Chapter 397 - The War of the Vampires part 20

Drago returned shortly with reinforcements, a sobbing Eris among them. The beautiful Eternal's face, I saw, was streaked black with tears. I knew before she even spoke what had happened. "Usus is gone," she sobbed. "I tried to heal him with my Blood, but he was too badly injured. He fell to dust in my arms." As Zenzele comforted the two-natured immortal, I asked if she had preserved her lover's memories. It was all we could do for the dying. When the Blood wasn't enough. When they went to join their ancestors.

Eris nodded, wiping her eyes. "Yes, I Shared with him. At the last, before he went. He is here now with me." And she touched her temple.

It wasn't enough, I knew, but it was better than nothing.

"Usus was a proud warrior," I said. "I can think of no better way to honor his spirit than to finish his enemies. We will destroy the God King in his name, and in the names of all who have given their lives here tonight."

Eris nodded again, more firmly this time, drying her tears. "Yes," she said. "Once and forever!"

Though the God King's army had surrendered to us, there were still some isolated pockets of resistance. Most of the fighting was going on in the Arth, the second level of the city where the freemen resided. We followed Aioa through the squalid, winding alleys of the slave district, past the charnel pits and the gladiatorial rings, through a barren plot of land dotted with crucified slaves, most dried to jerky by exposure to the elements, then through the quarries where the corpses of the freemen the rebels had pitched down from above lay dashed upon the rocks, their bodies twisted and burst open like piles of squashed vegetables. Aioa led us through the quarries and up the zigzagging path to the city above. We encountered no resistance on our ascent, but met a group of Uroborans as soon as we entered the Arth.

It seemed that we caught them by surprise. I wondered how anyone could have missed the approach of such a large group, and then I realized what it was: Irema's power! It must be protecting us. We were phantoms in her company, slipping like shadows through the city!

The Uroboran group was a sizeable one, but we outnumbered them two to one and there was not a single Eternal among them. Though they fought with a wildness born of desperation, they were not warriors. These were the indolents of the Fen, accustomed to luxury and indulgence. Only a few of them had any real martial training.

We defeated them easily, forcing most of them over the side of the mountain. Their diminishing howls were terrible to hear, the little thuds at the end even more terrible, but there would be plenty of time later to replay those despairing screams in my mind, to stew in my own shame and self-loathing. Right now, I was hunting bigger game. The only one that really mattered.

Khronos!

"He's there, inside the mountain," Aioa said, pointing to the summit of Fen'Dagher. "I can feel him. Watching. Waiting."

Yes, I could sense it, too. I could sense him, even without Aioa's gift. Waiting for us to come to him, meaning to trap us, no doubt, in his underground lair. Like a spider, perhaps. Something inhuman, unfeeling.

I gazed up at the mountain. It was a hulking shape from this angle, its contours gleaming in the moonlight, a cenotaph of wickedness. There beneath the surface, somewhere in that maze-like warren of depravity and corruption, the God King awaited. What snares had he set for us, I wondered. Booby-trapped walls? Spiked pits? But we couldn't stop now. I couldn't stop. We had to keep going.

"Onwards!" I shouted.