Beron nodded. “Prepare the oil. Prepare the arrows. I will handle what comes before us. The guards are better used taking care of the Undying. We will not let them win against us.”
Levarre nodded and turned his horse. Beron was glad to see the man was armed and ready for combat.
He rode toward the approaching group. They were not familiar to him and so Beron made certain his sword was in easy reach.
They were darker than most of the people he’d dealt with for months. Their clothing revealed them easily enough. They were from the Kaer-ru, the islands.
The first held up his hands. “We mean no harm. We are seeking Beron, lately of Saramond.”
“You’ve found me.”
The man speaking was tall and lean and dressed like an island man. If the cold bothered him at all he hid it well. His hair was long and woven into a heavy braid. He had sword hilts showing on both of his hips.
“We have come to warn you. Your father sent us. He says if you do not change your path, you will die here soon. Die, or worse.”
“My father is dead.” Beron smiled, pleased to have caught the man in a lie so early on.
“Yes, I know.” The man nodded. “That does not mean he does not look out for his son.”
Superstitious nonsense. Still, a chill walked through Beron’s body.
“You have given your warning. Was there anything else?”
“You misunderstand. He means now. Physically. You should change your path or you will suffer greatly.”
“My path is chosen. I have a great distance left to travel and diverting would only make the challenge of arriving at my destination greater.”
The lean man sighed. “I have offered the warning. May the gods be with you.”
“So far, of late, they have not been.”
Without another comment the four riders turned and started away and that, more than anything else, made Beron reconsider their words.
“Wait!”
They stopped but did not turn back, leaving Beron no choice but to ride to them.
“You claim you have spoken with my dead father. You can see this might be a challenge for me to accept, yes?”
The man looked his way and nodded once, curtly.
“You came all this way just to convey that message?”
“It is what we do.” The winds were increasing, and the rains started to fall harder.
“I have traveled a great distance to reach this point. I need to know what is supposed to happen.”
The messenger spoke. “Ten times the gods have punished foolish people for disobeying them, just as they punish the world now. In past times the punishments were smaller. Rather than threaten all life, they removed life from places that offended. They allowed demons entry into this world then sealed the gates of the worlds behind them. Those demons are confined to small areas, but they are real and one of them is near.”
Beron thought about that. Demons. He’d heard of the things, of course. Demons were supposed to be very powerful and capable of great punishment and great deeds alike. Though they sometimes offered help there was always a price to pay.
He bowed his head. “I thank you for your message. May I repay you?”
The thin man bowed his head in return. “That is unnecessary. We are rewarded by our work.”
The concept of not offering payment went against his nature. Beron always demanded payment, thus allowing that he was never in anyone’s debt, or they in his. “Perhaps with food and wine at least? You have a long ways to go.”
“You are kind, Beron. But we have sufficient supplies.” The thin man smiled as he rode away. Beron did not follow. He had offered payment and it was refused. His ledgers were clear of debt. That was what mattered.
Behind him the screams began. Beron turned and watched the arrows dipped in burning pitch rise into the air. Some struck true and others plummeted to the ground.
There were two shapes in the air, possibly a third. It was hard to say as the clouds were descending toward the ground and offering the Undying a place to hide safely.
Beron had two choices: go and help his companions, or find out what lay ahead and see what it truly meant.
The gods were now his enemies.
Could a demon be his ally?
One more sword against the Undying would make little difference.
Beron rode to where he had been warned to avoid and sealed his fate.
At first there was nothing, no difference, but after a few hundred yards the horse he rode refused to go further. He could have spurred the beast on, but he knew better. The horse would buck and throw him, and that was if things went well. Instead he climbed off the beast and patted its muscular neck. The animal did not run away, but snorted and refused to move.
Never let it be said that animals could not be trained and that included humans. The difference was that horses tended not to resent the training as much.
That his father would ever offer Beron a warning was an interesting notion. The man had trained him from the time he could walk, to be a slaver. No one in the business of slavery ever thought that meant a calm day.
When Beron disobeyed his father’s wishes at the age of twelve, he was placed in the gladiatorial pits. Not as a gladiator, but as their practice partner. They were unkind in the extreme. The weapons were wooden, but they still hurt and they broke bones and they left scars just the same.
That was as close to being a loving father as the bastard ever came. Beron learned to fight and to understand slavery from both perspectives. His father never hid who he was from the gladiators. Several times they beat him within inches of his life. Each time he recovered and trained harder, until he earned their respect.
None of that mattered. The past was done. Still, the thought that his father would speak from beyond death to warn him was even stranger than the idea of demons.
Beron walked into the demon’s lair without noticing the difference in the air. On his second step through the threshold he felt the sudden change in pressure. On the third, dread crawled into him.
