19

In the dark of night Cyric stood listening to the cries of his slaves. No one else might hear them, but he could, and it filled him with anguish. Were they still so blind to the dangers their souls faced? All they seemed to know was fear and anger. So few acknowledged him as the god he was, instead they were content to curse his name and beg for either freedom or death.

“For you,” he told them, and though he was a full mile from his camp he knew they would still hear. “I do this all for you.”

Their number was growing, and sadly at a far faster rate than he’d hoped. Where were the faithful? When his wolf-men charged into these backwater villages, why did so many refuse to bend the knee? He didn’t desire enslavement. He didn’t wish their souls trapped in corpses, forced to march behind his army for however many centuries. What he asked for was faithfulness, for obedience. What sane man would deny him that? It wasn’t as if he strode into the villages and demanded they sacrifice their firstborn or throw themselves upon a fire. Obedience. Faithfulness. How lost Dezrel had grown for these things to be so rare, to be so frightening.

Beside him flowed the Gihon, and he stared across the waters to the wild lands of the Wedge beyond. They’d been following the river south, but as they neared greater civilization it’d become harder to keep his forces together. Soon Redclaw would have to rule on his own, in lands far from Cyric. Who then would create the undead faithful? Perhaps if Redclaw kept them imprisoned, waiting for his arrival. Or maybe he was deluding himself in thinking he might save so many. The world was a wretched place. It seemed no matter what he did, souls would be lost. Feeling guilt for those he could not save was not proper, not when they had turned their backs on him.

But at least they were just lost children, ignorant of the wisdom of Karak. The same could not be said for Valessa.

Cyric knelt beside the river, and as he stared at his moonlit reflection he watched his face change into a vision of the gray sister. She’d been one of Karak’s most loyal. It’d been her place to hunt down and kill those who betrayed the faith. In death she’d failed, and Karak in his mercy had given her a new body and a new chance to wash away her failure. For her to break faith, even when her very life was owed to Karak, was a betrayal of the highest order. He’d thought it only a matter of time before he found her, for day by day more of the North fell under his grasp. Yet his scouts had recently returned, telling of their defeat by her hands, as well as by a man who wielded a shining blade of light.

“Do you feel guilt, Valessa?” Cyric asked the watery reflection. “Do you fear the great retribution you will feel at my hands for all eternity? How you will burn, Valessa. Your very existence is an insult, one that must be remedied.”

Yes, his decision was made. As long as she remained, she was a thorn digging into his mind. Finally he would extract it.

Day by day he felt his power growing, the strength of his imprisoned essence flowing into the newly living. With closed eyes, Cyric lifted his arms to the heavens and felt his spirit soar free of mortal flesh. Below him the lands passed in a blur, and then he arrived in the center of the rebel’s camp. They encircled Tower Silver, hundreds huddled around fires and beneath dilapidated tents. Nearby was an armed man holding a torch, but Cyric walked past him without fear. The man’s eyes were closed to the spirit world. He would see nothing, sense only the briefest hint of his passing. Toward the southern edge Cyric walked, for it was there he could feel Valessa’s presence. In his mind’s eye she pulsed like a great beacon, like a dying star.

Most of the camp was asleep, but he did not expect Valessa to be. Her gifted form had surpassed such a mortal need. At her tent he gathered his strength. Miles away his body lay unconscious beside the river, but his strength was the essence of his soul. It burned with fire, with faith, for why should it not? He was Karak made flesh, the god of Dezrel come to save them all. Into the tent he stepped, and he discovered Valessa’s capabilities for blasphemy had stretched even further than he gave her credit for. In the cot beside her slept Darius, the traitor paladin.

For one brief moment he dared feel fear. He remembered his shame in Willshire, when he’d fled from that glowing blade. But his strength had been like that of a child compared to the power he wielded now. A needed lesson, he told himself. A reminder that his power could indeed be limited if he closed his mind and did not fully embrace his godhood.

“Hello Valessa,” Cyric said, focusing his attention on her. He didn’t need to introduce himself, for her whole body shimmered with fear at his entrance.

“How are you here?” she asked.

At this, he laughed.

“You stand before your god, yet ask such simple questions. Is that your deficiency? Is that why you so easily gave into fear and cowardice?”

There was no way for her to deny it. Her terror held her immobile. Cyric walked closer, and a red glow shone from every surface of his body.

“You’re not my god,” she said, but it was such a weak denial. “You’re a madman.”

“Mad, perhaps,” he said. “I am mad when I see you walking free in this world. I am mad when I see others spitting in the face of the one who gave them life. But you’re wrong about one thing, Valessa. I am not a man.”

He outstretched his hand.

“You no longer deserve your gift,” he said. “And so I take it back.”

She started to scream, but he silenced it in a heartbeat. Power flowed from his hand, and it tore at her form. He knew she could feel pain, and what she did feel must have been intense, but it was nothing compared to what she’d feel as the eons rolled along and she burned in the purifying fires of the Abyss. The woman crumpled to her knees, and she flashed with shadow and light. Her mouth remained open in a silent, wordless scream. Tears ran down her face, and when they touched the ground they were red like blood. She looked so pitiful, so weak, but Cyric hardened his heart against mercy. This is what he’d come to do. Valessa had been given enough chances to make amends.

“Enough,” said Darius, and that single word sent a shiver through the soul-being of Cyric. Chastising himself for his fear, he turned and smiled at the traitor paladin.

“He awakes,” he said. “Not that it will change anything.”

