Swarm and Steel, page 36
Gefräßige’s grin transformed, slipping and twisting and disintegrating to become a deranged leer as she grabbed fistfuls of her hair with clawed fingers. With a wail of heart-rending sadness, horror, and defeat, she ripped downward, peeling skin and scalp from her skull to reveal the horrendous demon lurking beneath her flesh. Black eyes, too far apart and oozing purulence, sought Jateko. Those eyes both begged for and promised death. Quivering nostrils, ragged slashes dripping pus, tasted the air, searching. Someone—one of the Geborene priests within Jateko—squealed in terror. With a vicious wrench she peeled the rest of the human flesh from her body like a bloody wet sack. It hung from her fist, inside out and dripping bright crimson on the courtyard stones. She dropped it to the ground with a sodden plop.
“Ah,” said Jateko.
Humanity shed like an unwanted dress, Gefräßige revealed a demonic body of cavernous ribs and gaunt starvation. An abattoir perfume, the stench of fresh rot, clogged Jateko’s nostrils. Her skin, sagging and ripe with open sores, hung in translucent sheets.
Blutblüte. The sword felt different than the fine matched blades he took from the Swordsman. This wasn’t just a sword. While he felt confident it would bring death, it was more than an implement of violence. It had a weight, a finality, that went beyond its mere physicality.
{How much does a soul weigh?} Aas asked.
Nothing and everything, Abiega answered instantly.
Jateko ignored them both.
Starker Narr, the massive Dysmorphic, hefted a morningstar that looked like it was designed to knock down buildings and followed the demonic Gefräßige. He angled out to her left, to flank Jateko.
Dämonin Schwindel, a green dress hugging her shapely form, glanced over her shoulder at her husband, Ängstlich, who hid at the rear of the gathering. She looked lost and forlorn, out of place with this group of mad priests, and Jateko realized a long chain joined an iron collar about her slim ankle. Ängstlich had the far end of the chain wrapped around his wrist.
Jateko heard her, voice pleading, say, “Please, not again. I’m not a demon.” She reached a hand toward her husband.
Ängstlich screamed, cowering from the outstretched hand, his face a rictus of terror and loathing.
The rest was drowned out in her escalating scream as savage spasms tore her statuesque body. The green dress, one moment form fitting, stretched and tore as she grew in size. Within two heartbeats she stood seven feet tall. Her breasts, pendulous globes of veined flesh, grew far out of proportion to her size. Her hips and arse too were monstrous mockeries of the female form. The V of her womanhood swelled and darkened, became tangled, and oozed strange fluids. Something struggled in there like it sought escape. Her full lips promised everything—sex, warmth, and love—and her tongue writhed in an erotic dance of fellatic suggestion. Her face flickered between beautiful and evilly demonic, eyes leering and laughing, begging and pleading for release.
[Am I seeing the person under the skin?] Jateko wondered, standing his ground as she stalked forward to stand at Gefräßige’s right side.
{The evil is Ängstlich’s,} said Aas. {He’s a juvenile wretch, a gutless coward, terrified of her intimidating beauty and everything that makes her a woman.}
[So if I kill her,] thought Jateko, [I’m killing an innocent victim?]
Seriously? snapped Grausamer. You’ve killed and eaten how many souls and now you’re going to start worrying about innocence?
The last man, a short and scrawny retch with long greasy hair hanging over his eyes, wore a motley patchwork of ill-fitted armour. He dragged behind him a cudgel looking far too heavy for his slight form. He paced forward, staring at the ground, until he was several strides ahead of the others.
“Who?” Jateko asked aloud.
{Unbedacht,} said Aas. {Usually he’s a moody cretin, but—}
He can barely lift that cudgel, pointed out Abiega.
{—he’s Wütend,} finished Aas. {A psychotic berzerker.}
With a sigh of infinite weariness, Unbedacht raised his head to peer at Jateko through strands of tangled hair. With a grunt of effort, he hefted his cudgel, staggering under its weight. When Jateko raised Blutblüte in challenge, the man’s eyes came alight.
“Yes,” said Unbedacht. “Yes. Finally.”
“What?”
Unbedacht dashed forward, screaming and spinning the cudgel as if it were nothing. Crouching, Jateko prepared to meet the mad charge, planning to side-step the heavy weapon and cut down the Wütend.
