Walter gritted his teeth, countered with a volley of the three fireballs, arcing up and crashing down where she stood. She flicked her golden fingers up and bodies of the fallen Great Tree’s fighters sprouted from the ground, leaping like puppets for the fireballs. They exploded in a hail of embers, burning flesh hissing into the water. “I like this game,” she smiled, tilted her head up at him. “We’d make a lovely pairing you know.”
“Alena,” Walter laughed. “The only thing you’ll be paired with is a pike through your ass.”
“Children can’t be reasoned with.” The corner of her lip rose in a smirk.
The mud rumbled below his boots and Walter’s eyes searched for a root he might have missed. Something cinched around his ankles, throwing him off balance. He looked down and saw bones. Long dead hands were wrapped tight around his ankles. “What is—”
Hot pain cut through his gut. Alena was before him, his blood streaking across her chest. She slashed at him again with her golden talons, glowing with trails of violet. He raised his gauntleted arm, talons releasing a shower of sparks as they raked down Stormcaller. “Die, bitch!” He sprayed a cone of fire from his stump, but it traveled around her as if striking a Milvorian wall. Some type of shield, maybe. The bony hands around his ankles crumbled into chars and he kicked them free. Walter punched with his other arm, snatching a rock the size of his head from the muck and sending it smashing into her. The rock bounced from an invisible shield and Alena grunted. The rock threw up a spout of water as it struck the bog some distance behind her, tossing her onto her back from the impact. It put some distance between them, gave him a second of breathing room.
His movements aggravated his gut wound, irresistibly forcing him to hunch over. Snakes of pain traveled down to his legs, making his quadriceps quiver. He looked at his gut and saw the Phoenix glowing bright as the sun, fighting to patch up the three deep cuts she’d made. They weren’t healing, though, and his blood continued oozing out. This was what Asebor had done to him, how he’d been killed. The thought sent a shiver through his arms. There was something about her power that he couldn’t heal. Was this how the other dual-wielder had been killed? “Shit,” he breathed, looking up as Alena crawled up to stand. He couldn’t take more damage from her or he’d bleed out before he could finish this.
She let out a triumphant laugh. “Your power is no match for the Shadow god’s gifts, you sad, pathetic farm boy. You and your kind are sheep for slaughter.” She plunged a bloody finger into her mouth, leaving some on the corner of her lip. “You… taste sweet.” She smiled with her shark’s teeth.
It wasn’t possible, was it? The Dragon or the Phoenix had to harm her. He had injured Asebor in the Shadow Realm. But maybe things were different there? He could kill her, damn it. She had to pay for her crimes, one way or another or he would die trying.
Her body became violet light, blinking out of existence and materializing a foot in front of him. Walter gasped. She slashed at him. He blocked her wiry arm with his stump and punched as hard as he could. He felt his knuckles crunching against her jaw, sending her reeling back. Alena’s cocky smile fell away, replaced with the twisting of pain. Something shimmered in the air around her. The shield? A chance. He flared fire, shooting a beam from his eye trained on her chest. “Burn!” His voice rasped in his throat.
She dove for the bog and Walter followed, a beam of fire cutting her through the hip. She wailed from the ground and blood ejected from her white flesh. She jabbed a finger into the smoldering wound, blood pushing out around it.
“No match, you say?” Walter lunged forward, raised his boot and stomped on her knee, snapping it in the wrong direction. “You’ve spent too many years relying on your powers, forgetting you could be harmed by a farm boy’s fist.”
She whipped her arm out, world filling up with violet and white. Walter threw up a shield in time, but the impact of her strength sent him rolling back, tumbling legs over head and slopping through the bog. Sheets of cold mud burrowed up his shirt and down his pants, freezing his fruits. The muddy world filled in around him, collapsing over his form sinking in the sludge. He tried to push up on his stump and gritted his teeth at its useless length. He rolled over onto a stone, choking on shallow waters. “Shit!” he spat and coughed, sloughed off the heavy mud coating his eye with his hand.
