Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  Not sound, smell.

  The odor was faint, but it seemed to be feces. There was something else, too.

  Shit and rotting bodies.

  Galen motioned for them to follow him with a wave of his hand.

  Arturus’ grip on his razor tightened.

  They moved after Galen as quietly as they could. Aaron began to fall towards the back, his limp becoming more pronounced.

  Arturus noticed the priestess getting close to him.

  Oh yeah. Like I’m going to be able to protect you.

  But her closeness changed something in him. He felt more aggressive, more willing to fight. Galen had told him long ago that everyone needed something to die for.

  Maybe defending a helpless woman was something enough, never mind that she had probably been responsible for more pain than anyone Arturus had ever met before coming to the Carrion.

  The smell became more noticeable. Avery motioned to Johnny Huang, and then pointed towards his nose. Johnny nodded. The ceiling began to arch higher above their heads, and the light began to come back. There were flecks of skystone in the ceiling, giving everything a blue cast.

  We’ve moved far from the ruby vein.

  The odor became intense, overpowering enough to cause Johnny to dry heave. Galen turned back and gave him a warning glance. Johnny tried to stay quiet. His eyes were watering badly.

  The next room was filled with the bodies of dead men and dead demons. Arturus had never seen such slaughter.

  Martin clenched his fingers to try and relieve their twitching. He had to be especially careful about the nails. He had torn one off when he’d fired his rifle in the air to save Rick, and he had a dull ache where the skin was exposed to the air. Still, he intended to return to hunting this very day. Since Julian had been missing, he’d not been able to store any more food, and he knew how hungry he could get after a long fruitless range. A couple of binges and he wouldn’t have anything to show for all his disciplined savings.

  Come back to us, Julian.

  But they had walled the Carrion opening shut, leaving Julian and Aaron trapped on the other side—assuming they were even alive at all. That meant that there would be a new Lead Hunter. Martin considered who that might be. With Aaron and the rest of the best hunters missing, the choice would be a hard one, and he couldn’t imagine Michael Baker reclaiming the title.

  Surely it’ll be Graham.

  Graham was a good hunter, but he was rash. And he wasn’t that good. It might be hard as hell to catch a dyitzu these days, but he should have caught more than just one since Aaron left.

  Aaron. We’re lost without you. And starving.

  They were stubborn, the Citizens. Worse than stubborn, they were heartless. They could watch the people of the village wander around starving while they stuffed their faces full of honeyed dyitzu meat on the Fore’s balconies.

  Graham would become one of them.

  Martin had seen people accepted by the Fore. In the beginning they’d be the same. They were so kind, often helping their old friends out with gifts from the storehouse. But eventually they’d change. After a while, they’d make new friends in the Fore and forget their old ones. They’d start talking about how it was the promise of reward that kept the whole system going.

  Not me. I’d remember where I came from.

  There was no system of rewards, he knew. There were just the people who had to brave the wilds, and the people who didn’t. The good guys, and the people who would live off of the hard work of others rather than putting in their fair share of effort. That wasn’t a system. That was someone taking advantage of someone else.

  I’d be like Aaron. I’d fight for fairness until the end. Until they kicked me out of the Fore.

  Aaron hadn’t wanted to cut off his hand. Aaron had been ordered to do it. He’d had no choice. It was just bad luck. Aaron had made up for it too. Martin had received a new life. He had gotten free food and a long needed rest.

  He looked towards the entranceway.

  Beyond it were the wilds he knew so well and the devils he searched for to earn food. The devils which, he’d always known, would somehow find a way to kill him.

  But there was more out there in the wilds than just demons. There was the Pole and Macon’s Bend—and other places and people he’d never heard of. Hell was big. Some people even said it was infinite.

  But there are Infidel Friend out there too.

  “Hey, Martin?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Martin turned about to see Katie. She was a black haired stocky girl, heavy set. Martin had called her a poor man’s Molly.

  Except that Katie’s not a giant bitch.

  The woman had breasts though, and even despite her extra weight, Martin had to give her that.

  She’s kind of shaped like my pot.

  “Yeah, Kate, whatchya need?”

  “You have any sinfruit?”

  “Nah, sorry.”

  “Devilwheat? Anything other than spider eggs?”

  Martin laughed. “Yes, princess, I do have devilwheat.”

  “Will you trade with me? Please? I’ve had so many of them. I want my last meal to be something else. I might die rather than eat them.”

  Martin considered it. Not many people in the village had anything to trade at all. This might be his last chance to swap out to a different kind of food.

  You should be happy with the way things turned out. If you’d still had your hand when this famine hit hardest, you’d be worse off than anyone.

  “Well, I think I’d rather die than watch you,” he said.

  Katie laughed.

  She’s got a cute laugh.

  He took her over to his hovel and sat down by his pot. He pulled out a handful of devilwheat. She traded him a share of spider eggs.

  He placed them into his pot, careful to make sure they were all bunched together in one corner. Their silky outsides stuck to some of the wheat. They stuck to his hand, too, so he had to flick a few of them off of his fingers. It was tough to do with his weak hand, so he ended up brushing them off with his sleeve. There was one last hanger on.

