Death's Heretic

by James L. Sutter

  Brawlers fought with their hearts. Swordsmen fought with their heads.

  Salim fought with his gut.

  In this case, that tactic appeared to be taking him toward the cliff edge at a dead sprint. Last time he’d run this hard, chasing down the satyr, he’d called on the goddess, letting her taint run through his veins in a burst of unnatural speed. Then, he’d been using his head—just another soldier with a job to do.

  Now all he could think of was Neila’s flesh blistering red and black under the demon’s embrace. No time for prayers, or spells, or threats. Just movement.

  His right foot touched down one last time on the crumbling edge of the cliff, and then he was sailing out over the void.

  Time slowed. Below him, the crevasse dropped away out of sight, descending into sharp-edged shadows and flickering pinpoints of fire that flowed in a line along the trench bottom. The scream of the wind was gone, and even his own breathing ceased. No sound left except for the blood thumping in his ears.

  Beat.

  Twenty feet down, the demons skittered along the wall like spiders, the top one with its spear, the lower with Neila. Just below them, the cliff face opened up into a dark-mouthed cave stretching back into the rock. At its outer edge, a sliver of stone made a shelf perhaps wide enough for two men to lie end to end. Salim leaned backward, twisting in the air.

  Beat.

  The wind was cold, thick syrup, crawling past his face and over his exposed eyes. Behind him, the cliff face began to slide upward even as it receded. Still rolling, Salim stretched his arms out toward the wall like a man set loose from a trapeze.

  Beat.

  The topmost demon looked up. Salim reached.

  Exhale.

  Time resumed. Salim slammed down on the back of the spear wielder, catching himself with a looped elbow around the creature’s neck, the sudden transfer of momentum nearly tearing his shoulder from its socket. The unlikely pair swung inward like a pendulum, driving the demon flat against the wall. Then the creature’s grip failed and they were both falling.

  This time there was no opportunity to maneuver. Salim and the demon hit the narrow shelf full-force and side by side, the stone an open palm that effortlessly swatted the breath from Salim’s lungs.

  The cave was the mouth of a tunnel, nearly circular and ribbed like the guts of an enormous worm. Though the entrance where Salim and the demon had fallen was still well lit by the sickening fire of the sky, farther in the light quickly gave way to a solid, impenetrable black. It was into this darkness that the other demon, far enough ahead to avoid their falling forms, had half-retreated, still clutching Neila easily with one arm. Both demon and girl were only half visible, their flesh blending with the shadows.

  But there still wasn’t time. Next to Salim, the other demon had already gotten to its feet, its ragged sinew recovering faster than the human’s own tender flesh. Without a pause to catch its breath—if breath it even had—the creature brought the spear over its head in a wide arc, slamming it down into the center of Salim’s chest.

  Or at least, where his chest should have been. Again acting on instinct, Salim rolled hard, coming dangerously close to the cliff’s edge before stopping his momentum and rising to a crouch, sword still in his hand and back set against the cave’s curving wall.

  The demon came on, spear held diagonally across its body, and this time Salim closed with it, kicking off the wall as he came. The spear—more like a halberd, given its size—flicked outward in a smooth motion, but Salim met it with his blade.

  The shock was tremendous. By all rights, the demon’s unholy edge should have sheared the thin, straight length of Salim’s sword—but then the Melted Blade wasn’t a normal weapon, either. Regardless, the strength of the impact nearly cost Salim his footing. He saved it by spinning with the motion, throwing his back against the spear’s haft and kicking out ineffectually at the demon’s legs as he went.

  Now they were facing each other again, the demon’s glassy eyes unreadable. It screamed, the bloody phlegm of its voice a language Salim had no desire to interpret.

  He tried a feint, sweeping in high with a slice that dropped at the last moment to come in at the knees. The demon’s spear blocked it easily. A stab in under its left armpit received the same treatment, and then the spear was coming back at him in a whirlwind, the demon attacking with both ends, striking everywhere at once.

