by Eric Vall
“Can it really do that?” Annalise asked as she reached out for the bottle, and the elven woman handed it over.
“Yes! I’ve never seen it in person, but I’ve read about it thousands of times!” Carmedy shouted as she lifted the capless bottle into the air, then winced and slowly lowered it before any of the precious liquid could spill out.
“Do you think that if my avatar was to become injured, it would be able to heal it?” I inquired as I cupped my chin.
“Absolutely! Azoth can heal anything!” the black-haired cat cried happily through a smile.
I reached out for the bottle, and Carmedy quickly handed it over as she screwed the cap back on. I held the azoth in my hands, and it was quite heavy.
“Yes,” I said as I grinned at my minions. “This will be of great use to us.”
Chapter Nine
It took us five days after dealing with Nergal to reach Sangiam. The journey through the mountains was hard, but the path that Adam and Amos instructed us to take was reasonably easy to climb with the help of our Bantams. The weather of Tintagal was much different from Tamarisch. Though it was cold, there was no snow on the ground. We still wore our coats and pulled out the heavy tents at night, but the wind wasn’t as bitterly cold and biting as it was in Tamarisch. It would rain for hours then suddenly stop to reveal blindingly blue skies and white puffy clouds that reminded Carmedy of uncolored cotton candy she once had at a summer festival. I chuckled in the back of my throat as I turned back to watch the spry cat lean forward and stroke the feathers of her Bantam. I did miss our lizards in Valasara. While the Bantams were suitable for mountain terrain and climbing over large boulders and steep hills, their speed was nothing compared to the lizards.
Once we made it through the mountains, the terrain smoothed out like it had before we reached Nergal’s dungeon. I thought long and hard about what he had said, and I was surprised that none of my minions had brought up some of the things he had said to me, but from the look on Annalise’s face, I knew she was working up the courage to ask. Her chocolate brown eyes met mine over my shoulder, and her plump lips opened, thought for a moment, and then snapped closed with determination.
“Good girl,” I thought as I turned my head back to the path in front of us.
Sangiam wasn’t what I had expected. From the way that Adam and Amos had spoken of it, it seemed like it would be dreary and dead, but the houses and shops were pretty and well-kept from the outside. I looked to my minions, and they saw the same thing I did. Even though it was lovely and picturesque, barely any people moved about the streets, and the few that did looked terrible.
It was late afternoon as we walked down the road on our Bantams, and we passed a street vendor selling various foods. His cart was strategically placed in the shade of one of the buildings and he barely raised his bleary eyes to us as our Bantams passed. From the sleepy, lethargic look on his face, I knew he wanted to be anywhere but in the sun at this moment. The other people on the street looked the same, some of them were thin, and their faces sunken in, but a few people we passed who walked in the shade the tall buildings cast were plump, their skin bloated and colored with purples and reds.
I stared down at them in horror. As Adam and Amos said, there was undoubtedly something strange happening in the city of Sangiam, and as I raised my head towards the ruined castle that loomed above the town, I knew it must have something to do with it. I thought I saw a shadow in one of the windows of the crumbling castle for a second, but I couldn’t be sure when I turned my head towards my minions to confirm what I saw.
However, their eyes were trained elsewhere. Carmedy looked hungrily towards the food vendor, then hopped off her Bantam and strode over to buy something to munch on. Morrigan shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight and took in the bare dark-wooded trees and the path that led up to the castle. Rana’s usually bright blue eyes narrowed on the few citizens as they hobbled about doing their business. I glanced over at Annalise, and thankfully, her eyes met mine. One of her hands lifted into the air to point up at the castle with a questioning look.
“You saw it too?” I asked quietly, and the High Queen gulped as she nodded curtly.
“There is magic here,” the white-haired elven woman said coldly as she moved her eyes over to one of the crumbled walls of the castle. “Dark magic.”
“Can you tell me what it is?” I questioned, and I watched as Morrigan’s dark eyes turned wholly black, and she glared upward at the fortress.
“As I suspected, the god is using blood magic,” the elf growled through gritted teeth. “The stench of it is all over this place.”
