Gods Remembered (The Forgotten Gods Series Book 8)

by ST Branton

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The forge was massive with a blazing inferno like a small star burning at its heart. The dry heat crackled on my skin and I squinted into the light. The Solis Stone sat atop the smithy in the center. Its surface had already begun to glow. The fire seemed to arc through the stone itself and infused it with its wild power.

  “Take this,” Kronin said and handed me a long-handled hammer. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the forge. The tool was astonishingly heavy. If I hadn’t braced myself at the last second, I might have dropped it, but I tightened my grip and gave it a truncated test swing.

  The weighted head dropped in a brutal downward arc.

  “Good,” said the god. “That’s the kind of power we’ll need.” He walked to the smithy and motioned for me to move into position beside him. “I will hold the Solis Stone in place. You strike it and don’t hold back.” I looked at his bare hands and back at him. His beatific face held no trace of humor. “Trust me, Vic. I am the only one who has the strength. I can endure.”

  The breath I took filled my lungs with hot, dusty air. I squared my stance at the edge of the smithy, fixed my gaze on the raw, unshaped material, and raised the forge hammer. The flat side struck the Solis Stone with a shower of white-hot sparks, and at the same time, an agonized scream sliced through the chamber. I tensed, the hammer raised, and scanned the vicinity for the source of the sound.

  Kronin leaned over the smithy. His hands anchored the far end of the stone and its power leaked through his skin. The muscles of his strong jaw clenched so tightly that they trembled. Sweat rolled down his brow. The veins in his neck and arms bulged. But when he spoke, he was resolute. I had never heard a steadier voice.

  “I can endure,” he repeated. “Do not stop. The fate of the world depends on this success. Push me from your thoughts and focus only on the task at hand. Go!”

  The hammer rose and fell again and again. Each time, a geyser of sparks was followed by a tortured cry. I steeled my will until his suffering fused with the roar of the forge and layered itself into the ambient soundtrack of my work. After that, I didn’t stop except to keep the perspiration from dripping down into my eyes. My strikes grew faster and more precise. The spear began to emerge beneath the heavy rain of blows.

  Kronin’s voice turned hoarse. I didn’t allow myself to look at him, afraid I’d lose my nerve if I was disturbed by what I saw. I simply held the hammer tighter and leaned into the heat. My shirt clung to my back. Locks of hair streaked down the sides of my face and plastered onto my cheeks. The feeling in my arms slowly numbed. Still, I kept at it. When it was time to stop, Kronin would tell me.

  And he did, in a sense. I followed through into my next strike when I noticed he no longer hung over the side of the smithy and struggled through the spear’s creation. He lay crumpled on the floor, utterly spent with his eyes half closed. If I had considered him pale before, he was ghostly now.

  “Take it up,” he murmured. His voice, although frail, somehow still managed to carry to my ears. “Plunge it into the water and gaze upon your handiwork.”

  I did as I was told and tossed the spear into its first cold bath. Steam billowed from the water and obscured everything in a thick cloud. When I put my hand back in, the water was almost hot and my fingers closed around something that felt like a real weapon. The glistening spear emerged from the fog and still shed droplets that hissed into vapor on contact with the surface of the smithy. I held it as though it was made of glass and not an ethereal resource of the gods. Fine details that I hadn’t carved slowly and subtly adorned the shaft. It reminded me, unsurprisingly, of the Gladius Solis.

  I spun to feel the weight of the spear in my hands. The blade was light, nimble, and devastatingly sharp. I fumbled a little with the much longer shaft. “This will take some getting used to,” I said, but I brimmed with the kind of pride that only comes with accomplishment. As much as I loved that fiery sword and as well as I’d learned to wield it, Kronin’s original blade was a hand-me-down, an inheritance from Marcus. This spear was as much mine as it could possibly be. I examined it with a grin.

  When I turned to show Kronin, my pride turned to concern in an instant. He lay where he had fallen beside the forge, motionless except for the uneven rise and fall of his chest. I set the spear down and ran to him. Behind me, footsteps entered the area.

  “My liege!” Marcus exclaimed. “What happened?” We fell to our knees alongside the king.

