by M. K. Gibson
“What’s funny?”
“It looks like I’ve reached the end of my usefulness also.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Lydia stopped running as we took cover behind the throne. Panting, she pulled back her leather vest to reveal a puncture wound oozing with a thick, sickly yellow fluid.
Venom.
Grimskull hadn’t missed her when she saved Hawker. She had been hit and poisoned minutes ago.
She was already dead.
Her body just didn’t know it yet.
“Lydia, I . . . ”
“No, it’s better this way,” Lydia said as she began coughing. “Better to die young and pretty than old and ugly.”
Lydia’s body was convulsing. Spasms were contorting her face and body. The sprint after saving me must have hurried the poison through her body.
“Boss, is there anything you can do?” Sophia’s voice said in my ear.
“No,” I said, as I held her hand while she died. “She doesn’t belong to me.”
Lydia closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her face. She was in incredible pain, but she refused to scream out. I peeked out from behind the throne to assess the situation.
Grimskull was locked in combat with Hawker, Carina, Wren, and Zachariah. Above, in the balcony, I saw the two gods watching. Khasil caught my eye and the evil goddess winked at me. Well, considering her eye patch, it was more of a blink.
I turned my attention back to Lydia. I knelt next to her, in awe of her strength and grit. She would not let anyone hear her scream. It was pointless and meant nothing, as death was going to happen. But to Lydia, pride meant something. She would die, there was no stopping that. But she would determine how she would go out. And there, with her at the end, I knew when my time came, I wouldn’t have even half the strength.
Because I knew how to cheat.
“Forgive me,” I whispered.
“Boss?”
“My apologies, Sophia. But I have to do this.”
“Sir?”
“There is nothing I can do.”
I closed my eyes and I prayed.
“I know you want her. I know what she carries and the power that it can afford you. Save her life and I will give her to you,” I said aloud.
I paused, took a breath, and added, “Valliar.”
The Seventh Rule of Villainy
A villain will never claim victory. Victory only comes when all enemies have either perished or submit to you and they claim you victor.
Otherwise, you are bound to be beaten just when you think you have won.
Chapter Fifty-One
Where I Sell Lydia and Take Cover While the Avatars Battle
A burst of white lighting crackled down through the great hall and struck Lydia in the chest. The blast knocked me back and Lydia sat up immediately, gasping for air.
Lydia looked at me and instead of her normal brown eyes, orbs of pure white stared back at me. She looked at me as if for the first time. Her unnatural gaze regarded me with a look of disgust, as one would if they were forced to stare at a steaming pile of dog feces.
Valliar, the god of order and light, had empowered her as his avatar. She now carried a portion of his power and his temperament. No doubt as she looked on me, all she saw were my various sins. No doubt she would view me with disgust.
“Well, hello, dirty boy. I knew you were bad, but never that bad.”
“Um, what?”
Lydia didn’t really stand up as much as she simply ascended to her feet. “Smart move, giving me to Valliar over Khasil.”
“I thought so as well.”
“But the question is, how did you give me to Valliar? You don’t own me.”
“That is true. I don’t. Which was why I could not save you. I do co-own what grows inside you. And thus, by the rules of this realm, patriarchal as they are, you fall under me. So I could sell you.”
Lydia’s white eyes regarded me, once again, as dog feces. “You knocked me up?”
“Apparently so. It is the only reason the gods would want you. No offense. The offspring of a god and a mortal is often powerful, and apt to unbalance the universal flows. It’s what demi-gods do.”
Lydia placed her hand on her stomach. Then slapped me in the face.
Hard.
“When this is over, we are going to have a long talk.”
I rubbed my stinging face. “Of that I have no doubt. Now, would you be so kind as to go and remove Khasil’s influence over Grimskull so we can finish this?”
“How?” Lydia asked.
“Just do what comes naturally. You will want to . . . cleanse him of her taint.”
Lydia nodded and walked around the throne, then paused and looked back at me. “Heh. You said ‘her taint.’”
