Summoned to Rule

by C L Walker

  I put my hand on the barrier and sparks sprang from it. I pushed and it pushed back, barely darkening no matter how much strength I used to try and force my hand through.

  “Just hang on a second,” Bannon said. “We’ll do the whole fight thing in a moment. Just let your guy finish.”

  His skin was already covered, spider web tattoos tracing everywhere. Only a few were glowing – the same dull red as my own – but they were almost all there. He was going to be at least as strong as me and I couldn’t see a way to stop it.

  If he was smart he wouldn’t let me get to the blood. The cleric would finish and Bannon would take me out before I had the chance to charge the tattoos.

  But he wasn’t smart, despite what he’d used my friends to accomplish. He was impulsive and emotional. He was the same as me, and I could use that to my advantage.

  “Why?” I said. I moved around the barrier, climbing over outcrops as I tried to do a complete circle. “Why bother?”

  “I didn’t know where this place was,” he answered. “Nobody did. That’s why Invehl ran through the gate as soon as he got all powered up. He was looking for your little bloody oasis here.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Invehl had wanted anything other than destruction and power, but it explained how Bannon had known to look for the mountaintop.

  He continued. “I went through all the same steps as you, visiting that bitch Nikolette and working with Roman to try and build the links in the tattoos. But I knew I’d need you to complete it. I worked out how to travel through the hell gates but I couldn’t find this place.”

  I was behind him now and I pushed on the barrier again. He jerked around to check on me and knocked the clerics hand away in the process.

  “You’re not going to get in,” he said. “Not till I’m done, and then you’re a dead man.”

  “Maybe.” I kept climbing, completing my circle and finishing on the path again.

  “That thing you did in Fairbridge?” he said. “Ripping the building apart like that. I’m looking forward to doing stuff like that. I’m looking forward to the first time a god tries to shut me down. That shit is going to be hilarious.”

  I pressed on the shield again and was showered in sparks.

  “I said knock it off.” Bannon’s smile was fading. He didn’t know what I was doing but it was rattling him.

  “Cleric,” I said. He didn’t acknowledge me.

  “He can’t hear you,” Bannon said. “He’s under my control. Fun fact, while you’re standing around with your dick in your hand anyway. Your people, your friends? They didn’t take much persuading to think you were the enemy. Those guys are terrified of you. Even little Rebecca, and I think she really likes you.”

  I wanted to ask him why he’d have her flirt with me, or why he’d waited as long as he did to spring the various traps. But there was no point; Bec probably flirted with me as a distraction, or because it would make me worry about her and stop thinking about other things. All that really mattered, though, was the end result.

  “Bec doesn’t like anything,” I said, feigning distraction as I traced a pattern on the shield.

  “What are you doing?” Bannon said with an edge in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “I told you, you’re not getting in here.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, continuing my pointless exercise. “Why send the demon to kill the elder vampires?”

  “I was hoping you’d think there was a plot and get more off-balance. Seemed it wasn’t necessary.”

  He twisted round to check on the state of the tattoos on his back; the cleric was working faster than he had with me, but his precision seemed about the same. When he was done the soldier would be as strong as me, and I’d be in trouble.

  I pushed on the shield again, willing the tattoos to try and interfere with it as well. They set up counter spells and tried to weave them into the energy, but I pulled them away before they reached a stage where they might have done some good.

  The effect on Bannon was perfect, though. He stood, knocking the old man off his rock and into the pools of blood. He stared at me, trying to work out if I was a threat or not. He couldn’t tell what I was doing because I wasn’t doing anything, but he wasn’t sure.

  I knew what he was thinking because it was what I would be thinking in his situation. He wondered if I was getting through his defenses and he simply wasn’t smart enough to see how. He wondered if his carefully laid plan was going to fail because he’d overlooked something he couldn’t know about.

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said, forcing a small smile. “Promise. You can sit down and finish up.”

  He shook his head, all trace of his earlier levity gone. He closed his eyes, no doubt reaching out with the tattoos on his skin to check the integrity of his magical wall. It would come back strong as ever, but he wouldn’t trust himself.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I said, trying to break his concentration. “I’m going to tear you apart and feed you to this demon I know.”

  He didn’t answer and I saw the moment he bought my lies. He sat back down so the cleric could finish what he was doing, but the shield strengthened a little as he poured more of Ohm’s life-force into it. He was worried, and now all I had to do was finish the act.

  “I’ll kill you,” I said, almost bored. “Just like I killed all your men, and the last of the super soldiers your pathetic god created. Just like I killed your woefully inadequate god, now that I think about it. I’d almost forgotten little Invehl.”

  “You’re not going to rattle me, Agmundr.” Bannon sounded plenty rattled, so I laughed. He shot me an angry look in response.

  “Not trying to. I’m just working out how many times I can see you defiled by a demon before I get bored. For Invehl it was in the hundreds, but you’re not as bothersome as he was.”

  Invehl had died quickly, but he didn’t know that.

  “I’m not some child,” he said, once again turning to face me and interrupting the cleric. “You can’t trick me into fighting you.”

