“But what can we do?” she asked.
“You, can do little,” Lyella said acidly. “We will take care of things.”
Brooke scowled at her. She was glad that Lok and Tyrell had joined them as reinforcements, but she couldn’t think of a Venator worse than Lyella as a mission companion. She’d rather work alongside Sintian.
“Brooke will do fine. She’s survived so far,” Lok said, winking at her.
“Fine.” Arantay sighed. “But I don’t want you getting us into unnecessary trouble, Lok.”
“As if I would.” Lok held his hands up, mock-hurt.
“Okay, we’ll hole up with the vampires for a while,” said Arantay.
“At least they’re nice to look at.” Lyella said. “Unlike those dog-beasts.”
“Ha, wolf women aren’t that bad.” Lok chuckled. “And weretiger woman are exquisitely sexy, they…” He trailed off as Lyella glared at him.
“Oi!” A childish voice shouted in the dark. “Nice of you to leave me behind, Venators. I nearly got trampled to death, I did.”
She turned to see Titchy glide through an alley wall nearby.
“Who’s this?” Tyrell asked.
“Titchy,” said Arantay. “Our witness. He was helping us convince Vore the Rakarn are behind all this.”
“Rakarn.” Lok’s eyes went wide. “You’re sure? Bloody hell, we might need more than five of us then.”
“Yeah,” Brooke said. “One of them, Selina, told us how they’d made one werewolf insane, and they’re planning to do it to others, too. That was before Selina and her men tried to kill us.”
“Rueda…” Lok said, his face full of concern as he approached her. “Are you okay?”
“She looks fine to me,” Lyella snapped.
“Whoa, I’ll have to inform the Fortress immediately,” said Tyrell, retrieving his Holophone and wandering off to call them.
“That’s right,” said Titchy, “and aid you I did. S’not my fault that the beasts went berserk on you. So,” Titchy held out his hand, “the other ‘alf of my payment please.”
“You’re right,” Arantay went over to him. “You held up your end of the deal,” he said, depositing more notes into Titchy’s waiting palm.”
“Thanks very much, sir.” Titchy doffed his cap. “I’ll be off now, then. Toodeloo.” And with that, he walked back through the alley’s wall and vanished.
Tyrell finished his call with Veneseron’s monitors then and they set off for the abandoned church. Brooke was happy that there was more of them now, but frightened. It appeared a war between the Immortals had finally broken out, and they hadn’t been able to stop it.
She also wondered as to how Lok would act. She was all too aware that the last time they’d met, they’d almost kissed. Would Lok try to kiss her again? What would Arantay think?
*
He watched the Venators depart, crouching in the shadows atop a dark building. His skin shimmered ghost white, and his burnished bronze hair glinted in the moonlight.
Eskal grinned maniacally.
Chapter 39- Puppet Corpses
A second before the Asharon’s glowing laser sword came down to stab through his chest, Evan frantically twisted his body as the idea screamed through his brain. It was his only chance. His palm slid over the disgusting tentacle wrapped around his calf as his fingers groped to his new enchanted boots. He jabbed the blue button violently.
The Asharon froze, mid-strike, as Evan suddenly disappeared.
The Ghoul Galoshes had made his entire body camouflaged to its surroundings, so much so, that Evan couldn’t even see himself.
The Asharon faltered, wondering where its victim had gone. Evan tried to wriggle out from underneath the monster, but his shuffling and laboured breathing gave away his location. He knew the eyes behind the terrifying mask couldn’t see him, but the Asharon could clearly hear him and stalked toward the sound. One of the monster’s tentacles still gripped his calf, but Evan could crawl across the passageway enough to snatch up Ruaden. He turned swiftly and stabbed the tentacle repeatedly. The purple appendage was the only thing not camouflaged, but the Asharon hadn’t noticed it.
Now the monster noticed, as it screeched and released Evan, the tentacle wilting as black blood and steam spewed out of it. The stench of oil and sulphur filled his nostrils and he realised the black blood might actually be oil. Either way he was already to his feet, still invisible, and running to where Sintian stood, pinned against the wall by another tentacle. Evan cut this one right down the middle, causing another screech from the Asharon.
