by ST Branton
The god laughed as if he found me genuinely funny. “I beg to differ,” he said. “The sword of the gods is only as strong as its wielder. Why do you think it allowed Kronin to die? And now, the one who wields its blade is only human. A fitting end to Kronin’s sordid legacy. He loved your kind so much and finally, your kind will fail him. You will fail him.”
He stopped several paces away. “Come,” he said. “Let’s prove once and for all that you were never worthy to wield the Hero-King’s blade.”
He spread his arms, and the great black wings on his back unfurled in tandem.
Victoria, it is now or never.
I launched into the attack and a full-fledged war cry broke from my lungs. The sword traced a fiery trail in my wake. Flames danced along its edges and its power already flooded my hands and arms with glowing light.
The gap separating Delano and I disappeared in a flash—and then he was gone too. Black vapor clouded my vision to dissipate and condense ten yards to the left.
“You missed,” he said. “Now, it’s my turn.”
His wings whipped up a storm at ground level. I was shoved backward, my feet unable to find purchase on the smooth stone floor. A pillar caught my body in the stiff embrace of a dead god. High above, Delano opened his mouth wide. White-hot flames surged from his throat and rocketed toward me at breakneck speed.
“Are you kidding me with this shit?” I shouted. “When did he swallow a fucking dragon?”
Keep your wits about you, Marcus warned. Any strike has the potential to kill.
His warning galvanized me into action, and I dropped instantly and rolled to the side. With a faint sizzle, the water still in my jacket evaporated immediately and part of the hem burned away. The exposed skin of my cheeks and chin felt seared and raw simply from the intensity of the heat.
I crouched behind the next pillar and poked my head out of cover as Delano disappeared yet again. Before I had the chance to try to pinpoint where he’d gone, his hand was on the back of my neck and long nails dug into my flesh.
Instinctively, I twisted and lashed out with the Gladius Solis. My skin tore like tissue paper, but I barely registered the pain. The sword bit deep into Delano’s side, but the wound it inflicted might as well have been a scratch. He hauled me off my feet by the back of my clothes, and in the next moment, I hurtled forward, literally in the air. When I finally landed, stars exploded in the void behind my clenched eyelids.
He had flung me around like a damn toy.
“This is how your quest ends,” Delano said. His shadow loomed over me as I struggled to stand. He reached out and caressed my face before he gripped it in iron fingers. “With humiliation, torment, and the abject ruins of your dignity.”
“I’m not dead yet.” I spat in his eye and leapt up to drive the point of my sword through his chest. Again, the edge somehow did no more than graze him.
He seized me by the sword arm and his skin hardened into shining, unbreakable rock. “You will be,” he said. My body catapulted over his shoulder with all the resistance of a ragdoll, but I managed to right myself and hit the ground running. We’d switched places during the course of the fight, and I saw the door on the altar directly ahead.
I bolted toward it.
“This isn’t working!” I told Marcus. “I need to find a better position to try to reset things more in my favor. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”
Would that I had my earthly body and could stand beside you against our common foe, he lamented. Feel no fear, Victoria. Whatever happens here, I shall see you at the end.
I vaulted up onto the grand altar and thrust headlong through the door. Delano’s mocking laughter followed me up the staircase I found behind it.
“Kronin’s sword reveals another coward,” he sang, his tone twisted by sadistic glee.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The steps seemed to ascend forever but I finally burst through the top into the cold night air that slashed instantly through my damaged coat. I was headed straight for a low wall that marked the edge of the roof and I backpedaled in an effort to give myself as much room as possible. The formerly empty temple plateau spread out before me, now crowded with Delano’s worshippers. Soundlessly, they watched. The head start I’d attempted to gain was lost in the fraction of a second during which I attempted to avoid hurtling over the edge of the roof.
He came up behind me and clamped a hand on my right bicep. “Look upon those fortunate enough to know when they are bested.”
