“I can feel the Umbral Power in them. None of these in front of us are Umbral users, but the ones coming are.” Talon continued killing the undead in front of his face, while staring in the direction of the coming danger. “If you have any wards that are meant to keep the living dead at bay, you better start casting them.”
Both Yoh and Galadria began tracing new spell patterns in the air, while Talon, Sandor and Gabriel held the door against the coming mass. Having finished off the last of the undead in the warehouse, Selestra and Simon were looking around nervously, waiting for more incorporeal undead to pass through the solid stone walls.
In less than thirty seconds, Galadria pointed to the back corner of the warehouse. “There should be sewer tunnel over there, right outside the warehouse. It's about ten feet deep, but it might be mostly filled with water.”
“We're close to twenty feet above the high tide mark, so there will be air. You will have to swim, if you can't stand.”
At the looks of disgust crossed the Bohemian Cats' faces, Talon laughed. “What are you worried about? There hasn't been anyone taking a crap in this city in a long time.”
Brilliant symbols made of silver-white light flared outward from Yoh. They filled the door of the warehouse for a few seconds, before fading. The undead inside its boundaries howled in agony, as they tried to forced their way out the wards boundaries, against the pressure of the other undead behind them.
“That's the best I can do without an elaborate ritual.” Yoh's expression looked more worried than satisfied.
Unleashing a whirlwind of attacks on the unattentive undead, Talon destroyed the ones still inside the wards. He grimaced in irritation, as he looked around.
“The rest of you go with Galadria and guard her, while she does whatever she has to. I'll stay here and take care of anything that gets past these fucking wards.”
“Talon, let me guard the door. Without you and Sandor here, I can use my full power. With my fire, I can block this entire door.”
“Gabriel, let this asshole guard the door.” Sandor did not bother trying to hide the animosity in his voice.
Gabriel shook his head. “Talon's not one of us. We have to take some responsibility for our actions and not try to use him like a sacrifice.”
Talon stared at Gabriel for a moment. “Fine. You guard the door. I'll go with the rest. It doesn't matter where I am. Even if you all die, I'm walking out of this city alive.”
Gabriel smiled. “You're not as heartless as you try to pretend. God bless you.”
Talon turned his back and started walking toward the back of the warehouse. “Gods are myths.”
Gabriel laughed. “There is only one God, and He is no myth.”
The rest of the Bohemian Cats paid no attention to Gabriel's words. Even in the modern era where it was politically incorrect, his family kept to their Christian faith, and the rest of the Bohemian Cats were used to him.
Galadria began tracing a far more elaborate spell than the last one she had cast, and Yoh started to cast his wards again. The rest of the Bohemian Cats and Talon spread out in a circle around them, watching for incorporeal undead. All of the Bohemian Cats had weapons which could harm and destroy those undead, but Talon's black energy was the most effective against them.
It was only a few seconds, before a conflagration of orangish-red fire sprang up outside the door of the warehouse. The clash of metal on metal almost immediately follow the flames. Gabriel was a few feet outside of the warehouse, fighting with some of the undead.
Talon frowned, while he looked in that direction, but stayed where he was.
Ten seconds later, a new set of symbols flared outward from Yoh, and he looked toward the warehouse doorway. “Something out there broke through my wards. Gabriel's fire is the only thing keeping them out.”
Sandor immediately ran back to the doorway, but just like most of the undead, Gabriel's fire kept him at bay.
The incorporeal undead that came though the walls were quickly dispatched, while Galadria continued drawing her spell pattern. A little more than a minute later, she looked around.
“Everyone move back, this is going to be a little violent.”
Galadria waited waited for the others to move away from her, before activating her spell and running away herself. As the spell hit the ground, rubble began to fly in all directions, pelting her in the back as she ran.
“Argh!”
“Gabriel!”
Talon crossed the distance between himself and the warehouse doorway so quickly that the watching Bohemian Cats were astonished.
“Damn. He's not human.”
Selestra's laugh was morbid. “He's a fucking monster.”
