Dark Gods Rising (4 page)

Like a house made of mud caught in a torrential rain, Simta’s anger dissolved into dark streams of pain. A fresh onslaught of tears coursed over her raw cheeks at the realization all her secrets had been revealed.

“I saw it all while I was within you.” Calto’s cold whisper opened new wounds. “The petty remarks, the blackmail, the thieving. I even saw how you ended up betrothed to that idiot Charmaine. Did you think to hide these things from me, Anothosia’s most high priest and head of our House?”

Larson turned to his brother. “I said enough. Simta might be guilty of all you say, but she is also a victim. I won’t allow you to rape her mind further. All deserve Anothosia’s forgiveness. All deserve a second chance.”

With a toss of his head, Calto sneered at them both. “Fine. She will get her
second chance
, but she will also atone for this
sacrilege. Tomorrow evening she will meet with her demon lover at the inn where he raped her. She will help us spring a trap on him. If she does not, I will march her straight to her father’s house in the evening and explain why she is being stricken from the family books and sold off to the highest bidder in the Illian slave markets.”

A cold wind tore through Simta’s soul at the thought of facing Malaria again. She started shaking. Even being sold as a slave was a fate she would willingly face over being in Malaria’s presence once more. “No,” she mumbled through numb lips, “please no. Don’t make me face him again.”

Gods, is this what Calto did to others in his role as Anothosia’s high priest? Is this how he gathered the truth, by shredding a person’s soul, tearing out their hearts, and destroying their minds? Simta shrank as far into her seat as she could.

Kneeling, Larson placed a reassuring hand upon her cheek. “You won’t face him alone, Simta. I wouldn’t allow anyone to do that. I will be there along with Calto and several of my knights. We will kill him when he shows us his true form.”

Simta clutched at Larson’s arm. The memory of Malaria feeding on her body remained fresh. “He’ll rip me to pieces again, only this time he won’t put me back together.”

With a gentle tug, Larson pulled his arm from her grasp. “I swear upon my soul no harm shall come to you, dear cousin.” He stroked her disheveled hair. “You will be safe, but Calto is right. We need you to do this. We have tried to catch Malaria for a long time, but he always sees through our traps and murders our spies. You have no idea how many good men and woman have died at his hands. Help us stop the evil bastard, and you’ll have your second chance.” Drawing back, Larson looked at her with pleading eyes.

A deep shudder ran through her body. Calto had made it very clear what he would do if she didn’t comply. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Seeming regretful, Larson shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not, but Simta, think of all the good you will do. Think of the men and women who will go home to their families alive and unscathed to kiss their spouses and hold their children, all because you helped us stop Malaria.”

Larson stoked her cheek. The calluses on his hand felt rough against her tender, tear soaked skin, nothing like the hands of other Yernden nobles. Unlike Larson, those prigs knew little about an honest day’s work or sacrifice. Unlike them, Larson’s hands bore the scars of many battles. A long puckered line ran down his left check, marring the perfection of his looks. Both brothers were handsome beyond words, but she could always tell the twins apart even without the scar. Where Calto’s face was arrogance and cold justice, Larson’s was a sun-kissed summer day. Warmth and joy danced over his strong features. Why couldn’t he have asked her to marry him? Why had her father never presented him as a choice? After all, Larson was still unmarried, and though they were cousins, they were not closely related.

With the world weighing down her head, Simta gave a weary nod and became limp within Larson’s embrace. It was all just too much for her. In this one night, she felt as if she had aged twenty years, all her youth gone in an agonizing stripping of her soul.

“Good. Now get out of here!” Calto snapped. “And you had better be at the Dancing Unicorn tomorrow, Simta, at nine bells.” Calto’s eyes narrowed. Something unnatural stirred behind them, something powerful, something Simta knew she dared not break a promise to.

