Hubris - 32. Fort Erikson Part Two

The city of light hovered over the massive building like a beacon leading him straight to the destination of what he desired most.

Hiding in the shadows, Barghast sniffed the air. He could not smell his twin o'rre but he could feel that he was close. The torchcoats were holding him somewhere inside the building. A hot cord, invisible to the naked eye but that tethered them together nonetheless, pulled at him urgently. While the lycan could not sense time in the same way Crowe could, his instincts told him it had been too long already.

Who knew what was being done to him right now - the indignities he was being forced to endure. He could have torn a chunk out of himself. It was his fault his beloved had been snatched up by the torchcoats. If I had not gone after that man he would still be here with me. He would still be safe. I promised him I would keep him safe and I failed.

“Save your self pity for later,” the seer advised him. She crouched next to him, but even now the barbarian knew she was not there. Not in the physical sense. The torchcoats wouldn't be able to see her and he didn't think Crowe could either, for she only came to him when the practitioner was asleep or away. “There are over a hundred guards in there and they are all armed with rifles, knives, and tools that are meant to subdue you. They’ve drugged Crowe. He will not be able to help you. You will be on your own.”

“I don't care!” Barghast snarled under his breath. “I will find him and we will both leave this place. And if we die, then we will die together with him in my arms!” After this the seer did not offer anymore advice.

The ground was flat in all directions, the shadows thick; it made it easy to move around without being undetected. Guards moved in regular intervals along the outer walls of the fort. They had no idea death had come for them, was lurking on the ground beneath them, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He watched the shift change three times. There was an open space of fifteen of his own heartbeats before two guards passed one another. Sometimes they stopped to exchange words, then moved on.

Barghast stopped long enough to make sure his rifle was loaded. He wouldn't be able to use it until he found Crowe…better if they could escape without him having to fire a single shot. Better to kill with his claws and teeth so he could taste the hot blood of those who had taken what was his.

The exterior of the fort was made of wood, making it easy for the Okanavian to sink his claws into its walls. Carefully he pulled himself up, stopping when he sensed movement above his head. His heart pounded with excitement. This night, this mission, reminded him of his old life when the other men in his clan and he would raid enemy villages for resources: guns, tobacco, whatever they could get their paws on that they could trade in the markets for capital. The thrill during the quiet moments before the battle started; a thrill that never ended until the final body dropped. He felt that same thrill. He felt hunger. But stronger still was that growing sense of urgency. If he didn't reach Crowe he would be too late - after that there would be no point in living. A thought he didn't like to think about one bit.

Now directly beneath the guards, he waited until they passed each other. Once they were close to the end of the walkway, he swung over the edge of the wall, his movements swift and silent. The movements of a natural born predator. A natural born killer. A thousand vibrations passed through the air from a dozen different directions straight into his ears. The sound of boots sloshing through puddles of blood rain. A hundred heartbeats. His nose detected the smell of wet hay, sweat, and alcohol.

He crouched behind a stack of crates. When the moment presented itself he darted out behind them at a lunge. He leapt over the railing. For a moment he soared through the air before his paws hit the ground. He heard a gasp behind him. He turned to see a female torchcoat reaching for her rifle. She opened her mouth to scream. Barghast's claws sliced through the air before she could make a sound. He ducked behind a cart, dragging her still kicking body out of sight. He pressed a paw to her mouth to muffle her last breaths. Only once her chest stopped moving and her eyes looked up blankly at the sky did he lower her to the ground to let the storm take her; it was a more merciful death than she deserved.

A cluster of guards passed the cart, making disgruntled sounds of displeasure. Barghast sniffed the air. He looked up desperately at the sky. Though the city of light still hovered over the fort, they walked under its belly without looking up.

He held Crowe’s necklace up to his snout. He sniffed heavily. Crowe's scent, a scent that Barghast would haunt him for the rest of his days, hit him like a shock to the brain. He closed his eyes, forgetting where he was.

