The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (96 page)

They could only be the children of those who had founded Sanctuary…the first nephalem.

It was only where the light of the dagger shone that he could see them, yet there was just enough to hint that their numbers were greater yet. Achilios understood why they were present. These were those who had perished long ago fighting for the world upon which they had been born, the ones who had first sacrificed themselves for the survival of all their kind and later for the humans descended from them.

The nephalem stared down at Mendeln, and then the pale illumination drew them into the dagger.

Mendeln let out a gasp and sat up. His eyes widened, and he looked to both sides as if expecting to find something. Finally, his gaze fixed on the hunter.

“Achilios! Malic! Is he—”

“Gone to the Burning Hells…I hope.”

The ground rocked again. Mendeln struggled to his feet, the dagger now firmly in his grip. “Uldyssian!”

Achilios nodded, although his thoughts were not entirely on Mendeln’s older sibling. “Can you…walk?”

“I can run.”

“All…the better.” He did not wait for Mendeln, certain that the other would follow right behind him. The hunter had done his part; he had saved his friend. Now he hoped to do the same for the woman he loved, even if it only meant that they would stand together when the world ended.

The landscape was covered in gore, much of it from demons but also too much from the edyrem. Serenthia discovered that she was particularly frustrated with the angels, for they left no sign of their passing and made it look as if only their enemies perished. There should have been
some
remains to mark their dead, something to enable the edyrem to feel that they were standing well against
both
invaders, not just one.

It did not even help that the demons were far more interested in their winged foes than they were in her people, that they only attacked the edyrem because their bloodlust was so strong. She knew that the Triune had sought to make Mankind slave soldiers of the Burning Hells, and thus the bestial warriors should be doing their best to avoid the edyrem, but that simple fact was beyond most of the fiends. She and the rest would be slaughtered just for being in the way.

Of Uldyssian there was no hint. He was invisible to her gifts, and that made her worry that he was dead. Mendeln was also again among the missing, and she could not ask Rathma if he knew anything, for he was also gone. All Serenthia could keep doing was fighting, fighting until some angel or demon chopped her into tiny pieces.

The angels began to press. It was not so much that they suddenly saw the edyrem as a danger but that a fresh horde of demons had arisen behind the humans and the Heavenly Hosts intended to meet them head-on…after they cut through the refuse between the two sides. Serenthia dueled with a female angel wielding a mace. The angel differed little from her male counterparts, save that her general outline was more feminine and what appeared to be hair hung longer. Not certain what was real and what was illusion, Serenthia fought her just as she had all the rest and did not mourn when her lance bore through the angel’s breastplate.

Fueled by her powers, the fearsome lance literally shook apart her foe. The armored female finally exploded in a flash of astounding colors and a sharp, keening noise. The angels seemed as much sound and light as substance, and it was only because—like the demons—the edyrem utilized their magic through their weapons that they had any chance against the winged furies.

The host closed, filling her view with their towering, sanctimonious forms. Serenthia found herself battling two, and although it amazed her that she briefly kept both at bay, her aching arms told her that soon she would fall.

Indeed, as she tried to deflect a sword strike, her right arm faltered. She saw the fiery blade drive toward her—

And, with a scream, Achilios dove in front of her, some massive, shimmering sword likely plucked up from a dead demon gripped in both his hands. He not only deflected the angel’s attack but thrust immediately after. With the strange, high-pitched sound that ever marked their doom, the angel exploded in what to Serenthia had previously seemed a breathtaking and colorful display of energy but now just sickened her.

“Get back!” Achilios roared to her. “Get away…from here, Serenthia!”

But now that she suddenly had him with her again, Serenthia had no desire to depart. Instead, she stepped beside him and took on the next foe. “I won’t leave you again! I won’t!”

“Mendeln! Take her…take her…away!”

Daring to glance back, Serenthia saw Uldyssian’s brother far from them. He was trying to join Rathma in forging some spell. From Achilios’s call, the two had clearly arrived together but had become separated without the hunter realizing it.

That suited her fine. She was with the man she loved. It was the way Serenthia wanted her life to end.

Achilios was not so pleased, however. “Damn…it, Serenthia! You must…must listen…to me! I’m…begging you! Run!”