* * * *

Exhaustion still pulled at every muscle in Simta’s body. She checked her appearance in the mirror one last time before leaving her room to meet Malaria in the commons below. Getting ready had been almost unbearable, her limbs felt too heavy to apply her makeup and put her hair into its customary array of dark red curls atop her head as best she could without servants. Heavy, but she had gotten it done, gotten dressed, and was leaving to attend her own farewell party. At least it was how she felt as she left her room and headed for the stairs. From the top of the stairs, she saw and heard a number of party goers just coming into the Dancing Unicorn, resplendent in all their finest dresses and pants and waist coats. Only two more nights of the festival remained. Simta knew these partiers were trying to get in as much debauchery and as many drunken revelries as they could in a short time. With such dark happenings upon the land, the people of Yernden needed every excuse they could find to rejoice, to forget the hellborn who dared walk in the open, and forget the hellhounds who chewed on friends and neighbors in dark alleys. The citizens of Yernden needed these five days to push back the trappings of Hell that were slowly consuming the very life force of its inhabitants with rumors saying King Vere contemplated changing his allegiance away from the seven virtuous gods to give it to the Two.

Sweat trickled down what little cleavage Simta owned, making her dress’s silken green material cling in an itchy, uncomfortable way. Her shoes, pointed prisons of torture, were not what she would have chosen for such a dire meeting, but she had to dress the part Calto had given her. Men’s traveling boots would have looked out of place with the rest of her finery. If she had to run for her life, she was as good as dead. One small consolation was the blade strapped to her calf. With it, she could cut her shoe’s laces and rip them from her feet when a moment presented itself. Even barefoot was better than what she presently wore.

Although people were arriving, the commons room wasn’t overly crowded yet. Good thing. The knights had planned a special show just for Malaria, a show Larson promised the demon would never forget. Her eyes scanned the crowd trying to figure out which were the knights and which were just celebrants. No one seemed out of place, but that was what Calto and Larson wanted, the element of surprise. There was laughter, tankards of good ale and jugs of the best wine, along with the smell of roasted pork, arvid, and chicken. If Simta didn’t feel so wretchedly nauseous, the commons would have smelled like a slice of heaven. As it was, she could barely stand to breathe without puking.

Scanning the room, Simta felt a glimmer of hope when she didn’t see Malaria. Maybe he had decided to not show, but from the corner of her eye she caught the wave of a hand. She turned slowly toward the gesture, horrified at seeing Malaria’s languid hand motioning her over. Did she really have to sit with him to fulfill Calto’s orders— within reaching distance? She knew from rumor how fast demons and devils could move. She once saw a demon change its hands into weapons, and hellborn were strong. How easy it would be for Malaria to simply reach over and rip her head right off her shoulders. At least if he killed her, Simta wouldn’t have to suffer much, that is as long as he decided not to hold her on the brink of death and play with her afterward. Of late, many walking dead had been seen in the dark recesses of the city streets. No part of Simta wanted to join them.

Oh gods, this is not helping.
Think happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy, happy— oh screw it. I’m dead.

Drawing a deep breath, Simta gave Malaria a small smile. Well, more like a grimace, but it was the best she could do at the moment, especially considering the fact she was about to die.

Simta’s hand strayed to the satchel by her waist. Another book, one given the appearance of the book she had been sent to steal, had been handed to her by Calto with simple instructions. All she had to do was hand it to the demon. When she had asked what it would do to Malaria, Calto had given her a cold smile and said,
“You will just have to watch and see.”

Needless to say, this dubious assurance only cemented the fact she was going to die.

The demon stood. His eyes narrowed, but his calm smile never left his face. Sweat formed upon Simta’s brow and did a slow slide down her neck as she drew closer. The satchel hung so heavy upon her shoulder Simta thought she was going to drop it. Malaria slowly came around the table to pull a chair out for her before returning to his seat.

The air felt thick and heavy with her own fear. When Simta sat, she envisioned shackles coming up around her ankles and upper arms, effectively trapping her in the chair so Malaria could kill her slowly once he discovered the book was a fake. If worse came to worse, she could lie and tell him she only did as he had asked, that the book she took from the Evertrue mansion was exactly the book he had wanted because it
looked
like the book she had been sent to steal. How could she know it was a fake?

“Things went well I assume?” he asked.

“Yes. It wasn’t too difficult to get in and grab the book, but I’m a bit nervous. Anothosia’s seal was on top of it.”

