Blackhand (32 page)

He caught them. One of the creatures was a giant nearly twenty feet tall. Quintel leaped into the air, chopped off its head and slashed the power stone from its chest on his descent. The stone was shaped like a huge diamond. The monster collapsed into a heap.

The other Thogs scattered. They did not attack him. Whooping and screaming, the remaining five fled in different directions. They knew who he was and what to do when they saw him.  Quintel pursued the nearest one. It dodged and darted with remarkable agility, but it was not fast enough to avoid the Agara blade. By the time he killed it, the others had spread out even further. It took him a full day to catch and kill all of them. Quintel felt the god fragment’s pleasure in killing the new Thogs.  Their hint of self-preservation spiced the task.

Quintel sensed another village coming under attack to the south. Sending out his mind, he now saw hundreds of the redesigned Thogs descending upon many Forestland dwellings. Due north, a family died in a blinding red torch of butchery. The fragment convulsed at the sight. Between the nauseating roar of the armies behind him, and the hot spikes of violence from the Thogs before him, Quintel was smothered by death. He forced the writhing sliver to be still while he figured out what was happening.

Ru had gone mad. Quintel's victory must have pushed the god over the edge. The deity was lashing out, destroying everything. Even the humans who had been loyal to him for a thousand years...

Or.

This was part of a plan. The god was killing his people because that was how they could best serve him. Ru was soaking the world in murder knowing the pain would consume Quintel.

Examining the geography and distance between the packs of Thog raiders, Quintel chose a group he could intercept before they reached civilization. It took him half the night to reach them. The creatures were moments away from a sleeping farmstead populated by twenty lifelights dreaming in the darkness.

He bisected all in the group with a single swing so none had a chance to escape. Then he turned to the next group, a day's run to the north. Not so lucky there. The Thogs were faster. Three escaped and alerted others. The warned groups broke apart, scattering individual Thogs in all directions. More nimble than their predecessors, they also took longer to destroy once he caught them. Quintel ricocheted across the countryside for a week just to kill twenty of them. He left the power stones where they fell. There was no time to collect them.

And thus his life continued for weeks. Group by group, he moved across the land, slaughtering as many of the creatures as he could. Yet even during the ecstasy of the killing, Aul never left his thoughts. He wanted to embrace her, to feel her body against his, but knew such a thing would never happen again.  Even if she survived, she would not forgive his betrayal. As he darted from one quarry to another, he let his mind’s eye find her light, moving across the landscape, penetrating deeper into the Forestlands, still alive and hating him. He did not dwell upon these glances for long. Such indulgence brought him pain and he had a job to finish.

Despite his efforts, many of the Thogs escaped. Dozens moved too far west for him to reach. While he knew some would be destroyed by the now victorious Abanshi and Vaerian armies, most would cross into the mountains, spreading carnage all the way to Vaer. And there was nothing he could do.

Quintel tried to pull himself away from the endless butchery and head back toward Sirian Ru. The god was his goal. The killings were distractions. But when he tried to veer toward the god's castle, another massacre would send the fragment into fits of rage and pain.  Slaughtering the roaming Thogs became a compulsion. The god within him craved it. He bolted to the east, west, north and south.  After a while, he did not think about Sirian Ru at all, but merely moved from massacre to massacre.

One day while closing on a large group to the north, he saw his prey was already engaged in battle and being killed with unnatural efficiency. The foe was invisible to him on the spiritual plane. It was the Lanya.

Quintel crested a wooded ridge and descended into the struggle. He saw a dozen of the modified Thogs encircled around a lone combatant. Coming from behind like a cyclone, he slew half the lot with two strokes. Flesh, bone and guts sprayed the landscape. 

He could not see the Lanya warrior. She was invisible upon both the physical and spiritual planes. He realized his mistake when his humming sword came slashing down upon the neck of the last Thog.

Quintel halted his blow before taking the god's head off, his sword frozen in mid strike. He had trouble believing what he was seeing. It was Yuul, trapped inside one of the stones, animating one of the Thogs.

“Quintel! Hold your sword! It is me!” the Thog said.

Quintel saw the god wedged and folded inside one of the new, more complex stones. It was not a tidy fit. The god's spirit looked like it wore clothes too small for its body. Ridiculous.

“Yes, I see,” Quintel said. “Yuul, what have you done?”

“I'm alive!” the Thog-god said. “Look!” The possessed Thog jumped and danced around the fallen corpses of the other Thogs in a macabre ballet. “I can feel! I can see!”

Quintel put away his blade. He wasn't certain what to make of the god's sudden presence. He felt the fragment within him did not like it.

He could tell by the technique of entry that Yuul had been watching events for a while. The god had seen the Demonthane. That was how it learned to use the stone to hold its essence. Quintel thought of the sword in his sheath and suspected that Yuul had not thought out the puzzle to its completion.

“Do you know the condition is permanent?” He told the deity, who stood before him with a broad fanged face and green, knob-covered flesh. “You cannot extract yourself from the stone. It is a prison.”

The god's monstrous grin sagged.

“What?” Yuul rumbled. “Of course it's not. I can leave this shell at will. When the time comes, I shall.”

Quintel peered into the intricate mechanism of the Thog's stone. The god had welded to the geometry of the battery. He shook his head.

“No.”

Walking passed the possessed Thog, Quintel headed for the next group of raiders on the horizon.

“Where are you going?” Yuul called to his back. Quintel did not answer. “Do not ignore me, Quintel. I know your life from conception! I am your creator!”

Quintel turned back to the Thog-god.

“You are a child, Yuul.”

“I am here to help you,” Yuul growled.

“Help me? You have only thrown in another complexity. You are an unexpected piece on the board. Another delay.”

