Victorious Cross

by Jesse De Rivera

  Grimly, Grey looked over their surroundings and scowled. “The sounds…the heat…We have to be close enough to reach the Forges.”

  Anxiously, Victorio looked over the side and farther down. While their surroundings were noticeably brighter, it was impossible to see the bottom yet. “How are we supposed to do that? We got a long way down still.”

  “This place isn’t exactly real,” Grey reminded him. “Not in the way other places are. This smokestack may go down forever, who knows?”

  Victorio hated all this metaphysical crap. “Okay, so now what?”

  The pads of his feet mended, Brasil sat up straight and pointed to the walls, where pipes wound through the solid, twisted stone. “We go through.”

  “And probably not quietly,” Grey sighed. “But quiet was never going to make a difference anyway.”

  The four brought themselves to where a large enough pipe protruded from stone, each of them sizing up their obstacle. Victorio could see Brasil cracking his knuckles and Gatina shaking out her sleeves to ready her wand, and then he brought the Spear into his hand.

  “Material molded in the Forges needs its like to break it,” Grey said, stiffly walking past them.

  The three glanced at each other, and Victorio said, “What, like…you done this before or something?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied smoothly. “But yeah.” He outstretched the arm opposite the one that held his artifact for travel. His palm abruptly burst open, and Victorio let out a shocked cry as he nearly fell backward. A steady stream of blood whipped in the air around Grey’s arm, swirling into a pointed, wicked-looking blade. As it solidified in his grip, the long blade almost appeared made of ruby, but the sharp scent of iron betrayed it.

  If Victorio had seen this in an anime or video game it would’ve been freaking sweet but being right next to a real sword made of real blood just made him want to barf.

  Both Gatina and Brasil had similar looks of dismay on their faces. “You…” Brasil croaked out dryly. “How by every saint and in every hell did you manage to get a Forger-made weapon?”

  Grey didn’t answer, simply swinging largely instead. The blade scraped into stone, and the cuts it made were near perfect as he dug into it. After a few more slashes he carved the outline of an entrance, and with a thrusting kick, the stone skid forward and crashed into whatever was beyond.

  Brasil looked like he wanted to press the issue but the shouting on the other side of the hole signaled it would have to wait. Voices came from the new entrance, mumbles in low, gravelly tones. Grey was the first to greet them, boldly rolling through the makeshift entrance and swinging his weapon. Victorio followed, attempting to take in the long, narrow room they had entered. It looked like the kind of workspace at a RenFair, with hot, lit pits and heavy anvils dotted around them.

  Shapes approached the four, and Victorio hesitated as he got his first look at the Forgers. They were huge creatures, easily topping eight feet, and their frames were covered head to toe in tattered, threadbare, loose robes. From the insides of their hoods, singular, massive eyes pierced the intruders; and from all around the forge they gathered tools and weapons, brandished red-hot pokers, heavy, massive hammers, and blades that had hung from racks in their firm, elongated hands.

  To Victorio’s surprise, some of those at the ready hesitated just like himself. “The Spear,” one hissed, and the word echoed from the thin, cracked mouths of the others.

  “Whoa…” he breathed, stunned to hear speech.

  “Fools, defend your stations,” another cried, one that dove at Grey and was met by his blade. “Thief,” they added in a growl as Grey slashed at them. “You dare brandish our work?”

  Victorio jumped into action, swinging the Spear to meet the cyclopes’ rush. He rolled between swings of hammers, feeling the floor beneath him tremble with each crushing blow. Every slice he landed tore into the Forgers, reminding him of fighting the Empty. However, they were smarter than the mindless, consuming grunts. They didn’t just hiss, they passed orders to one another in their ashen voices; they observed and dodged, they adjusted attacks, they bobbed and could feint, but the result was much the same, with robes fading to dust under Victorio and his partners’ combined strength.

  With a final kick, Grey yanked his sword from where it had sunk to the hilt in a cyclops’ eye. “Alright…get your breath while you can. It’s not long before more will be coming.”

  Victorio looked around at the bodies. “Did…Did one of them raise an alarm?”

