BRUTAL: An Epic Grimdark Fantasy

by James Alderdice

  He prayed he was fast enough. Just as the exposed priestess before him halted her half-hearted attack, he dodged sideways. The loosed javelin at his back flew past, lodging in the left breast of the priestess. She fell with a gasp, limp as a rag doll and was gone.

  Her sister shrieked in anguish and drew her whip, cracking it at the old man. Almost immediately she caught his hand with the venomous tip and disarmed him. He dropped the falchion and dodged behind the gnarled trees.

  Both Khamul and the other priestess were paired against the Sellsword. The brute with his khopesh, and she trying to lance him with her javelin. The Sellsword had to keep moving every which way to avoid the pincer movement of the two. They thought they had him off balance, but despite his wounded leg, this was his personal fighting style and tactic anyway. Always keep moving and chasing the enemy about the battlefield so they cannot adjust and catch a breath.

  Unfortunately, he felt that policy was against him this time.

  He parried Khamul’s attack and they locked swords in a pushing match, each man testing their strength against the other. If one slipped he would surely be cut.

  The priestess angled around to lance the Sellsword in the back.

  He kicked Khamul in the groin and the big man did not react at all save to laugh.

  “Know you not? That as high priest of Boha-Annu, I am a eunuch?” He knocked the Sellsword away, casting him to the dust.

  The priestess launched forward with her javelin held like a spear and the Sellsword grabbed the end of it and yanked. She came tumbling after, landing on her knees beside him as Khamul raised his sword for a crashing blow.

  Checking himself so as not to strike the priestess, Khamul swung away. The Sellsword whipped the javelin away from the gasping priestess and stuck the sharp tip into Khamul’s exposed belly.

  The big brown man clenched his jaw, clutched the javelin and pulled it out. A bloody six inches dripped. He sucked at his teeth and backed away as gore pumped from the wound, painting the dust a black crimson.

  The priestess, still on her knees, attacked the Sellsword, screaming and scratching with her long nails. He backhanded her and got to his feet.

  “Come,” said Khamul, “and lets us finish it!” He held his sword at the ready, his skin glistening from sweat as much as expensive temple oils. “Come and fight me!” he cried.

  The Sellsword stood across from him, watching.

  Khamul, was bleeding out, and he knew it. “Come! Attack! Let me die, swinging a sword!”

  The Sellsword waited.

  Khamul’s sword drooped and the tip hit the ground and the big man was then leaning on it like a cane. “Come,” he gasped. “Let . . . us . . . finish . . . it.” He dropped to his knees. His head slumped forward.

  The Sellsword took a step.

  Khamul roared to life, charging wildly swinging his sickle-like blade.

  The Sellsword backed away, parrying away the wild attack. Then a sting took hold of his ankle and pulled and his face kissed the dirt. He lost the grip on his sword. His bad leg pulled against the tentacle like grasp and he had to roll away in a flash as Khamul’s blade smacked the ground beside him.

  Rolling back over the blade, he stole the sword from Khamul’s grip taking it to the ground. He kicked again at the tugging whip held by the priestess. Her sharp cries nibbled at his ears. Khamul’s grunting gasp signaled that the brute wasn’t done yet. Somewhere unseen, the old man cried out in pain.

  The priestess tugged again on the whip and the Sellsword pulled back, forcing her into the heel of his boot. She slammed into it and fell away retching.

  Khamul launched himself atop the still prone Sellsword and started trying to simultaneously strangle and head-butt him. His eyes were mad with pain and rage. The slick oils on his body made the crazed attack impossible for the Sellsword to escape from.

  The Sellsword wrapped his hands around the foe’s throat and he squeezed too. The volcanic blue of the Sellsword’s eyes met the deep pools of onyx held in the hateful face of his foe. Each man grunted and gasped for air, brutal conviction in their faces that this deathmatch would be won. The Sellsword let go of Khamul’s throat and gouged his thumbs into Khamul’s eye sockets. The big man screamed and let go. Casting him away, the Sellsword rolled to his feet and retrieved not his own, but Khamul’s blade.

