by C. L. Roman
“Destroy him,” Molek said and held up the limp form of one of the wounded priests. With casual precision he hooked four taloned fingers under the unconscious man’s jaw and ripped upward, pulling his victim’s head from his shoulders before dropping the corpse on the temple steps. “Or end up like your brother here.” He thrust blood covered talons into the air for emphasis and the last shred of doubt deserted the terrified hearts of his followers.
Terror lent the remaining men courage and they all closed on Fomor at once. In seconds they were too close for him to use the bow as it was intended, but he found it made an excellent club. His foot slammed into the chest of one attacker as he whipped the bow around. The weapon connected with a satisfying thud against the temple of a second priest, thrusting the unconscious man into the arms of a third, whereupon both of them went down in a heap. An assassin’s blade scored Fomor’s chest and he barely managed to slam his fist into the man’s jaw before he felt the white heat of a knife in his thigh.
Fighting hand to hand, he was soon covered in wounds, blood streaming from a dozen cuts. Moments later the priests had pinned him to the ground and were struggling to hold him down and deliver the final blow when Molek’s mocking laughter halted them.
“Wait,” he cackled, “wait, it is too good, too delicious to waste. If the blood of humans gives such sustenance, what good might the blood of an angel do me?” The black draped form advanced down the steps. Behind him, silent as distant stars, three forms descended on the point of the temple.
Fomor kept his scornful gaze on Molek. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he said. “You are much reduced Molek, if you need humans to fight your battles.”
Molek laughed. “Bold words for one about to be sucked dry as sand. Why should I not use all the tools at my disposal?” He flicked a negligent claw, indicating the straining priests. “You were a fool to attempt battle without being fully healed.”
Fomor struggled against his captors without success. “Was I? Yet I still breathe. Come Molek, where is your honor? Show what little courage you still possess. Meet me in fair battle.”
The demon chuckled, “Fair battle?” he hissed. “Is that what you want? And shall I give it to you?” One long, black talon reached out to trace a line of slow pain from the angel’s hair line to his jaw, leaving a seam of blood in its wake. Fomor’s jaw clenched and his breath caught in his throat, but he made no sound.
Lifting the talon to his lips, the demon licked it delicately, testing both flavor and effect. An odd expression crossed his dark features and he spit on the ground reflexively. “A little sweet for my taste, but one accepts what Sa—” he stopped, looking strangely ill at ease for a moment before grinning again. “What one can get,” he finished. Leaning down he licked his enemy’s wound and laughed again as Fomor strained away from him. He spit the blood into the sand and grimaced.
“You taste awful.” Straightening abruptly, Molek drew his sword and sighed. “Useless. But you’ve proven yourself a nuisance. I hope the dirt likes your flavor better than I do.” Molek lifted the sword over his head, double handed and angled to decapitate. With the demon’s attention completely consumed by his enemy’s apparent helplessness, Fomor knew there would never be a better time.
“Now,” he shouted, throwing off the acolytes as a dog shakes off water. The priests fled, screaming, into the surrounding trees. Behind the demon, Jotun, Volot and Adahna settled to the ground in full battle array, swords drawn and glowing in the morning light.
“He’s all yours my friends,” Fomor grinned. Molek lunged at him but grasped only a handful of sparks as the angel turned, stepped and vanished. The trio closed in behind the demon and Molek turned, growling, to meet them.
“So, you follow a coward,” he said. “Will you follow him to your death?”
The three spread out, moving to encircle the enemy as much as possible, but it was Adahna who replied.
“Fomor has more important things to attend to just now. This need not be a battle, Molek. Our orders are to deliver you to Par-Adis for judgment, not to kill you.”
The demon laughed. “Ah, but I have no need of judgment, and certainly no desire to visit my former home,” he said. “You, on the other hand, may soon wish you had never left.” His words ended in a roar as he rushed forward, only to vanish and reappear behind Adahna, a cloud of black smoke marking his passage through the Shift. He wrapped one scaly arm around her slim throat and pressed the point of his sword to her ribs. “You see,” he hissed in her ear, “I am not so easy to kill as you might have hoped.” He pressed his lips tight to her neck and then leapt back, hissing, with four deep scratches along his cheek.