  Kronin smiled at us. “Thank you,” he said haltingly. “For carrying me to the end of my long and winding path. Forging the final weapon required the last of my strength. I am afraid that very soon, I must leave you. For good, this time.” Pure exhaustion seemed to erode his features. The ends of his words dropped off and I could sense him beginning to slip away.

  “I’m sorry, Kronin,” I told him. “This isn’t the end you deserve.”

  The God-King chuckled weakly. “It’s funny you should say that,” he whispered. “Take care of this place in my absence and take care of humanity.”

  “I have to save it first,” I told him.

  He closed his eyes. “You will.” His voice faded rapidly. “Regret nothing. I have never been prouder.” One last breath rattled into his lungs and was expelled after a long lull. It carried his spirit away and left us kneeling over his body.

  When I started to rise, Marcus stopped me. I was about to ask him why when the king’s body changed and seemed to accelerate through millennia of aging in a matter of seconds. At the end, all that was left of Kronin, king of the gods, was a pile of dust.

  I’d seen the process take place once before when Marcus died in the slaughterhouse. The centurion sat for a moment longer and contemplated the ashes that had been his beloved sovereign less than a minute before. “It was true,” he said quietly. “Kronin was human, and yet he was the one who managed to wrangle order out of this mess of chaos.”

  I pushed to my feet. The ever-present wound in my leg released a twinge of pain whenever I put weight on it. I bent and picked up the spear. “He’s a tough act to follow,” I told Marcus. “But someone has to do it.”

  The old Roman’s solemn air of mourning morphed into peace as he joined me. We took one last shared look at the looming forge before Marcus doused its fire and rendered the beast dormant. He glanced at me, then at the spear in my hand. “It is time to return to Earth,” he said. “Our work here—and Kronin’s—is done.”

  I nodded. Neither of us made a move to disturb the remains of Carcerum’s late ruler. He had earned eternal serenity at last and sleep in the shadow of the forge that birthed his legacy.

  “Let’s go.” I lifted the spear clear of the floor and headed for the basement stairs. “I don’t know how much time we have left.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  With Kronin dead, the true emptiness of Carcerum descended on the palace like a heavy black pall. As we crossed the throne room and banquet hall, it felt as if we waded along the ocean floor. The throne itself stood conspicuously vacant in the vast chamber. Part of me hoped it would never be occupied again.

  “I was wrong before,” Marcus conceded while he kept pace beside me. “This part of the story is a tragedy.”

  “It’s not over yet,” I replied. “We still have a whole lot of Forgotten ass to kick.”

  “For Kronin,” the centurion declared.

  “For mankind,” I added.

  The huge portal that led out of the realm set deep into the palace wall towered above us. It looked far too heavy to open on my own, but as we drew closer, my spear began to glow. The light intensified until it was impossible to look at it directly. I paused within arm’s reach of the ancient door.

  “Oh, shit.” An unpleasant thought flitted through my brain. “You need to go back into the medallion, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Marcus said. “Unfortunately, the ending of my tenure on Earth destroyed my ability to inhabit it in a corporeal form.”

  “That blows,”
I said. “I’m really sorry. I wish there was something we could do.”

  “It matters not,” he assured me. “If it means that I may remain by your side, I shall gladly make every sacrifice.” He put a hand into his pocket and withdrew a closed fist. “Briefly, before we depart—I have brought you a modest gift.” He opened his fingers and there, nestled in his palm, was a piece of the mirror I had shattered in anger. “It used to be much nicer. And larger. But earlier tonight, someone came in and broke it. I have absolutely no idea who that might have been.”

  I chuckled. “Sorry. I guess I’m much like a bull in a china shop sometimes.” The mirror shard glinted but it remained blank. I slipped it into the lining of my coat for safekeeping before I turned my attention to the spear. Its current form simply wasn’t practical at all. Walking with the thing held clear of the ground was awkward at best and horribly annoying at worst. I shifted my weight off my bad leg while I considered my options. Suddenly, inspiration struck like a bolt from the blue.

