Belial - Episode 1 of the Elder Bornshire Chronicles

by Ben Stivers

  Scralz waved him quiet and turned her one eye to Arthur like a torch. “I got nothing to say to you.”

  “You are angry.”

  She tromped toward the wagon, pushed Anthony aside, and hauled a tangle of rope from back of the first wagon. “You give yourself too much credit. You put me out. Fine. Get lost before I get annoyed.”

  “I am concerned,” Arthur replied.

  Scralz slowed her coiling of rope long enough to say, “Hellsgate is my town. My home.”

  “You are right.”

  That caused her to pause unwrapping the rope, but only for a heartbeat, then she proceeded. “Of course I am right. That your boy there? Good to see you, Shanay. Maybe you can talk some sense into this half-wit.”

  Arthur would have begrudged most people the comment and the snub, but not Scralz. He replied, “Yes, that is Adam. Are you going to make me say I was wrong here in front of my son?”

  Scralz turned toward Arthur. “I got my own plan. Doesn’t involve you.”

  “Does it involve Anthony?”

  Scralz stumbled over that and Arthur felt like a lie incubated inside her conscience, but it died before it came forth. “Anthony is staying here. This trip is one way.”

  “Scralz?” Anthony questioned, but both Scralz and Arthur waved him quiet. If Arthur had his way, Scralz’s course of action would soon dissipate.

  “I was wrong,” he admitted, anticipating a biting reply.

  She stopped uncoiling the rope and looked down at her hands. She inhaled and exhaled and he could see tiredness about her. “Born, you cannot leave me out of this.”

  “Agreed. I should not have decided for you. Accept my intention, if not my judgment.”

  Scralz threw the rope back in the wagon. “So, I am in?”

  “If you want. Care to share your plan with me? Maybe we can use it.”

  Scralz shook her head. “Not really. It was a stupid plan anyway. Anthony would end up a widower and knowing him, he would probably starve to death within a week, pining the loss of my allure.”

  She started toward the front of the wagon and signaled Anthony to climb aboard. “You know, Shanay, I thought you would eventually thin his thickheadedness.”

  Shanay grinned at Arthur has he turned toward her and winked.

  “She is trying, but Wolf contributes to my state,” Arthur replied.

  Scralz turned toward Wolf and showed him her fist. “You, mister.”

  Wolf said nothing, which was probably fortunate, but he garnered the best innocent face that he could.

  Arthur climbed into the back of the wagon. “I’ll ride with you. I want to explain my plan and hear about these barrels of yours.”

  “Glorious,” Scralz drew. “Just what I need when I am tired. Some boring plan that doesn’t involve riding down a river on barrels to my death.”

  Anthony’s eyes grew wide, but Scralz’s expression kept him silent as she tsked to the horses and they backtracked through the night to Hellsgate.

  Belial put away her teeth as the Horseman revealed his plan. He could carry no violence to her in this place. Rock golems he could obliterate. Her, no. Anger and envy filled her. That this god-thing thought he could improve her creations irked her, but if he truly could, she would use that to her advantage. Having enough children of her own, she could dump Mrandor’s carcass into the sea and be done with him.

  Not yet, though.

  “Your creatures have a killing intellect,” Famine explained. “They have primal instincts, but little else to drive them. They hunt. They slay. They hibernate and reproduce. Inefficient. I can instill within them a refined and diligent hunger so profound they will kill, kill, and thirst to kill more. Even while they reproduce they will seek to kill.”

  She considered his proposal. Her brows furrowed in consternation that her enemy could so clearly detect laggardness. Yet, he certainly feared her. He wanted to be on the most powerful side. Her side.

  Her hellhounds and newest creation were unlike the Snipes and Alones. Those creations required Mrandor to bring her living souls before she could reform them to become her puppets. After that, they used the bodies they consumed to reproduce. She had not considered much time was wasted in digestion and their dread of daylight.

  Hellhounds and harpies were lifted out of the salt of the earth by her magic. She could create them much like the stone golems, but without so much drain. Yet, commanding them taxed her.

