The Murder Stroke (Purgatory Wars Book 1) Read online

  “The whole being able to bend steel – er, bronze – with your bare hands has to have something to do with it, yes?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Meg said, smiling wickedly, “Yes.”

  She turned and pushed another clump of bushes aside. They made their way through the depths, though Liam felt increasingly apprehensive. The soldiers that they had killed must have had friends and he occasionally heard the distant sound of other people in the woods. The crash of trees being knocked aside. The crack and snap of branches. Distant calls. Distant horns. On hearing that for the second time he coughed.

  “Why, exactly, is Aries trying to kill you?” Liam asked. “You say you have a message of peace between Apollo and Sobek – is Aries a third party in the war?”

  “No, he's Apollo's ally.” Meg looked back, her teeth flashing white in the darkness that surrounded them as they ducked beneath a thick sprawl of branches for a moment. “Aries and Apollo, arranged against Sobek's forces for the control of the lands between two cities – New Athens and Faiyum Falls. Sobek controls Faiyum, while New Athens is split in control between Aries, Athena and Apollo.” She shook her head. “Despite New Athens being the larger, Sobek is a touch better at leading his forces.”

  Liam nodded.

  “So,” Meg said. “Any more questions?”

  Liam shook his head. “So far it's making a weird level of sense. I mean, once you get past the surreal as all hell idea of the ancient gods being still around. And fighting each other. Back on Earth, they're all thought to be just myths and stories, you know?” He shrugged. “It's taking a bit to really sink in. But, um, I think I got the gist. Now how do we get to Faiyum without Aries' men finding us and butchering us?”

  “Well,” Meg said, then trailed off. She was looking left and right at two different pathways in the deep jungle. The one heading to the right looked as if it started to go uphill in a few dozen yards – though past that, it was hard to tell, thanks to the thick haze of vines and the dim lighting. The one heading off to the left almost immediately became impossible to see beyond – vines hung low, and flowers bloomed from their every side, making it look like a curtain-door at some cheesy nature-themed restaurant.

  “Well?” Liam asked.

  “Part of the problem may be that I'm completely lost.”

  “Great,” Liam said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, uh, you have wings – maybe we're past their dartcasters?”

  A low, mournful horn blew to the west. It sounded fairly close to where they stood.

  “Or not,” Liam said.

  The crashing sounds of other people moving through the underbrush filled the air and Meg grabbed Liam's wrist and turned – taking neither route, but instead shouldering her way through the underbrush. Once they got about ten feet off the trail, she slowed her progress, ducking and moving gingerly through the branches and the growths. Liam saw why almost immediately and started trying to ape her. He knew that he was still leaving behind a trail – but he hoped that it might be missed in the darkness.

  Suddenly they emerged out of the jungle into a clearing. The sun shone through the open air above them and Liam saw that they had been tricked: a half a dozen soldiers of Aries stood in a loose half circle. They held shields and short stabbing spears in their hands and looked quite serious underneath their horse-hair helmets. Behind them were two devices that looked as if they had stepped simultaneously out of history and out of Liam's short lived high school career of playing Warhammer 40,000 tabletop war games. The immense crossbow artillery pieces that the troops had behind them floated on crystal platforms that were so similar to Eldar grav-platforms that he felt like Games Workshop should sue.

  Those platforms, though, let a small force of infantry – without wagons and without being slowed down by terrain or vegetation – cart around pre-gunpowder artillery at a somewhat reasonable pace.

  Dicks.

  A woman stepped out from the center of the half-circle. She went without armor and without helmet – instead of such silly things like that, she merely wore a simple kilt around her hips and a leather strap that wound between her small, tight breasts. Her nipples were painted bright gold to contrast with her pale white skin, and she had the kind of electric blue hair that might shame an anime character. None of that distracted Liam from the ears that thrust out from her head – almost a foot long each, both ending in a tapering point.

  She reached back and drew a short blade that looked like a xiphos – the Greek short sword. It was bronze that had turned green with age, and yet she held it as if it was an actual weapon, not a museum piece. Looking closer, Liam saw it shimmer with a kind of heat-wave, as if it was hotter than asphalt under a hundred degree sun. If it was that hot, the woman definitely didn't look like she felt it.

