Authors: Greg Curtis
And just who in all of Hades he kept asking himself, was Harl?
Then as the first explosion hit and the ground beneath him suddenly shook he had a new question. What in Hades was happening outside? Was this something to do with this Harl? He asked and she laughed at him, and told him it was time.
What miserable god could have inflicted such a horrible torment on him as this? And why? What had he done to deserve such a fate?
“Not worry. Soon Harl here. Soon judgement be passed. And soon you be big and round. Bring first baby into world.”
“No!” Terellion screamed at her when she said that. Not just because he couldn't stand the thought that something so horrible could be growing inside him. But because she said first. As in more than one? As in this was going to happen again?
“Yes!” She smiled happily at him. “Nemesis says yes. You be mother many children. Thousands. All furies' children. This just first.”
“Now hush. Wait for judgement.”
She turned away from him then and looked to the far door, waiting patiently, while Terellion sat there and tried to contain his terror. But he couldn't. Not completely. And he couldn't deny it. Not any more. Not after everything that had already happened. Because deep down he knew it was true.
He'd been damned.
Chapter Sixty Seven
The wall loomed large before him, and Harl thought it looked solid. Far more solid than it had been the last time he'd seen it. Forty feet high, incredibly thick, and all of it built of enormous stone blocks held together with steel pins and mortar. It was a mountain of stone. As if that wasn't enough, the top of the wall was lined with soldiers. They were currently standing on the battlements, bows at the ready. Hundreds of them. And as he came into range they loosed their arrows and bolts at him. All of them.
Some hit, but he didn't flinch. He didn't even feel the impacts; just heard the minor cracks as the steel heads smashed into his armour and broke. They were as nothing to him. There was nothing within him save the rage that was filling him. It had been consuming him for days. A rage that was at the same time both calculating and cold, and yet burning hot. A rage that promised him vengeance. A rage that told him exactly what to do. And just then it was telling him to walk on to the wall. So he did just that.
He walked on and the wall grew ever larger before him while an endless stream of arrows bounced off him.
And then the wall was immediately in front of him and he had to stop. But only for a moment. Then acting on an impulse he didn't understand he raised a fist and with all the strength he could find he punched the stone.
It cracked. It shook and screamed with the power of a million screaming souls. And then it exploded. A detonation of unimaginable fury as the wall tore itself apart. There was fire, bursting from the ground and out of the wall itself. There were fountains of lava erupting everywhere. There were rocks and people flying in all directions, thrown by the unrelenting power of the blast. And he ignored all of it. Because there was only one thing that mattered. There was now a breach in the wall. He stepped through it and into the city. Into Lion's Crest for the first time in five years.
Inside Lion's Crest he was greeted by an army. By thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of soldiers in their full armour. By hundreds of minor wizards who were launching fireballs and lightning blasts against him. And by a great many more beasts. But he didn't care about them. As they rushed him they seemed less than nothing to him. The first few that reached him he smashed, flicking out a fist and sending their broken bodies smashing into the lines of beasts and soldiers behind them. And each time he punched someone there was an explosion of power. The force of it sent his attackers flying in their hundreds. But fairly soon he forgot about them as he saw his first targets.
Two of the Circle wizards that he recognised lay ahead. Artinalis of Arndale Flats and Lucara the Sage. They had clearly been on the battlements when he had struck the wall. And by the looks of things they had been far too close. Both were injured, lying on the ground, bleeding. But they weren't too injured to understand that he was coming for them. Lucara was the first to act, sending a whirlwind to envelop him. But the wind did nothing except send the rest of the army around him flying and Harl ignored it. He didn't even feel it.
What he did feel was rage. In fact it was the only thing he felt. And powered by it he hurried toward the fallen wizard. He had lived too long. Lucara increased the power of his twister, turning it from a small whirlwind into a devastatingly powerful tornado in mere heartbeats, but Harl didn't care. The wind meant nothing to him. Neither did the lightning strikes as they started raining down on him. The only thing that mattered was the wizard, still on the ground and trying to get up, but unable to do so because of his injuries.
When Harl reached him he lifted Lucara off the ground, picking him up by the shoulder with one arm and then squeezed a little more tightly than he needed to. Bones were crushed, blood sprayed in all directions, and the screaming wizard almost slipped from his grasp as his flesh gave way.
Almost, but not quite. He was not getting away.
Instead, as he hung there, the tornado slipped away into a mass of confused air as the wizard cried out in pain. Then Harl tossed him gently up into the air. Just a few feet. And when he came down still crying out, Harl punched him with all the strength he had. Too much strength.
The wizard died in an instant, his head crushed, and his lifeless corpse flew away from him faster than any arrow, spraying blood everywhere. But instead of hitting the wall of the nearest building and turning into a blood red smear on it as he should have he vanished in mid air. And Harl knew he was in the demon realm. He had punched him all the way to Tartarus – as he was meant to. The armour had a demon trap spell on it. He had enchanted into it every spell he knew and every spell he had been given.
A drake struck him then. A huge beast every bit as large as a dragon, and instantly Harl was swallowed up by it. But when the beast tried to close its mouth to chew on him, its teeth broke. Shortly after that the rest of its head did as Harl ripped his way free of the beast. He simply dug his arms deep into its fleshy head, and ripped out huge chunks of flesh and bone. Heartbeats later he was standing on the hard ground covered from head to foot in drake blood, while the drake itself had collapsed on the ground – dead. Not many creatures survived without their heads.
Artinalis wasn't far away and Harl found him in only a couple of heartbeats. He was still lying on the ground crying. His legs were broken, presumably from the blast when the wall had exploded and he'd been thrown, and he was holding his head. Hurt no doubt as a result of his bond with the drake being so brutally broken. Harl didn't waste any time as he picked up the wizard and then smashed him into the underworld. The man had already been alive too long.
