“Hold it,” Isa said, calm as a breeze and still as the deepest water.
Walter got his foot on its winding tail, stretched it out. Its powerful muscles thrashed. Isa’s sword came down, chopped through its head. Its body wriggled in protest for a few seconds and Walter turned his attention back to Nyset, wrapped in Senka’s arms.
“Are you okay? How do you feel?” he asked, squatting down.
She looked up at him, blood drying around her scanning eyes. “What’s happening? Is this the Shadow Realm?” Walter was surprised at how aware and together she was, almost like nothing had happened at all.
“Afraid so,” Walter said. “Can you touch the Dragon?”
Welcome home, my pet, a voice said from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
“No!” Grimbald howled, hammering his fist into the pool and throwing up a geyser of blood.
Isa upturned his head at the blood moon, lips pressed into a firm line. “Is there a way out?”
Nyset furrowed her brows and Senka helped her to her feet. Nyset rubbed at her neck and swallowed. “I can, it’s there, the Dragon, I mean.” She gave an affirmative nod. “We have your scar now.”
“We’re marked now. Might need the Dragon, hang onto it and don’t let it go.”
Asebor stirred and one of his chains lifted above the blood like a strange proboscis, feeling at the air. Drops pattered from the bladed end.
“Help, Grim, need to finish something…” Walter said, eyes shifting onto Asebor. His world twisted and swayed for a second, reds and blacks swirling. He almost thought he was going to fall over. He got his footing and the world recovered, snapped back into focus.
My son! My precious son. What have you done to him? the voice said, followed by a snicker becoming a shrieking, becoming an echoing madman’s laugh.
Nyset flashed him a frown, grabbed Senka around the arm for support. They staggered over to Grimbald. Nyset stole a long look over her shoulder at him.
Senka looked up at the pink moon. “Where is it coming from?” she asked Nyset.
“I don’t know,” Nyset said, her voice filled with worry.
Walter looked down at Asebor, neck twinging with pain. Asebor wriggled around, turned to face him, violet eyes glowing like dying candles and glossed over with blood. Glossed over with the blood of Walter’s dead dreams. “Mercy,” he croaked.
A scoffing laugh escaped Walter’s lips. “You dare? You ask me for mercy? You?”
The hard shadows making up Asebor’s armor evaporated in wisps of smoke, showing a hulking wolfish beast. Thick hair bristled from his body between gaping wound channels showing his bones. Asebor’s limbs were at least twice as long as his and twice as muscular as Grimbald’s. “I had no choice. She made me into what I am,” Asebor’s long muzzle yawned opened and closed as he spoke, moving out of time with the words, long teeth clicking.
“You’re pathetic. The great beyond awaits your arrival.” Walter cracked the Chains of the North into his legs, shearing them off at the knees. Asebor jerked his ruined legs into the air, spraying out with jets of glowing violet blood, a swirling mix in all the red.
“I cannot die! You are but a worm! You cannot escape!” Asebor screamed in a harmony of shrill voices. “Mother!” He turned, facing the blood moon. “Please! Heal me!” His chitinous talons reached up at the black sky, arm quivering.
“Walter. Something comes,” Isa whispered, the voice a background note in his throbbing head. Isa plodded some distance away, sword in one hand and hatchet in the other hanging by his sides.
Walter’s heart pounded as if it would burst through his chest, wondered how much more abuse it could take. His knees wanted to shake, wanted him to run, jaw tight and gums sore. Had to finish it once and for all. He swung Bonesnapper around his head, chains glowing with bright fire, lashed tight around Asebor’s neck.
“No!” Asebor croaked, big fingers trying to wriggle under the chains, his talons hissing and melting. A strange burning scent wafted into his nose.
“Die!” Walter screamed. “There will be no resurrection! No more sealing! Only the timeless death!” He gave Bonesnapper a vicious pull, watched the chains sawing through Asebor’s neck in a savage twist. Asebor’s once terrifying face looked soft, weak, eyes almost watery. His Death Spawn had slaughtered his parents and countless others without an ounce of pity in them. Why should he feel anything for them? He didn’t, couldn’t.
