I had a dream where I was out camping in the wilderness with my father. We set the tent and stoked the fires. My father stood erect and watched the sun rise over the world’s rim, where the sky drained at the edge of creation. The ceremony of darkness was drowned by the approaching dawn in its yellow radiance. A wind blew out from the dying darkness and he vanished. And then I woke up.
The two men were on horseback and trotted steadily underfoot along the old forest trail. They rode beneath the shadows of tree leaves and above the sunlight burst through the low clouds. They drove on a prehistoric earth; an alien inheritance before men were and wandered onto the earth. The wind seethed through the trees and the leaves rustled.
“She’s been quiet,” he said.
“Yeah, all the fight left her. A real damn shame too.”
“What about those folks living in those caves? You trust them? Especially that Molech.”
“I trust their money when I see it in my hands.”
“I’m nervous about this. It’s their country. I feel their eyes everywhere. Watching and waiting.”
“They’re made from the same dust as you and I. It ain’t nothing to worry about,” the man said. “They’re folks lost to the sound of ancient laughter from the phantoms haunting these parts. They think living in those caves can return what was lost and be made right again. Damn fools.” The man in the slicker spat on the road.
“Money better be damn worth it. I hate being out here,” he said. “I hate dealing with those nasty kin-fucking sons-of-bitches.”
Thirty minutes passed, and they arrived at the cave's entrance, shrouded in total blackness. A man in a heavy robe emerged into the light of day from the outer dark. He was tall and so gaunt he appeared taller than he was. The man's face was pockmarked from old afflictions and his skin was cracked and caked in dust. He had large and alert eyes, an owl face, and grinned hideously. He threw a bag of coins at the horse's feet.
The men disembarked from their nags and picked up the bag. The man in the slicker pulled Lia in front of him. He held her manacled wrists tight. The man leaned in Lia’s ear. “Don’t lose that spark,” he whispered. The man in the slicker slipped a small dagger into her pocket and threw her to the ground at Molech’s feet.
Molech dragged her into the cave; into that bloody havoc of human ruin. Carrion was thick in the air. Men were chained to the walls with strange menstrual wounds between their legs. Blood and guts were strewn across the floor and bodies mangled and deformed were hung like inert meat.
Lia looked away from the sight and turned deaf ears at the shrieks of agony.
She was thrown in a cage with a beggared multitude of young girls and boys. Lia vanished among them.
My silence is my shield. My silence is my shield, she thought.
A girl at the age of twelve approached her, she held Lia’s hands and gazed warmly into her eyes. She spoke in a low and soft voice. “You’re so pretty,” she said.
Lia hugged her. She hugged her tightly for dear life.
The men on horseback were met by a lion on the road and the lion killed them. Their carcasses were thrown to the roadside ravine and the lion stood nearby.
***
Michael was five moves away from capturing Desmond’s king; white was winning. He removed his slender black cigarillo from his teeth and tapped the ash into his ceramic ashtray as he studied his nephew with cool contemplation. Desmond looked at the chessboard and then at his uncle. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“What’s wrong, Dez? You finally met your match?” Michael smirked.
Desmond smiled. “No. I got you where I want you to be, Uncle.” He leaned in and moved his king behind his knight.
“Interesting gambit,” Michael said, moving his rook forward.
“I went out with Dorian the other night.”
“Oh. How's the kid doing?”
“A bit melancholic so I got him pissed,” Desmond said. “Uncle?”
“What is it?”
“He said to me, he doesn’t want to think that this life is simply a test to endure. It’s been…lingering in my mind lately.”
“We all struggle with that, Desmond. I’ve been on this Earth longer than you have, I have seen meanness in humans and I wondered why God has not put out the sun and left us to die in the dark. Your move.”
“Right,” Desmond moved his knight ahead. “Perhaps the ultimate test is maintaining faith in people.”
There was a knock on the door and the young squire Charlie entered the room. He was a small and freckled-faced boy. He held a sealed parchment in his left hand and he wordlessly handed it over to Michael. He broke the seal with his thumb and unrolled it.
