by H. D. Gordon
Drake stepped back now, and all eyes in the jungle went to Samson. Sam knew it was his turn to step forward and address the pride, and for a moment, he couldn’t for the life of him think of a thing to say. Then he thought of Surah, and the words came to him easily.
Samson took a step forward and held his head high. “Should I win, I’ll do my best to do right by you,” he said, and that was all.
That was all the ceremony to speak off. Following this, the cats among them spread out in a ring around the center of the clearing, leaving a large open space. Everyone was sure to stay far enough away from where the two cats would battle, lest they find themselves at the wrong end of tooth or claw. In all his long, adventurous life, Samson couldn’t remember feeling quite as nervous as he felt right now.
“Take your position, son, and let us be done with this.” Drake said, speaking only to Sam now. Despite the fact that Sam wanted to be anywhere else in any of the worlds right now, he had to admit he felt great respect toward the King of Beasts. Drake had always been a fair king, which could not be said of most who carried the title.
It felt as though both fire and ice were rushing through Sam’s veins, and his mind cleared as his instincts kicked in, his large head hunched between his powerful shoulders, his feline eyes bright and focused. Drake’s stance mirrored his own.
For the smallest of moments, it was as if time stood still, and Samson’s mind was once again with the Sorceress. He sent out his love with his thoughts, telling the universe to watch over the Two-Leg woman for whom he had flipped his life upside down, should he no longer walk this plane to do so himself. This final, stolen moment steeled him.
Then Drake roared out a growl that seemed to vibrate in Sam’s own chest. His own roar and that of the other cats present followed, and Drake moved in like lightning, teeth bared in vicious glory.
Sam saw a flash of white as Drake’s enormous paw swiped at his face, tearing out a good chunk of Sam’s black and blue fur and drawing the first blood of the night. Then there was searing pain in Sam’s left foreleg as Drake’s powerful jaws tore at the flesh and fur there.
A growl of agony, nearly a hiss, resounded through the jungle, and offhandedly Samson realized that it had issued from his own throat. The other cats present had fallen silent, and in Sam’s mind had melted away entirely. All he could feel was the pounding of his heart, the pain caused by his opponent. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, the deadly battle growls of Drake, King of the Beasts.
Instead of stopping, time had now sped up to an adrenaline-filled rush. Sam slashed and snapped back, catching Drake’s hindquarters between his jaws but losing purchase before he could do any real damage. The taste of Drake’s blood touched his tongue, sending his instincts into overdrive, his large body moving of its own accord, fighting for its very life.
In reality, the entire fight only lasted three minutes, but time is such a relative thing. To those watching, it seemed to go by very quickly, to pass in flashes of teeth and blood, fang and fur. But to the two fighting felines, it lasted an eternity.
For Samson it seemed especially so. He was growing weary, the small slashes and ripped pieces of flesh Drake was taking from him were doing more than starting to wear. Drake was very obviously going for Samson’s neck, for the soft place on his throat where, once ruptured, could not be repaired. Sam’s smaller size worked to his advantage here, as he was able to keep low, but it was the only advantage to his smaller stature, as all he’d been able to accomplish thus far was superficial cuts and scrapes to Drake.
Thus far, he’d only been able to defend. If he didn’t make a move soon, and end this thing, Sam was sure he was going to die, and it had never occurred to him until this very moment how very much he wanted to live, how very much he wanted to lay eyes upon his Sorceress before the Earth reclaimed his body.
With a new burst of energy, Sam slipped around to Drake’s side and tried to take out his hindquarter, an injury that could prove deadly in such a fight. But the move had the opposite effect, and Drake twisted skillfully out of the way, his large jaws clamping down with bone crushing force around the back of Sam’s right leg.
Again, Sam heard a gut-clenching roar of pain. Again, he realized after the fact that it had come from his own throat. He tried to put weight on his rear leg and felt it buckle beneath him. Using a move he’d learned from Surah, he rolled out of the way of a death strike from Drake that just barely missed its mark.