Asebor’s screams became a bubbling gurgle. He violently shook back and forth, thrashing with his thighs. One arm slammed into the blood with a final moot strike.
Walter screamed back until his voice broke, jerked the chains as hard as he could. They sprung free with a crack, floated up at least ten feet into the air, steaming on cooking blood. His eye was wide, smoldering with fire and staring as Asebor’s head lobbed below Bonesnapper’s chains, falling with a splash of gore. Walter stared at his dead body for what felt like hours, waiting for him to move, for something to happen. For all of this to go away. Violet blood came out in soft jets from Asebor’s tattered neck, all flesh and hair. The glow of his violet eyes from his severed head winked out and went dark as the sky above.
“It’s over,” Walter breathed and felt the start of a smile touching his lips. “He’s dead. Dead! See? Even gods can die!” Walter spat on his hairy corpse. “This is my domain!” he screeched into the black. “Mine!”
All he’d wanted was revenge for the past few years and finally had it.
“You alright?” Isa asked from nearby. Walter turned his sore neck to look at him. Something might have moved in the shadows beyond the blood, but it had to be his mind playing tricks. He was tired and needed rest. So tired.
“I—” Walter wasn’t sure he felt much of anything beyond the pain scourging his body. His parents were still dead and he was still mangled. He stood there scowling at Asebor and couldn’t find a reasonable answer worth speaking.
“Did you hear me, Walter?” Isa said, louder this time and in front of him. Isa cocked his head. “Something comes running. Listen.”
“Let them come.” His grimace was hard as stone. He knew what else lived here.
Grimbald trudged over to between Nyset and Senka, his expression blank, eyes downcast, Corpsemaker dragged limp from one hand. “Sorry Walt. I… got scared.”
“We’re all scared,” Nyset breathed.
A child’s feminine giggling warbled through the black air and everyone hunched down, formed a circle, like it was a crushing weight they had to support. Walter tried to wear his most fearless face, but his shuddering body betrayed him.
“Can we leave now?” Nyset hissed, her hand clawing at his stump with frantic strength.
“Suppose that’s wise.” Walter nodded, then thought it was a stupid thing to say. He swept his gaze around the vast hills of rolling skulls and over the motionless blood lake. He tugged on the Phoenix, felt its reassuring calm still there. He remembered the last time he was here, unable to touch the god’s powers until something had changed. Something had happened. Something had broken him. The memory was distant, like trying to see the bottom of a murky lake.
It will not work again. You cannot escape, a silky smooth feminine voice crooned.
“Did you hear it too? The voice?” Walter asked.
Sharp nods went all around. Nyset stiffened beside him, and he heard Grimbald give a soft grunt. Senka murmured a breathy prayer.
“Who-what is it?” Nyset asked, eyes leveled at him.
“The Shadow god,” Walter croaked.
The blood drained from Grimbald’s face. “It can’t be,” he said, stepping away from him as if the distance between them would make it less true. “Can’t be, can’t be.”
“Grim.” Walter met his eyes and put a reassuring hand on his bicep. “We need you. Need you to be strong.”
Grimbald nodded, steeling himself, seeming to be doing his best to smash down the crippling fear.
A heaving scream sounded from the distance. Panting, panicked f
ootfalls sloshed through blood. The darkness swam. Walter swiveled to the sound, drew in the fury of the Dragon, saw a figure emerging from the darkness. The figure’s arms pumped, long hair wet and pinked, tangled around a hollow face. The face had an eye red as blood, a gaping wound at the temple. His eye went wide at meeting his.
Juzo stopped in his tracks, his jaw going slack and showing his bladed teeth. A smile of disbelief flickered on his face. Blood sprayed out from the force of his stopping. “Walter?” he mouthed.
“Juzo!” Walter screamed. “Juzo!”
“Run!” Juzo roared back.
And then Walter saw why. A score of demons loomed over Juzo like a rolling tsunami. Pincers were held high, endless mouths yawned open, showing snared bodies. Limbs studded with bony spikes were shining with the threat of pain.
Memories of this place cracked opened in Walter’s mind then. He thought he had sealed them up, but not well enough. He remembered the lashing tendrils, thousand legged beasts, hundreds of gnashing mouths. They were endless, unstoppable.
