But now that joy was long gone. Her son had been cruelly taken away and she found herself once more before Ardan, once more in need of his help. In the distance, the whippoorwill called out for a third time. Bethany touched the altar and glanced hesitantly at Ardan.
“At first, I thought you somehow told Lady Gretel that we were responsible for kidnapping her sister,” she said.
Ardan flattened his ears against his head and pulled his jowls back to reveal a sliver of fang. “I know you didn’t tell her,” Bethany whispered. “You swore an oath of secrecy, and I know you’d never break an oath you made to me.” Ardan’s ears relaxed to their normal orientation.
“It was the High Priest,” Bethany continued. “I know it. A few days before Lady Gretel butchered my coven, the dreams returned: a black castle flung up against blacker mountains. I don’t know why He told Lady Gretel. But I know it had to have been Him.”
Atop the altar, flies gathered upon the body of Bethany’s son. He’d started to rot days ago, but she’d been unable to bring herself to perform the funeral rites and burn him.
“The High Priest,” Ardan said. “To Him, we are just insects, just puppets, just toys.”
Over and over, Bethany pushed her hands through her long black hair until it splayed out, wild, above her head. From behind a veil of stringy locks, she gritted her teeth and stared into Ardan’s eyes. Something flickered across his face, but his canine features made the emotion hard to read—pity? No, something else—sympathy? Or maybe just concern? He looked for a moment as though he were about to speak, but instead he lifted the body of her son, almost tenderly, from the altar. Then, taking her by the hand, he led her down the stairs.
At the bottom, amongst the open spaces betwixt mighty pillars of sequoia, countless bonfires raged. About each, the Death Clan gathered while howling praise to Xethogga, Hastur, Nothoth-Yamon, and Dionysus, their foul gods. Leaping and cavorting in circular bacchanals with skins of dark wine held high, they matched horns and fangs in ferocious orgiastic combat. Caleb galloped back and forth amongst his warriors, shaking his rifle and extorting them with earth-shaking bellows. In return, they brayed, roared, and shrieked, beating their hooves, claws, and rifle butts against the ground.
The bodies of the Death Clan displayed almost limitless permutations of animalistic grotesquerie: some corpulent and elephantine in stature, others lithely muscular and graceful of limb; some with naked pink flesh, others with lupine pelts or corvid plumage. The heads of wolves, ravens, goats, rams and bulls intermixed freely between them; sometimes attached to bodies of comparable species, other times attached to utterly incongruent forms. Amongst the larger organisms, the Death Clan’s slave caste furtively crept: stunted ovine creatures possessed of only rudimentary intelligence. When one of them tugged curiously at Bethany’s robes, Ardan struck it with a backhanded blow that sent it tumbling head over heels.
In a nearby clearing, Ardan directed a group of slaves in the construction of a pyre. When it was complete, he placed Bethany’s son upon the apex. Thereafter, a pillar of flame climbed upward into the sky to push back the constellations until they clustered reverently just above the treetops. Bethany watched her son’s body shrivel into a black husk, the oily smoke blotting out the stars. She did not cry.
That night, the dreams returned. In untold distances, Bethany beheld once more the cyclopean, black castle flung up against blacker mountains. A cadre of formless abominations evanesced beside her. They guided her inside the castle’s walls; they led her into a high-vaulted chamber of such scale that no sane school of architecture could have possibly envisioned it. A throne of obsidian and jet, engraved with sigils of a monstrous, six-lobed eye, upreared into the chamber’s highest reaches to vanish amidst illimitable darkness. At the base of the throne, a troupe of mutilated figures danced awkwardly to a chorus of haunting, shivering bells. At one time, they may have been women, may have been human—but such unspeakable tortures and gruesome surgeries had been visited upon them that they now resembled ghoulish, cartilaginous marionettes. From the way they danced, Bethany could tell that their hellish formation required yet two more members to be complete.
