“I’m looking for Mad Ravoc.”
Silence swept through the drinking hall. The haggard, brutish faces of drunkards and scoundrels turned toward the door and the girl who had spoken the accursed name. Fair-skinned and lean, her pale blue eyes searched under a mane of shaggy, amber hair. She had seen only seventeen summers, but they had been hard on her.
“Be gone, girl,” the drink keeper chided. “Don’t speak that blackened name in my hall.” It was more of a hovel than a hall. The low ceiling loomed over a dingy, cramped space.
It stunk of men. Fighting men. Men from the savage wilds, the frozen north, the eastern sands, and more. She could feel all their greedy, wanting gazes climbing up her legs – bare above the knees where the tops of her boots and the bottom of her riding skirt left her strong thighs exposed. Climbing over the swell of her breasts despite all she’d done to hide them with wrapping under her tunic. Even the sight of her bare arms set hungry tongues to licking chops. There were whores aplenty in the crowded den but when it came to men like these rovers, plenty was never enough.
“I’ve heard he’s in this city,” she said. Her words sent a chill through the sweaty crowd. Several men got up from their stools and ran out the door. Their lusts and reputations forgotten in an instant at the thought that Mad Ravoc might be near.
“Girlie,” a rawboned man with the saddest brown eyes she had ever seen leaned into the light. “Who told you that?”
“That’s the word all the way in Parn, where I’ve come from.”
“You came an awful long way just to meet your death,” said the drink keeper.
“It’s not my death I’m after,” she said, looking over the hard men. “But someone else’s.”
Some of the men barked with laughter.
“She thinks she’ll make a cutthroat of the Bloody Beast of Thol.” The man who spoke was a dark-haired Tuni. He sat at a table with more of his countrymen. Even in their desert wraps they stunk of sweat and spices, with greasy grins that slithered under filthy black beards.
The girl searched for anyone who could possibly be the legendary killer that she sought. Mad Ravoc was said to be a beast of a man, over seven feet tall and covered in dark hair. None of these wretches measured up.
“Rich is what I’ll make him,” she said. “And there’s something in it for anyone who helps me find him.” That was a lie. But so what? No sin in lying to a nest of vipers. And fast as a viper, the Tuni reached out and snatched her arm.
“A little something, eh?” he yanked her over to him. “Where do you suppose she’s got it hid?” he laughed. They all laughed. As his hands groped at her, trying to get between her legs, she grabbed a clay tankard from the table and smashed him in the face with it.
The tankard shattered in a wet burst of wine and blood. The men laughed even harder. They were still laughing when she ran out the door.
***
“Girlie. Hey, girlie.” It was the man with the sad eyes trotting up behind her, weaving through the mess of people in the crowded streets.
“What do you want?” she asked without stopping. He looked like a drunk and a beggar and she was in no mood for more harassment. He wobbled after her. From drink or from the large parcel slung onto his back she was not sure.
“You ought to be more careful,” he said. “Those damn Tunis are trouble in the best of times.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said.
“Famous last words,” he replied. “And this business with Mad Ravoc,” he lowered his voice as he said the name, as if speaking it too loudly would summon the great and terrible warrior. “Who in the hell do you need killed so badly that you would seek him out?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“If you would slow down I could tell you.”
She moved through the throng of people and stepped into an alley. She doubted this fool had anything of interest to say but she felt relief none the less. She hated cities and Balkez was one of the worst. The stench of all those people, animals, and putrid wares was overwhelming. The little alley was a welcome refuge.
She turned to the man, resting her hand on the knife she wore at her hip. He didn’t seem threatening but he was still a man. He wore a short sword and there was always a chance he knew how to use it.
“What do you want, then?” she asked.
“First, tell me what your trouble is,” he said. “There’s a hundred men in this city you could hire for a killing. Why him?”
Her mind flashed back to Parn. To the Temple of the Bat. To the Twins and their full moon raids. Lord Sleer’s teeth filed down to sharp points. Lady Rikka’s perverse tortures. Her brother in agony, begging for death. And the fate of all young girls in the shadow of Jyn Suraud.
“Jyn Suraud,” she said. “Do you know the name?”
Sad Eyes arched his brow in thought. “Another magician, isn’t he?”
“He’s a vile and powerful sorcerer,” she said, as if educating a child. “He and his twins have a small army that terrorizes my village and others like it. They take young women and boys for their sacrifices to Chiropterus. They’ve already killed or cowed most of the fighting men and they’re taking slaves to breed more children to sacrifice. This is who I want killed and no damn simple sell-sword or barbarian will do. I need the best. I need the worst. I need Mad Ravoc.”
Sad Eyes was nonplussed. She wanted to slap the stupid look off his drunken face and might have, but for the two men coming down the alley behind him.
It was the Tunis.
The one she had hit with the tankard was in the lead. His face was an angry mess of blood from the gash in his forehead.
“Well,” Sad Eyes began. “That does sound like trouble. Suppose-”
The Tuni with the bloody face pushed him aside. The girl backed away and reached for her knife as the Tuni reached for her. But just before he could grab her he was jerked backward and tossed on his ass by the sad-eyed man.
“Hey piss off, will you,” Sad Eyes said as if he spoke to a meddlesome dog. “We’re talking.”
The Tuni snarled and sprang to his feet. He and his friend both drew their curved swords, ready for blood. The bleeding one started to say something – a threat most likely. But Sad Eyes pulled a knife from somewhere and in a flash he shoved the blade up under the man’s chin and into his skull, skewering his mouth shut.
The Tuni’s eyes bulged and twitched. Fresh blood oozed out of his nostrils and through his clenched teeth. He didn’t fall down right away. Just stood there shuddering.
The girl couldn’t believe her eyes. Neither could the other Tuni. But the sad-eyed man wasted no time. He had the heavy parcel from his back gripped in both hands and he swung it at the other man. It hit him so hard it spun him around and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Before he could even try to get up, Sad Eyes was on him. He planted a foot in the middle of the Tuni’s back, grabbed him underneath the chin with both hands, and yanked upward until something inside the man cracked. Whether it was his neck, his back, or both, the girl did not know.
Sad Eyes blew out a heavy breath through puffed up cheeks.
“Well, that’s it for this city,” he said. He heaved his parcel up from the ground and slung it back over his shoulder. “We should leave now, girlie. What’s your name?”
“Shae,” she said. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Mad Ravoc.”
***
“Are you sure that’s him?” Torrin asked for the second time since they’d left Balkez. He was two years younger than her but big for his age and handy in the wilds. Good with the horses and even better with a bow. With so many of the men of Parn dead or bewitched by Jyn Suraud the lad was the best she could muster for a traveling companion.
The two of them were on horseback. Shae turned and looked over her shoulder at Sad Eyes, trailing slowly behind them on foot. He had no horse of his own and declined to ride double on one of theirs.
“It better be,” she said with no shortage of bitterness. In truth, she didn’t know what to think. According to all the tales, Mad Ravoc was a living terror. A monster among men. He’d slain kings and great beasts of myth. He’d felled armies and butchered men, women, and children alike. People spoke of him in grave, hushed tones like they would speak of dragons or evil spirits.