“Just go.”
“Boss, what does this mean?” Sophia asked.
“She will have to make a choice. Valliar has imbued her with his power. So, she will feel a pull to do good. But she is still control of her choices. Unless she knows they are morally wrong.”
“I know that, sir. I meant . . . for the child.”
“That I do not know. This is a first for me.”
I never had a child before, at least none I knew of. But this child would no doubt be special. Now, it was nothing more than a rapidly growing cluster of cells, but the bastard blastula growing inside my baby-momma had been exposed to the power of several gods. There was no way Junior wasn’t going to be something special. This child was going to exact a terrible price upon the world.
Not to mention how much it was going to cost me in interdimensional child support.
Lydia, now aglow in white light, glided inches off the floor towards the monstrous Grimskull. The scene was surreal as the two godly avatars squared off against one another in the great hall.
Grimskull seemed unsure at first, but an upward glance at his godly benefactor renewed his commitment to her cause. The monster swiped a massive claw at Lydia’s head, but the newly deputized agent of—yuck—good simply raised her arms. The resulting impact sent shock waves of power rippling through the great hall. Masonry broke free at the explosion of power.
From behind the throne I saw my allies hunkered down behind a makeshift barricade of overturned tables. With the amount of power these two divinely inspired beings were slinging, the tables might well have been made of tissue paper.
I reached out and wrapped Carina, Wren, Hawker, and Zachariah in ripples of telekinetic power and pulled them across the room to me. The quartet landed in a heap behind the throne. Once they were safe, I threw up a dome to shield us from the backlash of power.
“Jackson, how is Lydia doing that?” Hawker asked.
“Nnng . . . long story, kid,” I said as I fought to hold the shield.
Lydia blocked each of Grimskull’s blows with perfect precision. The ensuing blast of power destroyed more and more of the castle. Silvery-white and greenish-black lightning snaked in all directions as the battle raged.
As Grimskull began to tire, Lydia chose to go on the offensive. The former thief used her martial prowess to dance and dodge around Grimskull’s massive form. Lydia began to rain blow after blow against Grimskull’s armored carapace. With each strike, Valliar’s power rocketed through the baron’s body, knocking pieces of his chitinous armor off and cleansing more of Khasil’s taint.
Heh heh . . . Khasil’s taint. OK, it was funny.
With each display of raw power, more lightning crackled across the room. Grimskull’s hulking form began to diminish, as did the remainder of the great hall. The effort to maintain the shield was growing more and more taxing as the shield deflected both stray strikes of energy and debris of the crumbling castle.
“Jackson, what can we do?” Wren asked.
“Nothing. Just be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For an opening,” I said. Holding the shield against the flying rock and stone wasn’t so bad, but the power of the gods’ avatars was
incredible to defend against. I had a horrible feeling that all the power I had siphoned from Paige was quickly being depleted.
“What kind of opening?” Hawker asked.
“If this goes right, Grimskull will revert back to his mortal form. But he will still be empowered by his own magics, enhanced by the Never Realm.”
“The Amulet of the Ember Soul,” Hawker said.
“Exactly. It is around his neck. If you see an opening, you take it. Destroy it, and you destroy him.”
“I’ll be ready.”
In one final attack, both Grimskull and Lydia circled each other, like two animals looking for the weak spot in the other’s neck. Then at once, both avatars swung wild for one another, placing all their godly power into their attack.
Both connected.
The ensuing blast was like a bomb going off. The wall nearest to the blast simply evaporated as the destructive force blew it completely away, exposing the castle’s main courtyard far below. Stonework and debris rained down upon the allied forces gathered there.
The explosive power of the attack scattered everything that was not bolted down to the far corners of the hall. The massive doors leading into the hall were reduced to splintered driftwood and barely hung on their steel hinges.
My semi-spherical shield held at first. But by the tail end of the concussive force, the reserves of my power had been reached. My shield popped like a soap bubble in the wind, and the residual detonation flung us like ragdolls across the room.
