The King of the Vile

by David Dalglish

  “About damn time someone noticed that.”

  The knight returned to his men as Harruq took Aurelia by the hand.

  “Join the rest of the soldiers,” he said. “Let them give you a moment to catch your breath.”

  “It’s just a headache,” Aurelia said. “I’ve suffered worse. I’m married to you, aren’t I?”

  Harruq kissed her lips. “Love you. Now get your elven ass surrounded by soldiers.”

  She didn’t argue further, which only convinced Harruq she was as tired as he thought. The lengthy group of people traveled along the street, the attacks growing more and more scattered. Harruq returned to the front, wondering if they’d suffered the worst of it. When they reached the first gate that led through the twin walls surrounding the city, the attacks stopped entirely. Even the gap between the walls was empty. Some of the soldiers cheered, and the many people sighed with relief. Harruq’s optimism lasted only until they exited the outer gate. Over a dozen angels hovered just outside, waiting. Harruq recognized one in particular, the sight of his ugly, jagged-toothed smile filling him with sadness.

  “Judarius is mine,” Harruq shouted to the soldiers at his back. “Take care of the rest.”

  The soldiers acknowledged his command and proceeded to shout taunts at the angels. Harruq stayed at the front, eyes locked with Judarius. Deep down, he knew the angel would relish the challenge. Ever since their very first duel, when Harruq brought the skilled fighter down, Judarius had sought a rematch. Now he’d get it, only this time it was for blood.

  The angels dove in a single wave, Judarius leading them. Spells leapt from Aurelia’s hands, balls of flame trailing black smoke soared over Harruq’s head. The angels veered, breaking formation. Only Judarius kept straight ahead, like an arrow aimed for Harruq’s chest. Black wings flared out, beating to kill Judarius’s momentum. He dropped to the ground, his enormous mace leaving a deep imprint in the grass. Judarius’s gray eyes glared at Harruq from a nearly unrecognizable, twisted face.

  “You flee like cowards!” he screamed.

  Harruq heard steel striking steel as the battle raged behind him. Praying Aurelia was safe, Harruq forced the fear from his mind so he might face his foe. He lifted his twin blades, trusting their powerful magic to keep him safe.

  “You butcher sleeping women and children without warning, yet we’re the cowards?” Harruq asked. “I think you need some perspective.”

  Judarius snarled like an animal, the image aided by the sharpness of his teeth and the blood of innocent people splashed across his armor. He stepped closer and swung his mace with enough power to shatter stone and topple buildings. Harruq ducked, rotating as he side-stepped so that he could emerge with swords swinging.

  “Perspective?” snapped Judarius. His mace whirled about, easily batting aside the dual strike. He swung twice more, Harruq just barely managing to dodge each one. His legs felt made of mud, his arms were limp. He thrust once, the attempt easily parried, and then Judarius pulled back for another swing. It was too low to duck underneath, too close to leap away from, so Harruq dropped to one knee and put his swords in the way. The power of the hit jarred his arms, filling him with pain from his shoulders to his fingertips. The red glow about the swords dimmed momentarily, as if the steel itself were protesting.

  “Perspective?” Judarius repeated, pushing harder against Harruq’s block. “I watched as mankind was given life from clay. I guided them in their infancy, and now I suffer while their sinful race is elevated above us in the eyes of the god I served for centuries. Tell me, Harruq, what perspective explains such a betrayal?”

  Harruq felt strength flooding back into his tired limbs, strength born from rage. He shoved aside Judarius’s mace with a loud cry.

  “Betrayal?” he roared. “You would slaughter those you were meant to protect, then cry betrayal?” He slammed both his swords down against the mace, which Judarius held parallel to the ground to block the blows. “You would bathe the streets in their blood, then cry victim?” He shoved the angel back, slashed open his thigh before he could protect himself, then launched into another barrage. His twin blades crashed into the mace again and again. His fury gave him strength, hid every hint of pain. Harruq hammered against Judarius until the angel fell to his knees, still struggling to hold back the blades.

  “Betrayal, Judarius?” Harruq screamed. “You want to know what explains such betrayal? Look in a damn mirror! The answer’s in the innocent blood you bathed in!”