  He ate it.

  Katie laughed again.

  “Man’s got to eat,” he told her.

  “Yes he does.”

  She looked uncomfortable, as if unsure as to whether she should leave or not. He found that he didn’t want her to go.

  Say something.

  But she spoke for him. “That was very brave, you standing up to Constance.”

  Martin shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but he could feel the heat building in his cheeks.

  She produced a blue cloth and laid it on Martin’s floor. She dropped her devilwheat into the cloth. Martin watched her breasts move as she wrapped it. He was careful to make sure he looked away before she finished.

  She smiled. “Most people won’t stand up to Constance. Even Graham was afraid to.”

  Mouth’s not as big as Kylie’s.

  Martin smiled back.

  “What’s right is right,” he said.

  She got up and exited his hovel. He stood up as well, leaving right after her. He wandered over to Benson as she walked away.

  That’s a lot of butt.

  He sat down next to the still man.

  “You think she’s cute?” he asked Benson.

  Benson’s eyes were as empty as ever.

  “I might hit it,” Martin confessed. “Lot of woman to handle, but most of it is the good kind, you know.”

  Benson’s mouth was open, probably from Mancini’s treatments to rid the man of the corpsedust. His gums had receded so that his teeth looked very long. Massan’s handcuffs still hung about the man’s ankles.

  “Lot of woman. Could hit it from behind, you know. Be like driving a Mack Truck.”

  Martin scratched his chin.

  “I hear you, Bense. I hear you. Girlfriend? You always were a little bit crazy. My father said that, though. Said never to date a pretty woman. Everyone wants her, and she knows it.
Now a woman who nobody wants, she’s got to make up for it in the sack. That’s what my old man said.”

  Martin sighed, finding he had another spider egg stuck to his sleeve.

  “Want it?” he offered.

  Benson made no response.

  Martin shrugged and popped it into his mouth.

  “Suit yourself,” he said as he chewed.

  Martin looked towards Katie’s hovel.

  “Nuh uh, buddy. Don’t you be talking to her, Bense. Us hunters got to stick together now. You can’t be taking my woman.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Aaron whispered as he took in the scene.

  The ceiling of this room was that of a natural cavern, and its grey and black stalactites hung down—thrust as if spears into the rock below—displacing cracked bricks where they had buried themselves into the floor. The cavern was flecked with skystone, and though the light was still not the neon blue Arturus was used to from his homeland, it was easily bright enough to see the carnage.

  Human bodies lay in heaps behind stalagmites that showed the blackened scars of dyitzu fire. Here one lay separate from the others, his leg mutilated. Both of his hands were outstretched, as if he had been trying to keep himself from being dragged away, and his body was riddled with bullet wounds.

  Dyitzu corpses were more evenly spread out, many were shot down around stalactites, but others had been killed in random places throughout the chamber. Here and there, amidst the dyitzu bodies, were dead hounds. Some of them showed evidence of dyitzu fire. There must have been corpses amongst the fallen too, though it was a little hard to determine which bodies had started as undead, and which had risen before being felled again.

  The priestess was shaking her head.

  “How many?” Johnny whispered.

  “Perhaps as many as a hundred humans.” Galen crouched beside one particularly rotten body. “Maybe twice that in demons. Who knows how many corpses.”

  The priestess stopped beside a dyitzu, and knelt, slowly and carefully, keeping her torso erect as she did so. The dyitzu at her feet was missing a jawbone.

  “La’Ferve,” she said. “This is his doing.”

  “It doesn’t seem like him,” Galen said. “Maab’s men tend to avoid fights with dyitzu packs.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, “but it’s him, nonetheless.”

  Galen nodded, the gesture sending Johnny towards one exit. The hunter slowly picked his way through the bodies, his pistol raised.

  “We won’t be here long,” Galen warned everyone. “Look here.” Arturus’ father was pointing at the side of one of the bodies’ head.

  Arturus, Aaron and Avery gathered around.

  “What’s that?” Avery asked.

  “Stitching?” Aaron guessed.

  It was stitching, and the skin had scarred up around the dark thread. It was as if someone had cut a headband into the person from temple to temple before sewing the skin back together. Black veins, spread out like tree roots, were caught up in the raised tissue around the wound. The body’s hands had been mutilated too, with each fingertip removed at the first knuckle.

  “And there’s another one like that over here,” the priestess advised them.

  “The hell?” Avery said, his eyes narrowed and jaw open. “Why are they like that?”

  Both of these bodies seemed more decayed than the others. Either they had died here prior to the battle, or they had entered this room as corpses.

  “They’re Nephysis’ pack mules,” the priestess said.

  Aaron shook his head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Arturus felt like he was getting dizzy from the room’s rank stench.

  “It’s one of the ways to keep corpses docile,” Galen said, spitting onto the stone floor. “You lobotomize the person, kill them, and then raise them. It’s not perfect, but that’s probably why they took off the things fingers, and . . .” Galen reached out, leaning his head back and away from the body, and pulled down one of its lips. “and their teeth.”

  “Wouldn’t they heal?” Avery asked.

  “Rustrock,” Kelly answered.