The monster jerked erratically now, flinging its laser sword from side to side in an effort to catch Evan. It must’ve realised Evan was invisible, but it couldn’t pick him out of the camouflage.
He was forced to jump back as the Asharon’s sword came an inch away from slicing off his nose. Sintian took advantage of the Asharon’s distraction and hacked off another tentacle, and another. Evan ran behind the abomination and did the same.
As the Asharon tried to locate Evan, Sintian stepped directly before it and dealt the death blow, plunging his sword beneath the scarlet cowl and into the Asharon’s face.
The monster’s screeches cut off at once and instead there was the clink of metal as the Asharon’s body tumbled to the ground in pieces, its red cloak and hood falling on top of it.
“Evan?” Sintian called out, “where the hell are you?”
“Here,” he said as he pressed the green button, re-appearing like normal. “I told you I found new boots. I just didn’t know they’d save both of our lives.”
Both boys slumped against either wall, exhausted from the fight.
“What…what the hell was that?” Evan said at last.
“An Asharon,” Sintian said, as if he couldn’t believe his own words. “I read about them when I was an Apprentice. I wasn’t supposed too, it was a book only reserved for High-Realmers and above, but my I heard older Venators mention them and I had to find out more. They’re really dangerous and…” Sintian stopped to look at Evan with wide eyes. “… and Asharon are known to serve Demon Disciples.”
The intense fear that had gripped him when he saw the Asharon suddenly returned. Evan didn’t want to think the worst, but he couldn’t deny that the Asharon had addressed him directly, had pretty much ignored Sintian, even during the battle. Did a Disciple send that thing after me? Does a Disciple know I’m a Demon-Spawn? How could they?
“Maybe one of the Disciples is after the gem of Quantem, too,” he said quickly, to throw Sintian off the scent.
He dearly hoped that was the case, almost as much as he hoped Sintian wouldn’t put two and two together like he had, that a Demon Disciple might be hunting him.
“If… if a Disciple is here, or even if that’s who leads this cult, we’ll have to abort this mission,” Sintian said. “No Venator can face a Disciple and leave. I don’t know if twenty Arch-Realmers would stand a chance.”
Although Evan would hate to fail his first mission, he’d rather that, than face a Disciple. Yeah, that’s it. There’s no Disciple after you. Maybe one just leads this cult, terrible luck for my first mission, but at least no Disciple knows about me.
“What if it’s just a coincidence? Maybe the cult has an Asharon who serve them, or maybe he was just lost,” he said optimistically.
“Lost? Yeah, right.” Sintian snorted. “Although not all Asharon serve Disciples. Some keep to themselves, but still, it’s unlikely an Asharon would just be roaming the temple. Maybe it is affiliated with this cult. C’mon, we better go. We made a lot of noise during the fight. Cultists could be on their way now.”
“Good idea.” Evan nodded. “We can’t just leave the Asharon’s remains though, the cult will know someone’s intruded.”
“Yeah, we’ll-” Sintian fell silent as they heard shouts and running footsteps. The cultists had evidently heard their battle with the Asharon. They didn’t have time to remove the body.
“Ushk, we’re too
late,” Sintian swore. “Run!”
Evan didn’t need convincing, and joined Sintian as they sprinted the opposite way of the shouting. As they turned down the passage he could make out the cultists calling to each other. “I heard the screeches over here, this way!”
The two Venators raced down a second corridor, before wheeling into another and then running up a passage that sloped steeply. This corridor was like a giant stone hill, it went on for so long.
After several minutes of running as fast as they could up the colossal corridor, he and Sintian slowed to a jog, in case they ran straight into another group of cultists.
Evan was relieved Sintian hadn’t openly accused him of being the reason the Asharon had appeared. Hopefully, he wouldn’t come to that conclusion. Sintian did keep giving him strange looks, however.
The shouts of the cultist group had long since faded behind them, but now he heard a faint chanting.
“What is that?” Evan stopped as he heard it.
