Belial - Episode 1 of the Elder Bornshire Chronicles Page 2

  Arthur had told him that second-guessing your child’s path might prove to be a barren exercise. Wolf had not argued the point. Arthur’s parents had abandoned guiding him at a young age.

  Scralz and Anthony remained in Hellsgate with all of its intrigue, murder and death, but their bar had become a sanctuary once more for those who brought trouble or those who sought it. Scralz could bash a man’s skull with her bare fist. Therefore, at least her tavern was usually quiet or bloody. Any night might bring drunken bliss or a broken skull. Still, those two stayed and Arthur and Shanay sent messages at times to inquire as to the town’s state. Replies did not come often. When they did, they remained vague.

  These visions of Arthur’s, however, troubled Shanay. Arthur seldom dreamed anything that he could remember, but this particular dream haunted him more than the wars he had seen. Losing Blade wounded Arthur—had hurt them all, but the situation was more than that. Arthur had lost his ability to maintain his tenuous grip on contentment.

  Slipping out the door and into the cool night air, she followed the man she loved. Nothing he could say would separate them. If she wanted to give up on him, she could have done so. That would never happen.

  Stars did their best to light Arthur’s way and the creatures of the night did not stop their calls while Arthur walked through the forest of the Eastern Mountains. For an hour, he strolled, mulling over his situation, wondering if he should just go home and forget the dream. After all, it was just a dream. Shanay deserved downtime. Some peace. He owed her that. He owed her everything.

  Unconsciously, he turned off the road onto an overgrown path and soon into a minor opening in the trees. The gap had once been a clearing, and it remained somewhat open, but trees had sprouted along the gurgling brook and shuttered most of the sound from a faint waterfall.

  When they were but children, his brother Reg had saved Arthur’s life in this spot. They had come to this clearing to play and Reg had eventually died from wounds sustained by a wandering troll.

  This night, however, Arthur found the clearing occupied. He saw a single silhouette, a shadow. However, the presence did not surprise him—not after the dreams.

  Arthur strode forward. “Thanatos.”

  “Arthur.”

  Arthur knew him well. Thanatos and his pale horse. A collector of souls, he had been sired, many said, by a god named Nix. He had an iron heart and could darken the night if he chose to do so.

  They had first met when Arthur was but a small boy, long before his father had taken his sons and Arthur’s mother from Britannia and brought them to this continent. Arthur had never understood the concept of continents until he had achieved the rank of General in the Roman Legions, but the fact remained the same.

  Thanatos wore no helm and his garb—he looked like a woodsman more than the King of the Dead.

  “It has been a while,” Arthur began.

  “Time is a paltry consideration to us as you know. You look well.”

  “I have my days. Shanay says that chopping wood eases my angst.”

  Thanatos returned a throaty chuckle that sounded like broken bones in his throat. “I sense your agitation. I have come to provide counsel if you will hear it.”

  Arthur nodded. A long silence hung between them.

  Finally, Thanatos broke the pause, “I know you have had a vision. Arthur, this peace will not last. You will be needed again—all of you.”

  Arthur frowned and looked down at Thanatos’ boots to avoid the Horseman’s gaze. Why did these miscreants seem to know everything, but tell nothing that mattered?

  Thanatos continued, “Let your faith guide you.”

  “I am done with war.”

  “And yet, you wander the night, searching for it.”

  “I needed to clear my head. Nothing more.”

  Thanatos showed no emotion, but his voice held some warmth. “As your—friend—enjoy this time. Live these days while you can. Already, I see a future fraught with peril.”

  “That has been my life.”

  “So, you will hold yourself away?”

  Thanatos cornered him with that question.

  Arthur rubbed his beard. “Do you think these dreams will dissipate with senescence?”

  Thanatos sucked his lips in and thought his words through, choosing each syllable carefully. “I wish I could say but I put myself at great risk coming to you like this. All I can say is take time to rest. The future may levy obligations that make you wish for this quiet night.”

  “I am alive. I intend to remain so.”

