More anima filled me as I geo-surfed away, in Poug’s direction. Between us, I found more small groups, dispatching them with efficient Paine geo-mines usually. Wasn’t long before there was a tide of fleeing clansmen ahead of me, but I was faster on my dirtboard. Some I sent into the air with explosions, others I dropped into holes that immediately sealed them in their graves. One turned on me to chuck a spear. I bent around the throw and got close enough to iron fist him while doing sixty-miles-an-hour.
What was left of his head dripped from my knuckles.
By the time I closed in on Poug and the pyre they were building for him, it’s safe to say I caused a commotion. Safe to say those chieftains and honor guard riding them massive bears about like they weren’t bullshit absurdities had noticed my approach. There was shouting from the shade of one of those burning farmhouses. The one with the waterwheel, the one where Val and me traded the binoculars back and forth, watching the Sawaephim kids at play.
Same kids must’ve been somewhere in that small huddle of survivors near Poug, not that anyone in the valley was thinking about either them, the pyre, or even those glittering gold words that had drawn the bear riders this way.
What can I say?
King Henry Price . . . he’s fucking awesome at first impressions.
My dirtboard dissolved again at my will as I dropped back to my own two feet. Was a couple football fields from them chieftains and warriors. I counted about fifty of them in all. Weren’t the only ones in that area. Every living clansman in the valley had fallen back to their champions. Chieftains, warriors, and priests I could see now that I was closer.
A couple clansmen ran past me trying to get to safety just then. I casually sent them flying into the air, their limbs going in different directions. Watch, I thought, it’s about to happen to you too. Ain’t no lucky few here, ain’t no rich and wealthy and elite gonna escape while all the pawns crumble to pieces for your sake.
I gave them time, time they needed to rally.
Time they need to gather their courage.
The spiritual leaders wore bear-head caps, faces gray with paint and ashes. Three of them in total, atop white furred bears. They shouted out exhortations, pointing at me and pointing at the golden letters on the mountainside. Still haven’t learned Sawaephim, but given they were about to roast a templar, don’t think they were big fans of Meteyos.
Pretty sure they were marking me as some demon sent to destroy them.
Ain’t wrong about that, you religious fuckers.
Three of the bear-riders wore plate armor, so did their bears. Biggest and blackest bears you ever wanted to see. Make a grizzly look like a Labrador. Pick up a baby mammoth and make a sammich out of it. Call it a McMammoth. Open a food chain. Ain’t the time for jokes, King Henry, my subconscious whispered.
Yeah, I know.
Shit’s about to get dark up in here.
Two football fields to cross.
Could only think of the clansmen in plate armor as the chief or king, with his two sons. Rest were warriors, true. Toughest, meanest fuckers that king had in his tribe. No women. No children. Those must be elsewhere. Five hundred warriors minus the hundred or so I’ve blown to pieces so far, wonder if that’s considered a big tribe?
Four hundred Sawaephim assholes left. Minus the few were smart enough or disloyal enough to already be running for the hills. Assholes fucked up my night. Assholes trying to burn Poug alive. Assholes gonna make tomorrow night in the Geo Realm my last here and not even a single crow to clean up all these bodies before I come back.
The bear-riders spread out in a line, in front of them another packed grouping of normal clansmen. Not a one looked like the refined and taciturn Sawaephim I pictured when I thought of Poug and his people. They wore jewelry of metal and gems, bright shawls and many layered dresses for the women, polished metal shirts almost like a fashionable armor for the men. In contrast, these used bone and leather and whatever they had stolen.
Except for the king . . . who drew out a sword made of geo-forged diamond. Of course, I thought, he’s the Sawaephim equivalent of a mancer. I could feel him pulling at the ground around him, so different from the power that built easily inside of me. What he did was leech nature anima, coil it inside of his gut for concentrated use later. It was slow, ever present, but not anywhere near as effective as what a lowly Intra could do.
Can you feel me?
Can those boys or yours feel me?
