Of course, that was her key to staying in my graces. The Old Ones had not revealed their secrets to me like they had to her. They only saw fit to give me a glimpse into the darkness and a taste of their unimaginable dominations. I needed her guidance. "I give you my word, Koriniha. I shall not allow you to perish so long as I live. And with this"-I pulled the bag from my waist-"should you die, I shall bring you back."
The priestess laughed again; it was the shrill cry of a harpy. "Then let us begin the ceremony, my lord."
The priests and sorcerers formed a chain around the altar, leaving Koriniha, the bound Hunter, and myself in the center. I was directed to remove the artifact from its bag and place it upon the stones. A burst of cold traveled up my arm as my gauntlet closed around the small rectangular box. It did not reflect the moonlight, rather it seemed to absorb it hungrily, leaving a greater darkness than was possible. For the first time, markings could be seen on the black surface. They began to glow and gain in strength, withering tendrils, seemingly alive and searching.
I placed the box near the head of the trapped Hunter. He shouted and spat at me, but his words were drowned out by the increasing hum of the chanting priests. The coldness in my arm did not dissipate, but began to travel deeper into my core, chilling my blood, and forming crystals of ice vapor in my lungs.
The priestess studied the moon. "The time is upon us. I must call upon the Old Ones in their speech. When I am done, remove the heart of the sacrifice. Drink some of his blood and pour the rest upon the artifact."
I pulled my battle-ax from my back, released the leather cover from the ancient sharpened head, and cast it aside. The shaft was smooth and polished with use, strengthened with bands of iron and had been replaced countless times over generations. The blade itself was ancient, made of an unknown metal that cut like the finest steel, yet had somehow survived in the possession of my family since the time of Alexander. It had taken many lives, and the sacrifice tonight would be but another, though it had never been used in so dark a pagan ritual.
For me there would be no reconciliation. There would be no forgiveness. After tonight there was no looking back or turning away from the dark path I trod. My people, my country and my God would all forsake me for the acts I was about to commit.
So be it.
I twisted the deadly weapon in my gauntleted fists. "I am ready."
The priestess began to speak, her voice low and guttural, descending somehow into tones not produced by human beings, and in pitches never meant to be heard by mortal ears. Swirling black clouds drew over the pyramid, moving at speeds greater than the greatest storms of the seas. Lightning cracked down into the surrounding jungle. Thunder boomed and echoed off of the mountains, deafening in its fury. Raindrops the size of babies' fists pelted down upon us in an intense deluge. Within moments the pyramid was drenched, and torrents of water spilled down the causeways and stairs. The memory became disjointed and the foundations of the world cracked.
You not listen to this, the Old Man whispered.
Why?
Is for best. Not to have such things in head. Drive you mad.
The memory flashed by impossibly fast. The ceremony continued. The priests gave dark signs. The priestess continued her impossible litany.
Time returned to normal.
Better. Now worms not eat your brain when wake up.
"Now take his heart and feast upon his blood!" The priestess screamed over the roar of the wind and rain. The artifact was floating now, inches above the stone. It was absorbing all of the available light, seeming to surge and gorge itself with every continuous lightning strike. The etchings on the artifact had detached themselves and were swirling in the air, growing and spinning, crackling with black energy.
The Hunter met my eyes. He was beyond fear and prepared for his death. I brought the weapon down on the center of his chest, severing the muscles, and cracking the sternum. I stopped before it pierced his heart. I could use my ax with surgical precision. He screamed in agony. I twisted and levered the blade in, using the handle as a pry bar. I shattered the ribs, and pulled the ax free.
He was still alive as I reached into the cavity, pushed through the remaining flesh and welling fluids and grasped his beating heart with my gauntlet. It pulsed as I curled my fist around the organ and tugged. The Hunter screamed and spasmed as I tore the heart free.
"Drink." The priestess commanded.
No. I tore myself free of the vision.
You must watch, the Old Man insisted. You must learn.
Not that part. Hell no.
Good, Boy. Hope for you yet.
