Wraith King 3
Page 19
His warriors were also now running away, but I couldn’t let that happen, so I began to slice my way through them with my bare hands. I didn’t care that I was a man covered in blood, whose only purpose was to kill. And the warriors wouldn’t meet me in battle anymore. Instead, when they looked at me, they darted away, refusing to do fight. I sent spells after them, calling down fire and wind on them, crashing trees down on top of them and in front of them. And then I chased them into the forest, catching as many as I could. A few I beat senseless with my hands, forgetting my spells or even the dagger on my hip.
Because I was death.
This was my purpose, to deal death to my enemies. And if they would not bow before me, then I would show them who was master.
Their shrieks and cries couldn’t do anything to stop me, and I vaguely registered catching a woman by the hair and ripping her backward, breaking her neck at the same time. Then I stabbed her with her own sword and left it inside her while I went on to the next warrior, and the next, and the next.
I caught one man, who pushed down his companion in an effort to get away from me, and when I grabbed him, I spun him around and forced him to his knees. Then, I stuck my thumbs in his eyes and squeezed until his eyeballs burst and he screamed. And then I kept squeezing, using my magic to empower me to drive my thumbs into his brains. When he was dead, I threw him to the ground and then went after another.
During my reign of blood, nothing could touch me, not sword nor spear, not an arrow.
And as I looked over all the bodies of the fallen, still trying to hunt down as many as I could find, I briefly registered that somewhere along the line I had lost my clothes, and that I wore nothing except my torn pants, even my boots having been lost. And as I spun around, the drums drove me to insanity, and I finally collapsed onto the ground, grabbing hold of mud in my hands and trying to force spells into the ground to stop the beating.
And still my skin crawled and my eyeballs threatened to burst out of my sockets and my eardrums hurt so painfully I just wished someone would walk up behind me and get it all over with.
I screamed then, knowing and feeling the madness overtake me, feeling my brain break and my body tear apart.
And then I heard a voice behind me. I didn’t recognize it, and I was so mad and in pain that I turned and lashed out, my hand connecting with flesh, my spell hitting a woman in the chest.
She fell backward, her hair flowing out behind her as she hit the ground, and the light dimming in her eyes.
I watched her die, not knowing who she was, seeing the mark I had caused on her body, and that she was wearing a simple dress that had reached the ground. There was a hole in her now, near the breastbone, burned through her chest all the way to her heart.
She hadn’t even screamed.
My chest was still heaving, and the drums were still there, but somehow I knew that I should recognize this person. That this… elf… had not been part of my madness.
I stared at her, looking at her delicate pointed ears and her soft but worried face.
There was an insane, evil urge inside me to mutilate her body, but there was a shred enough left of me to hold back.
I sank down to the ground next to her, laying my head in the dirt and watching her still-open eyes that were now lifeless.
Who was she?
Then I noticed a silver dagger in her hand. It was covered in blood, but I knew instinctively it wasn’t my blood. Her dress was stained with mud and dirt and the blood of others. She was barefoot.
And then I noticed she had landed on a pile of twigs, and some of them had fallen into her hair.
It reminded me of someone I had met over a green fire with twigs and hair and glowing blue eyes.
Kali.
I had killed the elf queen.
44
It could have been moments or hours later, but I eventually registered the beating of wings, and at first they reminded me of the beating of drums. But those drums had disappeared somewhere along the way. My body was weak, and I still lay there staring at Kali’s beautiful corpse.
I smelled Ilana’s scent and felt her gentle hands on me. With strength she didn’t look like she possessed, she picked me up and hauled me into a sitting position. And I looked at her through bleary eyes.
“I couldn’t find you,” I whispered hoarsely.
Ilana the succubus was crying. Her wings spread around us as if to create a temporary shelter, and I could see that she had sustained a few injuries. One of her wings looked scratched but not badly. But she had scratches on her face and some of her clothes were torn.
“I couldn’t find you,” I repeated. I was breathing very heavily, too relieved to see her and yet too ashamed to meet her eyes.
“Jon,” she said gently, “we need to go. I don’t think it’s wise to stay here.”
“Where are Sarina and Wren?” I asked, still not looking directly at her face.
“They are safe, and they have our horses. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
“The goddess…” I began.
“Hush now,” Ilana said, putting her finger to my lips. “We can talk later.”
Finally, I lifted my chin and looked into the beautiful demoness’ eyes. They were still flecked with gold, her skin still flawless despite the scratches on her face. Her raven colored hair, while looking slightly disheveled, still fell around her in beautiful waves.
“What have I done?”
“You saved them, Jon,” Ilana said. “You saved the wood elves. But we still need to leave.”
With that, she stood and pulled me to my feet. I wobbled for a moment, thinking that if I stayed here perhaps it would be better.
How could I have saved anyone?
Ilana wrapped her arms around my waist, and said, “Hold on.”
And then with a powerful beat of her wings, she took me up into the air, not caring that I was rubbing blood off onto her, not caring that I was probably bleeding onto her or that I smelled like shit. She flew over the tops of the trees, a short way from the city, which I could still see glowing with fires. And she set us down in a darker portion of the wood, not letting go of me until I found my feet.
Sarina and Wren walked out of the darkness then, Sarina still as a Hellhound, and Wren looking bruised and battered but not severely injured. The half-elf was holding the reins of all three of our horses.
As soon as she saw me, Sarina shifted back into human form and ran up to me. She was naked, of course, but that didn’t seem to matter as she threw her arms around my blood-covered body. And then she held me tight, not asking anything of me, just holding me. So I put my arms around her and kissed her hard.
Finally, she released me, and I looked at the three of them each in turn.
The guilt was beginning to weigh on me very heavily, as it sank in that I had killed Kali, the seer and elf queen of the wood elves. The one who had led me to the goddess, my mother.
Finally, I took the reins of my horse from Wren. “Glad to see she’s okay,” I said thickly.
“Wren got them out,” Sarina said. “She was in the stable when the fighting started. Some of Maelon’s warriors tried to take them from her, but she fought back. If it weren’t for her, we might have lost them.”
My mare nuzzled my neck, and then jerked back at the smell. “I know, girl,” I whispered.
Then I looked into her eyes, at this horse that even now didn’t shy away from me, from a madman who had just slaughtered countless men and women, and even an innocent queen.
“I’ve got a name for you,” I said, and the mare snorted.
“Deathbringer.”
The horse looked into my eye, and then nudged me in the chest.
“Jon,” Ilana said, “that is no name for a horse—”
“But it is the name of my horse,” I said. “For she will be bringing death wherever she goes. Death is me. Now let’s get out of here.”
And as we fled the forest, I heard many voices lifted in a painful, wailing cry t
hat I knew would never be forgotten.
~The End~
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Also by Jack Porter
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Wraith King 2
Wraith King 3
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Incubus Mini-Boss: Rise of an Incubus Overlord 2
Incubus Kingpin: Rise of an Incubus Overlord 3
Rogan’s Monsters 1: Wastelands
Rogan’s Monsters 2: Below
The Bastard
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