Chapter 361 - Aioa part 9

It had required fresh mortal blood to fuel the union of my head to the Eternal Yul's decapitated body, but not this time. The Blood knew the flesh, and had rejoined the pieces of my divided body with no encouragement. I was hungry—the hunger for blood was almost unbearable—but I felt complete. I felt powerful. I felt…

The Eye!

I could sense the God King's presence hovering somewhere overhead. The others sensed it too and craned their heads to search for it. It was like a hot red light in my mind, radiating hatred. I got carefully to my feet—my feet!—and raised my fist to shake it at him. I meant to taunt him, drive him off in a rage. And that was when I sensed them.

Several immortals, very near and moving fast!

"The enemy comes!" Chaumas warbled.

Even as the old man's voice rang out, a dark shape plummeted through one of the gaps in the ceiling of the ice cavern. It dropped to the floor trailing a comet's tail of winking snow. The anger that I had sensed in the God King's invisible presence shifted from the sunset red of frustrated rage to the sickly green-black of gleeful spite. As the first intruder landed in a crouch, three more figures crashed through the ceiling. And then two more followed them. A large section of the roof collapsed with a resounding crash, and chunks of broken ice went spinning through the air in all directions. Chaumas was struck by one of the shards and flung violently into a wall. One came flying in my direction, twirling end over end, but I managed to sidestep it. Our enemies had found us!

Of our rear guard there was no sign. The Uroborans must have outmaneuvered them, or defeated them in battle. After that, they had come across the surface of the ice sheet, led no doubt by the God King's Eye. Not that it mattered now. The only thing that mattered now was that we defeat them.

"Defend yourselves!" I cried.

An instant later, Baalt was upon me.

He launched himself at me through that hail of flying, flashing ice. His broad, ugly face swelled in my vision, teeth bared, eyes blazing with unbridled hatred. He struck me with such force that we hurtled back and smashed into the wall behind us, sending cracks zigzagging upwards. He seized my head, intending to undo what had so recently, so arduously, been restored to me.

I would not allow it!

Once before, he had laid hands on me. He had helped to tear me apart. I had submitted to his brutality in the hope of winning the freedom of my child. But Ilio was dead now, destroyed by this monster and the master he bowed down to. I was no longer constrained by the ties of filial love. For what he had done to me, I would tear this beast apart. For what he'd done to Ilio, I would make this cave his tomb!

"I will place your head at my master's feet!" Baalt snarled, wrenching my skull brutally back and forth. He would have torn my head clean off my shoulders if I had not grabbed his wrists to restrain him. But he was strong. Stronger than me! I could feel the flesh of my neck beginning to tear. My vertebrae fractured with a crackling sound.

"Never!" I snarled back. Before he realized what I meant to do, I brought my legs up between us, knees bent, and set my bare feet against his chest. Still holding onto his wrists, I braced my back against the wall behind me and pushed.

Baalt's ribcage sagged in with a drumroll of sharp snapping sounds. Black blood erupted from the shocked O of his mouth, spattering my face. But I didn't relent. Gritting my teeth, hauling on his wrists with every ounce of my strength, I pushed again.

With a gruesome tearing sound, Baalt's arms ripped from their sockets.

I fell onto my rump, still gripping the twitching limbs, as Baalt reeled away. There was a look of utter perplexity on his face. He blinked at the spurting sockets that had once housed his arms, then gaped at me, too shocked to react.

"You thought me weak," I said as I rose.

Baalt's jaw worked, but his chest was crushed and he could not make a sound.

"But you did not defeat me before," I said. "I surrendered to Khronos. I submitted to my fate. For my son. For Ilio. But Ilio is dead now. You destroyed him. You took him away from me."

I swung Baalt's right arm like a club, striking him in the head and knocking him off his feet. He tried to wriggle away from me, pushing himself across the ice with his heels, but I stalked after him, striking him with the left arm, and then again with the right.

"You took him away from me!" I screamed, beating him with his own arms. "Forever! Forever!"

He had come to the ledge of the ice shelf we stood upon. Before he could topple over the side, I threw his arms away and dropped onto him with my knees, pinning him down.

"There is nothing to stay my wrath now, murderer," I said.

I plunged my fist into his chest, punching through flesh and bone. He was cold inside, cold and wet and soft. As he whipped his head in agony, I seized his heart and yanked it from his chest cavity.

"No mercy," I said, holding his dripping heart out for him to see.

But I was not finished with him. Not yet.

I made a fist, smashing the Eternal's heart to a pulp. Tossing the mangled tissue aside, I seized Baalt's lower jaw and tore it away. It came loose with a grisly popping sound. In the hollow of his mangled face, his tongue waggled like a great pale worm.

"Your master unleashed a beast when he destroyed my son," I said. I cast the jaw away. "A beast that will not rest until it has destroyed all that you hold dear."

I grabbed the immortal by the tunic and lifted him over my head.

"Your way of life," I said. "Your very existence."

Turning, I cast him down, pitching him over the ledge. I watched his ragged form judder down the walls of the crevasse, leaving splashes of black blood in its wake like Chinese Shūfǎ. I hefted a block of ice and flung it down after him. I was bending to pick up another, meaning to bury my enemy in rubble, when Aioa cried out to me.

"Grandfather!" the young woman screamed. While I was occupied with Baalt, one of his cohorts had overpowered my grandchild!

An ancient blood drinker had ensnared her in his arms. Aioa struggled in his grasp as he raked her flesh with his long, sharply nailed fingers. He was tall and gangly, with hideously ugly features. Bulging eyes. A beaky nose. He was toying with her, torturing her, merely for the sake of his own pleasure. In a moment, he would tire of his game and dispatch her, destroy her and rejoin the fray.

