by S T Branton
The goddess’ vision blurred for a moment, doubled, and grayed out. Her quick steps faltered as the blood poured unabated from the open gash in her limb. She hadn’t had time to tend to it before her flight from the charred and bloodied battlefield. The smell of carnage still lingered in her sensitive nostrils, already haunting her senses. She squeezed her eyes shut, and again, she stumbled. Her jaw scraped along the half-frozen ground.
Another wound. Another failure.
The heart perched inside her ribs pounded desperately, attempting to correct for all the things it knew were wrong within her system. The blood was a river now, trailing black in the silver moonlight behind her. She could not go on much longer without doing something about it. Even if she wanted to—which she did—Bastas’ grievously damaged body would not let her.
The only refuge she found was beneath the barren boughs of a tree. The wet stormwind still cut her to the bone. The shaggy dark coat which she had always loved so well offered little protection to her on this night. It had not saved her from the edge of the fiery blade, and it would not shield her from the elements’ wrath.
She collapsed at the base of the wide, gnarled trunk. Her leg throbbed in time with her panicked heart. The fur was matted red, and instead of soothing, the touch of her tongue intensified the agony. The goddess felt her grip on the leopard soul slipping in a way it never had before. She moaned softly to herself, the closest approximation to a keening wail that she could muster.
Everything fell apart, collapsing into dust and sand. This was the world for which she had waited so long.
The color began to bleed from the night, turning velvet blue into shades of flat gray. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Bastas found herself half in and half out of her beloved animal form, heaving draughts of the crisp, cold air. Each breath brought her a little further back from the edge. She counted them in her head. One. Two. Three.
Four. The shadows were blue and purple again. Five. The blood on the ground was red. Six. The blue-purple shadows were moving.
She blinked. Moving? That wasn’t right. She had purposely gone off to the most desolate reaches of the woods to be alone and have time to recover. No one had permission to see her this way, disheveled and scraping herself off death’s doorstep.
But indeed, someone had come.
She didn’t recognize him at first. The word was that he had become elusive and that his machinations worked far beneath the levels of even the other Forgotten. Bastas had never believed it. He was an Apprenti and an orphaned one at that. No fool bound to a dead master carried that kind of power.
Even if he did move cloaked in shadow.
“Good evening, Lady Bastas.” His voice was silky smooth and unassuming on the surface, as it had always been. It rippled with something else now too, an undercurrent of darkness that made him sound richer and stronger.
The goddess’ golden eyes widened in their sockets. She forgot the persistent dizziness in her head and the weakness engulfing her body.
It was Delano, but it couldn’t be. The metamorphosis he had undergone made him tower over her, shrouded in swirling black mist and his face a lean, angular moon in its midst. He watched her with those pale, expressionless orbs, waiting for a response. Over his shoulders, huge furled wings rested dormant on his back.
Bastas refused to show the fear that lapped bitterly at the back of her throat. She sneered from her place on the ground. “I see the Apprenti has been busy now that his god has fallen. What have you done to mutilate yourself so?”
Delano’s thin lips curled into a smile, and he laughed. The sound of it gripped her in an unshakeable chill. “Irreverent to the end, Lady Bastas.” He sighed. “I had hoped it might not come to this, that you might succeed in your every endeavor and we could rule as equals, more or less. I had a faith in you that I did not have in the others. Alas.” He stroked her hair. “You are no more worthy, in the end. You too have failed me.”
The words cut deeper than the sword into her flesh. “Listen to you,” she hissed. “An abomination speaking as a god.” She moved to turn her head away from him. “Some of us will never forget where you were born, Delano. In the gutter, with the trash of a hundred others before you.”
His hand tightened on her hair. She clenched her teeth. Delano forced her to turn and meet his gaze. “My birth is of no consequence,” he said softly. “The new generation of gods are not born, darling. They are made.”