  Both swords swung sideways, shoving the mace aside. Before Judarius could step back, Harruq flung himself forward, slamming his forehead into Judarius’s face. Blood splattered from his nose, and he lost his balance. Harruq pulled his swords back for another swing, but a quick flap of wings gained Judarius enough separation to avoid decapitation. A few more, and he rose into the air, safely fleeing toward Devlimar.

  “And you called us cowards.” Harruq spat blood, turned to see the rest of the angels dead or fleeing. He let his swords drop and gasped in air as his battle lust slowly faded.

  “Damn fine show,” Sir Wess said as the soldiers rushed past Harruq. “Remind me to never make you angry.”

  Harruq didn’t have the heart to chuckle. Amid the sea of tired, bloodied people, Harruq saw his wife, just as bloodied and tired. He sheathed his swords and pushed toward her.

  “We made it,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist.

  “I need to get Aubrienna,” she said after kissing his cheek.

  Harruq looked to the sky. Though he saw many black wings hovering above the city walls, and the screams of the dying still reached his ears, no more angels made their way toward them. No doubt they wanted easier prey for their vengeance. Harruq clenched his teeth. They’d mitigated the carnage, but they’d not stopped it. No one could.

  “Go on,” he said. “We’ll be here waiting.”

  Aurelia waved her hands, then vanished with an audible pop. Harruq walked among the people, his surroundings a surreal image carrying far too many echoing images from his past. The refugees walked south, away from the capital. Many looked to him for direction, to be the faintest spark of hope amid their misery..

  Aurelia returned not long after, a portal opening ahead of them and dispensing two soldiers, one carrying Gregory. Aurelia held little Aubby. People murmured in surprise or relief at the sight of the boy king. Another victory against the angels. After such a horrible night of loss, even the tiniest blow against them felt sweet.

  The portal hissed shut. Harruq hurried over and wrapped his family in his arms.

  “Hi, daddy,” Aubrienna said, rubbing at her eyes. “I was sleeping.”

  Harruq kissed his daughter’s forehead as tears ran down his face. “Go on back to sleep, babe. We have a long way to go before morning.”

  She didn’t answer, only nestled into his arm and closed her eyes. Harruq took Aurelia’s hand, and together they walked among the people toward the land of Ker, and a land free of angels.

  26

  Lathaar knew something terrible approached as they lay down that night to sleep. He felt it in his bones, in the uncomfortable grass underneath his bedroll, in the way the night air hung perfectly still. Jerico had barely said a word to him during that day’s travel, as if burdened by the same overwhelming sense of wrongness. It felt like any second the ground might erupt beneath their feet. They were only a few hours away from Mordeina, but they’d drifted off the worn road and camped instead of pressing on through the dark.

  Lathaar stared at the stars, feeling like worms crawled in his veins.

  “Something’s wrong,” Jerico said, sitting up from his bedroll on the opposite side of their dwindling campfire. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  “Like Ashhur’s crying out in warning for no apparent reason at all?”

  Jerico sighed as he rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, that’d be it. Get your armor on. I’ve got a bad feeling we’re going to need it.”

  Lathaar rolled up his bedroll, tied it, and the
n stuck it into his pack along with his blanket. Then he began the lengthy process of putting on the various pieces of chain and plate, which he’d wrapped in a separate blanket beside him on the grass. Once the chain shirt was on, he buckled together the breastplate, and then reached for his gloves.

  He felt a sudden surge of emotion so powerful it was like a kick to the stomach. Lathaar dropped to his knees and braced his weight on his arms as he shivered. It felt like a fever had come upon him, sudden and vicious. Sweat rolled down his neck, and though the night was filled with soft blue starlight, his vision ran scarlet.

  A single voice whispered in his mind, furious yet sad, determined yet exhausted.

  There will be death. There will be bloodshed. But it won’t be in my name.

  Lathaar felt Ashhur’s anger growing in his breast. The fury left him terrified, for he knew his own anger could never feel so raw, so powerful. It was beyond him, beyond his control.

  “Jerico?”