She could not believe that this fool was capable of all that. But he had killed two hardened men in front of her without a second thought and insisted on leaving with her. She had been in no position to argue with him. But now that she had had time to think, and with Torrin’s doubts adding to her own, she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake.
Whoever he was, him being on foot was a problem. The road back to Parn was over a day’s journey at the best of paces. And there was no shortage of dangers. Bashai raiders on the steppe, bandits in the foothills, and the Red Claw Clan had war bands all over the high desert.
And those were just the human threats.
The wilds were crawling with fouler things than men. Cave spiders as big as dogs, nightgaunts, succubi, and worse. It was no place to be after dark.
But if the man truly was Mad Ravoc – the Scourge of Celadune – then they should be as safe out here as anywhere. Safe from everything but him at least.
They made it to the foothills just in time to make camp. A cluster of bats flew overhead. An uneasy look passed between her and Torrin. It was said that Jyn Suraud used them as spies, seeing through their blind eyes what they could not. Nothing they could do about it now. Shae busied herself with the horses while Torrin built a fire and started dinner. It was already cooking by the time Sad Eyes climbed up the steep path to camp.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Thank you,” Torrin said uncertainly.
Shae watched the man. He sat by the fire, easing the heavy parcel down on the ground beside him. He kept his back to the foothills and his eyes on the wide, sprawling steppe. And he kept clear of the horses.
Is he afraid of them? She wondered.
“I heard you were bigger,” she said flatly. This fellow was built well enough – taller than average, with broad shoulders. His bare arms were strong. His leather, fur-trimmed tunic hugged a solid chest. But she wouldn’t call him big. Her own father had been a bigger man while he had lived.
“Eight feet tall,” Torrin added. “And hairy like a bear.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Sad Eyes rubbed the graying stubble on his strong jaw. “I suppose I could use a shave, though.”
“With fangs and claws too…” the youth trailed off. His enthusiasm betraying him.
“Oh yes,” Sad Eyes nodded. “With great big horns and eyes that turn men to stone.” He smiled weakly. “Don’t believe everything you hear, lad.”
“But you are a killer, though,” Shae said with an edge. It was something between a question and a plea.
“You’ve seen that I am,” he said.
“Anyone can kill a few cutthroats and drunkards,” she bit back. “They say you killed King Vulcor and fifty of his best knights. Is that true or just another story?”
“That’s true,” Sad Eyes said plainly.
“And the dread Wyrm of Melkyr?” Torrin asked. “They say you killed it with your bare hands.”
“That I did,” Sad Eyes said with no pride at all.
“And the Bruvah Witch Sisters? Did you kill them too?”
“That, and worse,” Sad Eyes said.
He was looking into the fire now. Shae studied him. There was no bluster or boating in anything he said. It seemed impossible that such an ordinary fellow could be the notorious butcher that she had heard so much about. But what man in his right mind would claim to be such a fiend if he were not? Unless of course he was not Mad Ravoc, but simply mad.
“The cleaver!” Torrin almost shouted. The damn fool boy made Shae jump. Sad Eyes saw her jolt, though he was still as stone. “Mad Ravoc carries a giant cleaver that he used to cleave the Green Colossus in two. What happened to your cleaver?”
Sad Eyes perked up. “Now that I can show you.” He reached over to the large parcel on the ground beside him. He undid several leather straps and unwrapped layers of hide and muslin until finally he hoisted up a massive, crude slab of metal. It was half as long as he was tall, with a handle long enough for five fists. And the blade was almost as wide as his waist.
Looking at him beam over the preposterous weapon, Shae recalled how much effort it had taken him to swing it at the Tuni. There was no way he could ever wield such a weapon effectively in a fight. Her heart sank and her guts filled anger. Her hand went to the blade on her hip.
“I don’t believe you’re Mad Ravoc,” she growled.
“That’s all right,” the man shrugged. “I don’t believe you have any gold to pay me with.”
Shae faltered at that. He was right. She had bet on the treasure in the Temple of the Bat being enough to satisfy the real Ravoc.
“It doesn’t matter,” he added. “I never did it for gold, anyway.” He nodded behind her, then. “We’ve got company.” He released his grip on the absurd cleaver’s handle and let it fall to the dirt with a heavy THUNK. He walked around the fire and over to the edge of the camp. What was left of the sun was to his back, barely hanging on over the foothills. Shae looked out over the steppe and saw the men. Five of them on horseback.
Their camp was just high enough up a steep face that they couldn’t be ridden down. And if these five were fighting men they would know to keep their distance in case someone up here had a bow.
The men reined to a halt about fifty paces from the bottom of the foothills. They were fighting men, all right. Even at this distance she could see the hafts and handles of their weapons.
They looked like Northerners. Brawny, blond, and bearded.
“Evening, friends,” Sad Eyes called out like he was some damn trader or merchant.
“I ain’t yer friend, sloka,” one of them called back. He was almost too broad to sit on a horse.
“What’s sloka?” Torrin asked quietly. He was readying his bow.
“Means I lie with boys,” Sad Eyes said.
“Oh,” Torrin sank. Sad Eyes looked over at him.
“I don’t,” he said defensively.
“We’re looking for Mad Ravoc,” the stout Northerner called again. “We heard he left Balkez with a girl and a lad from the high desert. Are you him?”
“Me?” Sad Eyes laughed. “Mad Ravoc’s eight feet tall, with arms as big as tree trunks. Hairy like a bear, I hear.”
Shae glared daggers at him. Was he lying now or was he finally telling the truth?
“Tall tales for women and children,” the Northerner barked. “Mad Ravoc’s a man like any other. Like you, maybe. I see you’ve got a girl and a lad with you, too. If they stepped a little closer I’d wager they were dressed for high desert.”
“Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t,” Sad Eyes said. “But I already told you I’m not him.”
“I say you are.”
Sad Eyes sighed. “Suppose I was. What would you want with me?”
“Your head.”
“What do you want that for?”
“You killed my brother in Strom, three winters passed. Along with his wife, his children, and a few dozen others.”
“What was his name?” Sad Eyes asked.
“His name was Wolaff. They call me Lorras the Boulder.”
“I don’t know him,” Sad Eyes called back. “And I don’t know you. But that sounds like something I would do.”
“Then you’re meant for death this night, sloka.”
“No,” Sad Eyes said. “Not at the hands of you stinking vertun.”
The Northerners broke out in roars of fury. They drew their swords and axes and spat a slurry of curses.
“What’s vertun mean?” Torrin asked.
“It’s like cunt, but worse,” Sad Eyes said, climbing down from the camp.
“Worse?!”
“I’d thank you not to use that bow,” Sad Eyes told him. “You might hit me with it.”
Shae and Torrin stood dumbstruck as he walked out onto the steppe to meet the Northerners. The five men whipped up their horses in a frenzy and rode hard at him. The dying light glinted off their blades like sparks from a fire. Sad Eyes went out to face them all with nothing but the short sword on his hip.
The horses were closing fast. The fool was going to get himself killed. They would ride him down for sure. Shae could only hope that they would be satisfied with that and let her and Torrin go.
Then again, why not die here? Why go on at all if she could not stop Jyn Suraud and see him killed for what he had done to her people?
