The hut was a horrible collection of greasy rags and bowls, dead foliage collected for forgotten purposes, and faded pictures tacked up like signposts leading to mediocre fantasies. In the center of the room laid a man’s skeleton, arms tucked neatly at the sides, with brittle skin draped over it and wisps of hair clinging to the empty skull. Wodan bent down, looked into the eye sockets, and saw two pale raisins staring out from a bed of dry jerky.
It was the old man that Wodan and the other exiles had stayed the night with. It could be the cruel animal trainer that Miss Oliver had told him about, who had raised the mysterious black-and-white bears. Wodan studied the room and found a poster that advertised a brutal circus where a monstrous lizard boy could be seen fighting dogs and roosters. Money for spectacle, blood for entertainment. It was a wonder to him that so much suffering could have fit between four close walls. There was no sign of struggle. Ultimately, the man had been so pathetic that the demons never even bothered to kill him.
Wodan left and saw that a Reaver had followed him. “Burn this place,” said Wodan. “Burn it to the ground.”
* * *
A ghoul crouched in the dank undergrowth, unmindful of a spider weaving a web from its face to the side of a tree. Hours passed as the creature sat in darkness. Eventually the ghoul heard heavy footfalls upturning fallen leaves, then stood so it could be seen. It watched with dull, empty eyes. Other ghouls stood and stared as well, acting as signposts for the troop of reinforcements marching in the night. They sometimes urinated on themselves but otherwise they were as still as stone.
Reptilian flesh demons lurched through the forest in an uneven line. They were the sons of Serpens Rex, the lizard creature killed by Wodan. Five or six dozen marched past with heavy footfalls, each as powerful as his father, some taller, some stooped, others bulkier, a few bearing tufts of red feathers at their shoulders or neck, but all had dead, empty eyes, long rows of sharp, uneven teeth, and heavy hands covered in green scales as hard as steel. They would act as stormtroopers for Zamael’s army of ghouls, mindless, hateful automatons dedicated to destruction.
Three of the flesh demons were different from the others. One was short and thin, with dull blue scales and bulbous green eyes that stuck out from its slender head. It was a stalker, and was capable of creeping through dry brush without a sound, and could stretch its throat and mimic the sounds of birds and insects.
The second unique demon was just as strong as any reptilian stormtrooper, but it had no color of its own. When it walked in shadow, its scales turned dark, as black as coal. When it passed by a tree trunk lit by the moon, it quickly shifted into gray. When it passed by a cluster of open flowers drinking in the night mist, individual scales along its legs and waist turned purple and orange. The colors raced along its body, then it shifted into black once more. Its senses were not as keen as the blue stalker, but no senses were keen enough to catch this one if it did not want to be caught.
The lizard who brought up the end of the line was a great monster two heads taller than any man. Its scales shone brilliant red in the moonlight. Its face was horrid and fierce, with piercing black eyes and a mouth so full of fangs that it could not be closed entirely. Ghastly black growths mimicked a mane or crown. A knobby tail helped it walk upright, and two massive hands hung low at its sides. It was a warrior, a destroyer capable of crushing bones and rending flesh.
While the reptilian storm troopers marched ahead, the red demon stopped and stared at one of the ghouls, which it dwarfed. The demon picked up the muscular, diseased ghoul by its torso and held it aloft like a child. The tongue shivered in its bed of teeth and the black eyes stared as the demon tried to comprehend the nature of the thing. The ghoul was not of its blood, and the demon greatly desired to bite into the ghoul’s face, tear the mask free, and see what lay behind the face. The demon was young, but it had access to memories of hundreds of thousands of killings, perhaps millions. Opening the ghoul and letting the insides spill out was the only way to understand the other.
And yet the invisible leash in its mind told it that it must not kill the ghoul. It made little sense; anything that was not of the demon’s blood should be attacked in a frenzy and rendered into nothing. The demon sniffed at the ghoul’s neck. The ghoul only stared, breathing slowly, watching with black eyes of its own.