He blinked, saw Alena standing over him like a creature formed of mud. Her untarnished skin and gleaming gold were now mud habitats. “You could have been something more,” she murmured. She started to raise her palm. Walter growled, kicked her in the shin, throwing her leg out, sending her collapsing on top of him. Walter wrapped her up in a crushing embrace. She smelled like ancient earth and strawberries. Her body was soft as babe’s, weak as a child’s. Walter felt her exhale and squeezed down harder before she could get another breath. Her mud heavy hair fell on his face. She squirmed, but her arms were pinned against his stomach. He wrapped his legs around her ribs, squeezing as hard as he could. It might have appeared to an outsider as if they were the opposite of enemies.
“Let me go!” she demanded, wriggling in his grasp.
“No,” he whispered into her ear, staring at the clouds parting to let a beam of light lance through.
Her talons tried to work into him, biting like flies. Her breasts were soft against his chest, inviting, if not for their murderous owner. Her hips gyrated against him, trying to create space between his crushing thighs. Every time he felt her soft breath against his ear, he squeezed further, reducing her airspace.
“This is where it ends for you,” he whispered. He felt a quiver go through her.
“Please,” she sobbed. “He gave me no choice.”
“Die,” Walter said, his voice iron.
“Fuck. You!” she hissed.
She twisted her head, trying to bite his neck. He snaked his hand up higher, wrapping it up around her neck and driving it over his shoulder, pressing her face into the inch or so of water cooling his back. She started blubbering in the mud, every muscle of her body fighting to survive. Her body started to blink with violet light but Walter engulfed his in fire, shattering her concentration. She screamed in his ear, her flesh smoking and blistered, stinging his nostrils. He drove his palm into the back of her head, further pressing her face into the pool of water. Something clicked in her neck, covering her nose with earth. She kicked and carved furrows in the mud, screams bubbling out. He held her there, listened to her muffled screams, staring up at the ever widening light beam. Eventually, her fingers stopped scratching, legs kicking, and screams silenced. He gave a final squeeze, pushing out the remaining air lingering in her lungs.
He unwrapped his arms and legs, laying spread-eagled. He took a long breath, uncaring of the corpse pressing down on him. How many more people would he have to kill? How many more screams of the dead would haunt his sleep? Would he ever sleep peacefully again? Tears pushed through his eyes, cutting salty lines through the mud. Alena’s last words resonated through his skull. He gave me no choice. She hadn’t given him a choice either. What was it about man that compelled him to live, despite the horrors of life? He wondered.
“Walter!” Grimbald trudged through shallows, then onto the muddy bank. “No!”
“I’m… alright, I think.” He started to push Alena’s body off, then Grimbald tossed it aside like a piece of garbage. Her body flopped like a doll’s from the mound of mud and rolled face first into the water, gilded ass left up in the air.
“What happened?” Grimbald reached under his shoulders and dragged him to his feet. Walter’s world lurched and would have collapsed had Grimbald not been there to hold him up.
“She’s dead,” Walter nodded at her. “One more of the Wretched scratched from history.” He turned to him and smiled wearily. “You alright?”
“Been better,” he forced a laugh. Walter saw there was a dagger sticking out of his side.
“Go on, remove it. I’ll take care of it.” Walter moved back a step, shook his head and regained
his focus.
“I can’t.” Grimbald frowned. “Would you?”
Walter blew out his cheeks. “Alright.” He wrapped his hand around the dagger. “On three.”
Grimbald nodded, lines of worry creasing his eyes.
“One…” Walter jerked the dagger out and immediately sent Phoenix healing into it.
“Damn you!” Grimbald moaned. “That’s my trick.”
Walter smiled at him. “Here’s a souvenir.” He handed him the dagger. It had spikes on the guard, the blade wide as a hand. The world went black at the edges. “Think. Think that’s it for me. Not recovered from… yesterday.” Walter collapsed into Grimbald’s arms, felt him catching him. The light of the world faded and Walter fell asleep in the man’s great arms.