A scream cutting across the courtyard brought the lycan back to reality. If anyone else heard it, the torchcoats showed no signs. This was a place of torture; they were probably used to it. But he knew that scream.

Barghast acted before he knew what he was doing. He launched himself into the air, bounding over the cart in a single leap. Shouts of alarm sounded beneath him, but he didn't care. Now that he knew where Crowe was, nothing could stop him from reaching his beloved. Voices babbled in an alien language but he knew he’d been discovered. Boots sloshed through the rain, heading in his direction. A torchcoat jumped in his way, fumbling for his saber. Barghast streaked past him, disemboweling him with a single swipe of his claws. The torchcoat’s innards tumbled out of him with a wet splat.

He rounded the corner, ducking into a long corridor. Bullets sparked against the wall behind him. A bayonet flashed towards his belly. He sidestepped the blade, slamming the butt of his rifle into the torchcoat’s face. Before the man could straighten from the blow, the lycan grabbed a hold of him. The torchcoat spasmed when Barghast sunk his teeth into the flesh between his shoulder and neck. Hot blood gushed into his mouth, running down his throat. Vengeance never tasted sweeter. He wrenched his head back with a grunt, tearing away muscle and bone so that the man’s head flopped on the single strip of flesh that kept it attached to the rest of his body. He backtracked long enough to bar the doors shut with a steel bar. It wouldn’t hold the men back for long. He could smell his twin o’rre. The smell was strong, so sweet it made him feel light and flighty. It could be the smell of one thing: Crowe’s blood.

A scream sounded from the end of the hallway. Barghast could hear voices and the sounds of resistance coming inside the room. He burst into a run, a snarl on his lips. Only when he saw the blood - his twin o’rre’s blood - on the floor, did he stop. The smell was so strong it was intoxicating.

A tall form with long silver hair, pearly white wings, and six arms had his wraith pinned to a metal table by the hair. He’d torn the hem of his robes and exposed his rump, holding a steel device to it. The creature froze, looking up, a grin on his face.

It was not the sight of his beloved’s exposed flesh or what the creature was about to do to him that sliced into Barghast’s heart, it was what he’d already endured. Crowe’s face was bruised, one eye almost swollen completely shut from where the winged-man had struck him, his cheek black and red, his lip split. His hands were braced against the table. The first two fingers of his favorite hand were completely gone - not even stumps. His beautiful, long-fingered hand was ruined. Worse still was the look of defeat on Crowe’s face. There was no light in his eyes, only pain.

As with the man he’d feasted on in the tavern, Barghast felt his bloodlust ignite. His vision shrunk down to a single focal point and that was on the winged-man who had mangled his twin o’rre.

“I wondered when your beast lover would come along,” the angel snarled in Crowe’s ear. He wrenched the practitioner back by his hair before flinging him back. Crowe slammed into the wall. He crashed to the floor with a grunt.

Rage and despair tore the Okanavian asunder. He brought his musket to bare on the birdman. With a howl he pulled the trigger. He watched the black round ball explode from the muzzle of his weapon, spinning through the air. The impact knocked the birdman several steps back. Blood sprayed from a hole the size of a silver coin in his chest, where his heart should be - if such a creature had a heart.

It gave the Okanavian the spare second he needed to lunge forward. He slammed the front of his paws into the birdman with all his might. No sooner had the creature slammed into the wall, Barghast was on top of him, flinging him across the room. The birdman rolled over the table, collapsing on the floor in a pile of twitching limbs both humanoid and feathered. He staggered to his feet, a stunned expression on his face. The lycan could smell the fear in his blood. It made his knot swell in its sheath. A spurt of hot urine wetted the inside of his tunic.

The angel snarled something. In a gale of wind, his wings propelled him towards the Okanavian, bearing razor sharp talons. Sharp enough they could slice the lycan open were they to pierce his flesh. He had no intention of letting that happen. Not until he’d avenged his beloved. He weaved out of the way. The talons whizzed past his face, parting the air with a hiss. He dropped to the ground, before lunging up, slicing into the birdman’s face with his claws.