Adahna grinned and dropped into a fighting crouch, shaking his blood from her nails. “Neither am I,” she said.
The angels converged on their enemy as one being, their swords flashing over and over again, so fast that they left blurred lines of light on the air behind them. The demon matched them stroke for stroke with his own version of battle glow; ripping the air with midnight black streaks of non-light.
Each side attempted to leave the other no room to shift, but smoke and sparks soon filled the air as each combatant maneuvered for advantage. Wind ravaged the surrounding pines, shoving branches together, ripping smaller limbs free to plummet earthward. Birds abandoned the foliage and escaped the chaos with outraged cries of alarm.
Jotun spun too late to face the black presence behind him, and felt a dark blade slide into his arm above the elbow, nearly severing the limb. Volot slammed his shoulder into Molek, forcing the demon to break off his attack. The two grappled, narrowly avoiding Jotun who had collapsed to one knee, cradling his arm and closing the slow-healing wound as well as he was able.
Adahna brought her sword down in a deadly arc aimed at Molek’s neck, but he parried and slammed his fist against the side of her head. She sank to her knees, half-blinded, ears ringing. Even as she fell, she raised her sword to deflect the expected blow, but met only smoke. She struggled to her feet and heard Volot’s cry of pain along with Jotun’s hoarse bellow of rage. Fomor had been wrong. Three was not enough.
***
Inside the temple the captain raced down a narrow passage, driving priests and victims alike ahead of him. The priests had made a brief attempt at resistance, but the appearance of a glowing giant with wings extended had convinced them otherwise. Even so, they had not wanted to release the humans selected for sacrifice.
“Molek has chosen them,” they protested. “They belong to him. How will we—”
“They are children,” Fomor snarled, and the priests fell silent. But their fear and shame did not prevent them from shooting resentful glares at him as they released the prisoners from their cramped and filthy cells. Fomor’s heart cracked when he saw that some were as young as two years old and would not be able to travel far, or fast. It seemed only fair that the priests be forced to carry the youngest and weakest. Now the entire group – some thirty souls – was threading its way through the rabbit warren of corridors and cells that surrounded the center chambers of the temple complex.
The tunnels were dark and narrow, the walls studded every few cubits by guttering torches that emitted more smoke than light. The floors were slick with some unnamable slime that made footing treacherous. Every corridor looked the same, and Fomor rapidly became convinced that they were going in circles. He was equally convinced that the priests knew it. He called a halt and beckoned the eldest priest with the point of his dagger.
The old man approached on reluctant limbs, eyes trained on the glittering point of the knife. When he spoke his voice sounded nearly as oily as the floors felt. “How may I assist my Lord?”
“I am not your lord. I am a created being, just as you are,” Fomor said, slipping his knife back into the sheath laced to his calf. Crossing his arms, he leaned a shoulder against the corridor wall and studied the man before him. A long, bony face crowned with stringy, yellowed hair topped an equally long, stringy body. The old man stru
ggled to cover his resentment with false respect, but malice glittered in his eyes above tightly clamped, thin lips.
“Of course,” the priest said. “I will call you whatever you like. Still, I must insist these sacrifices be returned to their cells. My Lord Molek—”
Fomor reached out and pinched the man’s rich brocaded vest between his fingers, feeling the softness of the fabric for a moment as the priest gaped at him. “It occurs to me that you have made no personal sacrifices here,” the captain murmured. “I wonder if that shouldn’t be remedied.” He spun the lackey on his heels and jerked the vest off his shoulders. The priest’s sputtered protest died on his lips as Fomor spun him back around and the two came face to face again. “Call me Captain,” Fomor said. “And do not speak to me of Molek.”
