by C. L. Roman
Jotun burst through the last line of trees and over a cliff edge, barely spreading his wings in time to stop himself from plummeting into the river that snapped and snarled far below. To his right a set of high falls thundered its way down the cliff-side, sending thick clouds of spray into the air, soaking through his tunic in seconds. Spinning in mid-air, Jotun turned back to face the cliff just in time to see a small body hurtling into the spray. A shivering, agonized wail ripped into him as he dove towards the small form, but the air was too clouded, and he lost sight of the child almost immediately.
Wings pumping, chest heaving, he rose back to the cliff edge and was rewarded by the sight of Kefir and Ziva, their feet scrabbling for purchase in the rank vegetation that clung to the precipice. Kefir stood with Ziva behind him on her knees, as he held Gant’s sword shakily before him. Beyond them, fangs bared, sleek and terrifying in the afternoon sun, crouched a tiger in all his fiercely striped majesty. The animal’s intent could not have been more plain. Only the surprise of seeing a third of his prey disappear over the cliff had kept him from advancing. Now he sat staring at the two remaining humans as if wondering how best to preserve his dinner without taking an untimely bath.
With the barest whisper of feathers against the wind, Jotun rose behind the children, sword in hand, battle glow casting a severe light over the proceedings.
“Begone, mighty one. You must find your meal elsewhere, for these belong to me.” The words were quiet, even respectful, but held complete confidence of being obeyed.
Kefir risked a wary glance over his shoulder to confirm what his ears had suggested, that it was a friend, rather than an enemy who rose behind them. With a sigh of relief he lowered the sword and sank to the ground, groping behind him to draw Ziva away from the cliff edge even as caution kept his hand on the hilt.
The big cat’s eyes sharpened and he made a strange chuffing sound deep in his throat. He lay down and rolled over on his back, baring his belly to the air as if inviting Jotun to rub it.
Chuckling sadly, the angel swept forward. “Strange to say, I have seen miniature versions of you, your cousins perhaps, do the same.” The tiger gazed up at him hopefully. “No, I have not the heart after what I have seen. I cannot blame you for what you are, but neither will I reward you with a belly scratch for the murder of a child.” He landed lightly and bent a stern glance on the beast, “Begone, and hunt humans no more. You are not so far from Eden but that your mother should have taught you: these are not for you or your kind.”
Rising to his feet, head and tail hanging down with every appearance of shame, the tiger slunk away into the forest. Jotun’s wings melted into his skin and he gathered the children close even as Gwyneth thrust her way through the trees, gasping as she saw the tiger disappear through the bushes.
In the clearing, Gant watched as Jotun sped into the forest, every instinct urging him to follow. But before he had taken two steps he again felt the weight of Sena’s sword in his hand and faltered to a halt. Benat might appear at any moment. Granted, the hope that the demon would return for a sure source of food was as thin as sunlight through water but it was the only one the angel had. When Benat found that the bodies of the children were no longer here, he would leave and not return. Gant’s last link to him would be gone.
When the second scream assaulted his ears, Gant again took several automatic steps toward the sound, but once again, was stopped by the weight of the sword in his hand. The third agonized wail dropped him to his knees, the sword thrust into the earth before him.
“Sena,” he groaned, “forgive me beloved, what else can I do?”
“She’ll never forgive you,” the evil hiss came from behind, accompanied by the swish of a blade through the air. Gant spun on his knees, ripping Sena’s sword free from the soil and rolling to his feet in one smooth motion. Even as he rose into a fighting crouch he was grinning, brilliant with battle rage. Benat’s attack whistled past Gant’s ear, carving a tiny slice through his shoulder with its tip. The angel never even felt the cut.
“I knew you’d come,” Gant stalked closer even as Benat, dismayed at missing what might be his only opportunity for victory, danced backward.
Steadying himself, the demon crouched and choked out an oily laugh. “You knew nothing. You thought Benat would come back for blood. You have no idea what Benat has done, what the so clever Benat has made.”
