“We did,” she drawled. “An idyllic little settlement. It was such a cute place. Maybe I’ll have children there someday, perhaps, if my womb wasn’t already a dried out husk.”
“That was my home,” Walter said, teeth grinding together. It took everything he had not to carve a bloody hole through her beautiful face.
“Yes, yes. Everything was your home,” she pouted. “What is it with your kind and placing so much value on dead wood? Home is where you are.” She laughed as she said the last bit.
Walter’s skin burned hot as fire, mist hissing around him. His fingers cut bloody ellipsis into his palms. “You—” He couldn’t speak for fear of spewing out the vomit lurching in his guts. “You killed them,” he whispered, staring into the swirling water. A rot fly landed on a lily pad, using its wide proboscis to vacuum up spots of dark blood.
“We had fun with your village. You’ve been there since then? Oh, I can see that you have! Oh yes! Are you pleased with our work?” She clapped her hands together. “We found novel ways of putting men to the pike. I think my favorite still is through the backside and out the mouth. It leaves the piked in such a wonderful state. Tough to get the spike through the guts without piercing out through the abdomen, though some of them are quite good at it now.” She used her thumb to gesture back at the Cerumal. That elicited a few barks and squawks from them.
Her words were like iron nails, each driving harder than the last through his bones. “Thank you,” Walter said, slowly bobbing his head.
“For what?” Alena asked, regarding him with a savage hunger as if she were preparing to eat him. Perhaps she was, he wouldn’t put the idea of cannibalism past the Wretched. They must have earned the name for good reasons.
“For coming here, of course.” Walter shrugged and Alena’s neck twitched.
Grimbald grunted, partially turned to face him with a furrowed brow of confusion.
Death Spawn softly gibbered as the ground boomed. Another root hammered into the earth, crushing the remains of the group still trying to slaughter the animated wood. Walter watched a Cerumal fighting to free its neck from the root’s coiled hold. Its bald head popped free from its neck, splashing into the mud below. The root raised up again, still holding the limp body of the Cerumal. Arrows arced into the air, harmlessly thumping into the root.
“For… coming here?” She cast a glance over her shoulder, eyes shifting from the roots to him.
“Yes,” Walter said flatly. “For saving me the time of having to hunt you down. For making the task of tearing you apart limb by bloody limb that much easier. No, I think,” he swallowed. “I think today I shall learn how to put a woman on the pike.”
Alena melodiously laughed and started to turn away from him, walking towards the Death Spawn. “You’d fit well with us. You have violence in your heart. I like you. Do you like me?” She turned back to him, licked her lips, tugged on her top to reveal the deep curve of her breasts.
Grimbald grunted. “Can we shut her up already?”
Walter thought he had lost some of himself over the past year. It paled in comparison to this woman’s madness. She implies the bedroom after speaking about torture in the same breath. “Have you heard from your woman in Woodland Plunge lately? The one with the dragon made up of plants?” Walter asked.
Alena’s head whipped over her shoulder, eyes flashing with violet. “What do you know of her? You?”
“Me.” It was his turn to smile and turn the knife.
“What did you do?” she snarled, flashing ivory teeth sharpened to points.
A laugh bubbled free from Walter’s mouth. He nodded as more laughter stumbled out of his throat, booming in his chest. It was the laugh of madness, the laugh of a man who had become what he hated. But what other choice did he have? They created this.
Grimbald took a step back from the two of them, snorting and licking his lips. “Walter?”
“She begged me for mercy!” Walter said between laughs. An unprecedented rage boiled in his veins. “Mercy! Can you believe the audacity? There is no mercy for the Dragon!” He dropped his voice. “There will be no mercy for you, Alena.”
Alena seemed to shrink, her shoulders and back drawn in. “You-you’ll pay for what you’ve done, mortal!” She screamed with desperation, stabbing golden fingers at him. “Attack! Kill them! You’ll be flayed for years, boy!” Roars and shrieks filled the expansive bog from the Death Spawn. They pounded through the water, spilling in around Alena and shrouding her with their bulk.