  Lathaar forced the word out as best he could. For some reason, he expected his whisper to go unheard. The night was quiet, yet a tremendous roar filled his ears with the cries of frightened and confused people.

  “I’m fine,” Jerico said, gasping in air as if he’d just run a dozen miles. “I’m...”

  It hit them both at once. The fist of a god. The rage of the infinite. Neither paladin could remain upright, flinging themselves to the grass and burying their faces. Every part of Lathaar’s body trembled. Every part of his mind blanked with fear. A single word echoed throughout his consciousness, devastating and simple.

  Fall.

  Tears fell from Lathaar’s eyes, and then the moment passed and he felt like himself again. His heart pounded in his chest and light sparked from his fingertips without need of him to grasp one of his swords.

  “What was that?” Lathaar asked, staggering to his feet.

  “I don’t know,” Jerico said. “But we’re not staying here. Waitsfield Village is a mile up the road, so let’s get to it. I’ll feel better once we’re in some semblance of civilization.”

  Lathaar heartily agreed with. Out on the road he felt exposed and vulnerable, a rarity in all his travels. Something horrible was happening, and hovering over it all was that single command: fall.

  They traveled side by side in silence. There was no way of knowing what had gone wrong, so Lathaar kept his mouth shut and tried to keep his mind from haphazardly bouncing from idea to idea. He failed, mostly, but the fear increased the clip of his walk. Jerico kept up with him, seeming of similar mind.

  Waitsfield had no road leading to it, only a sign pointing west. The two paladins spotted the sign easily enough in the moonlight, and they turned off the road toward a long stretch of hills. In the darkness, the hills looked like frozen ocean waves; soft, gentle, unending. They melded into one another, with no real clear path between them, so Lathaar trudged straight ahead, cresting each hill in turn. After thirty minutes, Lathaar saw a single broad hill that covered much of the horizon, and Lathaar began to jog, determined to reach the village.

  Waitsfield was nestled in the center of the valley beyond. To Lathaar’s relief, he heard no signals of alarm or distant shouts, saw no sign of fire or distress. It was just a sleeping town surrounded by a simple wood fence to keep out nighttime predators. A single lit lantern hung from a post beside the closed entrance. Still unable to relax, Lathaar marched down the hill along a worn path in the grass.

  “What do we do?” Jerico asked on the way down. “Wake everyone? Tell them we’ve got the shivers, so prepare for...something?”

  “I don’t know,” Lathaar said. “Perhaps we’ll play it by ear.”

  The wood fence came up to Lathaar’s chest, just high enough he couldn’t climb over with ease. In the light of the lantern he knocked, waking a man who slept in a rocking chair adjacent the gate.

  “Ashhur help me, you gave me a scare,” the man said, lurching out of the chair. He looked in his fifties, his skin deeply tanned, his smile missing half its teeth. “There’s no inn here, if that’s what you’ve come looking for.”

  “That doesn’t mean there are no places to stay,” Jerico said, smiling that charming smile of his. “Especially for a pair of paladins of Ashhur.”

  A bit of the sleep left the man’s eyes. “Well I’ll be.” He quickly lifted the latch and swung the gate open. “Not sure your kind’s set foot in Waitsfield in over a hundred years. What brings you this way?”

  “The desire for a mattress softer than my travel-worn bedroll,” Jerico said. “That and a warm meal come the morning, cooked by someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “Come in, come in then,” the man said with a laugh “We might be able to scrounge something up. My name’s Coy, and welcome to Waitsfield Village.”

  Lathaar stepped inside, and when the gate shut behind him, his hands drifted to the hilts of his swords. Whatever threat plagued his mind, it was located inside the village, of that he had no doubt. Jerico glanced at him over his shoulder, his look showing he sensed the same.

  “I’m thinking the Codgers could spare you a room, so long as you two don’t mind sharing,” Coy said as he led them past several thatched-roof homes on their way toward the commons in the center of the village. “Their eldest son died on a hunt last year, Ashhur bless his soul, and they haven’t seemed too keen on clearing out the boy’s old things just yet.”