“Thank you, Charlie,” he said. The boy nodded. Michael skimmed through the letter and he pulled the boy. He whispered in his ear, “Ready the couch, gather our equipment. Now go.”
The squire nodded. “Right away, sir.”
“I guess we are not finishing our game,” Desmond smiled, knocked down his black king, and rose to his feet. “A real shame too. You were about to fall into my trap.”
Michael sucked on his cigarillo; twin streams of blue smoke came out of his wide nostrils, and he put the stub out on his ceramic ashtray. “There’s been attacks, murders, and kidnappings in the Black Hills.”
“That's nothing new. It's the last frontier, a cesspit.”
“It’s different this time, Dez. I’ll see you in the carriage.”
The carriage drove on the stony road to great pastoral flats to the east and the green mountains to the west. Shrouded in a cloudy haze and stood against the fading lilac sky. The sun rose in its opulent radiance as the darkness receded. It was first light. The salitter returned to the earth. Desmond had his ledger and pen out. He was a draftsman and well sufficient for the task, he sketched the immensity of the landscape into his ledger. An economy of pencil strokes flourished the page in exquisite detail.
Michael lit his cigarillo with a match as he studied his nephew. He faintly smiled and went back to being a face of stone.
“Desmond.”
“What is it?” Desmond halted his pen’s movement and folded his ledger, and peered up at his uncle, and met his hazel gaze.
“You talk to people around the village. I’ll talk to the sheriff and interrogate his prisoner.”
“This village and its people, they’re not hospitable to outsiders as I recall,” he said.
“No, they’re not but the sheriff is a friend of ours, to the organization. But you're right to worry. They’re mountain born. War runs thick in their blood.”
“Blood for blood?”
“Blood for blood,” Michael said, his eyes downcast.
“We are wanderers in a wilderness more barren and desolate than the cities of the plain. Authority powerless. Men have lost their reason and do right in their own eyes.”
Michael nodded.
The carriage stopped in front of the jailhouse. Dilapidated and shambling and situated in a row of shops and businesses. The sheriff stood erect on the porch. He wafted his hat and waved to them as they got out. Their boots sank to the mud road. Desmond and Michael shared a glance with one another and then went their separate ways. Michael walked to Sheriff Wolfe. They extended their hands for a handshake but it turned into a hug.
Sheriff Wolfe opened the door for Michael and the pair went downstairs.
“He’s in manacles. Uncooperative. All in all, he’s a tight-lipped son-of-a-bitch and the people are eager to watch him swing.”
“We wouldn’t want to disappoint the hangman,” Michael stated dryly.
“No, no, we won’t,” the sheriff said as he laid his hand on the doorknob. He looked and turned to Michael. “The man’s name is Pierce and he ain’t a stranger around these parts. Or perhaps he always was.”
“Gene,” he said, “what do you mean?”
The sheriff shook his head and slid the door open. “He is all yours, Michael.”
He nodded and entered the cell with the captive. The air was stale. The captive’s head was in his lap, hidden in the darkened corner, obscured from the sunlight of a single window. Michael lit his cigarillo and pulled a chair up to the prisoner. The captive scratched his filthy beard and spat.
He spoke in a low and wispy voice. “I saw you in my dreams. I know how this ends, and I know what you are. A walking shadow under the sun, to be wielded in battle. Always following and circling about.”
“What are you talking about?”
The captive’s sunken gray eyes peered into Michael. They were searching.
“His grace does not rest easily on men. I suppose it makes you a man among men. But where does that leave the rest of us? To be cast out into the wilderness and wandering and searching for paradise that was lost to us? I see the truth, Molech sees the truth. Mankind won't find paradise under His laws and wisdom. No man can live on the word of God alone. He does not want our theology, but our silence. He watches us thirst, hunger, waste, war. He wants our silence,” he said, a fury crept in his words. “If God intervened on the behalf of mankind he would have done so by now? Instead of being impotent? Us humans are poor players in a game that was rigged against us. Playing for stakes for an empty reward. A tale since time immemorial, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.”
Michael did not answer. He furrowed his brow and moved in closer to the captive. He held the captive’s manacled hands as if he were to study it. Michael snapped his finger and the captive screamed then laughed.
