by Matt Hiebert
Ru might never have found the minion if not for Yuul’s hybrid. When the abomination ventured from his body and made contact with the Vaerian, Ru knew exactly where to send the Demonthane.
From across the world, Ru saw everything that transpired after that. He witnessed the Demonthane impale the minion, and saw the man-god suffering over the death. The hybrid had no control over his new power. He rode it like an unbroken stallion. It controlled him more than he controlled it. By the time the thing mastered its might, the battle would be over.
Ru thought it best to let the Agara rest since its next target would be Yuul's creature. He sent the Agara to God's Finger to recuperate and defile Yuul's silly tower. The Agara could fly, so the top of the pillar was no longer out of reach. He didn't want his adversary interfering, and desecrating the tower would prevent that. When the war was over, Ru would knock the spike down and grind it back into salt.
Ru cast his sight to far side of his world. His human soldiers were exhausted and of little use. Taln was even showing signs of fatigue and he had traveled with a full belly and plenty of water.
The Thogs, however, were performing with remarkable success. The beasts were more effective than even he had hoped. Only a few thousand had fallen and the battle was nearing an end.
At the Iron Gate, Ru watched as the Thogs smashed holes through the wall, allowing a roaring stream of attackers to flood into the Abanshi kingdom. It was a vision the god had dreamed about for centuries.
Yes. Sirian Ru was joyful.
As his forces pierced into the heart of the Abanshi lands, something glimmered in the corner of his eye; just a wink, but enough to jerk his attention away from the fight. The wink had come from the top of God's Finger.
His mind rushed to the spike. He saw the intricate foliage and stone formations decorating the terrace, but no indication of anything else. Perhaps he had imagined the glimmer. Without a minion to summon it, Yuul could not pierce the spiritual membrane encasing the solid world. The god was sure of it. He had made the membrane himself. The wink could not have been Yuul.
Ru lingered atop the spire for a few moments, but sensed nothing. When convinced, he returned to the conflict to gloat.
Yuul relaxed, but not too much. Ru had sensed it. When turned at a certain angle, Yuul could make itself almost invisible, but the pose required concentration. The sight of the Thogs pouring into the Abanshi kingdom hit the young god hard. Its concentration had slipped in a moment of despair, exposing it upon the physical plane. By fortune, Ru had not seen it when taking a closer look.
Yuul had been hiding on God's Finger since Siyer died. It did not know where else to go. The Agara inside the winged body was quite capable of killing it, especially now that Yuul had lost a good-sized chunk of its power. Even a well-placed arrow from a human archer could bring it death. The god had no choice but to hide and wait.
Siyer's death had wounded Yuul. The god had chosen Siyer in the womb and followed him through every moment of his life. Of all his minions, Siyer was the greatest. His grasp of the game and its strategies made him the perfect mentor for the Abanshi vessel. The Vaerian saw instantly the benefit of hiding in plain sight. He understood the necessity of his imprisonment and its relation to conditioning the vessel. He always knew exactly what the god needed and when. He would be missed.
Yuul had wanted to reward its loyal minion, but that door was closed. At least Siyer would be spared more disappointment if they failed.
The young god remained perched in its strange position. It had learned that, with a bit of contorting, it could hide behind the atoms that made up solid matter. It could remain hidden from Ru, the Agara and anyone else who lived and breathed. It was practicing this new found skill when the Demonthane crested the horizon.
The god saw the Agara although it was many miles away. Its wings took slow hacks at the air, propelling it with ease. Only the weight of its presence had been visible before. Now Yuul saw the monster in detail; scale armor skin, sickles for hands. No eyes.
The Demonthane closed the distance at incredible speed. Within a few moments, it landed agilely upon the grassy rooftop of God's Finger. Yuul fell even deeper into despair. The tower was the sole fragment of earth it claimed for itself. Now it was lost.
