And I! I stood by!
I watched my beloved children be slaughtered!
I let them be killed!
I was blind to their innocence!
I betrayed my beloved!
The goddess’ grief was palpable, heavy, crushing. Words of anguish and guilt came faster than he could write, or even comprehend. The verses were angry shouts and mournful wails, long-forgotten truths and new revelations that upended centuries of dogma. The All Mother’s memories, all of them, had returned. And she was pouring them into Pathalan’s mind like an ocean being run through a paper funnel, threatening to tear him apart and wash the shreds away.
Pathalan felt his second hand grab another quill and start writing on another piece of parchment. One paper shifted, and his head slammed down onto it to hold it steady. When the page was full of scrawlings, his neck spasmed, involuntarily lifting it from the parchment and letting a sudden wind from nowhere blow it from his desk. Another page slid onto the desk beneath it as his head thudded against the pages once more, and the writing resumed.
And still he wrote, his fingers covered in ink and blood, his knuckles twisted and cramped. His back arched in agony, pulling at his arms in a vain effort to stop his hands. His mind searched for something—anything—that could shelter him from the flaming words that thundered down upon his consciousness. His lips pulled back as his eyes rolled skyward, and an earsplitting cry erupted from his parched lips.
“Ha-HAAAAA!”
Gorm considered Johan’s triumphant laugh as a sommelier might test a new vintage; the rising timbre, the robust volume, the notes of despair playing among various flavors of confidence and fury. A good hero could tell a lot from a villain’s laughter; and the paladin sounded like he was about to break. Still, the Dwarf thought hopefully, there was still a chance that some advanced tactical therapy could stall him until Jynn and Laruna returned. At least the king wasn’t talking about the party being too late or—
“You’re too late!” crowed Johan, his flaming sword held high. “Too late!”
Gorm cursed Nove under his breath and shared a dark look with Gaist. Their confrontation with the king was running headlong toward the intersection of wordplay and pyrotechnics that marked the end of most stand-offs with villains. All it would take was one more pun, one more opportunity for a final proclamation, and Johan would launch an attack.
“I’m pretty sure we have a little more time,” he said lamely, prolonging the standoff at the cost of his professional dignity. Where was that thrice-cursed wizard?
Johan scowled. He clearly knew as well as Gorm that the Dwarf’s response to his ultimatum was an embarrassing break of custom on par with excessive quipping, looting during a fight, or forgetting the rope. Good manners and good business demanded heroes strike at the moment of maximum tension during a conversation; properly timing the clash made for better ballads and celebrity for the victor, and it prevented anyone from dying with embarrassing, mid-thought last words like “there’s one thing I can’t figure out” or “I never liked my brother.”
“You’re stalling.” The king’s grin was all teeth and triumph; he saw through the berserker’s ruse. He glanced back and forth to Heraldin and Gaist. “You’re just buying your party time.”
“Ye still haven’t told me what this is all about,” Gorm countered, and this was true. Johan’s speech had covered some pedestrian embarrassments suffered as a boy, his dreams of being the greatest hero ever, his belief that it was his right to rule; all fairly standard components of the resentful villain’s psyche. Yet nothing he had touched on explained the nameless dread lurking in the shadows, the spidery denizens lurking in the archives, the palpable gloom that hung in the air. He decided to push his luck. “What’d ye face down there, in the dungeon of Az’Anon?”
Johan’s smile twisted into a sneer. “You’d know if you hadn’t run!”
“It’s here now, ain’t it?” pressed Gorm. “Ye brought it, didn’t ye? Ye made a deal with the darkness.”
“Lies!” snapped the king. “You’re jealous because I slew Az’Anon!”
“Never understood how that happened,” said Gorm. “We fought the undead all the way into Az’Anon’s lair, and ye were barely strong enough to take on a few skeletons on your own, and half as bold as ye were strong. I saved your hide more times than ye made yourself useful. And then ye suddenly killed the Spider King on your own? No, I don’t think so. I think whatever gave Az’Anon his power offered ye the same deal, and ye took it.”
The accusation drained the blood from Johan’s face and twisted it into a resentful sneer. “I found the strength within myself!” he cried.
