Take My Heart...: Dark Ages - Fantasy (Dark Gods & Tainted Souls Book 3) (25 page)

Chapter Forty Three.

“See he doesn’t look so tough,” the Lady said to him. Seth laughed for the first time in what seemed days. It was a laugh to let out the tension. In truth, the man did not look so tough. He looked just like a long brown hair fop, like a cousin of Dirst or other Guild noble minus the mustache. He stood however next to three women who looked like they had feathers and claws growing from their hands and a legion of those black dog things lined the walkway to him.

Clearly his arrival was hardly a secret. The man stood at the end of a large field made of stone and waited. The dog creatures filled the ground in front of him and had actually made a path straight through to him.

“So the plan is I go down there alone and kill a god, is it?” he said back with no hope at all.

She took him face and made him look in her eyes, he saw such a fire and strength there it gave him a little.

“You won’t be alone and if it makes you feel better he’s not really a god,” she said.

“Really seems like one,” Seth said, standing and stretching, swinging his sword a few times, trying to get himself ready.

“We came later, along with you people, he and his kind were here first,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“We are your creations, Seth. We need your regard and worship to live, we love you and need you, that’s why I’m here, without you I’m nothing. You created us to explain what can’t be explained, to give order, to give reason and to give hope, to battle against things like him, but we failed.”

“What does he need then?” Seth said looking hard at the man across the dark distance.

“Fear, suffering, death, control. He is fear in one source,” she said with a shudder.

“So if I kill him, all fear will be gone for the world? Seems unlikely,” he said.

“Not all, but a lot. The fear that has no reason. We all fear death, misfortune, and suffering but he is the nameless fear that is for its own sake. We tried to put him down and put him in chains when we couldn’t kill him but now he’s back. Oh well, you’ll kill him now.” She said with a smile.

“You sure?” he said. “You don’t sound very sure.”

“You’re a Northman. What do you care? You’ll fight well and I’ll be there by your side. Our kinds will live or die at each other’s side, just as it should be. But first, we need to make a fight possible.” she said

Taking his hand, Seth felt her pulling the power of the other gods, he saw again many images of them and their people. she cast her hand into the air, nothing happened.

Seth looked at her, then the man in the plain. He saw him yell in rage and then calm himself.

'What was that' he asked

'That was our friends binding him to his body, now lets go'

She took his hand in his and he felt the power in her and some of it run into him. The goddess of luck going to battle, at least, she looked good with a sword. Saying a prayer to his own Northern gods and feeling some of their strength within him, they walked from the darkness to the end of the field.

Seth walked hand in hand with the Lady as if in a dream. His eyes locked on the man at the end of the field. He walked step by step across the dirt until they reached the stone platform and began to walk between the dog creatures. He’d killed more than a few in his time and he hated them. It made sense they were his creatures. Smart, cunning and without remorse. He could smell the stench of their breath and tried not to show his fear as they barked and growled as they passed, bearing their feral teeth.

He gripped her hand hard. “Don’t worry. He’ll be too curious and proud not to meet you face to face first,” she said.

“Oh good,” Seth replied.

Seth kept his eyes locked on the man as he walked closer and closer. Soon he could regard him properly. He looked very much like a man and not much of one, far too attractive for Seth to take him seriously. He looked almost like a woman with fine high cheekbones and long brown hair. His eyes were awful and caught hold of Seth and wouldn’t let go. He sunk deep into those deep brown pools and saw his own death. He saw him fighting this man sword to sword. The Lady against her sisters. He couldn’t even raise his blade crippled with a nameless fear as the man struck him down. Seth saw a slight smile appear on his lips as he walked closer, great another one who could read his thoughts.

The man walked out to greet him along with his sisters and the black dogs made room so he and the Lady stood in a huge circle of them. The man drawing a long thin sword as he approached, a huge grin on his face. Seth looked to the woman beside him. The main one looked weak, she was clutching her stomach and then stood upright but seemed to be in pain. The other, fine and angry, but the youngest sought his eyes, she winked at him, which was strange.

“Hello there, young man. Seth isn’t it?” the man said shaking his hand with vigor, not the welcome he’d expected but this cocky fuck was clearly taking his time.

“Seth is my name, and yours? Fear, prisoner, killer of innocent?” Seth spat back, trying to find his rage.

The man laughed. “I have many names in many tongues, few of which even you would know and none of which you’re fit speak. You can just think of me as the one that’s going to kill you,” he said with a smile.

