The Godlost Land

by Curtis, Greg

  A blast of fire came his way then, and he knew that another Circle wizard had found him. He couldn't see him through the flame, but that didn't matter. Harl just picked up a massive lump of broken rock from the floor by his feet and hurled it at the source of the flame. There was a scream – a very brief one – and the flame stopped. Before it could start again he leapt the fifty feet or so to the fallen wizard who was already gasping his last and punched him, driving yet another Circle wizard into the demon realm. Tartarus was starting to fill up with dead Circle wizards.

  That left only two, and he could see both of them standing by the gate. Both were clearly terrified. And one of them was Terellion. The moment he set eyes on him something within Harl told him that he was the leader of the Circle. He was the one who had started this nightmare. He was the one who would end it too when he died. Harl knew him even though he looked like a particularly ugly woman with long dark hair. Even though he was bent over double as if he'd been riding horses for far too long. Even though he looked to be only thirty years old.

  And then the strangest thing happened. A fury standing behind Terellion suddenly pushed the wizard forward so that he fell almost at Harl's feet. She pushed the other one toward him too.

  “My lord says you bring with you.” The snake haired chimera unexpectedly bowed to him and then turned and walked calmly away, and though he didn't understand any of it, he knew what she wanted him to do.

  “Get back!”

  The fool wizard yelled it at him as if his words should mean something but it would have been more convincing if blood hadn't been pouring out of his nose and ears. If he hadn't been lying on the floor helpless. But the blood was pouring, he was almost prone as he held his head in obvious pain, and the words didn't matter a damn. Harl was upon both of them before they could say anything else. Before they could do anything. And then with both of them secure in his grip, their shoulders somewhat crushed in his fists, he walked towards the gate itself. The nightmare from which they had unleashed their endless army.

  It wasn't much he thought. Not something that should have destroyed the five kingdoms. Just a huge wooden box with a side missing. A gate that had been locked, but which wasn't a heartbeat later as he spoke the necessary spell.

  “No!” Terellion let out a terrified shriek as he saw where he was walking and guessed what Harl had in mind. “You can't. I'm supposed to be a god!”

  But the god was too slow and far too pathetic to stop him. Harl walked into the gate with his prisoners in hand and stepped through into the underworld, still with them in hand an instant later.

  The other side was different to what Harl had thought it would be. Not that he had really thought much about it at all. But maybe that was because there were three or four more dead Circle wizards somewhere in it and the magic bursting free of their corpses was slowly ripping the demon realm apart.

  The sky of Tartarus was black save for the orange fire that seemed to keep flying across it. The land was nothing but volcanoes and rivers of lava. If there had ever been grass or trees there weren't any more. There was rubble too. There had once been buildings here. But they were gone. No doubt torn apart by the violence of the realm's destruction. Only rubble remained.

  All around there were bodies. Demon bodies. Hundreds or thousands of them were scattered everywhere. And Harl knew that they had survived no better than had anyone else in his world when it had fallen apart. Their twisted remains, green slime covered skins and far too many legs on some of them, were broken. Many of them had been torn into pieces. Others had been crushed by falling rocks.

  The air was foul. Poisonous. It stank of something like death and rot. And the stench was so thick that he could taste it in his mouth. But if it was bad for him he knew it was a thousand times worse for his prisoners. They were choking, their faces turning black as they tried to breathe, and he knew they would be dead soon. But that was as it should be. They were serving their final purpose.

  He lifted one up so he could look more closely into his face. It might have been Nardi he thought. With his face so blackened and distorted already it was hard to tell. Harl tossed him into the nearest pool of lava where he died with a final scream. Harl had no need of the man – he was not to be the last – Terellion was. And he was in his other hand. He was the one Harl knew who had somehow started all this. Even if he was in some sort of disguise as a particularly ugly woman. But it didn't really matter. He was the last of the twelve no matter which one he was. He still had one thing left to do.

  “Please.”

  Against all reason the wizard begged him for mercy and Harl wondered how he could possibly even think it might be coming. There was no mercy for him. There was only death. But maybe that was why he had somehow transformed himself into a woman? Maybe he was trying to elicit some sympathy. More likely he was trying to escape. To hide who he was.

  “Let me live. I'll give you anything!”

  But as if to prove him a liar a great yellow tentacle came out of nowhere to smash at Harl. Smash hard. It would have crushed a normal man. But it was nowhere near hard enough to even scratch the transcendent metal. It was not even hard enough to rock him where he stood. The hydra – and he knew it was one even before he turned to look – was no threat to him. In fact like the rest of the demon beasts in this place, it was dying.

  “Call Xin!”

  And that was where this truly would end. They all had to die. The traitorous wizards who had made the deal. And the one they had made the deal with. The would be prince of Tartarus. The demon king as he called himself.

  “No!”