Darius grabbed his sword from beside the bed as Cyric pointed a hand toward him. From his palm shot a great beam of shadow. The beam struck the light of Darius’s sword, and then they battled as Cyric tried to pour more of his power into his attack. Being separated from his body by such a great distance weakened him, but against a faithless wretch like Darius, he knew he still possessed enough. Willshire was an aberration, the mere stumbling of a child learning to walk. Curling his fingers, he poured his righteous fury into the attack. The beam halted, and instead a shadowy sword shimmered into being, striking at Darius from behind. He spun to block, but not in time. The blade passed through his armor and into his flesh. It did not break skin, and no blood splashed. Instead it set his muscles aflame, filling him with spasms that left him gasping on the floor, arms and neck straining into awkward positions. The sword fell from his grasp, the light on its blade fading away.

“Where was I?” he asked, turning back to Valessa. She still knelt, struggling to maintain form. Her skin was translucent, her features hazy and without color. She looked like an unpainted doll. The gift of Karak still flowed through her, and with a wave he beckoned it back. No longer would she profane her god. No longer would her existence eat away at his subconscious.

Shadows bled out of her, from her eyes, her nose, even the tips of her fingers. Her mouth hung open, and she thrashed upon the ground. Then she melted. It was the only way to describe the death happening before him. Her body turned liquid and ran into itself, bones like jelly, flesh peeling away to nothing.

“Stop it!” Darius cried before his jaw locked tight.

Cyric smiled. This was it, the final moments…‌but then as the last of the darkness was revoked, she still remained. His smile faltered. The skin and hair were gone, Valessa stripped down to her very essence. For a moment he did not see, but then the light shone. He recoiled in horror. What had happened to her? She had been one of the unfinished, a being blessed with a shadowed, shifting life, yet now the light of Ashhur burned within her. Her body reformed, the skin shimmering back over the light. When Valessa’s eyes reopened, a fury burned in them far greater than ever before.

“Thank you,” she said, but there was only rage in her voice.

Cyric cast a bolt of shadow at her, but she ducked it, instead rushing for Darius’s sword. Grabbing the hilt, she shoved it into Darius’s hands. The white light shone, and Cyric noticed it did nothing to her now. If anything, it made the life in her skin grow more vibrant. But the curse coursing through Darius’s flesh broke, and together they stood to face him.

“What blasphemy is this?” Cyric asked. “Have you so fully abandoned your god that you would turn to Ashhur in your folly?”

“What god is that?” Valessa asked. “You?”

In answer, Cyric pushed his hands together and released wave after wave of pain and torment. There was no blocking it, no avoiding it, and he saw it immediately reflected upon Darius’s face. That he stood at all was a miracle. Valessa, however, only stepped closer with a look of maddening calm.

“You’re not a god,” she said. “You’re not even a man. You’re a mad dog, Cyric. And we will put you down.”

Her hand became a shining blade of light. He crossed his arms, but it punched right through, burning a hole in his robes and leaving a gaping wound in his chest that bled shadow. With a cry he flew back, back across the hills and over the Gihon to where his body lay on the grass, gasping. With a moment of disorientation he plunged into it. The pain hit him then, and he screamed out into the night.

“You bitch,” he moaned as he curled onto his knees and tore at the grass. “You would deny me even now?”

Deep in his chest he felt a fire burning. With each passing moment it lessened, but still the ache was unbearable, and greater was the insult it represented. Not a god, she’d told him. Not a man. Who was she to declare such things? She was Ashhur’s last resistance, he realized. She and the traitor were the best the failed god could do to protect himself, and both had been stolen from the ranks of Karak. Of course they were stronger. Of course they were dangerous. Twisted faith always was.

“I will show you,” Cyric said as he rose to his feet. He stared south, and in his mind’s eye the miles were but inches. He beheld the tower, and the many tents alongside it.

“I will show you all. I will not be mocked, nor denied. I am a god, you fools, a god!”

His voice echoed across the camp so that all there heard his proclamation, bearing witness to his fury in the final moments before their deaths. With all his power he clutched the ground. Let the very earth tremble! Let it swallow the cowards, the traitors, the disloyal! And in his hands it did. The sound of a great crack echoed over the hills. Tents shook on their poles, and fires scattered. Greatest of all was Tower Silver, whose stones cracked as its foundation was rocked side to side. All around men and women screamed as it fell. Those within it were crushed instantly, as were many of the tents. Cyric felt exultation at the sight, but he was not done.

“All of you,” he cried. “All of you will know only darkness!”

More and more the earth churned. He tried to split it wide, to open a great chasm to swallow them all. A line spread like a spider web through the remains of the tower, but it would not split. Cyric felt himself at a loss for breath, and his vision of the camp blurred the more he pressed on. At last he pulled back, and with a gasp fell to his knees. The earth grew still.

Close, he knew. So close. With every prayer, every broken village, he felt his power being freed from the Abyss and pouring into his soul. While he wasn’t there yet, they’d seen it now. They’d watched their tower crumble, felt the earth rage beneath their feet. Such a shame the two he most desired to die had managed to escape the rubble and quake.

“Time,” he breathed as he pushed himself to a stand. “All I need is time. I am the infinite, and you are the dust. You will not escape, Valessa, nor will your bastard lover. Pray for salvation. Pray for mercy. I am coming, and when I exact my glory upon your souls, you will wish for death.”

Exhausted and bathed with sweat, Cyric returned to his camp, where the wolf-men waited. He called for Redclaw, and the giant beast came.

“The survivors are by the river many miles south,” he told him. “Hunt them down, and stop for neither day nor night.”

“And the tenth?” Redclaw asked, his head tilted to one side as he asked his question.

“No,” Cyric said. “There will be no tenth, no professions of faith, no salvation. Kill them all, Redclaw, and let your pack feast upon the remains. They are wretched. Let their souls burn.”

Redclaw smiled wide, and he reared back and let out a howl. One after another the rest of the wolf-men joined him, and then in a river of fire and fur they ran for the hunt.