Harper sighed and watched them walking. Then with a second sigh, he started to follow.
Ahead of them all, Brogan charged at the archer, roaring out a battle cry as he went.
Brogan
His shoulder burned where the arrow still rested against bone. He could not take the time to pull it free, as he could feel the barbs of the arrowhead moving within the meat of his arm. Instead he reached, bent the arrow and then let out a muffled scream as it finally broke, leaving a few inches of haft sticking out of him.
His previous wounds had healed. This one did not, perhaps because the arrow was still in his flesh, perhaps because whatever the woman from Louron had done earlier was wearing off. He had no idea how any of this worked, only that he had a small chance of killing the gods and intended to take it.
She had another arrow drawn back in her bow and was watching as he tossed the last one aside.
Her eyes were dark and gray as the storm clouds and her lovely face may as well have been carved from stone.
“I will kill you, Brogan McTyre. You leave me no choice.”
“I will kill you. I have a choice, but I want your death. I want to make you scream, and bleed, and die.”
The arrow came straight for his face. There was no way he could possibly dodge it. The sword swept before him, a vain attempt at blocking the missile. He was too fast, and the sword crossed in front of him too soon.
The black streak that followed after showed him what was left of the Broken Swords as it ripped a wound between the worlds. The great bodies of Walthanadurn and whatever it was they had killed together were clear to him. The arrow was not. A moment later he understood that the opening between the worlds had swallowed the arrow. Had he the time to look he’d have likely seen it crash against the mountains themselves.
There was no time. The woman was aiming again already.
The sword in his hands was a burden on his bleeding shoulder, that was a fact, but it was also keeping him alive. He ran toward her and she stood her ground and loosed another arrow, aiming for his chest this time.
That was wise. It made him move about in a way that was decidedly uncomfortable and made him hiss at the pain.
It also made him angry, but he held that inside. No use in the anger getting the better of his common sense and so he shoved it aside for the moment.
He swept the sword around again and moved to the side. The air split as it had before and for a moment he saw the raging clouds above his homeland and one of the gigantic things that was reshaping the world. Had he his way the arrow would have punched through the monster’s head, but he couldn’t see where it went.
By the time he recovered from the swing, the god was once more letting loose her arrow. This time he was too close to even attempt to block, so instead he spun his entire body with the sword and brought it across her body from her left shoulder to her right hip. The bow was in the way, whether she attempted to block or not, but it did not matter. The sword cut through the bow and then deep into the archer who used it. The muscles between shoulder and neck split in two, and her collarbone followed. The archer screamed in pain as the blade kept cutting and, behind it, that maddening trail of black followed. As he finished his swing everything above the trail of the wound fell away. Neck, head and one arm, drawn through the hole cut between the worlds.
The lower portion of her body fell, spilling hot blood across Brogan in the process. He did not care. He was soaked in blood and it didn’t matter. All that seemed important was that she was dead, as dead as his family.
If he thought he might have a respite before the battle continued, he was mistaken. The last of the structures before him shuddered and exploded outward as the god that rested there rose and announced itself.
What were gods? From what he’d heard they were the same as demons, only stronger. They were, perhaps, more mature versions of the demons. He had no way of knowing, he truly did not care. All that mattered was that they had to go. They had to be removed, they had to die; in order to save the world, yes, in order to save people from ever being sacrificed, certainly, but mostly they had to die because they had taken from him. They had stolen away the joy in his world and he intended to return the favor before he died.
The thing in front of him did not want to take one form, it seemed, but preferred to change constantly. One moment it looked like a man and the next there were odd shapes spilling from it, writhing tendrils that snapped and shivered. A moment later and he was looking at a figure that seemed sculpted from muck, barely able to hold itself together. Another heartbeat and another form, this one crystalline and shedding large blades of crystal even as it moved toward him. Another moment and the form was a towering serpent that seemed made of iron. It slithered forward and hissed through teeth that glittered blackly.
Still it moved, and still Brogan watched. This was not like the others, this was more powerful, and there was something familiar about the feel of it, even if there was nothing about it he had seen before.
“Enough. You have done enough. Stop now.”
It changed again, taking a shape he knew very well. It looked at him and studied him with eyes he had seen before.
There were few people alive who could possibly make Brogan hesitate. Harper was one of them. Harper stood before him, however, in all his glory, that damnable smirk of his still in place.
“You’re not Harper.” He stared into Harper’s eyes and Harper stared back, every single detail flawless. He wore the same clothes, he carried the same weapons, though he had not drawn any yet.
“I am Sepsumannahun. I am the God of Gods. I am the slayer of Walthanadurn and you have angered me.”
Brogan nodded. “Let’s be done with this, then.”
The god did not move. He did not need to.
Brogan felt his bones start to break within his body. The pain slammed through him and swallowed him whole.
Harper
Stanna reached the blood first and after only a moment of hesitation she reached down and placed her hand in the black fluid.