  As the big man gave stark cry and blindly clawed at the air, the Sellsword took his head with his own sword.

  The old man was beset by a priestess who mercilessly whipped him as he rolled on the ground. When she saw that all her allies were on the ground, and the Sellsword was yet standing, she cried out in fear and fled for the temple.

  “Did we win?” groaned the old man.

  “Not yet,” growled the Sellsword, retrieving his blade.

  The old man’s vest and shirt were flayed open and his back ran red with multiple whip marks. “I don’t know if I can get up yet.”

  “Then don’t and wait here. I am grateful you came this far.”

  “Hold on. Give me a hand. I’m coming with you, if you’re still going on.”

  “You know I have too.”

  The old man grunted as he was brought to his feet. He looked toward the temple. “Uh oh, guess we’re not going in just yet.”

  “What?”

  The titan was striding toward them at a quick lope, which, for his size, was as fast as a horse could gallop. His big curved dagger caught the sunlight and glittered like lightning.

  “You better grab a javelin or something,” said the Sellsword, readying his fighting stance. “He’s got a helluva reach.”

  The old man nodded and looked about. The most prominent javelin was the one that still pointed skyward, stuck in Y’damantos’s stomach. He gripped it and pulled and Y’damantos groaned in pain.

  “You’re still alive?”

  “I don’t know,” answered the hedge wizard. “I don’t think so.”

  The titan entered the ring of the dead and swung his dagger at the Sellsword, who could only parry the wide blade and still not even come close to connecting and reaching the titan’s vitals.

  “Stick him,” cried the Sellsword. He danced around the ring, trying to cut the offending hand of the titan but with no luck.

  “Sorry,” muttered the old man to Y’damantos, as he took the javelin and threw it at the titan.

  It was a slow cast and the titan easily knocked it away.

  “Damnit! I’m sorry!”

  “Try again!”

  The old man looked regretfully at Y’damantos and ran off in search of another weapon.

  The titan mutely sliced, kicked, and punched at the Sellsword, pluming dust flew whenever he missed and struck the ground. When he connected a punch, the Sellsword howled in pain as he was knocked away, landing on his stomach. He rolled away and launched himself over just as a massive sandaled foot slammed down where he had been. His dagger slid into the titan’s thigh.

  The titan retreated a moment and ran a massive hand over the wound. He looked curiously at his blood, as if he had never seen it before and it was not painful but an oddity.

  It was only a scratch, but enough to grant the Sellsword space to get to his feet.

  The old man found another javelin and this time tried to launch it into the titan’s back. But the giant heard his approach and caught the spear. He looked at the old man and instead of sending it back and granting almost certain death, he took the thing in both hands, grinned, and bent it upon itself into a wide U until it snapped. He dropped the two shards and swung back to face the Sellsword.

  The Sellsword changed his tactics. He held his bastard sword in one hand and his short thrusting blade in the other. As the titan charged at him, the Sellsword in turn ran at him and dropped low to slide between the behemoths legs and jam his blades into his feet and cut at his ankles on his swift retreat.

  The painful cuts into his feet sent the titan grasping at the wounds in front as the Sellsword launched himself up and slammed his blade against
the foe’s ankles again as if he were a woodsman felling a tree. But his ax had not bit deep enough.

  The titan wheeled and swung his long reach back, sending the man flying.

  He came and stood over the fallen. senseless Sellsword. He watched the man with mute satisfaction, bringing one of his sandaled feet up to stomp the life from him.

  The old man jammed a javelin deep into the titan’s backside. “Take that, you humongous son of a bitch!”

  Reeling, the titan turned about, almost falling atop the old man, who narrowly stumbled away.

  The titan hit his hands and knees. The old man used the stuck javelin as a springboard to mount the giant’s back. Once at the shoulders, he jammed a knife into the titan’s neck. Still the giant was not done, but rose up and careened sideways, spinning about trying to remove the old man that held on like a tick.

