Ghosts of Korath

by Jake Stone

  He lets out a tortured squeal as thorns bud from his skin, ripping the decayed bark into crumbling slats of splintered shafts, adding to his already abominable form. Blood—the color of black cherry—drips from his wounds, scalding the ground beneath him with hisses of steam. His face, now a swollen caricature of bulbous lips and eyes, protrudes from the center of the trunk, grimacing through the agony of this hellish rebirth.

  When it’s finally over, I begin to hear the strange rumble of laughter, a deep and vengeful guffaw that bounces off the chamber’s walls and reverberates through our armor and into our very skin, summoning an ache of fear that I’ve rarely every known. “Now the slaughter will begin!” Bantha says through his amusement.

  My, God …

  “Strike him now!” Atia says, mustering her strength to break through her hesitation.

  I’ve never seen her scared before, but this is a demon lord, a beast from the ancient times whose soul is as decrepit as hell itself, and his very presence almost assures our deaths.

  “Agreed,” Petronelous says.

  We fire into his mighty form, relying on a hail of plasma charges, explosive grenades and incendiaries that would eradicate an entire army. But the small-arms ordnance does little against the bark of his form, and we have to duck as Bantha swings one of his many razor-tipped arms at us in retaliation.

  “Damn him,” Petronelous says, voice laced with frustration as she teeters on the edge of rampage.

  She needs to stay clam, collected. Otherwise, her fury will grow and she’ll be flung into a berserker rage.

  “We’ll get him,” I tell her. “Just stay focused. Don’t lose your shit.”

  She regards me for a moment, an eerie blankness to the face of her helmet, before finally granting me a nod.

  “Stay here!” Atia yells out to us.

  I watch in amazement as she leaps for one of the passing branches, able to clasp it with her hands and tug herself upon it. Rising to her feet, she sprints up the length of the branch, leaping into the air with her spear and aiming at his face, screaming.

  Bantha flinches at the last second, causing Atia to slam into the trunk where her body is quickly impaled by one of the thorns. The pointy edge sinks into her liver, and she cries out in pain, her spear slipping from her hand, as she falls through the air.

  “Atia!” Petronelous races out to catch her, able to seize her before she hits the floor. I jump in with my rectifier, covering their retreat as she lays our captain on the floor, allowing Chun Hei, who’s joined us, to treat her.

  “You see,” Bantha says, branches stretched out in a magnanimous gesture, eyes shut in revelry as a contented grin cracks along his tree-trunk face. “Hope is pointless. In the end, we always succumb to the ways of the universe.”

  “Fuck you, and the universe!” I fire a round of pulse blasts at his face, shattering the wood of his eyes and nose, forcing him to spin away from my attack.

  He retaliates with a thick branch, slamming it at me like a hammer. I dodge the blow by the merest of margins, the ground at my side cracked in half. Chunks of rock and dust fill the air, momentarily clouding my view of the monster. Blind and disoriented, I deactivate my helmet, breath catching in my throat, as I see another branch coming at me through the haze.

  It slams the ground with crushing force, sending me to the side where I roll away.

  “Little humans,” Bantha says laughingly. “Always running away from a battle, like tiny rodents scurrying into decrepit holes. You will always be at the bottom of the food chain.”

  “Xander, watch out!” Galail’s voice cuts through fog of dust, and I see another branch sweeping along the floor. The razored arm comes for my legs, nearly slicing them at the knees, and I’m forced to jump at the last second.

  Thankfully, the dust finally dies down and I’m able to see my enemy with clear vision. Switching barrels, I launch a trio of grenades at his base, hoping to rip him from his foundation. The projectiles explode with maddening power, surrounding him in a cloud of smoke and fire. But as the air clears, I’m disappointed to see that he’s still standing.

  “You’re merely delaying the inevitable,” Bantha says, branches swaying in the smoke like a dancer’s arms. “Give into your nature and die at my hands.”

  “Never!” I yell out, jaw clenched.

  “We need to hit him with more,” Petronelous says as she and Chun Hei take their place at my side. “Unleash fury upon the bastard.”