Selestra stared at Talon's back, with a mix of hate and disgust turning her beautiful face into an ugly mask. Simon and Yoh looked at Selestra, with something more than curiosity, but did not say anything else. The Lord of Jet and The Lady of Gold were the only ones in the Bohemian Cats that were really close with Selestra. To the rest of the guild, she was more of an outsider than anything.
Outside the warehouse, Gabriel was facing three huge plate mail clad skeletons. Each of the skeletons stood nearly seven feet tall, and their armor seemed to hover over their bones, as though it was riding on invisible flesh. Black auras protected them from the flames, and their heavy swords and shields made Gabriel's look more like a child's toys than weapons.
The rerebrace on Gabriel's shield arm was rent, and he was having trouble maneuvering his shield into position to block the blows on that side. Still, he fought on doggedly, brighter flames on his sword with each strike.
“Back up and kill those flames!”
Gabriel glanced back at Talon's snarl, and one of the skeleton's blades pierced the right side o his chest.
“Gabriel! No!” Sandor's voice was filled with horror.
“I hate fucking FIRE!” Talon's shout echoed in the warehouse, as he lept into the middle of the conflagration. Grabbing Gabriel by the shoulder, Talon hurled him backward into the warehouse, before advancing on the skeletons. Pulling a pair of axes from the sheath strapped to his back, he hacked into them with short vicious chops. The black energies from his hands enwrapped his axes and dispersed the auras around the skeletons. The heavy axe blades cleaved through the armor and severed the heads of two of the skeletons.
As Talon dodged the slash from the third skeleton, one axe took off an arm, and the other axe took off a leg. With the skeleton falling toward the ground, he chopped off its head and jumped backwards into the doorway of the warehouse.
“How much fucking longer?” Talon's snarl projected his annoyance.
Galadria started, her eyes filling with temerity. “Less than a minute.”
“Take your buddy and get over with the rest. I'll hold them here.”
Sandor's hate-filled stare burned into Talon's back, as he hauled the barely conscious Gabriel onto his shoulders and ran to the back of the warehouse. To his rear, he heard the sound of Talon's axes tearing into desiccated flesh and bone.
Selestra and Simon were double teaming some type of incorporeal undead, that Sandor did not recognize. As soon as the undead dissipated, Simon ran over helping Sandor lower Gabriel to the ground. Yoh had already started tracing a new spell pattern, and in a few seconds, it streaked into Gabriel's chest.
Gabriel groaned, and his eye opened wide. He clamped his hand over the hole in his breastplate, looking at Yoh.
“It feels like you poured acid into my chest.”
Yoh frowned. “There is some kind Power in your chest that's destroying my spell. Let me try a different one.”
Yoh quickly drew a new spell pattern and cast that spell into Gabriel's wound. The muscles at the back of Gabriel's jaw bunched up, as he clenched his teeth to avoid screaming.
“That was even worse than the last one.”
Yoh's eyes glowed faintly as he stared at the hole in Gabriel's armor, and his face paled. “This isn't good. There is an active spell that I don't rec
ognize in your chest. It looks like it's attacking your heart. I don't even know what is, let alone how to stop it.”
Gabriel's attempt to smile looked more like a grimace. “Don't worry, Yoh. Everyone has to die sometime. If this is mine, so be it, but I'm not giving up while I still have breath. You have to promise that if I die you'll help Sandor look out for everyone. Keep as many as you can alive, until you can return to your real bodies.”
“It's open! The tunnel's open to the sewer!” Galadria stared down the hole, while she excitedly called to her friends.
Simon and Yoh grabbed Gabriel's arms and helped him down the steep slope. The rest of the Bohemian Cat's followed without calling out Talon.
“Galadria, collapse the tunnel!” Sandor glared in the direction of Talon, who he could no longer see.
“No!” Gabriel shrugged off the support of Simon and Yoh. “We would all be dead with Talon's warning. He had no reason to help us, but he did.”
“Fuck him! You might die because of him drawing the undead to us!”
