Górgometh followed the instructions of his creator precisely. In less than a quarter of an hour, he had flown over many Clans containing hundreds of Wild Men and Women, killing some and turning others into demons, and set fire to the forests in other areas to speed the destruction of Devnóngaron. This was the first stage of the plan to paint the green and blue world grey and black. Black, like the color of cinders. Grey, like the mountain of corpses that would pile one on top of another after his passage.
Górgometh landed in the middle of the Lands of El Malush. Red wyverns, together with thousands of birds and hundreds of land animals, fled at top speed. Górgometh, in his eternal malice, was not prepared to let them get away so easily. With various spells and flashes from his eyes like embers, he brought down the flying animals while those who were running became the victims of his toxic breath. They were turned into demons or melted amid the utmost suffering.
With his jaws open, Górgometh wrapped himself in an incandescent fire. After this, his body turned to mist and began to spread like a cloud. The toxic mist made any structure it touched burst into fire at once, its fiercely aggressive flames revealing that the fire was directed with abundant hatred.
Mórgomiel was smiling amid the chaos, feeding on the death and suffering his firstborn was causing. Every time an animal suffocated to death in the smoke, he smiled. Every time a Wild One was touched by the flames and set on fire, he rejoiced at the moment. Every time a human was turned into a demon after being bitten by one of his creatures, he cheered. His favorite moment was when Górgometh would torture a mere being with his mental tricks.
“Come to me, Borkai, my fearsome chimera,” Mórgomiel called. “Come and see how I make your people suffer, how I make your beloved Mother howl as I destroy everything you ever held dear. Come here, Borkai, and defend these miserable lands you once called home. Come to me.” He smiled evilly.
“Paladin, are you ready?” he asked.
His servant, fully able to travel through the many worlds, answered, Ready to trick the chimera, milord.
On the ground appeared an incandescent violet vortex and from it slowly emerged the chimera with fury in his eyes. The creature’s body had matured, and in the process had turned loathsome. Now his body was bloated like that of a dead animal after weeks of decomposition. And like that dead animal, from the pores of Borkai’s skin came a green ichor that dripped on the ground. His eyes were rubies that shone with intensity while his claws had grown and his legs were now fleshy and muscular.
“Mother! Mother! Mother!” was all Borkai could howl since in the process of his search for the pieces of Mórgomiel’s armor, he had lost the capacity for speech and he could only utter that word. His voice was changed, sounding as if it came from some other dimension, and it faded away in broken echoes.
Borkai attacked with all his fury. But Mórgomiel put a spell on him at once. From his hands flowed black energy that lifted the beast into the air, where it kicked in futile attempts to free itself.
Paladin! The time has come. Now!
Paladin appeared out of nowhere, a tall and powerful demon in silver armor and a helmet that covered his entire face and head.
“Today, I will put an end to you, Borkai. You have turned into a valuable chimera with the powers of the Oracle, Malakai’s wrath, and two of my pieces. Anyone who possesses my essence will soon end up consumed by the force of its malice. Paladin will go on to become part of your accursed mixture of souls and essences. Thus you will possess three of my pieces and will be my powerful servant and slave as well as an ally in the control of the plague that has invaded my world. You will help me to destroy the humans.”
Paladin walked toward Borkai, allowing the chimera to attack him. When they made contact, the impetuous beast and Paladin began to melt together into a mass of wrathful energy. The fusion was brief. It improved Borkai’s morphology considerably since he now took on the figure of Paladin, a brave knight with gigantic limbs—although he was still full of sulfurous anger and green ichor was still oozing of his pores.
A magnificent creation, Argbralius said to Mórgomiel. The best you’ve created so far. Bravo! I hope that from now on you’ll realize how much I bring to the conquest of the universe. Don’t you think I’m the right choice when it comes to understanding humans, seeing that I’ve been one myself?
Paladin began to increase in size until he was four strides tall, the height of a medium-sized tree. His armor was silver and in one hand, he carried a long double-bladed ax while in the other, he carried a powerful shield, so heavy that if it were dropped on top of a house it could crush it with its weight. From the grid protecting his eyes you could see the red-eyed gaze of the beast and from the slit covering what would be its mouth there poured toxic smoke. Paladin was the most powerful soldier after Górgometh in Mórgomiel’s army, and although he knew that his creation had required him to give up three of the pieces of his armor, the benefits of a soldier of this kind had hardly yet been seen. What better than a chimera that included his opponent Balthazar the powerful shaman and mighty leader of the Good and the Oracle of the Morelia Abyss?
“Paladin,” Mórgomiel called proudly. “Now with the essences of Balthazar and the oracle, you understand and know where our enemies are. Go and wreak havoc. Defend our patrimony, portals, and land. Go! Spread terror! Let it be known among the humans that the wrong enemy has been angered and that this is the day their sorrows begin!”
Paladin said nothing but emitted a powerful croak as somebody enraged, and from his breath billowed a toxic cloud of caustic smoke. He set off and wherever he passed, he summoned the dead with a wave of his hands as if he were a puppet-master. Like puppets, the corpses became animated now that they were occupied by a demon and so it was that a horde of walking corpses began to gather, a horde which would attack the rest of the world and set it on fire.