Bastas’s head rocked backward, the movement beyond her control. The wind ripped across her cheeks. She opened her eyes and stared at the slivers of night-blue sky through the naked branches of her last bastion.
The goddess barely felt the Apprenti’s teeth puncture the skin of her neck.
She barely felt anything as the sky bled slowly to white.
Author Notes
Written November 18, 2018
Dear Readers,
I’m sitting here on the couch with Mrs. Raymond.
The lights are off, the fire is roaring, and we’re both sipping on mint tea. It really is the perfect end to a weekend after running the daughter to rehearsals (Elf, Jr. musical), taking the boy ice skating, and raking six tons of leaves.
It’s also the perfect breather because I stare Thanksgiving in the face and tremble with fear.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Turkey Day and all of its accoutrements. But we do it at the in-laws (who are great), and we’ve added a few more bodies and a couple of dogs to the invite list, which is going to make it a super-packed house… and I’m kind of an introvert in disguise.
Guess I’ll just have to hide in the bathroom and write some stories. Might be a good writer’s retreat!
Okay, speaking of Thanksgiving, I’ve gotta say, I’m in a damned grateful mood. There’s a lot of blessings to count. Family. Health. Daily sustenance. My writing partner. You know, the usual stuff.
But since Lee and I are coming up on an anniversary of writing together, I find myself more and more thankful for you, the readers.
Seriously. Can you imagine how cool it is to make up stories and have people read them WAY faster than you can write them? Well, take my word. It’s a freaking blast, and we are truly, truly grateful.
Also, there are the folks that make up team ST Branton. There’s a lot of moving parts, but one of the most important parts is the JIT (Just in Time) Readers. These are folks that will blow through our book in the matter of a day or two. They catch typos that our editor missed, offer some comments on form and content, and most importantly, they grab some ridiculous continuity errors.
Listen, we all know Lee and I aren’t writing technothrillers. In fact, we are kind of firearm idiots. We don’t know at what speed the bullet-slug-bit is travelling when it comes out of the end of the gun-nose-thingy. See what I mean?
This is usually not an issue. We’re pretty good with magic and maces.
Unfortunately, for us, there were firearms in this one.
Fortunately, for us (and you), we have some JITers who know more about guns than I know about breathing. Looks like he’s saved our gun-ignorant butts more than once.
Anyway. Our readers are great. Our Team is great. Life is good!
On to book seven...
For Kronin,
Chris (for Lee and Team Branton)
Haunted By The Gods
The Forgotten Gods Series Book 7
Prologue
The girl with the pink ribbon had been warned not to go into the forest alone. As she ran, she could hear her mother’s voice, full of loving concern, filling her ears with words of caution. Her voice spoke of darkness, of monsters, and of shadows that moved on their own. She thought those were simply old wives’ tales meant to scare babies, not big kids like her.
Until now.
She could barely hear anything over the sound of the wild drum of her heartbeat in her ears and her own frantic footsteps as she crashed through the brush, but the child didn’t dare slow down. She knew it was there behind her and probably gained ground with each passing
second. She thought she heard it breathing.
The taste of fear was bitter on the back of her tongue. She was so focused on flight that she barely noticed the dark, gnarled branches that snatched at her face and left scratches on her arms, legs, and cheeks. One branch caught the end of her pink ribbon and almost ripped it from her hair. The girl yelped in protest. She struggled to free herself, but the ribbon went taut in her hands, hopelessly entangled.
She couldn’t leave it behind. Her mother’s hands had woven it into her hair after breakfast that morning. “My little princess,” Mama had said.
The girl glanced over her shoulder and back down the path of tangled undergrowth. Nothing stood out, but the thing had to be there somewhere, still hunting. Her little heartbeat went into overdrive in her chest. Her every instinct told her to abandon the ribbon and run as fast and as far as her body allowed. If she escaped, she’d be hopelessly lost, but being lost was better than being caught.
