The Godlost Land

by Curtis, Greg

  But oddly enough he suddenly realised that escape now might be possible. If he didn't look like Terellion and he had no magic for the priests to detect, then maybe, just maybe, he could pretend to be what he looked like? A pathetic woman. He could hide during the battle and then pretend to be a civilian in the hope that no one would harm him. Of course he couldn't escape whatever monster might be growing inside him. But the healers had potions for that so he understood.

  Even running away was going to be more difficult than he realised though. He discovered that when the fury pushed him forward and he took his first shaking steps on his exhausted legs. They didn't work right. Not even as poorly as they had before. They were too short and too weak, and the pain in his loins made it impossible for him to bring them together or stand up straight. His sense of balance was off. And things didn't turn in the right directions. He discovered all of that as he fell to the ground. Considering that everything else was weak and exhausted from the abuse he supposed he was just lucky to have been able to get his hands out in front of him before he hit the stone.

  Falling though wasn't going to save him. The fury quickly had him up on his feet and started pushing him again. This time he managed to keep his feet under him. But he wasn't walking. He was waddling like a duck. Bent almost double with pain. More correctly he was saddle sore, but he was the one that had been ridden.

  The fury wasn't happy with his progress. She kept pushing him forward, urging him on, forcing him out of the cell and down the passageway. Just once he thought, the guards should have checked that the cell doors had been locked. But they hadn't bothered. Ever. They had to die!

  “My bitch!”

  His tormentor greeted him at the bottom of the stairs and suddenly wrapped him up in a happy hug. For a moment he thought she was going to mount him again then and there. But then he saw that she no longer had the parts and he knew a sense of overwhelming relief. It was over. That part at least. But then he thought to wonder why. Why was she a woman again? Was it truly over? Or was she finished with her manhood because her job had been done? Because now something abominable now grew in him? The very thought of it made Terellion shudder. But it was the only answer he could think of.

  “You have my baby!” She said it with such conviction and happiness that he almost believed it was a good thing for a heartbeat. Save that he couldn't ever allow himself to consider something so horrible as good.

  “No!”

  He denied it. He had to. There was no way he could live with the thought that he had something so horrible inside him. But she kept smiling and Terellion couldn't even convince himself she was wrong.

  “Yes. So happy!” And as if her words weren't enough to convince him she started rubbing his belly. “Good belly. Bad man but good belly.”

  “Now up stairs. Wait and watch. Meet Harl. Then Nemesis.” And just in case he didn't get the idea she helped him by pushing him up the stairs with her talons digging in to the soft skin of his buttocks.

  Nemesis? He was going to meet Nemesis? That did not strike Terellion as a good thing. But when he was already a woman who might be carrying a monster, was there really any good left in the world? The best he could hope for he decided as he clambered painfully up the stairs, was a little less pain here and there if he was lucky. And he wasn't lucky. Tyche had abandoned him long ago. The blind goddess was no friend of his.

  Then another thought struck him. “I can't meet Nemesis. I'm alive. Are you going to kill me?”

  It seemed ridiculous to be afraid of death after everything he'd suffered, but he suddenly knew fear as he thought of it. He didn't want to live like this – especially not if he was doomed to live in this hideous body without his magic and with something hideous inside him waiting to rip itself out of him. But he didn't want to die. He still wanted to live! To find his magic again. To get his true body back and regain his kingdom. And then to destroy all his enemies.

  “Not me kill you. Maybe you die. Maybe no. Don't know. Only know you carry my baby. You bring into world nine months. Now walk.”

  “Childbirth.”

  Terellion whispered the word not wanting to say it, and the gorge rose in his throat a little. He didn't even want to think about it. Why did she have to keep saying it?

  “Women have babies always. You try make me have yours. This much better.”

  It probably was for her he thought. But at least she was an actual woman. And a fury. It would have been natural for her. Whatever came out of her would have been natural. For him it was anything but. It was an abomination.

  At the top of the stairs was a small antechamber – in truth more of a short wide hall than an actual chamber – and at the far end of it was the door that led into the temple itself. The door that led to freedom. Seeing it Terellion knew an overpowering need to escape.

  He ran for it, waddling as fast as his short fat legs could carry him. But of course there was no hope. There never had been.

  “Ah ah! No run.” She pulled him back with an arm around his middle, and then forced him to the ground. Then she sat down beside him with her arm wrapped tight around him so that he couldn't get away.

  She kissed him on the cheek suddenly, and for a moment he was shocked by the gesture. It was so painless. Almost caring, and he didn't know what to think. He was so used to her violence.

  “We have time. Harl not here. Time think of name maybe.”

  “Name?” But she answered his question by rubbing his belly softly, reminding him again of what he was trying to forget. He actually preferred it when she bit him.