  “Surrender and die,” she said.

  “Isn't that or die?” Liam asked, his hand going to the hilt of Delenn.

  The woman shrugged. “I wasn't speaking to you, human. The valk is all we want.”

  “Go to Hades,” Meg said but Liam was standing close enough to see her gulp. Her eyes were focused on those artillery pieces. They weren't loaded with the immense spears that would have been used in a standard pitched battle of the ancient past – rather, they were bundled with what looked like sabot containers that held dozens of those crystal-tipped nulldarts. If just one of them hit Meg, her super-strength would go bye-bye.

  “Just to check,” Liam whispered. “If a bunch of those nulldarts hit you, you'd also, like, die from bloodloss, right?”

  “That is the idea.” Meg managed to speak while barely moving her lips.

  “Goodie.”

  The elven woman cocked her head. “Five.”

  “Okay, Meg,” Liam whispered. “I think now is a time to risk flying.”

  “That was what I was thinking,” she whispered back.

  “Four,” the elven woman said. She was looking at her fingernails now – the picture of an arrogant warrior in her prime. Liam tried to bite back any smart quip that might give the game away as Meg slowly reached back. She tugged off her belt and held it over her head – drawing the attention of the soldiers and the elven woman.

  “Here's the message. You can take it and I can leave with my pet, okay?” Meg asked.

  “Or, alternatively,” the elven woman said, sneering. “You-”

  Meg grabbed onto the back of Liam's shirt and sprang into the air. Liam had thought he was tensed and ready for the impact and the jarring motion of the launch. He had thought he would know what it would have felt like. He was wrong. The sensation was as if bands of iron had wrapped around his chest and squeezed – his armpits wrenched and his own lovely longsword bashed her hilt into the back of his head hard enough for him to see a flash of white light and stars. There was a horrifying ripping noise and panic flared, before Liam realized it wasn't his clothes tearing.

  It was the pair of scorpios – the artillery pieces – going off.

  Liam looked down and saw that the jungle was a dizzying distance below him. With a single leap, Meg had reached the crest of what would have been a skyscraper. Her wings spread and she gasped and swore.

  “Fuck!”

  Liam looked around desperately – his head still ringing – and saw the nulldart. It had struck her left foot and pierced between the bones that connected to the toes. Blood dripped through the air and even with her wings spread wide, they were still starting to fall. And worse, they were falling towards an-

  Liam's eyes bugged. “Why is there an immense canyon right there!?”

  “Ancient battlefield!” Meg gasped. “Dart! Now!”

  Liam reached but felt his own shirt strain at him. He groaned, then forced his arm forward. He heard something tear. He grabbed for the dart as below him, he heard a shout.

  “Fire!”

  “Oh come on,” he whispered, his fingers closing tightly around the blood slick metal and crystal.

  The scorpios went off again. The air below them filled with a haz
e of nulldarts.

  Liam's shirt tore and he found himself suddenly learning the difference between gliding and falling. He tumbled backwards through the air, his arms cartwheeling as he felt the nulldart slip from his fingers. He gritted his teeth.

  Oh Jesus, he thought. Please please please have Meg save my life.

  Meg's wings flared above him and for a moment he saw her, backlit by the sun of Purgatory and she was the single most luminously beautiful thing that he had ever seen. His body seemed to forget it was falling and blood rushed to his cock, which became achingly hard – and Liam smiled. Even if he was about to die, at least he had seen her. Her golden brown tanned skin, her flaming gold-blonde hair. Her electric blue eyes. Her wings. Those wings. He felt his heart squeeze with a rush of emotions that he couldn't quite understand.

  I've seen an angel. A real angel. That's got to be worth something, huh?

  Then Meg's wings slammed backwards. Wind rippled around her and she shot forward, her shoulder catching Liam's belly, then flinging him in a fireman's carry. The upside to this was that he was no longer plunging to his death. The downside was that he was now being smacked in the face by her wing with every beat. She shot forward and then grunted again.