The King of Beasts was on him again before he could take another breath. Sam saw only a flash of red-stained teeth, and moved his shoulder just in time to protect his neck. Drake’s sharp teeth sank deep into the flesh of his shoulder, sending what felt like a jolt of electricity through Sam’s body. Blinding pain followed this sensation.
Weakly, Sam struck out, his paw batting at the King’s face with almost comical slowness. He could feel a warm wetness seeping through his fur in various place, could smell the irony tang of his own blood.
Like so many before him, Samson was going to die on this night, die under the fang of the great Drake. There was a moment then where time stalled, where Sam looked up and saw the disappointment in the King’s eyes, for he too knew that he was going to win, that Sam simply could not defeat him.
Promise me you’ll return…
These words floated through his head, spoken in the voice of his Surah. She’d whispered it in his ear on the night before he’d left, her voice as small as it had been when she’d been only a child.
Promise me you’ll return, Sam. Tell me I’ll see you again, even if you think it may not be so. Just lie to me, because if you don’t, I’m not sure I can face what’s ahead. So promise me… please.
The memory had no place in such a moment, but there it was nonetheless. He had promised her, had promised that he would come back and see her again… and he did not want it to be a lie. More than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, he did not want that promise to be a lie.
Energy provided by the love of a Sorceress surged through him, and the pain of his injuries melted away with a promise to return should he see through this. Sam’s mind cleared into a tunnel-vision state, his eyes focused only on the King. It was obvious Drake felt he had already won, and this was a deadly mistake.
Sam waited for his moment, watching the King’s neck the way a hawk watches a mouse run through a field, though comparing Drake to a mouse was ridiculous at best. Drake was still being run by instinct, but Sam had entered his mind’s equivalent to a Two-Leg’s. He bit down on instinct and instead analyzed the situation. It was another thing he’d picked up from his mistress over the years.
Drake moved in for what he was sure would be his final blow, his enormous head held low between his shoulders and his slanted eyes filled with a bloodlust only true Beasts are capable of.
Sam rolled again, a counterintuitive move for a cat in such a situation as Sam was forced to momentarily expose his neck to do so. But it was not a move the King had been expecting, despite Sam having used it in the beginning of the fight, and it put Sam in just the position he needed to be in.
When he rolled over onto his feet, he did so with Drake’s throat locked tightly between his jaws, and the momentum of the movement tore out a chunk of flesh that filled Sam’s mouth and gave between his teeth.
Blood sprayed into the air, and surprised growls, hisses, and roars filled the night sky. Drake’s bright eyes went wide, and then dark, as the body of the King of the Beasts slumped onto the ground, dead.
Sam paid no heed to the crowd, for they had not yet rematerialized in the haze of battle that had befallen him. He looked down at Drake’s body, which still twitched just slightly before settling for good. It was almost surreal, something that could not be gripped immediately. Part of him had already accepted defeat, and now he stood over the body of a King.
When he lifted his head, the world slowly swimming back into focus, the jungle eerily silent all around him, he met the eyes of Mila, who was looking
at her dead father in a way that wrenched at Sam’s heart.
He ran his tongue out over his lips and stood tall as he met the eyes of his new pride. Then, Samson, King of the Beasts, let out a roar that seemed to shake the very earth beneath his paws.
CHAPTER 33
SURAH
The Dark Lord’s deep voice rang through the streets of the city, floated out over the fields to the north and west, echoed in the mountains to the south and east, and penetrated the thick stone walls of Surah’s castle.
Every shutter, every door and window shade was shut tight, many people having fled to the mountains, or more rural areas of the Sorcerer Territory. A small portion of the people remained in their homes, with their shops and possessions in the capital city, and these people dare not peek out their windows for fear of what they might see. Some of them were old enough to remember war, but many were not, many were but children, and they held their peace through confused terror, sensing the tenseness in their parents, noticing the creases above their foreheads, the tightness of their shoulders.
