Temple of Cocidius

by Maxx Whittaker

  Goran moans, clutching his head. “It’s–” He can’t finish, swallows. Half my companions look ready to bolt. Lotha’s eyes widen, her bow slack, as she backs away step by step. Goran is on his knees, chanting something to himself, too quiet to hear. Crispinus and Theriss look ready. Torvik...he just looks insane.

  The Kyphex paints the arena with its gaze, spinning. Power builds inside of it and its pupil bulges.

  Movement stops. A beam of midnight fires from it, impacts the sand with a hiss. Its gaze moves on as shadows its thrown coalesce. Darkness gains pigment and solidity. From this a monster emerges, a lizard with teeth like daggers. It turns, taking in the crowd, the arena.

  The Kyphex fires another pulse. And another, and another. From each one, something different emerges. A spider the size of a horse pops into existence, gray and glittering, each of its legs concluding in a knife point. Two demons snake from a dissipating shadow, skinned in thick read leather, wicked axes dragging the sand on their relentless approach.

  Theriss hisses a low warning. “Unghul. They stalk the deadlands beyond the river, and when they feed…” She shudders. “They’re always hungry.”

  Chaos builds as more and more creatures appear. Some mark us as the prey; others attack anything that moves. A mass of shambling undead attack the unghul, who wade through them, axes ripping bloodless bodies to desiccated remains that shower more ghouls clawing from the sand.

  I don’t know where to start. Or if we should; maybe we should let them winnow each other down.

  The spider scurries between the unghul, springs on eight legs and lands on a wolf to equal Fenrir. Despite its smaller size, the spider’s fangs even the fight. It strikes, pumps the wolf full of venom. A single whine marks its collapse. It lies still while the spider feeds.

  A half dozen men charge around the beasts, naked and painted with red clay. They charge us with curved blades raised. Before I can ready my weapon, air around them turns to fire, and they explode, raining gore into the crowd.

  When the smoke clears, a goblin, no more than knee high struts forward, cackling. He holds something aloft, fuse sparking. He grins and winds up for a throw.

  I strike him with a column of flame on instinct. Theriss darts in, severing his arm with a cross of her knives. He collapses, and his bomb detonates. Vaporized by his own arm.

  Where’s Theriss? I can’t believe she’d kill herself willingly, but the explosion…

  There. She comes back in from the side, tail pumping her across the sand toward us, spattered with goblin blood. I don’t know how she escaped the blast, but I’m glad she did. She’s damned scary.

  Torvik roars, spins, brings his axe down and splits something in half from top to bottom. Its pieces, gray and withered, fall away, wisping into the air.

  I didn’t even see it coming.

  For a moment I’m overwhelmed by it all. Killing each other is all that keeps the menagerie from killing us. That won’t last; we need a plan.

  The ground shifts.

  Not more of them.

  The arena floor buckles. Sections fall away. Sand pours into gaps, taking warring creatures with it. A beast of metal and light shrieks in an alien screech as it tumbles into the void. It fires a beam of energy upward in a last gasp, clipping the wing of a bat the size of a barn.

  The bat shrieks and careens to the sand, dissolving as it lands.

  We have to get control of this.

  Goran spins in place, hands limp at his sides, muttering something over and over. Lotha knocks a burning arrow, but her aim jumps from target to target, indecisive. Theriss looks angrier than anything. I know how she feels; these creatures were great warriors in their homelands. The arena has reduced them to a mess.

  Torvik watches the carnage with something like glee, and I can tell that he’s moments from joining the melee. They didn’t learn anything from the last go. Once Meridiana lifted her influence, it was back to every man for themselves.

  Only Meridiana and Crispinus are calm and committed. He watches me waiting for something.

  “Listen!” My words, augmented by Meridiana’s compulsion, pulls their attention me. “My name is Tamlir Kynthelig, and I ask you to follow me through this hell. If we work together, we can survive this. We have the right to be here because we are warriors! We’re not mindless creatures. If we must fight one another, later, so be it. For now, we fight together. If the Kyphex slaughters us, nothing matters.”

  “What’s the plan?” Theriss asks, eyes still clouded with doubt.