As I tried to pull away, he spun me and slapped the back of his hand across my face. I careened helplessly into the wall. The breath expelled sharply from my chest and my teeth literally rattled in my skull.
Delano stormed at me, his pale eyes full of unadulterated rage. The hatred radiated off him like a toxic cloud. This was the end he’d planned for me, but he hadn’t killed me yet.
And I’d spotted a weakness.
The sliver had been almost invisible before, situated across the left side of his chest over his heart. It was the only flaw in his obsessively perfect form, and I had a fleeting moment to take my shot. As the mega-god approached, I let the Gladius Solis fly like an arrow, straight and true.
Bullseye.
At least, it should have been. After I released the hilt, a shell began to thicken over that single weakness. New skin obscured the sliver and grew hard and reflective. It was still thin when the blade impacted but not weak enough. The sword protruded from where it hit, stopped in its deadly assault.
Delano screamed in pain, but it was no death rattle. He didn’t disintegrate into a pile of ash but instead, grabbed the sword in both hands. He yanked it out and at first, I believed that the blade had receded, perhaps in defiance. Then I realized it had simply turned black. He thrust it aloft as his maniacal, bellowed laughter shattered the starry sky.
When he had finished gloating, he turned toward me. “The sword of the gods,” he said. “The Gladius Solis is as strong as its wielder. Consider this a demonstration.”
He rushed at my position against the wall. The sword’s black blade cut a cruelly familiar arc.
“You have gifted me the key to victory,” he said. His face contorted into a wild, sickening rictus. “For that, I thank you.”
I pushed myself to my feet. No way would I die sitting down and backed into a dead end. If I really had to die, I’d do it like I’d done everything else for the past half a decade—by my own fucking rules.
Remember how I taught you, Marcus said. He spoke gently, not urgently. Fists up. Protect your face.
I stepped up to Delano’s challenge and took a swing. He blocked it with his left hand and lunged and sliced with his right. I ducked back, which spared my torso but my leg was not so lucky. The Gladius Solis cut into me as if I was no more than a ghost, exactly the way it had done hundreds of times by my hand. I hit the ground before I knew for sure I’d been wounded.
It had been a long time since I last felt pain I couldn’t bear. The corrupted sword retaught me the meaning of agony. I would have severed my own limb to make it stop.
“Yes,” Delano declared. He latched onto me. “It is done.”
He hauled me over the top of the wall and shoved me into open air. Discordant jeers rose to meet me. I stared into the sea of faces and saw those of my own people, captured and herded to the front. They all wore masks of horror.
Delano hissed into my ear. “I told you the consequences of defiance. The time for enforcement has come.”
He leapt down to the temple plateau. All I heard was the rush of water and the fiery beat of the wound in my leg.
Marcus said softly, I am sorry, Victoria.
I was too.
“Do you see this?” Delano’s voice boomed at the crowd. “I have brought the final sacrifice—indeed, the ultimate sacrifice. Who better than I to receive the blood of the god-killer as tribute? Behold as the slayer of gods is slain.”
He threw me down beside the boulder and raised the Gladius Solis.
&
nbsp; “Hell no!” The shout rang out like a gunshot and roused me to attention. A rush of adrenaline beat back my pain as Delano was knocked aside. I shoved to my feet as my head spun and I stumbled unevenly toward the crowd and away from the seething god. One of the guards stopped my progress
Clear your mind, Victoria. Stay sharp. You have not been bested yet.
I sucked in a deep breath and delivered a punch. This one landed, at least, and my captor fell onto his back. I lunged to kick, claw, and pummel him with every ounce of strength left in my body. The whole world faded into nothing. All that existed was me in a fight for my life.
Oh, and Marcus was there too.
He shouted in my head to fill my brain with raw energy and guided my aim. Take out his eyes. Use the environment to your advantage. You can defeat him if you are clever about it.