How could the ghoul be not of its blood, but still not an enemy?
Finally, the demon released its grip and let the ghoul drop to the forest floor. The ghoul fell, stumbled, then resumed standing once more. The demon shook its head and continued on. He could not understand, but the leash that held him back was proof enough that this holy, ritualized war made for strange bedfellows.
* * *
Thirty-Nine Years Ago
Months passed as Didi and Childriss worked in secret. Not only had they gone beyond the technical understanding of their peers, but they had ranged far, far beyond the ethical limitations of the common man. Anyone who found out about the room without rabbits could have placed the pair in a prison, if not an insane asylum. Many nights passed as Childriss lived on Didi’s couch while Didi sat over his computer. They never entered the DoS together; Childriss often took a longer route and incinerated their latest specimen before Didi arrived at his station. While their teammates complained about their duties, Didi and Childriss sleep-walked past them, easily achieving notoriety while the majority of their energy was focused on an unspeakable work.
One night, Childriss drifted into the room without rabbits for a while, then returned to the room where Didi worked. Childriss stared at the row of chilled blood samples, all labeled with the name of the same man, a common laborer.
“Aaron Heimdall,” said Childriss, reading the labels on the blood. “Named after an apprentice to a high priest. Named after a god who fathered the race of man.”
Didi hummed, remembering some bits of mythology that Childriss had rambled on about.
“It is only too bad that the cells themselves are old,” said Didi. “They are too advanced in their progress towards death. Anything made from them is old even when new.”
“Yes, yes,” said Childriss, returning the sample. “Difficult to make life when entropy is knocking at the door.”
“If only we could gain access to the archives of the Makers of Mothers...”
“All in good time,” Childriss mused quietly. He laid back on the couch, then said, “Looks like we’re going into the wasteland.”
“It’s official?” said Didi, stopping suddenly. He turned, but saw that Childriss was not checking his electronic mail.
“Ah! Who cares what stage the official paperwork is in? It will happen. It is happening. I can feel it.”
Didi smiled. “How did you do it?”
“Oh, a word in an ear here... a screaming tirade there... you’d be surprised how easy it is to get things done.”
Didi returned to his work. “Now if only you could get the engineers to construct a better gene editor, my friend.”
Childriss pursed his lips. “I can spin the idea of going into the wasteland a thousand different ways. Even the military can be drawn in with little effort. Nobody has to know the truth – that we need room to let our creations move about, and breathe clean air. But an advanced tool for gene editing? No, Didi, such a tool can only be used for one thing. The Head of the DoS has no stomach for something like that. He’s content to let the current model collect dust.”
Didi sat back and rubbed his eyes, then said, “We lose too much time working with a handful of samples at a time in the hope that a few of them will turn out as we planned. The editor is so slow, so imprecise...”
“And when we have room out in the wasteland, we can birth a thousand critters and watch their development. They’ll all be programmed to grow quickly, so we can watch the survivors at our leisure. Until the flesh demons come calling, that is. Which, according to the old records we have, they always do.”
Didi sighed and turned about in his chair. He faced the room wi
thout rabbits. “A prime opportunity,” he said. “We’ll have the amount of room we need to dispose of the failures and observe the survivors. We’ll be able to take samples from the fittest, bring them back here, and leave the others to be… phased out… however the wasteland should choose.”
Childriss nodded. They both stood silently and entered the dark room, the room without rabbits. A small generator hummed nearby. The far wall held a row of warm amniotic vats, modified versions of Maker designs. In the center of the room, on top of a long table, laid a row of airtight plastic bags. Each held the body of a stiff, pale, humanoid form. Each dead thing had strangely colored skin and strangely colored eyes; genetic tweaks, markers of the inhuman, markers of individuality so that one could be easily distinguished from another.
Something stirred in a cage in the corner. Didi turned and saw the survivor looking at them. Hard orange eyes, skin pale and smooth. Small head out of proportion. The thing hunched over, then felt about before attempting to stand before its creators.
