The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

  "So," Blays said. "Plan?"

  "Cut it open." Dante dropped back, standing shoulder to shoulder with Blays. "And hope you're right."

  The first Star-Eater bunched its legs and flung itself at them, crossing twenty feet in a single bound. It slammed down and raked at Dante with its long black claws. The monster was much smaller than the swamp dragon had been, but the fact it stood upright—twelve feet if it was an inch—made it feel horrifically large. And while he'd fought a far bigger one at the Reborn Shrine, he hadn't dueled it. The urge to break and run was almost overpowering.

  Dante skipped back, the claws flashing past him and gouging into the rock in front of him. His sandal came down on a patch of iron slick with rain. His foot flew out from beneath him, dumping him onto the metal.

  His shoulders hit first, his head snapping back. Light flashed across his eyes. A shadow hung over him, filling the sky; a white sun blared within it. The darkness reached for him. Purple lightning lashed out, cutting across the shadows.

  The demon's scream jarred Dante's mind back into action. He was lying on his back and Blays had just struck the demon—and saved Dante's life. Wisps of shadow fizzled away from the Star-Eater's finger, which was now just a stump.

  Dante grinned. Blays' sword had actually hurt it. Presumably, as Blays had deduced, because it was churning with trace-nether, the same raw substance the Andrac was made from. While it existed in the real world as a kind of ghostly projection, impervious to steel, attacking it with a trace was in effect attacking it with something from its own realm. Or like when Blays fought them within the shadows, where they could be hurt.

  To left and right, Naran and Volo were in full retreat. The Odo Sein followed, but gave the two Andrac a wide berth. Volo was somehow firing her bow on the run, searching for a weak point in the knights' armor, keeping control of her footing even as her sandals skidded over rock and iron. There were a few archers on top of the hillock trying to take shots at Naran and Volo, but they were overcompensating in their efforts to avoid hitting the knights, their arrows arcing past.

  The demon's hand had already stopped leaking shadows. Unbound by whatever ability the Odo Sein were using to lock the nether in place, the demon's traces reformed its severed finger and claw. Blays rushed the creature. It clawed at him and he spun to the side, raking both swords down its arm. Nether gouted from the wounds like inky blood.

  Dante reached for it, but before he could try to take hold, the second demon lunged at Blays from the side. Dante charged and slashed into the second Andrac's leg. It spun on him and swung its claws down at his head. Dante thrust up his nethereal blade, holding it at a 45-degree angle to intercept across as wide a space as possible.

  The claws came down on the sword with a sound like a hammer smacking an ingot. The blade held, but something snapped in Dante's wrist. Pain shot up to his elbow. His sword fell from his grasp and landed with a clang. He bent to pick it up, but the Andrac was slashing at him with its other hand. Dante twisted himself under its claws and backpedaled three steps. The Andrac crouched over the sword as if claiming it, then grinned at him and whirled on Blays.

  "Behind you!" Dante yelled.

  At that moment, Blays was jabbing and slashing at the other Star-Eater with both swords, whipping them around so fast the demon was actually falling back a step, its mouth closed in a glowing white line. Now, Blays spun about, flicking his wrist to send his sword skidding into the other Andrac's claws.

  Parrying the blow, he sidestepped to avoid the first demon's attack at his turned back. It was almost as if he could feel the demons' every move. And maybe he could—maybe there was a ripple in the nether, some subtle hint—but watching him parry and counter the attacks of two demons at once, Dante thought he had simply been born to fight.

  "Take cold comfort!" Gladdic called from above. "When you die, your souls will mingle to form a new Andrac to fight for me."

  The archers had quit firing. A glance their way showed the cause: Gladdic and a pair of soldiers had murdered them with a long lance and a stout blade. Standing over their corpses, as well as those of the servants the knights had killed earlier, he turned away from the battle and swung his hands together. Gathering the traces. A third demon unfurled, shrieking in joy.

  Dante's wrist throbbed. Possibly broken. He watched helplessly, casting about for nether that wouldn't budge from its crevices in the earth. The Star-Eaters were attacking Blays more cautiously now, exposing no more than their claws. Blays was too busy keeping himself alive to risk a sustained attack that might wound one of them again.

