by Steve Vera
“My lady,” he said with a bow and then winked out of existence.
“I will know it when I see it,” the Druid responded and returned his attention to the thick parchment pages of the book he was studying, tapping the soft leather cover with his finger.
Something told Amanda that it had something to do with Donovan. She pivoted again and began another circuit.
How was Donovan doing anyway, fighting for his life against Olympians from another world? And for what? Glory? What he should be doing was watching Gavin’s back; Amanda would feel a hundred times better if they were together. A crazy thought? Probably, but like it or not, they worked well together. Those nights in the Pass of Almitra was all the proof needed.
And...Donovan always won.
* * *
Donovan stood victoriously over his latest victim. The cheating, piece of shit, won’t-be-doing-that-again-anytime-soon motherfucker Beady-eyes was laying in a broken heap of fractured bones and internal hemorrhaging. At Donovan’s feet.
The desire to continue his carnage was seductive, to at least kick out the rest of his teeth, but Donovan dismissed it. It wasn’t worth getting disqualified from the Platinum Games and that was what it was all about. All of this chaff he’d been slogging through was merely a warm-up.
In the Platinum Games, it was to the death. That was where godhood was achieved.
“Victor!” the white-robed, black-cuffed judge yelled, and a hundred thousand voices swept down on him. This would do for now.
In a ringing, underwater haze, Donovan strode back toward the portcullis door he’d emerged from, his door, and returned to his lair.
Chapter 45
The coldness between camps had yet to thaw. Which was bad. Especially since they were going to have to play nice. In the near distance, no more than fifteen miles away over rocky scrubland and the occasional stunted tree, the Pyron Mountain Range loomed. Above their jagged peaks, darkness, not to be confused with storm clouds or anything of the natural world, brewed and hung like a pall over the sharp precipices. Huge, yes, but after the World Ridge, nothing was really that big.
The Wizard De’mond brought his horse alongside Gavin’s for the first time in the whole trek and looked out toward the mountains with him. His thin, angular nose sniffed the air. “I have never before come across such malodor,” he remarked. Senator Merevus and Roland had grounded their gryphons and were now land-bound like the rest of them.
“What you smell is the reek of the Underworld,” Gavin said softly. A single whiff of the acrid, otherworldly fume conjured a legion of memories Gavin had hoped never to relive. It was all he could do not to gag. “The gate has been opened.”
Centurion Tremar came alongside Gavin’s other flank, and for a moment the three leaders surveyed the task before them.
“I see now why you wanted more men,” Tremar said. “Are we too late?”
“No.” Liar! “Right now they are gathering, under the cover of darkness. Though the Overlord’s magic protects them from the sun, they will be disoriented. Disorganized.”
At least that was the theory.
De’mond contributed nothing more while fidgeting with his ninth ring, the one on his right thumb. The one with the ruby.
“Do you have authority to speak for your men, De’mond?” Gavin asked the Wizard.
“Of course,” the man answered without looking. His dead gray eyes were fixated on the darkness spewing from the mountains. “I am the ranking Wizard.”
“And you, Centurion?”
“Aye. The senator has yielded military matters to me.”
“Good. With your permission—” somewhere in the back of his head he heard Jack yacking, “—I would like to address your men.”
“Of course,” Tremar answered immediately.
De’mond made him wait a moment longer. “You may.”
With a grunt and a nod Gavin turned his horse around so that he was facing both leaders, and all of the horsemen. “Champions of Theia,” he boomed through the constant rumble of thunder pouring out of the mountains. “What we do this day will resonate in the halls of memory, will be written and told by generations to come. Whoever you were before this moment, whatever enmity you nurture toward one another...banish it.” He lifted his chin and looked backward, toward the ominous darkness thickening the sky.
The sound of wings.
The nightmare was coming true; the door to the Underworld had opened and God help him how he took satisfaction in the inescapable look of supernatural fear that washed over all of their faces.