The birdman aimed a fist towards Barghast’s face. The lycan caught it in his paw. He jumped to the side before the remaining five fists could land a blow. Again he slashed and slashed, dancing around his prey, cutting him deep enough to open veins. He grabbed him by the throat and drove him back once more into the wall opposite where Crowe’s unmoving body rested.

This time the birdman was ready. He seized Barghast with all six arms. Though the lycan towered a foot over him and outweighed him with a considerable amount of muscle, the winged-man lifted him as if he were made of air. He only had enough time to brace himself before the angel released him. He spun, unable to stop his trajectory. He slammed into the ground with enough force to crack the ground beneath his shoulder. The impact knocked the wind from his breath. He tried to rise. A muscle in his arm faltered. He sank back down with a whimper.

The angel advanced towards him, wings drawn back from the killing blow. His silver cat eyes burned with the promise of death.

A white light exploded through the room like a wave. Barghast shrank away from it, blown by the force of the power. The floor shook beneath him. Darkness threatened to pull him from down into its black depths. Only the thought of his twin o’rre, injured or possibly dead - please Gaia, if you truly love me, don’t let him be dead; if he’s dead then I truly have no reason to live - kept him from succumbing to defeat. He looked up. His breath caught in his chest.

Crowe stood in a halo of white light. The air pulsed around him, thrumming with a build up charge. His bruised flesh glowed with an inner white light. His eyes burned with celestial fury…the same white light that surrounded the spires of the city of light. He clutched his damaged hand to his chest. Trails of blood ran down the front of his filthy robes. Never before had he looked so beautiful…so ferocious. All of that fury was focused on the birdman.

“Get away from him,” Barghast’s beloved snarled.

                                                              …

“I wondered when your beast lover would come along.” The angel’s breath felt cool against the inside of his ear; it made the skin on the back of his neck prickle unpleasantly.

Crowe couldn't bring himself to move or speak. He knew he should feel happy. He knew he should have felt some measure of relief. Once more the Okanavian had proven himself to be the only person who he could truly depend on; once more he’d risked life and limb to keep the practitioner safe for reasons he would never truly understand. But the Seraphim who had proven to be every bit as sadistic as Hamon's servants, fueled by a grudge that spanned over a millenia.

Worse than the pain of his bruised pain, worse than the pain from where the Seraphim had cut him, worse than the pain of his mangled hand was the pain of Barghast seeing him brought so low. He won't want me now. Not if I can't even hold a staff. He would have cried if he had the tears but he was all dried out. He had enough time to wish the angel would just kill him and be done with it, when his world shifted again. Always shifting, always changing before he had time to prepare for what came next.

His back slammed into the wall. White stars exploded behind his eyes. Bells rang in his ears.

When the white cleared he found himself resting on his belly. I should be dead, he thought. How am I not dead? How much damage could the body take before it simply couldn’t take any more?

Shapes flickered in and out of view, outlined with blurred edges. Something pulled urgently at his mind, but the thought was out of reach; it slipped from his reach before he could wrap his fingers around it.

So he watched. Watched the two titans in the room circle around each other, trying to kill one another. The one with the large wings and six arms and the giant wolf who stood on two legs like a man. He knew that wolf. Barghast. He’s my friend. He’s the only friend I have. And right now his friend was in danger, fighting for his life, and Crowe couldn’t move.

No, he thought. Not like this. Monad, help me. Fill me with your light. Don’t leave me when I need you the most. Somehow he managed to roll on his back. It was like moving stone. His body screamed at him from a thousand places. Had that final blow paralyzed him - his spine snapped in two like a severed cord?