  The latent reproduction time of Alones and Snipes had not been her concern. Perhaps it should have been. Truth be told, she had spent more time with her tower than she had plotting a path forward, but perhaps she had a fortuitous opportunity to improve her position and eliminate the Horsemen through the end of Creation.

  “Now is the time to strike,” Famine urged, guessing by her expression her thoughts. “Bornshire’s attention is diffused. Before he can gather himself, you should strike.”

  “Mrandor has gone to Britannia to eliminate Bornshire’s mother,” Belial replied. “When he returns, Bornshire will be at his weakest.”

  Famine gazed at her, a glint of surprise in his eyes. What was it he did not say?

  “I bow to your wishes. I did not realize you needed Mrandor’s permission to act.”

  He nodded his head in a mock supplication, but already Belial’s anger clawed her throat and lurched from her mouth, “Mrandor does not command me!”

  “Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning.”

  She fed on the course of angst as if it were her lifeblood. “Go to my children. Feed them your blessing. When you arrive in Hell, I will greet you with my arms wide.”

  From the darkness outside of the clearing rose a shout. She looked up, but whoever had stood on the far side of the stone golems blurred their existence and reappeared only half a dozen strides from them.

  “Leave me be, Thanatos!” Famine growled.

  Belial crouched low and prepared to do battle. Supposedly, an angel and a Horseman could not confront one another in a physical melee, but perhaps the Father had that wrong as well.

  “Do not do this, brother,” Thanatos urged. “The Father will turn His back on you if you help this pitiful simulacrum of Lucifer.”

  Belial raged and swiped her wing through Thanatos’ form. He stepped aside much more swiftly than her strike while Famine vanished into the murky night.

  Acrimony clinging to him, Thanatos followed, leaving Belial to fill the forest with her wretched wails.

  Adam lingered near Artex, waiting for Sab to finish nailing the final boards across the stable doors. Up and down Pagan’s Way people vacated their establishments, their homes, their hideaways and fled toward the Downs. His father and Scralz had struck a deal with Crabwell to allow the residents of Hellsgate to immigrate into the Downs-above-ground. From within its upper walls, Crabwell’s men would defend the Hellsgate refugees for as long as they could, if it came to that, but the underground would not be opened, and if anyone came close to discovering the entryway, their lives would be taken. It was a harsh deal, but Arthur had agreed and his father’s word held stronger than the thickest chain. There was no weak link.

  Destiny played a serious game. Sometimes the fare landed lightly, almost frivolously. Other times, the consequences dealt bitter endings. This particular day lugged along the trappings to dish them all a stringent lesson. At his mind’s edge, a twinge of anxiety threatened to open a hole in his faith in Arthur and Shanay’s ability. Around them, the world reared an ugly future. Hellhounds. Snipes and Alones. Winged monsters and bloody many mercenaries.

  “Is something wrong, son?” Arthur asked, stepping out of the Dead Whore Tavern and laying his hand upon Adam’s shoulder.

  Adam stumbled for an answer, his concentration broken and not easily sliding into the current moment. “No. Fine.”

  “Convince me.”

  Adam considered lying and then decided against it. “I am afraid.”

  Arthur nodded an affirmation. “With good reason. This is but an opening skir
mish in what could become a final crusade. None of us may live to see the end of it.”

  “Then why not leave. That is what my father did.” As quickly as the words left his mouth, Adam wished he could have retrieved them. In Arthur’s eyes, a mild sadness drifted. “I did not mean that how it sounded. You are my father now.”

  “Always speak your mind,” Arthur replied, removing his hand from Adam’s soldier. “I cannot take your father’s place. I can only try to refine the noble work that he started in you. If you spend your time skirting my feelings, you will never say anything much worth hearing.”

  Adam nodded, but keenly felt that what he had said would have been best left unsaid. Yet, he could not unsay it.

  “As for why not run—I have pondered that much since the Great War. I thought that gruesome time would end all wars. When I served Rome, I thought that about many wars. If I could just win a single battle then the world would be a better place. Peace would come. I suppose every soldier cradles that fantasy in the desolate night. Truth is there will always be brokenness in this world. The day that people like your mother and I step away, corruption will surge.”