  The titan bellowed mutely, trotted a score of his massive steps and rammed into one of the standing stones. The old man fell off the giant, rolled over the top of the horizontally balanced standing stone, hit the ground and was still.

  Pulling the knife from his neck, gouts of pulsing blood ran free. The titan took deep breaths, swooned as silent as frost forming and collapsed.

  The Sellsword recovered his senses and stood, dazedly taking in the scene. He recovered his weapons and ran to the standing stones. He looked upon the ghastly demise of the titan, and jammed his sword into the behemoth’s heart just to be sure. There had been too many resurrections as of late to take any chances.

  The old man coughed and the Sellsword was at his side. “Can’t believe I took care of a titan when I couldn’t handle a wisp of a girl, priestess.”

  “Rest easy, brother.”

  The old man tried to rise but was unable. “I’m just gonna rest here a minute.” He coughed once more and could not close his eyes, so the Sellsword did.

  Rising, the Sellsword strode determinedly to the temple. Incense issued from several braziers out front and he knocked them to the ground. He climbed the stairs and a hissing adept leapt at him with a raised dagger. He caught the would-be assassin mid-air and dashed his brains out on the polished steps.

  The temple aperture gaped open like the yawning mouth of a dragon before him. The unlit candles were the white teeth. A red carpet for a tongue rolled across the opening beckoning him in. He knew it housed more secrets than he had come close to discovering. Traps he was sure waited within, but somewhere inside was Nicene, the Marquis and the woman who fancied herself a goddess.

  Shrugging off his doubts, he plunged in.

  Weak light flowed from joints in the stone and wind whispered from dark crevices. His feet scraped against the dust on the floor and a spider’s web wafted against his face. Like a tomb, it reminded him of a foul memory and madness hung draped on every shadowed ledge. The door the goddess had once retreated and fled behind, loomed open this time.

  Stepping closer to the door, an adept screamed, plunging a dagger at him in the dark. The blade slipped down the rent links of his mail, almost catching and finding purchase a dozen times over. He caught the man about the head and slammed him repeatedly into the cyclopean wall.

  It was time for new mail, he told himself.

  It was dark as starless night farther in and he used his toes to detect the floor before stepping too far. He could not see, but instinct willed that there was a yawning abyss nearby. Then his toe felt nothing. Edging along, he found a sharp turn and held to the wall for what seemed a score of paces. How far it fell he could not see but the very air seemed to vibrate with its cavernous space. He was sure now that this was no mere temple complex, but something enormous built into a discovered mine or cavern in the mountain.

  In the distance, a torch flared murkily, the flames dancing like the beckoning fingers of a harlot. Skin drums throbbed as they had the night of the goddess’s appearance, but this time it was a private manifestation and one deep inside the mountain. Chanting joined in with the ominous dirge of drums and the Sellsword knew an unholy rite was unfurled.

  He crept along with his short thrusting blade in one hand and the spiked ax coiled back in the other, ready to pierce the heart or be thrown at anyone he might chance upon.

  The gloom rippled about him like a serpent. An open doorway at the top of a crumbling stair loosed the sound of drums and chanting in twain. Shadows danced behind firelight above. The Sellsword went up crossways and silent, ready to repel an attack from either direction.

  As he came up the steps, a view of the interior chamber opened wide. Facing him was the stark, jet image of the dark goddess herself, reclining upon the bones of the faithful. She was nude and smoking from a long narrow pipe. Her onyx eyes sparkled cruelly, catching the flame’s embrace.

  A sharp voice rang out above the chanting and the Sellsword recognized it as the seducing timbre of the high priestess. “Oh, first great mother and queen of daemons, accept this offering from your daughters and sons and awake here beside us. Cross that final divide and join us. We welcome you and consecrate to you with flesh and blood!”

  The high priestess’s back was to the Sellsword. She stood before an altar with the dark goddess glowering over it. Unknown runes were painted across the entirety of her nude body. In the shadowy light, they seemed to slither across her well-endowed curves like worms in a feeding frenzy.