Her thoughts went to her brother. She remembered his courage and his easy smile. She remembered the way he had screamed in horror at the end. She felt rage well up inside of her and tears crowd the edges of her eyes when she heard the horses shriek.
Shae blinked away her sorrow and saw chaos on the steppe.
The horses were awash in panic. All of a sudden, as they drew near the sad-eyed man, they dug their hooves into the dirt, desperate to keep away from him. One of the horses stopped so hard that both of its front legs snapped. Its face slammed into the ground and its long, heavy body snapped forward in a terrible tumble, breaking its own back and pulverizing its rider.
Two other men were thrown completely from their horses, crashing into the dust as their mounts bolted in terror back the way they came. Only the two riders on the far ends had managed to stay astride their animals. Both men were fighting to regain control as their mounts tried to flee in any other direction.
Sad Eyes walked over to the first man as calm as still waters. He drew his short sword and stabbed the Northerner through the back of the neck. The point of the blade sliced out the other end through his larynx. As he withdrew the blade a river of blood vomited from the wound and soaked the earth underneath.
Sad Eyes scooped up the dead man’s ax and in no hurry at all went to the second man who was just getting up to his knees. Sad Eyes buried his blade in the man’s guts and lopped off his head with the ax.
Shae saw one of the men riding away, saving his own skin. All that remained was the talker, Lorras the Boulder, still fighting to control his horse.
Sad Eyes rolled the headless man over and pulled out his sword. He approached Lorras the Boulder with all the urgency of an evening stroll. When he was close enough he hurled the ax through the air. Lorras the Boulder swatted it away with a powerful swing of his sword but in that moment his horse reared back with a whinny and tossed the big man off its back. The horse sped away, shrieking like a banshee.
Sad Eyes did not wait. He pressed forward. Not a charge or a rush but an unrelenting advance. He was good with a sword. No foreign style or fancy flourishes. But clean, direct strikes. Lorras the Boulder fought much more savagely. Big, wild, powerful swings. He was a much larger man with a much larger blade, but even from the camp Shae could see that the Northerner was afraid. Gripping his sword with both hands as much to steady himself as to strengthen his swing.
Lorras the Boulder roared and rushed at Sad Eyes with a mighty overhead swing. Sad Eyes parried the blow and stepped to the outside. In a blink his knife was in his other hand. He plunged it all the way to the hilt down into the Northerner’s neck just above the collarbone, and pulled it back out as fast as a snakebite.
Lorras the Boulder was dead then. He just didn’t know it yet. He took a few more swings at Sad Eyes while blood ran down his back and chest. He wobbled like a drunk until finally his sword tip sank to the ground and he toppled over into the blood-drenched muck.
The steppe was still and silent but for the broken horse. The wretched beast was still alive, thrashing with a broken back and two broken legs.
Sad Eyes walked all the way back up to the camp. He breathed a little heavily from the effort but was otherwise unbothered.
“One of you will have to kill that horse,” he said. “It’ll crawl for a mile like that if I try to do it.”
Torrin moved to go but Shae stopped him. The lad was soft-hearted when it came to animals. There was nothing soft in her heart anymore. She went out on the steppe, enthralled at the scene. It was as if a lone storm cloud had rained blood in that one spot and evaporated.
She put the poor horse out of its misery but could not stop the thought that her own brother’s death had been even more pitiful.
***
“We’ll have to leave the road,” Sad Eyes said as they broke camp the next morning. The rest of the night had passed without incident but Shae knew the man was right. More men would come. Some for revenge, some for reward, and some for a shot at glory. But they would come.
It would mean a harder, more dangerous path. But she no longer feared the perils of the wilds as much as she now feared the killer in her company. Her hatred of Jyn Suraud had made her desperate for vengeance and careless toward her own safety. The thought of siccing a villain like Mad Ravoc on the dread sorcerer had seemed like such a forlorn hope only a few days ago. But now that it seemed that she might actually be keeping company with Ravoc the Defiler, other tales of his wickedness crept back into her memory.
The three Bruvah Witch Sisters were said to be strikingly beautiful. But that beauty came at a frightful cost. Black masses where they ate the hearts of kidnapped infants. Hexes on mothers to be that killed the children in the womb. And at night, the sisters would creep into the chambers of those young women, taking the form of rats, cats, or even drifting shadows, and drink the blood of the stillbirth. Their reign of death spread all over the hills of Bruvah. Until Mad Ravoc came calling.
As the story goes he found the three sisters in the cave where they had made their home. He found them naked and drunk on the blood of a fresh sacrifice. They beckoned him in, mistaking him for easy prey. Just another man with a man’s urges. But Mad Ravoc’s urges were beyond those of a normal man.
He ravaged and slaughtered them.
Shae felt a quiver move through her body. She watched Sad Eyes climb the foothills without tiring or complaint. Every now and then he would stop and search behind them for pursuers. Torrin, on the other hand, had stayed much closer. Whenever Sad Eyes would catch up to them Torrin would edge his horse in between Shae and the other man.
They could see the high desert by the time they made camp. Dinner was quiet. Torrin and Shae bedded down near the horses but she could not sleep. She sat up and sure enough saw Sad Eyes wide awake by the fire. She got up and sat across from him.
“You were right,” she said. “I don’t have gold to pay you.”
“I know,” Sad Eyes said.
“Jyn Suraud should have treasure enough in his fortress.”
Sad Eyes waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t need much.”
Shae sat up. It was all she could do to muster her courage and arch her back, trying to look presentable in her weathered state. “If you’re going to take your payment out on me,” she said. “I would rather you got on with it.”
He seemed to have a coughing fit, then. “You’re a little young for my tastes,” he said. “Besides, if I want a woman, I don’t trade for her. I take her.”
Shae felt a wave of relief but something else as well. Was it disappointment?
“Anyway,” Sad Eyes gestured to Torrin, asleep by the horses. “He’s sweet on you.”
“He’s just a boy,” Shae said.
“Old enough for a man’s jealousy,” Sad Eyes said. “Old enough to stick a knife in my back.”
“Am I supposed to believe you’re afraid of a boy?”
“I’m afraid of everything,” he said. “How do you think I lived this long?”
“So you’re a killer and a coward?” she asked. Sad Eyes didn’t take the bait.
“Why don’t you just tell me more about these people I’m going to kill?”
“They raid us for tribute on every full moon.”
“Full moon’s good,” he said. “Easier to see them coming.”
“They have an army.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Jyn Suraud and the twins. Tell me about them.”
She steeled herself and she spoke. Jyn Suraud and his twins had arrived only a few years ago with just a small band of warriors and acolytes. They had brought gifts to Parn and the surrounding villages, even driving off bandits and Red Claw war bands. So when they began rebuilding the old ruins near the village no one protested. Many people from Parn and the neighboring villages even lent a hand – men with the building and women and children fetching water and bringing meals for the workers. But as the ruin became a fortress people began to go missing. Workers and servants told hushed tales of hearing terrible screams inside the keep. And then one full moon night they came down from the temple, dressed in black mail and leathers marked with the wings and fangs of the bat. These were the markings of Chirpoterus – a dread god of the netherworld. Grisly, hermaphroditic, and insatiable, Chiropterus demanded sacrifice from its high priest, Jyn Suraud. Sacrifices of blood, flesh, and seed. All of which fed the sorcerer’s dark powers.