Surah Stormsong stood on her balcony, the hood of her thick black cloak shielding her from the wind, which had kicked up with the fall of night. There was an electricity to the air, a certain charge that Surah could feel thrumming through her, as if coursing through her very veins.
“Surah!” called the Dark Lord for the second time, the deep, resounding nature of his voice ringing in her ears.
Her hand reached up of its own accord and gripped the Black Stone hanging around her neck. It was a heavy object when held directly, no doubt due to the amount of Dark Magic it contained, but the Black Stone felt somehow weightless when it rested above her heart… which had frosted over with a chill that made the night wind seem downright warm in comparison.
“You call me the coward and refuse to face me, Surah Stormsong!” Dagon yelled. Surah watched from afar as he spun slowly in a circle, taking in her land as if surveying a new home. “This is your leader, Sorcerers?” Dagon called out to the quiet landscape, speaking to the people hiding in whatever places they had to hide. “You deserve better than a coward!”
Behind Surah, Noelani and Lyonell stood at stiff attention, and Theo stepped up to her side. Before he could speak, Surah beat him to the chase.
“Stay here, all of you,” Surah said. She glanced at the three of them only once, the look in her violet eyes as grave as the dead. “Do not follow me. That’s an order from your queen. Break it, and I’ll remove your heads myself.”
And with that, she teleported off the balcony, rematerializing in an instant before the Dark Lord. Dagon had chosen a small hill just outside the city, a dramatic vantage point that he’d no doubt picked just for that purpose. He was wearing the same black suit and mortal body he’d been wearing in the Underworld, the same crooked grin on a handsome mask that hid a dirty devil.
The only part of him not concealed was his forked tongue, which flicked out and over his lips in a way that was grotesquely serpent-like. “Ah, dearest Surah,” Dagon said, “you’ve come to make payment.”
Surah slid her sharp sais out of their holsters and gripped them with a wicked grin of her own. “I owe you nothing, Dark Lord,” she replied with a calm some small part of her knew she should not feel. “And I told you, return to my land and I’ll take your head.”
Dagon quirked an eyebrow. “That wasn’t a joke, then? Pity. You’d enjoy this more if you just gave in.” He touched his chin, face frowning in thought. “Then again,” he added, his voice lowering to a whisper, “I’ll enjoy it more if you struggle and scream.”
Anger surged through Surah that was as hot and bright as a dying star, nearly exploding from her being. Her hand flicked up and a powerful pulse of Dark Magic flew from her fingertips, catching the Dark Lord off guard. The energy hit him dead center his chest, knocking his deceptively benign form into the air and onto the hard earth. Surah was unaware of it, but a bit of blackness had momentarily swirled into the violet of her eyes, like a drop of ebony ink in a pail of purple.
Dagon was on his feet again within the same instant, as if the strike had been nothing more than the annoying push of a toddler. His head tilted to the side, and some of his dark hair fell into his face. “Well, now, that wasn’t very nice,” he said, the words coming out a growl.
His attack struck Surah before she was even aware of it having been issued. The wind was knocked out of her as surely as if someone with an iron fist had slammed a punch into her stomach. She doubled over, the air rushing out of her in a painful whoosh, and involuntarily lost her grip on the Black Stone. Instead, her hands gripped at her knees for balance as water filled her eyes, but it was miraculous that it did not steam up immediately with the hot rage that accompanied it.
Surah teleported forward, slashing at Dagon with both sais and drawing black blood from two separate spots on his arm. For a moment, the façade the Dark Lord was donning blinked out of focus, and the true Demon form of the immortal was visible to all.
She couldn’t be sure what look came over her face when she saw this, but whatever it was made Dagon smile widely, and apparently decide to stop with the pretense altogether. Surah watched in equal parts horror and fascination as the Dark Lord took his true form, his body mangling and morphing in a way that was both terrible and mesmerizing.