Shoving the shivering priest aside, he gently pulled one of the prisoners forward and slid the warm fabric around her shoulders. She was a tiny child, not more than four years old. Her hair tumbled in dirty black snarls down a thin, bruised back. An over-long fringe of the same inky black curls clouded wide, dark eyes. Her clothes barely deserved to be called rags.
“What is your name, little one?” Fomor asked.
“Brigid,” the little girl replied, and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
Fomor smiled. “Go back to your mother Brigid.” He gestured toward the emaciated woman whose hand she had been holding.
The dark eyes became wide pools of infinite depth. “I can’t. She got married to the god and I’m not allowed to see her anymore. She’s terrible busy now doing god’s-wife stuff.”
Fomor glanced up at the priest, his lips a tight slash in his face. He stared at the man until the priest was shaking far more from fear than cold. The angel stood erect and allowed the battle glow to cover him once more, illuminating the dark. The priest fell to the floor in a cringing heap.
“Please, sire, please do me no harm. It was Sabaoth, he forced us. We had to obey.”
“The Lord of Hosts had no part in this.” Fomor’s lip curled as he flung out a hand to indicate the temple and everything associated with it. “And you know it. The creator of life does not murder children.” His voice cracked down the stone hallway like a whip and the priest collapsed completely, blubbering about mercy and forgiveness.
Glowing fingers entwined in the old man’s tunic-front and jerked him upright, feet twitching, suspended several inches above the slimy floor. When they were nose to nose, Fomor spoke, his voice a whispery growl so terrifying that the priest sobs abruptly ran dry.
“You will lead us out of here. No more detours or delays. If we do not see true moonlight within the next ten minutes, I will create an altar of sand and sacrifice you to Jehovah-Magen in the middle of whatever hallway we happen to be in at the time,” he shook the priest lightly and laid his dagger against the man’s cheek. “Do you understand?”
Cringing away from the blade as far as he could, the shivering priest nodded and Fomor dropped him.
“My Lo—” the priest’s voice died away as he felt the knife nip at the flesh of his throat. “Captain,” he amended, and the dagger disappeared into its sheath. Breathing an audible sigh of relief, the priest continued, though his voice still held the shaky threads of fear. “These tunnels were made to delay and confuse, so that if a sacrifice —” seeing Fomor’s face darken he caught himself, “a prisoner, did escape their cell, they would find it difficult to find the way out of the temple before being recaptured.” The old man paused, licked his lips. “There are more direct routes, for the priests, you understand. But they all lead through the hall of sacrifice. We will surely be seen.”
To his surprise, Fomor grinned. “Have no fear of that, old man. Being seen won’t be a problem.” The angel looked around at the small group of captives. Most were female and young, with little Brigid among the smallest and youngest. Almost all were emaciated and pale, having been starved of food and sunlight. But among the women and children there were a few men. He saw one whose comparatively darker skin and robust appearance indicated that he had only been imprisoned a short time.
He gestured the young man forward. “What is your name?” Fomor asked.
“Jacob, sir,” he replied, brushing dirty blond hair from his eyes and crossing muscular arms over his chest.
Turning so that his body was between Jacob and the priest, Fomor lowered his voice and began to murmur in the younger man’s ear. Jacob listened, brown eyes bright with concentration. He nodded several times and his face lit with a broad grin. Jacob moved back to the shivering group and spoke a few soft words to the other adults, who immediately moved to take charge over a few children each. He turned to Fomor and nodded once.
“Now, Priest,” Fomor pulled out his dagger once more and the man cringed back against the slimy wall. “Lead on.”
***
In the black heart of the temple a thin, ragged figure crouched beside the altar. They are almost inside. He could hear them. Scratching and breaking; entering the temple through its only weak point, the capstone. Not the key though, he thought with a malevolent grin. If they had tampered with the keystone, far more would have fallen than the airy drift of dust that was, even now, fluttering to the floor around him. The noise of their intrusion echoed, bouncing against the chamber’s obsidian walls.
