Gods of Shadow and Flame

by M. H. Johnson

  That's why he had been running so hard! To draw his blade free of worry, so that his enemy could not strike at him as he drew and turned.

  He was the predator.

  Never the prey.

  He spun around then, gazing upon the racing man whose eyes shown with such manic fury.

  Malek laughed with darkest hunger, thrilled to recognize a fellow predator.

  A fellow killer.

  Delighted to settle all his fury, confusion, and bitter despair in glorious battle, the primal struggle of tooth, claw, and sword.

  As it had always been.

  As it would always be.

  His enemy blinked and froze for but a second, surprised, perhaps, by the size of Malek's blade,

  It's deathly howl.

  Hungering for the diabolist's soul.

  But the man grinned in twisted satisfaction. With a dark laugh the agent drew free his second blade, and with the crash of forbidden metals, their contest joined in earnest.

  Slice. Thrust. Feint and Parry.

  Oberhau strike, Absetzen counter, his enemy spinning away before Malek could cleave him in two.

  A vicious slash but inches from Malek's throat, even as the infernalist darted under Malek's tight slicing cut, plunging his own serpentine off-blade for Malek's groin, seeking the thrust under his armor of Shadow and dream.

  A savage hilt smash to the man's supernaturally tough skull.

  A growl and a curse as his foe spat out a tooth, having not realized until that moment, perhaps, how deadly a greatsword hilt could be.

  And Malek smiled at the supernaturally fast foe he faced, happy to have drawn his enemy in. To have pricked the man's confidence while taking his measure, his foe having dodged Malek's arcing blows far more adroitly than any foe outside of Shadow ever had.

  The diabolist gave a grudging nod. “You fight well, spring Delver, but you are no match for one who has truly embraced the powers of darkness!”

  Malek smirked. For all that the man held onto his youth with desperate intensity, Malek could recognize the signs of a soul cooking itself to oblivion, just to hold off old age's hoary grip for a handful more years.

  Dark, vile magics, and quite crude at that.

  "You know you are dying, don't you?" Malek taunted, his voice cutting through the man's air of confidence like a cold northern gale.

  "I can see it in you. The infernal arts that so fuel your muscles also fill you with the darkest of hungers, do they not? And how mighty you feel, slaking your hungers with endless numbers of young boys enslaved to your most depraved whims, indulging in poppy infused wine and opium pipes with utter abandon, knowing you have no limit, for the fire burns so hot."

  Malek's mocking laughter cut through the icy air. "What you don't realize, fool, is how poor a bargain you have made. The magics that so fuel you are of the crudest sort, cooking your own soul to fuel the fires of your tainted youth, and when you are left with nothing, you shall crumple to dust and ash, your soul never to be reborn to the garden of life, lost forever to the Void!"

  The man paled and shivered, his veneer of galling confidence torn away to reveal a man frightened and furious.

  “How dare you say such things, catamite! I know what you are, I know your twisted secrets, Malek! The blood on your hands, and your hands alone! For your own sister paid with her life for your twisted vices, didn't she, black sheep of the Sousel Clan?”

  Malek screamed. Silently. Within his mind.

  For he would give his enemy no opening. No weight to strike. No! He would master this half-broken fool, and revel in his final screams.

  Even so, his hands trembled, so great was his fury. Even as the man stumbled back. For Malek failed even to hear his own scream.

  “What's that I smell, loathsome worm? Oh yes. That's right. The final dregs of your own soul burning to ash. Better speed it up, worm, I doubt your soul even has till morning!”

  The man shook. “How dare you, whelp! I shall take your soul for my own! Your sacrifice will buy me centuries!”

  With that he charged, face a mottled mask of fury.

  Malek smiled coldly.

  - Now! -

  He suddenly pivoted forward. His blade, held with deceptive ease by his shoulder, lashed forward with a tight, blisteringly fast Scheitelhau strike. Wrists windmilling the blade sharply down even as his arms jutted out, a snapping slash at the speed of a duelist's lunge.