“It’s growing terribly fast,” Childriss whispered.
“We made him to do so.”
“I’ll have to prepare some intelligence tests for the next generation.”
“Why not for this sample?”
Childriss paused. “We’ll be… leaving for the wasteland soon. We can’t take this one with us. And we surely cannot leave him here.”
“Ah...”
Childriss looked away, then said, “I wonder, is it murder if you created it in the first place?”
“Of course not!” Didi said with uncharacteristic harshness. “We’ll strychnine his milk before we leave.”
“You want to do it?”
Didi paused, then said, “I do not think I could stomach that.”
Childriss laughed.
“It’s just a physiological response,” said Didi. “Nothing more.”
Chapter Eight
Impossible to Control
Khan Wodan set out with Freyja, Nilem, and Jarl the Entertainer, and took only Yarek and his Reavers to act as guards, and a few dogs of Magog as palanquin-carriers and scouts. By the time they set out, the mines were a hive of activity. Men went in and out of the mines hauling glittering wealth and black coal to forges where ironsmiths pounded their hammers over great fires. The tribe of Magog ran in and out of the forest, hauling limp animals with tongues lolling out to women and dogwomen who stripped the bodies and cooked giant vats of soup.
Wodan left Zach in charge of the mines and the northern camp. “Get me weapons, Zach,” Wodan had said to him. “I need swords, I need spears, I need arrows tipped with iron.”
Wodan feared for him, and not only because his small force of Hargis refugee-soldiers would not be enough to protect him if Magog turned feral. Zach accepted his position without hesitation.
“I’ll make one practice sword, Wodi - only one - and then I’ll make a sword just for you. I’ll call it Usurper. When the demons finally come, you can use it to take what you will from them.”
Wodan said nothing, but only nodded. There had been something hard and distant about Zach ever since Wodan had ordered that the tunnel leading into the deep be sealed shut. Wodan wanted territory, wealth, safety – in short, a home. He did not know what Zach wanted. He only hoped that Zach could retain control long enough for everyone to be armed for war against the demons… and before the dogmen realized that the valley was being turned into a nation where they would most likely be seen as second-class citizens.
As they traveled by the path trampled down by Magog, Freyja could see that Wodan was preoccupied. He spoke little, but often looked toward the east. Freyja could think of nothing to draw him out. She turned to Jarl because she knew that he had some history with Wodan, and was always lurking about recording his deeds when he thought Wodan was not aware. Unfortunately, Jarl was worthless today; he had found his way onto the palanquin early in the day, and slept with his arms laid out and knees poking in the air, which was a great annoyance to Nilem.
That night, just when Freyja wondered if they would ever stop and make camp, Wodan brightened suddenly. A fire hung over the trees in the distance. They drew near and saw a tall, narrow wooden tower, little more than a heavy scaffold with a crow’s nest at the top. The clearing was full of men and dogmen playing cards, and a few gunmen at the top of the tower waved and called out. Freyja recalled Wodan talking to wood cutters and laborers during their trip to the mines, leaving them behind with orders to build towers and fires, signals that would light the way between the fort and the mines.
“Good work!” said Wodan, beaming as he entered the clearing. “Someday there’ll be watchtowers all over this valley. Waypoints and rest stops along the king’s road.”
“Yessir!” said an old laborer, laughing as he slapped a thick wooden beam.
“Beacons for monsters,” snorted Nilem, not-quite to herself. “Genius idea.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Wodan, turning to her. “We’ll have to draw out all the monsters, sooner or later.”
That night, while they ate dinner, Wodan was hounded by a long line of dogmen who showed him the heads of ghouls or animals that they’d slain. Freyja drifted off with her head against Jarl’s shoulder, which moved continually as he recorded the events. Over and over, the Khan awarded new names to the young dogmen as they told their tales. She wondered how he had the endurance for the seemingly endless ritual after they’d traveled all day.