  “I Sarisu. It mean strength of wind. Good name. Baby need good name. Maybe Gorgon, first of gorgons.”

  The fury carried on like that for some time. Talking to herself, rubbing his belly as if for luck, and completely forgetting him as she dreamed of baby names. While for his part Terellion just sat there, terrified. He didn't know what was happening or what was going to happen. But he knew he was trapped. Trapped in so many ways. Trapped by the fury holding him – she would not let him get away. Trapped by his own pathetic body which was now so weak that he couldn't run. Trapped by the enemies outside the city. Trapped by what might be inside him. Trapped and as far as he knew, about to die. When the High Priestess' army came crashing into the city they would kill him. They would kill everyone.

  And just who in all of Hades he kept asking himself, was Harl?

  Then as the first explosion hit and the ground beneath him suddenly shook he had a new question. What in Hades was happening outside? Was this something to do with this Harl? He asked and she laughed at him, and told him it was time.

  What miserable god could have inflicted such a horrible torment on him as this? And why? What had he done to deserve such a fate?

  “Not worry. Soon Harl here. Soon judgement be passed. And soon you be big and round. Bring first baby into world.”

  “No!” Terellion screamed at her when she said that. Not just because he couldn't stand the thought that something so horrible could be growing inside him. But because she said first. As in more than one? As in this was going to happen again?

  “Yes!” She smiled happily at him. “Nemesis says yes. You be mother many children. Thousands. All furies' children. This just first.”

  “Now hush. Wait for judgement.”

  She turned away from him then and looked to the far door, waiting patiently, while Terellion sat there and tried to contain his terror. But he couldn't. Not completely. And he couldn't deny it. Not any more. Not after everything that had already happened. Because deep down he knew it was true.

  He'd been damned.

  Chapter Sixty Seven

  The wall loomed large before him, and Harl thought it looked solid. Far more solid than it had been the last time he'd seen it. Forty feet high, incredibly thick, and all of it built of enormous stone blocks held together with steel pins and mortar. It was a mountain of stone. As if that wasn't enough, the top of the wall was lined with soldiers. They were currently standing on
the battlements, bows at the ready. Hundreds of them. And as he came into range they loosed their arrows and bolts at him. All of them.

  Some hit, but he didn't flinch. He didn't even feel the impacts; just heard the minor cracks as the steel heads smashed into his armour and broke. They were as nothing to him. There was nothing within him save the rage that was filling him. It had been consuming him for days. A rage that was at the same time both calculating and cold, and yet burning hot. A rage that promised him vengeance. A rage that told him exactly what to do. And just then it was telling him to walk on to the wall. So he did just that.

  He walked on and the wall grew ever larger before him while an endless stream of arrows bounced off him.

  And then the wall was immediately in front of him and he had to stop. But only for a moment. Then acting on an impulse he didn't understand he raised a fist and with all the strength he could find he punched the stone.

  It cracked. It shook and screamed with the power of a million screaming souls. And then it exploded. A detonation of unimaginable fury as the wall tore itself apart. There was fire, bursting from the ground and out of the wall itself. There were fountains of lava erupting everywhere. There were rocks and people flying in all directions, thrown by the unrelenting power of the blast. And he ignored all of it. Because there was only one thing that mattered. There was now a breach in the wall. He stepped through it and into the city. Into Lion's Crest for the first time in five years.

  Inside Lion's Crest he was greeted by an army. By thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of soldiers in their full armour. By hundreds of minor wizards who were launching fireballs and lightning blasts against him. And by a great many more beasts. But he didn't care about them. As they rushed him they seemed less than nothing to him. The first few that reached him he smashed, flicking out a fist and sending their broken bodies smashing into the lines of beasts and soldiers behind them. And each time he punched someone there was an explosion of power. The force of it sent his attackers flying in their hundreds. But fairly soon he forgot about them as he saw his first targets.

  Two of the Circle wizards that he recognised lay ahead. Artinalis of Arndale Flats and Lucara the Sage. They had clearly been on the battlements when he had struck the wall. And by the looks of things they had been far too close. Both were injured, lying on the ground, bleeding. But they weren't too injured to understand that he was coming for them. Lucara was the first to act, sending a whirlwind to envelop him. But the wind did nothing except send the rest of the army around him flying and Harl ignored it. He didn't even feel it.

  What he did feel was rage. In fact it was the only thing he felt. And powered by it he hurried toward the fallen wizard. He had lived too long. Lucara increased the power of his twister, turning it from a small whirlwind into a devastatingly powerful tornado in mere heartbeats, but Harl didn't care. The wind meant nothing to him. Neither did the lightning strikes as they started raining down on him. The only thing that mattered was the wizard, still on the ground and trying to get up, but unable to do so because of his injuries.