  Salim had fought plenty of pikemen in his time, but this was more like the desert monks who refused to fight with anything but their walking sticks. The demon was everywhere—the moment Salim caught the blade from one angle, the butt was already coming in from another.

  One of those backstrokes got through his guard, the wooden shaft—which certainly came from no tree anyone in the mortal world would recognize—slamming square into his solar plexus. Salim’s breath left him for the second time in less than a minute and he folded, curling over his stomach and gasping open-mouthed, to no effect. The demon screamed with pleasure, then raised its spear and brought it down in a vicious stab.

  With leaping away out of the question, Salim did the only thing he could. Still doubled over, he thrust his sword up over his head and moved forward, crashing face-first into the creature’s torso.

  It worked. Though weakened by the lack of air, Salim’s parry was enough to deflect the spear’s barbed blade, sliding it harmlessly over and behind him as his nose and cheeks smashed against the creature’s protruding ribcage. Instantly, his face began to burn as the creature’s acid ate through his pores.

  Salim wasted no time. Keeping his eyes shut against the caustic slime, he looped his free arm around the creature’s emaciated waistline, embracing it even as he slid his left leg behind its right knee. Straightening, he swiveled and pulled, crushing the demon tight against him as he slid around its body. Now he stood behind it, hip to hip and arm across its stomach, as if the demon—a full head taller than him—were his dance partner and the house had turned the lanterns low. Though his eyes remained closed, the image drew a little smile.

  “Song’s over, darling,” he said. Then, with his encircling arm locked, he brought his sword up point-first between the demon’s bottom two ribs.

  The creature screeched and flailed. Salim maintained his hold, not daring to withdraw his sword completely, but instead pulling it halfway out and then ramming it home again at a slightly different angle, feeling new bones grate and organs give way with each thrust. Pain flared as the demon flailed behind itself with the useless spear, then dropped it and began raking him with its claws, to greater effect. But the damage was already done. Hot blood ran over the sword’s hilt, and the demon went limp in Salim’s arms. He held it up for a second, like a man leading a drunken companion home from the tavern, then withdrew his sword and let the corpse drop. He opened his eyes.

  The other demon was still watching him from the darkness, and through blistering tears Salim saw that Neila was still in its arms, struggling valiantly to free herself from its unnaturally firm grip.

  “Come on, then,” Salim said. “Next dance is yours.”

  The demon looked down at Neila, then thoughtfully at Salim, his right hip soaked with the steaming blood of its companion. It met his eyes for a moment, and seemed almost to shrug.

  Then it whipped out its arm and threw the girl full-force into the smooth stone of the far wall.

  Salim shouted, but whatever he said was covered up by the all-consuming eggshell crunch of the girl’s head striking rock. The little shape in the sensible traveling clothes crumpled to the floor and was still, with no attempt made to stop the bleeding skull from meeting the stone a second time with a sickening bounce.

  The demon moved, and Salim moved with it. The burning on his face and hands was forgotten, replaced by one that seemed to be coming from inside his skin. He knew, intellectually, that closing with the unarmed demon was exactly the wrong thing to do. Inside its range, it could bind up his sword, leave him at the mercy of claws and teeth, that searing aci
d. Better to stay wide and mobile, wear it down, then dart in quick for a finishing thrust.

  His gut thought otherwise.

  Salim slammed into the creature at full speed, bowling them both over backward. They landed with Salim on top, the demon’s claws slashing through his robes and into the already lacerated skin of his back, bringing fresh gouts of blood. Salim ignored them. Too close for the blade or point, Salim raised his sword and brought the bronze pommel and basket down onto the demon’s face with all his strength, breaking teeth and pulping the finer bone structures. Once. Twice. Three times the hammer of his arm came down. With each blow, he heard again the crunch that Neila’s head had made against the wall.

  At last the demon managed to get a foot between them, its hips rotating farther than those of a human, and kicked. Salim flew backward, landing on his ass on the cavern floor, and was up again in a second.

