by Frank Morin
Paul laughed. “You would use a forbidden rune to fight me?”
“I will,” Reuben said, the rune nearly complete.
Alter struggled harder. This couldn’t be happening. Reuben had been the greatest hunter in a generation, but his long dispossession had broken something deep inside of him. Alter understood his desire to defeat Paul, but that rune would never lead to victory. It was forbidden because it was a rune of domination, of destruction, and of conquest. It corrupted the soul and embraced only the basest of motivations.
Reuben completed the rune and it flared instantly, but not with the normal pure, blue-white light. Instead it burned a sickly yellow, a festering sore on Reuben’s arm.
Reuben snarled, “I will destroy you, abomination.”
Paul laughed. “I like your spirit, boy, but I have a better idea.”
“Don’t,” Alter panted. He couldn’t get enough breath.
Paul shook him so hard his neck creaked and his spine would’ve cracked if he hadn’t been enhanced. The Cui Dashi considered him for a second and a devious smile twisted his lips.
He threw Alter away, so hard he bounced off the shield barrier just above the north opening. Groaning, he staggered to his feet, trying to shake off the effects of the brutal impact.
Reuben was lunging at Paul, blade slashing for his throat.
Paul struck so fast his hand blurred, punching Reuben off his feet. Paul caught Reuben out of the air and carved several more marks into the forbidden rune on his arm.
Alter rushed toward them, knowing he would arrive everlastingly too late. The forbidden rune alone could corrupt a pure heart, but Paul was intensifying it into demonic abomination.
Reuben screamed as the rune flared, glowing black against his skin, its lines crawling around each other. He fell to the ground, writhing as the new rune tortured his soul and bent it to Paul’s will.
Paul intercepted Alter before he could reach his brother and threw him back against the northern barrier a second time. Alter coughed blood and groaned as he struggled to his feet. His body ached, every muscle crying from the abuse.
Defeating Paul no longer mattered. He needed to save his brother.
Paul was lifting Reuben to his feet. Alter’s brother was breathing fast, his face flushed, his eyes wild, the knife clutched to his chest.
“Good,” Paul chuckled. “Now my one true hunter, you will conquer and you will kill.”
Reuben nodded, quivering with anticipation.
Paul glanced toward Alter and his smile became sinister. “Go, my slave. Kill every hunter you can find. Kill every innocent woman and child in the city.”
He winked at Alter. “But first, kill your brother.”
Reuben howled, a sound of animal lust, and bounded toward Alter, the knife already raised to strike.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Some days I envy the simple fools we slaughter. Their fears are immediate and tangible. At first I loved the power granted by my two enhancements. I fight like Hercules himself, and I’ll admit I dreamed of one day ascending to similar fame. The more I learn, the more I see the true dangers of the world, and I want less of glory and only the chance of a simple life and a good woman in my bed. Such dreams are folly, for we will all die on the field of battle, grasping for the honor Spartacus alone can see.
~Castus, one of Spartacus’ lieutenants during the Third Servile War
Gregorios struggled in vain against the grip of the statue holding him. He’d tried slipping out of his tactical vest, but the animated stone had shifted its grip and wrapped its huge fingers all the way around his shoulder.
He hadn’t heard the full plan before Eirene and Alter initiated it, but it was clearly falling apart. Eirene didn’t look badly hurt by the grenade, but Spartacus had made a break for the forbidden runes. Eirene shook off her stupor and followed, glancing back once at Gregorios.
He got the message. Time to stop hanging around.
On the north side of the square, Paul was still distracted by the fight between the warped Reuben and the desperate Alter. For a moment, Gregorios had allowed himself to hope Alter would break Paul’s hold, somehow shatter his power with Sarah’s help, but that moment was gone.
Hopefully she could activate her ciphers once she reached the northern breach. Alter needed all the help he could get.
Reuben had closed on him with all the subtlety of an avalanche. Alter had knocked the knife out of his hand and they were fighting each other now, brother against brother. Alter looked tired, frantic. He could have disabled Reuben a couple of times, but he was holding back, shouting his brother’s name, trying to break through his insanity.
