The Crimson Hunted: A Dellerin Tale (The Crimson Collection Book 2) Read online

  The Crimson Hunted: A Dellerin Tale

  The Crimson Collection vol II

  Robert J Power

  For Jan.

  Without you I could never have written a line and without you I never would have wanted to.

  You are my muse, you always have been.

  1

  After the Storm

  “That was polished!” Natteo cried.

  Derian thought it a fitting few words. He stumbled towards his friend with awkward limbs. They felt unused and weak—as though freshly grown. Grisly images of demons and decapitations flashed through his mind, and he searched for recollection. His mind was wild and lost, he felt he was waking after a debauched night’s leisure and slowly remembering the evils of the night before. They should have been dead, torn apart into chunks of raw meat for carrion, or moving through the belly of a monster, but they weren’t. They were alive, and it was polished.

  “What did you do, Seren?” Natteo demanded, and Derian thought it a fitting choice of question too. Though he couldn’t understand how, he instinctively knew that their survival had been Seren’s doing. More than a pretty face.

  Seren shrugged and held her cloak tightly around her, fending off the dawn’s biting chill, and denying the world any further sight of nakedness. Oh well. Living is enough.

  Natteo hid his fear well. “I remember pain, I remember teeth… and darkness… Did anyone else feel it?”

  Beyond the darkness.

  Derian couldn’t remember a great deal, but the touch of darkness was familiar. More than the coldness of death though. Somewhere beyond he’d sensed someone… something. A deity of great curiosity and greater power, and it had taken a slow step towards him. A grand demon?

  He’d also felt his body and soul churning in torment, and from this torment came anger so fierce that it felt like a creature trying to tear itself free from his body. And then he remembered the terrible burning and suddenly waking from the cold night. “I felt something.”

  Derian’s head hurt just thinking on the matter—much the same way it hurt when he looked into a night’s sky and wondered where it began and where it all ended. Sometimes, ignorance was a gift. Ignoring the pain and anger of death was also a gift.

  “Reborn in fire. Boom, demon boom,” Seren muttered, and she held her stomach where the peculiar tattooed mark of shining gold had once been. Derian thought of her casting the shattered shard of gold away, and he regretted his ignorance.

  “Demon boom?”

  “Boom. People unboom.” She made her hands into a vague circle and brought them out as though the circle grew. “Whoosh.”

  “Whoosh?”

  “What else can you do?” Natteo asked, though he was distant, looking across the devastated battlefield. Perhaps he was remembering where the Crimson Hunters had charged into death, found it, and somehow crept away from it. It was hard not to be in fearful awe.

  “Seren not make rebirth boom,” Seren said, reaching down and taking another flower. After a moment, she returned it, but unlike before, it did not immediately recover. It wavered as though caught in the wind and fell in the mud. “Fading,” she muttered to herself, and Derian left her to her savage murdering of flowers.

  Even in the warmth and beauty of the first sunny morning since they’d landed on this cursed island, the field outside the town was a miserable sight. Scorched and sizzling demonic bodies of both canis and anculus lay strewn upon the ground, all the way from forest’s edge to the gates of Treystone. Steam rose into the sky where skin, not built for the harshness of this world’s sun, burned where they lay. Each brute lying flat where they’d fallen, as though a great explosion of cleansing wrath had torn them from their nasty life upon this world in one fell swoop. Boom. It was glorious and it was terrible, and Derian scrambled through the bodies searching for his dagger, when without warning something began to stir in his thoughts, in his gut, and something primal just rightly stirred his instincts.

  “Oh, this cannot be” Lorgan hissed.

  “Oh, please no,” cried Kesta, for something unsettling began to happen around them.

  Like a river’s serenity lost to a skimmed stone, the valley began to ripple and churn. The bodies upon the land began to move. Scarred flesh of demonic spike and fur began to tremor and writhe, and the ripple became an ocean.