As Jack would say—I tole you madafackas.
“The only victories we ever attained in the first war were those when we fought as one. On every other occasion those unable to do so perished. Look with your own eyes at the storm that threatens every soul of this world. The doors of the Underworld have been flung open and only we few stand between them and everything we have ever loved!”
A charred breeze blew past him as if summoned by his words, and all eyes swept forward. Tension coiled above them like the very darkness above the Pale Gate.
“This moment is what separates hero from coward, victor from loser. Should we fail this day, should the spawn of the Underworld prevail against us it is not mere destruction that we face—the Drynn come not to rape and pillage but to feed! They will pen our women and children like cattle, fatten them, devour them at their leisure and everything you’ve ever known will perish. Forever.”
Another lonely gust blew through the assembled horsemen. Sharp eyes peered from behind nasal bars and open visors.
Gavin took out his sleeping Quaranai, held it in front of them and laid the inert silver blade on his exposed palm. “I swear on my blood in front of this army that for the duration of this war, both Vambrace—” he forced his nausea back down into his stomach, “—and Nu’rome are my allies and brothers in arms.”
Ouch time.
With an even slide of the blade he slit the flesh of his palm open, sheathed his blade and then held his bloody hand before them. The blood dribbled not onto the ground, but into his other hand, where it changed to crimson light and swirled softly within his palm like a mist in a crystal ball. He handed it to Tremar.
Tremar immediately accepted the Oathsphere, took out a no-nonsense dagger and did the same. His palm bled as freely as Gavin’s and poured into the slowly churning light, deepening its hue. De’mond stared at the both of them for a long moment. Every eye was riveted on them, from the Senator and Sorcerer behind them to all three bands of horsemen in front of them, Valis, Nu’rome and Vambrace.
“Very well,” De’mond said in a dispassionate voice, his dead eyes locked like twin sidewinder missiles on Gavin’s stare. He did a subtle flick of his right shoulder and a single-edged dagger dropped into his hand. He let his stony eyes linger on Gavin’s a second longer before he pulled the blade across his palm and separated the flesh. Bright blood welled out of the wound. He then accepted the Oathsphere from Tremar...and poured his blood into it.
Gavin tried to keep his relief and shock inaudible, but there was a stirring among the men, among his own ranks.
Sir Taksony.
“Let it never be said that the Knights of the Southern March stood idle as the war for the world began.” His horse nickered as he approached the trio, golden hair streaming over his gleaming chain-mail armor. He rested his old-fashioned Templar-style great helm on his horse’s saddle and then pulled out his new engraved, beautifully decorated dagger from a sheath—a gift from the Pass of Almitra—and rested the pale metal against his hand. Gavin could almost hear the hiss as it opened up his skin, and then his blood dripped into the Oathsphere as well.
When all the blood had been mingled the sphere was so deeply crimson as to appear purple, though there was an occasional glint of scarlet through it, depending
on how the wan light of the day hit it. It then floated back to Gavin’s outstretched hand and hovered a moment before him. With his right hand he seized it and closed it in his fist.
There was a flash, a flare of heat in his bleeding palm and then silence. Each leader opened his hand and where once there was a wound now was a crimson scar that reflected light like a rune. Should any of the four break their oath the rune would turn black, and the one who broke his oath would lose his hand forever.
Gavin looked back at the assembled horsemen. “From this moment on we are the Second Army of Light.”
* * *
“I believe I found it,” Dwensolt said, sitting up in his chair.
“Found what?” Amanda asked and dropped the pastry from her hand into her plate. She’d given up on pacing and switched to good old-fashioned food therapy.
“What’s up?” Skip asked quietly, pulling up a seat beside them. Not one to spook easily, Skip had had a run-in with a shadow without a body on his way back from the Colosseum. He wouldn’t go into detail, but suffice it to say, he was a little rattled. He hadn’t gone out since.