After that it was on to the temple where he knew the rest of the wizards would be, and he marched across the city, determined to reach them quickly. The soldiers and the chimera tried to stop him of course as they regrouped, and they descended on him in packs. But they could do nothing to him, and those that annoyed him he tore apart. In time the soldiers at least began to realise that they were powerless against him, and they settled for standing a long way off from him and loosing arrows in his direction. He barely noticed them.
What he did notice was the rage building within him. Rage combined with a savage joy that just kept growing. This was violence and brutality such as he had never known. It was vengeance pure and simple. And while he knew it would not bring his loved ones back, for a while as he let his rage run free it was bliss. Knowing that those who had done these things to him were dead or about to die was everything. Maybe it was even justice.
A wall rose up in front of him unexpectedly and he knew that the battle had been joined once more. Harl punched it and instantly the wall exploded, sending burning chunks of rock flying in all directions and killing hundreds of chimera. But that was nowhere near as important as the fact that he spotted his attacker; a woman with a mastery of earth, clutching at her head while blood poured down her face. Immediately he knew her for another of the twelve. But not for long.
She was crouching down behind a stone well, frightened of what she'd unleashed. As well she should be. She didn't have long to live in fear as he lightly vaulted the remains of the wall and landed on top of her. His metal skinned feet crushed her legs and she screamed. But he cut her scream short as he smashed her with a metal skinned fist.
Then, even as she vanished he thought he should do something about those around him. There were so many wizards attacking him that the combined blast of their attack was turning the city around him into an inferno of wild magic. It was starting to annoy him. And attacking the wall had given him an idea.
By then he was already in the commercial part of the city and the buildings were all three and four stories tall and all made of good solid stone. So he simple unleashed on them with his fists and let the explosions that followed take care of his enemies. Terrible detonations of stone and fire that enveloped everything around him. Soon the remaining wizards who survived were no longer attacking him, but fleeing instead. Those that hadn't been struck down by flaming pieces of rubble. It was then that he could finally see clear space ahead of him. So many of the beasts and soldiers had perished that their bodies covered the ground like leaves in the fall. And the rest were running as fast as they possibly could.
It was a good sight to see. Even when he realised that half the city was on fire.
Harl marched on, heading for the Great Temple to Artemis. Because it was there that he knew the last three Circle wizards would be, and with them the gate. He was eager for the battle. And fortunately the temple wasn't that much further. In fact he could see its gently curving domes in the distance.
Soon he was running for it, moving like the wind, while his feet tore the ground apart and sent clouds of dirt flying into the air. The end was in sight and he couldn't help himself. He couldn't slow down. Those who had caused so much pain and suffering would finally die.
It was less than a minute before he was there, standing in front of the Great Temple, and he knew the last battle was about to begin.
Someone had closed the temple doors, fifteen foot tall oak doors that weighed as much as an ox each. They shouldn't have bothered. There was nothing that would save them from him. Certainly not a mere door. There was no protection and no mercy. Harl punched straight through them with his fists and then threw their shattered remains away as he stepped inside.
A blast of fire came his way then, and he knew that another Circle wizard had found him. He couldn't see him through the flame, but that didn't matter. Harl just picked up a massive lump of broken rock from the floor by his feet and hurled it at the source of the flame. There was a scream – a very brief one – and the flame stopped. Before it could start again he leapt the fifty feet or so to the fallen wizard who was already gasping his last and punched him, driving yet another Circle wizard into the demon realm. Tartarus was starting to fill up with dead Circle wizards.
That left only two, and he could see both of them standing by the gate. Both were clearly terrified. And one of them was Terellion. The moment he set eyes on him something within Harl told him that he was the leader of the Circle. He was the one who had started this nightmare. He was the one who would end it too when he died. Harl knew him even though he looked like a particularly ugly woman with long dark hair. Even though he was bent over double as if he'd been riding horses for far too long. Even though he looked to be only thirty years old.
And then the strangest thing happened. A fury standing behind Terellion suddenly pushed the wizard forward so that he fell almost at Harl's feet. She pushed the other one toward him too.
“My lord says you bring with you.” The snake haired chimera unexpectedly bowed to him and then turned and walked calmly away, and though he didn't understand any of it, he knew what she wanted him to do.
“Get back!”
The fool wizard yelled it at him as if his words should mean something but it would have been more convincing if blood hadn't been pouring out of his nose and ears. If he hadn't been lying on the floor helpless. But the blood was pouring, he was almost prone as he held his head in obvious pain, and the words didn't matter a damn. Harl was upon both of them before they could say anything else. Before they could do anything. And then with both of them secure in his grip, their shoulders somewhat crushed in his fists, he walked towards the gate itself. The nightmare from which they had unleashed their endless army.
It wasn't much he thought. Not something that should have destroyed the five kingdoms. Just a huge wooden box with a side missing. A gate that had been locked, but which wasn't a heartbeat later as he spoke the necessary spell.
“No!” Terellion let out a terrified shriek as he saw where he was walking and guessed what Harl had in mind. “You can't. I'm supposed to be a god!”
But the god was too slow and far too pathetic to stop him. Harl walked into the gate with his prisoners in hand and stepped through into the underworld, still with them in hand an instant later.
The other side was different to what Harl had thought it would be. Not that he had really thought much about it at all. But maybe that was because there were three or four more dead Circle wizards somewhere in it and the magic bursting free of their corpses was slowly ripping the demon realm apart.
The sky of Tartarus was black save for the orange fire that seemed to keep flying across it. The land was nothing but volcanoes and rivers of lava. If there had ever been grass or trees there weren't any more. There was rubble too. There had once been buildings here. But they were gone. No doubt torn apart by the violence of the realm's destruction. Only rubble remained.