  “Why can’t we leave the task to someone else? You have done enough! Why not go somewhere—far away.”

  Arthur looked at the ground in thought. “Fear and courage are siblings. You cannot have courage without fear. Besides, what if everyone chose to flee before the storm?”

  Adam had no reply for that and said as much.

  Arthur stepped forward and patted Artex on the shoulder. “Blood is the price, Adam. I have paid it. Others I have befriended, have loved, have paid it. Christ paid it. Yet, we must pay and pay again or evil will have its way. The dues already paid will be forfeit, the tax come due greater than what has been sacrificed to date. We must stand. At least, I must. That is why I came out here to talk to you.”

  Adam sensed the words Arthur was about to say and interjected his own. “I stand with you—with mother—with all of these people, for these people.”

  Arthur clinched his lips together and his eyes gleamed. “Good. The world needs men like you. Come inside with the rest of us and hear the plan.”

  Mrandor followed his men right up to the edge of the forest and there he stopped.

  He sensed it. Then, he felt the overwhelming emotion emanating from the forest itself.

  Hatred. Rage. Rabidity.

  In his haste to exterminate another Bornshire, he had missed the clue, but within the forest, the pandemonium became audible.

  Leet had snatched Joanie off the path along which she retreated to draw Mrandor and his men deep into the arms of Leet and his men. At first, she did not struggle, possibly believing that he had accepted the fact that he had told them to leave and they had not. There was credence to that belief. She, being descended from druids, had a right to defend the homeland of her lineage. He understood that, especially since she had been present at their deaths. Nevertheless, he had a stronger right to see justice done.

  Yes, the Mother had grander plans. If she had made her desires known, he might have aligned his flock differently. Yet a child as archdruids went, he felt suddenly unwise, but he knew with certainty, the trees were angry.

  He withdrew deeper into the small cave. Joanie struggled and managed to pry loose his grip. In another moment, she would be free.

  Instead of allowing her to wrestle free, he released her, throwing her temporarily off-balance. He steadied her, but she threw off his hand in either frustration or anger. Her face did not betray which.

  “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Saving you,” he replied.

  “From what?”

  He nodded toward the entrance. Outside screams filled up the night. Horrible, long, pain-filled wailing. Shrieks from men of iron cast upon by wood. Octaves higher than any man’s voice should be, they howled.

  “This is Britannia,” he replied. “In your land, nature sleeps, overcome with complacency. No priests walk the earth to tend them. The woodlands, the stone, were carved down by your civilization. This is Britannia, the wild.”

  Mrandor stepped back and cast a warding spell. The trees had come forth to express their disfavor, but as of yet, the stone, the dirt, the air did not threaten. He raised his hands and prepared to silence his enemy.

  Scratching a rune in the dirt, he carved quickly. His experience in this particular spell assisted his rapid progress.

  Reaching deep into the foreign soil he projected his magic and heaved. “Come forth! Come forth!”

  The earth trembled, rumbled and groaned under the thunderous weight of the magic put to it. He added a secondary rune, attaching his spell to Belial’s power and diverting his own. Should he be successful, he imagined that his magic would be needed to battle the druids and the Bornshires. Draining Belial seemed a prudent use of power.

  “Come to me!” he called and raised his hands to the sky. The blue clouded as he leached strength from the air. Shaking violently, the thin topsoil cracked and the local region trembled. “Come!”

  The ground ruptured and the jagged edges of a Tree of Pain slowly climbed from the weeping earth.

  Leet stumbled as the earth drained his power, seeking to brace itself against Mrandor’s strength. Trying to make his way to the front of the cave, he collapsed.

  Joanie leapt to his side and put her hand on his head.

  “Leet, can you hear me?”

  A slow and raspy tone drew out of his mouth and his upper lip bled from the inside. His eyes bugged and his skin lost its flush.

  “Leet. Leet!”

  “Help us,” he whispered.

