Blood and Sand Trilogy Box Set

by Jon Kiln

  “Hold that one!” the man repeated in a harsh, guttural croak of a voice, and the skinhead pirate who had attacked Fatim lunged quickly, striking Fatim with the blunted hook again and holding her pinned to the deck like a fish under a spear.

  “Get off me!” Fatim cried and hissed in pain and frustration, but her wounds were too great, and the devil that held her was too strong.

  From this approaching tide of newly-possessed, carefully stepped Aldameda, one hand up and the other holding her staff as if she really were an old woman, as she joined Talon, Meghan and Kariss.

  “That one will make a fine present for Jartuk!” the leader whispered, as others of the pirates seized the lady who had once been their First Mate.

  “Dear gods…” Aldameda hissed under her breath.

  Before them, Meghan saw the pirates hold Fatim down, and force her head back into the sky, as something shimmered and shook in the air above the First Mate. Meghan felt a wave of cold and wrongness, like snow falling in the middle of a sunny midsummer day, but then Fatim was coughing and being released. She pushed herself up, and something in her leg and her chest made a horrible grinding noise, which she apparently ignored.

  “Ah. Much better,” Fatim’s new voice said. It still sounded like her, but it was rougher and harsher, as if the thing that now occupied the First Mate’s brain wasn’t used to manipulating vocal chords and hadn’t done so for a very long time. “Although you could have got me one that wasn’t quite so broken, Khoulash.”

  “You get what you’re given,” the man (or devil) named Khoulash apparently said, before turning to the small stand of the unpossessed. “Now. Finally.” He started to grin a very broad, and very satisfied smirk.

  25

  “Stay away from my daughter!” Meghan picked up one of Talon’s dropped knives and held it out, even as she crushed her daughter to her breast. “Don’t you dare step any closer!”

  “Or what?” the devil named Khoulash said with a puzzled look. “You’ll stab me?” He started to giggle. “Believe me, honey, I’ve been stabbed a lot. And I’ve been burned, strangled, drowned – all the rest of it. I had to ditch my last body in the end, but seeing as it is the End Times, it was easy to grab another.” He kept on walking casually towards them as he talked.

  “Because, make no mistake, little lady, it is the End Times. The whole of Heaven is burning, and it’s all going to come tumbling down.” He made obscene fluttering movements with his fingers, as if imitating the fall of countless angels. “Thanks to me, that is.” A slight flicker of a frown. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t take all of the credit – as there was my good old master who helped out.” He nodded his head, even as he didn’t take his eyes from Meghan and the girl.

  There was a shout and a muffled thump from behind him.

  “You!” Meghan heard Aldameda suddenly hiss and heard Talon at her side gasp in astonishment.

  “It can’t be…” Talon whispered.

  “It is. Your friend and mine,” Khoulash-Eremund said. “Although, let’s be honest. He was my friend way before you ever knew him, huh, boss?”

  “Don’t hurt a hair on their heads,” said the huddled shape on the floor by the gunwales, the one that had just been carried over the side by the new crew.

  That voice. Meghan felt her heart pound as strong as a horse kick in her chest. Is it really? She tore her eyes away from her demonic tormentor, to see there huddled between two guards, was a man in a tattered and ragged cloak, with tunic and breeches that only barely disguised his grubby body wrappings.

  “Vekal?” Meghan breathed.

  ***

  “Vekal? Is that really you?” The woman caught him with her eyes, and to the Sin Eater she still looked just as beautiful as she had ever did before. Even mired in dirt and grease and dust, and with her face tight with fear and worry, just seeing her was enough to put a fire into his heart.

  “Stay away from her,” the Sin Eater snarled at the demons. “Don’t hurt her!”

  “Hurt her?” The one that had been called Khoulash, and who had once been Eremund the smuggler, stood up and turned around to look at the battered and bruised priest. He looked amused by the suggestion. “What on earth makes you think that I want to hurt her? She’s the Saint of this new age!”

  “She is not!” Meghan spat.

  This doesn’t make any sense, Vekal’s thoughts raced. He was certain that the angels had said that Kariss was holy, that she was chosen by the gods and by heaven itself. Didn’t that mean that the devils were her enemy?