It wasn’t going to work.
The distraction was one Gregorios couldn’t afford to miss. He extracted from a pocket of his vest a roll of breaching strip. The high explosive, wrapped into an adhesive strip an inch wide, was long enough to wrap twice around the statue’s wrist. The dumb animated slave didn’t pay it any attention.
It would in ten seconds.
Bastien mimicked Gregorios movements. In unison, they set the detonators, together they triggered the blasts.
The concussion shattered the statue’s arm and threw Gregorios bodily away. He severed connection to his screaming nerves. The body still worked, so he ignored the minor injuries and sprinted toward the door of the Basilica. Bastien followed close on his heels.
The statues gave chase, but he was faster. He did risk a single glance backward. Alter had knocked Reuben down and was crouched over him, burning hands driven into Reuben’s face. His shoulders convulsed and he removed his brother’s soulmask.
Holding the dispossessed soul aloft, rainbow streamers caressing his wrists, Alter howled with despair.
Poor kid had serious family issues.
Paul clapped, laughing.
Gregorios raced into the Basilica after Eirene.
“Do we have a plan?” Bastien asked.
“Stop Spartacus,” Gregorios growled.
“After that?”
“I’m thinking it’s time to call down the fires of heaven.”
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Cowards die many times before their actual deaths, but I will live many times before mine.
~Julius Caesar
Sarah rushed to the last column before reaching the opening in Paul’s shield on the north side of the square. Huge chunks of broken stone and wreckage of the once-beautiful colonnade surrounded her. Hunters and soldiers of the Tenth flanked her on every side, their faces reflecting the same horror she felt at witnessing Alter’s duel with his brother.
Some of the soldiers had moved to intervene, but Sarah had waved them back. Paul could slaughter every one of them if he chose.
“Wait,” she urged them. “If I can weaken him, that’s the time to strike.”
Her heart was beating so fast she felt lightheaded and short of breath. Terror set her hands shaking so bad she could barely pull up the photo of Paul’s rune that Francesca had forwarded from Gregorios’ video feed. It was magnificent, but malevolent. Paul had incorporated the central components of all three master runes, but had twisted those glorious runes to conquest and destruction. If only she had hours to study it, to figure out how to defeat it.
She spent five more seconds poring over it, then tucked her phone away. She couldn’t wait. Alter had stumbled away from his brother’s dispossessed body, Reuben’s soulmask clutched in his still-burning hands, tears streaking his cheeks. It must have been torture to use his hated Cui Dashi powers against his brother.
It was Paul’s fault, and Sarah planned to make him pay.
She stepped past the column, into the opening, buttressing her courage by thoughts of all the innocents who would die if she failed.
She wished Tomas was there.
“Prepare to insert ciphers under the shield on my signal,” she spoke into her throat mike.”
“Roger,” came a chorus of replies, followed by Harriett’s fierce, “Go get him, Sarah!”
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Alter caught sight of her and shouted, “No, Sarah! Get away!”
He rushed toward her, but Paul intercepted him in the blink of an eye and snatched him off the ground like a mother scooping up an infant.
“Stop doing that!” Alter shouted, beating ineffectually at Paul’s arm.
Paul glowed with such intensity, Sarah had to squint. The blazing runes on his chest and stomach were only part of the brilliance. His entire being glowed, similar to the soft glow that had surrounded Rosetta in the ruined Circus Maximus, but magnified a thousand times. Paul wasn’t surrounded by the effects of a rune web, but was infused to bursting with the power of the master runes he’d tapped. Sarah marveled that he could contain it all.
“I enjoyed the show,” Paul said to Alter. “You’ve earned a seat at the main event while Sarah declares her devotion to me.”
“Never!” Alter shouted.