Then a hemorrhage of shadows spilt over the throne; the shadows waxed in depth until slowly, surely, they took on a positive quality. The bells went silent . . . the figures abased themselves upon their bellies . . . the shadows congealed. There, sprawling upon throne, a titan of carrion flesh, a colossus of rotten planets, a gargoyle of the death of stars—Siosotep, the High Priest.
And lo, the figures cried out in terror. Uuah! Uuah-Xethogga!
Bethany awoke with a surge of adrenaline. A shadow fell over her, and she clutched reflexively for the repeater rifle by her bedroll. It took her a few tense moments to realize that it was merely Ardan who had stooped into her tent. The watery light of morning streamed in behind him, and her dream evaporated with its touch.
He set something down in front of her: a sinister contrivance of dark steel plates and intestinal brass tubing which resembled, in exaggerated fashion, a massive rifle of arquebus. Bethany slowly traced her fingertips along its barrel, up to the swell of its muzzle brake, and grasped it firmly. The circumference was so great that she could not touch her fingertips together.
“What is it?” she asked.
Ardan knelt down. “We have sixteen of them,” he said. “The High Priest gifted them to the Death Clan in gratitude for my part in bringing Him Lady Fiona. They are fully mechanized firearms based upon schematics recovered from the fallen Golden Civilization.”
“I dreamed of Him,” Bethany said. Ardan stopped. He concealed his emotions well, but she spotted the slight constriction of his pupils.
“The dream,” she continued, “was similar to the one I had a year ago. He wants something more from me. What right does He have to ask anything of me? He betrayed me! He betrayed me to Lady Gretel. Is he not equally deserving of my hate? Of my vengeance?”
Ardan lightly brushed the back of her cheek with his fingertips. “To the High Priest, we are but insects. Should He choose to destroy us, it would be so. We exist always in His shadow, but in the darkness, we can take that which we are strong enough to possess. No one can deny you vengeance except you.”
Bethany clutched his hand with both of hers. She squeezed it as tightly as she could. She had known he was right before he had even spoken the words.
The High Priest could destroy kingdoms with His passing, checking his inexorable progress only to laugh at the carnage left in his wake. If He had betrayed her, then it was because it was in His nature to do so. He was a storm—a thing to be suffered, to be endured—not a thing to be fought and defeated. A thing deserving of no more scorn or adoration than the uncaring sun, moon, and stars. Upon Him, her hate was wasted. It was not the High Priest, who had murdered her son, but Lady Gretel.
“Our spies and informants have reported Lady Gretel is aboard a Tailwind-Seven locomotive northbound for the city of Benediction,” Ardan said. “This very night, her train will be traveling through a mountain range nearby.”
From a pouch at his side, Ardan dug out a metallic object and passed it to Bethany. When she took it, her hand sank with its weight. It proved to be a firearm cartridge longer than her palm and thicker than her thumb.
“That is a fifty caliber round designed specifically for the weapons the High Priest gave us,” Ardan continued. “At five hundred and fifty yards, it can completely perforate three-quarter inch of face-hardened armor steel plate. Under optimal conditions, our weapons can fire around six hundred of these rounds per minute.” Bethany handed the cartridge back to him.
Arden went on. “When at cruising speed, the pressure within the boiler of a Tailwind-Seven locomotive engine is about fifty psi and the internal temperature is about three hundred degrees. Sufficient perforation will result in catastrophic boiler failure and instant depressurization: each gallon of water will vaporize into thirty thousand cubic feet of super-heated steam.”
Despit
e his monstrous appearance which might seem to imply otherwise, Bethany knew Ardan actually possessed more than a passing understanding of physics and engineering. He claimed to have received private tutoring from no less a personage than Dr. Heinrich von Eichmann, esteemed laureate professor of Benediction University. Yet Ardan rarely flaunted his knowledge and his sudden digression into technical nomenclature confused her.
“Why are you telling me this?” Bethany asked.
“Steam explosions are not discriminatory,” he answered. “And even if there are survivors, Death Clan tradition dictates that no quarter be given: every single person on that locomotive will die. Men, women, children—and not just those from House Jericho.”
