Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

  “But could he control that?” Railes asked.

  “He isn’t controlling it. She’s made a berserker. Pointed him at us and told him to kill. Which is what he’d want to do anyway.” I remembered the mindless bloodlust when I’d let the Darkness rule me, the boundless rage. That must be close to Pious’ natural state. There would be no subtlety to the infected man, but he would be virtually unstoppable. “How are we doing?”

  “Not good,” Railes said. “They’ve come around the hill to our left and they’re just rolling us up as they come. They’re pretty much going through us like a knife through butter. What do we do?”

  “Well, obviously we need to stop Pious. Keep shooting him. He can’t survive that forever. Aim for the head. And get oil grenades or anything else that’ll catch fire. We’re going to have to burn him.”

  “Yessir. I’m on it.” Railes lurched away.

  “Hey, wait up!” I called. Which was stupid, because time was of the essence, and I was slow.

  “Don’t worry, boss,” my adjutant called back. “You’ll get a front row seat. He’s heading this way.”

  I limped toward the front through a desolate landscape, a chaos of tents thrown down and cook pots kicked over as men scrambled to stop the unstoppable. Noise continued to build ahead, lost in the wall of fog.

  And how exactly was I going to help? I had been more than a match for Pious with the Darkness in me and not in him. Now? He had been formidable when he was nothing more than a strong, brutal man. With all the Darkness of a Hellguard inside him, he would be one of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the earth.

  Fire had stopped me when the Darkness had taken over my mind. I had to believe it could stop him too. In any case, I needed to be at the front to organize the defenses and try to turn Yoshana’s tide. Pious was her one-man shock force, her battering ram, but the Overlord herself would be leading her troops to exploit the breach. We had the numbers, and the Monolith troops were disciplined veterans - as I’d learned to my cost fighting against them - but I also knew that fear would let a smaller force rout a far larger one.

  My knee twinged with every clumsy step I took. The thought of facing Pious in my current state was ludicrous. I couldn’t even run away from him.

  A huge figure stepped around a tent in front of me. Its white tabard was soaked red with blood. A bare blade was in its hand.

  I dropped my crutch, hopped on one foot, and jerked my katana clear of its sheath. I balanced precariously as it came on, features resolving into someone I recognized as the mist eddied away.

  I felt as foolish as I looked when I realized it was Grigg. Not because I was so sure he was no threat to me, but because there was nothing I could do if he was.

  “Roshel was right,” the big man said. I realized gore was dripping from his sword. The blood on his clothes probably wasn't his. “You really do look like hell.”

  “People keep saying that.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “You’re going to give me a complex if you keep it up.”

  “What’s got you limping your sorry butt to the front?”

  I grounded my katana’s point in the earth and leaned on it. “Yoshana’s new monster needs killing.”

  “Ah. Yeah.” He looked down at his blade. “That’s taken care of already. It really doesn’t matter how much of the Darkness is in you. Once your arms are cut off, your head’s going to follow pretty close behind. Strong as a bull, that one, but just about as smart. Not real quick, either.”

  “I thought he was quick enough.”

  “Then I didn’t teach you as much as I should have when we traveled together.”

  I pulled the katana’s scabbard from my belt, sheathed the weapon, and leaned on that. It made a better crutch than the blade alone. I could still hear the sounds of combat through the mist. I didn’t understand what was happening. “Why’d you do it, Grigg? Not that I’m not grateful. But killing Pious is different from standing aside.”

  He shrugged. “He was a jerk. Always going on about killing Paladins. I was a Paladin, you remember. I figure he did for a few of my friends and had it coming. The truth is, Minos, some things shouldn’t exist. Pious with the Darkness in him was one of them.”

  “She’s going to be furious.”

  Grigg shook his head. He looked sad. “I don’t think so. It’s over now anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I pointed toward the front. “There’s still fighting going on over there. I have to go help shut her down. We have the numbers, but now she’s got momentum on her side.”