Sintian stopped walking too, pressing his ear to the wall. “Sounds like those monks when they do that throat singing,” he said.
“It must be the cultists,” said Evan. “You don’t think they’re summoning monsters do you?”
“Maybe, but they could just be praying.” Sintian shrugged.
The deep and unintelligible chanting grew louder the more they travelled up the sloping passage. They were singing in a different language, probably a demonic tongue.
“Let’s just be careful,” he whispered. “We don’t want to walk out right in front of them all. It sounds like there’s loads of them, we’d never get out alive.”
Sintian sneered. “Speak for yourself, but all right.”
At last, they reached the top of the mammoth passageway, and the chanting abruptly became incredibly loud.
The corridor opened out onto a bridge, and the bridge they stood on was just one of many, with loads of bridges above, all the way to the top of the temple. Directly below them, however, was a huge hall, crowded with cultists.
“Get down,” he whispered to Sintian, getting on his own stomach. If anyone looked over to the bridge above they shouldn’t be able to see them. They crawled to the bridge’s ledge and pressed their heads against the railings, looking down at the hall below.
The congregation consisted of several rows of cultists, all of them wearing their masks and hooded robes, and all of them facing the raised dais at the end of the room. Evan guessed there were about three dozen of them. Curiously, half a dozen cultists wore dark green robes instead of blue. To the far left of the dais was an altar, large enough for a person to lie on, and leaning against the altar was a ceremonial scythe. To the right was a stone basin full of flaming coals and a steel bucket containing blood. Surrounding the basin in a wide circle was a ring of salt. The items felt familiar to Evan, he was sure Mistress Ishimara had spoken about them in training.
At the centre of the dais, however, was a pedestal with nothing on top of it.
He stared around at the hall, the walls were black like the rest of the temple, but the ground was covered in golden paving stones. His stomach turned when he noticed the large slabs around the edges of the room. A corpse lay on each slab, over two dozen in total. Some of the corpses were practically skeletons, whereas others were burned or blackened and other bodies had only just started to decay.
With the masks, it was hard to tell how many different races the cult group comprised of. Due to their height, he guessed that a third of them were gnomes. There were many humans too, though, and more than a few orcs.
The cult stopped chanting in their strange language all at once as a cymbal crashed somewhere above. Silence reigned around the hall for a moment, before the steady thunk of wood on stone started up, rhythmically.
Seconds later, the source of the sound came into view, as an elderly man with a walking stick appeared on the dais.
He wore the same green robes that only a few of cultists wore, but no mask, revealing a withered face and a head of stringy white hair. He appeared to be a hunchback and hobbled up to the pedestal, leaning heavily on his stick. In his other hand he clutched a circular black and gold rock, the size of a tennis ball. Despite the lack of light, the sphere glistened marvellously.
“The Gem?” Sintian hissed. “That’s gotta’ be the crown of Quantem.”
Evan nodded. “But how do we get it with so many cultists in the way?”
A dog, who looked just as elderly, padded behind the man on the dais. Evan didn’t recognise the breed of dog, but it looked to be a mixture of husky and grey hound. He wasn’t sure that was possible on Earth.
The cultists fell to their knees as one, all of them calling out. “Greetings Bringer, we welcome thee.”
They stayed on their knees until the elderly man gestured with his free hand and they rose again.
“I guess he’s the Bringer,” Evan said quietly.
“Uh, you think?” Sintian shot back.
The elderly man tenderly placed the Gem of Quantem atop the pedestal in the middle of the dais, smiling proudly.
“Welcome my children.” The Bringer spoke in a booming but reedy voice. “I have most excellent news for us all. Two of our finest necromancers.” He gestured to two cultists in the dark green robes. “Have uncovered the gem of Quantem from the ancient ruins I discovered.”
The cultists broke out in applause and maniacal cheers of joy.
“Yes, yes,” the Bringer continued. “At last we have the crown. This ancient relic allows whoever holds it to be immune from all magic attacks. Many have heard the legends about the crown, but what they do not know if that the gem of Quantem also raises the dead.”