  Lathaar listened to their guide while searching for signs of life in the sleepy village. Just before they reached the commons, all three heard the sound of splintering wood, followed by a scream.

  “Amanda?” Coy said, suddenly rushing off to the right. “Amanda!”

  Lathaar and Jerico raced after him, readying their weapons. They passed a line of buildings forming the perimeter to the commons, then turned again to find Coy collapsed to his knees before a squat, rectangular home. The door was shattered. The occupant, a pretty lady no older than twenty, lay half on the porch, half on the single step leading up to it. There was blood everywhere Before either paladin could react, the intruder speared Coy through the chest with something long and sharp, twisting it once before ripping out the barbed head with a bloody explosion.

  “Ashhur help us,” Lathaar whispered as he readied his swords.

  The creature before him bore the same carefully molded armor as an angel, the same flowing robes, the same grand wings. But this thing was pale and ugly, his wings black, and Lathaar understood, right then and there, what the proclamation of fall had meant.

  “So our father abandons us,” said the hideous thing, “yet still grants you power. You, who are pale mockeries of what we are. I can think of no greater insult.”

  “I can think of a few,” Jerico said, lifting his glowing shield. “Do you want to hear them all, or just my favorites?”

  The fallen angel readied his spear, bits of pink flesh clinging to its tip. “The shield-bearer,” he said. “The coward who fled to the Wedge when the Citadel fell. Yes, come. Show me the bravery of one who lived among dogs while his brethren were butchered.”

  Jerico’s face darkened as the glow of his shield dipped the tiniest bit.

  “He’s mine,” he told Lathaar before lunging ahead. The fallen angel met his charge, leaping off the porch with wings flared and spear thrusting. Jerico easily positioned his shield in the way, sparks flying as the tip of the spear scraped across. His mace swung, striking only air as the angel turned to one side and slid past. Jerico followed him, shield leading. Twice more the spear jammed into the shield. The angel failed to find an opening, but his weapon’s reach allowed him to attack while still retreating away from Jerico’s counter with a leap of his long legs.

  Lathaar ran down the street, hoping to put himself at the angel’s flank so he could no longer retreat, but then he saw another pair of black wings soar over the commons and land on the opposite side. Praying for his friend, Lathaar sprinted across the commons, keeping his eyes on the home he suspected it’d landed before. Not that it’d ma
tter if he lost sight. In his gut, he feared the screams of the dying would reach his ears before he arrived.

  He was right.

  Lathaar burst through the broken door of the home, swords leading. Surprise was with him, and he rammed both blades through the back of an angel who stood beside the fireplace. Ripping out his swords, he kicked the corpse to the side. At his feet was a young woman in a shift, tears running down her cheeks. The body of a young man lay in her arms, throat cut.

  “Stay inside,” Lathaar told her, wishing he could offer more comfort. “And find somewhere to hide in case more return.”

  She nodded, eyes still wide from shock. Lathaar wondered if she’d even move, or if she’d stay there clutching her dead spouse. He couldn’t stay to find out. Rushing back out the door, he jogged across the commons, relieved to find Jerico walking toward him. That relief was tempered by the sight of blood dripping down his left shoulder through a crease in his platemail.

  “You all right?” Lathaar asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said. “Damn spear snuck past my shield, but at least it got stuck on my armor so I could finally bash that thing’s brains in.”

  Lathaar toward Mordeina. It might have been his imagination, but dark shapes, darker than the night, moved among the stars above.

  “More of them,” he said. “Perhaps all of them.”

  “What happened?” Jerico wondered. He stared at the distant shapes, looking sick. “Did things truly become so terrible while we hid in our Citadel?”

  “We weren’t hiding,” Lathaar said, a bit harsher than he meant. “We just didn’t know.”

  “I fear there might be little difference.”

  Someone shouted at them, trying for their attention. Both turned to see several men headed their way, one of them carrying a torch. It seemed the sounds of combat had begun rousing people from their beds. All throughout the town doors opened, men and women peering out with simple weapons in hand.

  “What the fuck is going on?” the first to near them asked.

  “Your village is under attack,” Lathaar said. “Get back to your homes, now.”