And then there were the twins. Who their mother had been no one knew, but they were their father’s children. They were abnormally tall and long-limbed with ghost-white skin and long, ink-black hair. Each had a pair of eyes the color of amethysts.
Lord Sleer had been handsome when they had first arrived. Some would have even called him beautiful. But in the time since they revealed their true nature he had begun to experiment on his body. He had filed his teeth down into sharp fangs. He had cut off the front of his own nose to remake himself in the image of his god. He wore a dark helm with bat wings fashioned on the sides and a black gauntlet on his left arm with razor sharp claws. He lived to fight, and was a ruthless and cruel warrior. He ate the flesh and drank the blood of his slain enemies.
And then there was Lady Rikka who Shae hated most of all. She was taller and more fierce than most men. She was an expert rider and fought with a sword and a long, black whip. But her real talent was reserved for the sacrificial chambers in the bowels of the keep. She was known to be a sadist and vile torturer, taking the most exquisite pleasure in her perverse methods for extracting the human ingredients they needed. She forced couplings between thralls and prisoners and was said to take part herself on many occasions. She would take men and young boys and coax them along with her beauty and her womanly skill. But at the moment of their passion she would have them whipped, burned, or even flayed. She reveled in the humiliation of others.
But as much as Shae hated the women, she envied her too. She was beautiful and dangerous. Tall and strong, yet lithe and alluring all at once. Her pale skin was smooth and flawless where Shae’s was ruddy. Her limbs were stronger than Shae’s but more supple as well. Her face was like a statue of a goddess, high cheekbones and full lips. She would have been desired by any man who did not know her true nature and was desired still by many who did. Shae might have been good enough for greasy Tuni’s and young fools like Torrin, but she had never been a great beauty like Rikka.
She did not share her envy with Sad Eyes but she wondered if it showed on her face or colored her voice.
“Why not just run?” Sad Eyes asked. “You and Torrin could go anywhere. Build a life.”
“And what about my village?” Shae asked. Sad Eyes scoffed with a wan smile.
“You don’t care about your village,” he said. “You’ve probably dreamed of leaving for as long as you can remember.”
He was right. There was no one and nothing left there for her that she truly cared about.
“They have to pay for what they did to my brother,” she said.
Jento had always been strong and too courageous for his own good. When it became clear what Jyn Suraud was up to it had been Jento who raised a band of men to set a trap for the twins and their raiding party. But they had underestimated their dark adversaries. The plan fell apart and Jento’s uprising was put down. All the men and boys were slain but Jento was taken alive into the Temple of the Bat. When the next full moon came they trotted him out to show the people of Parn what happens to those who fight back.
He was naked and bound at the wrists. His once hardy figure was emaciated and covered in wounds. The flesh of his back was flayed to ribbons and there were burns and brands all over his chest. He had to be led out because they had put out his eyes. Only puckered, dark holes remained. But the worst of all wounds was between his legs. They had gelded him. Taken it all. A mess of dried blood, sticky and black painted his thighs. They all mocked him as the villagers cried out in horror and anguish.
“He was good while he lasted,” Lady Rikka teased from horseback. “But once I used him up I tossed his bits on the pyre.” She laughed like a hag. It was such a loathsome sound to come from such a beautiful face.
Shae remembered how Jento had cried out for her, calling her name. She ran to him but Suraud’s warriors kept her back. She fought to get through to her brother but they were too strong.
“You be a good little girl,” Rikka told her. “Or I’ll give you to the thralls and feed what’s left of you to my brother.”
“Not much meat on her,” Sleer had mocked. “But I’d try her just for the gravy.” The way he looked at her then, licking his sharp teeth, had made her sick with fear.
Jyn Suraud came forward on a pale horse. His warriors bowed their heads. Even the raucous twins showed their father deference. The old man had a stern face with a long graying beard that covered his jaw but was bare above his lips. His cloak was the color of fresh blood, with a sea of black raven’s feathers covering the shoulders and collar. And on his head he bore a black crown. In the center was the monstrous likeness of a vampire bat. Its horrid, outstretched wings formed the band.
The sorcerer looked over the frightened people of Parn and spoke with a voice of iron.
“I brought you gifts,” he said. “I drove off the raiders and the bandits that have plagued you for generations. And this is how you repay me? With treachery?!”
“Murderer!” someone shouted. “Child killer!”
The warriors moved to silence them but Jyn Suraud held up his hand.
“To be a sacrifice to great Chiropterus is to be made a gift to a god,” he said. “To be treasured for all time. What greater honor could there be for the likes of you than to feed such a being? To slake the desires of powerful Chiropterus, to quench the unquenchable, if only for an instant, is worth more than all your life’s pitiful toil.”
The sorcerer pointed at Jento then.
“This one sought to kill your lords. My children. But I am the wings of Chiropterus. My twins are his bloody fangs. My children are the children of the bat. To strike at them is to strike at a god.”
Suraud glared down at pitiful Jento.
“Behold, the price of heresy,” he said. He waved his hands and spoke some incantation. “Conceptu pregum-vera.”
Jento grunted in pain and fell to his knees. He rolled up into a ball of agony, clutching at his stomach.
“It hurts,” he cried out. “It hurts!”
“What have you done to him?” Shae yelled. She struggled impotently against the big men who held her at bay.
“Shae!” Jento called out.
“Jento!”
He rolled onto his back. The villagers gasped in shock as they saw his belly begin to swell. It grew like a woman with child. Perhaps it had been a mercy that they had taken his eyes so he could not see the grotesque mockery that Jyn Suraud had made of him. But he could feel it.
“Oh god,” he begged. “Make it stop. Make it stop, please!”
His belly swelled beyond what Shae would have thought possible. And in the cold light of the full moon she could see his flesh crawling. Or rather, could see something crawling beneath it.
“Shae,” he pleaded. “Kill me. Please kill me!”
He tried to cry out again but his words were choked off. He spasmed, coughed, and gagged until his jaw fell open and something black and wet crawled out of his mouth and onto his chin.
A bat.
“Seperastum!” Jyn Suraud shouted. He made a slicing motion with his hand and cut a line from Jento’s sunken chest, over the abominable swirling swell of his belly, all the way to the ugly slit where his manhood had been.
Jento’s body split open like a hot loaf of bread revealing a crawling mass of hundreds of bats. The screeching vermin flew in a furious swarm from their cursed womb, spraying the villagers with Jento’s blood. In their frenzy to escape his body they had eaten his guts.
The sight of him splayed open like that, a ruined mess of red pulp, had been burned into Shae’s mind forever. It waited for her every time she closed her eyes. A nightmare from which she could never wake.
She had tears on her face by the end of her story. She hated her damn tears, and wiped them away angrily.
“So now you see,” she growled. “Why I can’t just run away.”
“I see,” Sad Eyes nodded in solemn agreement.
“When I heard rumors that you were in Balkez I knew it was worth my life to find you. Even if the worst they said about you was true. Even if you raped and killed me on the spot it would have been a mercy compared to what awaits me in the Temple of the Bat.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, staring at her over the fire. “But you’re safe for now.” He stretched out on his bedroll, crossing his hands behind his head.