  They were slow, like moving through thick honey, and he wondered if they were just rousing from the same dazing resurrection enchantment. It was unlikely as many still carried the scars of battle. The field became a rising cacophony of hissing and snarling as the sun’s unforgiving rays continued its assault upon their bodies. Few of the lesser monsters of the source could stand the sun, and what charring they’d suffered as they lay in almost death continued as they attempted to rouse themselves.

  For a strange moment, Derian wondered what awfulness the beasts must have felt, to wake so feebly, in such pain. A part of him almost felt sympathy. Not a lot though.

  Thankfully, not all had survived the boom. Those nearest Seren’s scorch mark were eviscerated. However, there were still hundreds remaining.

  “They are too slow to be a threat,” Natteo declared. He hovered over the still body of an enormous beast, and as though recalling some terrible event from another life, he shook his head and began digging around the creature. Within a breath, he recovered his blades and stabbed the motionless beast through its eye sockets until there remained only two open holes. “To the fires with you,” he cursed, and then he stabbed it three more times where the heart might have been. The anculus still made no movement, and Natteo appeared dreadfully disappointed he couldn’t kill it for its crimes. “This is too easy!” he shouted and fell upon another anculus demon crawling through the blood-soaked grass; he drove his dagger through the beast’s head and held it until still. “Good little beastie. Silencio is calling you,” he declared.

  Kill them all.

  Derian’s mouth watered, and he found himself eager to join Natteo’s murderous wrath. Instead of fear, he found himself exhilarated among the ruins of horn, flesh, and teeth, searching for his weapon.

  “Slow, yes, but they are too many,” hissed Kesta as she waded further into the river of bodies with blade in hand. Stabbing and cutting. “Help us!” she cried to the figures watching in grim silence at the wall of the sieged town.

  Derian looked up and saw similar dazed faces looking back. Many had not fully roused themselves, and they lay strewn against the top of the wall with drooped arms hanging lazily over the wall, while the more alert struggled just to stand upright.

  “Peasants,” Kesta cursed and spun back to task.

  Lorgan spoke as he recovered his own blade from the body of a canis beast. “This is on us so, my comrades.” He seemed perplexed how his blade had gotten so far away from where he’d fallen, but soon enough, he went to task like a farmer tilling wheatcorn at the turn of season; a few steps forward; a quick thrust down through flesh; a swift recovery of blooded blade; on to the next. It was oddly rhythmical, and Derian found himself in similar poetic movements.

  Even Seren joined the massacre. She recovered two arrows from vanquished monsters and fell upon any foe in her path. Her movement was graceful and reassured, her speed was incredible, and her technique was flawless. Most of all, her knowledge of killing points was worryingly efficient. She struck flurries of combinations at every monster she passed, striking a weak point every time without breaking her stride. She appeared to stroll through the battlefield killing effortlessly, and Derian wondered how a strange girl like that was so accomplished.

&nb
sp; Fighting an army of burning demons in the middle of the day was easy. Perhaps there was no honour in slitting a sleeping man’s throat, but Derian would take dishonour over the threat of facing a man in a ruthless, precarious conflict any day. He’d taken the honourable route the night before and needed a miracle to get over that disaster. He imagined a few outspoken peasants with ideas above their stations having an issue with killing defenceless monsters.

  “Let’s try to broker peace with these creatures, for they have braved the darkness to live in this world with us,” they would chant in the safer back alleys of Dellerin, believing their own spitting rot, having never once faced something they couldn’t tame with a few harsh words. Derian hated demonic beasts, but he truly loathed pompous, outspoken peasants and their entitled values.

  The world isn’t fair, monsters are real; bad things happen; sticks and stones are far worse than a few harsh words.

  No amount of peaceful talking would stop these beasts from smothering the life out of the innocent villagers behind the wall. To the fires with the ill-informed, thought Derian. He would kill as many beasts as he could before they escaped.