  He shook his head again. “She’s not there. That assault’s stalled. It was a feint anyway. You never were able to stay far enough ahead of her. But you shouldn’t feel bad. No one ever could.”

  He looked at my blank stare and gave me a wan smile. “You play chess. You’ve heard of a back row mate?”

  It was a particularly frustrating way of losing. After castling, the king could wind up undefended, trapped behind pawns that had never advanced. An enemy rook or queen in the back row could end the game instantly, regardless of what was happening elsewhere on the board.

  “I think you’ve fallen for it.”

  My mind tried to catch up to what he was saying. For a year, Yoshana had been trying to discredit and kill Prophetess. Now, humiliated in a face to face confrontation and with her armies deserting her, the Overlord might be willing to settle for killing without discrediting. And our troops had been drawn away from Tess’ position.

  I hopped helplessly on my one good leg. “Run, Grigg. Please. Save her.”

  He pursed his lips, then nodded. “I’ll go. But if I’m right, it’s too late.”

  He jogged back the way I had come. I took two staggering hops forward, then drew the katana again and slashed the bindings that locked my knee in place. Using both legs and the sheathed sword as a cane, I made much better time, though a lance of agony stabbed me every time I put weight on the wounded joint.

  But Grigg had been right. It was too late.

  11. Darkness Falls

  The big Select was standing helplessly a dozen paces from Prophetess’ tent. Just outside, Tess stood with Yoshana’s blade at her throat. Her Shadowed Hand bodyguards lay scattered on the ground. Cat’s body was crumpled at Tess’ feet.

  I couldn’t describe the feeling that came over me, if it was hot or cold, if it was rage or fear. It stopped me in my tracks. I could do nothing but stare.

  My eyes went to the chip where Seven’s staff had snapped a shard out of Yoshana’s strange, dark sword. I was sure the rest of that matte gray blade was sharp enough to split a hair. Tess was very still, her mouth thinned to a tight line but her face composed. If I’d been in her place, I would have peed down my leg. I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t.

  “A long-dead priest once wrote that prophets are fine, but their disciples are really hard to take,” Yoshana said. “It seems to be true of you, Minos. You’ve certainly been a gigantic pain in my ass. You’ve defied me, you’ve betrayed me, you’ve even turned my own lieutenants against me.”

  Her glance swung balefully toward Grigg. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  “But I have to say, I’m not liking your prophet very much either.”

  Prophetess swallowed, then flinched away as the movement brought her neck fractionally closer to the Overlord’s blade. Yoshana smiled. It wasn’t a nice expression. Her white cloak and hair swirled in a breeze of her own making as the Darkness stirred. Her crimson leather armor looked more like blood than ever, matching her mahogany skin. She was a thing of red and white, a goddess of blood and bone.

  “Yosha, no,” Grigg said.

  “You shut up,” she replied without heat. “If you hadn’t interfered back in Stephensburg, we wouldn’t be here now.”

  What could I say that would change what was about to happen? What could I do? There was nothing. Cat and the Shadowed Hand had tried to stop Yoshana, and done nothing but sacrifice themselves. I supposed I could at least do that.

/>   “If I’m annoying you so much, maybe you should kill me instead.” It was a stupid, reckless thing to say, and wasn’t even much of a gambit - since nothing prevented her from killing us both.

  The Overlord was ahead of me, as usual. She laughed. “‘Instead?’ Why not ‘also?’ Although it looks like you might keel over on your own. But you’re not the point, Minos. She is. You can use the Darkness, but so can plenty of other people. She can turn it.”

  She touched the edge of Tess’ throat with her blade. “Do you think you can turn my sword, too?”

  “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,” Tess said softly.

  Among the many things Tess did that were foolish and annoying, provoking Yoshana had to be the least helpful of all. I started to interject, to forestall the cut that would end Tess’ life, but the Overlord just laughed. “What makes you think I can only do one and not the other?”