“Where’s Molech?” Michael snapped another finger.
Two of his fingers were purple, bleeding, bloated, and swollen. The captive smiled and laughed. “Do you think you can hurt me worse than this accursed world has already done!?” He spat in Michael’s face.
He leaned in and whispered, “Under the shadow of death, you will confess and beg for forgiveness.”
He's leaving me no choice. The sword will have to do. Michael rose from his chair and drew his sword, aiming his sword tip at the captive’s chest. The steel glistened in the sunlight.
The captive lurched to his feet like a man possessed and thrust his chest into the sword, coughing up blood and trickling down Michael’s arm, staining his shirt. The captive smiled as his life slowly drained from his eyes.
“No!” Michael shouted. He dropped his sword and the blood began to pool at his feet. The captive fell further into the sword itself and kneeled grotesquely as if he were praying.
Pierce peered into Michael’s eyes, still searching. “Where’s your God now?” He said as his life faded into nothingness.
The sheriff rushed into the room. “What in the hell is going on?”
“He’s dead.”
“What? You killed him?”
“He did that himself.”
“Damnit. Goddamn it!” The sheriff paced back and forth in the room. “If I were to take your word, it doesn’t change the fact that this piece-of-shit was run through with your sword. The people wanted to see him swing, Michael,” he said, bristling. “Did you at least get something before he died?”
“A name. Molech.”
“The Canaanite God?”
“Another false god put to the sword.”
Michael walked to the captive's kneeling carcass. He kicked him to the floor and pulled his blade from his chest. He flicked the blood off the blade and coolly sheathed it in his scabbard. He looked at the captive’s dead eyes and mocking smile. Michael spat upon his corpse in disgust.
“And him?” The sheriff said.
“What about him?”
“This town needs real justice. A dispassionate display and not the kind of vigilante justice the village has grown accustomed to over the years.”
“I'm sorry for this mess,” Michael said with regret in his voice.
Meanwhile, Desmond entered the Lone Star. The low murmurs of conversations filled the room and patrons broke their fast. Desmond went to the bar and ordered a beer. The saloon’s proprietor nodded and poured the beer into a tall glass stein and skimmed the foam off with a beer comb and tapped the glass. He slid it down and Desmond drank.
“New ‘round these parts, kid?” the proprietor said, in a gruff voice.
“Yeah,” he said, “here to make friends.”
“Good luck with that, kid,” the proprietor scoffed. “This town is filled with angry, hate-filled people.”
“Why stay?” Desmond asked with all earnestness.
“Cause I live here. Cause they’re my angry, hate-filled people, and I wouldn’t know any other way aside from hating them too. What's your name, kid?”
“Desmond.”
“Donovan. A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Donovan.”
A fight broke out between two patrons as they chatted. Desmond watched in bewilderment and Donovan poured beer for himself, unfazed. A broken skull lay in a pool of blood as the victor returned to his table and resumed eating his breakfast.
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Donovovan studied Desmond. “Hey, kid?”
Desmond did not answer.
“Kid,” Donovan said again.
“Yeah. What is it?”
“I need some help in the back. Having a second set of hands will make things easier.”
“Sure.”
The pair walked into the backroom of the saloon. It was dusty. A large and gray mastiff pounced upon Desmond. He was knocked prone on the floor on top of a slobbering, drooling dog licking his face in pure joy and excitement. Donovan whistled and the dog obediently went to him. He patted his great head.
“Nice dog.” Desmond rose to his feet.
“Guts is his name,” Donovan said, petting Guts' neck. “I love dogs more than people. A dog can’t lie to you.”
“Perhaps so but I prefer the company of people. Preferably women,” Desmond smiled.
Donovan softly laughed and he pulled a chair up. “Take a seat, kid.”
And Desmond did.
“What’s your business here, son?”
“We’re here about the murders and kidnappings around here. We are here to put an end to them,” he said.
Donovan studied Desmond closely, searching for any doubt. He took a seat. “You’re looking for Molech,” he said. Donovan rolled up his pants leg and wore a wooden prosthetic. “I got off lucky. I can’t say for the others”
“Who… What is he?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “A vagabond preacher that preached the word of God. Promising paradise. Promising recovery of that divine spark that was lost to men. I fell under his spell.” He tapped his false leg. “This was my price I paid for listening to his damn lies.”