  He sat down and waved at the cleric. There were only a few more symbols to go. My heartrate ramped up in preparation. I’d done all I could and it hadn’t stopped what the cleric was doing, but hopefully it hadn’t been a total waste.

  The cleric burnt the final symbol, a simple star rune, into Bannon’s back. A half-second later every tattoo lit up, the dull red glow I’d grown so familiar with spreading over his body in sequence.

  He stood, turned to face me, and let the shield fall. I leaned down and put my fingers in the blood of my wife, and the battle began.

  Chapter 38

  Bannon didn’t hold back. He threw everything he had into the fight as though he was born with the tattoos.

  Good, I thought as the red rage took control.

  Blood red fire enveloped his body. He lifted into the air and blasted toward me, his power extending out to soften me up before his attack.

  I was ready, and I was more practiced with the abilities and limitations of the old cleric’s work. I sped up, dashing away from him fast enough that even his magic couldn’t catch me.

  When Bannon was at the edge of the mountaintop I blasted him with the raw, unpolished magic I was used to. The strike hit him in the side, a blast of painfully bright red energy that collided with the glowing tattoos on his skin. He was thrown clear of the mountain and tumbled down its side.

  The tattoos erected a shield, the same as Bannon had been using. When the soldier returned he slammed into it and fell to the ground.

  He didn’t appreciate me laughing at him as he got up. He bashed his fists against the barrier, throwing all his strength, and the strength of his tattoos, into breaking through.

  I took off my shoes slowly, so he knew what I was doing. Everything in me wanted to speed up, to attack, to claw and smash my way through him, but I knew it wasn’t the way. I had to take advantage of his weakness, which was inexperience. He didn’t know how the tattoos worked, and though they wou
ld help him a lot they weren’t great at strategy.

  My bare feet were in the still-warm blood. The tattoos, deprived for so long of the power they’d been designed to channel, were crawling on my skin, eager, desperate to act. Once again they had all the power in the world at their disposal and they yearned to use it.

  I looked down at the confused cleric. He met my gaze, then looked to the screaming soldier, then back at me.

  “I don’t know why I did it,” he said, half to himself. “It was a compulsion, but like one I’ve never seen before.”

  “It’s from after your time, old man,” I said. “Which is a pity, because it looks like a powerful spell.”

  “He isn’t here to rescue the lady, is he?”

  “No, cleric. He isn’t.”

  I took a deep breath and let the tattoos start their preparations; they wove complex spells together, mixing different kinds of magic to achieve the effects I desired, building a shield that would stop even someone as powerful as me. It would hold, I suspected, as long as I had access to the blood.

  I wanted to leave Bannon locked out, but I could feel him breaking through, using his immense strength to exploit inherent weaknesses in the barrier through brute force. He would get through, eventually, but if I let him in now at least I decided the terms.

  “You should hide,” I said. The cleric mumbled to himself, but he did as he was told, scuttling away to crouch behind the rock he’d been sitting on for thousands of years.

  I let the barrier around the mountaintop fall and sent my first attack at Bannon.

  A lance of bright, vivid white light struck the soldier in the chest. It tore through whatever pathetic spell he’d prepared to defend himself, and then punched a hole in his chest wide enough to see through. He was thrown back into the night and away from the mountain.

  I launched into the air to follow him, bursting with Ohm’s life-force and capable of anything. His body fell through the air to the ground at the base of the mountain and I chased it down, firing lance after lance and tearing his body apart further.

  He hit the ground and I landed on him, driving my carefully created shield into him, through him. I destroyed him, tearing him apart in moments.

  He reached over with his remaining arm and grabbed ahold of my leg. The shield would protect me from whatever magic he tried in his desperation, but I shook him off anyway.

  He grabbed my leg again, and this time when I tried to shake him off he pulled. Somehow finding leverage with what was left of his body, he threw me away from him. This time I tumbled to the ground, rising from a roll to find him standing ready, his flesh reconstituting.

  When his lungs returned he screamed, half in agony and half in fury.

  “Your god screamed when I killed him,” I said. I watched his face for a reaction, waiting to see if he still cared about Invehl or if he’d fully bought into the story he’d sold about being as good as a god.

  He flinched at my words, like I’d slapped him. I smiled and he saw it, which made me smile more.

  “Do you really think you can do what Invehl couldn’t?” I said. “Do you really think you’re somehow stronger or smarter than your god?”

  He couldn’t answer and I knew why: if he said yes he was denying his faith, and if he said no he was admitting defeat. For a man like him there was no way to answer, and that fact was driving him insane.

  He sent a lance of energy my way, trying to replicate what I had done. But it was a weak thing and my shield deflected it with ease. It landed in the grass of the endless plain and set it on fire.

  “You’re weak, Bannon,” I said. Powers that I hadn’t used in a hundred years gathered around me, the tattoos preparing for another stunning attack.

  “I’ll kill you,” he said. He groaned as his muscles reknit and his bones grew back together. I knew the pain and it was sometimes worse than the attack that had caused it.