  Even more quietly, Tess murmured, “Soul of Christ, sanctify me; body of Christ, save me; blood of Christ, inebriate me; water from Christ's side, wash me; passion of Christ, strengthen me; o good Jesus, hear me; within thy wounds hide me; suffer me not to be separated from thee; from the malicious enemy defend me; in the hour of my death call me.”

  “Huh. Anima Christi. I’d figured you’d go with Psalm Twenty Three. The valley of the shadow of death would be appropriate. But you see how annoying she is.” Yoshana seemed to be addressing me. “Here she is, about to die, and she’s mouthing pious nonsense like it’s going to save her. When I can feel her fear. The thing is…”

  The Overlord paused. Eerily, only her hair and cloak moved. “The thing is, at first I thought she was just an idiot with a big mouth. And then it turned out she was an idiot people followed. And then, well, then she was an idiot who could resist me.”

  The Overlord’s eyes bored into mine. She didn’t seem to blink. “That’s a hell of a thing, Minos. To fear me - because she does fear me - and still resist me. And now… now she’s even turning my own people. I was sure she wasn’t a factor, not really. But now I’m not sure anymore.”

  Of course Prophetess was a factor. She was the factor. She was the king in the chess game between light and darkness. And our king had been checkmated.

  “I can end it now.” Again Yoshana seemed to read my mind. Even at this distance she probably could.

  “Another will follow to stop you,” Tess said softly.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.” Again the hesitation.

  “I’m not sure!” the Overlord repeated, snarling the words. “And that’s the thing of it. I’m always sure. You wondered why I’m so much stronger than you, Minos? Why I control the Darkness so much better? Because I’m always sure. My will, my desires, my every thought, in perfect unity. That’s why I’m the one to unite humanity, the one to stop the demons and the Darkness!”

  Her face darkened with rage, and then stilled. “There can only be one of us to carry humanity’s banner. I’ve engineered everything to be that one, and yet here I stand with my own armies deserting me. Clausewitz said war is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events.”

  She glared at Grigg, and moved her sword away from Tess’ throat. With a fluid motion too fast to follow, she reversed the blade and stepped toward me, shoving Tess aside. “Who would have thought. There can only be one, and it isn’t me.”

  I stood rooted as she came on. She stopped a foot away and extended the sword hilt. “Only one.”

  “Yosha, no!” Grigg exclaimed. “Why? Put the sword down and come away with me. We’ve fought enough, done enough. We can -”

  “Go plant corn and raise children? You don’t know me at all if you think I can just walk away. That would never have been, Grigg, even before you betrayed me.”

  “I -”

  “Minos is inferior to you in every way except the one that matters. He stood up for his woman when it counted.”

  The big man looked like he’d been stabbed in the gut.

  Yoshana thrust the sword hilt at me. “Better do it quickly. The Darkness has always obeyed me because it was aligned with my will. It’s not liking this very much.”

  I grasped the sword. It was warm in my hand. I looked at Grigg’s anguished face. “I can’t.”

  The Overlord’s mouth twisted. The sapphire eyes blazed into mine. “Do it, you worthless, gutless worm, or you and your girlfriend will end up like her useless bodyguards.”

  Cat’s body accused me from the ground at Tess’ feet. I brought the blade back.

  “And now it’s too late.” Yoshana’s hand locked around my wrist. I gasped as the bones ground together. Her eyes were as black as mine. The Darkness poured out of her skin, coiling around her arm, rising like serpents above her. The voice that came was nothing like hers. “Far too late, little - Ah!”

  She staggered and loosed her grip. Behind her, Prophetess looked for another rock to throw.

  The edge of the blade was sharper than thought. Yoshana’s head fell cleanly away at my stroke.

  For a moment, the Darkness held the blood in and her body remained standing. Then the cloud rushed out, huge and black, and she fell. The swirling mass gathered, hovered, floated toward Grigg. It almost reached him before it recoiled and streamed away into the sky.

  The Select stood rooted for a moment that stretched on forever. I met his black eyes, not knowing what would come next. Then, slowly, he trudged up to me. There were tears on his cheeks. Without a word he gathered up the body and head, cradling them in his arms. In death, Yoshana was a small woman.

