Dark Gods Rising (8 page)

Athos jumped, releasing her abruptly. Hitting the ground hard, Sulya scrabbled quickly away, diamonds and rocks cutting into the flesh of her hands. She rushed behind her savior, hand on her sword, and glared fiercely at Hell’s lesser god, daring him to touch her again.

A living darkness faced Athos, a being clad in the abyss itself. Mercktos, Zorce’s Black Knight, stood before Athos, challenging, arrogant, and angry. Like faint ripples in a pond, the void she hid behind shivered with displeasure. Sulya gasped as the edge of Mercktos’s dark cloak brushed faintly against her boot. A moment of panic, of raw, cold fear, pulsed through her. Sulya took an unsteady step back and held her ground. She would not run and cower in the dark, not from the devil beside her. Cowering from him would be a bigger mistake than doing so in front of the Two. Zorce and Athos might torture and kill, but Mercktos— Mercktos dragged his victims away into the dark, shut them in his private hell, and made a
hobby
of tearing screams from beings who knew the hopelessness of unending suffering. No warmth remained in the creature Zorce called his right hand, his Black Knight. Even Anothosia’s faithful ran from his path.

“You
dare
threaten me, Mercktos?” Purple veins pounded and pulsed in Athos’s neck in stark relief against his head’s white flesh. He took a step forward, his muscles rippling like each was a beast of its own. “You may be my father’s right hand, but I am his son.”

“One among many,” Mercktos replied, “And yet you still tempt his anger by going against his wishes while screwing up even the simplest tasks. How do you do it?” His voice oozed condescension.

Howling, the dark god leapt for Zorce’s second. Sulya heard the rasping of Mercktos’s sword but didn’t see him move. Like liquid night, the sword, thrust upward toward Athos’s gut. Just when she thought the god’s innards would shower down upon her, he spun to the side, narrowly missing the vicious blade, and landed with a heavy thud.

Athos’s body ignited in flames. The fire roared outward, striking Mercktos full in the chest, but Mercktos did not stagger. No fire could penetrate his wall of darkness. Flinching, Sulya took another step back as a fetid wave of heat blew by her, a heat so intense it blistered a small patch of exposed skin on her hand. Fighting the urge to cry out, Sulya grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes tightly closed against the smell and feel of her own singed flesh. If this was the worst to happen to her this night, she would gladly thank the gods for it.

“Now, now,
little one
,” Mercktos said quietly. “Control thyself or I'll be forced to spank you and tell daddy what a bad boy you were.”

Holy Hell! What was the fool trying to do? Get them both killed? Sulya sucked in a lungful of stinging, raw air and readied herself for battle. Athos wouldn’t let the insult slide.

Roaring, Athos pulled himself to his full eight feet, pounding his chest with his fists. Power pulsed from the four horns jutting from his head, forming a ball of sizzling blue, electric light. The projectile flew into Mercktos’s chest. Again, the darkness swallowed Athos’s rage.

Painful pinpricks jumped across Sulya’s skin. The air, thick, heavy, filled with hate and the promise of total destruction. How could a mere devil withstand the attack of a god? How much more could Mercktos take before he broke and got them both killed?

A low rumbling started deep in Mercktos’s chest before bursting from his blood red lips as a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ll let your father know you are well and send your regards. Now, if you’re done playing, I have two messages for you before I depart with Zorce’s general.”

Athos’s anger was a horrible sight. Lightning danced brutally over his body, making his muscles jump and spasm. Sulya found it more frightening than any storm she had ever witnessed. Never would she venture into this god’s presence alone again.

“There’ll be a day when I’ll find you off your guard Mercktos,” Athos promised. “I’ll gorge you upon my horns and feast upon your flesh.”

“Fine, fine. You've made your threats. Now is the pissing contest over or do you want to go another round?”

Groaning, Sulya put her hand over her face. Even she was not brazen enough to anger a god. Her eye twitched, her stomach quivered, and the urge to piss herself became almost overwhelming. “Please, Mercktos, tell him what Zorce wishes and let us leave,” she whispered.

