In the Shadow of a Valiant Moon

by Stu Jones

  Slowly, I continue to move the yellow husk of the fruit toward my lips, when the child grunts at me and shakes her head. I stop again, brow furrowed. With a deliberate slowness, I extend the fruit toward the child and give it a little shake.

  “You can have it.”

  She takes a step forward. Then another, casting a glance over her shoulder.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I say. Am I reassuring her or myself?

  The child takes another step, now just feet away. She’s beautiful, if dirty, with little chocolate curls of hair that hook around her ears and frame dark, curious eyes. She reminds me of Husniya. Or myself. Or perhaps any innocent child in this hell we call home.

  “Here, it’s yours,” I say.

  In a flash of movement, the girl snatches the fruit from my hand and wheels to run, but then stops. Looking back to me, she giggles and pops the fruit against her knee, busting the thick husk open. The inside is rotten and putrid. She smiles, her eyes, mischievous yet proud of her knowledge. She tosses the poisonous fruit away.

  I release a held breath, tension draining from my shoulders.

  “Hey,” I call after her.

  She stops and turns to me, confusion etched into her little face.

  “Here.” I grab a handful of the red fruit in my bag and toss it to the ground a meter from her feet.

  She scoops them up, and immediately scarfs one—the juice spilling down her chin. Then, with a giggle, she turns and runs back through the orchard, disappearing through the rows of trees.

  That fruit might have killed me. Saved by a Ripper child. The irony.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  VEDMAK

  The stone walls of the mountain stronghold stretch up into the night sky. These cows have lived in conceited safety for far too long. Their belief in some paltry god cannot protect them from me. But it isn’t for my own pleasure that we will sack their sanctuary. No, it’s because this place is important to her and I know she’ll hear of it.

  The newest additions to my army of Einherjar, driven by the Alchemist’s latest concoction of Red Mist, shuffle in adrenaline-fueled anticipation at the foot of the peak. The miniaturized nuclear powerplant I had constructed accelerated the screening process for dushi like mine pure, driven toward the one truth. Though the ratio of dushi to whining, sad, pacifist sheep-like souls is still poor, in less than six months I have been able to harvest enough to build this army of several hundred adult, Gracile-bound warriors and grow another thousand youngling shells ready to accept my brethren. Still, I need more to secure my triumph, and grow impatient. So, tonight, we slake our thirst for blood; another piece knocked from the chessboard in this war.

  This is no victory, Vedmak. Unarmed Vestals? The cutting down of innocent women? You’ve become good at that, my Gracile demon says. You’re only doing this because you’re bored and petty. What a sad little imposter you are.

  His tone has grown in volume and confidence over these months. Demitri’s mouth has not stopped running day or night.

  “Innocent? These braying donkeys spout off about love in the name of a god that does not exist.” I spit on the snow-laden ground.

  Demitri scoffs. You’re a monster in the bedroom of a scared child. But all children soon grow up. And the children of Etyom will rise against you. Murdering these Vestals will only elicit the rage of the Logosians. They’ll come for you. Or maybe I should summon that Creed to beat the stuffing out of you once more. He laughs, coarse and remorseless.

  “Be silent, stupid kozel.”

  If you’re so powerful, force me. Oh, but that’s right. You can’t, can you? Demitri’s voice is cold and mocking. Every damn stim the Alchemist tried didn’t work did it? You’re stuck with me. And the beauty of being trapped in this place of endless dark is that I never need to sleep. In this place, time is irrelevant. But you—trapped in my body—are bound by the laws of the physical world. How long has it been since you slept, Vedmak? Weeks? Months? Stimmed to the eyeballs, afraid of letting go.

  “Enough of this.” I turn the valve screw another quarter inch, letting yet more Red Mist filter in through the breathing apparatus. The lungs sting, the muscles of this body tensing in anticipation of the violence yet to come.

  That’s not going to help you much. What did you say to me once? Can’t outrun your shadow.