“What? What?” Grimbald stammered, knuckles white around Corpsemaker.
“Juzo!” Walter ran for him. Nyset was at his side, flaming discs guttering to life. Isa and Senka ran after them, breath wispy in his ears. Walter was struck by how easily Nyset could cast spells here. He had suffered the Shadow Realm’s unimaginable cruelty before they were once again available to him. He might’ve even felt jealous had Juzo not been running toward them.
“Wait!” Grimbald followed, legs splashing like felled trees.
“What are they?” Isa hissed.
“Demons,” Walter threw back. “I don’t know what happens if you die here. I can tell you the pain is very real, affects you on the other side.”
“Other side?” Senka panted, nimbly leaping over a body.
“Land of the living,” Walter said.
“Make a portal, Walter!” Nyset said, her voice hoarse.
“I tried that already, damn it. It’s not working,” he snarled. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”
“By the Dragon,” Nyset whimpered.
Juzo drew nearer. His long coat was ragged and tattered as if he’d been running for a long time. He looked ten, maybe twenty pounds lighter, skin pulled tight around his sharp cheekbones, chin narrowed and eyes sunken into shadowed sockets.
“A trick?” Walter asked aloud. A trick of the Shadow Realm? Could it really be him? “Things aren’t always what they seem here!” he shouted and leaped over a spear angled over a yellow maggot infested body, strange bull horns emerging from a humanoid skull.
They were twenty paces away and Juzo launched into a sprint. Walter narrowed his brows and his guts churned with worry. Juzo had a bloody sword, shining with a dull light, drawn back to strike. “Juzo?” Walter slid to a stop, arms outstretched.
Juzo mirrored him, five paces away, tears streaked through blood speckling his sallow cheeks. “Is it you? Really you?”
“It’s really us, Juzo,” Nyset pleaded. At least four more discs burst to life, circling around Juzo’s back.
Juzo raised a wary eye at her discs.
“Protection, for all of us, come. They won’t hurt you,” Nyset beckoned.
“Prove it, prove it, prove it,” Juzo raved, took a threatening step forward, his tongue circling his mouth. “How long have I been running?” He peered up at the grinning moon. “How long?” He screamed at it, then let out a sharp laugh.
The tower of monsters fanned out around them, gibbering, growling, pincers snapping and opening, seeming a bit fearful of Nyset’s fire. Maybe they still had a glimmer of the memory when Walter was last here, remembering what fire could do. Fire burned their flesh, introduced them to pain.
“You saved me from a Lord of Death, we trained together in Breden. I kill-killed you in Shipton. What more—”
“You killed my Pa!” Grimbald blubbered, pointing at him with the spike between the blades of Corpsemaker. Grimbald started for Juzo, but Walter put out his arm, barring him. Grimbald stood there, chest pressed against Walter’s arm, sobbing. “Why did you do it? Why? Why not make him into a Blood Eater like all the others?”
Juzo’s sword slipped from his fingers, fell on the broad side with a slap into the blood. “It-it’s really you. Did you all came back for me?” His lips turned down, throat quivering. “Grim, I didn’t know who he was. My mind was all twisted up with hate and pain and misery. Thought I was doing him a favor by not turning him.”
“A favor. That’s what you did? Gave him a favor? Not sure how much more of this I can take, not sure,” Grimbald trailed off.
Something roared from behind, but Walter didn’t spare it a glance. Nyset threw up a wall of fire, bursting in a flickering circle around them, smoking on the blood.
A bulbous monster big as a house and shaped like a potato with mouths for eyes bumped into a beast seemingly made of flesh and spikes. The spiked monster bristled, spikes standing up, and then the potato-shaped monster’s mouth yawned open, dropped down, and swallowed the spiked monster with a belch. A second later, the monster was unceremoniously spat from the potato’s mouth, dripping with thick saliva.
Walter shook his head. “Asebor brought us here.”
“Asebor. How do I know that name?” Juzo scratched at his jaw, a salt and pepper mix of scraggly hair. Dried blood flaked from his fingers.