  That was what I’d intended and I laughed at the sound.

  He ran at me again, sending his wave of magic ahead of him again, but this time when I dodged aside he was ready. He moved as fast as I did, tackling me and sending us both to the ground. But I’d prepared my attack in advance and I let it go as soon as I rolled clear of him.

  The lance hit him in the head, tearing his flesh from his skull and boiling his bones. His scream pierced the heavens and made my head ring as he was blown away from me to crash into the ground again.

  I was running low on power but I didn’t want to leave him alone just yet. I had to keep him away from the mountaintop but I hadn’t worn him down enough yet. I just had to delay him.

  I leapt into the air and fired another lance, this one aimed at his legs. I severed them and set him on fire at the same time, then raced back to Ohm’s blood as he screamed and the world shook.

  I landed in the blood and was instantly recharged, ready for more. I sped down the mountain to find him getting back up, his wounds almost completely healed.

  He had to be running low already. I’d destroyed his body twice and probably boiled his brain. The tattoos were the greatest magic on earth, but they didn’t make you a god, despite what he thought.

  I attacked again, and this time he used the speed he’d learned from watching me and dodged to the side. The lance struck the earth with an explosion, blasting a crater in the plain and sending tons of dirt into the sky.

  I chased him, keeping between him and the mountain. He badly wanted to get back and I could imagine the warnings the tattoos were giving him. He wouldn’t understand them, not properly, but they could be persuasive anyway. And they could control him, if he ignored them. That was what I was hoping for, because if they took full control of his body then I couldn’t lose.

  I sent blast after blast at him but he sped away from the all. He was getting better as I watched, learning what he could and couldn’t do. He was a quick study, picking up tricks that I hadn’t learned for the first hundred years. Soon he was moving faster than me as we circled the great mountain. I was wasting time chasing him with magic he could easily avoid, and he was using it to his advantage.

  I threw up a barrier before him and he ran right into it, shattering it even as it slowed him down and distracted him. I moved in for the kill.

  As he turned to face me again I punched him in the gut. The force broke his spin and liquefied his insides. He fell to the ground, gasping for air, desperate for the pain to stop.

  I stomped on his head, trying to crush him and end it all, but his tattoos reacted, blocking me with what must have been the last of their life-force. I pressed down, putting all the strength I could muster behind it, and felt his skull creak under my foot.

  “Please,” he said, his voice a pitiful mewling drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears.

  I pressed harder, throwing everything I had into it. One moment I was pushing against an impossibly hard surface, and the next he was dead and I was standing on the ground, the remains of his skull around my boot.

  He’s dead, I thought. I won.

  I stepped back and began conjuring another lance, something less powerful, just to burn what remained of him in case the tattoos came up with a way to restore him. I needn’t have bothered, though.

  His body disintegrated, falling apart like it was made of sand. He fell into a heap and then the heap fell apart further, into even smaller parts, and then smaller still, until he was little more than dust.

  And then even that was gone.

  I looked up at the dark clouds overhead and I yelled, laughing at the victory, insane with the happiness. I had destroyed my enemy and I had done it when he was at the height of his power.

  I am the barbarian, Agmundr, I thought, and I am a god slayer.

  A scream erupted from the top of the mountain. There was more pain in the voice than anything I had ever heard, anything I could imagine. It rocked the world with its power, sending the clouds streaming through the sky.

  It was Bannon, being reborn.

  Chapter 39


  I knew what was happening, what had to be happening. He was bound, the same way I was. It was the only explanation.

  I had never been defeated, not as badly as Bannon had. I’d never tested the limits of the curse the cleric had placed on me. I was meant to fight for eternity, but even in my darkest moments I had never tried to kill myself.

  I now knew what would happen if I did. The curse was eternal, and it didn’t let you go just because you died.

  I raced back to the mountain, desperate to get there before he could return. I needed to be at full power, ready to fight and disable him again before he was ready.

  I made it halfway up the mountain. Bannon was suddenly coming the other way, powered by Ohm’s blood and racing faster than I had ever managed, directly toward me. My shield was still in place but I knew before he reached me that it wouldn’t matter, not with his tattoos fully powered.

  He slammed into me, driving me to the ground. He grabbed my head in a vise of magical energy and dragged me away from the mountaintop, pushing me into the ground at the same time. The flesh tore free from my back until my ribs were scraping along the ground.

  When he reached the base of the mountain he casually tossed me onto the plain. I flew through the air for a mile before crashing into the ground.

  I was in trouble. Though my wounds were healing I had spent almost all the life-force in the tattoos. I was going into the fight now without the strength to defend myself. I was going into a fight with an enemy as powerful as I had ever been.

  And he was furious. He ran at me, kicking me in the face and sending me tumbling again. When I looked up he was there, wrapping his hand around my neck before slamming my head into the ground.

  “I am a god,” he said, over and over as he turned the back of my head into a bloody pulp.

  My shield wasn’t holding and the tattoos were getting desperate. I was the one who was going to lose control over his tattoos, it seemed, and when that happened I was dead.