by Sam Sykes
But Khoth-Kapira was ancient. He had read those stories. He was something greater than those demons.
And at Lenk’s words, something trembled in the darkness of his features. Something too young and too tender to belong on a demon so old. His frown was bare, but on a creature so massive, it spoke magnitudes.
For he did not look upon a creature so small. He looked upon a man who had so many sorrows to be soothed, so many agonies to be healed. A man who would believe any lie, any tale, any promise, so long as it answered his problem. A man who, even with all this, still denied him.
Khoth-Kapira stared down at his tiny, greatest failure.
And, with a sorrowful sort of reverence, he raised his foot and prepared to crush him.
“I am sorry,” he said. “For everything.”
“As am I,” Lenk said. “But just for this.”
The screams came as one: the great avian shriek and the howl accompanying it. The scraw followed, dark wings across the dark sky as the beast came shooting out from the ruins and swooping toward the demon.
Khoth-Kapira looked up and beheld a great fire flying across the sky.
Flame erupted across the demon’s face in sheets, licking at his eyes with red tongues. Khoth-Kapira roared and staggered, his colossal foot coming down as Lenk ran for cover. The impact of his stomp shook Lenk from his feet and buried him beneath a wave of dust.
He rolled to his back, looked up, and saw that Khoth-Kapira’s eyes were no longer on him. The demon snarled, trying to swat away Colonel MacSwain as the creature flew in circles around him. Dreadaeleon’s coattails flapped in the wind as he hurled fire at the demon. And at the beast’s reins, her eyes bright and ferocious in the gloom, Kataria spurred the scraw around the demon’s head as his crown of serpents lashed out with gaping jaws.
Khoth-Kapira bellowed, “Do not bring them into this. Their deaths will be on your hands.”
That was only half-true, Lenk knew. He shouldn’t have brought them into this.
“Get up,” a voice rumbled behind him.
But they had been insistent.
A red claw grabbed him by the shoulder, hoisting him up and off his feet. Gariath glanced over him, dangling from his grasp, and, seeing that he wasn’t quite dead yet, snorted.
“Ready?” the dragonman asked.
Lenk nodded, gripped his sword.
“Ready.”
“Good.”
Gariath swung the young man around to his back. Lenk wrapped his arms about the dragonman’s neck as Gariath fell to all fours and took off at a run. They charged together through the clouds of dust roiling out as Khoth-Kapira raised a massive foot. He picked up speed, rushing beneath a great shadow as the demon brought it down again. The earth shook as shards of stone rained down upon them, but Gariath did not falter.
Their goal was in sight. Khoth-Kapira’s ankle loomed tremendous before them.
The dragonman snarled, leapt, found purchase on the demon’s heel. As blasts of fire lit up the night sky overhead, he clawed his way up, hand over hand, across the demon’s flesh.
Khoth-Kapira did not seem to notice. Why would he, Lenk thought? It wasn’t as though Gariath could have hurt him with claws ten feet long. Nor was it likely that Dreadaeleon’s flames did anything more than annoy him. A distraction was all this was, and a fleeting one at that; Khoth-Kapira already was starting to study the scraw’s flight. It wouldn’t be long before he intercepted the beast, Kataria, and Dreadaeleon and crushed them all in a breath.
But a breath was all Lenk needed.
Gariath clawed his way up to the demon’s knee and gripped firmly. The great tendons of Khoth-Kapira’s leg bulged. One blow to sever them, one more to send him toppling over, and this colossal immortal demon would be merely immortal. Lenk raised his sword.
Aimed.
Thrust.
Khoth-Kapira staggered, roaring as a blaze struck his eyes. Gariath was shifted from his grip and slid down the demon’s calf. Lenk jammed his sword into the flesh for purchase, finding only thick muscle instead of sinew.
But if the scream that followed—along with the great gout of black blood—was any indication, it didn’t tickle.
“VERMIN!”
Khoth-Kapira’s hand followed his bellow. Lenk looked up to see the dark shape descending upon them. He swung, feebly, as the great palm enveloped him and Gariath both. There was a sudden lurching sensation as he was swept up into the air, miles high.