Walter thought he heard Alena chanting with unfamiliar words. Nyset might have recognized them, he thought. A violet beam lanced the fog and pierced through the veil of clouds. The beam shattered into hundreds of smaller fragments, each crashing back down into the bog and striking individual Death Spawn as they charged.
The Death Spawn changed. Their bodies swelled in size, both flesh and armor almost doubling. Their skin took on a soft glow, eyes shimmering with amber in the middle and violet around the edges. Their roaring magnified as their heads grew, echoing through Walter’s chest through his gaping mouth.
There was a fatal flaw in their charge. They didn’t know the force they marched against. They ran in a line, the beasts at the back screaming at those in the front. Walter grinned. “Brace yourself, Grim! Some will get through, cover me!” Walter focused on the strength of the Phoenix. Its cool touch was less familiar to him than the Dragon’s rage. Its sense of peace was a surprising sensation in the heat of battle, but it allowed him to think, gave him room to breathe. Anger could be channeled into something useful, but most of the time it only served to punish the angry.
Walter blinked and six horizontal portals sprang to life at hip height of the sprinting Death Spawn. They lined up from end to end, forming a razor-thin band of blue light that cut across them like tripwire. He wouldn’t have noticed them had he not created them and that was what made it so beautiful.
“Shit! What is that?” Grimbald said. He was always a keen observer.
“Portals,” Walter hissed. “There will be blood.”
“Oh!” Grimbald said, banging his axes together. “C’mon, you bastards! Come and taste my steel!” he shouted.
They were drawing closer to the peacefully glowing portals, a second or two away. The portals opened into the Silver Tower’s practice yard. A pang of worry struck Walter then. What if something saw them and came through on this side? They were a few strides away now. Not to worry, if anything did try to come, they would soon be met with surprise.
“C’mon!” Walter yelled. The concentration required for keeping so many portals up at once was tremendous. He felt like there was a three-hundred-pound weight on his back trying to press him into the mud. Sweat beaded down his temples and the center of his back. His heart thudded like an axe hacking into wood.
“You shits!” Grimbald screamed.
The doubly large Death Spawn collided with the portals with a terrible shriek of pain. The portals cut clean lines through their thighs, knees, hips and sliced savagely through midsections as if their armor were mere sheets of paper. Broken bodies fell into the portals, heads and shoulders not fitting at the edges and falling to the bog in bloody chunks. Racing legs removed from knees rolled into muddy water. Their ruined bodies fell into tangled heaps, limbs falling every which way interspersed with glowing weapons.
Some of them realized what was happening and tried to stop, digging their heels in and grasping at their brothers pushing them from behind. A Cerumal whose nose and lips appeared to have been amputated turned to run in the other direction. The one behind him had lizard’s scales crawling over his cheeks and shoved him forward, unaware of Walter’s trap. The front most Cerumal fell between the edges of two portals, slicing both of his arms off and leaving just a sliver of his torso remaining. Lizard face bumped into a portal’s edge, cutting half-way into his thigh. The beast screeched and fell onto the ground, blood welling out from the wound.
Never would have thought a transportation sp
ell could be so destructive, Walter thought. He wondered if the Phoenix knew, or cared how he used the portals.
There were at least three more rows of Death Spawn stomping into the portals. A few had made it around the insidious trap, pounding towards them with renewed fury.
“Grim!” Walter said, his jaw muscles aching.
“On it!” Grimbald lunged forward, raised his axes and chopped at the glowing Cerumal. Its curved sword flashed up, clanging off Grimbald’s axes in a lightning fast parry. It sent a massive fist into Grimbald’s face, bones popping. Grimbald grunted, ducked a savage backswing, sword throwing a glittering line of water through the air. Grimbald thrust his pommel up into its jaw, dislodged a few upper teeth and sent them tumbling like pebbles into the water.
A few more Cerumal tried to stop themselves from being pushed into Phoenix’s portals, reaching out to grasp its edges, unaware of the futility. Walter watched as one beast’s hands were cut clean through the palms, its body vaulting into the portal, its exit hovering about fifty feet above the practice yard. Its severed fingers thumped on top of the mounting pile of limbs, the only parts of its body still remaining here.