  It had been a deceptively fast blow, and one he had held in reserve until his enemy had surrendered to impulse and fury. A strike that had killed many enemies before, human and other.

  Yet miraculously, his foe had raised off-hand blade with such terrible speed, arcing his own neck back so abruptly as to spare himself from instant death, for all that Malek's sword tore the man's nose clean off his face.

  His enemy screamed in pain and terror both, Malek's dread blade having torn free a taste of his soul.

  Instantly his enemy charged in, attacking with frantic fury. Snapping cut dodged, powerful gutting thrust slammed aside, Malek's own blade twisted back around in a deadly arc, tearing into his enemy's front leg before the infernalist could dodge, the agent shrieking in shock and dismay, stumbling to the ground.

  Malek smiled coldly, feeling his fury roar and swell, even as his foe desperately stumbled back to his feet, spraying blood in a crimson arc about the pristine white snow, grimacing with pain and terror both, balancing on cracked bone and torn muscle, his hideous powers alone keeping him upright.

  “Who sent you?” Words cold as the northern wind howling through the treetops, kicking up flurries along the road.

  A painful step back. “You're in over your head, Malek! Take your wench and go, but it stops nothing! And if you strike me down, you kill an Agent of the Crown! They will have your head for that!”

  As fast as thought Malek's blade shrieked through the air, his enemy's fine swept hilt and the hand it protected both exploding in a spray of tainted steel, blood, and bone.

  The man screamed and stumbled back, clenching mangled stump to his side, his remaining blade gripped with white-knuckled terror.

  "Oh, gods above, what did you do?!"

  Malek's mocking laughter cut through the cold night air.

  "Sad, isn't it, to find that the great saga you thought your life was but delusion? That you are naught but a petty player in a dark game far more treacherous than you could have imagined, a pawn not even valued by she who would throw your life away without a second glance? Your ultimate mistress, savoring in your disillusionment and horror, as you realize you have surrendered all you had, for dross and delusion."

  The man paled horribly. “No. No! There is no way you could know!”

  Malek's lips stretched wide, a killer's smile.

  “Tell me, creature of Lilith, what other pawns are on the field?”

  The man whimpered, at last seeing his folly through grandest delusion, forced to gaze upon the horror of his own imminent death. “If I tell you, he will kill me! He will see me burned alive, cast my very soul into the Hells below!”

  A low growl rumbled through forest and field. A hideous sound, as if all the hounds of Hell had risen, thirsty for blood.

  The man cried out, mewling like a frightened animal as he left a trail of bright crimson through the pristine white snow, shaking his head in futile denial of the horror before him.

  “All right! I will tell you! I will tell you everything I know!”

  And Malek stopped cold, no longer pacing the man struggling so desperately to scuttle away.

  “Just please, let me collect my thoughts.”

  Malek's Zweihander lashed out with hideous speed, knocking aside desperately held blade, lopping off an ear.

  The man shrieked and stumbled back, his parrying sword spinning away under the force of Malek's blow, clenching spurting wrist with his now free right hand, inhuman vitality all that kept him from sliding into shock and death soon after.

  "Why? Why did you do that?" Terrified eyes locke
d helplessly upon Malek as he stepped coldly forward once more.

  “Every time you lie, I will sense it, and cleave another limb. How many more limbs can you afford for me to take from you?”

  The man's eyes widened and he screamed, shaking his head in desperate denial, sobbing in sudden panic as Malek slowly closed the gap between them once more.

  "Mercy, my master! I will tell you everything! The Head of the Inquisitors is in our pocket, as is his second, and the bursar. We have four other men who serve us within the ranks, I know not their names! Of other branches I know nothing. Franken and I are working at the behest of the head! These crossbowmen are nothing. Rabble, scum, hired on. That is all I know, I swear it!"

  “And how were you indoctrinated?”

  "The promise of power. The head brought me in!" The man's laughter was, for the first time, filled with bitter self-loathing. "He treated me with respect. Understood my hatred for the poor, the wretched, those who defiled our pristine city! He told me of the great lady who would bring about a burning redemption to all of Dawn, purify us all in dark flames of sweetest justice! Where those who were found worthy could expect an eternity of sweetest pleasure, and those found unworthy given the bitter fruits they deserve! I was shown to be worthy, my master swore it, I have fought for near a decade to prove myself!"