  Nicene lay before the priestess, stretched across the cold black stone. Close beside was the Marquis and on an altar before him was a young man lying prone as well. Braziers spat furtive light against the cavern walls and wraithlike tendrils of smoke rose to the heights.

  Among the stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the cavern were jewels set like stars in a curious pattern. The Sellsword guessed that these were mimicking some sigil or sign of the goddess. They seemed to center over the altars.

  The high priestess raised a dagger as the drums and chanting suddenly went silent, though echoes carried on into the vast darkness.

  “Hold! Or I’ll strike you down!” shouted the Sellsword, entering the dim chamber.

  The high priestess wheeled with her sacrificial instrument still raised above her crowned head.

  He drew nearer, his blade ready to strike.

  “How dare you interrupt the sacred rite!” she snarled.

  “Continue!” the Marquis screamed. “He cannot stop the goddess!”

  “I will take your head if you move,” the Sellsword said to the priestess. He stepped closer.

  The high priestess let go of the raised dagger with one hand and brought it to her side. The other hand still kept the dagger high, if not loose. She seemed ready to drop it.

  “I cannot wait any longer,” cried the Marquis. He slammed a dagger into the heart of the young man before him and the victim gasped as the blade stuck.

  The Sellsword cast the ax at the Marquis and took the plague-ridden villain in the chest.

  He cried out, “Oh, dark goddess welcome me into your arms and make me whole again.” But the Sellsword didn’t hear his plea as the scene warped like lightning had flashed silently.

  “She comes! Throw yourselves at him, that we may welcome her with blood!” shouted the high priestess. The once chanting cultist adepts lined the edges of the passage came to their feet.

  As the high priestess plunged the dagger at Nicene’s heart, the Sellsword cast his blade and caught her in the arm, bending the strike away. The priestess screamed and fled, as the adepts swarmed toward the Sellsword.

  Silent lightning shook the cavern and all were knocked off their feet. A stalactite fell, crushing the remains of the Marquis. The mountain rumbled and moved like a ship in a storm.

  The Sellsword found his footing, picked the unconscious Nicene up and slung her over his shoulder. He raced to the exit, fearing a cave in or worse. Behind him, as adepts followed like angry hornets, the mountain fell upon them in a deafening crash. Cracks in the earth, brought shadowy light to his path and he maneuvered along the defile without difficulty.

  Withdra
wing from the temple, he escaped to the stage and found the high priestess kneeling in the center of the standing stones. He put Nicene down gently and called to the high priestess.

  “It’s over. Your cult is done and I condemn you under the divine right of the king’s law.”

  The high priestess slowly rose to face him, but her eyes were no longer human, instead they burned like ruby red flares. “I know not your law.” Her words carried like the rushing of great waters, deep and sonorous, magnified many times over the capability of any human voice.

  “I deny you any part of this realm,” he cried, as gale force winds battered him.

  “I take what I want,” she echoed. “And I hunger for this place.”

  He fought against the storm and took step after step coming for her with his blade drawn.

  She stopped the winds, and he fell headlong at her feet.

  “You wanted this vessel once, above any other care on this world. You can have it, if you will be my consort.” Her voice boomed. “Will you deny this?” she asked, running her hands over her smooth, curved body.

  His will shook to the very core.

  “Take me as you will,” she intoned, moving toward him languidly. The pale beautiful form before him warped and his eyes saw behind that cruel smile and recognized her as she really was. An ageless being not simply dark, but made of darkness, born of the nameless realm of chaos.

  He took her in his arms and strode with her beyond the standing stones toward the low wall. She wrapped her legs about him and crushed his face to her bosom, but still he carried her farther.

  As they reached the wall overlooking the city, he lifted, shoved, and sent her spinning away. She clawed frantically, catching a shred of his blue cloak and then a ledge.

  “How dare you deny me!”

  “I know what you are,” he said.

  The tempestuous winds flared again, but her hold on the rock face slipped. “If I can’t have the city, no one can!” she screeched! Fire erupted all around them and fingers of orange raced up the sides of the mountain as if oil had been poured there.