I tried my best to follow his coaching, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that I didn’t possess the sword. The guard who fought me was fast, strong, and far too durable for me to defeat in my current condition. Once he’d wrestled the upper hand away from me, he’d backed me up to the cliff.
Five heavy knuckles straight to the jaw sent me in a not so graceful arc out and over the waterfall. As I started to plummet, I caught a glimpse of the figure who’d saved me from Delano’s clutches sprawled on the rock beneath the point of the Gladius Solis.
My heart leapt into my throat. There was no mistaking that silhouette, even in defeat.
Deacon.
Darkness enveloped my whole body. I no longer felt the cold or the pain. I knew I continued to drop toward the river, but it was a blank awareness. All I thought and all I saw was my love, ripped away before my eyes. The moments I spent in suspension above the water were each small eternities in themselves. I could have imagined Deacon forever.
But the water came up to embrace me and everything washed away.
Chapter Fifteen
A ragged cough brought me back to consciousness. I lay on the bank of the swiftly running river on my stomach and continued to hack up a delightful mixture of bile and dirty water. The back of my throat burned like hell, but the sensation paled in comparison to the angry rebuke from the wound in my leg. Rolling over to look at it was torture, and the sight didn’t exactly fill me with hope.
Black veins spidered outward from the deep gash, which throbbed in time with my pulse. I groaned and leaned forward to expel more gross water from my stomach.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” someone said.
I jerked my head up and as my vision greyed out, I almost puked again. The smoking man stood and gazed down at me. A cigarette burned between his fingers.
Immediately, I saw red. “You fucking prick! Where the hell were you?” The words were as venomous as I could make them but still weak.
He took a slow, insolent drag. “You were supposed to wait for me.”
If I’d had the strength, I might have murdered his ass on the spot. “We waited for fucking hours!” I yelled hoarsely. “Until we couldn’t take it anymore. This whole shitty, stupid mess is your fault, asshole. I hope it rots you from the inside out.” The tirade exhausted me, but I refused to let up. “We lost everyone. Do you not understand that, or do you simply not care? I’m the only one who got out. I’m all that’s left. I hope it’s what you fucking wanted, you dogshit bastard.”
He merely stared at me, continued to smoke nonchalantly, and allowed me to shout until I wheezed.
At last, after I’d put my head down to catch my breath, he said, “It is my fault. But not for the reasons you think.”
“What…the hell…does that mean?” I stared at him from my prone position on the wet bank while I fought for both strength and control. I felt like I’d been beaten with a thousand baseball bats. My leg was a constant harsh drumbeat in the background.
“I was wrong,” he said simply. “I believed you were strong enough to defeat Delano. Needless to say, you are not—not now. I admit I underestimated him. He has assimilated more power than I ever imagined possible. For my miscalculations, we have paid a high price.”
“I paid,” I growled. “You didn’t lose shit. Not a man down, not a hair out of your gnarly-ass beard. I paid for it all.” That last image of Deacon flashed across my consciousness, and I forced it deep down into a mental lockbox.
“Yes.” The smoking man nodded. “And now I know the truth. I have seen what we truly face.”
I propped myself up on my elbows and spat out dirt and gravel. My mouth tasted like I’d licked the inside of an old well. “I can beat him,” I croaked. “I can.” But the conviction was no longer there. I didn’t need to be told that I hadn’t come close.
He responded with another nod. His eyes were trained on me, illuminated by the moonlight. They were an icy, pearly blue.
I have said it so many times, Marcus piped up suddenly. Still, it bears repeating. There is nothing—not a single thing in any realm, god or human—that compares to the beast that Delano has become.
“Oh,” I mumbled. “You’re still here.” The sentences sounded waterlogged and miserable, but I felt great relief.
Victoria, if water was all it took to separate us, you would never have made it this far.
I laughed weakly. The effort hurt my chest. “Jerk.”
“There is a way,” the smoking man said. He lit a new cigarette although I hadn’t seen him toss the last butt. “It is a last-ditch effort. A Hail Mary, if you will.”