The man turned to the Lady who stood next to him, defiant and proud. “And you, the lucky lady, really you’re who they send? The champion of the gods is you? The only reason I never destroyed your temples until now was because you just seemed so useless,” he said.

“You’re mistake,” she said back.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said and turned back to Seth.

“Before we fight and you die, I have a proposition for you. I know you’ve been led here, they gave you nice things and toys to play with, they made you strong but they never told you the price, now you’re here and you’re thinking how the hell am I going to do this, right? So here’s the deal, you just walk away. I could offer you your land or the North, let you be king but I don’t think you care about that kind of thing, so I’ll offer you a life. I’ll call a ship and you go home, make children and just forget all this.”

Seth looked into his eyes and saw the darkness there, saw what he would do to his land and all other saw what would happen when all the gods and good people were gone and the cult of fear was all that stood. Seth stepped backwards slowly and drew his sword and crouched ready to fight.

“Do you know the difference between a brave act and a stupid one?” Seth asked him.

“What’s that?” the man said reading himself.

“The reason you do it,” he yelled as lashed forward with his sword.

Chapter Forty Four.

Grimm felt different. A strong pale hand pulled him up off the stone floor and to his feet. He looked and saw it was Silver shaking her head at him.

“That was very close,” she said.

He looked at the wound on her wrist and saw that the wound was quickly closing. Next to her was the Wolvern covered in black blood that was not its own.

“We don’t have long. At least, twenty are on our tail and will be here soon.”

His body felt strong and ready, Grimm pulled up his shirt at the sword wound and saw it had closed. His skin though seemed paler than before. His skin was giving off a white hue.

“What’s happening to me?” he whispered.

“You took a lot of my blood. Seems to have improved you, indeed, you look a lot less ugly to my eye than before, your skin is less pink and raw and you seem a bit taller,” she said.

“Oh.”

We must move now,
the Wolvern yelled in their minds.

Grimm pushed any other thoughts aside. While he was drifting towards death he’d had one of the strongest visions he’d ever had. He saw Seth fighting a faceless man. All around him were the black dogs and as Seth went to finish him, they attacked. He would have to stop that.

Grimm walked up to the stone circle and put his hand out. There was a deep power running through it and it wanted to bring them through. It would be as easy as tapping into it. He took a deep breath and put his foot forward into the circle. He felt a slight tingling across his skin and when he opened his eyes he was outside in a vast forest. Behind him, the black storm cloud of the rift shrieked as it bleed the power out. Silver and the Wolvern came through after him.

“Guess I should close this,” he said.

Grimm lay down on the ground, reached into the cloud and pulled his hand back with a stone. The rift closed seconds later almost taking his hand.

Silver laughed. “That was it? I could have done that,” she said.

“Well, you’ll need me to get back, so try not to let me die.”

In the distance, he could hear the sounds of swords on swords and the animal growls of the feral onlookers.

“That’s Seth and he needs our help,” Grimm yelled and started running towards the sounds.

“
When does he not?” Silver yelled as she and the Wolvern ran after him.

Chapter Forty Five.

Goldie was marched once again at sword point out of the king’s tent. This time by the king himself, a rare privilege, and into the open field in which sat the statue of the Lady. It was surrounded by candles and laid with flowers, Lead Belly had been busy. The soldier sat around it and drank the wine he’d supplied and laughed. Many of them had given her offerings and such and had no idea of the king’s plans.

Their general flew into a rage on seeing them. Looking with fear at Thellas as he urged them up off the ground and shooed them away like children. Goldie smiled to himself. He loved an audience and the entire camp of men was here watching. They had been expecting a battle not their old friend Goldie with barrels of wine. After the battle of Blackrock before the Reds had marched he’d made a point of visiting these men and chatting with them, never hurt to gain the friendship of soldiers.

Goldie pushed forward from the king and spun around yelling loudly. “No, my King, I beg you. Do not destroy this statue. What purpose would it serve as she only brings good fortune and would surely curse you for such an action?”

Thellas kicked him hard in the back so he fell hard into the dirt. Goldie scrambled around on his knees.

“Oh, please king, to even touch her with ill will, will bring such misfortune, you must not even lay a hand to her feet.” He cried.

The men in the army were shocked, as the king’s guard ran to Goldie and held a sword to his throat. The king was enraged but Goldie saw he was still aware enough to see the mood of his men, not that they would defy him anyway, he was still the king.