“I don’t smell anything.” The black-haired feline smiled as she bit into a steaming bun then offered another to Rana.
Morrigan ignored the cat’s comment and turned her head to look me directly in the face as she spoke. “Do you sense anything of interest, Master?”
I could feel what my second wife had, but there was something else as well, something more, as I had with all the other gods and goddesses we had encountered. The Decathmor brothers were right. There was a god here, and from the heart-like beat of his power, I knew he was all around us. I already could feel his essence hidden high above the city, and there was a sense of familiarity to it, almost like I had felt with the goddess of Machstein. This time was different though, this wasn’t a god that I had seen in passing while in the heavens. This god was someone I knew well and would have even called a friend while still in the god’s realm.
With what we had been told by the Tamarisch soldiers and the Decathmor brothers, this land was most likely overtaken by Blood-Curdlers, and from the strange power that beat from the castle, I had an idea of who was behind it. It was so long ago, but I could almost remember his face... but the thing I remembered vividly was the voice. We were boys together in the heavens. Both our parents part of the Holy Order and higher up in the hierarchy than anyone else. We were brothers at one time, friends in another, and now as I stood free on his soil, and he trapped within his dungeon, we were enemies.
“This place is weird. It’s giving me the serious creeps.” The petite alchemist shivered as she swallowed the bun still in her hand whole and patted her stomach.
“What do you mean?” I inquired as I swiveled my head to look down at her.
“Well, that vendor guy got my order wrong.” The black-haired cat-girl sighed as she dug her boot into the dirt.
“And that gave you the creeps?” Rana asked incredulously, her face scrunched up in response.
“No, that’s not what freaked me out, it’s the way he acted that did,” Carmedy replied as she held her twitching tail between two paws and looked up at me with frightened eyes. “He acted like he was going to fall asleep the entire time I was over there, then I had to repeat my order three times! Each time I told him what I wanted, he was like, ‘Huh? What was that?,’ and the creepiest part was he didn’t even look me in the eye the entire time!”
“What was he looking at?” my elven lover asked as she too slid off her Bantam and came over to her feline sister.
“My neck!” Carmedy exclaimed in a frightened voice, and I squinted my eyes towards the vendor the cat had just come from. From the way the man turned away, he knew we were talking about what had just happened, and it only made him seem more suspicious.
I turned towards Annalise, but the High Queen was focused on a mother dragging a crying child behind her. I stepped closer and watched too as the mother moved towards one of the carts selling food and began to order while the child struggled to run away. Both the woman and child were sickly looking, their skin colorless, not like Morrigan’s but tinted gray like that of a corpse.
“I don’t want food!” the child protested as she pulled away from her mother’s vise-like grip. “I want to drink! Momma, drink!”
“I know, milacik, but there is nothing for you to drink,” the thin mother soothed as she bent down beside the girl and offered her something to eat. “Please try to eat, I know you�
�re thirsty, but we can get something later.”
“No!” the little girl screamed as she swatted at her mother’s hand, and the food wrapped in parchment paper tumbled to the ground. “I don’t want it!”
I watched intently as the mother grabbed the girl’s hand, grabbed the dropped food, and then hustled down the street away from the cart. The mother took backward glances at our group and whispered something in the daughter’s ear. The little girl raised her head and looked at each of us in time. There was a predatory change in the air as both the mother and child stared us down like hungry wolves. I felt it, and I knew my minions did too. They huddled together and spoke in soft whispers for a moment, but I kept my eyes on the receding backs of the mother and child. I was not too fond of the feeling that was surrounding us, the impression that we were lambs brought to the slaughter.
I had an inkling about what was happening here and knew that the only place where we could find answers would be at the castle, and the god that resided there. I turned in the street and looked up at the windows of each building and felt eyes burning with hunger glare back from behind the curtains as if they were taking inventory of what they wanted to eat first. Sangiam was beautiful, but I sensed the real danger here. Still, I didn’t tell my minions about my reservations because I didn’t want to frighten them more than they already were.