  Grey stared at him with a very ‘are you stupid?’ expression. “No, Victorio. There are no alarms in the Black. They’ll just sense Forgers are missing.”

  “Well, I don’t know!” Victorio snapped. “I’ve never seen anything like these before.”

  Gatina caused all in the room to start when she let out a howl of terror. Shaking her head, she half-wept, no amount of hushing from Brasil would calm her. When all three were gathered beside her it was clear why. Next to one of the anvils, still hot from work, was a huge chunk of the same type of masonry that formed the building around them. That identical sinewy color formed the block, and what Victorio at first assumed a person carved out of the material caused his entire body to wrack with nausea. The last bits of torso, shoulders, and face of a person was not a carving, the man’s body was somehow being stretched and shaped into the block itself.

  Victorio remembered him. He was a Cartesian Guard, one of the dozens he had met the night before. He was going to tell Gatina how sorry he was for this man’s death, but then Victorio realized he was alive. The man wasn’t dead, his mouth was opening and closing like a fish struggling for air, his brown, cloudy eyes swiveled sightlessly around their sockets, unable to focus on any of those near him.

  “This is what the Black builds from,” Grey said solemnly. “I’m sorry. You knew him, didn’t you?”

  “He’s still alive!” Gatina sobbed out. “Help me get Xike out—help me get him out!”

  Grey pulled her away from what was left of Xike, holding her tightly. “He can’t come out. Let him go. He’s too far gone.”

  Numbly, Victorio gawked while Brasil and Grey tried to calm Gatina, though it was obvious Brasil didn’t really fare any better. Then the empanadas decided to return to him violently. Victorio stuck his head over a basin of foul-looking water and proceeded to puke out everything in his stomach. Whatever was happening outside his periphery barely registered—the arguing, weeping, and a sickening chop—it was all meaningless. He focused on his overwhelming heaves. When his body finally had punished him enough, he wearily rubbed his eyes. He was almost grateful for throwing up; now it wasn’t obvious he’d been sobbing as well.

  He felt Brasil’s grip pull him up to his feet. Victorio coughed painfully and wiped his mouth and watery eyes. “Oh…Oh my God…” he whispered hoarsely, his mouth burning with bile. “They…They don’t just absorb people?”

  “They do,” Grey said solemnly. “But they also build.”

  “The ziggurat—” Gatina moaned in despair. “They took Guard from the ziggurat…is this…is this what’s happening? Is this…?” She then slumped to her knees and began crying again.

  Victorio knew what she couldn’t get out. She had lost her entire home to the Empty. Had everyone she ever loved been beaten and shaped into something useful for the Forgers?

  “Gatina,” Grey pressed. “If we don’t hurry this could happen to Enki. Please get up.”

  “The Guard!” she snapped back at him. “How many were taken here? I can’t—I can’t—I can’t leave them to die like this.”

  Brasil’s thousand-yard stare was unblinking as he mumbled, “We’ll have to find who we can after Enki.”

  The defeat in Brasil’s face was too much. Victorio had never seen a look like that on him. He couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t.

  “Grey,” Victorio pushed out, his voice weak. “Help them find people who’ve been caught. Please.”

  Brasil shook his head wearily. “No, there�
��s no time, we have to find Enki—”

  “I will,” Victorio interrupted. “I’ll find him. Help the Guard.”

  Gritting his teeth, Brasil grabbed his shoulder. “Daft child, no. You’re not running through this place alone.”

  “The Guard needs you!” he retorted, his mind more made up by the moment. “Just go. Get them out.”

  “Brasil, please,” Gatina begged, clasping her paws together. “Please!”

  “Gatti—?” Brasil stumbled over his words. “I’m scared too, but we can’t just let Victorio be alone, he’s too important—”

  “No, I’m not, Brasil.” Uncomfortably Victorio stared into Brasil’s eyes, shaking his head. “I’m the Spear Bearer. If one of us dies another takes our place just as easy.” His face softened as he thought about it. “I mean…that’s even what I was told when I accepted the Spear, that if I didn’t, there’d be somebody else.

