Maybe it is ash.
Torsten caught one on the tip of his finger, feeling the nip of an icy breeze as his arm stretched behind the folds of his sleeve. He touched it to his tongue.
“Snow,” he said to Lucas, who was busy staring up at them as well.
Torsten wasn’t sure which was worse. At least ash was explainable. Nesilia’s followers did so like to burn things—Torsten’s own eyes could attest to that. Snow, however, made no natural sense in the heart of summer, not this far south. Panping was no stranger to magic and mysticism, causing the world to reject the nature Iam had designed for Pantego. Mystics would summon rainstorms over farms, strike enemies with bolts of lightning, erase winter entirely.
This felt different.
“That storm looks bad,” Lucas said, pointing east over a ridge.
“I don’t think it’s a storm,” Torsten replied. “At least, no storm like you and I would be familiar with.”
Toward the horizon, the clouds turned darker and darker still, until they were black as a crow, and swirling like a murder of them toward a converging point.
A vortex centered around Nesilia’s new seat of power, Torsten thought.
Yaolin City was still many leagues to the east. Still, the weather anomaly was spreading, slowly gobbling up the world Torsten knew. The grass was browning. Cherry trees amongst stark white stones, usually full and bright this time of year, had wilting flowers and leaves flaking away. Beyond that, the jungles looked starved. No animals roamed. Apart from what Torsten was now convinced were grimaurs, no birds soared. No people—Panpingese or otherwise—traveled roads that were typically rife with sojourners.
And the smell…
In blindness, Torsten’s other senses had grown more acute, and that was the strangest part. Smell was almost wholly absent.
“Should we check that inn?” Lucas asked. “Maybe they saw something.”
“If anyone is still alive to see,” Torsten said, then nodded. He gave his horse a kick, and they trotted farther into the bleakness to a quaint old cottage house set just a short walk from the Glass Road.
Their horses clopped toward a garden just west of it. “I know this place,” Torsten said. He couldn’t mask the pride in his voice, and he was sure his face showed it as well. “Sir Uriah and I stayed here on a trip east to meet with Governor Nantby. That was when King Liam installed the man into his position.”
“Was it always this quiet?” Lucas asked.
Torsten shook his head. “I’ve never cared much for fancy food, but the owner made a rabbit stew fit for any King.”
“Not better than my mum’s. Trust me.”
Torsten shot his ward a sidelong glare, wiping the smirk right off his face. He appreciated Lucas’ uncanny ability to stay chipper, but there was a time and place. Here, in a countryside cursed by darkness and silence, was neither.
As Torsten neared the inn, he recalled the aromatic outdoor garden set around a babbling, trickling waterfall stemming from a stream zigzagging through the stones. Spices he’d never even heard of had grown there in plenty. Now, his horse’s hooves cracked stale, frozen dirt. What was left of the plants were dead, and centered amongst them was an arrangement of corpses.
“By Iam,” Lucas said, covering his mouth.
Torsten brought the neck of his robes up over his nose. The stale air grew rank with the stink of death, radiating toward him in waves. These were not fresh bodies. They’d been laid in a circle, with more forming the shape of a triangle between them—the cultist symbol of the Buried Goddess.
There was no telling how long they’d been left to rot in the open air, but they were so decomposed, it was unclear how they’d died either. He could see straight to the bone, flies buzzing around them, worms feeding on their insides. He’d seen the horror of battles and not been so overwhelmed. Both the stench and the sight had tears welling in his eyes.
“Who could do this?” Lucas muttered.
A clatter from within the inn stole Torsten’s attention. A red-robed figure swept by a window. Unlike the trampled, rotting garden, the building itself appeared to be untouched. Nothing was destroyed; none of the paper walls torn. It merely seemed quiet.
“I think I saw someone,” Lucas said.
“Me too.” Torsten hitched his horse to the front porch and climbed down. Lucas followed him. As they edged closer to the entry, a blur of red moved again.
“Stay here and watch the horses,” Torsten ordered.
“What if there’s more than one of them?” Lucas asked.