  He didn’t know how long he waded into the monsters, only that he killed a lifetime’s worth in his first charge. By the time some monsters had recovered their senses and began fleeing towards the treeline, the crowd had roused themselves enough to cheer. Derian didn’t think any less of their appreciation for the brutality on show. Who knew what terror they had endured? Perhaps the path to recovery from anguish began with seeing the monsters vanquished this way?

  The crowd howled triumphantly when Lorgan slipped behind a larger anculus beast as it attempted to stand, snapping its neck with a satisfyingly loud crack.

  Or when Kesta, with gore-covered arrows, struck down a retreating canis, a couple of steps short of salvation beneath the shade of the treeline.

  They applauded when Natteo giddily plunged both his blades into any demon searching for shade beneath the wall, and they took delight in the colourful curses he delivered as they died.

  They cheered Seren loudest of all every time she sent an arrow from one ear through to the other in a swift plunge, leaving her victim convulsing in the dirt.

  It was easy; it became pageantry, and Derian appreciated the growing whoops and cheers the longer the slaughter continued. This felt like success. This felt like heroism. They were not some failed mercenary group with barely a recognised win to their name; they were elite warriors; they were champions; they were growing legends. They might even get paid.

  “Perhaps they’ve very little entertainment out here in the muck lands,” Natteo suggested, sliding his dagger across the throat of a canis. He held the beast’s spurting throat at an angle, allowing just the right amount of spray to fill the air, and a few members of the crowd clapped in appreciation. It was a smooth move, despite the goriness.

  “You like this spitting mess?” he cried, offering them his most demented grin. If any other person wore that grin, it might have been unsettling, but blessed be that charmer. He was charismatic in his mania. “Yeah, you love it.” He laughed wildly, catching sight of another canis demon slithering away, desperate to escape but unable to summon its swiftness in daylight. “I bet you wished you stayed in your nightmare realm, you little spitting thurk!” he roared. “Let’s play!” he cried, falling upon the beast, and the crowd loved him for it.

  “Show decorum!” barked Lorgan from behind his mound of freshly reaped corpses.

  “I just want to show them my daggers,” muttered Natteo, taking offence at Lorgan’s reprimand. He had a point. They were some fine daggers.

  Efficient as the Crimson were, many nasties still needed killing. Many demons escaped their wrath and disappeared into cover. Perhaps had the peasants left their safety of the wall, they might have wiped them out altogether. But peasants were peasants, and peasants didn’t understand the way of things. The mercenaries knew they might turn the tables that night.

  Perhaps, there are more things to worry about than a few hundred beasts, Derian thought.

  Perhaps there really was a damaged monolith, hidden somewhere in these lands and Seren had unwittingly breached it.

  Perhaps her grand demon was already marching through the forest, drawn to this place like her demonlings.

  Perhaps there were darker things afoot.

  Perhaps this was an invading army sent by The Dark One in his attempt to control Luistra.

  Perhaps these attacks were occurring throughout every isle of Dellerin.

  Oh, spit on this.

  Whatever the reasons, Kesta was right about demons’ predilection towards ruination—even at the expense of their own lives. Come nightfall, hunger would stir their simple minds into a frenzy. Those scarred and sun-scalded brutes who had escaped the battlefield would slither back with gnashing teeth and prey upon whatever stood behind the wall. This town would face the same horrors Kesta had endured. The Crimson Hunters had done fine honourable things, but perhaps all they’d really given the town was false hope.

  Derian thought on these miserable things for longer than he should have, and only the unexpected emergence of a massive anculus demon rising from beneath the bodies of its brethren drew him from his dreariness.

  With skin sizzling like swine upon a spit, it stumbled awkwardly through the shards of bone and shredded entrails, and Derian spun towards it theatrically with dagger in hand before leaping gracefully like a dove of death and destruction.

  He soared, the crowd cheered, and he cried out magnificently; it was epic until the beast reached out and caught him in one powerful claw.

