Angar shook off the words, gore dripping from his hammer, as another grawlok hauled itself from the pool behind him. Ahead, two more surfaced, a third close behind.
He didn’t have time to fight them all. Even if he did, four at once would be too much and prevent him from completing his king’s orders.
He bolted up the path, a claw swiping inches from his back as he dodged at the fork.
This Moloch calls me craven? he thought, fury simmering. It’ll soon see how wrong it is.
The tunnel twisted upward, wide and curving, its few intersections marked by passage.
He trusted the well-worn paths were right, or hoped they were, sucking in ragged breaths as sweat stung his eyes, glad no more creatures blocked his ascent.
His hammer grew heavy, awkward in his grip, but he pressed on, the incline steepening with every step.
Rounding a sharp bend, he froze. A large tuft of stingervines draped from ceiling and walls, writhing like living snares, slithering around, seeking out anything they could grab hold of.
Dozens of grawlok husks littered the floor, their shells shattered by the vines’ crushing grip.
His heart sank. He loathed these vines. But these vicious tendrils needed natural light, so he was at the peak, or nearly so.
Their touch brought searing pain, swelling, nausea, cramps. The grasp of a large tuft like this, in severe cases, could paralyze or kill. And, of course, failing to escape the vines always resulted in death.
Memories sank their claws into him, sharp and unrelenting. These stingervines were a cornerstone of the brutal training his mother had put him through, the root of his deep-seated hatred for them.
The first time he’d faced one, he was barely more than a toddler, a searing ordeal etched into his mind, impossible to erase.
But as vivid as that memory burned, the second encounter blazed worse.
He couldn’t stop it from flooding back. He was so small then, standing two paces from his mother.
Her jaw was a rigid line, her eyes cold and piercing, drilling into him with a judgment that deemed him lacking. “We don’t have all day, boy,” she said, her voice thick with disappointment, each word a lash. “Go on. Give it your arm.”
Tears welled in Angar’s eyes, streaking his cheeks. Fear churned in his chest, a frantic, suffocating weight. “Please, Ma, it hurts so much. Please. Please.”
“Stop being so weak,” she snapped, her tone cutting deeper than the vines ever could. “All life is pain. You need to become inured to it. What doesn’t destroy you, forges you into something stronger, more resilient, better equipped to confront the ordeals that lie ahead. Go on. Your arm. Give it to the vine.”
Tentatively, his trembling hand stretched forward, a child’s thin arm quivering in the air. Then instinct yanked it back. “I can’t! Please! Please don’t make me!”
“Stop crying!” she barked, her patience fraying. “Control yourself. This vine’s small. It’ll barely sting.”
But Little Angar knew better. The first time still haunted him with pain like fire igniting beneath his skin, crackling in agonizing bursts, spreading wider, burning hotter with every endless second. He couldn’t face it again. He wouldn’t.
“Such cowardice is unacceptable!” his mother roared.
She stepped forward with purpose, thrusting her own arm into the vine’s grasp. It coiled around her, but she stood unyielding, her face a mask of steel. “There. Do you see me sniveling like a gutless weakling? Yes, it hurts, but not enough to make such a fuss as you are. How will you ever be a man, let alone a great one, if you can’t endure a little discomfort?”
Her eyes bored into him, a silent accusation louder than her words, branding him until shame sparked something within, and he found his spine and enough courage.
His back stiffening, he thrust his arm out, bracing for the torment he knew too well.
If anything, since he knew what to expect, the fire flared fiercer than the first time, the pain’s blaze lasting longer too.
As he grew, the stingervines became a familiar foe in his training, their sting easier to bear but never easy, and always dreaded.
He carried a lot of gratitude for his mother’s relentless training, her iron will shaping him into a man hardy and unyielding.
She was a great woman revered by all, her name a whisper of awe and fear, the powerful Weirding Witch. Pride had once swelled in his chest for being her son, a constant flame burning through his youth.
Until today. The atrocities she’d wrought extinguished that flame, unforgivable no matter what her reasons. Her acts were vile, twisted, a sickness that gnawed at his soul and broke his heart.
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He clung to a desperate hope that his ascent to Qitakai in glory would scour away the shame, erase the memory of her deeds, and cleanse the taint of their shared blood.
Angar dreaded stingervines still. But he had to get through these.
If he had a torch and time to strike sparks to ignite it, he could get through safely, but he didn’t.
No sense putting off the inevitable, he thought before charging through the vines.
As he moved past, slithering tendrils surged forth, latching onto his forearms, face, and neck with a vicious grip. Agony and searing heat erupted wherever they made contact, a torment he fought to ignore.
His mind flashed back to those harsh lessons, but he was not the boy trembling before his mother. He was a man grown now, a warrior of Mecia, knighted in court, driven by duty, and still under his king’s orders.
He pressed on relentlessly, not halting until the vines were stretched taut with no give.
As his hammer fell, with a fierce yank, he ripped the clinging vines from his arms, blood splattering across the cavern.
He couldn't tear the vine from his neck while it was still attached to the tuft – not without risking his death.
In one swift motion, he drew the flint knife from his belt, sliced through the vines around his neck, then brutally freed his face, fresh blood painting the walls.
Now, with the vine segments on his neck lifeless, he carefully peeled them away.