  The demon was wary now. It began to circle him, hands low and extended, the claws dripping with blood—Salim’s blood. Above them, the thing’s face was a ragged mess, but the eyes still watched him.

  Without warning, the inside of Salim’s head erupted in a high-pitched scream. If there were words in that screeching, howling cacophony—and Salim suspected there were—they were unintelligible, but the voice was recognizable as the same hideous hunting call the demons had used when first rising over the cliff edge.

  So they’re telepathic, too, Salim thought briefly, and then the maddening torrent of words blocked out all thought. He flinched away from the onslaught, struggling to thrust it out of his mind, and for a moment his eyes closed reflexively.

  It was all the opening the demon needed. With a howl of triumph that shook Salim’s skull from both within and without, the demon shot across the floor, its taloned feet clicking against the stone. One clawed hand swept low and lazy, like a parent lobbing a ball to a child, then whistled upward in a savage arc meant to take off Salim’s jaw and most of his throat.

  Eyes still slitted against the mental assault, Salim sidestepped the uppercut with perfect precision, flowing out of the demon’s path in a wave of dark robes. His sword flashed briefly as it rose—the wave’s white-capped crest—and then came down once, decisively.

  The screaming in his head cut off. On the floor, the demon twitched, its spine severed just above where the neck—carelessly outstretched in its eagerness for the kill—met bony shoulders.

  “You think you’re the first one to come up with a decent battle cry?” Salim asked. Then he kicked the thing hard in the side of the head.

  For a moment his mind was lost in the same haze it always entered after battle—that calm, flat place where only continued breathing mattered, and everything else was a distant buzz. Then it woke.

  Neila.

  He spun and was at the girl’s side in a dozen strides, kneeling next to her on the stone floor. Facedown in a pool of dark blood and darker hair, her crumpled body seemed too small to be the feisty girl he’d argued so heatedly with just that morning. The awkward angle of her limbs didn’t bode well, and for a moment he was afraid to touch her.

  Once, during his early days as a soldier, Salim had seen a man who’d been backed clean off a cliff during a skirmish with some rogue genies outside of Manaket. The man had still been alive when the battle ended, and strong enough to joke with his squadmates who climbed down the cliff after him. Salim would never forget the man’s smile as he reached out to grasp his rescuers’ hands. Nor would he forget the sound that accompanied it—a quiet clicking, like two dice striking together in a gambler’s hand.

  According to the medic, the soldier had been dead from the moment he landed at the foot of the cliff, and just hadn’t known it yet. The spine was a delicate thing. All it took was a sliver of bone in the wrong place, and your heart stopped beating, your lungs forgot how to breathe.

  Salim drove the memory out of his mind. When you had no choice left, you did what you had to, and the dice fell as they would. Slipping one hand under Neila’s head and the other beneath her ribs, Salim turned her over as gently as possible.

  Her face was a wreck. Surprised by the demon’s throw, she hadn’t been able to get her hands up to shield herself, and her head had taken the full force of the impact. A dirty, ragged gash above one eye was deep enough to show the white of bone flickering out from beneath the mud of blood and dust. Her nose had been smashed nearly flat, and the blood from these two injuries covered her face in splotches and rivulets, tracking across formerly white cheeks and split lips. Yet the worst part was her head—beneath the black locks matted with blood, the gentle dome of her skull was no longer symmetrical, the top left side reformed into a disturbingly flat angle.

  For a terrifying few seconds, he thought he was too late. Laying his ear to her chest, just where the swell of her left breast began, he listened desperately for a heartbeat, yet the only drumming he could hear was that of his own blood coursing through his ears. Then he looked back toward her face, and his heart gave a sudden leap.

  In the ruins of her nostrils, little bubbles of blood and mucus were forming and popping. She was still breathing.

  Relief washed over Salim, his body shaking with the aftershocks of adrenaline. He felt warm wetness on his cheeks that could have been blood, but wasn’t. She was still alive.

  Farther down the dark tunnel, something inhuman screamed. Salim jerked reflexively in that direction, then turned just as quickly back to Neila.