“I won’t leave you!” she insisted. “I won’t—”

Fending off his opponent, Achilios turned to argue with her. At the same time, another angel swooped down unnoticed.

“Nooo!” Visions of the archer dying again urging her on, Serenthia lunged forward. Her spear caught the winged warrior dead-on, the earsplitting sound of the angel’s demise almost deafening her.

But in vanquishing Achilios’s attacker, Serenthia paid no mind to her own safety. A female angel to her right suddenly veered toward her.

The blazing sword cut across her midsection, opening Serenthia up.

The world fell out of focus. She heard Achilios scream out her name. Serenthia wanted to tell him not to worry about her, to protect himself instead, but the words would not come.

His face appeared before hers, the only thing distinct in her murky view. Smiling, Serenthia put a hand to his cheek…and died.

The level of fury that had enabled Uldyssian to confront Inarius once more overtook him, yet Tyrael’s spell still held. He did not understand why the angel had not simply destroyed him; what was the point of making the son of Diomedes watch his realm be ravaged?

And why had Tyrael left it to the human to bring Inarius down? It could not have been merely to humble the renegade. Uldyssian doubted that such would concern this angel. The way he had spoken of justice precluded that.

Thoughts began to swirl through Uldyssian’s head, thoughts that were fueled by his raw emotions as he watched the battle commence—with the edyrem caught between.

The angels and their monstrous adversaries paid no heed to anything between them. The fiends trampled over several humans who did not move quickly enough, while the winged warriors simply cut a swath before them that not only severed heads and limbs of demons but slaughtered innocents in the process. The edyrem did their best against both sides, funneling all their power into their swords, pitchforks, and the like, and then into their opponents, but they were sorely outnumbered.

This is justice?
Uldyssian strained to be free. At the very least, he knew that he should be with the others, dying with them.

A demon with three reptilian heads and thick, ursine arms ripped apart an angel who flew too near. The angel did not scatter in bloody pieces but rather exploded in a burst of light that left no trace. That explosion was accompanied by an odd, keening sound that caused shivers through Uldyssian. The demon’s victory was short-lived, however, as another angel wielding a lance thrust it through the center head. The creature let out a pair of pained roars from the heads, then turned to ash.

The entire region was dotted by astounding flashes of pure magical energies as both sides utilized their powers in myriad fashions. Uldyssian expected the edyrem to perish quickly, but a strange thing happened. They did not. In fact, those who could gathered together in what was roughly the center of the struggle and did what they could to shield themselves and the rest from the cataclysm taking place.

And there were others with them, others who were not exactly edyrem but who were in some ways much, much more.

Rathma had returned…and not alone.

With him had come several other tall figures either handsome, beautiful, or even grotesque in nature. He recognized only one: Bul-Kathos. The giant warrior stood at the forefront of those protecting the less powerful, the earthen guardian using a huge club to batter away at a horned demon who dared cross his path. The might of the fiend was nothing compared to the Ancient. Bul-Kathos crushed in its chest with one blow, then battered the thick skull to jelly with another.

Of the rest of Rathma’s counterparts, Uldyssian could make out only a sleek warrior woman who fought with more abandon than even Serenthia had ever exhibited. Her hair flying about as if alive, she met the blade of an angel with a black axe. The adversaries exchanged two blows, then the Ancient lunged and cut across the winged figure’s breastplate. The armor—if it was such in truth—did nothing to slow her strike.

Like those before him, the angel vanished in a burst of fantastic light and an unsettling—and slightly different—sound.

He could not sense his friends or his brother, and that added to Uldyssian’s fears. His body trembled with pent-up emotions and energies.

ACCEPT WHAT MUST BE,
Tyrael told him, the angel not sounding sanctimonious like Inarius but rather simply stating a fact.
IT IS INEVITABLE. SURRENDER TO IT….

But his words had the opposite effect on the son of Diomedes. It was almost as if his captor
needed
to persuade him to surrender.

Uldyssian considered the ways of the Prophet and his constant twisting of facts or his choice evasion of facts. The truth was not entirely the truth where these beings were concerned. They were, in their own way, as manipulative as any demon.

