March till Death (Hellsong Book 3)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  Arturus felt his heart lighten as it let go of Alice. Hell wasn’t a place to have a maiden to protect. It wasn’t a place to have a girl up on a pedestal. Hell was a place where you needed someone beside you, a peer, someone who could fight—someone like Kelly.

  That’s what father told me, so long ago. There is little difference between a pedestal and a tower. Little difference between a knight and a dragon.

  Arturus felt Kelly’s hand tugging at his own. He stopped walking and realized that everyone around him had too. They stood before a wall made out of blue stone. Calimay’s purple robed priestess walked up to it, two soldiers flanking her. She knocked on it twelve times. Slowly, the wall rose, and a blue undulating light shone in from the room beyond. Arturus had forgotten how beautiful the chamber was.

  The ceiling of water rippled over his head as he entered, covering himself, Kelly, Galen, Avery, Aaron, the priestess, her soldiers and her rustrock burdened slaves with its soft illumination. The giant room held two long reflecting pools. Arturus remembered sitting on the edge of those pools when Galen had fed them and the slaves a feast.

  Even after all that, they still tried to rape Kelly.

  Marble statues rose up out of the waters, groups of men, each wearing the armor of a bygone age, carrying a body shield on one arm and a short sword with the other. On the shoulders of these men were women whose toga draped bodies wound around together into each other until their outstretched and reaching hands became one with a jar. Arturus remembered how Galen had fixed the plumbing so that the fountains could again issue forth streams of water when they were turned on.

  More statues lined either side of a long, red carpet which ran between the two pools and ended with the curtain beyond which, Arturus knew, were the corridors leading into the heart of Calimay’s complex—and to her throne room.

  A couple of soldiers, each with grey shirts and black pants, approached, walking along the carpet.

  “We have succeeded,” Calimay’s priestess said. “Inform Calimay we have returned with the angel’s get and the rust rock.”

  The soldiers nodded. “She sleeps, honored priestess, but we shall inform her when she wakes.”

  Avery’s rotten face suddenly looked worried, and Arturus knew why. Now that Calimay had her rustrock, what reason did she have left to let them go?

  Calimay’s priestess turned to Galen. “You remember where your rooms are?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Good,” the priestess said. “I’m sure Calimay will want to see you when she wakes. I’ll have some ammo, food and clothes brought to you. Oh, and don’t forget,” She winked at Galen. “I owe you a whoopin’.”

  If they’re leaving us unsupervised, it sounds like she’ll keep her bargain.

  And that meant that the future Kelly had brought up was a possible thing. That meant that he might actually make it back to Harpsborough. It meant that the only thing between him and all that a damned soul could dare to dream of was the river Lethe.

  “There’s another one, sir,” Marcus whispered to Martin.

  Together they hunkered down behind a boulder. The dyitzu Marcus had spotted was across the Kingsriver from them, nearly one hundred yards away. The Harpsborough hunters usually didn’t hunt this far downriver, but Martin had brought them there today. He had done so because he figured that there might be good hunting considering how long the Carrion barrier had been down. He did so because he felt that there may have been a few wretched things which had crept in; things which his soldiers needed to kill. He did so because he needed to convince himself that he wasn’t afraid.

  “Jesus,” Martin whispered back. “How many is that? Five?”

  “Six,” Marcus answered.

  Martin shook his head. “That’s too damn many.”

  “That barrier was down for a while.”

  But the column of corpses should have kept them out.

  Marcus sat up a little, looking over his shoulder and across the river room to the dyitzu. “Could have been a small pack that came through and split up.”

  “Could have been,” Martin said, but he didn’t mean the words. “Does Tucker see it?”

  Marcus peered out across the waters. “I think so, but we’re closer.”

  “Alright, let’s take the shot.”

  Martin lay forward across the rock, taking care to stay silent. Marcus set up beside him.

  “I’m ready, sir,” Marcus said.