  “Be that as it may, accept my advice. Whether you believe that this ‘dream’ will fade or if you once again don your sword, can either bring you peace?”

  Arthur stood quietly. Thanatos had a point, but what it was, Arthur had yet to discern. Was he warning Arthur or threatening him? On the other hand, was it something else altogether?

  Thanatos continued, “Years ago in another land, my brothers and I found a boy. The world injured his family. Weighing consequences, we folded that boy into the fabric of history. We watched him grow. Touched him with mentorship. The Horsemen and our son of sorts. Who knows if such a circumstance will come again? Not I, for certain, but a time will come when this world needs you. This I do know. Enjoy the quiet until your conscience calls you out.”

  “God used me as His servant to do what He needed done. I tell you, I have killed Lucifer. You hold him in your prison for eternity.”

  “Lucifer will never return, but, there will always be evil. The Fallen are legion. Accept a gift from me. There may be a day that I need one from you. Who can say?”

  Grasses rustled and Arthur glanced to his left, not surprised to see his wife.

  “Obeying as always,” he mused in her direction.

  “I hope we live to see that day,” she returned. “Thanatos, what are you doing here?”

  Thanatos gazed at her. He held his hands out, placating. “Offering your husband a favor that only I can grant. Trying to save you from yourselves. Stop looking for war. That time will come soon enough. Pray for peace. Defend those who cannot defend themselves. That is your way and that is my advice to you both. If you will but do that, I promise that my gift will at least lift your heart.”

  Shanay took Arthur’s bicep. To Thanatos, she said, “A moment?”

  “Of course,” he nodded and Shanay and Arthur walked back to the trailhead with but a brief glance over their shoulders.

  “Do you trust him?” she asked.

  “The Horsemen have never done me wrong in any way that mattered. If Thanatos can help this feeling—”

  They both paused and Shanay squeezed his hand. “Together then?”

  Arthur nodded grimly and turned back toward Thanatos to accept his gift.

  Shanay gasped.

  The Horseman had vanished, but in his place stood a beast eighteen hands tall. His coat impaled the night, blacker than the moonless sky as though a hole in the forest. His eyes held the dark, but they permitted the stars reflection. His mane draped gracefully over his right shoulder like liquid obsidian and a giant head, as big as a man’s torso, curled up lips that showed steel teeth. He whinnied and shook his head.

  Tears welled and unfamiliar emotion gripped him. Arthur fell to his knees. Thanatos had indeed granted him a blessing, returning to Arthur one of the few things he had ever loved.

  The great horse approached. Rubbing his head against Arthur, he pushed him to stand without knocking him over.

  Arthur gripped his friend around his horrendously large neck and hugged him tightly. Openly, Arthur wept as the big horse nestled him with emotion both felt.

  Two warriors, rejoined, Arthur whispered, “Blade.”

  On the ridge above Thanatos’ encounter with Arthur, three of the Four Horsemen overlooked the scene.

  “Thanatos risks much,” Famine murmured.

  “All that he is,” Pestilence replied. He had intervened at times. Each time they did, their risk increased that Creation might punish
them.

  War sat quietly for several breaths and replied, “With what is to come, I believe he chose wisely.”

  Bewilderment consumed most of her consciousness, but Shanay stood to the side and patted Blade. He acknowledged her with a butt of his head against her arm, pushing her back a step. The two of them had met at odds, but Blade had guarded her until his death. Still, she wondered what the deal brought with it that remained concealed.

  “Arthur, I don’t understand. Is Thanatos saying that the vision is a portent?”

  “He did not say,” Arthur replied. “I believe he hints something wicked will present itself. At the same time, he suggests that I quell my restlessness. I remain skeptical of both notions. Tomorrow we will ride to Ploor. Blade will need a new saddle and together we can counsel with Wolf. I would like to know his thoughts. After that, we wait.”

  “For what?”

  Arthur patted Blade’s nose.

  “I have missed you. I have missed you.”

  Shanay asked again. “Arthur, what will we be waiting for?”

  He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve and replied, his voice regaining its stoicism, “I wish that I knew.”