“Come running. At times like this, Nesilia’s followers aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Two western mares would make quite a prize for bandits and leave us stranded a good way from the city.”
Torsten stopped just outside and fished behind his back, hands coming to rest on the grip of his claymore. “In the name of Iam and the Glass Kingdom, show yourself!” he hollered. His voice carried far, the only sound for miles in any direction. Nobody answered.
“I won’t ask again!” Torsten shouted.
Again, nothing. True to his word, Torsten kicked through the sliding entry door, drawing Salvation at the same time. When no attack came, he quickly scanned the room and found that the many undisturbed tables still had tankards of ale sitting on them. Tankards were lined up on the bar, half of them still full, and the rest clean and empty, like the bartender had vanished in mid-preparation of an order. Some seats even had bowls of stew set before them, only they were covered by flies and edged with mold.
All of it coalesced to form an odor worse than the desiccated remains outside. Torsten tried to fight it, but it overwhelmed his senses worse than any dungeon. He staggered toward a table, needing the sword to stab down into the wood floor to stay upright.
He gagged, somehow managing to keep the contents of his stomach down.
“Sir Unger, is everything all right?” Lucas asked, now at the door with his longsword drawn.
“I said watch the horses,” Torsten ordered, then continued onward.
A cackle from the kitchen behind the bar made him spin. It was followed by a small voice—a child’s voice.
Torsten held his breath and rushed for the swinging doorway. He couldn’t talk without the taste of the room lingering on his tongue, so instead, he gripped his sword tight and held it before him. Once inside, he spotted a red-robed Buried Goddess cultist beside a little Panpingese girl.
The man’s white mask was cracked in half, and on the exposed side, Torsten saw skin as white as the paper walls of the inn. Dark veins bulged around his eyes, which were entirely black, no whites to them at all, just dark and shiny like onyx from lid to lid.
“Step away from the girl!” Torsten demanded. He’d seen what these cultists were capable of and now, emboldened by Nesilia’s return, he could imagine no depth of evil to which they wouldn’t sink.
The man stirred a bubbling cauldron, laughing and whistling as he did. The young girl stood behind him, facing the wall. Her shoulders heaved as if she was crying and couldn’t bear to watch.
Torsten discovered why, fast. The body of a plump, middle-aged woman hung above the bubbling pot, strings holding her limbs at different, unnatural heights like a marionette. Blood dripped from her sliced throat into whatever they were cooking. All Torsten knew was that it was dark red, and it didn’t smell like rabbit.
“What unholiness is this?” Torsten demanded.
He pointed his blade at the cultist, keeping his feet spry and ready to pounce. The man’s hands wrapped a ladle, but he could have had a dagger hidden anywhere on his person, ready to practice the blood magic his perverse cult was known for.
“We’re preparing a gift for our Lady,” the man said. His voice was low, but resonant. The worst part was that he didn’t carry the Drav Crava accent—this man was of the Glass through-and-through. It sent a chill right up Torsten’s spine that wouldn’t relent. “When she arrives, she’ll be hungry.”
He laughed maniacally, then ladled
up a bit of the contents of the pot and let it spill back in. There were chunks amidst the deep red, and Torsten spotted what looked like a carrot, and though he knew its true identity was far more obscene, he couldn’t even bear to think it.
“Nesilia is coming here?” Torsten asked.
A nightmare grin appeared beneath the broken mask. “Everywhere. Nowhere.” He started to laugh even harder, unable to control himself. He released the ladle, covering his mouth with both hands, and backing up across the kitchen.
“Don’t you dare go near her!” Torsten said. He slowly sidestepped toward the girl, keeping his blade aimed at the man.
“Open your eyes, holy man,” the cultist spoke, as if purposefully trying to insult Torsten for his handicap.
“She’ll free you all from Iam,” the girl then said. Like the man, her voice seemed to carry with it an ethereal quality. Every word filled Torsten’s ears, echoing from all directions, and also from within.
