Dark Gods Rising (5 page)

Again, Calto’s frigid voice tore at her mind, the sound of it shriveling her soul.

“Calto.” Larson sounded weary, exhausted. “Just stop, please. This is not her fault. We’re lucky she brought us the opportunity to trap Malaria. As for our dead and wounded, well— it’s the risk they knew they took, a risk all of us take every time we don our armor and weapons. It’s part of the oath we swore. This is a war, Calto. People die in war.”

Sadness crept into Larson’s voice toward the end. He pulled Simta tighter to his chest, cradling her like a small child. Like a father with an infant, he placed a gentle kiss upon her head. “Forgiveness, Calto, it’s not just for those you think are worthy to receive it.”

A small measure of relief flowed through Simta. Opening her eyes, she looked up at Larson. Dirt and blood streaked his face, but his eyes glowed faintly, their lights almost swirling like falling snow when she looked up into a blue winter sky at daybreak. Peace and serenity seemed to play within the wintery storm. If ever Simta were to believe in the gods, now would be the time. Of all the magic, lights, and sorcery she had witnessed, none came close to the power she sensed within Larson.

“Are you a god?” she whispered.

Larson’s summer smile slowly appeared. He shook his head once and kissed her forehead. The brush of his lips sent warmth through her cold body all the way down to her very soul. Simta relaxed against him, and her tears stopped.

“Not I,” he said, “but rest assured cousin, the gods are out there, and not all of them evil. There are god’s who fight for our souls every day, gods who need us as much as we need them.”

“Why are you bothering with her?” Calto snapped. He had been quietly shuffling about the room but came up behind Larson to stare scathingly at Simta. “She will not change. An arvid does not stop being an arvid because you saddle it and paint it to look like a horse. Simta will not stop being Simta because you tell her there are such things as gods. She hasn’t believed her whole life. I am sure this night will only have a moment’s impact upon her little world.” Calto sneered at her. “Give Simta a couple of months, and she’ll once more be lifting her skirts for anyone who will have her.”

Larson’s features turned hard as he looked up at his brother. “If we were not in a public place and suffering the effects of battle, brother, we would be exchanging more than words right now.”

“Don’t let the location stop you if you’ve a mind to try and best me. All the civilians have fled and our remaining knights are gone.”

For a moment, anger burned brightly in Calto’s expression, and the same strange wintery look Larson held in his eyes blew dangerously within Calto’s. His, however, held a winter storm, merciless, cold, and cruel. Would they really fight one another, two grown men, priests and brothers?

The moment stretched on painfully. The air was charged with a prickly energy, making the hairs on Simta’s body stand on end.

“Go take care of Arlot,” Larson finally said. “I’ll see Simta safely home.”

Just like that, Larson’s anger dissipated. He looked back at Simta, dismissing his older brother as if he were a servant.

A look of shocked rage came over Calto’s face, and then solidified into cold anger. “This is not over, little brother. You need to remember who is the head of our family. I will enjoy showing you.”

With a quick turn, Calto stomped off like an angry child. Watching him, Simta fought back the insane urge to laugh. After all the blood, death, and horror transpired but moments ago, the church’s supreme leader was acting like a four-year-old. This was a side of Calto she had never seen. His petulance helped put things in perspective, reminding her no one was perfect, not even his supreme snobbiness, Lord Calto Morlon.

A soft chuckle brought her attention back to Larson. A barely suppressed smile teased his mouth. “He really can get into a twist when he’s mad. I think I’m the only one who can truly get away with pissing him off.”

A giggle escaped Simta’s mouth before she could stop it. Quickly, she clamped her hand over her lips and turned her face into Larson’s chest so he wouldn’t see her fighting a laughing fit. Had she finally gone crazy, fallen over the edge? If she had, at least this kind of crazy was better than the screaming kind this situation deserved.

Larson’s body shook as he, too, suppressed his mirth. All too quickly though, reality reasserted itself. Sadness and fatigue crept back into them both.

“Is Calto right? Am I going to Hell, Larson?” Sniffling, Simta wiped at her eyes. “I don’t want to go there, but I don’t know how to stop being me. I feel like I’m fighting the world, and I’m all alone.”