  The better part of four seasons had passed while Mrandor dragged his shattered carcass from the mountain range to the Black Forest. Had he the ability, he could have repaired his physicality, but as it was, Lucifer had never been so gracious as to consider Mrandor’s pain.

  As for the Black Forest, the place had not changed in the years since his departure from its forbidding borders. The trees twisted as though the earth tortured them and the gray sky rejected them. He sought through a misty memory, a time of his childhood when the oaks stood straight and ruled majestically. Perhaps he remembered that time inaccurately through the years. He had called this forest home during most of his younger life. The forest had nurtured him in those days, hidden him. Even now, it did not repel him.

  Only an aborted child of light, a dim presence that could not quite reach to night, filled the spaces between the trees and provided some visibility. A dense shimmer of blue-white fog cloaked the ground. Under that laid the stench of rot.

  Mrandor had eaten grubs, worms, and even dirt before reaching this place, but he would not eat the dirt of this forest. Most certainly, that would finish him.

  Lucifer lay dead somewhere amidst a landslide of blasted boulders and corpses of monsters once commanded by him, killed by Arthur Bornshire with help from his god. Pitiful that Bornshire’s god could not create creatures capable of defending themselves without his direct intervention. Bornshire’s god had no patience to allow his followers the leeway to test their mettle against their adversaries.

  Lucifer had never intervened for Mrandor, even when Bornshire’s god had, and thus Mrandor had happened to his plight.

  He dragged himself further into the forest to a place where he had murdered his teacher, taken his power and his residence. The keys to the Black Forest had been his in those days.

  How many decades ago had that been? He did not remember and in his current situation, it did not matter.

  Mrandor detested Bornshire. Arthur and his cronies had rendered Mrandor’s life desolate. They had destroyed his legacy, thrown chaos into the middle of his plan and killed his patron.

  He dragged himself across a particularly snarled tree root, his body twisted by Lucifer’s magic. His legs remained crippled by injuries that would have killed a normal man but still Mrandor existed and while he did, hope remained for retribution.

  Mrandor scratched his impressive talons across the filthy forest floor, leaving gouges in the dirt and the trees. Like a large wingless hunting bird, he clung to the edge of the rocks and tried to pull himself to stand, but he failed.

  Was this, then, the end?

  He had once been a human boy in a human body with human dreams, but all of his fabric had grown wretched due to the malevolence that had sustained him. Flesh and bone could not prevail against such primal iniquity. He needed remedy, but age and fatigue sequestered him here in an uninhabited forest until death or eternity, whichever awaited him.

  The thought of death triggered consideration of Thanatos and his brethren. They, too, owed him a debt and he would find a way to collect. They counted themselves immortal, but Mrandor knew differently. Those who thought themselves out of his reach would someday pay.

  Had he been able, Mrandor might have wept, but his hate gripped him too tightly to allow such a thing.

  A sepulchral chuckle tortured his throat as it forced its way through a long scar where Arthur’s sword had maliciously slashed through before Mrandor had fled into the mass of his failing army. Which battle had that been?

  He strained to remember. Those were distant years, when Mrandor had been more than sure that he had induced the evil Lucifer to believe that Mrandor was but a pitiable servant. Lucifer, playing Mrandor the fool, had offered up Mrandor and his army as a sacrificial distraction for the deal he had arranged with the First Apostolic Church.

  The Bornshires had slaughtered his army to the last man, troll, and ghoul in the valley of Wizard’s Tower, the second time that a Bornshire had defeated Mrandor’s army at that place. Then, Arthur had burned them all to ash in a wall of stinking flesh. None of Lucifer’s hoard arrived to help them. No reinforcements availed themselves.

  Mrandor longed for the years before. He had been the high-prince of Lucifer’s magical realm. The power he had tasted then had been crimson with the blood of his victims. His had held the power to exhale great creatures more powerful than a flesh and blood human could withstand. He had been a god, much more active and powerful than the dead god that Arthur worshipped.

