Chapter 238 - The Birth of Death part 13

He dreamed he was being chased across a barren, shifting landscape.

It was dark. There were no stars in the sky. No sun. No moon. The only light was a dim glow emanating from the strange-looking vegetation that sprouted from the mucky soil.

The bizarre plants undulated rhythmically, grasping at him with fleshy fronds as he raced past. Their glowing patterns flashed when they made contact, their grasping stalks leaving a sticky residue on his flesh that smelled a bit like blood.

His entire body was slick with sweat, his breath hot in his chest, his heart pounding. For some reason he was naked, but that didn't matter because Death was just behind him. Death was chasing him soundlessly through this awful alien dreamscape.

Death, he saw, when he glanced back over his shoulder, was a dark amorphous mass from which dozens of whipping tendrils extended, twisting and snapping in the air, straining out to snare him.

Death, he thought, appeared exactly as he had imagined it.

Khronos woke with a jerk, relieved to see that night had gone. Even better, the churning clouds that had veiled the sun the last two days was beginning to disperse. It was not warm, but the sun was much brighter than it had been the day before. He was actually sweating a little beneath his layered garments.

He sat up, looked around, scowled when he saw that no one was standing guard.

"Tulpac!" he barked. The man was sleeping nearby. Khronos slapped him on the head.

"Huh! What?" his cousin gasped, sitting up.

"Who took watch after you last night?"

"Uh… Gimli," Tulpac answered, blinking around in confusion. He looked child-like without his mane of auburn hair. His cheeks and eyes were puffy with sleep.

"Well, no one is guarding us now," Khronos snarled, leaping to his feet. "Curse you, Gimli! GIMLI!"

"He's gone," Tulpac said. He had clambered to his feet after Khronos. Tulpac counted the men still present, then added, "So is Hagar."

"Cowards!" Khronos raged.

The others, awakened by Khronos's shouting, scrambled to their feet. They clutched their weapons, instinctively forming an outward facing circle. "What is it? Are we being attacked? Is it the Ananaki?" they clamored.

"It is not the Ananaki," Khronos seethed. "It is betrayal!"

There was nothing he could do.

They were six now.

After they pissed and shit and finished the remains of last night's meal, the Hunters of Death continued on, but this latest desertion had shaken what little confidence they had remaining. Was six men enough to hunt down and kill the god of death? No one gave voice to the question, for they were too fearful or too devoted to the leader of their clan to dare it, but they worried it in their minds, as a dog will worry a bone. Even Khronos wondered. The zeal that he had felt yesterday, to find the god of death and kill it, seemed more like a child's dream now.

They trudged stubbornly on, each man clutching his thoughts to his chest. By midday they were straggled in a loose line, Khronos at the head, his uncle, the eldest, bringing up the rear. The column of black smoke was nearer now than ever. Each time they rounded a hill, Khronos expected the source of the smoke to be waiting in the vale below.

Behind him, Tulpac stumbled and fell to his knees.

"Tulpac?" Khronos said, turning tiredly back.

"I can't keep my eyes open," his friend said, head hanging. "I feel like I'm walking through quicksand."

Behind Tulpac, Edric stumbled to a halt and cried out, "The ground is trembling beneath my feet!"

Khronos looked down with the frown. The ground wasn't moving!

A moment later, Edric collapsed.

Now his uncle was sitting, moaning like woman giving birth. Some evil spell was sapping the strength of his tribesmen!

It was said the god of death was a trickster. What finer jest than to rob them of their strength, and with their goal so close at hand!

"Get up! It is Omak who is sapping you of vitality!" Khronos exhorted them. "On your feet, dogs! We are too close to give up now!"

But they could not obey. As Khronos tried to goad them to their feet, Tulpac fell forward onto his face, and then the others followed suit, one after the other. A couple of the men began to snore.

Khronos turned his back on his companions and stumbled doggedly forward. He was not giving up! He stamped to the top of the next hill, tottered down the other side, each footstep heavier than the one before. The world spun around his head, even though he could clearly see it wasn't moving. Strange sounds blared in his ears, in his head. Screams. Laughter. Terrible odors assaulted his nose. His skin tingled like an army of ants was crawling all over his flesh.

He began to run, breathing in ragged whoops, his head back, his eyes turned sightlessly to the heavens. For a moment he felt like he was running through two worlds at once, neither of them quite real, and then he tripped, rolled down a steep slope, and came to a rest on a rocky scree.

Clutching his head between his hands, he screamed his defiance into the maelstrom.

And then it was gone.

All was still again. His senses were his own.

He sat up, saw that he was sitting near the bottom of a bowl-shaped declivity. Before him, in the center of the crater, rose the column of smoke he had journeyed to see. Favoring his left leg, Khronos rose and stumbled toward the wavering black cloud.

"Omak," he croaked. "God of death, Khronos has come to kill you."

At the base of the column of smoke was a glossy black orb.