Mercktos sighed, sounding bored and bothered. “Zorce says he is pleased another of Anothosia’s knights is destroyed, especially one from the House of Morlon. However,” his voice dropped to a bare whisper, “he is unhappy you only supplied his general with one of your lesser devils
,
one barely stronger than Phrandex, Sulya’s nursery minding son and the least of your brothers. Larson Morlon was no mere knight. He was a chosen one of the bitch goddess. It was stupid to send Zorce's best spy with such inadequate troops. Had you thought more about the end goal instead of your pride you could well have tortured him for more information.”

Athos’s mouth dropped open. A strangled sound of rage sputtered forth. He tried to speak, but the words would not come.

“But,” Mercktos’s voice grew loader, more commanding, “your father is willing to give you another opportunity to prove yourself. He wishes you to collaborate with his general and myself in entrapping Calto during the end days. Furthermore, he wants you to keep Anithia Morlon, Larson’s wife, under close scrutiny until he decides if she knows any of her husband’s secrets. Can you manage such a simple task or should he assign the deed to one of your underlings? Phrandex, maybe, or even Berferd.”

Athos hissed. “Tell him—”

Holding up a hand, Mercktos growled, “I am not finished. Your father also wishes assurance you have not disrespected his most precious gift to you, the hook. He wants to know what safeguards you have placed on your pet wizard. War with the usurpers will soon be upon us. At the least, The hook may figure prominently in your father’s plans. At worst, in the wrong hands it can cause irreperable harm.”

Athos hissed again. “You can tell my fucking father that I will not be—”

Mercktos shook his head, uninterested. “My message is delivered. Complain to him yourself.”

Spinning in a cloud of black silk, Mercktos grabbed Sulya’s arm in a painful grip, dragging her along beside him. Sulya flinched, trying to break free, but his long, nimble fingers held her fast.

Once they were far from the great hall, he stopped and twisted her around. His hand was invisible before her face, but the pain it delivered when it struck her was intense. Sulya flew into the cavern wall and slid down its rough surface, dazed and suffering.

“You idiot,” Mercktos growled.

Mercktos proceeded to beat her unconscious.

Sulya wasn’t sure how long she was out, but when she awoke she lay beneath a pale sky dumping rain.

Groaning, she tried to roll over, but found she could not. She knew bones were broken.

"Over here, over here! Sulya's over here!"

Pounding feet reverberated on a boardwalk, and then a blond, bearded face appeared above her. Stomach churning, Sulya closed her eyes, unable to tolerate the bobbing motion of the man’s head. Another face formed in her mind, Mercktos, pale, cold, and raging. Molten black eyes poured out hatred until bile rose in her throat. Someone grabbed her head, turned it to the side, and the bile spewed out.

Mercktos had done this to her, had beaten her until she couldn’t move, had brutalized her as a lesson in self-control. All the while, as his fists thudded into her body, he had laughed, enjoying her pain. Sulya’s last conscious memory before her senses fled was still very clear. After stripping away Zorce’s armor and raping her battered body, he had bent down, licked the blood from her mouth, and whispered in her ear.

“Do not fail us again,
General
, or I will delight in making you my new plaything.”

Lesson learned. Sulya would be damn sure to never fail her god again. She would be equally sure Mercktos got back twice what he had given her.

Oh yes. Payback was a bitch, and she was the biggest one around.

* * * *

Pre-dawn light through her parted bedroom curtains broke into Anithia’s troubled dreams. She rolled over, looking for the comfort of her husband, needing his embrace, but only found a cold and empty spot.

Ani struggled to sit up and looked to see if the clean clothes she had set out for Larson were gone. Maybe she had been sleeping when he came home and was still sleeping when he rose, but when she looked at the chair she had sat the clothes on they were still there, neat and untouched.

Maybe he had fallen asleep in the front room.