“Sandor, don't lie to yourself. We drew the undead on ourselves. Without Talon, we would all be dead already. Go get him. Don't leave him behind.”
“FUCK!” Sandor's face was tuned upward, with his eyes closed, as he struggled with his choice. After glaring at Gabriel for a moment, Sandor started up the tunnel again, only to stop dead in his tracks. The rim of the tunnel above him was surrounded by undead.
*** Gor'achen Citadel - Battleground of the Damned ***
Return: Day 251
There are no surprises. The rest of the Fiend gladiators in the Duel of Champions are nothing much. As the last one leaves the tunnel, I begin to smile. His around six-foot-ten, with a build as big as the biggest of the gladiators in Gor'achen . His grey enameled plate is formed in the outlines of flexed muscles, and his axe and shield he would be too heavy most humans to us one-handed. As he moves close, the face visible inside his helm is one I have seen a number of times in the past. When he gets closer, his eyes squint up, as though he is trying to scrutinize my appearance.
“Sandor, you're a piece of shit.” My words are in English.
Sandor's eyes widen momentarily, before narrowing as he stares at me. Confusion mixed with semi-recognition slowly settles on his face.
Sandor's English sounds a bit awkward, as though he is remembering a half-forgotten language. “You speak English, and you know my name. But I can't figure out who you are.”
I smile with my mouth. “You and your ass fucking friends stabbed me in the back at the gates to the Chamber of Transition.”
Sandor's eyes open so wide, the whites are visible all around the irises. “No fucking way! You can't be Talon!”
“Oh, I'm Talon alright. Did you think you could betray me and not suffer?”
“We can go back to our real bodies? That fucking Nameless was lying?”
I laugh mockingly. “You can't. You and everyone else, you're fucked. Your bodies are gone. Dead. No pass go. No collect two hundred dollars. I'm the only survivor.”
Sandor frowned, while snarling his words. “You look vaguely familiar but I don't remember who the fuck you are. You can't have been anyone important.”
I smile with my mouth, again. “Don't worry. The only thing I know about you is that you're one of Jonny and Jenny's ass licking friends. I never bothered to figure out who was in what body. Can't really tell one piece of shit form another, after all.”
The facilitator looks irritated by our conversation in a language he cannot understand. “Stop yapping in your animal tongues and start fighting.”
Sandor sneers, as he stalks toward me. “You're not a Half-Dvergar monster, anymore. Looks like you're in your Earth body. I'm going to enjoy torturing you, before I kill you.”
“Moron.”
Clang!
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
Sandor drops his axe and cradles his deformed gauntlet against his chest. Smashing it with the flat of my axes must have shattered every bone in his hand. The gauntlet is less than half as thick as it was before.
“What's the matter? It's just a little pain. You're a fucking pussy. I can't believe you're so fucking slow. You might want to start telling me about what happened after you murdered me.”
“Fuck you!” Sandor's shield lights up with a greyish light, and he hurtles toward me.
Clang! Thump!
I wait, while Sandor forces himself to his feet again. I smile faintly, looking at the dent in the backplate of his armor, more or less in the shape of my axe head.
Sandor's eyes reveal his uncertainty, as he stares at me. He is beginning to realize the truth. Just because I am in my original body, it does not mean that he is stronger than me. His strength is okay for a common gladiator, but he would never be a match for a stable champion.
“I won't let you die, until you tell me what I want to know. If you try lying to me, I will hurt you, until you tell me the truth.”
My kick lifts Sandor off the ground, leaving a dent in his breastplate that digs into the shattered ribs underneath. He hits the ground coughing up blood.
“You're going to die today. The only question is how much you will suffer, before you die. I don't know how a faggot like you didn't get killed in the arena, before I got to you. It must be fate smiling on me.”
“Go to hell. I finally remember you. You're that loser orphan that Mei hated.”
“That's one way to describe me. Another one is the vicious fuck that would lure bullies stupid enough to target him into places where he could hurt them. I don't need to lure you anywhere and look how much the crowd is enjoying watching you suffer.”
“AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!”
My axe rips open Sandor's backplate, leaving a bloody gash down the right side of his back. As I hold my blood-dripping axe up, the crowd roars.
I smile at Sandor, and he shivers at the sight.
Piece by piece, I destroy his armor, until only a few broken fragments are left hanging from his body. Blood from the tears and gashes left by my axe paint his skin scarlet. Where the skin is not dyed by blood, it is pale white.
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
Sandor falls to the ground, when I shatter his kneecaps. He is too weak. He has no concept of what real pain is.
Steel is cruelty. Steel is pain.
The forge heats the steel. The steel remembers the forge. The heat of molten iron burns the foe and lights the dark.
The head of my glows cherry red from, and heat shimmer distort the air around it.
Hiss!
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
Sweet smelling smoke wafts into the air from the sole of Sandor's charred foot. He crawls across the sand, trying to escape from me.
I pull the searing metal away from his foot stroke the back of his leg with it.
“AAAARRRR! No! Please ! I'll talk! I'll talk!”
Crack!
My kick breaks Sandor's pelvis and flips him over onto his back. Squatting down, I hold the head of my axe close enough to his groin for the heat to turn the skin red.
“No! No! Don't! Please, don't! I'll talk.”
I smile. “Tell me one lie, and I won't stop until you're skin is nothing but one huge burn. What happened after you murdered me? Where are the rest of the Bohemian Cats?”
“The orcs panicked without the Masters giving them orders. Their lines collapsed, and they ran. All of the surviving Damned left the Labyrinth, but a few days later, we were attacked by an orc horde. There must have been over a million of them. I don't know how many died or what happened to most people. I was made a slave by the orcs, and they eventually sold me to some of the Masters from Gor'achen. I don't even know how long I've been here anymore. It must be twenty years now.”
He does not seem to be lying, but he is as useless now as he was when I was a Half-Dvergar.
“What happened to the rest of the Bohemian Cats?”
“Yoh and Galadria were brought here, when I was. I don't know what
happened to any of the others. It's the truth! I swear!”
I smile. “You're going to die quickly.”
Sandor sighs in relief and half-smiles.
“But it's going to be painful.”
I jam the red-hot head of my axe on Sandor's lower abdomen and groin, holding him in place.
“NOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR! NO! PLEASE!” Sandor's shrieks are so loud, they echo over the cacophony of the crowd. He has completely lost his composure. He is flailing about wildly, not even trying to make a coherent effort to escape.
“I swear! I swear! I swear! I swear! I swear! I swear! I swear!”
I have no idea why he keeps swearing, unless he think I will end his agony sooner. With his dick and balls sizzling like frying bacon, it only takes about thirty seconds for my axe to burn a hole through Sandor's abdomen and come to rest against his bones. His horrified gaze is locked on my own, as his flailing and flopping slowly winds down to nothing, and the light in his eyes fades.
“BRAND! BRAND! BRAND! BRAND! BRAND! BRAND!”
The masses of trash chanting my name is barely more than background noise, as I stare at the corpse. I am more than a little irritated. There was no satisfaction in killing the piece of shit. Was it because he was too weak to fight back? Will I get any satisfaction or feeling of closure when I kill The Lord of Jet and The Lady of God or will it just be more empty killing? Would it be better if I torture them for days, before letting them die?
I raise my still glowing axe over my head, and the crowds chanting turns to an incomprehensible roar.
A twenty foot tall translucent image forms near the center of the arena, but it is completely imperceptible to my spatial awareness. It appears to be a man dressed in grey leathers, with a hooded cloak that is concealing all but his mouth and chin. His mouth is barely visible, and the corners are turned up in wry amusement. Clutched in his left hand, he has an iron-shod staff, covered with blood-red runes. The Nameless.
“I accept your oath, and you are now one of mine. Rise again, Sandor!” The words are in the slave tongue, and arena shakes faintly, as they are spoken.
Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) Page 23