  The spear’s glow intensified again, and this time, the great door out of Carcerum swung open far enough to allow me through. I focused my will on the weapon like a laser, and it transformed into a harmless walking stick in my hand. My whole leg flooded with relief once I redistributed my weight.

  “That’s better,” I said with a sigh of satisfaction. A constant blast of cold air rocketed into my face from the other side of the door. I stepped through, and my foot sank instantly into a few inches of fresh snow. A howling, snowy wind raked its fingers through my hair and the breath seemed to freeze in my lungs once again.

  “It’s good to be back,” I gasped. Marcus’s medallion regained its distinctive warmth and his voice sounded in my ears.

  It will be better to be back at sea level.

  I pulled the collar of my jacket up and tucked my chin down against the cold. “Agreed.”

  The wind kicked up flurries of snow and ice every second, which reduced visibility to almost nothing. I had, evidently, chosen to make my exit from Carcerum in the middle of an Earth-based storm atop the Himalayan peak that served as the connection between realms. The safest thing to do was to perhaps duck as low as possible and try to feel my way backward until I hopefully determined where I was. I’d barely begun the uncomfortable exercise that way when a voice cut through the gale.

  “Vic? Is that you?”

  I whipped my head around and searched for Shiva in the whiteout. My maternal instinct reared its rare and frustrated head. What the hell was that crazy kid doing on a mountaintop in the middle of a storm? Never mind that I was there too, or that he had likely come to find me.

  “Shiva!” I called and hoped his name would carry far enough to be heard. “Where are you?”

  “Vic?” he called again. I swung gingerly to peer into the whirling snow on the west edge of the summit. Shiva trudged into sight, hunched against the elements. My heart skipped a beat.

  I waved like crazy until I was sure he’d seen me through the squall. The moment he moved within earshot, I said, “You should be at home, Shiva. You probably know that better than I do.”

  He shrugged. “I need help. We need help—the whole town. We need someone strong enough to kill gods.” His big brown eyes peered at me from between layers of scarf. “You are the only one I could think of.”

  Distracted, I frowned at him. “Gods?” The last I’d seen, there hadn’t been any in Shiva’s town except the bizarrely peaceable Forgotten. “This is new.”

  He nodded. “It is. Just before sunset on the day you left, a god arrived. The entire town is held hostage. I am not sure what will happen to them.” An edge of real fear underpinned his calm voice. “We must destroy this being by any means necessary. Please.”

  I ran my thumb along the warm wood of the walking stick where the edge of my spear would be. “Relax,” I told him. “Keep your head on straight and show me the way. I’ll take care of this.”

  Shiva turned on a dime like a damn mountain goat, and I swore he bounded down the sheer mountain face. It took so much effort to keep up that I didn’t have the breath to call for him to slow the hell down a little. Soon, I resorted to a more or less blind slide down the route I thought he took and relied on the stick more and more in the low visibility.

  I have to say, the one thing I do appreciate about this noncorporeal arrangement is not having to do any of the physical work.

  “Ha ha,” I muttered. “I think you missed your calling as a stand-up comedian.”

  I felt Marcus frown. What other type of humorist is there? He paused as if in thought. I suppose he could be disabled, such that he would be unable to stand.

  “Ugh, Forget it.” I levered myself away from a frozen boulder that protruded from the mountain. “Man, that kid is like lightning. I hope he waits for us when he gets down there.”

  I soon saw that my prayers had been answered as I identified Shiva’s bluish silhouette near the bottom of the mountain. He beckoned frantically to me. There was no rickshaw to carry us into town, but my pace was probably faster anyway, even with the limp.

  “Do not let her see you,” Shiva implored. “She is suspicious of everyone and will gladly fight.”

  I shrugged. “I might be interested in that, depending on the circumstances.” Shiva showed real concern at that. I clapped him on the shoulder with the hand that didn’t hold my disguised spear. “Don’t sweat it, kid. By now, I’m as close to a professional as you’ll find.”