“Men, this statue is a fake and filled with gold. That is why I wanted it from the town,” he yelled back. Damn, that was a good one.

“Oh, please king, it is not. I say again don’t even touch her with ill will or she will know and cast you down,” he yelled.

The king laughed aloud as if acting, now taking the role. “I mean her no harm and you will see it’s just a fake. The king went to the statue and reaching out to her hand pulled it down hard. The statue’s hand snapped off in his own. He turned with a smile. Holding the plaster hand in his own bare hand.

“See it’s a fake and full of gold at the base. Now kill this turncoat who would have kept it for himself.” He said.

Goldie shoved the man touching him and heard it, a long low whistle from the darkness, he smiled.

“Cursed! You are cursed now king, you bear ill will towards her and she will strike you down,” he said pointing at the king.

As if on cue, the king collapsed. His face was turning red and he grabbed his throat struggling for breath. His guards ran to his aid and some of the smarter soldiers drew their blades on Goldie who just held his hands up high.

“It was the Lady, not me,” he cried as the king slowly choked to death, his face turning a vivid red. He captain of the guard swung his sword at him but an arrow flew from the darkness deep into his neck. Goldie dived under the wagon that held the statue as a rain of arrows fell down on the camp. He heard the soldiers fleeing in fear, many cries of the wrath of the gods. Within moments the camp was clear.

He stood to see his rag-tag army of gamblers and thieves running from places in the dark. Goldie walked over to Thellas, he was still alive, eyes barely opened, Goldie knelt next to him and spoke into his ear.

“Touched poison on the statue, that’s for Dagosh and Elizebetha, you piece of shit.”

He stood up and walked away, leaving Thellas to die slowly and alone.

Chapter Forty Six

Seth felt and saw his blade being neatly parried and felt the ring of shock run down the blade. He almost smiled. The tension he’d felt just left his body. He slashed forward with his dagger, which missed the man who stepped aside and then lunged himself. It was a fight plain and simple. He saw the man’s steps and saw his breath coming from his lips. Whatever he was he seemed like a man well enough.

Seth parried the thrust from the man and then punched forward with the hilt trying to smash him in the face. He jumped back with a laugh.

“Dirty move, my boy. Where did you learn that?” he spat.

“I’m going to need it all to beat you,” Seth said back as they fought.

“It won’t help,” he said as his blade slide past Seth’s and into his arm. He was well armored and the thin blade went through a link in his chain mailed arm and into the skin. Seth almost dropped his blade and yelled in pain.

“All your weaknesses call out to me boy. I feel the fears in your mind, you tell me where you’re weak and what you’re afraid of. Oh, I hope he doesn’t do this. I hope this works.”

Seth lunged again three times and the man just knocked his blade aside each time with a flick of the wrist. He knew Seth’s moves before he did. Seth tried to push the fear of failure from his mind and fought on instinct, slash, block, dagger strike. They traded blows back and forth in faster and faster rounds. He could see sweat forming on the man’s brow and when blocking again Seth lunged out with his fist and caught the man full in the face with his mailed fist. He saw the look of shock on his face as he flew back. Seth dropped his sword and dived on him. Starling him Seth punched him again and again. He let all his fury and rage pour out of his body and smashed the man in the face again and again.

He heard the sounds of women screaming and he was pulled off the man by two of the sisters ,the other stood looking shocked. The animals howled and snapped at him. Within moments, he was surrounded by five of the snapping mouths as one of the sisters, ran to her brothers damaged form. He sputtered bloody but managed to get to his feet with her help. Seth looked at his face. Cracked teeth and lips, blood dripping from his broken nose. As Seth watched the wounds began to heal until he was fully formed again. Seth felt such a terror then. The man smiled at Seth as he stood before him. Laughing in Seth’s face he put his own finger in front of his face and slowly sliced it from his hand with his own blade. Seth watched as the bloody stump regrew into a full finger before him. The man just laughed again.

“I told you it wouldn’t help. You can’t kill this body. I will just heal it again until I finally strike you.” Sisters, please kill him. I need to wash up,” as he said the words he walked off calmly to a nearby table and washed his bloody face in a basin of water.

The Lady was next to him now and she drew her own short dagger. Before them stood the two sisters and they drew their own weapons. The black dogs formed a living circle around them snapping and growling but waiting for his further commands.

The main sisters looked terrible. She seemed weak and sick. The Lucky Lady lunged at her with a grin.