  “You guys…the Guard, you’re the ones who are special. Nobody told you to help anyone, and you do it anyway. I mean, even Gatina didn’t even question it when the Noa showed up, she was ready to defend those people. We got everyone out of the cities because…well, because of you guys, not me.”

  Victorio looked to Grey pleadingly. “Help them.”

  Grey’s eyes softened, and at that moment Victorio could see they weren’t as different as they seemed. Grey understood. He knew how it felt to be revered, and yet infinitely replaceable. “Go,” Grey whispered. “I got you.”

  Before Brasil could jump in to stop him, Victorio darted out of the room and into the hall beyond. He could hear Brasil calling him back, but Victorio just let it fade from his hearing as he ran.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Grand Forge

  Crimson halls spread out before Victorio as he ducked around corners and slid through curved corridors. Victorio had managed to stay hidden thus far, hearing a commotion that indicated the intruders were being hunted. He had put his trust in Grey, he had to believe they were going to be okay.

  Victorio paused as he entered a new area of corridors, and his stomach twisted in knots. It was open from here on, the halls still spiraling down but now with mangled-looking columns rather than walls. He considered turning back and searching elsewhere, not ready to risk being exposed, but he heard a sound, a voice, shredded and weak, moaning in pain.

  Slowly he inched to the edge of the walkway and cautiously peered down. The chamber below was massive, with a huge forge at its base lit with a white-hot flame. He couldn’t see the bottom of this furnace belching fire—much like the smokestack they had climbed down it just stretched on into blinding light. Dozens of pipes sprouted from this central forge like roots clinging to the walls, and steam and smoke leaking from their seams. Further down on the floor he could make out a hulking figure surrounded by floating orbs and splayed across something like an operating table was Enki. The heaviness of the air obscured what was happening, but there was no mistaking his gray and blue suit, and the voice quivering in agony.

  The sound of sizzling, the smell of burning flesh—Victorio forced his eyes closed to choke down any further dry heaves. He knelt on the floor, feeling his entire body tremble and struggle against what he had to do. Someone he knew whimpering like that…but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He had never once fought alone. Now he had to face the reality that he would be one kid against who knew what or how many. Now that he was there, so close, his body refused to move.

  Why wouldn’t the Spear just take over again? He wanted it so badly then, he regretted ever hating the sensation. Grey had been alone for years, why hadn’t Victorio just sent him to do this? Without someone holding his hand, the Spear, Gatina, and Brasil, Enki, what was he? Just some punk kid who talked a bigger game than he could bring.

  A loud, tortured wail from Enki interrupted his thoughts. Victorio shook his head, steadying his breath forcefully. He was the Spear Bearer. The Empty feared him, the Noa revered him, the Cartesian Guard cared about him. He couldn’t understand the infinite, but he could understand what was right in front of him.

  With a swift jolt, he forced down fear just long enough to stand on the edge of the walkway looking down, and then jump. His soles slammed onto a pipe, then his entire frame moved by rote. It was not the Spear directing him, it was the memories of leaping through jungle gyms. From one surface to another he slid, hopping and using momentum to guide his pace. If his friends could only see him now.

  Above the searing forge, he ran out of pipes, dropping at the ready. He could just make out the artisan below, the huge bands of muscle on their back and hands glowing with heat, but he couldn’t allow the figure to throw him off. Above the shoulders was no head, only a gathering of floating, white orbs. As Victorio neared the ground and lifted the Spear, the spheres rotated in place, showing him that they were all, in fact, eyes. The forger dove to the side, but the Spear connected with its target: the gnarled, bony table Enki was strapped to splintered and spilled its occupant to the floor.

  In the seconds he had left, Victorio brushed aside the shattered, organic restraints, recoiling at the sight of Enki’s left arm. It was charred black, elongated, and ended in long, claw-tipped fingers. Enki’s sweat-drenched face blearily turned toward Victorio, and with a shaky voice, he whispered, “What a great jump…good shot.”

  Victorio heard a shuffle and he bolted to his feet, readying the lance at the headless, giant blacksmith glaring down at him with the entire swarm of their eyes. Their left hand glowed white-hot, while the other had cautiously gripped the handle of a massive hammer.