“You should get some rest,” he said.
“I won’t sleep tonight,” she told him. “Besides, the stink of the horses keeps me awake.” She heard the squeaking of bats then, flying over them in the dark. She hugged herself uneasily.
“You can lie a little closer if you like,” he said. “I won’t bite.”
She went to the horses and scooped up her bedroll, careful not to wake Torrin. She spread it out on the ground by Sad Eyes and rolled onto her side facing him.
“Oh…” he said.
“Too close?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s fine.” He almost seemed nervous. He kept his eyes forward, looking up at the stars.
For a moment Shae could hear nothing but her own heartbeat.
“You could touch me a little,” he said finally.
“All right,” she said. Her heartbeat grew louder and faster. She slid her hand down to reach between his legs but he snatched her wrist.
“No no no,” he said. He brought her hand up to his chest. “Like this.”
“Oh…” she said. He put one arm around her so that her head was on his shoulder.
“That’s nice,” he said. “You’d be surprised how long a man goes without ever being touched.”
She hated to admit it to herself but it was indeed nice. She felt comfort pressed up against him. He seemed larger now than he had before. His strong arm felt all the stronger wrapped around her, holding her close to him.
And then it dawned on her that lying there in the arms of a killer was the first time she had felt safe since her brother was murdered. To finally feel some ease for once was a welcome relief.
“Why did you agree to help me?” she asked. Her face was close to his. It was a handsome face.
“You remind me of someone,” he said. “From long ago.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Oh yes. Pretty like you.”
Her heart was beating even faster, and she could feel that his was too. There was a strange quivering in her stomach.
“What else?” she said.
“Her eyes were green,” he said. “Not blue like yours. But besides that you could pass for sisters.” Something strange settled over him. “She was hurt like you are. Cold. But she could be sweet too.”
Shae realized she was slowly rubbing his chest. She slid one of her legs over his. They were both taking long, deep breaths.
“I can be sweet,” she whispered. He turned to her and in the firelight she could see something more than sadness in his eyes.
Hunger.
“Prove it,” he said.
She kissed him. Gently at first but harder and greedily quick enough. His hands moved all over her, gripping and squeezing. He rolled on top of her. She could feel him pressing into her thigh, hard and ready.
“We’ll have to be quiet,” he breathed.
“I can be quiet,” she said. She kissed him again and undid her tunic. She wrapped her legs around him, afraid for a moment that he might change his mind. But that thought quickly evaporated. He undid her wrapping, her breasts pouring out from the fabric.
He had lied when he said he would not bite. He bit and sucked and licked her everywhere. Her neck, her breasts, her legs. He even rolled her over and bit her behind. She gasped. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Each bite, each kiss was an explosion of delight on her skin that she felt deep within her body.
She undressed him while he undid her riding skirts. She reached between his legs and pulled him out of his trousers. She pulled him to her and hissed through her teeth as she felt the kiss of his manhood. Her body resisted at first, even though she did not want it to. But Sad Eyes pushed forward and made his way into her and found that she was not so cold after all. She shuddered, biting his shoulder to stifle her moans.
She wrapped her legs around him even tighter, drawing him in. She moved her body with his as best she could, wanting more.
He pinned her arms to the ground above her head and buried his face in her neck as he rocked back and forth. He bit her neck. She moaned and he growled as he gave himself over to that hunger that he felt.
Faster and faster.
Deeper and deeper.
More and more.
Until finally he reached the precipice and plunged. Shock waves burst through both of their bodies and dizzying warmth filled her head.
Her moans became whimpers.
His growls became groans.
And finally, with a slow, sweaty cascade, they eventually rolled to a stop.
They kissed in the quiet, and wiped each other off as best they could. Slowly, they dressed without a word and met again on the ground, lying beside each other.
Her heartbeat quieted after a while. And when she shut her eyes she didn’t even notice that the vision of Jento’s ruined body was not waiting there for her. Only sleep.
***
But it did not last.
They awoke to the sounds of thundering hooves and pitiless howls of laughter. Shae knew those laughs. And when she darted to her feet and wiped the sleep from her eyes she saw. Somehow the twins had found them.
There were twelve riders in all but Shae could see their white skin glowing in the night. Sad Eyes stood behind her, making no move to run. Torrin was trying to calm their own horses. And then the twins and their band were reining up to the edge of their camp.
“What have we here,” Sleer said through his sharp teeth. “Father was right.”
The bats. Shae cursed them and cursed herself.
“Did you ever doubt?” Rikka said. She looked down at Shae and recognition flashed across her amethyst eyes. “That’s the little bitch from Parn. The upstart’s sister.”
“So it is,” Sleer grinned. “Must run in the family.”
“Where is he?” Rikka asked. “Where is Mad Ravoc?”
“You’re looking at him,” Sad Eyes said, stepping around Shae. The twins and their men guffawed at him.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Rikka grinned with those painfully inviting lips.
“You think that’s funny?” Sad Eyes smiled back. “Come a little closer and I’ll give you a tickle.”
Rikka’s grin became a sneer.
“You worm!” she spat, and kicked her horse. She drew a long, thin blade from her hip as her horse sped over to him but it reared up in fright before she could strike. It was a powerful beast and bucked and thrashed all the worse for it. Lady Rikka was a remarkable rider but even she was no match for the wild terror that had stricken the horse. She toppled to the ground.
The ten warriors sat in shocked silence. Only Sleer laughed.
“Bastard!” Rikka spat, getting to her feet. Whether she meant the horse, her brother, or the man who claimed to be Mad Ravoc was anyone’s guess.
“Someone help my sweet sister,” Sleer looked over at his men. Three of them rode forward, more slowly than Rikka had. Sleer’s laughter stopped when he saw their horses kick up a fearful fuss. The men cursed and tried to right them but Sleer ordered them away. Rikka went to strike at Sad Eyes but Sleer called her off too.
“Wait,” he said. He leaned forward and glared down at the man. “Who are you?”
“I told you,” he said.
“Mad Ravoc,” Sleer mocked. “The Bloody Beast of Thol.” He climbed down from his horse and stalked into the camp on foot. He wore his bat-winged helm. His strong, pale torso was bare but for the studded leather piece that wrapped around his stomach and lower back, and the vicious metal gauntlet that protected his left arm all the way to the shoulder. His right arm and chest were a mess of scars, self-inflicted and otherwise.
“I heard you killed Zuruk Twinblade in single combat,” Sleer said, drawing his own long and slender sword. “Why don’t you try me?” He struck like a flash of lightning.
Sad Eyes drew his short sword just in time to parry Sleer’s powerful blow. He advanced the way he had with Lorras the Boulder. But Sleer was not afraid. He moved like a snake, his shoulders rocking back and forth almost like a dance. And like a dance their blades played off each other.
Sad Eyes knocked Sleer’s blade aside and swung back, opening a long but shallow cut across his pale, muscular chest. Sleer gasped with excitement.