Behind the Cerumal marching into the portals, beams of violet light lashed out from Alena’s whipping arms, her cloak flapping behind from an unseen wind. The fog around her flashed with violet brilliance. She hurled them at the animated roots, blowing out ragged pieces and throwing splinters, moss and leaves in every direction. Arrows rained down from the Great Tree, turning to ash before striking her and drifting away in a gentle breeze. She pushed another beam of light through a root, severing it at the base. It groaned and snapped, crashed into the bog, threw up a wave of mud over herself and the few remaining Death Spawn. She turned her attention up at the tree, raking down with clawed hands. Bodies were jerked from limbs, screaming and flailing. They slapped into the mud, spraying out blood from the impact.
“Shit, shit.” Walter grimaced, squinting into the fog.
Two more oversized Cerumal advanced on Grimbald, one with a lash and another brandishing a pair of sharpened hooks the length of daggers. Walter was torn between helping him and keeping up the portals for a few more seconds. “C’mon, Grim,” he hissed.
Grimbald backed up and the Cerumal fanned out at his flanks. One wielding a sword had been cut across its belly, blood rolling down its dull plated thighs. Walter helplessly watched, his feet rooted to the ground in intense concentration. The one bearing hooks darted in, raking with cat-like swiftness. Grimbald blocked one hook with his gauntlet and the other lanced through his hand and tore one of his axes free. The other Cerumal cracked its whip, snapping over Grimbald’s head and splitting it open in a grisly line. The hook bearer jerked the hook in Grim’s hand, dragging him to the ground, palm snared in a rusty loop of iron. He screamed in pain, dropped Corpsemaker, grabbing his hooked palm with his other hand.
Grim’s screaming ripped at him. Sometimes friends had to die to destroy your enemy, he thought with iron. Walter dropped the portals as the last line of Cerumal stopped at their edges, seeing the trap without being forced by the mindless at their rear.
Walter grunted, pushed with the Phoenix, slamming the Cerumal wielding the hooks into the one with the sword. The sword clanged through the hook wielder’s ribs, shooting out broken loops of chain mail, the sword point emerging through the other side of its torso and letting out a high-pitched squeal.
Grimbald howled in agony, clutching his hand to his chest on a mound of mud. Walter tossed a fireball into the sword wielder’s face, head ripping apart and throwing out bits of burning tissue. He ran for the hook wielder before it could get up, recovering from the shock of watching its brother’s destruction. “Die!” He stabbed at its gut with his stump, sword of fire springing out and lancing it through its chest. Fireballs would drain him much faster than conjuring fire weapons. He had a feeling he was going to need every last shred of strength he had today.
Something bit into Walter’s arm, sent him reeling on unsure legs. A long strip of leather coiled around Stormcaller, a lash he realized, jerking him towards an opened mouth with gleaming wolf’s teeth. He remembered what Juzo had done to him so many moons ago in their Sid-Ho dojo. The teeth snapped at his face, jerked his neck back, felt the beast’s spittle strike his eyes and used the momentum to throw a knee into its gut. What he forgot was that this creature was wearing armor. His knee bounced from its iron gut and bolts of pain radiated up his leg. He put his leg down and felt something pop in his knee, sending him plopping into muck. The Cerumal dove at him, carnivorous jaws gaping open. Walter pushed himself to roll, but his arm only sank deep into icy mud.
His world went black for an instant. Violence rattled in his head, smashing his skull and yanking on his neck. Red spots bloomed in his vision, face covered in hot wetness. Pain exploded in his face, feeling like a vice grip crushed down around his temples. Walter’s eye flared, pushing the Dragon’s hate through the socket. The Cerumal yelped then the tension on his skull eased. Hot blood spilled over his face and into his mouth, overwhelmingly metallic. The creature slumped onto his chest, pushing the breath out of his lungs. The Phoenix flared around his knee, neck, face and back, stitching up wounds and putting ligaments back in their proper places. Back to the Shadow Realm, he thought. He coughed and spat out the Cerumal’s revolting blood to his side, cheek scraping on cold mud. He groaned and sent a blast of air to push the beast off of him, rolling into shallow waters at his side.