  He trembled and shook, his breathing shallow with blood loss and exhaustion. "Please, don't make it end here. Let me redeem myself. Let me prove myself worthy of great Krona! I will be your devoted servant, your slave in all things. I can help you as an inquisitor, I can prove useful! My injuries need not be the end. Need not be the end of my use to you! The greatest college of healing lies within Krona's walls! Within a month I will be utterly fit to serve once more, your hidden mole, relishing in his duty of informing you of all tidbits of worth, great and small!"

  Yellow eyes widened in desperate terror as he sensed what was coming. The inquisitor raised trembling arms and mewled like a frightened child.

  “Wait, put down the sword, please! I can help you and the Calenbry clan both. I can be of use to you, your most valuable piece on the board!”

  “It's time for you to die now,” Malek crooned.

  “Wait, you don't have to do this!”

  And his face exploded in crimson and gore.

  And even as the body slowly collapsed to the ground, it shriveled.

  A wondrous stream of ruby gold flooded into the terrible avatar, arms outstretched, his blade shrieking its own triumphant dirge.

  And Malek roared, overcome by a rush of sweetest ecstasy, his enemy's very soul flooding into him.

  Black and tainted, pristine no longer, touched by the foulest of demons, fair game to his terrible hunger.

  Rage howled his triumph, and poor Vilicent was no more.

  5

  For a timeless moment, Malek closed his eyes, one with the howling winds, centering himself once more.

  Who was he?

  What was he?

  His eyes snapped open. He spun around, blade in Ochs, only to shudder and sigh, pierced with sudden shame.

  Morlekai. Gaze cold as death, and just as unforgiving.

  “You play a dangerous game, Hound.”

  Speechless, Malek just stood there, blade resheathed, gazing at his feet.

  Hands terrible in their strength suddenly gripped his chin. Malek gasped but forced his own hands to stillness as his face was dragged to peer into Morlekai's gold green eyes.

  Eyes that captivated, leaving him feeling humbled and small.

  "You didn't consume his blood alone, Malek. You drank down his very soul!"

  “Not the first.” Oddly bitter. Malek blinked in surprise to hear his tone.

  Even as he bit back a cry, Malek tripping to the ground with the force of Morlekai's slap.

  One that would have broken the neck of a mortal man.

  “Get up, Malek.”

  Trembling, Malek did so.

  “Look at me!”

  Shaking, he forced himself to gaze once more into those terrible eyes.

  The gaze of an avenging angel, judging the worth of any mortal who dared to look upon him.

  For a timeless moment they were frozen, Morlekai abruptly shaking his head. "You weren't a hound, then, Malek! You were a man. A boy! You consumed him, and it was your choice! You chose to drink him down to feed your fury. To fuel your bitter rage. How close does that make you to what we hate most, Malek? How close does that make you to what we despise?"

  Malek grimaced and turned away. “I killed near a score of men at the slaver camp. Drank them down. Body and soul.”

  Malek shuddered as he caught sight of Vilicent, already a hideously desiccated corpse, no more than parchment skin over brittle bone.

  “Yes, Malek, but you were not you! You were a remnant of something ancient and terrible, which you still refuse to accept! But you, the boy before me, right here, right now, drank that soul dry!”

  Malek flinched even as he forced himself to stand and face his friend once more. "What do you want me to say, Morlekai? Yes! I devoured that bastard who had lain in ambush, seeking to kill me and my sister's sister both! The fury I felt, how I wanted to make him pay, I have not the words to describe. And Morlekai, his soul was not clean. It was burned through with the taint of Lilith! That's what so prickled my fur, so incited my wrath when I crossed paths with Franken's handpicked men at the academy. They all have her taint! Their souls are already cursed, Morlekai. They will never return to the garden. For them, it is already over!"

  The last of the words he spat out in a hurried rush, seeing Morlekai's blazing eyes, knowing what was coming.