  The wizard screamed it as best he could. As terrified as he was he knew he never wanted to face the king of demons in the flesh. There were worse things than death. But it didn't matter. Now that the wizard had screamed and surely been heard Xin would come to him if he was able. He would try desperately to get the wizard back through the gate because he knew what would happen if the twelfth wizard died in his realm. The binding would rip him apart. And when the rest of Tartarus was destroyed all around him, he would die with it. All Harl had to do was wait. Then he would kill him.

  It was a long wait. At least it felt like one. And all the while he stood there the world slowly tore itself apart around him. Fiery boulders the size of castles smashed into the ground while lava began bubbling up out of the ground. Tornadoes screamed their fury as they hurled dirt everywhere and huge chasms opened up everywhere. The hydra lashed out at him a few more times, but then gave up as the air choked it to death. Harl scarcely noticed.

  The wizard in his arms began to die. The black char that was his skin was beginning to blister and burst, leaking fluids down his entire body. His eyes caught fire. Even the screaming stopped as his throat closed over. Yet still he continued to live as his injuries kept healing over. Harl could see his lungs moving in his chest. But even with whatever strange magic that was healing Terellion, he knew it wouldn't keep him alive for much longer.

  Then Xin arrived and Harl didn't care how much longer the wizard lived. Not when he saw the great demon standing there in the distance in his armour. He simply threw the wizard away to die somewhere else the instant he recognised his enemy, and ran for him. Ran for him as no mortal could. But then what was inside of him, the rage and the desire to punish, was never mortal.

  Harl was nothing more than a flash of silver crossing the leagues in the blink of an eye. So fast that the demon king didn't even have time to react. Not until Harl hit him. Punching him brutally in the chest.

  The demon was far tougher than any enemy he'd faced of course. And he was wearing armour of his own. Black dragon scale so thick that it was surely invulnerable to any weapon. But when Harl's transcendent metal covered fist hit it, it shattered. And though the demon king might be twelve feet tall and thousands of pounds of muscle and bone, he still flew backwards so fast that he was barely a blur himself.

  But Harl kept up. With the rage of Lyssa flowing through him he was fast enough to keep up
with anything. And when Xin smashed into a cliff face – all that was left of what had once been a mountain – Harl was already there waiting for him. Then as the demon king started screaming something, he smashed him again. This time though he drove him down into the stone, jumping up and then bringing his fists down so hard on his head that his feet crushed the stone beneath him. Xin's helm also cracked and half of it fell away. Enough to reveal the putrid, slimy looking skin that all demons had.

  Xin was strong though, and dangerous. Even buried in the stone he somehow managed to find his sword, a huge black blade covered in fire that he swung at him with incredible speed. Harl couldn't dodge the strike. It was just too fast, and he took the blow to his shoulder and hoped the armour was strong enough. It was.

  His body however wasn't. He felt something solid crunching inside. But the pain lasted far less than a single beat of his heart and his arm still worked. Even before he'd been smashed into the stone of the mountain Harl was fighting back, ripping the blade from the demon and his gauntlet with it.

  And when he tossed them away into the distance, Harl was sure that part of the demon's hand had gone with them.

  “No!”

  Xin screamed in pain and reached out with some sort of demon magic. But whatever spell it was bounced right off his armour. Harl used the chance it gave him to hit him again, this time in the back. The back plate on his armour was as thick as the front one, but it shattered just the same as the front piece had, and the force of the blow was so great that it ripped the demon king's legs right out of the stone they were buried in and sent him flying through the air. Flying and spinning, with bits and piece of black dragon scale flying off him in all directions.

  The world tore itself apart then, screaming its anguish in a sound so loud that it would shatter eardrums. Mountains ripped themselves loose from the ground and started heading for the black of night high above. And for as far as the eye could see the remaining rocky ground shattered, becoming nothing more than sand. Molten hot sand. Harl guessed that the last Circle wizard had finally died. But he didn't care about that. He didn't care that the entire world suddenly went white as a thousand lightning strikes suddenly smashed into him and turned the ground beneath his feet into burning gas. He cared only about the demon king still flying through the air, losing bits and pieces of armour along the way, and screaming. Screaming with fear and pain. It was a good sound.

  Still, there was more to do, and Harl ran to where he thought the demon king would land. But he was slowed. The sand underfoot simply would not allow his feet to push against it as would rock, and hurricanes of impossible force began blowing him off course. Then something massive smashed down on him driving him into the sand just as he had smashed the demon king only moments before. Still, Harl ripped his way free of it. Whatever it was that covered him, shattered when he punched it, and in short order it exploded, leaving him standing there, unbowed.

  But the delay had given the demon king time to land and prepare something of a defence. But he was in a bad way. Blood, or what passed for it, was pouring out of him, and he seemed to be screaming in pain and clutching at himself. The binding when it had shattered had obviously hurt him. And because of that Xin was desperate to use anything he could to keep him at bay while he recovered his strength. Xin chose fire. Every wizard always chose fire as their first weapon if they had it, and that was always Harl's first hope. Even had he not been wearing the armour it would not have harmed him. So Harl took advantage of Xin's mistake.