Tossing back her covers, Anithia swung her legs over the edge. She wanted to stay in bed and enjoy the early morning coolness, but worry kept her from doing so. What if Larson hadn’t come home? What if one of those demons had
‒
had‒Ani stopped herself, refusing to complete the thought. Her husband was fine. No matter what,
he was fine.

But, of late, things had not felt fine, not for a long while. Strange goings on had left her feeling troubled and uneasy. Even their six-year-old daughter, Missa, acted ill at ease. The disturbing dreams her Missa had been having these past months were unnatural, even for a child. They seemed— touched. By whom or what, Ani didn’t know, and that scared her. When she mentioned the dreams to Larson he had shrugged them off as a child’s wild imagination.

As if the thought had summoned her, Missa burst through the door and flung herself into Ani’s arms, crying. Stomach clenched, Ani hugged her close.

“Momma, Momma, the lady took Daddy. She took him.” Missa’s wail grew high and hoarse. Her long, blond braids were almost out of their ribbons. Missa’s normally bright blue eyes looked puffy and tired.

“Shhh, baby. Calm down. What lady, little Miss?”

When Missa didn’t answer, Anithia rubbed her daughter’s back and held her until Missa’s sobs turned to whimpers.

“Missa?” Ani pulled her away. “Did someone come to the door this morning while I slept?” She hadn’t heard anyone knock.

Missa shook her head. “No, Momma. It was the pretty lady with the green eyes and long white hair.”

Anithia stilled. This was the lady from Missa’s dreams? “I don’t understand. How Missa? How did she take him?”

Shuddering, Missa straightened and rubbed her eyes on the back of her sleeping gown. “She took him in the light, to her garden. She said he had to come live with her.”

Releasing Missa, Anithia clutched at her chest and stomach and slid from the bed to her knees. “No. Stop it Missa. Stop it. It’s not okay to tell Mommy tales.”

“But—”

“No!” Ani took a deep breath and closed her eyes a moment. This was Missa’s dream. It was a dream. Nothing more. Missa was a six year old child who believed the sky held the ocean because it was blue. A child’s dream.

“
Anithia, do not despair”

Ani tensed. Opening her eyes, she expected to see someone else in the room, but there was only Missa and herself.

Gazing into her daughter’s sweet, round face, Ani froze.

A voice, much like her Missa’s, but deeper and sounding further away, slipped from her angel’s mouth.
“I forsake none who believeth in me. I will not forsake you or your daughter.”

Missa’s eyes swirled a misty blue so bright it seemed as if someone held the moon behind them. Peace and love radiated from her face. Ani began to shake. What witchery had come to her house?

“
Tis no witchery, Ani, only a promise of light.”

Missa’s hand reached out and stroked her mother’s hair. Anithia tensed at the touch. The smell of flowers permeated the air. Warmth stole into her numb mind and body. Unbelieving, Ani watched with tear-blurred vision as the swirling light faded from Missa’s eyes. Her daughter blinked and looked sad again.

No. It could not be. Not her Larson.

Missa gave her a sad smile, just like Larson often did when he knew something was about to break Anithia’s heart.

Chest constricting, Ani fought back near blinding panic. Somehow, she knew she would never see her husband’s smile again. Swaying, she caught herself on the edge of her nightstand.

“Momma?” Missa’s normally soft, pale features were strained and serious.

No
, Ani thought.
Until I see his body, I will not believe he’s gone. I will not
. She shook her head. “He’s not dead. He is
not
dead,” she whispered.

Anithia straightened and tried to stand. Again, she fell to her knees. A broken sob escaped her lips, and she clamped her hand to her mouth.

Missa reached out a soft, chubby hand and caressed Ani’s head. Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around her mother.

“He’s gone, Momma. He’s gone.”

Anithia returned her daughter’s embrace and let the pain engulf her. Larson gone? Her bright and glorious husband? What were they going to do now?