Dwensolt leaned closer to his book, this one a monster thousand-pager held together precariously by fraying cords of faded silk, and mouthed words only he could read. A tome of the Elverai, she was told.
When Dwensolt was through reading he chewed his bottom lip and shook his head not in dissent but in...disbelief. “Why I chose not to begin with the Elves is a testament to my decline.”
“Dwensolt,” Amanda said and put her hand on his arm. “What did you find?”
“Listen.” He smoothed the page, which crinkled like dry leaves. “‘At the end of days will come a man, and his name will not be known. As splendorous as the sun, as fearsome as the night. Chill of voice and fell of deed, no magic can he know. Behold the Antimage. Which way will he go?’”
Amanda’s scalp was tingling by Dwensolt’s last word.
“And I thought Donovan was creepy enough,” Skip said. He fiddled with his bottom lip.
“Is not Donovan his name?” Pyrk asked. He’d commandeered his own place on the table, wings pumping slowly.
“Nope,” Skip said. His eyes were turned inward, glazed and unfocused. “He was given that name by the city of Santa Monica. I saw the file myself.”
That’s right, Donovan was John Doe.
“Explain,” Dwensolt said. After Skip was through, all the four of them could do was stare at each other, the same sense of dread filling them equally.
“End of days, huh?” Skip asked. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
Amanda slumped in her chair and pushed her plate away.
She didn’t either.
Chapter 46
This is just an ambush waiting to happen.
They had no cover, couldn’t use magic because it would give them away and couldn’t go faster than a trot because of the treacherous nature of the footing. Gavin wasn’t the only one with misgivings. Both the Centurion Tremar and Lord Penrod (the captain of the Vambracian Knights) continuously darted their eyes at the sky and then the ground.
Nobody said a word.
At only five miles back they saw their first suggestions of shapes within the darkness, illuminated by the flashing of unnatural lightning. The scent of boiled intestines and decomposing mushrooms had grown, climbing from scent to stench. It was just a matter of time now. In the silence, the clops of their horses’ hooves sounded loud enough to wake the dead. They echoed, even on the ground.
The plan was simple. Asmodeous theoretically should be molting in the Underworld. He couldn’t do it on the surface. All they had to do was shut the gate and he’d be trapped inside. Just as in the first war, the only way to cross between Overworld and Underworld was to have someone on each side coordinating with the other, and that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen over here once they burned the Pale Gate to cinders. Without an opening on each side...the Drynn would be trapped once again in the bowels of the Underworld.
Where they belonged.
A half mile up they came across the carcass of the Chimera, the indestructible guardian left to the guard the Pale Gate. It was the Collector who dismounted first, dead eyes alive for the first time as he kneeled to investigate the pieces of the corpse.
“You didn’t actually think the Chimera would prevail, did you?” Tarsidion asked him.
The Collector responded with a sullen, angry glare.
“I believe he may have thought that the Chimera would prevail,” Tarsidion informed Gavin.
“I believe you’re right,” Gavin answered. “You remember the plan, Centurion Tremar?”
“Aye, Sur Stavengre, my men will be ready.” He cast a questioning glance at De’mond and the rest of Vambrace.
“Worry not about us, Centurion, we will tread the plan laid,” the Wizard said finally, looking up from the corpse. Something cold moved inside those eyes and for the first time Gavin really missed having Donovan around. Whatever De’mond was planning, Donovan would sniff out. And then handle it. The irony was leaving marks on his brain.
Gavin waited for De’mond to remount and then spurred his nervous horse forward.
Four miles and closing.
* * *
An Olympian with a gold medal was a demi-god. Donovan couldn’t go anywhere without people wanting to buy him drinks or point or gawk. In fact, a trio of minotaurs, who he had no fucking idea what they were saying, actually tried to talk him into going onto their Queen Hatshepsut-looking barge to celebrate his recent victory. He took a pass. Although their auras were different than humans, they were similar enough for Donovan to get the gist, and to him, they seemed like a bunch of pirates who wanted to steal his shit.