  Killing these Vestals will help. Yes, a worthy distraction. Flaying these mindless sheep and silencing their lies will bring me peace. I clang the metal of my unfired scythe against the thick steel of the sword-like blade that now adorns the stump of an arm. It is an efficient, if not barbaric implement of war.

  My Einherjar roar long and loud, their own weapons enflaming; maces, swords, and double-bladed axes setting the cloudless night sky aflame with the glow and crackle of blue plasma. “Var-dø-ger! Var-dø-ger!” Their chant echoes in the cracks and crevices of the mountain the Vestals of the Word call home.

  A lone figure appears in the open spire window, peering out at those who will deliver her death. She screams and turns to flee, but a plasma bolt strikes her true and her body evaporates in a puff of ash. Her scream is brief and horrible.

  “Glorious!” I yell. “Attack!”

  The Einherjar charge the stone footsteps leading up to the heavy double doors.

  Yet these feet will not move.

  I scream again, willing this shell to capitulate. The muscles burn and feel as if they will tear.

  You might command your army to do this, Vedmak, but you won’t enjoy it. Not one single moment, Demitri says as if through imaginary gritted teeth.

  “You damn fool,” I shout aloud and give the valve to the Red Mist a full turn.

  The legs struggle to obey and, though weighed down as if wearing lead chainmail, I trudge forward. By the time I’ve reached the top, Merodach has used a long, plasma broad sword to hack flaming gashes into the hardwood doors. Another swing and burned splinters explode from the portal, shattering across my mask. With a mighty grunt, Merodach kicks into the barricade, the door cracking and splitting.

  “Again,” I shout.

  Merodach snorts. Rearing back, the thick muscles of his leg coil. The heel of his boot lands with a satisfying crack against the joint. Bursting inwards, the doors swing wide in a spray of splinters.

  We stream through, pouring into the torch-lit corridors.

  “Leave nothing in your wake!” I shout.

  The Einherjar power off into the temple, kicking in the doors of praying women and cutting them down. The Vestals are dragged from their rooms—the pretty ones are raped and left to bleed, the old and useless are beheaded on the spot. There will be no mercy for these cows.

  A veiled woman streaks past and I swing my scythe first, followed by my stump-sword. But my attempt is slow and clumsy, the blades never coming close. She runs as fast as her cumbersome attire will allow, only to be seized by Merodach. He lifts her and smashes her skull into the wall, painting it in her blood, then tosses her lifelessly down a twisting set of steps.

  Was that a miss, Vedmak? Such a shame.

  “Quiet, kozel,” I demand and shove off toward the steps. “Down. Go down. They’re hiding in the bowels of this place.”

  Without a force to stop them, my Einherjar cut through the religious zealots with little effort. Yet my blade tastes no blood. Every swing, every thrust of my scythe is evaded as if I were telegraphing my intent long in advance. Each time, the crimson-clothed vermin are picked off by one of my Gracile soldiers.

  I told you.

  “Damn you, Gracile!”

  Merodach shoots a quizzical stare and, without breaking his gaze, casually lops off the head of yet another woman. Her disfigured corpse slumps to the ground. He lets his glare linger before stomping off into the last tunnel. I make chase, lumbering along behind as fast as these damned limbs will allow.

  The final door is thrust open.

  Inside, five or six Vestals kneel on the floor encircling something. They pray in whispers to a false god who will
not save them. Their leader, the Mother Vestal, a young well-made woman, wearing some kind of headpiece, stands in front. One of them breaks her litany, crying out at my coming and runs for the door. I turn the valve screw wide open, letting a maximum dose of the Red Mist filter into the mask, filling the burning tissues of these laboring lungs.

  With considerable effort, I manage to grab her by her habit and drag her writhing to the floor. “Yes.” I scream with glee. “My blade will taste your blood.” I raise my scythe above, which crackles and spits blue plasma. Her tear-filled eyes are afire with the reflection of my weapon and the orange light of the torches that fill this room.

  “Yeos, save us,” she whispers.

  “Damn your false god!” I cry. “I am the Vardøger. I am Death!”

  The scythe comes down with all the force I can muster.

  “Genrikh, please.”

  My attack falters. What did she say?