Watching his enemy through narrowed eyes, Gant paid little attention to Benat’s words. “Tell me where you’ve hidden her heart Benat, tell me and I’ll be merciful.”
“Oh really? Merciful is it?” The demon thrust out with his sword, missed and danced aside from Gant’s counterattack, keening as the angel’s sword opened a long thin slice across his chest. “Do you mean to let Benat live?”
It was Gant’s turn to laugh, the sound nearly as repulsive as Benat’s own. “No, you will die today, as is just. Tell me where you’ve hidden it and I will destroy you quickly, rather than over days and weeks as you deserve.”
“Justice is a lie,” the demon spat. “Sabaoth thrust us out of Heaven and called it just.”
“You rebelled; you broke the holiest of laws. You were punished. That is just.” Gant shifted his position, moving constantly to force Benat to continually adjust his stance.
“We did not rebel. We chose another master. We only wanted freedom.” This last statement was spoken with such a whining, sniveling tone that Gant wanted to vomit.
“We were free, you carrion crow. Free from violence and hatred; from idleness and stupidity and every kind of arrogant self-deception. Free from war, until your so called “master” made one out of his own selfishness and power hunger.” Gant’s voice rose into a howl and he attacked. A strip of bright red ran down Benat’s shoulder, another across his stomach, before the demon was able to dance back out of reach. Parrying the demon’s clumsy counter-thrust, Gant spun, plunging his sword through empty air where Benat had been only moments before. The demon materialized behind him in a cloud of rank black smoke, and Gant brought his blade up just in time to stop the killing stroke Benat would have brought down through his skull.
Dipping down, Gant plunged his shoulder into Benat’s stomach, shoving the demon back onto his heels. The angel drove his fist into Benat’s nose and was rewarded with the crunch of shattered cartilage and a spray of blood. A sharp kick to the enemy’s knee had Benat howling in agony, groveling in the dirt and begging for mercy.
Gant reached down and grabbed a fistful of the demon’s tunic, completely unconscious of the blisters that rose, healed and disappeared in every place where Benat’s blood touched his skin. He kicked the enemy’s fallen sword out of reach and shoved him up against the blood spattered rock, hoisting until Benat’s feet dangled several inches off the ground. Placing the tip of his own blade at Benat’s throat, Gant pressed carefully until a jagged streak of blood trickled down his enemy’s chest.
“Where…is…her…heart?” he ground out, punctuating each word with a minute increase in blade pressure on Benat’s throat. The trickle became a stream.
“In the locket! Benat put it in the locket,” the demon gasped as Gant cut a little deeper, “Stop,” he shrieked. “Benat doesn’t have it. He doesn’t. You don’t hear, no? Benat doesn’t come back here for food. Benat comes for the locket.”
Staring into Benat’s eyes, Gant thought he saw a glimmer of truth slither through them. “Then where is this locket?” he growled.
Benat’s eyes rolled in search of escape. Gant could see that the creature was searching for an answer that would save his life without giving anything away. Gant’s own desperation goaded him. If he didn’t get Sena’s heart back soon, he might lose her forever. There was nothing he would not do to prevent her destruction, and so, for the first time in his existence, he lied.
“Tell me where it is. Tell me and take me to it and I won’t destroy you.”
Moaning and gibbering, Benat stammered out his protests. Gant stared at him with eyes of stone
until the demon finally whimpered out the truth. “The food,” he whined. “He is a thief! He stole it when Benat fought the mighty Molek.”
Gant snorted at the idea of such a specimen fighting Molek, but ignored the claim in favor of more important information. “What food? A boy, you mean? Which boy?” The rapid fire questions battered Benat, revealing Gant’s desperation.
“Food has no name,” Benat shrugged and the words grated against Gant’s ear, but he gritted his teeth and gave the slimy thug a light shake, pressing a fraction harder on the sword.
“Truly, Benat does not know,” the demon strained away from the blade and began to babble. “We take him from the village, yes? He is screeching something about not touching “her” when he attacks Benat. He is bigger than the others, yes? So we are saving him for…” the fire in Gant’s gaze warned him into silence. He reached out and stroked Gant’s arm in supplication. “Please, you don’t kill Benat, no. Benat helps you find him. We kill him, yes, and take back the locket. Then all is well, yes.”