Chapter 14
The Elders
“I wait for Walter’s return. I feel him draw nearer, like a hollow in my stomach closing up, a deep longing.” -The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
Dismembered bodies littered the lake of blood. Ancient spears stood out from the ground, ringed in a series of browns and reds along their hafts. The rings on the spears were markers from times when the bloody lake had reached new heights during times of war, famine, and disease. There were days where men nearly scraped themselves clean from the map, days when the Shadow god’s pets greedily drank from their vessels.
A great hand stood out in the center of the lake, made up of strange red stones. Skulls, Walter remembered, watched them take on the shape of a man’s head. They were laughing at him, or maybe they were crying. They had no teeth. Where had they all gone?
Nyset’s hazel eyes stared down at him from the edge of the incredible hand, her face as emotionless as stone. She wore wine red armor, seeming to be painted over her skin. Her hips were sharp and stomach nearly concave. She was still as a corpse, watching him like he was a worm crawling through soil, like she was a hawk about to swoop down and snatch him up for a morning snack.
“Nyset?” Walter asked, bare feet crunching into the gravely bones. One of them cut his foot, but he didn’t care. “Nyset!” he screamed, but she only stared. “What’s wrong? Why? Why don’t you come down to me? Why aren’t you coming? Why?” he pleaded, felt his chest twisting with anxiety and want.
Nyset’s head tilted, almost imperceptibly. The blood-red moon shone from the side of her carapace like helmet.
Walter swallowed. “Wait. Where am I?” he whirled around, realizing the significance of this place. “No. I can’t be back. I-I didn’t die. Did I? Please, oh please no. But I won… I killed her. Didn’t I? You’re… the Shadow Princess.” He reached his stump up at her, muscles firing in a string of pain. He jerked his arm back, holding it to his chest. “What did you do?” he demanded.
Something shifted in the endless shadows. Demonic faces came into view. Snarling tongues, twisted legs, great pincers, and fat, hanging jowls appeared all around. “No,” his throat clamped down. “No!” he screamed, reaching for the Dragon’s fury, seeking peace in the Phoenix.
A demon with the face of an old crone grinned at him, chin studded with hairy warts. She had what could only be children’s arms and legs, hanging limp from a giant pouch worn over her belly. It was a soggy red at its bottom. “Had you come earlier, you might’ve saved the children,” the crone laughed and stroked the dead limbs like a pet. “Now they’re mine for the keepings. You failed them.”
He gave me no choice. You could have been something more, Alena’s crisp voice said in his head.
“This is where it ends for you,” his voice said, sounding like it was someone else’s.
The world of shadows dashed away. His eye snapped open, screaming cut through his ears, seared his throat. It was him, he realized and stopped. He sucked in a few labored breaths, staring at the tongue of fire that burned at his side. It was a lantern. “Where am I?” he croaked? He rose up onto his elbows, staring about the strange room. Pain spiked through his gut, making him wince. It all came back now.
He must have been in the Great Retreat, perhaps the Great Tree. He was in some sort of wooden structure, round with a conical roof. He was lying in a bed of leaves, each as big as his head. Where was everyone?
“Grim? Grimbald?” he asked the darkness. The darkness did not respond.
The lantern merrily hissed on a chamber of yellowy oil. He threw a roughly woven blanket from his body, tossing it onto the floor. He moaned at the pain in his stomach greeting him again. His neck ached, head pounding like there were Shroomlings in there building a house. He brought his legs over the side of the bed, crudely made from logs that still had bark and lichen covering them. They scratched at his calves. He massaged his temples with thumb and index fingers. He still had pants on he saw, rolled up, and feet bare. Ellipsis of dirt arced under his toenails.
There were pinking bandages wrapped around his bare stomach. It was Alena that had wounded him, but she was dead now. There was some sort of dark paste on his wound, spilling out around the bandage, a salve of some sort he guessed. They wouldn’t try to hurt him, would they? No, otherwise they would’ve already done worse, or maybe he’d be in chains. If he were dead, he’d be in the Shadow Realm. He wasn’t there, was he? “No,” he whispered and nodded. “The land of the living.”