I turned my Bantam towards the overgrown path that led up to the castle, and my minions followed suit as they climbed back on their birds. I wanted to get this over and done with before we headed toward Baudouin, and with the bad feeling I got from the city, I wanted to defeat this deity as soon as possible. I wasn’t afraid for myself, I could handle everything thrown at me, but I worried that my women wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against the whole city if they were to attack.
I estimated our journey up the path would take us at least five hours and then it would be after dark. We would have to be on even more alert than in the city at daylight. If the people of Sangiam were lethargic and slow in the daytime, I didn’t want to imagine what they were like during the night.
We left the main strip of Sangiam and pointed our Bantams towards the path ahead of us. I could tell from the wary looks my minions gave the city streets as we left them that they were relieved to be out of the tense and threatening city and the people who lived there. The only one of my women who looked unbothered was Morrigan. The elven woman didn’t look back but only kept her head forward and her eyes on the castle above.
I wish I could say that I was relieved to be out of the city, but the forest posed danger as well. I leaned my head back and observed as the branches spread out over our heads and intertwined with each other to create a dense canopy of black. Each tree was dead, and no leaves graced their limbs as they stretched towards the sky. The trees were huge, and the grass surrounding them was yellowing and moved in the cold wind like straw. It rustled together eerily, and I kept alert as I moved my eyes around in case anything out of the ordinary popped out from behind one of the lifeless trees. We traveled onward as the sky turned deep blood red with streaks of yellow then to deep bruising purples and royal blues as true night settled in on us.
Still, nothing happened for some time. Eventually, darkness fell upon us, and I listened as Carmedy reached into the bundles at her waist, mixed a few ingredients in a small bag, and tossed it into the air. Nostalgia rushed over me in a wave as I remembered the first time I had seen this very blue light cascade through my dungeon. It seemed so long ago that we had met, and they had set me free, and I was eternally grateful for them in so many ways. My minions had breathed new life into me when the life I had known in the heavens was taken away. Nergal had told us that the Holy Band of Mages were coming after me, and if they were, I would destroy them if they threatened to take me away from my beloved minions. No force on earth or the heavens could drag me away from the women I loved with all of my being.
Rana moved on ahead of me, Carmedy took up the back, while Annalise and Morrigan stayed in the middle with me. Our entire group was silent, even the small feline behind us, and I found it quite unsettling. Usually, Carmedy constantly talked, and for her not to speak a word the entire trip up the path was something that unsettled me.
The castle grew larger as we moved closer, and I took in more of it than I had before. It was massive, almost as big as the Tamarisch palace but not as magnificent. Most of the outer walls had holes in them, and some had fallen to the ground in a heap entirely. I could imagine what it looked like before Jemmets Landing became the capital. I pictured the green and silver Tintagal flags whipping out above with the Boar’s head proudly placed for all to see. Now, the castle was empty except for the presence that I sensed there, and I was eager to find out who it was that desperately called for me.
I was drawn out of my imagination as Rana raised one paw into the air and we halted our Bantams as both of her red ears twitched. Then they rotated in the air as she listened to a far-off noise, then she turned her head and looked through our group towards Carmedy. I turned to look back too, and the petite feline’s ears moved just as the fox’s did. They both were on alert, and beside me, Annalise reached for Bloodscale. Rana shook her head at the High Queen and brought a single finger to her lips for all of us to be quiet.
Then suddenly, I felt it too, just as I had back in the city of Sangiam, the prick of eyes from all directions, and I warily glanced back at the redhead. There was a long moment of silence as the three of us who didn’t have the sense of hearing Rana and Carmedy possessed tried to pick out what it was they already sensed. I glanced back at the feline once more, and her black ears laid flat against her head, and her emerald eyes squinted as she tried to puzzle out what the sounds were.
“What is it?” the swordswoman hissed over to me, but Rana waved her hands frantically to silence us.