  ‘Devils are pretty stupid, admittedly, human,” Ikrit snapped from inside of him. ‘But we at least know how to gamble.’

  “What does that mean?” Vekal said out loud.

  “Ha! You need to ask Ikrit inside of you, priest.” Khoulash-Eremund laughed. “A Saint is someone chosen by the gods. The holiest being in all the realms.” The things laughing suddenly stopped, and across his face was a look of cold, calculating evil. “And very, very valuable.”

  “Abomination!” Mother Aldameda chose that precise moment to break her silence, screeching as she pointed a finger at Vekal. “I know who you are, imp! I know what you are!”

  “We are surrounded by the Hordes of Hell, old woman,” Vekal heard his own mouth suddenly say.

  “If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have happened. The whole world wouldn’t be torn apart. Heaven wouldn’t be broken open!”

  “All fame is good fame, as they say,” Vekal-Ikrit snapped back.

  “Shut her up,” Khoulash-Eremund nodded, and one of the nearest pirate-devils moved to seize her.

  ‘Finally. We won’t have to put up with her screeching…’ Ikrit sniggered inside of the Sin Eater.

  No, Vekal thought, aghast. Even though he had overheard this old woman’s plans to execute him. Even though he knew as much as anyone that everything that he was, was also precisely what this old woman had been raised to fight – he couldn’t allow her to be murdered by the devils.

  ‘What? Are you mad? She wanted to put a knife through your gullet.’

  No. I won’t allow it, Ikrit, Vekal hissed back.

  “No!” he shouted, in a voice loud and sudden enough to stop the advancing pirate-devil.

  “No… what?” Khoulash-Eremund paused.

  “No – I want you to spare the old woman. And the boy. And the herbalist and her daughter,” Vekal found himself saying.

  “Hellspit, priest. I’ve already told you, no one is getting killed. We’re just moving some new tenants in.” Khoulash-Eremund sounded exasperated.

  “No!” Vekal said again, slowly pushing himself up from the decks. His own smuggler-devil guards bristled, but given how many there were around him, and with a cautious nod from their apparent leader, they didn’t attempt to stop him.

  “I know what I am,” Vekal said. “What is inside of me. A Greater Abomination. A Senior Duke of Hell. That has got to give me some leeway here, right?”

  Khoulash-Eremund bared his yellowed teeth and hissed. “What does Ikrit think about this?”

  Ikrit, please. I need this, Vekal argued quickly with the thing inside of him.

  ‘Need what? A miserable old psychopathic hag behind your back?’ Ikrit sneered at him. ‘After everything that I’ve taught you, you’re still weak, priest. Weak-willed, and weak-hearted.’

  Probably, Vekal thought. I don’t care. If you ever want to get back to Heaven again, and to your Eiver, then you will back me up on this.

  ‘Of all the underhanded, conniving things…’ The devil was outraged, and the priest felt him like an angry buzzing cloud of hornets inside his head.

  Please, Ikrit, the Sin Eater begged.

  A moment of silence, but then, the sensation of buzzing lessened, and instead it was replaced with a weary acceptance. ‘You only had to ask nicely. Fine. I agree.’

  Vekal’s eyes refocused on Khoulash-Eremund in front of him, but the voices that came out of his mouth were not those of the Sin Eater priest’s. “Executioner K
houlash! The last time I saw you, you were breaking into Heaven itself. What happened? Did the angels throw you back down again?” Vekal’s voice dripped sarcasm and self-importance. “You know that I actually managed to get in, don’t you? That I even spoke to the Lady Iliya.”

  “This was your idea, Ikrit!” Khoulash-Eremund spat, turning away from the other humans. “You said you knew a way into Heaven. A back door. That we would find it together!”

  “Is it my fault that you got waylaid? Didn’t you get summoned and bound by some Menaali witchdoctor or something?” Ikrit-Vekal laughed. “Really, Khoulash. You were never the best at planning. That is why you should leave the thinking to your superiors.”

  Khoulash-Eremund bristled, but Vekal could see that there was also a flicker of – what, fear? – from inside the smuggler’s face. But why? He has us surrounded!

  ‘A few thousand years of being my slave will do that to you. I could be very creative about my punishments whenever he dropped the blood bowl,’ Ikrit revealed.