What about the priests or shamans or whatever you call that trio with the pretty white bears?
That why all of you look so terrified?
Did they feel the earthquake as it paused . . . waiting to crash down on them all?
Exhortations from the bear-riders gave the normal clansmen enough courage to form their own line of battle. Four-hundred voices yelled threats from two-hundred yards away. That’s right, assholes, focus in on me. Leave the women and children alone, leave Poug alive. Hit me, Dad, don’t go in JoJo or Susan’s room. I’m the bad one, focus in on me. Bruise my back. Blacken my eyes. Bloody my lip.
I can take it.
Take it all in.
The pain, the anima, all their fury, all their hatred of Meteyos for reasons I can’t possibly understand. All I understood was they took their hatred out on my friend and that was their last fucking mistake.
Didn’t stop at ninety minutes this time.
Took in as much as I could. Ain’t even worth putting a number to it. Maybe just call it a fuck-ton. Fuck-ton of anima inside of me, whole world buzzing around me, I started walking forward.
The king shouted something and his clansmen echoed it.
The priests shouted something and the bear-riders echoed it.
I broke into a jog.
A few of the clansmen pulled out bows and took some pot shots. One got close enough that I snapped a piece of anima to deflect it. Can’t do that with bullets sadly, but arrows are a lot slower with a lot less velocity on them. Just cracking the arrowhead disrupts the flight enough so it goes wild. Do that with a bullet and you’re likely to be hit by thirty pieces of shrapnel instead of one piece of lead.
Was a mistake on my part. Had a massive pool inside of me and now I had a massive pool sans three minutes of anima. Had to hold it in. Gotten used to the annoying feeling it generates at the base of your neck, but this was less annoying and more like a knife. Even knowing it wouldn’t really hurt me, that much anima had a mind of its own and staying pooled up wasn’t in the plan.
The king shouted again, cutting the air with his diamond sword. Clansmen yelled like I imagine animatronic beasts would. A roar of clanks and clangs and crashes. Shouting words at me I don’t understand. Putting all the ills of their world on the pale demon’s presence, on his head, on the hope that if they killed the pale demon all would be righted, all that had been stolen would be returned.
Pale Demon about to massacre him some indigenous savages.
The pain of holding in that anima made me grimace. I forced myself to turn it into a grin, to let my canines show. Fucking prudes judge me for what I’m about to do, put us all in little boxes so they get to judge, judge, judge us all, but look at this shit. Whole other world and it’s the common man running the first charge. Bastards on their bears just sitting back hoping the weight of all them bodies will stop me. Leave that pretty diamond sword untainted by blood, leave that plate armor clean unless they happen to walk through the bodies of their dead after the battle is over. Sing songs to all the orphans about what a brave man King Fucktard the Diamond Sword is, how he personally slew a demon and burned a templar as sacrifice.
I do apologize, that was the pain talking.
Still gonna kill ‘em all though.
Sorry.
No hero here.
Just a selfish God-King saving the only friend he’s got in this entire Realm.
Hey, T-Bone? I thought just before releasing my pool, your Prime Detective shit is about to get fucked!
Yeah, part of me enjoys it
.
Big part of me even. Part of me liked getting into fights every day back in middle school. Part of me been waiting for this since I was fourteen, Ceinwyn first told me I could control the elements. Part of me hated strings, part of me craved freedom, part of me wanted no restraints as a mancer, who flipped the Anima Quota a bird every time he pooled.
Hours of anima, plural motherfucker. Hold that much anima on Earth and I’d be dead or near enough you can’t tell. Here, I was still pushing it. Always pushing the limit. Ain’t no Highest Power no more, I’m the Greatest Power, need to find out what that felt like. Always have been, always will be until it’s someone else’s problem when I’m six feet under.