Like before, in the Tichádáma’s dungeon, Carmedy raised her paws into the air and lowered them slowly for us to be quiet, and begrudgingly, the swordswoman complied with a soft huff then gave me a sheepish smile. I moved my eyes over to the elven woman, but she too was silent as she looked back and forth between Fea and Macha repeatedly. They were speaking to her telepathically, no doubt sharing what their animal sense detected. I looked up towards Rana once more and tapped the side of my head to signal that I would connect to her using Nergal’s power.
The redhead nodded once then shifted her eyes around the forest as our minds touched.
“Someone’s here, and I don’t mean just one person. We’re completely surrounded,” the fox told me through her mind, and I nodded to her once to confirm that I had heard.
“Should we move on?” I asked back.
Her blue eyes found mine in the darkness, and she shook her head grimly.
“Too many of them, behind and in front of us. If we go any further, they will attack, if we go back, they’ll attack,” the fox-woman stated seriously, but before I could reply, Carmedy screamed from behind us.
I whipped my head and watched as a shadow moved as the blue light around us from the feline’s light potion began to shutter and fade. The creature that emerged from the darkness was thin and lithe, its arms nearly dragging the ground as it raced for Carmedy’s Bantam. The petite alchemist gripped the reins of Kura and forced the bird forward out of the reaches of the humanoid creature. I slid from my bird’s back silently, and Rana’s scream vibrated in my ears as she tried to warn me, but I pushed on despite her protests.
I stood protectively in the path of the beast with my minions behind me, and it faced off with me as it tilted its bald head at me. It only took me a single glance to recognize it for exactly what I suspected it was, a Blood-Curdler.
The Blood-Curdler looked vaguely human in form, but its head was more beast than man. The depths of its bulbous slanted eyes were deep red as it swirled around its contracting iris, but the color changed as it feathered out to a burnt orange then feral yellow. The Blood-Curdler’s naked skin was tight against its pointed bones, and as it adva
nced a step closer to me, it snarled loud enough to echo through the woods. Its rounded and hairless head was bright under the moonlight, and I could make out the network of veins under the pale flesh. The Blood-Curdler’s nose had completely sunken into the meat of its face which gave it a snake-like appearance, and where the lips of the beast should have been was an empty space filled with pointed and jagged teeth.
I wasn’t afraid, and I made that fact clear to the creature as I reached into my voice pocket and retrieved the God Slayer.
The Blood-Curdler opened its mouth and roared at me, but I didn’t flinch as I slammed the haft of the polearm down into the dirt beside me. The God Slayer came to life at once as the blades emerged from inside, and the Blood-Curdler stared at it curiously for a moment before it settled its hateful eyes on my form once again. The monster lowered itself to the ground like a runner preparing to take off, but I was ready for it. Its spindly legs pounded the ground as it came for me, but I bent my knees and right as the Blood-Curdler was upon me, I thrust the God Slayer forward with all of my strength.
The creature’s eyes widened as it realized it couldn’t escape the oncoming blow. The blades sunk directly into the Blood-Curdler’s mouth, and there was a loud cracking sound as all of the creature’s teeth exploded to sharp bits with the powerful thrust of the blades. I took a step forward as I brought the haft up and forced the creature backward with the point of my weapon still buried deep in its mouth.
In a split second, I let go of the God Slayer, bent, and grabbed onto the sloping bone of the Curdler’s ribs. My gloved fingers pushed into his flesh like it was nothing and was surprised when no blood spattered my face. The skin ripped, and I slammed my fingers farther in to curl around the floating ribs. Once I gripped the bones in my gloved hands, I ripped them from its body with a mighty roar.
The beast stumbled back as its flesh and bone were torn asunder, and the haft of the polearm passed my face, still stuck in the monster’s mouth. I gripped onto the God-Slayer and pulled it free from the Blood-Curdler with a thunk, then turned to observe the damage I had done to the blood-sucking creature. No blood stained its gray skin, and I watched as it opened and closed its maw a few times then realized all of its teeth were blown to dust. Its skin was ripped all the way down to its abdomen, and the flayed flesh moved and rippled like torn fabric. The hole beyond was dark but I could make out the dried innards beyond and it disgusted me. It made no sound as it turned back to me but curled its hands into fists angrily and charged towards me once more.