He blinked. The ceiling above him had grown porous so that he could look through it and see the night sky. A ray of celestial shot through the hole, directly into his eyes. Warmth spread through him like a hot fire, not painful but soothing. He could see the underbelly of the Eternal City. Monad had not abandoned him after all! He sucked in a deep inhalation, feeling Monad’s flame reignite inside him. He still hurt from a thousand places. His hand stung like a son of a bitch. He still felt the ache of fatigue. But he was no longer helpless. The gift that had been passed down to him by generations of practitioners had been returned to him.

The sound of a body hitting the floor hard enough to make it shake and a pained whimper made him tear his eyes away from the light. Barghast lay on the ground across from him, looking up at his adversary in defeat. The Seraphim who had beaten Crowe, cut off his fingers, and twisted his mind, all in a few short minutes, stalked towards his Okanavian, ready to deal the killing blow.

No! He drew on his mana, feeding the flame with all the kindling he had. Kindling that had been building up from the moment he woke up in the back of the wagon with a bag over his head. Terror, desperation, rage, doubt. It all roiled inside him, a storm yearning to break free and wreak havoc on his oppressors. It gave him the strength to rise to his feet, blood pumping through him like heated oil. A thousand needles stabbed into his numbed flesh. At last the feeling was starting to return to his body. I should be crippled…paralyzed. If not for his Lord’s light he would have been.

Now he turned his attention on the angel who stalked towards the lycan. His friend. The sight of his friend injured and defeated was the catalyst he needed to unleash everything he’d been unable to let go on his enemy. He let it out all in a scream. His fury tore the air apart, filling the room with a blinding white light that thrummed in his ears, deafening him. He couldn’t contain it. He couldn’t control. It was a force of its own. The walls shook. The gurney on which he’d been tortured flew across the table, slamming into the wall.

Motes of dust stirred through the air. Barghast was curled on the floor. Still breathing. Still alive. Still here with him. In his darkest moment yet that was all that mattered to Crowe. He directed his fury on Inquisitor Charoum who was now rising to his feet. “Get away from him!” the practitioner heard himself snarl.

A silver glint caught his eye.

The scalpel - the scalpel the angel had used to cut off two of his fingers.

As if reading his thoughts, Charoum’s gaze fell on the blade.

The practitioner was already sprinting towards it, snatching it up with his least favorite hand; the only hand that still had all five of its fingers. It didn’t matter. He’d send the bastard to the pits of Inferno with it all the same. He threw himself on top of the angel. “You bastard!” He slammed both fists into the Seraphim’s pretty face. He didn’t care that it sent flares of pain through his damaged hand; he didn’t care that it made the stumps where his fingers bleed anew.

He sliced the Seraphim’s cheek open with the scalpel, his throat, his eye. Each swing of his arm cut into flesh, drew blood. Charoum rolled beneath him in an attempt to shake him off, but the herald’s fury was absolute. Insurmountable. He stabbed him in the chest. He sank the blade into the place where a man’s heart would be. He screamed curses, insults.

When strong hands seized him, restricting his hands, he screamed some more, ready to maim the torchcoat who had dared to stop him. Only when he saw the black paws engulfing his arms, the amber eyes, did he stop.

“Crowe,” the lycan rumbled.

The doors outside the room burst open. Crowe heard the thunder of boots race down the hallways. He had but seconds to think, to act. He threw himself against the barbarian, wrapping his arms around his broad waist, pressing his face against his chest. He smelled of sweat, of blood, of things most unpleasant, but it was him. Now it’s my turn to keep you safe. With this thought a wall of mana rose up around them. He felt the lycan’s arms close around him with a frightened, “Twin o’rre!”

The world exploded into chaos. Bullets slammed into the shield, sparking off it, turning the wall behind them to dust. No longer able to stand, the wall fell away with a groan like a fallen soldier. Pillars of smoke rose up all around them. Torchcoats filed into the room, emptying their weapons. More marched across the courtyard. The explosion of a grenade made the ground shake beneath their feet. Dozens. A hundred. Too many to count. It seemed every torchcoat in the land had come to thwart their attempt to escape. Their right to breathe.