Chapter 4— Singing the Arvid Blues

A year had passed since the death of Larson, not that Ludwig was aware or even cared. He looked at the ass end of the arvids in front of him and wished he were walking anywhere but along this caravan trail winding itself through the foothills and up into the dark blue mountains. A stone rolled beneath his foot, making him stumble. His already abused foot protested. His other foot echoed its own complaint. New blisters were forming on both of them, which was surprising because he hadn’t thought there was room for new blisters amid all the existing ones. One of his two arvids butted him in his shoulder, causing him to stumble one more time.

“The gods curse these beasts with boils” Ludwig muttered. “May worms stop their bowels. May Athos flay the skin from their bodies and use the skin to fill their lungs. Please gods, bring death and mayhem and all the ills of the world down upon their heads so I may once again know peace and own feet that are free from pain.”

Up ahead, Harlo chuckled and clicked to his charges. His swarthy, sun hardened features wore a fond grin. The arms he used to pull his arvids to order were much better developed than Ludwig’s. Then again everything on Harlo was better. Though they were both of medium size, and, at twenty-five, the same age, Harlo’s frame wore heavy muscle where Ludwig’s body remained spare.

“I take it your feet are bothering you again,” Harlo said.

“Bothering me? Bothering me?” Ludwig glared down at those unhappy members and gave a tug on the reins to urge his arvids to a faster pace. “They are the death of me. They are afflicted with pustules and sores which threaten to cast me into Athos’s realm with every step I take. My ankles twist and turn and snap. My calves are contorted knots that grow larger with each step. I’m surprised my skin hasn’t split apart to spill my flesh upon the ground so these cursed beasts can tread upon it to soften their path on the mountain trails.” He groaned. “Gods, we’ve still twelve hours of travel before nightfall.”

Ludwig cast a look of despite at the arvids following him along the narrow trail. They were huge pack beasts, half again the size of a horse. Arvids loved to travel long distances if they were allowed to proceed at their own pace. Unfortunately, neither one of his pair thought the proper pace was the one chosen by the caravan’s lead beast. His animals traveled at half the speed of every other arvid, except for those times when their stomachs rumbled, and they decided to stop entirely to grab a couple hundred mouthfuls of prickleweed. Worst of all, they loved attempting to go around the wrong side of one of the many trees abutting the steep trail.

Of course, a certain inconsistency of pace wasn’t their only bad habit. Ludwig’s left hand beast, Perciad, had broken free the night before. She searched him out and tried to force her way into his bedroll. The other one, Lacking, liked to alleviate her daily boredom by stomping on his right foot, and only on his right foot. Ludwig had spent the last hour walking with a deliberately staggered and mincing step to throw her timing off. His foot hurt. He was positive it possessed a few dozen broken bones. On the other hand his other foot hurt almost as much, and it had not been stepped on at all, so maybe Harlo was right when he said arvid hooves seldom broke bones in feet encased by sturdy boots.

Lacking lovingly tried to slop her wet tongue across his face. Cursing, Ludwig jerked his head away, but the tip of her tongue still slid across his nose. Cursing again, he used his already sodden sleeve to wipe at Lacking’s slobber. His nose stung. Lacking was far too affectionate for a beast possessing acidic saliva.

Harlo laughed gently. “She loves you, lad. It seems you make new conquests everywhere you go.”

Ludwig glared at the self-declared priest and wished he had drawn Harlo’s complacent animals instead of his two. Not only were Harlo’s arvids well behaved, they seemed to delight in making the man’s life easier. Ludwig cursed the luck that had put him in this position. He was definitely not meant to be a caravan drover. He didn’t like the endless miles of walking over hills and mountains. He hated the wind and the heat. He absolutely loathed the rancid smell of arvid and the stench of his own unwashed body.

“I’m not cut out for this,” he complained. “I’m for the city and the nights. I like the feel of damp night air against my skin when my hand is shaking a dice cup. I enjoy stumbling home in the early hours to have my servants open the door and lead me to my soft bed.” Raising his head, he stared proudly at Harlo. “I’m aristocrat born. It’s in my blood. This trailing, it’s beneath my station.”