  Plunging from the cave, Joanie sped through the forest. Blood scent clung thickly to the air and the cries continued. She leapt over one barbarian whose arm was shattered and buried under a tree root as large as her calf.

  “Help!” he yelled, but she ignored him with the wind rushing in her ears like thunder. The sky had darkened to a deep blue twilight.

  As she sprang from the edge of the forest, she saw a maelstrom as large as the horizon, spinning, moaning, and wailing a deafening roar. The wind had grown. At that moment, a blistering bolt of lightning plunged deep into the forest and struck the awakened trees. The thunder that echoed lent a tilt to some trees and tossed Joanie from her feet.

  The rumble echoed away and order threatened to escort it out, but as she thought the world would slip from her mind, she grasped her consciousness and dragged herself back to her knees.

  The forest burned as another electric arc slashed into the woods a good distance away. Still, the thunder arrived nearly as soon as the lightning itself. The ringing in her ears abandoned the pounding.

  Not far from the forest’s edge, Mrandor had situated himself within a ring of fire and in the middle of that, his hand lying upon its trunk, he drew strength from a despicable Tree of Pain.

  Chapter 24

  Since childhood, Joanie had heard soul-wrenching tales of the Tree of Pain from both her father and her grandparents. The most abominable illustration of unrestrained blasphemy, regardless of your faith, her father and his parents had battled Mrandor at the Valley of Wizard’s Tower. There they thought they had defeated him.

  Mrandor’s transgression had deeply wounded Lieala. So much so, Daemon had returned her to Britannia to heal. Like the distant continent, she had never truly recovered.

  Mrandor had reappeared years after that war, and again her father thought he had snuffed out Mrandor’s light, but instead, Mrandor had simply carried his evil to Britannia to nurture it there.

  He had not looked her way, impassioned by his attack on a forest that edged ever closer to him. She briefly considered letting the trees fight the battle. They might be better equipped in the end to defeat this thing, but the agony of the trees keenly slashed her senses.

  Mrandor had placed a warding spell around him to keep the trees out, and probably a shield against magic. Joanie drew her sword and strode purposely toward him as, across the rise from
the forest, a horde of the druid followers charged into view from the opposite direction, thoughts of their arrows commanding the sky gone.

  Not wishing to draw particular attention, she kept a steady pace, slowly increasing as the horde drew nearer to Mrandor’s ring. He appeared unaware until they were approximately a hundred paces out. With a flick of his hand, he waved toward the tremendous storm cloud and the bottom of the gargantuan structure turned from blue-grey to light grey. Within seconds, hailstones as large as a man’s fist pummeled the charging men and women, striking them down with broken skulls or a variety of other devastating wounds.

  Like a scythe, the hailstorm cut them down. Mrandor did not so much as turn his attention but for that single gesture. Thus, surprise gripped him, when she strode through the edge of the ring with her sword in hand.

  As the blade descended, he alerted to her and attempted to dodge, but the sword slashed a contributory wound down his right arm, forcing him to snatch it back from the Tree of Pain.

  Joanie’s stomach wrenched and threatened to yank her to her knees, the putrid feeling the Tree lay all around. Each passing breath, the hideous blaspheme pumped poison into all it touched, fueled Mrandor’s strength while killing the soil. Soon, its affects would reach the forest’s edge.

  “A Bornshire,” Mrandor said. The fact that his contact with the Tree had been broken stopped its ascension from the ground. He casually drew his sword with murder in his eyes.

  She knew that he should have been older. How he had come to be this way, she did not know, but already the Tree had begun to putrefy the flesh on his hand. The forest surged forward in a surreal wave despite the malevolence. When the trees reached the boundary of the Tree’s strength, the forest’s power would revert to Mrandor to do with as he wished.

  “Stop this,” she said. “Stop this now and leave this place.”

  “You people never learn, do you? This place, this strength is mine for the taking. Why should I leave?”

  “I will let you live.”

  Mrandor smiled sarcastically. “Oh no! A Bornshire threatens me! What shall I do?”