She frowned. “Nothing. I feel nothing but sticky muck on my palm.”
Temmi said, “Well, what did you expect? It’s dead now, isn’t it?”
Tully frowned. “I’d have thought something would survive. It was a god, after all.”
Harper looked at the three companions and contemplated whether or not they were all going mad. Not just them, but him as well. He’d expected that something must surely still be there, that some sort of power might still exist. Why else would it be there? What purpose could it serve?
The woman who’d touched Brogan before walked closer, frowning.
“What does it do?” Harper asked her, wondering if she might have an answer.
“I think it is all the spirit left of the god that he killed.” She frowned. “It’s trying to speak to me, but I don’t think I know what it wants.”
There were several others moving closer now. They had seen people moving, people leading, he supposed, and decided it was a good time to gather together again.
Jahda was among them. The man still carried that same soft smile on his face and Harper wondered if he even knew any other expressions.
Jahda closed his eyes and tilted his head.
“It does not speak a language I know.”
The Grakhul woman nodded her head. “It speaks the language of the gods. They would not bother to speak any language but their own.”
Jahda nodded as if that made perfect sense.
“Does anyone here speak the language of the gods?”
It was Darwa that answered Jahda’s question. “No. That is forbidden. But understanding the language is only a matter of training.”
She looked at the vast flow of shadow-dark blood and then squatted before it. Desmond called out from behind him and Harper looked, knowing what he would see already. Anna walked closer to the Galean, her face set. She was terrified, he could see that, and as well sh
e should be – they walked in a forbidden place and stared at the remains of a god. No matter what happened, it was likely that they would never leave here the same as they entered. The lands around the Grakhul home had been poisoned by the gods. How then could this be any different? The land was bleak, as nearly lifeless as the nameless keep of the Grahkul. He had been trained to stay away from the poisonous lands around that keep, as had his father and his grandfather before him. This, however, was something far worse. This was a land filled with the power of the gods. Was it deadly? Probably. He did not know for certain, but he suspected as much.
Harper frowned. In the distance the last of the gods moved toward Brogan. The others had all had form, but this one was merely a massive pillar of bright white light that undulated and occasionally spat out streamers that looked like tongues of fire licking the air before they pulled back. Brogan seemed nearly hypnotized by the glowing shape.
“I don’t know if touching the blood is a good idea.” Harper spoke up and saw the frown on Stanna’s face deepen. “The land around the Grakhul was tainted.”
The Grakhul woman spoke, “That is from where the gods punished our people for not listening to their decrees. They cast down a demon on that land.”
“And yet I have heard at least two people say that demons are the same as gods. So how is their blood different?”
Darwa scowled. Anna frowned, and the Grakhul woman shook her head. “If the gods wanted us dead, we would be dead.”
In the distance Brogan let out a roar of pain and his body convulsed.
“It might not be able to help us, but would it help him?” That came from the smaller of Stanna’s companions. He thought her name was Tully, but he had only learned their names from hearing them called, and it was impossible to say for certain.
Darwa stared at Brogan in the distance. He was fighting against something, struggling as if he’d been bound in chains, and his wounded shoulder bled freely.
Darwa shrugged. “Possibly. Who can say?”
“You can,” Harper answered. “You’ve read your books. Will it work?”
“I am not sure that what you want can be achieved.” Darwa scratched absently at her chin and closed her eyes, thinking.
Daivem stepped closer and held her hand over the black substance. She looked back at Jahda. He shrugged and spoke to her in their own language. It was a short exchange, not angry but urgent, between the two of them, and Harper wished, not for the first time, that he had learned how to speak like the Louron.
Daivem finally grew impatient and planted one hand in the substance. Her entire body stiffened as she touched it, and then she shook her head, trying to break the contact. “It’s… I don’t know if I can do this!”
“Do what?” Harper looked at her and considered reaching out to help her break away, but between them was Jahda and he knew her better. Perhaps if he decided it should happen that would be for the best.
Jahda leaned down and shouted at her in her own language. A moment later she nodded and held her carved walking stick in her other hand. The wood swelled, as if it had soaked for days in water, and she let out a groan loud enough to make him worry for her safety.
“Do it!” Jahda roared the words into her ear and Daivem nodded. He saw nothing come from her or her wand, but he felt it. It was a cold wind cutting across a hot desert. The air nearly steamed from the chill it carried, and Harper felt his flesh crawl.
Whatever she was doing, she was stealing from the dead god and aiming whatever she had stolen directly at Brogan.
She was either helping him, or she was killing him and there was no way for Harper to know which.
Brogan
Brogan screamed again as the changing shape in front of him continued to kill him without so much as bothering to touch his flesh. Bones broke, muscles convulsed and agonies like he’d never imagined smashed through him, dropping him to the ground. Even the impact with the earth was a new level of pain, as bone burst through flesh and scraped against the rocky soil.
