The Devil's Grasp

by Chris Pisano

  She refused to break eye contact with this gruesome creature, instead backing away. The shouts that seemed to start out as a warning escalated in both volume and pitch, finally turning sour with fear. A chill raced down her spine, and she drew her sword from the scabbard at her hip just as the animated carcass prepared to charge.

  “Sergeant!” The cry came from several rows of trees away, but she recognized Barrett’s voice through the fear that distorted his normal tone.

  “I have one here, too,” Dearborn yelled. “Status report! Everyone!” The ringing of steel carried the only audible answer she received. As she eyed her opponent, she could hear the dull thrumming of her pulse, feel the blood pushing through her veins. She was acutely aware of the sweat on her clammy skin. She continued to back away from her adversary, but a sudden shift in its hips suggested that a lunging attack was imminent. She braced herself despite its lack of bulk. As she predicted, the little beast charged. But as it loped at her, it mutated and grew, continuing to gain bulk and size. It was larger than an average man by the time it crashed against her armor. Dearborn fell back, staggering under its weight.

  The beast stood over six feet in height, and she judged its weight to be twice that of an average man. The left side of its body sloughed off its form and onto the ground, an undead version of molting, revealing even more of its skeletal framework. The shadowy insides left Dearborn unsettled. Instead of putrid entrails, there was a swirling mass of ichor that coalesced constantly, each facet a human face struggling to break free of its tenuous confine.

  If those be its victims, she thought, I’ll not hasten to add myself to the collection.

  Summoning her strength, Dearborn pushed her assailant away. The mottled beast took a few slow steps backwards, glaring at her with dead eyes. It seemed to be pondering its next maneuver as if overbearing its opponent was a tactic that had never been thwarted previously. After eyeing her for a few seconds, it simply charged again as if signifying its lack of rationality, something Dearborn hoped she would be able to use against the monstrosity.

  Even as the beast ran at her, she was aware of the sounds of continued skirmishing around her, so at least some of her men still fought. Her labored breathing sounded loud in her ears. She noticed the stillness of nature all about her for the first time. She sidestepped the beast’s attack and watched with interest the amount of time and space it took to come about. The beast was far from nimble, nor was it gifted with celerity. As it hobbled around to get her into view again, Dearborn charged, swinging her sword straight at the top of its hideous skull. The blade glanced off ineffectively, though the clash resounded and a shockwave rippled up her forearms, leaving her hands tingling.

  The fiend began to shift and amble again turning its bulk towards her. Dearborn chose that moment to rush at it it again from the other side. This time she stabbed at it with the point of her sword. Due to her great size, Dearborn carried a broadsword, a blade far more suited to hacking and pounding on an opponent. Her attempt at impaling the creature was defeated by her own blade, which glanced off two ribs before careening off the beast. With a gnarled paw, the monster backhanded Dearborn, knocking her to the ground.

  Stunned, she didn’t move. The hit from the creature left her cheek and chin throbbing, but she remained still for tactical reasons. The creature was top-heavy and Dearborn reasoned that if it attacked while she was on the ground, it would have to come down on all fours. She deduced correctly. Rolling to her right, she avoided the heavy claws, now sinking deep into the forest floor. With adrenaline fueling her actions, she leapt to her feet and swept her blade through the creature’s neck. A decayed tongue drooped from the decapitated skeletal head while its body twitched itself still.

  Sacrificing only enough time to validate the lifelessness of her adversary, Dearborn ran toward the small clearing where she had left her comrades and horses. She pushed all fatigue from her body and soul, her legs churning with such speed her feet scarcely touched the forest’s blanket of dead leaves. Honing in on the clearing ahead, Dearborn flew through the underbrush. Surely I’m mad, she thought once she saw what awaited her as she burst through the tree line.