  All the demons had to do was bide their time and wait for him to make a mistake.

  Blays retreated a step, then a second. As the demon who'd disarmed Dante followed Blays, it left Dante's sword alone on the rock. Dante rushed up to grab it. The demon who'd disarmed him spun about, backhanding its claws at his head and forcing him back.

  "Now!" Dante screamed. "Draw its blood!"

  Blays, momentarily alone with the other Star-Eater, pressed hard, blades pinging against its blocking claws. He jerked forward, pressing toward its center. It deflected him, then fell back a step to give its partner the opportunity to rejoin it. As it moved its weight back, it left its left leg extended forward for balance.

  Blays collapsed as if struck. He whipped his right wrist downward, slamming his blade into the top of the demon's exposed foot. Shadows spurted to either side.

  Dante snapped at them like a striking snake. Unlike every drop of nether in the valley, the shadows bleeding from the Andrac responded to his call—because they were traces, immune to the Odo Sein's oppression.

  Great coils of darkness wrapped around his forearms. He hurled some of the nether downhill, into the backs of the knights who were still chasing Volo and Naran across the hellish terrain. Others he pressed to his ribs and wrist. His pain numbed, then vanished altogether.

  The demon guarding his sword hissed like crackling fire and charged at him. Still pulling nether from the wounded Andrac, Dante thrust up the rock beneath his lost blade, popping it into the air and spinning toward him. Blays might have caught it out of midair, but Dante let it fall beside him.

  The wounded demon was staggering, falling in on itself. Blays hacked at its body with both blades. Dante wrenched out another handful of shadows and plunged them into the ground beneath the Star-Eater charging him, yanking the rock away. The demon tripped into the hole. Dante lunged forward, skewering its arm as it grasped for a hold.

  Its nether coursed from the wound. Dante took it and shaped it into black bolts, slinging a salvo uphill toward Gladdic. There, the priest had already crafted another demon from the dead archers. He gestured frantically, calling a third from the traces left by the murdered servants. The three Andrac crossed their arms over their faces and waded into the incoming shadows. Dark tufts sprayed from their bodies. They swatted at any bolt that tried to slip past them, hands fraying into dark clouds that were already starting to reform.

  A single bolt made it through, speeding toward Gladdic. The priest threw his right hand in front of his face. The nether sliced through his wrist, his tan hand bouncing once against the iron ground.

  Gladdic lifted his stump to his eyes. His mouth fell open. As Dante reached for another round of nether, the demon in the pit hauled its way out, swinging its weakened arm at him. Dante batted the claws aside with his sword and swept away the stone and iron beneath the demon a second time. As it fell, unbalanced, he brought his sword down on its head.

  At the top of the hillock, Gladdic was dashing toward the massive iron hexagon, his sodden robes flapping around him. He touched it with a rod-like object in his left hand. A blue flash seared through the air, far brighter than any flaming star.

  "You wouldn't let me stop it?" Gladdic's voice shook with hysteria. "Then you can be the first to die!"

  Cracks shot across the hexagon. The iron groaned and scraped. Gladdic ran behind the monument. Dante fired a dozen bolts after him, but unable to see
his target or sense him in the nether, there was almost no chance of hitting Gladdic.

  The demon Blays had wounded collapsed into vapor beneath his swords. Blays ran toward Dante, cleaving into the trapped Andrac's back as Dante chopped at its arms and head. It dimmed, the wall of the pit visible behind its translucent body, then broke apart in a spray of shadows. Whatever was left of the traces absorbed into the white rock.

  At the top of the rise, the three Star-Eaters turned away from Dante and toward the collapsing iron hexagon. Great slabs of metal fell from its sides, banging down like the pots and pans of a giant too drunk to cook. Below, the five surviving Odo Sein had quit chasing after Naran and Volo and were now staring uphill in perfect stillness.

  "What are we all looking at?" Blays said.