Instead, Unbedacht threw the cudgel at him, catching Jateko by surprise. The weapon’s iron head smashed into his chest, shattering ribs and sending him reeling backward. Unbedacht loosed an inarticulate throat-tearing scream as he leapt upon the off-balance Jateko, staggering him back another step. The madman tore at the Basamortuan’s throat with ragged fingernails and snapping teeth as if he planned to pull him apart by brute psychotic strength. For an instant Jateko wondered why they bothered sending the rest of the Geisteskranken when this insane wretch would kill him all on his own.
And then he remembered he was not one man. He was a dozen or more people. He was strong beyond any Wütend’s delusion-derived strength.
Jateko peeled Unbedacht off him, held the raving, spitting mad man at arm’s length. The Geisteskranken clawed at his arms, peeling flesh in long strips. The wounds healed in an instant, leaving white scars. Looking past the man he held, feet dangling and kicking, he met the eyes of the gathered Täuschung priests as he drove Blutblüte through Unbedacht’s chest.
As the sword entered him, Unbedacht’s eyes widened in glee and then terror. He sagged, limp and dead, and Jateko tossed the empty corpse aside. Was it his imagination, or did the sword seem heavier? A strange sigh passed through the gathered Täuschung Geisteskranken like a breeze through autumn leaves.
“Flee,” said Jateko.
“Redemption,” slurred Gefräßige through sharpened teeth.
Ängstlich sobbed in the background, cowering behind the others.
Tears leaked form Dämonin Schwindel’s ever-shifting eyes. “Escape,” she whispered, stepping toward Jateko.
“A challenge,” said Starker Narr, eyes hungry with anticipation.
{I don’t think that had quite the desired effect,} mused Aas. {Expecting rationality from—} His thoughts were interrupted as the Täuschung attacked Jateko in a chorus of insane screams.
ZERFALL WATCHED, HELPLESS, AS the demon which had been Ängstlich’s wife hurled itself upon Jateko. The sword entered her gut, speared up into her torso, rending flesh and ripping an agonized cry somewhere between orgasmic release and incomprehensible terror from her lips. As she died she yanked on the chain attaching her to her husband, dragging the screaming Ängstlich closer to the fray. Her demonic body crashed into Jateko, toppling him over backward and pinning him under her dead weight. Impossibly, he lifted her bulk and seemed about to throw it aside, but Starker Narr brought his morningstar down on Jateko’s exposed leg, shattering the knee and thigh bone. Jateko grunted in pain, trying to twist away from the grievous wound, and dropped Dämonin Schwindel. She landed pinning his right arm and Blutblüte to the ground.
Gefräßige leapt forward to land astride Jateko’s chest and clawed at his face, tearing away a long flap of skin and scalp, exposing the bone beneath. With a wrench, Gefräßige tore it free. Unhinging her jaw like a snake, she popped it into her gaping mouth.
The ground shook as Starke smashed Jateko’s other knee to jelly and, though Jateko made no noise, Zerfall heard the young Basamortuan mentally broadcast a scream of pain.
Gefräßige leaned in close to flay more flesh from Jateko’s savaged skull with razor sharp teeth. An ear came free and she swallowed it whole.
Starke reached down to grab Dämonin Schwindel—who, once dead, returned to her human form—by the hair and drag her from Jateko, exposing the youth’s torso so he could smash at it with his morningstar.
Both hands freed, Jateko grabbed Gefräßige by the throat, keeping his fingers clear of her frothing mouth and snapping teeth. And then another blow from Starke’s swung morningstar splintered his hip, sending jagged shards of bone through torn flesh. This time Jateko did scream. Ripping Gefräßige’s head from her demonic body, he hurled it away. Blood arced from the torn femoral arteries in graceful coils and hung in the air, reminding Zerfall of spirals in a sea-shell.
Jateko levered himself upright, reaching for Blutblüte, as Starke swung the monstrous morningstar at his head. Zerfall watched the exposed bone shatter and collapse beneath the gore-matted iron-studded globe. All broadcast thought from Jateko ceased in an instant and the youth collapsed backward, boneless and limp, to lay sprawled at Starke’s feet. Blood leaked, slow and lazy, from the brutalized skull. His face looked misshapen and lopsided.