Gant shook off the stroking claw in disgust but lowered Benat to the ground. Released, the demon cowered at the base of the stone, sly eyes sneaking glances at his captor.
Gant stood over him, close enough that Benat could not take that essential step into the Shift, the angel’s sword hovering in warning, the point scribing small, tense circles in the air over the demon’s head. Could this worm possibly be talking about Kefir? The “her” the child was defending might be Ziva, or it could be one of the other missing children.
“How do we know Molek didn’t take the child with him?” Gant demanded.
Benat slid a cunning look from under his lashless eyelids. “Benat knows, Benat hides in the trees, he sees Molek destroy the Master’s messenger. Benat sees Molek take his spawn with him into the Shift, but he takes no other.”
“You expect me to believe he just left them here?” Gant touched the sword to Benat’s chest and the demon shivered.
“No, no,” he wailed. “Benat expects nothing! Benat looks but food is gone. Bags are here but food is not.” Gibbering on his knees, Benat raised his claws, begging Gant to follow his reasoning. “When Benat is gone, no one watches the food, no. But Benat finds the locket missing, so he returns; food is gone, but Messenger Loku is here.
Loku says Master wants Astarte. Molek kills messenger and now he must run, yes? For the Master will know, yes? The mighty Molek has no time to search for escaped food, so he goes. But Benat has not killed a messenger of the Master, no. Benat has time to look. But food is stupid,” Benat muttered this last over clasped hands, anxiously rubbing them together. Caught up in his explanation, the demon missed the rage kindling higher in Gant’s eyes with each reference to the children as “food.”
“Food doesn’t know what the locket contains, so he might drop it, leave it here. So Benat must search here first. But then you are here and Benat is caught and cannot search.”
Gant’s arm quivered with the effort of containing his fury. This insect truly viewed humans as nothing more than a food source, so much so that he couldn’t even tell the difference between one child and another. He drew a shuddering breath as he realized that, right or wrong, he wanted the “boy” Benat spoke of to be Kefir, if only because that meant the girl was likely Ziva and they were both still alive.
Either way, Benat was of no further use. The demon had only a split second to see the intent in Gant’s eyes and scream his anguish before the bright sword flashed down, cleaving through his neck, separating head from torso in a shower of blood and dust.
Gant stood a moment, waiting. There should be some emotion associated with killing a former brother, he thought. But standing there, looking down at the pile of dust that had been Benat, he felt nothing. There was no regret, no sorrow, but no triumph or joy either. Instead there was a hollowness that he could not explain, even to himself.
When the first drop of water splashed onto his shoulder, he just looked at it. There was no surprise, or even curiosity. When a deep throbbing rumble rose up from the depths of the earth below him, he thought that perhaps this was the emotion he had expected, delayed and in a strange form, but ultimately explainable. More water droplets splashed onto his shoulders, his head, the ground around him and he shook himself as the rumble grew to a roar. With so little warning, the world went mad.
The hillside, its newly created cave collapsing inward, began to slide towards him, moving to crush him beneath its weight. The ground rippled, a sodden, brown sea, pitching and heaving as if stirred by a giant, unseen hand. Alarmed, he spread his wings and leapt into the air, only to be crushed back to earth by an onslaught of water so thick that it might as well have been a wall of alabaster.
Trees tilted and crashed to the ground. The earth groaned and tore in jagged, ever widening strips. Deep gullies formed, throwing up hills, piling up mountains where there had been flat land before. The trees screamed in fright as their roots were ripped free of the dirt, plunging earthward. On every hand, from the depths of new created pits and trenches gushed black water, creating instant ponds, swiftly growing into lakes.
Lightening slashed at the sky even as thunder rumbled across the hill tops and water poured from the heavens in an unceasing torrent. Violent winds screamed from all directions at once. Forced nearly to his knees by the elements, Gant knew that flight would be next to impossible but he had to move.