When Khoth-Kapira’s hand opened, his eyes loomed large as moons as they narrowed on Lenk. His serpents hissed in irritation, both them and their master no longer paying attention to the fire raining down upon them.
“Ingratitude,” he roared. “Ignorance. Be free of them both.”
And, with a sound like stone groaning, his great hand began to close.
Shadow fell over Lenk as the fingers curled over onto him. He crouched, looking desperately around as they crushed down upon him. He shut his eyes tight, gripped his sword, and waited for the end.
It did not come.
“Fucking … move …”
A curse did, though.
Behind him, Gariath loomed. His back was pressed against Khoth-Kapira’s colossal thumb, his feet on the demon’s largest two fingers, his legs trembling as he fought to keep them from closing in. His eyes strained with the effort, teeth clenched as he spit out a word.
“GO.”
Lenk took up his sword and took off, sliding down Khoth-Kapira’s palm. He ducked beneath the demon’s smaller two fingers as they came closing down upon him. He slid to the heel of the demon’s palm, then glanced up as a pair of eyes burst bright red in the darkness.
A serpent, its jaws half as big as he was, lashed out, fangs flashing ivory. He swung, catching it by its cheek and drawing forth a gout of black blood. Even as it recoiled with a shriek, another launched itself forward, and another and another as he swung wildly to keep them at bay.
“NOW!” Gariath roared behind him. There was the sound of a bone popping.
No more time. Lenk took up his sword in both hands and jammed it down between his legs. He found a thick vein in Khoth-Kapira’s wrist and twisted the blade.
Khoth-Kapira’s scream shook creation.
His arm went flailing. Gariath flew from the demon’s grip with a howl. Lenk only barely noticed as the dragonman disappeared into the dust and darkness below. He was busy holding on to his sword to keep from following his companion.
Yet it wasn’t enough. Khoth-Kapira’s hand snapped forward, tearing the sword free from his vein and dislodging Lenk. The young man was sure he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear it over the sound of wind howling as he went plummeting headfirst toward the earth below.
He came to a sudden halt with the distinct feeling of his guts ramming against his skull. Yet as those guts didn’t then explode out of that skull, he was fairly sure something had gone right.
The air shimmered around him. He was yanked out of the sky by an invisible force, twisted upright, and pulled onto a hairy back. Dreadaeleon’s eyes burned in the darkness behind him as Kataria’s hair whipped into his face. Colonel MacSwain grunted at the sudden addition of weight but didn’t protest.
“What the fuck just happened?” he screamed.
“You’re welcome,” Dreadaeleon replied.
“Gariath,” he cried out. “He fell! Did you get him?”
“I didn’t see him,” Kataria shouted to be heard over the wind as she wheeled the scraw around. “What did you do to the demon?”
“Stabbed him,” he shouted back.
“Did it work?”
Khoth-Kapira let out another scream. The great demon stared at the wound in his wrist, the blood gushing forth. In truth, it was not so great a wound as to be fatal, nor even injurious. Yet the terror shone plainly even in eyes as empty as his.
The God-King had not thought he could even feel pain anymore.
“I’d say so.” Lenk’s eyes drifted down to the city streets. His blood ran co
ld. “Too well.”
Even through the darkness, he could see them. Pouring like a river of flesh, gushing out of the alleys, and trickling down the streets. Twisted and malformed, loping on elongated limbs, fanged mouths craned open in terrified screams, and desperate, yellow eyes turned skyward for their wounded master.
The Chosen, in all their abhorrent panic, were rushing to their master’s aid.
“You didn’t say he had those!” Kataria snarled. “Did you not think it would come up or what?”
“I will handle it.”
Dreadaeleon, by contrast, spoke calmly. And, just as calmly, he stood up on the scraw’s back and let himself drop from the beast to plummet into the darkness before Lenk could even say a word.
Not that there was much he could say. Or do. Dreadaeleon had made his choice as clearly as Gariath had. They were beyond his reach, as was everything except the sword in his hand and the demon looming before him.
He moved forward on the scraw’s back. He wrapped an arm around Kataria’s waist and shouted.