  “Oh come on!” Liam shouted, already learning what that feeling was.

  Meg's wings cupped the air and Liam felt the wind rushing past his body. Then, behind her feet, he saw the edge of the canyon reaching up to clasp them. Liam readied to try and roll with the impact. At a time like this, he felt that his mind should flash through his entire life. Instead, the only thing that swept through his mind was an intense, intimate memory of every inch of Meg's body – the feel of her nipple in his mouth, the taste of her pussy on his finger. The way she tightened around him when she came.

  Impact.

  In a merciful world, told by a God that wanted merely happy pets rather than good humans, the impact would instantly have knocked Liam out and he could have woken up after the hard work was done. Instead, he felt the slap of the water against his back like particularly unfriendly concrete and then was torn away from Meg. He flipped, rolled, tumbled and then skipped out of the water and smashed into a collection of branches and bushes. He felt something snap inside of his arm and for a few moments, didn't feel anything but disorientation as he tumbled out of the bush and onto the ground.

  Then the horse that had clearly kicked him coughed politely and his brain realized that he had just fractured his arm.

  Liam screamed and rolled onto his back. He grabbed at his arm and felt the grotesque sensation of something bulging against his skin and knew, quite suddenly, that he wasn't just dead. He was extremely dead. His mind flashed through the horrifying stories that he had pored over while studying histories about the earlier wars of his bloody planet. Gangrene. Sepsis. Leprosy. Yes, that last one wasn't actually going to rot him from the inside out because he had an untreated blood infection, but it still popped into his mind as he tried to find something to focus on other than the intense, breath stealing, tear bringing, sob wringing pain.

  “Fuck oh fuck fuck fuck!” he shouted, just to be heard. “Fuuuuuuuuck.”

  Nothing came to help him.

  But he did feel better.

  The pain ebbed from agonizing to merely horrifying – but Liam didn't have time for it. He forced himself to sit up and look around. He saw his sword on the ground about ten feet off. His fanny pack was still on his body. But Meg, she he saw in the river, face down, her wings spread. And that was why Liam had no time for this bullshit. He staggered forward, holding his arm close to his body and trying to ignore the faint click of his bone shifting around. He grabbed onto her wing with one hand and dragged her out of the river – more through his body weight than his strength. Once she was face down on the grass, Liam dropped to his knees and rolled her onto her back.

  It didn't look good. She had a nulldart in her shoulder – tugging it free brought with it a small spurt of blood, but no immense gush. Good. However, it didn't immediately wake her up. He gingerly felt at her breasts with his fingers and there was no sign of pain and no immediately obvious fractures in her ribs. Okay. Fine.

  Liam closed his eyes. He had taken first aid – a requirement for his dojo – and he knew how to check for a pulse and do CPR. Touching her throat, he felt around. No pulse.

  Of course, she's a freaking angel with superstrength in a magical bubble world populated by the ancient Greek fucking Pantheon and we just got shot fucking down with Roman artillery used by fucking elves following fucking Aries. She may have a fucking artery in a different fucking place. Fuck!

  Still, she had been face down in a river and wasn't breathing.

  He put his good hand on her chest and tried to do chest compressions. He shoved, putting his entire weight into the motion, then leaned forward. He pushed her mouth open with his chin, then fastened his mouth over her lips, held her nose shut, and breathed. When he drew back, Meg coughed, turned her head, and vomited out water onto the ground. She gasped, coughed again, then fluttered her eyes open.

  “Why,” she asked, her voice raspy, “Do I feel like someone punched me in the fucking chest?”

  “It's supposed to feel like that,” Liam asked.

  Meg groaned. “Don't replace your clerics with that trick.”

  Liam was silent for a long time. “You have healing magic?”

  Meg sat up, wincing as she touched her chest. “Of course we have healing magic,” she said, her tone irritated. Her shoulder wound had closed up tight by now, and her foot wound was similarly healed. “What kind of civilization doesn't?”

  Liam blinked a few times.

