Servant of a Dark God (64 page)

“The monster!” Talen yelled.

Sugar glanced at the creature. It held the arm she’d stabbed high in the air. With its other hand, it appeared to have caught something deep in the flesh of its shoulder.

She turned to Talen. He was standing with his back up against the rock wall, tooth in his good hand. His injured arm hung useless at his side. Two of the shining creatures undulated before him. One coiled and struck, but Talen jabbed and slashed with the tooth, sending it back.

“Ready yourself,” he said. “I’m going to toss it.”

She glanced at the monster. It was tugging the tooth out. “Quickly!” she said.

Talen feinted left, leaned right, and tossed the tooth to her. She caught it in her gauntleted hand, immediately flipped it to get a better grip, then turned.

The monster it stood with all the concentration of a surgeon, its fingers deep in its arm.

Perhaps it can contend with one tooth, she thought. Let it try a second.

Sugar hurled the second tooth like a knife. It spiraled, end over end, its sharp point flashing in the unearthly light of the chamber, and buried itself deep in the monster’s belly.

The tooth gleamed once, then wriggled and disappeared into the monster’s gut.

The creature looked down, gasped horribly, and stumbled back.

MASTER OF THE HARVEST

H

unger felt the second worm burrow in. His panic rose. His arm was breaking apart like dried-out dirt. At one time he’d wanted dissolution. But not now. He saw his daughter, wife, and remaining son before him, caught in a stomach. The Mother would not spare them if he failed.

He was their only chance.

The second worm burrowed deeper, burning, burning, burning as it went.

He resisted the urge to clutch at it. If he released the one in his arm, he knew he’d never get it back again. They were as slippery as a fish, these worms. And strong.

The Mother ordered him to attack the shining Koramite. But he dared not move, dared not let go.

How do I stop the worms?
he cried to her.

There was no answer.

His mind raced. Why could he not pry the worm open? It was intricate and oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It was like no beast he’d encountered before.

The worm in his arm curled and another piece of him tattered. A clump of soil fell to the cave floor.

No! He had to stop it. He could not bear to think of his little girl being eaten.

The worm in his belly quickly slithered up toward one of his stomachs.

Creators, he prayed in his mind, if you have any mercy at all—

And then he realized where he’d seen the weave before: it was him. It was woven with some of the same patterns as he was.

Yes, he listened to the song of the worm in his arm, its trilling and thrum. He knew this weave. And with that knowledge came the knowledge of how to break it.

And break it he did. With a great tug he yanked the first worm out of his arm.

He punched a hole into his gut with the tips of his free fingers. The second worm was not hard to find. It had paused by one of his stomachs.

Hunger pushed his fingers in deeper and grabbed the second worm. It fought him, wriggling with violence, but he knew its secrets now and withdrew it from his body. In moments he held both teeth in front of him.

The weaves were beautiful, curling in the light. Beautiful and deadly. He grasped them tightly, found their weak points, and attacked. It was only a moment and they were unraveling like a spool of thread. Their curling slowed, their song wavered. And then they stopped altogether.

The Mother commanded him to her.

I’m coming
, he said. But he was talking to his wife and daughter, deep in the Mother’s cave, still caught in his stomach.
I’m coming!

Argoth watched the woman catch Hogan’s arm midstrike, preventing his blow.

Hogan pushed her back against the wall, throttling her. The lines of his body blurred at the edges, blurred even her form. She was choking. Her ribbon familiars seemed to shudder with a sympathetic pain.

For a brief moment her visage flickered. One moment she was a woman whose face shone with such beauty it almost took Argoth’s breath. The next, the woman was gone, and in her place was something horrible with a round sucker mouth full of teeth that looked like it belonged on a leech or lamprey. Her undulating creatures seemed to swim with less vigor for a moment. And then the goddess was back.

She held a pointed weapon in her hand. With a quick jab she thrust it at Hogan’s gut. There was a flash, but it didn’t look as if it had penetrated the mantle.

Argoth began to believe they might win this fight.

But then the monster flickered in the corner of his eye and Argoth turned. It held up the two hag’s teeth in its rough hands.