  The crack of his fist sent Malek spinning to the ground once more.

  He hadn't even seen the blow, only now realizing how truly fast and deadly his pack leader was.

  Morlekai, always holding back as Malek had been holding back with Vilicent, until the bitter end. Measuring the man, tasting his soul, measuring himself.

  Playing with his food.

  "You don't ever say that name allowed, Malek! Our greatest enemy, our most despised foe, one who has opposed this world for over seven thousand years; you are never to say her name! Do you understand, Hound?"

  Malek shuddered and looked away.

  Of course Morlekai was right. To give his enemies even the slightest inkling that he was aware of them, let alone allow that loathsome creature even a glimpse into their world by uttering that name. Bloody foolish of him.

  Formally, Malek kneeled before a still furious Morlekai, helmet removed, head hung in shame.

  “I was a fool. I shamed myself, and put us at risk. I cry pardon, and I await your judgment, battleleader.”

  “Get up, Malek.”

  He dared to gaze upon the leader of his adventuring pack. Morlekai's eyes snapped with frustration and impatience, for all that they would give little away to one who didn't know him, couldn't smell the shifts in mood.

  "Get up and get your charge, before she freezes to death. And why the hell didn't you just wait at the safe house? If it was your goal to rile up numerous lords to the point that our Krona Guildmaster saw fit to lecture me on keeping my spring pup in line, you have succeeded admirably."

  Malek gazed carefully at the terrible figure before him, ever more certain that even he had underestimated Morlekai without even being aware of it. At the end of the day, he still had no sense of the man's past, the limits of his powers. They had friendship, however strained, and the unity of their mad quest for redemption, a sacred artifact that Malek knew in the back of his mind they all secretly hoped would redeem their souls, so tainted with Shadow and nightmare they had become. Such dark horrors they had embraced, however just they felt the cause.

  "It was Twilight. Counseling me, even as I lay between wakefulness and dream. Our enemies are making a play for Jessica's very head! The entire jury is under Franken's thumb, all those pox-ridden nobles having ridiculous debts outstanding. Apple and I were only able to obtain receipt of p
ayment in full for six of the lords that we know have debts. We can only hope that we have freed the right ones."

  Malek stopped cold. Before he would turn right to rescue Apple, he had one final detail to take care of.

  A silent glance at Morlekai, hand signals softly exchanged.

  For all that they might be at odds, they would always fight together in perfect, deadly unison, their own conflict temporarily forgotten.

  Slipping through the shadows, Malek loped silently through the woods, tracking a man whose soft whimpers he could hear even now.

  The final crossbowman. Still alive, Malek not having had time to finish him off before Vilicent had lashed out for him.

  Malek quickly sniffed out the man grimly holding his cocked and loaded crossbow, gazing furtively through the foliage he thought to hide behind, shaking with cold and fear.

  Some threats Malek refused to have at his back, no matter how pathetic they seemed. For even the most cowardly of enemies could take down the most brilliant of commanders, should the tides of battle abruptly shift, which was why it was best to leave no survivors at all, as Eloquin had taught Malek and several other score Squires of War, what seemed but a fortnight ago.

  Malek's blade lashed out.

  A crossbow exploded into splinters, its wielder shrieking as taught metal smacked into his wrist, cracking bone.

  Malek allowed himself a tight smile as he tore the man out of the underbrush and threw him into the road, the man sobbing and begging for mercy, even as Malek offhandedly sliced off his sword belt, the crossbowman's thick trousers falling to his feet.

  Malek gazed coolly at Morlekai.

  “Please, m'lords, don't kill me, don't kill me! I cry for mercy! Blazes, I just want to go back to my hovel and forget this day had ever occurred!”

  Morlekai swooped over him with the eerie grace of a crow, gold green eyes peering into trembling brown, as if measuring the man's very soul. A cold voice promising horrors unimaginable whispered into his ear.

  The man shuddered, his face turning ghastly white, as Morlekai's hands touched his temples, the hired grunt knowing he was a whisper from death.