“Bring me as close to the eyes as you can. We end this quick.”
She grunted. One hand took her bow, another drew an arrow, and neither, Lenk noticed, was on the colonel’s reins.
But he was beyond questioning her. She kicked the beast’s flanks, spurring him faster. Khoth-Kapira’s agony was short-lived. He looked up at the sight of the great, shrieking beast flying toward him, his eyes wide and bright.
There was no way Kataria could have missed.
Her arrows did not sing so much as curse. They spit hateful, angry slurs at the demon as they flew, one after the other, toward his eye. Even with the wind whipping and the scraw’s erratic flight, more of them landed than missed. And though the arrows could never truly harm him, they did what they had to.
Khoth-Kapira snarled, turned away, and shut his eyes. His throat, a massive column of muscle and tendons, was exposed. Lenk hopped to his haunches on the scraw, ready to leap, his eyes locked intently on his target as Kataria kept her bow ready for the demon to show his face again.
Neither of them saw the hand coming.
In a great flood of air, Khoth-Kapira’s palm came down. Lenk managed to look up just in time to scream a word of warning. Kataria, too absorbed in her aim, looked up too late.
The hand came down upon them. Colonel MacSwain shrieked as he was knocked from the sky. Lenk managed to grab onto one massive finger by pure luck and held on by pure grit. He clenched his teeth and held his eyes shut.
And when he opened them, Kataria was gone.
No.
He didn’t have the breath to whisper the word, let alone scream it. He searched the darkness, the roiling clouds of dust and grime for anything, a flash of gold or of green or of … of …
Darkness.
Dust.
Nothing.
His voice left him. His body went numb. His mind followed. He had known the risks, as had she. They both agreed to them and yet …
Somehow, he never thought this would actually happen.
His grip slipped. He began to fall from the demon’s finger. And, for a moment, he couldn’t think of a reason not to let go.
And so he did.
And when he didn’t plummet to join her, he became aware of a cold hand on his wrist. He looked up. Clinging to Khoth-Kapira’s hand like a spider, Denaos looked down at him. His colorless face was set in a gentle smile he couldn’t have managed in life.
“Not yet,” he said. “Later. Okay?”
Lenk looked at the sword in his hand, stained with black blood. He looked back at his companion. He swallowed what felt like a rusty blade and nodded, stiffly.
“Okay.”
“Great.” Denaos shut his eyes. “Hang on.”
“For wh—”
Lenk didn’t finish it before he disappeared.
Darkness enveloped him, sweeping in from the corners of his vision like a shroud, so fast he didn’t have time to scream. And when he did, no sound came out. Not until the darkness swept away.
And when it did, they were on Khoth-Kapira’s arm, bent at the elbow. The great demon scowled down at them as though they were ants. His serpents hissed hungrily.
“There you are.”
His other hand came down to crush them. Its great shadow drowned Lenk in darkness. But before it could, something darker still swept over him.
Silence. Emptiness. Nothingness.
Then it retreated and he was on the back of the demon’s hand, Denaos still holding his wrist firmly. Khoth-Kapira snarled and brought his hand up. His serpents lashed out, jaws agape.
And they vanished again.
Darkness.
Light.
First on the hand.
Then the wrist.
Over and over, they leapt in and out of the gloom, disappearing and reappearing somewhere else each time. Khoth-Kapira’s hands moved too slowly to catch him, his serpents too sluggish to keep up as they slipped further and further up the demon’s body.
Until they finally appeared on his shoulder.
And Khoth-Kapira finally caught them.
The demon’s hand was already crashing down by the time they reappeared; he had figured out where they were heading. The two men broke into a sprint, Denaos releasing Lenk’s wrist as they tore across the great shoulder. Khoth-Kapira’s hand came down. Lenk leapt, tumbled, scrambled back to his feet for purchase.
Denaos was nowhere to be seen. Had he disappeared? Been crushed? He couldn’t know. He couldn’t afford to think about him, or Kataria, or Gariath, or any of the people who were dead because of him.
No, he told himself. Not because of you. For you. They did it for you. He took his sword up in both hands. Don’t disappoint them.