“Now you break out the cryptic comments,” I said with a frown. “What kind of swamp-alien code-speak bullshit is this?”
He gave me a look equal parts stern and amused. “There is no code, only a destination—one where no human has set foot for millennia.” He slipped a tablet out from under his coat, set it down on the grimy bank, and nudged it toward me. I craned my neck to look at the screen.
A map?
I frowned again and shot the smoking jackass a puzzled glance. He puffed out a white cloud in response. Grumbling a little, I pulled a hand free and pinched the screen to zoom out. My fingers left dirty wet streaks on the glass. A word showed up beside my thumb.
Nepal.
I zoomed out some more. The Himalayas. The marked location seemed practically dead center amid the famous mountain range.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
I received no answer, and when I looked up to ask again, the smoking man had gone.
“Damn it to hell,” I said and pounded my fist in the river muck. “I am over this shit.”
After a few moments, I gathered my strength and stood. I put the tablet under my arm, not caring that my sopping clothes dripped all over the screen. He’d at least been considerate enough to slap a waterproof case on the thing.
My head hurt. My face hurt where Delano had slapped me. My leg really hurt, and the ache was deep down in there like the bone was made of pain. There was definitely a part of me that had been beaten to the core back there at the temple. But a bigger part—the part that kept me walking—knew I had no choice. I’d failed too hard and left too much behind. Yeah, I was fucked up six ways to Sunday. I’d gotten the shit kicked out of me publicly.
But I was determined to get back to the temple, no matter what. Delano had something that belonged to me.
Chapter Sixteen
The wet cold seeped down to my bones as I stumbled half-blind through the burned-out field and away from the monstrous, towering outline of Delano’s mountain. My soaked clothes plastered against my body and left an erratic trail of water droplets behind me. Ice crystals had already begun to form along the strands of my hair. I couldn’t feel my toes, my fingers, or the tip of my nose.
It felt as wrong as hell to be headed in this direction. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to turn around and haul ass back to the temple. The memory of Deacon splayed out on the plateau, the Gladius Solis poised to strike his heart, was seared into my mind’s eye. I wanted to save him. I needed to save him.
It hurt beyond description to know I left
him behind. But I also knew it was the only way. I had undeniably had the shit kicked out of me—and the painful truth was that Delano hadn’t even had to try. No way could I simply run back there and expect things to go differently the second time around. Somehow, I needed to gain the upper hand.
Deacon could be dead for all I knew. Delano’s intentions weren’t hard to guess. I directed all my attention ahead and tried to shove those thoughts from my mind. Soon, I’d return for him and he would be right where I left him. It was the only reality I could bring myself to accept.
The festering rage kept me warm on my way through the barren winter night despite the cold air that knifed through my lungs. My face withered into a semi-permanent scowl. I glanced at the tablet still clutched in my numb hands. Fuck the smoking man and his damn cigarettes. Fuck Nepal, fuck the Himalayas, and fuck the incessant throb of the wound in my leg.
The elaborate strategies of the past that we’d pored over for hours had all gotten me jack shit. It was time to revert to sheer simplicity. Brute force. All I needed was backup—once I had it, we’d come back in, guns blazing, and we wouldn’t leave until Delano was dead.
I could barely see my own hand in front of my face as I dragged my injured leg through the pitch-black field. Still, I had a decent sense of where we had started and where I needed to go to get back there. I staggered wearily through the darkness, closed my eyes, and shoved all my concentration into simply moving forward. No thoughts and no feelings were allowed. There would be time for that later.
The two-mile approach felt like ten during my retreat. I relaxed a little when I felt the snowpack beneath my feet. One more mile to go. I wouldn’t be home free, but I’d be a hell of a lot closer.
When I heard the distinct crunch of footprints in crusty snow, I grimaced. “I’m already fucking running away. What more do these assholes want?”