  “Agreed,” I say.

  As one, we attack, hailing Bantha with everything we have. Petronelous barrels into the demon’s trunk with grenade after grenade, blasting it apart into huge chunks, while Chun Hei, precise in her shots, keeps him busy by picking at his eyes.

  He squints at the pulsing rounds, spinning away and back again. But in the end, it’s useless. We’re nothing but children tossing pebbles at a mountain. And after awhile, Bantha’s wounds begin to heal over, making the last of our ammunition pointless.

  “Damnit,” I seethe, glaring down at the empty rectifier in my hands. “Now what?”

  “Now we fight,” Petronelous says, drawing the two blades from behind her back. Retracting her helmet, she reveals a face flushed with anger, veins pulsing along her neck as she begins to grind her teeth. Past the point of no return, she cannot be talked down. And so, Chun Hei and I take a step aside, giving the master swordsman all the room she needs.

  “For the corfew!” She charges Bantha with her blades held high, a terrible scream escaping her lips as she leaps across the floor to her target.

  Bantha meets the attack with one of his own, heralding her with an array of strikes that threaten to slice her apart. But Petronelous is masterful in her art. She slices the branches apart with twirling blades, hacking and hacking, parrying and reposting, drawing demon’s blood from his wounds.

  I’m watching a machine, I realize, a genetically enhanced human, who, for a moment at least, gives the demon lord pause and revives our hope. Yet, just as Petronelous is able reach her mark, she’s betrayed by her rage, drawn under some spell of fanatic frenzy that sends her on a wild cutting spree.

  Bantha uses her mania to his advantage, assailing her with branch after branch, until he’s finally able to come up behind her with a massive strike.

  “Petro!” I scream, hand outstretched, as I see the gigantic branch swinging behind her. It knocks her in the back, buckling her in two, and she’s swept across the room, where she rolls onto her side, comatose.

  “Go to her!” I tell Chun Hei, who quickly sets off.

  Glaring up at the demon, I feel my heart racing beyond control. Petronelous is out cold, back probably broken, while Atia is still on the floor bleeding out. I glance over at Zorel, her face beaded with sweat and strain as she struggles to hold back Lord Voldrack and his screaming hellions. We’re all hurt, even me, and outnumbered. What more can we do?”

  “The rites, Xander!” Atia manages through gritted teeth. She forces herself to sit up, arm banded around her waist where her wound is still bleeding. “It’s our only chance now.”

  My gaze shifts to the bag on the floor. It’s yards away, tucked beneath the edge of the platform where the women of the village are still chained.

  I have to get it. I have to reach it in time and begin the rites that’ll exorcize this demon and send its accursed essence back to hell.

  Tossing my rifle, I sprint toward the leather case, elbows tucked at my sides as I rush as fast as I can.

  Bantha chases me with his branch-like arms, trying to decapitate me with his razor-sharp thorns. But I manage to avoid their strikes, zigging and zagging across the floor.

  When I reach the bag, I open it quickly. The scepter glitters against the firelight of the pit, and the holy water is still firmly encased in the glass bottle that Chopra had given me. “Only the most pious may wield it.” The words haunt me, reminding me of when I failed to exorcize the kaster in the last battle. How could I expect it to work now? Especially against a demon like Ban
tha?

  I flinch as I hear the demon lord behind me.

  “You cannot defeat me,” he roars triumphantly, lost in his own power. From his branch-like arms, tinier branches begin to sprout, bending and cracking with audible pops as they reach out to ensnare me.

  I whirl on the demon, bottle in hand, splashing it with a spray of holy water, that alights his branches in fire. The barked skin smokes and crisps as the fire dies down, and he quickly pulls back, screaming in vexation. The act is futile. But it grants me enough time to line the floor with holy water, forming a blessed wall of purity that protects us from any more of his attacks.

  “Hurry!” Zorel screams, her voice cracking with the strain of exhaustion. She’s sweating ridiculously, her brow pinched as she struggles to contain the army of rabid hellions still trying to break through her power.

