We may not be able to take her,” Galen said. “The guide has a hatred of her order.”

  Arturus checked his gun. It had gotten wet, certainly, but he thought it would probably fire.

  “We’ll be right back.” Arturus told her.

  She did not respond.

  Galen led them away from the river and through an arch marked with an overlarge purple keystone.

  Beyond it was a long passageway made of the same black and purple stones that were in the river chamber. The passageway wound haphazardly through the Carrion, turning blood red in color where it met with the ruby vein.

  It opened up into a room so dark that Arturus couldn’t see more than fifteen feet ahead. It was full of the gravel funeral mounds he had noticed elsewhere in the Carrion, but these were so old that each pile had nearly coalesced into a single boulder. Some had even melted halfway into the floor.

  A shadow covered man stood in the middle of the room. The figure raised his hand.

  Galen turned around, looking at Aaron. “Stay back.”

  Arturus couldn’t help but agree with his order. This room may have been a meeting place, but it was also a hell of a place for an ambush.

  Finally, we get to go home.

  Galen entered the room. “We’re here.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” their guide’s voice seemed shaky. “I didn’t know.”

  “Know what?” Galen asked, sniffing the air. His shoulders tensed. “La’Ferve.”

  Galen turned quickly, dropping down into a ball. A muzzle flash went off in the far corner of the room. The first bullet dropped their guide. More bullets followed. Arturus’ father dove for cover, lead skipping all around him, some of it hitting him. Galen landed face first on the floor, then stayed there, motionless on the ground.

  Arturus screamed and darted behind a funeral mound. Avery leapt down beside him while the other hunters ran back into the passageway. The room was filled with gunfire as Carrion soldiers popped up from behind the half coalesced rock piles. One was on the other side of the mound Arturus and Avery were using for cover. Arturus’ bullet took him in the face. Arturus popped his head up to look for Galen. His father lay motionless on the stones. It seemed unlikely that, even considering the man’s fine body armor, he could still be alive.

  Arturus was filled with the sudden need to rush to his father’s side. He began to stand up, but Avery grabbed his collar and forced him back down. Bullets cut through the air over their heads and waves of buckshot ricocheted around the chamber.

  “Now’s not the time to have a soul,” Avery shouted over the gunfire.

  The hunter fired a couple of rounds and then hunkered back down. He was bleeding from the shoulder and neck where some buckshot had hit him. Those wounds didn’t seem bad, however. More bullets flew back over their heads as Aaron and the others responded.

  The man who had shot his father did not bother to take cover. The bullets did nothing to hurt him.

  La’Ferve. He has Icanitzu skin armor.

  Arturus thought to shoot him in the head, but a grey, skin tight hood covered the man’s face. The figure reloaded a Ruger pistol with a clip as he approached, stepping over Galen’s fallen body. Galen was back up in a heartbeat, grabbing the arm with the Ruger.

  Father!

  Arturus wasn’t sure how many bullets had struck Galen’s protective armor, or if any had made their way through it. Even assuming the best, however, Galen had to be hurting badly.

  La’Ferve spun quickly, throwing punches with his free hand. Galen wrapped up the man’s gun arm completely and used it to generate a throw, dragging them both to the ground. La’Ferve rolled with it, coming back to his feet and bringing Galen, who still had the man’s arm trapped, up with him. The Ruger pistol had come loose in the fall and it skittered across the room’s stone floor.

  The Carrion men came up from behind their mounds, firing buckshot. La’Ferve wouldn’t be hurt by it, but Galen could be.

  “Fire!” Arturus ordered.

  He fired his last two bullets at the Carrion soldiers. Avery and Aaron were firing as well. The Carrion men dropped for cover.

  La’Ferve was one of the few men Arturus had ever seen who was larger than his father, and the man used his extra weight to good effect. He powered Galen over to the side of the room, pressing him against the stone wall. Then the man reached up to try and gouge out Galen’s eyes. Galen got a hand up, stopping La’Ferve’s limb at the elbow.

  “Galen!” Aaron shouted. “Bullets!”

  I’m not the only one out of ammo.

  “Avery!” Galen ordered, his voice strained. “Ready the AK.”

  “Last clip,” Avery whispered as he shouldered his automatic rifle.

  La’Ferve was throwing knees towards Galen’s midsection even while his fingers reached for Galen’s eyes. Galen let his blocking arm go slack for a second as he opened his mouth. He took a bite out of La’Ferve’s pointer and middle fingers.

  That’s my dad!

  La’Ferve shouted, and as he pulled his hand back, Galen pushed off of the wall, spinning away from his opponent before hurdling over the funeral mound towards the exit. Avery let loose, but La’Ferve did not care. Still firing, Avery retreated. Arturus and Galen ran quickly after him.

  “This way,” Arturus heard La’Ferve’s order.

  Arturus pulled out his pouch of silverlegs and scattered them behind him. They might not slow La’Ferve, but they’d slow his Carrion men.