  However, above that seat of godship, Lucifer had always pulled the strings, and in the end, he had discovered Mrandor’s plot to usurp him. No threats or evil words traversed between them. Neither anger, nor disappointments expressed themselves. No hints. No innuendo. A masterful lie at the critical moment, Lucifer had simply withdrawn Mrandor’s power, leaving him parched and naked of defense. Without magic, without reinforcements, Arthur’s rout decimated Mrandor’s forces. The dirt boiled muddy with the blood of Mrandor’s troops. Still, Mrandor’s armies had seen their share of victories.

  If he ever again had the chance to prevail, he would not repeat the mistakes of the past.

  Chapter 2

  Belial sensed the fetid creature approach the Black Forest. She waited to see what Lucifer might have forged in her absence.

  A giant?

  A dragon, perhaps?

  Perchance a superlative demonic emanation.

  She folded her wings and willed herself indiscernible from the forest around her. She waited patiently as the pitiful soul drew near. When first she saw him, her disappointment irked her sensibilities.

  No hair or skin remained, just open muscle and torn sinew. Blindness milked one eye. Woe oozed. No glory presented. The disfigured puppet appeared to have begun life as a human. With a narrow face, jutting chin, and sunken eye sockets, she made out some semblance of its former heritage.

  Lucifer's plaything had suffered a crippling, wrenched in wrongness. Lucifer’s residual magic clung to it, maintaining its miserable life.

  Had the creature been a mere human, she would have simply killed him and moved on to find her own emissary, but in Mrandor, she tasted the heady flavor of Lucifer’s influence. That iniquity might be of value.

  She stood directly in his path and watched as he scraped his way through the dingy forest. Touching a small trickle of water that emanated from an artesian spring, she cast freshness on the stream while he dragged his way toward its sound. When he arrived, he sipped greedily.

  His body skewed at horrendous angles, his limbs distorted. Lucifer had spun this clay into an inspired spectacle. She admired the anguish the creature endured. Her admiration lasted but a breath. He had merely succumbed to Lucifer’s artistic temptation. One could not be put upon like this without acceptance.

  He could be effective in masterin
g her plan.

  She strode toward him as he neared and made herself perceivable. She spread and flapped her wings, slicing through a tree while doing so, and then she tucked them. The tree fell with a rotted crash. Unexpectedly, the creature did not flinch in her presence.

  “Not another one of you?” Mrandor rasped. “Go away. Leave me be. The war is lost and Lucifer is dead. Without your master, there is nothing here for you. Be off!”

  Belial hauled embers into her eyes. Steadfastly, Mrandor lay in the dark and damp humus and fearlessly regarded her with contempt in his smirk.

  When Belial replied, she spoke loudly, her voice like filtered thunder. “Do you know who I am, underling?”

  “I am not your underling, maggot. Did you not hear me? Lucifer is—”

  Belial extended her wings and sliced Mrandor’s withered arms to the bone, gripped him by his collarbones with her wings and drew him out of the muck and close to her brazen face. Her beauty and ampleness stirred him. She could feel it in his pulse.

  Sharp jagged teeth ran in two rows and her breath raised blisters on his face. Her blonde hair shimmered, and a slender breeze clinked the threads together like fine wire. She allowed her teeth to clatter, the same sound as small knives clashing.

  “I don’t need Lucifer. I am Belial the Destroyer.”

  To Mrandor’s credit, he did not grimace at the sting of her wings upon his broken body. He exuded no fear and perhaps that surprise alone saved him.

  Mrandor spat a grayish gob of saliva in her face with what energy he could summon. Belial’s perturbation almost fostered his demise, but her curiosity intervened. In Mrandor’s lack of apprehension, she discovered a begrudging admiration and wingtip-sharp aggravation. She had expected no contestation from these fetid creatures, but this one brought new strategies to mind. In a long game, tactical goals remained best.

  He said with rigorous bitterness, “I have but an unpretentious scrap of magic left in me, Whore. Remove your claws from me. Kill me if that pleases you, but cease this attempt to frighten me. You make me nauseous.”