  "Clearly, everyone's disturbed by Gladdic's senseless act of petty vandalism." Dante flinched as an entire side of the hexagon fell outward and hammered to the ground. "I have the bad feeling there's something inside there."

  He twisted and made a broad "come here" gesture to Naran and Volo. Eyeing the motionless and possibly stunned Odo Sein, the two of them moved laterally across the hillside, further separating themselves from the knights, then trekked uphill. This, at last, spurred the Odo Sein into action. But rather than chasing the man and the girl, they appeared to be jogging to join the Andrac.

  With a final dying groan, the ceiling of the hexagon collapsed on itself. A white spar of bone thrust into the air. With a bloom of pulverized iron dust, a towering figure stalked from the wreckage of the monument, spear in hand.

  A prickling sensation shot through Dante's sword hand so hard he had to glance at it to make sure it hadn't turned into a writhing mass of ants. In the metal rubble, a gauzy nimbus of light obscured anything more than the man's outline. Though he didn't quite rival the Andrac, he stood taller than any norren, with the build of an axeman or a blacksmith. Long strips of pale cloth fluttered from his forearms.

  The light sank into his body, revealing the details of his being. His skin was blue-white and semi-translucent, glowing like sunlight through ice. His face was beardless and weathered in the way of snow that had melted, refrozen, and been scoured by winds. He looked incredibly old—really, he looked dead—but at the same time he seemed vibrant, ageless, less of a mortal being and more of a natural force.

  His eyes were an unsteady state of blue, shifting from light powder to steel blue and then to something as dark as the ocean under full sunlight. His hair was white, curling around his face. His expression was blank like a lion's. Dante could feel great surges of sorcery within him, barely tamped down by the power of the Odo Sein.

  The being glanced at the demons, then downhill. Coming under his gaze was like being struck by a thrown brick.

  "Er," Blays said. "Who the fuck is that?"

  27

  The man from the hexagon swiveled his head to face the closest Andrac. He spoke in a voice that sounded like it was coming from inside a copper still. The language was nothing that Dante had ever heard. Other than his mouth, the man's face didn't move at all.

  The Andrac twisted its mouth into a sneer, flexed its claws, and charged. The man lowered his weapon and dropped into a fighting stance. Rather than a traditional spear, he bore something like a glaive, with a sword-like blade fixed to the end of a straight pole. Rather than metal, it seemed to be carved from the same stone they were standing on—or, perhaps, from bone.

  The blade collided with the demon's claws in a storm of black and white sparks. The blue-white giant twirled his wrists, snapping the blade clear and driving it forward. It dug deep into the Andrac's shoulder, sending the demon back with a squealing hiss.

  The other two Star-Eaters planted their feet and sprung toward their foe.

  Blays let his swords droop until their tips were nearly scraping the ground. "If the tremendously frightening looking fellow is fighting our enemies, then surely that makes him our friend, right?"

  Dante's mouth had gone completely dry. "Not sure we can count on that."

  Sandals scuffed up the slope. Naran and Volo ran up to join them. Both showed a few scrapes, but no major wounds.

  Naran's face was beaded with sweat and rain. "Should I bother to ask what is happening?"

  Blays frowned at him. "Never seen a trapped giant maniac do battle with three nether-demons before?"

  Atop the mound, the man twirled and jabbed, the strips of cloth on his arms snapping with each block and strike. On the hillside, the five Odo Sein broke into a dirge-like chant. It felt like a song of their own deaths, but their voices were composed and determined, even joyous or perhaps spiritual, as if they were finally being put to the use they had dedicated their lives to.

  The pressure in Dante's head was slightly weaker, but still very much present. "Gladdic's not far. This would seem like a very good time to pursue him."

  "Right," Blays said. "And then might I suggest running away? Ideally somewhere very far from here?"

  Dante sheathed his sword and ran along the circumference of the hillock. Above them, the titans tore at each other. One of the Andrac was already leaking shadows from several deep wounds. The man had suffered a single claw-rake. His skin seemed to be seeping a glowing white fluid. The Odo Sein joined the battle, but beneath the towering demons and the statue-like man in white, their hulking armor looked as puny as children using sticks to play-fight in the yard.