She woke once in the night and saw nearly everyone asleep on their bedrolls, huddled near the fires. Wodan stood at the edge of the camp, perfectly still, the wolfskin cloak shifting gently in the breeze. He stared into the darkness in the east. Freyja began to wonder if Wodan was on the verge of leaving them, but he never moved.
* * *
The next day, Freyja sat on her palanquin whittling her red bow when Wodan drew up beside her.
“Let’s hear your story, Freyja,” he said.
“There’s really nothing to tell,” said Freyja, but Jarl immediately whipped up from his sleeping position.
“Watch it!” said a dogman, glaring up at the Entertainer as the palanquin wobbled. Jarl ignored them, blinking heavily as he drew a sheaf of paper and readied his pen.
“You’ve got an audience!” said Wodan, smiling at her.
“I – I can’t talk under pressure like this!” said Freyja, gripping her small carving knife.
Jarl immediately laid back down.
“Everyone lives under awful pressure,” said Wodan. He reached up and shook Jarl’s foot to wake him once more. “When we reach the fort, we may be too busy to see much of one another. Come on. Let’s have your story.”
Nilem sighed, feigning disinterest. She lowered herself from the palanquin and kept her distance.
“Fine,” said Freyja. “But it’s nothing to gawk at. There’s not much to it.”
The Story of Freyja
Freyja was born into a noble house in Hargis. Her father was patriarch of a long line of noblemen who were in charge of making pipes used for plumbing. She learned how to read at a very young age, how to dance in the balls held by her house and other noble houses, and despite the counsel of her sisters she even competed in sports until social conventions clouded her mind.
At the age of eight her mother made a batch of cookies of very fine make, each frosted with a little piece of artwork on top. Her brothers ate several. When Freyja went to eat a second cookie, her mother asked, “Are you sure you want another one?” She explained to Wodan that this was the first instance when her mother, in her thoughtless kindness, planted the idea that Freyja should watch her weight in order to be a viable marriage partner with another noble house. From that point on, Freyja understood why her sisters no longer ate the cookies of their mother with any sort of joy.
At the age of ten Freyja beat a noble-blooded boy at a game of Shoot-Ball, a game which requires great endurance and speed. Her mother was furious, her father wrote a letter of apology to the boy’s family, and Freyj
a only understood later that their hopes of marrying her into the boy’s house had been ruined.
At the age of eleven Freyja developed her first crush on a boy. He was athletic, handsome, and of semi-noble birth. But Freyja was very shy, and was more comfortable with her books and her painting, and so she honored him by creating secret stories about him as a hero. She never spoke to him at any of their balls and he was never presented to her by another.
At the age of fifteen Freyja fell in love with a boy who worked at the butchery yards. She went to see him nearly every day, and had to wade through pools of blood and intestines in order to do so. She sat beside the boy in cold rooms made of iron, but felt only warmth by his side. He had an incredible chin and took great joy in showing her how to bleed and gut and clean a pig before sending it on to a carver. Through careful planning, Freyja nearly had him set up for an encounter in which she would lose her virginity to him, but her father found out about their friendship and forbid her to see him. Talks were had between noble families and the boy was moved to work at another place. Freyja swore that she would murder her father.
At the age of sixteen Freyja was officially courted by a simpering, sweet boy of a noble house. By some stroke of luck the family was charged with disloyalty to the house of Hargis and the courtship was broken off before she could legally be raped by the boy. However, her sadness at the loss of her true love, the butcher, finally caught up with her and she locked herself in her room. She wrung out tears all day long, and even seriously thought of suicide. Her father noted the symptoms of morbid hysteria and had her sent to an asylum for the insane where, somehow, she was supposed to “get better” while surrounded by screaming maniacs who bashed their heads against the bars of their cages and masturbated openly. She saw one inmate bite off the ear of an orderly, and saw a doctor break one inmate’s legs in order to cure him of nightmares. Freyja understood the seriousness of her situation and learned how to fake a smile so that her father would take her home once again.
Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series) Page 10