  “Genrikh, don’t do this,” the Vestal says.

  But it’s not the Vestal. My wife stares back at me from under the headdress of the habit, her face panicked.

  I loosen my grip on the scythe. “Ida? No, no it can’t be.”

  “Genrikh, my love, don’t kill me,” she says.

  “No, no this isn’t possible,” I shout, scrambling off the woman. “Make it stop.”

  Demitri’s laugh is incessant in this skull, growing louder and louder.

  The woman clambers to her feet and makes for the door, but Merodach snatches her up by the throat and brings her back to me. The Vestal, who appears exactly as my beloved stares at me, her eyes bulging, her face turning blue through lack of air.

  “Please,” she hisses through Merodach’s grip. “Genrikh ...”

  I raise the plasma blade high, but it won’t come down.

  Merodach’s expectant stare bores holes into me.

  What’s the matter, Vedmak? Can’t get it up?

  Another scream of frustration pours from these stolen lips, yet still the image of Ida haunts me.

  “I will kill you, Demitri.”

  Will you now? How exactly? Kill yourself. Destroy my body? Please, be my guest.

  Enraged, I turn back to the Mother Vestal. She and her braying sheep will pay.

  It may be so but not by your hand, Vedmak.

  The Mother Vestal clutches a heavy tome to her chest and appears to pray; her lips moving but no sound issues forth. My soul burns with the desire to cut her limb from limb, but every fiber of this stolen body fights me.

  “Reams of paper will not save you,” I hiss.

  She slowly opens her defiant eyes, her chin thrust upward. “But it brings a peace you shall never know, demon. Even so, I pray for you—”

  Merodach grunts, more urgently than normal.

  “What the hell is it?” I snap.

  He swings his arm to point behind the huddling Vestals.

  I push past them to see. A chuckle erupts from within. “Well, well, well. I would have had no luck, if not for misfortune. And I thought only cockroaches couldn’t be killed.”

  Husniya? Oh no.

  “The whelp lives,” I say, giving her barely breathing corpse a nudge with my boot. The Musul girl groans. “Her friends abandoned her here for what? Healing?”

  “She’s dying,” the Mother Vestal says. “There’s no saving her. Let her pass to the Lightbringer in peace.”

  “The Lightbringer?” I say, nearly choking on my own snort. “Those Opor morons brought a Musul girl to the followers of Yeos? The irony. Her pathetic brother will likely kill you for that.”

  “Yeos loves all His children. It does not matter by which name the people are known,” the Mother Vestal replies, clutching the tome to her chest even tighter.

  Merodach raises a boot to stamp on Husniya’s skull.

  No, don’t. I won’t let you kill her.

  Fear not, whining child.

  I motion to Merodach, halting his attack. His already foul mood at my inability to kill darkens.

  “She is more use to me alive. Give her a stabilizer,” I say. “We take her to the Poisons Lab.”

  Merodach pulls an autoinjector from his pocket and presses it to Husniya’s neck. The girl moans.

  “You can’t have her,” the Mother Vestal insists. She stands stoic, unflinching. A slight twitching at the corner of her mouth, the only tell of the fear in her heart. “If you take this girl, the one you fear will come to stand against you, bearing the light.”

  I force this body to lurch forward, seizing the mother Vestal by her robes. “She is nothing. I have defeated that insolent Logosian whore at every turn. She cannot—she will not defy me.” I shove the Vestal back and turn from the wretch, the fire of my life force burning in a white-hot, all consuming, fury. A few heavy-footed steps toward the door and I stop by Merodach’s side. “Leave them alive to tell of what we did here. Let it be a battle cry. But burn the book. Leave no comfort. Then bring the Musul cockroach.”

  Merodach nods, though apparently frustrated at not being able to finish his slaughter of these women.

  I turn back long enough to see him seize the Vestal by the neck, her feet kicking and fingers clawing at his thick hands. The tome clunks to the floor. There’s a wonderful shriek, long and sustained, followed by the unmistakable smell of burning paper and flesh as the doors close behind me.