  Dante swung around the back side of the hill. Gladdic was already halfway across the bowl, stumbling along on the wet rock. After they'd gotten a hundred yards toward the far rim, the priest turned around, spotted them, and pushed his pace faster.

  Even so, they were gaining. They'd catch him soon after cresting the ridge. And with the sign of his blood pulsing in Dante's brow, he'd have nowhere to hide.

  Dante glanced over his shoulder. One of the Star-Eaters and at least one of the Odo Sein were nowhere to be seen. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the blue-white man looked to be fine. His glaive now showed pale blue markings along the shaft that glowed with inner light. They might have been runes, probably the same ones that had been on the hexagon, but Dante was too far away to be sure.

  They neared a fold filled with red water. As Dante splashed through, the surface surged to his left and right. Half a dozen of the ghostly white people emerged, their eyes filled with a sick and angry yearning. They jumped to their feet and sprinted after Dante and the others, obliging them to draw their weapons and turn around. The enemy fought ferociously, but with no coordination. The nethereal blades put them down in moments.

  The four of them ran on after Gladdic. More of the water-people were arising from pockets of water from around the entire valley. Most were streaming toward the center, faces pulled tight with a focus that looked almost religious in power. They hurtled forward with heedless disregard for their own bodies, slipping on the wet rock and metal, leaving bloody footprints that were soon washed away by the rain.

  Others diverted course to come at Dante and the others, forcing them to stop again, find favorable footing, and defend themselves. None of the people said a single word. As the nether-wrapped blades cut through them, rather than pain or terror, their faces warped in anguished frustration.

  Few of the pale beings were arising near the fringes of the circular valley and Gladdic appeared untroubled by them. Dante wasn't certain, but they seemed to be losing ground on the priest. Swearing under his breath, he glanced back at the small hill where the hexagon had stood. His eyes bulged.

  Blays twisted around for a look. "Tell me the Andrac are charging off to fight an invisible foe. Because if they're actually running away, then I am officially terrified."

  The demons' backs were turned to the ice-like man as they fled from the mound, trails of shadows streaming behind them. There was no sign of the Odo Sein except perhaps for some of the red splashed around on the rock. The man planted his long glaive and watched the demons retreat. The next time Dante glanced back, the man had turned to stare at them.<
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  "We should run faster," Dante said. "If you can't run faster, start thinking of ways to beg for your life."

  Five more of the water-people plunged through the bony posts, stopping them in their tracks. Faced with the Odo Sein blades, the attackers weren't much of a threat, but by the time Blays sent the last of them thudding to the ground, Gladdic had slipped over the ridge.

  The man from the hexagon was on the move, too. He didn't look to be hurrying, yet he sped over the ground as if it were being pulled along beneath him.

  "He's coming for us," Dante said. "We have about a minute to find good ground and make the most of it."

  Blays pointed to a long platform of rock elevated from the earth around it by a few inches on one side and two feet on the other. It looked to be the best they'd find. They jumped up on it, Blays heading straight for the puddle of blood-red water near its center and swishing his sword around in it to make sure it wasn't harboring any of the undrowned people.

  The blue-white man had reached the bottom of the hillock and was now bounding up the slope with a wolfish combination of speed and tirelessness. Streams of water-people were dashing after him with looks of yearning chiseled into their faces, but despite their haste, the giant quickly left them behind.

  Dante called out to the nether. With the death of the Odo Sein, he'd thought it would be released, but it remained stuck fast. Was the Odo Sein's power something they carried passively in their flesh, with no need to actively exert it? Were there others lurking out of sight nearby? Or was the whole Wound somehow cut off from the flow of shadow and glow of light that existed in every other corner of the world?

  He looked to the ether, but it too was held in place. He moved beside Blays and drew his sword.

  The giant man slowed to his equivalent of a jog. He stopped thirty feet away from their shelf of rock. It didn't feel nearly far enough; with one leap and a thrust of his glaive, he could be among them.