All I remembered after that was hitting my head. Oh, and realizing I was completely powerless. A mere mortal playing war games with gods. That was when unconsciousness claimed me.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Where Hawker Gets His Revenge and Grimskull Gets a Visit
A hard smack across the mouth let me know I was still alive, even if my eyes refused to open. The second smack let me know I detested being struck in the face. I sensed the third strike coming and I threw my hand up clumsily, blocking the hit while I fought to open my eyes.
“Jackson!” I heard a voice scream. “Are you alive?”
“Of course I am, you fucking idiot,” I tried to say, but the only thing my mouth said was unintelligible babble. I tasted coppery blood, and my eyes were sealed shut. I ran a barely functioning hand over my head and felt a deep head laceration along my hairline. The wound was bleeding at an alarming rate, as head wounds tend to do. The blood was congealing in my eyes, making it hard to open them.
“Jackson!” the voice screamed again. I realized it was Hawker’s.
“Hawker. Where’s Wren? I need healing. Fairly sure I have a concussion and I think my shoulder is dislocated,” I said.
I heard Hawker spit on his hands, and then I felt his thumbs wipe the blood from my eyelids, allowing me to pry them open.
I was on my side and all around was complete devastation. The air was thick with masonry dust clinging to the blood. But as my eyes focused, I saw what kept Wren from attending to my wounds. Zachariah was knelt down beside Carina, holding her hand.
Her hand was the only part of her not covered in blood or sprouting steel.
When my shield gave out, we were thrown across the room, but not until the majority of the blast was over. So, when we went flying, we flew into the room’s contents. Wren and Hawker had been protected by their armor, and I had hit my head and shoulder against one of them.
Carina had been the first to fly. She was the first to land on a pile of discarded weapons. Her body served as a human shield, protecting the rest of us from her fate.
Broken swords and broken pieces of wood impaled her body. The last wound was particularly ironic; the jagged shard of wood that pierced her throat was from her own broken battle staff. Her lips were already turning blue as her body was cooling. There was no dignity in this death. Yet her sacrifice, inadvertent as it was, saved the rest of us. Of all of us, she was the most innocent.
Wren, who had been standing there watching the body of his newly beloved, collapsed and wept. As a Templar of Vammar, he had great power to heal. But healing could not mend the dead.
Grunting, I stood and found that my right ankle was swollen and in pain. I couldn’t tell if it was broken or sprained. It didn’t matter. I limped over to Carina’s body and laid a hand on her head.
“May you find the peace in death you never found in life,” I said. And here I thought that the redheaded females always survived the story. If I had put money on it, I would have bet that Wren would have been the one to die. Her death, while of no consequential loss or gain for me, still had a strange impact.
I felt . . . grief?
I was glad, if only for this one reason, that my power was burned out. If Sophia heard, or sensed, my feeling remorse, then she would no doubt plot my ruination.
“Jackson,” Hawker said, getting my attention back to the moment. “Look.”
Hawker’s outstretched finger pointed to the epicenter of the destruction. In the middle of the blast crater were two bodies. Lydia was unconscious and barely breathing. Her clothing was shredded to the point of rags. She no longer glowed with Valliar’s light. But she and my unborn child were alive.
The other body was that of Baron Viktor Grimskull, back in his mortal form—all the power of Khasil wiped away. The baron too was reduced to shredded clothing and destroyed armor. Around his neck dangled the Amulet of the Ember Soul. The baron stood on unsteady legs and began to laugh.
“I have won! Khasil’s power has overcome Valliar’s!” the baron rejoiced, shaking his fists above his head.
“You have won nothing,” Wren said, standing. The Templar cast one last glance at Carina, then began marching towards Grimskull. Zachariah and Hawker flanked him as they marched towards the baron.
“Fools. Even now you dare defy me?”
“Brother, you are the fool. Look outside.” Zachariah pointed out the gaping hole to the courtyard below. “Your army is destroyed. Your lieutenants are dead. The castle is surrounded.”