“You are meat. You are little more than a meal, but now you have killed my family and I will destroy you over the course of eons.” Sepsumannahun spoke slowly and Harper’s teeth were bared in a sneer of contempt. “You are angry because your family died? They were bred to die! You are all cattle!”
Brogan tried to move, but nothing worked. His muscles were shredded, his fingers twitched without any real chance of flexing, and his breath came in shuddering gasps.
From the distance something screamed as it cut through the air. He could not see it as it was behind him, but he heard it. The sound was a wail of fury, a primal scream.
Whatever it was that moved toward him hit his body and sent him rolling across the ground.
Energy washed into him, freezing his muscles and then warming them again. He felt the anger of Gla’Eru’Wrath and knew what it was that was happening. He was absorbing the dead god much as he had absorbed the essence of Walthanadurn. The difference was, this was not deliberate on the part of the god and his defeated enemy was furious about being used this way.
He reached to his shoulder and clamped his teeth together as he gripped and then forced out the arrowhead. The world waved in and out a few times in the process and it was all he could manage not to vomit on himself.
Brogan thought about being healed and it happened. The pain was impossible to ignore and he wept through it, but in seconds he was whole again and Sepsumannahun was looking at him, wearing the face of a shocked Harper.
“What have you done?”
Brogan didn’t answer. Instead he stood up as quickly as he could and grabbed his weapons. The sword of Gla’Eru’Wrath and the axe that had been Faceless filled his hands.
Sepsumannahun snarled and reached for him. He carried no weapons and likely did not need them.
There was exactly one advantage that Brogan had over the gods and it was a simple one: he knew how to engage in combat and it seemed that they did not. Even the best of them was awkward and clumsy, in comparison.
He had spent half his life on the field of battle. Perhaps they had not.
Sepsumannahun reached for him, and Brogan drove the point of Gla’Eru’Wrath’s blade through his chest, through the place where a heart would be in a human being. Harper looked back at him, wide-eyed and shocked. Brogan left the sword there, and while Harper/Sepsumannahun looked on, Brogan caught him across the side of his face with an axe blade.
Flesh and bone fell away. Harper’s face collapsed and bled. Brogan did not let himself think, did not have time to consider what happened, but instead struck again and again, while Sepsumannahun screamed.
Deep inside of him Walthanadurn roared in satisfaction. The sword in Sepsumannahun’s chest did what it seemed always to do and opened a rift between the worlds. Did it hurt the God of Gods? He prayed it did. Certainly it seemed to, as the shape of Harper wavered and collapsed into a field of nearly blinding light.
Three more strikes of the axe as that light flickered and flared and started to extinguish, before a dozen tongues of fire lashed out and cut at him.
Brogan felt the power he’d absorbed pulled from his body. He understood what was happening. The god was hungry, starving, and it wanted to protect itself from death. Surely the same energies that had let him heal himself would work even better for a deity.
Brogan shook his head. The sword was still buried in that light. He could see the hilt. His hand reached out and grabbed the weapon. Flesh burned on his hand and he growled as he pulled, twisted and sawed with the unnatural blade.
Sepsumannahun let out a sound that was not even close to human and the entire being shook. The ground beneath it burned, melting and changing colors, glowing redly as Brogan continued to saw the sword through the wound he had already made.
More tongues licked away from the god and cut trails of agony across his body. Where each touched, his skin split and burned.
Brogan raised his axe up high and brought it
down on what appeared to be a column of light. Like the sword, the axe struck and stayed in place.
Brogan screamed. He could do no more. His arms burned, his flesh cooked, and his bones felt like they’d been replaced with molten lead.
The god was dying and that was almost enough. He wanted to see it die. He wanted to feel it. And so, Brogan reached out with his arms and wrapped them around the tower of fiery brilliance. He held on as tightly as he could, felt his hair burning, his beard catch fire and his flesh broil in the heat of a dying god.
For the second, or was it the third, or perhaps the millionth, time, he felt himself dying, seared and blinded and burnt beyond the ability to heal himself. His lungs felt like they were filled with hot coals. His flesh was stung and ruptured and ruined.
Sepsumannahun let out a final wail of pain and then collapsed, knocking Brogan off his feet at the same time. Brogan held on to the falling god, unwilling to let go, needing to feel the thing die. This was revenge. This was all he had left.
The hilt of the sword burned into his chest. The axe fell away, dropped somewhere nearby but he could not see it or feel it, only hear the clatter it made.
Because he was not dead yet, Brogan willed himself to recover from his injuries. At first there was nothing, but then, slowly, the pain flared up again as raw nerves mended themselves, and burnt flesh healed from trauma.
His lips moved. His eyes blinked. The vision was there, but not fully mended. His left eye saw better and he stared at the remains of Sepsumannahun. They looked human enough, though the flesh was bloodied and torn. The god looked old, withered, frail, and dead.
Brogan continued to heal though the process was slow. He managed to stand up, though his legs ached and his knees were weak.
Near as he could tell the god was dead.
That did not mean his fight was completely over.
Gates of the Dead Page 30