Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 21

The moment the tendril of smoke touched Vic’s head it turned soot black and the air filled with a shuddering roar. A huge amount of energy, of power, was processed in a second, causing the buckled flagstones to tremble, the knights to stagger, and for Harald and Vic to clutch at each other.

The tendril’s tail recoiled rapidly into itself, as if it were inhaling the vast length it had left behind, all of it pouring with such violence into the last few yards that the smoke blurred, the air continued to thunder, and then, abruptly, the last of it appeared in the air above, zipped into the swelling corpus, and the black smoke widened into an oval that settled upon the ground.

From which a man emerged.

He wore layered ceremonial robes of such splendor that they verged on the impractical, the cloth stiffened by embroidery and jewels and hanging thickly from his shoulders to cover his arms. A ceremonial miter arose from his bald brow, the gold filigree catching the torchlight, and his hands, where they were revealed by the central slit down the front of his robe, were clad in heavy black gloves.

A man it was, though for a moment Harald doubted. The architecture of his skull was prominent, his features drawn under striking black face paint over which had run blood from the edge of his miter, virulently crimson streaks that ran to his chin.

But his eyes.

His eyes were stitched shut and daubed black as if with pitch, the stitching thick and crude, as if hempen string had been used instead of thread.

“Well he looks like a lot of fun,” muttered Vic, straightening at Harald’s side.

The four knights moved to engage once more, striding forward with their black blades, but the stranger raised his black-gloved hand and a tattered sheet of parchment that had been affixed to his robe by a hardened seal of burgundy wax tore itself free to float into the air and catch fire.

It burned away in an instant, leaving black charred fragments to drift to the ground, and unleashed a golden light that poured forth to cover the knights, causing each to abruptly begin glowing as if their armor had become superheated.

Harald barely had time to gape before all four burst apart as if by a terrible interior pressure, their fragments ashing in the release of golden light that momentarily blazed where their cores had been, as if each had given birth to a sun.

Then they were gone, warmth and the smell of superheated iron washing over the room, and they were left alone with the cadaverous man.

“Ah, thank you very much,” said Vic, tone rapid fire. “A delightful intervention, but really, we had the moment very much in hand, but still, a little aid never goes amiss, but if you’ll be excusing us—”

The stranger inclined his head in an almost bird-like manner. “I am Inquisitor Vestorius, Order of the Impaled Eye, Fourth Rank. By the authority invested in me by the Church of the Fallen Angel, I demand your compliance. Deliver unto me the Artifact known as the Twilight Crown, and then prepare your flesh for mortification.”

Harald rippled his fingers on the Scourge as he allowed his Thrones to gutter. He withdrew the Goldchops and his Servitors to the Cosmos, and did his best to breathe deeply.

Somehow, things had gotten even worse, and it looked like he was going to need every ounce of his strength to survive what was to come.

Vic spread his arms. “You know, I am not averse to a little mortification of the flesh on the right night, but usually it’s with Belinda at the Kitty Kat Club, and I’ve had at least a couple of drinks too many. Also, what Twilight Crown? We genuinely—and this I swear on the Fallen Angel herself—have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Harald winced.

Vestorius’ expression was already so dour that it simply couldn’t grow more so. He moved his head but a fraction so that his blinded eyes stared directly at Vic. “You profane the Mother Church with your existence. I sense the dark corruption in your hearts. That you carry Demon Seeds is blasphemy. Blasphemy is death. How you pass into the next realm if your choice: you may kneel and receive absolution for your sins, and pass healed and whole into the Fallen Angel’s embrace, or I shall excoriate you where you stand and send you screaming into the void.”

“Hmm,” said Vic. “Hold on. Let me think.”

“No, Vic—enough.” Harald raised his hands, banishing the Scourge to his Cosmos as he did so. “Enough. We’ve crossed a lot of lines, but blaspheming the Church? That’s one step too far. This is the end of the road. Let’s meet out death with a little dignity.”

Vic raised an eyebrow. “You want a little dignity? Now?”

“Inquisitor.” Harald slowly lowered himself to one knee. “Do you believe the Fallen Angel cares about our fates?”

The man drew himself up. “Of course not. There is no room for sentimentality born of fear of death in Church Doctrine.” He said this with withering pride. “We are but less than ants in her gaze. Immaterial, insignificant, and utterly beneath her notice.  But that truth makes our labor all the sweeter.”

Harald lowered to his second knee, arms still raised. Vic was staring at him in complete confusion. “If that’s the case, how do you know what she desires? Has she spoken to you?”

The inquisitor lowered his chin, expression curdling. “I shall not waste my time debating theology with demon-kin. Prepare to be shriven.”

Damn it.

Harald glanced up at Vic. “Come on.”