“That’s it,” he said. “More.” He darted forward, stabbing, slashing, and moving like a flicker of a flame around the other man. There one moment, gone the next. He caught Sad Eyes across the face with a backhand from his gauntlet. The heavy, sharpened steel tore the man’s cheek open and sent a burst of blood flying from his mouth. Sad Eyes stumbled. Sleer moved in.
The bat lord towered over the other man. He was broader. His arms were longer, stronger, and faster. If Shae hadn’t known any better she would have thought that Sad Eyes was outmatched. But surely he had another trick up his sleeve.
Sad Eyes drew his knife and managed another slash across Sleer’s cheek. But that only spurred the wicked man on. He loved to be on the receiving end of pain as much as the giving end. His excitement for the fight only grew.
Sad Eyes scored small hits against the pale warrior. A slash here. A kick there. But for every blow he gave he took one that was even worse. Sleer sliced open the back of his thigh. He smashed his ribs so hard with his gauntlet that it ripped through his tunic and tore the flesh beneath.
Sad Eyes managed to get past the reach of Sleer’s longer blade and came down with an overhand strike to cleave into his neck but Sleer caught the short sword in his gauntlet and headbutted Sad Eyes in the face, smashing his nose with his iron helm.
Sad Eyes fell onto his back.
Shae felt all the breath leave her lungs. He rolled over to get back up but Sleer kicked him in the ribs where he was already wounded. An awful, breathless sound came out of him.
“Don’t kill him,” Rikka said. She was back on her horse but well away from the fighting. “Father wants him alive.”
“Father wants Mad Ravoc,” Sleer said. “Not whoever this fool is.” Sad Eyes tried one last time to stab Sleer with his knife, but there was no strength in the blow. Sleer kicked his arm aside and sent the knife flying.
“We bring them all,” she said. “Grab some rope.”
Shae did not fight when the men came over to bind her. She could hear Torrin calling to her but he somehow seemed too far away. All her attention was on the sad-eyed man who had claimed to be Mad Ravoc. She watched them drag him to his feet and set a length of rope long enough to pull him behind the horses without spooking them. Slumped over, bloody, and beaten, he met her gaze for only a moment. And when he looked away all the hope drained out of her.
***
They made her watch.
The twins had brought them before Jyn Suraud. They had shown him the fool who had claimed to be a legend. They even brought the man’s ridiculous cleaver. They all mocked and dismissed him but Jyn Suraud was more thoughtful. He looked into the man’s sad brown eyes as if searching for something. And whatever he found must have interested him.
“Mad Ravoc or not,” he said. “This man has ended many lives. Innocence is potent but villainy pleases Chiropterus as well. Prepare him.”
They were brought to the bowels of the Temple of the Bat where Lady Rikka had her way.
“I’m saving you for last,” Rikka told her, wearing nothing but her black corset and boots. Her pale, full breasts and the dark triangle or her womanhood on proud display.
They were all stripped naked and put in Rikka’s contraptions. A leather thong joined to a chain went around the wrists, ankles, and throat. The chains stretched back into a large base of cogs. A wheel gave them slack. A lever drew them taut. All three of them had resisted at first. Tried to fight their way free but it was no use. They were trapped.
They made her watch.
They brought in girls for Torrin and Sad Eyes to breed. They had both refused initially but Rikka took her whip to Shae’s back and that gave them more than enough encouragement. The girls wept through it all and so did poor Torrin. He could not bear to look at Shae. Could not meet her eyes. Tried to cover himself with his hands whenever he could. But Lady Rikka pulled them away. She stood behind him, speaking softly in his ear.
“No, let her see,” she said. She took him in her hand. “I bet you’ve wanted to give her this for a long time.” Rikka’s eyes saw the bruises all over Shae’s body. The marks from her time with the man who let her down. Rikka pointed Torrin’s face at her.
“Look at those forget-me-nots,” she gasped. “Did you mark her up like that?”
It was Shae’s turn to hide her eyes from Torrin. She would have given anything to cover herself then. Anything to spare the boy the heartache.
“No,” Rikka said, and she sauntered over to Sad Eyes. “That’s the work of a rougher man.”
When the breeding was done they brought in the thralls. Women given over to the power of Chiropterus. They set to work on the men, doing anything and everything to them to collect their seed in bowls for their rituals. Giving them no respite. And true to the rumors, Lady Rikka would whip or brand them with hot irons at the moment of their passion.
“Too bad you’re not Mad Ravoc,” she stood in front of Sad Eyes, rubbing her naked behind against his manhood. “If you were, I’d let you fuck me.” She turned and grabbed him between his legs. “If you were, I’d put a knife to your throat and make you put a child in me. But alas…” She edged closer and guided him between her thighs, rubbing him against her lips.
“Give me a tickle now?” she sneered.
Shae did not know how long they were at it. Down in the bowels of the temple there was no time. Torrin held out as long as he could. But he finally reached the point that he could give no more. The pain was too great.
“Look at that girl of yours,” Rikka grabbed his chin. “Look at her or I’ll peel the skin off her face.”
Torrin did as he was told. His will, like his body, was broken.
“Do you like to see her this way?” Rikka asked. “Is this not how you always wanted her in your wildest dreams? Naked? Captive? Or is it something more tender? Is it love?”
Torrin tried to jerk his head away but Rikka held it firm.
“Say it, boy,” she said. “Tell this girl you love her. What better time than here at the end?”
Torrin’s eyes welled with tears again. His shame and humiliation were killing him but he steeled himself and took in one last proud lungful of air. He looked at Shae like he had never looked at her before.
“I lo-”
Rikka dragged the knife across his throat. His unspoken words poured out his neck in a red river.
“Torrin!” Shae cried. His eyes blurred as his body went slack in his shackles. Rikka pulled the lever on his contraption and it pulled his chains taut. Holding him upright as he bled out on the floor.
Shae glared at Sad Eyes, who hung from his own chains as though he were dead.
“Do something,” she wept. “Do something, god damn you!”
He said nothing. Just hung there staring at the floor.
When the evening of the full moon finally arrived, they came for them.
“When this is over,” Rikka told her. “I’m going to give you to my brother.”
They dragged them to the sacrificial chamber. Jyn Suraud stood behind the altar. The big cleaver was laid across it. Behind him loomed a large and grotesque statue of Chiropterus – a giant bat with rows of breasts like a human woman and a large, erect phallus.
Thralls and cultists gathered around, lighting candles and preparing sacraments.
Rikka and some of the warriors put Sad Eyes on his knees in front of the altar. His hands were bound and he could barely hold his broken, naked body upright. Rikka pulled Shae along by her hair and they stood to the side of the altar. She looked up and saw a large round hole cut in the roof of the tower.
“Mighty Chiropterus,” Jyn Suraud turned to the statue. “Please accept this offering of flesh and blood. And bestow upon me, your servant, your dark blessings.” He turned and began his incantations.
“Shae…” Sad Eyes whispered hoarsely. He turned his hanging head as much as he could to look at her. “I’m sorry…” he said.
“You should be,” she bleated. “You lying bastard.”
His face twisted and his body began to rock with quiet sobs.
“I’m sorry,” he cried. “It’s not my fault.”
“God damn you, you liar.” she cried. “Torrin’s dead because of you.”