No! This was impossible. Jateko was the All Consuming. Zerfall reached for him, and collapsed back the ground.
The muscled Dysmorphic stood over Jateko, swinging the morningstar in slow circles, looking like he was trying to decide what to smash next. “That was odd. I heard his thoughts,” he said. “It was like being near Aas.” He ceased the morningstar’s spin, apparently deciding his victim offered no threat. “You still in there?” he asked, nudging Jateko with a booted foot.
No thought leaked from the Basamortuan.
“The Captain said alive,” whined ängstlich, who only now dared approach.
Starke glanced over his shoulder with a scowl. “Gutless. Your wife is dead.” He bared brown teeth at the small man. “Isn’t this what you always wanted?”
ängstlich eyed his wife’s corpse. “Is she really gone?”
“That’s Blutblüte,” said Starke, nodding to where the sword lay at Jateko’s side. “She’s gone.” He bent to retrieve the sword, hefting the weapon as if testing its weight.
Anger ripped through Zerfall, washing away all misery and self-pity. Don’t touch my sword! She wanted to climb to her feet, take her sword from this muscled moron, and show them what death looked like. She dragged herself toward the Dysmorphic with a hiss of hatred.
“She’s gone,” laughed ängstlich, clapping and capering about in an ungainly dance. “I’m free of the evil bitch!”
“You’re a cowardly idiot,” grunted Starke. “She was a good woman. Your delusions did this to her.”
“No, she was a demon.”
“She’ll be waiting in Swarm,” pointed out the Dysmorphic with an evil leer.
“That’s a long time from now” said ängstlich, halting his mad dance and looking annoyed at Starke for ruining his celebration.
“Ah, look,” said Starke. “Here comes Captain Gedankenlos.” When ängstlich turned to look, the Dysmorphic chopped him down with a casual swing of Blutblüte.
Zerfall watched as Captain Gedankenlos approached. Tall and handsome with broad shoulders and a strong, square chin, he looked every part the dashing hero.
He scowled at Starke. “I suppose you had a good reason for killing a fellow priest?”
Starke shrugged, looking unconcerned. “He missed his wife.”
Zerfall froze when Gedankenlos glanced about, taking in the carnage with a nod of appreciation before returning his attention to Starke. “This Basamortuan killed Dämonin Schwindel, Gefräßige, and Unbedacht?”
Either they hadn’t seen her, or they were doing a masterful job of pretending. Perhaps looking like a corpse had its advantages. Should she stay still, wait for one of them to get close enough? She loosened a knife in its scabbard.
If nothing else, maybe they’d turn Blutblüte on her and she’d die by her own sword; she had no doubt the weapon could end her hellish existence.
Starke shrugged again, grinning. “Killing the lad was nothing.” He lifted the morningstar, giving it a flick so the iron ball, hanging from its chain, swung in a slow circle. “Smashed him to pieces.”
Gedankenlos scowled at Jateko’s crushed corpse. “I said alive.”
“Sending five of us suggests you thought he was dangerous. I saw no point in taking chances.”
“She wanted him alive.”
Starke’s massive shoulders hunched. “Shite.”
“Right. Shite, indeed. You’ll have to apologize.”
“Of course.”
“In person.”
Starke sighed. “Fine,” he said with resignation.
“Could you have killed Gefräßige?” asked the Captain, arching an eyebrow.
“Of course.” He looked less certain than he sounded. “Particularly with this.” Starke lifted Blutblüte. “The sand-sticker had Zerfall’s sword. Any idea how he got it?”
Captain Gedankenlos held out his hand. “Ask Zerfall,” he dared.
Starke frowned at the hand before surrendering the weapon. “You seem calm. I thought you might be angry at having lost so many powerful Geisteskranken.”
“No,” said Gedankenlos. “Just saves me some time.”
“How so?” asked the Dysmorphic, sloped brow furrowing in confusion.
Gedankenlos glanced past him and nodded toward Zerfall. “Hey, is that rotting corpse watching us?”
Starke turned and stared at Zerfall. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Gedankenlos drove Blutblüte into Starke’s back. The ancient blade passed through mail and leather and flesh and bone with ease. Starke died without a sound.