Something stirred inside Crowe. Something alien. It wriggled up from his belly, seizing his body before he could give it a name. Monad’s holy white fire filled him. All he could do was cling to Barghast as every bone in his body shuddered. He opened his mouth to say the Okanavian’s name; he raised his eyes to look up at him. Beams of white light spilled from his eyes, his mouth. It exploded out of him, tearing up clumps of earth until it was all he could hear. The world shook, thrown into chaos.

The air shifted.

Then…

Stillness. The burble of water close by.

The force that had entered his body, taken over it, was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He could still the faintest trace…like an aftertaste. But it was gone. His heart ached with something akin to despair and fear. He had never harnessed such power.

He turned to see what damage he’d caused only to lose his footing. The world spun. A hot throbbing pain hit him like a spike through his skull. He fell to the ground. The world lurched and tilted. Every bruise, every scrape, every cut made itself known. Whatever had seized hold of him at Fort Erikson, its intervention had not come without a price.

Somehow he…they?...were not in Fort Erikson anymore. Not more than three feet away was a burbling creek. Water not red with blood. No blood fell on him from the sky. They’d escaped the necromancers’ wrath at last. We should not be here. We should be dead. It’s a miracle we’re alive.

Beyond the burble of water it was hard to tell where he was. His vision was grainy. He knew he would not be able to get up on his own. I’ve done all I can do. I’ve taken all I can take.

Something heavy dropped beside him. Before he could turn his head, he was seized once more, lifted, only to be plopped down into a very large, very warm, and very furry lap. “Twin o’rre,” a deep voice rumbled in his ear, followed by a whine. A large hot tongue covered the left half of his face, reeking of slaughter. He was beyond caring. If he’d had the strength, the energy to rejoice he would have. Two paws large enough to wrap around his hands twice over lifted his hands.

Another whine. The Okanavian’s body folded around him, forming a cradle of muscle and fur and warmth. His heart kicked powerfully against the herald’s back - he didn’t feel like much of a herald; he didn’t feel like much of anything.

“Water,” he croaked.

Barghast lifted his head. “Crowe?”

“Water.” He gestured to the creek.

Not willing to part from his twin o’rre for a second, the lycan scooted towards the creek with the practitioner still planted in his lap. He cupped both paws and lowered them into the water. Carefully he brought them to Crowe’s lips. He chanted in his strange language, a chant that oscillated between soft words, whines, and light growls. The rhythm sounded like a lullaby to the herald’s ears, but the words could have met anything. Once he started to drink he found he didn’t care.

The water was so cold it stung his lips. He drank greedily until his lips puckered against the leather pad of Barghast’s paw. “More…” he crooned. “More!”

Again, the barbarian brought his hands up. Water fell between the cracks in his fingers. Crowe gulped it down. He leaned back so the lycan could give himself the nourishment he needed. Who knew what ordeals he’d suffered while they’d been separated. If only he could tell me with words.

His vision had cleared enough he could see a house in the distance. A tall two-story home with a sloping roof and a dark porch. Overgrown weeds poked out of the snow in front of it. Could it be that Monad had granted them another blessing? Shelter from the cold? A place to rest long enough for me to heal?

“Barghast.” He pointed with his damaged hand while the other scratched at whatever fur he could reach. “Look. Pick me up.”

Barghast lifted him obediently, placing the practitioner on his shoulders. He planted his paws firmly on his thighs to keep him from falling. He marched easily across the creek, impervious to the water’s chill. He shrugged aside tangled weeds, occasionally grunting when he had to slice his way through with a claw. Crowe hung on as best he could with his good arm while he kept the injured one close to his chest. He couldn’t bear to look at it. Each aching throb was a cruel reminder of the challenges he would face in the imminent future.

The porch steps creaked beneath Barghast’s paws. This time he did not hesitate to check for vengeful spirits; apparently they were beyond that for the time being. The door opened easily enough. A draft of stale air hit Crowe in the face. Barghast sniffed the air. He said something in Okanavian that sounded certain. The herald took it as a good sign.