  “Now, Khoulash. The words of my host stand. Leave the humans unpossessed. It is the least that we can do for them, given that they have helped us open the Lockless Gate, don’t you think?”

  Khoulash-Eremund didn’t look happy about this new development.

  “And think about all the benefits of keeping them intact. The humans will keep the Saint company. Make her pliable to the wishes of Hell. Having the humans are a powerful bargaining chip, just in case,” Vekal heard himself bargain and haggle.

  The Executioner of Hell might not like the fact that its old boss was telling it what to do, but it also didn’t look as though it was going to argue. “Just disarm them and tie their hands,” he spat to the nearest pirate-devils, who shared looks between him and Vekal-Ikrit, before complying at last with their smuggler-chief.

  “Get off me!” Aldameda still tried to struggle against them, but it was no use. Within moments all of the un-possessed there were tied securely with ship’s twine.

  “We won’t be hurting your girl,” the smuggler-devil hissed at Meghan. “Actually, we don’t want to harm a hair on her pretty little head. We just want her as far away from the Lockless Gate as possible.”

  “What?” Meghan struggled and gasped against her bonds. “What are you talking about?” A desperate glance over at Vekal, who appeared to be entirely caught in between anxiety and frustration.

  “It’s the angels who want her dead, pretty.” Khoulash-Eremund took a great delight in telling her. “It’s the angels who know that her blood will seal the Lockless Gate. So they want to sacrifice her on that godspit of an island back there. Not so eager to jump into bed with them now, are you?” The smuggler-devil looked at their guards. “Get them secured downstairs somewhere out of the way.”

  “But, is that true?” Meghan was shouting at Khoulash-Eremund, and at Mother Aldameda being pushed behind her. “Where are you taking us?”

  “It is true, pretty!” the smuggler Khoulash-Eremund called after their disappearing forms. “As true as the nose on her face. Just so long as your little girl sticks with Hell, she’ll be safe!” He started to laugh at the look of horror and panic on their faces as they were shoved and cajoled below decks, before turning back to the possessed Sin Eater.

  “And now, boss, I guess we’re going to have to decide what to do with you.”

  “What to do? I’ve always said we make an excellent partnership, Khoulash,” Vekal heard himself say, and felt appalled.

  Devil! What are you doing – you cannot make a pact with Hell now, he raged, but it was like Ikrit was holding the door closed against him inside his own mind.

  “We always did you mean,” Khoulash said. “But you know the old saying: there can only ever be one King of Hell.” The smuggler-executioner nodded, and at that precise moment, Vekal felt something terribly large, terribly heavy, and terribly painful, hit him around the back of the head.

  He fell to the deck like a dropped sack of potatoes.

  26

  “I can’t believe you were going to make a deal with him,” Vekal said, again, for the third time since he had woken up. The priest realized that he was repeating himself, but right then, surrounded by the darkened shadows of the hold, in which there only lurked spiders and rats, he thought that there was little else to do other than to prod the devil inside of him.

  ‘I wasn’t going to make a deal with him. I was negotiating. Bargaining. They’re different,’ the devil buzzed indignantly.

  If Vekal could have moved his limbs, he would have considered slapping himself he felt so angry – just in the unlikely hope that the devil would also feel the pain. But as it was, he was shackled by his wrists and his ankles around the thick post of one of the masts, where it came down through the boat and anchored down here. His head still hurt like a team of imps with hammers were constantly tapping it with graveyard nails.

  “How is negotiating and bargaining any different from making a deal?” Vekal sighed. He was getting too tired to even be furious with Ikrit anymore.

  I guess that I shouldn’t really be surprised. What should I expect, after all? He’s a devil. I’m a man.

  ‘Because you can always lie when you negotiate or bargain,’ Ikrit sounded frustrated. ‘I wasn’t really going to throw my lot in with Khoulash, for Hell’s Sake – what do you take me for? That one’s an idiot. He was barely bright enough to lift his axe and put it down again on the body part we wanted lopped off.’

  Vekal felt his stomach turn over inside of him. How could the devil be so casual about acts of torture and mayhem? Oh yeah. Because it’s evil.

  “Well, Khoulash managed to open the Lockless Gate, didn’t he? He managed to be here, with an army of the possessed,” Vekal said miserably. He shifted in his position, as his back was starting to ache one more time.