“Darling—absolutely not. You have no idea how dangerous it is to get on your knees before a priest.”

“It’s our damn souls, Vic!” Harald injected what he hoped was true desperation into his voice. “Enough with the jokes! This is our only chance to be cleansed at long last!”

“You are really confusing me,” said Vic. “I—oh!” His eyes widened dramatically. “Of course! Yes, yes. Um. Mr. Inquisitor?”

The man’s patience, already threadbare, almost snapped. “Were it not for my extreme piety and devotion, I would have already erased you both from this hallowed ground. Kneel and be cleansed! Now!”

“I just wanted to ask,” said Vic as he slowly lowered himself to one knee, “is it true that the Beatified Daughters of the Church—you know, the order of nuns who wear those silver masks? Is it true that once a year they remove their masks and put on rags before going into the Tangles to fuck any man who asks them—”

“Silence!” thundered the Inquisitor, and swept his arm at Vic, a scepter appearing in his fist as he did so, as ornately wrought as his robes, all gold and twinned silver and diamond. A wave of gold light flashed forth and lifted Vic off his feet to hurl him back into the wall with such force that he bounced off and fell face first onto the ground. “I consign your souls to the Fallen Angel, and even as your flesh burns into cinders I pray the pain, terrible as it may be—”

“Harald!” Sam’s voice rang out from above, rife with concern. “What’s going on?”

She’d appeared at the railing with Kársek, Anna, and Nessa.

Inquisitor Vestorius raised his gaze to encompass them then lowered his scepter. “I am an Inquisitor acting on the behalf of the Mother Church. These two demon-kin are to be cleansed and laid to rest. I know it a futile request, but do not interfere if you value your lives.”

“Just on time,” said Harald, hurrying over to help Vic rise. The inquisitor’s strike had battered him badly, and half his face was already turning shiny and swelling from the blow. Was starting to worry you guys weren’t going to show up.”

“An inquisitor?” Sam’s voice shook. “But—there has been a misunderstanding. We’re not acting against the Fallen Angel. I swear it. We’re trying to save her, to save Flutic.”

“Noble words,” said the inquisitor. “But they only reveal you to be misguided. One cannot purge a wound with filthy instruments; attempting to do so only introduces deeper rot. You are indicted for your association with these demon-kin. Involve yourself further and you shall suffer like them.”

“You’re awfully chatty for an inquisitor,” said Vic, working his jaw. “I thought you’d just pronounce us evil and kill us.”

The corner of the blind man’s lipless mouth carved itself upward into a bleak smile. “I take my sacerdotal duties seriously, young man. Any brute can wield a blade. It takes a righteous man to wield one in the name of the Mother Church. Formalities must be observed, opportunities for redemption offered.” The smile faded away. “No matter the futility. Now. Let the cleansing begin.”

Harald resisted the urge to call on his Thrones. Every second bought him respite, a chance to catch his breath. Each moment allowed his Thrones to restore themselves, the Fallen Angel’s blessings to revive their power. But would one more second matter? Worse, how could they stand against a man who’d killed four knights without effort?

“You must understand,” said Sam, and leaped down to the second balcony. “Harald and Vic—”

But the inquisitor ignored her as he raised a hand and made a gesture. Another ancient sheet of parchment, its surface dense with cramped scribbling, tore itself free from a wax seal affixed to his vestments and rose into the air.

Harald summoned the Goldchops and summoned the Scourge into his grasp. His twin Shadow Knights appeared by his sides, one even more hulking and massive than the other, and Shadowpaw immediately set to slinking off to the side.

The inquisitor appeared utterly unimpressed by Harald’s resources.

“In the name of the eternal Mother Church, in the name of the Fallen Angel herself—” But then the inquisitor stopped, frowned, and looked back up. “Where did you find that sword?”

Sam held the Eclipse Edge in both fists. Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flaring as she took sharp breaths, ready, Harald knew, to leap down to his defense. The inquisitor’s question checked her resolve.

“I—an angel dropped it in the dungeon. I’m on a quest to return it to her.”

“Marvelous,” breathed the inquisitor, brows rising. “An Eclipse Edge, is it not? And it allows you to wield it?”

“It does.” Sam’s tone hardened. “And I’ll wield it against you if I must.”

Suspicion hardened the man’s crimson-streaked face. “An angel ‘dropped’ it, you say?”

“That would be my fault,” said Kársek. “She was intent on harming my tharkûn. I had to intervene, much as I will if you move against Harald.”

“What is your name, young lady?”

Sam raised her chin, eyes glittering. “Sam.”

“Sam. Your Class?”

She shared a glance with the other two, then took a breath and hopped off the balcony much as the knights had done to drop to the flagstones. Harald couldn’t help but admire her easy athleticism, and how her knees flexed only slightly to take her weight. “I am a Netherwarden Knight. Now. Put away your weapon and I shall do the same. I’m sure we can settle this matter amicably.”

