The God King hotf-1 Read online

  Of its own accord, his hand dropped to the sword at his hip. At the same instant, Varis raised his arms wide, and lashing chords of blue-white fire sprang from his hands. Kian’s mouth fell open in shock, as the whipping flames ripped through the forest. Where those unnatural fires touched, be it upon Asra a’Shah, horses, mud or bole, flashes of smoke and puffs of ash quickly replaced what had been. For a long moment, as crackling thunder pealed around the shaking forest, no one moved.

  The prince laughed then, a maniacal, sickly wheezing that seemed to extinguish the flames erupting from his palms. He held a hand before his face, split by a gruesome smile, then waved that unblemished hand like a man shooing a fly. The ground erupted at his feet in a spray of mud, and a twining root as thick as a man’s wrist rose up. This, more than the impossible blasts of fire Varis had produced, staggered Kian’s mind.

  Varis motioned again and the root swiveled toward Kian and the others, like a serpent preparing to strike. With a sodden ripping sound, the root began tugging free of the ground. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the root climbed upward, fattening as it soared a dozen paces into the air. Knobby growths sprouted all along its length. One by one, those growths burst open to release quick-growing creepers. In moments, each new shoot had grown as large as the initial root had been. Worse still, what had been a bit of vegetation now had slitted, glowing emerald eyes spread over its length. Those inhuman orbs locked not on Hazad or Azuri, but Kian.

  Overawed, Kian stood unmoving, his mind struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. A sudden emotion flitted through his soul, something familiar, though made distant with the passage of time. Yet he knew it, could taste it. Fear, stark and paralyzing terror, wormed through his bowels. Such had not assailed him since his youth on the streets of Marso. He had fought many battles since then, survived countless hardships, grown comfortable with the fright of bodily harm and even death, yet nothing could have prepared him for … for whatever this was.

  The root continued to change and grow, ceasing to look like a root at all, but rather a great, thousand-eyed adder. The muddy brown skin roughened to a scaly gray-black hide, and the dozens of lesser roots waved about like ropey arms.

  This cannot be real, Kian thought through a glaze of terror, his eyes flickering toward Varis. The youth was now stooped over, still watching Kian and his companions, but rigid with agony. His skin had split in scores of places, showing knuckles of protruding bone. Dark fluid dribbled from the fresh wounds.

  Suddenly, with a dull roar barely heard over the steady grinding noises coming from the swamp’s shivering floor, the temple fell in on itself and sank into a bubbling substance as black as tar. Ethereal shapes rose and fell amid the bubbling morass, inhuman figures spawned of nightmares. Even as Kian watched, many of those inhuman figures broke free of that thick substance and arced skyward, while others hugged the ground and swirled away.

  With a voiceless snarl, Varis lurched a few paces away from the collapsed temple and the widening pool of boiling sludge. Glaring at Kian, he made a pushing motion, and the towering root-serpent arched backward. A mouth had split open at its highest end, lined with sharp wedges of what looked more like stone than wood. When that maw gaped wide, a roar came forth to water the eyes and tremble the heart. Then, like a monstrous centipede, the root-serpent fell forward and slammed against the ground, spraying mud and sending leaves flying. With another of those debilitating cries, it surged toward Kian, its great girth plowing earth, its scores of arms propelling it along at a terrifying pace.

  To either side of the advancing monstrosity, previously immobile Asra a’Shah scattered, their faces ugly with fear and disbelief, saffron robes flapping in their haste. One of the dark-skinned men did not move quickly enough. A handful of lashing roots caught him, twisted and tugged his limbs in different directions. The man howled and thrashed. With a grisly ripping sound, without slowing its advance toward Kian, the hell-spawned root-serpent tore the mercenary apart.

  At Hazad’s warning cry the spell of terror was broken, and the trio scattered.

  The root-serpent came on, tearing loose from the ground until a thrashing tail pulled from the earth. A volley of Asra a’Shah arrows struck the beast’s flank, but did not slow or deviate the creature from its path. From behind it, commanded by Varis, a fan of silver-streaked crimson fire, washed over the hiding Geldainian archers. With the flames, thunder raged. In its wake, smoke and whirls of ash rose from a wide, tear-drop shaped parcel of swamp where the mercenaries had been. Not even bones remained.