“The demon god, leader of the Death Spawn,” Walter said. “Remember? Remember what happened in Breden? The Festival of Flames?”
“It feels so strange to not be running,” Juzo said distantly and looked over the wall of fire, flames cresting up almost six feet high. A tentacle reached out to test it and wilted as it drew close. Its owner shrieked and jerked it back. “I think it’s been years, tens of years. I felt him here, but I don’t feel him now.”
“Him?” Nyset asked.
“The one you spoke of.” Juzo’s eyebrows rose up and a broad grin came over his face. “The demon god,” he squeaked. “Don’t feel him anymore. Is it over then? Finally?”
“Can’t hold this forever, Walter. It’s much harder here. We need a plan and need it now,” Nyset said through clenched teeth.
“But how did you survive? Why aren’t there any others?” Walter asked, ignoring Nyset.
Juzo shook his head, brow furrowed. “All this blood. It gives me the strength to fight. Without it, I’d be gone like the rest.”
Senka let out a pained grunt.
Walter swallowed. The disfigured demons circling them became a riotous mob, stretching on and filling the rolling mountains of skulls. They were drawn to the fire like bears to honey. On and on they went, bobbing mouths, reaching tendrils of flesh tipped with spears and mouths, blinking eyes of all sizes, some the size of his head.
I will not let you leave again. You cannot, will not, the Shadow god’s all-encompassing voice said. And the demons parted like clouds after a storm, yielding a narrow channel where a figure walked down from the top of a nearby hillock of bones. Unlike the bright sun that came after a storm, the world where this figure walked only seemed to grow darker, even the light of the moon swallowed in her wake.
Her shadows for robes swished open as she walked and fell from her shoulders, showing all her hairless nakedness. Her skin was white as bone, her head lined with hundreds of hissing snakes, eyes shimmering with violet. Her legs were long and slender, arms thin as reeds. Her broad hips pleasantly swayed as she walked. As she made her way along the channel, demons fumbled over one another to give her as much space as they could manage. A narrow forked tongue circled her scarlet lips.
A feeling of endless disappointments and unrequited hopes burrowed deep in his chest, crushing his soul like a vice. He wanted to cringe, wanted to make himself small before this uncanny force. Was he ever enough? Did his friends trust him? Had he brought them on a fool’s quest? Spears of self-doubt went through him as if he were made of straw. He had hoped this would have been easier. He’d hoped he could’ve slain Asebor without co
ming back here. But that’s how things went with hopes.
The Shadow god smiled the broadest of smiles. Her full lips unnaturally and bloodlessly split at the corners and traveled up to the bottom of her eyes. She set her perfect toes before the blood’s edge, tipping her big toe with a dot of red.
“Don’t. Don’t look,” Walter croaked, averting his eye. But it was much too late for that. He turned his head, saw everyone transfixed upon the Shadow god’s endless mouth, stupefied. Within her maw glowed an infinite sea of fires. He remembered seeing into those fires once, remembered seeing Lillian, Baylan’s betrothed trapped in those infernal flames. Nyset’s flames winked out with a hiss, her eyes relaxed, arms down at her sides.
“You cannot resist me,” she said without moving her lips. “I am everything you hate, your anger, your darkest desires, your secret fetishes. Your journey ends here. You have come a long way. Longer than any dual-wielder has come in any time, since I have been bound in time. It amuses me to see you have bested my son, but he was never my favorite. I think you remember my daughter, perhaps were even infatuated, if I recall.”
Out of the corner of Walter’s eye, there was a shuffling amongst the horde of demons, allowing another shape to come forward. The figure was tall and humanoid, covered in seamless skin tight armor the color of red wine, the face cast down so he couldn’t see it. The armor gleamed with hundreds of reflections of the blood moon as it walked. It had broad leathery wings attached at the wrist and folded around its sides, wingtips trailing on the skulls like an oversized cloak. The figure looked up as it drew up behind the Shadow god and regarded him with his mother’s face. The Shadow princess had his mother’s face. But how?
Never show your enemy your pain, your weakness, Noah’s voice echoed. “No,” Walter breathed, wanted to weep, wanted to cry out.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 50