Araya threw two knives, both hitting their
mark, then swung his long, silvery chains and pierced a Gorgor’s
face from side to side. He put a hand to his belt and soon after a
fireball appeared on his hand. He waited a while before throwing it
against the enemy. A deafening roar hit them while the Gorgors’
dismembered bodies flew into the air.
“
And I thought to be good!”
Olem said.
Then, the Gorgors seemed to
decide they had played long enough. One of them let out a battle
cry and his companions emerged from the trees, running and
investing them with sharp and acute screams in the night. Kugar
centered one of them, Moak two, however the fastest was Araya.
Flawlessly he killed five Gorgors with a single blow of his chains,
decapitating them in such a short time that, to Dagger, it was just
enough to shoot a new arrow and miss the target. Other Gorgors
sprang up everywhere before their eyes, marching on the bodies of
their comrades as a sea of shadows. In a short time, some attempted
to hoist themselves up. It was probably the moment Olem was waiting
for. Racing along the edge of the roof with his drawn sword, he
decapitated the shadows before they had a chance to set foot on it.
Dagger centered the front of a Gorgor who escaped Olem’s wrath.
Then Kugar shouted something and he barely had time to turn around,
before a giant Cruachan fell on him with a chilling trill. He found
himself on the ground with claws stuck in the chest. Kugar came to
help, but the beast needed only to beat its wing to fling her
aside. The Cruachan’s eyes, red with lucid madness, absorbed his
thoughts, looking at him fixedly and steadily. Everything stopped.
The clash faded away. Death, the clatter of swords, the whole world
dying around him, everything. On the beast’s back sat a shadow. He
saw his black eye and, inside it, a yellow and malignant light, on
a decomposed, distorted and unnatural face. With horror, he
realized that this shadow was wearing a dead skin mask, the flayed
face of a man, but only when he saw his Mayem boots the boy knew
who he was actually facing. The Divine got off his winged steed and
grabbed him by the neck, lifting him into the air as if he was just
a disobedient dog. Dagger clung with both hands at the wrist and
struck him with Redemption, but it was not shining anymore, not
even in his hand. It was
turned
off
, harmless, and could no longer protect
him. He choked. The whole world was confined to that black eye and
the light it held, in which he could read the reckless rage of a
creature forever doomed to evil. This time, he didn’t feel the
malignant mark just eject blood from his chest; it corroded his
skin and flesh. It caught breath in his throat. It afflicted him
with a stuffy asthma, a sense of total destruction that clenched
his senses and asphyxiated any attempt to fight back. He felt it
working within, taking possession of his nerve centers. He was
becoming something else. In the darkness of the mind and senses, he
heard a hissing sound, barely audible in the dark. “You won’t bring
him back, Kam Konkra! Your blood will be mine! Why must I be a
slave to this power? I don’t want to die, I was a god, why can’t I
live on?”
“
Ffuck
you!” Dagger let out.
Then the lips of the dead face grinned. “I
will hunt down with no mercy!” the Divine promised. “I will hunt
you down all nightmare long! When you’ll wake up, you’ll discover
how horrible it is, after death, to live forever!”
He pointed the sword, a sword of Mayem,
against his chest. Dagger realized that the end had come. A single,
quick flick of the wrist would be enough for the figure in black to
pierce his heart. He wanted to banish him from the world as it had
happened to Skyrgal. It breathed on his face, the rancid breath of
death, but he was not afraid, even though he knew there would be no
return if the Guardians had lost that battle. Then he felt the
clasp on his neck let go and he fell on the roof, drained of all
energy, deprived of the control on his body. Everything slowly came
back to life around him: the battle, the screams of pain, the
clatter of knives. He managed to get up on his knees, but still
could not use his arms, or hear. He looked up. As the battle raged,
and Gorgors died under the murderous impetus of Araya, Olem had run
to his aid, knocking the Divine to the ground. Now he was on top of
him, his broadsword between their two faces. With just a wave of
his hand the Divine freed himself, flying Olem on the roof. He drew
his scimitar, giving the Dracon the time to get up and put on his
guard, as if he just wanted to enjoy a clash with an outcome
already decided.