Argoth watched in dismay as the teeth stilled their movements. Then the monster crushed the teeth and threw the lifeless twists of metal to the dust.

“Hogan!” Argoth yelled in warning.

But it did no good. Hogan was too focused on the woman.

The monster charged. With three enormous strides it covered the distance between it and Hogan. Then it dropped its shoulder and crashed into Hogan, its large bulk hurling him away from the woman.

Argoth wanted desperately to join in the battle. But the crown yet drew from him. He would be surprised if he had enough energy to walk.

Hogan turned on the monster. With deadly violence, he struck it in the head with his stone.

The monster reeled to one side.

Argoth marveled at the power of Hogan’s blow. He’d seen the dreadmen attack this thing. He’d seen the Skir Master. None had come close to this.

Hogan followed with another blow, the very air seeming to bend before him.

The monster fell back to the floor.

There was more in those blows than the simple force of stone. The mantle was at work. He could see the stone glistening with the power of it.

The ribbons of light swirled about the room. A number still clung to Hogan, and Argoth could see they’d eaten partway through the mantle.

Hogan raised the stone once more and suddenly jerked back.

The woman had penetrated the mantle with her weapon. It stuck deep in Hogan’s back.

He twisted around and caught her with an elbow.

She flew backward, but Hogan dropped to one knee. He tried to rise, but the monster scuttled over and fell upon him. It ripped the stone away from his grasp.

Hogan struggled. He delivered two more mighty blows to the monster, but they were not what they had once been. Argoth could feel a weakening in the binding between him and the crown. The monster caught the second blow in its rough hand, and wrapped Hogan in its long arms. Then it took him down to the floor in a full body hold. Hogan thrashed, but he did not break free.

The woman walked up to Hogan, a number of her shining school of light still writhing, hissing, and whispering about her. She reached down and clutched at the golden square of the crown.

Hogan twisted in the monster’s grip.

Argoth felt the woman through the bond of the crown. It felt like something gnawing on his bones. She was breaking the crown.

How was this possible? This was a victor’s crown. It was supposed to be impenetrable. And then he realized the crown was, but the bond was another matter entirely.

The bond suddenly changed. The harmony that sang through him departed, replaced by something painfully off-key. Then the bond snapped altogether.

The Creek Widow cried out.

Argoth felt a great gust of his essence whirl up and away. The break had rent him. In panic, he tried to close up the leak.

Hogan grunted and struggled once more against the monster’s grip.

Argoth stemmed the break. A portion of his strength returned, but it felt as if a sword had just sliced through him.

The woman ripped the crown from Hogan’s head and tossed it aside. It landed only a pace or two from Talen.

The monster squeezed Hogan tighter, then shook him. And as it did, sparks of light fell from Hogan like pieces of ash to the floor.

“Unruly beast,” the woman said to Hogan. Her shimmering school drew around her, but not so tightly as before, for she was visible in their midst. She felt the side of her face where Hogan struck her with the chain.

She turned to the monster. “Hunger. Take him there.” She motioned to a place next to the rough figures on the floor.

The monster changed its hold on Hogan to clasp him firmly in one arm and got to its feet. Hogan struggled, but to no avail. The monster dragged him to the earthen bodies lying in their horrible rows on the other side of the chamber.

“That one will do,” said the woman.

The monster stopped and lay Hogan next to a rock and clay figure with a vicious muzzle. Splotches of dead grass sprouted from the side of the figure’s head and chest.

The woman moved close to the monster. She hovered over it. “This,” she said, “will be your first child. He’ll be more aware than you were, have more human memories from the start, be more intelligent, more powerful. You were a mishmash of many things; I couldn’t recover you whole. Not with the binding your original master had put upon you. But he is unfettered and pure.”

What was she talking about? Fear rose in Argoth’s mind.

“Separate the man,” she said. “Put his soul and Fire into the body of earth.”

At first Argoth could not believe his ears. Then the shock rolled over him. She was transferring Hogan’s essence—Fire and soul—to one of the still creatures on the floor.