Never!

Launching myself at him, I struck the fiend's head from his shoulders with a single, precise blow. If the Uroboran were not so engrossed with his victim, he might have been able to dodge my attack, but he was too absorbed with his sadistic play. His head bounced against the far wall and dropped into a fissure in the floor. Headless and gouting blood, his body toppled backwards. Aioa threw herself into my arms as the blood drinker jittered like a dying insect on the ground, flesh shriveling to the bones.

"Stay behind me," I said, stepping past the young woman.

"Yes, grandfather."

I quickly surveyed our surroundings. Only minutes had passed since our enemies attacked and the vast ice cavern still thundered with battle. Eris had dispatched one lesser blood drinker and was grappling with another. Rayna had placed herself between Chaumas and one of the Uroboran Eternals. She was trying to defend the old man as her foe hissed and slashed at her face with his nails. As Eris was a true immortal and could not be killed, I flew to Rayna's defense. I sprang at the Eternal's back, delivering a crippling kick to the blood drinker's spine. The blow shattered several of his vertebrae, severing the spinal cord, but it also broke my leg just above the ankle. We both dropped simultaneously.

"Heretic dog!" the Eternal howled in fury. He raised himself onto his palms and began to drag himself toward me. The way he moved, I was reminded of the crab that had accosted my head in the cave by the sea. "I will destroy you!" he grunted, skittering toward me.

Grimacing at the pain, I set the broken bones in my leg and waited for the Living Blood to fuse the pieces together again. In a battle between Eternals, the victor is often the blood drinker whose injuries heal the quickest.

Rayna did not give him the chance. She dropped onto his back and wrenched his head from his shoulders. Headless, the Eternal's body dropped lifelessly to the ground, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Rayna cast the head into a nearby fissure and then hastened to my side.

"Father?" she said, kneeling down beside me.

"I am fine," I said. I took her hand and rose. The bones in my leg had already healed. "Help Sunni," I said, pointing.

The diminutive blood drinker was running from an ancient Eternal, a wizened but powerful fiend named Qor. Qor I knew. Qor was the maker of Palifver, my old rival and Zenzele's former lover. I knew him from Shared memory, and from my own experiences too. He was one of the courtiers who had helped to Divide me.

Despite his frail appearance, he was strong and fast. If he laid hands on the little Eternal he would tear her limb from limb. But Sunni was fast as well, and nimbler than the gawkish brute. She ducked and dashed and pivoted, evading the old man's clumsy swipes.

"Qor!" I shouted.

The ancient Eternal wheeled toward me. "You still stand?" he said in surprise. His wide eyes narrowed to slits. "We shall remedy that." Sunni forgotten, he started towards me, fingers curling and uncurling.

"I have bested Baalt," I said. "Jelt, too, has fallen."

He paused for a moment, uncertainty flickering across his features, and then he sneered and spat back, "You cannot destroy me! I am a true immortal. I cannot perish!"

"There are some fates worse than death," I said.

Qor's sneer faded from his face. Without another word, he turned and leapt upwards, meaning to retreat through the hole in the roof.

He had traversed nearly half the distance when Drago and his men poured over the ledge. I watched Qor and Drago collide in midair. The two men, locked in battle, plummeted together to the floor of the cavern. Rayna's elite guard fanned out, engaging the last of the Uroborans in combat. Meanwhile, Qor and Drago grappled violently on the ground, their movements so quick I could barely perceive them. Qor fought back with appalling brutality, biting and kicking and clawing at his eyes, but I did not intercede. Drago needed this. He lived for battle. I approached at my leisure while our elite guard dispatched the lesser Uroborans.

With the help of Eris and Rayna, our warriors destroyed the remaining Uroborans. It was really quite impressive. Our men were well-trained and pitiless. Now all that remained was Qor, who was still putting up a pretty good fight.

Hissing and cursing, Drago and Qor continued to exchange blows. Qor broke away and tried again to flee, but Drago caught his ankle and slammed him to the ground. Rayna and her guard moved to help our ally, but I held up my hand, trusting to Drago's fighting prowess.

Qor howled. Drago had torn his arms from their sockets. Striking the man's knee on the side, he crippled his foe and followed him down. Wrapping his arms around the other man's head, Drago prepared to deliver the coup de grâce.

"Hold!" I commanded.

Drago ogled me in disbelief. He thought I meant to spare the Eternal.

I chuckled at the look of betrayal on my general's face. "Don't look so incredulous, my friend," I said to Drago. "I do not intend to show our foe mercy."

Drago smiled in satisfaction and tightened his grip on Qor's head. "Do you hear that?" he hissed. "No mercy, Uroboran scum."

"How many are you?" I asked, addressing myself to Qor. "We have defeated four of you now. Baalt, Jelt and Yul have all fallen. And you, of course. How many remain?"

"I tell you nothing!" Qor grunted.

"Why are you loyal to him?" I asked. "Khronos cares nothing for you. We must Divide you. We do this because you are a true immortal and cannot be killed, and because you are our enemy. Do you think your god king will send anyone to restore you? Khronos cares only for power and the satisfaction of his own desires. I know. I have Shared his Blood. A piece of his soul resides within my own. You are a pawn to him and nothing more."

"We are the masters of this world!" Qor shrieked, unwilling to listen to reason. His eyes rolled madly in their sockets. He struggled to free himself, gasping and wriggling. "Yours is the perverse philosophy! The mortals are our food--!"

I nodded to Drago.

Before the Eternal could finish his sentence, Drago twisted the man's head from his shoulders.