  When Harl reached him he lifted Lucara off the ground, picking him up by the shoulder with one arm and then squeezed a little more tightly than he needed to. Bones were crushed, blood sprayed in all directions, and the screaming wizard almost slipped from his grasp as his flesh gave way.

  Almost, but not quite. He was not getting away.

  Instead, as he hung there, the tornado slipped away into a mass of confused air as the wizard cried out in pain. Then Harl tossed him gently up into the air. Just a few feet. And when he came down still crying out, Harl punched him with all the strength he had. Too much strength.

  The wizard died in an instant, his head crushed, and his lifeless corpse flew away from him faster than any arrow, spraying blood everywhere. But instead of hitting the wall of the nearest building and turning into a blood red smear on it as he should have he vanished in mid air. And Harl knew he was in the demon realm. He had punched him all the way to Tartarus – as he was meant to. The armour had a demon trap spell on it. He had enchanted into it every spell he knew and every spell he had been given.

  A drake struck him then. A huge beast every bit as large as a dragon, and instantly Harl was swallowed up by it. But when the beast tried to close its mouth to chew on him, its teeth broke. Shortly after that the rest of its head did as Harl ripped his way free of the beast. He simply dug his arms deep into its fleshy head, and ripped out huge chunks of flesh and bone. Heartbeats later he was standing on the hard ground covered from head to foot in drake blood, while the drake itself had collapsed on the ground – dead. Not many creatures survived without their heads.

  Artinalis wasn't far away and Harl found him in only a couple of heartbeats. He was still lying on the ground crying. His legs were broken, presumably from the blast when the wall had exploded and he'd been thrown, and he was holding his head. Hurt no doubt as a result of his bond with the drake being so brutally broken. Harl didn't waste any time as he picked up the wizard and then smashed him into the underworld. The man had already been alive too long.

  After that it was on to the temple where he knew the rest of the wizards would be, and he marched across the city, determined to reach them quickly. The soldiers and the chimera tried to stop him of course as they regrouped, and they descended on him in packs. But they could do nothing to him, and those that annoyed him he tore apart. In time the soldiers at least began to realise that they were powerless against him, and they settled for standing a long way off from him and loosing arrows in his direction. He barely noticed them.

  What he did notice was the rage building within him. Rage combined with a savage joy that just kept growing. This was violence and brutality such as he had never known. It was vengeance pure and simple. And while he knew it would not bring his loved ones back, for a while as he let his rage run free it was bliss. Knowing that those who had done these things to him were dead or about to die was everything. Maybe it was even justice.

  A wall rose up in front of him unexpectedly and he knew that the battle had been joined once more. Harl punched it and instantly the wall exploded, sending burning chunks of rock flying in all directions and killing hundreds of chimera. But that was nowhere near as important as the fact that he spotted his attacker; a woman with a mastery of earth, clutching at her head while blood poured down her face. Immediately he knew her for another of the twelve. But not for long.

  She was crouching down behind a stone well, frightened of what she'd unleashed. As well she should be. She didn't have long to live in fear as he lightly vaulted the remains of the wall and landed on top of her. His metal skinned feet crushed her legs and she screamed. But he cut her scream short as he smashed her with a metal skinned fist.

  Then, even as she vanished he thought he should do something about those around him. There were so many wizards attacking him that the combined blast of their attack was turning the city around him into an inferno of wild magic. It was starting to annoy him. And attacking the wall had given him an idea.

  By then he was already in the commercial part of the city and the buildings were all three and four stories tall and all made of good solid stone. So he simple unleashed on them with his fists and let the explosions that followed take care of his enemies. Terrible detonations of stone and fire that enveloped everything around him. Soon the remaining wizards who survived were no longer attacking him, but fleeing instead. Those that hadn't been struck down by flaming pieces of rubble. It was then that he could finally see clear space ahead of him. So many of the beasts and soldiers had perished that their bodies covered the ground like leaves in the fall. And the rest were running as fast as they possibly could.

  It was a good sight to see. Even when he realised that half the city was on fire.

  Harl marched on, heading for the Great Temple to Artemis. Because it was there that he knew the last three Circle wizards would be, and with them the gate. He was eager for the battle. And fortunately the temple wasn'
t that much further. In fact he could see its gently curving domes in the distance.

  Soon he was running for it, moving like the wind, while his feet tore the ground apart and sent clouds of dirt flying into the air. The end was in sight and he couldn't help himself. He couldn't slow down. Those who had caused so much pain and suffering would finally die.

  It was less than a minute before he was there, standing in front of the Great Temple, and he knew the last battle was about to begin.

  Someone had closed the temple doors, fifteen foot tall oak doors that weighed as much as an ox each. They shouldn't have bothered. There was nothing that would save them from him. Certainly not a mere door. There was no protection and no mercy. Harl punched straight through them with his fists and then threw their shattered remains away as he stepped inside.