Knife sheathed, hammer reclaimed, he scrambled up a ladder to the peak.
This was his first time atop the great Mount Shirdis, its porous summit riddled with cave mouths. A wooden lookout hut stood empty, its guards likely the ones buried below.
He moved to the edge to look out over the valley. He looked towards the battlefield and saw demons streaming out of the strange gateway still, but the fog hid all the corpses.
Far to the south, what remained of the Kondunean legions, and a decent number of them remained alive, fled from demons.
Fog blanketing the ground all around the Ulimuns, demons poking out of it, many of them heading to the city of Mecia.
Angar lunged for the alarm horn, seizing it with a steady grip. He drew a deep breath and blew, the blast erupting in a deafening roar that jolted him, unready for its sheer force, his first note faltered, cut short.
Steeling himself, he sounded it again, a long, resonant wail that pierced the air. Again. And again.
He strode back to the crater’s edge. Below, demons bound for Mecia twisted mid-stride, their glowing eyes fixing on Shirdis, heads cocked toward the thunderous call.
Angar waved his arms, his voice booming in a raw challenge that echoed off the stone.
His gaze shifted to the horde trailing the fleeing Konduneans. Most had halted, their attention snagged by the horn’s cry.
He waved harder, bellowing until his throat rasped, then returned to the horn. Lungs burning, he poured every ounce of breath into it, the sound stretching into a relentless peal. Another followed, just as fierce.
At the edge again, he saw demons swarming toward the mountain, some already clawing up its jagged slopes.
Triumph flared in his chest, a fleeting spark against the weight of his burden, easing his heart’s strain. He wouldn’t slay them all, but with luck, he’d claim perhaps half their number.
His pulse hammered, resolve hardening. He’d avenge his father and brothers, then join them in glory.
He returned to the horn, blasting it several times more until dark whispers slithered into his mind, a familiar tickle of maliciousness.
Ignoring them, he rummaged through his mother’s pouch, fingers closing around the relic, a glowing blue orb pulsing with eerie light.
He approached the crater’s edge, peering into its depths. Visibility ended mere feet below, swallowed by a churning sea of thick, brownish fog that clung like a shroud.
Angar had no wish for death. Only the deranged craved its embrace. But duty bound a man, unyielding as chert, and this fleeting life was but a single grain of sand dwarfed by the towering mountain of his soul’s eternity.
“I offer you this glorious tribute of blood and slaughter, Great Lord!” he bellowed, hurling the holy relic into the abyss.
The glowing blue orb vanished into the haze, a fleeting gleam against the murk.
He stood, breath held, waiting. No sound rose, no tremor shook the earth, only the fog’s lazy swirl marking the relic’s descent.
Unease prickled his skin. What if he’d chosen wrong? What if his mother’s words were a lie? Pulse quickening, he snatched the pouch and flung it in after.
The sky above blackened, heavy with menace. Humidity thickened the air, a damp weight reminiscent of the cave’s lower reaches, where acidic pools steamed and hissed.
His ears popped, a sharp jolt that deepened his disquiet. The air crackled and buzzed, charged beyond any storm he’d known.
Dread coiled in his gut, cold and insistent. Lightning split the distance, jagged veins of white flaring across the gloom, their glow lingering like an omen.
Then his gaze snapped to the mountain’s lip. A demon clawed into view, his first true glimpse of one so near, and all other thoughts drowned in its shadow.
It was a being of pure terror, dread given flesh. Its colossal form loomed, muscles bulging and rippling beneath a hide of gleaming obsidian, black as charred coal.
Jagged ridges studded its arms and legs, a dense thicket of them armoring its chest like cruel thorns.
Horns crowned its head, wicked and twisted, like gnarled branches of some ancient, cursed tree, honed to impale with a flick.
Its face was malice incarnate, eyes ablaze with merciless fire, searing into the soul. Fangs, long and serrated, jutted from its maw, each a lethal blade still slick with the blood of its last prey.
Oversized hands flexed, claws tapering to points that promised to rend the toughest hide like parchment.
As it hauled itself over the mountain’s lip, it rose with a predator’s grace, defying its bulk. A sound rasped from its throat, like laughter, or a mockery of it, chilling Angar’s spirit, curdling his blood.
The sound reverberated with the wails of a thousand tortured souls, a chorus of anguish that clawed at his resolve.
Heat shimmered around it, warping the air, while a reek of rot assaulted his senses.
Their eyes locked, and maddening whispers surged into his mind, voices teetering on the edge of comprehension, promising power, promising sweet insanity, promising oblivion.
He almost lost himself in those voices. Almost. But he was Angar of Mecia, son of King Baraga and Laka, the Weirding Witch, blood of Elaxada the Mighty, Mahtma the Conqueror, and the great Kondunean Emperor Xon Gheir the First. This demon would need more than maddening whispers to stop him.
As more demons clambered into view, he hoisted his hammer high, charged with a roar, and swung with all his might.
Almost disdainfully, the monster caught the hammer’s head in its massive, clawed hand. Once more it laughed with a sound that echoed with the agony of a thousand tormented souls.
As Angar tried yanking his weapon free, the air around him grew eerily still, as if the world held its breath.
Then Mount Shirdis exploded in a violent roar.