“You seem ill, lady. I wonder what’s happened?”

“You know what’s happened. Your people have ruined it all, but that was just one of my temples. I’m not done yet,” she slashed at the Lucky Lady and they began trading blows. Seth heard a low whistle from the man and five of the dogs were at him. He plunged his blade into the first one as it leapt, another grabbed his mailed leg and he plunge his dagger into its eye. The sister came to him through the sea of fur clawing at his face with those sharp claws. He sighed and just smashed her in the face hard with his forehead sending her back to a bloody sleep. The Lucky Lady next to him lunged past the claws at her throat and plunged her blade deep into the sister’s stomach. She coughed hard and cried ‘Brother’ as she fell.

The man looked back from washing himself and seemed to only know notice what had happened. He ran to his sister’s body and screamed. The dog creatures all took up the howl, hundreds and hundreds of them. They surrounded Seth and the Lucky Lady.

“You’ll regret that!” he cried as he cradled the creature’s dying body. The lady took his hand and squeezed it, it was covered in dark blood.

“We tried,” she said.

The man stood and screamed. “Kill them!” The dog creatures howled and leapt to do just that.

Seth stabbed down into one that leapt on him but was soon overcome. Tens of them were grabbing at his body. Hard teeth wrapped around his mailed armor. He fell backwards and was surrounded by a sea of fur. From the corner of his vision, he saw a white flash and then heard it, the vicious howl of the Wolvern.

Within a moment, something had grabbed his leg and dragged him clear of the pile of furred killers around him. Seth was forced to his feet by big hands and looked. It was Silver and the Wolvern. It was a war of black and white colors. They attacked with a fury he’d never seen in the two, he watched them working together, she would slash a creature legs and he would finish the kill, they were a perfect team of death. There were only two of them but they cleared an area around Seth.

“Hi boss,” he heard a voice say in northern and saw it was Grimm. He hugged the man though shock and smiled.

“Good timing brother,” he said.

“I thought you might need me,” he said and then swung around cut down one of the dogs that was on him. He felt a slight ring of hope and then he heard a voice. “Stop!”

He saw the man standing with his sword pointed right at the Lucky Lady.

“You’ve done well boy, but you keep fighting and she dies,” he whispered something to his younger sister and she traded places with him, holding a blade at the Lady. Seth looked at her and she winked at him again, who was she? As the man turned he saw her eyes change for a mere moment and realized it was Seraphina. He tried not to smile.

The man walked towards Seth with his blade drawn.

“Now you’ll let yourself be taken or she dies,” he said to Seth.

Seth looked at the lady and his friends, they were outnumbered hundreds to one. Just dots of life in a sea of vicious animals. Seth felt tired, blood was dripping from his small wounds and he knew his friends might be strong but they were nothing against his. Seth dropped his sword and fell to his knees before him.

The man walked to Seth where he kneeled. “You will die, but not by my hand, by their teeth,” the man yelled. The man raised his hand and the creatures around them readied to pounce.

The man opened his mouth to say the word “Kill,” but they came out wrong. The Northern word “Kell” came out instead. Seth looked up and saw the man had changed and before him he looked at a guise of himself. Seraphina had changed him in body and voice, to a mimic of Seth. Seth looked to her and she nodded back to him. Looking quickly down he saw he was now in guise of the man. Seth knew this was his only chance.

He pointed at the guise of himself and shouted again at the confused dogs. “Kill him.” The voice was the voice of their master, one of command, they had heard again and again.

The mindless beasts didn’t care their enemy had moved, they saw and they attacked. He saw the man being dragged to the ground and screaming as they ripped him apart with their horrible teeth. Tens of the things surrounded his body and took his hands, neck and devoured him before them, it took long minutes and Seth looked away, only hearing the horrible sounds or it. Seth looked back at the fallen man, all that was left was a broken skull, part of his ribcage and a pile of bloody and gnawed bones. Slowly as he watched, the body began to rebuild itself. The skull grew skin, a torso formed, and grew, bones grew muscle and skin, but before the man could form into the familiar visage of their master and command them to stop, the dogs began to feast again.

Seth looked at the sight and was sicken by it. Chance and bad fortune had created the perfect prison for a creature that could never die. He knew the man would be trapped in the prison of his own body forever. Healing himself just to be destroyed again and again, for all time. The other gods would never let him escape this time.