“You know where I can find him?”
“Why do you want any part of him? He’s dangerous.”
“To bring you justice, Donovan.”
“Alright. He’s deep into the sticks. Dwelling in those caves near the Scarlet River. Hoping to find his answers hidden within the stones.” Donovan’s eyes were downcast and rolled down his pants’ sleeve, covering his false leg and he turned to Desmond. “I do not know what Molech is but I can tell you he ain't a man. He ain’t a man,” he said, again.
“A monster?”
Donovan silently nodded.
“Divine spark?”
“I wish I knew what he meant by that, kid.”
“I thank you for the time, Donovan.” He rose to his feet.
“By nightfall, follow the smoke, kid. You’ll know there if you see the smoke and God help you if you do.”
Desmond nodded. He went outside of the Lone Star to the cool breeze of dawn and he struck his match and lit his pipe. He saw children playing in the mud street. Goodness appears in the strangest of places, he thought.
“Let’s go.” A voice called out distantly.
“Uncle?” He turned his head and saw his Uncle, his shirt stained with fresh blood.
“Let’s go. Hurry,” he said.
They were back into the carriage with the morning sun at their backs, tracking them afar. Desmond sat cross-legged and looked out the window, basking in the last frontier untouched by man’s civilization. Michael lit his cigarillo.
“What happened with the prisoner?”
“He died, the crazy bastard killed himself with my own sword.”
“Goddamn,” he said, “did you learn anything useful? Scrub that, why take his own life like that?”
Michael sucked on his cigarillo thoughtfully and twin jet streams of blue smoke came out his wide nostrils. “It’s speculative as he came in and left this world, Desmond. Like all men, he had a story in his head on how he should be in the world. The story he held in his heart was a false story and a false story is no story at all. What can a man do since the world bears him false witness and tricked him out of his goods he believed to be entitled to? This revelation broke him. I imagine this Molech character filled his head with lies. Damned lies.”
“Molech?”
“Yes.”
“I heard it from the bartender. He appears to be a fanatic with a dangerous ideology.”
“How do you mean?”
“He preaches and searches for this ‘divine spark’. He requires sacrifice. The man that told me about it, lost his leg because of it.”
Michael pressed his forefinger against the side of his temple. “Divine spark?” he muttered under his breath.
Desmond shrugged. “I wish I could tell you more, Uncle.” Desmond once more looked out to the window, he held his chin with the back of his hand. For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul? He recalled.
***
Molech stood on his pulpit carved from stone and watched his acolytes sort themselves in rows as they waited for Molech’s words. There were low murmurs among them. Molech raised both hands. They stopped. His eyes were owl-like and piercing. His voice boomed off the rocky ceiling.
“Friends, brothers, children; lend me your ears. We are here tonight to honor thee. Among the stones and under the stars and through sacrifice we can return again. We can return what was lost to us, which is ours by right.” Molech turned away from his beckoning multitude, and he drew his staff to enkindle the great blaze that was hidden in the stones and the smoke rose like a fire in the furnace. The crowd began to chant and cheer in barbarous tongues and to the sounds of brass and drums. Molech’s man carried an infant child in his hands. He raised the child in the air to the cheers of the crowd.
Molech raised both hands and the cheers ceased into a deadly silence. He spoke again. “Only through sacrifice, we can begin anew.” Molech’s man laid the child on the hot stones. The crowd’s cheers drowned the wails of agony from the child and Molech looked on. The child was turned into grey ash and vanished in that vast crematorium. He smiled his hideous smile and it curdled into a scowl. He looked down upon his right hand. The power that was taken will return. He closed his fists.
Lia pulled the little girl into her manacled arms, shielding her from the horror she witnessed. Lia whispered into the little girl’s ear: “Don’t look around. Reach in my pocket, there’s a dagger. Use it to cut me free.”