His neck stretched until it was nearly a foot long and thick like a tree trunk. His once creamy, white, and unblemished skin melted away into a scaly, rough black, the expensive suit tearing away with his body’s expansion and falling to the earth in shreds. The hands and feet, which had contained normal fingers and toes, grew into claws and hooves, the fingers stretching long and the toes rounding off like that of a horse. Horns sprouted from his forehead, long and spiraling, piercing at the darkening sky, and his mouth and face grew into something obscene, terrible in its animation. Wings, black and bony, sprouted from his back and spread out to a span of nearly twelve feet. The part of his skin that she’d cut with her weapons oozed that dark blood that steamed when it met the cool night air.
For a moment, Surah could do nothing but stare at the creature before her in disgust and horror. The shift had been nearly instantaneous, but each crack of bone and rearrangement of physical feature had been awfully visible.
Dagon’s voice was no longer that of a mortal, but rather carried the weight and intimidation of the Dark Lord that he was. “I tried to be reasonable with you,” he said, the words vibrating in her ears. “It will hurt much worse with me in this form, and when my child is born, it will also be in true form, and thus, will rip you open from the inside out.”
Surah didn’t justify this with words. She flicked her wrist again, sending another wave of Magic at Dagon, but was too slow this time. The Dark Lord was much more agile in this form, and he slipped right past the strike with an ease that gave Surah pause.
Dagon saw her hesitation and gave a cackling laugh, swiping at her with his long claws. She teleported out of his grasp just in time to avoid capture, landing behind him and driving her sais deep into his scaly back, but not as deep as she’d intended. The rough skin there was harder to puncture than she’d anticipated.
Dagon spun around fast, backhanding her across the face. It felt like fire was scorching over the skin he’d struck, and Surah let out a cry that she was in no way in control over. For an instant, as her head rocked back on her shoulders, the world went a blinding white. Then the scene began to creep back in around the edges of her vision.
She felt his claws wrap around her ankle, and again she teleported out of his hold just in the nick of time. Now she stood fifteen feet away from him, panting, the taste of her own blood filling her mouth, but that fire in her soul not close to quenched.
He roared out in rage, taking to all fours and charging at her like a bull, sharp horns aimed at her chest. Again, Surah evaded the attack, but she could not do it forever, and the both of them knew this.
She needed to take him out, and quick, or he would take her out. Gri
pping the Black Stone, Surah used what felt like all her strength, sending a bolt of what looked like lightning at the Dark Lord. It struck him dead center, knocking Dagon to the ground, and knocking Surah to the ground as well. She had used so much Magic in that one attack that she didn’t even have enough strength left to stand up.
But Dagon did. He regained his feet and moved to stand over her, his claws clenching and unclenching, ropes of saliva hanging from his mouth, where his forked tongue lolled in excitement.
Surah felt a scream bubble in her stomach as he tried to settle himself over her, and she used what little strength she had to kick at him, but her blows were about as effective as a child’s, and her struggle only seemed to excite him.
Fear threatened to overcome her. She was moments away from being raped by a Dark Lord in front of her entire kingdom (or at least those who’d dared to stay) and her mind stalled out for a panicked moment, and she could think of nothing to do.
Around her neck, the Black Stone pulsed hotly, searing the skin there, snapping her back to focus. Whipping her head to the side, she bit deeply into the scaled arm that Dagon had braced beside her, slamming her jaw shut and tearing out a chunk of rancid meat, which she spat out immediately. The creature’s awful blood ran down the sides of her mouth.
Dagon cried out in anger and pain, and Surah used the time to scramble out from underneath him. She removed a silver dagger strapped to her upper right thigh, and thrust it as hard as she could into the Dark Lord’s belly. Where it broke skin, dozens of strange beetles emerged from the wound, pouring out the way blood would have had he been mortal.