Hours of anima and I split it thirteen ways. Didn’t manage it perfectly, spare anima cracking chainmail or studs or spearheads, but I managed most of it. Enough of it. Sawaephim clansmen charged over the fields at me, hatred in their eyes so blue they glow. I gave them their Ragnarok, gave them their Rapture, a bloody end for all, especially that pale fucker dares to invade our world.
I wasn’t asked.
I was chosen.
Don’t worry; I ain’t happy about it either.
Wasn’t no guns to the left of them or guns to the right of them as this mob charged. Was just anima, anima at the center on its way out. One geo-mine at the center, sending their best and bravest flying first, dirt and shrapnel with them. When that geo-anima burst it didn’t just send the explosive force, but sent itself. Anything it hit broke in two, or shattered, or melted. Wild anima as a weapon. If by some miracle you survive the explosion you just might have your own belt buckle stab you in the gut.
Was no time for the rest of the clansmen to react over my decimation of their center. Out my arms went to help me focus. Not required, but when you’re playing with that much of the stuff it helps your brain to imagine the tactile connection. Two geo-mines this time, left and right of the first.
Less accurate than the first one, smashed into their faces and flung them backwards, asses tumbling, sometimes body parts going with them, sometimes staying where the charge stopped in its tracks. Overcorrected four and five to be behind, opposite result. Sawaephim going face first into the ground. Got a handle of it by six and seven, working even faster. Was barely a blink between each pair.
Eight geo-mines in quick succession.
Break.
Ruin.
End of the Way Things Are.
Destruction on a scale I hadn’t witnessed since this all began. That earthquake, that unstoppable deluge of geo-anima gonna crack Fresno in half. Except this time I controlled it. I willed the destruction like a jockey cracking a horse’s whip.
Faster.
Kill them faster and cleaner and surer.
Until . . .
Silence was the only epilogue.
Too early for a man to even scream for his momma.
On I walked.
Into the smoke, the cloud of dirt; into blood that seeped over tilled soil, through the bodies of the fallen and the shaking, petrified survivors praying to a god they long ago abandoned. Forgiveness! Mercy! Meteyos! Great One! Killer of Fools! Call him off! I beg you, please! Spare us!
I heard a voice from halfway across the Realm give his only answer.
FINISH THEM.
“This ain’t for you, dragon,” I growled, causing a nearby clansman to whimper.
On I walked, passing to the other side of the destruction, where fifty warriors waited for me, all of their pawns spent, nothing to hide behind. So much anima suffused me that it dripped from my pores, down the outside of arms, to roll off my fingers to the ground. Where the drops fell there was a sudden crack of release.
The bears turned out to be the braver of the two. The king or chief or whatever you title him, tried to turn and flee, and along with him the rest of his cavalry.
“Not happening,” I growled some more, my voice like sandpaper.
Anima shot out quicker than even a cheetah could’ve run, much less some huge bear built for power. It raced under their paws, past them, paused for a moment and then pushed with all its might. Up shot a wall of dirt and stone and whatever I had to work with, twenty feet high, completely cutting off any hope of escape for the king and his court.
Checkmate.
The king threw his anima at it, trying to bash his way through.
Didn’t work.
The priests forced their great white bears to rise, using their shoulders to try to spring over.
Too tall.
Other warriors hacked at it with sword or spear or axe, even their fists.
Unbreakable.
No exit . . . except through the Pale Demon.
The king turned his bear around, snarling metallic words at all about him. His diamond sword flashed high again and he cut it in my direction. Finally he would face me like a man. Pity for him that I ain’t a man here. The priests and his sons formed around him, shouting damnations on my head.
I grinned, canines the only pointy end I need to do the job. “Enough of your fantasy bullshit.”
I reached out towards all that armor, to the chainmail, to the plate armor so shiny. I reached out with anima . . . and I squeezed.
Pop, pop goes the firework.
Fifty bodies fell over off their mounts.
No, I didn’t kill the fucking bears. Don’t want fucking PETA after me, do I? Kill four-hundred people? Fine. Kill some Yogie and BooBoo? Here comes the inquisition! Said bears charged off into the wild once I collapsed the wall I’d built. Fifty battle-bred bear mounts running around the countryside . . . sure it won’t cause any problems.