“Let the peons watch as I snatch victory from them and life from you, brother,” Grimskull said as his hands began glowing. While the power of Khasil had fled, the power from the Never Realm afforded Grimskull by the Amulet of the Ember Soul remained.
“Stop now and I will let you live,” Zachariah offered.
“The hell we will,” Hawker said. “He dies.”
“Spoken as a true son of mine,” Grimskull said.
“I’m not your son. My father was Bjorn. He was a simple man, from a simple village. He raised me to fight monsters like you.”
“And how well did that work out for him?” Grimskull taunted.
Before Hawker could reply, Grimskull hurled a bolt of fire at Hawker. The miniature comet struck Hawker in his left side, melting away armor and burning flesh. But before Hawker fell, Wren laid his hands on Hawker, washing him in the blue healing energies of Vammar. Hawker’s side healed instantly and the young man barely missed a step.
“If you live, you live. If you die, you die. All we may do is play our parts and let fate decide,” Wren said as he continued his slow march with Hawker towards Grimskull.
“Pretty words. Empty and pointless, but pretty,” Grimskull said as he released a barrage of green lightning upon the trio.
Zachariah quickly muttered his own words of magic and released his own burst of red lighting. The spells slammed into one another in a cascade of multi-colored sparks as each bolt canceled the other out.
A blast hit Hawker in his side, but Wren was there immediately to heal him. They continued to march. Another spell breached Zachariah’s defense and singed the older brother, who began to fall. Once again, Wren caught him, healed him, and set him on his feet.
Spell after spell Grimskull threw at the approaching men, and each time one struck, Wren healed them instantly, or Zachariah countered.
Grimskull could only stare wide-eyed in disbelief.
I, on the other hand, wished for a bowl of popcorn while I sat next to Carina’s
corpse, watching the show. In my wounded and powerless state, it was best for me to do what I did best: letting others fight for me. For good or bad, this was the end of my journey. These were the final moves, my pieces and pawns playing out the roles I designed.
Zachariah and Hawker had closed to within melee range and the former student and teacher were locked in two-on-one mortal combat with Grimskull. Wren had skirted the outside of the battle and was attending to Lydia. The Templar pulled my lady friend free of the wreckage and placed her still-unconscious form safely behind a chunk of mostly whole stonework.
As much as I highlight Grimskull’s mental deficiencies, his martial prowess was something to behold. Summoning a sword of magic, Grimskull matched all his attackers blow for blow. As Zachariah attempted to blend magic into the battle, Grimskull was ready with a counter to each of his brother’s spells.
Hawker deftly wielded his battleaxe, but Grimskull moved and weaved with grace and precision. His own sword snaked in and out of Hawker’s defenses, drawing blood with each strike.
I was honestly shocked that Hawker was doing as well as he was. Just over a year ago, he was a simple village boy before his fate found him. But I guess that was the way of the realms. A simple kid can turn from a bumbling hayseed into a heron-marked blademaster with a few quests and an obligatory training montage as long as the fates decree it. Never mind the fact that every opponent said kid goes up against is a student of combat day in and day out. Sickening, I know. But tropes are tropes.
Grimskull sensed his impending loss. His blocks were coming a half second too slow. His steps and evades were slightly off. Zachariah pressed the advantage, stepped in close, and swept his sword in a straight line, meaning to cleave Grimskull’s head from his body.
At the last second, Grimskull snapped his sword upwards into a textbook-perfect block. The surprised Zachariah only had a moment to recognize the trap he’d stepped into before Grimskull released a burst of howling wind, sending his brother flying.
Hawker screamed his war cry and hacked downwards with his battleaxe. Grimskull simply moved backwards, allowing the chop to miss him completely while at the same time exposing Hawker. Grimskull repeated the same wind spell and launched his son across the room to land in a heap next to his uncle. Grimskull brought an empowered foot down on Hawker’s battleaxe, snapping the exquisite weapon’s shaft.