“Necromancers,” the old man turned to those wearing dark green robes, “with the crown of Quantem we shall raise whole armies of the undead. The more we conquer, the more our army shall grow as our defeated enemies will rise up to join our ranks. But now, my flock, with the crown our reach shall spread further than ever before. We will cleanse the immoral and the non-believers from this realm, and then claim more realms. We will claim this world as our own and other realms will soon follow.”
The Bringer paused, gazing at his followers and grinning, exposing more gum then teeth.
“And, with the Gem of Quantem, the Dread Lord Holdron won’t be the only demon under my command. I, and we, shall be able to control many.”
The cultists erupted with in wild cheers at this. Evan grew increasingly unnerved.
“Prepare yourselves, my flock, for I shall raise the lord Holdron now,” the Bringer pronounced.
“Okay, we need a plan,” Sintian said quietly, although with the cultists cheering, Evan doubted he needed to whisper.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Bane and Emi first?”
“No, now might be our only chance,” Sintian argued.
“What do you mean? After this little gathering they might all leave the hall and then we can steal the Gem and get out of here,” he said, a little too hopefully.
“You think it’ll be that easy?” Sintian rolled his eyes. “I highly doubt that Bringer dude will leave the Gem unattended. Listen, we have to strike now, and I reckon we can do it. We both just use the Zoom spell to run past them all at inhuman speed. We’ll snatch the Gem and then leg it out of here before these crazy fools can do anything.”
Before Evan could reply, he was distracted by the Bringer’s cry. “By blood and fire, I summon thee, Hordlon.”
The old man deposited the bucket of blood over the coals. The coals sizzled and the fire leaped up. The Bringer screamed in an ancient tongue and scattered a strange power from his pocket. As the powder fell into the fire, the flames swirled into a vortex. The bringer then procured a Rambrace from his robes and activated it.
Evan recalled the ritual from training now. He knew he recognised the instruments from somewhere. The blood and fire ritual served as beacon for a particular demon. Evan realised the blood used had likely been human, from one of the sacrifices this sick
cult committed. He guessed the powder the Bringer had been sprinkled in was an ingredient related to this Holdron he was summoning, too.
Like a magnet, the ritual pulled a demon toward it, a second before the portal sputtered and died, a monster was pulled out of its depths.
The demon was horrific to behold. He not only had a human’s body but one of bodybuilder, wearing only a loin cloth. His skin was bright green however. As Holdron stood before them, puddles formed by his feet, as if his skin was perpetually melting. His head was decidedly non-human, with four eyes, two mouths on each cheek, and golden antlers sprouting from his bald head.
Weirder still, a second, much smaller demon, clutched the top of one of Holdron’s antlers. The minion was size of a cat, but had a monkey’s body and tail and a head reminsenct of a koala bear. The smaller demon would’ve almost been cute, if it didn’t have wicked claws and fangs.
“My god,” Evan whispered.
The cultists were speaking in hushed tones too, only their voices were filled with excitement and adulation. The demon himself looked shocked to find himself out of its own realm and in the middle of this hall.
“Lord Hordlon!” The Bringer cried. “We welcome you to our abode once more.”
Hordlon turned to the old man beside him, his face still showing confusion, and then resentment.
“You again.” The monster didn’t shout, yet two voices rumbled throughout the chamber and both his mouths moved at once.
“Yes, it is I, your master.” The old man looked up at Holdron in admiration.
“I have no master,” the demon seethed.
“I’m afraid you do, my grand lord,” the Bringer persisted. “I have summoned you, and whilst here you must obey my every command. Now, first things first, you are forbidden from harming me or any of my flock. You are also forbidden from breaking the salt circle on this dais.”
Holdron roared in fury, all six of his eyes glaring at the old man. The Bringer was oblivious to the demon’s hatred, however.
Evan knew from his training that if Holdron tried to disobey the Bringer, the ritual would kill him. He guessed that the monster would like nothing more than to destroy the whole New Doom Cult.
Moonlight War- Act II (The Realmers Book 3) Page 13