The pink ribbon frayed from her desperate tugs. She set her feet in the underbrush and yanked with her whole body. The more she tried, the tighter the knot became. The air weighed heavily around her. Was it darker now too?
A sharp snap brought her attention to the now slack pink strip in her hands. For a moment, her heart sank at the sight of the damaged ribbon, but her disappointment was quickly replaced by relief. Now that the bow was broken, she was free to escape. Guilt welled in the back of her mind, but she could resolve it later.
She spun and fled deeper into the forest, where the sunlight didn’t seem to reach. The trees arched over the narrow passage and their boughs twisted like long, clawed hands locked together. Out of the corner of her eye, they seemed to move—not sway with the breeze but deliberately reach toward her. Behind the mask of branches, knotted faces set with deep, dark eyes grinned maliciously.
A lump grew in the girl’s throat. She pushed it down and willed herself not to cry. Already, the breath ran short in her lungs. She couldn’t afford to waste it sobbing. Still, a few stubborn tears blurred her vision and almost leaked out. She lifted an arm to brush them away and didn’t see the root that jutted from the soil directly in front of her foot. She barely even felt herself trip. All she knew was that suddenly, she sprawled forward and landed hard.
Pain radiated from her ankle but it was dulled by an immediate rush of panic as the girl realized she had stopped her frantic run. She rolled onto her back, and her gaze searched the dimness for a sign of her pursuer. Shadowy tree trunks rose around her, and she knew for sure they were moving now. She could see them shift position and trudge closer to where she lay prone. The movement made the ground tremble—or maybe that was simply her imagination.
The girl choked back more tears and kicked her good foot to scoot herself back along the dirt. Her ankle felt hot, and it throbbed in time with the side of her face that had struck the ground. She was smeared with dirt and leaves, and her once neat hair was now a mess of tangled curls.
Mama would be so upset. But being in trouble was better than being caught, even if it was big trouble.
That was what she thought when the hulking shadow obscured her field of view. Slowly, cold with terror, the girl whose pink ribbon had been lost to the trees turned her petrified gaze upward. The creature she beheld at that moment was almost beyond her comprehension. It had a wild and grizzled, fur-covered appearance, and its wolfish features shielded bronze eyes that gleamed in the shadows. Patches of gray and white stood out along the muzzle. It stood on two feet like a man. That part, she didn’t understand.
The shock gave her enough time to notice the fangs in its mouth. Her senses returned, and she began to scream.
Chapter One
The early winter sun shone brightly, but its warmth did nothing to thaw my numb face and hands. The frozen earth drained my body heat as I lay on my stomach in the grass at the top of our lookout knoll. Dan, our resident military expert, held a position on my right. Luis, reformed small-time gang member extraordinaire, had taken point slightly ahead of us. We peered over the edge of the rise at the scene sprawled below. A group of soldiers about ten strong had huddled all their shit around them as a protective barrier. From my vantage point, I saw a wagon, a couple of beat-up Humvees, and a horse cart minus the horse.
Their protection was nothing fancy, but these guys clearly understood that any barrier was better than none. My interest, though, focused on the boxes in the center of their makeshift hold. A fort like ours could use the large, roomy storage crates.
I glanced at Dan and he nodded.
Luis shot us a look over his shoulder. His trusty rifle was strapped to his back, and he reached tentatively for it. His eyes waited for a signal from either one of us. The problem was that he was in front, which meant he called the shots. The three of us and the group that waited quietly at our backs currently followed him on his first mission.
“Now?” Luis mouthed. He’d given up on the subtle plea for help. As one, Dan and I both shrugged. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the cluster of guards around the boxes. With a small frown, he studied them for any obvious weaknesses. I clearly saw an opening at the back of their formation, and I knew Dan had noticed it too. But we kept our mouths shut. The kid had to learn. If things went bad, we could salvage it.
Luis took a deep breath and shook his head from side to side. He held his right hand up in a fist, which quickly sprouted two fingers, and finally morphed into a single forward point. “Now or never,” he said out loud and lowered his head to speak into the walkie-talkie secured to his shoulder. “Go.”