She turned slowly, holding a bloody knife in both hands, and he realized that she wasn’t crying at all. Like the cultist, she laughed so hysterically that tears ran down her cheeks. And like him, her eyes were entirely black, veins spreading out across the skin surrounding them like spokes of a wheel.
Startled, Torsten stumbled back. His hip bumped the cauldron, and it wobbled once before the boiling liquid and chunks of meat sloshed across the floor, running against their feet. Neither the cultist nor the girl reacted to the heat, even as it ate through the skin of their feet and ankles. They merely looked down, then to each other, and started laughing harder.
“No more gift for her,” the cultist said, shrugging.
“You’ll pay for that, holy man,” the girl added.
She stepped toward him, raised her knife. Only the cultist’s eyes moved, watching with his head tilted to the side. More curious, it seemed, than anything.
“Don’t come any closer, demon,” Torsten growled, gripping Salvation tighter. However, he couldn’t bring himself to point it at the girl. He’d seen demonic possession before when mystics trifled with powers they shouldn’t have in the Third War of Panping. He knew, just as Sigrid was possessed by the goddess, this girl was inhabited by another being of Elsewhere.
“Won’t you kill me, Sir?” the little girl asked, affecting a pouty voice. “Won’t you free me from Her?”
“I said no closer!”
Of course, she didn’t listen. One small step after the other, she neared. Sweat poured down Torsten’s nape. His heart pounded, and he could almost feel it against his bones. Blood pumped like a water well behind his eyes, but he remained frozen, squeezing Salvation so tight his knuckles whitened.
“Please,” the girl whimpered. “Save me. Save me!” She threw her head back and raised her knife to her own throat. Torsten sprang to action, reflex taking over. He swatted with his blade. Blood spurted from the girl’s finger as he knocked the weapon away from her. The knife skidded across the floor, landing right by the cultist’s now seared feet.
The girl stared at her hand, quietly studying it. Then she laughed again and aimed the spray toward Torsten.
“You’re sick,” Torsten said. “The both of you.”
The cultist bent at the waist to pick up the knife.
“You can’t stop us,” the cultist said. “The Well of Wisdom is open. Elsewhere is empty.”
“We do as we want to here,” the girl added. “She promised. It’s our realm now.”
Torsten skirted slowly along the wall until his back was at the kitchen’s entry.
It was why they were there, he and Lucas. He wanted—needed—to see it for himself. The rumors spoke of it, but Torsten needed to know by his own injured eyes that the gates of Elsewhere had truly been battered down and its most rotten inhabitants unleashed upon their world, able to easily overtake the bodies and minds of the weak-willed.
Now he knew. Nesilia had done the unthinkable.
The possessed duo didn’t come after him, just turned only their heads, spines perfectly straight, watching him. He stepped back through the opening, and someone powerful wrapped an arm around his waist. He blocked a second arm by the wrist with the flat edge of his sword. The attacker wielded a fork and came a hair’s length from jabbing it into Torsten’s throat.
Torsten head-butted back, knocking the assailant away from him. Then, whipping around, he gutted the man with his sword. The Panpingese man’s all-black eyes expressed nothing as he dropped to his knees, cradling his innards. He didn’t scream. He didn’t feel.
The others in the kitchen still only watched. Torsten scrambled around the body, then felt a chill all over as the dying man’s neck wrenched back, and a nebulous form screeched out through his mouth. It swirled around Torsten once, its raving laughter piercing his very soul.
Torsten held his breath and plunged through, silently praying to Iam for protection over his body, his soul. He was strong. He knew he could resist. But as the demon spirit flowed around him, Torsten felt something he never had before. A pull, like he wasn’t in command of his own body.
He froze.
His heart stopped beating, or at least it felt that way.
He could feel Nesilia, her gaze on him like white-hot fire.
“Why resist?” she asked, her voice sultry and seductive like a whore in Valin’s Vineyard, each word hanging like the hiss of a slithering snake. Her confidence was undeniable. Her newfound comfort in their world, unmistakable.
Hope started to fade, replaced with doubt that clawed at the edge of his consciousness.