  The clearing had been transformed from a tranquil napping place to a battle-stained killing-field. Glindos lay in bloodied pieces at the base of a tree, his dripping entrails dangling from low branches like macabre decorations. Frewhar’s corpse also rested at the base of a thick tree, pounded and pulped with his armor shredded; he looked no different than an over-ripened pumpkin hacked by butcher knives. Dearborn assumed the legs with no torso wearing army issue boots were all that remained of Raynen. Stabbed, butchered, and decapitated monster corpses blanketed the forest floor, three of their corpses for every one of the soldiers’. Klandor and Barrett battled in the center of the gory arena, each locked in combat with a monster.

  Dearborn rushed to aid Klandor since his foe was largest. The monster matched Klandor in height, but had the girth of a mature bear. Its skin was red and corded, nothing more than twined muscles knotted together. Its head formed a dome from shoulder to shoulder and displayed nothing but a vacuous mouth lined with rows of teeth. Each of its powerful claws equaled half the size of its sinewy chest. With speed unbefitting its size, the creature’s claws sliced through the air as it lumbered toward Klandor. But the young warrior kept moving, parrying every one of the demon’s thrusts. Once he learned the movements of his adversary, Klandor struck. With two quick slices, the demon’s hands fell to the ground like sides of beef being cut from a butcher’s block. Klandor stopped to assess the new situation and formulate a plan. What he didn’t factor into his plan was the monster shaking off gobs of gore to expose maws of gnashing teeth at the ends of his wrists. Too surprised to react, Klandor’s body was torn to meaty ribbons by three sets of teeth.

  Screaming from the frustration of arriving too late, Dearborn drove her sword through the back of the monster’s bulbous head, the blade looking like a bloodied metal tongue. Putting her full weight into it, she used the base of the creature’s neck as a fulcrum, her sword a lever cleaving the monster’s head in half. With the grace of a dancer and speed of a sprinter, she spun herself and sword as one, the blade sliding through the creature’s head as if it were freshly churned butter. The two halves of its head fell to the ground like a split melon.

  Sword primed, Dearborn turned to aid Barrett. Even though a layer of blood coated him, Barrett needed no help, his sword finishing off the last of the monsters. His whole torso moved with every breath, gulping air as if he had forgotten the taste. “This … is … madness!”

  Sheathing her sword, Dearborn ran to her steed, thankful harm found none of the horses. She fetched Barrett’s as well while removing the tethers of the others. “We have to leave.”

  Not even aware that his Sergeant offered the reins of his horse to him, Barrett continued his intense stare at the gouged carcass. “They … The Horde … came from nowhere. Glindos had no chance …”

  “This was not The Horde. These were monsters. Demons. We have to go now.”

  “Th … three of these … these monsters tore through him and his armor like he were but a fattened pig in a sack …”

  “Soldier!” Dearborn snapped. She waited for Barrett to look up before she handed him the reins. “We will mourn for them. Later. We have to warn the others!”

  The two survivors mounted in haste and jabbed heel to rib. Filled with just as much fear and confusion as their masters, the horses obliged with full gallop. However, they could sense what their masters could not. There were more.

  The soldiers rode side-by-side, but within a blink, Barrett’s chest exploded in a crimson spray. Still pushing her steed forward, Dearborn looked back to see squirming tentacles reel Barrett back to the blood saturated clearing. A dozen more monsters, horrors even her nightmares didn’t dare to imagine, stepped out from the trees. Hungry teeth and impatient claws awaited the prize of a fresh kill. Tears streamed from Dearborn’s eyes as she drove her horse h
arder.

  Ar’drzz’ur, legs of a bull, torso and arms of a man, horns affixed to a frightening face, watched the woman warrior ride away. His demon brethren, slave to the Satan Stone, had been following her and her party for too long. The slaughtering of her comrades was nothing more than a teasing taste of things to come. The Satan Stone had called upon Ar’drzz’ur, General of the Demons. He smiled and salivated with anticipation.

  Twenty-one

  Perciless paced his chamber. He frowned so deep and so hard that his forehead throbbed. His right hand massaged his left, until he spun to walk the opposite direction. Then his left hand massaged his right. Three months. Three months he had been gone. Disappeared with nary a farewell and zero explanation. His gut knotted itself at the thought of telling his family why.