He was a brave man. He had fought long and hard to build his empire. First he’d dealt with his father’s associates, those who claimed he was not fit to rule, and then he handled the makers of laws who said he could no longer deal in the trade he had known since birth. Not everyone who dealt with him walked away intact and not nearly all of them walked away, but before he was done, Beron always got his way. It took inordinate courage and a stubbornness that bordered on fanaticism.
That was what kept him walking when all he wanted was to fall to the ground and cower.
The world made no sense. A moment before he’d been walking in rain, crossing more of the nearly barren stretch of the plains. Arthorne was nearly at its end and he was soaking wet, dripping in the constant rain.
Yet here, the sky was blue, the air was dry and hot. Here there were plants of a thousand different varieties all around him, and there was a town. There were people.
No. Not people. Not exactly. They had been people, perhaps, but now they were mummified things, stretched out in a hundred different positions of agony, dried and preserved. They stretched on through the streets of the town overrun with plant life, buried under layers of ivy and trees that pushed up from the ground in places no tree should be. The city was there, but it was nearly lost beneath the plants as if it had been struck by a tidal wave of every imaginable sort of flower, bush and vine.
The smell of blossoming flowers was cloying. The scent of rotted flesh was merely an afterthought in comparison. None of which mattered at all when compared to the feeling that something massive was watching.
“You are here.” The voice was not at all remarkable. Beron turned to face the source of the words and immediately regretted it. His eyes ached at the sight of the shape. It was not human, nor did it attempt to pass for human.
“I am.”
The shape moved closer and Beron felt his vision swim.
“Why are you here?”
> “Because I wanted to see you.”
“Very few come here by accident.” The voice did not judge. It merely stated.
“What happened here? Who killed all of these people?”
“They were killed when they disobeyed their gods. I was sent to punish them and I did. They were a godless people and they suffered for their actions, as your world is now starting to suffer.”
“What are you?”
“You ask so many questions…” The voice did not change but the shape did. In seconds the aspects of the creature that hurt Beron’s eyes were gone. Instead he faced a man who reminded him of the traveler that came to warn him. He was tall, he was lean and he was dressed in archaic garments. His eyes shone with amusement. His mouth twisted into the grin of a man with good humor and a desire to be entertained.
“This is more pleasing to your eyes?”
Beron nodded.
“I am me. I am here as punishment. I am here to punish. I am now stuck in this place for eternity as a way of making me behave.”
The man gestured around. “I have my plants, but I tire of this place. You are fleeing the gods. You want to survive. You have angered them and even now their servants are killing your people and preparing to take your slaves.”
Beron nodded again. “All of this is true. That is why I came seeking you. I would strike a bargain.”
“What sort of bargain?” The tall man moved along, running long fingers over this plant or that flower, caressing them softly.
“I want it back. Everything I had. I want the gods to stop their attacks. I want to find and kill Brogan McTyre and Harper Ruttket. I want my money back. I want my world back.” As he spoke Beron strode across the ground, treading on flowers, crushing desiccated flesh and bone beneath his boots. He waved his arms to encompass the world that he could not see, but knew was nearby. “I want a life that is less chaotic and more along the sort I’ve been fighting for my entire life. Do you understand?”
“You wish to no longer fear your gods. You wish to be stronger than any enemy. You wish to have wealth and power. You want what all people seem to want. The difference is, you have come to me instead of to your gods.”
“They have never been my gods!” He glared his anger at the man before him, who seemed utterly unimpressed. “They take from everyone. They make demands without any compensation. They are what is wrong with this world.”
“How do you mean, Beron of Saramond?”
“When I owe a debt, I pay it! When I am owed a debt I make sure that I am paid. They have taken for centuries but offer nothing!”
“Did they not keep your world safe?”
“Is it safe any longer? They are angry at Brogan McTyre and they take out their fury on everyone else. If they are gods, could they not merely grab him in their hands and crush him?”
“Of course they could. They demand fealty. They demand that they be obeyed.”
“I will not obey the filth that take from me when I have done nothing wrong!” Beron’s voice cracked. He had held his anger at bay and now it wanted out.
“What would you do if you could fix this?” The lean man walked beside him, smiling still.
“I would find Brogan McTyre. I would find Harper Ruttket. I would take them to King Parrish of Mentath and gather my reward. I would see the world saved.”
“And then?”
“Then I would rule this world justly! And I would kill my enemies.”
“What would you offer for this?”
Beron stopped and thought about that. “I do not know.”
“Your gods demand four sacrifices with each season. They demand that the sacrifices be sanctified and offered in just the right way, not because they need it done that way, but because they like their rituals. Would you offer the same to them if it stopped all of the troubles and made you a king?”
Beron looked at the smiling man. He held a thick bloom in his hand that seemed made of a thousand petals. In the center of that bloom was a small, round fruit.
“No. They are too easily angered. They are too quick to punish. They are too old, and set in their ways.”
“If I aided you in reaching your goals, would you offer me a similar deal?”