The barbarian sniffed the air again. His ears twitched. The muscles beneath Crowe’s hands tensed. After half a minute, Barghast moved towards the staircase directly in front of them. He didn’t bother to close the door. Up the stairs he climbed, stopping every so often to test the silence. Crowe counted the portraits of the house’s previous owners hanging on the wall. Judging from the size of the house and these photographs, the sorcerer could only surmise the family had had money. Riches were a rare thing in the North.

The Okanavian entered the master bedroom at the end of the hallway where a large four poster bed awaited them. There Barghast set Crowe down as gently as if he were made of feathers. He scooted the practitioner over so he could lay beside him, their heads resting on pillows, their noses touching.

They were both filthy, injured…as bruised and scraped as anyone could be just shy of death. What raving mad force kept them going? But they were together. Rather than abandon him to be tortured and killed at the hand of the torchcoats, the barbarian had risked his life to save the sorcerer. Had he ever known such devotion? No. Not even from the one who’d claimed to love and know him more than anybody else.

“I missed you,” Crowe whispered. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I’ve missed you.”

Barghast kissed his forehead. A human kiss. “I keep you safe,” he rumbled. Pulling his body against his, he curled himself around the herald, to shield from the night and whatever force that dared to try and do him harm.

…

Thirty miles away from where Crowe and Barghast were camped in an abandoned house, a vortex of black light opened in the night. On the other side one could glimpse the ash-colored spires of the Black City, the alien red skies of Inferno.

Tara and Pa emerged from the vortex. The heels of their worn boots landed in tilled earth. Pillars of smoke rose around them. Burning things rained down around them, smoking and sizzling. They could hear voices screaming from what had been a war fort but was now a wreckage. “Looks like the work of our herald,” Tara said lightly.

Pa did not look happy. Tara couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile. Fifty years? A hundred? Several hundred? “We’re running out of time.” His voice crackled and wavered, weak. Tired. She bit her lip, feeling uneasy with no way to express it. She had a tendency to take her emotions out on those around her with Pa being the greatest exception.

“It’s already begun,” the older necromancer said. There was a strange eagerness to his voice that had not been there a second ago. He looked back at her, his eyes flickering. “Can you still not see it? Things are different this time…things are happening earlier…”

She looked at the ruin before her. A feeling of disquiet stirred in her belly. He’s right. Hamon knows I don’t want to admit it. If things were different, did that truly mean this was the last Iteration? Which implied only one thing: We’re losing. She ground her teeth together. In the name of my Lord Hamon, I swear to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen. “He’s still young, still inexperienced. Expelling a force of this size would befall any practitioner.” She grinned. “He’ll have a very massive headache. He hasn’t reached the North yet. We can still change things so that they rest in our favor. Let’s go and have a looksee shall we?”

Pa followed closely behind enough not to further gather Tara’s suspicion.

They strolled through what had once been the main entrance. Human screams broke shrilly through the gloom, sounding like music to Tara’s heart. The music pulled at her mind, bringing to the surface memories that she’d buried deep within herself. Memories of when she’d hidden in her mother’s embrace while the undead raided her village, feasting on the flesh of the only souls she’d ever known, laying ruin to her small world…it had been the start of her new life. A man lay half on the ground, held aloft by a pillar of wood that pierced his belly all the way through to the other side. The torchcoat looked at her with unseeing eyes. “Help me,” he sputtered. Blood spilled from his lips.

“Of course I’ll help you,” Tara crooned sweetly. She held up a long finger. His eyes widened, crossing on the tip. He opened his mouth to beg. She pressed a finger to his lip, shushing him. “No need to fear. It won’t be much longer now. Let me ease your suffering.” She pressed the tips of her finger to the flesh just below his chin. She pressed through the three-weeks growth that covered his face. Her nails cut easily into him, sharper than any manmade blade. His legs kicked and spasmed when she pulled his face away so that his bleached skull looked back at her.