  Four months ago Perciless began to see the world for what it was. That is, he stopped allowing himself to be so naïve. His brother, Oremethus, went on a mission with the Elite Troop searching for a mysterious and powerful stone. Shortly after their mission started, one of their message riders brought news that the town of Freeman’s Way had been decimated by The Horde. Upon hearing that, Perciless had felt something stir within. But the wake-up call came with the next message rider of the Elite Troop—they stumbled upon a small Horde contingent outside Balford’s Bounty.

  To this point, Perciless had been living the life that peasant children hear about in fairy tales. Much to his embarrassment, he had believed those tales, including the ones that began with knightly heroes dashing off to adventure and ended with them returning home unscathed, treasure in hand. It never dawned on him that there were middles to these tales, hardships between beginning and end. Especially when he took it upon himself to tell the families of the fallen Elite Troop members what had happened. Indeed, it was no fairy tale.

  During the sleepless nights that followed, he tossed and turned under sweat inducing furs, trying with little success to shake one terrible thought from his head—one mishap for Oremethus, and Perciless would be crown prince. Then he received the letter.

  Early in the morning, less than a week after the Elite Troop messenger arrived, a messenger from Balford’s Bounty reached the capitol. The horse, gaunt and frothing at the mouth, delivered a rider who looked no better. Tending to his own horse, Perciless was at the stable to greet the messenger. To hear the tale and see the agita coursing through the man, Perciless felt sheltered, a foppish prince in an ivory tower. He took the letter from the man, made promises, and gave him coin for a meal and roof. But Perciless did not know what to do about the letter—give it to his overburdened father? The Seneschal? A general? Or deal with the matter himself?

  That morning the world looked new, bigger. He felt as if he had wandered through life with horse blinders on, only seeing what lay directly in front of him. This new world was far more menacing, but replete with hope and opportunity. But to get to the hope that lay ahead, he had to first focus on what lay in the periphery he had never allowed himself to see before. And there was none better to guide him than his brother Daedalus, who hid in the peripheral like a hermit.

  The day after his epiphany, Perciless went to his brother’s quarters, hoping to recruit him as a guide to maneuver him through the dangers and pitfalls of this new world. Perciless could not help but feel he stepped into a crypt. The room was a perfect blend between dungeon and library, with a gaudy, oversized bed against the one wall.

  Perciless always knew his brother was odd. Anger followed Daedalus like a shadow. But to Perciless, Daedalus was incapable of malfeasance. He had heard the lurid whispers behind backs from those who came in contact with the youngest prince but never gave them credence—until now.

  He thumbed through the books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves, none striking at his worrisome inner voice. Mostly, these books were histories of Albathia and the surrounding lands. A few works about the natural wickedness of man, but upon further review, they were merely fiction and fable. Handfuls about sciences stating the works of nature were nothing more than mechanics. No comedies or plays or anything for the eyes of a child. Again, nothing more than evidence of the pragmatism of his brother with a dash of darker entertainment. However, the desk was another story.

  Parchment papers stacked in one corner, candle and wax cradle in another, ink and quill off to the side; the desk was meticulous. Perciless debated about leaving well enough alone, but something caught his eye from a darkened alcove created by the bookcase extending too far past where the wall jutted back. Despite the small windows, the ligth from the day sun spilled into the room, eliminating the need for candle or oil lantern, yet he could not make out what lay within the alcove from where he stood. Movement, he saw movement.

  With tender step, as if navigating through a field of broken glass, Perciless slid from behind the desk. As he moved closer, he saw small, metal bars—rows and columns of metal bars. Tiny cages, stacked almost to the ceiling, were shoved into the alcove. Then Perciless heard clicking, the clicking of hardened little legs scampering across the metal floors of the cages. The clicking grew faster the closer he came. Then it came to a sudden stop as he stood within inches of the cages. Scorpions, dozens, all looking at him with their claws open and tails curled over the tops of their bodies, pointing at him and ready to strike.