“So what?” she snapped.
“Lady Gretel’s husband and three-year-old daughter are on the train with her,” he said. “They made a special trip to surprise her at the station. If we kill them, House Jericho will demand retribution. It will mean war.”
“Have you all become cowards then?” Bethany asked, “Do your kindred no longer welcome combat?”
“For too long, the Death Clan has been without the touch of Dionysus—the ecstasy that comes with battle,” Ardan said. “We want war with House Jericho.”
Bethany sat back. His point had become clear: war between House Jericho and the Death Clan would likely result in a Death Clan victory, but the Death Clan was not known for mercy, nor for the taking of prisoners. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who were mostly innocents would be butchered.
Bethany remained quiet for a long time, then whispered softly, “Can I show you something?”
She placed a sack in front of him and reached within to produce a handful of gritty, black gum. “I mixed this before I went to sleep last night,” she said. “I know that your caste traditionally spikes the fur on the back of your necks into ridges before battle, and that an adhesive made from blood or wax is often used.”
She paused to stare directly into his eyes.
“I would like to ask you if you would be willing to use this instead: it is a pigment made from my son’s ashes.”
His tail twitched and his claws flicked in and out of their sheaths as the magnitude of her request sank in. “Yes,” he whispered. “I accept.”
She knelt behind him and kneaded the black gum into the longer fur running from behind his ears, down his neck, and over his trapezius muscles. Reverently, she formed spikes in two descending ridges, like twin rows of flensing knives. Black plumage, like the flight feathers of a raven, grew in places along the back of Ardan’s neck and she bound these with leather thongs strung with her son’s charred finger bones. When she was done, she drew her face near and inhaled the scent of the ashes: dry and bitter.
“You are my wrath,” she whispered. “If the world must burn to avenge my son, then I want you to set it ablaze.”
Without thinking, she ran her hands around the side of his neck and over his chest. She could feel the heavy, steady rhythm of his heart and, quite suddenly, became aware of the warmth of his body. “I will never bear another child,” she said. “The High Priest gave me only one chance.”
She laughed sadly, as if noticing for the first time the growing gauntness of her cheeks and the deepening lines at the corners of her eyes. “I am too old for children now anyway,” she said. “Grey has begun to streak hair that was once black.”
“You are only thirty-eight,” Ardan said. “That’s not considered old for a human, is it?”
She laughed a little. “I am more than twice your age,” she said. “You do not consider that old?”
“You’re still beautiful,” he said, and drew her into his arms. “Why do you want a child so badly?”
Her lips trembled, but she remained silent. “My father died from a tumor when I was very young,” he said, “My mother raised my five siblings and me by herself. I loved her more than anything—but she always hated me. I knew she thought me a cruel and distant child . . . and maybe I was. But when I abandoned my tribe and forsook my familial name to join the Death Clan, she didn’t shed a tear—didn’t say a single word.”
The softness of his touch, the strength of his arms, the caress of his fur and the scent of her son’s ashes proved too much for Bethany. Her eyes glistened wetly and tears rolled down her cheeks as she reached up to trace her fingers down his muzzle and across the silken fur along the sides of his face.
“You’re not the only one looking for family,” he said, “I . . . I should have told you how I felt a year ago. I should have asked you to stay with me.”
“I would have said no,” she said.
“And now?”
Bethany answered by pressing her lips to him. The kiss they shared was savage, inhuman. And though Ardan’s fangs left scratches on her cheeks, it was the best kiss of Bethany’s life.
She took him then—climbed into his lap and consumed him utterly. He responded with a passion so fierce that Bethany suddenly grew concerned that he might accidentally injure her. But his initial fury quickly subsided into a surpassing gentleness and, within the grey fortress of his embrace, she felt safe. Within his embrace, she almost felt her loneliness subside . . . almost.
When it was over, they held each other, the silence disturbed only by the sound of their breathing and the distant screech of a hawk.