“All the shouting and useless objections get old.” Paul gave Alter a disappointed look and tossed him to a nearby statue. More of the animated carvings had marched out of the Basilica after the hunters had blown up the last batch. There was a nearly inexhaustible supply for Paul to draw from in the Basilica and surrounding areas. The statue caught the hunter and cuffed him in the side of the head so hard he stopped struggling, hanging limp in its hand.
Sarah gripped a small stone concealed in her palm. It was the key cipher, the one to link all the others and hopefully crack Paul’s power. The rune he was using drew upon the strength of the master runes, but they had to be fueled by remnants of the force of the souls that had united in those moments. That meant his rune must share the same weaknesses, could be interrupted in a similar way.
She could feel the power of his runes pulsing through the square, so thick it was almost tangible. Could her little ciphers really affect a change? She’d planned to redirect all that strength to Alter, but he didn’t look capable of using it.
Paul motioned her forward, his eyes lingering on her. “Welcome, Sarah. Your timing is impeccable.” He gestured toward the pope, who stood flanked by the statues of holy men in the center of the square and his lips curled into an amused smile. “Come, the pope can witness you swearing loyalty to me.”
“I don’t want you hurting people,” Sarah said as she followed him toward the pontiff.
“I gave everyone here the option of accepting me as merciful,” Paul said. “They chose a different path.”
“You’ve made your point,” Sarah said. “You don’t have to hurt anyone else.”
“Soon I won’t have to,” Paul said. “The world will see your wise choice, and they will witness my miracles and the pope’s blessing.”
“I will not bless you,” the pope said.
“Then perhaps a new pope is needed,” Paul said, as if he didn’t care either way.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--” the pope recited.
Paul waved him to silence. “Pray later. My runes have arrived.”
Spartacus entered the square from the Basilica, carrying a huge red stone shaped like a long basin. Gregorios, Eirene, and Bastien followed, herded by three statues. All three facetakers looked battered, and the statues looked worn, but Sarah’s heart sank when she saw them beaten, prisoner to Paul’s will.
Spartacus lay the stone on the ground and turned it over, revealing scarlet cloth taped across two sections. He gestured at the larger of the two areas. “Those are your runes. Thus is my honor debt fulfilled.”
Paul lifted the stone in one hand and turned it away from Sarah. He pulled back the cloth and his eyes lit with excitement as he studied the forbidden runes.
Sarah despaired. Despite all their efforts, Paul was getting stronger. She glanced toward Gregorios, but was surprised to see he didn’t look sad.
He winked at her.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Today we witnessed the revealed will of the Almighty God! The cursed Saladin and his tens of thousands could not stand against our tiny army. My body is racked with disease, but the healing rune is helping, thanks to the grace of God and your skills. I will embrace the grave when that day soon comes, happy to have stood with your mighty Templars against the enhanced Mamluks. God is on our side, and I thank him daily for sending the hunters to teach you. Ever I am your enthusiastic friend.
~ Letter from King Baldwin IV to Odo de St Amand, Master of Knights of the Templars, after the Battle of Montgisard, November 25, 1177
The facetakers moved together, faster than Sarah expected.
Bastien shoved a grenade into a gap in the flowing stone robes of the statue hovering over him. He must have already pulled the pin because the grenade exploded barely a second later, cracking the statue’s torso and toppling it to the broken cobblestones.
Eirene gave Gregorios a passionate kiss, burning hands gripping his face, her eyes blazing more brightly with her nevron than Sarah had ever seen.
The short kiss was punctuated by the nearby explosion, then Eirene collapsed to the ground. Gregorios threw his head back and laughed, purple fire rolling up his arms to the elbow. It looked like Eirene had shared the full measure of her strength with him.
As the other two nearby statues converged on him, Gregorios lunged to meet them. Burning hands lashed out, and at his touch, the statues froze, then toppled to the ground, again nothing but inanimate objects.
Sarah gaped. She’d known facetakers could interrupt heka enhancements if they could get their hands on an enhanced fighter, but hadn’t known they could break a remote rune, particularly one as powerful as Paul was using.