  And frankly, I was a little excited by the prospect of getting back to business. Delano had proven that he was nothing to fuck with. Whoever had rolled into Shiva’s hometown was about to serve as the perfect warmup to get me back in the game.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A quarter of a mile outside of town, where the road began to widen into the main stone-paved street of Shiva’s home, the kid motioned for me to use stealth rather than speed. Our pace slowed significantly as we concentrated on the need to be as quiet as possible. He seemed to think the element of surprise was crucial to our well-being. With my spear in hand, I wasn’t so sure it would matter. The fighter in me cracked her knuckles and literally itched for a fight. I’d had my rest and it was time to get back in the mix.

  The angular, stacked houses gradually took shape through the storm and the central street rolled out before us. This time, our surroundings were empty. Doors and windows hung open and fires smoldered unattended on open hearths. I snuck a glance inside one or two of the homes on our way past. There were signs of life everywhere, but it was as if the people had simply dropped everything and walked away.

  “Where are they?” I asked Shiva, my voice barely audible. He pointed up the street toward the center of the town. A weird, dense mass blocked my view past a certain point. It soon became apparent that this was a mob that consisted of the entire town. They’d been herded into the open space in the road and now stood unmoving, facing forward. No one spoke, and their silence was eerily ominous.

  The scene struck me as disturbingly familiar. I’d seen the same blank, passive stares over and over again in places where a god tried to exercise their authority. Rocca’s minions, Oxylem’s lumber camps, and the Midwest town overrun by ogres. They always wanted the same thing from humanity—total compliance. And unfortunately, they were all in a position to enforce that demand.

  Shiva pulled me into one of the alleys between the houses and peered around the corner into the roadway. “She has trapped the entire town,” he told me. “I was lucky to escape without notice.”

  This god reeks of overconfidence, Marcus told me. Take her down swiftly.

  I nodded toward the front of the throng. “She’s up there?”

  The boy nodded, and I slipped out of the alley to join the masses. Those gathered there barely glanced at me as I began to work my way slowly forward. I kept my ears open for any clue as to who this unidentified god might be, and it didn’t take long for a woman’s harsh, grating voice to reach me through the clear, cold air.

  “
Rise!” she screeched. “Look at yourselves, stooping to the level of this filth. These mortals are unworthy of even an ounce of your blood. Follow me to glory, my brothers and sisters. Destroy the humans. Let them die with their forsaken world. Think of it as mercy, if you must consider them at all.”

  The humans kept their eyes downcast, but the Forgotten scattered throughout the crowd looked toward the voice. I weaved carefully in and out until I paused as close to the front as I dared. The god held court in the middle of the street and glared at her unwilling subjects. She was tall and curvy, a beautiful, cruel-faced woman from the waist up. Torrents of inky hair curled down her back. Ruby-red lips framed her needle-sharp teeth. Her lower half smoothed into a creepy, limbless body that glimmered with scales. The tip of her coiled tail twitched back and forth.

  Suddenly, her eyes snapped to the onlookers in the front row and panned hungrily across their faces. She lunged forward, grabbed a small, bestial Forgotten by the scruff of its neck, and yanked it off the ground. Her muscular tail wrapped around its torso. The Forgotten’s hooves attempted a few futile kicks but the tail’s grip tightened around the creature’s ribcage. The crack of breaking bones cut through the deep silence and several humans flinched.

  “If you care about this little whelp, come and stop me,” the god taunted. She stuck out her slimy tongue and waggled it obscenely. “I don’t see any challengers. Cowards, all of you.”

  Another rib snapped beneath the crushing force of her tail. Her prey emitted a gasped squeal. Its eyes had begun to bulge in their sockets.

  “How can you choose the scum of this earth over one of your own?” she demanded. Anger flashed white-hot in her eyes. “They are not fit to wash their own blood from your feet.”

  “Stand down, hag.” The voice was deep and resonant and commanded attention. It came from an extraordinarily tall creature that resembled a hybrid of a werewolf and a tree giant. His skin was rough like bark, but each branch arm ended in sharp, striking claws. The eyes in his wise old face burned yellow and a mane of foliage flowed from his head. “Those of us who came here to seek refuge from your kind will not betray our mortal siblings. Begone, or we will drive you out, no matter what the cost.”