“Drake spit!” Gorm snarled back. “Where are ye hidin’ whatever it is? We’ll not rest until we find it!”
It took Gorm a split second to realize that he’d inadvertently delivered an ultimatum, and by the time he did, Johan was already upon him. “Then die!” hissed the paladin, his blade a burning arc in the air.
The sudden force of the attack caught Gorm off guard. He barely got his shield up in time to deflect the blow, and it knocked him off-balance enough that he had to awkwardly parry another. Yet awkward, last-second defenses weren’t enough to withstand an onslaught from the Champion of Tandos. The paladin’s sword was blessed by the god of war, and Gorm felt a hot searing in his forearm as the end of Johan’s blade slipped past his defenses and cut through his mail. A sudden cloud of green smoke erupted around them, giving Gorm just enough time to scramble away, and Gaist clashed with the king.
Johan was a streak of gold with a manic grin, a toothy comet blurring between the three heroes. Golden crescents flashed in the gloom as he struck at them, his hungry blade seeking their hearts and heads. Yet there was no finesse behind the king’s force. The paladin’s lurching strikes and lightning motions blurred the boundary between the supernatural and the unnatural. It almost looked as though his body was dragged through each charge rather than lunging, and his strikes came in staccato, jerking steps that roiled Gorm’s stomach.
Gaist parried, Gorm blocked, and Heraldin dodged and swerved like a pig at the fair to avoid the paladin’s unnerving onslaught. They feigned attacks on him as well, darting forward whenever his back was turned, never letting on that they didn’t want to strike. Not until Jynn and Laruna returned. The heroes needed to be cautious, to take the fight slow.
And they might have been able to, had the paladin kept his mouth shut.
“You’ve done it now,” snarled Johan, darting to take a swipe at Heraldin. Gaist caught his blade, and then the bard and weaponsmaster flitted away amid a cloud of vermillion smoke. The paladin growled and then ripped through the air back to Gorm. “You should have left well enough alone.”
Gorm caught the paladin’s blade with his axe. “It wasn’t well enough,” he growled.
“And what was wrong with it?” demanded the king, taking a swipe at Gorm. “I could have left you alone after the liche attacked. You had fame. You had wealth. You were comfortable. Why weren’t you satisfied?”
“Comfortable?” Gorm growled, trying to hold the paladin’s blows and the crimson mist behind his eyes at bay. “Ye killed so many! Ye built your fame and treasure on the blood of innocents! Burn your bloody fame and wealth! I’m here for justice.”
“Oh, right. The Goblin!” The flames from Johan’s blade cast his diabolical grin in a hellish light. “I almost forgot you think this is about your little greenskin friends. Do you think they’ll be better off after your little rebellion? I’m going to find every one of them that ever spoke to you and revoke their NPC papers. I’ll outlaw every stinking Orc and Goblin in this city, and see them all declared foes. Everyone you ever cared about is as good as dead and looted. They just don’t know it yet! Ha haaa!”
In his mind’s eye, Gorm could see the bodies in the street, hear the screams of the dying, feel the agony of so much loss over his own broken oath. It constricted and twisted his insides until the air was wrung from his lungs and hot tears squeezed from his eyes. He tried to reply, but could only manage a short bark, like he was choking on his own voice.
“Are you scared? Are you ready to run away?” Johan sneered, taking the Dwarf’s reaction for fear. “You won’t get away this time!” he cried, lunging forward to strike at the opening in Gorm’s defenses.
“No! Gorm!” cried Heraldin, but it was too late. In a professional hero’s world, one can’t hope to survive if they make many sloppy mistakes.
And Johan had just reached his limit.
Gorm’s hand caught the paladin’s vambrace and held it fast. The king tried to wrench his arm back, but blanched when he looked at the Dwarf’s face.
The berserker bared his teeth at the king, or perhaps grinned at him. He gave another rattling cough, choking on the laughter bubbling up from his core. White-hot rage seared away any of Gorm’s lingering fear, leaving a burning purpose glowing at the center of his core. The pure joy of it washed over him in an irresistible wave, and he began to cackle as the crimson mists closed around him and painted the world red.