  Kian registered all this with half a mind. He understood that the root-serpent was coming for him, and that Varis, whatever he had become inside the temple, had sent it after him. The why of it, the sheer impossibility of it, did not matter. All that did was escape.

  Like a man trying to flee a charging boar, he jumped a rotten log, then began veering side to side at a dead run down a gentle slope. Unnatural fire splashed around him, searing trees, the heat singeing his clothing. Miraculously, the flames were so hot and so brief as to leave his flesh unscathed. Varis howled in frustration.

  As the swamp thickened away from the temple, Kian slashed his sword at clutching, thorny creeper and hanging brambles. The hunting beast on his heels closed the distance, tearing through the undergrowth without slowing.

  In that moment, Kian knew he could not escape. In the next, he tripped and sprawled flat, knocking the wind from his lungs with a grunt. Even as he tried to snatch a breath, he scrambled to his feet and turned, sword raised. Stunned, engulfed by a level of fear he had never known, a blessed cold fury stole over him.

  I have never lost a battle.

  Against men, a frantic voice warned.

  The root-serpent was something else entirely. A part of him thought that maybe this was all some terrible vision, and that he was in truth still back at the temple, laying on the ground, dying for want of breath-

  Cracking like a scourge, a whip of hot-fleshed vegetation struck his cheek, welting the skin, disabusing him of the hope that he was suffering dark fancies.

  With nowhere to flee and no choice, Kian moved into an offensive stance. As the root reared up before him, he instantly pressed the attack. His broadsword flashed out and cleaved one thrashing arm after another. Despite the ease with which his blade sliced the creature’s abominable flesh, in the space of three breaths he knew he could never win this fight. This was no battle against one man, or even several. This was a war against a bloodthirsty abomination surely spawned from the Thousand Hells. Every wound he inflicted only gave rise to more enemies. Where one lashing root fell in a quivering coil, two more took its place, bursting from the main stalk.

  Gradually, Kian was forced back on his heels. He stepped, blocked, and slashed. Over and over again. It was all he could do to keep the roots from grasping him. Splintered tips snapped and popped, leaving welts and cuts over his exposed skin. All was a blur of motion, attack and counterattack. Panic-sweat stung his eyes, and his thick arms began to grow weak with the effort of swinging his sword. Disbelieving horror began to fill his veins. I am about to die.

  Of a sudden, the root-serpent rammed forward, its mouth gaping wide with a roar, and smashed into Kian. He landed on his back and tumbled down into a shallow gulley before splashing into a bog. He came up sputtering and searching for his lost sword. The root slithered toward him, lurching now, as if struggling. Just before it fell on him, Kian lashed out with his fists; it was like striking a tree, and just as useless. Tentacle-like roots fell on him, swarmed over his skin, pulsing with an unnatural heat. The reek of mold and rotted vegetation filled his nostrils. They wrapped him about, tightening … before those appendages could tear him to pieces, they abruptly fell away.

  Kian, gasping, cracked his eyelids and stared. The swamp had abruptly ceased shaking, and the thick root-serpent stretched over the lip of the gulley and down to within a foot of him. It lay like a dying animal, quivering, its hide sagging with fast-moving corruption. Mold quickly covered its
length, and putrid sap oozed from the many wounds he had given it. By heartbeats, it crumpled further under the pace of its own rot. Whatever dark powers had given it life, had fled.

  Kian did not waste a moment to ponder his inexplicable good fortune. He jumped to his feet, cupped his hands to his mouth, and cried words he had never before uttered. “Withdraw! For your lives, flee!”

  Near and far, the order was frantically repeated, but he took no measure of relief that he was not alone in his alarm. After a hasty search, he dragged his sword out of the murky pool, then obeyed his own command to retreat. It went against every instinct he knew concerning battle, but it made no sense to waste lives against an enemy of which he knew nothing about destroying-and the next root-serpent might not die.