  Alive, but far from safe. And he’d already moved her more than was wise. It had to be here, and it had to be fast.

  Still kneeling, Salim placed one hand on the girl’s sternum, and the other as gently as possible on her forehead, cupping the broken brow with his callused palm. His hand was nearly big enough to cover the whole top of her head. She was so small. So fragile.

  Salim bent his own head, closing his eyes against the sight of the broken girl, shutting his ears against the hunting cries. From the deepest part of himself, he called out, casting his prayers into the darkness.

  Please, he began. Please, I—

  That wasn’t right. Even as he started, he could feel the hollowness of it. What was it the angel had told him, so long ago? Prayers must be honest, Salim—that’s where most men go wrong before they start.

  Very well, then. He’d give them honesty. In that still place inside his chest, Salim opened up his heart and let the rage flow, unfolding in a bright flower. A signal fire.

  To hell with please, he prayed. You don’t deserve please.

  The flame that burned inside him was everywhere, consuming, turning him into a light they could see from Heaven to the Abyss.

  I deserve this punishment. I earned it, I brought it upon myself, I made my Hell, and you accepted my offer. But she’s done nothing. She’s just a child.

  There were soft sounds as the acid still in Salim’s eyes sent hot tears out between his closed eyelids to drop onto the girl’s still form.

  Fix her, damn you. The hand on the girl’s chest balled into a fist, but he kept the one on her brow gentle, slowly stroking her hair.

  You can’t have her. Not yet. Not again.

  Outside, the scrabbling sounds in the cave were getting closer, but inside Salim the silence was heavy, expectant. He wanted to scream at that smug, indifferent void. Instead, he gathered everything he had, clenching his teeth and his chest until it seemed like he might implode, and put everything he had into one last unvoiced shout.

  You wanted me, that voice screamed. And you got me. Now use me.

  It was hardly the most eloquent prayer. For a moment, nothing happened. In a darkened cave, Salim knelt over the body of a girl who was quickly bubbling out her last breaths in tiny rivulets of red, while outside the eternal storms of the Abyss raged and laughed.

  A stream of power slammed through Salim’s body, arching his back and turning his balls to water. His teeth snapped together and clenched, biting down against the strain and the sudden taint that filled his blood, flowing up through his chest
and down the conduits of his hands. It felt like holding a lightning bolt dipped in tar, and the sense of total violation—another being using his body as a damn channel, as if he were the bung on a freshly tapped keg—opened his eyes and made him want to scream. Through sheer force of will, he managed to hold his silence and keep his hands pressed against the still body of the girl.

  The goddess of death might not be gentle, but she was effective. As Salim watched, literally unable to turn away, bones moved beneath the girl’s skin. Above the rapidly knitting cut on her brow, which was even now weeping out the dust and dirt that had collected there, the injured section of her skull was inflating back into its normal shape. The pixie nose that had been flattened by its meeting with the wall twisted and contorted as innumerable bone shards reassembled themselves with horrifying little snaps. In a distant corner of his mind, Salim hoped the girl was still unconscious.

  It lasted no more than a few seconds, and then it was gone as suddenly as it had come, the sickening, all-consuming power flowing back out of him. Salim gasped—had he breathed during the healing? There was no way to know—and then slid down onto his hip, one arm propping him up against the ground.

  Next to him, Neila stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned, her gaze going to Salim’s bloody, tear-stained face.

  “What happened?”

  It was a simple question, and an obvious one, yet to Salim it suddenly seemed the funniest thing in the world. Without bothering to wipe at his streaming eyes, he threw back his head and laughed.

  “Nothing,” he said, when he could finally get control of himself again. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  Sitting up straight, he curled one black-robed arm around the girl, hugging her close despite the blood that spattered both of them and the wounds on his back and side that still burned with the last traces of demonic acid. With his other hand, he grabbed the familiar black amulet.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re going home.”

  And this time, they did.

  Chapter Fourteen