  Arturus’ father ripped off one of the corpse’s sleeves, which was so rotted from the thing’s own corpsedust that it tore like paper. Galen pointed to more of the incisions on and round the corpse’s elbow.

  “Smart,” Galen said. “Nephysis is good, I’ll give him that.”

  Kelly nodded. “He cuts the tendons, so if they do go wild, they can’t do much to harm. Like I said, pack mules.”

  Avery had moved to one of the stalagmites the Carrion men had used for cover. He was inspecting some of the score marks buckshot had left in the stone. “It looks like people were fighting people. And like the demons were allies with one side.”

  Galen shook his head.

  “But there are bullet marks here,” Avery said, “where there are only people.”

  “Battles are fluid things,” Galen answered. “Either some corpses were firing at them or this place must have been controlled at one point by devils.”

  “Well, it looks that way, anyway,” Avery muttered.

  Arturus started to look for differences in the clothing of the fallen, wondering if Avery could be right. They all wore the Carrion soldier black, and though there were many variations in their clothing and boots, the fallen soldiers didn’t seem to divide up nicely into two camps.

  Even if they did, they could just be two different clans fighting under La’Ferve.

  “But then why are all these hounds hit by dyitzu fire?” Avery asked.

  The priestess smiled grimly. “Check their toes. Gilgamesh, one of Maab’s generals, keeps warhounds that still have their teeth. Even so, he cuts their claws for safety.”

  “Hey guys,” Johnny called softly to them. They looked at him across the room, hands on their weapons. Avery had his Remington raised as a club.

  He must be out of bullets, too.

  Johnny had a pair of shotgun shells held up for them to see. “Some of these bodies still haven’t been looted. Most have, but not all.”

  “They must have left in a hurry,” Aaron surmised.

  “If Kelly is right, and this is La’Ferve’s doing, then he might have left early for his appointment with us,” Galen said. “But we’ve tarried too long already. Gather what you can as fast as you can, and then let’s split.”

  As the hunters began to loot, Arturus noticed Kelly approaching Galen. He found a couple of bodies to sack within earshot so that he could listen in.

  “No, I didn’t say that I didn’t believe you,” Galen was saying, “but Maab must be feeling the push pretty damn hard if she wants to strike out against groups this big. And the amount of people they lost, it can’t be worth it.”

  Kelly’s voice was soft, so Arturus stopped rummaging to make sure he heard her.

  “All three of her generals were here, Galen,” she said. “Gilgamesh, Nephysis, and La’Ferve. This is bigger than you think. She never lets them work in concert.”

  “That is odd.”

  Galen stood suddenly and walked quickly across to the far side of the chamber. Arturus jogged to keep up. The bodies there were different, he began to notice. Their clothes were also dark, but they had red upside down crosses patched into their shoulders. There was a hound among them, claws removed, with two deep wounds in its side. One of the wounds had a broken off Minotaur horn in it.

  No wonder they left in a hurry.

  But Galen did little more than glance at the hound. He crouched by two more fallen bodies, one a human with an upside down cross, the other a dyitzu. They both had been sprayed with buckshot. It was as if they had fallen while fighting side by side.

  Galen cursed in some foreign language. “Avery,” he said after a moment, “I think I owe you an apology.”

  Michael stood alone—save for the sleeping John who lay curled up behind one of the Citizen dining tables—on the third floor balcony of the Fore, looking down on his sleeping city. They would be awake soon, h
e knew. He could already see the first signs of stirring through the patchwork hide and cloth roofs of the village’s hovels.

  It was not going to be a good day.

  The still and Kylie’s Kiln would be silent. No one had anything left to barter for bloodwater, and no one had anything to store in a pot. As if for support, he looked around the right corner of the Fore to see the tall, twin crucifix topped steeples of the church. He would be in that church later today, trying to pass some motions in the Citizen meeting. The most important motion was one designed to give the hunters another stipend. He had tried to pass a law which would guarantee them food from the stores every week, but the Citizens refused to support it. From now until the foreseeable future, he realized, he was going to have to fight, tooth and nail, every single week in order to grant that stipend.

  And the deaths had continued. Two more murders. Mancini was going to try and convince everyone that the only way to stop the killings was to make people register all of their caches with the Fore—consequently ensuring that they would be taxed ten percent of whatever it was they gathered. If that passed, Michael had no doubt that there would be mass desertions at the very least, if not a descent into outright bloodshed.

  He looked back towards the city and then started suddenly. Rick was standing in the middle of Harpsborough, staring directly up at him.

  How long has he been there?

  Rick was nothing like the man he’d been when Michael had last seen him. His face was calm, serious and stoic. It was as if he’d become Galen. For a moment, the man reminded Michael of the Infidel Friend whom he’d sentenced to exile through the Golden Door. Rick had that same defiance, that same remorseless disdain for all that surrounded him. And Michael couldn’t blame him. Rick was no enemy to this city, surely, but Constance and his new band of goons had tried to lynch and loot the man.

  Michael saw a villager exit his hovel out of the corner of his eye, and after apparently noticing his and Rick’s locked stare, the man hurried out to the river room.