  I hurry with the preparations, forming the shape of the corfew with drops of holy water. The design is small but intact. There are no breaks in the lines, and there’s enough water that I can see it with my eyes.

  “The rites!” Atia calls out as she staggers toward me.

  Petronelous grips her by the waist, catching her before she can fall over.

  I open the book of rites and skim through the pages until I reach the section on exorcism. The passage is short, thankfully, but the typeset is miniature, and I have to narrow my eyes to read the archaic writing.

  “Oh wretched sinner from hell,” I say, raising our standard before the demon with my left hand while reading from the book in my right. “Stand back before the powers of the light and repent your sins so that some piece of your soul may be redeemed.”

  Bantha laughs, seeming unaffected by the haughtiness of my words.

  I don’t blame him. This dribble was probably written by some priest in a guarded palace millions of light years away from any danger. I might as well be singing a love song to the giant monster.

  But still, I persist.

  I read the words with as much righteousness as a bad Shakespearian actor, doing my best to tap into my faith. But nothing. The scepter glows dull in my hands, and there’s no magical light beaming off it as the scriptures have boasted, no sound of horns, no gleaming light, no power from heaven.

  After a while, Atia realizes our dilemma and she grips the scepter as well, her smaller hands wrapping around mine as our voices unite.

  We recite the rites of the ritual over and over again, hoping that maybe this time it’ll work, only to be disappointed as our words do nothing.

  “This can’t be,” Atia says, eyes filled with painful confusion.

  “You see,” Bantha says proudly, his branches growing ever wider, as they encircle us under a domed of forest. “Only Zendal can reach into the ether, only Zendal has the power to perform real magic. You’re nothing but skin and bone, monkeys with clumsy technology. Ours is the real power. Join us!”

  I watch in terror as his torso splits apart, revealing a meaty collection of human faces. They call out to us in desperation, screaming in pain, laughing in delirium, lost in the hell of their imprisoned minds. “Join us and revel in the pleasure of Zendal.”

  “Never!” Atia seethes.

  Her defiance enrages the demon lord, causing him to shut the seams of his exposed belly, and begin his attack anew.

  We flinch as razors strike at our holy barrier, frightened by the renewed fury that appears even greater. But the wall holds. It keeps the monster at bay, but only for a little while. At the rate he’s fighting it, it won’t be long until he breaks through.

  “So this is it?” Petronelous says, limping toward us as she’s helped by Chun Hei. “The way we meet our end? The way we fall before the enemy?” She sighs. “Very well, then.” She glares up at the demon in defiance. “Let it come.”

  “We’ll face it together.” Atia turns to me. “All of us.”

  I watch in silence, lowering the holy scepter and book of scriptures as my heart is filled with hopelessness. A dire situation with no chance at success. Has all of this been for nothing? My place in the galaxy a mere accident? An error caused by an impetuous supervisor anxious to please his boss? It’s heartbreaking to think that Rachel’s life was affected by such random circumstances. And now, I will be its next casualty.

  I stare at the women around me, Petronelous struggling to breathe, Atia bleeding out onto the floor, Chun Hei stoic in her fear yet unwilling to fight in order to keep her sister from falling, Zorel holding the wall despite our defeat, Galail and the other women still chained, chests heaving with tear filled eyes as they watch their last chance at salvation fail before them, Tora, a young women who is probably watching from somewhere off, now forced to lose her sister all over again. These are the greatest warriors I’ve ever known, humans who’ve brought such joy to my life that I’ll never be able to repay them.

  But if they can’t fight for themselves, I’ll do it for them.

  Defeated, with no chance of survival, I draw my blade and hold it out before me, unworried for myself, but determined to protect the ones I love. Who knows? Maybe this time I’ll get lucky and cut off an entire branch?

  The ridiculousness of it amuses me and I begin to chuckle despite myself. Now I understand Zorel, why she laughs in the face of death. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter.

  “You fools,” Bantha says, continuing his attack on the wall of holy light with his branches. “I offered you an eternity of blissful pleasure, and you refused it? Now, you will know what pain is.”

  “Go to hell,” I yell at him.