  Martin kept the dyitzu in his sights. “I’ll shoot when you do.”

  Marcus took in a deep breath before beginning to slowly let it out. Martin knew that when the exhale paused, the man would fire—then he saw another dyitzu.

  “Wait!” he whispered harshly.

  Marcus took his finger off of the trigger. “What?” His voice was almost too quiet for Martin to hear.

  “Look, by the waterfall.”

  At the far edge of the chamber a small tributary poured out of the wall, perhaps two hundred feet high, landing in a pool where it kicked up a light mist into the air. A second dyitzu was coming out of that mist.

  “Alright,” Martin said. “I’ll take him, you take the first one. On three—”

  Then another dyitzu appeared.

  God damn it.

  “Does Tucker see them?” Martin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus answered. “I don’t know where Tucker is.”

  They’re probably scared. Hopefully they’re smart enough to get close. We can’t take three without getting some return fire.

  Martin waited, peering across the Kingsriver. If Tucker was out there, he was staying the hell down.

  “Should we shoot sir?” Marcus asked.

  I don’t know.

  He needed to give Tucker more time to get in position. One of the dyitzu, the first they had spotted, bent down by the river, cupping its hands. With a surprisingly human gesture, it lifted some of the water to its lips and drank. Then it stood and started walking.

  “Sir?” Marcus asked.

  Tucker might need more time. Or he might not even be there.

  It was getting close to one of the exits.

  Marcus’ rifle stayed trained on it. “Sir, if it leaves the chamber—”

  “I know, Marcus.”

  It got closer, and closer, and—

  “Now,” Martin breathed.

  He and Marcus fired at the same moment. Martin’s shot caught his dyitzu in the leg. It dropped to its knees as the reports of the gunshots echoed over the rush of the water. Marcus had hit his in the head. The third dyitzu formed a fireball, ready to hurl it at their position, when a bullet struck it from behind. Martin chambered another round, sending his spent shell spinning through the air until it landed, ringing like a small bell—then Martin’s second shot drowned the sound out.

  He hit the wounded dyitzu in the chest.

  It toppled over.

  Tucker and James stood up from behind their cover. They’d only been fifty or so yards from their target. Tucker raised his rifle and gave out a rebel yell.

  Marcus shouted back, “Got ‘em. Got ‘em fuckers good.”

  Tucker and James approached the far bank and stood there. Martin and Marcus approached theirs.

  “Damn, son!” Tucker shouted. “We’ll be eating well tonight, how many is that altogether?”

  “Eight,” Martin shouted back, “but check the fucking dead, will ya?”

  “Will do, sir,” Tucker answered.

  Martin watched as the hunter walked over to the fallen dyitzu, his rifle leveled.

  “And that’s not counting whatever Hux has gotten,” Martin shouted.

  “No, sir,” James called back across the river, “We ran into him about half an hour ago. He said he ain’t found shit. Must be blind.”

  Martin shared a worried glance with Marcus, then he quickly pulled out another round and loaded it into his 700 Remington. “But Hux was right by where the breach was?” he shouted.

  James held his arms out wide.


  Hux ain’t going to miss a dyitzu. And there should be more by the breach . . . unless.

  Martin’s blood ran cold. “Tucker,” he shouted, “you gut the bodies. James, get all the hunters together, as many as you can find. Mark’s upstream a little, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tucker answered. “His team found three, I think.”

  Fuck.

  Martin started looking around the room.

  “Whatchya thinking, sir?” Marcus asked.

  “It sounds like we’ve got another breach.”

  If that’s true, Graham’s going in to scout this time. I sure as hell ain’t going back in the Carrion. Not me. No sir. Katie would have my hide.

  But he would have to go. How could he send anyone else in his stead? What a hypocrite he would be.

  But I’d be a living hypocrite.

  Something else was bothering him, though. It was just too damn much to hope that two breaches in the same area could be a coincidence. If there was a breach, that meant that Nephysis wasn’t done with this side of Hell.