Folding its wings, the Demonthane scanned the area. Its vision passed over Yuul without pause, oblivious to the god's presence. The monster walked to the center of the garden where the oaks encircled the well and tore out one of the ancient trees with its hooked hands. The tree's exposed orange roots looked like the phalanges of a sea creature. The Agara tossed the old oak aside and repeated the act with another tree, and then another, and another, until all within the circle were scattered like kindling. Then it strode to center of the deforested ring and defiled the well. It shred the petals from the flowers, tore out the sacred hedges, splintered more of the ageless trees and gouged the hallowed earth that nurtured Yuul's garden.
Yuul felt loss crush in from all directions. First the disaster with the merging, then Siyer's death, now this. All of its work, all of its dreams, died as it watched helplessly. The young god had pierced the fabric of reality only to have a closer view of its own defeat.
The Agara sang. It was enjoying its task. It was doing what it was created to do. As it ripped out another tree, the creature suddenly stiffened and fell silent, staring at something in the air.
Yuul looked and saw Quintel's mind bobbing around the edge of God's Finger. It was a confused mess, a consciousness at war with itself. The Abanshi had no control over his powers. Yuul saw the severed part of itself curled up in Quintel's soul, traumatized and terrified, afraid of everything. The Abanshi forced the fragment to cooperate. Yuul was pleased with this. That was exactly why an Abanshi was chosen to be the vessel. Their will to fight was stronger than a god's fear of death. That part of Yuul's strategy had been correct.
The god studied Quintel's mind while the Demonthane shouted insults and stamped the ground. Yuul saw the fissure between the man and the god. Grief and guilt had driven the amputated piece into despondence.
Only one thing kept Quintel from being paralyzed by the schism. The divine fragment inside him was not a fully conscious mind. It was a collection of impulse and feeling. It did not have sentience beyond Quintel's own. It was the raw force of Yuul's identity, the basic building blocks of the god’s essence. If Quintel could figure out how to merge his mind with those divine impulses, he might be able to attain control over his power. But that had not yet happened.
Yuul turned to examine the Demonthane. The design was far more complex than that of the Thogs. While the Demonthane's spirit resided within the large stone, the object was not merely a power source as it was for the Thogs. It was more like a house -- a place where the Agara's mind could reside and animate the body it lived within.
Insight struck Yuul. A new level of understanding clicked into place. The god examined the construction of the Demonthane more closely.
The premise was familiar: Place an entity from another dimension into a body that moved within the world of the living. The difference was Yuul had tried to share a body with someone blessed with birth, while Ru had created the Agara’s form.
Yuul realized its plan had been impossible. The two halves did not make a whole. What Yuul observed with the Agara seemed to work well, however. A soul-mind core connected to a physical body by a network of fibrous nerves. The Demonthane was like a puppeteer.
For a second, Yuul felt Quintel's attention fall upon it. The god fragment had sensed its hiding place! It recognized part of itself hidden behind the atoms. Yuul remained very still. If the Agara sensed it...
After a few long moments, Quintel's interest moved on and his mind withdrew to his body many leagues away.
The Agara halfheartedly destroyed a few more of trees and grew bored. It sprawled out on its back and looked into the blue sky, pleased with its efforts and content to rest.
Yuul had been handed a new strategy. Now that it had time
to examine both Quintel and the Demonthane, it understood how they operated, how they were the same, how they were different and what went wrong with the original plan.
A new plan emerged within the god's thoughts. The deity now realized how it could incarnate within the world of the living.
Chapter 26
Behind him, Quintel heard the disciplined march of Aul's vanguard. Heavy cavalry, catapults and archers. The forces entered the western pass and spread out to optimize their firepower on the open field. In front of him, the rumble of the berserk Thog horde echoed down the canyon walls.
Quintel felt the attention of the Abanshi army as they noticed him on the field. At first, they didn't recognize him. Then a rippling wave of bewilderment moved through the ranks. Most of the soldiers knew nothing about the queen's lost brother, but the officers did, and their feelings about his unexpected presence were negative. “Bad omen, madman, traitor” were the labels he sensed scattered among their thoughts.