  ‘He only opened it because he was the final one to turn the key. We were the ones who found the door. We were the ones who pushed at it.’ The words of the devil were intense and fierce.

  “Well, what do you want to do about it?” Vekal said. He knew that, if he devil had wanted to, it could flood his limbs with infernal strength – and just perhaps be strong enough to brake these chains. “We could escape. Save the others. Steal one of the boats.”

  ‘Idiot. There you go, thinking just like a human.’ The fiend sneered. It was just like it, the Sin Eater considered. As a devil, Ikrit was always predisposed to being not very considerate of anything or anyone around it, but that tendency only grew worse when the devil was thwarted. Vekal inwardly groaned. He would have to wait out the creature’s temper tantrum if he wanted it to think rationally.

  ‘Ha!’ the thing read his thoughts. ‘I think you will find that I am the one who is being super rational here, priest. I don’t have the comfort of only thinking in terms of my short life – and it is high time that you, too, start thinking in terms of the cosmic war.’

  “What do you mean?” Vekal grumbled.

  ‘You heard Khoulash. He’s not going to kill the girl. He’s going to keep her safe. And so far, we’ve managed to convince him that as long as he keeps the others alive – then the Saint of the Age will also be happy,’ the devil reasoned. ‘Khoulash and his inferiors will do everything that they can to take the girl away from the Isle of Gaunt and the Lockless Gate. That is what we want too, right? Because the angels will want to retrieve the Saint and spill her blood.’

  The thing had a point, Vekal reasoned. “So, are you suggesting that we just do nothing? That we just let them take us wherever they want to?” The idea of the sort of hide-out or fortress that a devil would take them to was certainly not the sort of place that Vekal wanted to spend long in.

  Not that I have much choice, at the moment, he thought, feeling the surge and sway of the pirate galleon around him. Their boat had turned, he was sure – away from the Shattering Coast – but where to? The North? The priest tried to remember the dry scrolls that he had once studied so assiduously back in the ancient City of the Gods.r />
  The North. The safer, fertile lands past the Inner Ocean, home to the Kingdom of Thrane, and the city states. They were peaceful, well, peaceful compared to the malcontent southlands of the world, or the wild and strange Shattering Coasts. They patrolled their half of the Inner Ocean vigorously, only allowing trade and embassy boats through to the higher reaches of the world. Their largest threat had come when the Menaali Horde under Dal Grehb had broken the Iron Pass on the other side of the Burning Sands.

  But that had been years ago, the priest realized. The North must have braced themselves for an all-out invasion of their softer lands by the gigantic nomadic mass of barbarians.

  ‘But they didn’t, did they?’ Ikrit said, sounding a little victorious.

  They both knew the reason for that. Somehow, during that campaign, Ikrit had managed to get itself into the body of Dal Grehb’s daughter, and he had instead turned from his greatest victory and taken his Horde across the Burning Sands to Vekal Morson’s home of Tir’An’Fael, the crumbling City of the Gods, there to seek a cure from the strangest breed of priests on the face of the world: the Morshanti – or the Sin Eaters.

  ‘And that is where I found you, my little priestling,’ the devil purred at him. ‘I needed you. I always needed you. I chose you.’

  Vekal shivered in the dark. It made him feel sick and despairing, that his entire life had already been selected by – not the twin gods of his people – but by this Greater Abomination of Hell.

  “You used me to take you to the Isle of Gaunt, to open the Lockless Gate,” Vekal accused – but it was a hollow assertion. Of course the devil had used him, and it was a long time since the priest had worked that out.

  ‘Of course. Fat good that did me…’ Ikrit mourned.

  “And so here we are. Back to square one.”

  ‘Hardly. You have your mission. I have mine.’

  “You mean the mission that Lady Iliya sent me down here for? To save the Saint of the Age, and to stop the devil invasion of heaven?” Vekal laughed dryly. “It seems that I am entirely unnecessary to that, now that the angels are here.” The priest didn’t admit it, but a terrible seed of suspicion was growing in his breast. What did the Lady Iliya want him to do? She had told him to save the Lockless Gate, but also charged him with returning to save the people he loved. Meghan and Kariss. How could he save Kariss, and seal the Lockless Gate at the same time?