Amazingly, her voice didn’t shake or crack like she feared it might. She found it difficult to not crane her neck around looking for the knights. Somehow, she managed to continue staring in Malaria’s eyes without screaming. For once, she had not had a thing to drink. Simta sincerely doubted alcohol would have helped anyway. She would never be able to get drunk enough to forgot what Calto had shown her, the horrid vision of her own body being torn apart by this evil monster’s teeth, watching herself die.

“Well, let me have it.” Malaria looked hungry, anxious. Both hands pressed face down on the table’s surface. “That’s it in the satchel, right?”

Nodding, Simta placed the plain brown leather satchel upon the table.

“Show me.”

With hands that shook only slightly— which was a miracle because she was close to peeing herself— Simta untied the strings. Malaria leaned closer, his expression both anxious and greedy. When Simta lifted the flap, a bright light burst forth, striking Malaria hard in his chest, sending the howling demon backward into the wall behind him. He struck with a thick, meaty thunk.

To Simta, the world slowed down for a moment before erupting into motion. The first thing was Malaria changing form. His change wasn’t the slow melting that occurred on the night he raped and ate her. No, his human flesh blew off from him in every direction, spattering everything, including herself, with gobbets of bloodied meat. Beneath was blue, charred skin, both cracked and bloodied from Anothosia’s light. Black demon blood ran from his injuries.

Malaria grabbed the table and ripped it in two like it had been made of paper machete. The pieces went flying in opposite directions, barely missing fleeing customers. An insane look, one of pure fury and unfathomable rage, distorted Malaria’s features.

“You lying, back stabbing whore.” The demon’s words crashed into her like a physical blow, sending her scrambling from her chair, across the room, and into a group of panicked partiers.

If breathing had been difficult before, now it was even worse. What little air she had been taking in seemed to be knocked from her body. Every bone, every muscle ached protest as she scrambled to get out of the way, to flee like the rest of the people. The room’s air became frigid. Frost formed on the surfaces of tables and chairs. Choking, Simta tried to force air into her burning lungs. The horrid blue demon with poisonous spikes Calto had earlier ripped from her ravaged memory advanced on her, staring with eyes blacker than night, silently promising a long and painful death.

No longer able to think, move, or feel, Simta stood rooted to the spot, frozen in place by Malaria’s horrid, burning stare while those nearby fled. Her mind told her to run, to hide, but where and how?

A hard jolting sensation brought her about as a powerful hand roughly shoved her aside. Simta landed with a thud upon the dusty floor, the pain knocking at least a semblance of awareness into her. Around her, the room was a madhouse. Screaming people ran for the stairs, windows, or doors while others, too terrified to move, paid the price with their lives as Malaria sent his spikes flying through the air, piercing them with his poisonous barbs.

The need to live overcame Simta’s fear. She scrambled up and over a fallen table but she didn’t dare try for the door. The crush of panicked people made it too late for that. The inn’s air stank of burnt flesh and sulfur. The room lit up with magic. Red, blue, yellow, white, the colors flashed to a thunder of harsh sound and horrible screams as knights closed in on Malaria.

One of those knights flew across the room and thumped hard against the wall to her left. The gleaming silver of his armor was covered in blood. A chest piece and his faceplate were missing as the poor soul slid slowly to the floor, his hands full of his own intestines. The air smelled of shit, bile, and other things she could not identify. Blood bubbled up past the knight’s lips as he tried to speak.

Shouted commands filled the air, jerking Simta’s head away from the horrific sight beside her.

“Damn it! Form up you fools! Surround him. Don’t let this abomination escape again.” Calto’s voice rang through the inn, demanding all who heard him to obey, to fall in and do as told. His voice could not be denied, did not dare be refused.

Unable to listen to her own common sense which demanded she stay down, Simta peeked over the table’s top edge.