“I've already killed dozens of Ru's new creations,” Yuul defended, proud of its efforts. Since incarnating, the god had wandered the countryside, avoiding humans and ambushing the modified Thogs whenever it found them. Unlike the Demonthane, whose form had been grown around the Great Stone to enhance its power, Yuul’s physical strength was no greater than that of a common Thog.  The stone in which it resided bound the god, limiting its might.  Nevertheless, Yuul’s divine vision and insight made it more than a match for any twenty of the creatures. Especially if it came up from behind them. 

“You
are
one of Ru's creations!” Quintel countered. “Without that body, you cannot live. It was born in the Living God's factories and you are trapped within it forever.”

“That is a lie!” Yuul roared. “When I am finished with it, I will find a more suitable vehicle, one that will let me unleash my true power. I am in complete control of my destiny.”

A blow to Yuul's broad chest sent it flying backwards into a tree. Quintel had closed the distance between them and struck before Yuul even saw him move. Yuul collapsed and Quintel was on its chest, pinning the god's arms to the ground. Yuul tried to move but couldn't. Quintel was as immoveable as a mountain.

“Really?” Quintel said inches from Yuul's fanged face. “Then from my breast, take the fragment you lost. Rejoin your halves and be whole again.”

Yuul looked into Quintel's soul. The sliver that had once been a part of the god stared back. Its vision was filled with contempt. It did not recognize him. Yuul felt its hatred.

“I should tear that stone from your chest and form it into a sheath to accompany my sword,” Quintel continued. “At least then you would have a use in this struggle.”

Yuul felt fear. The god knew Quintel could do it, and the fragment, a thing that had once been a part of itself, wanted him to.

Quintel released the Thog-god and stood.

“You and Sirian Ru have treated the world as a playground,” Quintel said. “Well, continue to play, my creator. Slay as many of Ru's creations as you can find. You are neither threat nor aid to me.”

Quintel turned and headed into the forest.

“But keep your distance,” Quintel said disappearing into the forest. “Sirian Ru sees everything.”

Relieved to be alive, Yuul stood and picked up its dropped sword. That was not the welcoming it had expected. Yuul thought Quintel would celebrate its presence, perhaps even pay it homage. Yuul still felt the venomous stare from the severed portion of itself. The god would indeed give the Thog Stacker a wide avenue. The Abanshi was as dangerous as Sirian Ru.

As Yuul walked in the opposite direction, the god felt a presence and turned, afraid Quintel had changed his mind. Before it, stood the Lanya queen in ethereal form, a swirling cloud of awareness.

“Do not go that way, young god,” the spirit said. “You must travel here.”

In the bare dirt at Yuul's feet, a detailed map appeared, scratched in the earth and highlighted by the splattered black blood of the dead Thogs.

“Go to this place and wait,” the disembodied warrior-witch instructed. “You will know what to do when the time comes.”

Yuul studied the map and saw the indicated destination. At first, the god could not bring itself to agree. The location made no sense. Then it put all the pieces in play, followed the lines of possibilities and figured out what the Lanya desired.

“I see now,” the god said, rubbing its square chin. “Very well, old friend. I will do as you say.”

With that, the smoky form of the queen disappeared. The god rested its notched iron sword over its shoulder and began walking towards its new destination.

Chapter 37

Quintel was angry. Yuul's appearance added another loose element into the conflict. He remembered the words of the young Vaerian lieutenant and knew he might have to kill two gods before the end of it all.

While Yuul might believe it was his ally, the deity merely wanted what Ru already had: The world. The young god would be a friend until its goals were achieved, then it would take Ru's place. Yuul was new to the plane of existence. The god might become stronger as it learned more. A part of Quintel wished he had torn the occupied stone from its nest when he had the chance. On the other hand, Yuul and he shared a goal. The deity may have a use yet unseen.

What fueled Quintel's frustration most was not the god's presence, but himself. His compulsion to kill the Thogs was all consuming. He could not break himself from the hunt.

The more Thogs he killed, the more the god fragment wanted to kill. Each death was ecstasy to both his halves. Every time a stone fell from a Thog's chest, a rush of pleasure swept over him. The killings had become an addiction. His god half did not care that slaying Sirian Ru was the true goal. It could go on this way forever.

Quintel knew he did not have forever. The distraction had gone on long enough. He had to summon the strength to break free and confront Sirian Ru. Destroying the raiding bands had already wasted months. It was time to return to his mission. Especially with Yuul in the mix.

As this awareness filled his thoughts, the fragment squirmed. A mass of instinct and reaction, the piece of infinity did not comprehend strategy or understand the greater end. It moved on impulse, avoiding that which brought it pain and embracing that which gave it pleasure. He hadn’t tried to force the entity to comply. The new Thogs needed slaying and the grief they brought left him little choice.

Most of the groups had now either been eliminated or moved on. Aul's army was advancing and would be at Ru's doorstep soon. It was time to turn his attention eastward.

But Quintel was afraid he did not possess the strength to do it.

He sensed three of the modified Thogs over the horizon and reflexively headed toward them. Now was the time for the human within him to take control. Instead of racing to meet the group, he kept heading east, deeper into the heavy wood. The god protested. A hollowness filled his spirit. Longing for the slaughter felt like starvation. All he had to do was change direction, destroy the group and then continue toward Ru's castle. That’s all. Then he could head east later. Such logic had dominated him since he left the army at the tunnel. There was always another cluster to kill, another gray light to snuff out.

Quintel broke from a copse of trees and stopped running. The divine fragment blazed white within his heart, dwarfing his human spirit. Seeing his resistance, it tried to force him toward the Thogs. The compulsion was great. Quintel took a step away from the direction of the god's desire. The fragment raged. Quintel took another step. The piece screamed.