Down below, a swarm of friendlies emerged into the open and engaged the enemy on the front side. As I’d hoped, Luis took our contingent around to infiltrate the back while half the guards were otherwise engaged. We stuck to an army crawl for as long as possible and slithered through the frosty grass.
“Up!” Luis commanded. We sprang to our feet and hit the ground running. I drew the pistol at my hip. It felt weird and oddly wrong not to have the Gladius Solis right there, but I felt that to wield a god-weapon might undermine Luis’s authority a little. Besides, we all knew it was overkill against presumably human opponents. Plus, I had the hilt tucked safely away on the other side of my belt, just in case.
Our bull-rush into the guards at the rear tumbled them like bowling pins. Rather than fire his gun outright, Luis used it as a bludgeon, a much quieter strategy I approved of. Maintaining stealth under these circumstances demonstrated that he had thought ahead and analyzed our best options. I flipped my pistol and head-whipped the nearest guard. He crumpled into a pile, and I moved on. Business as usual.
“Get to the crates!” Luis called. A second enemy appeared in front of me, and I struck him in the face. My concentration was on those boxes. Everything else was a subroutine and nothing I hadn’t done a hundred times before.
Then I saw something new. The center crate, larger than the others, shifted. The side facing me fell open to reveal a masked figure dressed in black. In an instant, I stared down the barrel of a gun.
“Well, well,” a voice said from behind the mask. The words were low and menacing. “Time’s up, hero. You walked right into death.”
I lowered my stance instinctively. The muscles in my core coiled and tightened to propel me the hell out of harm’s way. But before I could react, the masked man pulled the trigger.
A gasp of air rushed into my lungs at the moment of impact. My only thought was, Damn, that hurts. I looked down as a bloom of red burst across my chest and spread so fast that it was hard to tell where it had started, except for the pain.
“Shit!” I shouted. “I’m hit!” That was not how I’d expected my day to go.
Dan swiveled toward the sound of my voice, his eyes wide. “Vic, no!” He charged toward me.
I dropped to my knees. “You’re too late, Dan.”
He slid beside me as I collapsed. Some of the scarlet liquid dripped onto the ground.
“No!” Dan grasped me around the torso and l
ifted me gently into his lap. “Stay with me, Vic. You can make it.”
I coughed as my hand fumbled toward him. “Tell Luis…this is his fault.” My head rolled to the side, and I exhaled a final breath.
“Vic? Vic! No.” Dan laid me back onto the grass, clenched his fists and lifted them toward the sky, and screamed, “Why?” at the top of his lungs. The sound echoed through the open area. He pointed his finger at the man in the mask. “You!”
The masked man’s laugh started out sinister. “Not so tough without that sword, are you?” he asked. Dan held his defiant position, and after a beat of silence, the bad guy busted out into real, genuine laughter. He pulled his mask off. “Sorry! I’m sorry. This dude cracks my ass up.”
Dan’s face immediately eased into the familiar gregarious grin. He stood and held a hand out to help me up. “I took drama in high school and college, and…uh, obviously, I missed my calling.”
I dusted myself off and winced as my hands brushed over the scarlet paint stain on the front of my vest. “That’s definitely gonna leave a mark.” I wouldn’t say it out loud, but the paintballs packed way more of a punch than I had expected. My left boob was not happy.
“That’s my bad,” Deacon said apologetically. “I didn’t want to fire on you at such close range, but I was too swept up in the plot. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The point was to make it as realistic as possible so Luis can learn. Speaking of…”
I turned as the kid jogged toward me. He took one look at my chest and grinned.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” I told him. “But remember, I’m a member of your squad whom you lost on this mission, and that might change things dramatically for the rest of the team.”
He grew solemn. “Right. I gotta work on keeping tabs on all my guys. Or, you know, girls.”