  “That.” I point to the Kyphex. “It brought these monsters here, and something tells me that if we kill it, this ends.”

  The others nod, draw together. Theriss whispers up to us, blades ready as Lotha pulls an arrow out of nothingness. Torvik’s axe whistles as he spins it, ready. I scan the arena, and through the melee spot a clear path to the Kyphex. The missing sections of arena floor are cut in spiral spanned by bridges that all converge on the pillar. We’re at the outer edge, which means we have a long way to go along a maze of carnage.

  A massive arm, taller than the pillar, rises from a pit beside us. It shoots higher and higher, reaching beyond the arena. It’s skeletal. How is it held together? It hangs above us, dwarfing everything in the arena. Its descent comes with terrible inertia.

  It’s fist aims for us.

  “Run!” The word is a reflex. No one needs my prompt. The monstrosity smashes a crack into to the ground behind us, kicking up a blinding storm of splinters and sand.

  Lotha stumbles, trips toward the open chasm. Torvik snatches her up, never breaking stride.

  Lizard men block the way forward, a dozen with blades ready. They’ve found a dip in the sand where they entrench.

  “Together! Cover Lotha and Goran!”

  What, you don’t think I need protecting? I can hear the pout on Meridiana’s face.

  I think you’re the most dangerous thing in this arena.

  Her satisfied purr carries me into battle. Crispinus reaches my side and we wade into a forest of dark metal. I throw a ball of fire ahead of me just before we hit. The creatures shriek and shrink back. My blade follows, takes a head from one in a spray of blood. Then an arm trying to ward off flame. It’s futile; armor straps char and I take his hand with me. Behind me Meridiana grunts, dodging a gauntlet of blade strikes. She drops low, rolls, and a tail clutching a knife darts out, taking one in the groin as she clears the melee.

  In the open now, I trade strikes with a more skilled opponent. His pebbled green skin is sheened with sweat and the blood of bodies tossed between our boots. He chops low, overextends, a mistake I wouldn’t have capitalized on before the temple. My blade flows liquid, perfectly balanced, like it was made for me. I miss my old swords, but this a work of art, a genuine weapon. I parry his strike with hardly a flinch, thrust him in the eye. His skull splits. He twitches, limbs seizing. A familiar stench fills the air. The creature loses its bowels and collapses with the dead.

  Man, lizard; some things are the same for all of us, I guess.

  Crispinus dances among the others. Everywhere he moves, something dies. Three reptiles fall and Torvik avalanches through the rest, knocking one into the chasm and splitting another in half.

  Three to go. Theriss appears like smoke. Her blades cross a corded throat and slice like a surgeon’s knife. She falls with it, ducking a swing at her head. She’s so fucking agile. Her tail pumps, a twist that slides her far beyond the reach of the remaining foes.

  Lotha’s arrow pierces an eye; Goran strikes with a bolt of magic. We put the last two to rest.

  We stand among the dead, chests heaving, and for a moment I’m taken aback at the savagery. A dozen dead in the span of a minute. I’m glad we’re on the same side.

  “Everyone alright?”

  Theriss glances behind us. “For now.”

  Unghul trail us, axes dragging, mouths salivating in ribbons of spit. We can’t leave them for later and risk getting caught if something unseen catches us up ahead
.

  A minotaur roars to life as if my thoughts summoned it. It rears to full height, thick furred legs planted wide, eating up the entire path. Its brown, lolling bovine eyes fall on our group. Larger than Torvik, it barrels at us, hefting an axe the size of a wagon bed.

  Caught in the middle. By the end of this trial I won’t know how to fight a single foe.

  We’ve come together. We can handle this. “Crispinus, take the others; use Torvik to stop that thing. I’ll take the unghul.”

  No one hesitates, not even Theriss. We’re finally a team.

  I charge the unghul. Hooves pound behind me, smaller than a minotaur.

  “You would ignore my orders!”

  Meridiana scoffs. “I have to face the others if you kill yourself.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I’m not sure if I should be insulted that she thinks I need help or touched by the concern. I’ll settle for having her at my side, either way.

  “Take the left!” she orders, jumping a gap in the floor.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Left! I have the other.”