The girl wordlessly nodded and followed Lia’s instructions. She took the dagger back and slipped it back into her pocket. Lia watched from afar Molech’s long shadow cast along the cavern’s walls from the flames of the fire in the stones and over the corrugated rocks. He stood perched on his pulpit with his owl-like features, his gaze searching. Alert and observant. He grinned hideously at his acolytes and looked down upon the captive multitude.
Lia hid the small blade under her sleeve. Do or die time. “What’s your name?” she said.
“Deborah,” she said weakly and in a raspy voice. “My name is Deborah.”
“Lia,” she bowed her head in reverence. “Get behind me. I swear to you,” she looked around her among a haggard multitude of lost children and dried tears, “I swear to all of you, we will see the sunrise tomorrow,” she said. “I swear it.”
An east wind came through the cave and blew upon the flames. “So the gear has begun to turn,” Molech said, he turned to his man. “Get ready.”
The man nodded and readied the troops.
“I’ve seen you in my dreams, lone swordsman.” Molech smiled, and a small flame flickered in his hand. He enkindled the stones once more.
***
Across the river and deep into the wilderness, black smoke rose from a cave, and the sun sat boiling at the edge of the western skyline. The evening redness had settled the land and sky alike, and the carriage drove on and went by a lion stood erect and sentry over two bodies. Mangled and bloodied, the lion’s claws mark ran over their chests. One man’s eye was hanging by a thread of tendon and their blood stained the stones. Desmond caught sight of the lion and his dead quarry. The lion regarded him coolly with his gold gaze. Desmond looked away.
“Goddamn,” he said.
“What is it, Dez?”
“A peculiar sight but it's nothing, Uncle. Are we close?”
“We have to stop soon and make the rest of the trek on foot,” he said. “The terrain is not suited for the carriage.”
Ten minutes had passed. The carriage stopped in a forest clearing near a stream. They followed the black smoke and it rose, painting itself against the bleeding sky. It took them deeper into the heart of the wilderness, into the outer darkness. From afar they saw two men at the cave’s entrance, in dark cloaks and armed with wooden clubs. Desmond and Michael hid among the bushes. They both shared a glance and nodded.
Desmond padded any dirt or dust off his clothes. “How do I look?” he grinned his cocksure grin.
Michael sighed. A spitting image of his father. “Fine. Now go.”
“Good.”
Desmond walked to the cave’s entrance with a confident stride. The men stood guard, watched him wearily, their hands gripped the hilt of their clubs.
“State your business, friend,” said the cloaked man.
“We’re friends?”
“State your business,” the other man stated brusquely.
Desmond smiled. “I've heard good news: a preacher preaching a new paradise promise, here on God’s good earth.”
The guards quickly glance at each other and back to Desmond.
“Sure,” the guard said. “You’ll stay here while I escort this man. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He nodded. The cloaked man lit a torch and gestured to Desmond to follow and he complied. They moved about on the stony staircase to the sounds of rushing waters beneath and the sharp rocky formation above and as they moved forward the torchlight illuminated the mutilated corpses of men and women alike, dozens in number. They were strung up like animals to be butchered for some strange ceremony and faint moans of the dying were heard, echoed off the walls in the cave. Desmond glanced around the cavern and eyed the man holding the torchlight. He readied a small blade hidden beneath his left sleeve. He cleared his throat.
The cloaked man turned and studied Desmond. “Is something wrong, boy?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong at all,” he said. As the man turned forward, Desmond brandished the blade from his sleeve. He struck his blade into the man’s carotid artery. The man held his wound as the dark blood gushed through his fingers. He staggered forward and he fell off into the rushing waters of the river. “See you next fall, asshole,” he said dryly.
He heard footsteps coming down the rocky corridor, he drew his sword and adopted a prudential stance. A torchlight came closer to Desmond’s position and as it got closer, the light revealed to be his Uncle in the guard’s garments.
“Thank God,” he said, relieved.
“Where is the other one?”
“I gave him an edge and he took the long way down.”
“Alright. Let’s keep going,” he said.
The pair moved further down the cave until they reached a wooden gate with a superscription imposed above, written in arcane lettering.
“Uncle, can you read that?”