“Shae,” he begged. “You’re going to die.”
“Because of you, you fake!”
He wept. The sorcerer continued his incantations and looked to the hole in the tower. Slowly, the full moon came into view and cast its pale light down on the altar. Jyn Suraud nodded to the guards. They lifted Sad Eyes up off his knees and dragged the weeping man forward.
The laughing man.
He was laughing.
“I am a liar,” he said, his head bent low. “And a killer.” Something was wrong with his voice.
“A defiler of women,” there was another voice with his, speaking from some deep dark place.
“And a butcher of children,” he laughed. “But I am no FAKE!”
His body shook. Not with laughter or with sobs but violent jerks and spasms. He thrashed so hard the two guards lost their grip on him. There was a noise like branches cracking. Sad Eyes screamed with two voices. It looked as if his bones were breaking inside his body.
One of the guards grabbed his arm but it was not his arm. It was much bigger. At least three times the size and made of powerful muscle. Dark hair sprouted all over the brutish limb which had broken free of its bonds. It bent at the elbow and a massive hand swallowed the guard’s face. Thick fingers shoved dark claws into his skull. The hand came away in a flash and took the guard’s face with it. He spun and dropped dead.
Sad Eyes laughed again. But only with one voice now. The voice from the deep, dark place.
Shae looked at him, still bent over. The spasms sent explosions of growth through his body, remaking it under the skin. The black hair spread over his gargantuan muscles like a storm cloud.
The other guard drew his sword but those mighty claws struck out. And then the guard had no sword. Had no arm. Just a ragged, bloody stump.
What stood up in front of the guard was not Sad Eyes. This thing was nearly eight feet tall, bigger than any man. It lifted the stunned guard up by the back of the neck. Shae saw its face then. It was almost that of the man she knew. But it was framed with thick black fur, and the mouth was filled with terrible fangs. But it was the eyes that told the whole truth. There was no sadness in those eyes.
Only hunger.
And hate.
The beast sank its fangs into the guard’s throat and ripped out so much of his neck that his head flopped back with nothing but a strip of flesh holding it on. He threw the guard away like he was nothing, his body crashing into a group of thralls. The beast leered with its bloody maw.
The room screamed.
***
Mad Ravoc howled.
His time had come again. He looked up and saw his glorious Moon, bathing him in her cold love. A perfect love. She was his god. And these pigs dared to blaspheme in her sight?
So many pigs, he saw. Squirming in panic. Black robes and boiled leather. Priestly pigs.
“Guards!” Jyn Suraud called from behind the altar. Even the dread sorcerer could not hide his shock.
More pigs came in from the hall. Fighting pigs.
Mad Ravoc did not wait. He charged the door, ripping and slashing at thralls and cultists as he passed. Sending limbs and hunks of flesh flying in storms of blood. The guards carried spears. Pigs with twigs. He knocked them aside and splintered them to bits with his brutal rush of force. He tore through the men. His claws sheered through leather and mail and the wine of life poured forth. He would drink his fill tonight.
Something wrapped around his big neck with a crack! Lady Rikka’s black whip. He turned on the demented beauty. Saw her supple limbs and her smooth flesh and he grinned. He grabbed the whip and yanked it toward him. The proud, pale bitch held on. She stumbled to the floor in front of him and looked up in wondrous awe. She could not help herself. She reached for the sword on her hip but Mad Ravoc grabbed her arm with his big hands.
Lady Rikka towered over most men, but she was a trembling fawn in the hands of the Bloody Beast of Thol. He broke her arm at the shoulder and savored the cry of pain that she gave him. He grabbed one of her succulent legs and broke it at the knee. Her shriek was a song. The awe left her. All that remained in her amethyst eyes was fear. It was so sweet Mad Ravoc could have lapped it up. But there was time enough to taste her later. There was work to be done.
He stalked toward the altar and the gibbering old fool behind it. Jyn Suraud was waving his hands and chanting feverishly.
“Seperastum!” he babbled to no effect. Mad Ravoc grabbed his cleaver from the altar with one powerful hand. The gargantuan blade was little more than a tool in his hands. A butcher’s tool. He had used it to make meat of the Green Colossus. It would make quick work of this old magician.
“Balantis inferni,” Jyn Suraud croaked. All the iron had left his voice.
Nothing. His powers were impotent against such a monster.
“Piss,” Mad Ravoc laughed. He came around the altar as the sorcerer backed away into the pathetic idol of Chirpoterus.
“All your spells,” Mad Ravoc said. “Your devils, your wicked gods…” He raised the cleaver.
“They’re weak as PISS!” He brought down the mighty blade and in one blow it pulverized the statue of the bat god and exploded the old, decrepit body of Jyn Suraud like an overripe fruit.
His guts slithered across the stones like eels. His withered limbs sailed through the air like branches in a storm. Bits of bone and chunks of flesh and gouts of blood fell to the floor like summer rain.
For all his dread power, for all his cruel payments, Jyn Suraud’s reign came to an end with nothing more than a sound like a big, wet shit.
Lady Rikka wailed. She tried to crawl from the room but Mad Ravoc grabbed her by the ankle of her broken leg. She jolted in agony and curled up with a whimper. The fierce Lady Rikka was crying.
Mad Ravoc remembered the cold girl Shae then. Cold like the Moon. Where did she go? He scanned the gore-spattered room, empty now but for him, the morsel at his feet, and the dead. He saw a small side door thrown open and a small, dark corridor beyond it. Cold Shae must have gone that way.
No matter. There were enough pigs for him this night. Clutching his cleaver in one hand, and dragging Lady Rikka with the other he left the sacrificial chamber.
More guards came and went as he tore through the temple. The halls were cramped for the Scourge of Celadune, but that did not hinder his work. Shouts of alarm drowned in blood. Mighty war cries rose to womanly wails of fright. He decimated men with his cleaver. Trampled them on the stone floor, breaking their spines and shattering their ribs with the stomp of his foot and the dig of his heel.
He smashed one man’s head into the wall, and scraped it across the stones, painting the hall with his face. Another came at him with a torch and Mad Ravoc took it away and fed it to him flame first. All tribute to his gorgeous Moon. She was his mistress, and he lived to please her with his ruby red gifts. And what a gift the Tower of the Bat would make. Not since the Massacre at Belloc’s Pass had he worked so well. And all the while he dragged the soft and sobbing Lady Rikka through his sticky, wet signature.
But it was not enough. It was never enough.
“Sleer!” he bellowed through the corridors. The fighting pigs were fleeing him now. He followed the sounds of their bleating to a set of heavy wooden doors. He smashed them to splinters and stepped into the great hall.
Tables were packed with fighting men and thralls. They had not heard his work over the sounds of their laughter and their drunken singing. There must have been a hundred of them.
Pigpen. They screamed and scrambled, knocking over benches and reaching for their little swords and axes.
“SLEER!” Mad Ravoc roared into the hall. “Look what I have.” He hoisted Lady Rikka into the air by her ankle. She dangled like a beautiful, bloody bauble. The pigs snorted in shock at the affront to their Lady.