Górgometh rose with a strong thrust of his wings, heading toward the next destination to be annihilated.
Chapter XL — Traps
Karolina could not believe it. Leandro had never behaved like this. What on earth was going on? That face was not like him. It was compressed by intense emotions, unease, and hopelessness all mingled together in a dreadful mess of incomprehensible expressions. Something was wrong and she knew it, she sensed it, but he had acted so fast, so hurriedly, that all she could do was obey.
“Leandro,” she said in her confusion. It was late at night and their children were asleep. She did not want to wake them, although a part of her would have liked her sons to take a look at their father to see if they too felt that something was wrong. She had never seen that look in her husband before. He was very troubled. But even when the stress had been at its worst, when death had almost claimed him, Leandro had always behaved calmly. What could have happened to him?
He was pacing in front of the window that looked out onto the city. They were staying in one of the towers of the palace where they had stayed a little over a year before after the Battle of Háztatlon.
“You must go to your aunt and uncle, out Ébanor way; it’s a remote enough village where trouble won’t reach you. Háztatlon is about to fall and you’ve seen that with your own eyes. They tried to murder me and they almost succeeded. Now they’ll come with the strength of numbers and the only way of stopping them will be by moving to the Portal of the Worlds where those bastards will be coming from.”
Karolina stared at her husband incredulously. He had not even kissed her before trying to bed her. Of course, she had stopped him, telling him it was not the right moment. He knew that without foreplay there would never be sex. Was he in such a hurry that he wanted to fuck just like that? Without warming up either bodies or minds?
He had also not uttered one single word of affection. Leandro was usually sweet and loving; even if their children were asleep he would go and kiss them and wish them sweet dreams. No, something was definitely wrong. Could it be the recent assassination attempt? He did not even seem to be uncomfortable wit
h the wound he had received, nor did he complain about any pain.
She sought answers. “How do you know they’ll come? What signs, what information have you seen that’s caused you to make such a drastic decision?”
“When I was wounded and the healers were working on me, I had a horrible dream. The planet was in flames and the survivors were enslaved or made into meat to feed Mórgomiel’s army. Don’t you see? Getting away is the only solution. The God of Chaos is the most powerful of the Gods and he’s coming to claim the land we’ve taken from him. This planet belongs to him, and he’s going to come with everything he has. There’s no way out! When I told the mages my dream, they told me they’d come to the conclusion that evil is preparing to assault the Portal we’ve been using to recruit soldiers from other worlds. Our only chance is to march to the Portal as soon as possible and flood the armies that cross it.”
“Which mages?”
“The bloody mages!”
“Which one of them?” Karolina demanded. She knew them all, every single one of them. There were ten of them who did nothing, but they were amusing. As she was the general’s wife, she knew nearly all the civil servants in the Empire, particularly the military ones. There was Sendar, who had gone to Maggrath; Elgahar, who was on who knew which world; Ulfbar, who had retired with Meromérila to the Old World; and a handful of fat layabouts who had stayed in the city with no desire to take part in its defense.
“One of those fat ones, for goodness’ sake. I don’t even remember his name. White beard and blue hat.”
“My love, they all have white bards and blue hats. The only one without a beard is Sendar and he’s gone.”
“What does it matter, woman!” he yelled. “The point is that I’ve spoken to them! Who cares who it was I spoke to?”
Karolina shivered. She could smell a lie. Something was wrong, very wrong indeed.
The candlelight lit her husband’s face. Half of it was amber, the other half hidden by shadow.
The general turned to look outside. His gaze probed the infinite as if he could see some connection between the far distance and space beyond the stars. Leandro had never turned his gaze from her so often, as though ignoring her. He had always been someone who focused his eagle gaze on a person when he was speaking to them.
“I’m sending you away in a hurry so that you won’t suffer. I’ll make my way to the Portal in two weeks and meet up with the other armies. It’ll be the greatest attack ever seen in this world. We might not win, but we’ll cause massive damage to the enemy.”
Karolina’s eyes filled with tears. Her husband was talking about dying in the battle in a cold, cruel way. She remembered when they were in Kathanas when the evil army was moving forward against the rock towers. Even there, he had remained calm and they had made love before he left. His affection had never been turned aside by military problems. This was something else. It was impossible.
“The carriage is ready. They’re waiting for you. Come on, there’s no time to lose.”
Leandro woke the children up and his haste made them cry.
“I want mommy!” they both sobbed. Nana Bromelia came to help Karolina and helped to soothe the boys and even Nana found Leandro’s behavior unusual for him.
When they got to the carriage that was waiting for them in front of the Imperial Palace, they found another one full of guards who would keep an eye on them during the journey. The soldiers had their helmets on. They looked threatening, dangerous, and unfriendly.
“Ride until you reach Ébanor and don’t stop for anything,” he told the guards as he said goodbye to his loved ones. “If my wife or my sons are hurt in any way, it’ll be your heads that’ll be decorating the guardposts.”
Everything happened too fast. Before Karolina could even take his face between her hands, the horses had shot out toward the southeast. She began to cry, unable to believe that her husband had gotten rid of her just like that. The last thing she saw was Leandro standing there with a torch in his hand and she was not sure whether he was smiling or not.