Michael’s hazel eyes asquint, and studied the eldritch inscription. “It says: ‘WHAT WAS TAKEN SHALL RETURN! THE DIVINE SPARK SHALL CARRY ON THE ETERNAL WAR SINCE BEFORE THE DAWN OF MAN!’ Before you ask, I have the foggiest idea of what this means, Dez.”
“Damn it. What is this? And all these folk dying for what?”
“I wish I had the answers, Desmond.”
Michael unlocked the wooden gate and entered first. Desmond came in afterward. They followed the sounds of barbarous howling and drums and the air was warmer and moist. Orange torchlights lit their path and the hollering grew louder and louder as they got closer. They entered the room filled with a cheering crowd, made anonymous and enshadowed by their black robes, and filed into rows. Towering above them was Molech, perched on his pulpit like a bird of prey. The fire rose behind, and his great shadow loomed.
Desmond hid among the rocks, waiting for one break from the crowd.
Michael was hidden in the crowd, he studied the room. He made note of the staircase leading to the pulpit and the children locked in an iron cage in a far distance back. He gestured towards Desmond. He nodded.
Michael made his way up to the staircase. He was halted by Molech’s man, demanding why he abandoned his post. Michael produced a blade from his sleeve. Molech’s man throat was cut. Michael moved aside as he grotesquely stumbles down the staircase. He continued to make his way up to the platform. He noticed Molech’s enshadowed figures. He moved quickly, his hand on his sword hilt. He arrived. Molech did not turn around, his sight was on the crowd.
“I’ve seen you in my dreams. The gears have begun to turn,” Molech said, still facing forward.
Michael did not answer. He turned around to look at the bed of stones enkindled by flames. A litter with small grey skulls and bones vanishing into grey ash and into vaporous beings. He drew his steel. Molech raised his hands as if he were to surrender. They circled. Michael’s back was to the crowd. Molech smiled.
Molech kicked him in the jaw. Michael staggered back to the pulpit. A kick? Too fast. Molech pirouettes, thundering an arcane incantation. A gathering of great winds appeared in the palm of his hand. He blasted Michael off the pulpit. He crashed onto the gravel floor. Molech’s followers encircled him.
Michael saw a blurred visage of Molech on top of his pulpit. He blinked twice. The blur became a man and a man can be killed. With his sword in hand, he rose to his feet and the followers backed away, not knowing what was to come next. Michael focused in on Molech, he observed there was a flickering flame in his hand. His eyes widened. Seconds became minutes. Everything was slowed.
Molech stretched out his hand. Brimstone and fire rained down from his very fingertips.
All the years of training, and fighting, and surviving, Michael’s body moved on its own. Tumbling and rolling to evade. The shockwave sent him flying. He collided into the cave wall. He woke up to the cries of burning men, crawling among blackened corpses like some horror in a hellish landscape. A brimstone holocaust. Michael warily walked forward in this delegation of misery and ruin. A weak, burnt hand grabbed his ankle.
“Kill me,” he said hoarse and weakly. “Please. Kill me.”
Michael nodded. “I’m so sorry.” With a thrust of his sword, he brought a quick end to him.
“He was initiated, swordsman. Like you and I,” a voice called out from the distance. “A sacrifice. An exchange that was taken from us long ago.” He walked out of the flames like it was his native element
Michael did not turn to look, the grip he had on his sword tightened. “I don’t know what you are.” He turned and glared at Molech, fury in his eyes. “And what game you’re playing. You will not leave this cave alive.”
Meanwhile, Desmond quietly followed a man to the caged children. Desmond watched him closely. The man had a club in his hand. He rattled the cage bars and he squatted and leaned forward and slumped face forward to the cage.
“The hell?” Desmond darted to the cave and found the man dead with a puncture wound to the heart and a girl armed with a bloody blade, held in a tight grip. Her icy blue eyes stared into Desmond. Desmond studied her. Tall, lean, and muscular, her hair long and curly and black as a raven. She’s beautiful.
“Friend or foe, speak quickly!” she said.
“Friend.”
“Be a friend and grab the keys from off his body.”