  Perciless found himself struggling to catch his breath from the unnerving sight. He backed away, but jerked around when he bumped into an object behind him. Fists clenched in reflex, he spun to see a monolithic obscurity covered in heavy blankets. His heart throbbed at the base of his throat as he grabbed the blanket. Covering his face with his other hand, he tugged.

  Noise and flurry surprised him, forcing him to cringe back and use the blanket as a shield. But within one heartbeat, he remembered the tiny, caged arachnids behind him, all too happy to strike him dead if he ventured too close, then he jumped back toward the cacophony. Feathers floated before him. Once he saw those, he focused on what he uncovered—more cages, but these held a score of beautiful white falcons.

  Perciless stared at the birds, flitting and jumping about, angry that he took their darkness away. He bent down and scooped the feathers from the floor, sliding them into a cage. Still confused, he finally threw the blanket back over the cages. The bird noise ceased.

  Stunned, he redoubled his efforts to find answers, but he found only mere clues. He returned to the desk and opened one of the drawers, shocked to find the king’s stamp. His heartbeat now pushed the insides of his ears as he picked up the metal press engraved with the king’s insignia. Why? He returned it then flipped through the stack of papers. None looked auspicious, save one. It was mostly blank with faint streaks of ink. Perciless examined it closer and realized it must have been underneath one Daedalus had written on, the streaks of ink being what soaked through the parchment on which Daedalus had written. Perciless held the paper close to his face and deciphered the whispers of word and numbers, resembling those on requisition orders.

  Perciless stood confused, piecing together the scraps of words and numbers he could make out. The further he studied the parchment again, the more words and numbers he could decipher—the more puzzle pieces he discovered and put together.

  He changed the numbers! Perciless deduced. He has blatantly lied to me and committed treason against the kingdom! But why?

  Like a madman, Perciless searched the room. Every corner of every nook felt the touch of his curious fingers. Every carpet and curtain rolled and unrolled. Every piece of furniture overturned, searched and returned to its exact position. He found nothing incriminating. But what he did find was a sense of self, of purpose. His brother had lied to him about getting the weapons orders to the craftsmen; did he lie to him with the speeches about Perciless being the prince of the people? No! Perciless knew he was the prince of the people, and this was how he was going to prove it—by going to Balford’s Bounty himself to aid them in their rebuilding efforts.

  “Perciless?”

  Perciless snapped from his visi
on of the past, from his memories of rummaging through his brother’s chamber, from the indelible images of horror he had seen at Balford’s Bounty, and turned to see Daedalus. He found the role reversal irony of Daedalus snapping him from a memory spell rather charming. “Good eve, Brother.”

  “You’re home?” Daedalus asked. No relief or concern found in his voice.

  “Yes, dear Brother.”

  Daedalus’s face contorted into a sneer at those words. Perciless knew he detested such tender acumen, but tried anyway to break down the wall around his brother’s heart. He had to try. He worried that his younger brother was in a situation with limited solutions and needed help. Perciless was the one who walked among the peasants, the one who understood people in dire straights. Too many times he had families approach him with concerns of a member in trouble, usually gambling debts. And they became desperate to stay ahead of the consequences associated with the debts they owed, practically becoming different people. Often the debtor felt compelled to do illicit acts to obtain the money, or else do “jobs” for those they owed the money.

  “Not like you to leave for months without a word,” Daedalus said with marked slowness as if forcing the words past his teeth. “We were all so … worried. That was why I entered your chamber just now. I have been keeping a vigilant eye on your belongings.” Daedalus allowed his eyes to sweep over his brother’s form. He made no attempt to disguise their purpose. He sought clues as to his brother’s condition and previous whereabouts. Perciless appeared lean and unkempt, slightly pale and unrested. Despite his wishes to the contrary, Perciless had always worn the trappings of the proverbial do-nothing noble. His brow had always been clean and smooth, in part a credit to his youth, but more indebted to his lack of real responsibility—no wide-eyed children would go hungry as a result of his lack of initiative. The image he cut before Daedalus’s discerning eye was a far cry from the brother he had known his whole life. The person who stood before him now was swathed in mystery and had known hardship as a companion.