“No!” he cried. “Stop!”

The woman turned to them. “You all will serve me,” she said, “with a lesser binding or with one of rock and stone. In your current bodies or that of another. I am now your master.”

Hogan struggled in the monster’s grasp. “Ke!” he called out. “River!”

Ke was already charging. But how could he? The breaking of the bond had nearly crippled Argoth. Argoth marveled at the strength in the boy.

Ke held Hogan’s chain in his hand. In a blinding motion, he drew back and struck at the monster with terrible ferocity. The chain wrapped around the monster’s neck.

Ke grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked it backward. Such a move would have ripped the head off a normal man. The monster jerked back, but it did not loosen its grip on Hogan. Instead, it reached up with one hand and tore the chain out of Ke’s grasp. Then it struck him with it full in the face. Ke fell to the floor.

“No!” shouted Talen. He held a knife aloft and charged.

The monster turned slightly when Talen got close and struck out in an almost lazy fashion. The blow made a sickening sound and sent Talen flying backward to land sharply on his side.

Talen gasped, rolled over, and tried to catch his breath.

The monster turned back to Hogan.

“Please,” said River, her collar still circling her neck. “We can come to an agreement.” But the woman paid her no mind.

“Nothing!” Hogan shouted. “Give her nothing!”

The monster covered half of Hogan’s face and head with one hand. It put its other hand on the face of the earthen figure.

The woman turned to the rest of them and spoke. Her voice carried like soothing music into his mind. “You cannot hide the one that was conceived and developed by my power.”

She held something up. It was the wisterwife charm Argoth’s sister had found on the chair in her bedroom. “Where is the one I planted? Where is the one that wore my might?”

Her words confused him. The one
she
planted?

Legs suddenly came shuffling in through the entrance to the chamber, feeling the wall as he went. “Sugar?” he called.

“You are such wild creatures,” said the woman. “Such difficult things to manage.” She motioned at Legs. “You fooled my servant with your ploy, but you cannot fool me.”

The ribbons of light obscured her face for a moment. “A new order is arising here,” said the woman. “One that hasn’t been seen in ages. The master that leads this harvest will rule empires. You will bring him to me.”

Argoth looked at Talen, who was holding his side in pain. Argoth’s mind raced. His sister, Hogan’s wife, had conceived wearing that weave. She had worn it through the whole pregnancy as the boy ripened in her belly. She had placed it upon Talen from the day of his birth.

They had all suspected he would be a prodigy: a restorer of lost knowledge, a champion. A gift from the Creators to help them fight their enemies.

He looked at the weave. Dear gods, what had they done? His mind snagged on something she had said: “this harvest,” she had said.

A great foreboding rose up in him. Snippets of ancient tales and lore flashed in his mind. Tales of devouring. He’d thought they were figurative. But he now realized they were literal.

“I have been calling,” the woman said. “I know he’s alive. I can feel him. He should have heard me. He should have come. But instead you hide him.”

“Lies!” shouted the Creek Widow.

“We shall see,” said the woman.

The monster turned back to Hogan and the earthen figure on the floor. Then the creature covered Hogan’s face with its massive hand.

Hogan twisted, trying to wriggle away, but he could not. He cried out and grasped the monster’s forearm.

“Be careful,” said the woman.

Hogan arched his back; he struck violently at the monster’s arm. The schools of light moved furiously, shining, shimmering, swirling around the woman, around the monster, around Hogan and the figure on the floor. Hogan jerked once, twice.

Argoth was paralyzed.

How could he fight this being? How could anyone when they didn’t even know what she was? The only thing he did know was that she was full of malice and that she wanted Talen. For what purpose, he could not guess. But she wanted him. And so she must not have him.

Argoth could not save Hogan, but he could rescue Talen from her.

He turned to River, who had almost worked the collar off her neck. “There is no way out,” he said. Even if they could find their path in the dark, they could not run fast enough to escape the monster. They could not fight it or its master with lore. “I used to think we could fight the thralls, but we cannot. Better to die free than live a slave to some horrible purpose in which we deliver our kind up on platters.”