And that, in the end, was the last factor. Uldyssian wondered just how much control Tyrael had over his captivity and how much of it was the human’s doubts.

Suddenly, all Uldyssian desired was to be free.

His body shimmered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tyrael react—but, unlike Inarius, all this angel did was step back and watch. The winged being cocked his head and seemed ready to speak, although as he had no mouth, that might have simply been the human’s imagination.

Then Tyrael no longer mattered. Uldyssian demanded that the angel’s spell be no more…and it vanished. He stood straight, somehow feeling as if he now loomed above Tyrael.

He expected the angel to attack, but Tyrael only stood there watching, almost as if expecting the human’s startling escape.

Feeling the winged warrior of no concern to him anymore, Uldyssian turned upon the savage scene and was revolted beyond all possible belief. He saw the dead piling up in great numbers and the futility of the angels’ and demons’ eternal struggle. He saw that his world would become merely one more battle among thousands, its reason forgotten almost as soon as it ended. No one would mourn Sanctuary. No one…

Uldyssian could not let it end thus. He could not. With every fiber of his being, the son of Diomedes took into himself all the deaths that had happened thus far because of the endless conflict—including all those his crusade had caused—and let them override any hesitation that might make him hold back.

Raising his fists toward the winged host and the fiendish horde, watching as his people continued to be massacred, Uldyssian ul-Diomed quietly spoke.

“Stop it.”

And everyone…everything…froze.

There was not a sound, not even the slightest hint of wind. Uldyssian could not even hear his own breathing, nor did he care about that fact. He only knew that he had stopped the bloodshed. He had stopped the devastation.

But that was just the beginning. Angels hung as still as death in the sky. Demons hovered in mid-leap. The edyrem stood steadfast.

Nothing moved…save him, naturally.

His head pounded with the knowledge that he had the power to do what even the Burning Hells or the High Heavens could not. He was more than merely Sanctuary’s savior; he was the
god
that Inarius had believed himself.

Uldyssian eyed the combatants. Raising his hands again, this time with the palms open, he willed the angels and demons to be pushed back.

They were, but the effort took more than he expected. Stubborn and certain that the power was within him, Uldyssian fought to gain what he desired. The ground trembled, and even the sky shook as if it were about to crack in two, but the angels and demons were at last separated from his edyrem.

“No more,” he thundered to the still figures. “No more.”

Uldyssian glanced at the demons. He made a slicing motion with his hand and sent the hordes tumbling back. Demons ten times his height bounced helplessly along the ruined land, bounced until they and all their brethren reached the portals through which they had come.

The son of Diomedes willed them back through those portals, forcing them to return to the Burning Hells. The demons had no choice. Although released from the spell that had frozen them, they now scrambled uselessly for some handhold. Within seconds, the only signs of the horde’s presence were the tattered bits of the slaughtered.

And then Uldyssian turned his attention to the angels. However, as he did, he thought he felt a faint voice call out to him from beyond. There was no creature, though, to whom he cared to listen. This was his domain; the interests of any other were nothing to him.

So far from where he stood, the Heavenly Host appeared like nothing more than gnats. Uldyssian could scarcely believe that he had ever been frightened of them. He inhaled, then blew the winged warriors back through the rip in the sky. A childlike glee filled the onetime farmer as he watched the pristine battle lines jumble together and the angels pass through the tear in tangled heaps.

Uldyssian.

There came the voice again, and this time he recognized it. The dragon, Trag’Oul. Yet, although the being was no enemy of his, the son of Diomedes saw no reason to acknowledge the creature’s call. Trag’Oul had failed to protect Sanctuary; he had no more say than anyone else about what Uldyssian would do with his world.

The ground shook once more. Annoyed, Uldyssian demanded that it stop. It did…and then shook anew.

He threw his power into insisting that the tremor cease. This time, all was as it should be.

At that point, Uldyssian turned to face the two remaining angels, but Tyrael was gone. Only Inarius remained.

Ignoring the other angel’s abrupt departure, Uldyssian confronted the trapped Prophet. “Your kind called us abominations,” the human said. “What do you say now?”