“Brother!” she wept. Mad Ravoc bit her luscious thigh. He did not tear it away, only sank his fangs deep enough to draw more marinade for her salty flesh. He didn’t want her ruined just yet. He could smell the wealth between her legs. See the hidden prize beneath the shadow of her black hair.
“Rikka,” Sleer shoved through the crowd. He was dressed for a fight with his gauntlet and his long blade. What a blessing. Mad Ravoc pulled his mouth from Rikka’s sumptuous flesh and licked his bloody fangs.
“Why don’t you try me?” he beamed at Sleer, and tossed the woman aside like a slab of beef. Sleer’s hideous face twisted in outrage. He screamed for blood and war and his soldiers rushed toward the Bloody Beast of Thol.
They were brave enough. But the warriors of the Shoza Clan had been braver. King Vulcor’s knights had been stronger. But they were all with his magnificent Moon now. She was his queen and he was her champion. And every fighting man who fell to his fangs, his claws, his cleaver, his hellish strength, was an oath fulfilled and renewed.
Fulfilled and renewed.
On and on Sleer’s men came and on and on Mad Ravoc broke and tore and slashed the little piggies to ribbons. Bloody, severed limbs clattered on the tables. Viscera splashed into bowls of stew and the bread sopped up pools of gore. The hall was a butcher’s banquet. But where was the main course?
The pigs’ courage was leaving them like blood gushing from so many mangled throats. And amidst the swirling storm of panic, and the wreckage of food and corpses, Sleer and Mad Ravoc found each other.
And just as Sleer had towered over the sad fool that was his cage, Ravoc now towered over the bat lord. The pale fighter beheld the legendary monster and all of his bluster left him. But he showed no fear, Ravoc saw. He would change that.
Sleer came on even faster and more powerful than before, darting and flickering like flame. His sword was an adder. His gauntlet was a boar. But Mad Ravoc was a wolf. He had speed beyond speed. Strength beyond strength. Might beyond might. And Lord Sleer’s cruel capacities were nothing to Ravoc’s ferocity. Joyful as he was in the fight, the Bloody Beast of Thol could only play with his food for so long.
With his cleaver he shattered the bat lord’s blade like a plate of glass. He caught the punishing, black gauntlet in his own gargantuan fist and squeezed. The razor-sharp metal sliced into his rough palm but his pain was nothing next to the Sleer’s, whose bones broke and tendons popped as his hand was crushed within. Sleer screamed.
There was the fear. The bat lord’s love of pain was overcome by the horror of being made a cripple. Blood burst from the grooves of the ruined gauntlet. The soup of Sleer’s hand leaked out of the mangled metal. He hammered at the beast with his other fist in all the hopeless desperation of a trapped animal.
Mad Ravoc planted his cleaver in the stone floor like a chopping block. He grabbed Sleer’s flailing arm and bit the bat lord’s fist like a fresh apple, and crunched the bones in his jaws like harvest vittles. Sleer gasped like a woman when he saw that all that remained of his sword-hand was a knuckle’s worth of thumb and a chunk of palm. He would have screamed but the beast wheeled around and slammed him down on a table. All the air left his lungs.
Ravoc took up the cleaver again by the dull, flat back of the blade.
“Let’s see those fangs, little lord,” he growled. Ravoc bent over him, grabbed him by his black hair and put a heavy knee on his chest. “Show me!” he rattled Sleer’s head. The bat lord did as he was bid. His nightmarish visage could not hide the sweet and naked terror that gripped him.
Ravoc slowly pushed the blade of the big cleaver toward Sleer’s pointed teeth.
“Bite it,” he barked, showing Sleer his own mouthful of bloody fangs. Mocking the bat lord. The keening moan that escaped Sleer’s jaws would have shamed a widow. Ravoc laughed at the pale man. His little white fangs made small, high-pitched scraping sounds against the steel.
Ravoc lifted his knee off the man’s scarred and sculpted chest and drove it into his chin. His perfect, pointed teeth were obliterated. He could not scream for the blood and bits of bone that choked his throat.
Ravoc threw the cleaver aside, reached his thick, clawed fingers into the mess of Sleer’s mouth, and tore his jawbone from his face. He reared up, and shoved the bone back into the dead man’s skull, plunging the bloody mandibles into his eye sockets.
The Bloody Beast of Thol howled with savage ecstasy. Such good work. Such exquisite gifts for his beautiful Moon. She was his bride. And like all good grooms his lust for her was insatiable. The depth of his desire was bottomless. The Bruvah Witch Sisters had learned as much. He’d fucked them all bloody and broken, and snapped their necks like chickens when they had nothing more to give.
He could hear a woman whimpering. He followed the sound and the smell of her wealth, potent and inviting even through so much death. He found Lady Rikka in a frightened heap on the floor. He lifted her up by the back of her neck. Her flawless figure looked all the more appetizing dipped in the blood of dead men. In one long motion he licked her from her breasts, up her neck, and over her lips. Savoring the sweaty salt of her flesh and the tangy nectar of her tears.
She thought she understood pain. Thought she alone held the keys to pleasure. Thought she had made an art of humiliation. He would teach her.
“Mine,” he leered.
Her screams were so full and so complete that they touched every lonesome little corner of the fortress. Her agony licked and caressed every overlooked inch of the Temple of the Bat.
***
Sad Eyes appeared the following morning.
Shae waited for him, wrapped in a robe she had found in her escape. The side door had led her through the thrall’s chambers and safely out of the fortress. All night she had waited and all night she could hear the screams through the thick walls of the temple.
And the howling.
The Bloody Beast of Thol had had his way and now he was gone. Dormant inside the man who approached her now. He was dressed in what he could scavenge from so many dead men. He carried his cleaver on his back, wrapped and bound in straps and hide. He stood before her. His wounds from the duel with Sleer and all of Rikka’s tortures were gone.
“It’s done,” he said. And he turned toward the western mountains and started walking.
“Wait,” she called after him. “Take me with you.” He turned back to her.
“You’ve got your revenge,” he said. “That’s all I have to give you.”
“But I have nothing, now,” she said. It was a crushing realization. When she had set out to find Ravoc the Defiler, she had never thought she would reach the end of her journey alive.
“And I have nothing but death,” he said. “That’s all you’ll get if you come with me.” He looked out at the vastness around them. The ruined keep, the mountains, the high desert, as far as the eyes could see.
“That girl I told you about,” he said. “The one you remind me of so much. I killed her. And I’ll kill you too before long.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Your village is safe,” he said. “And all of the wide world lies beyond it. Life is for the living, Shae. Get to it if you think you have the strength. But don’t follow me.”
He left her then.
She sat there and wept until she had nothing left. Wept for Jento. Wept for Torrin. Wept for life that she had to find a way to fill. And when she was done she looked to the west.
She could still see the man with the sad eyes in the distance. So small in the vastness of the wilds.
She was like him now.
She was free.
And alone.
— Detective Wolfman (@Det_Wolfman) is a hardboiled loner who’s loved by the Moon, the Noirmaxx King with that Rock n Roll thing, and a Man for All Seasons. His other published works can be found in the pages of APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL and MAN’S WORLD (@mansworldmag_), all of which can be found HERE. He is also the host of BLOODY PULP–the show about all things PULP–and the Rock n Roll radio show ON THE BEAT.