“Between you and I, yes. I would like that very much. But your companions here are tools for the very demons that wage war against the angels. They must be cleansed.”

Sam pursed her lips as she shook her head. “No. They are good people. I know they carry Demon Seeds, but they seek to use their dark power for the Fallen Angel. I swear this to be true.”

The inquisitor’s smile turned caustic. “Child. I am of the Fourth Order. I am privy to secrets you cannot dream of. The only righteous ends for your companions is merciful death, which I shall grant them now. One day you shall consider it a favor, for I will have spared you witnessing the horrors they shall soon become.”

Nessa landed just behind Sam, and immediately stepped back and away. The Dawnblade was in her fist, but her eyes were wide, her skin waxen.

Harald wanted to hug her. It was a miracle that she was even able to be part of this fight.

“The world is stranger than you know,” said Sam, tone level yet inexorable. “We seek the angels. Don’t get in our way.”

“I ask you gently and with good will to step aside,” said in the inquisitor. “As noble as you are, you cannot stop me. None of you can. My powers are simply beyond what you can handle. Don’t throw away your life for demon-tainted men. Avenge them. Help the Mother Church in its crusade against the demons.”

“Crusade,” said Sam. “How come I’ve seen no sign of the Church down here in the dungeon? Or priests or inquisitors lining up at the Dungeon Portal to help with the war below?”

Vestorius smiled again, a deathshead grin. “You think the Mother Church would deign to use the Dungeon Portal?”

Harald blinked. Wait. What? They had access to the dungeon from elsewhere?

“Regardless, the Church doesn’t battle this high in the Dungeon. What is there to fight in these upper reaches? The war lies below.” Vestorius extended one gloved hand. “Let me show you, Sam. There is so much for you to learn. So much good you can do.”

Almost Harald called out for her to accept his offer. He knew they were hopelessly outmatched. Inquisitors were feared by even Gold-rankers. They were the Church’s greatest line of defense. But Harald knew better. Knew that Sam would never betray them, never stand aside and watch him die. For better or worse, her greatest strength was to be her downfall. A good heart that made her loyal.

“Then we regret this has to happen.” Harald moved up alongside Sam. “I know words won’t move you, so I won’t try to change your mind.”

“A pity.” The inquisitor raised his golden scepter. “There is such brightness about you that I can barely stand it, Sam. Your Soul Rank must be exceptional. Ah well. Suffer not the demon-spawn to live, after all.”

Harald eased into a combative crouch, Scourge held at the ready. The Goldchops hovered overhead. Shadowpaw had eased himself to crouch, ready to pounce, directly behind the inquisitor. Both knights were on the flanks. Sam and he had point, Nessa and Vic behind, while -

“Khazadrok.”

The vast rune flew straight down, translucent and terrible, and passed clear through the inquisitor.

The obsidian flagstones erupted beneath his feet, shattering into wicked slivers and shards as the room was filled with a great booming crash of thunder. Dust billowed out, only to curve upward as if impacting the walls of a glass sphere as the Compressed World came right after the rune, the attacks so perfectly timed they had to be synchronized.

Harald commanded the Goldchops and they flung themselves forward, eager as hunting hounds, even as Shadowpaw bayed and everybody dropped their auras. Starfire Bastion flooded the walls with ephemeral silver, while Thronebound Mantle drenched the chamber in Harald’s abyssal will. Aura of Cruelty, Will of the Blade, Crimson Entourage—these and more overlapped so that the air grew saturated with power.

“Behind you!” shouted Anna, and Harald spun to see the inquisitor standing in the far corner of the chamber, his robes torn, his miter gone from his bald pate, his mouth seamed with fury.

Damn it. Kársek’s rune had sent Yseult Khan flying through the wall. Compressed World should have constrained the inquisitor’s abilities. But there was no time to complain—Harald unleashed a Demonic Edge even as Sam did the same with the Eclipse Edge, both splitting to run out wide.

The inquisitor appeared, terrifyingly, annoyed more than anything else. The Demonic Edge simply fizzled into gold light as they came close, though Judgement’s Light, the assault from the angel sword, caused a sphere of gold light to appear about the inquisitor which promptly shattered. The man was forced to sidestep and bend away with surprising alacrity as the white light faltered and faded away.

“Penitence,” said the man, his voice carrying as if whispered directly into Harald’s ear, and a column of white light transfixed Sam, freezing her in place.

A storm of wickedly bladed stars flew down at where the inquisitor stood, but each and everyone was blocked by ripples of golden light so that they fell to the ground harmlessly, clinking and bouncing against the flagstones.