“Gant!” The voice was faint, blurred so much by both distance and storm that he couldn’t get an accurate fix on the speaker’s location. Still, he heard and turned, only to be stopped by the groan of a towering cedar to his left. The ground, already softened by water from above and below, gave up the tree roots with a hollow rip of protest when the wind insisted, shoving at the trunk and twisting the limbs into fantastic shapes, bearing the giant to the earth. A shower of sparks was pressed into its foliage as it fell through the space Gant left behind.
He reappeared a few cubits away, already running, stumbling in the direction of the voice that called his name a second time. The deluge thickened the air until it was like running underwater. The rain blurred his vision even as the storm threw trees and brush into his path with increasing brutality. He was forced in and out of the Shift so many times that he lost count and it seemed like eons passed before he saw the nebulous form of Jotun ahead of him through the battered foliage.
He nearly sobbed with relief as he recognized the small figures of Kefir and Ziva, wrapped safe in Gwyneth’s arms – all three huddled under the shelter of Jotun’s spread wings.
“Take the children,” Jotun had to shout to make himself heard above the storm.
“We can’t fly in this,” Gant shouted but nevertheless gathered Kefir and Ziva to him as he spoke.
Jotun shook his head and pulled Gwyneth into his arms. “We have to try. There’s no other way.”
“What about the others?” Gwyneth struggled unsuccessfully to free herself from her husband’s embrace.
Jotun kissed her forehead but held on tight, leaving it to Gant to answer in words. “There is no time Gwyneth.”
“You can’t leave them!” The three adults stared at Kefir. It was the first time he had spoken since Jotun had sent the tiger away and the sound of his voice, barely audible above the storm, was startling. “I hid them when the tiger came. I told them I would come back for them. I won’t leave without them.” The tears on his face were hidden by the rain, but the strain on his face made his determination evident. Gant crouched down in front of him, carefully keeping Ziva close to his side and as sheltered as possible.
“There is no choice Kefir. We don’t know where they are, and even if we did—”
The small face strained towards his. “I’ll show you where they are. I promised!”
Gant shook his head, “In this?” He gestured to the rising carnage around them. “Even if we could find them, I can’t carry all of you. I’ll come back – try to find them, but we have to go now.”
Kefir shoved at the wet mo
p of curls falling into his eyes, his face streaming with tears and rain. He knew Gant was right, but he couldn’t make himself agree. “How? You said you can’t fly in this.”
Gant stroked the boy’s hair and hung his head, acknowledging the truth of his words. “Maybe not,” he replied, “but we have to try and get you back to the village. There is no other choice.”
Ziva leaned close and whispered in Gant’s ear. “You could take us through the dark.” He jerked back, staring.
“What dark?” he asked.
“The strange dark out of time.” She placed a gentle hand against his cheek and her eyes took on a strange, dark light. “Where the bad ones took us.”
Gant looked up at Jotun, baffled, badly wanting what she said to mean what he thought it did, but afraid to hope. “Do you think she means the Shift?”
Jotun hesitated, “Maybe so, maybe not. I don’t think we can risk it.”
Gant disagreed. “I don’t think there’s any choice. If we try to fly in this, we’ll never make it.”
With a thunderous howl, the earth gave another heave and the cliff edge began to give way. Trees, boulders and brush began to slide toward the ravine on a river of muck, picking up speed with every inch. A giant cedar crashed between them, forcing Jotun into the air, Gwyneth clasped tight against his chest. Even as he took wing, the pair was thrust down into the rapidly widening ravine by wind and rain. It was all he could do slow their fall and keep from tumbling end over end; hovering was out of the question, let alone actual flight.
“Gant!”
“Kefir – Ziva!” Their cries were thrown back into their faces by the wind, the water drowning their voices.
Jotun clutched his wife tighter as they plummeted earthward, unable to stop their fall. Gant had been right. There was no choice. He put his lips as close to her ear as he could and shouted, “Close your eyes, hold on tight and whatever happens, don’t let go, not even for a second.”