“Get on it, girl!” Gregorios shouted to Sarah as he rushed Paul, whose amused expression was turning to annoyance.
“Do you think this is a game?” Paul snapped, knocking Gregorios aside, then sending Bastien tumbling with a backhand strike.
“I thought you were joking about the whole god-emperor thing,” Gregorios said, rolling back to his feet and facing him.
Paul glared. “Your insolence is going to cost you this time, Gregorios. I thought you were smarter.”
“Old dogs. New tricks.” Gregorios shrugged. “Bad combination.”
He glanced at Sarah again. She had already scratched two additional marks on her cipher stone and now willed it to life with her whole soul.
The cipher blazed to blue-white life. Energy rushed out of her to fuel it and she sagged to her knees, exulting. She could feel the energy erupt out of the newly-activated cipher, linking to the four other ciphers slipped under holes in the irregular shield dome, then locking onto Gregorios’ fiery nevron.
The Pope crouched beside Sarah, offering a supportive hand, but his gaze was locked on Gregorios’ burning hands. Twice he raised a hand as if to make a warding cross.
The weight of energy generated by Paul’s rune that had been pressing against Sarah ever since she entered the square shifted. It was like an eddy in a stagnant body of water rippled away from Paul toward Gregorios.
Paul coughed and stumbled, a groan escaping his lips as he swayed where he stood. The blinding light infusing him faded, and some of that brilliance shifted to Gregorios. The facetaker swelled with power, the fire of his hands taking on a deeper hue. He drew a long fighting knife and lunged, moving as fast as Paul had a moment earlier.
Paul grabbed for him, but his speed was far slower than before. Gregorios knocked his hand aside and drove his knife against Paul’s neck.
The blade bit into the flesh.
It only cut the skin, but that was more than any weapon had done before. With a heart-stopping battle cry, Gregorios struck again and again. The blade drove deeper every time, and Paul’s life blood sprayed out over the square.
Sarah shouted along with him, her strength rebounding, and she jumped to her feet.
Paul didn’t fall, despite gushing blood. He caught Gregorios’ arm and they wrestled over the knife. Even though Sarah’s cipher was stealing so much energy, Paul’s wounds still healed in seconds.
Paul glan
ced toward Sarah and for the first time he looked truly angry. “You will suffer.”
A nearby statue dove at Sarah. The move caught her by surprise, and it swept her off her feet. The two of them crashed to the ground together, and the heavy statue nearly flattened her.
Bastien leaped to help, but the statue wrapped one giant hand around Sarah’s and crushed her fingers against the cipher stone. Sarah beat at it as pain flared in her fingers. She was immensely strong, but lacked the proper leverage, and the statue possessed superhuman strength. It crushed the stone to powder inside of Sarah’s palm.
“Go help your father,” Sarah shouted to Bastien, who was beating on the statue’s head. He nodded and turned away.
As soon as it completed its task, the statue eased its hold. That was all the opening Sarah needed. She yanked her hand out of its grasp and wrapped her hands around its head. With a convulsive heave, she ripped its head off.
She kicked the twitching statue away, but the few seconds she’d wasted were far too long. The rush of energy fueling Gregorios expired, leaving him vulnerable. Paul’s godlike strength returned and he snatched the knife out of Gregorios’ hand.
With remarkable speed, he cut into his own arm the counter rune. Sarah, who had been planning to reactivate her rune, despaired. The counter rune would nullify her attempt to siphon his power again.
“Sarah,” Bastien shouted as he closed on Paul. “Help him!”
Paul kicked Gregorios aside and spun on Bastien, punching the facetaker in the throat. As Bastien gagged, Paul ripped his shirt off, spun him around, and raised the knife over his exposed back.
“Your father’s nevra core is needed to fuel my mother’s eternal glory, but I gave her the slave John and she took his power already. She won’t mind if I harvest yours.”
Bastien tried to struggle, but Paul easily overpowered him. The Cui Dashi slashed down, tearing deep into Bastien’s back, carving a rune into his flesh with savage strokes.