He charged up the demon’s shoulder, intent on Khoth-Kapira’s throat. He watched as the great column of flesh twisted. He saw the great baleful eyes narrow. He saw a massive mouth crane open, a maw full of teeth glisten, a long forked tongue lash out.
It shot against him. Barbs from the spongy flesh raked him, pierced through his clothes, sank into his flesh. He let out a cry, short-lived as the tongue immediately retracted and pulled Lenk toward the great, dark maw.
The sound of thunder behind him. Teeth slammed shut. Everything went black. He could feel his feet slipping beneath him on something slick and glistening. He could hear the sound of something ancient groaning from somewhere very deep. He felt the tongue tilt up beneath him, his feet sliding.
No time to think. He could only choose a direction, run.
And start cutting.
He thrust his sword into something thick and sinewy. He felt it resist, growing taut against his blade, until he finally felt it give. Black, cold ichor washed over him as his blade burst free on the other side. The great mouth opened, wind whipping around him as a scream tore itself free from Khoth-Kapira’s throat.
His ears rang with the sound. His skin sizzled with the sensation of the blood washing over him. His grip was slippery. But he didn’t care. He couldn’t. He pushed forward, he pushed down, he cut his way out.
And pulled himself free out of the demon’s cheek.
Grip slippery with blood, he skin and clothes torn, he pulled himself out of the jagged wound and looked up toward something big and white. Ignoring the pain, the foulness, he clawed his way up the demon’s cheek, hooked a hand under his eyelid, and pulled himself up to the great white orb that widened as it beheld him.
And his terrible blade.
He jammed the sword deep into Khoth-Kapira’s eye. The demon’s head shot back with a scream that sent the clouds roiling. Lenk tumbled down his face, his lips, across the fanged mouth that snapped shut as he cleared it until he found a grip on one of the writhing serpents of his beard.
Lenk hung from it and saw his last target.
As agony pulled itself free from Khoth-Kapira’s throat, the great muscles of the demon’s neck tensed and fluctuated. And there, black and throbbing, he saw the creature’s jugular.
<
br /> The serpents slithered toward him, jaws gaping. He leapt from his perch, sword in hand. He fell upon Khoth-Kapira’s throat. He raised his sword high, he gritted his teeth, he spit a curse.
He thrust.
He cut.
He tore a great hole in Khoth-Kapira’s throat. The blood burst from it in gouts. And with it, the wind from Khoth-Kapira’s screams. The demon’s agony reverberated through his flesh, into his bones, threatened to shake him to pieces.
But he didn’t stop.
He couldn’t stop.
Gariath hadn’t stopped. Denaos hadn’t stopped. Dreadaeleon and Asper hadn’t stopped.
Kataria …
If he could give the world only corpses, he would give her the biggest one he could.
But before he could finish the job, he felt a hand wrap around him. The sword was torn from his grasp and fell from his hands to join everyone else in the darkness below.
As if Lenk were simply some foul and dirty thing that Khoth-Kapira just wanted gone, the demon hurled him.
And he flew.
And disappeared into the endless dark.
FORTY-SIX
INVINCIBLE
Fire,” he whispered.
And it was there. It flowed from Dreadaeleon’s hands and washed over the malformed monstrosities pouring from the alleys and streets. They fell beneath its shrieking sheaves, their skin glistening and melting beneath its heat.
He turned and held a finger out.
“Lightning.”
And it came to him. Dancing and cackling in a bolt that leapt from his finger to strike the nearest serpentine face. It leapt, branching off like a bright blue tree, to reach with crackling spears and impale more of the abominations, over and over, until ten of them collapsed, their eyes bulging from their sockets, steam pouring out of fanged maws pouring wide.
“Frost.”
And there were clouds of white and red-stained icicles.
“Force.”
And there were bones snapped with the flick of a wrist.
“Fly.”
And there were bodies sent shrieking into the sky, flung far and wide.
There was no barrier between thought and power, no language of magic, no toll of body and mind. It flowed as cleanly through him as rain fell from the sky. And with each wave of his hand, each whisper from his lips, more came. More flame, more ice, more thunder.