  Of Varis, Kian now saw him as an enemy, rather than a nuisance who had offered him a king’s wealth of gold for some grand expedition. Kian would protect a stranger for payment, and his friends for nothing, but either would face his wrath should they betray his trust. Varis had earned that fury, in the most explicit terms, when he had attacked Kian and his company.

  Kian sloshed through the pool and scrambled up the slope, keeping as low to the ground as he could, just inches from crawling on his belly. Searching through the screen of bramble, he found Varis on his knees, weariness plain on his wasted features. As well, there was a loathing for all life written plainly in his expression. Like a physical manifestation of what bred behind his white eyes, ebon streamers curled around him, wolves of smoke and spirit. For the barest moment, Kian sensed that the greater danger lay in those ethereal shapes-then his mind shifted again toward escape.

  Running Asra a’Shah paid the prince and his dark companions no mind. Like Kian, the gold paid to defend Varis mattered nothing now that he had tried to murder them, and succeeded in slaughtering a number of their brothers. Kian knew the only reason Varis had not yet lost his head to a sword stroke was because of the awesome, fearful power he had displayed-such a power only spoken of in stories of gods….

  Of Hazad and Azuri, Kian saw no sign. If they were alive, they knew where to go.

  With a last look at the youth, fighting off another wave of loathing so deep that it set his heart to pounding, Kian began to move. Keeping low, he stole from bush to bole, until he was out of sight of Varis and those vaporous figures swirling around him.

  Once he was well away, bruised and battered, Kian began trotting east through a swamp that looked vastly different than it had just an hour earlier, toward the previous night’s camp. Unless stated otherwise on the line of march, the last camp always served as the point to regroup the company in case of trouble. And, without question, this was the most dire and confusing trouble Kian had ever encountered. What he had seen was beyond the realities of mortal flesh, something from a nightmare … it was something from the Thousand Hells. No priest or magus had ever warned that Geh’shinnom’atar could be breached, let alone unleashed upon the world by the hands of man but, seemingly, just such an event had occurred. Kian had a sickening feeling in his gut that all he had ever known was now changed, for the worse.

  Chapter 6

  The damp gloom of night was falling by the time Varis came around. He lay in the mud, exhausted. He could not have said how long he rested there before Peropis’s whispers filled his mind, urging him to rise. With a great struggle, he gained his feet, shaking like a poisoned cur. The powers of creation, he realized with shock, had nearly killed him.

  In all directions, shattered trees lay atop one another. He vaguely remembered their falling, but that and all else was a jumble in his mind. Trees still standing were naked of leaves, limbs broken and twisted, as if torn by a gale. Evening shadows cast a pall over great slabs of broken stone that had thrust from the floor of the swamp amid geysers of stinking black water. Despite the extent of the swamp’s destruction, he had never thought to seek safety. He had been consumed by an unbidden rage against his enemies, a fury so powerful that what he had done to them was now lost on him.

  At the moment, the how of it did not matter. What did was that he knew the source of his rage: the Izutarian, Kian Valara, who had somehow escaped his wrath. Even now, loathing flared anew in his heart, and he wanted to pursue the man. If he could but get his strength back, Varis would have gladly tortured the man to death, simply for the pleasure of it. He did not consider why he should hate the man so, only knew that he did.

  At a loud gurgling noise, he turned about like an old man, hissing at the unfamiliar pains wracking his wasted frame. Where the temple had stood, now a spinning soup of steaming black mud and floating leaves churned around and around in a broad pool. The edges crumbled into the whirlpool and were instantly pulled down. More of the edge crumbled into the swirling morass, forcing Varis to ease farther away. He had no doubt the currents of this particular bog would take its victim to the bowels of the world, perhaps even to the Thousand Hells. For himself, Varis never intended to make that journey again.

  Considering Geh’shinnom’atar, he looked about for the dark wisps that had followed him back from Peropis’s lair, but found no evidence that the souls of the Fallen were near. All were gone now … freed into the world of men. If he had not been so drained, he might have wondered what effect the presence of demons in the realm of the living would have.