I tossed the still-warm heart aside. My mouth tasted coppery and my stomach roiled against the unfamiliar sensations. The fluids that I had poured into the artifact had seemingly disappeared, swallowed up and taken to another, darker place. The artifact was spinning now, the black lines of power twirling around like streamers, twisting with the physical presence of snakes.
"There is only one thing left, my lord," the priestess said, "and the power over time itself is yours."
"Tell me what I must do!" I raged into the storm. I was so close.
The booming of the thunder continued, but my battle-hardened senses picked up another sound-the explosions of gunpowder.
"You must take the final-" She stopped, glancing down in surprise. Koriniha reached one delicate hand between her breasts and probed with her fingers. Her hand came away from the hole as a trickle of blood ran down her rain-soaked robes.
I turned in time to see the armored figures appearing over the lip of the pyramid. Most of their matchlocks misfired as the fierce rain soaked their powder or extinguished their smoking cords, so they used them as clubs. Captain Thrall led the charge. His sword cleaved downward and tore one of the priests in half. Behind him were all of his men, and I was surprised to see many of the men that I had sent in pursuit of the deserters. Even my most loyal troops that I had left to guard the pyramid had turned against me.
The demons rose and lumbered into the fray, swatting aside the conquistadors with heavy stone limbs. The scene degenerated into a mob of confusion as rain fell and lightning flashed. The artifact still spun in its web of black tendrils.
"Koriniha!" I shouted as the priestess fell to her knees, vomiting blood from her open mouth. I knelt at her side, and caught her before she went facedown to the stone. I shook her. "What now? Tell me!"
"My love… Bring me back…" She foamed at the mouth, and died. Her eyes rolled sightlessly back into her head.
"No! No! Damn you! Damn you all!" I screamed as I dropped her soulless form into the rushing water. My plans were ruined. Without the priestess I did not know how to commune with the Old Ones. All of my treachery, throwing away my command, throwing away my generalship, all for naught. I howled in rage and hatred.
I had to reach the artifact.
Now the memory shifts, flailing forward in jerks and spurts.
"Stop him! Kill the general!" bellowed Captain Thrall. He was locked in battle against one of the fearsome demons. With his great strength he sent it tumbling backward over the pyramid's edge. "Kill him!" the brute screamed in a berserk rage.
Soldiers moved to block me. I killed one of Koriniha's priests that stumbled blindly into my path. I waded into the troops, ax humming through the giant water droplets. The troops fell back under the fury of my onslaught. My skin was like ice and my blade moved as quickly as the lightning. I could feel the power of the artifact. So close, so very close.
I crushed a soldier's skull and batted him aside. A sword tip streaked across my armor as I stepped clear and hammered the man to the earth. I wrenched out my ax blade, dripping with blood. Rage cascaded over me. How dare these men betray me after all that I had done for them? I swung my ax, killing or dismembering with each blow. I used the blade, spike and butt of my weapon to bring down my troops. Flailing limbs and blurred sword blades surrounded me as I poured death into my newfound enemies.
Pain flashed through my thigh
as a blade pierced me. I broke free and spiked the soldier through the face. The water running off the top of the pyramid was running red with blood. The backdrop of the light-sucking altar and its spinning black tendrils were so close. I had to reach it. Razorlike steel cut through my back, breaking the coat of mail, and splattering my blood into the rain.
"NO!" I bellowed, turning and striking down the soldier who had dared to touch me. "YOU CAN NOT KILL ME!" The power of the artifact was thick upon me. I killed two others in one mighty swing. More wounds were inflicted on my flesh. I fell to my knees, but continued fighting. I cut a soldier's leg off, and finished him when he hit the ground.
That was all.
I pushed myself up. Slowly. Shakily. Bleeding from many punctures and lacerations. Dozens of bodies sprawled upon the pyramid top or across the stairs. My soldiers, my countrymen, all of them dead or dying. A few feet away, the final stone demon crumbled and flaked away into the rivers of blood and rain. Captain Thrall knelt upon its back, broken sword still clenched in one hand. His massive chest heaved with the exertion, and blood drizzled down his face from his lacerated scalp.