  Not like this.

  It lifted him up high, and Derian could see the burning steam emanating from the creature’s bulbous arm. He thought this the funniest thing he’d ever seen, though he couldn’t understand why.

  “Should have worn a cloak,” he gasped, and his feet hung a foot above any foothold beneath. The crowd gasped. A few cried out, as though he was a favoured knight, felled in a tournament of gold. The beast roared demonically for it knew no other way, and Derian felt the crunching pressure as his killer sacrificed the safety of retreat in favour of a final kill. His heart hammered, and adrenalin pumped through his limbs as the call of darkness engulfed him. Yet he was not scared. He was furious with himself for allowing this doom to fall upon him.

  Darkness.

  Brightness.

  Derian blinked a few times and wasn’t sure what happened. The darkness in his vision dissipated, and strangely enough, he stood unvanquished in front of an ocean of blood, a desert of intestines, and a tundra of bone-filled viscera. He vaguely remembered a large anculus demon standing in that exact place only a few moments before.

  “Whoa, that was spitting brutal,” Natteo offered, creeping up to him. He was cautious. Lorgan and Kesta kept their distance, savouring the moment and the respite it offered. Seren stood motionless, staring into the forest; she’d snapped both her arrows, but she still held them as though they were pristine killing tools. Perhaps they still were with her ability. The battlefield had settled to a reassuring stillness. The monsters were dead or retreating. At least for now.

  “I did this?” Derian muttered.

  “Oh yeah, you did.”

  Derian couldn’t look at the ruin he’d made of the creature; he felt foul, his head thumped, and a vast emptiness took him. He felt his very essence stripped, peeled, and thrown asunder. He lost the last few moments to a blur of horror and shimmering darkness, like waking from a dream so revolting that grasping it was like catching a burning ray of flame.

  He felt a dark hand had taken his mind and body and swayed him to actions he thought horrendous. Through the daze, however, he knew what he had done, and he knew that he’d enjoyed it. Perhaps such cruelty was too shameful to remember.

  Am I possessed?

  Am I evil?

  He had taken the demon apart with brutal savagery, and he had done so slowly. He could have stopped sooner, should have stoppe
d sooner, but killing the creature hadn’t been enough. If Natteo’s performance had been distasteful, his own had been abhorrent. He’d never thought panic could gift such ferocity and viciousness, but it had given these things generously. He’d broken away from the grip by cutting the beast’s hand from its wrist. A clean cut, bone and all.

  “You are a sick, sick boy,” Natteo added, lifting the creature’s frozen, eyeless head in the air where Derian had removed it with his teeth. Wait, what? Had it been his teeth? He remembered it had involved teeth.

  “It needed doing,” Derian offered, and that felt like the truth, but he knew better. He’d drenched his body in crimson, and his stomach sloshed with the warm fullness of demonic blood. He wondered whether he should speak to a healer about it. Or perhaps he should find a nice dark corner somewhere and throw up a pint of acidic hell juice. He didn’t look forward to relieving himself soon.

  “I think you scared the last of them off with that thing you did to its tail.” Natteo picked up the chewed strip of tail and sniffed it disapprovingly. Derian remembered a loud crunch and the astonished wail accompanying the act.

  That was the teeth part.

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “This thing must have tasted like–”

  “Shut up, Natteo.”

  “I meant in a good way, I mean,” he said, as though his friend’s sudden aptitude for torturous violence didn’t upset him at all. Perhaps that’s what best friends were good at—telling you it was okay to be a psychopathic demon slayer.

  “Gory things happen in battle,” Natteo continued. “Better that than collapse in panic, I suppose.” He tossed the tail back into the mess of demonic waste. “Or worse, collapse with a crushed windpipe…” He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Derian seriously. “I will never grab you by the throat ever again… although if you could do what you did with my… tail… though a little softer, then we can talk,” he said, and Derian felt better.