He closed his eye and noticed the sounds. Voices were engaged in soft conversation somewhere. Wind rustled through branches, whispering through slits in the hut. Chimes sang in soothing tones, beckoning for relaxation. He felt the warmth of his body heat drifting off the bed.
He rubbed his eye and flicked a piece of grit out from the corner. His fingers went to his missing eye and delicately traced around the ragged socket. It felt like a crater of flesh, bumpy around the edges where the demon who’d taken it had chipped away a bit of bone. Skin had been pulled over the spot where his eye should have been, tight as a drum. He had never taken the proper time to inspect it. It must have been a revolting sight, not that his looks mattered much anymore anyway. He could look like the ugliest of Cerumal as far he cared, as long he eventually got his hands around Asebor’s throat. In the end, nothing else mattered.
He opened his eye and snatched the lantern from the table. He rose up, stretched back, lantern swinging from his hand and throwing light around the hut. His clothing hung from the ceiling on hooks, cleaned and seeming to be drying. He sniffed his hands, smelling like a strange fruity flower. He was well purged of mud, not an ounce of it still on him. He’d have to thank who did that. It had been a long time since he had a proper bath and must’ve smelled like a hog who had rolled in shit.
He tugged his black shirt from a carved wooden hook, put the lantern on the floor, and slipped it over his head. It had been mended where Alena had cut him. His chest was gripped with a sudden tightness, transfixed by the lantern’s dancing flame. There was still much to be done. He had to get back to Nyset, try again to get help from that bastard King Ezra, kill Scab. He growled. “Damn you, Scab.” The lantern’s fire shrunk down as he said it, maybe even fearing his words.
He needed to figure out how to kill Asebor. He had harmed him the Shadow Realm, hadn’t he? There had to be a better way. Maybe Nyset had figured something out. She was always the smart one. She would know what to do.
Maybe Juzo knew something — no. He shuddered. He was long dead. Dead by his hands. Dead by his uncontrolled fire. “Fucking idiot,” he balled up his fist and tightened his eye, opened it, fire blurring with tears. An image of Juzo flashed in the flame and the room went away. A hole was burned clean through his head. Then there was blood. So much blood came through that smoldering hole. His white hair was red with it, his coat bathed in blood. It was his fault his friend was dead.
Something inside of himself, tucked away and long covered, felt as if it had just broken through. He felt an empty desperation seize his throat, making it hard to breathe. The image would be with him forever, he knew. Whenever his mind wandered, it returned to his ruined face like a cyclically abused wife, always going back for more. Perhaps it woul
dn’t be enough until it killed him.
He was nothing. He was a murderer of those dearest to him. He brought a quivering fist in front of his stomach, hesitating and watching it as if in dream, a living nightmare. He rammed his fist into his gut at the wound site, splitting whatever had been healed into ragged halves. “Your fault!” he hissed, pain sprouting through his body in vicious blooms. “He’d be alive if you weren’t so reckless,” he said through sobs.
He dropped to his knees, staring at the fire, the only friend he could never kill. He punched the wound in his stomach again and again. Blood soaked through his bandages and formed a dark spot under his shirt. He collapsed against his knees, pressing his face into the floor, wetting the coarse wood with tears. “Juzo, Juzo,” he moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry.” The wood cut his cheek, Phoenix lightly sparkling in his eye and bringing him a measure of peace.
He fell asleep there for some time. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but when he woke, it was still night, hopefully, the same day. The light of the Phoenix faintly glowed from behind the weave of his shirt, fighting in vain to patch up the product of his self-flagellation. He lifted his shirt with a wince, pressed some of the disturbed salve back into the wound.
He felt a bit of the pain ease down, but it still burned like the embers of a dying fire. He liked the pain. It was a throbbing reminder of his mistakes and the fragility of life. He wished he could tell someone how much he liked it, but some secrets were better kept sealed. Some secrets were contagious and he feared this might be one of them. He rubbed his eyes, sore from crying. “Get it together, Walt,” he whispered. His missing eye could still produce tears, the only part that still seemed to function.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 30