  Arturus chased after the hunters, sprinting down the winding passageway so quickly that he found himself running into the walls as he made the turns. He heard the yells of the Carrion soldiers echoing down the tunnel.

  “Go around,” La’Ferve’s voice boomed.

  Aaron and Duncan were running with noticeable limps. Arturus looked back and saw that La’Ferve was gaining ground.

  Galen turned to face him. “Stay with me. He’s outnumbered.”

  Arturus and the rest of the hunters gathered together.

  La’Ferve’s hulking figure slowed to a walk and then stopped, unwilling to face them all.

  “Quickly,” Galen said, eying the still La’Ferve, “it will not take long for his soldiers to get around.”

  “But where are we going?” Johnny asked.

  Galen did not answer, but he and Aaron took the lead, running back into the chamber with the river. Arturus’ father pulled them all into a huddle when they’d made it to the bank.

  “Into the water,” Galen ordered. “Hold your breath for a sixty count. Do it for six different intervals. Then stop and we’ll try to gather back together.”

  Galen pulled out a knife and sawed at the priestess’s bonds. She was free in a moment, and as soon as she was, Galen dragged her into the river. The hunters jumped in after, showering Arturus with water. Arturus was about to follow, but he stopped when he saw La’Ferve approaching through th
e corridor. The man was walking towards him without any sense of urgency.

  I want to kill him.

  La’Ferve had ruined his chance to get home. Ruined his chance to see Alice. Ruined how happy Rick would have been to see him and Galen again.

  I am too weak to hurt that man.

  “La’Ferve!” Arturus called.

  “Yes, boy?”

  Arturus pulled up his sleeve and showed La’Ferve the symbol carved into his shoulder. La’Ferve’s eyes narrowed. Arturus winked and dove into the water. The current pulled him madly along as he began his first count.

  One. Two. Three. Oh hell, I have to make it to sixty? Five. Six.

  Dust covered Julian, sticking to his sweat. His young muscles were close to giving out, but that didn’t matter. He swung his pick at the stone anyway. Anything less would draw attention. Attention meant pain.

  I’d die fighting this, in the old world.

  But this wasn’t the old world, and there were things so much worse than slavery. They could shackle him back up to the granite slab. He didn’t think he could survive another round of that. He’d probably die inside and get the stilling. They had ways of taking things here, ways that defied even the fundamental rules of Hell. Hell heals all wounds, the saying went, but Maab’s women could make sure that didn’t happen. When her priestesses took a finger or a hand or something even more important to a man, those things didn’t grow back. Julian wasn’t surprised by this power. His mother had talked about magic from time to time. He thought she’d been dumb, then. He thought it was stupid for anyone believe in something so mystical.

  Obeah. Voodoo.

  They had other magic as well. One among Maab’s men could command corpses. They would do his bidding, carrying stones wherever the High Priestess Selena wished. And the hounds, the man called Gilgamesh could control them. At first Julian thought this had been done simply through training, but then he had seen them using potions to keep the things under control.

  At least the hounds required potions. They could make Julian do things without any magic at all.

  They called him a serf, but that was a lie.

  They said he was not a slave because if he worked hard, he could become baptized. Julian knew better. Some were going to be baptized and others weren’t. Some were going to spend their damnation doing this menial labor. He had heard about a false promise like this one in his sixth grade social studies class, right before he’d died in the old world.

  Work hard for freedom, the Nazis had told their Jews.

  Julian wasn’t working hard because he wanted to be baptized. He was working hard because he didn’t want to be hurt anymore.

  Enough rubble had collected at his feet to justify him bending down to gather it. On certain days there were enough slaves to warrant the formation of separate crews whose sole purpose was to fill and carry off the wicker baskets. On those days he never had an excuse for a break, but on days like this he could catch a breather. He began shoveling the loose rubble into the wicker basket they’d assigned him. Around him, and along the dark, candlelit tunnel, the others kept picking. A priestess and her two soldiers walked by. She looked at him, and he feared her retribution. He had done nothing wrong, and gathering the rubble was certainly part of his job, but even so, he was relieved to see her move on without any comment.

  Thank you, Lord.

  He worked a bit slower now that she was gone but made plenty of noise so it sounded like he was being busy. The man next to him stopped to gather rubble as well. Julian made eye contact with him, but the other serf wouldn’t keep it.

  Julian looked to his left. This serf was called Bailey. Bailey also avoided his gaze. Julian felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Something was wrong. He finished filling the wicker basket and lugged it back down the tunnel.

  On the busier days, someone would take it all the way out of the mine, but right now he was expected just clear it from the work area. They might all be forced to move the rubble at the end of the day if he wasn’t lucky. As he walked back down the corridor, a different priestess entered. She was about eleven years old, a Little Lady, and she had two soldiers flanking her.