  “Peropis?” Varis called in a dry croak, unsure she could hear him. Always, it had been she who came to him, not the other way around.

  “You have done well,” she said in answer, her voice drifting to him as if from an impossible distance. “However, you have much to learn, and you must learn quickly.”

  Just the thought of expending more energy made Varis want to groan in protest. Instead, he whimpered, “I am tired. So weary….”

  The last syllable dwindled to a sigh, as Varis unconsciously listed to the side. One foot, seeking balance, dropped into a deep furrow, and he fell. He sprawled there wheezing, almost too tired to breathe, let alone able to muster the strength to climb again out of the shallow grave.

  Not a grave, he thought dazedly. This hollow marked the place from which his creation had risen to destroy Kian.

  “He must be destroyed,” Peropis whispered then, as if reading his thoughts. There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice that bothered Varis. The Eater of the Damned should have no worry over a mortal.

  “Destroy Kian?” he wheezed. “The man should die-I carry the desire in my heart-but he is nothing, an insect … and fled in cowardice besides.” He almost believed the bold statement, but he saw in his mind a vision of Kian fighting and prevailing against all that Varis had thrown against him. How could that be?

  “The venom of some insects cause anguish,” Peropis advised. “Others can kill a man. Should that man, Kian, tread the world much longer, he will prove a formidable enemy.”

  Varis tried to sit up, but only managed to flop a hand to the mud-slick rim of the furrow. He wanted her to bless him with the incorruptible flesh and indomitable spirit she had promised, but the tone of her words alarmed him.

  “How could he be a danger to me?” he gasped. “He is but a man and I am … more than that, now.” He tried not to consider the incongruity between those words and the ruin of his flesh.

  “There is little time to deal with our enemy,” Peropis said, sounding more troubled than ever. While he could not be sure, Varis felt sure that she had met an unexpected obstacle.

  “What is of the utmost importance,” she added, “is that you heed my instruction. My time with you is short-I am weakening by the moment speaking to you, in this realm of living flesh. My spirit needs rest … and sustenance.”

  Varis found it difficult to concentrate. The world seemed to be sliding sideways to his strange eyesight.

  “Relax your mind,” Peropis commanded.

  He expected her to speak further, but instead of words, a cascade of images flashed behind his closed eyelids, racing faster than thought.

  She is in my mind, he thought, dazedly. He went rigid in alarm
, but after a moment, he ceased trying to focus or resist. Rather, he laid back and absorbed what he was seeing. None of the images made sense. He relaxed further, for by any human measure, nothing he had experienced this day made sense.

  I have become a god, he thought randomly, albeit a god trapped in the weak flesh of a man. It was wholly unfair.

  The images began to blur into a lightless, incoherent blizzard inside his skull. Varis drifted in the void of his own mind, like a speck of dust on the swells of a warm sea. After long moments he understood, on some level, that the knowledge filling him was some measure of the lost wisdom of gods.

  Then, all at once, a pulsing and amorphous force surrounded him. After a moment of consideration, he understood the sensations to be the presence of life. Clarity began to wash away confusion. Plants, he knew, had their own life, though even a mighty tree’s energy was miniscule compared to that of a worm’s. That power of life radiated outward from living things, like the fine strands of a spider’s spinning. The energy had always been there, but only now that he had taken the legacy of the Three into himself, breached the Well of Creation, and tasted the horrors of the Geh’shinnom’atar, could he take hold of that energy, use it as his own.

  Tentatively, almost instinctively, he reached out with his mind to take that power, but the living filaments shrank away. He scowled in concentration, forcing what he wanted, stealing it into himself. Gradually, the power he craved and deserved drifted over him, lighting gently upon him like dew-covered spider webs. Some new part of his mind saw those threads glowing faintly, each so fine as to barely be seen. He began dragging them into himself. Distantly, he knew that if he were looking at himself, he would appear to be a man made of light. Within that cocoon, his hurts rapidly mended. Vitality swelled his muscles, thickened his skin, swept aside debilitating weariness. Varis gasped in ecstasy as the rejuvenating force of all creation filled his veins, surged through his heart.