  Fenrir, one of my better soldiers, runs up in the dark corridor, his blood-covered armor clanking. “Vardøger, you must come. You must see.”

  “What is it, boy?”

  “There’s something, like nothing I’ve ever seen, coming from Zopat—from the lab.”

  I follow Fenrir back to the spire window and search the sprawling horizon. Logos, broken and burned, lies stretched out below. Vel, its secrets now spilled, sits on the hill to the east. And beyond Baqir, in the North, the bright lights of Zopat seem to once again burn brightly. But it is not Zopat. A large, glowing dome of green fire rises from the ground.

  Yes. The door is open. More of my brethren will come.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  MILA

  I have no idea how many weeks have passed since first coming here. Time has lost all meaning. Attempting my practiced Chum Lawk meditation for the thousandth time since I’ve been here does nothing. The usual serenity and strength to be drawn from my connection to the Creator is gone. Why does it feel as though He no longer speaks to me? Tears once again cut a worn path down my cheeks. This open wound never seems to heal. Am I to forever bleed for my sins?

  “Husniya. I wasn’t there when you needed me. I failed you ... and Faruq, and Demitri ... Bilgi, Ghofaun, Mos ... and Denni ... and you, dear Yeos.” Another sob shakes my shoulders. “I was told I was something, could be something more. I let it blind me ... Forgive me.”

  The motion sensor beeps, again.

  I sniff and turn my attention to the monitors. On the corresponding screen, the little Ripper girl I’d encountered scurries around the orchard. But she’s not picking up fruit. For the last few days she’s come back, searching for me. She wouldn’t return if she knew the truth.

  “You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, dear Mila.” The words of the sister Vestal, Katerina, emerge from some darkened tomb inside me, as if I too had another spirit dwelling within. I watch the little girl skipping around without a care in the world, trying to dredge up the words that once gave me strength. “There is one way to endure the path of the Lightbringer. Every step, every single act must be one of love. Not pride, nor strength, nor self-righteousness. Love and faithfulness are the only weapons that will overcome such evil.”

  Not pride.

  Nor strength.

  Nor self-righteousness.

  Love. Like that of the little girl in the orchard. She knows no other way. No hate. No ugliness.

  Katerina’s words are pointed, exposing how far I’ve fallen from the way. But the pain of realization feels right, like the hand of a surgeon cutting to remove a spreading infection. I grow still, deep
breaths swelling in and out, the beating of my heart slowing, tears dripping from a chin tucked close to my chest.

  Yeos, speak to me. Please.

  A mechanical whir, nearly imperceptible to the untrained ear, rises in pitch. I try to focus, to stay in this moment of reflection. But I can’t. Now that I hear the distracting noise, curiosity drowns out all else. The whine grows, morphing into a pulling grind that slows with motorized precision.

  The magnetic rail elevator is coming.

  That can only mean one thing—someone has accessed it and is on their way up. I had to use my PED to hack the access terminal. It wasn’t easy. Not just anyone is coming up. It’s either a Gracile with the correct biometric profile, or it’s someone who deliberately hacked it, the same as I did. What it isn’t is a mistake. What it might be is my demise.

  I rise from my kneeling position on the crushed white fabric pillow, my legs stinging as blood re-enters them. I turn to face the elevator, though can’t decide if I should run or fight or let whoever it is kill me.

  With a chime and a squeak, the polished metal door of the elevator slides open. A man stands in the shadows stoic and unmoving. He’s Gracile, wearing a small pack on his back. My skin prickles. With a slow sweeping movement, the Gracile pulls the stop lever, locking the elevator in place with the door open. But he remains where he stands. What keeps him from entering? Does he even see me standing here?

  “Mila Solokoff.” The voice reaches out from the sterile metal box.

  I know that voice. “Zaldov?”

  “It is I.”

  Relief washes over me from the top of my scalp to the bottom of my feet. I roll my shoulders and exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Zaldov, what are you doing? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “No. My intentions are not hostile. A scan of your vitals reveals that you are in good health.”

  “That’s not what I ... never mind. You can come out of the elevator, you know.”