He ignored them and stood unmoving, his bare sword tucked into his belt.
Aul rode up behind him.
“I won't trouble you with mundane questions about your escape or how you beat us here,” she said, circling him on her gray mare. She was sheathed in mail and wore the war helm of Abanshi royalty. “I will only ask for your intentions. What is it you plan to do?”
Quintel felt the god moan and hide. His Abanshi side was stronger and spoke.
“I plan to fight,” he said. “I have merged awkwardly with the god. It fears death more than any human. And not just its own. Any death brings it crippling grief. I do not know if it will let me raise my sword. But I must try. The Thog army must be broken and there is a Demonthane loose upon the world. My time to help may be short.”
Aul drew her mount to a halt and leaned forward on her saddle.
“I will not let you lie to yourself, no matter how insane you may be,” she said. “If you stay, you stay to die. Know this in your heart and be free. Our scouts tell us the Thog creatures are impervious to our weapons. They routed the Iron Gate in minutes and tore thirty thousand men apart.”
“I know, Aul. I saw it.”
He sensed she believed him at some level. She glimpsed the truth, but didn't understand it. She wasn't sure of his divinity, but she sensed there was something within him besides madness. He felt her heart soften toward him.
“Then stay with us, little brother. If your divine aspect will not let you fight, just try to die well.”
Quintel thought of the Demonthane in the far away distance. He thought of Huk. He thought of Siyer. He wanted blood.
“Let the god in me scream for mercy,” he said. “My rage is greater than its sorrow.”
The roar of the approaching Thogs gained clarity. Individual war cries could be heard. Even the voices of their human masters found his ears. Aul heard them, too.
“The time is upon us. I will see you on the battlefield, mad prince!” Aul nudged the mare and galloped back to her cavalry line.
The catapults were still crawling into position when the shadow of the first Thog stretched onto the rocky plain. Behind it, an orgy of thrusting swords and tree-sized spears stabbed the sky. The Thogs roared and shouted in almost human voices as they stampeded onto the field.
The Abanshi strategy had already failed, and he felt that realization rise among Aul's troops. The Thogs were moving too quickly, spreading out from the choke point without formation. By the time the archers and batteries were in place, the Thogs would be dispersed too widely to be contained.
When they saw Quintel, the human leaders called out orders to halt, and the Thogs begrudgingly obeyed. Quintel, standing alone in the middle of the battlefield, looked like a trap to them. Why else would he be there?
The Thogs continued to pour into the open space even though the front line had stopped. Already flush with blood lust, the beasts piled over each other. They bellowed at Quintel, baring their tusk-like fangs and slashing the air with their iron weapons.
One of the human masters realized the entire advance had stopped because of a lone Abanshi soldier and shouted a command to one of the larger beasts, who wielded a blood-streaked sword. Broken arrows sprouted from the creature's back, but it showed no sign of pain or weakness. Answering the command, the Thog turned toward Quintel and charged.
It came at him like an enraged bear, muscles rippling, fangs bared, dirt and stone flying beneath its feet. Moving fast, it raised its sword. Halfway to Quintel, its battle cry seemed to shake the landscape.
Quintel tried to reach for his sword, but his arm would not move. The god looked through his eyes and became paralyzed by the sight of the charging Thog. It did not want to be there. It did not want to die or kill or have anything to do with death. It could not move for fear of what might happen if it did.
But Quintel could. As the Thog dropped its blade to meet his skull, Quintel's Abanshi instincts awoke and broke the god's grip of fear. His hand shot for the sword on his belt.
There was a sound.
The Abanshi soldiers who stood in formation and watched the exchange heard the sound in various ways. Many believed it resembled the roar of swarming hornets, their wings shredding the air with countless revolutions. Others thought the sound seemed more like a rising bass note from some titanic stringed instrument.
The charging Thog disappeared. A black, fan-shaped stain exploded across the hard ground in front of Quintel and two objects fell at his feet. One was the Thog's sword. The second was a black sphere. The sphere rolled in a half circle before stopping at his boot. These were all that remained of the attacking Thog.