Not everyone was dead of course, but no one in that valley felt like doing any more fighting.
Not after what I’d just done.
Me more than anyone else.
Picked up the diamond sword as I walked forward through . . . whatever those clansmen are now. Don’t look very much like people any more. Or even corpses. Ceinwyn watched all this and she’s gonna make me take therapy with some Asylum asshole. Twenty-four-years-old and I’m gonna have to play stupid card games with Russell Quilt again.
Can see why the king didn’t feel like fighting none, his diamond sword being so heavy. Wasn’t even a thick blade, but it hurt my arm picking it up. Wonder if he had some type of support in his wrist armor? Would never know, being how the armor was the inside part of him now.
Heh.
What you get for burninating the village, bitch. Yup, used that joke twice. I’m tired after all that, so go fuck yourself.
The children and the farmwomen whimpered and screamed at the sight of me. Don’t blame them given what they just watched, also given I have blood covering a good swath of my skin and clothes. What you know, T-Bone, extra set of clothes you packed ended up being needed.
Poug though . . . Poug looked on me with wonder. “King of Dirt,” he said like he’d never said the words before.
I cut the ropes holding him to the stake with the diamond sword. Heavy, flashy, but at least sharp. “Try not to get captured again,” I tried to make light of it all, not even close to processing what I’d just done. Think I’ll wait until I get out of the Pit . . . after me and Val find us a nice bed to spend a few night in. Might have gone off the deep end farther than even the avenging angel has, but I think she’ll understand more than anyone else ever will.
Understanding . . . think I understood her better for having done it.
Any day she wants, any hour she wants . . . she can do that. Maybe not on that scale, but . . . couple dozen people? Sure she could.
Poug said something to the mothers and their children. They all looked my way with big, bright sapphire eyes. As one they kneeled to me.
I grunted, not pleased about that. “Stop deifying me, please. Makes me feel funny.”
“You saved them, King of Dirt, you saved me . . . all of us, from a most unimaginable, horrible fate. You put an end to the Clan of Brightsword, who have been raiding this area for fifty years. In only minutes
! This is a heroic—”
“If I give you the sword, will you please not use that word? Not feeling it at the moment, man.”
Poug blinked, his knees wobbling as he too prepared to kneel.
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
“King of Dirt—”
“No kneeling!” I ordered with a grumble.
No time to stop, just enough time to get Ceinwyn back to Val’s and then return to my cell crossover point. Won’t even be time for much sleep. Just a shower, I’d really like a shower . . .
One more night.
One more night and I would be done.
One more night and it would all be leverage.
The Pit of No Return would end, however it ended.
Go splat or bounce, I’d find the bottom.
One more night . . .
For the first time in my life, the smell of blood made me sick to my stomach.
Session 173
I’m about to do that thing you fucking hate.
I’m about to almost completely ignore something you were looking forward to hearing all about.
Something you think is essential, important, but really . . . ain’t.
But all them juicy, scandalous details! King Henry in court. Bring out Jerry Orbach’s corpse, this shit is gonna be Law and Order good! Give it to us! Now!
Nah.
Not saying it wasn’t something . . . but that something was really just the in-between. Not even the In-Between.
Something . . . in-between two giant moments.
Something . . . that events overtook.
Don’t matter much.
Forgotten by most.
I mean, parts of it were good. Other parts of it were shit. Guess that’s life, guess that’s a normal day.
In this story, a normal day don’t cut it.
All you’ve heard so far? Hasn’t been normal days. Been important days. Days with ramifications for years and decades to come.
With what’s about to happen, well . . . even an extra-normal day don’t cut it.
The rotunda being even fuller than at the start of the trial? Don’t cut it.
Val and the coffee she kept somehow finding for me? Caffeine being the only thing keeping me standing? Don’t cut it.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 47