A puzzled expression crossed Larson’s face, and then he shook his head. “Anothosia says all sins can be forgiven. If you truly repent in your heart and soul, there is the promise of salvation for you. No one is ever alone if they believe in the power of faith, love, and forgiveness. Simta, you will never be alone if you believe not only in the power of the gods, but also yourself.” He gave her a quick smile. “Besides, you really haven’t done all that many bad things. At least I don’t think you have. Why don’t you marry your man and settle down?”

Larson must have noticed the look of distaste upon Simta’s face, because a sharp laugh escaped him. “Oh, come on. Marriage isn’t all so terrible, and if you marry more for love and a little less for money, you may actually enjoy being Charmaine’s wife.”

Simta shook her head. “No, Larson, I can’t. I just can’t. It’s not that my life’s ambition has been to disgrace my family, but I feel there’s something missing, something I’m supposed to be, know, or have. I can’t make the feeling go away. I might not know what I want. I may not know my destiny. I do know marrying that simpering, money grubbing idiot is not it.”

Despair washed over Simta anew as she realized Charmaine was the only option left to her. After tonight, she could no longer steal, drink, or whore around. Larson had given her a second chance. She would take it, but by the Seven Gods and Two, she didn’t want to marry Charmaine even to save her soul. There had to be some way out of it.

“Hmmm,” Larson said, nodding thoughtfully. “I might be able to help you delay matters. Trelsar’s church needs young women to do charity work. It’s a one year commitment, and only single men and women can do it. Trelsar’s priests don’t want married people because the work demands a lot of time and dedication. Most of the married are too busy with their spouses and children. The priests don’t want to take people away from tending their families. It would buy you at least twelve months and give you time to find a better suitor. I have several good friends within the mission. Getting you accepted wouldn’t be a problem despite your engagement.” Larson laughed softly. “Not to mention most of Trelsar’s priesthood detest Charmaine. Nothing would please them more than putting a bee in his butter and slow his rise to nobility.”

Oh gods, no. Simta hated religion, but the look in Larson’s eyes and the memory of the love and peace she felt within his arms came back to her. If ever there was a time she could believe in the gods, it was now. Would it hurt to give them a chance? Could things truly change for her if she prayed to Trelsar for help or asked Anothosia for guidance?

Maybe, but maybe not. Either way, twelve months might buy her enough time to find a solution to her Charmaine problem. Hell, what did she have to lose?

Looking up at Larson, Simta nodded. “I’ll do it. If I have faith in nothing else, I’ll at least have faith in myself to find a better life.”

A broad smile lit up Larson’s face, and by the gods, Simta actually thought she could feel the summer sun caressing her skin, warming her body.

“Good girl, Simta, good girl. I know you can do this. Now up we go. You still have time to make the party over at your house and start your new life. I hear your father had a small fountain erected in the main hall with wine instead of water pouring from it, but before you go, I suggest you clean the blood from your hair and change your clothes.”

They stood. Simta swayed before righting herself. The smell of blood and other body fluids made her stomach clench and her head throb. The thought of drowning herself in a barrel of wine and whiskey was tempting. Okay, so maybe she would start her new life in two days, after the festival.

Lifting a hunk of flesh off her dress, Larson flicked it to the floor.

Chapter 3
—
Similian Rising

The waning light from the pale slivers in the sky of Terra’s two moons, Callendale and Cafia, cast just enough illumination upon the wreckage lying in the middle of the street to reveal how dangerous and out of control things had become. An hour earlier all hell had broken loose,
literally.
Now, the businesses and walkways in and around the Hellhole Tavern remained eerily quiet and empty, except for the few people who had not yet finished dying. There was nothing Larson could do for those except speed them on their way, but to be honest, why should he? It was their own fault they were lying in pieces instead of spending the rest of this night in peace.