Grimbald was shouting somewhere in a mix of pain and a war cry. Walter dragged himself up, heavy with mud clinging to his clothing. “What happened?” Walter looked him over, ears ringing. They had a few seconds before the remaining ten or so Cerumal would be on them and they looked unusually angry.
“I’ll be alright, you okay?” Grimbald had Corpsemaker hanging loosely in one hand, the other a ragged mess held to his chest. His hand had been torn in half up the middle, dividing his fingers into two bloody sections. Flesh hung in jagged flaps, sliced away as if it had been mistaken for a pig roast ready to be served. His blood was dark with mud.
“Shit, the hook. Oh! I’m sorry! I did that,” Walter stammered, grabbed Grim’s hand and pressed the Phoenix’s healing into it. Walter felt more of himself drain out with that. He realized then that healing someone else was significantly more taxing than healing himself. Exhaustion sank its claws deep into his psyche. The shattered bones pulled together, melting as if turned to liquid and fusing together. New skin started pulling over the wound and the tendons hanging out of his palm slipped inside like scared worms. Layers of flesh knitted over his hand, painting what remained of the wound with fresh baby’s skin.
“That’s amazing… incredible,” Grimbald said, staring at his flexing fingers. His eyes whirled up to the approaching enemy. “Haircuts for everyone!” Grimbald screamed. With bloody hands he chopped into a lash bearer, splitting it through the helmet and skull, throwing out bits of brains and bone fragments.
Walter was frozen. How could he have done this to someone he called a friend? It was careless, stupid. This was how Juzo died. This is how a man murders his friends. Walter dragged his eyes from Grim, smashing aside the self-pity threatening to bury him. Walter was forced into the present by a giant scythe glinting and aimed down at him. Death would not take him today.
He didn’t see the face of the creature that had chosen to die next. He dashed in, scythe crashing into water at his back, pressed his stump to its gut and willed a fireball to be there. It saved him a bit of energy not needing to be thrown. The fireball materialized inside its stomach, internally scorching its guts. Its great scythe fell from uncurled fingers and plopped into the bog. Walter snatched the weapon as the beast collapsed, blasted the weapon with a Phoenix thrust and sent it spinning through the air and hammering through a Cerumal’s chest, pinning it to the ground. A portal winked between a pair of massive Cerumal, slicing them in half at the chest and sending their squelching bodies rolling into each other. Walter shook his
head at their tumbling bodies, wondered if the demons on the other side felt their pain.
Grimbald chopped through an arm and a knee in one continuous show of power. His axe came around in a mighty arc, hammering down from overhead and freeing the beast from its skull. Blood sprayed over his face, a demon’s mask of scarlet and mud. “This is for my Pa!” he roared, teeth bloody and grinning like a barbarian from the stories.
Walter heaved a breath, saw Alena stalking towards them. The fog around her glowed as she sloshed through water, her body covered in dripping mud, the once luxurious hair now a matted rat’s nest against the side of her face. “Shit.” He felt like his well of strength was already starting to come up empty. But there was always more, wasn’t there? “Always more,” he grunted. He slashed with Stormcaller, tendrils reaching up and cutting the throats of two massive Cerumal holding axes the size of Grimbald’s. Their blood pumped out with gurgling jets, spraying across lily pads.
“Get her, I’ll finish these.” Grimbald thumped into his shoulder, almost throwing him into the mud.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Grimbald huffed, blood trailing down his jaw from his head wound. Walter pushed a bit more Phoenix healing into him, saw the wound starting to knit.
Walter met Alena’s glowing eyes, pulsing with the light of the Shadow Realm. They both stopped with ten paces between each other, her hands balled up by her sides. Rivulets of mud curled down her chin and between her breasts. “You can’t win,” she snapped. She dragged her talons through her hair, combing it back in deep valleys. “It’s time for you to return to the Shadow mother, I’m told she misses you.”
“Never! I’ll never go back… and if I do it will be for one reason, to cut the whore’s ugly head off.” Walter felt the humid air enter through his nostrils, spiraling deep into his lungs. He saw her hand twitch before it came up, grinning. He jerked a legless Cerumal corpse from the bog, hurled it at her. The body collided with her violet beam, turning to ashes and fluttering to the ground.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 29