Already, the sun peeked from behind the treetops, and soon Ardan was forced to whisper, “We have to go.”
They broke camp and traveled through the grim forest in the company of eight other Death Clan warriors. After a few miles, the trees gave way to a sepia expanse of raw earth that undulated with lumpy, tawny-hued mountains. A particularly sheer escarpment, covered in rocky detritus, leaned from the side of one of the mountains. They climbed up it to conceal themselves amongst scattered piles of rubble and heaps of nodular stone. Below, train tracks threaded their way between various mountain passes only to vanish abruptly in the horizon’s vermilion haze.
Hours fell away as they silently awaited their prey. Clouds spilled over the horizon in tumbling waves. The sun sailed slowly across the ecliptic until it finally plunged to extinguish itself betwixt the horns of two great peaks. In its dying light, the landscape ignited into gemstone bands of color.
Just as Bethany grew convinced the train would not come, she noticed Ardan’s left ear swivel northward. The steady chug of a locomotive became increasingly apparent. Puffs of chalky white smoke rose into the burnt ochre of gathering dusk, and presently there came into a view a gleaming, silver engine tugging a long line of cars.
The train approached so close that Bethany could make out the blurry faces of people talking behind little curtained windows—she even made out the palms of a young boy, pressed inquisitively against the glass. She knew there was no way the boy could see her, but she could not shake the sensation that he somehow stared directly at her. She wondered, for a moment, if her son would have looked anything like him had he lived.
Bethany began trembling and set a hand against Ardan’s bicep to steady herself. Her eyes burned, but she denied the power the emotion had over her. She remembered the pine flavor of the stick she’d bitten down on as she pushed her son into the world. She remembered the way his hands clenched into tiny, blackened fists within the flames of his pyre.
“Kill them,” she whispered.
Ardan waited a moment longer for the train to achieve optimal range before howling: Uuah! Uuah-Xethogga!
Ardan and his warriors opened fire as one. Despite her understanding of the weapons’ specifications, Bethany was utterly unprepared for their raw, unchained fury. Each discharge produced a concussive blast that pounded her ribcage like a drum; shrubbery flattened as though subjected to gale-force winds; spent brass cartridges spilt to the ground in metallic rain; and an endless roar shook the mountain range from end to end. With precision that spoke of experience, the Death Clan coordinated their fire until nine distinct streams, marked by phosphorous tracer rounds, converged into one single hurricane of molten lead.
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The locomotive’s engine shuddered beneath the impossible punishment. Its steel hide burst apart into thousands of bleeding rents. Unstoppable, the storm of bullets raked back across the passenger cars and blew them apart, section by section, into fiery matchsticks. Bethany watched as pressure distended the side of the train engine. Rivets popped, and a jet of steam lanced out—followed immediately by a thunderclap as the boiler ruptured. A solid ring of steam and shrapnel tore through the passenger cars and tender with such violence that they lifted from the rails and slammed against the hillside.
Without waiting for the train to slew to a halt, Ardan and four of his cohorts dropped prepared rappelling lines over the cliff face and made their descent. Bethany followed as swiftly as she was able, unslinging her repeater rifle as soon as her feet touched ground.
With remarkable bravery, a few battered House Jericho soldiers had already pulled themselves from the rubble to return fire. Bethany dropped one with a pair of shots from her repeater rifle, its staccato pop remarkably feeble next to the whirring gears and howling blasts of the Death Clan’s mechanized weapons.
She reached the smoldering wreck of the first car and clambered up alongside Ardan just in time to see him direct an avalanche of bullets into an open compartment. A House Jericho soldier caught most of the onslaught in the chest, and it tore him apart in a crimson supernova of limbs and entrails. His companion, more fortunate perhaps, was merely sheered in half. Ardan did not waste the ammunition to finish him off, and Bethany felt dizzy when she caught a glimpse of the man feebly trying to gather a slimy pile of his guts back up into himself.
“Cover me!” Ardan said, ending her distraction.
Darkness Ad Infinitum Page 7