Gedankenlos wiped the blade clean on the dead Dysmorphic and examined the weapon with a critical eye. “So small. Such a little nothing, and yet so much.”
Not sure whether he recognized her in her advanced state of decay, she levered herself up on her left arm leaving the right hand free to draw a blade should the chance arise. “Gedankenlos. It’s me, Zerfall.”
“No. Impossible.” He looked doubtful, like he didn’t believe his own words. Or didn’t want to.
“You have always been loyal—”
“To strength.” He made a show of examining her. “You don’t look very strong.”
Do you really want to know how much of the old you remains? Command him. Leave him no choice but to obey.
She said nothing.
Tucking the sword into his belt he stepped forward and kicked out her supporting arm. The bone broke with a crack and she collapsed to the ground.
“You’re not Zerfall,” he said, sounding relieved. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you aren’t her.”
Gedankenlos stomped on the wrist of her right hand, pinning it to the ground. She prayed he hadn’t broken the bone. He searched her with professional efficiency, rooting through pockets—hidden and otherwise—and discarding what few weapons she possessed. When he found her tattered copy of Halber Tod’s poems he froze.
He opened the book at random, gaze flicking over the text before darting in her direction. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.
“It’s mine,” she croaked, voice a papery whisper.
Licking his lips, he leaned back to examine her face, frowning in distaste at the wreckage. “Truly?” he asked.
“Truly.” She tested her wrist and found it still functional.
With a whispered “Shite” he tucked the book back into the pocket where he found it. “I’m going to take you to see … Zerfall,” he said. “You and the Basamortuan. If you resist, or make this any more annoying than it already is, I’ll break every bone in your body. Understand?”
Zerfall nodded. “One problem,” she said, looking up at the man squatting over her.
After stooping to grab one of her ankles, he stood straight. “Hm?”
“I am Zerfall,” she said, daring him to doubt.
Gedankenlos swallowed. “Then who was that,” he said, “standing over Hölle’s corpse?”
Hölle’s corpse? Zerfall felt lost. Had she come all this way for nothing? Jateko had slain Aas and then been slain, skull shattered in an instant of violence. Shock left her numb, unable to know what she felt at the loss. She couldn’t believe he was gone, that he died because he refused to abandon her. And now Hölle lay dead, murdered by a Fragment pretending to be Zerfall? What was left?
You came here to end the Täuschung. Nothing has changed.
Except everything had changed. She was broken, only capable of standing if someone propped her up. And Jateko. He hadn’t been part of her plan, he had been the plan. She had thought to use him to kill Hölle and, if needed, hunt and kill her mad priests. With Jateko gone, she had nothing. If Hölle’s Fragment was anything like the woman Zerfall had been, Zerfall had already failed.
She became aware of motion and realized she was being dragged along the uneven ground. Gedankenlos paused as he passed Jateko’s corpse to bend and, with his free hand, grab the Basamortuan youth by an ankle to drag him alongside Zerfall. Some part of her raged at the impropriety of being hauled like a sack of trash. She ignored it. Anger was pointless.
The Täuschung compound was empty. There were dormitories enough for hundreds of priests, but they saw no one on their journey. Entering the largest of the buildings, a run-down church looking much older than its surroundings, she saw how decrepit the building was. Filth and long streamers of dust-clogged spider webs gathered in the corners. Anything not stone sagged and rotted. This wasn’t the result of recent neglect; this was the product of hundreds of years of careless indifference.
And why not? she thought. No proselytizing happened within these walls. This part of the church was populated by the insane and damaged, those foul souls focussed on venting their self-loathing on the unsuspecting innocent.
This is your religion. No matter how much she wanted to tell herself this church’s sorry state occurred after she left, she knew it wasn’t true. For centuries she walked these halls, ignoring the growing filth.
She remembered the day she tried to kill her sister. No, I never had a sister. She remembered the soul-tearing pain of Hölle’s betrayal. Her last memory of Hölle was of the woman pacing back and forth in their shared chambers, telling Zerfall of all the wonderful plans she had for the Täuschung, and how she was going to make the church the most successful religion in all the city-states in the next decade. Zerfall saw there was no room for her in those plans. Hölle no longer needed her.