Five knights remained standing, all but Calto and Larson showing the gleam of light armor through rents in their evening clothes. Those two wore full armor. Two of the knights bled badly from body wounds. Another didn’t bleed even though his severed left arm lay on the floor. Instead, a brilliant yellow light, seeming to boil with living things, took the place of his missing limb. Simta clung to the table’s edge, shocked into utter stillness by the sight of the armless knight wielding his sword with a beam of light. Never before had she believed any of the tales she had heard about the Knights of Anothosia, but there before her very eyes the legends had come to life. Each of the five knights bore an aura of a pulsing whitish-yellow light. Their blades moved about them with unbelievable agility and speed, becoming nothing more than blurs to her untrained eyes, and all wore expressions of fierce determination. Beaded drops of blood and sweat flew through the air around them, not all of it theirs. Malaria, too, bore injuries. He stood in the middle of their circle. Ragged slices crisscrossed his body. Blood ran freely down his torso and legs. Even so, he still stood, a look of triumph on his face, a look saying pain would not stop him from murdering these remaining knights with his Hell poisoned claws.

“Give up and I might let a couple of you live!” Cackling, Malaria reached out to casually knock the knight with the missing arm across six tables and into a wall with a bone grinding crunch.

The knight howled in pain and gasped for air as he tried to sit upright. Laughing, Malaria reached for another knight, for Calto, with lazy arrogance, and that was a mistake.

Dodging to the side, Calto slammed his staff hard against Malaria’s horned skull before the demon had a chance to lay his hands upon him. With that blow, the room exploded into a cacophony of sound and a blinding flash of light. The Dancing Unicorn’s remaining mugs, cups and tableware exploded into wooden splinters and pottery shards. Ducking beneath her table’s edge, Simta held tight while the magical backlash nearly sent her tumbling. Screaming in pain, the blue-skinned demon leapt up and over the bar at the back of the inn. Its scream traveled through the room on a wave of muddy light, sending knives of agony through Simta. The cry simultaneously shivered into her bones with wrenching pain while also bringing vivid visions of torture and mutilation to her already fragile mind. Her own scream burst forth with such force she thought it ripped her throat and shriveled her lungs.

She wanted to faint. She wanted to die, wanted to sink down into the earth, deep into the dark and disappear from sight. Malaria’s cry assured her life was nothing but ruined dreams and pointless aspirations. There was no reason to live when the worms needed so desperately to feed. Ragged sobs shook her body as she raised her eyes once more above the table’s edge to see the battle continued.

The remaining four knights sped over and around the bar in a blur, trailing white glowing after images behind them. With a roar which made the floor vibrate beneath her bruised knees, Malaria sprang from behind the bar to land on its top only to be knocked in the gut by Calto’s staff. The demon barely had a moment to show shock as the blow lifted him off his feet and flung him into the low hanging ceiling before he crashed back down on his stomach among a scattering of broken cups and mugs atop the bar. The white light shining from the moonstone atop Calto’s staff leapt from the polished jewel to the demon, spreading across his body in jagged lines. The smell and sound of sizzling flesh filled the air as smoke began to pour off of Malaria.

While Calto had been keeping him busy, the remaining knights had made their way around the back of the bar. One was Larson. The lights seemed to shine brighter around him and Calto than they did the others, almost as if the brothers not only shared the same looks, but also the same power.

“Anothosia!” Larson cried, raising his sword high. With another mighty shout, he plunged its steel deep into Malaria’s back, pinning him to the bar top. The other two knights quickly began hacking and chopping into the hellborn, hewing little pieces of the demon’s legs free.

A horrible, vile feeling started in the pit of Simta’s stomach, traveled up her burning esophagus, presenting itself in the form of wracking, choking spasms. Her last sight before she fell to her hands and knees in shuddering dry heaves was Calto shoving the moonstone into Malaria’s mouth just before the demon’s head exploded.

How long she crouched behind the table spewing her bile on the floor, Simta did not know. Not until two mail-shod feet stood before her did she become aware of the room growing almost silent.

An ungloved hand reached down in front of her face and stroked her cheek, a calloused hand, gentle, caring. “He’s gone Simta. We sent him back to Hell. You can get up now.”

Tears pouring down, Simta covered her face and sat back on her heels, her body shaking. Strong, metal sheathed arms scooped her up and carried her across the room. She felt so pathetic, so little, frightened and lost. What would she do now? How could she pick up the pieces and carry on after all this horror, after Calto had stripped away her blinders to show how she had been mind and body raped by Malaria.

“Coddling her still?” Calto’s cold voice demanded. “Look around you brother. Several of us are dead, another barely alive, and one of the remaining fine businesses in Yylse is a total ruin, all because of her.”