"Lord Machado," he said.
"Captain Thrall," I nodded.
We both looked at the darkness of the artifact, and then back at each other.
" 'Tis not meant to be, my General. 'Tis not meant for men to use such a black thing." His skull was visible through missing parts of his face.
"With it I can rule the world."
"Thou art lost without thy witch," the giant stated simply. The priestess' body lay nearby, partially submerged.
"I will bring her back," I hissed.
"My ancestors came to my dreams and told me of thy plans. Thou was destined to fail and to open the way for the return of the dark forces of the ancients through thy failure. My people are gone. I am the last. Yet I have not forgotten our sagas." The giant captain gradually heaved himself to his feet, shaking from the many grievous wounds on his body. A lesser man would have just lain down and died. "Ye shall not pass."
"Never." I used my ax to lever myself forward. "It is mine."
"I have made a vow to the spirits. I will protect this artifact until the end of time. No man will look upon its evil and live." The captain turned and stumbled toward the altar.
"It's mine!" I screamed as I hurled my heavy ax across the distance. The blade sunk deeply into his back. It was a lethal blow.
The captain fell forward into the swirling bands of crackling black energy. He bellowed in pain as the evil tore into his flesh. Searing him. Burning him. He was turned over and spun in the maelstrom of darkness. The bands sunk and bonded into his very skin, like a twisted inking, an evil living tattoo.
"I… vow… to… keep… it… from… you.. " He was engulfed by the power. The whites of his eyes disappeared, to be replaced by solid inky blackness. He screamed in agony.
There was an explosion of color and energy as lightning struck the top of the pyramid. Pain and heat surged up through my armor, burning me and hurling me aside. I fell upon the stairs, rolling and tumbling, through the torrents of water, down, down into the darkness.
I gasped as the Old Man removed his hands from my head. I was once again myself. The jungle pyramid and its unholy storm were gone, replaced by the eerily silent 1940s Polish town.
"Holy shit!" I said. I felt terribly weak. "What happened?"
"In his mind too long," the Old Man said softly, "is great strain."
"The captain. Thrall. He is the Tattooed Man."
"Yes. Cursed like the rest of us. Always there is a catch with these things. How you say-I think… He got screwed."
Indeed. Cursed to guard an evil artifact for the last five hundred years. I could think of lots better ways to pass the time.
"But there is more?" I asked. There were still questions to be answered. "Lord Machado failed. That evil priestess chick got shot before they could finish the ceremony. Yet somehow he's still alive today. How did he become the Cursed One?"
"There is small bit of memory left. Only short time while he is still human, I think. Still that I must show you."
"You have to show me now, Mordechai," I pleaded. "If I can know how he became what he is, then I can know how to defeat him."
"Not yet. Too much strain. And rest I must."
"I can do it," I answered. "I have to be ready."
"No, Boy. Not ready. You wake up. Be ready for fight. Big fight for you today."
"Big fight?"
"Yes. Much big." He pointed his fingers and made shooting noises. "Much fight."
"You got any more little wooden carvings you want to send back with me?" I asked hopefully. "In case I need to roast any vampires?"
"Sorry, Boy. I surprised that work my own self."
"How could it anyway? I'm no expert of physics, but how can I take an immaterial thing into the material world?"
"Boy, much you have to learn. Even spirit is matter. Just much finer… Much simpler time when I used to hunt monsters. Shoot them with gun. Bang. Dead monster. Nice and simple. Monsters nowadays all complicated and hard to make dead."
"So any chance you might be able to scrounge up some toys then?"
He shrugged his thin shoulders. "I try. When time comes, I have something for help. Now go." He shooed me away. I turned to leave. "One last thing."
"Yeah?" I stood barefooted in the snow while I waited for him. He seemed to be trying to find the words. "Spit it out, Mordechai. Apparently I've got monsters to kill."
"Boy." He regarded me solemnly. "On this day. Try very hard not to get dead."