“Right.” Desmond quickly grabbed the ring of keys from the dead man’s waist. He inserted the key into the keyhole and turned and unlocked it. Desmond looked back in his Uncle's direction. An explosion of fire and then suddenly an intense shockwave kicked up dust and grime, covering the cave and blasting everyone back and slamming into the steel bars of the cage.
Desmond woke up covered in ash. Dazed and confused, his ears were ringing, and his sword was missing. Shit. A silhouette in the shadows was fast approaching Desmond, wielding an implement at his side. He hoisted the implement above his head. Desmond raised his hand to fend off what could not be fended off. He was brought to his knees and his throat was cut. A hand appeared before Desmond. He accepted it, his arm was wrapped around her shoulder. She supported him as they moved about in this calamity.
“Who…who are you?” he said faintly.
“Lia. My name’s Lia.”
“Desmond.”
They heard the sounds of a fight in a far distance.
“That must be my Uncle. I have to help him.” As he tried to move on his own, there was a very sharp pain in his foot. He hobbled to the wall. “Damn it, not now,” he muttered under his breath.
Lia put her head under his arm. “We need to leave. This is our chance.”
“Not without my uncle.”
Lia looked towards the exit and heard the sounds of fighting. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine,” she said sharply. “But if he’s dead, I’m leaving without you.”
“Thank you,” he said weakly.
They made their way forward, and the clashing of steel, and screeching of metals, grew louder. Men enshadowed. Swaying amidst the blaze and dust and as the dust settled, sword met against sword. They broke off and circled. Michael adopted a defensive stance, he held his blade close to his chest.
“That’s your Uncle? He’s amazing!” Lia said.
“He’s something for sure.”
Michael studied Molech. He’s dangerous at a distance and he’s fast. I’m fast too, he thought. Take the fight to him. Keep the pressure on him. He’s a man, and he has his limits too. He dashed to Molech, attempting to overwhelm him with a flurry of blows. Molech spun on his heel and evaded Michael’s killing arc but slashed him above his left eye. This is my chance. Molech countered. He stretched out his hand. A gust of wind blasted Michael away. He remained steady on his feet.
“My dreams were true. The stories did not lie! You do not disappoint, lone swordsman!” Molech said, smiling wickedly. “Come on! Is that all you got!? Show me something!” This is it. All the sacrifice, all the tears. My chains are broken.
Michael spat and gripped his sword with two hands. He steadily circled his left flank. “You’re nothing but a fundamentalist lunatic.”
Molech laughed haughtily, deep in his throat. “Talk not to me of lunacy, man. Look around this hell we are damned to live in! That’s insanity!”
“You’re a weak, pathetic man,” he said, aiming his long blade at him. “Your life is forfeit.”
“I’m already damned! I’m free, I live again!”
Michael dashed and lept in the air, his sword above his head, and in the dust trailed behind were wings, mighty and wrathful and fierce like the seraphim’s. He cut Molech’s chest in a downward arc.
Damn it. It's too shallow but he’s hurt. Blood in his eye. He’s breathing heavily. He’s tired. One more blow then he’s finished.
Molech countered and disarmed Michael of his sword. Michael bull-rushed him. He wrestled him onto the floor. He seized his arm in a grappling lock and snapped it.
Michael rained thunderous blows on Molech. Haymakers and hooks. Molech spat blood into his face, and he laughed. Michael kept going until the life drained from his eyes, his face covered in cuts and welts, and was unrecognizable. Molech died smiling. Michael slowly rose to his feet and collected his sword. From the outlook, he noticed the shapes of shadows emerging from the haze. His eyes were downcast. He held his sword up.
The figure was hobbling hurriedly. Desmond hugged Michael tightly. Bewildered but happy to see his nephew. Desmond took a step back and looked around the desolation. “We overstayed our welcome.”
Before Michael could reply, Lia came forward. “Is he dead?”
“He is,” Michael said.
Lia walked to his body to verify if it was true as Michael and Desmond were making their exit from the cave. Lia looked onward as they faded into the distance. He fought like a man possessed. For an instant, he looked more like a monster than a man. A beast. A devil. Lia glances around this cave of human calamity. Lia parsed her lips. She pursued the fearless men out of the cave into the dying light of day.