  No time to ask. We reach the unghul, and an axe lunges for my thighs. I leap over it, bring my blade down. My balance is off and the blow glances, barely a nick to the unghul’s shoulder.

  It has the advantage, turning as I flail past. It’s fist finds my kidney and throws me to the sand, throbbing.

  If not for my new armor, the unghul would have smashed its fist clean through me.

  The unghul turn to me, both with blades raised. A wave of compulsion flows on the air. Meridiana runs for the wall, using her power like a leash. The crowd leans over, calling to her, throwing tankards of beer. She pirouettes through the onslaught.

  Her distraction masks my recovery. The unghul never sees my attack. I sever its arm in a single stroke. It roars, and its blade comes around again. It misses. My mistake is charging in because it only has one arm. The unghul kicks me to the ground and claws a few impotent inches. Its axe chews wood, sand, limbs as it gains its feet.

  My swing takes its leg at the knee. It shrieks in my face, flicking me with spittle as it hobbles on, chopping.

  No wonder Theriss’ people fear these fuckers so much.

  Meridiana whistles for the second unghul, a birdsong noise that stops him in his tracks. He turns and stumbles to her, axe blade digging a trench in the arena floor.

  She presses against the stones and lets the monster trap her there. Her influence is tenuous; apparently, the unghul aren’t creatures susceptible to much of anything, and for a second when her hands rest hesitantly on his bulging red arms, I don’t think she’ll succeeded.

  It’s hard to know when it happens; fighting doesn’t ease, and her skin never changes color. But by the time her hands skim his shoulders and slide onto his back, the unghul has slumped. The crowd above them is silent, completely rapt by the show, or possibly her compulsion.

  Meridiana’s tail lashes around the unghul’s leg, coils his thigh. Her fingers press the back of his bone-ridged skull. She trails her tongue up his tree-trunk neck, spit hissing and skittering over the heat of his skin. When he relaxes, she falls to her knees. Without hesitation, she buries the dagger-points of her incisors in his inner thigh. She rips, tearing flesh, opening his artery. Blood paints his leg in an eager stream and he folds to a heap. She spits, painting his blood onto his corpse.

  One Arm shuffles at her, letting out a bellow of rage. They’re quick, strong, but apparently, they aren’t very smart. My sword takes him in the back of the neck, and his head sails into the chasm as the crowd roars.

  Meridiana strolls to me, dagger still clutched in her tail.

  She shrugs. “I’m useful and pretty.”

  I grin. “You’re a lot of things.”

  We vault the gap, rushing to rejoin the others. The minotaur is down, but not dead. I don’t see his axe, but an arm the size of a tree trunk lashes out. It bellows, wild sounds that bring the crowd to their feet, chanting.

  Torvik catches the arm, straining to hold fast. Crispinus takes the opening. He darts in, bringing his blade down two-handed on the beast’s neck. The result is immediate. It stills.

  The minotaur has no less than seven arrows jutting from its eyes, burst like melons. I shudder. “Damn.”

  Torvik grins and pounds Lotha in the back so hard she falls to one knee. “Lotha is master of bow! Not coward like most archers.”

  Lotha stares daggers at him.

  “Goran? Doing alright?” Goran’s chest heaves, skin waxen and clammy.

  He nods, swallows hard. “Not much left, but I can keep up. Need to save what I have left for the big fights.”

  My gaze falls immediately to the skeletal arm. It snatches a war eagle mid dive. Its fist constricts, and blood explodes from between skeletal fingers. It throws the clot of crushed feathers to the sand.

  Yeah, probably wise if Goran saves his strength.

  Theriss shoulders with Meridiana and wipes unghul blood from the succubus’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  Meridiana quirks her brow.

  Theriss meets my eyes. “Anyone who slaughters unghul is a friend of my people.”

  “In that case, let’s kill some more.” She doesn’t acknowledge my jest. That’s okay. Just makes me more determined to wear her down.

  Rest is over. We’re on the final push. We avoid battle where we can, kill when we can’t. The handful of delays leave an opening for bigger problems. Four suits of living armor crawl from the chasm, deft despite their size and weight.