"I will try," I promised.
The Hind tore across the sky at rapid speed and dangerously low altitude. I awoke to the thrumming of the blades, the deafening roar of the engines, and the piped-in music from the Doors, "Riders on the Storm." Julie's head was resting on my shoulder. A lock of her hair had strayed from under her helmet and draped down her face. I brushed it back. She woke up and smiled tiredly.
She was still holding my hand.
Harbinger signaled for all of us to put in our earpieces so that we could communicate and do a radio check.
"Wake up, sleepy heads. We're only ten minutes out. Skippy is swinging wide around Corinth. His people have an agreement with the elves. No orcs on elf land. No elves on his. We'll be coming in from the south and will be setting down in a designated clearing. Feds have already gotten us on radio, and are even tracking us for surface to air missiles. Seedy bastards."
"I hope they don't get twitchy," Milo said.
"I hate the government," Sam stated coldly. "Remind me again why we're working with them?"
"They need us. We need them," Harbinger said.
"Not to be a jerk about it, but how exactly do we get paid for this?" Holly asked. "Saving the world don't pay the bills."
"Government representatives don't get to claim PUFF. By being here we will get at least an assist. Even that is worth a small fortune on a Master." Harbinger pulled his revolver, checked the rounds, spun the cylinder and reholstered. "Only I talk to the Wendigo. Everybody else stay way the hell back. He ain't friendly. When we go after the Cursed One, let the Feds go in first. At that point we're just observers. Let them do the bleeding. Pitt?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Damn it. Call me Earl. "Sir" is the Boss. Have you learned anything new? Is Mordechai Byreika still in your dreams?"
"No and yes. I've seen things. But I don't know what's going to be able to help us."
"Give us the short version," he ordered.
I quickly told the others about the human Lord Machado and his army, about the ancient city, about the evil priestess Koriniha and her dark priests, about the artifact, the ceremony, the sacrifice and, finally, the Tattooed Man.
"I've spoken with him," I said, "just now, in my dream. It was real. He was heading toward Montgomery. He's coming for the artifact, and he swears he's going to kill me."
"I don't care how bad everybody thinks this guy is, MHI don't roll over
and take it from no five-hundred-year-old pukes," Sam said. "If he shows up, we cap his trash. That simple. Fricking magic tattoo bullshit. I've got a magic tattoo. It's a frog with a banjo and it's on my ass. I got it in Singapore."
"Classy," Holly said.
"Wanna see it sometime?" he asked as he removed his can of Copenhagen from his armor and snapped his wrist repeatedly.
"I'll pass, thanks."
"There was something else. The Old Man warned me. He said we're going to have a big fight today. He didn't say what, but I got the impression it was going to be bad."
"Figures. Anything else?"
"Nope."
"Lee? Give everybody the rundown on what we've gotten from the archives," Harbinger ordered, "anything that might prove useful."
"Sure." The diminutive Hunter cleared his throat. "There were no records of a conquistador general named Lord Machado anywhere. There were, however, some signs pointing to what was called the lost expedition. Early in the 1500s, the very first group dispatched into the interior, same basic area where Orellano would later discover the Amazon, but this group was never heard from again. All of the records about this expedition were destroyed by the military governor at Isle of the Cross, which is what they called Brazil back then. Even Walter Raleigh mentioned this lost expedition in his writings about El Dorado. Looking at what Owen has told us, I'm betting that was Lord Machado's group."
"What about the artifact or the Old Ones?"
"Just vague references to great and terrible evil. Lots of old Hunters have mentioned it in their writings, but I get the impression that none of them really knew what they were. Byreika's journal had the most about them."
"And?"
"Eldritch horrors, to paraphrase some Lovecraft. Horrible things that date back to before mankind, real serious, evil bad stuff. About the artifact itself? Byreika thought that it predated this world and was from somewhere else. I was kind of lost on that part. The journal was in Polish and I had to use a computer translator. It can be kind of hard to understand."
"He isn't much better in person," I mumbled.
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