“You’re aristocrat born,” Harlo agreed. “You are also poor born since your father had no more sense about gambling than you do. My father warned him against his ways the same as I warned you. Neither of you listened any better than the other, and now look at the two of you. He’s ten years in the grave and your lover’s father has dumped you here. The dowry you gained from marrying the world’s most temperamental woman disappeared when she left, and you are now the lowest paid laborer in the caravan.”

“Because of you,” Ludwig accused.

Harlo shrugged. “Wencheck was going to cut your head off until I pointed out just how humiliated you would be if he made you a drover.”

“It is humiliating,” Ludwig complained. “I’m an aristocrat, not a crusty lowborn caretaker of vermin carriers.” He grimaced as loose bones grated inside his right foot. “The gods know I’ve fallen as low as I care to fall.”

Laughing again, Harlo flashed an amused smile, but his voice carried a touch of irritation. “I enjoy being a lowborn caretaker, but I’ll admit the only way you can fall further is to become a priest of Nedross. Then you’d have the task of seeing to the spiritual needs of your fellows as well as being a drover. At least this way you don’t have to be woken by a bunch of smelly men who want to talk to you at all hours of the night.”

Cursing one more time, Ludwig stumbled over a clod of dirt. If anything, his mood grew blacker still. “I don’t know why Charle and Jorge bother you.” Jorge and Charle’s urgent whispers to Harlo had woken him frequently as well these last nights. Those two gave too much weight to Harlo’s assumed authority as the priest of a made-up god. “For a priest of a god of hope, you’ve not done much good for me over the years. If you’d done your job properly, I’d be waking up right about now. Meliandra would be standing beside the bed with her robe lying on the floor, and Cook would be starting my breakfast.”

“I’ve done my job very well,” Harlo protested. “Didn’t you want to get rid of Gertunda? Have you any doubts she’s divorced you by now?” Clapping his hands together, he did a quick shuffle step before grabbing for the dropped reins of his dutiful charges. “Huhzaa! Your hopes have been fulfilled! Thanks be to Nedross!”

“I only wanted to be rid of the harridan. I never wanted to be destitute and exiled from my home.”

“Haven’t I always told you to be careful what you wish for? Isn’t this another example of you not listening to me?”

Ludwig ignored his friend’s mocking question. Perciad chose that moment to stop for a bite of prickleweed. The resulting jerk on Ludwig’s arm threatened to dislocate his shoulder.

“May you be cast into pits of boiling oil,” he muttered. “May you die a hundred thousand deaths, and may each death be more horrible than the last.” He swatted Perciad alongside her head. “Move it or I’ll have your lips for tonight’s dinner.”

“Smooth it out, Ludwig,” Garland called. “Smooth it out or you’ll be answering to me.”

“Best be careful with him,” Harlo warned. “Our caravan master is hard on slackers and brigands.”

“Then he’ll have an easy trip of it, for none of us are allowed to slack, and the brigands are too afraid of my blade to risk its ire.”

Grinning, Harlo shook his head. “My friend, you spend so much time with your head up your ass a brigand armed with a pointy stick would be safe from you. You really aren’t very good with a blade.”

“I’ve always been good enough to beat you. You’ve a sound defense, but nothing more.”

Harlo’s grin grew. “I’ll admit I used to let you win.” He sobered. “Just remember, Garland sees laziness whenever he’s in a bad mood, and he’s always in a bad mood.”

Ludwig groaned. The last thing he wanted was to be assigned extra duties just because he had charge of the most obnoxious animals in the caravan. He took a moment to glare at each of his beasts.

“You will behave,” he warned them, “or I’ll carve slices off your flanks for my dinner. I’ll suck the eyes from your heads and spit them into the fire. Do you hear me? Do you?”

Lacking’s tongue rolled loosely from its mouth. Drool dribbled onto the ground. Perciad mooed and farted.

Harlo laughed gently. “I promise,” he said between chuckles, “Nedross will be kind to you. You’ve fallen so far pure chance has no choice but to grant some of your wishes. I’ll have a talk with the old fellow.”

“When you talk to him, tell him I need two new feet.”