Silence fell upon both the armies. The Thogs had enough intelligence to know something was wrong. The Abanshi army knew they had just observed the hand of a god.
The rising tone that made the two armies freeze was the sound of Quintel's blade slicing through the air faster than a hummingbird's wings. No one saw him move. His sword was suddenly in his hand and the Thog was gone.
Aul dismounted her horse and stepped forward, a mixture of emotions swirling from her mind.
“What did I just see?” She shouted to her generals. “What did I just see?”
No one answered. Now they knew. Quintel was exactly who he claimed to be.
As soon as the first blow fell, something happened between him and his god half. They intertwined. Their spirits braided together like two serpents. It only took the god a fraction of a second to realize killing the Thog did not hurt like killing a human. In fact, it felt good.
Before Quintel's sword had fully passed through the neck of the beast, the god had jumped in, dicing the creature's flying body parts down to bone chips and black liquid. No longer was the god a sobbing child. It was with him. They moved together.
He felt the reaction of the humans behind him. A fountain of collective awe splashed over him. They had come in despair. Now divine hope had cut its way into the fight.
The enraged Thogs sensed fear among their human masters, who could not accept what they had just witnessed. The humans paused for too long and a dozen Thogs broke ranks and charged.
Quintel disappeared from one spot and reappeared in the center of the attacking pack. Again the humming sound rose and the charging Thogs vanished, but not in so fine a mist as the first. This lot disintegrated into a pile of torsos, heads, arms and legs, still moving, still biting, not knowing they were dead. A rain of gray flesh and black blood splattered over the Thogs that were holding back. The gesture was too strong and the horde went insane, coming at him with all they had. The human masters lost all control.
Quintel again vanished and an explosion of Thog limbs and entrails flew into the sky. One second, twenty Thogs would be raising their axes; the next, they would fly into pieces, as if disassembled by some invisible force. Only the geyser of body parts moving through the throngs revealed his location.
With the bottle uncorked, the thousands of beasts still in the narrow canyon came flooding in. All of them charged toward Qui
ntel. Soon there was nothing but a dense gray circle of Thogs a half-mile thick surrounding him, pushing their numbers into the whirl of his blade from all directions.
A mound of body parts began to grow. Quintel wasn't just dismembering the Thogs, he was stacking their trunks and limbs into heaps.
He would stop sometimes, as if standing back to assess his work. That was the only time he was visible and not a smudge of movement in the middle of the abattoir.
Black blood covered him, dripping from his head and body like oil. Only his eyes and teeth were visible. His sword glowed red hot from the taste of iron Thog armor. He was not consumed in battle lust or even particularly enraged. His face bore no emotion.
Sending his mind outward while his body continued its task, he touched Aul’s thoughts with a message. “Burn the stacks,” he said without words.
“Did you hear that?” Aul asked her generals, but she knew they had not. She mounted her horse.
“He wants us to burn the stacks. Get the incendiary ammunition for the catapults. We'll ride in on horseback.”
By the time they moved the flammable munitions to the cavalry, the mound of carnage at the center of the circle had risen fifty feet with Quintel on top. When the beasts struggled to climb the growing stack of their own dead, he jumped from the pile and began another, feeding it with more butchered meat.
Quintel felt as if he floated across the battlefield. Conjoined with the god, his strength had no limits. The world around him moved lethargically as if time itself had slowed down. He had learned to drop the Thogs with two cuts. Armpit to opposite shoulder, then back from rib to hip. If he just cut off the heads, the senseless bodies kept running around the battlefield striking out at anything. If the sphere and the head remained together, the beasts would keep fighting without legs. The two cuts left the head, torso and legs in three harmless pieces.
He did not always kill the Thogs with such efficiency. Sometimes the god had to play for a while. During those times the Thogs turned into a mist of gristle and blood, pureed from a thousand strokes of his blade.