  “I feel it too, sir,” Marcus said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something wicked this way comes.”

  James’s distant form hopped over one of the dead devils on his way out of the chamber while Tucker bent down to start skinning the first dyitzu.

  Martin nodded. “Marcus, you ain’t just whistling Dixie.”

  It seemed sad to Arturus that the four bunks in the room they shared were enough to hold them. He and Kelly shared a bunk, while Galen, Aaron and Avery each got their own. There was an empty place in his heart where Johnny should have been.

  Some slaves had come by with some extra grey shirts and black pants for them to wear. They’d even provided a purple robe for Kelly and some fairly serviceable dyitzu hide shoes for Arturus. Arturus was surprised at their generosity, but he wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t have been. It reminded him of how Avery viewed Kelly. When he hadn’t thought of her as human, he was willing to be unspeakably cruel to her. Now that Kelly was a member of his own group, Avery wouldn’t treat her badly. Maybe it was the same way with Calimay’s people. As strangers, they were nothing, but as people who showed them where to mine for rustrock, they were something more—something human.

  Then again, it could just be that Galen’s worked his magic on Calimay.

  He thought of Calista.

  Hell, it might be my magic this time.

  Aaron sighed from the bunk above him. “God damn, we’ve been through a lot.”

  Galen grunted his agreement.

  “Fuck, it’s quiet in here,” Avery complained. “Who the hell let Johnny die?”

  “You know,” Aaron said. “I guess I shouldn’t feel so bad about losing Alice’s hair. Would’ve rotted away, anyway, in those fields.”

  “You’re going to see her soon,” Arturus said.

  Aaron gave a contented laugh. “I can’t wait to beat up her new boyfriend.”

  Arturus smiled.

  “How bad is the Lethe?” Avery asked.

  “I’ll get Calimay’s best guide,” Galen said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find a way through the barrier quickly. It’s easier that far south—downriver as you’d call it. We didn’t repair the barriers down there. Once we get out of the Carrion, assuming that the famine holds up, we should have a safe journey.”

  Arturus heard Aaron shifting in the stone bunk above him.

  “It’s dyitzu we have to worry about?” Aaron asked.

  “Yes. There could be a siren, or a banshee, too, but mostly dyitzu.”

  “I don’t want to have come all this way just to die now,” Aaron said. “Even Hell can’t be that cruel.”

  But it is that cruel.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Galen said, “I’m more worried about getting through One Horn’s army than I am the Lethe. If we can sneak out of here without alerting him, I think we’ll all make it home.”

  There were some footsteps coming to the door. Arturus sat up. Kelly did too, and held his hand.

  There was a surprisingly polite knock.

  “Enter,” Galen said.

  The latch slid to one side and the door creaked open on squeaky hinges. Two of Calimay’s black panted and grey shirted soldiers stood there. “Galen, you’re wanted.”

  “See you all in the morning,” Galen said. “Sleep well.”

  He left without another word.

  Avery started snoring.

  Arturus looked over to Kelly’s half dead face. She seemed worried.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said with a smile. “I just thought that, well when I heard them coming, I thought they were coming for you.”

  Arturus squeezed her hand. “Looks like you . . .”

  He heard more footsteps.

  “. . . were right,” she finished.

  There was another knock.

  “Enter,” Aaron said.

  The door opened revealing two more soldiers. “Turi, Calista wants to see you.”

  Kelly sat up.

  “It’s okay,” Arturus whispered to her. “We’re so close. You’ve had to survive this before. I know it will be hard, but trust me. If I can avoid it, I will. But if we can make it through this, I mean, this is such a small price to pay.”

  Tears rolled out of Kelly’s blue-black eyes. She nodded.

  “I promise,” Arturus said.

  She mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “It breaks my heart,” Kelly said.

  Arturus felt a surge of pain. Those words, which would have been meaningless from some other girl, were powerful when they came from Kelly.