A sharp crack sounded, making Larson jump. A rusted hinge had popped off the tavern’s battered wooden doorframe. Out of three hinges holding the door in place, only one remained. Larson, Lord Morlon, thought this was a bit of a miracle. From the way this night’s debacle had been described to him, this entire area had been one huge concussion of sound and blazing light. Bits and pieces of tables, chairs, and body parts had exploded outward from the rickety doorway into the narrow, dirty street in a wide arc. The cesspool’s denizen’s had run screaming off into the night leaving six people, all of them deserving their fate in Larson’s mind, ripped and torn apart in a most hideous manner. A harsh judgment, he knew, but those six sleazy, depraved individuals were the cause of the mess before him. Because of them, death had arrived.

How little anyone cared about this had already proved itself. Carrid Brewer, the tavern’s owner, stepped outside the tavern shortly after Larson arrived with his knights. He took a look around and shook his head. Frowning, he began pulling at the remains of his furniture, looking for unbroken pieces.

“Can’t let good workmanship like these ‘ere chairs just rot in the street, now can I?” Carrid grunted at Larson. “Stuff cost’s money, it does, an’ getting Robar Joiner to do the work is harder every week.”

He kicked a decapitated head out of his way.

Now, only ten minutes later, the bar owner’s statement still floated around in Larson’s head as Carrid continued his search for unbroken furniture. It was a conundrum of irrationality. What in the name of the Seven was wrong with these people when death and hellborn had so little impact upon them? If this had occurred anywhere else but the Downs of Yylse, any normal citizen would have immediately fled upon seeing hellborn inside their favorite tavern, but obviously, from what Larson had seen tonight, the Hellhole didn’t have
normal
citizens as patrons. Instead, what the tavern had were harlots too new or too old to sell their goods anywhere else and thieves looking to fence stolen goods either unusual in nature or needing to be moved out of Yylse quickly. Then there were the drunkards who were too poor or just plain too stupid to go somewhere else to feed their addiction, con men and woman looking for an easy unsuspecting mark, and a tourist, perhaps ignorant of the ways of the darker paths in Yylse, who had come to the city specifically to prove or disprove rumors that the Downs were awash in the trappings of Hell. As a knight of Anothosia, Larson knew he was supposed to feel sympathy for the lost and the unwise. He was supposed try to bring them back into the light of the virtuous gods. Maybe so, but over the last few years all the blood, the horror, all the good men and woman and children he had seen devastated by Athos’s and Zorce’s lies, those cursed gods of Hell, well, it had piled up on him spiritually, especially tonight. He felt tired at heart and sick of soul for the shit-assed stupid people like Mathew Changer who thrived in these conditions, and god forbid, their own King Vere who seemed on the verge of inviting more of this into his kingdom. The lies, the deceits, the deaths, they had become a gray blur of putridness to Larson, a mass of undisguised, unrepentant filth. All of them were fools, all of them damned. Maybe Calto was right. Maybe these people deserved the end that was coming to them, especially those now lying in their own blood in the middle of this street. After all, they had instigated the riot. They had challenged Hell.

“Looking a bit off there,” Carrid observed to Larson. “Maybe you need a spot of drink to settle your nerves.”

“No,” Larson answered, wondering where his mind had gone. He had a job to do so he could get home to his secret family. He needed to investigate further and see to exterminating the guilty hellborn.

“Hold,” he told Carrid as the man turned back to his tavern doors, three chairs stacked in his arms.

Stopping, Carrid turned back to Larson, cocking one eyebrow. “Hold?”

“I have questions. Tell me what happened— in your words— not repeating what others have told you.”

“Sorry, got work ta do,” Carrid said, gesturing at the furniture with his chin.

“I do have a sword.”

Carrid set the chairs down and scratched his head. “Point taken. Okay, here’s how it was. Three demons and one devil, they come out of the hole in my cellar. Now they wasn’t big hellborn— little guys all, or maybe medium big, none of ‘em taller than five or six feet. Definitely not bigger than seven. I wasn’t paying too much attention to their size when they was sitting down on account of a fellow named Harlo looked to be challenging Robar Joiner to a fight. Once the action started, I was too busy ducking to bring out a measure. Anyway, they come up just before twelve bells. Shortly after that I heard the young devil bragging about the vast supply of diamonds what pave Hell’s corridors. One brag led to another, and soon enough three or four fools wanted proof so the devil, he pulls out a bunch of diamonds so big a dozen of them couldn’t have fit in my hand. Seemed to pull ‘em out of nothing, he did. The fellow didn’t even have pockets on account of he wasn’t wearing pants.”