Seth turned away from the horrifying image before him. It was done, the undefeatable, had been defeated.

Seraphina ran to Seth and hugged him hard, him lifting her from her feet and laughing with relief as they did.

“I thought I’d lost you for sure,” he said.

“I knew you’d need me to save you,” she said with a laugh.

He put her down on the ground and looked at her face, a bit dirty, bloody and still beautiful and yes just saved him once again. “I think I love you,” he said.

She smiled back at him. “I think I love you too.”

Grimm pushed past everyone else and hugged Seth properly crushing Seraphina to him.

“Bloody glad to see you, boss, and you, my girl. We’ve heard many good things.” He turned to the Lucky Lady who was looking fine wiping her blade of bloody and regarding Silver and the Wolvern.

“Valuable friends, Seth,” she said and walked over to them. “I’m the Lucky Lady,” she said.

“The Goddess?” said Grimm and then realizing she spoke true, bowed to her, she just smiled. “The time for that is passed.”

“Is it done then?” asked Seth, looking at the horrible sight of the man, the once feared god, being torn apart again and again.

“This battle has been fought before and it will be fought again. There is always a battle between hope and fear somewhere. But not by us, so long as more people believe in hope, we’ll keep winning,” she said.

Seth felt a wave of relief flood through him as he realized it was over, his finally battle was done.

“What now?” he asked.

The Lucky Lady spoke back to him. “It’s up to you, you’re welcome to stay with me and my kind or we can send you home, but if we do you can’t take your gifts, you have to choose,” she said.

Grimm looked at her and shook his head. “Sorry to speak against a goddess and all but you don’t Seth. I can send us back and we can keep what we have,” he said.

“You have that power? A mortal shouldn’t know such things,” she said, looking a bit wary of him.

“Mortals, Gods, the distinction isn’t what it used to be, but he deserves a real choice,” Grimm said.

Seth looked at his friends and thought of his life from his first moment on meeting the Wolvern to now. It had been one day of blood after another. Death on death, being chased killing, fear. He was tired of it.

He held Seraphina’s hand and looked at her. “What do you think?” he asked

“Let’s go home and try to be normal. I have a lot to make up for,” she said.

“Could you give it all up?” he asked.

“So long as we are like this, people will always be against us, they will always seek to take what we have,” she said.

Seth shook Grimm by the wrist. “Well met brother but she’s right I’m ready to hand it back,” he looked at the Lady. “But not all of it, you can take the killing and summoning but I don’t want to be some illiterate again. I still want the languages and words.”

She smiled at him. “A fair trade.”

The Lady led them away from the carnage and they talked as they walked. He held Seraphina’s hand and the Wolvern paced alongside him. He thought back to the first time he’d seen the creature, in all its horror but it had chosen him and saved him. He’d carved a bloody path with it by his side and truly he was happy to be able to just stop and let someone else worry about these things. Maybe he’d show Seraphina his home or just not killing someone for a while, that would be nice.

“Thanks, friend, this is the end for us all well. I assume?” he said turning to the Wolvern.

It’s true,
it spoke. In his mind,
there are many kinds of hunger and she can help sate them all, you deserve to rest and besides the world only needs one Druheim at a time.

They reached the beach and Seth saw the sky had broken and the sun was out. In the harbor stood.
The Opulent
with its sails in full bloom. The Lucky Lady turned to Seth and smiled her wicked grin at him. “I always liked you Northmen, now I must be off, so much cleaning up to do.”

She hugged him and held him close. Her body was warm now. She started to vanish in the red light she’d first appeared in. “Tell Goldie I’ll find him in his dreams.” Within moments, she was gone and he turned back to his strange group of friends.

He shook hands with Grimm and Silver and patted the Wolvern. “Goodbye, friends. If you ever need me, I’ll be there. Grimm, you know what they want from you? You could come back too. I know a few boys who would love to see you.”

Grimm smiled at him. “I know, but this is right, Seth. I’m a simple sailor and now they’ll sing songs of me as well. Say hi to the lads for me.”

He then whispered in Seth’s ear. “Besides, I think I’m starting to grow on this Silver girl.” He laughed and hugged Seth one last time.

Seraphina took Seth’s hand and they walked along the gangway onto
The Opulent
. As he walked, he could feel the memories of fighting and killing leaving him. Skills and summoning and magic words all faded, leaving only the learning. He looked at Seraphina and knew it was the same for her. Her gift was leaving her. He saw a tear run down her face.