Vic pointed at the inquisitor, his eyes blazing, and somehow his voice became charged with power, laden with terrible authority that froze everybody in place. “You claim righteousness, but in your soul you know it to be a farce, one that benefits the fortunate and shields them from the truth: that you are a weak man, a cruel man, a sadist and as monstrous as any you have slain. The Fallen Angel abhors you and your kind, for in her eyes you are as heretical and blasphemous.”

The inquisitor staggered back, hairless brows rising high, mouth falling open slackly.

“Anna!” Vic’s voice was his own again, a whipcrack command: “Use the Slats!”

The Judgement Slats. Her Masterwork weapon, equipped only to boost her Ego against the scarecrow’s mental assaults.

But the inquisitor was recovering quickly, his fear and dismay replaced by anger. His golden scepter began to burn with aureate light, but before he could unleash an attack, a sound insinuated itself into the air, distant and strangely awful.

A clapping sound. Dry clacking. Harald shuddered. It felt as if nails were being dragged down glass, and the more he tried to close his ears to the clacking, the worse it got. Memories bubbled up in his mind, visions he’d not thought of in forever: the mouse he’d caught and thrown to the house cat; the callous way he’d treated Sam for so many years; the girls he’d paid for at the Kitty Kat Club and tried to use in the same callous manner as Vic; the good deeds he’d chosen not to do, the men and women he’d slaughtered, the pleasure he’d taken in the Demon Seed’s power. And worst of all, beneath it all, the sickening suspicion that he didn’t want to be free of this curse, didn’t want to fight free of Vorakhar’s influence, that perhaps he simply wanted power however he could get it, and would use the demon if that was what it took—even if it meant the true damning of his soul.

Nessa cried out and clutched at her head. Vic reeled, then spun around to vomit all over the floor.

But the inquisitor.

He shuddered, his hand going to his throat, then convulsed.

Now, thought Harald. I have to end him now!

Marshalling his Ego of 26, Harald tore his mind away from the yawning abyss of guilt and self-loathing and broke into a rough charge, Scourge raised high.

But he wasn’t the only one with a strong will.

“Dismay,” croaked the inquisitor, and a half-dozen golden figures flew forth from his palm, moving too quickly for Harald to catch any details. Each homed in on one of his companions, slamming into their chests and lifting them off their feet.

Harald sought to block, to parry, but was too slow.

The golden portrait of burning wires slammed into him and hurled him back with such force that he retched out all the air in his lungs, felt his legs go out from under him, lost track of the Scourge. Darkness swirled in his vision, and he didn’t even feel himself hit the floor. Instead, the world revolved around him several times, and then he fetched up against the wall and was still.

Silence but for pained gasps and moans.

Shadow Fortitude allowed Harald to remain present despite what had been done to his body. Blinking, trying to focus his gaze, he levered himself up onto an elbow and saw the inquisitor straighten, his crimson-smeared visage a mask of wrath.

“Enough! Enough with these distractions and pathetic attempts to deny the inevitable. I. Am. An inquisitor of the Fourth! Rank!” Each bark scalded the air, hit Harald like a buffet across the face.

The man took a deep breath, composing himself, then adopted a genial smile. “It’s not surprising, I suppose, that a demon-tainted crew such as your own should have some surprises. Possess Artifacts far beyond what you should be wielding. But no matter. This charade has come to an end. As have your lives. Beginning with yours.”

Harald grimaced as he fought to rise, but something was badly wrong with his hips. His vision slurried and he fell back down with a gasp. His Artifacts were gone, back to his Cosmos, along with his Servitors.

Scales. He had to heal first.

Sam yet stood trapped in her column of white light, expression immobile, seemingly locked out of time.

“You.” The inquisitor stood above Vic, slapping his golden scepter into his palm. “You I shall allow a possibly unseemly pleasure in ending.”

“Fine, fine,” slurred Vic. “Calm down, already. I’ll suck your limp inquisitor dick.”

The inquisitor froze, eyes narrowing to slits, then pointed the scepter straight at Vic’s head. “I hope you suffer for eternity.”

Harald’s hand fumbled around his waist. There. His scale pouch.

He thrust his hand inside, but it was empty. Not even a single Copper Crescent.

The head of the golden scepter began to glow brighter and brighter.

“No sucky sucky?” asked Vic, voice drunk with pain. “Ah well. I guess even dead birds can’t… can’t rise from the nest.”

“Hold.”

A new voice. Feminine, assertive, cruel in its authority. Familiar?

The inquisitor raised his scepter, surprised, and Harald followed the direction of his gaze to take in the new arrival that stood in the archway leading to the stairway down.

It was a stern young woman clad all in white, a pair of slender angel wings furled behind her, a single, beautiful blade in one fist, the twin to the Eclipse Edge.

The angel-kin.