Benat pressed both claw-tipped hands on the altar and stared upward, squinting against the sharp sliver of moonlight that fell through the opening above him. With an irate hiss, he cringed out of its pale illumination, back into the shadows. They were of the Host, that much he knew. He could smell them.
What to do, what to do? He should have stayed below, no matter what the Master said. It was, at least, safe there. Benat’s lips twisted into a sneer, loathing warring with fear for supremacy in his heart. He could not desert his post. Molek would know, and Molek would destroy Benat. He clasped and unclasped his talons, flexing the tight, scarred flesh to loosen it as he thought. Once Benat would have had no hesitation; before the rebellion he could have defeated three or four foes with small effort and a bit of good fortune. The demon pounded one angry fist into the other. Benat should be fully healed by now, but the Master keeps him hungry. He keeps Benat weak out of fear that I will turn against him. And now, he squinted at his scars in the dark and took a single, desperate, breath. Benat will be lucky to defeat one, if it is small and young.
He shook his head and scratched anxiously at the dry skin of his arm. There has to be more than one of them. It had taken twenty humans half a day to place the triangular stone cap on the temple, yet he had not heard it crash to the ground. At least one of them must be holding it in place, or carrying it down the outside wall so that it made no noise and attracted no attention. How many does that leave to destroy me?
***
A small black cat streaked across the open space between the woods and the temple. From the front of the pyramid came the sounds of fighting; hot cries of pain and triumph mingled with the crash of swords in the dim pre-dawn coolness. The cat gained the deeper darkness pooled around the temple base and waited, tail and fur bristled with tension. The flat, black triangle of the massive ziggurat rose one hundred eighty cubits into the air, angling in from the ground to the apex, as if leaning away from her in distaste.
Above her the sound of wings slipped along the air currents and tickled her ears with soft warning. It was the signal. She crouched and flattened, her body elongating, the fur becoming scales and her claws disappearing into fleshy nubs. She much preferred the feline form, but cats could not climb smooth temple walls like a gecko could, and too many birds flapping around up there was bound to get Molek’s attention, even with Fomor distracting him.
Sena skittered up the side of the temple, flinching involuntarily when the hawk’s shadow flashed over her. She knew it was Gant; still, some level of instinct seemed to be hardwired into the form, and it was hard to overcome. She shivered. She really hated being a gecko. Slimy little things. Next time she was going to insist on being one of the birds
.
By now she was one hundred cubits up on the rear face of the temple. The shouts from around front ceased suddenly and she hoped the silence indicated the successful conclusion of the first phase of the plan rather than Fomor’s miscalculation and subsequent death at Molek’s hands. She scurried another thirty cubits and heard Fomor’s shout of, “Now,” the shrieks of the priests, and Molek’s roar.
Can geckos grin? she wondered. It felt like she was grinning. Ahead of her in the near darkness loomed a feathered black shape. It was descending, talons outstretched, but this time she didn’t flinch but instead increased her speed so that she arrived, panting, just as Gant changed from bird to angel in a transition so smooth that she knew he must have been practicing for days.
With a delicate back thrust of his wings, he hovered and sank one hand silently into the obsidian wall, molding the glowing stone into a tenuous anchor. He braced his feet against the wall and allowed his wings to shimmer into hiding before turning to look at her.
“Green is a good color on you,” he teased, teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. She ran a long sticky tongue along the ridge of bone above her eye and he bit back a snort of laughter. Gant reached into the wall with his other hand. Again, stone glimmered and softened to the consistency of black clay. Grasping the new material, he pulled a section outward and shaped it to his purpose. Then he took his hand away and the glow faded, leaving a wide, hard shelf of obsidian just long enough to offer a secure foothold for two. Below them came a flash of wings, and a second glow.
“Much as I’m enjoying your new look, I think it’s time to move on.” He crouched on the shelf, leaving room for her to scurry closer and assume her natural form.
“I’ll show you a new look,” she whispered with pretended anger, but it was a struggle not to laugh along with him, especially when he leaned over and gave her a light kiss on the lips.