“I suppose those diamonds captured a lot of attention,” Larson noted wryly.

“That they did,” Carrid agreed. “Well, everybody knows devils enjoy my whiskey, so the fools bought the hellborn several rounds of my cheapest rotgut, sort of wanting to get the hellborn drunk so they could rob them at dice, or so I assume.” He gave Larson a knowing smirk. “That sort of stuff doesn’t normally happen in my place but I’ve heard of somebody doing it once or twice a few years back.”

“Of course, it doesn’t,” Larson said, disbelieving. “Your tavern is just as famous for its upstanding customers as it is for your foul whiskey. I’m told your cheap stuff tastes like sour piss.”

Carrid nodded. “Sure does. My secret ingredient, matter of fact. Arvid piss gives it a unique kick. Anyway, by the time the devil finished his third tumbler and lost his fourth diamond to a bad roll of dice he figured something wasn’t right with both the whiskey and the dice. Instead of calling his opponents cheaters, getting angry, and bashing them over the head like most of my honest patrons would do unless they used swords and knives and such, the devil simply started pulling off limbs and throwing bodies out the door. Pretty soon the two demons joined in, and that’s when things got interesting.” He smiled. “Good fight and it taught the smart ones to never cheat a devil.”

“Any idiot should know that!” Larson snapped.

Carrid shrugged. “Most of my customers are idiots else they wouldn’t be in my tavern. Now if you don’t mind, I got work to do.” He looked around. “Might as well do a little more cleaning up before hauling stuff in.”

Idiots. Death, dismemberment, and panic in the streets because of idiots and hellborn.

Except in Larson’s opinion it wasn’t just the idiots or the minions of the Two who had caused this mess. It was the Downs as a whole because it owned an infectious and unwholesome attitude. Apathy.

“Doesn’t this bother you,” he demanded of Carrid as the tavern owner scrapped bits of flesh off a chair. “Hellkind crawl from a hole in your tavern. They wander the streets, terrify the citizens, and bring death. A few years ago it was a trickle, but the hole is growing wider, and the flow is increasing.”

“Not my business,” Carrid said. “Making money’s my business, so the hole’s been good to me. Besides, King Vere says it’s a’right, so it can’t be too bad. ”

“It’s a slap in Anothosia’s and every other virtuous god’s face!” Larson almost shouted. “It’s allowing Zorce’s get to leave the Hell She and They created in the deeper caverns to imprison all of hellkind.”

“It’s said the Seven created Hell several thousand years ago,” Carrid said reasonably. “The vent in my cellar grew large enough for smaller things to crawl out more than two hundred years back. If the bitch goddess didn’t like the little thingy’s getting out maybe She should have sealed it shut back then.”

“It was intended as an airshaft,” Larson explained, “and only the lesser hellkind could crawl out of it, but these last years it’s become bigger and more dangerous. All of Yernden is under threat.”

“Maybe,” Carrid half-heatedly agreed, “but I’m not. Me an’ Hell get along just fine. Apparently the king feels the same.”

A bitter smile crossed Larson’s face as he remembered the outrage the Order had felt when King Vere announced that none were to touch the Tavern, explaining how Zorce and Athos were
misunderstood
and had every right to live amongst the good peoples of the world. After all, it wasn’t hellkinds fault they were nano-cursed, whatever that meant.

Bah! What a load of horse shit. Vere’s decision two years earlier to allow the tavern to remain open and leave the hellhole unchecked had sent more than a few of the order into Calto’s office demanding action, including Larson. Calto almost choked when he heard Larson declare the king an enemy to Yernden before suggesting the king’s removal.

To say his suggestion had not gone over well was a bit of an understatement, but Larson had never been known for diplomacy. Still, he owned enough sense to know when things needed to be taken in hand and dealt with. The Hellhole Tavern and Carrid Brewer were two of those things. In his opinion, the king was a third.