Dagger was taken by Moak and dragged
away.
“
We’ll never make it against
him, we have to fall back!” the Guardian screamed.
With the corner of his eye, the boy saw
Olem collecting the powerful, two-handed attacks of the Divine,
whose chilling laughter rang out in the cold and metallic air. A
hit harder than the previous ones made him lose his sword and the
Dracon seemed to realize that only a miracle would save him this
time. However, it was not a miracle that fell from the sky. It
looked like a lizard. Araya jumped above the Gorgors and managed to
overcome the defenses of the Divine, wounding him with his own
claws, just a smear on the neck.
The figure in black brought a hand to the
cut. “Poison!” he screamed. “Damn lizards, you and your fucking
poison!”
The Divine charged. Araya mounted with one
foot on his scimitar and jumped back, running away now that he had
been successful in his attempt. Other Gorgors jumped on the roof,
screaming in a horrific way, about to surround them. Dagger was the
first to jump down. He landed on his hands and got up in time to
see Moak reaching him, falling face down, broken, with a knife
stuck in his back. He got up to help him, feeling him expire in his
arms.
“
No,” the Guardian could
only say, before giving up his soul.
Araya jumped down too and pulled him to his
feet. “Hurry up, there’s no time for that!”
“
Olem and Kugar are still
there!”
“
That poison will not stop
him for long!”
Dagger opposed, ready to get back on the
roof to fight, but something horrible put an end to the rapid
worsening of the situation. They could not see what was happening
on the roof. However, they could hear, the wild roar of a beast,
not Gorgor, nor Cruachan, nor human. It was soon run over by the
cries of the Gorgors who, taken by surprise, were cut to pieces.
Their torn limbs flew in the air. Their bodies, their meat, their
heads and slimy guts rained down from the roof, blackening the land
with their filthy black blood. Araya killed the few who, jumped
down, still dared to fight for life. He slipped the dagger into the
belly of the last shadow, and then there were no more.
In the silence, the howl of a beast wounded
to death was heard.
Dagger climbed back on the roof to see what
had happened. He saw Kugar lying on the ground in a pool of blood.
She was still breathing under the armor, torn in tatters from her
uncontrollable shift, but every breath seemed the last. Olem pulled
out the sword with which he had pierced her chest, gasping for
breath, shaken by what he had seen and done.
Dagger ran to hug her, getting soiled with
her blood. “You killed her! You killed her, you bastard!”
The Dracon looked at him,
lost. “She…
it
was
going to attack me!” he whispered, confused.
“
What’s going on up there?”
Araya cried from below. “We have no time to lose. The Divine has
escaped in flight and will soon return with
reinforcements!”
“
Araya, dammit! That bitch
was a Tankar!”
“
A Tankar?”
“
She’s not a
Tankar!”
“
Get over it!” Araya
ordered. “We must go through the Pass and we must do it now, even
in the dark. The Divine will return!”
“
And what do we do with this
damned half-wolf? She’s still alive!”
Araya did not answer. Dagger looked Olem
straight in the eyes.
“
We must kill her, boy. You
have to understand.”
“
I won’t let you murder
her!” he growled. “You’ll have to kill me too!”
“
A Tankar would not think
twice before cutting your throat, fool!”
“
Should I carry her body on
my shoulders, I’ll take her away from this hell!” Dagger spat back.
“She saved your life, tonight. You won’t kill her!”
“
Then stay here with her!”
Olem cried. “I’d be pleased to see what you would do,
once—”
“
Olem, for Skyrgal sake!”
Araya interrupted. “We have no time!”
The Dracon opened his mouth to yell
something, before diverting his scream into his clenched fists. He
bowed his face and swallowed bitterly. “May you be damned! More
than you already are!” He grabbed Kugar by the shreds of the armor,
dragging her down like the carcass of an animal, throwing her at
Araya’s feet.