  “Stay back,” Victorio hissed, trying to look more menacing than reality. (Could they hear him? It wasn’t like they had ears…)

  A voice rumbled from the midst of the floating orbs, its bass rattling through Victorio as it said, “Spear Bearer…you willingly throw yourself to the flame?”

  Oh. Oh, okay, yeah. They heard him. And they could talk with no mouth.

  “I’m taking Enki and—” Victorio was unable to make any threatening comebacks, sliding to the side as the High Forger’s hammer swung down at him. Rolling out of the blow’s path, he was unable to do anything more than defend himself. Heat rushed just past Victorio’s face as he narrowly jumped back from a swipe, the smith’s digits scalding the air around them. The hammer followed, and it impacted against the stone floor with a boom.

  As Victorio steadied himself, his attention briefly focused on the rubble thrown from the Forger’s strike. The shower of broken stone that clattered to the ground changed, shivering and darkening into perfect, black shadows that faded into nothingness. His throat tightened in horror. While the Spear would easily withstand any power the Black could throw at him, Victorio might not.

  The Forger seemed to sense his fear and met it with ferocity. Victorio dashed from heat and shadow, blocking strikes to the best of his ability. Anything the hand brushed against seared and smoked; anything struck by the hammer faded into the Black. One hefty swing landed directly against the upheld Spear, sending all the force straight through him and bringing Victorio to the ground.

  “Poor, weak child,” a woman’s voice whispered in his ear. “All alone.”

  Victorio had never heard the voice before, but it made his blood turn cold. He recognized something in that voice, familiar in its scathing hatred aimed at him. Simultaneously swinging, he rolled to his feet and spun, barely catching the movement of a slim, feminine figure dashing out of his path. She laughed at him, and when he saw her face, he had a sense of déjà vu. His memory returned to Hong Kong and the frenzied crowds. Her eyes, however, held something different. They were old, older than Enki, and in her gaze, it was like staring down every mob of the Empty at once.

  “You are in my realm,” she hissed, her entire body covered in shadows. She launched a tendril of entropy at him. “You can’t hope to escape.”

  Victorio rolled from its path, then bit down a scream as the High Forger’s hammer slammed at his feet. His eyes swerved up to the massi
ve blacksmith, and he scrambled out of their path as they swung their trunk-like arms; their impossibly huge hammer created a rush of wind as it just barely missed the top of his head.

  There were now two foes rushing Victorio, and in the corner of his eye, he could see shadows along the walls moving to join the fray. Over the spiral walkway’s railing, more cyclopes leaned over to observe as they ran. Victorio didn’t have long before all of them descended into the melee.

  He couldn’t win this. It was impossible to win this. Had Victorio really not meant to when he got here?

  A burst of water slammed into the High Forger’s back, knocking them to their knees. The agent of the Black tumbled out of its path, crying out in surprise as another stream blast into the Forger. The mountainous smith staggered to their feet, struggling to push back the force.

  Victorio glanced behind him. Enki had pulled himself to his knees, and from his shoulders sparkling streams wrapped around his arms and lashed viciously at the head Forger. “Not alone, Victorio. You are never—never alone,” he coughed.

  The High Forger fought back the attacks, bands of water metamorphosing into shadow when struck. Like solid objects, they splintered and burst out from the direction of each arc, then faded before they hit the ground. “You will—join—the emptiness,” the Forger heaved. “You were—always meant to!”

  The woman in black neared Victorio, but Enki diverted his attentions to her and knocked her away. With this mystery lady concentrating on ducking and weaving through Enki’s jets of water, Victorio stood against the Forger. He lunged, and the smith slid sideways. The High Forger reminded him that the Spear couldn’t beat their range. Their hulking hand slapped onto Victorio’s forearm, and he let out a wail of pain as heat shot through him.

  “Victorio!” Enki shouted, but far out of range of Victorio’s focus. He could only hear his own screams, could feel nothing but searing so hot that it ceased to register as heat, only agony. With his awkward hold on his lance, he flailed wildly. When he felt the Spear impact with something, he forced his body to obey him enough to pull as hard as he could. The obstruction gave, and a ripping sound reached Victorio’s ears, along with a heavy thud.