  Julian made sure not to look directly at her. He had learned from hard experience not to think of the Little Ladies as children, even if, like this one, they appeared to be three or four years younger than himself. Quickly so as to seem like a hard worker, he grabbed an empty wicker basket, hefted his pick, and walked back down the corridor. He got the uneasy feeling that she and her soldiers were following him. He knew he was just being paranoid. There was only one path down the tunnel. It wasn’t like they were meaning to follow him.

  They were matching his pace, however.

  When he stopped, so did they. They watched him work for a while. Julian became increasingly nervous. He made sure to work harder than he usually did, and the rubble began to build up around his feet. Even so, he felt clumsy. Not all of his strikes were as measured as they normally were. His muscles began to burn in pain. Finally he’d knocked enough debris loose to justify filling another wicker basket.

  “Stop,” the Little Lady ordered as he bent down.

  Julian began to straighten.

  “No,” she said, “you may remain low.”

  Julian’s shaking legs gave out beneath him, and he fell to his knees.

  “Do you pray?” she asked.

  Every day. And you can’t take that from me.

  “No,” Julian answered.

  He looked around him. Someone must have heard him during the night. Someone must have snitched.

  “Never?” she asked pleasantly.

  Julian kept his eyes down at her feet, which he couldn’t even see because of her black satin robe. “Never. Not anymore. Sometimes I talk to myself at night—”

  Her tone didn’t shift as she spoke, “I didn’t ask you if you talked to yourself.”

  “Sorry, my lady.”

  Her robe shifted slightly. “I’ve felt a dark presence here. Felt the vile stench of that devil, Yahweh. You haven’t been praying to him, have you?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “Of course not, my lady.”

  The workers around him had all stopped. When Julian saw the expression on Bailey’s face, he knew he was in some serious trouble.

  “Deny Jesus,” the Little Lady demanded.

  Never!

  “I deny him.” Julian choked over the words.

  “Say ‘fuck Jesus Christ.’”

  Julian set his jaw.

  You’ve got to do this. You won’t survive another three days on the slab. You’ve got to say this.

  Tears formed in his eyes.

  “Fuck . . .” Julian struggled to say the next words, but they wouldn’t come. “. . . you.”

  He stared defiantly into the Little Lady’s eyes. “Fuck you.”

  One of her soldiers slammed a shotgun into his face. Julian crumpled to the stones below. The soldiers dragged him to his feet.

  Fuck you. You can’t take this away from me. I won’t let you.

  Graham burst into Harpsborough with a purpose. His hunters fanned out around him. The villagers were settling down for the night, and a few of them had to hurry to get out of his way. Others followed after him, curious to see what was going on.

  “Huxley,” Graham ordered, “report to Michael. Don’t let him ignore you or send you away. Tell him what you saw.”

  “Where are you going, sir?” Huxley asked.

  “To find Molly.”

  Huxley left them and trotted towards the Fore, dodging through the villagers as he did so.

  Graham turned to face the growing crowd. “Anyone seen Molly?”

  “She’s been in the river room, Graham,” a helpful man said. “Been there well near an hour.”

  Graham nodded his thanks and hurried towards the river room passage, his two hunters in tow.

  “Stay here,” he ordered them. “Don’t let anyone come down this wa
y unless it’s Mike. I don’t care if they have to shit their pants, you got me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Graham jogged down the corridor and stopped when he made it to the river room. He saw Molly sitting there, her feet dangling in the water.

  “Molly,” Graham said.

  The girl took her feet out of the river and stood. Graham admired her form, watching intently as her breasts moved beneath her shirt.

  No time for that Graham. This girl’s been bad.

  He approached her, coming within a couple of feet. He was close enough to hear her breathing over the rush of the water. She smelled of something.

  Hungerleaf?

  “We found your hiding spot in the wilds,” Graham said.

  Molly’s blue eyes looked dead. She shrugged.

  “We know you were funneling Cris food. We need to know what else you’ve done.”

  “Oh, Graham,” Molly said, her face suddenly filled with sorrow. “I’ve always kind of liked you.”

  Graham felt his pulse increase. “Me?”

  “You.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re sexy in your own way, particularly now that you’re large and in charge. You never said you slept with me, either. All the other hunters said they did.”

  Said?

  Graham thought they all pretty much had, but maybe he’d gotten her all wrong. He’d seen her cry very sincerely when he’d followed her before. Maybe she wasn’t such a slut. Maybe she’d only been around a little bit before rumor did the rest. He surely hoped this was the case. Molly was a lot of woman, and she was a lot of woman in all the right places.

  Wait a minute, this girl’s been cavorting with an—

  She cut his thoughts short when she stepped forward, her hands finding his shoulders.

  Don’t you do this, Graham. Don’t kiss this hussy.

  Her lips were slightly parted. He could tell her skin was flushed. Her blue eyes were nearly hidden by fully dilated pupils.

  Maybe for a second. Then you can stop her, and promise you’ll be with her only if she straightens up.

  He thought of how jealous all the other hunters would be. He’d be the man who reformed the whore.

  He tilted his head, closed his eyes, and waited.