“The end is so near,” Nesilia went on. “The seat of Glass will shatter. Iam’s light will go out. Give in, Torsten…”
“You’ll have to kill me first,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Not even death will save you from me.”
“Sir Unger!” someone yelled, distant, but within reach.
It stung everywhere as a hand closed around Torsten’s wrist and yanked his body free. His fingernails felt like they were going to tear out, knuckles break; his lungs like they might shred from the inside. Torsten collapsed forward, leaving the demonic entity behind, knocking Lucas over and splitting a table. His knees hit the floorboards so hard the wood cracked. Salvation clanked nearby, but he’d never even felt it leave his fingertips.
Flipping over, pawing for his weapon as he backed away, Torsten watched the demon spirit rush across the room, spilling everything on the bar before bursting through a window. The others in the kitchen stopped watching and slowly approached Torsten.
Lucas returned to his feet and moved to shield Torsten. “Stay back!” He was young, but he’d seen enough battle for his age. It didn’t matter. His hands were trembling, and Torsten couldn’t blame him after what he’d just seen.
“Lucas.” Torsten coughed. “Lucas, we need to get out of here.”
“Listen to Her,” the cultist said.
“Why resist?” the young girl said.
Torsten found Salvation’s grip. As his fingers embraced it, he thought about charging the poor, possessed souls. He wanted to tear them limb from limb, but he’d learned this last year that sometimes fighting wasn’t the answer.
His people needed him, and he had no idea how to banish the demons. Dead bodies would only lead to them jumping to new bodies, an endless foe until all life on Pantego was expended. He needed to return to Dellbar and the priests. They’d know how to stop them—stop her—and if not, he prayed someone out there might.
“Go!” Torsten said, grabbing Lucas by the shoulder and shoving him back toward the inn’s exit. “We’ll send you all back to Elsewhere where you belong!” He hoped Nesilia could hear him. “Iam’s light will shine ever brighter.”
“Sir Unger, what are they?” Lucas asked. He gathered his balance and turned back for a fight.
“I said, go!” Torsten spun him on his way by, dragging him toward the exit.
“Run along, holy man,” the little girl yelled, unbridled mirth to her every word. The cultist guf
fawed right beside her.
Torsten burst back outside, pushing Lucas down the step ahead of him. As the young Shieldsman staggered, an empty wagon dragged by frenzied horses raced by and would have plowed right over him had Torsten not reacted quickly and pulled him back. Its rider was headless and slumped over.
Lucas was left breathless, gawking. Torsten turned left. Their own horses tugged at their hitches, and Torsten could hear the wood threatening to break. They screeched, fearful like he’d never heard before.
“T… T… Torsten,” Lucas stammered. Torsten looked to him. He no longer watched the wagon, but instead, stared south at the crest of a hill.
A cluster of Panpingese farmers stood atop it. They were far, but Torsten’s blessed vision allowed him to see the contrast in light and darkness, and their eyes were dark as midnight north of the Dragon’s Tail. They wielded anything they could find as weapons—sickles, shovels, rakes, hoes—anything, like they didn’t care or know what a proper weapon was.
And their mouths stay shut as if sealed. They simply stood and watched, wicked grins smeared across dirty faces. A woman wearing an elegant flowered kimono pushed through the throng toward the front of the horde. Blood stained the front of her clothes and all the way up her wrists and forearms. In one hand, she gripped a decapitated head by knotted hair. She tossed it and let it roll down the hill.
“Lucas, we’ve seen enough,” Torsten said, stroking his horse to calm her.
The young Shieldsman remained petrified.
“Lucas, let’s go!”
That got his attention. Lucas ran to his horse, and they both mounted. Torsten didn’t even take the time to untie either rope, just slashed them with his claymore. He smacked Lucas’s on the hindquarters, knowing the young man was too stunned to do it himself. He even grabbed the reins to help lead as they sped off.
“See you soon!” the little girl called out after them, now standing in the entrance of the inn. The cultist stood behind her, his hands resting upon her shoulders like a loving father.
The Nesilia's War Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set: Books 4-6) Page 115