  “Very well,” he says. “I shall take you there with me.”

  I steady myself, blade in hand, as Bantha finally breaks through the barrier. The light flashes out of existence and a thick branch covered in razored-thorns comes straight for us.

  Hopeless, I throw myself into fate’s hands, raising my blade to block the attack. It’s then, as we’re about to die, that something miraculous happens. A bright light springs forth from my blade, so bright and gleaming that Bantha is thrust backwards against the altar, shocked by the white light that is searing the bark of his skin like acid. I gawk in amazement.

  “What’s this?” he demands in arrogant disdain. “What dark science have you laid upon me?”

  “No science,” Atia whispers in astonishment, eyes sparkling with tears as she turns to the blade in my hand. “But the Light Bringer.”

  Despite my confusion, I hold out the blade with trembling arms, keeping it steady in the face of the monster who just moments ago was about to kill us. Is this the light of the corfew? The power that has been foretold in the books? Whatever it is, whatever power is being bestowed upon me, it pours out of my blade like rushing water, incinerating whatever piece of darkness it touches.

  Behind me, past the wall of Zorel’s electricity, Lord Voldrek and his ranks of hellions begin to dissolve, their thick grey skin catching fire, then smoldering to ash as the air is filled with their cries of pain.

  Bantha, confused by all of this, stares at his branches in horror, frowning at the layers of smoke rising off his bark. “How can this be?” he asks, voice shrill with panic. “The legend of the Light Bringer was thought to be false—a legend.”

  “And now you bear witness,” Atia says, taking her place at my side.

  Empowered by her strength, I march out to meet my foe, blade held high as he cowers before me. Shrinking in size, he begins to shrivel, like a fallen leaf withering under the pain of cold. Naked and rail thin, his body like a walking cadaver, he looks up at me with pleading mercy. “Please, don’t kill me.”

  I grin, towering above him. “You out of anyone should know what a hopeless question that is.”

  He scowls in reply.

  Before he can utter a curse, I plunge the blade into his chest, drawing a shrieking cry from the monster, and his body begins to evaporate into a haze of debris that curls cowardly away into the recesses of the chamber. Within seconds, it’s gone. But also from this rotten decay, a garden of souls arises into t
he air, traveling along the light of my blade and up into the ceiling of the mountain, as if entering the arms of heaven.

  “May you have a swift journey,” Atia says, her eyes shutting in solemn silence.

  I lower my blade as the light slowly dies, revealing the darkened reds and blacks of the temple’s chamber.

  “You did it,” Zorel says, her gray eyes brimming with tears as she staggers toward me.

  I stare at the blade in my hand, completely bewildered by what I’ve just done. But I don’t want to think about it. Not now. Not when we still have so much to do. Shaking it off, my gaze shifts to Atia. “Are you okay?”

  She nods.

  “I’ve plugged the wound as best I can,” Chun Hei says. “But if she moves too much, she could end up bleeding out. We need to get her to an infirmary soon.”

  I nod.

  “What about you?” I say, turning to Petronelous.

  The beautiful redhead snatches her blades from the ground, inspecting them with an arched brow, then holstering them to the magnet on her back. “My duty to the Republic is far from over.”

  “She means that her healing factor has kicked in,” Chun Hei signs from behind her.

  I snort. “Well that’s good to hear.”

  “Zorel?”

  “Tired.” She wipes the sweat from her brow. “But I’m good.”

  “Rest awhile,” I say. “You did well. We all did.”

  The women and I take a moment to savor the relief of our success. Petronelous exchanges a smile with Zorel, while Atia rests her head against Chun Hei’s chest. We’re safe and alive, and that’s all that matters. But now we must turn our attention back to our mission.

  “Chun Hei.” I turn to the sniper. “There’s a library close by. Find it. Inside are the data scrolls from the expedition. Take Petro with you in case some of the demons are still alive.”

  “With pleasure,” Petronelous says, drawing her blades from behind her back. The two set off together into one of the adjoining chambers, where they quickly disappear around a corner, leaving me alone with Atia and Zorel.