  He smashed into him again but this time he didn't punch him. Instead he wrapped his hands around the demon king's thigh and then twisted until he could rest his feet on Xin's other thigh. Then he straightened up with every ounce of strength he had forcing the demon king's legs apart. It worked exactly as he wanted. He heard the sound of bones snapping as the demon king's legs and hips were torn apart. He heard Xin scream as never before. And then he watched as rivers of putrid green blood started pouring out of him, covering his armour and pooling on the crushed rock, before it was slowly absorbed.

  Then, because the demon was still screaming and unable to move, Harl carried on. He snapped the demon king's legs back one by one at the knees and ripped the armour off the bent limbs. Then he ripped the armour off his arms at the elbow and sent it flying after hearing the satisfying sound of Xin's elbows snapping backwards. After that it was his shoulders that he crushed. Eventually the demon king was left lying there, broken and suffering, and nearly naked.

  His armour was gone and Xin was completely crippled. Unable to defend himself, he couldn't even crawl away. Harl knew it was time to end this. To finally kill the demon king. He had to pay for what he'd done.

  “My kingdom! I promise!”

  Xin made one final, despairing promise as he realised what was coming, but he should have known better. Especially when Harl knew it was a lie. Another deception, even at the very end. Xin didn't have a kingdom. Hades, all of it including Tartarus, was the province of Pluto. Xin was just his most powerful servant.

  Harl drew his sword, his master ice blade now covered like him in the transcendent metal, and vaulted lightly on top of Xin's bleeding chest. It was so large that there was enough room on it for several men to have stood. Then while the demon king stared helplessly up at him and tried to say something, Harl placed the tip of the blade directly over where the heart would be in a man. Words Harl didn't know suddenly thundered out of his mouth before he pushed down.

  The blade sank deep into the demon king, all three feet of its shining length buried in putrid green flesh until only the hilt and guard was showing. But that was as it should be. Harl crouched down over it, his knee on the demon king's chest, and started moving the blade around, twisting it, pushing it in ever widening circles, creating a gaping hole

  Xin screamed one final time, a sound that was cut short, and when Harl twisted the blade around and then pulled it free, something that looked like a giant green heart came with it. Impossibly it was still beating – squirting green blood – but not for long. It stopped even as he held it high in the air above him and he knew the demon king was dead.

  “Yes!”

  Harl screamed his triumph out to the burning black sky above and the mountains still flying through it, knowing only that it was over. Xin was dead. The wizards were dead. Tartarus itself was in ruins. His vengeance was finally complete.

  The gods knew it too. He felt them in some way, celebrating the victory. But he also felt them moving away from him. The victory was complete, he had served his purpose. There was no more need for them to be with him. So they left him and they took their grace with them.

  His armour suddenly stopped shining. The strength left him completely and his body burned with pain. His sword suddenly buckled as the demon blood began to eat through it. Worse than that, he found he suddenly couldn't breathe. The air had become acid. It was eating at his throat and at his skin. It was tearing into his eyes, burning them as he had never been burnt before. And he knew he was dying.

  Unable to stop himself Harl fell forward on to the sand, and then just lay there, unable to move. Even if he'd had the strength, the armour wouldn't have allowed him to. It had turned solid, encasing him in a steel coffin.

  Though Harl knew he was going to die in agony it was all right with him. His family was gone. His home was destroyed. His lover was dead, his unborn baby with her. There was nothing left to live for. Nothing at all. It was enough that he had managed to kill those who had done these things to him. A little pain – death – they were nothing compared to that mercy. They didn't matter at all. So he would hold on to the sense of triumph for as long as he could, and then he would know no more.

  “Just lying there for no reason? Tired maybe?”

  Out of the corner of his eye Harl could just make out the orange paws of a cat. The cat who wasn't a cat. And he wondered. How could he be here in the underworld? But it didn't really matter, and he didn't answer him. He just concentrated on his breathing – for
as long as he could.

  “Fine – then I guess I'll just have to do everything myself!”

  The cat seemed annoyed about something, but Harl didn't know what. And with the pain tearing through him he didn't really care. He just wanted to lie still until he died. Was it too much to hope for a little peace at the end?

  Abruptly the burning sand beneath him vanished. Disappeared in the blink of an eye, and what replaced it was grass. Long, perfectly green and healthy grass. Soft grass. And strangely with it there was air he could breathe. Air he actually wanted to breathe. Air that was as soft and gentle as the grass, and as fragrant too.

  It didn't make a lot of sense to him just then. But not a lot did. Certainly it was better than the air he had been breathing a few heartbeats before.

  “Cat?”

  “Call me Maynard. It'd be nice if someone remembered my name for a bit. Now close your eyes and I'll see about getting you out of that armour.”

  It was a strange name for a cat Harl thought. Though of course he knew the cat was no ordinary cat. And it was a strange thing for a cat to say. But just then he couldn't help but think that it was good advice. Let his eyes close. Let the soft darkness take him away. It seemed like a very good idea.