Inarius, though, remained silent—and that left the son of Diomedes more unsettled. Although the renegade angel wore his true form and thus had no discernible expression, at that moment, Uldyssian could have sworn that Inarius was quietly
laughing
at the mortal.

The certainty of this drove Uldyssian to greater fury. The sphere crackled, blue lightning striking inside. Clearly in agony, Inarius fell to his knees…but the sense that he laughed continued.

Uldyssian would have punished him again for his impudence, but a new and more powerful tremor rattled the land for as far as he could sense, reaching even to distant Kehjan and far beyond. He glanced at Inarius but could detect no manner by which the Prophet could have caused it.

Deciding that origin did not matter, Uldyssian focused his power on the new quake and willed it to be gone.

Instead, though, it more than doubled in strength. As that happened, the sky turned a dark crimson, the constantly shifting clouds looking like stirred blood.

He glanced back at Inarius. “What’ve you done? Tell me!”

The angel finally spoke.
I HAVE DONE NOTHING.

A huge fissure opened up just to the south. It ran a ragged but steady course toward the capital. Another ripped open to Uldyssian’s right.

A third erupted near the edyrem.

Reacting instinctively, Uldyssian used his gifts to force the last fissure to seal. The effort nearly caused him to pass out, and worse, while he sought to recover, the tremor turned more and more violent. He could feel his followers’ growing fear, and although he tried to quiet the land around them, it instead began heaving up and down and ripping apart.

Pulse pounding, Uldyssian threw his will into bringing order, but the opposite again happened. The ground beneath began to collapse. He leapt aside just in time.

As the son of Diomedes watched, what was left of the Cathedral of Light vanished into the depths. Inarius’s sphere was swallowed along with it, the captive angel passively staring at Uldyssian as he dropped into the carnage.

Uldyssian stood stunned, unsure of what to do anymore. Sanctuary was coming apart around him—and there was nothing he could do about it. He could not understand
why,
either. With his astounding power, he had routed both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells so easily, yet now some dread force was doing what he had feared would come of their struggle. If not Inarius, though, what was the cause? There was no great magical force that Uldyssian could sense that was capable of all this new calamity.

Battling his own rising fear at the same time as he did the swelling cataclysm, Uldyssian cast a sweeping spell over
all
that existed on Sanctuary. He would have order. He would have the world restored.

Instead, he watched in horror as the grasslands to the south rose high. A shifting mound formed, swelled into a huge, earthen bubble, and then exploded with volcanic fury. In the sky above, the clouds began to spin in an ever-tightening maelstrom that set into motion the first hints of what looked to be a colossal whirlwind. Bolts of blue lightning darted down over the city and the jungle.

And only then did Uldyssian understand that
he
was the reason for all this. Not Inarius. Not the hosts of the High Heavens or the bestial horde of the Burning Hells.

He, Uldyssian ul-Diomed, was responsible for Sanctuary’s imminent annihilation.

It was so clear to him now. Uldyssian could feel his heart pounding, his blood racing. It was as if he were two men in one. There was that part of him that still tried to think coherently, that tried to find focus and solutions.

But there was the more primal Uldyssian, the one who had watched loved ones slaughtered and entire lands razed. The one who had been seduced by a demoness, then stripped of his trust in everything because of her. The one who had watched betrayal after betrayal take place when all he had ever wanted was peace for all.

How often in the recent past had he lashed out unthinkingly? How often had his
power,
not Uldyssian himself, controlled events? Driven by his basest emotions, it had finally grown beyond his conscious control. It now lashed out at Sanctuary, at the world that would not become as he so badly wanted it. It was an unthinking, unfocused eruption of magic, and as such, it could only cause more chaos, more destruction.

And each time he had sought to create order, he had also unwittingly fed into that part of him that was fear, anxiety, anger…every dark emotion. He had been fighting himself—and losing more and more with each attempt.

Uldyssian stood there, unable to react. He wanted to save the world, but already his attempt to do so had unleashed such forces throughout it that he feared to try once more would finally destroy it utterly. Yet if the son of Diomedes did nothing, the same tragic results would take place, regardless.