  I engage one, Crispinus another, while Torvik charges them, his axe smashing into a third, crumpling its armor. Somehow, it keeps coming, even misshapen, and it slices deep into the giant’s thigh. Torvik bellows, backhands the armor. It flies backward, shattering into pieces across the sand.

  Pieces which lurch toward each other, reform, and rise again, whole.

  Fantastic.

  My opponent is quick; we trade a dozen blows in half as many seconds. My sword breaks through first. Its helmet flies clear, and the suit implodes.

  Crispinus hangs back, striking for a pair set for Lotha, Goran, and Meridiana.

  Lotha crumples, crying out. An arrow juts from her thigh. My eyes follow its trajectory. A lone skeletal archer trains another shot.

  “Lotha! Run; roll!”

  My words are too late.

  Crispinus falls over her. He deflects blows from two living suits, and then impossibly, cuts down the arrow mid-flight before blocking a strike aimed at his neck. He moves and ducks between his opponents, protecting Lotha all the while. His sword is a blur, always moving. He fights like a soldier, all brutal efficiency, with no extraneous movement.

  He’s terrifying. Before my gifts, I’d never have stood a chance against him. Even now, I’m not so sure.

  Only one of us can win Maeve, but I fervently hope it doesn’t come down to a fight with Crispinus.

  Lotha looses one shot from the ground. Even wounded, her aim is keen, and a bolt of blue lightning shatters the bone archer’s skull. It collapses in a heap of dust.

  Crispinus helps her up. I grin. “Nice shot.”

  Lotha winces, keeping weight off her injured leg. “Skill.”

  “That, too,” Meridiana says, taking Lotha’s arm over her shoulder. Not leaving anyone behind.

  A shattering echoes across the arena, so loud I clap hands to my ears as I spin wildly, searching for its source.

  A man stands beyond the Kyphex, clad in a plain gray robe. A white mane streams behind on a small gale his appearance has created. On the whole he looks ordinary – except that he’s floating twenty feet in the air.

  The skeletal arm cranes, fingers trained on him.

  His hand flicks. A pulse of energy, so powerful I can feel it across the arena, shatters the massive arm like glass. Bone shards rain over the arena. The rest of the arm plunges into the chasm, broken.

  He laughs, and it booms across the sands. “Pathetic,” he shouts, punchin
g my eardrums. He raises a hand, and his fingers move rapidly, tracing a complex pattern, and below him, another company of lizard people melt, screaming, hissing, tearing apart inside their armor. “Is there no one with the mettle to challenge me? Where are you, oh vaunted acolyte?”

  Goran groans, covers his face. “Gods no,” he whispers.

  “Who is that?”

  His eyes are wild. “Revinus. He’s too much for us. He’s at least Fifth Imperium. Perhaps higher since I last encountered him.”

  I have no idea what any of this means besides bad. How do we handle him? There are still scattered pockets of fighting, but none close. In the distance, a gargantuan millipede streams up from one of the chasms, its pincers cutting scythe-like through a mass of orcs.

  Unreal, but it leaves us a mostly clear path to the Kyphex.

  “Revinus can fuck himself; let’s go.”

  We move as one, watching the black voids beyond the path, watching the skies for the mage.

  Nothing but bright white sky. Thank fuck. I pray that holds.

  “Ah, there you are!”

  This is what I get for praying.

  We skid to halt so damned close to the Kyphex. Revinus hovers, all that blocks our path. Behind him, the eye watches.

  “Well met!” I shout. My father taught me that a dose of good manners at an unexpected time was the best way to defuse a confrontation before it started.

  “Indeed, aspirant. Well met! I am Revinus, mage of the Sixth Imperium.”

  Only one more Imperium than we thought. No big deal. How much is an Imperium anyway?

  He floats lower, joy writ across his face. “And you have my wayward acolyte in your employ. Excellent. I have so looked forward to this. Thank you for making it this far.”

  “Don’t mention it. It’s just nice to make someone proud for a change.” Maybe he’ll zap the rest of these creatures.

  “I cannot imagine the power you must possess! I will relish each drop as I consume your heart and other vital organs.”

  Or not. So much for manners.

  Lotha growls, raises her bow, and lets fly. Two arrows sail the empty space.

  “No!” Goran stumbles forward, clutching at their wake.