  “We have to burn the body,” I choked out.

  “No.”

  “Grigg, I’m sorry, but she’s been dead before. We have to -”

  “No.” This time it was Tess that said it. I looked at her in surprise. “Let her rest, Minos. Let him take her.”

  She laid her hand on Grigg’s shoulder. She was crying too. He gave her the barest of sad smiles, then turned and walked away.

  12. Aftermath

  Tess was in my arms, trembling and sobbing. I held her, stroked her hair, and wished there was a way to tell her that my leg really hurt and I wanted very badly to sit down.

  “Headache, me,” came a small voice from behind us. Tess spun out of my arms, and we both gawked to see Cat groggily sitting up. The other Shadowed Hand bodyguards were also beginning to stir.

  “She must have just stunned them,” I marveled. It was a technique I’d often used, throttling opponents into unconsciousness with the Darkness, but I hadn’t imagined Yoshana would do anything other than kill. “She said - she implied -”

  “She was making it easier for you.” For the first time, there was respect and not just revulsion in Tess’ voice when she spoke about Yoshana. “She was more complicated than I thought.”

  “Do you think she planned it this way when she first came for you?”

  Tess shrugged and brushed at her tears. “I don’t know. No? I was sure she was going to kill me. Maybe when she saw Grigg was with you…?”

  “Happening, tell me,” Cat demanded. So we did.

  The battle was over by the time I hobbled to the front. Hundreds had died. We’d taken heavy losses at first, probably half from Pious himself. But when Grigg had cut him down, the offensive had stalled, and the weight of numbers had told against the Knights of Resurrection. They’d retreated in good order, but they’d suffered during the process.

  Grigg had not returned to his troops. Two of Yoshana’s three corps were left leaderless. I convened a parley with Roshel and explained the situation. At first she’d refused to believe, then she’d broken into tears. But she wasn’t one of the deadliest warriors and most feared military leaders on the continent because she was weak-willed. In a moment she pulled herself together and took command of the entire host of the
Darkness Radiant.

  And then, on top of the hill where Seven and Yoshana had fought and Tess had resisted the Darkness, Roshel asked Tess to cast it out of her in front of everyone.

  I had to admit my jaw fell open.

  “Yoshana showed me a way to live with myself. To live with what I am,” the dark-haired Overlord said. “But Prophetess showed me a better way.”

  The sun was high overhead, beating down on the hilltop. Tess’ white robes shone in the light, and if I really tried, I could maybe feel something of what had washed over me when she’d freed me from the Darkness.

  As they said the words together, Roshel bowed her head, and then raised it to the light and vomited up a black cloud that seemed too big to have fit in her body.

  “Was there that much in me?” I asked Dee.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Soldiers with torches rushed in, but the Darkness was too quick for them. It shot straight up into the sky and vanished from sight.

  Roshel slumped, shivering with reaction. Tess held her, then clasped her hand and lifted it into the air. The thunderous cheers and applause from our forces didn’t surprise me. The cheers and applause from the Darkness Radiant did.

  Roshel turned to face me. “Judge Minos, the Darkness Radiant is yours to command. Use it in the service of the light.”

  I sat on that hilltop with Railes, Lago, and - surprisingly and a little unnervingly - Father Roric. The warm sun beamed down out of a cloudless sky. Below, two armies were packing their gear, preparing to march for Stephensburg.

  Roshel had kept almost all of the Darkness Radiant together. Yoshana’s core loyalists, the Knights of Resurrection, had lost nearly two hundred men in Pious’ charge. Another five companies had slunk away, unwilling to serve the man who’d killed their revered leader. But over twelve hundred of that group of hardened veterans remained, along with the six thousand who’d been under Grigg and Roshel’s command.

  Grigg still hadn’t returned. It seemed that he might never come back. But a dozen of the Darkness Radiant’s troopers with about as much of the Darkness in them as the Hidden Moon Clan had presented themselves for exorcism.