“I would offer you the blood of my enemies. I would offer you their flesh.”
In an instant the man stood next to Beron, the fruiting flower still in his hand. Up close the bloom was intoxicating.
“Give me this. Give me the three who currently slaughter your people. Offer me the slaves you have with you, and I will give you power. I will aid you when you need me and I will help you achieve your dreams. When the gods have been defeated I will raise you up as the king of these lands.”
Beron closed his eyes. He had never followed a god before. This one, at least offered him rewards for his service.
“If I fail you?”
“Then you do not get my aid.”
“No punishments?”
“You have the very gods to handle. You must capture your enemies and surrender them for sacrifice. That is punishment enough. We barter, you and I. We make promises in good faith. Failure means you have no rewards. Success means you achieve all that you desire.”
The man pulled the small fruit from his blossom and let the flower fall. The fruit he tore in half with his fingers. Sweet juices coated both of his hands and half of the fruit he offered to Beron.
“Give me these things, Beron of Saramond. Kill your enemies in my name and bear my mark and you will be a king.”
Beron took the fruit. “Done.”
He placed the sweet section into his mouth and chewed and watched the other man do the same to seal their arrangement. The fruit tasted as fine as anything he had ever consumed.
“Great men should have great weapons. I give you these.”
Where they came from, Beron could not have said, but the sword and spear were heavy in his hands when he hefted them. The spear ended in a long blade that glistened as if wet, though when Beron touched it the metal was dry. The sword was a different matter. Wonderfully balanced, as black as midnight and marked on blade and hilt alike with a round symbol that hurt Beron’s eyes all over again when he looked too closely.
“I am Ariah. I am your god. Serve me well and I will reward you with all that you desire.”
“I am Beron. I am your servant.”
“No, Beron. You are my priest.”
Beron took three steps and found himself once again on the Plains of Arthorne, once again soaked in rain. Not far away his people were fighting with the Undying and winning.
The spear felt good and tight in his hand as he jogged toward the battle. One of the Undying was down, bloodied and cut deeply. The others were engaged in their fights, slashing with claws and throwing Beron’s people around with too much ease.
Levarre roared orders and led the battle, as Beron had known he would. The man was heavy, but he was a fighter and he knew enough to keep the men alive in most cases.
Mud slapped at his calves as Beron ran and he took careful aim, charging toward the closest of the Undying and raising the spear with both hands. He did not hurl the weapon. He could see that the Undying had an unnatural command of the winds.
Instead he charged forward and rammed the blade into the side of the closest enemy, driving the point deep into flesh and muscle, past bone.
The He-Kisshi shrieked and tried to pull the spear free, but could not reach. Beron lifted the heavy thing into the air then slammed it into the mud, growling as he did it. The creature shuddered and coughed a thick, black blood.
He pulled the spear free and struck the thing in the head with the butt end several times.
Levarre focused on the other one, wielding a weighted chain that smashed into the creature’s arm and slid down its vast wing. The blow was enough to take it from the air and that was enough to allow a few of the men working for him to throw a weighted net across the thing.
Beron smiled grimly as the men fought with the beast, lashing ropes ov
er the net, beating it with poles to avoid getting cut by savage claws.
“We have them, Beron!” Levarre patted him heavily on the arm.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long, Levarre. I have found a way for us to get out of this with more than our pride intact.”
“Gone?” Levarre frowned. “You were lost to us for only a minute. What plan do you have to make all of this right?”
“I need your help to gather the Undying. You and you alone. I need to introduce you to someone.”
Levarre, who could often be obstinate and argumentative, was not foolish enough to debate the matter. Instead he nodded. “I’ll get a horse to help haul them along.”
Beron frowned and looked for his own horse, happy to see that it was still nearby, if not exactly close enough to pet.
“Aye. That’s wise.”
Levarre called out to the men and they immediately began tying the two creatures securely. Say this for slavers, they know how to bind a thing. Inside of four minutes the Undying were completely restrained and tied to the back of a draft horse.
“Levarre, we are going to lose the slaves.”
“Say again?”
“We are going to lose the slaves. I have been assured that we will gain a return three times that which I invested. We will not need them.”
Levarre stared long and hard, studying Beron carefully, as well he should. Beron was not known for letting any slaves escape him for long and had often spent a great deal of money to ensure the capture of any who did so.
“Just letting them go?”
“Not quite. We have been offered a chance to get back all that has been lost and more and I intend to take that offer.”
“And you need the slaves for that?”
“The slaves and the Undying. Come along. I’ll show you.”
Ten minutes later, the horse shied away from where they were going and the two of them were obligated to haul the winged creatures through the spot that wasn’t there, and into the garden of death and endless blooms.
Levarre handled himself well enough. He did not scream or cry when he met Ariah. He was shaken, but being a sensible man, he understood Beron’s temptation to deal with the creature.
The Last Sacrifice Page 27