He felt the edyrem awaiting their terrible end. Kehjan, too, radiated a terrible hopelessness as the city at last took notice of the disaster swiftly approaching it. Uldyssian felt the terror of the jungle dwellers, of the Ascenians, as his own kind were called, and of people in lands far, far away. He sensed both men and beasts preparing for what they were certain was their doom.

If only I’d known sooner!
he desperately thought.
If only I’d listened to Mendeln and others, I could have fought it down, buried it deep inside! But now
—

Uldyssian hesitated. Eyes wide, he considered one wild thought. This was
his
power that wrought such devastation. His power. Perhaps there was a way that he
could
control it. He would…

Spurred by the imminency of the situation, Uldyssian tried to draw back into him what he had unleashed. Yet he quickly discovered that once loose, those forces had amplified a thousandfold and more. They were as much a part of the natural forces of Sanctuary now as they were
his
. Even if he drew into himself all that he had sent forth, that would no longer be sufficient to save anything.

But Uldyssian could not turn back. There existed nothing for him but reversing what he had caused. He would take in whatever he had to. He had no choice. He would.

There had been a point when the son of Diomedes had wondered if, ultimately, there was no end to the potential of his edyrem gifts. Now he prayed that, if there was an end, it would be just enough to accomplish this epic feat.

Bracing himself and taking a deep breath, Uldyssian began willing the wild forces to return.

He cried out as the first wave coursed into him, for it burned hotter than fire. Yet Uldyssian imagined his brother, imagined Serenthia and Achilios and all those who had faithfully followed him. With their faces in his head, he demanded that his will be done. Nothing else mattered, either consciously or subconsciously.

His body already blazed a brilliant gold and grew yet more blinding as Uldyssian absorbed into himself all that fueled Sanctuary’s end. The area surrounding him radiated powerful amounts of magical energy, all of it heading toward the human. Caught up in the flow of such staggering forces, huge rocks, fragments of wood, and much, much more spun in the air surrounding him.

Uldyssian paid them no mind. Nothing existed for him but to complete what he had started. He saw only the continual rush of magic into not only his body but his very soul. Each moment, the former farmer was certain that he could take no more, and yet he continued to stand, suffering a thousand punishments a thousand times over, each worse than any ever inflicted on a single being.

Faintly, he heard voices, but certain that they were the screams of the dying, Uldyssian fought to ignore them. He could not be distracted. Everything he had needed to be concentrated purely on fulfilling his last hope.

It kept coming. Uldyssian screamed but still managed to hold on. He prayed that when at last he finally faltered, at least he would have somehow saved a few people.

It continued to flow into him like a raging river of molten earth. He went down to his knees but still held on. Yet the flow was also relentless. It kept coming and coming and coming…

Then—

It ceased.

Certain that something had gone awry, Uldyssian continued to try to draw more into him, but nothing else came.

He all but sobbed at this miracle—not for himself, though, but because it meant hope for the others. However, it was far from over. Uldyssian felt everything he had taken in straining to be rereleased. It was all he could do to keep it trapped, and how long that would last, the son of Diomedes could not say.

There came a point of clarity then, an acknowledgment of what it would take to end the threat. Uldyssian found that he had no difficulty with what had to be, for it was not just the only choice but the right choice.

He stood. Shining brighter than the sun and looking far more than human, the son of Diomedes gazed around at all that was his world. Uldyssian admired the rivers, forests, mountains, and seas. He surveyed the many peoples of Sanctuary and marveled at the diversity. More astonishing, like him, they all had the same potential, the same possible greatness.

But the trouble, in Uldyssian’s case, in the case of all his followers, was that it had come too soon. Humanity—and he, in particular—had been thrust too fast into their destiny. That had been Lilith’s doing, the demoness too impatient to let the centuries lead men in the same direction. Uldyssian had not been given the opportunity to mature properly into his gifts.

It was too soon for a being such as Uldyssian had nearly become. Too soon…

You understand….

Uldyssian knew who spoke.
Trag’Oul?

I have been trying to touch your mind…but it has been overwhelming,
the dragon admitted. The celestial sounded weak but pleased.
I knew you would succeed.

No…not until it
—
I
—
no longer threaten Sanctuary!