  He stood up, and her hand fell out of his. He walked towards the guards. He saw Kelly for a moment as the door closed, her eyes on him, her hands clutched to her chest.

  “This way,” one of the soldiers said, motioning down the corridor.

  So cruel.

  “I hurt, Galen,” Calimay admitted.

  The bed Calimay lay on with her warrior lover was covered in blankets of cured dyitzu hide. Calimay would not be surprised if it was the most comfortable bed in hell. She’d bade her soldiers take the feathers of harpies and leave them in the Lethe to be cleaned for an entire day. After the rank smell of the harpies had been purged, she’d had them used to stuff her mattress. It had taken some time for one of her men to figure out a way to make the feathers stay even beneath her—he’d done so by making cloth compartments within the mattress. Right now she couldn’t even remember which of her men had come up with the idea. Perhaps it was Dakota.

  Dakota is dead.

  “I was miserable,” she told him. “The walls of my kingdom were falling down around my ears and my priestesses blamed me. I spent each night waiting for a knife in the back. The serfs were growing more and more bitter. They did less work each day. Then you came. You made sure my rival died in the Carrion. You made sure that Dakota, Tamara’s fiercest supporter, never returned. You won back the loyalty of the serfs, and now they work harder than ever. You have brought me the rustrock I need to keep this place from falling to pieces. Please stay. You’re the only man I don’t . . .”

  Galen’s muscular back was facing her. She watched how his shoulder’s flexed as he turned his head around to look at her. “. . . the only man you don’t break?”

  “Stay with me, Galen. I don’t want to be here, in Hell. I know it sounds obvious, but it’s eating at me, day by day. You’re the only thing that makes me happy.”

  “I have to get my people home.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I have to raise my boy.”

  She traced one fingernail across his muscular back. “I know.”

  “By then Maab or the City will have found you, and crushed you. But if they haven’t, I may return.”

  His head turned back away from her. She put her hand on his shoulder and was surprised by how hard it felt. “Why would you?”

  “Before Turi, the Car
rion was my home.”

  She propped herself up on her elbow. “And before that? How old are you, really?”

  “Old.”

  “I could have you tortured until you tell me.”

  “And then I’d tell you I was so old that I’d helped change Jesus’ tire.”

  Calimay laughed a little. “Tell me, what’s going on out there? What did you find out?”

  “The Furies can sense Turi. The City of Blood and Stone is digging down to where Tu-El was buried. I think they’ll find him, they’re digging in the right spot, at least. They’ve also found a way to bridge the Erebus.”

  Calimay sat up in her bed. “How could you fuck me without telling me this?”

  Galen shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been in the mood.”

  “No shit. How long until they bring Wretch back to life?”

  Galen rolled over on his back and looked up at her. “He never died, Calimay, the Infidel tricked him across the river of darkness. That’s why he can come back.

  “Saint Wretch can’t be hurt. Who knows how long it took him and his Archdevil to learn how to navigate Sheol? Who knows how long it took them to find a Devil city on our shores so that they might come back—a long time, perhaps—but, sooner or later, it was bound to happen. The Furies can’t hurt him either. And the devils, they love him. They’ll follow him. You weren’t in the Hell he was creating when he toppled the ancients.”

  “But you were?”

  “Or close enough to hear the tales.”

  Galen’s eyes stared up through the ceiling. “We almost had it, people did. We almost had Hell whipped like we’d whipped Earth. It’s just that Hell had more to throw at us, and we had no way to stop a thing like Wretch—one of our own.”

  Calimay frowned. “And we still don’t.”

  Galen nodded.

  “So,” Calimay asked, “what do we do? Could the Infidel trick him again? Can we?”

  “There are no armies large enough in these times to face the forces that he can bring to bear. Right now, in truth, he doesn’t even need to be immortal.”

  “Then I’ll surrender,” Calimay said.

  Galen snorted.

  Calimay sneered. “You would recommend something else?”

  “I’ve fought unwinnable battles before.”