So he dimmed his colors and dropped off the grid, prowling the city incognito and popping up occasionally to establish his impact on the Ancient City’s psyche.
Once given his gold medal, Donovan was accorded his own spectator box, along with the other gold medalists during the Olympics; now they were the nobility. As it should be.
For two days he watched chariot racing, which was stupid, jousting—one-on-one as well as ten-on-ten—which was entertaining, long jump, discus throw, simulated battles of antiquity, all the while being pampered by gorgeous slaves who wanted nothing more than to go down on him. He allowed that.
But he was not yet fulfilled. The seventh day couldn’t come quick enough.
His right knee bounced continuously in anticipation.
* * *
“Look there,” Tremar whispered.
Two pairs of black devil wings rode the currents of the sky.
“Behold, the Drynn,” Tarsidion murmured from behind. His rich, meaty voice carried loud enough for all to hear.
A sense of dread and awe rolled over the company and in an unspoken command they halted. An irresistible urge to flee butterflied across Gavin’s bladder as it always did before battle with the Drynn.
A cold, lonely wind blew through their ranks.
“De’mond,” Gavin said in a clear, calm voice. “Form ranks behind me, two rows. Tremar, sling your lances and draw bows, left and right flank.”
“Aye, Sur Stavengre,” Tremar responded immediately, tearing his eyes off the flying Drynn to bark his orders. “Lancearii Sagittarii! Flanks left and right!”
With the precision of men who’d drilled a thousand times, the Nu’romian riders turned their horses in synchronization that would have done the Chinese opening Olympic Ceremonies proud.
The devils in the air banked and flew back toward the darkness. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were only a few and they were running back to protect their lord?
That would be nice. Of course, Drynn never ran.
As if to make his point, the darkness ahead of them parted like the Red Sea and
within its depths Gavin’s worst nightmares were finally revealed. Seventeen years later, spanning two different worlds and realities, there they were. A gasp went up from the company.
There were thousands of them.
“By all the gods,” Lord Penrod of the Vambracian Knights murmured in awe.
“Dammit De’mond, form ranks,” Gavin said between his teeth while he stared transfixed on the scourge now approaching. “And we shall now see the quality of your Warmages. Split them, five on each flank, and protect the archers at all costs. The sky must first be cleared.”
De’mond finally nodded to Penrod, who managed to pull his eyes away from the horde that now poured into the plain before the mountain like a radioactive plague. Land and air. The ground shuddered.
“Vambrace! Form ranks!” Penrod roared, though his voice seemed to be swallowed by the vastness of space around them.
Not to be showed up by the horsemanship of Nu’rome, the Knights of Vambrace demonstrated their own skills and in moments two rows of fifty scarlet-caped, fully armored gleaming knights stood behind, lances skywards, pennants fluttering bravely.
The Warmages split as Gavin had said and now formed a crescent in front of each flank of sixteen sagittarii. Although similar, the Warmages were distinguished from their kindred knights by their maroon-colored robes over armor that was an elaborate combination of chain and plate mail, with long swords protruding from their hilts. Gavin had been curious about those blades. And instead of helms their faces disappeared into the deep shadows of their hooded cloaks.
They looked the part, now could they play the part?
Even from a mile away they could hear the Drynn, a sound that no other creature on either world made—deep, bestial and cavernous. Hundreds of the Flyborne—the caste of the winged ones—filled the sky and swept forward toward them.
“Spearhead,” Gavin said, and immediately Tarsidion, Cirena, Noah, Taksony, Arnaut and Aluvion proceeded to the front of the files and took their place, Shardyn in the middle, Southern boys flanking. Their two newly acquired magical lances from the Passage of Almitra poured dim golden light off tips made of the strongest substance on Theia—Shardsteele. It was the same metal their Quaranais were composed of.