* * * *

“Ah, gentle sirs and ladies, if you thought the last display was magic beyond your comprehension, then these next wonders shall astound you beyond your wildest dreams,” Califrey announced.

“Ain’t no ladies here thet I kin see,” Ludwig’s neighbor observed. “Far as thet goes, thar ain’t a one of us what fit the gentle sir part neither.”

Ludwig scowled. “You may well think not, Yezman,” he said, being careful to speak with trained haughtiness, “but you are wrong. I am more than enough gentleman for you.”

“Get on with ya,” Yezman scoffed. “Ya been spreading yer claptrap since ya joined up. I don’t believe it now no more’n I did then.”

A flash of light interrupted Ludwig’s reply. Colors of blue, white, and red swirled in a chaotic cloud above the magician's head. Waving his hands gently in small spirals, Califrey used delicate movements of his fingertips to direct the spinning lights.

Ludwig sucked down a fast gulp of cheap ale. The brew tasted sour, but that was expected. He grimaced while the ale churned unhappily in his stomach. As a gentleman, he hated ale by right of breeding. In fact, he hated everything about the life he now lived.

With his scowl growing deeper, he turned his head and spat out the brew, but the foul taste would not leave his mouth. He frowned. A man had to drink to live. Ludwig just wished his drink was halfway decent wine instead of this swill.

Up on the makeshift stage, Califrey jerked his hands apart, and the colors separated with them. Separating into triangles, the colors shifted into tumbling spheres rolling through the night air. Califrey’s hands hesitated, trembled, and the lights blurred into a brown blob, fell to the ground, and disappeared.

Ludwig snickered.

“Be kind,” Harlo admonished.

“He does nothing but manipulate a cheap amulet,” Ludwig replied. “The man is no more a mage than I am.”

“He might be a lousy mage,” Harlo agreed, “but he’s an excellent entertainer, and he’s needed. We’re a gloomy, dour lot, us drovers. There isn’t much cheer in our lives when we’re trailing. For that matter, few of us are happy when we’re not trailing. Every man here has a tale of heartache or misfortune. Problem is you spend so much time wallowing in your own story you fail to see the open books around you.”

He gestured toward one of the laughing audience. “Jorge there, he left the graves of his three children behind him. They died because of a fire he was too lazy to bank properly. Charle killed a man, and he’s afraid if he stops moving the man’s family will catch up to him. Garland, our own wagon master, has his story. He was a brigand before he turned twenty. He did his share of rape and murder, and then he went home to find his own sister had been raped and killed by some of his fellow brigands. It took him five years, but every one of his former friends died by his hand. He started caravanning and worked his way up to where he is now, but he’s still hell on brigands. Won’t forgive a one of them.”

Ludwig thought of his other neighbor. “What about Yezman?” he whispered so the other man would not hear.

“You best leave him alone. Too many of his mates have been found with knives in their backs.”

Yezman must have been bored because he chose this moment to jab Ludwig in his ribs. Turning his head to deliver a well-deserved glare, Ludwig saw the other man giving him an evil grin.

“Think ya can do better than our Califrey? Ya got one of them amulets, don’t ya?

Scowl fading, Ludwig fingered the leather cord hanging about his neck. “I have one.”

Eyes glinting amusement, Yezman rose to his feet.

“The Gent,” Yezman called out to the drovers, “thinks he kin do magic better’n our Califrey. I think we ought ta make him prove it.”

Affronted by them expecting him to perform like a common entertainer, Ludwig stood regally, tilted his nose, and placed his most practiced sneer upon his lips. He met Yezman’s challenging stare and used his most contemptuously superior tone. “I don’t do public performances. It is beneath my station.” He set his hand on his sword hilt.

“Lad,” Harlo sighed, “You’re an idiot.”

* * * *

“Oh Gods, I ask only that you make his bowels run like water. May rocks inhabit his shoes so they pierce his feet with his every step. I ask for the earth to be blessed by the lack of his children, and I beg you to grow his behind so large it gathers nettles from the ground when he walks.”