  “Do you know any clerical magic?” he asked, quietly.

  Meg laughed. “Gods no,” she said, sounding amused. “I'm a valkyrie – we have inherent regeneration. Why would I ever need cleric- oh.” Her eyes widened as Liam, wincing all the while, lifted up his arm to show her the break.

  ***

  Liviana, daughter of Aries and hero of the Hellenic Elves, looked over the edge of the canyon. One of her hoplites stepped up to stand beside her, gently tapping his spear against his shield as a way of saluting.

  “Ma'am,” he said, gruffly. “We've searched the area around this canyon. No sign of the messenger or the human in the exotic clothes.”

  Liviana nodded, then closed her eyes.

  Father, she thought. Are they…

  No.

  Liviana frowned. “They're still alive.” She turned to face them. “Post men at the exits to the canyon. Go.”

  “Ma'am.” The hoplite bowed.

  ***

  Liam screamed.

  “Sorry,” Meg said, quietly.

  “No, no, it's okay,” Liam said, his entire body slumping back onto the ground as he panted. He felt as if his muscles had been wrung out and replaced by noodles – wet noodles that had been overcooked to boot. His skin gleamed with sweat that had nothing to do with the intense heat of Purgatory. He looked down at the binding that Meg had lashed around his arm. A branch pruned from a tree and a bit of cloth torn from his now quite tattered shirt made a reasonable brace. He started to stand and then felt dizzy. The moment passed and he shook his head a bit, smiling ruefully.

  “There goes our sex life,” he said.

  “Pff,” Meg said, grinning. “I can still sit on your face. Or does that offend your Slave God's sensibilities?”

  “God has nothing against face sitting. Depending on the translation and the book, I'm not even sure it counts as actual sex.” Liam chuckled. “Besides, you taste like fruit. How could I not want you on my face?”

  “If you're offering,” Meg said, her hand going to her kilt.

  “Sadly, I think we're still being hunted by spear wielding psychopaths,” Liam said.

  Meg snorted, quietly, but didn't complain as she slid her arm around his shoulders and gently pushed him forward. They walked along the canyon's bed and Liam took some time to actually check the place. It really did look as if the cany
on had been cut – not with the slow erosion of water or the gentle pressure of tectonics – but in a single fierce blast of some immense energy. The walls were perfectly smooth and glassy, even however many centuries after it had been cut into the ground. And the walls showed none of the striations that one might expect from natural erosion.

  Furthermore, the canyon was as straight as if it had been cut with a laser and a ruler.

  “Does the phrase orbital ion cannon mean anything to you?” Liam asked.

  “No,” Meg said, frowning. “My translation spell didn't grab it.”

  “Uh, big beamy burny thing,” Liam said. “Cut this whole area out, right?”

  “Ah, no. This one was caused by the Eye of Ra.” Meg shook her head. “The largest of them – it was destroyed five centuries later by Asig the Magnificent.”

  “Sounds like a swell guy,” Liam said.

  “He was a pig,” Meg said, her voice deadpan. Liam closed his eyes to ignore the faint ache that suffused his entire body – it echoed from his arm like the ringing of a gong.

  “Literally a pig?”

  “No, figuratively,” Meg said, sounding amused. “Didn't think we had walking pig-men in this world, did you?”

  “Honestly?” Liam opened his eyes and resumed walking. “I wouldn't be shocked.”

  They made good time as they walked through the canyon, though the sheer walls and the relatively sparse underground left things relatively uninteresting for the walk. At the moment, Liam was more than happy to have an uninteresting, boring place to walk through. Interesting meant plants to shove past, or hills to crest, or bad guys to fight, all with an arm shattered into uselessness. He tried to not think of gangrene – instead, he thought of clerical magic. He remembered several games of tabletop roleplaying games. He had always wondered what, exactly, healing a handful of dice of “hit points” would feel like. He wondered if it would be pleasant, unpleasant, or something in between. Maybe it'd be like drinking Pepto Bismol? Unpleasant but also exactly what you needed at the time.

  Fear struck Liam, making him stop and swear. “Fuck.”