***
Karolina tried to soothe her children, who were in a very bad mood because their sleep had been interrupted. They were close to their four springs of age, but they still needed a regular schedule. Most of all, they needed a father figure to guide them in every sense. She felt lonely, betrayed, and very, very angry.
“Ma’am, what’s happening?” Nana asked. “Why are we traveling at night? It makes no sense for us to be going to your aunt and uncle. I mean if the world’s going to end, then it doesn’t matter where we are.”
Karolina studied Nana’s round face. She was always impressed by how simple people could say the most intelligent things. Nana’s logic would have served her well a few hours ago before they left. She would have loved to hear Leandro’s reply to that.
Now that she thought properly about it and replayed the scene in her mind, everything was wrong. The only thing that made sense was that Leandro wanted her a long way away from him. But why? For what?
The carriage stopped all of a sudden, upsetting the passengers. Karolina rolled and hit her head, but did not faint. She did what she could to stop her sons from tumbling and falling, and succeeded. Nana was on her back, legs in the air, but with her strong arms, she managed to sit up. They were both in a cold sweat.
The guards started barking orders and soon, the humming of arrows filled the air. Karolina hugged her sons while Nana was still petrified with fear. If the Deserters had intercepted them and killed the guards, they were sure to steal all their clothes and rape both women. Karolina was not so much afraid of being raped as of what they might do to her sons. Pedophilia was one of the few atrocities practiced by the Deserters.
The door opened, showing the face of a young woman who was smiling broadly.
“Here they are, safe and sound,” she said. The girl had copper skin that reflected the torchlight and she was very pretty.
“Let’s see, Atha,” came a hoarse, heavy voice. A tall man, bald and muscular, appeared before them. He sported a long moustache that he wore proudly.
“Ma’am Deathslayer, you might not know me but I’ve been a loyal guard in the service of King Mérdmerén until today, when Leandro dismissed me with a death threat. My firm belief is that this is not Leandro but an impostor. Perhaps his soul has been poisoned by the enemy or perhaps he’s an exact copy of Leandro that has been occupied by something evil. Whatever it is, ma’am, I can guarantee that your husband wasn’t sending you to your relatives, but your death. These were all assassins belonging to the band of all the evil spies who’ve made their way into the palace.”
“My husband wanted to kill me?” was the only thing Karolina heard, her eyes brimming with tears.
“I have a feeling it wasn’t your husband who sent you to your death,” said Greyson, the rescuer. “It turns out that someone exactly like him has been spotted in the palace dungeons, behind the thick bars of one of the most wretched of the cells. So I believe we’re dealing with an enemy who’s smuggled himself in and has great powers. At the very least, enough to create a perfect double. Let me remind you that we’re playing against the God of Chaos and his servants are so powerful that they’ve crushed even Balthazar, or so the rumors say. If someone’s killed Balthazar, then we really are in trouble!”
“I knew it!” Karolina cried. “I knew it! I should’ve been stronger. How could it never have occurred to me that it could have been a double?”
“Who would have thought it, ma’am?” Nana said.
“That’s true. It was something unpredictable and that’s why it worked.”
Her sons were more confused than ever. They had both stopped sobbing not because they wanted to, but because they had no more tears left to shed.
“I’m glad to know that you too felt there was something odd about that man who’s passing himself off as Leandro,” Greyson said. “This looks bad, very bad. Mérdmerén is away and now his regent, who also happens to be the general of the armed f
orces, is under the command of darkness. Now come with us, if you please. The Faceless Baron is waiting for us. We can’t waste time.”
“The Faceless what? I thought he was in charge of an undercover operation in the palace.”
“We’ve lost the palace, ma’am. The Faceless Baron has fled. We can’t even trust our cousins. The enemy has attacked and created a rift among us, a deep ditch that’s left us handicapped. We can still get out of this if we act fast. Leandro the Impostor, as we call him, has insulted a number of our allies, and we must go to them as soon as we can. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know? But first things first. We have to save our people.”
Karolina, her sons, and Nana were hooded with only a single explanation. “For your safety. You don’t want to know where the Baron’s hiding in case you’re caught and they use you to find out where he is.”
***
Karolina had no clue as to where she was. Nana was holding Nickolathius while she soothed Gabriel. They both fell asleep while she stayed awake, watching over them. Karolina was sitting at the edge of the shaded area, where she could easily keep an eye on the outside without being seen herself. They were at a two-storied house somewhere in the heart of the gigantic city of Háztatlon in one of the many impoverished neighborhoods where not even the government had a say in what happened or what the rules were. Each neighborhood had its leader and somehow, the Baron had managed to occupy this particular post.
“It’s time now,” Atha said with a smile. She was a really pretty girl. It was the skin that seemed like that of a Wild Man, the curves, and the sweet full-lipped face of a woman of the Empire. She was nowhere near as tall as the women of Devnóngaron. Karolina herself was a couple of thumbs taller. Even so, her chestnut-brown hair, coffee-colored eyes, and copper skin were charming.
Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale) Page 33