Carrid lifted two heavy chairs in his powerful arms and headed for the tavern. “You done asking me fool questions,” he asked as he walked away, “or you willin’ to accept that your time of harps and happiness is about done, an’ another beginning?” Pausing, Carrid looked around once more. “I think everyone’s finished dying. Could you have your knights haul the bodies away? They’re bad for business.” Chuckling, he pushed past the tavern’s broken doors.

Larson ignored him. A hot, sticky wind blew against his face, sending prickles across his skin. This had the seeming of an ill wind, a wind of something evil blowing his way, but whether he suffered a case of nerves or something bad was about to happen, Larson didn’t know. A slow gnawing despair ate at his innards as Carrid disappeared inside the tavern. The despair had been creeping up on him for weeks now, but it suddenly hit him full-blown as the stench of shit, bile, and blood wafted over him, trying to force its way up his nose and into his lungs. He wanted to add his stomach acids to the pile of filth spread out over the mud and brick packed street. For a moment, the world swam. Larson steadied himself against the grime covered wall of an abandoned building.

Straightening, he took a step deeper into the shadows, hoping the devil and his companions were returning to the scene of their depravity, but nothing stirred. Except for Carrid, none dared come near the horror in the street when Hell roamed free, and there wasn’t a damned thing Larson could do about it.

A deep anger pushed upward from his chest, pushed and shoved at the weakness he felt, at the hopelessness trying to choke him. Making a tight fist, Larson expelled the vile feelings from his body. This was only a battle lost, not the war. He swore silently at himself for owning so many irrational feelings. Tonight Athos and Zorce had won, their creatures had gotten loose, but there would be other nights, nights when Larson’s knights destroyed the beasts before they could harm Anothosia’s people. His knights would not give in, would not give up, and would not forget their vows to serve and protect all those who worshipped and believed in the seven virtuous gods. There could be no backing down—
ever
. The moment Larson allowed that to happen the war would truly be lost. It was in the heads and the hearts of good people where the battles for truth and light were really won.

“I don’t think they will be coming back this way,” a voice whispered in his ear.

Startled, Larson jumped. With a swift pull of his sword, he took a step backward and swung at the shadow stepping in front him. Leaping away, it hissed, bringing its own sword up in a defensive posture.

“Good gods and two, Larson, put that damn thing away!”

The wild beating of Larson’s heart nearly drowned out the similian’s voice. Lowering his sword, he frowned at his fellow knight. “One of these days, Sulya, you’re going to end up with my sword sticking out your back.”
And I’ll enjoy doing it
, Larson thought acidly as the woman’s smile turned mocking.

Hate would have been a mild word for what Larson felt for his
forced
partnership with this
thing
, a price he had agreed to for Calto’s return promise of trying to make nice with Simta. Any other man would have delighted at having such, a beautiful woman, as their partner, but there was something unnatural
about her beauty, something going far beyond her just being a similian. Yes, similian’s were strange by anyone’s lights. They were naturally seductive and sexual, much like a succubus but without the stench of Hell. Before meeting Sulya, Larson had never before heard of a similian who would bed a human. In most similian tribes it was forbidden because something in their skin secretions drove most men or women crazy with desire. Not the type of mad-in-love kind of crazy, but the insanely-devoted-mentally-unstable kind of crazy where a human’s desire for self-preservation disappeared.

None of this seemed to bother Sulya Ibarra. For Sulya, human sex was a game. Before reforming and joining the knights, she had loved to see how far she could push a man before he broke.

Hips swaying, displaying the natural grace of a cat, Sulya sidled her lean body closer. In the pale moonlight, her skin looked corpse gray. Her unusually large eyes were black empty pits.

Larson shuddered. In the daylight, Sulya’s skin was a dusky blue when she was calm. When angry, it turned a horrid fuchsia. By day her long, black, silken tresses shone almost blue, and she owned the most sensual lips he had ever seen on a woman. By night, her appearance changed to dark mystery and fell menace.