“
She will survive,” the
Messhuggah just said, putting two fingers between the jaw and the
throat. “Even if I don’t know how long. One more reason to get back
to Golconda as quickly as possible.”
“
We should have left her
here.”
Araya jumped up and struck Olem with a
punch, so fast that the other Dracon did not even defend
himself.
“
Holy shit!” he screamed. It
was the first time Dagger saw him lose his temper. “Do you know how
important this girl is, now?”
Olem answered nothing. He disappeared from
their sight, among the trees.
There was no time to give Moak a proper
burial. Araya took out his heart, using a knife and his bare claws,
and place it inside of a dirty cloth. “At least your heart will be
buried home, brother,” he hissed. Then he carried the body into the
hut, before giving it to the flames. He would never let Cruachans
feast with his remains.
Watching the flames rise into the night
sky, Dagger swore he could hear the lizard cry. But maybe he was
wrong.
“
This is the end of an era,
worth to be lived,” he said. “Now a new one begins: An age of
fear.” He took Kugar on his shoulders. “Come on, my
boy.”
They went into the forest beyond the hut,
reaching Olem there where two tall conifers, with their hair,
formed the natural gate at the beginning of a dirt road,
immediately swallowed by darkness. A thick leafed blanket and the
branches hid the path to the sight of any creature crossing the
sky. They would not have to fear the Cruachans’ attacks, in there,
but in the presence of the umpteenth path in the shadows, Dagger
did not feel safe. He began to fear the worse when he saw thin
strands of a silvery metal, dividing it in a sinister chessboard,
barely visible in the dim glow of the Ensiferum sphere held by
Olem.
“
It would have been better
to deal with it during the day,” the latter said, his rage
disappeared. “One wrong step and we’re dead.”
Behind them, the far cry of a Cruachan
invited them not to waste any more time.
“
It’s easy to choose, when
you have no choice,” Araya said. “Look at where I place my feet,
the exact point. It takes little to die, walking in
here.”
He picked up a stone, not very big, and
threw it. At the first bounce, it was hit by a spray of acid. At
the second one, a trap snapped shut. At the third, it was hurled
into the air by six metal spikes, appeared out of the ground so
quickly that anyone passing by would have ended impaled. The rock
flew up and spun several times before falling back to earth. There,
nothing happened.
“
Uhm
. Curious,” Araya said. “Make just one error and you won’t
tell this story. When it comes to building traps and handles deadly
poisons, no one beats the Messhuggahs.”
The lizard Dracon took a step forward and
they followed him closely. He moved constantly from one quadrant to
another, slowly, to allow them to see the exact point where he was
setting foot. The Gorgors had got to the cabin on fire and were
exploring the forest in search of them, he was sure. They felt his
smell. He felt their presence at the center of his chest.
“
Stuck in the trap of
lizards,” Olem grumbled. “While Gorgors walk free in this world.
What have I done to deserve to see such a thing?”
“
Oh, many things, Olem.
Starting with all your bad racist jokes about Messhuggahs, but
let’s not talk unless it is necessary. Watch your feet!” Araya
warned, proceeding slowly. Then he stopped, turning around. “Did
you hear that?” he asked.
They stood in silence, until the light of a
flare lit up the trail and they were invested by the Gorgors’
screams of surprise.
“
Front Row. Second
quadrant,” Araya noticed. “Bad choice.”
The screams of those who were burning alive
soon faded to low moans of pain, to end in a ghostly silence.
“
Take it in the ass!” Olem
growled.
Araya walked on, without distracting
himself further. A step to the right, a jump to the left, straight
forward and then right again.
“
So, you have to go through
this crap every time you want to go home?” Dagger asked. “There’s
something deeply wrong with you, you’re aware of that?”
“
If it was not for you, we
would have never set foot in this brothel you call a
world.”
“
Araya’s right. The world
Beyond is just a prison to us,” Olem added. “Used to banish
the
cream
of
Candehel-mas society at the dawn of our history. Thousands of years
ago, when the order was still young. Thieves, rapists, murderers.
Everyone thrown here, out of our world.”