She held it up to Pa, grinning. “I’ll share.”

They found other such unfortunate souls, some in worse shape than others. Men and women ran from the wreckage, hair and skin on fire. The smell of cooking meat made the necromancers salivate. Even Pa stopped to quench his thirst for blood.

They came to a room at the end of a long corridor. Tara could smell the foul stench of the herald and his Okanavian lover all over it. Here, she could see, was the source of the wreckage. Much had happened in this room. There were blood splatters everywhere. One wall had completely fallen in. Everywhere she looked faces and arms turned to bone stuck out of the piles of growing ash that rained from the sky, only to be washed away and turned into mush by the spreading clouds of blood rain.

“It looks like we just missed the show,” Tara said.

At the sound of her voice, a mound of wooden boards and debris shifted. Rocks flew in every direction. A tall form rose up from the cloud of ash, soot-covered wings fanning out around him, blowing Tara and Pa’s hoods back with a gust of powerful wind.

A single silver cat eye glared at them from the ruin of a disfigured mask; the other eye was completely gone, leaving an empty eye socket in its place. His lips had been sliced in two. A crisscross of ugly slashes had turned the cheek into a bloody flap, spilling a long trail of blood that traveled all the way down his robes. Six long-fingered hands clenched into fists. Those silver eyes narrowed on them. “Servants of Hamon,” the Seraphim spat in a voice sharpened by disgust. “I can smell the blackened filth of your blood. I should have known you would eventually appear.”

“We want to stop the herald every bit as much as you do, traitor of Monad,” Tara said, casting a playful smile in his direction. A smile that literally ruffled the angel’s feathers from the way he scowled and his wings twitched. The end of the Third Iteration is nigh, indeed. Everyone is so touchy these days.

“Is that supposed to keep me from bringing the swift fury of Elysia’s justice upon you?” His wings flapped and his feet left the ground. He hovered in the air, preparing to dive towards them.

“Come now, Charoum, I’ve always known you to be stubborn but certainly never stupid,” Pa said with the familiarity of an old comrade. “As the hunger for vengeance made you thick-headed? Mired in your own pettiness?”

“You know what I do to those who mock me, necromancer,” the angel threatened.

The older of the necromancers rolled his eyes as if he’d heard this jest many times. “Must you always be so abrasive, Inquisitor? Whatever happened to the adage, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

“We will never be friends.”

“The many backhanded refusals to join my masters in the efforts to thwart the herald of Monad has proven that,” Pa responded wearily. “I’m merely trying to state…Well, I’d like to point out your attempts to obtain the herald to face justice for his crimes haven't exactly been successful either. He’s done what not even the last herald could do: he disfigured you. And he’s only a boy, at that!”

“He did not…”

“Do not let pride ruin you more than it already has,” Pa pressed without raising his voice. “You were defeated tonight. The herald has escaped beyond your reach but not beyond ours…even now the spirits we have set upon lurk about to wreak havoc on his mind. Return to the one who commands you and report your failures. And stay out of our way, lest you want us to finish what the herald started.”

“And wait until the next Iteration to take what is mine: my revenge?”

“There won’t be another cycle!” Tara crowed shrilly. “Now do what you do and bugger off!”

Charoum snarled something under his breath, but the sound was lost under the mighty flap of his wings. Tara watched him soar upwards, seeming determined to breach the very heavens before angling East where Pope Drajen’s domain awaited.

“His arrogance will be his undoing,” Pa croaked.

“I like him. Seeing him always warms my black little heart. He takes himself far too seriously.”

“That he does.” He grinned at her with the first true glimmer of humor she’d seen all day. The first clue that his old self was still somewhere hidden in the depths of his immortal soul. “But if there’s anyone who hates the herald as much as our Lord does, it’s Charoum. Come, my beloved. We have a herald to catch.”